‘Ornamenta Sacra’: Late Medieval and Early Modern Liturgical Objects in a European Context

This volume is dedicated to the study of late medieval and early modern liturgical objects, once known as ornamenta sacra. It encompasses a wide range of objects made of various materials and techniques which are not only essential for the rites, but also hold a central position in the religious and artistic production of the past. The contributions to this volume understand them at the heart of a system of complex relationships which make them contribute to their religious functions, but also to their aesthetic, symbolic and social ones: relationships with the men who commissioned, produced and manipulated them, but also with liturgical time and space; relationships too between these different objects, as also with the prescriptive and spiritual frameworks which dictate or accompany their uses. It is the life of these objects that is here recounted, objects invested with value at one and the same time religious, financial and aesthetic.