Relics, dreams, voyages conjures a new cultural map of the early-modern world and offers a new, extraordinary cultural geography of the baroque world, opening doors to many rich and strange cultural artefacts, from 'China to Peru'.

The overriding theme is centre and periphery, in particular centres of baroque culture outside the mainstream. The book meditates on cultural transmission from Asia and the Americas to Europe, with many of the essays considering the secretive cultures of exiled or persecuted British Roman Catholics, including the pseudo-relics constructed in Antwerp for the posthumous cult of Mary Queen of Scots and the triumphal procession of a vandalised statue at the exiled English College in Valladolid. The visual arts are examined across a wide temporal and geographical span, and many subversive iconographies are decoded: at the French and English courts, in remote Scotland, in Nagasaki, in Valladolid.

Drawing on original research in libraries, collections, and archives in five countries, and in as many languages, this book considers many astonishing, unfamiliar and beautiful texts, things and events, into a cartography of the subtle, and sometimes secret, patterns of baroque culture worldwide.