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Home , Gervasius and Protasius, History of Switzerland, Muri Abbey

MORBID REVELATIONS: THE CULT OF SAINTS AND THEIR DISPLAYS IN THE 17TH-CENTURY SWISS CONFEDERACY

IVY MARGOSIAN

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2017

I dedicate this research to my father.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my advisor Dr. Elizabeth Ross of the

University of Florida. Throughout my research she has been a source of guidance and support, and her enthusiasm for the subject was a constant reassurance. She consistently allowed this work to be my own, but gave direction whenever I found myself struggling. I would also like to thank Dr Elizabeth Jones, who helped me discover the basis for my research. Her curiosity fueled my own – for that, I am grateful. I would also like to extend a final thanks the entire

Department of Art and Art History for the opportunities and education they have provided me with during my graduate term.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4

ABSTRACT ...... 6

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 7

2 RELICS AND THEIR RELIQUARIES ...... 11

3 THE REFORMATION IN THE SWISS CONFEDERACY ...... 29

4 REVEALING THE RELICS OF MURI ABBEY ...... 39

5 CONCLUSION...... 58

LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 62

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 68

Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

MORBID REVELATIONS: THE CULT OF SAINTS AND THEIR DISPLAYS IN THE 17TH-CENTURY SWISS CONFEDERACY By

Ivy Margosian

December 2017

Chair: Elizabeth Ross Major: Art History

Within the seventeenth-century Oktogon of Muri Abbey, two altars face one another. The fragmented bodies of saints are displayed prominently within vitrines, decorated with fine embroidery and glittering gems. The remains of Saints Benedictus and Leontius exist within a tradition of relic veneration stemming from early Christianity. The display of the saints of Muri occupies a special place in the history of relics—no longer hidden by a reliquary, these relics are completely exposed.

This thesis examines the circumstances under which the relic may exist unobscured.

Examining early practices within the cult of saints reveals theological concerns of the finite and eternal find resolution in the construction of reliquaries to house the reality of death and hide inexplicable notions of incorruptibility. This thesis argues that the relics of Muri Abbey came to exist outside of their reliquaries due to religious and political concerns whose solutions were found in contemporaneous art and architectural practices. Rather than compromising relic veneration, a tradition deeply ingrained in the Catholic Church, the relic was instead reframed for a contemporary audience.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

In May of 1647, Cardinal Alexander Victricius and several others documented the translation of the martyr remains of Saint Leontius. The body was lifted from the catacombs of

Callistus in the Roman Catacombs under the command of Pope Innocent X.1 Sent by Guard

Lieutenant Johann Rudolf Pfyffer2 on June 4 of 1647, Saint Leontius traveled through the border crossing of Jestetten, into Muri, Switzerland.3 In 1697, following the completion of the Oktogon, the abbey’s church. Saint Leontius was given a permanent home displayed opposite Saint

Benedictus, another relic received during the Middle Ages. They attracted hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and, in the years 1745-50, were placed in altars on either side of the nave.4 These two saints were completely exposed, sitting in clear vitrines and decorated with gems and delicate embroidery. Opened on feast days and special Christian holidays, these bones existed unobscured, left nothing to the imagination, and offered a direct confrontation with death.

Martyr remains have limitations placed upon them – their power, their meaning, their accessibility – to curate the interaction between the viewer and the relic. Bones are bodies ravaged by death and decay. They are a memento mori, a confrontation with the reality of the finite nature of human existence, and, within a ritual space, confrontation must be carefully curated. The Roman Catholic Church has long favored relics as powerful objects that produce miracles or act as intercessors between the faithful and God. Relics hold a space in the history of

1 Franz Rohner, Der heilige Leontius in Muri: Geschichtliches und Erbauliches zur 3. Zentenarfeier seiner Uebertragung (Muri: A. Heller, 1947), 3.

2 Pfyffer was the Vatican Ambassador of the Lucerne government and negotiated for the remains of St Leontius to be given to Muri Abbey.

3 Ibid., 4. Pfyffer was the Vatican Ambassador of the Lucerne government and negotiated for the remains of St Leontius to be given to Muri Abbey.

4 Ibid., 8.

Christianity that was met with both celebration and condemnation, discourses on their value as objects of veneration echoing through the centuries.

Christianity has been a religion particularly fixated on death and resurrection. Despite the assurance of salvation and eternal life through Christ, anxieties of the inevitability and material reality of death still permeated the Christian experience. When Christ ascended, he left nothing of himself behind. For a brief moment he returns through transubstantiation, but this act is limited in its ability to produce a physical presence beyond the consumption of the body and blood in Holy Communion. This tangible connection to Christ in the material world is fleeting.

Saints’ relics have a concrete presence through what they leave behind, creating not only a tangible connection to the holy, but also connection to humanity. The history of the cult of saints reveals these connections create a complex series of problems and occupy extensive discourse over centuries that are met with solutions meant to protect relic veneration as an important and indispensable part of worship.

Chapter 1 examines the ideologies behind martyrdom and material. A brief history of the

Church and its construction on the (almost literal) backs of saints and martyrs is considered, followed by the theological discourse surrounding the evolution of relics. Pilgrimages to martyr gravesites were a common practice and, over time, the bodies were exhumed and translated to new sites. Division of bodily remains came under intense scrutiny and required the Church to respond to the issues of dead matter and, what was potentially more disturbing, pieces of dead matter. The development of reliquaries responded to the concerns of visually confronting death.

The reliquary mitigated the gruesome reality of putrefaction – a reality from which saints were not exempt. Boxes, sometimes in the shape of busts, limbs and other objects were designed to contain and to obscure. Focusing on the perception of matter in the High Middle Ages and the

primarily visual experience of it, the Church develops a means not only to obscure the reliquary’s contents, but also to elevate it through popular religious culture.

Chapter 2 focuses on Switzerland, the location of the relics under scrutiny. The history of

Switzerland’s religious development is considered in brief, tying it to traditional, wide spread practices of Catholicism. The cult of saints was as popular in Switzerland as it was in most of

Europe. The unique religious and political landscape of the Swiss Confederacy stemmed from its geographic circumstances. While isolated by the Alps and the Jura Mountains, the country managed to play a significant role in relics’ shift from hidden to revealed.

Chapter 2 also considers the rationale behind this transformation from obscurity to transparency in the visual presentation of relics. The canton of Zurich became a battleground of iconoclasts as Protestant Reformer Ulrich Zwingli set into motion a break from the Roman

Catholic Church. A brief history of Switzerland provides a foundation for the later developments in the Protestant Reformation. The cult of saints and Zwingli’s theological oppositions to relic veneration resulted in an iconoclasm unique to the Swiss Confederacy: one that was legal and complete. The clash between Zurich and the surrounding Catholic cantons manifested in a divided religious landscape that developed Catholic strongholds. In response to the Protestant threat, the relic economy was reinvigorated by the Roman Catholic Church and bodies were translated north to the front lines of religious divides. Muri Abbey received Saint Leontius in

1647 and, in the years to come, underwent construction to strengthen Muri’s position as a

Catholic stronghold.

Chapter 3 explores the application of the visual programs within Muri Abbey that facilitate the exposure of its relics. To counter the Protestant threat, the Roman Catholic Church turned to the arts to encourage a return to the faith. The development of the Jesuit baroque style

within Rome spread north through the Alps and reached Muri Abbey. Jesuit influence projects through the thematic and pedagogical frescos on the walls and ceilings, while the altars resemble the Jesuit styles of theatrical apparati developed for the Forty Hours of Devotion. Later rococo additions call to the skill of human hands through abstract ornament. The material elements of the reliquary adhere to the relic, while the altar provides a stage set on which the relics perform.

Each element of the altars’ design works together to reestablish past truths of the cult of saints in a contemporary context. The decorative program of the Oktogon and its impact on the relics of saints Benedictus and Leontius allowed these relics to exist unobscured.

This is not a study of the relic as object, but rather a study of how material and space influence the perception of the relic. It is a question of how the relic functions, hidden in a reliquary or exposed upon an altar. The theological problems extant in the discourse of relics and their presentation shift with changing paradigms in Christianity. Issues of what an object can and cannot do, or what an object can and cannot represent, present the opportunity of a relic existing in a transparent container, as if outside of the reliquary.

CHAPTER 2 RELICS AND THEIR RELIQUARIES

Materials incite the senses through smell, touch, taste, hearing, and most importantly, sight. Matter and its physicality provide a reality for the matter of the intangible. This chapter addresses material, both naturally produced – bodily remains left after the process of decay – and manipulated – the reliquary container – to facilitate the paradoxical issues of the intangible presence of saints long after their death. Before assessing the exhibition of the remains of Saints

Benedictus and Leontius in Muri Abbey, the ideological shift in the exposure of human remains versus their early obfuscation must be examined. Deconstructing the reliquary, the material and holy matter inside will be examined. A history of the cult of saints provides a foundation from which the importance of the material aspects of the relic and therein the necessity of the reliquary emerges. Theological arguments and the ensuing ecclesiastical responses will reveal the reliquary and its decoration as indispensable features of relic display.

Cynthia Hahn lists the contents of the Andreas Portable Altar (c. 980): the nail of the

Lord, the sandal of Andrew, the beard of Peter, and other “other holy relics.”1 In this case, none of the items listed are body parts, yet all the objects are small and even delicate. The process of time wears down these objects, erodes their substance, and threatens their longevity. These objects are also seemingly ordinary. A nail is a tool, used in constructing, fastening, adhering one object to another. The nail also represents the many crucifixions performed during the Roman

Empire. Without its bejeweled encasement, this object becomes an ordinary remnant of everyday life. While a collection of hair does not seem as commonplace as a nail, the hair could belong to anyone. A sandal was also a common artifact used by countless people to protect their feet

1 Cynthia Hahn, Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400 – circa 1204 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 5.

during travel. In the case of “other holy relics,” a more complicated issue arises: what does

“other” imply? The possibilities are boundless, given almost any object can become a relic, and in this circumstance, the “other holy relic” could easily be dust.2

What is the reliquary? A reliquary is a container holding the relic. What, then, is a relic?

One quickly associates the bodily remains of holy persons or splinters of the Holy Cross. When

Christ ascended, he left nothing of himself behind – no bodily remains to commemorate his presence. Saints, though, leave their followers with a plethora of material. These relics range from bone fragments, such as the martyr Febronia’s teeth, to liturgical objects, such as the apostle Peter’s staff, to bits of cloth, dirt, or dust. These objects still hold power after saints’ deaths. The saints work through them as an intercessor between the faithful and God, providing miracles for the those who elicit their favor through prayer. Pilgrims travel great distances to visit these relics, seeking blessings. Yet, upon arrival, the faithful do not see the relics. What they see is the reliquary.

