Niccolò Menghini’s marble sculpture of Santa Martina (ca. 1635) in the Church of Santi Luca e Martina in Rome belongs to the seventeenth-century genre of sculpture depicting saints as dead or dying. Until now, scholars have ignored the conceptual and formal concerns of the S. Martina, dismissing it as derivative of Stefano Maderno’s Santa Cecilia (1600). This thesis provides the first thorough examination of Menghini’s S. Martina, arguing that the sculpture is critically linked to the Post-Tridentine interest in the relics of early Christian martyrs. The disjunction between the sculpture’s severed head and seemingly living body reinforces the authority of Pietro da Cortona’s 1634 discovery of St. Martina’s relics beneath the old Church of SS. Luca e Martina. The detached and moveable head (rarely seen in early modern sculpture) evokes associations with cephalophory and inventively implies that St. Martina was somehow miraculously involved in the recovery of her own relics. / 2020-09-06

Since the nineteenth century, the provenances, functions, and defining characteristics of a group of Insular portable containers, commonly called house-, tomb-, or church-shaped shrines, have been of interest to a number of disciplines such as History of Art, Archaeology, and Museology. As nearly all Insular house-shaped shrines were found empty or in fragmentary states, their original contents are a continued point of scholarly debate. In response to these examinations and based in part on the seventh-century riddle on the Chrismal found in the Ænigmata of Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne, this thesis proposes questions such as: what type of container is best categorised as an Insular house-shaped shrine, what were their original contents and functions, and do their forms and materials communicate any specific cultural message(s)? By engaging with the two core concepts of functionality and materiality, which are further informed through direct object handlings of select Insular portable shrines, this thesis examines the forms and materials used in their construction. Taking these questions and the historical conversation into account, this thesis draws on the terminology employed to denote sacral containers in Old Irish and Latin works, which include hagiography and penitentials, discussions on the Temple of Jerusalem within early medieval exegesis, depictions of Insular house-shaped shrines and analogous forms in stonework and other mediums, and antiquarian, archaeological, and anthropological accounts of the discovery of Insular house-shaped shrines to more fully examine the functions of these enigmatic boxes. In doing so, the place of Insular house-shaped shrines within early medieval art, both Continental and Insular, will be more fully outlined. Additionally, a working definition of what can constitute an Insular house-shaped shrine is developed by examining their materiality, form, and prescribed functional terms, such as ‘reliquary’ and ‘chrismal’. Finally, this thesis shows that the functions of Insular house-shaped shrines are best understood in an overlapping and pluralistic sense, namely, that they were containers for a variety of forms of sacral matter and likely were understood as relics themselves only in later periods, which modern antiquarians later used as meaning-making devices in their writings on the spread of the early medieval ‘Celtic’ Church.

You or Your Memory is written as a parallel text to the body of work completed during my time at graduate school, specifically the works on paper made during my final year. This thesis discusses personal narrative, process, and materials as they relate to the works shown in Herter Gallery in April 2012 under the name You or Your Memory. Specific topics include time, relics, and personal memory.

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This thesis examines Augustine of Hippo's support of the cult of relics through the lens of Peter Brown's revision of the two-tiered model which was proposed in his 1981 book The Cult of Saints. More specifically, this thesis attempts to explain the introduction of saint's relics in the final book, book 22, of Augustine's magnum opus The City of God (De Civitate Dei). After providing proof of the theologian's opposition to the cult of relics in his youth, historical, biographical, and textual evidence is used to trace his later change of heart. This change in position is crystallized in a series of miracle accounts in the 8th chapter of the 22nd book. The analysis of this 'chain of miracles' is essential in understanding the purpose of the City of God as a whole and Augustine's own theories of death and resurrection.

