Liturgical Furniture Research Articles

Marble Architectural Elements and Liturgical Furniture of the Santa Giustina Basilica in Padova: New Archaeometric Data on the Importation of Proconnesian Marble in the Late Antique Adriatic

This paper examines eight marble samples from the architectural elements and liturgical furniture of the ecclesiastical complex of Santa Giustina in Padova (Italy), founded by the Rufus Venantius Opilio before AD 524. The provenance determination of the marbles was carried out by means of a multi-analytical approach combining mineralogical–petrographic investigations, performed by microscopic observations of thin sections, and the measurement of the ratios of stable carbon and oxygen isotopes. The results obtained were compared with up-to-date petrographic and isotopic databases (Antonelli and Lazzarini 2015), and they showed that the analyzed marbles come from the quarries of the island of Proconnesus in Asia Minor, modern Marmara Adası (Turkey). Archaeometric evidence, together with the stylistic and functional analysis of the pieces, suggests the direct importation of a complete set of sculptures, shipped at different stages of workmanship from the workshops of Constantinople and expressly ordered by a single patron, who can be identified as Opilio, founder of the basilica of Santa Giustina and praetorian prefect at the court of King Theodoric.

La capilla de la familia Anaya Enríquez en la iglesia de San Esteban de Salamanca. Los inicios de la actual capilla del Rosario

Within the complex and prolonged process of construction of the new church of San Esteban de Salamanca from the 16th century, the chapel of the Anaya Enríquez family stood out as a space of main relevance. This enclosure is studied as the initial solution given in 1540 by the promoter Fray Juan Álvarez de Toledo to the lineage, which consisted of changing their burials in the old header to a new location added to the layout by Fray Martín de Santiago. With the condition of the patron to the descendants of Gómez de Anaya and Aldonza Enríquez to commission an altarpiece dedicated to the Virgen del Rosario, we witness the origins of the current Rosario chapel, a dedication that would quickly end up becoming an authentic protagonist. Based on the analysis and interpretation of unknown documents and the oldest unstudied images, we reveal another part of the history of the famous Dominican convent in Salamanca. Thanks to these readings, we can conclude that the patronage of the Rosario chapel remained in that family until the 18th century, when it became the property of the convent, at which time the liturgical furniture was refurbished.

Integrated survey procedures for seismic protection of monumental liturgical furniture

Abstract The research herein reported deals with the digital survey potential in the knowledge and documentation of particular sculptural artefacts located in medieval churches, such as pulpits, candelabra and ciboria, with careful attention to the issues related to modelling for structural analysis of these artefacts. In particular, the pulpit’s typology has been analysed; it is a piece of liturgical furniture that has its own response to external stresses, although it is not a structural element. An operational procedure was defined through the discussion of a real case located in the L’Aquila territory. The procedure starts from the knowledge phase of the artefacts enabling the implementation of a digital model by integrating the data of terrestrial photogrammetry and laser scanner. The results achieved highlight the advantages of using detailed digital models for cognitive analysis but also the open issues in the context of model optimisation for specific analyses, such as structural ones, required within integrated approaches for heritage protection and conservation.

Discursos litúrgicos en piedra y metal. De los altares de Oviedo, Sahagún y Compostela a los de Mondoñedo, Ribas de Sil y O Incio

In the renewal of visual culture in Romanesque times, liturgical furniture played a fundamental role, with the altar being the most privileged figurative space, as a fundamental cultic object for the configuration of the new ritual spaces. With this work we propose a review of some of the main Romanesque altars in the region (Santiago de Compostela, Oviedo, San Esteban de Ribas de Sil, etc.) in order to analyse the value of the images they reproduce in relation to the new vectors of Romanesque culture.

