Marie-Anne SIRE
De l’ombre à la lumière : les trésors de sanctuaire
ABSTRACT
The treasures of sanctuaries were not originally conceved to be seen : they were kept in safety rooms or cabinets whitch guards strictly controlled access. The historic and artistic value of the pieces they contain have justified since the 1960s they have been equipped to receive visitors. Access to collections is still difficult today in places as famous as the cathedral of Nancy, Vannes, Angers, Rouen, Amiens and Chartres. A debate was initiated by the Department of Architecture and Heritage to assess on the whole of the 263 existing treasures in France the conditions of conservation of objects, the state of research and inventories and the access conditions for the public.
Barbara Drake Boehm
Furta Sacra ? L’histoire récente de quelques reliquaires médiévaux français et la Loi Combes
Jean-Pierre CAILLET
Nature et enjeux des donations des grands laïcs aux trésors d’églises (IVe-XIIe siècles)
ABSTRACT
The formation and growth of church treasuries have benefited greatly from the generosity of lay dignitaries - including the territorial princes of various rank. We consider here a series of testimonies from the most representative about the motives of dedicants and nature of their donations ; once going back in early Christian and the « first » High Middle Ages to recognize the compelling nature of initial orientations, then takinga look at the action of the Carolingians (Charlemagne and Charles the Bald mostly), and after to that of the Counts of Flanders around the millennium, to that of the Ottonian (particularly through the conclusive example of Henri II) and finally to that of Staufen (with the initiative of Frederick Barbarossa to the canonization of Charlemagne). This chronological panorama is followed by the deepening of three major issues : the recurrence (since the ninth century, at least) of the dedicant’s image, the fundamental importance of relics in the strategies of power, and the very authentic devotion simultaneously reflected in these donations. Ultimately, the emphasis remains focused on their role in what may be described as the development of a geopoliticy of the sacred, unquestionably the dominant feature of this time.
Philippe GEORGE
Le trésor d’église, inspirateur et révélateur de conscience historique
ABSTRACT
The cult of relics is ubiquitous in the Middle Ages and well beyond, sometimes in areas hitherto unsuspected. Speaking of relics as the fourth power deserves an explanation. This paper sets out the relic, then pays a special interest in a relevant body relic, the saint’s skull, and finally develop the notion of the church treasury, memory and historical and artistic consciousness of a city or a region.
Pierre-Alain MARIAUX
Trésor et reliques, ou l’effet collection
Marina FALLA CASTELFRANCHI
Trésors liturgiques byzantins dans les inventaires des monastères italo-grecs de l’Italie méridionale et de la Sicile
ABSTRACT
Over the last decades, several inventories of liturgical objects from Byzantine monasteries have been published, with fundamental contributions from French colleagues: these documentary sources provide an extremely rich framework. Often unknown or little know to specialist, both art historians and historians, are, on the other hand, similar inventories from italo-greek monasteries in Southern Italy.
These inventories have survived in quite a large number, dating from the late Xth to the 17th centuries and, in most cases, they provide fertile information regarding the number, the typology and expecially the technical features of the objects. Comparison of the southern Italian exempla (such as the inventory of St. Nicholas of Gallucanta near Vietri sul Mare, dated to 1058) with similar inventories – or similar documentary sources – and owned by famous monasteries of the Byzantine Commonwealth (such as the contemporary Protospatharios Eustathios Boïlas testament (1059), shows how the objects are virtually identical in both inventories. Furthermore, it has to be stressed that when southern Italian texts are in greek, the terminology used is the same, testifying to the strict connection between the Byzantine monasteries in Southern Italy and Sicily on the one hand, and the rest of the Empire to the other hand.
This paper aims to examine the most significant Italo-Greek examples of inventories of liturgical objects in order to provide an overview, as complete as possible, of this particular phenomenon and, at same time, to point out how these sources, at time neglected by scholars, can be helpful in reconstructing both the history and the artistic framework of byzantine culture in Southern Italy.
