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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Reliquaries of St Elizabeth of Hungary

St Elizabeth of Hungary was canonized on Pentecost of the year 1235, May 25th, just over three-and-a-half years after her death, the third Franciscan Saint, and first woman among them, since at the time St Clare of Assisi was still alive in this world. She was one of the very earliest prominent members of the Third Order, and has long been honored as its chief patron alongside St Louis IX, king of France. (St Francis himself and St Anthony of Padua were canonized before her, and even more rapidly, by the same pope, Gregory IX.)

The Polyptych of St Anthony, 1460-70, made by Piero della Francesca (1412-92) for the Franciscan church of St Anthony in Perugia. At top, the Annunciation; in the middle (left to right), Ss Anthony and John the Baptist, the Madonna and Child, and Ss Francis and Elizabeth of Hungary; in the band below them, St Clare on the left, and St Agatha on the right. In the predella are shown three miracles: St Anthony raising a dead girl to life, St Francis receiving the stigmata, and St Elizabeth saving a child that had fallen into a well. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

There seems to have been some confusion over the precise date of St Elizabeth’s death right from the beginning. Before and after the Tridentine reform, her feast was kept by almost all the places that observed it on November 19th, and this is the day she was given when she was added to the Roman general calendar in 1670. However, it is now understood that she died on the 17th, and the 19th was the day of her burial. On the post-Conciliar general calendar, the 17th was opened up by the suppression of St Gregory the Wonderworker (one of the reformers’ least intelligent decisions), and she has been moved to that day. But ironically, in Germany, where her cultus was most fervent and important, the 17th belongs to St Gertrude the Great, and Elizabeth is therefore still on the 19th.

She is called “of Hungary” because she was the daughter of Andrew II, king of that nation, but she was married at quite a young age to a German nobleman, Louis, the landgrave of Thuringia. Her maternal aunt, Hedwig, duchess of Silesia, is also a canonized Saint, celebrated on October 16th. After her death and canonization, her shrine in the city of Marburg, where she died (about 54 miles north of Frankfurt), became a very important pilgrimage center.

Unsurprisingly, given her various royal connections, several very impressive reliquaries were made for her. The most notable of these is a reliquary in the form of a large chalice which formerly contained her skull. The cup inside is an agate bowl made sometime between the fourth and seventh centuries. It is decorated with a large number of jewels, including some carved in very ancient times, and the lid is decorated with parts of two royal crowns of the 13th century. During the Thirty Years’ War, it was looted by Swedish troops from a fortress in Würzburg, and now resides in the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm. There are a huge number of photographs showing its details at the relevant page of Wikimedia Commons. (First four images by Ola Myrin, SHM, CC BY 4.0)

A clearer view of the agate bowl.

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More Pictures of the Feast of St Agatha in Catania

Last week, we shared Peter’s pictures of the celebrations of the feast of St Agatha in her native city of Catania in Sicily. Another friend of ours, Dom Jakobus, a canon regular of Herzogenburg Abbey in Austria, was also there, and graciously agreed to share his pictures with us. Those of the Saint’s reliquary and the procession of it through the city in the first part were taken on the eve of the feast, February 4th.

The reliquary in the sanctuary of the cathedral...

with an honor guard.

The faithful touching pieces of cloth to the reliquary, which then become a relic by contact. (This is a very ancient custom, already attested at the tombs of the Apostles in Rome in the earliest years of the Constantinian peace.)

The reliquary is carried through the city. 

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The Relics of the Magi in Cologne and Milan

In some liturgical books of the Use of Cologne, Germany, today is noted in the calendar as “Obitus tertii regis – the death of the third king”, but it appears that this feast was never in general use within the archdiocese. (It is missing from many books altogether, especially the post-Tridentine editions, and in others is relegated to an appendix.) The kings to which this title refers are the three Magi, whose relics were taken from the basilica of St Eustorgio in Milan in 1162 by the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa, after his conquest of the city. The relics were given to the imperial chancellor for Italy, Rainald von Dassel, who was also archbishop of Cologne, and installed in his see’s cathedral; to this day, Cologne still celebrates the feast of the translation of the relics on July 23rd. The impetus to build the city’s gigantic “new” cathedral (begun in 1248, but not completed until 1880, with a hiatus of over 280 years, from 1560-1842) came in no small part from the desire to build a space that could accommodate the large crowds of pilgrims who came to venerate these relics. (Images of and related to the Cologne reliquary from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted.)

