Mittite capud meum... ad matrem meam ut osculetur eum: The Form and Meaning of the Reliquary Bust of Saint Just

Abstract

This article examines the late fifteenth-century reliquary bust of St. Just in the Schweizerisches Landes-museum in Zurich. Its unique cephalophoric form is explained by the text of the Passio Sancti Justi, which relates the particulars of St. Just's martyrdom and the establishment of his relic cult. The reliquary bust gives visual form to the narration of the passio, which would be read on the saint's feast day, at which time the reliquary would be publicly displayed. The practice of relic ostension and veneration is examined in regard to the particulars of the display of the St. Just reliquary and reliquary busts in general. Other narrative modes of decoration of reliquary busts are examined to underscore the uniqueness of the active narrative mode of the St. Just bust. The visual hegemony of the reliquary bust of St. Just in Flums is posited through comparison with subsequent images of the saint.