Prior to the development of relic translation, grave sites acted as places of pilgrimage – where a body was buried was where it remained, and worshipers traveled great distances to venerate the remains of holy martyrs. As Christianity developed into an organized religion after the death of Constantine, the Christian Church established an architectural presence in the

Roman Empire.3 Soon after the Church began to build, erecting churches and basilicas overtop the tombs of martyrs.4 With new wealth, the catacombs were excavated, expanded, and given

2 Cynthia Hahn, "Relics and Reliquaries: A Matter of Life and Death" (presentation, HESCAH Lecture Series, Gainesville, FL, March 16, 2017).

3 Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead do Such Great Things?: Saints and Worshipers from the Martyrs to the Reformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 8.

4 Ibid, 8

larger points of entry for visitors to venerate the martyrs beneath the earth.5 Constantine raised the most important of basilicas in Rome, San Pietro, overtop the tomb of the apostle Peter and beside Nero’s circus, the site of many Christian martyrs’ deaths.6 The Church recognized early

Christian cemeteries as a place where Heaven and Earth meet.7 As burial practices in Ancient

Rome involved the entombment of bodies outside city walls, these newly erected basilicas existed beyond the boundaries and, over time, these churches built on funerary sites remade the map of the ancient city.8

The Roman Catholic Church grew, and alongside it the need for relics. In the year 385

AD, the bones of martyrs Gervasius and Protasius left their unmarked burial, translated to the

Sant’Ambrogio Basilica and placed under the high altar. In a letter to his sister, Marcellina, Saint

Ambrose jubilantly describes his discovery of the martyrs at the tomb of Saints Felix and Nabor:

…I caused the ground to be opened before the rails of the Church of S.S. Felix and Nabor…We found two men of stupendous size, such as belonged to ancient days. All their bones were entire, and there was much blood…The people flocked thither in crowds throughout the whole of those two days. We arranged all the bones in order, and carried them when evening set in, to the Basilica of Fausta…9

Exhuming the bodies of martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, Saint Ambrose ushered in a new era of relic worship. Saint Ambrose legitimized exhumation and translation through recounting a dream in which the location of the martyrs had been miraculously revealed.10

5 Ibid, 8.

6 Ibid., 8-9, Recorded deaths took place in 64 AD.

7 Peter Brown, Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Christianity (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981), 7.

8 Bartlett, 10.

9 Robert Pearse, “St Ambrose Letters (1881). pp 137-213, Letters 21-30.”

10 Augustine, City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887) XXII.xiii.

Augustine (354-430 AD) was present when Saint Ambrose placed the remains of Saints

Gervasius and Protasius into the newly erected the Basilica of the Martyrs.11 Augustine provided an abstract approach to the justification of the cult of saints,12 which came under scrutiny following Ambrose’s translation. A prohibition enacted in 386 had denied the moving, selling, or trafficking of martyrs.13 In his City of God, he dedicates Chapter Eight of Book XXII to miraculous events he claims to be rare in present times, and among these the unique and supernatural visions of Ambrose. Ambrose claimed “…by virtue of these remains the darkness of that blind man was scattered, and he saw the light of day.”14 The exhumation was not only divinely inspired, but the translation was also justified by healing capabilities exhibited during their move from the grave to the basilica. Augustine continued, claiming the saints raised were

“all complete,” and further “incorrupt bodies.”15 The remains obtained power through Christ as members of his own body, bestowing His incorruptible flesh onto them.16 These saints were whole and powerful.

Both Ambrose’s and Augustine’s celebration of translation did not go unchallenged. A past of extensive discourse regarding the decay of holy matter led to regular scrutiny on the decorum of raising and moving holy bodies. In later centuries, these bodies were divided and distributed, inciting further criticism from different parts of the theological community. A loose

11 The basilica today is known as Sant’ Ambrogio Basilica.

12 Bartlett, 22.

13 Martina Bagnoli and Holger A. Klein, Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe (London: British Museum Press, 2011), 56.

14 Augustine, City of God, XXII.xiii.

15 Martina Bagnoli and Holger A. Klein, 22.

16 Ibid., 22.

consensus was met among those who supported the distribution and veneration of relics: the burial sites of saints and, eventually, their body parts within reliquaries, are exempt from the horrors associated with death and decay, and their preasentia, or presence, allows the ‘special dead’ to exhibit potentia, or powers with which they perform miracles, whether they are whole or divided.17 Body part relics of saints present a problem: these fragmented bodies must be incorruptable.

The putrefaction of remains exists in direct opposition to the idealogies of saints’ presences within their remains. Further, decayed and fragmented bodies pose another issue: if not whole, how does the saint occupy his or her remains? Although to what extent these remains’ putrefaction proved contentious for the lay medieval audience is unknowable, the dialogue between theologians asserts a concern with the oppositional nature of the holy and putrefaction.

Theologians for centuries address this issue with varying success. For example, the Church

Father, Saint Jerome (340-420), expresses his frustration with Vigilatius18:

To be wept over by all Christian men, [Vigilantius] sees not that in speaking thus he makes himself one with the Samaritans and the Jews who hold dead bodies unclean and regard as defiled even vessels which have been in the same house with them, following the letter that kills and not the spirit that gives life. … I ask Vigilantius, Are the relics of Peter and of Paul unclean? Was the body of Moses unclean, of which we are told (according to the correct Hebrew text) that it was buried by the Lord Himself? … Let him answer me this, Was the Lord's body unclean when it was placed in the sepulchre? And did the angels clothed in white raiment merely watch over a corpse dead and defiled…19

17 Ibid., 107.

18 Vigilantius’ own writings have been lost. What is accessible in direct quotation is subject to scrutiny, given much is provided by St Jerome in his oppositional standpoint within Contra Vigilantium. Hunter provides an extensive review of Vigilantius, both biographical and theological. David D. Hunter, "Vigilantius of Calagurris and Victricius of Rouen: Ascetics, Relics, and Clerics in Late Roman Gaul". Journal of Early Christian Studies (1999).

19 Jerome, Letter 109, Part One. Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post- Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.)

The debate first addresses not the relics, but persons with whom concerns of decay are associated. Deflecting Vigilantius’ preoccupation with death and decomposition was in and of itself unnecessary to the Christian faith, and Jerome further subverts the argument by calling attention to the problem of referring to the remains of holy men as “unclean.” Death, here, is immediately associated with the defiled and unclean and therefore cannot coexist with the remains of saints who, no longer manifesting their physical form and yet present within their physical remains, are holy and eternal. Jerome continues, “… If dead men's bones defile those that touch them, how came it that the dead Elisha raised another man also dead, and that life came to this latter from the body of the prophet which according to Vigilantius must have been unclean?”20 Here, Jerome considers the problem of the association of unclean with that which cannot decay.21 The unpolluted saints are not subject to the standard processes of decomposition as their remains are not unclean. In fact, these bones have the power to resurrect – a theme that persists in later centuries.

The concerns of dead matter and holy matter continue into the much later 11th and 12th centuries. Blessed Peter of Montboissier (also known as Peter the Venerable) repeats many of

Jerome’s contentions:

But suppose someone says: “What does it profit us to honor a lifeless body… bones lacking in sense?” …we anticipate for them a future resurrection in their bodies with immortality and in every sense incorruptibility. For this reason we do not debase as inanimate, despise as insensate, or trample under foot, like the cadavers of dumb beasts… rather we venerate them as temples of the Lord…[and] preserve them as vessels of resurrection…22

20 Ibid.

21 Caroline Walker Bynum, Resurrection of the Body (Columbia University Press: Columbia, SC, 2010), 107.

22 Ibid., 178.

As with Jerome, Blessed Peter of Montoboissier returns to the rhetoric of incorruptibility and resurrection. Peter returns to the restoration of life, this time referring to the saints themselves.

The expectation of bodily resurrection encourages veneration and above all preservation of relics.

Beyond issues of corruption, the acquisition and distribution of relics came under scrutiny. After Ambrose’s uprooted martyrs, as the practice of translation was not only accepted but encouraged, a shift occurred in the cult of saints and relic veneration. The understanding of the intercessory power of saints facilitated not only the movement of martyr bodies, but their disassemblage and the circulation of their fragments. As previously mentioned, saints perform miracles whether whole or divided.23

In its earliest conceptions, the cult of saints opposed the fragmentation of martyr bodies.

Parts considered superfluous, such as hair, teeth, or fingernails, could be taken on theological grounds.24 The taking of what constituted more intergral elements of the body, such as fingers, hands, arms or legs, was believed to incite the wrath of the saint.25 In the vita of Febronia, for example, following her death and entombment in her monastery, local bishops came to retrieve a relic to bring back to their church.26 When the bishops attempted removing her hand, thunder cracked and the earth shook, but the bishops remained adamant. The abbess complied, albeit

23 Ibid., 107.

24 Martina Bagnoli and Holger A. Klein, 22.

25 Ibid., 22. The categorization of superfluous and visceral parts lay in the workings of saints. These saints communicated the word with magical workings facilitated by touch, or carried the message of Christ across great distances with their legs.

26 Sebastian Brock and Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient (Berkley: University of California Press, 2010), 175-176.

nervously, and plucked a tooth held in Febronia’s hands.27 Having this relic within the bishops’ church would inevitably encourage pilgrimages and the miracles performed by this tooth would hopefully encourage pagan conversion.28

The tooth of Febronia, already separate, left her body intact within her tomb, but this tradition evolved to accommodate the spread of Christianity. In need of relics across greater

Europe, the Church began to divide the bodies of martyrs. The circumstances are somewhat unclear in terms of what initiated the fragmentation and distribution of parts (parts, here, is referring to those deemed intergral rather than superfluous), and the theological debate attempting to validate or discredit the practice is often ambiguous and confusing.29 Yet by the

High Middle Ages, holy matter was divided with exuberance.30 The faithful waited at the deathbeds of holy people in hopes of obtaining a fragment from the body as soon as the bones were prepared for distribution; monasteries broke down their own relics to bestow gifts upon daughter houses; and pieces were carried about town by religious authorities to deliver blessings.31 Building from the ideology of the incorruptibility of the saint after death, theologians had to consider why this matter resisted not only the natural process of putrefaction, but also division. At the center of the discourse was a return to the understanding that saints remain whole through the fullness of Christ, indivisible and perfect.32

27 Ibid., 176. An aspect of Febronia’s martyrdom involved the removal of her teeth during torture. When her body was returned and entombed to the convent, the teeth pulled were placed in her hands.

28 Martyr stories bear a degree of embellishment meant to encourage conversion. In the case of Febronia, pagans within the crowd of onlookers converting to Christianity immediately following her death. This not only encourages conversion, but reaffirms the faith to Christian readers.

