Private reliquaries and other prophylactic jewels : new compositions and devotional practices in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

Résumé En

Private reliquaries, prophylactic jewels and other private devotional objects are not directly concerned with the unorthodox imagination, but although they were more than merely tolerated by the Church they were rarely encouraged. The principal characteristics of prophylactic objects are in relative conformity with orthodoxy, but they have some aspects whose form and content reveal and unorthodox imagination. In the Middle Ages there was an extraordinary profusion of private prophylactic and devotional objects. Unfortunately, very few such objects have been preserved: they were lost because of successive dismanting operations for economic reasons, or as a result of changing fashion. Some were reused, others melted down. The small size of the objects made their theft or loss easier. Nevertheless, we have descriptions of thousands of items in the inventories of princes' treasuries. These documents attest to an explosion of jewellery making during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This phenomenon was the consequence of various factors, such as the massive importation of cameos and precious stones after the fall of Constantinople and technical innovations, particulary in enamel work.