Michael BRANDT
Bernward d’Hildesheim et ses trésors
ABSTRACT
Among the monuments that have been declared World Heritage of UNESCO is, in addition to the Episcopal Church in Hildesheim, the former church of St. Michael cloister. What was decisive for this distinction was the fact that the construction and equipping of the church provide direct evidence for the understanding of a Romanesque church.
In Hildesheim, the building of the church is due to a personality who has as much experience of the world as talents : Bernward (Bernard), who was bishop of Hildesheim 993-1022. The canonization of Bernward in the twelfth century has not only contributed greatly us to be well informed about his life, which is unusual, but also that a large part of its foundation of the cloister of Saint-Michel and its church treasures has been preserved. In an exemplary manner, we can show how the bishop directed his foundation, in what extent he influenced its artistic conception and the intentions related to it.
Emmanuel GARLAND
Le trésor de Conques au Moyen Âge : quelques observations sur son histoire ancienne
ABSTRACT
The treasure of the abbey church of Saint-Foy at Conques is one of the largest in France. Blending fantasy and reality, some ancient texts provide insight into the origin of the most prestigious properties, mainly reliquaries. However there is a significant gap between what the texts suggest and the objects we have received : most of the described objects have disappeared and among remaining ones only a few are mentioned in ancient texts. But here more than elsewhere, the objects bear the traces of history, their history. It is in search of clues that we have gone, and, from visual observation, we tried to identify the various interventions, revivals and changes undergone by these objects. This allows to see progressively enriched the treasure, from its origins till the early twelfth century, before noticing a decline, in stages.
Danielle GABORIT-CHOPIN
Le trésor de Saint-Denis à l’époque romane : trésor monastique ou trésor royal ?
ABSTRACT
The treasury of St. Denis was the French richest treasure. It is during the Romanesque period, mainly under Abbot Suger (1122-1151), the abbey and its treasures are provided with a very unique status : royal abbey (that is to say directly dependent of the king, like other abbeys in France), she also became royal necropolis, guardian of the sacred instruments while St. Denis, whose relics were preserved in the abbey, was recognized as « the special patron » of the king and « after God, the unrivalled protector of the kingdom ». The treasure at the end of the eleventh century was already a surprisingly rich and contained earlier works, of unknown provenance (« Elephant of Charlemagne » « Charlemagne Chess »), or donations of rulers, Dagobert and Charles the Bald.
Abbot Suger enriches the treasure that would rival that of St. Sophia in Constantinople. Unusually, he explained and justified in his writings that he wanted to do for his church, thus taking a major place in the history of medieval art. Suger describes the works of the first Middle Age and was sheltered by his treasure restore or supplement some of them (« Chair of Dagobert », « golden altar of Charles the Bald »). The « tomb of the holy bodies », containing the shrines of St. Denis and his companions, was transformed into the center of the new liturgy of St. Denis, attended by the king. Suger ordered a large silver cross on foot decorated with enamels champlevés. He acquired or received as gifts liturgical vessels (« Vase of St Eloi », the Fatimid ewer) and made set vases of hard stone in a frame of silver. Despite most of the works commissioned by Suger were destroyed, some were saved by the Revolution : the group of liturgical vessels now in the Louvre, « the Eagle », the sardonyx ewer, the « vase of Eleanor » and the chalice of Suger (Washington), sufficient to ensure the reputation of the Abbot Suger and the Treasury of Saint-Denis, monastic treasure impressive but whose wealth is also based on the very special bond that the abbey had with royalty.
Roberto CASSANELLI
Le trésor des rois lombards à la cathédrale de Monza.
