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

Edited by Sally J. Cornelison and Scott B. Montgomery With an afterword by Joanna Cannon
2006 | 278 + x pp. | 73 ills. | Hardcover | 6 x 9 in | 978-0-86698-340-2 | MRTS 296
$45 | £37

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The eleven essays in this volume explore the relationship between visual culture and traditions, public ritual, and individual and monastic devotion as they pertain to the cults of relics and holy images, as well as reliquaries and talismanic objects in Italy from c. 1100 to 1500. Through diverse methodological approaches, these studies examine a variety of contexts and forms of images and relics, and address issues such as audience response and the sacred performance of images.

Reviews

This collection of essays is one of the most compelling and learned studies of the subject ever undertaken. A work of enormous proportion, of solid scholarship and erudition, it represents a considerable intellectual achievement. It will be an invaluable tool of reference for its exploration and analysis of both major and minor Italian devotional practices in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

The editors have brought together studies that will be of lasting benefit to both scholars and students alike. The essays, in their totality, deliver a mass of information through analyses of primary material and a variety of topics that constitute an outstanding contribution to the field. The editors have done a great service to the scholarly world through the assembling of a volume of cohesive and scholarly work quite unusual for a collection of diverse papers.
Sandro Sticca, Director, Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies, Binghamton University

Table of Contents

  • Scott B. Montgomery: Quia venerabile corpus redicti martyris ibi repositum: Image and Relic in the Decorative Program of San Miniato al Monte, Florence

  • Giovanni Freni: Images and Relics in Fourteenth-Century Arezzo: Pietro Lorenzetti’s Pieve Polyptych and the Shrine of St. Donatus

  • Francesca Geens: Galganus and the Cistercians: Relics, Reliquaries, and the Image of a Saint

  • Margaret Flansburg: Simone Martini’s Beato Agostino Novello Altarpiece and Reliquary Altar: Sienese Program and Augustinian Agenda

  • Sally J. Cornelison: When an Image is a Relic: The St. Zenobius Panel from Florence Cathedral

  • Leanne Kay Gilbertson: Imaging St. Margaret: Imitatio Christi and Imitatio Mariae in the Vanni Altarpiece

  • Jacqueline Marie Musacchio: Lambs, Coral, Teeth, and the Intimate Intersection of Religion and Magic in Renaissance Tuscany

  • Andrea Kann: Who Was the Audience for St. Luke’s Cult in Padua?

  • Gary M. Radke: Relics and Identity at the Convent of San Zaccaria in Renaissance Venice

  • Robert Maniura: Image and Relic in the Cult of Our Lady of Prato

  • Timothy B. Smith: Up in Arms: The Knights of Rhodes, the Cult of Relics, and the Chapel of St. John the Baptist in Siena Cathedral

  • Joanna Cannon: Afterword