Paris and Her Cathedrals by R. Howard Bloch

Author:R. Howard Bloch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liveright

THE RELIQUARY TRIBUNE

TO SOME EXTENT churches are always reliquaries, the possession of relics the substance of their glory, honor, riches, and prestige. Conversely, the boxes that contain relics are often designed as miniature churches. A reliquary box from the second half of the thirteenth century, which once held the remains of three beheaded saints—Maxien, Lucien, and Julien—is, in fact, a miniature version of the Sainte-Chapelle in whose treasury it once resided, though now it can be seen in the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages. Louis’s upper chapel inserts yet another layer between reliquary boxes in the shape of a church and the church itself, and this by way of the reliquary platform behind the altar in the curve of the apse—an enlarged ciborium or baldachin, a canopy or covering supported by columns, freestanding in the sanctuary. Carried on eight pillars, with three broken arches separated at the top by trilobes on either side of a wider, higher, broken arch, the lattice which cloisters the reliquary tribune from the rest of the church functions like a stage in a theater to dramatize the instruments of the Passion, mounted in the platform accessed by a wooden staircase on either side. Six angels floating upward through clouds on the inner edge of the middle arch bear a vividly spiked crown of thorns as if they were both delivering and reminding us of the importance of the prized sacred object in the great golden box above.

The reliquary tribune is designed as a miniature version of a single bay, seen from both inside and outside, of the Sainte-Chapelle. The frontal perspective from the ground reveals the type of gable with oculus that could be part of the transept of a Gothic cathedral. The cross roof structure is topped at either end with a finial in the shape of a miniature shrine which adds weight and stability to the buttress of a real cathedral. The finials of Louis’s reliquary tribune are genuine mini-cathedrals with a three-portal facade, towers with spires, and broken arches with lancet windows and an oculus on the west side. In the center, a larger version of the front finials serves as a central spire like that on the roof of the Sainte-Chapelle or Notre-Dame Paris. All the spires as well as the frontal gable are crested by fancy fleurs-de-lys. Looking up into the reliquary tribune, you will see that the trilobe in the upper part of the open arch continues the clover-like pattern in the arcades around the church. The ceiling, complete with gilded ribs and shield boss, reproduces in miniature the ceiling of the upper chapel with its gold stars on a field of blue. The reliquary tribune of the Sainte-Chapelle is a dollhouse of a church.

Reliquary Tribune

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