Pathet : Musiikin symboliikka jaavalaisessa varjoteatterissa

The aim of this study is to define and analyse the symbolism hidden in the gamelan music of the Central Javanese, especially in the Yogyakartanese wayang kulit shadow theatre. This dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the theory, history and practice of Central Javanese shadow theatre. It also presents the tone symbol theory on which this study is based of B. Y. H. Sastrapustaka, the court servant and musician of the sultan s palace of Yogyakarta. For historical comparison, other theories and phenomena that seem to have some connections with the previously mentioned tone symbol theory are presented here as well as the equipment of the shadow theatre, its music, musical instruments and the shadow theatre in general in literature. The theoretic-methodological basis of the study is an enlarged model of research of cultural music, in which a person in the centre of the model with his/her concepts and by his/her behaviour creates a work of art and receives criticism through feedback, while the process of reciprocal action dynamically affects the whole development of the culture in question. In connection with the concepts of the work of art, the manner of approach of this study is also semiotic as the tone symbol theory gives a particular meaning to each musical note. Thus the purpose of this study is to find answers to how the tone symbol theory manifests itself in practical music making, what its origin is, if it is well known or not, and whether shadow theatre music supports this theory. The second part of this dissertation deals with material collected through interviews and observations as well as representative samples of musical pieces for shadow theatre and their analyses. In relation to this a special tool for analysing gamelan music, developed for the purpose of this study, is also presented. Sufficiently versatile material on the essence and meaning of the shadow theatre collected from many puppet masters of an older generation, many of whom are no longer with us, constitutes an important part of this study. This study proves that the tone symbol theory of Sastrapustaka is of tantristic tradition from the Hindu-Javanese period before the 16th century and before the appearance of Islam in Java. The variants of the previously mentioned theory can be found also in other fields of Javanese advanced civilization, such as architecture and dance. But it seems that knowledge about the tone symbolism connected to the shadow theatre especially has only been preserved in the sultan s palace of Yogyakarta and its intimate circles. The outsider puppet masters surely follow the theory, but they do not necessarily know its origin. As a result of the musical analysis, it is obvious that the musical pieces used for the shadow theatre bear different kinds of symbolic meanings which only an initiated person can feel and understand. These meanings are closely related to the plot of the play at the moment.

Järjestö jäänmurtajana : Suomen merimiesunioni työmarkkinaosapuolena ja suomalaisten laivatyöntekijöiden turvallisuuden vankentajana 1944-1980

Like an Icebreaker: The Finnish Seamen s Union as collective bargaining maverick and champion of sailors social safety 1944-1980. The Finnish Seamen's Union (FSU), which was established on a national basis in 1920, was one of the first Finnish trade unions to succeed in collective bargaining. In the early 1930s, the gains made in the late 1920s were lost, due to politically based internal rivalries, the Great Depression, and a disastrous strike. Unexpectedly the FSU survived and went on promoting the well-being of its members even during World War II. After the war the FSU was in an exceptionally favorable position to exploit the introduction of coordinated capitalism, which was based on social partnership between unions, employers and government. Torpedoes, mines and confiscations had caused severe losses to the Finnish merchant marine. Both ship-owners and government alike understood the crucial importance of using the remaining national shipping capacity effectively. The FSU could no longer be crushed, and so, in 1945, the union was allowed to turn all ocean-going Finnish ships into closed shops. The FSU also had another source of power. After the sailors of the Finnish icebreaker fleet also joined its ranks, the FSU could, in effect, block Finnish foreign trade in wintertime. From the late 1940s to the 1960s the union started and won numerous icebreaker strikes. Finnish seamen were thus granted special pension rights, reductions on income taxes and import duties, and other social privileges. The FSU could neither be controlled by union federations nor intimidated by employers or governments. The successful union and its tactically clever chairperson, Niilo Välläri, were continuously but erroneously accused of syndicalism. Välläri did not aim for socialism but wanted the Finnish seamen to get all the social benefits that capitalism could possibly offer. Välläri s policy was successfully followed by the FSU until the late 1980s when Finnish ship-owners were allowed to flag their vessels outside the national registry. Since then the FSU has been on the defensive and has yielded to pay cuts. The FSU members have not lost their social benefits, but they are under constant fear of losing their jobs to cheap foreign labor.