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Raimond Spekking

In 1190, von Dassel’s successor as archbishop, Philip von Heinsberg, commissioned a goldsmith from Verdun named Nicolas to make a new reliquary for the Magi. It was finished after 35 years of work, and is one of the largest medieval reliquaries that survives: more than 3’ 7” by 7’ 2” at the base, just over 5 feet tall, and weighing over 1100 pounds. The core is made of oak, covered over with gold, gilded copper and silver, and decorated with small golden statues, precious stones, gems, cameos and enamels. Over the centuries, it has been kept in various parts of the cathedral; since 1948, it has stood in a display case right behind the high altar.

by Arabsalam

The reliquary seen from the back, within the ambulatory of the apse.

by Joseacaraballo

The front has a plate which can be removed to expose a grill, behind which can be seen the skulls of the three kings. This is done every year on the Epiphany, and on special occasions.

by Elya

The lower part of the front is divided by highly decorated columns which form an arcade. In the middle sit the Virgin and Child, as the Magi approach from the left. Behind the Magi stands the Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV (1209-18), who donated three golden crowns for the three skulls in 1200. (These were stolen and melted down in 1803.) To the right is shown the Baptism of Christ, and above, Christ in majesty flanked by two angels. Above Him are the archangels Gabriel and Raphael in round medallions; St Michael was replaced by a jewel. (Obviously, the glass case in which the reliquary is kept for security purposes makes for less than optimal photography. The next four images are all by Velopilger, CC0 1.0.)

On the back are shown on the left the Flagellation of Christ, and on the right, the Crucifixion, with the Virgin Mary and the Apostle John. The prophet between them is labelled as Jeremiah, but the text on his scroll is from Isaiah. Above the prophet is a portrait of Rainald von Dassel, and in the upper section, the personification of the virtue of Patience, flanked by the Milanese martyrs Felix and Nabor, whose putative relics were also brought to Cologne, and formerly kept in this reliquary.

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A 12th Century Tabernacle from Cologne

This post is kind of a follow-up on the series which we concluded yesterday on the twelve Romanesque basilicas of Cologne, Germany. I say “kind of” because it is generally believed that this magnificent tabernacle comes from the basilica of St Pantaleon in Cologne, but this is not completely certain. (All images from Wikimedia Commons: 1, 3, 4, 7 and 11-13 by Fæ, CC BY 2.0; 2, 5, 6, 8-10 and 14 by Marie-Lan Nguyen, CC BY 2.5)

The tabernacle was made ca. 1180, and consists of a core of oak, covered over with gilt copper and enamel, and decorated with 32 pieces of carved ivory, both elephant and walrus. (Some of these ivories are modern restorations, as are the knot on top of the dome, and two of the griffins on which it rests.) It stands at about 1’, 9½” tall, roughly 1’, 8½” square at the base, and weighs 58 pounds. It was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1861, and has been there ever since. (See this link for more detailed information.) Beneath the dome, Christ sits with eleven of the Apostles; the sixteen standing figures on the lower part are prophets, while each side has a “door” with an ivory plaque of an event in the life of Christ. The first two of these are modern (i.e. 19th century) copies made from a reliquary in a museum in Berlin which is contemporary to this piece. On this side is the Christ Child with the Virgin Mary and St Joseph.

The Journey of the Magi.

The Crucifixion (original to this object).

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Reliquary Busts of the Chapel of St Januarius in Naples

The Italian city of Naples keeps three feasts in honor of its Patron St Januarius, the relics of whose blood famously liquify on all three occasions. His principal feast, the anniversary of his martyrdom, is on September 19, but today, the Saturday before the first Sunday of May, there is a commemoration of the translation of his relics (one of several) from Pozzuoli, about 9 miles to the west, the place where he died during the persecution of Diocletian, ca. 305 AD. The third feast, on December 16th, commemorates a miracle which took place in 1631, when he stopped an especially powerful lava flow from Mt Vesuvius that threatened to destroy the city’s winter grain supply.