Architecture, objets liturgiques et idéologie du pouvoir, VIIe-XIVe siècles
ABSTRACT
The cathedral of Monza preserves an extraordinary complex of liturgical objects that testifies his main role during the whole middle age, from the lombard period to the dominion of Visconti family in the XIV century and over, at least to Napoleon. The vicus of Modicia, few kilometers north of Milan, suddenly becomes important, in the strategies of the Lombard power, through the choice of queen Theodelinda, bavarian catholic princess wife of the arian king Agilulf, to found near the royal palace (that Paul the Deacon attributes to Theodoric) a chapel, in which Adaloald, the heir to the throne, is baptized in the year 603. The primary nucleus of the Treasure is therefore constituted by the first endowment for the cult offered by the queen (holding the crowns, in reality destined to be suspended above the altar) and by an exceptional set of devotional flasks from the Holy Land, perhaps shared in ancient with the abbey founded by Columban in Bobbio. A second, as many fundamental moment for the increase of the Treasure is the kingdom of Berengar (X century), that founds an own chapel and gives to the church, besides many other objects, the extraordinary set of late roman ivory diptychs. At the beginning of the Romanesque period, the church obtains the favour of the archbishop of Milan Aribertus, that gives a precious silver bookbinding, unfortunately lost. In the age of the Visconti the Treasure (after the return from Avignon) develops an essential function in the strategy of accreditation towards the imperial power with the resumption of the Lombard tradition and the myth of the three crownings with three different crowns (of gold, silver and iron), vindicating the possession of the « iron crown ». Continually increased, the Treasure, after the campaigns of Napoleon in 1796, partly moves to Paris, to the Cabinet des Médailles (instead the manuscripts are attributed to the Bibliothèque Nationale), where in 1804, following a theft, is irremediably damaged. Also the gift, by Napoleon, of the silver breads for the Mass of the crowning in the cathedral of Milan, will be not enough to fill the loss.
Armelle LE GENDRE
Remarques sur l’élévation des reliques de la cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Sens en 1239
ABSTRACT
The treasure of the Cathedral of St. Etienne de Sens ownes over a hundred bodies of saints and relics. The « authentics » today filed in the Museums of Sens, and the minutes of recognition and inventories of the treasury form a text corpus of a rare richness, whose study is yet to perfect. We intend to revisit the history of this treasure of relics in order to question his ordering idea and practice. It appears that the first minutes of recognition of the relics established in 1095, 1192 and 1239 give coherence to this set, consisting of successive donations. More importantly, it appears that on 1239, the Archbishop Gautier Cornut makes the translation of a collection of relics towards twelve shrines high above the altars of the sanctuary. The number twelve unequivocally refers to the figure of the apostolic college. Accordingly, we had to analyze the implications of this choice and recall that this year 1239 also saw the solemn susceptance of the Crown of Thorns in the cathedral of Sens.
Guillem DALMAU
Orfèvrerie nord-catalane des Xe-XIIIe siècles, un essai de corpus
ABSTRACT
The Centre de Conservation et de Restauration du Patrimoine, department of the Conseil Général des Pyrénées-Orientales, led since 2002 a comprehensive inventory of movable property kept in the churches of the department. The inventory takes into account all categories of objects : paintings, sculptures, textiles, graphic arts and of course jewelry. In seven years, 20 % of North Catalan territory has been inventoried and a little more than fifty works of medieval goldsmith were counted.
Into this medieval goldsmith, few works were previous to the fourteenth century (less than ten). We therefore try to offer a more complete vision of works preserved, without neglecting those missing but whose records do exist.
Jean-Luc ANTONIAZZI
Le trésor de Saint-Martin du Canigou à partir d’un inventaire du XVIIIe siècle
Michele Luigi VESCOVI
Reliques, images et trésors : la châsse de Saint-Romain de Reiningue
ABSTRACT
The shrine of St. Romain is conserved in the parish church of Reiningue (Alsace), coming from the priory of regular canons of Oelenberg, founded in 1046 by Hedwig, countess of Enguisheim and mother of Pope Leo IX. On the sides of the shrine, made of hammered silver and gold on a wooden core, different scenes take place : on the main faces are Christ and the Virgin enthroned between the apostles ; on the minor sides there are two episodes of the life of St Romain : the first shows his conversion with baptism administered by Saint Laurent, who raises his hand to bless his jailer on the other side is his decapitation. The reliquary, extraordinary piece of silverware of the twelfth century, has never attracted the critical attention to a recent exhibition linked to the cultural and historical life of the Countess Matilda of Canossa. The analysis of the history of the shrine, with transformations over the centuries, can know all the original parts and understand the timing, geographical and cultural context of realization of this work was « forgotten » and that the choices made in the images.