Tule, rakkaani! : Naisen ja miehen välisestä etiikasta kirjallisuuden rakkauskuvauksissa

Tutkin väitöskirjassani naisen ja miehen välistä rakkautta ja naisen ja miehen välisen rakkauden kuvauksia kirjallisuudessa ranskalaisen filosofin Luce Irigarayn samuuden järjestyksen kritiikin ja sukupuolieron etiikan valossa. Osoitan ensinnäkin, kuinka Platonin Pidoissa, Percy Bysshe Shelleyn Epipsychidionissa (1821) ja Barbara Cartlandin Liekehtivässä lumessa (1975) kuvataan rakkautta kahden rakastavaisen yhteensulautumiseksi - tutkin millaisia haltuunottamisen ja sulauttamisen muotoja rakastavaisten välillä näissä teoksissa tulee esille. Toiseksi osoitan, kuinka Laulujen laulussa, Dian kreivittären 1100-luvulla kirjoittamassa lyriikassa ja Guillevicin runokokoelmasta Trouées (1981) löytyvässä sikermässä Ylistyslaulu kuvataan rakkautta kahden toisiinsa palautumattoman rakastavaisen väliseksi suhteeksi - syvennyn näistä teoksista löytyviin kuvauksiin toista ihmettelevästä kohtaamisesta, toisen huomioonottavasta puhuttelemisesta ja toista hyväilevästä koskettamisesta. Tutkimukseni keskiössä on siis rakastavaisten välinen etiikka eli kysymykset siitä, kuinka rakastavaisten välinen suhde voisi toteutua ilman että kumpikaan pyrkisi haltuunottamaan toista. Objektivoivan analyysin sijaan tutkimusmenetelmänäni on rakkaudellinen vuoropuhelu niin valitsemieni kaunokirjallisten teosten kuin Irigarayn filosofiankin kanssa. Seuraan tässä Irigarayn ja toisen ranskalaisen ajattelijan Hélène Cixous'n työskentelytapoja - heidän mukaansa pysähtyvä ja kuulosteleva asenne on pyrkivää ja tarttuvaa otetta hedelmällisempi niin inhimillistä toista kuin kirjallistakin toista lähestyttäessä, sillä sen avulla toinen voi säilyttää liikkuvuutensa, arvaamattomuutensa ja vapautensa. Työni tulokset ovat johtopäätösten sijaan avauksia. Jatkan tutkimuksessani Irigarayn työtä ulottamalla hänen samuuden järjestyksen kritiikkinsä ja sukupuolieron etiikan hahmottelunsa kirjallisuudentutkimuksen alueelle. Irigarayta seuraten ajattelen uudelleen naisen ja miehen, henkisen ja ruumiillisen, aistimellisen ja transsendentaalisen välisiä suhteita. Tehtävänämme ei ole muodostaa rakkauden teoriaa tai rakastavaisten välisen etiikan ohjelmaa, vaan tutkia mitä etiikka merkitsee ja voisi merkitä rakkauden alueella.

Ylirajaisia suhteita : Helsingin olympialaiset, Armi Kuusela ja ylikansallinen historia

