The Church of Ss Peter and Paul in Biasca, Switzerland (Part 1)

Our Ambrosian expert Nicola de’ Grandi recently visited the town of Biasca, about 79 miles to the north of Milan in the Swiss canton of Ticino. There are three valleys in the area known as the Ambrosian valleys, which were under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the archbishop of Milan since at least the sixth century, and consequently celebrated the Ambrosian Rite. Many churches in the area still use the rite to this day, even though they are now part of the diocese of Lugano, which was founded in 1888, and is coterminous with the canton. Biasca was the seat of the principal parish and mother church of the region, originally dedicated to just St Peter, later also to St Paul. The current building is the second church to be built on the site, the result of a reconstruction project begun in the second half of the 12th century.

Modern restorations have removed most of the additions made to the building in later periods, especially the Baroque, and revealed a great amount of fresco work is preserved in fairly good condition, and a very nice wooden ceiling with decorations of the Gothic period. This post of Nicola’s photos will focus on the frescos; a second post will show the Romanesque exterior. 

The apse is dominated by a fresco of Christ in majesty with the four Evangelists, each accompanied by his traditional symbol. The images of the two bishops on the sides have been deliberately damaged with an awl to make the surface rougher; a second layer of fresco which was placed on top of them has subsequently been removed.  

To the right of this window is the meeting of St Peter with Christ as he flees from Rome, part of a traditional legend about the Apostle’s career in Rome and eventual martyrdom.

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The Crown of Thorns and the Lily Cross: the Symbolism of the New Adam and the New Eve

As expressed in Byzantine hymns and three paintings: English Pre-Raphaelite, Hieronymus Bosch, and an English medieval wall painting

The symbolism of the crown of thorns is rich. What was meant as a sign of degradation becomes, for Christians, a sign of Christ’s triumph over suffering and death as the King of Kings. Jesus transforms the symbol of the curse into one of redemption. This also designates Christ as the new Adam, who saved us from the effects of the Fall, which originally ushered in the thorns and thistles of evil and suffering due to the curse, the consequence of the first Adam’s sin. Jesus bore our sins in our place. The crown of suffering contrasts with (and leads to) his crown of victory.

The Mockery of Christ, by Hieronymous Bosch, Dutch, 1500

This is beautifully summed up in one of the hymns of the Byzantine liturgy:

Sunday Orthros, Ode 1, in Tone III: “Our God is he Who cursed the earth to bring as fruit thorns through the sweat of the transgressor, and in the flesh receiveth a crown of thorns from the hands of the transgressors of the law. He hath abolished the curse, in that He hath been glorified.”

If Christ is the new Adam, Our Lady is the new Eve, who leads us to Him and who cooperated with grace fully, giving Christ His humanity. The Byzantine liturgy here portrays her as a lily of purity:

Sunday Orthros, Ode 9, in Tone IV: “We behold thee as a lily arrayed in a robe dyed by the divine Spirit, O all-pure one, resplendent amid thorns and filling with sweet fragrance those who sincerely magnify thee. The incorrupt One, receiving corrupt human nature from thy womb, O most immaculate one, showed it to be incorrupt within Himself, in His loving kindness; wherefore we magnify thee as the Theotokos.”

The imagery is evocative of the Song of Songs 2:2: “Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the young women.” (“Thorns” is sometimes translated ‘thistles’.)

The painting above is Convent Thoughts by the English pre-Raphaelite painter Charles Alston Collins (1851), now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The museum website tells us:

“A nun looks at a Passion flower, symbolizing the crucifixion of Christ. In her left hand, she holds a religious book open at an image of the Virgin Mary. The frame, designed by Millais, reads: SICUT LILIUM (’As the lily among the thorns’) from the Song of Solomon. This was traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary, as was the enclosed garden. The flowers in the painting symbolize various traits of a nun, including remembrance (Forget-me-nots), purity (Madonna lilies), constancy (Evergreen trumpet honeysuckle), and most of all passion for Christ (the Passion flower she holds in her hand).”

