Of all the trecento reliquaries listed, that by Naddo Ceccarelli now in the Walters Art Museum (Figure 5.1), has received the most recent scholarly attention because of its excellent state of preservation and the scholarly consensus regarding its attri-bution.9 Like several other reliquaries discussed here, it features naturalistic paint-ings of holy figures surrounded by small, round, relic windows.10 Ceccarelli’s panel is characteristic of his work in its extensive use of gilding and the architectural format of the frame, which reflected the style of contemporary goldsmiths such as Ugolino di Vieri’s Reliquary Head of Saint Savinus, and the influence of Simone Martini’s delicate yet naturalistic style.11 The Virgin Mary’s refined elegance is emphasized by her elongated figure, the linear treatment of her flowing drapery, and the overall vertical nature of her standing pose, which is reinforced by the panel’s pointed gable and pinnacles.
The Madonna gives the impression of a divine queen, however, at the same time, she seems grounded in the physical world. The gilded background, lacking any earthly referent, was firmly outside the realm of human experience and there-fore evocative of a celestial, supernatural space. Mary seems to float or hover in this ethereal setting because of the way her dark blue garment is almost entirely silhouetted against the golden void. Her feet, however, reveal a different reality.
She stands in a slight s-curve and, as her voluminous drapery falls to the mar-bled floor, it pools into small piles. Such passages convey reasonable anatomy, the suggestion of gravitational forces acting on the figure and their garments, and the modeling of form with highlights and shadows, which are the hallmarks of a
painter with naturalistic interests. The result of all this is an underlying tension between the heavenly elements and the more earthly ones.
C. Griffith Mann finds a similar interplay between things spiritual and material in the relationship between the glass roundels and the painted scene at the center, a dynamic he describes as “a confrontation between matter and spirit.”12 Indeed, reliquaries and relics were touch points where the material and spiritual worlds intersected. The relics were tangible evidence of a saint’s past life as a human being and, simultaneously, symbolic of their transcendence of the human world into the divine one. Thus, fittingly for a reliquary, the juxtaposition inherent in the relics and central to Mary’s saintly status is visually manifested in the formal elements of the panel—in the coexistence of a naturalistic style and an abstract one and in the collaborative effort of the many different materials, including paint, wood, gold, and glass. Such a medley of media could have inspired contemplation of the miraculous transformations made by Christ and the saints as they transitioned between spiritual and material realities.13
Not surprisingly, the church as an institution aided the faithful viewer as they navigated the complicated theology surrounding relics, something that is reflected in the very format of the reliquaries. There was an increasing availability of rel-ics in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries because of growth in pilgrimages and the relic trade.14 In particular, one saw an influx of relics from Byzantium, where regulations over handling and dividing relics were more relaxed than in the West.15 These trends caused concern for the European churchmen about potential forgeries and the way in which the relics were venerated.16 In order to preserve the sacredness of the relics and ensure that they were not treated as magical talismans or protective amulets, the church instituted regulations. At the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, for instance, the church declared that relics were not to be worshipped unless they were in an appropriate container and sanctioned by the authority of a bishop.17
Reliquary tabernacles, like the one by Naddo Ceccarelli, offered an elegant solution to the church’s growing concerns regarding relic veneration. They ensured that the display of the relics met the mandate that relics needed to be contained while maintaining the compelling aspects of the visual connection. This arrange-ment also allowed the church to more closely control how, when, and where one interacted with the relics. Set within a gilded wooden panel and elaborate frame-work, these relics could not be worn around one’s neck and treated as apotropaic devices or protective amulets.18 Furthermore, like many of the other trecento rel-iquaries featuring relic windows, Ceccarelli’s panel is shaped like an aedicule, a clear reference to the design of many churches at this time.19 Eliot W. Rowlands
argues that the compositional similarity between the reliquary and the shape of a church was intentional because the reliquary was meant to symbolize the church with the Madonna serving as the gate to heaven, the porta caeli, and the relics representing the family of saints within the church.