In 1952 Helsinki hosted the Summer Olympic Games and Armi Kuusela, the current “Maiden of Finland”, was at the same time crowned Miss Universe. In popular history writing, these events have been designated as a crucial turning point – the end of an era marked by war and deprivation and the beginning of a modern, Western nation. Symptomatically, both events were marked by Finnish women’s sexual relationships with foreign men. The Olympics were shadowed by a concern over Finnish women’s “undue friendliness” with the Olympic guests, and Armi Kuusela's world tour was cut short by her surprise marriage in Tokyo and subsequent emigration to the Philippines. This study is an inquiry into the Helsinki Olympics and the public persona of Armi Kuusela from the point of view of transnational heterosexuality and the constitution of Finnish national identity. Methodologically the two main components of the study are intersectionality, defined here as a focus on the mutual histories and effects of discourses of gender, sexuality, race and nation; and transnational history as a way of exploring the ways that both nations and sexual subjects are embedded in global relations of power. The analysis proceeds by way of contextual and intertextual readings of various sources. Part one, centering on the Olympics, involves a campaign mounted by certain women’s organizations before the Games in order to educate young women about the potential dangers of the forthcoming international event as well as magazine and newspaper articles published during and after the Games concerning the encounter between young Finnish women and foreign, especially “Southern,” men. It places the debates during the Olympics within the framework of wartime understandings of women’s sexuality; the history of the concept of decency (siveellisyys); post-war population policy; the intersectional histories of conceptions pertaining to race and sexuality; and finally, the post-war concerns over women’s migration from rural areas to the capital city and their potential emigration abroad. Part two deals with the persona of Armi Kuusela and the public reception of her world tour and marriage, based on material from both Finland and the Philippines (newspapers, magazines, advertisements, books and films). It examines the persona of Armi Kuusela as a figure of national import in terms of the East/West divide; the racialized images of different geographic climates and Oriental “Others;” the meaning of whiteness in the Philippines; the significance of class and colonial history for the domestication of sexual and racial transgressions implied by an unconventional transnational marriage; as well as the cultural logics of transnational desire and its possible meanings for women in 1950s Finland. The study develops two arguments. First, it suggests that instead of being purely oppositional to national discourses, transnational desire may also be viewed as a product of these very discourses. Second, it claims that the national significance of both the Olympics and the persona of Armi Kuusela was due to the new points of comparison they both offered for national identity construction. In comparison with the sexualized Southern men at the Olympics and the racialized Orient in the representations of Armi Kuusela’s travels and marriage, Finland emerged as part of the civilized North, placed firmly within the perimeters of Western Europe. As such, both events mark a “whitening” of the Finnish people as well as a distancing from their previous designations in racial hierarchies. At the same time, however, the process of becoming a white nation inevitably meant complying with and reproducing racial hierarchies, rather than simply abolishing them.

Edistys ja yhteinen hyvä vapaudenajan ruotsalaisessa poliittisessa kielessä

This dissertation analyses the notions of progress and common good in Swedish political language during the Age of Liberty (1719 1772). The method used is conceptual analysis, but this study is also a contribution to the history of political ideas and political culture, aiming at a broader understanding of how the bounds of political community were conceptualised and represented in eighteenth-century Sweden. The research is based on the official documents of the regime, such as the fundamental laws and the solemn speeches made at the opening and closing of the Diet, on normative or alternative descriptions of society such as history works and economic literature, and on practical political writings by the Diet and its members. The rhetoric of common good and particular interest is thus examined both in its consensual and theoretical contexts and in practical politics. Central political issues addressed include the extent of economic liberties, the question of freedom to print, the meaning of privilege, the position of particular estates or social groups and the economic interests of particular areas or persons. This research shows that the modern Swedish word for progress (framsteg) was still only rarely used in the eighteenth century, while the notion of progress, growth and success existed in a variety of closely related terms and metaphorical expressions. The more traditional concept of common good (allmänna bästa) was used in several variants, some of which explicitly related to utility and interest. The combination of public utility and private interest in political discourse challenged traditional ideals of political morality, where virtue had been the fundament of common good. The progress of society was also presented as being linked to the progress of liberty, knowledge and wealth in a way that can be described as characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment but which also points at the appearance of early liberal thought.

