two Votive Materials: Bodies and Beyond Ittai Weinryb A young pregnant woman, visiting the Sanctuary of Our Lady at Fátima, Portugal, is about to deposit a wax offering made in the image of her own pregnant self into the fire pit at the shrine— while she touches her belly with one hand, her other hand separates the votive offering from her body (fig. 2.1).1 This act has been repeated over centuries and around the world: devotees enter, holding objects in their hands; they bow before an altar or image of the deity and speak a few words of prayer; then, extending their arms, they deposit an offering. Precisely at the moment they stretch out their arms, distancing the offering from their body, the bond between offering and body becomes clear. The votive offering becomes both an extension of and separate from the devotee’s body when it is deposited at the shrine. 2 Fig. 2.1 A pregnant woman holds a wax figure depicting a pregnant abdomen before she throws it into the flames at the Sanctuary of Fátima on May 11, 2017, Fátima, Portugal. Pablo Blazquez Dominguez / Getty Images. 33 This essay centers on the connection between the body of the devotee and the votive object and reflects on the body—in the form of the material body of the devotee—and its presence within the votive object, so as to reevaluate the material world of votive giving. Votive offerings are located in a liminality between the material and the immaterial, for they are physical artifacts imbued with emotion, a spiritual gift secured in an object. The design of the votive object generates a physical presence for an immaterial relationship. The votive object is undeniably material, while the act of offering is undeniably immaterial. The contrast, or perhaps tension, between the material and immaterial, between the physical and the spiritual, is fundamental to the nature of the offering.3 The discussion focuses on the material aspect of the votive offering, recognizing how selected materials may convey longing and need, with a diversity that may be overlooked when the votive gift is classified as a single, unified category. As we shall see, materials had a specific role in conceptualizing the votive offering, as various mechanisms of production promised the votary’s continuous presence in the face of divinity. 4 votive bodies In leaving their traces in and on a shrine, votive objects mark the bodily presence of the devotee on whose behalf they are to function. Inconsumable and intended to remain in the interior of the shrine for eternity, the votive object serves as a surrogate for the votary, as an object representing the actor in the actor’s absence. An example of such surrogacy is provided by a lavish white marble relief depicting a foot from the Greek island of Milos (now in the British Museum), which bears the inscription “Tyche [dedicated this] to Asklepios and Hygieia as a thank offering” (fig. 2.2). The object serves as Tyche’s agent, deposited at the shrine on his behalf, to remain present in his stead. The polished marble leg is the same size as a human’s, and the attention to verisimilitude in features such as the knee and ankle demonstrates an intentionality that sought to set prototype and surrogate in a direct relationship.5 The marble leg is also a marker of a process, 34 Weinryb with the healthy, healed limb celebrated in marble to recall the narrative of an illness brought to an end by Asklepios, the god of medicine and healing, and his daughter Hygieia, who helped in the process of healing. The votive offering serves as a perceptual statement of the relationship between the body of the devotee and the act of offering.6 Another example of surrogacy is provided by the wooden leg of a foal given in 1951 to the Church of Our Lady of Rimedio, in Orisanto, Sardinia (fig. 2.3). The elegantly carved wooden leg of a donkey foal has a photograph of the animal attached, its back engraved with the words Alla Madonna del Rimedio per grazia ricevuta (To the Madonna of Rimedio for grace received). The owner of the foal offered the object in gratitude for the healing of the leg, and the object therefore posits a relationship between the animal and the wooden surrogate that is similar to that between Tyche and the marble leg. Both Tyche and the owner of the foal have invested in a lavish and seemingly lasting votive offering. They not only poured their own sense of gratitude into the object but also bore the cost of making it, and in the case of Tyche’s marble the cost would have been considerable. Although almost two thousand years separate the two acts of giving, both objects exhibit clearly the intrinsic relations between votaries and their votive objects. These ties manifest in the rendering of the copy as identical to the prototype, constructing similitude through the representation of body features or, in the case of the foal, through the attachment of the photograph of the actual donkey.7 After a man had injured his hand while working the fields, he made (or commissioned) a wooden replica that documented his wounds (fig. 2.4). In 1935, the carved hand was left in a church, the Santuario della Madonna di Bonacattu in Bonarcado, a small village in southern Sardinia, as a gift thanking God for healing the hand and guaranteeing its future health. Beyond its basic verisimilitude in relation to the original, by merit of its crafting the wooden hand was part of a network of connections between artists or craftspeople and material objects that took shape within a physical environment in which the material held hidden qualities. Physical healing was a leading concern Fig. 2.2 Relief of a leg. Cyclades, Greece, 100–200. Marble. © The Trustees of the British Museum, 1867,0508.117. Votive Materials 35 Fig. 2.3 Leg of a donkey votive. Italy, 1951. Wood, carved and stained; photograph, silk ribbon. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr Hv 346. Cat. 10. Fig. 2.4 Wounded hand votive. Sardinia, 1935. Wood, carved and painted. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr Hv 340. Cat. 31. 36 Weinryb Fig. 2.5 Lungs votive. Germany, 19th century. Clay. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr T 221. Cat. 182. Fig. 2.6 Lungs votive. Germany, 18th–19th centuries. Wax, poured and drawn. Rudolf Kriss collection, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr Wv 1294. Cat. 123. in premodern societies. Feet and hands are exemplary of material votive expression, but we also encounter other body parts—legs, arms, breasts, and even heads—from antiquity up to the present day. Morphologically, these objects look similar, although not identical, but the impetus for their fabrication and their signification changed from period to period and from culture to culture. 8 During the nineteenth century, a set of baked, glazed clay lungs hung near an altar in a church in Lower Bavaria (fig. 2.5). Rendered with relative precision, the lungs express the immediate concerns of devotees, but they also provide an intriguing window into nonmedical conceptualizations of the human body’s internal organs. Another pair of lungs, this time in wax, from the pilgrim chapel in Ruhmannsfelden, Lower Bavaria, has at its center the image of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, whose heads are enclosed by a heartshaped frame (fig. 2.6). The clay and wax lungs represent similar concerns about the healing of internal and therefore invisible organs. The votive lungs were most likely given in hope for a cure for tuberculosis, the silent killer of the early modern period that was thought to literally drain the life out of the victim. Tuberculosis affected the internal organs, and because coughing was one of the primary symptoms of the disease, it was mostly associated with the lungs. Votive lungs present not only an example of the manner in which votaries experienced and imagined their internal organs but also historical evidence for health concerns in rural European societies before the twentieth century.9 In the case of tuberculosis, for which Votive Materials 37 Fig. 2.7 Votive painting offered to Christ as apothecary, 1847. Oil on wood. