Decorations for the Holy Dead: Visual Embellishment on Tombs and Shrines of Saints (review)

This collection of essays on the decoration of saints' tombs arose from a session sponsored by the International Centre of Medieval Art at the 1999 International Medieval Congress held at Leeds. Stephen Lamia and Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo have structured Decorations for the Holy Dead around 'the active role saints' tombs and their embellishments assumed within the fabric of medieval society' (p. xxii). The group of papers presented at Leeds considered saints' tombs located in Spain, France and Italy, but the essay collection also includes papers on sites in England, Greece and Hungary.

Decorations for the Holy Dead begins with a reprint of an essay by Peter Brown: 'Enjoying the Saint in Late Antiquity'. This acts as kind of 'celebrity introduction' to the collection. It examines early Christian interpretations of martyrs' deaths and the recollection of saints. The remainder of the book is concerned with the high and late medieval periods, so this essay provides some theological background for later interpretations of the holy dead.

The first section considers the ways people could physically interact with tombs. Rocio Sanchez Ameijeiras' essay on thirteenth-century Castilian saints' tombs provides an excellent introduction to the elements in cenotaphs and reliquaries, with a focus on how pilgrims could interact with the monuments by circling them, viewing them from special places or even physically entering into the cenotaphs. The essay acts as an introduction to the elements of memorial art as well as a guide to the ways that medieval people could interact with these thirteenth-century saints' tombs.

The second section of the collection examines the burial of saints in cloisters. One of the more interesting essays considers the sculpture in the late eleventh-century cloister of the abbey of Saint-Pierre, Moissac. The sculpture is thoughtfully compared with liturgical manuscripts from the same period which also praise Saints Peter and Paul.

The final section considers changes to saints' cults in the later middle ages. This is something of a catch-all, with various essays covering similar thematic material to the first two sections though focussed on a later period. The quality of the essays in the collection as a whole varies but some of the best essays are concentrated in this section. Leanne Gilbertson's essay on the Vanni altarpiece and the cult of Saint Margaret is a very detailed reading of a single item produced around 1348. The preciseness of its geographical and temporal provenance means that Gilbertson can provide a detailed reading of the altarpiece in terms of the outbreak of the Black Death and its unusual iconographic representations of childbirth.

The best of the essays provide this kind of clarity and specificity. Nadezhda Guerassimenko's essay on the representation of physician saints at the monastery of Hosios Loukas, Phokis, for instance, links the unusual concentration of nine physician saints at the monastery to local traditions. Other essays fail to provide enough information to situate the saints' tombs in a specific context. Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo's essay 'The Saint's Capital, Talisman in the Cloister' does not give sufficient background information about the church under consideration. The argument that the sculpture on the capitals is not meaningless (as is usually accepted) is fascinating, but the essay itself is difficult to follow because of untranslated epitaphs.

The best essays in Decorations for the Holy Dead provide insight into the ways particular saints' tombs may have been understood at specific moments in time. Those which do not achieve this level of analysis nonetheless provide a general reading of tropes of medieval art. The fact that the volume is densely illustrated, with 108 black and white illustrations enhances this form of art history. It is unfortunate that there are only 11 colour illustrations, presumably limited by cost, of course, always prohibits full colour illustration.

One of the essays in Decorations...