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MORBID REVELATIONS: THE CULT OF SAINTS AND THEIR DISPLAYS IN THE 17TH-CENTURY SWISS CONFEDERACY By 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 © 2017 Ivy Margosian 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. 4 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 5 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. 6 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. 7 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 8 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
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