The “Magdala stone table”: its function and role in determining the liturgical furniture in the ancient synagogue

AbstractThe discovery of low stone tables at Magdala and a few other sites in the Galilee and Golan allows us to examine, for the first time, this liturgical piece of furniture used by several communities in the late Second Temple period and the first centuries of the Common Era. This article defines the purpose of these stone tables based on analysis of the archaeological finds and examination of the literary sources associated with the Torah-reading ceremony conducted in the synagogues of ancient Palestine. The reading of the Torah throughout this long period was conducted standing with the open Torah scroll held in raised hands. Our study demonstrates that this table was not intended to be used for reading the Torah, but rather functioned as a low stand upon which the scroll was placed before the Torah-reading ceremony, during the breaks between the readers, and after completion of the ceremony.

Liturgical Furniture in the Basilica of San Marco. The Ciboria in the Main Chapel and in the Chapels of the Nicopeia and Sacramento

Three pieces of liturgical furniture in the eastern part of the Basilica of San Marco - the three ciboria in the chapel of the Nicopeia, in the main chapel, and in the chapel of the Sacramento - lead to the hypothesis that the three canopies were conceived and assembled simultaneously. All three items can be dated to the mid-thirteenth century, perhaps during the rule of Doge Ranieri Zen (1253-1268). The strong resemblance of these structures to each other suggests a global approach corroborated by analysis of the component elements, namely the capitals, the archivolts, the coating, the basis, and the frames. The data gathered suggest a common chronology and a common patron, although the identification with Ranieri Zen remains plausible but uncertain.

Nuovi elementi per la storia della chiesa di S. Lucia a Marino: il contributo degli arredi liturgici

The restorations that, between the late Seventies and the early Eighties of the twentieth century, the Soprintendenza per i Beni Ambientali e Architettonici per il Lazio undertook in the deconsecrated church of S. Lucia in Marino, located few kilometers from Rome in the Castelli Romani area, brought to light a considerable number of findings refered to the medieval decorative apparatus, useful to clarify its ambiguous and stratified history. Within this framework, a critical role is offered by the remains of the church’s liturgical furniture. Among these, the best documented is certainly the ciborium. Numerous fragments belong to it, some of which still show the gilding and the mosaic tiles of the decoration. They allow to recreate the appearance of one of the four sides: a trilobed tympanum dominated by a cusp with rose window and pinnacles. If evaluated together with the few pictorial fragments found during the restorations, the liturgical furnishings of S. Lucia allow us to outline an important decorative phase otherwise unknown, that renovated the appearance of an older building between the end of the thirteenth and the beginning fourteen century. Historical contingencies and stylistic features suggest that the sculptures and paintings can be considered a direct expression of the Roman artistic environment and its patronage around the years of the first Jubilee.

Pulpiti in Costiera Amalfitana: cappelle private, contenitori di icone e reliquie

Architecture in the architecture, instrument for the propagation of the word of God, container of relics and icons, “mirror” of images and prayers, the pulpit is configured as one of the major communication tools of the power of donors and their firm will to create a preferential channel of communication with God. The Amalfi Coast appears as a privileged observatory to highlight the ideological potential of this liturgical furniture, since in its territory there is a notable proliferation of pulpits, some of which in stucco, linked to aristocratic laic patrons, who add multiple features to them in hope to magnify the primary function of echoing the divine voice and to exploit it for their own salvation, while affirming the political and social role they play in the community, through the appropriation, for the purpose of personal exaltation and redemption, of liturgical spaces and functions.

En marge d’une édition récente : Exploiter la richesse de l’obituaire de la cathédrale de Tournai

This article aims to highlight the main contributions of the rich obituary of the Cathedral of Tournai, the full edition of which has just been published. The obituary allows us to understand concretely the life of the cathedral in medieval times, from 1044 until 1562. It is a preferred source that offers data that would be searched in vain in traditional sources. There are indeed the number and quality of the people who offered the cathedral some good to benefit from the prayer of the chapter: bishops, canons, vicars, chaplains, clerics outside the cathedral, but also the many laymen, women and men, who were the majority until 1300. It also notes the arrangements of the prayer framework; donations of liturgical furniture; daytime and nighttime lighting depending on the degree of the holidays; the solemnity of liturgical feasts; recipients of obituary foundations; a liturgy that is far from immobile; paramentics ; meal foundations; choir children; donor attention to the underprivileged; bell-ringers and manuscript donations.