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr V 260. 38 Weinryb a pharmaceutical cure was not found until the twentieth century, the votive offering was believed to be the only potential avenue for a cure. In the history of epidemics, we find a rise in votive giving when medicine cannot offer a solution. During the Black Death pandemic, for instance, the number of votive offerings made in shrines in England in the 1370s and 1380s almost doubled. 10 We cannot be certain why the glazed lungs were offered in the church—they may have accompanied prayers for healing or have been a sign of gratitude for the answering of such prayers. In Lower Bavaria then, these lungs and other votives appear to have been made primarily in the hope of a future divine response. In the case of the lungs, we can imagine a devotee placing the object near the altar in a performance in which glazed earthenware acts as a surrogate for the devotee’s lung and as a representation of interiority. An 1847 panel, in which Christ as an apothecary prescribing medicine for the devotee, offers a fine example of how spiritual healing through votive giving can be considered as a promise for corporal healing (fig. 2.7). Such representations of Christ developed after the 1600s as a folkloristic response to the demand from the lower classes to gain access to medicine and pharmaceuticals. For those who could not afford such treatment, Christ as an apothecary became a hopeful substitute for the lack of a medical cure. 11 Further examples of concern for the human body are found in two panels from 1920s Naples; in this instance, the emotion is focused on the process of healing. In one panel, a woman is being operated on by three physicians while a nurse enters with extra towels; separated from the surgery, two women kneel in prayer before St. Vincent Ferrer, who hovers in the clouds overseeing the operation (fig. 2.8). The inscription at the foot of the panel reads V.F.G.A. (Votum fecit, gratiam accepit; vow made, grace received). The second panel replicates the basic form of the first panel, but on this occasion the surgery is performed on a man, and a group of saints hovers above the clouds (fig. 2.9). The two panels, which were deposited in the church of San Vincenzo alla Sanità in Naples, express gratitude for medical procedures Fig. 2.8 Votive painting of a woman’s successful operation. Italy, 1925–1930. Watercolor. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr V 120. Cat. 23. Fig. 2.9 Votive painting of a man’s successful operation. Italy, 1925–1930. Watercolor. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr V 119. Cat. 24. performed successfully on the human body. It is ironical that the surgical procedure, the epitome of modern medicine, demands divine intercession from the saints. 12 Childbearing carried similar concerns for the body and similar imaginings of its interior. In preindustrial societies, reproduction, of which childbirth was one element, was vital to the continuation and protection of lineage. We find examples of votive giving related to child- Votive Materials 39 Fig. 2.10 Uterus votive. Etruscan, 4th century BCE. Clay, modeled and fired. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr T 104. Cat. 177. Fig. 2.11 Swaddled child votive. Germany, first half of the 19th century. Wax, hair, glass. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr WV 602. Cat. 180. 40 Weinryb birth—both in anticipation of pregnancy and in gratitude for the safe delivery of a child—in a variety of media, including painted panels and objects made from materials such as silver, wax, terracotta, stone, and wood. Terracotta wombs, with a vaginal opening, could be found throughout antiquity (fig. 2.10). The ridged folds may represent the internal vaginal rugae. Because for the most part, however, human dissection was prohibited in classical antiquity and only animal dissection was permitted, the folds most likely presented a conceptualization rather than details based on actual study of the internal organ. 13 In Christian culture and especially after the late Middle Ages, the anatomical representation of the votive womb disappeared, replaced by baby figurines, such as one from Lichtenfels in Upper Franconia, which has been molded in wax, handpainted, and finished with real hair and glass eyes (fig. 2.11). 14 But the idea of the votive womb did not vanish from the votive repertoire. It could be found in another symbolic form, an example of which is seen in a remarkable painted votive panel dated to 1769. The panel shows a woman kneeling in front of St. Anne and the young Virgin Mary, who float among the clouds (fig. 2.12). On the lower left side of the panel, a toad is depicted from the back, its narrow neck suggestive of its symbolic nature. The toad, an ancient fertility symbol, was deployed in full force by German Catholicism to represent the desire to reproduce. Toad figurines signify the womb as an expression of this desire (fig. 2.13). A physical object given as an offering at a church, the toad functions not as a symbol of fertility but as a representation of the fertile womb. Offered by a female devotee, it represents an internal body organ, serving as a metonymy for the womb itself. Both the toads and the lungs serve as points of departure for our understanding of the manner in which devotees conceptualized their own physical interiority. Although the devotees’ perception of their own bodies was based on folkloristic knowledge, given the intimate relation between the object and the devotee, the votive organ in its physicality becomes an actual representation of a body part. Fig. 2.12 Votive painting of a woman with a woman’s illness. Germany, 1769. Oil on sprucewood. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr V 244. Cat. 178. Votive Materials 41 Fig. 2.13 Toad votive. Austria, probably 17th–18th century, Sprucewood, carved and painted. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr Hv 23. Cat. 179. votive materials A pair of iron oxen was manufactured in eighteenth-century Austria and given in offering at a church in Laval, Austria, dedicated to St. Leonard (fig. 2.14). 15 Displayed in the church, these iron livestock recount a concern to safeguard farm animals, but we should also note the durability of these offerings. They do not perish (as does food) or melt (as do lit candles) but instead persist on the altar after deposition. Iron is a hard material to manipulate, causing us to wonder why it has been employed and what might be unique about offerings made from iron. In fact, one can find iron votives in other shrines dedicated to St. Leonard of Noblac. The cult of St. Leonard (d. 559), patron saint of prisoners, began in France, focused principally on his shrine at Noblac; by the thirteenth century, it had 42 Weinryb spread across Europe. In earlier Christian tradition, miracles related to freeing prisoners were attributed to other saints. In one of the many miracles of freeing prisoners associated with St. Foy, a young man by the name of Hugh is taken as a prisoner of war to the enemy’s castle, where he is freed thanks to her intervention. He then heads to the shrine of St. Foy at Conques and offers the chain and fetters to the church as a form of gratitude.16 The popular practice is depicted on the façade of the Church of St. Foy, where, on the far left within a sculpted church, the saint kneels before the right hand of God; between two arches to the left of the saint, shackles (or fetters) hang from iron rods (fig. 2.15).17 Over the centuries, St. Leonard became solely identified with miracles relating to freeing prisoners, and almost forty percent of miracles related to him concern his freeing prisoners. 