The Martyrdom of St Januarius in the Amphiteater at Pozzuoli, 1636, by Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653). Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

Januarius was in point of fact bishop of neither Naples nor Pozzuoli, but of Benevento, about 33 miles to the north-east of Naples. In the Middle Ages, a large part of his relics were transferred to the important monastery of Monte Vergine, and from there to the cathedral of Naples only at the very end of the 15th century. In the wake of a horrific plague that devastated the city between 1526 and 1529 (worsened by the events of a series of major military conflicts), the Neapolitans made a vow to build a new chapel to house them; in classic southern Italian fashion, the project was not even begun until 80 years later, and not completed until 1646. The result, however, is one of the most splendid Baroque chapels in all of Europe.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by ErwinMeier, CC BY-SA 4.0

The chapel also boasts a collection of 54 extremely fine silver reliquary busts of the city’s various patrons and other popular Saints, all made by artisans from the city and environs in an era when the art of silversmithing was at its height. At the December feast, the blood relic and several of these busts are carried in procession from the cathedral down to the nearby church of St Clare. The streets of central Naples are very narrow; I once went there for this feast (generally the least crowded of the three), and got to see the liquified blood moving around in its reliquary only a few feet away from me as it passed by on the way back to the cathedral.

Our friend Mr John Ryan Debil of The Home Oratory just visited Naples, and kindly agreed to share with us these pictures which he took of the busts (not all of them) – gratias tibi quam maximas, optime! (I don’t know who the last two Saints are; if you can identify them, please be so good as to leave a note in the combox. UPDATE: thanks to reader SMJ for identifying one of them, and correcting my mistake on another Saint.) 

St Joachim holding the Virgin Mary

St Anne

St Augustine

St Joseph

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The Treasury Museum of Genoa Cathedral (Part 2)

Here is the second part of Nicola’s photos of the treasury museum of the cathedral of St Lawrence in Genoa. We begin with several pictures of a silver ark for the Corpus Christi procession, made in the mid-16th to early 17th century; the base is decorated with images of the Lord’s Passion, from the Last Supper to the Burial, alternating with statues of the Apostles.

These two reliquaries were brought to the Republic of Genoa from its mercantile colony at Pera, just outside the walls of Constantinople: one of the 11th or 12th century, with the arm of St Anne...

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The Treasury Museum of Genoa Cathedral (Part 1)

Thanks once again to our Ambrosian writer Nicola de’ Grandi for sharing with us another splendid collection of photos, this time from the treasury of the cathedral of St Lawrence in Genoa, which has a number of really remarkable artistic treasures. 

This chalcedony dish, which is indeed a piece of Roman work made in the first century, is traditionally said to be the very one on which the head of St John the Baptist was presented to Salome, as read in Mark 6. The metalwork with the head of the Baptist was added in the 15th century.

Various stories recount that the bones of St John the Baptist were burnt at some point, either by “infidels” when they occupied the city where he was buried, or by the faithful, so they could be more easily concealed from either infidels or iconoclasts. (This story is included in the Golden Legend by Jacopo da Voragine, who was archbishop of Genoa, and repeated by his contemporary William Durandus.) Either way, the cathedral possesses a portion of the ashes; this processional ark was made for them in 1438-45.

The ark is decorated with these highly detailed reliefs of the major episodes of John the Baptist’s life: the Annunciation to his father Zachariah, and the Visitation,

his birth and naming,

an angel (sometime said to be the mysterious fourth archangel Uriel) leads him out into the desert as a youth (a popular but apocryphal story), 

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New “Speaking” Reliquaries for Covington Cathedral

Thanks to our good friend Fr Jordan Hainsey of the diocese of Covington, Kentucky, for sharing with us this item about two beautiful new reliquaries recently made for the relics collection of Covington Cathedral.

Thanks to the generosity of several benefactors, the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, Kentucky, recently commissioned two new reliquaries to house significant relics from the church’s collection: a piece of the carpal bones of St Paul the Apostle, and the ulna and radius bones of St. Arnold of Arnoldsweiler. These relics were obtained by Covington’s third bishop, Camillus Paul Maes, who held the see from 1884 until his death in 1915.

The new reliquaries were commissioned from the renowned sacred art atelier Byzantine Art (Βυζαντινή Tεχνη), located in Athens, Greece, which has furnished sacred artworks for nearly every continent since 1926. Each reliquary is fashioned from bronze repoussé and features both sterling silver and gold plating. They are further accentuated with freshwater pearls and colorful zircon stones. They are of the type known as “speaking” reliquaries, because their form is “speaking,” communicating what relic is contained inside. Speaking reliquaries became popular throughout the Medieval period as churches on major pilgrimage routes vied for the pilgrims’ attention. For master artisans, these reliquaries became a new medium for expression in their skill and craft.

Speaking reliquaries took various forms, from heads to arms and feet. Egbert, the bishop of Trier (977-93), commissioned the first known surviving body-part reliquary: a portable altar of St. Andrew made to house the Saint’s sandal. Some of the most prolific head reliquaries come from the tradition of St. Ursula Martyr and her 11,000 Companions. At Cologne’s Golden Chamber, dozens of medieval reliquaries contain the skulls of these 4th century martyrs. Reliquaries in the form of arms were much more common however, with hundreds of examples surviving in museums and church treasuries today.

