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In his famous 1543 Treatise on Relics, Jean Calvin complained that if one were to gather all the purported pieces of the True Cross from the churches and cathedrals of Europe, it would ‘form a whole ship's cargo’. This comment not only highlights the questionable authenticity of relics, but also alludes to their inherent mobility. Indeed, as portable religious objects, relics played an essential role in the drive to export Christianity across the globe. Bound as it was to contemporary mercantile and colonial politics, Christian proselytization was imbricated with the circulation of material goods. Objects crafted in far off regions, such as Gujarat and Nagasaki, gained new life in European liturgical contexts. This essay examines imported caskets crafted from mother‐of‐pearl, tortoiseshell, and lacquer that were transformed into reliquaries on the Iberian Peninsula arguing that such reliquaries harnessed the established potency of the itinerant relic, while simultaneously inventing a new visual idiom that spoke to the precarity of the Catholic faith as it traversed great transoceanic distances. In so doing, it demonstrates the active role played by technologies of transit in the shaping of material and devotional culture in the early modern era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Reliquaries were among the most highly valued items in the medieval churches, and cathedrals accumulated hundreds of them. Their shapes and materials, the relics contained within, and other essential details were registered in lists written by cathedral treasurers. In the Nordic countries, most medieval reliquaries as well as written documents concerning them have disappeared. However, a few inventories with relics and reliquaries from Nordic cathedrals are preserved. This essay examines how the material dimensions of reliquaries were put into words in those lists and what the chosen words reveal about the way these objects were perceived by their keepers and audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a medieval church, saints were present in their relics and could be encountered, but typically not directly seen or touched. The sensory encounters occurred via specific interfaces or, in David Morgan's words, focal objects - reliquaries made with the best available skills and materials to represent the holy presence. These encounters, taking place, for instance, in the contexts of miracles or feasts of relic translations, were highlights of lived religion for laymen and religious professionals alike despite the differences between the groups' daily lives and access to religious objects. Reliquaries were made with remarkable investments in visual impact. However, in the medieval Nordic written sources, this impact is seldom described. Instead, other sensory and interactive effects manifesting the power of the saints and their relics - scents, sounds, touch, and movement - seem to dominate the emotionally charged encounters with reliquaries. This article argues that the eloquent shapes, shining materials, and hagi-ographic imagery were not ignored, but their message was incorporated into the other sensory stimuli in the written descriptions of encounters with the holy objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Art / Umění is the property of Institute of Art History of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

AThe essence of puppet performance is its balance between animacy and inanimacy,the artificial and the natural. This article proposes the framework of puppetry as a means of understanding the transcendent potential of a group of medieval reliquary busts from Cologne. In both appearance and manipulation, these sculpted busts blurred the boundaries between life and death, much like puppets. I argue that the dual mimesis of these busts, both visual and kinetic, enhanced their theological purpose as vessels for the bones of saints, and points to a medieval interest in the productive paradoxes of representation. Through their puppet-like hybridity, these sculptures bridged the distance between humans and the divine for medieval viewers. The article concludes by proposing a parallel between the temporary lives of puppets and the hybrid nature of artificial intelligence, suggesting that medieval conceptions of mimesis can provide a means of thinking through twenty-first century technology.