Mathias DUPUIS
Les peintures murales romanes de l’ancienne église paroissiale de Saint-André-des-Eaux (Côtes d’Armor)
ABSTRACT
The old church of Saint-André-des-Eaux (Côtes d’Armor) is a building of modest size, designed to accommodate a small parish community. Despite the simplicity of its architecture and though far from major centers of artistic production, this church is one of the few buildings of Brittain to have conserved some of its painted decoration, also well documented by a series of drawings and photographs made at the beginning of the twentieth century. The study campaign conducted on the site from 2007 to 2008, through the archaeological analysis of the elevations and the achievement of some surveys on the ground, allows to know about the different phases of construction and occupation of this church. This campaign has also allowed to identifiy the different times of paintings, which begin from the construction of the church in the romanesque period until its abandonment in the late nineteenth century. The aim of this paper is to return more precisely on the characteristics of the first two romanesque pictorial campaigns, between the late eleventh and early thirteenth century.
Arturo CALZONA
Mathilde de Canossa (1046-1076/1115) :
la monumentalisation des tombeaux des « ancêtres » et le trésor de sa « mémoire »
ABSTRACT
The concept of « thesaurus » during the Middle Ages is more complex than the common understanding that evokes the precious objects, textiles or illuminated manuscripts. The idea of the treasure that Matilda of Canossa developed and she wanted to leave after his death is the subject of this study : « thesaurus » is also « the memory of herself and her ancestors ». We therefore studied the will of Matilda to monumentalize the graves of ancestors in the family castle of Canossa since 1110-1111, but also the mausoleum of his father Boniface Mantua (+1052) and at Pisa for the her mother’s sarcophagus, Beatrice of Lorraine, (1076). The Abbey of San Benedetto Po, burial place chosen by the countess herself, represents the latest step in her strategy.
Ángela FRANCO MATA
Le trésor d’Oviedo, continuité de l’Église wisigothique. Aspects stylistiques et liturgiques, iconographie et fonctions
ABSTRACT
The treasure of Oviedo, as the Asturian monarchy itself under Alfonso II (791-842), Ramiro I (842-850), Ordoño I (850-866) and Alfonso III el Magno (866-910), refers to the former Visigothic monarchy. The Visigothic kingdom of Toledo was a constant point of reference for the political and artistical projects of the court of Oviedo. The survival of iconographic types in the arts of all types, like the Greek cross pattée or the continuity of offerings, is a manifestation of respect for the traditions, more than an interest to introduce new fashions. The custom of offering votive crowns like these from the Visigothic treasure of Guarrazar survives during the reign of Ferdinand I of León. Romanesque art is reflected in some of the later works, with notable examples such as the exceptional Arca Santa of the Cathedral of Oviedo.
Sophie MAKARIOU, Gabriel MARTINEZ-GROS
Le trésor du palais fatimide du Caire : inventaire du profane, mécanisme de dispersion et pieuse conservation
ABSTRACT
The looting of the palaces of the Fatimid Cairo, started from the year 1067, was recorded as a major event in the history of indep classical Islamic world. Two works in particular show: The book of gifts and rarities, written in the eleventh century by an anonymous court familiar Fatimid likely witnessed the looting of the palace, and the book, but provided much more late Maqrizi (m. 1445), the gain of pious exhortation on the history of the Fatimid caliphs. The looting occurred shortly after the peak of the Fatimid caliphate in Cairo early in the eleventh century. His weakness is due to the loss of the Maghreb and ethnic clashes within the armed Caliphate, between blacks and Turks. The Turks, victory, leading the looting.
The text of Maqrizi allows the problem of the monetary equivalent of the Treasury and examine a number of economic mechanisms, including the devaluation of the dinar likely (gold coin). The value of the treasure is everywhere implicit in the text of the author of the fifteenth century. It organizes the presentation even Maqrizi and we can deduce two orders of value, a currency, the other symbolic irreconcilable. Both texts are dense emerge many questions about the concept of treasure, which should not simply tracing over that formed in the West. They also highlight the dice eleventh century the emergence of the notion of a work of art.
