Cultural Images Research Articles

Biblical Theology

Biblical Theology Gerald A. Klingbeil, Fred W. Guyette, John Thomas Willis, and David A. Bosworth 1635. [Pentateuch: P] Michael Emmendörffer, Gottesnähe: Zur Rede von der Präsenz JHWHs in der Priesterschrift und verwandten Texten (WMANT 155; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019). Pp. x + 307. $75. ISBN 978-3-7887-3338-4. This is a revised version of E.'s Habilitationsschrift submitted in the summer of 2017 to the Augustana, the theological university of the Evangelical-Lutheran church in Bavaria. Its five chapters and three excursuses focus on God's nearness or presence in the P writings (Priesterschrift/Pg) as a response to the foundational human need of seeking to understand God's relationship to humanity in moments of crisis. Chaps. 1 and 2 focus on the discussion regarding the limits of the Priesterschrift, including also the questions of its textual unity, possible redactions, and theology. E. includes two excursuses here: excursus 1 reviews the idea of the near God from a comparative Mesopotamian and Egyptian [End Page 571] perspective, while excursus 2 discusses the question of whether Israel's religion was truly devoid of cult images. Based on some textual and archaeological data, E. is skeptical about the matter. Chap. 3 is the central part of the study; it discusses God's nearness in eight key texts considered as undoubtedly belonging to the Priesterschrift, i.e. Gen 1:1–2:3; 6:9–9:29; 17; Exod 6:2-8; 24:15–25:1; 29:43-46; 40:1, 2, 17, 33-38; and Lev 9:1-14. This chapter is followed by excursus 3, which reviews the role of high priest and priests in the Priestly writings in relation to the divine presence in Israel. Chap. 4 studies two prophetic conceptions of God's presence during the exile, i.e. Ezekiel and Isaiah 40–55. A concise summary and several indexes follow. E. concludes that for the Priestly authors, humanity, made in God's image, has the task of representing God as his cult image on earth. For these authors, the temple becomes an "image in the mind" as the tent sanctuary intersects with God's salvation history at Sinai, while Israel's relationship to the larger surrounding world should be understood in terms of the divine presence in that larger world (not just Israel) based on P's creation theology (see p. 238) 1636. [Gen 3:15; 3:21] Meik Gerhards, Protevangelium. Zur Frage der kanonischen Geltung des Alten Testaments und seiner christologischen Auslegung (SBS 237; Stuttgart: KBW, 2019). Pp. 208. Paper €28. ISBN 978-3-460-03374-0. G.'s study deals with the meaning and relevance of the "Old Testament" for the Church. He starts with fundamental reflections on the canonicity of the OT and its christo-logical interpretation, e.g., the relationship between the Church and Judaism and between the "Old Testament" and the "Hebrew Bible," as well as the difference between a Christian and a Jewish reading of the Hebrew Bible. Here, G. aims at a combination of modern, historical-critical scholarly exegesis with the "pre-critical" interpretation of the Bible in the early Church. Then G. focuses on Genesis 3 in search of a text that might function as a first biblical hint of Jesus Christ, the so-called "Protevangelium." Traditionally, Gen 3:15 is regarded as such a key text (Martin Luther and the Protestant Orthodoxy); however, G. questions this suggestion (following modern scholarship). Applying a typological interpretation, G. rather points to Gen 3:21 as a typos of the salvation in Jesus Christ. Belief in Christ brings the realization of the new way of life that Gen 3:21 hints at. In his conclusion, G. reflects on the unity of the Christian Bible as Holy Scripture with Jesus Christ at its center. 1637. [Canonical Reading] Mark S. Gignilliat, Reading Scripture Canonically: Theological Instincts for Old Testament Interpretation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2019). Pp. xvi + 125. Paper $21.95. ISBN 978-0-80010-4911-8. Question: What is the difference between canon and Scripture? Answer: It is possible to approach a "canon" as just a list of the books that are in the...