Another rather unusual painting that juxtaposes the lily as Mary with the suffering Christ appears in a 15th-century English wall painting, executed around 1450, at All Saints, Godshill, on the Isle of Wight, which depicts Christ on a cross of lilies. The website of the church, now an Anglican parish, tells us that the lily-cross likely refers to the coincidence that occurs usually a handful of times in any given century, when Good Friday falls on March 25, the feast of the Annunciation. Ancient tradition holds that the creation of Adam, the Annunciation, and Good Friday all took place on this date, and until 1752, the Annunciation, Lady Day, was the beginning of the New Year in England.

The Gospel Book of St Henry II (Part 2)

This is the second set of images from a Gospel book commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor St Henry II and his wife St Cunegond at the beginning of the 11th century. (today is his EF feast day.) It was made at the abbey of Reichenau for the cathedral of Ss Peter and Paul in Bamberg, Germany, a see which they founded. See the first part (which was published on Monday, his OF feast day) for some explanation of the artistic style.

By the time this was made, the common portrayal of Christ which we use today, with long hair, a full beard, and high cheek bones, was already standard, although not the universal standard. Here, He is shown throughout as beardless and younger, which suggests that the artists at Reichenau may have deliberately copied these images from an older prototype, possibly much older, possibly Byzantine. Also note the lack of depth and naturalism so typical of Ottonian art in the figure of Christ sitting at the table of the Last Supper, with legs that have no anatomical relationship whatsoever to His torso. The lower part shows the washing of the disciples’ feet, the Gospel of Holy Thursday in the Roman Rite (John 13, 1-15.) In the corner, one of the Apostles is shown putting his shoes back on, a gesture of realism which also suggests that the artist, who does very little of this kind of thing elsewhere, also worked from a prototype of an older artistic school closer to the naturalism of the ancient Roman tradition.

The first image accompanying the Passion of St John on Good Friday (chapters 18 and 19). In the lower part, Christ is brought before the high priest Caiaphas. Having no notion of what a Jewish priest might look like, the artist has shown him more or less as any magistrate sitting on a throne; were it not for the rending of his garments, (which is recounted in the passions of Matthew and Mark, but not in John’s), we might well think he was Pilate. In the upper part, the Crucifixion: as was commonly done in the early Middle Ages, Christ the King is seen on the Cross fully awake and in triumph, rather than suffering. Note that neither His head nor arms nor torso slumps down, to indicate that even in the midst of His Passion, He is still the creator and sustainer of the universe.

On the second page, the deposition from the Cross and the burial, with the sun and the moon shown covering their mouths and looking away, to convey their astonishment and horror.

The Gospel of Easter, with the myrrh-bearing woman...

and the Angel.

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The Gospel Book of St Henry II (Part 1)

The Holy Roman Emperor St Henry II, who died on this day in the year 1024 (born May 6, 973), together with his wife St Cunegond of Luxembourg (975-1040), founded the Bavarian see of Bamberg in 1007. (Prior to his imperial coronation in 1014, he was the Duke of Bavaria.) For the consecration of the cathedral, he commissioned a Gospel book from the monastery of Reichenau, one of the most important Benedictine abbeys in the empire, and the center of an important contemporary school of painting and manuscript illumination. The manuscript (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Clm 4452) has 28 full-page illustrations, and a great many decorated letters, although these latter are all quite similar to each other. This first article will show the illustrations up to Palm Sunday, and some other pages that exemplify the various kinds of decorations. The second part will include the illustrations from Holy Thursday to the end.

Henry was the last of the imperial dynasty which is called “Ottonian” from the name “Otto” shared by its first three emperors, a dynasty which ran from 919 to his death in 1024. The art of the Ottonian period moves strongly away from the naturalism of the classical world which the Carolingian era that preceded it sought to imitate. The human figures are stylized, mostly without expression or depth; the backgrounds are no more than bands of color, very often gold, since this is decidedly a luxury production. The contrast is immediately noticeable when one compares the late Carolingian ivory (ca. 870) on the front cover, looking at the highly naturalistic figure of Christ on the Cross, with the flatness of the figures in the image of Henry and Cunegonde being crowned by Christ.

