Four small windows are cut into the wood of this arm and behind each one, under glass, sits a fragment: a splinter of wood, a scrap of cloth, a twist of fiber, a chip of stone. A parchment label nailed to the shoulder says what they are. "Relics of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ: from the wood of the Cross, from the sudarium, from the ropes, from the column." Red silk threads run from window to window and end in a disc of dark red wax stamped with the figure of Christ rising from his tomb. The threads and wax seal were intended to show whether the compartments had been opened.
Reliquaries shaped like body parts are an old idea. From the twelfth century onward, churches kept arm bones in arms made of silver or gilded wood, and at a feast the priest could lift the arm and bless the crowd with the saint's own hand. Art historians call them speaking reliquaries, because the shape tells you what is inside. This one is different. It is a whole right arm, a foot long, carved in wood and bent at the elbow, with an open hand and traces of flesh-colored paint still on it. Its four relics are of the Passion, the things that touched Christ's body in his last hours.
The wood of the Cross needs no introduction. The sudarium is the cloth laid over Christ's face in the tomb, the one John's Gospel says Peter found folded up on its own; the best-known claimant is kept at Oviedo in Spain. The ropes are the cords that bound him. The column is the pillar of the flagellation. The one venerated in Rome stands in the church of Santa Prassede, brought back from the Holy Land by Cardinal Giovanni Colonna in 1222. For centuries chips of it, and of the other three, were passed down through the Italian church, each one sealed and labeled by a churchman who put his name to it.
The seal is the big surprise. It reads SACRI MONTIS PIETATIS around its rim, and the figure in the middle is the Man of Sorrows, Christ half risen from a carved sarcophagus with the cross behind him. That image was the emblem of the Monti di Pietà, the charitable pawn banks that Franciscan preachers set up across Italy from the fifteenth century so that the poor could borrow against a pledge without going to a moneylender. They were church institutions, run by confraternities under cardinal protectors, and the Man of Sorrows was their badge from the start. The friar Bernardino da Feltre carried it on a banner as he went from town to town founding them. The inscription associates this seal with one of these institutions; the town has not been identified.
Anyone who reads in the magical tradition will recognize the logic. A relic works by contact. The power is in the thing itself, and a fragment carries the whole. The same principle runs through the grimoires and the folk charms, where a coffin nail or a thread from a shroud does the work. The instruments of the Passion in particular had a long life outside the church. Painted or written out as the Arma Christi, they were hung up for protection against all sorts of harm.
Our arm is carved wood with gesso and flesh-colored paint surviving in patches, a carved open hand at one end and the label at the other, and a dowel hole at the shoulder where it was once fixed to a base or a figure. The four relics sit in oval brass bezels under glass, each packed around with hemp cord and mounted on a paper roundel, and they run down the arm in the order the label gives them: two crossed splinters for the Cross, a square of woven cloth for the sudarium, a knot of fibers for the ropes, and a chip of dark stone for the column. The label is written in brown ink in a hand of the period, with the notarial "L.S." marking the place of the seal. The wax is complete and every thread is intact. Details below.
RELIQUARY ARM WITH FOUR RELICS OF THE PASSION. Italy, seventeenth or eighteenth century. Carved and painted wood, brass, glass, hemp, parchment, red wax and red silk thread. The parchment authentic reads: Reliquias Passionis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi ex Ligno Crucis ex Sudario ex Funibus ex Columna. L.S.
Physical Description: A right arm carved in the round, bent at the elbow, the hand open with fingers extended; about 12 inches (30 cm) long, with a dowel hole in the shoulder end. Four oval apertures on the outer face, each fitted with a brass bezel and glass, packed with hemp cord, containing respectively two crossed wood splinters, a fragment of woven textile, a knot of fibers and a chip of dark stone, each mounted on a paper roundel. Parchment authentic tacked to the shoulder end with three small nails, inscribed in brown ink with decorative crosses. Red silk threads laced between the apertures and secured under a red wax seal, round, impressed with the Man of Sorrows rising from the tomb before the cross, the legend SACRI MONTIS PIETATIS ... E PRESID[...] (the seal of a Sacro Monte di Pietà, the town's name worn).
Condition: Heavily worn. Most of the original paint and gesso is gone, with the surface abraded and flaking across the whole arm; losses to the wood at the elbow and around the apertures, and a small hole through the wood between the first and second windows. Brass bezels tarnished; glass intact. Parchment label chipped at the edges with small losses. The wax seal is complete and unbroken and all threads are intact. Not restored.