29 Bynum, 164.

30 Ibid., 193.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid., 180.

This explanation begged elaboration. Returning to the writings of Jerome, he explains

“…if the Lamb is everywhere, those who are with the Lamb should be believed to be everywhere. When the devil and demons go about the earth, how can the martyrs, after pouring out of their blood, be left waiting, shut up under the altar…? The saints are not dead, but sleeping.”33 He first refers to the ways in which the saints, like Christ and dependent on Christ, remain whole. To assert his point, he references the martyrs “shut up under the altar,” or rather those parts held within reliquaries, and implies they should not lie inert when the devil and demons are present. Instead, the saints “…are not dead, but sleeping,” calling attention to the inevitable resurrection of the body. It is important to note, however, that during Jerome’s time, he had confronted these bodies already divided and, in defense of their holiness, claimed God viewed the tortured and divided martyrs as if they were whole in heaven.34

It is this point – the saints pictured as whole in heaven – that becomes the driving force behind the rationalization of excessive division. Bodily separation had not been the first means of fragmentation, as realized in the Reliquary of Saint Andreas previously discussed. Even prior to bodily remains, saints were understood to manifest spiritual powers within other material relics and contact relics. The assertion of a real presence of the saint in their relics encouraged and propagated the belief that the saints’ power could now manifest not just in the complete body, but also through the fragmented parts, just as with the original miscellany of holy objects that were used as relics before.35

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Martina Bagnoli and Holger A. Klein, 23.

The ability of the saint to be manifest in their fragmented bodies, as well as to remain whole in heaven also created the unique quality that separates the martyrs from other holy figures of worship. Saints were not unlike the angelic messengers of God, although the space they occupied in the minds of the faithful was different. Returning to Augustine, he describes the saints as a part of the chain of meditation between God and man. Only martyrs could bridge this fault between the finite and the eternal. The martyrs reached between Heaven and Earth as intercessors, a task achievable only through their humility in human death.36 The fundamental difference between the angelic intercessors and the saints is the tangibility of the latter’s humanity.37 Saints provided that tangible link between God and humankind with material evidence of having lived.

The cult of saints and relic worship, thus, was not without controversy. The theological debates of the past created issues that would require complex responses on the part of the

Church. While perhaps not concerned with philosophical debate to the same extent as the Church

Fathers and ecclesiastical hierarchy, the laity share concerns of mortality. Eternal life was desired, yet not assured without the proper religious procedures, and confronting the reality of death is exacerbated by a direct encounter with human remains. It seems the only viable solution to this problematic confrontation is to put body parts into boxes. The reliquary provides the answer to several concerns, among which the confrontation of death and decay remains most important.

The nature of reliquaries is complex, but not all issues of relics lie in their presentation.

Simple solutions provided by the reliquary include the protection of delicate matter. Bones

36 Brown, 61.

37 Ibid., 61.

become brittle and need protection from the individuals who wish to venerate them through touch.38 Thus, rather than touching bone, pilgrims will touch the reliquary, wearing down the decorated surface of a container rather than the saints’ precious remains. Reliquaries were often redesigned or rebuilt over time, or remains were shifted into completely different containers.

The reliquary also provides a means of easy transportation. As previously mentioned, relics are paraded around the town to bless pilgrims and property. This portability is one of the most vital aspects of relic exchange, between aristocrats and churches alike. Mimicking tombs or altars under which holy figures were inhumed, early reliquaries were often conceived in the shape of altars and carved with scenes of biblical narratives or stories of the saint’s life. The materials used ranged from wood to silver, they could be carved or decorated, or even remain unadorned.39 These early reliquaries were hidden for most of their existence within altars of the early church.40

While some of the earliest reliquaries are modest in comparison to their later counterparts, they are part of a growing tradition. As the centuries progressed, reliquary designs became more elaborate. Some presented as literal representations of what lay inside, as, for example, the relics of the True Cross whose reliquaries took the shape of a cross.41 While some reliquaries do offer a more literal image of their contents, reliquaries, such as the foot of Saint

Andreas, do not to hold precisely what they represent. The foot reliquary contains a sandal, but not a foot. Further, it contains other items – hair, a nail, and holy dust. Rarely do reliquaries offer

38 Cynthia Hahn, "Relics and Reliquaries: A Matter of Life and Death.”

39 Hahn, Strange Beauty, 61.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., 46.

a definitive visual relationship between the outside design and the contents; making the relationship more difficult to define, little evidence remains of most reliquaries’ contents.42

In the case of cruciform reliquaries, while seemingly simplistic in its design and execution, they perform a far more complex function using the materials as a guide. The container becomes a barrier between the pilgrim and this preoccupation with the inevitability of death and the purity of the eternal. Obscuring the relic requires the container to operate through the material of the reliquary, and such the function of these materials relied on the ability of a medieval audience to navigate a series of complicated signs through haptic, visual, and learned experiences during the process of relic veneration. Learned skills of reading the materials of reliquaries were disseminated through the liturgy, martyrs’ vitas, and letters of Church Fathers.

The church utilized the language of the senses for centuries. The descriptions in vitas of martyrs as smelling of incense, of gruesome dismemberment, and of elaborate visions all harken to an early reliance on the physical sensations needed to create a tangible experience of something beyond the physical world. Saint Augustine wrote extensively on the senses – he lauded their importance while condemning overindulgence.43 The Church associated the cult of the saints with the smell of incense to stimulate imaginative reminders of the church itself, whose censors unfurled with smoke during the liturgy.44 Carefully orchestrating the types of sensory

42 Ibid.

43 Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Berkley: University of California Press, 2015), 162.

44 Ibid., 166-167. Saint Simeon, and Saint Simeon the Younger, are examples of martyrs characterized by their smells in life. Saint Simeon on his pillar was described to smell terrible, his flesh rotting and wounds festering. In later writings on Simeon the Younger, incense was an important part of his story. Incense burned without fire due to his prayer, he was concealed from marauding Persians by a cloud of perfume, and in visions, the scents of Heaven pour down upon him. 195.

input relating to saints, the Church curated an understanding of material experience and impressed it upon its followers.

In order to reconstruct these processes of reliquary veneration, I will consider the Arm

Reliquary of St. Walpert and the material primacy of which shapes an understanding of its unknown contents. The carefully articulated golden hand of Saint Walpert rises out of an elaborately patterned silver sleeve with a gesture of blessing. A golden cuff bearing an elaborate filigree design of curling tendrils inlaid with cabochon gems is draped over a loose, outer silver sleeve. The outer cuff mimics the inner, exhibiting similar ornamentation of swirling filigree set with stones. Small golden balls line the outer forearm, perhaps intended to represent buttons or other fastenings. A ring of glass intaglio on the middle finger pictures a female head, while the arched, silver base is adorned with medallions picturing the Evangelists at their writing desks with their corresponding symbols.45 Large, cabochon rock crystals set in gold anchor each corner of the top of the base.46 An important aspect in the analysis of this particular reliquary lies in the lack of information on what it actually contained. In this way, the understanding of this relic and its spiritual value relies on what can be interpreted from the reliquary.

The reliquary’s shape does not always reflect its contents, but body part reliquaries play a haptic role in relic veneration. The gesture of the Arm Reliquary of Saint Walpert is a familiar one, and lends to the haptic function of the hand as a means to bless pilgrims.47 Reliquaries were, first and foremost, portable.48 Carrying the reliquary of Saint Walpert during the liturgy allowed

45 Timothy B. Hudson and Julien Chapuis, Treasury of Basel Cathedral (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 56.

46 Ibid.

47 Hahn, Strange Beauty, 138.

48 Martina Bagnoli and Holger A. Klein, 112.

the priest to extend the arm out and bless the faithful. Hands took part in baptism and performing miracles. The hand was an important part of Christian worship and, by extension, the hand reliquary represented these subtleties. Further, as the priest extends the reliquary to touch the faithful, it is not just an extension of the priest’s arm, but also that of the saint it represents.49 The saint acts beyond the limitations of bodily presence through the reliquary’s form.

The second process of veneration involves understanding the design of the reliquary through its material construction. Just as important as the representation of the hand itself, the aesthetic appeal gives a simple result: a sense of awe. The materials involved in reliquary construction were often expensive.50 Most laity would have little to no access to lavish stones and precious metals, making the viewing of elaborate and extravagant reliquaries a particularly special experience. What wealth a church chooses to invest in the construction of a reliquary also serves a purpose in encouraging pilgrims to visit the church and venerate the relic. The experience of the reliquary as memorable and awe inspiring ensures not only the return of these pilgrims, but also the encouragement of others to travel and receive blessings. The learned experiences— the rhetoric of the senses within worship—of the medieval audience, brought greater complexity to the haptic and visual aspects of relic veneration.

A reliquary’s beauty is only one component of the visual experience, but it was often a dangerous one. Cynthia Hahn describes two distinct meanings of seeing in medieval art: ideas of sight built on theological, scientific, and cultural understanding, and ideas of sight build on mental and revelatory or nightmarish experiences.51 The development of a theological

49 Hahn, Strange Beauty, 137-142.

50 Conrad Rudolph, A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), 44.

51 Ibid.

perspective on sight revolves around the writings of Augustine, whose writings on sight influenced medieval notions of seeing. The lowest form of vision is “corporeal vision,” consisting of what one sees with the eyes of the body. The second level is “spiritual vision” in which images occur within dreams or the imagination, largely although not exclusively dependent on corporeal vision. For example, this dependence could be a stimulation of the senses through corporeal vision, such as viewing a reliquary, to inspire a spiritual image, or vision, of the saint being venerated. The final, “intellectual vision,” occurs in the highest levels of the mind with the possible perceptions of divine truths.52 Augustine is careful to warn against the dangers of corporeal vision, imploring that one “…not take delight in carnal pleasure…in perceptions acquired through the flesh. It is a vain inquisitiveness dignified with the title of knowledge and science…. Pleasure pursues beautiful objects – what is agreeable to look at, to hear, to smell, to taste, to touch.”53 Paulinus of Nola further explains the act of looking takes time and may even strain the neck and cause physical discomfort.54 It takes time, effort, and even a small amount of suffering in order to apprehend a message that reaches beyond the carnal vision.