18 Tales of rescue from imprisonment are found in the miracle books of shrines associated with the saint, such as that at Inchenhofen in Bavaria, one of the largest pilgrimage sites of sixteenth-century Europe, which flourished despite the absence of relics of the saint, whose body was preserved in its entirety in Noblac. 19 The miracle books recount the intervention of the saint in cases of imprisonment. Hans Senft of Tiespeck had been held in leg irons in a tower for four days and nights; following his rescue by St. Leonard, Senft undertook a pilgrimage to Inchenhofen to express his gratitude. Another man was imprisoned in the stocks at the castle of Schillingfürst for six days and was released only when he invoked St. Leonard and vowed to go to Inchenhofen. 20 At a shrine dedicated to St. Leonard at Kemoden in Lower Bavaria, a panel depicts him on a column as either a living saint or a statue, with two devotees and their livestock gathered around him in hope of a blessing (fig. 2.16). In his right hand he holds a staff and chains. The association of shackles with Leonard is, in turn, associated with iron itself. Iron came to represent the saint and to serve as a metonymy for the saint’s presence. At sites that lacked relics, the material associated with the saint’s attribute—shackles—attested instead to his presence at the shrine. The material of the votive offering thus generated close links between devotee, shrine, and saint. Fig. 2.14 Oxen in double yoke votive. Austria, 17th–18th century. Forged iron. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr E 501. Cat. 173. Fig. 2.15 Detail of façade. St. Foy, Conques, France. VPC Photo / Alamy Stock Photo. Votive Materials 43 Fig. 2.16 Votive painting of Thateüs Schmair Röscher for the wellbeing of his cattle and horses. Germany, early 19th century. Oil on wood (spruce). Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr V 3. Cat. 174. Crude iron figures of a prisoner (fig. 2.17) or of male and female devotees (fig. 2.18a,b) were forged in a lengthy process that involved hammering the raw iron into a specific shape. The skill and cost required to manufacture iron objects enhances the significance of the use of material in relation to St. Leonard. 21 The cult of St. Leonard became known as the iron cult (Eisenkult), and scholars have identified more than five hundred types of iron offerings (Eisenopfer) deposited in shrines dedicated to the saint (fig. 2.19). Most are related to agrarian concerns and to safeguarding farm animals in particular. The daily needs and hopes of farmers in Bavaria were formalized in the forging of iron rods 44 Weinryb that depicted farm animals, standing in for living animals on the farm. We cannot know whether each depiction in iron was connected with a specific animal or whether the offering in iron was given for the sake of the farm in its entirety. Miracle books kept in shrines of the iron cult of St. Leonard in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Germany document the various offerings made and show categorically how these shrines became loci of hope rather than gratitude, with the iron livestock given as an anticipatory votive expression rather than as thanks for a miracle that had already occurred. The durability of the iron votives could therefore also express the safeguarding of livestock in the Fig. 2.17 Prisoner votive. Austria, 17th–18th century. Forged iron. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, 75/6. Cat. 167. Fig. 2.18a Man and woman votives. Germany, 18th–19th century. Forged iron. Rudolf Kriss collection, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr E 601, 602. Cat. 168. Fig. 2.18b (left) Man votive. Germany, 16th–19th century. Forged iron. Rudolf Kriss collection, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr 1157. Cat. 169. Fig. 2.19 (above) Sow with piglets votive and cow votives. Austria, 18th–19th century. Forged iron. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr E 22, 345, 414. Cats. 170, 171, 172. Votive Materials 45 Fig. 2.20 Johan Georg Glücker (designer), and Elias I. Jäger (silversmith). Votive panel of Duke Charles V of Lorraine encampment at Todtmoos, St. Blasien, Germany, 1687. Silver. Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Kunstkammer 884. long term. Iron votives of the cult of St. Leonard offer a glimpse into the manner in which materials are signified and enhanced, formalizing relations between votaries’ bodies and votives. Through the iconographic symbolism of shackles made of iron, the iron votives to St. Leonard came to represent, on the one hand, votaries’ souls freed from the shackles of daily existence and, on the other hand, through the durability of the iron, the hopeful longevity of the offering in the presence of the saint. In an agrarian setting, an iron votive could be commissioned from a local blacksmith experienced in making utilitarian objects, such as hammers, axes, pots and pans and even horseshoes. By contrast, in Europe, silver and gold votives appear to have been associated primarily with urban centers, where they could be commissioned and purchased from silver- and goldsmiths. 22 Although small-scale silver votives were more common, one can also find larger silver votives. One example is a large relief designed by Johan Georg Glücker and created by Elias Jäger of Augsburg for Duke Charles of Lorraine, who offered it at the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Todtmoos, near St. Blasien in 46 Weinryb Germany’s Black Forest. The panel shows Charles and his army in the foreground of the relief, with the church at its center, the Virgin above, and the woodland of the Black Forest in the background (fig. 2.20). The panel was made to express Charles’s gratitude for the assistance of the Virgin Mary in lifting the French siege of the town of Rheinfelden in 1678. During the campaign, Charles and his army had sought refuge in Todtmoos, and so in 1687, almost a decade later, Charles presented the relief to the church, where it was incorporated into the antependium at the altar. The large silver relief is an extremely elaborate form of silver votive closer to the single, smaller votives in silver, gold, and tin that were given in antiquity and continued to be popular in the Middle Ages and even into the present (fig. 2.21). The silver votives could serve as ecclesiastical currency; traditionally, they were melted down, and once the silver had been cast in a new mold, the object could be sold anew to a devotee. In antiquity, we know of instances where silver and other metal votive offerings were melted down for casting a new large object that would have been made as a communal offering to the temple. 23 The 1307 inventory for the shrine dedicated to St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury mentions 170 silver ships and 129 silver images of humans or body parts that were eventually melted down and reused as part of the economy of the shrine. 