The ivory plaque shows (from top to bottom; click to enlarge) the hand of God the Father coming down from heaven, with the sun and moon to either side, symbolically represented as figures driving chariots; three angels above the Cross; the Crucifixion, with the mourners and the soldiers, and Joseph of Arimathea speaking to Pilate (Joseph is shown as a nobleman of the early 11th century, carrying a war banner); the women at the tomb (a three-storied structure); the dead rising from their tombs, and symbolic figures of the sea, earth and underworld giving up the dead. At the corners of the gold frame are the symbols of the Four Evangelists in enamel medallions, and between them, slightly smaller enamels of Christ and the Twelve Apostles. Around the edge of the ivory runs an inscription written by someone anxious to show off his knowledge of Greek vocabulary.

“Grammata qui sophie querit cognoscere vere
Hoc mathesis plene quadratum plaudet habere.
En qui veraces sophie fulsere sequaces,
Ornat perfectam Rex Heinrih stemmate sectam.

He who seeks to know the letters of true wisdom / will rejoice in possessing this square (object) of the fullness of learning. / Behold those who shone forth as true followers of wisdom; King Henry adorns this perfect school with a crown.”

The dedicatory inscription, by which St Henry offers the Gospel book to the Apostles Peter and Paul, the titular Saints of Bamberg Cathedral.

“Rex Heinricus ovans, fidei splendore coruscans,
Maximus imperio fruitur quo prosper avito,
Inter opum varias prono de pectore gazas
Obtulit hunc librum, divina lege refertum,
Plenus amore Dei, pius in donaria templi;
Ut sit perpetuum decus illic omne per aevum.
Princeps aeclesiae, caelestis claviger aulae,
Petre, cum Paulo gentis doctore benigno
Hunc tibi devotum prece fac super astra beatum
Cum Cunigunda, sibi conregnante serena.
Hoc Pater, hoc Natus, nec non et Spiritus almus
Annuat, aeternus semper Deus omnibus unus.

King Henry, rejoicing, shining with the splendor of the Faith, / very great in the rule of his grandfather which he successfully holds, / among the varied treasures of his riches, from his heart inclined / offers this book, filled with the divine law, / being full of the love of God, dutiful in giving to the temple, / that it may be an everlasting glory there through every age. / Prince of the Church, key-bearer of the heavenly court, / Peter, with Paul, kindly teacher of the nations, / by your prayer, make this man devoted to you blessed above the stars, / with Cunigonde, his serene co-ruler. / May the Father, and the Son, and also the kindly Spirit / approve this, the one eternal God, ever above all.”

Christ crowning Ss Henry and Cunegonde, who are attended by Ss Peter and Paul. (The lack of depth characteristic of Ottonian art is particularly noticeable in the misplacement of St Paul’s arms.) Below are personifications of the provinces of the Empire; the three larger are probably meant to be Gaul, Italy and Germany, and the smaller, lower ones the German duchies of Bavaria, Swabia, Franconia, Saxony, Lower and Upper Lorraine. Over the upper scene is written,

“Tractando justum, discernite semper honestum.
Utile conveniat, consultum legis ut optat.

Doing what is just, always discern what is honorable; / may that which is useful fit with what the law requires.”

Below, “Solvimus ecce tibi, Rex, censum jure perenni.
Clemens esto tuis; nos reddimus ista quotannis.

Behold, we pay thee, o king, tribute by perennial law. / Be merciful to thine own; we render these things every year.”

The Four Evangelists, each accompanied by his traditional symbol and a poetic inscription. For St Matthew, “Res notat hic hominis Mathaeus, scriptor herilis. - This Matthew, the Master’s writer, notes the deeds of the man.”

St Mark: “Ut leo voce fremit, Marcus dum talia scribit. - As Mark writes such things, he roars like a lion.”