The complications of corporeal sight affect the ability to develop these higher forms of vision described by Palinus, and yet the reliquary requires decoration in order to fully appreciate the divine presence of saints manifested in their relics. The materials of the reliquary are thus infused into theology as a process of developing an understanding of the links material things have to divine presences and creation, utilizing material associations rather than denying them.55

52 Ibid., 45.

53 Harvey, 162.

54 Cynthia Hahn, “What do Reliquaries do for Relics”, Numen. 303.

55 Bynum, 82.

Giovanni di San Gimignano56 developed the survey of figures entitled Summa de exemplis et similitudinibus rerum (Survey of examples and similitudes of things). The collation and compartmentalization of figures of matter borrowed from the physical world were designed to bring clarity to abstract truths. Book two, in forty chapters, explains that all stones are figures for

God’s love.57 Each stone bears its own abstract idea. An excerpt from the text describes the relationship of Christ to a “diversity of mineral figure[s]”; he exists as the mountain on which

Isaac was to be sacrificed, and he is “chrysolite,” a stone whose shimmering properties embody aspects of both fire and water while also in name possibly stemming from Christus.58 The

“diversity of mineral figures” refers to Gimignano’s allegorical connections between the forty chapters of stones in book two and Christ.59 God’s love is solid like stone, and God’s love is infinite like God himself.60 The tangibility of stone and its nature as solid and difficult to manipulate become worthwhile analogy to an infinite God, but further, stones are hewed from the Earth just as man and woman were pulled from clay.61 Stones thus build a bridge between the notions of the finite: God; the infinite; humanity. Precious metals and stones shimmer in the low light of the flickering candles and offer another means by which the medieval viewer may reflect on the presence implied by the reliquary.62 Relics are physically distinguished as giving off light;

56 Didi-Huberman, Fra Angelico: Dissemblance and Figuration, 62-63. Gimignano was an important Dominican preacher of the fourteenth century.

57 Ibid., 63.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid.

this light is not stable, flickering and flashing, ultimately incandescent. Augustine once argued, in the case of another martyr, that the relic brought a “healing light to the whole world.”63

Of all the functions listed, the most important is the reliquary’s ability to disguise the relic within. The question of the relic has yet to be answered. If not seen, what is the relic? How can the faithful discern what the relic is? First and foremost, the faithful is potentially confronted with bone. The body withers and dies and when the body decays it leaves behind bone. Bone, then, becomes a reminder of this process – the process of death and putrefaction. At its most simple, decomposition is vulgar as the body breaks down, submitting to the inevitability of reclamation by nature. The reality and inevitability of death confronted within the walls of the

Church, the space in which the prospect of eternal life is celebrated, creates a problematic paradox. The beauty of the reliquary not only functions to honor the saint, but also to mediate the interaction between the viewer and the relic inside. The relic inside is therefore invisible. The viewer must develop an understanding of the relic through the reliquary, whose shape is often deceiving of its contents.

Materials themselves held mystical connotations. While the reliquary does not always reflect what it carries, this does not change the way in which it performs. Relics are less influenced by the spatial context of the church in which they reside. The meaning of the hidden relic is primarily derived from the container. The interaction between lay people and relics was therefore carefully-meditated, a history of ideas behind materials curating representations. These materials blocked a gruesome truth of mortality and putrefaction and functioned to restore an elevated perception of the saints’ remains they contain. The parameters designed to influence and guide understanding of the materials used in the construction of reliquaries would ultimately

63 Ibid.

shift in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. With the Church under attack and relics being destroyed in iconoclastic revolt, the Roman catacombs were opened and saints traveled through the Alps and into the Cantons of Switzerland, ushering in a new era of deliberate transparency made possible through changing notions of materiality.

CHAPTER 3 THE REFORMATION IN THE SWISS CONFEDERACY

Switzerland is a country of unique geographical and political circumstances. The modern country of Switzerland as it exists today belies a complex history of division. It stands out as a neutral nation separate from the European Union, an echo of a past favoring carefully guarded borders as a means of selective isolation. It was a country with a reluctance to allow outside influence, which was minimized by both a unique geography that facilitated carefully controlled borders. Although remaining subject to internal conflict more so than the threat of outside aggressors due to its selective isolation, Switzerland was not exempt from the popular political and religious trends in the greater Europe. The loosely knit Swiss Confederacy during the 16th century found itself on the front lines of a religious rift between Catholics and Protestants as the

Reformation.

Geographically divided from the surrounding territories of France, Italy, and Germany,

Switzerland controlled – both economically and politically – what was permitted to permeate its borders. The Alps divided the agricultural heartland of the Swiss midlands from Germany and

Italy to the east and the south, and to the west the Jura Mountains created a natural border with

France. Agrarian centers first developed in the midlands, though some parts of the Alps grew into larger agrarian communities as well.1 The population of the Swiss midlands was diverse, drawing including Celts, Romans, and Germanic migrants, and by the High Middle Ages,

French, Italian, German, and Rhaeto-Romance were all languages in frequent use.2 Urban centers

1 Clive H. Church, A Concise History of Switzerland, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 13.

2 Ibid., 16.

mainly developed in the midlands, although Lucerne became an exception located within the

Alps.3

The Swiss territories existed as an extension of the Holy Roman Empire. Bishoprics at centers from Geneva to Chur provide evidence of Christianity’s spread from the Roman period, and although Germanic invaders from the early fifth and sixth centuries were initially pagan, by

700 the territory was largely Christianized.4 The political fragmentation of the Swiss urban centers within the midlands and parts of the Alps ensured complex networks of ecclesiastical terrain.5 Five archbishops oversaw seven separate bishoprics in Basle, Chur, Como, Constance,

Geneva, Lausanne, and Sion/Sitton.6 Within these territories were numerous autonomous abbeys and cloisters.7 The Church maintained imperial privileges, carrying the status of ‘imperial liberty

(Reichsfreiheit) which granted them the greatest autonomy.8 The ideal of a universal Christian monarchy in the form of the Holy ‘Roman’ Empire persisted, and by 1000, this reconstructed empire included all of Switzerland.9 Ecclesiastical powers were thus empowered to control urban centers and exert political authority.

The Swiss Confederacy followed the trends of greater Europe. As several regional dynasties dissolved around 1200, new dynasties took their place, often lesser families seeking

3 Ibid., 17.

4 Ibid., 16.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid., 16-17.

7 Ibid., 17.

8 Ibid., 18.

9 Ibid., 20.

greater power.10 These families were met with the now prevailing weakened public order. Across

Europe, regional peace alliances both within the borders of modern Switzerland and with

German principalities and France reflected the interests of local elites.11 Switzerland participated in these alliances, securing safety with outside participation with France and Germany as well as within the borders of modern Switzerland. It was the peace alliance between the rural mountain valleys of Uri, Schwyz, and Nidwalden that is considered to be the beginning of the Swiss

Confederacy, or the Eidgenossenschaft.12 Zurich would later join the fold in 1292, followed by

Berne and Lucerne, and territories inner Swiss valleys following the Black Death.13 The Black

Death exacerbated labor conflict across greater Europe, and repeated popular rebellions became an imminent anxiety for feudal lords and aristocracy. Switzerland was not exempt from this civil unrest. The Appenzell wars of 1403-9 involved peasants challenging Kuno von Stoffel of Saint

Gallen, who, seeking and receiving help from the neighboring Hapsburgs, suffered defeat as peasants successfully drove out the Hapsburgs. Again, from 1415-36, the Swiss challenged the

Hapsburgs to gain control of the center of the Swiss midlands where the three rivers met. This victory usurped Hapsburg territory and secured relations with anti-Hapsburg cantons within the

Swiss Confederacy. These victories also foreshadowed a future for the Swiss Confederacy in which religious reform was primarily championed by peasants in rural instances of iconoclasm.

The cult of saints maintained its place in popular piety throughout Europe, including

Switzerland, prior to the Reformation. Muri Abbey, for example, received the fragmented bones of Saint Benedictus in the late Middle Ages, as well as two other unnamed saints. With the

10 Ibid., 22.

11 Ibid., 22-23.

12 Ibid., 23.

13 Ibid., 25-27.

encouragement that all altars should have a relic, Switzerland’s monasteries and churches acquired patron saints and hid them away in their respective reliquaries. The early sixteenth century proved challenging for the cult of saints as the Protestant Reformation took hold of

Europe, inspiring the destruction of images and relics alike. Zurich became the leading example of authorized iconoclasm throughout Reformed Europe.14 The Reformation racked Switzerland to its core and forged a deep rift between the Church and those seeking its reform.

It was ultimately the peasants, agrarian communities, and those that occupied the midlands and existed outside of the direct purvey of imperial powers of the Church and aristocracies that forged the political paths down which Switzerland would go. These republican polities made decisions based on the sway of their peasant populations in order to avoid more internal conflict, while also developing systems of government that would allow for greater independence from developing imperial families such as the Hapsburgs, recently driven out of the Confederacy. It was also these large groups of peasants that ultimately determined the extent to which Protestantism impacted the Swiss Confederacy or was opposed by Catholic cantons.

Ulrich Zwingli, a Reformed theologian from Toggenburg, arrived in Zurich in 1519 and, within two years, was preaching against many ancient practices, of which included pilgrimage and the cult of saints.15 Zwingli published a series of treatises and held several public disputations to rail against the Church and push for the removal of images, especially those of saints.16 His program for reform included a complete rejection of the cult of saints, rejecting the

14 Lee Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 22. Basel was also significant in the iconoclasms recorded in the wake of the Reformation, cited as the single greatest incident of illegal iconoclasm before the 1560s.

15 Wandel, 54.

16 Pamela Biel, "Personal Conviction and Pastoral Care: Zwingli and the Cult of Saints 1522-1530". Zwingliana. (1985). 449.

conception of saints as intercessory powers.17 Zwingli believed that the images and relics of saints, or other cult objects, incited idolatry (“abgötteri”) and turned people away from God.18 In his first disputation, Zwingli argued that the cult of saints does not appear in the Bible, though what does appear is the condemnation of images.19 The first public disputation, held in 1528, was followed six months later by the publication of Auslegen und Gründe der Schlußreden, in which

Zwingli returns to the Bible’s lack of sanctioned worship of the cult of saints. He points to lack of conclusive evidence in the New Testament regarding the saints as intercessors.20

The circulation of martyr remains across Europe did not deter Zwingli, who continued to argue for reform within the Church, arguing the dangers of the special status accorded to saints.

He contended that the faithful should address Christ directly, and should not rely on the saints who, like all of humanity, were fallible.21 The arguments for the saints’ special status as present in body and spirit within their remains held no place in Zwingli’s image of the ideal Church.

Zwingli’s message was debated in the urban Zurich, thanks to political and economic concerns, but was hastily accepted by more rural communities.

