Details
RELIQUARY OF THE TRUE CROSS WITH CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICATION
[?Rome, 18th century]
A gilt-copper and glass paste-mounted reliquary of the 'True Cross', Italian (possibly Roman), late eighteenth-century, with a pierced ground of foliate scroll-work and garlands framing a cruciform windowed compartment, on an oval gilt-copper repoussé foot; with a printed document of authentication completed in manuscript, and describing the reliquary, issued in Rome in December 1772 in the name of Fr. Nicolaus Angelus Maria Landini, Prefect of the Apostolic Sacrarum, sealed in blind, the verso countersigned on behalf of Bishop Schaffgotsche authorising the public display and veneration of the relic in the Episcopal diocese of Hradec, with the Episcopal seal in blind and dated 22 June 1778.
This is an example of the continuing importance of relics in devotional practice into the 19th century. Within two years of the issue of a certificate of authentication giving permission for its display in public places of worship, the reliquary and its relic had reached Hradec, in the present-day Czech Republic. Its status as a true relic of the Cross was once more attested to and licensed for public veneration in that diocese. (2)
[?Rome, 18th century]
A gilt-copper and glass paste-mounted reliquary of the 'True Cross', Italian (possibly Roman), late eighteenth-century, with a pierced ground of foliate scroll-work and garlands framing a cruciform windowed compartment, on an oval gilt-copper repoussé foot; with a printed document of authentication completed in manuscript, and describing the reliquary, issued in Rome in December 1772 in the name of Fr. Nicolaus Angelus Maria Landini, Prefect of the Apostolic Sacrarum, sealed in blind, the verso countersigned on behalf of Bishop Schaffgotsche authorising the public display and veneration of the relic in the Episcopal diocese of Hradec, with the Episcopal seal in blind and dated 22 June 1778.
This is an example of the continuing importance of relics in devotional practice into the 19th century. Within two years of the issue of a certificate of authentication giving permission for its display in public places of worship, the reliquary and its relic had reached Hradec, in the present-day Czech Republic. Its status as a true relic of the Cross was once more attested to and licensed for public veneration in that diocese. (2)
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