Tiedettä Pohjantähden alla : Pohjoisen tutkimus ja Ruotsin tiedeseurojen suhteet Ranskaan 1700-luvulla

In the eighteenth century, the birth of scientific societies in Europe created a new framework for scientific cooperation. Through a new contextualist study of the contacts between the first scientific societies in Sweden and the most important science academy in Europe at the time, l Académie des Sciences in Paris, this dissertation aims to shed light on the role taken by the Swedish learned men in the new networks. It seeks to show that the academy model was related to a new idea of specialisation in science. In the course of the eighteenth century, it is argued, the study of the northern phenomena and regions offered the Swedes an important field of speciality with regard to their foreign colleagues. Although historical studies have often underlined the economic, practical undertone of eighteenth-century Swedish science, participation in fashionable scientific pursuits had also become an important scene for representation. However, the views prevailing in Europe tied civilisation and learning closely to the sunnier, southern climates, which had lead to the difficulty of portraying Sweden as a learned country. The image of the scientific North, as well as the Swedish strategies to polish the image of the North as a place for science, are analysed as seen from France. While sixteenth-century historians had preferred to put down the effects of the cold and claim a similarity of northern conditions to the others, the scientific exchange between Swedish and French researchers shows a new tendency to underline the difference of the North and its harsh climate. An explanation is sought by analysing how information about northern phenomena was used in France. In the European academies, new empirical methods had lead to a need for direct observations on different phenomena and circumstances. Rather than curiosities or objects for exoticism, the eighteenth-century depictions of the northern periphery tell about an emerging interest in the most extreme, and often most telling, examples of the workings of the invariable laws of nature. Whereas the idea of accumulating knowledge through cooperation was most manifest in joint astronomical projects, the idea of gathering and comparing data from differing places of observation appears also in other fields, from experimental philosophy to natural studies or medicine. The effects of these developments are studied and explained in connection to the Montesquieuan climate theories and the emerging pre-romantic ideas of man and society.

Turun linna kerrottuna ja kertovana tilana

The Turku castle, founded c. 1300, has changed over the centuries from a medieval defensive structure into a Renaissance palace and from a derelict jailhouse in the late 19th century into a prime example of the Medieval built heritage in Finland. Today, it is first and foremost a monument to the Medieval and Renaissance heyday of the castle. This is apparent in the architectural forms that have been carefully restored and reconstructed. It also becomes clear in all kinds of narratives, both visual (like the set of miniatures about the different stages of the construction of the castle) and textual (as during the guided tours). For the first time in the architectural history of the Turku castle, the Medieval, the Renaissance, the Modern, and the Present as architecturally constructed or reconstructed spaces can all be visited within the same hour. As a result, the monumental Turku castle may even be deemed anachronistic or inauthentic. In this study I look at the ways in which the Turku castle is, indeed, anachronistic and inauthentic. My main objective, however, is to find ways in which the anachronisms and inauthenticities are overcome in a positive way. I base my analysis of the Turku castle on three theoretical standpoints. First, I am studying the castle as space, described by Michel de Certeau as a practiced place (de Certeau 2002). Second, I am approaching the numerous narrative aspects of the castle following Paul Ricoeur s analysis of narrative as a threefold mimetic process (Ricoeur 1990). From these two theoretical settings I have summoned the concept of narrative space. The life and work at the castle are based on expectations and understandings of the historical surroundings. My third theoretical choice is to study this applied knowledge of the place as the management of blocks of knowledge in communication (Robert de Beaugrande 1980). Combining the theoretical starting points of space and narrative , I am approaching the castle as if it were an evolving set of narratives, narrated in space but also through space. Seeing e.g. the restoration teams of the mid-20th century and the present day tour guides as creative narrators, I am looking beyond the dilemma of the anachronistic spaces. What transpires is an inter-connected web of texts and spaces, tangible and intangible narratives. My analytical key to these narrative relationships is the threefold mimetic process of pre-figuration, con-figuration, and re-figuration, inspired by the writings of Paul Ricoeur (1990). This way, the past can be seen as a pool of endless possibilities to emplot place, time, and action into a narrative space. The narratives convey images of the past that may be contested by other images, and the power to narrate in the first place can be challenged and re-distributed.