Rural acts of iconoclasm followed Zurich’s ruling that images be removed from churches. Iconoclasts were most active between September and November of 1523, and while the town council gave church officials and the patrons of the images or objects the choice to remove or destroy images within the church, records of those tried for the destruction of images

17 Ibid., 442-443.

18 Ibid., 443.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid., 450-451.

21 Biel, 433-434.

and objects show that many acted outside of these parameters.22 In Fraumünster, vandals smashed lamps before the altars of saints.23 These responses showed the Swiss were ready for reform. Little care was given to whether an object or image was publicly or privately owned – the fervor to relinquish the perceived power images held over worshipers grew until peasants stormed and destroyed Thurgau cloister in Ittingen in 1524.24 Individuals apart from the local clergy attacked public and private property, from statues to retables to lanterns.25

The place of relics was destabilized. The first introduction to a relic involves the reliquary. Obscured from sight, relics were rejected for their possible falsehoods as often these objects could not be identified as truly having belonged to saints, nor identified at all within their reliquaries. A larger threat: relics became susceptible to idolatry. While the contents may be described – Saint Andreas’ sandal, cloth, holy dust – there is still the missing component of visual affirmation. The question, then, is this: what do the faithful worship? When does the relic become the reliquary? The question of a manmade container and its ability to overshadow the significance of the relic brings to light a concern of where worship was directed: the relic, or the reliquary? The reliquary, in its decorative splendor and material associations, works to represent the relic inside.26 At the same time, because the reliquary’s design has the potential to

22 Wandel, 58.

23 Biel, 452-453.

24 Biel, 454. Church, 83.

25 Wandel, 88-90. Several accounts of individuals involved in destroying objects. In some instances, the objects are known, in others there is relatively little information regarding exactly what had been destroyed. In each instance, the individuals taking part do not have the legislated rights to decide how these images be removed from the church and instead take the matter upon themselves.

26 Cynthia Hahn, “What do Reliquaries Do for Relics?”. Numen (2010) 57 (3/4): 284-316, at 289.

overstimulate the senses27 and dictate the extent to which it is venerated28, Reformers claim an opportunity for idolatry. Just as the icons were destroyed in the name of rejecting idolatry, relics, too, fell victim to iconoclasts. As discussed in Chapter 1, the relic and reliquary have the potential to fuse, and therein produce an idol.

Concerns of fake relics or the conflation of relic and reliquary were not the only anxieties of iconoclasts. Rather, a misuse of Church wealth was evident as well in legal accounts of iconoclasts in Zurich. For example, an iconoclast by the name of Claus Hottinger took part in the destruction of a wooden crucifix.29 Among other reasons, Hottinger claimed he intended to sell the wood and release the funds back into the community to help the poor. The crucifix imprisoned that which could be used to heat and shelter – this imprisonment a longstanding issue of misuses of Church funds.30 The Church’s role in distributing alms was best seen neglected in objects such as reliquaries, precious metals and glittering gems dedicated to means that do not benefit the greater community. The same idea applies to the destruction of lanterns in Zurich.31

The wax used in the lanterns act as a metaphor to the larger consumption of candles within the churches, this use translating into a literal burning of excess wealth.

The Reformation in Zurich was fast and, of most areas affected by reform, the most complete.32 Legally, Zurich had legislated and therefore participated in iconoclasm, encouraging

27 Referring again to St Augustine’s criticism of the senses.

28 Hahn, “What do Reliquaries do for Relics?”, 293.Pilgrimage is inspired by relics, but those that are most visited, most venerated, are often the those within the most impressive reliquaries.

29 Wandel, 79.

30 Ibid., 79.

31 Finbarr Barry Flood, “Economy of Piety in Zurich,” in Ritual, Images, and Daily Life: The Medieval Perspective ed. Gerhard Jaritz (Zurich: Wien Zü rich Berlin Mü nster Lit, 2012), 170.

32 Wandel, 54.

local parishes and town authorities to choose to keep or remove images.33 The canton of Zurich was powerful, and the surrounding Catholic cantons struggled with Zurich’s reform. Losing favor with Rome would prove detrimental, yet no military force within the cantons could serve to check Zurich without great casualty and unravelling the structures of the Swiss Confederacy.34

With conflict building as more peasants demanded reform and cantons bent to these whims in preference for a church focused on the Word over images, Catholic and Reformed cantons threatened to collide. The Hapsburgs, now sought as allies by Catholic cantons, joined to defend the Church.35 When the strain between the cantons proved too great, in 1531, the Canton of

Schwyz marched troops into Zurich, which suffered a devastating defeat in the Battle of

Kappel.36 Zwingli died during the clash, but not without leaving behind his legacy of Church

Reform.37 Following the violence of the Battle of Kappel, the Swiss Confederacy agreed to recognize the existence of two faiths. Written into law, the cantons were thus encouraged to decide between the two faiths, becoming an early example of confessional self-determination, which was established in 1555 for the entire Holy Roman Empire.38

The damage of the iconoclasm had occurred. Icons and other religious objects, including relics, were destroyed.39 Muri Abbey’s location within the territory alongside Zurich placed it in the direct path of the Protestant threat, and well within the scope of iconoclasts. This destruction

33 Wandel, 60.

34 Biel, "Personal Conviction and Pastoral Care,” 446.

35 Church, 83.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid., 84.

38 Ibid., 86.

39 Trevor Johnson, "Holy Fabrications: The Catacomb Saints and the Counter-Reformation in Bavaria". The Journal of Ecclesiastical History (1996) 47 (2): 274-297, at 276.

from the protestant threat left a void in the relic economy and necessitated their restoration in areas reaffirming Catholic doctrine. While Muri was able to keep its relics safe from iconoclasts, situating itself as a Catholic stronghold amidst the reformed territories of the Swiss Confederacy meant a strong reaffirmation was needed. This reaffirmation of doctrine came in the form of translated saints from the Roman Catacombs.

During the recatholicization and the strengthening of those areas who maintained

Catholic doctrine, several catacombs were discovered, and others reopened, in the name of translating martyr bodies to the front lines of the protestant threat.40 In May of 1578, workers digging in the vineyard of Bartolomeo Sanchez discovered the entrance to a catacomb.

Dominican monk Alfonso Ciacconio found crypts and cubicula, some decorated with Christian paintings or inscribed with Latin or Greek. Although opened in 1578, what excavations did occur were on a small scale until 1620 and onwards as relics in the north were in high demand following the iconoclasms. These relics required official documentation prior to translation, a result of the Council of Trent responding to issues of false relics, empty reliquaries, and unidentifiable remains. In 1593, the Council of Trent reaffirmed the legitimacy of relic worship and reformed the procedures for authenticating relics.41 Plaques inscribed with martyr names

(and over time, plaques that simply contained certain remains of inscriptions as martyr bodies dwindled) were certified by select Church officials under formal guidance of the Roman Vicar

General, a process referred to as Praefectus curial Coemeteriorum. This process identified the beginning of relic translation to replace what the iconoclasm had destroyed. The redistribution of relics was particularly intense, fueled by the seemingly inexhaustible supply of martyr remains,

40 Johnson, 275.

41 Ibid, 276.

such as the Priscilla Catacombs and Saint Ursula’s 11,000 virgins, seen in the Cathedral of Saint

Ursula in Cologne. Muri Abbey, among many other churches across the confederacy, were given relics that joined those extant within the parishes.

Pastoral communities, urban centers, and cantons alike shuffled between the religious polarities just as the rest of Europe, still navigating similar issues of religious divides.42 As the northern canton of Saint Gallen seized its abbey and therein restored Catholicism around it

(1714),43 communities throughout the territories followed suit. Muri Abbey, having suffered many casualties to its ecclesiastical population over the period of the Reformation and confessions, was able to restore its Catholic identity and develop its final decorative program to bring back the faithful through the Counter-Reformation.44

42 Ibid., 95-97.

43 Ibid., 96.

44 Ibid.

CHAPTER 4 REVEALING THE RELICS OF MURI ABBEY

Maria Wüest, the Church historian of Muri Abbey, describes the building as a unification of baroque and rococo design.1 The abbey complex originated in 1027, a monastic stronghold of the Benedictine order.2 According to Rohner Franz in Der heilige Leontius in Muri:

Geschichtliches und Erbauliches zur 3. Zentenarfeier seiner Uebertragung, a publication approved by the church for the centennial celebration of the translation of Saint Leontius, the history of Muri boasts of surviving a series of challenging episodes, especially through the period of the Protestant Reformation. Founded by Itha von Lothringen in 1027, the abbey began as a convent, but by 1065 Benedictine monks from Schwarzwald settled into the foundation to form the additional abbey.3 Flourishing for the following centuries, the abbey meets the challenge of the Protestant reformation during which “…powerful abbots saved the convent from the religious confusions…”.4

The construction of the Oktogon came later. After centuries of renovation and reconstruction, the abbey church was partly rebuilt and given its unique baroque design during the years 1695-97, and the later additions of rococo embellishment came between 1745-50 under

Prince-Abbot Gerold Haimb.5 The abbey retained much of its original architecture amidst these changes, including the Romanesque crypt and south tower. These newly applied baroque schemes earned the title of the largest Oktogon in Switzerland, and its fame later brought it

1 Marie Wüest, Interviewed by Ivy Margosian. Muri, Switzerland, June 1, 2017, transcription.

2 Rohner, 3.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Simon Bachmann, The Abbey Church of Muri: A Monument of National Significance (Muri: Muri Abbey, 2005).

imperial status from Emperor Leopold I. Jodof Singisen (1596-1644), the most powerful abbot, fondly referred to as the second founder, lived through the struggles of the reformation ultimately dying before the celebrated translation of the Saint Leontius’ remains.6 It was the baroque restoration that Leontius was placed in his final position (fig 10).

The term baroque comes with a particular controversy. The use of the term lends itself to a “style,” which is painted with a broad stroke and applied haphazardly as a result. For our purposes, the definition must also be further narrowed in terms of the Italian baroque, which had the greatest impact on the design of the Oktogon of Muri Abbey. In Italy, the Reformation developed in a way that edged away from iconoclasm and instead redirected these iconoclastic urges into the refinement of the arts. The definition of baroque lies in the Church and its response to the Protestant threat, as well as the Jesuit influence through both written word and the development of a visual program that may encapsulate the ideologies behind the society’s own pedagogical goals. Both will be considered briefly in order to develop an understanding of stylistic choices in the abbey of Muri that allowed the display of relics without the original concern with theological discourse surrounding issues of death and decay.

The original plan of the baroque Oktogon reflected the spacious, open plan designs of the

Jesuit baroque, although walls were installed to accentuate the shape of the interior space as well as divide the two chapels holding the relics from the medieval period. Internal conflict in

Switzerland created struggles for the monastery in the following years. Hostility from the government of Argau in the early nineteenth century led to Muri Abbey’s eventual dissolution, closing its doors due to a lack of sustainable funding in the 1841. The church reopened its doors

6 Rohner, 5.

in the 1941 and began to undertake the massive project of restoring the abbey, with a focus on the Oktogon.7

The entrance today faces Markstrasse, opposite boutiques and restaurants. The renovations are extensive and ongoing, repairing and restoring the neglected abbey. The cobble stone path from the street is wide, several sets of stairs separating it from the thoroughfare below.

The façade contains three arches drawing visitors in, funneling them through three wooden doors

(fig 12). The doors on either side of the center are framed in terraced plaster, and above them are windows embedded in white, plaster tendrils of moulding. The central door sits between two plaster pillars, above it a plaster tympanum where two angels recline on either side of a rounded niche. The Virgin resides in the niche, her head bowed in a pious gesture toward visitors as they enter the Oktogon. Upon entering the narthex, the ceiling is low and on either side archways lead to the cloister museum (right) and a room now dedicated to office space. The narthex funnels to a single archway leading into the nave. Here, the church truly becomes the amalgamation of the baroque and rococo styles Wüest, Muri Abbey’s historian, described.