In Mexico the dispatching of relics—body parts, skin, blood, or other personal objects with saintly residue—has become relatively commonplace. With a focus on the 2011 tour of the wax effigy and relics of Pope John Paul II, this essay draws on recent work at the intersection of religion, aesthetics, materiality, death, and violence to reveal the unique dimensions, coherence, and patterns of movement within contemporary Catholic Church evangelism that is necessarily both spiritual and political. In emphasizing the role of media, I develop two main lines of exploration: first, the dynamics of contemporary mediatic global Catholicism which has increased its reliance on images and objects such as relics; and second, the media-spectacle of narco-violence through which images of dead bodies circulate and saturate the Mexican social imaginary. I suggest that critical scholarly attention to Catholicism as a dynamic theopolitical infrastructure is critical for a broader and more dimensioned anthropology of Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Becket's relics are likely to have been owned by institutions and individuals throughout much of later medieval England, the reliable surviving evidence for them is limited. Without pretending to anything like completeness, the present essay assesses a range of sources in order to determine (or at least suggest) their usefulness for constructing a historically rooted understanding of the definition, distribution, appearance, and housing of Becket-relics. The approach taken arises partially from an ambition to cover as much ground as possible in the available space, and partially from misgivings about the value of documents whose original contexts cannot be satisfactorily reconstructed. The analysis is intended to contribute to scholarship on the cult of Becket generally in later medieval England: to this end, evidence has been sought widely and Canterbury receives less attention than the reader might expect, although the essay turns to the cathedral priory at the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archaeologia Historica is the property of Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Historia 396 is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Instituto de Historia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In agreement with the last will of Doge Francesco Erizzo († 1646), his heart was buried in San Marco, the political and religious center of the Serenissima, next to the high altar and thus ad sanctos to the relics of Venice's patron saint. This unprecedented privilege not only disrupted the city's restrictive policies concerning public monuments, but her republican ideals in general. Due to the significance of the heart in Christian eschatological thinking and corporal state doctrines his burial elevated Erizzo to the status of an absolute ruler threatening the Republic's sacred constitution. In Venice, however, individual and public interests were closely intertwined. This study therefore analyzes the heart burial in the context of Erizzo's self-fashioning, Venetian state ideology, devotional practices and collective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Codex Aquilarensis is the property of Fundacion Santa Maria la Real del Patrimonio Historico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The monastery of the Descalzas Reales is known for housing women of the royal family. It was founded in 1559 by Princess Juana, sister of Philip II, and many prominent figures professed in this monastery, like the Empress Maria - also sister of the Prudent King-, or her daughter, sor Margarita de la Cruz. At the same time this place was visited by numerous queens, princesses and infants of the Hispanic Monarchy and from the other kingdoms. But it was a space of power too, a feminine palace with one of the largest collections of relics and reliquaries as private gifts to these royal women. There was no ambassador, nuncio, or legate who did not bring a box with relics for the illustrious nuns of the monastery. Due to their importance, their symbolic and diplomatic value, and because its care was one of the main activities in this religious center, the relics of the Monastery of the Descalzas Reales deserve to be studied as objects of worship, but also as gifts in the sphere of power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four remarkable stained glass panels in the Trinity Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral (executedc.1185–1220) picture the mixing of Thomas Becket’s blood with water at Becket’s tomb. The ‘water of St Thomas’ was among the most widely renowned medieval water relics, reputed to have healed the sick throughout Latin Christendom. This article examines the glass images, comparing them with narratives in the glaziers’ source text, Benedict of Peterborough’s collection of Becket’s miracles. The glaziers presented an enhanced and carefully designed version of the early history of the water relic: the visual images draw strong parallels between the water of St Thomas and the Eucharist, and trumpet the role of the monks of Christ Church Cathedral Priory, Canterbury, the patrons of the glass, in the mixing process. The glass panels also provide suggestive evidence regarding the personnel, vessels and ceremonial involved in the actual mixing of the relic at Canterbury, including the likely participation of a lay sacrist and the possible use of mazers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike any Japanese object before them, the jeweled pagoda mandalas challenge viewers to discern word from picture. Analyzing their production and the complicated process of viewing a surface that refuses strict delimitation as text or image and as relic or reliquary reveals these mandalas to be visualizations of the multiplicity of the Buddha body. The paintings collapse distinction with indivisibility while the constant slippage of signifier into signified escapes rigid duality, a realization urged by the surface's perlocutionary effect. These singular works uncover underlying dynamics in premodern Japanese Buddhist art, such as invisibility, performativity, and an increasingly textualized visual world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the ownership and history of an arm-reliquary of a prosthetic arm of Jewish soldier Yosef Trumpeldor. Topics include Trumpeldor's death as a hero at the March 1, 1920 battle of Tel Hai, Palestine, a dispute over the arm between the Tel Hai Museum and the Trumpeldor House in Tel Yosef, Israel, and the similarity of Trumpeldor's arm to Christian relics in relation to patron saints.

