Florian Meunier, Musée du Louvre (Paris)

Starting at the end of the Xth century and in the XIth century with the testimony of Bernard d’Angers about the miracles of Saint Foy de Conques and the interpretation of the Bayeux embroidery, it seems interesting to look at the relationship between reliquaries and miracles, which raise the question of the individual and the collective in the dialogue with the divine. The reliquary is also the object of commemoration of past miracles in connection with processions and festivals: in some cases, the date of arrival (adventus) of the relics in the church or the dedication of the church is celebrated. The shrine of St. Martial in the Louvre, a Limousin production par excellence from the second half of the seventeenth century with its vermiculated background, offers an original example of the relationship of miracles in a typically Romanesque narrative style. From this case, we can consider the more complex question of the balance between the representations, on the shrines and reliquaries, of the miracles during the saint’s lifetime and those that occurred after his death. Finally, it is worth noting the cases where we find, in Romanesque art, the visible enhancement of the relic through a rock crystal, a tendency that is considered rather specific to the end of the thirteenth century and the end of the Middle Ages.

 

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