Images, Relics, and Devotional Practices in Medieval and Renaissance Italy

Not so long ago certain art historians subscribed to the paradigm that the aesthetic celebration of the precious reliquaries in church treasuries should remain their professional focus. How far we have shifted from such a reductive approach is manifest in the present volume, and in the publications from 1997 to 2003 listed by Joanna Cannon in her characteristically incisive afterword.

The eleven studies gathered by Sally J. Cornelison and Scott B. Montgomery, and ably introduced by Montgomery, are uniformly strong contributions to knowledge. In "Quia venerabile corpus redicti martyris ibi repositum: Image and Relic in the Decorative Program of San Miniato al Monte," Montgomery describes how the monks of the Romanesque church used Saint Minias's body relic, together with the visual program of the crypt and façade, to project toward Florence a competitor for the principal patron saint, John the Baptist. Giovanni Frenidemonstrates, in "Images and Relics in Fourteenth-Century Arezzo: Pietro Lorenzetti's Pieve Polyptych and the Shrine of St. Donatus," that rivalry between the pieve and duomo over the possession and display of the relics of Saint Donatus and Saint James intercisus has a bearing on the iconography of Lorenzetti's high altar polyptych. Francesca Geens explores the iconography of Saint Galganus's head reliquary in Siena, relating it to Cistercian intervention in the hagiography during the late Duecento. In "Simone Martini's Beato Agostini Novello Altarpiece and Reliquary Altar: Sienese Program and Augustinian Agenda," Margaret Flansburg investigates Simone's altarpiece and Augustinian manipulation of local lay and pilgrim devotion toward this "unofficial" miracle-working saint. Sally J. Cornelison probes the "miraculous power" of St Zenobius's relics and reliquaries, in "When an Image Is a Relic: The Saint Zenobius Panel from Florence Cathedral," relating them to the Maestro del Bigallo's altar frontal and the decoration of the Saint Zenobius chapel. Leanne Gilbertson writes on the interaction of relic, image, and devotion in the vita-retable of Saint Margaret from the Cathedral of Montefiascone, which represented the saint's miraculous potentia to a predominantly lay, female audience. Jacqueline Marie Musacchio shows how the magical and devotional intersected in wax Agnus Dei pendants, coral branches, and animal teeth — objects accessible through artefacts and images relating to domestic well-being, particularly that of mothers and infants. Andrea Kann establishes the lay and monastic audience for Saint Luke's cult at Santa Giustina during the Quattrocento, relating Mantegna's Saint Luke Altarpiece to the history of the relics and their inventions. In "Relics and Identity at the Convent of San Zaccaria in Renaissance Venice," Gary M. Radke takes us to the rich relic collection guarded by the San Zaccaria nuns, clarifying how their altarpieces interacted with the relics and "addressed many audiences and articulated numerous identities" (189). Robert Maniura's contribution, "Image and Relic in the Cult of Our Lady of Prato," on image-relic relations in the cults at Santo Stefano and Santa Maria del Carcere, explores with deep methodological meditation "how an image can become the focus of pilgrimage" (195). Maniura challenges Richard Trexler's classic article of 1972, "Florentine Religious Experience: The Sacred Image," and should set us all thinking about how vows worked in relation to images. Timothy B. Smith's "Up in Arms: The Knights of Rhodes, the Cult of Relics, and the Chapel of St. John the Baptist in Siena Cathedral" shows how the Cathedral's acquisition of the right arm and hand of Saint John the Baptist provoked Alberto Aringhieri, the head of the opera connected with the Knights, to initiate construction of the chapel — this perhaps "a substitute for one of the Hospitallers' primary sanctuaries" (238).

Joanna Cannon closes the collection with a supportive and thoughtfully critical essay on the approaches represented here and their implications for further research. All of the contributors undertake their difficult tasks with reassuringly refined textual and visual skills. The editors are to be congratulated for producing a stimulating and informative book.