The white and somewhat minimal façade as well as the unadorned (and now utilitarian) narthex belie the interior grandiosity. 8 A regular feature of these Jesuit baroque churches lay in the façade – little or no façade sculpture aside from the ornamentation around the main portal – and the extensive visual programs of the interiors, which focused on a singular theme or narrative carried throughout the space.9 Upon entering the nave, the space opens up to the dome, which draws the eye almost instantly as it dances with brightly colored visages of angels and

7 Marie Wüest, Interviewed by Ivy Margosian. Muri, Switzerland, June 1, 2017, transcription.

8 The space has since been renovated for tourists, informational pamphlets distributed to the right upon entry, as well as framed plaques of floor plans and historical documents lining the walls.

9 Ibid., 123.

holy figures amidst the clouds. Just beyond the narthex, two niches lead churchgoers to either side of the pews, while others may move down the center. No vaulted arch is bare – each contains imagery, often of angels. Small roundels and half circles frame small images of putti while the undersides of arches are dotted with more. Wüest jokingly referred to the number of angels reaching into the hundreds, and believably so as the putti dance over arches and recline on ledges of plaster moulding. Above the main entrance, restored and repainted gold lattice covering faux green marble and framing the main organ.10 Standing at the mouth of the Oktogon, the viewer’s attention is drawn down the center of the aisle toward the high altar.

Angels, draperies, and tendrils of abstracted acanthus build and wind upward to frame three arches. A plaster ornamented roundel frames the Swiss seal alongside the that of the church donors, Count Radebot von Hapsburg and Ita of Lorraine, lifted by angels above the center of the middle arch, which leads the eye to the high altar. A space between seats the choir under a second dome, the ceiling of which contains the original, medieval painted decorations11, and beyond this the sanctuary is separate and elevated. On each side of the main arch are two smaller altars extending upward and framed in columns of painted, green marble, the motif then extending back into the nave and on each end forming a pulpit.12 The line of faux marble acts as a barrier for two more organs in recessed niches above the nave, completing the arches surrounding the central arch.13 Beneath the organs lie yet two more altars.

10 Bachmann, The Abbey Church of Muri. The main organ, Th. Schott, 1630. Rebuilt in 1744 by V.F. Bossart.

11 Ibid. Figure, parts of the abbey built prior to the Oktogon’s addition also retain their original medieval decoration, usually of winding vegetation and flowers. The crypt, behind several layers of stucco, also reveals work from the medieval period.

12 Ibid. In the south pulpit, a plaque in honor of Count Radebot von Hapsburg and Ita of Lorraine is displayed and presented by their kneeling sculpted likenesses on the parapet.

13 Ibid. The north and south organs, the south completed by P.J.J. Schnyder OSB in 1660, and the north completed in 1697 by H.M. von Zuben.

The rood screen separates the clergy from the congregation. This symmetrical gate of black, winding lattice mimics two gated niches on either side of the nave. Behind these gates, rising between two windows, are still more altars. These altars in particular house the relics of saints Benedictus and Leontius, their glass vitrines displaying their skeletal remains, disassembled and ornamented with fine jewels, gold and other precious metals, and ornate embroidery. Wüest described their displays originally being obscured by panels which only opened on feast days and other important Christian holidays. Today, they remain open to the public, yet unreachable beyond their gated screens.

What the viewer does not see is the passages leading further into the abbey. Saints’

Benedictus and Leontius’ niches have two small doorways accessing two more rooms on either side of the choir stalls, the Chapel of the Virgin beyond Leontius’ niche, and the Altar of Saint

Benedict beyond Benedictus’ niche. Each room contains an altar and similarly presented relics.

Currently, these altars remain closed to visitors and the congregation as the church continues to renovate the interior. The relics themselves have long since been left to the consequences of age.

The skeletal relics inside are similarly ornamented, although their glimmering jewels and bright metals have grown dull.

The visual program of the church seems overwhelming. Paintings, either framed oils or frescos, fill niches and crowd spaces. Gold winds up and around painted marble in vines and lattices from every side. Altars reach to the ceiling and guide the eyes across yet more painted marble and gold, drawing the eye around the Oktogon and back. The term excess seems fitting without a trained eye. In reality, Muri Abbey displays a carefully constructed program – the life of Christ. The ceiling frescoes were executed in 1697 by Francesco Antonio Giorgioli. The dome depicts over one hundred saints surrounding Christ on the Cross, God, and the Holy Spirit.

Medallions depict missionaries from the Benedictine order, permanently imprinting the celebration of the founding of Muri Abbey. The friezes under the windows include scenes from the Life of Christ, as well as the Passion. The reimagined baroque interior occurred over the years of 1695-1697, facilitated by Abbot Plazidus, the benefactor behind the employment of the architect Batista Bettini of Lugano. Bettini designed and executed the redecoration and was, most likely, who garnered the help of Giorgioli. The altars are all alike – built in tiers, some having fewer than others, and all framed in the same painted green and red marbles and gold embellishments. The visual ‘excess’ is carefully calculated and distributed, calling attention to important points within the space and telling a story.

The space is not only a reflection of Jesuit spiritual concerns through visual pedagogy – the adaptation of the Jesuit baroque makes space perform. Jesuits built churches that were tall, their plans open and spacious, reflecting the design of chiesa ad aula (spacious room style).14

The walls would be lined with two rows of chapels, and an area specialized for the major altar whose space enables it to function as a presbytery.15 These large, open spaces allowed for unobstructed views of the pulpit and choir to emphasize preaching and Mass.16 They also utilized these spaces for theatrical performances from students of the Jesuit schools.17 The order understood theater to be an important didactic instrument aiding the spread of their religious ideals. Jesuit Ignatius said in Constitutions that while prayer and personal intimacy with God

14 Giovanni Sale, “Architectural Simplicity and Jesuit Architecture,” in The Jesuits and the Arts: 1540-1773, ed. John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, and Giovanni Sale, S.J. (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005), 32.

15 Ibid.

16 Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Sensuous Worship: Jesuits and the Art of the Early Catholic Reformation in Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 46.

17 O’Malley, 32.

were the first means by which Jesuits were to accomplish their goals, “human means,” especially learning and eloquence, were also to be cultivated.18

The decorative program of Muri Abbey becomes a baroque stage, each element acting together to create a narrative beyond the literal pictorial sequences of Christ and other holy figures. This stage favors symmetry, develops closed and open spaces, dictates what is seen and what is drawn behind curtains. Images, liturgical objects, relics – all of these familiar pieces of

Catholicism and the Church – do not change. Images still teach, inspire and encourage vision, the

Eucharist and wine still transubstantiate into flesh and blood in dishes and chalices of silver and gold, and saints still reside in their relics long after death, using intercessory powers to bridge the gap between the finite and the infinite. What changes is the material and its meaning as it works to reframe old (contested) practices and bring them into the present. This reframing, a metaphorical stage undeniably crafted by human hands, allows the relic to exist outside of the reliquary. The psychological intensity of Muri Abbey’s decorative scheme resonates with the open presentation of bodily remains as part of a larger performance of the sensually visceral celebration of faith.

Saints Leontius and Benedictus reside in identical altars (fig 17, 18). The only differences between the two lies in the painted and sculptural program. The altar contains three tiers that reach toward the ceiling, the relics displayed in a niche at the top of the bottom tier. Carved wood mimics drapery falling from above and framing the remains. Below, putti hold the platform up amidst the gathering drapery as it spills over from above. Each tier is framed by columns of both green and red painted marble. The second tier contains three sculptures of saints, two on the outer edges and one positioned slightly higher at the center. The final tier

18 Ibid., 6.

contains a painting within an elaborate golden frame between marble columns, and above this another sculpted figure. Each altar’s individual details, such as the identities of the sculpted figures or painted subject, differs, yet the overarching design remains the same.

Before assessing the context given by external factors, the bones themselves must be addressed. As covered in Chapter 1, theological problems arise in the display of bodily remains of saints. The issue of putrefaction is front and center here, exposed completely within the glass vitrine, framed by perpetually drawn curtains. The exposure is thus exactly that – perpetual.

These bones, though, are heavily ornamented. Both saints are cleverly arranged within their vitrine to maximize visual access to the relics in their entirety. Leontius’ skull and accompanying bones are carefully wrapped in a silk gauze to maintain structural integrity. This material also provides a means to adhere the elaborate embroidery. Jewels decorate the surfaces in the shape of flowers, delicate filigree complimenting the serpentine embroidery that circles each bone surrounding the skull. The skull sits atop a pillow, which bears the same intricate design of beadwork and embroidery as the fabric that wraps around the jaws. A laurel wreath curves from two large, blue gems to meet at the center of the forehead where another orange jewel hangs, set in more carefully ornamented metalwork from which smaller stones hang. Behind erupts a golden halo. Benedictus is ornamented in a similar fashion. Each bone is bejeweled, set atop bows of silver fabric. The skull sits atop a pillow like that of Leontius, and both bear the same laurel wreath and golden halo. Benedictus’ skull, though, exhibits a golden frame secured between teeth, the jewel at the center of the forehead a series of crystals set into the form of a flower.

The heavy ornamentation of the bones is reminiscent of their predecessor, the reliquary, as if unable to dispense of old practices. While Leontius arrived with papal documents assuring

his martyr status, the average churchgoer must still grapple with what not only resemble ordinary remains, but also a blatant memento mori. The elevation of ornament is still necessary for the viewer that does not have access to documents, especially a viewer that has since grown skeptical of the cult of saints, whose reliquaries were no longer promised to hold the relics they claim to contain. It is thus important to present the skeptic with proof that the remains are extant, while also providing a means of elevating the relic and celebrating its holiness through material value. Principals behind the design of reliquaries are reenacted in a way that suits the contemporary needs. What results is the reliquary adhering itself to the relic.

The decoration of martyrs varied; for example, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, clusters of relics were often displayed in large, pyramidal or obelisk-shaped cases, their ornamentation exhibiting minute decorative work called Klosterarbeit, such as those seen in

Saint Emmeram’s Abbey of Regensburg. Also known as a Paradise Garden,19 the decoration was primarily the work of nuns. This design is realized in the display of Benedictus and Leontius in Muri, whose acquisition of its own martyr from the Roman catacombs, Leontius, inspired the redecoration and reconsideration of display of both their past relics and those newly acquired.

The special qualities of stone as incorruptible, and gold as a metal that does not decay, fuse with the bones of the saints. Fusing the decoration to the remains of the saints therein suggest the bones have the same incorruptible properties.