The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity: Development, Decline and Demise (ca. A.D. 270–430) by David Walsh

Reviewed by: The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity: Development, Decline and Demise (ca. A.D. 270–430) by David Walsh Eberhard W. Sauer The Cult of Mithras in Late Antiquity: Development, Decline and Demise (ca. A.D. 270–430) David Walsh Leiden: Brill, 2019. Pp. 158. ISBN: 978-90-04-38080-6 This attractively illustrated monograph, on the Mithras cult throughout the Roman world from the late third century onward, is based on the author's doctoral thesis at the University of Kent, Canterbury, where he is now a member of Kent's Centre for Late Antique Archaeology. The introduction focuses on the cult of Mithras and changing scholarly views on religious change in Late Antiquity. In the past, it was widely accepted that temple destruction and coercive Christianisation played a significant part in the decline of polytheism in general and Mithraism in particular—a view still shared by many contemporary scholars, if alternative views are gaining ground. Walsh, sceptical of conventional wisdom from the start, seeks to re-evaluate the evidence by comparing and contrasting the fate of Mithraic monuments in different regions. Mithraism was not static and unchanging, and Chapter 1 explores the development of the cult in the late Roman world, postulating considerable changes over space and time. These range from a proven surge in coin offering to alleged ritual fragmentation of cult images. Investment in constructing and repairing mithraea progressively diminished in the course of the third to fourth centuries, as demonstrated in Chapter 2, and possible explanations for this are discussed in Chapter 3. These include a speculative decline in initiation rituals resulting in a [End Page 184] less committed community of worshippers. The fate of temples is the focus of Chapter 4. A vanishingly small percentage of pagan temples in the north can be proven to have been destroyed violently (82–83), the proportion of mithraea demonstrably affected being far greater. It might have been helpful to point out here that we simply cannot tell if a temple was peacefully abandoned or brutally desecrated if, as in the vast majority of non-Mithraic shrines, no stratified imagery or occupation layers survive. Damage is much easier to prove in, partially underground, mithraea than in sanctuaries surviving to foundation levels only. Walsh explores possible reasons for their fate and frequent proven destruction, concluding that "the claim that Christianity was the … dominant factor behind the end of the Mithras cult does not stand up to scrutiny" (94). What were the dominant factors? Most mithraea suffering violent closure were, according to Walsh, on the northern frontiers pointing to barbarians as the most likely culprits (77, 98). Even mithraea as far from the borders as the Adriatic are attributed to frontier regions, and his own maps, not to mention iconoclasm at Vulci (115), disprove the claim that the "only mithraeum located in the interior provinces that looks to have been destroyed was found at Burdi{a}gala" (77). F. L. Schuddeboom's persuasive work (Babesch 91, 2016, 225–45), that thorough image destruction and church building over some mithraea at Rome point to Christian responsibility, is dismissed in a footnote (68 note 5; cf. 84). There is no mention of the mithraeum at Syracuse with fragmented sculpture, used into the fourth century (G. Sfameni Gasparro, I culti orientali in Sicilia, 1973, 281–90; R. J. A. Wilson, Sicily under the Roman Empire, 1990, 301, 413). The recent discovery of a mithraeum on Corsica suffering a violent end (Minerva 28.3, 2017, 5) is a further nail in the coffin of the hypothesis that there are virtually none in the interior provinces. Walsh attributes the decapitation of statues at Dieburg and elsewhere to barbarian invaders, claiming that this closely mirrors their treatment of members of a family (and others) at a villa at Harting who had "their heads removed and their bodies thrown down a well. The point of note is that … the heads were absent" (86–87, 92–93, 98). In fact, body parts and skulls were found together in two wells (e.g. M. Schnetz, Bericht der Bayerischen Bodendenkmalpflege 54, 2013, 83–85), invalidating the argument, one of many cases of Walsh not consulting original...

Triloknath revisited. Recent results from field research

The Triloknath temple of Tunde in the Chandrabhaga valley of Lahul holds a special position among the religious monuments of the western Himalayan region. It is a place of Buddhist and Hindu worship. This unusual co-existence of the two religious belief systems results from a two-fold identification of the main cult image as Avalokiteśvara or Śiva. The article will address this situation from an architectural perspective.

Travesty of the cult image of Lenin in post-Soviet cinematography on the materials of the films “Comedy of the Strict Regime” and “Village of Khlyupovo Separates from the Union”