Speaking reliquaries in Cologne, Germany

Arm reliquaries were popular because of they could easily be set standing upright on or near an altar, but perhaps more so because of their sacred gesture. By showing a saint’s hand in the form of blessing, clergy could carry or display the reliquary, thereby animating a Saint’s body during liturgical celebrations or processions. In this way, the saint could literally bless, touch, and heal the faithful with his or her own hand.

The first new reliquary houses a carpal bone of St. Paul the Apostle. The hand forms the traditional gesture of blessing visible in many traditional icons, and shapes the letters IC XC, an abbreviation for the Greek words Jesus (IHCOYC) Christ (XPICTOC) made of the first and last letter of each word. The hand, then, communicates the Name of Jesus, the “Name above every name” (Philippians 2,9). Bishop Maes received this relic of St. Paul on March 20, 1900, along with 24 other large relics from Bishop Gustave Joseph Waffelaert of the Diocese of Bruges, Belgium.

Bishop Waffelaert

The second reliquary houses the left arm bones (ulna and radius) of St. Arnold of Arnoldsweiler, a harpist and singer from the court of Charlemagne. St. Arnold is hailed as a patron saint of musicians, organists, and makers of musical instruments. Shown reaching upward, the reliquary’s hand takes on the gesture of strumming, communicating that the saint was a musician in this life and that, through the relic’s compelling display, he now sings God’s praise forever as a saint.

St. Arnold would have been widely known to German Catholic immigrants of the 19th century, particularly at Covington’s church of the Mother of God. In 1879, Fr. William Tappert became the pastor of this parish, with his brother, Fr. Henry, as parochial vicar. Coming from the town of Düren in Germany’s Rhineland, the two brothers transplanted European classicism to Northern Kentucky. Fr. Henry brought with him a classical music education and set to work right away as choir director, and the musical programs at Mother of God Church became famous on both sides of the Ohio and Licking Rivers for their Cecilian reform music, which promoted and emphasized chant and polyphonic works. Other notable German composers of the day would call Mother of God home, adding to the growing choir. It is clear by historical accounts that Mother of God had become synonymous with truly fine sacred music. And, with such a program, it is evident that the Tappert brothers, and indeed the faithful, looked for a patron from their homeland to aid them in their noble endeavors: St. Arnold.

Mother of God Church in Covington

In 1886, Pope Leo XIII formally recognized the Saint’s cultus for the Archdiocese of Cologne and canonized him, prompting the Tappert brothers to request that Bishop Maes write to obtain relics of St. Arnold for not only Mother of God Church, but other churches in the diocese. On November 23, 1886, Bishop Maes wrote Philipp Cardinal Krementz, Archbishop of Cologne, requesting relics of St. Arnold. Providence appeared to be at work as revived interest in St. Arnold initiated renovations at the shrine and the apparent opening of the Saint’s tomb for authentication, restoration, and the procurement of relics.

The tomb of St Arnold

The shrine where the tomb is located.

On December 15, 1886, Cardinal Krementz wrote to Bishop Maes that it gave him “great joy to grant the wish.” The Archbishop forwarded Bishop Maes’ request to a Fr. Schulte at the shrine in Arnoldsweiler so that relics could be procured, and on January 5, 1887, the relics of St. Arnold arrived in Covington. In the accompanying letter, Fr. Schulte noted the “considerable” size of the relic and that, after examination by a Dr. Rollen of Düren, it was found to be “part of the shank of the left arm.” Fr. Schulte closed his letter wishing that “Your Excellency foster the veneration of St. Arnold and... that St. Arnold may, through his intercession, assist you and all who honor him fervently.”

Cardinal Philip Kremenz, archbishop of Cologne,1885-1899

The new “speaking” reliquaries can be seen in the St. Paul Relics Chapel located, beneath the baldachin of St Mary’s Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption. The altar contains over 350 relics, including some of the Church’s newest Saints and Blesseds: among the Saints, José Sánchez del Río, Oscar Romero, Maximilian Kolbe, Pope John Paul II, Damien of Molokai, Conrad of Parzham, and Teresa of Calcutta; among the Blesseds, Miguel Pro, Franz Jägerstätter, Stanley Rother, Karl of Austria, Solanus Casey, and Carlo Acutis.

For more information, visit covcathedral.com