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The Sacramentary of St Henry II

Here are pictures of a particularly beautiful sacramentary made at the behest of St Henry II (973-1024) for the cathedral of Bamberg in Bavaria, a see which he founded in the year 1007. (At the time, he was Duke of Bavaria, and held the titles of King of Germany and Italy, but had not yet been elected Holy Roman Emperor.) It was produced in the city of Ratisbon, and some of the images are modelled on those of a Gospel book of the Carolingian era, known as the Golden Codex of the local monastery of St Emmeram. The decorations are all found within the first 20 or so folios, which include a calendar and the Canon of the Mass; the liturgical texts have many decorated initials, but no illustrations.

The ivory plaque mounted into the front cover depicts the Crucifixion, with figures representing the sun and moon to either side of the Cross, and at the soldiers’ feet, the dead rising from their graves; a serpent, representing the devil in his defeat, is wrapped around the base. In the lower part are shown the woman coming to the tomb. The gold sheet around it is not original, but part of a restoration done in the 18th century.

The title page of the calendar.

The calendar page for June; the other eleven months are very similar to it. Even though there is an entry for every day, many of the Saints noted here were not actually celebrated, and have no corresponding Mass among the liturgical texts.

An image which represents the coronation of St Henry; as Christ places the crown on his head, he receives a lance (topped with a cross) and a sword from the angels at the upper left and right. To either side of the king stand Ss Ulrich of Augsburg and Emmeram of Regensburg, two important Bavarian Saints, both wearing pontifical vestments.

A representation of St Henry enthroned, with crown, orb and scepter. To either side stand his squires, holding his sword and shield, and around them, female figures holding cornucopias, representing the prosperity of his reign. Within the canopy above the king’s head, the hand of God is directly above his crown, blessing him.

A portrait of Pope St Gregory I; by this point, the attribution to him of the Roman Sacramentary in its commonly used form was a well-established tradition.

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The Oratory of San Pellegrino in Bominaco, Italy

Here is something marvelous I stumbled across on Wikipedia, a frescoed medieval oratory in the village of Bominaco in the Abruzzo region of Italy, about 64 miles to the east-northeast of Rome. It was built in 1263 as part of a Benedictine monastic complex originally founded in the Carolingian era. Although the exterior is about as plain as it gets, the interior is covered with fresco work which is in remarkably good condition, especially considering its age. The Saint to whom it is dedicated is a local martyr of whom very little is known.

Here are general two views of the frescoes; detailed images with descriptions are given below. (All images from this page of Wikimedia Commons, by Pietro, CC BY-SA 3.0, except the last two.)

The front of the oratory...

and the back.

The date of the oratory’s foundation and the name of the reigning abbot, Teodino, are given in this inscription over the window.

The left side of the counterfaçade is dominated by a picture of St Christopher. In accordance with the popular belief that if one saw an image of him, one would suffer no sudden misfortune that day, images of him were often made very large, which in turn created the tradition that he was a giant. Around, going clockwise from under the window, are the prophet Zachariah, holding a banderole on which is written, “Behold thy king shall come unto thee” (9, 9), in reference to the picture next to it of the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem; the prophet Isaiah, holding a banderole on which is written, “Be washed be ye clean”, in reference to the picture next to it of the Lord washing the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper; St Onuphrius, and the Saint Francis of Assisi. At the top of the right side, as part of a cycle of episodes of Our Lord’s infancy, the Massacre of the Innocents. 

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Medieval Art and Liturgical Objects at the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Part 5): Ivories

This is the fifth post in our series of Nicola’s photographs of an exhibition recently held at the Musée de Cluny in Paris, titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”. In this post we focus on various kinds of objects made of ivory. In ancient times, ivory was often used to make the diptychs from which were read the names of persons to be commemorated at the liturgy, a custom which continued into the early Middle Ages, and a good number of well-preserved high quality examples of these survive.   

A plaque if the Crucifixion, with allegorical figures of the Sun and the Moon above the Cross, the Church and the Synagogue to either side, (with the Virgin Mary and St John behind them), and the Ocean and the Earth beneath it. Made in Metz, France, ca. 860-70 to decorate the cover of a manuscript.