Wooden sculpture in Romanesque Iberian Peninsula: a wide and attractive panorama. Lines of research

Romanesque polychromed wooden imagery in the Iberian Peninsula (12th-13th centuries) stands both as a valuable and complex heritage. Apart from some general lines that determine compositional and symbolic features, the local context, the liturgy, the artists or workshops and the influence of some prestigious models have created a highly attractive scenario. It is important to note that some statues that are preserved separately today may well be, from a broader perspective, part of larger ensembles of liturgical furniture. At the same time, the number of studies on technical and material aspects involving interdisciplinary work has increased. One of the questions that concern scholars the most is the spread of typology and stylistic trends. The influence of metal and precious metal works on tempered polychromed must be assessed. Other times, the spread of modalities confined to an area might well obey cult and pilgrimage reasons. Not all works, however, strictly follow one modality or another. Another hypothesis deals with the importation of some objects.

Recycling the Glory of Byzantium

The article is dedicated to one of the less studied aspects of the Byzantine–Early Islamic period transition: the recycling of valuable materials—marble and bronze—as reflected in the archaeological findings discovered during the salvage excavations at the Givati Parking Lot site in Jerusalem. In the course of the work, a portion of one of the major streets of Byzantine Jerusalem was exposed, which once served as an important pilgrimage route of the city. During the Umayyad period the street was severely damaged, and the entire area was turned into an industrial zone. Of special interest are the raw materials used in the industrial installations discovered during the excavations. These include precious imported marble veneers and fragments of liturgical furniture, which had been used as raw material for lime production in a large limekiln constructed on the original course of the Byzantine street; and scraps of bronze fragments of liturgical vessels, some decorated with crosses, which were discovered together with metal slags, pottery crucibles, and fragments of production waste, all testifying to the presence of a small-scale metallurgical workshop at the site.

Wood and building construction in the Convent of Vilar de Frades (Barcelos, Portugal): the beam systems of the 16th century

The monastic and conventual complex of S. Salvador de Vilar de Frades, located in the municipality of Barcelos (Portugal), has an attested occupation since the 11th century. As a result of the different constructive phases, the current edification integrates a diversified group of material and raw material applied according to different construction techniques.
 Through a methodological approach that favours the intersection between different types of sources, the present article aims to analyse wood as building construction material in Vilar de Frades, namely in the beam systems of the 16th century, as well as in the long-term articulation between liturgical furniture and the edification.

Insediamenti, chiese e porti lungo il basso Adige tra VI e X secolo

In the 6th century the Adige river, which ran through the towns of Montagnana, Este, Monselice (Padua) and Brondolo (Chioggia, Venice), moved 20 km southward. Nevertheless, as extant churches and their liturgical furniture demonstrate, the most important towns survived this change, perhaps thanks to artificial waterways. During an update of the corpus of the early medieval churches in the Padua province, we studied these buildings systematically, using written and archaeological sources, as well as the detailed descriptions provided by the pastoral visits of the bishop Barozzi (1489). We hypothesize that a great number of recorded churches, as well as their liturgical furniture (see Vedovetto in this volume), can be dated prior the 10th century, although this could only be confirmed by new archaeological data.

Sculture altomedievali lungo il basso corso dell’Adige (secoli VI-X)

The recent update of the catalogue of the early medieval churches in the Padua province allowed us to record more buildings built before the 10th century, across the course of the Adige river between the towns of Montagnana (Padua) and Brondolo (Chioggia, Venice) (see Brogiolo in this volume). This paper deals with 17 fragments of liturgical furniture, some previously unpublished; for some churches these pieces offer the only surviving proof of their early medieval foundation. This work is a preliminary study of the Corpus of Early Medieval Sculpture of the dioceses of Padua and Chioggia, under investigation by the author.