The reliquaries’ reference to church architecture underscores the ecclesiastical validation of the relics and saints. Positioned at the periphery of the reliquary, the relics function like symbolic walls of the church. In a manner analogous to the architectural ribs of the Gothic cathedrals, these fragments of bones and stones support the reliquary’s pointed arches and pinnacles above the Madonna and Child.20 The display of these reliquary panels on an altar table within an actual chapel would have further ensconced the saints and their relics within the authority of the church as a physical structure and, in turn, as an institution.
The church’s official approval of these relics was certified by the presentation of the relics’ authentics, or identifying labels, and other layers of legitimacy such as hagiographies, ritual processions or ceremonies, and feast days.
Like Ceccarelli’s tabernacle, Bartolo di Fredi’s Reliquary Triptych with the Annunciation, Saint Ansanus, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Crucifixion also visually solidifies the relationship between the relics and church.21 The glass roun-dels symbolically function as structural support for the frame and surround the central scenes, almost infusing it with a sense of physicality. Because this object is a triptych, the side panels could be opened or closed like the doors of a church. When opened, the pinnacles of the side panels flanked the larger, central pointed gable in a manner very similar to fourteenth-century church façades like the cathedrals of Siena and Orvieto. Additionally, one finds these same architectural elements—three pointed arches—repeated again within the ivory relief at the center of the reliquary.
These multiple layers of reference to church architecture appear to advertise the relics’ many forms of institutional review, control, and support.22
When Bartolo’s reliquary was opened, the paintings of the Virgin Annunciate and the Angel Gabriel on the wings would have framed the central panel’s scenes of the Adoration and Crucifixion depicted in the ivory panels, and this would have further emphasized the connection between the reliquary and the church.
The conversation between the angel and Mary was the inception of Christ’s life on earth and this event flanks the central narrative scenes in the ivory panels. The left panel of ivory features a scene from Christ’s early years, the Adoration of the Magi, while the ivory panel on the right shows the Crucifixion, his departure from the physical world. Positioned like this, Christ’s entire life, from his early childhood to his death, was encompassed within the interaction between Gabriel and the Virgin Annunciate in both iconographic and formal terms.
Such a phenomenon was not unique to this reliquary; the use of the Annun-ciation as a visual—and symbolic—entryway into scenes depicting the New Tes-tament was also found in contemporary church architecture. The most famous early-fourteenth-century example is Giotto’s frescoed version in his Arena Chapel, where the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary flank the altar and initiate the regis-ters of narrative scenes from Christ’s life on the adjacent walls. A similar situation, executed in sculpture, also exists at the Baroncelli Chapel in Santa Croce, Flor-ence.23 Flanking the entry portal to the Baroncelli chapel are Giovanni di Balduc-cio’s sculptures of the Angel Gabriel, at the left, and the Virgin Annunciate, at the right, set high above viewers on pedestals protruding from the chancel walls.24 These sculptures date to around 1327 and Giotto’s example dates to about 1305, suggesting that there was an established tradition by the time Bartolo was making his reliquary. Further indicating Bartolo’s interest in this motif is the fact that he experimented with spatial issues within depictions of the Annunciation in his later commissions.25
Bartolo’s reliquary, like many of the others with relic windows, provided the viewer with a plethora of meditative avenues because of its complex iconography, the combination of various types of media, and the way the parts relate to one another. Gazes and gestures guide the viewer from God the Father down to the Angel Gabriel and then over to the Virgin. Then, when coming to the center panel, the viewer works their way up from the stories of Christ’s life to Saint Ansa-nus, whose prominent gaze upward points to the relics and, ultimately, heaven. In following these lines and what they represent, this reliquary could have served as a portal for the spiritual imagination to contemplate many different aspects of the faith. By using one’s earthly sight to attain spiritual insights, the viewer entered an imaginative journey from earthly realities to spiritual beliefs.