A copy made in the 19th century.

A triptych of the Adoration of the Magi, with scenes of the Baptism of Christ on the right panel, and the Beheading of the Baptist on the left, with portraits of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabelle of Castille, made by a Catalan art restorer and forger named Francisco Pallás y Puig in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Another Adoration of the Magi, made in Paris ca. 1325-50...

and a 19th century imitation.

Another piece of the 19th century, with a scene of the Annunciation.

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Medieval Art and Liturgical Objects at the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Part 4)

This is the fourth post in our series of Nicola’s photographs of an exhibition recently held at the Musée de Cluny in Paris, titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”. In this post we focus on liturgical objects of various kinds, both original medievals works and modern ones inspired by them.

This object made of gilded silver, decorated with pearls and enamels, which depicts St George killing a dragon, was left to the Louvre by the previous owner in 1901 and catalogued as a kind of pax brede, attributed to a German artist named Hans Fuog, and dated to the year 1453, according to an inscription on the back. In reality, it is composite, partly made in the 15th century, partly from various piece (the base, the feet and the upper section) created in the 19th.

A portable altar, also a composite work, with several ivory plaques depicting the Twelve Apostles, and dated to the 10th to 12th centuries, mounted in a 19th century frame made of oak, gilded copper, ivory, enamel and porphyry.

Two French pax bredes made from the same model in the 15th or 16th century.

An incense boat made in the first half of the 19th century in Paris (below), and the model which inspired it, made in Siena ca. 1350-75.

A pair of liturgical gloves made in France in the 19th century, inspired by various kinds of medieval models.

An abbatial crook made in Italy towards the end of the 18th century or beginning of the 19th, with a lion made of boxwood on top, and a scene depicting an ordination on the ivory piece below it.

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Medieval Art and Liturgical Objects at the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Part 3): Reliquaries

For this third set of Nicola photographs of an exhibition recently held at the Musée de Cluny in Paris, titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”, the focus is on medieval reliquaries, and modern ones inspired by them. The first piece, which is the result of work done in four different periods, exemplifies how the influence of medieval art endured in later times. 

A reliquary cross made at the end of the 12th century (1180-1200), mounted on a base made in the 14th, with a corpus of the 16th, assembled into its current form in the 19th. 

A reliquary plaque made in the German city of Hildesheim, copper in champlevé and enamel, 1160-70.

A reliquary of the column of the Flagellation, made in Venice in the mid 15th-century.

A reliquary statue of St Anne, made in Germany in 1472. Anne is shown holding a small coffer, smell figures of Jesus and Mary to either side. This motif, known as a “selbdritte – she herself (i.e. Anne) is the third” was very popular in late medieval Germany.

Two reliquaries of a rather unusual design, with a small tower resting on top of a box, were both made in the area of Basel, Switzerland, in the later 15th or early 16th century, and later partly reworked.

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Medieval Art and Liturgical Objects at the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Part 2)

This is the second post in our series of Nicola’s photographs of an exhibition recently held at the Musée de Cluny in Paris, titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”, a display of medieval works next to modern ones inspired by them, and some forgeries as well. Here we have an interesting mix of vestments, textiles, reliquaries, and vessels, but we begin with two paintings which include medieval liturgical objects in them. 

A still-life by the French painter Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe (1830 – 1901), ca. 1890, titled “Still Life with a Reliquary of St Henry and various medieval artworks.” Desgoffes was a highly regarded specialist in the still-life genre, and very interested in medieval art: the objects represented here are all in the medieval collection of the Louvre.

“Ornaments from the Musée de Cluny”, by Joseph Bail, 1886

A chalice originally made perhaps in Catalonia, sometime from roughly 1325-50, restored in the 19th century in Paris.

A reliquary with part of the arm bone of the Apostle St James the Less, made for the church dedicated to him in Liège, Belgium, in 1889. The firm that produced this, Joseph and Georges Wilmotte, working on a design by the architect Jean-Baptiste Bethune, won a silver medal for it at the Paris Exposition that same year.

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