Jean Antoine Paffe et Louis Paffe, maîtres fondeurs à Paris au XVIIIe siècle

Descended from German goldsmiths settled in the privileged enclosure of the Temple in Paris, the founders Jean Antoine Paffe (1663-1742) and his son Louis (1705-1793), both documented in notarial records, were established in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. They belonged to the leading manufacturers of Parisian furniture bronzes in the eighteenth century, as shown by their financial success. They produced all sorts of items for lighting and heating, but no clocks ; they also mounted porcelain in bronze. The masterpiece of Paffe Sr. was the set of liturgical furniture that he produced for the church of Saint-Sulpice. He received commissions from the Grand Dauphin, his brother-in-law the Elector of Bavaria, and an impressive clientele from aristocratic and court circles, including the Colbert family. Paffe Jr. worked for prominent mercers - Poirier, Darnault, Machart - and oriented the workshop towards neo-classicism, before selling his business to Louis Gabriel Feloix in 1771. The work of the Paffe family, still anonymous, will undoubtedly be sooner or later identified.

La organización del espacio litúrgico hispánico entre los siglos VI y XI

The study of the Old Hispanic rite as a means of understanding Late-Antique and Early Medieval Hispanic churches has been very fruitful since the publication in 1965 of a pioneer work by A. Rodriguez G. de Ceballos. However, in most recent years there have arisen some errors of perspective that tend to reduce liturgical arrangement of space to the architectural typology and morphology of church buildings, forgetting that the organisation of ritual space was commited to liturgical furniture as much (and even more) as to architectural forms, whether structural or typological. This paper identifies some recent misinterpretations of important liturgical-architectural matters, such as the hierarchical division of sacred space or the multiplication of altars within a same building, in order to permit a more realistic approach to liturgical space, less biased by the typological abstractions and stylistic assumptions of (non-liturgical) disciplines, such as the old History of Art and the new “archaeology of archi...

Elementi di arredo liturgico altomedievale e preromanico dalla chiesa di San Martino a Padova: rilettura complessiva dei materiali

In 1925, nearby the location of the ancient church of San Martino, a few test excavations were carried out during the foundation of the new facade of the city hall in Padova. These excavations brought to light a number of Early Medieval and Pre-Romanesque sculptural fragments that provided a clear terminus ante quem for the foundation of the church itself. A careful stylistic and iconographic analysis allowed the identification of two main productions and a hypothetical reconstruction of the Carolingian liturgical furniture. The fragments are now stored in the Musei Civici of Padova.

The Iconography of ‘Husband-Beating’ on Late Medieval English Misericords

Scenes carved on late medieval liturgical furniture, known as misericords, have been described as surprisingly secular, considering their limited audience of male clerics. This article argues that surviving examples depicting laywomen beating submissive husbands reflect specific aspects of English culture within a framework of sexual politics. Ultimately, these images served to remind the male clerical viewer of his professional responsibility to educate the masses according to the literature of his own profession, at times utilizing popular vernacular sources as well.

Pain, Plague, and Power in Niccolò Semitecolo's Reliquary Cupboard for Padua Cathedral

Niccolo Semitecolo painted nine panels that decorated the doors of a large reliquary cupboard (armadio) in Padua's cathedral with an intriguing combination of iconic and narrative images, including a cycle of St. Sebastian's martyrdom, the Trinity, the Madonna and Child, and half-length depictions of SS. Sebastian and Daniel. This piece of liturgical furniture, completed in 1367, stored and honored the church's expanding collection of powerful saintly relics. This article considers the reliquary cupboard's function within the sacred environment of late medieval Padua. The reliquary armadio would be used during any ritual event requiring the display of relics and had two iconographic programs, depending on whether the cupboard doors were open or closed. Such potential mutability meant that occasionally Semitecolo's paintings were seen alongside the saints’ relics kept inside the cupboard; the structure thus presents a significant interaction between relics and images.This study explores the reliquary cupbo...

Mobiliario litúrgico del siglo XVIII en la Iglesia Parroquial de Guillena

This paper studies different pieces of the liturgical furniture of the parish of Our Lady of the Granada of Guillena’s Villa (Seville), which were acquired in the 18th century. Across the investigation in diverse historical files, we could have announced new information on the height and gilding of the reredos for the high altar, the work of the chairs coral, and the construction of the candlestick of glooms and of the eucharistic monument.