Practices of ornamentation steeped in tradition are then expanded upon beyond the relics themselves. Aspects of the Jesuit Society’s predilection for theater manifest in the altars in which

Saints Leontius and Benedictus are displayed. The altars, including those closed to the public and the high altar, reflect a trend in temporary architecture championed by Bernini and encouraged

19 Cynthia Hahn, interview conducted by Ivy Margosian, March 14, 2017, transcript.

by the Pope following the sack of Rome. Stage-like settings formed from the tradition of temporary architecture during the Fort Hours of Devotion become permanent structures and set the stage for not only the Eucharist, but the relics of Muri Abbey’s saints, as well.

The modern expectations of Devotion of the Forty Hours, which would be familiar to contemporary audiences venerating the remains of Saints Benedictus and Leontius, was established by Pope Clement VIII, further adjusted by Pope Urban VIII, and quickly became one of the most important practices during the Counter Reformation. This ceremony featured the exposed Eucharist to clergy and laymen for forty hours in a cyclical process, continuing in perpetuity through a pre-established calendar designating a rotation from church to church.20

This rotation ensured the continuous ceremony. The ceremony could occur outside of the rotation in celebration of a military victory or to pray for the recovery of specific individuals.21

During the forty hours of devotion, the high altars of churches throughout Europe were transformed into elaborate stage sets, or apparati, on which the Eucharist was presented in a halo of ethereal light.

This practice began as an austere meditation, accompanied by temporary architectural structures to reflect on the Passion. The first apparati exhibited candles arranged in silver candlesticks, oil lamps, silver reliquaries, silver vases filled with flowers, and suspended decorations of various materials, generally of considerable worth.22 Although celebrated in the

Middle Ages, the forty hours of devotion focused on the Crucifixion, Entombment, and

20 Mark S. Weil, “The Devotion of the Forty Hours and Roman Baroque Illusions”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 37 (1974). 218.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

Resurrection of Christ.23 The process began with the mass of the pre-sanctified Host, readings of lessons, the Gospel of Saint John, and the Adoration of the Cross. Representations of the

Sepulchre remained relatively small – that is to say, temporary constructions were an integral part of the process. These constructions typically focused on the Sepulchre, illuminated by candles and watched over by monks and others in the processions, all taking place in front of a permanent or temporary monument representing the Holy Sepulchre.24

The modern form the forty hours of devotion experienced a surge in popularity after the devastation to the City of Milan by the wars of Charles V in 1521.25 The prayers and sermons expressed the saving power of God and sought His divine mercy.26 It quickly spread throughout

Italy and France by the end of the century, remaining a solemn event. This solemnity began to shift as the ceremony became more of a spectacle, and in 1592, during the pinnacle of its popularity, Pope Clement VIII issued an encyclical to the clergy that the prayer be performed in perpetuity – when one church ended the forty days, the next would begin. This order came to fruition through the belief of the prayer’s propensity to save and protect the Church from devastation, and ultimately, to unify the Church.27

Pope Clemens VIII also issued a series of rules in order to maintain continuity in the ceremony, but more importantly, to avoid the criticisms of a sacred event become profane through spectacle. Pertaining to the decoration of the altar in preparation for the event, the most vital rule declared all use of images to be profane, and that the number of candles and lamps

23 Ibid., 220.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., 221.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., 222.

should be limited.28 This rule was largely ignored by churches and congregations celebrating the carnival before Lent, adapting the style of temporary architecture to reflect the abundant decoration and lavish displays of profane pleasures to attract worshippers.29 As the 17th century progressed, the Forty Hours of Devotion and its accompanying apparati left behind the tradition of solemnity and developed into displays of baroque visual theatricality.

Marcelo Fagiolo rightly refers to the phenomena in a subheading as the “Holy Theater of the Forty Hours Devotion.”30 The apparati were theatrical performances, acting as the backdrop to the ceremony. The Jesuits considered theater a didactic instrument not limited to the secular arts.31 The society managed to transform the humble meditation on the Passion into the triumphal celebration of the Eucharist and, when called for during the Catholic Reformation, a politico- religious and even military performance.32 Pope Clemens VIII’s intentions of protecting the

Church were therefore only exaggerated by the propensity of Jesuit influence in the stagecraft of the apparati. In 1608, in what may have been the prototype for future artists and their designs of apparati, a temporary structure was built to celebrate the Holy Eucharist, prominently displayed at its center.

The influence of the Jesuits spread throughout Europe, as did the Jesuit practice of baroque stage design. Beginning as an instrument with which to display the struggle between

Catholics and Protestants, the performance, over time, became a celebration of the imperial

28 Ibid., 223.

29 Ibid.

30 Marcello Fagiolo, “The Scene of Glory: The Triumph of the Baroque in the Theatrical Works of the Jesuits,” in The Jesuits and the Arts: 1540-1773, ed. John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, and Giovanni Sale, S.J. (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005), 233.

31 Ibid., 233.

32 Ibid., 233.

house of Austria.33 Even so, it is important to note that although the theatrical visual rhetoric of the baroque was widely accepted in the Habsburg court and the surrounding areas touched by its influence, the stage sets crafted in the north still remained heavily focused on celebrating the

Passion.34 With the reintroduction of the Hapsburgs, who aided the Catholic cantons of the Swiss confederacy, the Jesuit style of apparati spread within the Swiss Confederacy.

The visual similarities in Muri Abbey’s relic altars manifest in an engraving dedicated to

Cardinal Francesco Barbarini that records magnificence of an apparato erected during carnival in 1640. The engraving accompanies a pamphlet describing the appearance and meaning of the scenes present within the structure. In this apparato, the images become a visual sermon, and the content has drifted far from the humble portrayal of a Passion. With a literal drawing of the curtains, the people celebrating carnival were given a feast for the eyes. The apparato is attributed to Nicholò Menghini and often falsely attributed to Gian Lorenzo Bernini. This is unsurprising given his status as disciple to Bernini.35 The structure features a multitude of biblical figures and scenes, including figures David and Goliath, Moses descending from Mount

Sinai, and Saint John’s vision of the Mystic Lamb, to name only a few. Among these references, the most innovative was the narrative constructed through the glowing Eucharist at the center of the apparati acting as the burning bush at Mount Sinai.36 Masses of clouds billowed around the scenes, emerging from them holy spirits and angels, supported by putti. Three larger putti were also tasked with carrying the Monstrance containing the Sacrament. Compositionally inventive and perfomatively engaging, the apparato of 1640’s carnival of Gesù exists as a testament to the

33 Ibid., 237.

34 Ibid., 238.

35 Ibid., 233.

36 Ibid., 243.

theatrical imagery of the baroque period. The content of the nave of Gesù complimented the entire structure, placing not only the apparato in the context of the space, but transforming the space of the viewer as well.

Fleeting and ephemeral, these structures were ultimately temporary, erected for a period of time as a means of celebration. Yet these apparati proved inspiring enough to develop designs for permanent structures. Bernini made use of the heavenly glories in combination with other images to emphasize divine presence on earth, especially through the use of light. The performative qualities of the Cathedra Petri (1657-66) positions Four Doctors of the Church surrounding and aiding in the support of Saint Peter’s throne, above which depicts rays of light, gilt stucco clouds, and gilt stucco angels.37 Bleeding into the space of the chapel, piercing the clouds, rain down rays of light into the scene below. In the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1642-52), the light is illustrated through frescoed illusion, rays of gold emanating from above to shower the figures in a heavenly wash of divine light. 38

Visual motifs of the Eucharist centered in apparati, bathed in the light of thousands of candles and lamps, emanating golden rays of its own, achieved permanent installation throughout

Europe through Bernini’s example. Bernini’s influence extended to France, passing through

Switzerland and maintained by other Italian artists seeking work in the Alpine region. Baroque stage sets soon became an architectural feature, a means of ornamentation, recognized in the decorative decisions behind high altars of baroque churches throughout Europe, especially those in Bavaria, Austria, and Switzerland. This stylistic choice is echoed throughout Muri’s altars,

37 Ibid., 234.

38 Ibid.

though those of the saints’ relics do not present the Eucharist. Rather, they present the visage of death.

Seated within the altars, Leontius and Benedictus are framed within a stage and decorated in the style of Klosterarbeit. Curtains are pulled aside to reveal their presence, but these curtains are not cloth. Instead they are painted wood, carved and permanently drawn to reveal the relics.

More carved fabric drapes from above it, forming a hanging row of golden tassels. The platform the relic’s vitrine is painted to resemble marble, and two putti bear this weight amidst more golden drapery. Attention is further drawn to the central focal point by two putti on either side who gesture toward Leontius and Benedictus.

The figures on the immediate right and left of Leontius (Sts Paul and Peter) and

Benedictus (two of four unnamed abbots) stand outside of the stage, placed on pedestals that rise slightly higher than the platform on which the relics are presented.39 Their bodies incline inward, angled and leaning toward the staged presentation between them. These figures perform a similar function to those sculpted to occupy balconies, witnessing Bernini’s Ecstacy of Saint Theresa.

The surrounding figures occupy an imaginary space outside of the stage as witnesses, working also as pedagogical tools to direct attention to the action occurring between them.

Directly above Leontius is the saint given flesh – a sculpted visage who, holding the martyr palm in one hand, blesses the viewer with the other. Benedictus’ altar follows the same decorative motifs, his body restored. He stands contrapposto, a sword in his left hand, blade resting on the ground, and performs a similar blessing gesture with his right. Each saint is placed before a carved burst of light, radiating from behind and expanding to frame their forms. The similarities between the apparati and the altars of Saints Leontius and Benedictus are not a

39 Bachmann, The Abbey Church of Muri.

coincidence, or a blind decision made on the basis of taste. The saints above, whose radials mimic those of the monstrance, act as a conceptual link between the Eucharist and the process of transubstantiation. The Eucharist, which becomes the flesh of Christ, held inside the monstrance, takes center stage during the Forty Hours of Devotion. Each saint has taken the place of the monstrance, of the Eucharist, restored in flesh above their displayed skeletal remains. These relics, in flesh and bone, serve as a reminder that these things are in fact entirely separate. The saint is no longer in flesh, but the sculpted representations above becomes a new way to illicit the senses to make connections, to devise mental jumps from one concept to the next. The combination also serves to remind the faithful that, although the saint is no longer here in body, the saint is still whole in Heaven, and therefore able to work miracles through his remains on

Earth. The saints still exist simultaneously on Earth and in Heaven through the power of Christ.

The tier above this miraculous performance of restoration bears a painting once again surrounded by putti and figures. The figures above Leontius are Saints Ursus and Victor, who frame the Madonna of Victory (fig 23). Above Benedictus stand the two other unnamed abbots, directing the viewers to the painting of Saint Joseph the Provider (fig 24). Both images are fitting in the context of the baroque church. As Switzerland struggled internally with oppositional religious ideologies, Catholic territories looked to Italy’s art of the Counter-

Reformation to encourage the faithful to return. The Madonna of Victory, originally the

Madonna of the Rosary, symbolizes the victory of Pope Pius V over the Ottomans naval fleet. In this context, the Madonna of Victory becomes a symbol of power as the Church battles to restore its place in greater Europe.

