A Holy Collage: Images, Relics and Rhetoric of Divine Presence

What the paper says

The article focuses on the late medieval “Enclosed Gardens” and the composite amulets known as Breverl , which became popular in the early Modernity. In spite of the differences of their forms, sizes and functions, both types of religious objects were created as collages — from elements of different origins and uses. What they have in common, however, is that both were created as a kind of collage — from the elements of different origin. Most of them were not intended either for the “gardens” or for amulets and were reused in them. In the center of the folding “gardens”, small figures of saints were set up, and around them a densely filled world of elaborately made flowers, fragments of relics, images cut from manuscripts, pilgrimage badges, Agnus Dei was arranged. In the amulets, on the contrary, the center was occupied by a miniscule “reliquary” in which tiny particles of relics were juxtaposed with various devotionalia . It was wrapped in several layers of paper with engraved images of intercessor saints, texts of prayers and protective formulas. The aim of the article is to analyze the possible functions and the modus operandi of these image-objects; the combinations of sacred sign-indexes (relics) and sign-icons (images); similarities and differences in their visual rhetoric; and the role of visibility and invisibility of the elements. Both “Enclosed gardens” and Breverl are collections of sacred objects that are embedded in a clear spatial pattern where symmetry plays an important role. At the same time, in the “gardens” the sign-indexes and sign-icons are open to the eye and can support prayer practices and imply tactile contact. In amulets, both relics, images and texts, on the contrary, are hidden from view and are supposed to act “automatically”, protecting the one who touches and carries this enclosed world without seeing its powerful contents.