24 Silver votive-giving thus became a frequent substitute for almsgiving—alms were to be consumed by those in need, whereas silver votives were lasting. In its essence then, the silver votive offering is twofold: first, it is a material given to the church that is identical to circulating currency within the economy of the church; and second, it is the visual representation in which the silver takes form. These forms are imprinted on the material as if the body of the votary were cast on the material itself, imbuing the material with the personhood of the votary. 25 The physical imprint may be lost in time when the votive is recast, but the votive pledge remains in the material of the votive even after it has been melted down. The use of silver in votive offerings made as objects or body parts goes back to antiquity and was incorporated into Christian practice and then adopted in Jewish communities in turn. In Romaniote Jewish communities of the eastern Mediterranean, the practice of offering shadai’ot (deriving from the Hebrew phrase El Shaddai, often translated as “God Almighty”) started to appear in the early seventeenth century as imitations of Greek silver votive offerings (tamata). In Jewish practice, however, because the second commandment forbids the making of graven images, the silver plaques have lengthy inscriptions rather than anthropomorphic shapes. 26 The origins of the practice may be found in a singular gold medallion now in the Jewish Museum, London. Dated to the third to sixth centuries and originating in the eastern Mediterranean, the medallion bears the Jewish symbol of the menorah and an inscription saying that the medallion was given in fulfillment of a vow by a certain Jacob, a pearl setter (fig. 2.22). 27 The shadai’ot plaques were offered to synagogues across the Mediterranean. One example reads: “Bless you God and protect you, the boy, Baruch son of Abraham Susi, 1774” (fig. 2.23). The offering calls for the general safekeeping of a certain Baruch. 28 The practice continues to this very day. Fig. 2.21 Votives. Italy, 1930–50. Metal. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr S 687-721. Cat. 131. Votive Materials 47 Fig. 2.22 Medallion ornamented with a menorah, shofar, lulav, and a Greek inscription, “For the vow of Jacob the Leader, the pearl-setter,” ca. 200–600. Gold. © Jewish Museum London, JM 2. Fig. 2.23 Amulet. Greece, 1774 (date of inscription)–late 19th century. Silver. The Jewish Museum, New York, F5520. Cat. 125. 48 Weinryb Fig. 2.24 Shadai with Stars of David. United States, 1909. Silver, silk. The Jewish Museum, Gift of Congregation Shearith Israel of Janina, Bronx, NY, through Elias Matsos, 1987-68a-e. Cat. 128. Fig. 2.25 Shadai’ot inside El Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba, Tunisia. An elaborate 1909 votive from Kehila Kedosha Janina, a Romaniote synagogue in New York, is made of no less than four votive plaques sewn on a silk band (fig. 2.24). Each plaque is dedicated to a different person: one helps commemorate Anita, daughter of Avraham Shimo, and another is made in honor of a certain Shlomo Barukh Betino’s wedding. The suspended shadai’ot were attached to the synagogue’s parochet, the curtain that covers the Torah ark. The parochet is often interpreted as a liminal space between the Holy of Holies and the rest of the synagogue, and thus it is often compared to the area before the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem—an area where animal sacrifices were made as a form of atonement (Leviticus 16:12–14). Under the influence of the Christian practice of silver votive-giving, modern Judaism found its own way to make and offer silver votives instead of sacrificing animals. 29 In the ancient Tunisian synagogue El Ghriba in the island of Djerba, shadai’ot cover many of the internal walls (fig. 2.25). Legend has it that a stone from the Temple of Solomon was incorporated in the building, thus lending El Ghriba the status of the now destroyed temple in Jerusalem, making the shadai’ot covering its walls tantamount to sacrifices on the Day of Atonement in front of the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem.30 Silversmiths making Christian or Jewish offerings used stone molds or, at a later date, techniques of sealing. The uniqueness of the process guaranteed images that were both identical and numerous. The duplication of votive objects brings us to a fundamental question in the study of votive offerings across cultures: how could identical objects serve as surrogates for different devotees— different in age, place, or gender? A multiplicity of devotees means a multiplicity of concerns, and yet a reproducible object could form a personal, even intimate, bond with each devotee. Some votive offerings were made of soft materials that could bear an impression or acquire form in a mold. Silver and tin, for example, can be liquefied and cast or imprinted. Wax and terracotta were also primary materials in the world of votive offerings. We will examine these two materials and their use to Votive Materials 49 establish how material characteristics could contribute to and shape unique practices even in the context of the production of multiple copies and within a variety of votive practices.31 At an early date, wax as a material rather than in a specific form had value as an offering. In the Miracles of St. Hilary Fortunantus recounts a revealing story about wax as a votive offering: Two merchants went to the church of the blessed [Hilary]. Since they together had a case of wax as if in common, one of them said to the other that they should generously offer it to the great confessor, even though it was such a small gift. But he spoke his words in vain to his friend who was unwilling in his heart. So while the first merchant knelt with his companion in prayer, he secretly placed the wax before the railing around the impressive tomb. Soon the shape of that wax divided itself into equal halves; the half from this faithful donor was accepted, but the other half was rejected at God’s command with complete disgust. Everyone was watching as this half rolled all the way to the opposite railing, as if the saint did not wish to accept what the other man had not offered to him in piety. Because [Hilary] has always rejected what does not proceed from faith, he is as sure in his judgment as he is merciful in [answering] prayers.32 Two men offer a votive at a saint’s shrine, but the votive has neither shape nor inscription nor anything else that would identify it as the kind of votive offering to which we are accustomed. Material is given as material. Just as grain or wool could be useful for priests in the temple and thus formed a utilitarian votive, wax could be used for making candles, which were integral to the liturgy or might be sold to pilgrims. The account highlights a distinctive quality of wax, its divisibility, which makes it possible to distinguish between a fully faithful devotee and a less faithful one. Although devotees might choose beeswax for votive offerings because it was an expensive mate- 50 Weinryb rial, it had additional value because, like silver, it could be melted down and used again.33 Votive use of wax was found most fundamentally, and certainly most commonly, in candles.34 Votive candles came in two types. The shorter and more frequently encountered candles were made at the site of the shrine and purchased by pilgrims to be lit in the church, as shown in the print by Michael Ostendorfer of the shrine of the Beautiful Mary at Regensburg (see fig. 1.1). While most of the candles seen in the print are short, one figure on the right holds an enormous candle that is as tall as he is. The size and weight of the votive candle come to represent the scale of the favor being asked, but they can also represent the person (or creature) for whom the