This article is written within the framework of the topic “The Image of Lenin in Art Cinematography of Russia of the XX – XXI centuries”. The author explores the period at the turn of eras, from collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until the appearance of a new state of the Russian Federation on the world map. In the focus of attention are two films made in 1992, which subject to travesty the cult image of Lenin created by the founders of artistic Leniniana on stage and screen. Since the films were made at the turn of historical eras, there are attributes of a new artistic way of thinking – postmodernism, which are also analyzed in the article. The goal of this work lies in proving on the materials of films “Comedy of the Strict Regime” and “Village of Khlyupovo Separates from the Union” that the stylistic method of travesty is applied by cinematographers of post-Soviet period for debunking and ridiculing the cult image of Lenin created by the founders of secular Leniniana. The novelty of research is defined by the fact that these films have not been previously viewed from such perceptive. The article may serve as the foundation for future research on post-Soviet Leniniana. The author comes to the conclusion that it is not the persona of V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin to be debunked and ridiculed, but the image created by the masters of Soviet Leniniana. In ideological aspect, both films fall into the category of “iconoclastic”; the authors refer to the core problem of postmodernism – liberation of a person from totalitarian system, and display it in the ironic way.

Presencia y transfiguración en la imagen de culto oriental

Presencia y transfiguración constituyen en el oriente cristiano dos conceptos clave de la teología del icono a partir de los cuales pueden establecerse las distintas funciones que Oriente atribuye a la imagen de culto cristiana. Vinculadas a la teológica dogmática y enmarcadas en el misterio de la Encarnación de Cristo, estas dos nociones condensan tanto las enseñanzas y exigencias de la tradición teológica de los Padres de la Iglesia, basadas esencialmente en la lógica de la deificación, como la fundamentación ontológica de la imagen de culto asentada en la anámnesis y el testimonio presencializante del prototipo en la imagen.

The Art of Recycling Fresco-Icons. At the Roots of the Cult of Images.

Of the observations made during the author’s research in S. Maria Antiqua (1957-1960), the most baffling were some which indicated that efforts had been made in the early eighth century A.D. to preserve and safeguard the older fresco-images in the church. The procedure discovered here, which had served to incorporate important earlier iconographical matter into the program designed for Pope John VII (A.D. 705-707), was a phenomenon then wholly unknown from church art of the period. However, that a systematic labor of image-reuse according to such principles had been carried out, could be established with certainty on the basis of some very precise archaeological facts. These facts had to do, above all, with the absence on many of the earlier fresco panels in the church of the hatchings or indentures thickly applied to frescoed walls wherever they were to receive new coats of mortar. As proved by meticulous study of the panels in S. Maria Antiqua on which no chisel marks are found, none had had newer strata of painting applied to them. Evidence of these picture-protecting exerts is abundant in the church and prompted conclusions like the following (1968): ”Now it becomes possible also to gauge the fervor with which the individual frescoes were worshipped. The reluctance to obliterate a picture, the efforts made to preserve it, and also the eventual repainting of it with strict adherence to the original subject, all reflect an attitude characteristic of the cult of the icon”. Nordhagen 1968, 90.

The Monasteries of Athos and Chalkidiki (8th-11th Centuries): A Pioneering Front?

Following the re-establishment of the Cult of Images in 843, the Bithynian Olympus (present-day Uludag, Turkey) became the site of so many monastic settlements that it was all but impossible for the ascetics there to find true solitude. Therefore, they set their sights on Mount Athos in Chalkidiki, and began to settle there from the ninth century onwards. It was a turbulent time for the region, and as a result of complex political developments the land was abandoned and reverted to the state (klasma lands), with the tax revenues benefitting central authorities rather than local communities. The economic growth of the ninth century thus explains the conflicts over the lands around Mount Athos between the peasant population, the monasteries founded in the Chalkidiki region, and the monks on Athos itself. These conflicts were exacerbated by the foundation of the large institutions of Xeropotamou, Lavra and Iviron – the latter two of which also enjoyed the status of »imperial monasteries«. The extant documentation allows us to better understand both the attempts by the monastery to appropriate the lands and the resistance to these attempts by the village communities, who were particularly concerned with retaining grazing lands for their animals. Interestingly, the officials and judges in charge of the region seemed to have favoured the village communities in these conflicts.

Ritual Drama and Dramatic Ritual in Spanish Sacramental Plays. La Margarita Preciosa (1616) Between Procession and Stage

In Spanish early modernity, a theatre genre deeply embedded in Catholic material religion and cult of images rose to popularity and saw an aesthetic proliferation, while iconoclast tendencies in th...

Bramante'scoro finto, Ex-Votos, and Cult Practice in Sforza Milan

Bramante's illusionistic apse for Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan has long been understood as a triumph of Renaissance rationality. This essay shifts attention to the votive and cult contexts of the space and the miraculous image it enshrines. Thecoro fintoefficaciously enhanced the authority of the Madonna and her sponsors—the Sforza dynasty and a confraternity dedicated to the Virgin—by dramatically framing and amplifying the image's potency. Santa Maria presso San Satiro thus flourished as one of Milan's most intensely contested ecclesiastical arenas, in which devotees and institutions maneuvered for access to the potent cult image.