St Joseph the Provider is the patron saint of students. Returning again to the Society of

Jesus, a special focus was placed on education and schools. The Jesuit’s schools provided a kind

of entreé into civic society. These institutions allowed Jesuits to engage in general culture and the arts in ways different than any other religious institution.40 By the seventeenth century, the

Collegio Romano surpassed its rival, the University of Rome, La Spienza, in prestige and visibility.41 These institutions became the major cultural institution of the locality, studying works of poetry, drama, oratory and history.42 The painting of Saint Joseph the Provider proves more relevant when considering the intent behind the society, whose churches were not erected without a school nearby.

While the paintings may echo the goals of the Jesuit Society more so than the direct goals of the abbey, Muri’s coat of arms appears beneath the portraits, above the saints. Using the coat of arms incites a sense of local pride, but the placement itself becomes of interest, as well. By placing it above Saints Benedictus and Leontius, they become directly associated with Muri as patron saints. Their patronization occurred, then, not only in word, but also concrete, visual form.

Further, their location below the paintings whose content reflects the goals of the Society of

Jesus, forges a link between the two. Muri, like the Jesuits, fights for the Roman Catholic

Church, the true faith.

The resurrection of the martyr in the realm of Heaven, as enacted through this altar, is witnessed by the faithful venerating the saints’ remains. The connections forged between the

Eucharist, Christ’s body, and the bodies of the martyrs are celebrated with a material fervor. This material reveals rather than conceals. The remains are celebrated with exuberance with sumptuous marbles and delicate and ornate golden details, and the reminder of the power of the

40 John W. O’Malley, “Saint Ignatius and the Cultural Mission of the Society of Jesus,” in The Jesuits and the Arts: 1540-1773, ed. John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, and Giovanni Sale, S.J. (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005), 10.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid., 8-10.

Church, its message of truth as delivered by the Jesuits, towers over the relics as if offering further protection from the Protestant threat.

Finally, the rococo embellishments work to alleviate mystical predilections within the materials and ground the viewer in the face of something manmade, built to celebrate Christ. The style was at once a variation on the established work of the baroque period and the techniques that had flourished it employed, and also something new – an extreme moment in history of taste.43 Ornament of the rococo sought to achieve extreme artificiality with non-representative forms, symmetrical abstractions, and an intense focus on the mastery of technique – a mastery displayed in the ability to manipulate nature into manmade forms.44 Rococo is most successfully realized in small scale, just as it adds flourish through detail within Muri Abbey.45 Colors employed are light, employing pinks, pale blues, and greens, with predominantly white walls as the decoration is condensed in tight spaces, filling them with elaborate and playful abstracted forms.46 Plaster molding curving over archways is broken up into complex curves, the shape of the arch still extant yet occupied by these same swirling, abstracted vegetal forms. The symmetry, geometry, and abstracted designs and details applied to the surfaces of the altars, to the bases and capitals of columns, and the undulating forms winding skyward are coopted forms of secular arts. They communicate a triumph over nature and a honed skill of a talented craftsman. The details work throughout the space result in compounding forms, repeating and growing into impossible objects conceived in the human imagination, a moment of fantasia.47

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid., 146.

45 Ibid., 236.

46 Ibid.

47 Helen Hills, Rethinking the Baroque (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011), 146.

Rather than being an image, a structure, or a design divinely inspired by God, the space and its design is a work of art created by man for God. While these saints’ bones perform miracles and exist as separate from the bones of ordinary members of the Church, their exposure forces a reality that grounds the ephemeral qualities of the baroque extravagance, while the Rococo additions leave an unnatural symmetry and remind viewers of the manmade.

Although this presentation has changed dramatically from its earlier predecessor of the reliquary, the expectations and functions of these relics remain the same. Pilgrims come in droves to honor these martyrs, to celebrate their feast days, and to be in their presence during major holidays within the Church. They come in hopes of healing, blessings, and communication with Christ. It is a reflection of the events which occurred in centuries past, the result of an ongoing tradition which, although shaken by the Reformation, survived and continued to thrive.

Through new conceptions of art and artist, of space and the opportunities to manipulate experience, and ideas of the function of materials and from where they originate and how they are then manipulated, relics gain the opportunity to exist outside of the reliquary. While the transparent display addresses the thrum of anxiety around the validity of the remains, it is the reframing of the relic in new, contemporary modes of design that allow it to exist unobstructed during a moment of uncertainty.

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION

The transformation of the reliquary into the exposed relic requires a vast exploration of the distinction between materials – both those used to adorn, and those being adorned. Modern scholarship often wishes to implicate a direct correlation with wealth and lavishness that, while under scrutiny in the contemporaneous writings, overshadow the intricacies of a sensory experience. This sensory experience unfolds from a tradition of sensual desires that has just as much bearing in the later 17th century when the press of lips to a bejeweled golden box becomes a complete immersion in the baroque theater, a stage set now occupying the confines of cathedral walls.

Ideologies developed in early writings surrounding death and decay and their relationship with the divine are complicated and often convoluted. Once human, saints now transcend their bodily constraints. While leaving nothing beyond their bones and material accoutrements, they still maintain a presence. This presence isn't a fleshy manifestation such as that of the risen

Christ, but rather a spiritual intercessor passing between two worlds. Saints are understood to occupy what remains of them on Earth. This occupation is facilitated by a perceived ability to transition between their place in Heaven, where they have once again been made whole in Christ.

Their humanity creates a special form of tangibility that both aids in the conceptualization of the finite and the infinite, yet also hinders with its morbidity in the face of human remains. By these means, the collection and presentation of relics becomes an understandable progression of events. With the early pilgrimages to gravesites, and the eventual places of worship built overtop tombs, and finally the exhumation and division of bodily remains, an importance is placed on the material evidence left behind.

The material then has opportunity to become a driving force. Materials, stuff, hold

opportunity to tantalize the senses. Relics provide a concrete foundation in which to lay hands.

The promise of the perfume of flowers from decayed remains of martyrs draws one closer, the miracle of healing through touch invites one to kiss. What, then, does the exposed corpse, the skeletal remnant, of the saint invite? What is gained from acknowledging the face of death, the decayed bones saints Benedictus, Leontius, and Pancratius then provide?

This anxious trepidation is facilitated by the development of reliquaries. Their humble beginnings, although arguably less humble within the grandeur basilicas and baptisteries, stand to remind the viewer that the sensory experiences of the medieval, and even the baroque, bear primacy. Rich materials provide rich worship. Enveloping a femur within a silk cloth placed inside a box of gold and silver filigree set with amethyst and sapphire and ruby gems inspire an experience far different than being faced with the reality of mortality.

The design, as I have stressed, is not merely a representation of ostentatious displays of wealth and luxury. While these issues factor into the equation, it is a fault to ignore the ways in which materials simply inspire. These materials transcend the realm of humanity and reach beyond into the world of the divine. They bridge a gap that exists between and, ultimately, provide a means in which to reach the divine. In the case of relics, it provides a conduit for saints to traverse between heaven and earth, the potency of their intercessory power only enhanced by the mystical properties of material.

When relic became subject to reliquary, reliquary subject to materiality, and materiality subject to complex ideologies and practices, problems rupture into the open. Reformers demanded a change in Church practices, concerned that images and objects have entered a realm no longer devotional but rather one that borders sacrilegious. As the reliquary begins to conflate with the relic it holds, it brings in the question of what is being worshiped, how is it being

worshiped, and to what extent has wealth polluted the world of religious content.

For the cult of saints, it was not just the issue of what was being worshiped – the relic or the reliquary – but also the assigned belief of intercessory power. Zwingli argued that this reliance on the saints distanced worshipers from Christ, who is the only form of salvation. The cult of saints was, just as much as images, under fire and under threat of destruction. Many relics were, in fact, destroyed, along with images and other material associated with the church (such as lanterns, candles, and crucifixes). The iconoclasm ravaged much of Europe, with a particularly violent effect in Zurich. The destruction of relics called for a restoration of saints to replace those lost. In Rome, the catacombs were opened and martyr bodies were translated north to the front lines of the Protestant threat.

The Church also adopts a new visual identity in the wake of the threat. Alongside the

Society of Jesus, the baroque is conceived in hopes of appealing to both the intellectual and the common man. It relies on theatrical displays of grandeur that appeal to the emotions and overpower the senses. The visual programs within the Jesuit churches follow a cohesive theme with the goal of teaching the faithful the true meaning of the Word. In Switzerland, whose city states remained divided and in a tense state of religious tolerance, the baroque style was welcomed with open arms to bring worshipers back into the Church. With the final addition of the decorative schemes of the rococo, primarily utilized by pastoral communities, Catholics were able to take back control of towns and cities.

Through the means of pedagogical programs of art within the grandiose architecture of the Jesuit baroque, relics are able to emerge from their reliquaries and occupy space with complete transparency. Connections to Jesuit theater create a stage in which these relics can act, and placement of figures around these highly decorated altars reaffirm ideas of intercession. The

saints manifest the space as both remains and in figurative flesh, their means of display asserting the didactic currents that lie beneath. The entire experience becomes not only a series of intellectual leaps, but a complete grounding in the material world, only made possible through the ways in which both the baroque and rococo celebrate not the divine “aura” of the icon, but rather the manmade ability to celebrate God. Fantasia takes the place of aura, and material becomes demystified as it comes to represent the skills honed by human hands.

The relics themselves do not change. Their function as intercessory powers and miracle workers remain the same, and the pilgrimages made during the period of confessionalism mirror those of the past. What changes is the framework in which the relic is presented and in turn understood. The dangers of misunderstanding which is which – the relic or the reliquary – is subverted by full exposure. At the same time, the theatrical didactism of the Jesuit baroque redirects the confrontation of remains that proved to be, just like ordinary people, subject to putrefaction. The evolution material and space move the relic from obscurity and reveal it completely, a willful transparency in the face of religious revolution.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Ivy Margosian is graduate student in the Department of Art and Art History at the

University of Florida. She received a Degree in Bachelor of the Fine Arts from the University of

North Carolina at Charlotte concentrating in Illustration and with a minor in Art History. Ivy worked as a research assistant for Dr. Bonnie J. Noble, the opportunity facilitating her interest in art historical research and instruction.

Ivy’s research interests include the ways in which minor arts and decoration influence space. Her focus lies in the study of exposed relics of the 17th and 18th centuries in Switzerland,

Germany, and Austria and their relationship to the constructed space around them. She has conducted research in the field, visiting the pilgrimage sites of many relics in Bavaria and

Switzerland.