RELIQUARY. - The current name for the object chosen to contain relics; but since antiquity it has had a very great variety of names depending on its shape.
The most common names encountered in texts are: reliquarium, vas, vasculum, busis, theca, lipsanotheca, hierotheca, staurotheca, philacterium, chrismarium, conditorium, conservatorium, custodia, gestatorium, sanctimonium, repositorium, jocale, phiala, ampulla, acerra, arca, cista, coffrus, coffinus, ladula, scrinium, locus, loculus, sarcophagus, sepulcrum, tumba, griba, feretrum, capsa, capsella, capsula, scatula, trucha, domus, castrum.
The material used in making reliquaries is quite varied. Already St. Jerome speaks of relics contained in a «modico vasculo pretioso linteamine circumdatum» (Contra Vigilantium, 4: PL 23, 357); from ancient times there have been reliquaries in gold (Lib. Pont., I, pp. 179, 261, 374; Martin of Tours, De gloria martyrum, 11: PL 71, 716, etc.); in silver (De miraculis s. Stephani, I, 8: PL 41, 839; G. B. De Rossi, La capsella reliquiaria argentea africana, Rome 1888); then in bronze, in copper, in lead, in crystal, stone, clay, glass, bone, ivory, wood; in silk, brocade, linen.
These reliquaries were used to enclose particles of the Holy Cross or earth from the Holy Places, or to contain relics «ex ossibus» or by contact with holy martyrs; they were placed under the altars, as those found in the ancient churches of Roman Africa show (not a few reproduced in P. Monceaux, Enquête sur l'épigraphie chrétienne d'Afrique, Paris 1907, nos. 262, 275-78, 280-84, 321); others were exposed for veneration: among these the most conspicuous ancient group is represented by the treasury of relics that the popes collected in the chapel of the deacon martyr St. Lawrence in the Lateran patriarchate, today in the Museo Sacro of the Vatican Library. These relics were enclosed in a cypress casket that still bears the inscription: «Leo indignus tertius episcopus, Dei famulus, fecit (795-817); in the time of Innocent III the words Sancta Sanctorum were added to it; it contained relics of the Holy Cross, such as the enameled gold cross discovered already in the time of Pope Sergius I (687-701) and its historiated case, a gemmed cross, a wooden cross, silver cases with custodians of Paschal I (817-24); silver coffers containing one the head of St. Agnes, the other that of St. Praxedes with their respective custodians; boxes of copper, of brass, of cedar wood, ivory capsules, silk bags, crystal vessels, glass ampoules, wooden painted pyxes. The whole was illustrated by H. Grisar (Il Sancta Sanctorum ed il suo tesoro sacro, Rome 1907).
Mention is also made of the silver capsellae of the 5th-6th century found in 1871 in the foundations of the high altar in the cathedral of Grado (G. B. De Rossi, Le insigni capselle reliquarie scoperte in Grado, in Bull. arch. crist., 2nd series, 3 [1872], pp. 155-58 and pls. 10-12; 3rd series, 3 [1878], pp. 49, 52; P. L. Zovatto, La capsella argentea di Grado con le immagini clipeate, in Aquileia nostra, 23 [1952], cols. 17-26) and the reliquaries of the Treasury of St-Maurice d'Agaunum (M. Besson, Antiquités du Valois [Ve-Xe siècle], Fribourg in Switzerland 1910; v. AGAUNO).
Bibliography
Enrico Josi
In the Romanesque period reliquaries took the form of the relic they guarded: in the shape of a head with precious stones in the eyes, with firm and evocative modeling (reliquary head of Pope St. Alexander, by the goldsmith Godefroid de Huy, in Brussels, Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire), or of an arm (Messina, Cathedral, reliquary of St. Marcian), of a rib (Namur, monastery of Notre-Dame, reliquary of the rib of St. Peter made by Hugo d'Oignies, 1228). Then there were also reliquary caskets in the shape of a chest with rich decoration of champlevé enamels on figurative motifs, such as that of St. Servais at Maastricht (11th-12th century) from a Mosan workshop, or the other Limousin ones (Agrigento, Cathedral; Aosta, parish church of Villanova Baltea [reproduced at v. LIMOGES]; Florence, Bargello), and reliquaries of various shapes can be seen in the Treasury of the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, among which the famous reliquary of the unstitched garment and that of the sandals of St. Francis and of the veil of Mary in the cathedral of Padua, one of which is of grandiose proportions with Gothic spires, as were greatly favored in Spain and Sicily after the example set by Juan de Arpha. The use of reliquary busts in silver and gilded silver continued in the same Gothic period, often with a base richly adorned with enamels (Florence, Cathedral, reliquary of St. Zanobi; Gorizia, Cathedral, reliquary of St. Hermagoras), often patinating, for realistic effects, the cheeks with enamel, as the famous goldsmith Giovanni di Bartolo did for the reliquary bust of St. Agatha, the only one remaining, in the cathedral of Agrigento, the other two for the Lateran Basilica having been lost. But in the Gothic period a constant type of reliquary came to be defined, also used for the exposition of the Eucharist, composed of three elements: a base with a mixtilinear contour, often decorated with enamels, a shaft interrupted by a hexagonal knop, and the reliquary proper, in which the relic was kept inside a capsella. The artists' imagination added motifs of adoring little angels, tempering, with the horizontal cut of the spread wings, the verticalism of the ascending line (Pistoia, Cathedral, gilded silver reliquary; Monreale, S. Martino delle Scale, reliquary of St. Gregory, etc.) or, within the niches, statuettes of saints, giving the arches pointed forms or heart-shaped points, according to Catalan modes; this occurred in Italy, in the workshops of Sardinia (Cagliari, church of S. Giacomo), and in Sicily (Castelbuono, Cathedral), then slowly welcoming the forms of the Renaissance (Florence, S. Maria
(by courtesy of Dr. B. Degenhart)
RELIQUARY - Ivory casket of the 10th century - Troyes, Treasury of the Cathedral.
del Fiore, reliquary by the goldsmith Salvi; Spoleto, reliquary of St. Eutizio).
Some examples in gilded silver or in chased gold, decorated with enamels, can be seen in the cathedral of Cosenza, at the Bargello, at the Academy of Venice (the famous reliquary of the Holy Cross, at S. Martino delle Scale, Monreale); at other times they had the form of a double cross with filigree and lily-shaped arms, as, following the example of the French ones, were also produced in Italy.
During the Baroque period, relics multiplied and all churches had an extraordinary number of reliquaries executed in gilded and carved wood, and also reliquary busts that followed the fortunes of sculpture with soft and lively modeling of garments and hair. Entire chapels were adorned with reliquaries of every shape — little caskets with spires, busts, palms — arranged in various orders so as to cover the walls entirely (Veroli, Cathedral). In the following century, that is in the nineteenth century, so much fervor for reliquaries gradually subsided, and when they wished to create them, they preferred, as regards form, to imitate that of ostensories, adopting in the decorative motifs the new Neoclassical and Romantic repertoires. - See plates XXXVI-XXXVIII.
Bibliography10 works
Maria Accascina