The Two Parts of the “Mithraic Universe” by Right of the External and Internal Orientation of the Cult Image

Summary The external orientation of the Mithraic sanctuaries shows a great variety and heterogeneity. The internal orientation of the sanctuaries suggested by the cult image, however, shows a great homogenity and uniformity. The internal structure is organised on the possible axial line drawn from the entrance to the cult image, and continues beyond that. We can establish that the interior of a mithraeum is oriented along the ‘North-South – East-West’ frame of reference by the cult image. The representation of the “Cosmos” in the sanctuary portrays only the visible, sensorial world. The known and organised “Cosmos” is the sanctuary itself, the ‘northern part’ of the Mithraic ‘Universe’ with its own inner coordinates. The ‘Anti-Cosmos’, the Underworld, had been abolished from the ‘Mithraic Universe’, completely unmentioned by literary sources. After the vertical North-South and horizontal East-West orientation we can consider, that the cult image also as a partition, divides the ‘Mithraic Universe’ up into ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ parts. The ‘northern part’, as it is displayed, the ordered part of the ‘Universe’, or the “Cosmos” itself is represented by the shrine. Its opposite, the ‘southern part’, the disordered part of the ‘Universe’, or ‘Anti-Cosmos’ is absent on the cult image. The Tauroctony prevents the specifically represented Underworld and its principles to manifest, creating the opportunity for the initiates to continue their eternal life in the living and organized part of the ‘Universe’, in the “Cosmos”.

Predstave ilirskih ethne u augusteumu u Afrodisiju / Personifications of Illyrian ethne from an Augusteum in Aphrodisias

The city of Aphrodisias (Aphrodisias; ) was situated in the continental inland of the Caria region in the south-west of Asia Minor. This town flourished in the Hellenistic period and the time of the Pergamon-Attalid dynasty that ruled Asia Minor from 282 to 133 BC. It was during this period that the city was named after the goddess Aphrodite (Venus in Roman religion) who had a very specific cult image in this city. Aphrodisias got its special symbolic meaning with the establishment of the Principate and the “first amongst the citizens”, Octavian Augustus, who was adopted into the gens Julia. One of the main propaganda elements of the new Augustan regime was a strong reliance on the “Aeneid story” that got its official version with Virgil’s Aeneid. Aeneas was the son of Trojan prince Anchises and Venus, whereas in Roman-Italic tradition, his son Ascanius/Iulus is considered to be an eponymous founder of the gens Julia. By advocating the “Aeneid story”, Augustus gave an emphasis to his divine origin, and Venus/Aphrodite became a deity of “special importance” for the new system. Aphrodisias was a city with many monumental facilities and buildings, statues and reliefs. The quality and amount of marble which the citizens and craftsmen in Aphrodisias had at their disposal resulted in a large number of inscriptions. Approximately 2000 epigraphic monuments have been discovered up to this point, the majority being from the Principate. Some of the monumental buildings of Aphrodisias are: 1. The temple of Aphrodite, the focal point of the entire city, transformed into a Christian basilica in Late Antiquity 2. Monumental tetrapylon 3. Bouleuterion ( ) or odeon 4. Stadium 5. Augusteum (Sebasteion, on the Greek east) containing personi- fied representations of Illyrian peoples and communities on relief The reliefs on Augusteum show the images of Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius and young Nero. The complex itself is dedicated to “To Aphrodite, the Divine Augusti and the People”. Originally it contained 190 reliefs. Iconography and reliefs can be organized into four groups divided into top and bottom lines of southern and northern temple portico: I Southern portico: the top line contained the personification of principes and deities; the bottom line contained images of old Hellenic mythology. II Northern portico: the top line contained allegories (and perhaps principes); the bottom line contained a series of ethne, i.e. the images of peoples. Each ethne was represented by a personified relief statue on a decorated base with an inscription. Relief statues were always in the form of a dressed standing girl. To this point, four statues and inscriptions have been identified for four peoples from the Illyrian territory: the Iapodes, Andizetes, Pirustae and Dardani. All four of these Illyrian peoples are mentioned by well-known and accessible source materials as the communities who were subdued by the armies commanded by Octavian Augustus after rebelling. A large number of sculptures or parts of the sculptures has not been ethnonymically identified with certainty due to damage and material fragmentation. Thus, we can assume that they hold hidden personifications or at least parts of personifications of other Illyrian peoples. The western part contained personifications of Illyrian peoples, and judging by their arrangement, peoples from the western Balkans may have been located somewhere in the vicinity.

