A study of the links between holy relics in baroque Naples and the urban environment in which they functioned, which shows that the urban setting was produced through the activities that took place there, and not the other way around.

Introduction: Openings Prologue: The analogous relic 1 The matter of miracles: San Gennaro's blood and the Treasury Chapel 2 Blood, bronze, Vesuvius: material transformations 3 Miraculous witness: exclusive affects 4 The Machinic Chapel and the production of protectors 5 From prayer to presence 6 Niche and Saints: folding the wall 7 Saints on the move and the choreography of sanctity 8 Holiness and history: relics and gender 9 Heads and bones: face to face 10 Silver saints: between transformation and transaction Conclusion: The miraculous chanceIndex

The matter of miracles offers a bracing and thoroughly original rethink of baroque relics, reliquaries, metals and materiality, through investigation of the miracle of the Neapolitan saint San Gennaro's liquefying blood in relation to art, philosophy, architecture and the city. Focused on the richly adorned baroque Treasury Chapel of San Gennaro, this study embraces sanctity and salvation in the material analogies at work among city, saint, volcano and blood to question the cultural impact of Spanish colonialism within Europe in the city of Naples. It examines the matter of the baroque miracle as transformational through a rigorous engagement with natural history, telluric philosophy, new materialism, theory and philosophy. Bronze and silver, architecture and sculpture are subjected to energetic interpretations, which give a vitally new approach to baroque sanctity, in which the city is seen as an event in the history of holiness. Bristling with new archival materials and historical insights, this study lifts the baroque from its previous marginalisation, to engage fiercely with materiality as potentiality and thus with art and architecture as potentially transformative. The matter of miracles will particular appeal to students and scholars of urban studies, art and architectural history and theory.

'This book gathers together the results of important, original and ambitious research. [...] from the title on, HH challenges one to read between the lines and to go beyond the appearance of architecture and baroque sanctity. [...] Hills interprets 17C and 18C architecture as a 'machinic', a productive phenomenon and in terms of potential; not the reflection of the will of patron or architect, but a microcosm, an 'assemblage' that through its materiality and physical presence creates relations, worshippers, city, politics and spirituality.'Annali di architettura