Wearing the Sacred: Images, Space, Identity in Liturgical Vestments (13th to 16th Centuries)

Abstract

espanolEl arte de vestir prendas sagradas para celebrar ritos religiosos constituye un importante elemento de la liturgia. En los primeros siglos de la Cristiandad, la vestimenta liturgica no era diferente de la seglar y solo a partir del siglo XI llego a Roma desde el norte de Europa la costumbre de usar vestiduras para el clero hechas con materiales preciosos. A partir de ese momento, los materiales preciosos y las imagenes llegaron a significar relativamente una constante en las vestimentas liturgicas occidentales. El presente ensayo describe - a partir de algunos ejemplos existentes o conocidos a traves de documentos - el papel de las figuras de imagenes en las vestimentas sagradas durante la Edad Media y el Renacimiento, tratando de explicar la relacion entre la imagen y el espacio donde aparece, el cuerpo, gestos liturgicos, mensajes religiosos y politicos y su funcion en relacion a su identidad, asi como mostrar aspectos de la continuidad o discontinuidad del papel de las imagenes usadas en el ambito liturgico desde la Edad Media hasta el Renacimiento. EnglishThe act of wearing sacred garments to celebrate religious rites is an important element of the liturgy. In the early centuries of Christianity, liturgical attire was not meant to be different from secular wear, and it was only in the eleventh century that the custom spread to Rome from northern Europe of wearing vestments made of precious materials for the clergy. From this moment on, precious materials and images would be more or less a constant in Western liturgical attire. This essay discusses – starting from some examples still extant or known from documents – the role of figural images on sacred vestments in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, attempting to explicate the relation between the image and the space where it appears, the body, liturgical gestures, religious and political message, and function in terms of identity, as well as to show the aspects of continuity and discontinuity in the role of images worn in the liturgical sphere from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

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