Imágenes de los dioses en Cicerón

En De natura deorum, Cicerón presenta una crítica contundente a los límites y contradicciones de la teología antropomórfica epicúrea. Dirigiéndose especialmente a Epicuro en lo que se refiere al tema del deus effigies hominis et imago (Nat. D. I.103), Cicerón solicita a los epicúreos una definición más rigurosa de las relaciones entre la imagen de culto (una forma histórica de la figuración de lo divino) y los simulacra/imagines emanados directamente de los cuerpos de los dioses, denotando la insuficiencia del abordaje epicúreo sobre las imágenes divinas para fundamentar la pietas romana.
 Traducción de María Emilia Cairo y Roxana Inés Calvo

Evolving sense of visualizing the divine in popular Islam in Pakistan: An ethnographic case study

ABSTRACTThe contemporary visual culture of the Islamic societies of Pakistan in general, and the Milad festival (birthday celebrations of the Prophet Muhammad) in particular, reflects another genre of visuality in which the images that represents the name ‘Muhammad’, as per Arab-Persian/Urdu script, through textures, on a variety of surfaces, resulted out of certain biological, ecological, botanical and other natural phenomena, often popularly deemed miracles. This paper is an ethnographic case study of such an event that provokes certain questions such as: how a miracle becomes itself and its meanings are made and by whom? And how and why the ‘modern sense of visualizing the divine’ is created through miracles? It establishes this evolving sense with special reference to the emergent new cult images of the relics or symbolic representation of the Prophet, in conformity with the Islamic stricture on the figurative representation of human being.

The Genealogy of the “Leader of the People”: Images of Leaders and the Political Language of the Russian Revolution of 1917

Boris Kolonitskii continues his studies of the cult of Alexander Kerensky in 1917 and the larger issues of the vocabulary used to describe leaders and the nature of cults and their relationship to authoritarianism in Russian and Soviet history. He reviews the linguistic fields surrounding such revolutionary figures as Miliukov, Rodzianko, Chernov, Plekhanov and Lenin and shows how politicians may become hostages of their own rhetoric. Hero image terminology can sanctify the leader. But even negative publicity or criticism can lead to the strengthening of the cult image. The construction of cults is subject to reversals and shifting creativity. Cults have pre- histories and are vital to our understanding of 20th century politics.

Neofiguration and Iconoclasm in David Lynch’s Cinema

Iconoclasm and idolatry are opposite sides of the same coin: the cult of images. Through representation, man, since primitive times, has sought to understand his inner world, and hence giving rise to magical thinking and then to religious faith. Thereafter, philosophical doctrine would be responsible of these issues for the sake of discovering a truth that exists beyond the appearances of the visible world. As avant-garde artistic currents, surrealism, symbolism, and neofiguration would resume the reflection on the icons and their deformation so that man becomes the center of visual works. Painting, with authors such as Edward Hopper and Francis Bacon, will once again pose the debate between image and abstraction, light and darkness, body and soul. David Lynch, the cult film director, will show in his films this eternal debate of a philosophy that seeks self-knowledge and the transcendence of being.

Obrona kultu obrazów w Trzech mowach apologetycznych przeciwko tym, którzy odrzucają święte obrazy św. Jana Damasceńskiego

St John of Damascus was one of the first theologians who shaped thetheology of images. His theology was born in the difficult historical circumstancesof the first iconoclasm. This is why it was not always up to thetask. But it was John who first defined the image as the object of worshipand gave a number of convincing arguments for worshiping them. The basicsource of knowledge about the theology of the icon of John of Damascus ishis Three Apologetic Treatises against those Decrying the Holy Images. Onthis basis, I presented the definitions of the cult of images and the varioustypes of worship, then the arguments used by St. John of Damascus inorder to validate the worship of images in the context of the Old Testamentprohibition on the creation of images and the Christian worship of thesaints. Finally, I presented John’s theology as an expression of the Church’sindependence from the emperor’s power and his attitude to ecclesiasticaltradition, especially to the opinions of the Fathers of the Church.

