The Aural Body in Oratorian Spirituality: Investigating Sonic Value in Counter Reformation Rome

This paper explores the corporeal dimension to aurality in the devotion of the secular Congregation of the Oratorians of Rome. Established by St. Filippo Neri, and given papal recognition in 1575, the congregation’s devotional literature, artistic patronage and, above all, revival of medieval laude singing, betray a productive tension between music and mortification unique to the Oratorians. Devotional sound, in the form of polyphonic composed music, as well as voice, and thought, was the very quiddity of belief; vibration, whether one’s own or of divine cause, offered the mechanisms by which to achieve a relationship with God. Rather than offering the faithful a didactic service, as the neighboring Jesuits famously used music and theater for proselytizing and memory-based learning, the Oratorian’s signature use of singing and vocal prayer was far less tied to internalizing the catechism promoting, rather, an ethics of intimacy and an economics of spiritual value seated at the limits of the body, both among brethren and in congress with a divine, ambiguously sonorous world.