Kuluttaminen ja ylhäisaatelin elämäntapa 1700-luvun Ruotsissa

Consumption and the lifestyle of the high nobility in eighteenth-century Sweden This monograph is an analysis of the lifestyle, consumption and private finances of the Swedish high nobility during the eighteenth century (ca 1730 1795). It describes the lifestyle of one noble house, the House of Fersen. The Fersen family represents the leading political, economic and cultural elite in eighteenth-century Sweden. The analysis concentrates on Count Carl von Fersen (1716 1786) and his brother Count Axel von Fersen (1719 1794), their spouses and children. Carl von Fersen was a courtier whilst Axel von Fersen was an officer and one of the leaders of the Francophile Hat party. His son, Axel von Fersen the younger, was in his time an officer and a favourite of Gustavus III, King of Sweden, as well as a favourite and trusted confidant of Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France. The research is based upon the Fersen family s private archives, the Counts personal account books, probate inventories, letters and diaries. The study discusses the Fersens landed property and investments in ironworks and manufacturing, the indebtedness of the high nobility, high offices in civil administration, the militia and at court, as well as marriages as the foundations of noble wealth and power. It analyses the Count von Fersens revenue and expenditure, their career options and personal expenses, their involvement in the building and decorating of palaces, and the servants in service of the Fersen family as well as the ideal nobleman and his consumption. Central themes are inheritance, children s education, marriages and ladies preparing their trousseaux, the nobility ordering luxury goods from France, the consumption of Counts and Countesses before and after marrying and having children, the pleasures of a noble life as well as the criticism of luxury and sumptuousness. The study contributes to the large body of research on consumption and nobility in the eighteenth century by connecting the lifestyle, consumption and private finances of the Swedish high nobility to their European context. Key words: nobility, Fersen, lifestyle, consumption, private finances, Sweden, eighteenth century

Luonto, tiede ja teknologia : Kansanvalistuksen Suomi-kuva 1870-1920

Nature, science and technology. The image of Finland through popular enlightenment texts 1870-1920 This doctoral thesis looks at how Finnish popular enlightenment texts published between 1870 and 1920 took part in the process of forming a genuine Finnish national identity. The same process was occurring in other Nordic countries at the time and the process in Finland was in many ways influenced by them, particularly Sweden. In Finland the political realities under Russian rule especially during the Russification years, and the fact that its history was considered to be short compared to other European countries, made this nation-building process unique. The undertaking was led by members of the national elite, influential in the cultural, academic as well as political arenas, who were keen to support the foundation of a modern Finnish identity. The political realities and national philosophy of history necessitated a search for elements of identity in nature and the Finnish landscape, which were considered to have special national importance: Finland was very much determined as a political entity on the basis of its geography and nature. Nature was also used as means of taking a cultural or political view in terms of, for example, geographical facts such as the nation s borders or the country s geographical connections to Western Europe. In the building of a proper national identity the concept of nature was not, however, static, but was more or less affected by political and economic progress in society. This meant that nature, or the image of the national landscape, was no longer seen only as a visual image of the national identity, but also as a source of science, technology and a prosperous future. The role of technology in this process was very much connected to the ability to harness natural resources to serve national interests. The major change in this respect had occurred by the early 20th century, when indisputable scientific progress altered the relationship between nature and technology. Concerning technology, the thesis is mainly interested in the large and at the time modern technological manifestations, such as railways, factories and industrial areas in Finland. Despite the fact that the symbiosis between national nature and international but successfully localized technology was in Finnish popular enlightenment literature depicted mostly as a national success story, concerns began to arise already in last years of the 19th century. It was argued that the emerging technology would eventually destroy Finland s natural environment, and therefore the basis of its national identity. The question was not how to preserve nature through natural science, but more how to conserve such natural resources and images that were considered to be the basis of national identity and thus of the national history. National parks, isolated from technology, and distant enough so as to have no economic value, were considered the solution to the problem. Methodologically the thesis belongs to the genre of science and technology studies, and offers new viewpoints with regard to both the study of Finnish popular enlightenment literature and the national development process as a whole.

