Reliquaries

Abstract

From the early Christian era, throughout the Middle Ages, and even today, relics - and the reliquaries that stage their appearance to the audience of the faithful - have been objects of fascination. This chapter discusses major trends in scholarship concerning reliquaries, which shows that the earlier era is dominated by typological studies and exhibitions, as well as studies of individual reliquaries as masterworks, but largely out of context. A contemporary generation of scholars has produced work that attempts to be more synthetic and to bring reliquaries together into a unified field of study. The chapter concludes with a short discussion of the ways that recent scholarship has clarified new methodologies appropriate to the consideration of reliquaries. The earliest publications can be found in the works of Jesuit Athanasius Kircher and Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon. In the Metropolitan Museum of New York and the Cleveland museum, a large number of treasures were exhibited.

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