This thesis presents a close iconographic and contextual study of a set of seven Tibetan thangka paintings depicting portraits of the First through the Ninth Dalai Lamas, currently in a private collection and dated to the nineteenth-century. Through this case study, I propose to situate the genre of Dalai Lama portraits within the larger context of Tibetan Buddhist practice by considering their role and function in merit-making activities. I propose that as visual reminders of the Dalai Lamas, these portraits can be considered a type of “relic” that is foundational to devotional practices in Buddhism. Specifically, this thesis will investigate portraits of Dalai Lamas within the framework of Buddhist relic traditions. As a secondary focus, the thesis will examine the artistic conventions through which the figures are rendered present, problematizing the notion of “portrait-likeness.”

Submitted by admin tede (tede@pucgoias.edu.br) on 2018-06-20T12:31:57Z No. of bitstreams: 1 CRISTIANE SOUSA SANTOS.pdf: 1319771 bytes, checksum: 7f30a6f7759360aa8057ca4b00edffc7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-20T12:31:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CRISTIANE SOUSA SANTOS.pdf: 1319771 bytes, checksum: 7f30a6f7759360aa8057ca4b00edffc7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-28 / This dissertation has as main objective to deal with the pilgrimages and the cult of the Apostle James the Greater in Santiago de Compostela, from the Liber Sancti Jacobi, a codex elaborated in the twelfth century, and which encloses in itself all the nuances of reverence for the disciple in the Galicia region. In order to do so, we are guided by theoretical methodological assumptions for the analysis of the representations in the present source, according to the aspects of the myth and the Social Imaginary, present in the quotidian of the century. From the revelation of the existence of a sepulcher made in the ninth century, attributed to the disciple who would have been according to the Holy Scriptures, one of the closest of the Messiah, a cult that according to tradition has been forgotten for centuries, would thus have resurfaced. Since then, a series of narratives and the itinerary towards the Galician city, were being written and perfected. At the apogee of the cult of relics in the twelfth century, the Compostela Cathedral under the prelate Diego Gelmírez, there was an extension to the elaboration of these documents aimed at legitimizing the presence of the relics of the apostle in "Hispania", among the most notable of these chronicles, is the Liber Sancti Jacobi or Codex Calixtinus. Based on the narratives present in the codex, information about the presence of James the Greater in the Iberian Peninsula was expanded. Thus, our research developed from the research on the writing and the origin of the tradition of the narratives reproduced in the codex. As well, we turn our attention to the relevance and influence of the pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Rome, primordial to the investigations that investigate the amplitude and importance of the trips and pilgrimages in Average Age. Finally, the attention is directed to the analyzes of the myth of St. James and his miracles narrated in the Liber Sancti Jacobi and their interferences, motivations and inspirations for the construction and promotion of the way of Santiago de Compostela. / Essa dissertação, tem como objetivo principal, tratar a respeito das peregrinações e o culto ao apóstolo Tiago, o Maior em Santiago de Compostela, a partir do Liber Sancti Jacobi, um códice elaborado no século XII, e que encerra em si todas as nuances da reverência destinada ao discípulo na região Galiza. Para tanto, nos direcionamos a partir de pressupostos teóricos metodológicos de análise das representações existentes na fonte em apreço, segundo os aspectos do mito e do Imaginário Social, presentes no cotidiano do século da redação desta. A partir da revelatio da existência de um sepulcro feita no século IX, atribuído ao discípulo que teria sido conforme as Sagradas Escrituras, um dos mais próximos do Messias, um culto que segundo a tradição esteve esquecido por séculos, teria assim, ressurgido. Desde então, uma série de narrativas e o itinerário em direção à cidade galega, foram sendo escritas e aperfeiçoados. No apogeu do culto às relíquias no século XII, a Sé Compostelana sob o prelado D. Diego Gelmírez, houve a ampliação à elaboração desses documentos que visavam a legitimação da presença das relíquias do apóstolo em “Hispania”, dentre as mais notáveis dessas crônicas, encontra-se o Liber Sancti Jacobi ou Codex Calixtinus. Fundamentados nas narrativas presentes no códice, se expandiram as informações sobre a presença de Tiago, o Maior na Península Ibérica. Dessa forma, nossa pesquisa, se desenvolveu a partir da investigação sobre a redação e a origem da tradição das narrativas reproduzidas no códice. Assim como também, voltamos nossa atenção para a relevância e a influência das peregrinações à Jerusalém e à Roma, primordiais às pesquisas que investigam a amplitude e a importância das viagens e peregrinações na Idade Média. Por fim, às atenções são destinadas às análises do mito de São Tiago e dos seus milagres narrados no Liber Sancti Jacobi e suas interferências, motivações e inspirações para a construção e promoção do caminho de Santiago de Compostela.