favor is sought.35 The eleventh-century vita of Gotthard of Hildesheim tells of a woman from Lower Saxony who made a candle in precisely her length and offered it to the tomb of the saint,36 and the vita of Heiric of Auxerre refers to a candle to measure the length of a horse (candelam ad modum equinae longitudinis).37 Records of votive candles often note their exact measurements in relation to a human or animal. To cure illness among members of his flock, for example, the bishop of Liège ordered two candles in the exact length of the votary’s body. The Book of Miracles of St. Foy mentions a candle that a certain Gerlad had given in the same measurements as a mule, and another story tells of a warrior giving a candle as long as his horse so to aid in its recovery.38 In another shrine we have testimony that a father gave a candle that was as tall as his child, adorned with a lock of the child’s hair.39 Other examples mention candles long enough to go around the body of the votary or a specific object, such as the tomb of the saint or, in extreme cases, the entire shrine. The emotional bond at the core of the interaction of devotee and votive offering is evident in such commonalities of size and weight for the person or animal on behalf of which the votive is given, which served in turn to ensure greater verisimilitude between the offering and the devotee’s body, thus making the votive an agent of the devotee. In the eastern Mediterranean, wax making might involve unbleached wax, which had a yellow color. 40 This wax was not cast in a mold but was shaped instead by hand, generating heavier objects, Fig. 2.26 Spine votive. Cyprus, 1961–62. Wax. Rudolf Kriss collection, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr WV 1197. Cat. 104. Fig. 2.27 Human figure votive. Turkey, 1961–62. Wax. Rudolf Kriss collection, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr WV 1176. Cat. 103. such as the wax spine made in the 1960s and offered at a church in Kouklia in Cyprus for an individual with a back injury (fig. 2.26). The lower right rib of the wax is wrenched, suggesting the reason for the offering and a desire for healing. The small wax figure of a child from Famagusta in Turkey has stones in its back, making the figure heavier so that it can substitute for the actual weight of the baby for which the votive was offered (fig. 2.27). The replication of an individual’s weight and size in votive candles was only one means by which the wax object took on bodily character. The plasticity of wax makes it possible to replicate the human or animal prototype. Regarding portraits in wax, Julius von Schlosser writes that “nowhere has pictorial art ever striven harder to attain the mirror image of reality; nowhere has it taken more literally the metaphor of Narcissus.”41 The material qualities of wax offer the votary the ability to produce an accurate rendition of self, and therefore, through verisimilitude, to perform the transfer of characteristics that eventually strengthens the emotional ties between votary and votive. Votive wax could be given the shape of either the whole or part of a human or animal body. As early as the seventh century, the vita of St. Walbertus tells of a woman who prayed for the saint to heal her paralysis. In return she promised an offering in wax in the form of her crippled legs. 42 The twelfth-century vita of Henry of Finland tells of a priest who “prayed to Henry that if he were freed from suffering, he would hang a head made of wax as a symbol of thanks; and he would always hold the martyr in great reverence. He was immediately freed from long suffering.”43 While we find many examples of votive wax in written sources, the earliest surviving example, from the tomb of Bishop Edmund Lacey at Exeter Cathedral, dates to 1455. 44 According to Jean Foissart’s Chronicles, when King Charles VI of France died in 1380 of causes related to his mental illness, his courtiers placed in the tomb of St. Archer in the Abbey of St. Vaast of Arras “a man made in wax in the resemblance of the King of France and sent it there with a large and splendid candle. These were offered with humble devotion to the saint’s body, in order that it should intercede with God for the King’s cruel affliction to be relieved.”45 The practice of presenting Votive Materials 51 Fig. 2.28 Cornelius Galle. “Sacellum D. Virginis, et Praecipui Ornatus,” from Justus Lipsius, Diva Virgo Hallensis: Beneficia eius et miracula fide atque ordine descripta (Antwerp, 1605). Engraving. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, 87-B21562. 52 Weinryb Fig. 2.30 Encased wax figures at Catholic parish church and pilgrimage church to the Most Holy Trinity, Gößweinstein, 1901. Foto Marburg / Art Resource, NY, FM1558527. Fig. 2.29 Votive boy in presentation case. Germany, 1880–1890. Wood, glass, wax, fabric, hair. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, 72/176. Cat. 67. sovereigns as wax effigies spread all over Europe, with an effigy made for King Alfonso III in the city of Daroca, Spain, in 1291 as the earliest example. An early-seventeenth-century engraving shows the interior of a church in Antwerp with votive effigies aligned on a shelf (fig. 2.28). A miracle associated with the church of St. Andrea in Florence tells of a custodian by the name of Senese who fell off one of the railings of the church and injured himself while attempting to rearrange the votive wax effigies offered to the tomb. 46 The account of the fabrication of the wax effigy of Charles VI suggests that the effigy was regarded as a surrogate for the devotee and that through mimetic representation it would work on behalf of the king. In the case of the dead king, the effigy was expected to appease God, who inflicted madness on King Charles VI. In other cases, when effigies were offered on behalf of living devotees, their waxen images “prayed” at the tomb for their prototype’s salvation. 47 The spread of the phenomena of wax effigies is best represented in an elaborate display from the late nineteenth century at the pilgrimage church at Gößweinstein in Bavaria, in which the wax figure of a boy, originally at the pilgrimage church, is encased in a glass box; the figure has real hair and glass eyes, formal clothing, and holds a bouquet of paper roses (fig. 2.29). The Gößweinstein church contains a collection of similar wax figures (fig. 2.30), exemplifying a votive tradition that dates back at least to the Votive Materials 53 Fig. 2.31 House votive and mold. Germany, 1701–1800. Wood, wax. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, I 14 207, 208, I 14 207.1-2 . Cats. 117, 118. eleventh century. Wax votive figures might be offered not in response to a specific need but rather as an eternal material supplication by a living prototype. 48 The development of the representational full body wax figure goes hand in hand with that of the representations of dead kings, and with burial. Representations develop through an intrinsic discourse regarding the notions of representation, substitution, presence, and surrogacy in Christian thought. Wax candles and full-size, dressed wax figures are not the only wax votive offerings to have survived. The majority of other wax creations were produced in molds (fig. 2.31) and in response to the most earthly needs of the devotee. Teeth, tongues, ears, as well as full wax figures (figs. 2.32, 2.33, 2.34, and 2.35)—all are offered to help mend the ailing human body. Even if these wax offerings come out of a mold, through a process of personalization—by offering, touching, and praying—the wax offering becomes an agent for the votary. 