By contextualizing a reliquary panel by Tommaso da Modena within the interrelated artistic, scientific, and religious trends and practices of fourteenth-century Italy, a better understanding of the ways such a devotional aid was received comes to light. This article considers how the reliquary panel's material, composition, and decorative techniques could have resonated with aspects of Trecento visuality and devotion (e.g., the production of eyeglasses, debates about the Beatific Vision, Ugo Panciera's Treatise on Perfection, and the Franciscan theology of light). It pays particular attention to the panel's incorporation of verre églomisé, a technique that experienced a significant revival during the Trecento and which was recommended by Cennino Cennini's for decorating reliquaries. Such an investigation demonstrates how Tommaso's panel, and others like it, could have capitalized on the growing interest in the sense of sight and optics to affect spiritual insight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lavish reliquary, formerly owned by Despotissa Barbara Frankopan Brankovic, presently in the Treasury of Franciscan Monastery in Trsat near Rijeka, has rarely been of any interest to the researchers. This unique cult object is formed in the shape of symbolic branch made of silver gilded tubes with naturalistically crafted flowers, leaves and thorns. It consists of cast larger and smaller fragments of relics on frames, marked with inscriptions and decorated with filigree, and three encolpia on the middle axes also with relics, decorated with pearls, precious and semi-precious stones. As the inscriptions had not been read or had been read incorrectly in older literature, not shading any light on the origin of the idea and the period of creation, a new research lasting several days was conducted during 2011. Following a close analysis of the reliquary, thirty eight inscriptions in Old Serbian and Greek languages were found, and the inscriptions from the lost frames, recorded in the sources and photo documentation, were added as thirty ninth and fortieth. The paper gives an analysis of the reliquary, reconstruction of the original organization of the relics (based on the old photographs and descriptions from 1648), copy of all inscriptions and formats of thirty -- two preserved frames. New readings provide correction to all previous editions and this is the first time that all inscriptions on the existing frames have been read, including not so visible inscription on the rim of the panaghiarion. Paleographic analysis has shown that five different engravers have been engraving the inscriptions. The first craftsman has done the engraving on the back of the panaghiarion (No. 15) and the holy relics frame (No. 30). The second has done the most of engraving (No. 1-5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 18, 19, 22-29, 33-38, 40) and engraving on the rim of the panaghiarion (No. 15). The third has done the engraving on the frames No. 6, 7, 31 and 39, the fourth on the frames No. 20 and 32, while the fifth has done engraving in Greek on the frame No. 14. Although it is a view in historiography that the reliquary got its present shape after the holy relics had been taken to the West, iconographic analogies with the motif of elliptical vines on the reliquaries and icons with the themes of celebrating the Holy Mother, being present in Eastern cult practice and art since the middle of the 15th century, point to this direction for the further research of the reliquary of Despotissa Barbara. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the pre-thirteenth-century Byzantine reliquary, relic, and inscribed text work of Saint Marina or Margaret of Antioch. It cites the book "The Medieval Poetics of the Reliquary" by Seeta Chaganti in which the performance element of reliquaries was discussed and the lengthy and intriguing cared Greek inscription in the small silver gilt reliquary of Saint Marina which engages the viewer/reader/devotee. It mentions the history of the Byzantine cult of the holy martyr Marina who is know with special power over demons and ability to protect against demonic possession. It also notes the interaction of viewers with the reliquary and the saint it commemorates the reliquary, relic, and inscribed text work of Saint Marina.

This article introduces prominent issues that surround the Christian use of reliquaries, first discussing examples from Trier made by the renowned Archbishop Egbert in the tenth century, then turning to early Christian texts to investigate the beginnings of relic practice and belief. Of special interest are the letters and poems of Paulinus of Nola, but also the commentaries of Augustine, Ambrose, Victricius of Rouen and others that flesh out an understanding of how reliquaries were essential to the project of creating an appropriate reverentia for relics (Peter Brown's term). The materiality of reliquaries, their creation of social relations, particular issues of enclosure and beauty, and questions of potential visibility are given special consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination into the religious memory and consciousness surrounding the Jewish Holocaust, particularly highlighting the pseudo-canonization of Holocaust survivors' writings as sacred texts to Jews and other religious communities. Introductory comments are given noting the physical preservation of relics from the Holocaust in several concentration camps throughout Europe. Analysis is then offered explaining the Orthodox Jewish resistance to the idea of such physical reliquaries but pointing out their preservation and honor to the victims' writings within a the context of the Jewish religious concept of "witnessing."

The article presents information about a trove of relics possessed by a church in Exeter, England, and a legend that they were collected and donated in the 10th century by King Æthelstan. Traditional ideas of the religious significance of relics and reliquaries are described, and their symbolism is analyzed in historical and political terms. The example of Pippin the Short, who founded the Carolingian dynasty in Europe, is cited as an instance of the usefulness of relics in politics. Pippin used ceremonies involving relics on several occasions as a means of sanctifying his usurpation of power from the Merovingian dynasty. Æthelstan's relationships with Pippin's heirs is also discussed.

The article presents an examination into the history of relics within the Protestant culture of Europe in the years following the English Reformation. Extensive details are given describing the widespread veneration of relics throughout Europe and England in the period leading up to the Reformation, the aggressive physical and literary iconoclastic polemic movement against their veneration during the Reformation by Protestant leaders, and the underground continuation of the practice by the Catholic community of England.