Kaukainen rakkaus : Saavuttamattomuuden semantiikka Kaija Saariahon oopperassa

L Amour de loin: The semantics of the unattainable in Kaija Saariaho s opera Kaija Saariaho (born 1952) is one of the most internationally successful Finnish composers there has ever been. Her first opera L Amour de loin (Love from afar, 1999-2000) has been staged all over the world and has won a number of important prizes. The libretto written for L Amour de loin by Amin Malouf (born 1949) sets the work firmly in the culture of courtly love and the troubadours, which flourished in Occitania in the South of France during the Middle Ages. The male lead in the opera is the troubadour Jaufré Rudel, who lived in the twelfth century and is known to have taken part in the Second Crusade in 1147-1148. This doctoral thesis L Amour de loin: The semantics of the unattainable in Kaija Saariaho s opera, which comes within the field of musicology and opera research, examines the dimensions of meaning contained in Kaija Saariaho s opera L Amour de loin. This hermeneutic-semiotic study is the first doctoral thesis dealing with Saariaho to be completed at the University of Helsinki. It is also the first thesis-level study of Saariaho s opera to be completed anywhere in the world. The study focuses on the libretto and music of the opera, that is to say the dramatic text (L Amour de loin 1980), and examines on the one hand the dimensions of meaning produced by the dramatic text and on the other, the way in which they fix the dramatic text in a historical and cultural context. Thus the study helps to answer questions about the dimensions of meaning contained in the dramatic text of the opera and how they can be interpreted. The most important procedural viewpoint is Lawrence Kramer s hermeneutic window (1990), supplemented by Raymond Monelle s semiotic theory of musical topics (2000, 2006) and the philosophical concept of Emmanuel Levinas (1996, 2002) in which the latter acts as an instrument for semantic interpretation to build up an analysis. The analytical section of the study is built around the three characters in the opera, Jaufré Rudel, Clémence the Countess of Tripoli, and the Pilgrim. The study shows that the music of Saariaho, who belongs to the third generation of Finnish modernists, has become distanced from the post-serial aesthetic towards a more diatonic form of expression. There is diatonicity, for instance, in the sonorous individuality of the male lead, which is based on the actual melodies of the historical Jaufré Rudel. The use of outside material in this context is exceptional in the work of Saariaho. At the same time, Saariaho s opera contains a wealth of expressive devices she has used in her earlier work. It became apparent during the study that, as a piece of music, L Amour de loin is a many layered and multi-dimensional work that does not unambiguously represent any single stylistic trend or aesthetic. Despite the composer s post-serial background and its abrasive relationship with opera, L Amour de loin is firmly attached to the tradition of western opera. The analysis based on the theory of musical topics that was carried out in the study, shows that topics referring to death and resurrection, used in opera since the seventeenth century, appear in L Amour de loin. The troubadour topic, mainly identified with the harp, also emerges in the work. The study also shows that the work is firmly attached to the tradition of western opera in other aspects, too, such as the travesti or trouser role played by the Pilgrim, and the idea of deus ex machina derived from Ancient Greek theatre. The study shows that the concept of love based on the medieval practices of courtly love, and the associated longing for another defined by almost 1,000 years of western culture, are both manifested in the semantics of Kaija Saariaho s opera which takes its place in the contemporary music genre.

Etuoikeutettu sukupuoli? : Käsitys auktoriteetista Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenzan feministisessä teologiassa