49 Liquified wax can take on shape as it hardens, and its adhesive qualities give the wax the ability to hold imprinted forms. Terracotta (literally, “baked earth”) possesses qualities similar to wax, includ- 54 Weinryb Fig. 2.32 Dental arches, tongue, and ear votives. Austria, 1870–1910. Wax. Rudolf Kriss collection, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr WV 116, 118, 115, 112. Cats. 109, 110, 111, 112. Fig. 2.33 Man and woman votives. Germany, 1700–1850. Wax. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr WV 1050, 1057. Cat. 108. Votive Materials 55 Fig. 2.34 Man and woman votives. Germany, 1752–1850. Wax. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr WV 262, 263. Cat. 105. Fig. 2.35 Man and woman votives. Germany, 19th century. Wax. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr WV 639, 640. Cat. 106. ing viscosity, an ability to take both liquid and hardened form, and an organic nature that evokes connections to the earth and to the divine. In the Hebrew Bible, God creates Adam from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7), and legends surrounding Christ in Islam and Judaism tell of a young child Christ who breathed life into terracotta birds. The biblical tradition of animating mute objects with life is also found in votive traditions, in which the object becomes animated, so to speak, by acting as a surrogate on behalf of the votary. Wax, silver, and terracotta can be shaped by hand and can be given shape in molds, returning us to the apparent tension between multiple identical forms and the essential individuality, emotional and bodily, of the act of votive giving.50 The strong bond between votary and object emerges from individuals’ concerns about pre- serving and maintaining their bodies. These concerns are a driving factor in the production and deposition of votive objects. The need for the offering to emulate the physical and spiritual characteristics of the devotee influences the selection of specific materials and techniques of reproduction. Malleable materials, such as wax, terracotta, and silver, make it possible to replicate the votary’s physical features so that the votive offering serves as a surrogate for the votary in the presence of the divine. As in the instance of the woman at Fátima (discussed at the beginning of this chapter), who offered a wax image of her pregnant self, the votive object becomes a vessel for the human condition in an attempt to create a passage between earthly and divine worlds, between here and the hereafter. 56 Weinryb 1 On Fatima, see William T. Walsh, Our Lady of Fátima (New York: Doubleday, 1990). 2 Among the plethora of literature on the relations between devotees and their objects, see Jeffrey F. Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York: Zone, 1998); in the Byzantine world, Ivan Drpić , Epigram, Art, and Devotion in Later Byzantium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 3 On votives serving as surrogates, see Aby Warburg, “Bildniskunst und florentinisches Bürgertum” (1902), in Gesammelte Schriften (Leipzig: Teubner, 1932), 1:89–126, 340– 352; published in English as “The Art of Portraiture and the Florentine Bourgeoisie,” in Aby Warburg, The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 1999), 184– 221. See also Megan Holmes, “Ex-votos: Materiality, Memory, and Cult,” in The Idol in the Age of Art: Objects, Devotions and the Early Modern World, ed. Michael Cole and Rebecca Zorach (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 168–178. 4 On presence, see Michele Bacci, “L’individu en tant que prototype dans les ex-voto médiévaux,” Degrés 145–146 (Spring– Summer 2011): 1–14, and “Italian Ex-Votos and ‘Pro-Anima’ Images in the Late Middle Ages,” in Ex Voto: Votive Giving Across Cultures, ed. Ittai Weinryb (New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2016), 76–105 ; Fabio Bisogni, “La scultura in cera nel Medioevo,” Iconographica 1 (2002): 1–15; Verity J. Platt, Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature, and Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 5 On the cult of Askelpios, see Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, Truly beyond Wonders: Aelius Aristides and the Cult of Asklepios (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 221–275. 6 From the plethora of work on ancient and medieval body part votives, see the essays by Jessica Hughes and Alexia PetsalisDiomidis, in Weinryb, Ex Voto, chaps. 1 and 2; see also Jane Draycott and Emma-Jayne Graham, Bodies of Evidence: Ancient Anatomical Votives Past, Present, and Future (New York: Routledge, 2017); Jessica Hughes, Votive Body Parts in Greek and Roman Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 7 For the donkey, see Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck, Ex Voto: Zeichen, Bild und Abbild im christlichen Votivbrauchtum (Zurich: Atlantis, 1972), 294. 8 For the wounded hand, see Nina Gockerell, Glaube und Bild: Sammlung Rudolf Kriss (Salzweg, Germany: Landkreis Passau, Kulturreferat, 2009), 168–170. 9 On the history of tuberculosis, see Helen Bynum, Spitting Blood: The History of Tuberculosis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Charlotte A. Roberts and Jane E. Buikstra, The Bioarchaeology of Tuberculosis: A Global View on a Reemerging Disease (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 2008). 10 Benjamin Nilson, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001), 170–171. 11 On Christ as an apothecary, see Fritz Krafft, Christus Ruft in die Himmelsapotheke: Die Verbildlichung des Heilandsrufs durch Christus als Apotheker; Begleitbuch und Katalog zur Ausstellung im Museum Altomünster (November 29, 2002–January 26, 2003) (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2002); Peter Stockmeier, “Der Himmlische Arzt: Christus als Apotheker und Arzt; Ein barockes Bildmotiv im Bereich des Erzbistums München und Freising,” Beiträge zur altbayerischen Kirchengeschichte 38 (1989): 9–19. 12 For votive offering and medicine, see Paul Cassar, “Medical Votive Offerings in the Maltese Islands,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 94, no. 1 (1964): 23–29; Wilhelm Theopold, Votivmalerei und Medizin: 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Kulturgeschichte und Heilkunst im Spiegel der Votivmalerei (Munich: Thiemig, 1981). On votive giving and medicine in antiquity, see the essays in Draycott and Graham, Bodies of Evidence. For votive wombs, see Rebecca Flemming, “Wombs for the Gods,” in Draycott and Graham, Bodies of Evidence, 112–130. See also Ittai Weinryb, “Procreative Giving: Votive Wombs and the Study of Ex Votos,” in Weinryb, Ex Voto, 276–299. See Susanne Waldmann, Die lebensgroße Wachsfigur: Eine Studie zu Funktion und Bedeutung der keroplastischen Porträtsfigur vom Spätmittelalter bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (Munich: Tuduv, 1990). On iron votives and the cult of St. Leonard, see Rudolf Kriss, Eisenopfer: Das Eisenopfer in Brauchtum und Geschichte (Munich: Hüber, 1957); Joseph Moos, “Iron Votive Offerings: Hope Forged from Iron,” Hephaistos: Internationale Zeitschrift für Metallgestalter 9/10 (1996): 38–39. The Book of Sainte Foy, trans. Pamela Sheingorn (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 148–149. Beate Fricke, Fallen Idols, Risen Saints: Sainte Foy of Conques and the Revival of Monumental Sculpture in Medieval Art (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015). On the cult of St. Leonhard in Bavaria, see Megan CassidyWelch, “Pilgrimage and Embodiment: Captives and the Cult of Saints in Late Medieval Bavaria,” Parergon 20, no. 2 (2003): 47–70; Lionel Rothkrug, “Popular Religion and Holy Shrines: Their