LAMP. — The use of lamps for worship is of every age and place, corresponding to the need to illuminate sacred buildings; and since beeswax has always been very costly, recourse was easily had to oil collected in lamps of the most varied forms and decorations, for in the Church it was customary to render symbolic what had arisen from necessity.
The night vigils, the vespers, required the lighting of numerous lamps: their use every evening suggested, moreover, the offering of light to God accompanied by the singing of the lucernare (q.v.).
The illumination of a cathedral required no small equipment: for this reason we find in every church several “cicendelari” (from cicindela, a metal tube filled with oil and a wick with which the lamps were lit), one of which had to be kept constantly in the sacristy ready for its office. The lamps were either single or grouped on the “corona pharalis” or “gabata.” Their use is attested and specified already by the inventory of Cirta (Algeria) of 303 (cf. DACL, Inventaires, VII, 1, cols. 1396 ff.), by the canons of Hippolytus (n. 4), by many scattered notices in the Liber Pontificalis, and in a curious way by Beroldus, Ordo of the Milanese Church of the 12th century. Following the very frequent custom among pagans, the first Christians also placed lamps on tombs, but unlike the pagans, they lit them to emphasize the symbolism contained therein of another life. This occurred more frequently on the tombs of martyrs. A most interesting document is the collection of ampullae, preserved in the basilica of Monza, brought from Rome by Abbot Giovanni to Queen Theodolinda, containing the oils that, by concession of the Pope, he collected from the lamps that burned in the suburban cemeteries before the various martyrs’ tombs.
In the liturgy of Holy Saturday, the blessing of the new fire struck from the stone and collected in a lamp is preserved; this lamp is carried in some churches in the paschal processions and is usually suspended beside the altar so as to take fire from it to light the candles.
The Code of Canon Law, can. 1271, establishes: “Before the tabernacle in which the Most Holy Sacrament is reserved, let there burn night and day at least one lamp to be fed with olive oil or beeswax; where, however, olive oil cannot be obtained, it is reserved to the prudence of the local bishop to permit, if possible, another vegetable oil.” The canon reflects the synodal legislation of the West from the 13th century, when, with the flourishing of Eucharistic worship, the custom of reserving the Eucharist in a public place spread.
By decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of 23 Feb. 1916 (n. 4334), on account of the difficulties created by the war, electric light was permitted, as also during the Second World War and even today in places where such difficulties persist.
ART. — With the changing artistic trends in the late Middle Ages, the form of lamps also began to change, as is especially evident from their representations in frescoes and miniatures. Throughout the Romanesque and Gothic periods, precious materials were frequently used, and lamps became highly refined objects of the industrial arts. For the most part they were suspended: in the East there were lamps of colored glass, alabaster, ivory (a splendid example with a silver mounting and precious stones is in the Treasury of the basilica of S. Marco in Venice), and wrought iron (notably in Siena in the 13th-14th centuries). Even portable lamps had a wide production, and alongside the common type with two or three burners for a double or triple flame, with a ring at the top to slip the index finger through, more complex and elaborate examples appeared, at times veritable works of art (fine examples are in the Louvre, the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Bargello). In Venice in the 15th century the use of blown-glass lamps became established. Notable are those painted by Carpaccio in the Presentation and the Dream of St. Ursula and that by Basaiti in the Virgin of the Accademia.
There were also lamps of singular form, many in bronze, in which the fantasy of the Renaissance artist indulged variously. A curious example of a Venetian lamp, depicting a horse’s skull carrying a child astride it, is in the National Museum in Florence; another, with a dragon emitting the flame from its tongue, is in the Kensington Museum. In the Baroque period, lamps were mainly of glass, with suspension systems in metal, artistically adorned according to the canons of that style. They were much used for the decoration of churches, but were often replaced by chandeliers with multiple lights and greater decorative effect. As for the form of these latter, they range from the circular ones, very common in the Middle Ages (sanctuary at Fuente del Guarrazar near Toledo, 12th cent.; Aachen, 12th cent.) to those of Gothic taste with spires, pinnacles, and statuettes (Siena, Palazzo Pubblico, 14th cent.), and to the Renaissance ones composed of plastic or architectural elements frequently depicted in paintings and frescoes of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Baroque age, chandeliers decorated with crystals or blown glass became increasingly fashionable, respectively worked in Bohemia and at Murano.
In more recent times the lamp has adapted to the changing system of illumination, and ancient forms have fallen into disuse. — See pls. LII-LIII.