Four small windows are cut into the wood of this arm and behind each one, under glass, sits a fragment: a splinter of wood, a scrap of cloth, a twist of fiber, a chip of stone. A parchment label nailed to the shoulder says what they are. "Relics of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ: from the wood of the Cross, from the sudarium, from the ropes, from the column." Red silk threads run from window to window and end in a disc of dark red wax stamped with the figure of Christ rising from his tomb. The threads and wax seal were intended to show whether the compartments had been opened.
Reliquaries shaped like body parts are an old idea. From the twelfth century onward, churches kept arm bones in arms made of silver or gilded wood, and at a feast the priest could lift the arm and bless the crowd with the saint's own hand. Art historians call them speaking reliquaries, because the shape tells you what is inside. This one is different. It is a whole right arm, a foot long, carved in wood and bent at the elbow, with an open hand and traces of flesh-colored paint still on it. Its four relics are of the Passion, the things that touched Christ's body in his last hours.
The wood of the Cross needs no introduction. The sudarium is the cloth laid over Christ's face in the tomb, the one John's Gospel says Peter found folded up on its own; the best-known claimant is kept at Oviedo in Spain. The ropes are the cords that bound him. The column is the pillar of the flagellation. The one venerated in Rome stands in the church of Santa Prassede, brought back from the Holy Land by Cardinal Giovanni Colonna in 1222. For centuries chips of it, and of the other three, were passed down through the Italian church, each one sealed and labeled by a churchman who put his name to it.
The seal is the big surprise. It reads SACRI MONTIS PIETATIS around its rim, and the figure in the middle is the Man of Sorrows, Christ half risen from a carved sarcophagus with the cross behind him. That image was the emblem of the Monti di Pietà, the charitable pawn banks that Franciscan preachers set up across Italy from the fifteenth century so that the poor could borrow against a pledge without going to a moneylender. They were church institutions, run by confraternities under cardinal protectors, and the Man of Sorrows was their badge from the start. The friar Bernardino da Feltre carried it on a banner as he went from town to town founding them. The inscription associates this seal with one of these institutions; the town has not been identified.
Anyone who reads in the magical tradition will recognize the logic. A relic works by contact. The power is in the thing itself, and a fragment carries the whole. The same principle runs through the grimoires and the folk charms, where a coffin nail or a thread from a shroud does the work. The instruments of the Passion in particular had a long life outside the church. Painted or written out as the Arma Christi, they were hung up for protection against all sorts of harm.
Our arm is carved wood with gesso and flesh-colored paint surviving in patches, a carved open hand at one end and the label at the other, and a dowel hole at the shoulder where it was once fixed to a base or a figure. The four relics sit in oval brass bezels under glass, each packed around with hemp cord and mounted on a paper roundel, and they run down the arm in the order the label gives them: two crossed splinters for the Cross, a square of woven cloth for the sudarium, a knot of fibers for the ropes, and a chip of dark stone for the column. The label is written in brown ink in a hand of the period, with the notarial "L.S." marking the place of the seal. The wax is complete and every thread is intact. Details below.
RELIQUARY ARM WITH FOUR RELICS OF THE PASSION. Italy, seventeenth or eighteenth century. Carved and painted wood, brass, glass, hemp, parchment, red wax and red silk thread. The parchment authentic reads: Reliquias Passionis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi ex Ligno Crucis ex Sudario ex Funibus ex Columna. L.S.
Physical Description: A right arm carved in the round, bent at the elbow, the hand open with fingers extended; about 12 inches (30 cm) long, with a dowel hole in the shoulder end. Four oval apertures on the outer face, each fitted with a brass bezel and glass, packed with hemp cord, containing respectively two crossed wood splinters, a fragment of woven textile, a knot of fibers and a chip of dark stone, each mounted on a paper roundel. Parchment authentic tacked to the shoulder end with three small nails, inscribed in brown ink with decorative crosses. Red silk threads laced between the apertures and secured under a red wax seal, round, impressed with the Man of Sorrows rising from the tomb before the cross, the legend SACRI MONTIS PIETATIS ... E PRESID[...] (the seal of a Sacro Monte di Pietà, the town's name worn).
Condition: Heavily worn. Most of the original paint and gesso is gone, with the surface abraded and flaking across the whole arm; losses to the wood at the elbow and around the apertures, and a small hole through the wood between the first and second windows. Brass bezels tarnished; glass intact. Parchment label chipped at the edges with small losses. The wax seal is complete and unbroken and all threads are intact. Not restored.