Definición y contextos de las imágenes de culto en la Grecia antigua

This article has as main objective to analyze the meanings of cult statues in ancient Greece. Recent studies of visual culture in Greek art have tried to redefine the limits, actions and contexts of cult images in relation to Greek religiosity. Specifically, we will focus on analyzing the physical interaction of cult images in the ritual process of Greek religion.The main case study will be the Athenian festival of Plynteria. From the written testimonies ofthe Greek and Roman sources, we will how cult images were exposed to various processes of beautification, adornment, and physical manipulation at different times of religious worship.

„Az Boldog Aszszony képet radiusba vegyem”

The first written evidence that is usually connected to the statue of the Virgin Mary in the Franciscan church of Csíksomlyó (Șumuleu Ciuc, Schomlenberg) dates from 1624, when an inventory mentions a sculpture of the Virgin and Child on a secondary altarpiece dedicated to the Holy Virgin. The identification with the present figure is however only hypothetic. Sure is, that the statue was placed on the new high altarpiece, executed by joiner János Nyerges/Hannes Sadler from Brassó (Kronstadt, Braşov) in 1664. Nothing is known on the figure previous to these dates and we have no information on its original provenance. The dimensions (of 210 cm without her baroque crown) and the way the backside is carved suggest, that the figure surely belonged to an important altarpiece of quite large dimensions, with a shrine probably higher than 3 - 3,50 meters. The Franciscan manuscripts from the 17th-18th centuries never mention that the figure would have ever belonged to the (high) altarpiece of the Csíksomlyó monastery church, instead they repeat that its provenance is unknown, only explained by legends. One of these legends, which has a certain probability though, noted by Leonard Losteiner in his manuscript dedicated to the sculpture of the Virgin Mary and her miracles, says that the statue could have been brought from the village of Höltövény (Heldsdorf, Hălchiu), a church which even today preserves its notably large winged altarpiece, with a shrine of 361 cm, which would perfectly fit the figure in point. Also the local historical literature knows of some devotional figures having been once moved from Höltövény to Csíksomlyó. However, the idea remains a hypothesis until it can be proved. Sure is, that only the workshops of the Transylvanian Saxon towns were prepared to produce at the beginning of the 16th century sculptures of such dimensions. A detailed observation of the statue shows that a number of its characteristics differ a lot from the style known at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The figure was most probably slightly remodelled, renewed, repaired perhaps with the occasion of its placement to the high altarpiece in 1664, but later interventions are also possible. The fact, that the figure was brought to Csíksomlyó and placed on the high altarpiece of the church in a new function of a cult image could have to do with the introduction of the Pentacost pilgrimage, the first mention of which dates to 1649. The first miracles of the statue are documented right after its placement on the high altar and these have probably contributed to the spread of the new pilgrimage and through this to the renewal of the monastery itself, almost completely depopulated by the second half of the sixteenth century.

Creencias y devociones en las cofradías sevillanas de finales de la Edad Media y comienzos de la modernidad = Beliefs and devotions in Sevillian confraternities at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Early Modern period

In this paper we aim to study the diversity of Christian beliefs and devotions in Sevillian confraternities during XIV to XVI centuries. In order to achieve our purpose we have used confraternities' rules. We have studied four different aspects: the devotion to the Holy Trinity -made up of three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit-; the devotion to the Virgin; the devotion to the saints; and the cult of images. We can verify that God was always present in people's lives, and they normally turned to Mary and the saints in order to obtain protection and celestial favours. Therefore we can affirm that Christian beliefs and devotions in Seville during the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of Early modern period were according to Rome's rules.

Liminal phenomena: Framing Medieval Cult Images with Relics and Words

This article discusses aspects of interactions between image and frame in the context of medieval devotional images. In the later Middle Ages the mimetic strategies to convey the figure’s presence in the image were complemented by pieces of bones inserted into the frame. I argue that this practice belongs to a longer medieval tradition of frameworks, in which different kinds of references and types of materials were developed to turn the frame into a central site of meaning. As a depository for relics in the realm of the cult image, the frame intensified the presence of the image by counterposing its strategies of mimesis against the relic’s immanent material traces. This phenomenon, however, fused what otherwise would have been distinct entities of image and relic, which was regarded as a serious problem in the context of image veneration. I show that an entirely different type of frame, one that worked with the inclusion of text, addressed precisely this problem. Here the frame addressed the artificial nature of the representation with the aim of creating distance between viewer and image.