Influence on the Origins of the German Reformation and Their Role in German Cultural Development,” in Religion and the People, 800–1700, ed. James Obelkevich (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 20–86; Steven Sargent, “Miracles, Misfortune and the Concept of Nature in Late Medieval Bavaria,” Medieval Perspectives 3 (1991): 211–235; P. M. Soergel, Wondrous in His Saints: CounterReformation Propaganda in Bavaria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 15–44. For the cult of St. Leonhard in Inchenhofen, see Franz Machilek, “Die Wittelsbacher, Kloster Fürstenfeld und die Wallfahrt St Leonhard zu Inchenhofen,” in Die Wittelsbacher in Aichacher Land: Gedenkschrift der Stadt Aiach und des Landeskreises Aichach-Friedberg zur 800-Jahr-Feier des Hauses Wittelsbach, ed. T. Grad (Aichach, Germany: Mayer, 1980), 197–208. Cassidy-Welch, “Pilgrimage and Embodiment,” 51. On the technique of making iron votives, see Moos, “Iron Votive Offerings.” For silver votives, see R. W. Lightbown, “Ex-Votos in Gold and Silver: A Forgotten Art,” Burlington Magazine 121 (June 1979): 352–357. See also Holmes, “Ex-votos.” On the life of silver votives in the Church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence, see Iginia Dina, “Da un inventario di ex-voto d’argento alla SS. Annunziata di Firenze 1447–1511,” in Testi dei “Servi de la Donna di Cafaggio,” ed. Eugenio Casalini, Iginia Dina, and Paola Ircani Menichini (Florence: Convento della SS. Annunziata, 1995), 243–316. On silver votives and on metal votives in general in South America, see Sergio Barbieri, Exvotos argentinos: Un art popular (São Paulo: Museo de Arte de São Paulo, 1975). On the economy of votives in ancient shrines dedicated to Asklepius, see Sara B. Aleshire, “The Economics of Dedication at the Athenian Asklepieion,” in Economics of Cult in the Ancient Greek World, ed. Tullia Linders and Brita Alroth (Uppsala: Almquist and Wiksell International, 1992), 85–99. Nilson, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England, 101. For the economic life of the medieval shrine and the role of votives, see ibid., 168–191. On the transfer of characteristics through the practice Votive Materials 57 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 of imprinting, see Katharine Park, “Impressed Images Reproducing Wonders,” in Picturing Science, Producing Art, ed. Caroline A. Jones, Peter Galison, and Amy E. Slaton (New York: Routledge, 1998), 254–271; Verity Platt, “Making an Impression: Replication and the Ontology of the GraecoRoman Seal Stone,” Art History 29, no. 2 (2006): 233–257. On shadai’ot, see Ariella Amar and Irina Chernetsky, Shadai’ot: The Collection of the Jewish Museum of Greece; Documentation of the Index of Jewish Art (Athens: The Museum, 1996); Ariella Amar, “Sacrificial Donations among the Romaniot Jews,” in Jewish Art in Context: The Role and Meaning of Artifacts and Visual Images, ed. Naomi Feuchtwanger-Sarig, Mark Irving, and Emile Schrijver, Studia Rosenthaliana 45 (2014): 91–114. Nicholas de Lange, “A Gold Votive Medallion in the Jewish Museum, London,” Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture 1 (2001): 48–55. Theodore Schrire, Hebrew Magic Amulets: Their Decipherment and Interpretation (1966; New York: Behrman, 1982), 87–90. On Jewish temple sacrifice as offering, see Jacob Milgrom, “The Function of the H·at·t· a’t- Sacrifice,” Tarbiz 40, no. 1 (1970): 1–8, and “Sin-Offering or Purification-Offering?,” Vetus Testamentum 21, no. 2 (1971): 237–239. On Jewish Djerba and its synagogue, see Dominique Jarrassé, “Synagogues in the Islamic World,” in A History of JewishMuslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day, ed. Meddeb Abdelwahab and Stora Benjamin, trans. Todd Jane Marie and Michael B. Smith (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 911–927; Avraham L. Udovitch and Lucette Valensi, “Communautés juives en pays d’Islam: Identité et communication à Djerba,” Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 35, no. 3/4 (1980): 764–783. See also Dionigi Albera, Lieux Saints Partagés (Marseille: MUCEM, 2015), 140–143. For soft materials such as wax as bearers of surrogate and mimetic identity, see Charlotte Angeletti and Helga SchmidtGlassner, Geformtes Wachs: Kerzen, Votive, Wachsfiguren (Munich: Callwey, 1980); Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, When Ego Was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 109–159; Reinhard Büll, Das Große Buch vom Wachs: Geschichte, Kultur, Technik (Munich: Callwey, 1977). Raymond Van Dam, Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 160. For wax offerings, see Ursula Pfistermeister, Wachs Volkskunst und Brauch: Ein Buch für Sammler und Liebhaber alter Dinge (Nuremberg: Hans Carl, 1982); Leopold Schmidt, “Zur Geschichte des Wachsopfers im Mittelalter,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, n.s. 1 (1947): 86–94. For votive wax and votive candles, see Anne-Marie Bautier, “Typologie des ex-voto mentionnés dans les textes antérieurs à 1200,” in Actes du 99e congrès national des sociétés savantes, Besançon 1974: Section de philologie et d’ histoire jusqu’ à 1610, vol. 1: La piété populaire au Moyen Âge (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 197 7), 231–282; Christine Edith Janotta, “Objektstiftung und Wallfahrt im Mittelalter,” in Materielle Kultur und religiöse Stiftung im Spätmittelalter, ed. Gerhard Jaritz (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1990), 109–122 ; Pierre-André Sigal, “L’ex-voto au Moyen Âge dans les regions du nord-ouest de la Méditerranée (XIIe–XIVe siècles),” Provence historique 33 (1983): 13–31. For wax candles, see Angeletti and Schmidt-Glassner, Geformtes Wachs, 43–50; Michael P. Carroll, Madonnas That Maim: Popular Catholicism in Italy since the Fifteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 82–84; Büll, Das Große Buch vom Wachs. Vita Godehardi episcopi Hildenesheimensis auctore Wolf heri, 58 Weinryb 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 in Scriptores (in Folio) 11: Historiae aevi Salici, ed. Georg Heinrich Pertz (Hanover, Germany, 1854), 218. Patrologia Latina, Hericus Antissiodorensis, Miracula S. Germani, 124, 1233B. Book of Miracles of St. Foy, 57, 1:4, and 160, 3:23. On the use of hair in votive giving, see Jane Draycott, “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Use of Real, False and Artificial Hair as Votive Offerings,” in Draycott and Graham, Bodies of Evidence, 77–94. On wax votives in the eastern Mediterranean, see Rudolf Kriss and Hubert Kriss-Heinrich, Peregrinatio Neohellenika: Wallfahrtswanderungen im Heutigen Griechenland und in Unteritalien (Vienna: Selbstverlag der Österreichischen Museums für Volkskunde, 1955), 1–32. Julius von Schlosser, “History of Portraiture in Wax,” in Bodies: Wax Sculpture and the Human Figure, ed. Roberta Panzanelli (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2008), 173. Vita S. Walbertus, Acta Sanctorum, 15:635, 1.14. “Frater quidam Ordinis Minorum, Sacerdos et praedicator officio, per sex annos passus est dolorem capitis vehementer. Qui in profecto B. Henrici votum fecit, quod si a passione illa liberarentur, ante corpus Saneti in sibi factae caput de cera factum suspenderet, ac Martyrem deinceps in reverentia majori semper haberet: qui a longo languore fuit protinus liberatus.” Vita S. Henrici, Acta Sanctorum, 2:614, 1.10 For Exeter waxes, see Ittai Weinryb, introduction to Weinryb, Ex Voto, 8–10. Jean Froissart, Chronicles, trans. Geoffrey Brereton (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1968), 400. Some scholars connect the custom of making full-size wax effigies with funerary portraits of European royalty and aristocracy. See, for instance, Ralph E. Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France (Geneva: Droz, 1960); A. E. Harvey and Richard Mortimer, The Funeral Effigies of Westminster Abbey (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003); John Hope, “On the Funeral Effigies of the Kings and Queens of England, with Special Reference to Those in the Abbey Church of Westminster,” Archaeologia 60 (1907): 517–570; Marthe Kretzschmar, Herrscherbilder aus Wachs: Lebensgroße Porträts politischer Machthaber in der Frühen Neuzeit (Berlin: Reimer, 2014). See also the recent exhibition catalog, Andrea Daninos and Guido A. Guerzoni, Waxing Eloquent: Italian Portraits in Wax (Milan: Officina Libraria, 2012). “Senese, custos sepulcri beati viri, cum oblatas cereas imagines in honorem B. Andreae, [& custos sepulcri laesus,] eiusdem sanctitatem in miraculis protestantes, supra eius sepulcrum decenter collocaret in alto; pede lapso, contigit eius manum a quodam clauo a parte inferiore superius perforari: qui emisso voto, coepit inhaerendo sepulcro penitus dormitare. Ipsi vero dormienti, apparuit B. Andreas, exhortans eum, vt pauperum curam diligenter haberet, & eius manui signum sanctae Crucis impressit. Ipse vero postmodum excitatus inuenit se penitus liberatum, nulla in eius manu deformitate manente; ad eius gloriam, & honorem, qui manum leprosi, tactu suae mundissim manus miraculose curauit” (Acta Sanctorum, 9:57). For royal wax effigies, see Carlo Ginzburg, Wooden Eyes: Nine Reflections on Distance (London: Verso, 2005), 63–78. Some scholars have interpreted the royal wax effigies as symbols for the continuation of the crown, and the everlasting presence of the monarch. See Catherine Lafages, “Royalty and Ritual in the Middle Ages: Coronation and Funerary Rites in France,” in Honor and Grace in Anthropology, ed. John G. Peristiany and Julian A. Pitt-Rivers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 44–45. See also Kretzschmar, Herrscherbilder aus Wachs; Waldmann, Die lebensgroße Wachsfigur. 48 On the phenomenon of the Franconian wax figures, of which the Gößweinstein boy is an example, see Ursula Pfistermeister, Wachs, Volkskunst und Brauch (Nuremberg: Carl, 1982), 2:115–119; Gislind M. Ritz, Die lebensgrossen angekleideten Kinder-Wachsvotive in Franken (Volkach: Kommissionsverlag Hartdruck, 1981). 49 On the creation and function of the verisimilitude, see Walter Benjamin, “Doctrine of the Similar (1933),” New German Critique, no. 17 (1979): 65– 69; Blair Ogden, “Benjamin, Wittgenstein, and Philosophical Anthropology: A Reevaluation of the Mimetic Faculty,” Grey Room, no. 39 (2010): 57–73; Michael T. Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (New York: Routledge, 1993). 50 On concepts regarding the animation of objects and their relations to God’s creation of Adam, see Michael Cole, Cellini and the Principles of Sculpture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 43–78; Sarah M. Guérin, “Saisir le sens: Les ivoires gothiques et le toucher,” in Les cinq sens au Moyen Âge, ed. Éric Palazzo (Paris: Le Cerf-Alpha, 2016), 589–622; Erwin Panofsky, “The Neoplatonic Movement and Michelangelo,” in Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Icon, 1962), 171–230; Ittai Weinryb, The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 33–54. Votive Materials 59 Agents of Faith Votive Objects in Time and Place Ittai Weinryb, editor Fatima Bercht Alexandra Beuscher Sheila Blair Suzanne Preston Blier Michael H. Dewberry Alexander Ekserdjian Jaś Elsner Diana Fane Nina Gockerell John Guy Anne Hilker Fredrika Jacobs Mitchell B. Merback David Morgan Verity Platt Darienne Turner Alyssa Velazquez Ittai Weinryb Mechtild Widrich Christopher S. Wood Published by Bard Graduate Center Gallery, New York Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London This catalogue is published in conjunction with the exhibition Agents of Faith: Votive Objects in Time and Place held at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery from September 14, 2018, through January 6, 2019. Editor: Ittai Weinryb Exhibition curators: Ittai Weinryb with Marianne Lamonaca and Caroline Hannah Director, Bard Graduate Center Gallery and Gallery Publications: Nina Stritzler-Levine Catalogue design: Laura Grey Copy editor: Carolyn Brown Manager of Rights and Reproductions: Alexis Mucha German-language translator: Annika Fisher Catalogue production: Sally Salvesen, London Printed and bound: Conti Tipcolor S.p.A., Italy Copyright © 2018 Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture. Copyright for individual essays are held by the authors and Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted in Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Weinryb, Ittai, editor. | Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, organizer, host institution. Title: Agents of faith : votive objects in time and place / Ittai Weinryb, editor. Description: New York : Bard Graduate Center Gallery, [2018] | “Published in conjunction with the exhibition Agents of Faith: Votive Objects in Time and Place, held at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery from September 14, 2018, through January 6, 2019.” | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018021660 | ISBN 9780300222968 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Votive offerings—Exhibitions. | Material culture—Psychological aspects—Exhibitions. | Material culture—Social aspects—Exhibitions. | BISAC: ART / Criticism & Theory. | ART / Popular Culture. | HISTORY / Social History. Classification: LCC NK1648 .A39 2018 | DDC 704.9/48— dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.locgov/2018021660 Front and back cover and endpapers: Silver votives in various shapes. Italy, 1930–50. Sheet metal. Rudolf Kriss collection, Asbach Monastery, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Kr S 687-721. Cat. 131. Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London ISBN: 978 0300 22296 8 Frontispiece: Votive bust of a young man. Etruscan, 3rd–2nd century BCE. Terracotta. Musée du Louvre, Paris, MNE 1341. Cat. 185. Contents ix Director’s Foreword Susan Weber xi Of Votive Things Ittai Weinryb xix Note to the Reader 3 26 33 60 67 three Public and Private Dimensions of the Votive Offering Christopher S. Wood part 1 agents of faith four Memory and Narrative: Materializing Past and Future in the Present Fredrika Jacobs one Place, Shrine, Miracle Jaś Elsner five Votive Giving Today David Morgan Terrestrial Gateways to the Divine Alexandra Beuscher and Darienne Turner t wo Votive Materials: Bodies and Beyond Ittai Weinryb Edible Offerings: Food in Votive Culture Michael H. Dewberry and Alexander Ekserdjian 87 109 128 Votive Giving at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Anne Hilker and Alyssa Velazquez part 11 votive objects in time and place 141 159 six Clever Devices and Cognitive Artifacts: Votive Giving in the Ancient World Verity Platt seven Lob und Danck: On the Social Meaning of Votives in German Pilgrimage Culture Mitchell B. Merback 241 255 285 296 327 182 Votive Wax: The Hipp Workshop in Pfaffenhofen Nina Gockerell 328 345 346 351 191 225 eight In Search of Blessings: Ex-Votos in Medieval Greater South Asia John Guy nine Votive Giving in Islamic Societies Sheila Blair 352 ten Action in Form: African Art as Voiced Engagements Suzanne Preston Blier eleven Votive Giving in the New World Diana Fane and Fatima Bercht t welve The Contemporary Ex-Voto: Reenchanting the Art World? Mechtild Widrich Checklist of the Exhibition Acknowledgments Bibliography About the Authors Index Lenders to the Exhibition Photo Credits