In the early days of Taiwan local art most large houses and temples used low-temperature Koji color glaze pottery as decoration. Even today Koji pottery remains a special craft technology in Taiwan. According to visiting survey, the modern Koji pottery craft and style is different from the past. Koji pottery craftsmen prefer the Koji relics from 1840 to 1895 B.C. This period is called the period of gem glaze. Modern craftsmen most wish to imitate the vivid style of Yeh, Wang. His carmine glaze of pottery is still considered the ultimate color and style. This study utilized composition analysis and instruments to probe for Yeh's, Wang carmine glaze composition and materials technology, and then utilize unleaded materials to imitate the glaze color. The result of the study reveals that Yeh's, Wang carmine glaze not only used the nano gold to present color, also had less nano silver then previously thought. The study also found that potassium is better than sodium in the base of glaze composition, and that adjustments help gold to become carmine. Unleaded simulation confirms that there is no problem to present carmine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Law for the Protection of Cultural Relics of the People's Republic of China (PRC). It notes that China has the greatest and historical culture in the world, but due to the pace of development which implies huge amounts of digging for construction work and conduced to the discovery of cultural objects, many sites had been rapidly destroyed, and many protected works leave the country and promotes illegal digging. As a result, the first Law for the Protection of Cultural Relics (LPCR) was legislated in 1982, and was amended several time during the 1990s, 2002, and 2007. The LPCR is contains 80 articles in eight chapters with subjects that include General provisions, Archeaeological projects, and Legal responsibility.

The article focuses on the 10-century Limburg Staurotheke or container of the most powerful relic of the empire, which was kept in the Byzantine palace in Constantinople, Turkey. An author of an article about Byzantium is said to argue that the future of the field depends on the discovery and exploration of its links with the East, such as Islam and China. The luxury box has been commissioned by a leading eunuch Basil Lekapenos who placed a metric inscription on its cover. It has been argued that through its decoration and poetic epigram, the container has established a parallel between the relationship of eunuch and emperor and between the container and the relic.

Abstract: As part of research in progress on the study and design of an ontology knowledge model, this paper focuses on development of a shape-grammar schema for extracting attributes of spatial organization of a subset of cultural heritage relics, namely, caravanserais, from a selected corpus with a common architectural language of design. First, shape-grammar rules for classification of caravanserais of the selected corpus are developed and are represented in drawing by using Auto CAD tool. Shape rules as a natural-language equivalent are then devised by describing design functions and clarifying the topology of shapes. Based on these shape rules in given text, the hierarchy of a shape-grammar schema in the Protégé knowledge representation tool is designed, and each shape rule is defined as an interconnecting individual (or instance) in OWL language. This schema will enable us to extract computer-based semantics of shape-grammar rules. To illustrate this innovative approach, a selected corpus was classified by using the shape-grammar schema with the support of knowledge extraction tools. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article talks about the devotion of Radegund, queen of the Franks, to the relic of the True Cross. It gives a description of the True Cross reliquary and discusses the small plaque containing cross relics believed to be a part of Radegund's collection. Piotr Skubiszewski believed that the reliquary disappeared in the early Middle Ages. The triptych wings, in which the plaque was once a part of, is also discussed. The story of Radegund's collection of relics is discussed in the queen's vitae written by Baudonivia.

The article discusses the relics, reliquaries and the limitations of trecento painting. It presents and discusses the Naddo Ceccarelli's reliquary tabernacle preserved in the Walters Art Museum, including the Reliquary Tabernacle with Virgin and Child and Christ as the Man of Sorrows. The Baltimore reliquary's focus on the relationship between panel painting, the diplay of relics and the visual culture of Marian devotion at the end of the Middle Ages is offered. Nino Pisano's statue of the Virgin and Child and a reliquary painted by Bartolo di Fredi are also discussed.

Presents information on the imitation of architecture by art through the Saint Philip reliquary in renaissance Florence, Italy. Translation of a relic of Saint Philip's arm to Florence; Sources of the Saint Philip reliquary; Architectural imitation of the Saint Philip reliquary.

The article presents the summary of a conference that focused on the historical significance of the old church treasures left behind by the canonesses of the Gandersheim Abbey. It was held from September 30 to October 2, 2010 in Bad Gandersheim, Germany. Topics under discussion at the conference included an analysis of the discovered relics, the background information on some of the tapestries that were found, as well as the role of sculptures and reliquaries in the liturgical sphere.