The Medievalizing Process: Religious Medievalism in Romantic and Victorian Literature posits religious medievalism as one among many critical paradigms through which we might better understand literary efforts to bring notions of sanctity back into the modern world. As a cultural and artistic practice, medievalism processes the loss of medieval forms of understanding in the modern imagination and resuscitates these lost forms in new and imaginative ways to serve the purposes of the present. My dissertation proposes religious medievalism as a critical method that decodes modern texts’ lamentations over a perceived loss of the sacred. My project locates textual moments in select works of John Keats, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde that reveal concern over the consequences of modern dualism. It examines the ways in which these texts participate in a process of rejoining to enchant a rationalistic epistemology that stymies transcendental unity. I identify the body of Christ, the central organizing principle of medieval devotion, as the cynosure of nineteenth-century religious medievalism. This body offers a non-dualistic alternative that retroactively undermines and heals Cartesian divisions of mind and body and Kantian distinctions between noumenal and knowable realities. Inscribing the dynamic contours of the medieval religious body into a text’s linguistic structure, a method I call the “medievalizing process,” underscores the spiritual dimensions of its reform efforts and throws into relief a distinctly religious, collective agenda that undergirds many nineteenth-century texts.

This study focuses on the peculiar success that a number of Middle English romances achieved in fourteenth-century England. The romances, Otuel a Knight, Otuel and Roland, Duke Rowland and Sir Otuell of Spayne, Sir Ferumbras, Firumbras, and The Sowdone of Babylone, are narratives about the Saracen knight Otuel or Ferumbras who convert to and fight for Christianity. Given the particular cultural preoccupation with the crusades in Europe and the common vilification of Islam throughout European literature, the popularity of a Saracen hero for the English is unexpected. In accounting for the popularity of these figures and their tales in medieval England, I analyse through a socio-historic approach the concepts of Islam and views of conversion in medieval Europe and England, the particular resonances between English concerns and these narratives, and the converts and conversions in these romances. I approach this subject with an eye to source material from historical documents, comparing the subject matter of the romances to the preoccupations of medieval Christians demonstrated in the historical material. Through this discussion, it becomes clear that the popularity of these romances was assured because of the unwavering promotion and idealizing of the project of Christian reclamation and unification exemplified through the tales. Differently from much scholarship on romances that extensively use Saracen characters, this study demonstrates that the Saracens in these romances become less of an Other and more of a misled aspect of Christianity that must be led back to the church for the complete unification of Christendom to take place.

Abstrack Jagellonian goldmongery The theme of Jagellonian goldmongery opens the subject issue of the second half of the 15th century to the first half of the 16th century, still overlapping deep into the Renaissance times. It is an art that, in many respects, was inspired by the pre-images from the Luxebourgish times, which had deeply influenced cultural happening in the country. Modern tendencies were adopted creating together with the earlier traditions a distinctive blend of transient art. Jagellonian jewels are mainly reliquiary busts of St. Vitus, St. Wenceslas and St. Adalbert. They are considered the preserved presciousness of the dome's treasure. On these a precious metal is carved and modelled according to a sculptural method. The notional peak is not represented by these works alone yet it is a collection of works from which we can compile an evolutionary line that enables us to view the period of the Jagellonian reign in our country. Keywords Jagellonian goldmongery, dome's treasure, reliquiary bust, Jagellonian Po et znak (v etn mezer): 116 940