Finally, we seek to unravel the ambiguities of words, including the best Arabic dictionaries do not come to the end. Can we recognize objects, shapes, techniques behind vague formulations, and Maqrizi itself, which copies the information from three centuries old, still does not necessarily identify ? Can we identify, in the Fatimid remains that we have left, if not the product of looting, at least traces of production comparable to that which the text speaks to us ? What was the fate of these objects after the dispersion of the Treasury, according Maqrizi, and according to what we know otherwise ?
Valérie CARPENTIER
Après les Trésors, les destins variés des objets d’art romans
ABSTRACT
Among the precious objects found in ecclesiastical treasures from the romanesque period which some sources allows us to know and study, only few have survived, with some notable exceptions. Conversely it is often difficult to identify the exact provenance of the objects we are fortunate indeed to maintain today, and to trace the very diverse routes they followed after leaving the treasures. Through a number of examples and typical cases are considered different types of hazards encountered by these objects of romanesque art from their origin, since an early disapearence is the common fate of many of them due to the very function of ecclesiastical treasures, and because more or less violent episodes experienced by many of these precious works of art, objects of desire, during centuries.
Aude MORELLE
Les salles du Trésor en France aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, nouvelles réflexions sur l’architecture d’une structure discrète
ABSTRACT
In the Middle Ages the wealth of religious communities were kept in a specific location related to the church or in the immediate vicinity, in a place known as the treasure room. The architectural history of these places, that developed in formats more conspicuous since the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, remains to be written. The constraints of the safety of treasury have led to choices in the construction and development of these places of storage, which are common to all rooms of the treasury. These choices allow us to distinguish them as a structure in itself. Their understanding and that of the human organization of religious life around the treasure room are new issues for this type of structures which remain to be implemented on a large corpus of them.
Xavier BARRAL i ALTET
Culture visuelle et réflexion architecturale au début du XIe siècle : Les voyages de l’abbé-évêque Oliba
(2e partie : Les voyages à Rome et leurs conséquences)
ABSTRACT
The visual culture of the Abbot‑Bishop Oliba, leading to architectural thinking and making decisions on religious buildings under his charge, has been fed by three sources : 1. local culture in the collective imagination and the realities in which Oliba had bathed since his childhood, 2. travel a short distance, leading to local exchanges 3. trips of longer duration during which Oliba could get in touch with the realities of a landscape architectural monuments which he was abroad. Among these we must stress the importance of Roman and Italian travel. At least twice, when he was still only abbot, Oliba went to Rome in 1011 and 1016. As Sigeric of Canterbury and all the great travelers of his time, visited the Oliba major Roman basilicas and was certainly impressed by the Roman columns historiated format and then the Pantheon great Marian shrine in central plan.
Chiara MAGGIONI
Le trésor de l’ancienne cathédrale de Milan : objets liturgiques et mémoire de la « sancta mediolanensis ecclesia »
ABSTRACT
Among the liturgical objects preserved in the Dome of Milan’s Treasury only five have belonged, at different times -between the 6th and 11th century-, to the ancient episcopal group which has preceded the Visconti’s construction. From the recognition of inventorial, liturgical and historical sources, it’s possible to individuate other pieces, now lost, which had taken part of the Treasury of the Cathedral and to rebuild some key-moments of its history, between archiepiscopal commissions and donations of laic authorities, expression of temporal power’s obsequy to the supreme authority of Milanese metropolitan. The antiques of Late Antiquity and Early Middle Age will still be employed in the Romanic Age and later on, precious relics of « sancta mediolanensis ecclesia » and of its bishops, successors of Ambrose.
Daniel CODINA i GIOL
Les quatre inventaires du trésor du monastère de Ripoll
Paul BRETEL
Les trésors dans la littérature narrative édifiante du Moyen Âge
Jean-René GABORIT
Conclusions