A Priviledged Gender? The Question of Authority in the Feminist Theology of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Elisbeth Schüssler Fiorenza (b. 1938) is one of the pioneers of Christian feminist theology. The aim of this study is to analyze what she understands by the authority of women as (re)interpreters of the Bible and the Christian tradition. The research method is conceptual analysis, and the sources consist of Schüssler Fiorenza s key writings from 1975 to 2006. The starting point of the study is Schüssler Fiorenza s definition of the task of feminist theology as claiming women s intellectual-religious authority. It is assumed that the issue of authority offers an angle from which Schüssler Fiorenza s feminist theology can be understood as a whole. It is also supposed that the notion of authority opens up a perspective on the way Schüssler Fiorenza dialogues with non-theological feminist theory in her writings. The analysis is first directed to five key concepts of Schüssler Fiorenza s work: authority, patriarchy, androcentrism, gender and women-church, i.e. the ekklesia of wo/men. Special attention is given to her gender-theoretical considerations and her neologism wo/men, by which she refers to women and marginalized men. The aim of this conceptual analysis is to clarify her thought on the subjects of feminist theology. In addition, Schüssler Fiorenza s dialogue with other feminist scholars is evaluated. It is argued that eclecticism characterizes her way of treating non-theological feminist theory. Rewriting early Christian history from a feminist perspective is at the core of Schüssler Fiorenza s scholarship. From her early writings on, she argues for women s authority to define the Christian religion, past and present. In the 1990s Schüssler Fiorenza s theoretical background is feminist standpoint epistemology, and she represents feminist women as an epistemologically priviledged group. Later she claims to defend the epistemic authority of all those wo/men women and men who want to produce emancipatory knowledge. The analysis of Schüssler Fiorenza s work on feminist biblical interpretation shows that her stated aim to regard both women and men as subjects of feminist theology is not realized in the actual descriptions of her hermeneutical model. In fact, Schüssler Fiorenza argues for the authority of feminist women to interpret the Bible in their own interests . Thus in her work, women seem to figure as representatives of the priviledged gender in the field of biblical and theological knowledge.

Jacopo Bassano freskomaalarina : Cartiglianon ja Enegon kirkkojen freskot: konteksti, rekonstruktio ja tulkinta

The object of this study is Jacopo Bassano (c. 1510 1592) as a fresco painter and the significance of frescoes in his late production. The research focuses on the only surviving cycle of frescoes of his later years in the Cartigliano parish church, bearing the date 1575. The other cycle studied here was painted for the 16th century parish church of Enego. It contained one of the most extensive fresco decorations executed by Jacopo Bassano together with his eldest son Francesco. However, nothing has survived of the fresco cycle and the ceiling paintings of the church, nor is any visual documentation of them left. Only the small altarpiece attributed to Jacopo Bassano and depicting Saints Justine, Sebastian, Anthony Abbott, and Roch (dated to c. 1555/1560) has been preserved. I have suggested that the frescoes of the Cartigliano parish church should be examined in the interpretational context of the spirituality of the post-Tridentine period. This period frames the historical context for the frescoes and functions as a basis for the iconographical interpretation that I have proposed. I have shown that the iconographic programme of the frescoes in the choir of the Cartigliano parish church has obvious points of contact with the Catholic doctrines reconfirmed by the Council of Trent (1545 1563). I also argue that the fresco cycle and the ceiling paintings of the Enego church should be placed in the same interpretational context as the frescoes of Cartigliano. I present a reconstruction of the frescoes in the choir attributed to Jacopo Bassano and of those on the walls of the nave attributed to his son Francesco Bassano. According to my reconstruction, the frescoes in the choir and nave walls formed a coherent cycle with a unitary iconographic programme which included the 28 paintings with Old Testament subjects in the nave ceiling. The reconstruction includes the dating and the iconography of the fresco programme and its interpretative basis. The reconstruction is based on visitation records and inventories from the 16th and 17th centuries as well as on the oldest relevant literature, namely the descriptions offered by Carlo Ridolfi (1648) and G. B. Verci (1775). I also consider the relationship of the large compositional sketches attributed to Jacopo Bassano and depicting Christological subjects to the lost frescoes in Enego. These studies have been executed with coloured chalks, and many of them are also dated 1568 or 1569 by the painter. I suggest in this study that these large studies in coloured chalks were preparatory drawings for the fresco cycle in Enego, depicting scenes from the life and suffering of Christ. All the subjects of the aforesaid drawings were included in the Enego cycle.