Misplaced Pages

#595404

74-426: The second largest group was discovered in a burial at Bobbio Abbey , not far from Monza, and names such as Monza/Bobbio flasks ampullae or flagons are among the many terms by which these objects are described. The few other examples are now scattered across the world; this article deals with the whole group of over fifty known ampullae, wherever located. Examples of comparable ampullae from pilgrimage sites outside

148-459: A Saint Anthony and said: 'Save this one.' Then he found a figure of Saint Sano and said: 'This one is to be gotten rid of, since as long as I have been the Priest here I have never seen anyone light a candle in front of it, nor has it ever seemed to me useful; therefore, mason, get rid of it.' Donor portraits have a continuous history from late antiquity , and the portrait in the 6th-century manuscript

222-537: A centre of resistance to Arianism and a base for the conversion of the Lombard people. It was not until the reign of Grimoald I (663–673), himself a convert, that the bulk of the Lombards accepted Catholic Christianity. Theodelinda's nephew Aripert I (653–663) restored all the lands of Bobbio that belonged by right to the pope. Aripert II confirmed this restitution to Pope John VII in 707. The Lombards soon dispossessed

296-596: A millennium later. Another tradition which had pre-Christian precedent was royal or imperial images showing the ruler with a religious figure, usually Christ or the Virgin Mary in Christian examples, with the divine and royal figures shown communicating with each other in some way. Although none have survived, there is literary evidence of donor portraits in small chapels from the Early Christian period, probably continuing

370-488: A sill outside and below the main architectural setting. This innovation, however, did not appear in Venetian painting until the turn of the next century. Normally the main figures ignore the presence of the interlopers in narrative scenes, although bystanding saints may put a supportive hand on the shoulder in a side-panel. But in devotional subjects such as a Madonna and Child , which were more likely to have been intended for

444-512: A treasure, records that a cleric called John, during the reign of Pope Gregory the Great (died 604), transferred (the nature of the transaction, whether a gift from Gregory, or John, or a purchase, is not clear) to Theodelinda small containers with oil that had been in lamps burning before the tombs of saints in Rome. The saints are listed; it seems that in most cases, but not those of Saints Peter and Paul ,

518-545: Is a monastery founded by Irish Saint Columbanus in 614, around which later grew up the town of Bobbio , in the province of Piacenza , Emilia-Romagna, Italy. It is dedicated to Saint Columbanus . It was famous as a centre of resistance to Arianism and as one of the greatest libraries in the Middle Ages . The abbey was dissolved under the French administration in 1803, although many of the buildings remain in other uses. The abbey

592-411: Is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or (much more rarely) her, family. Donor portrait usually refers to the portrait or portraits of donors alone, as a section of a larger work, whereas votive portrait may often refer to a whole work of art intended as an ex-voto , including for example a Madonna, especially if

666-568: Is a small mosaic of Justinian, possibly originally of Theoderic the Great in the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo . In the Early Middle Ages , a group of mosaic portraits in Rome of Popes who had commissioned the building or rebuilding of the churches containing them show standing figures holding models of the building, usually among a group of saints. Gradually these traditions worked their way down

740-579: Is clearly recorded for the major pilgrimage sites. This view has gained considerable influence. After the Persians under Khosrau II took and sacked Jerusalem in 614, and the Muslim conquest of the region in the 630s, pilgrimages to the Holy Land sites were greatly reduced, and pilgrim souvenirs with them. With the exception of the somewhat variant example from Sant Pere de Casseres (see below), which may be later, it

814-497: Is the portrayal as the Virgin lactans (or just post- lactans ) of Agnès Sorel (died 1450), the mistress of Charles VII of France , in a panel by Jean Fouquet . Donor portraits in works for churches, and over-prominent heraldry , were disapproved of by clerical interpreters of the vague decrees on art of the Council of Trent , such as Saint Charles Borromeo , but survived well into

SECTION 10

#1732868889596

888-538: Is usually assumed that all the Monza-type ampullae predate the Persian sack, and probably come from the late sixth century, a few years before Theodelinda's reign. After a nearly complete gap of three centuries or so, different styles of pilgrimage souvenirs begin to appear from the 10th century, reflecting rather different pilgrimage experiences and customs. Theodelinda was a Bavarian princess who married Authari , King of

962-499: The Incredulity of Thomas ("Doubting Thomas") and the work as a whole is ambiguous as to whether the donors are represented as occupying the same space as the sacred scene, with different indications in both directions. A further secular development was the portrait historié , where groups of portrait sitters posed as historical or mythological figures. One of the most famous and striking groups of Baroque donor portraits are those of

1036-892: The Procession of the Magi by Benozzo Gozzoli (1459–61), which admittedly was in the private chapel of the Palazzo Medici , is dominated by the glamorous procession containing more portraits of the Medici and their allies than can now be identified. By 1490, when the large Tornabuoni Chapel fresco cycle by Domenico Ghirlandaio was completed, family members and political allies of the Tornabuoni populate several scenes in considerable numbers, in addition to conventional kneeling portraits of Giovanni Tornabuoni and his wife. In an often-quoted passage, John Pope-Hennessy caricatured 16th-century Italian donors:

1110-457: The Emperor Henry II , on the occasion of his own coronation in Rome, obtained from Pope Benedict VIII the erection of Bobbio as an episcopal see . The diocese was made a suffragan of the metropolitan of Milan. Peter Aldus, its first bishop, had been abbot of Bobbio since 999, and his episcopal successors for a long time lived in the abbey, where many of them had been monks. From 1133 Bobbio

1184-631: The Ghent Altarpiece , the donors were shown on the closed view of an altarpiece with movable wings, or on both the side panels, as in the Portinari Altarpiece and the Memlings above, or just on one side, as in the Mérode Altarpiece . If they are on different sides, the males are normally on the left for the viewer, the honorific right-hand placement within the picture space. In family groups

1258-524: The Holy Land have also survived, for example a very similar one from a Syrian site related to Saint Sergius , now in the Walters Art Museum , Baltimore. The ampullae are cast in various metals, including silver (perhaps "silvered" would be more accurate), tin and lead , and are mainly of interest because of the images they carry, which come from a period which has left very few traces in art, and

1332-624: The Holy See . Under the next abbot, Bobolen, the Rule of St. Benedict was introduced. At first its observance was optional, but in the course of time it superseded the stricter Rule of Saint Columbanus , and Bobbio joined the Congregation of Monte Cassino . In 643, at the request of Rotharis and Queen Gundeberga , Pope Theodore I granted to the Abbot of Bobbio the use of the mitre and other pontificals. During

1406-539: The Iron Crown of Lombardy (strictly only on deposit there initially), the Late Antique Poet and Muse diptych , a Gospel book and the collection of ampullae. An early inventory survives, although some objects traditionally associated with Theodelinda may actually be made well after her death in 628, when she was buried at Monza. The collection in the treasury was famous, and later augmented by other royal gifts. It

1480-512: The Lombards in 588. When he died in 590, she was allowed to choose his cousin Agilulf as her next husband and the next king. He was baptised, initially as an Arian like most Lombards, but Theodelinda persuaded him and his son to convert to Catholicism in 603. Together they founded the cathedral at Monza, and endowed it with many treasures, a collection which has remained unusually intact, and includes

1554-841: The Staatliche Museen of Berlin and one in the Landesmuseum Stuttgart . Two examples in the United States, one at Dumbarton Oaks near Washington, D. C. and one in the Detroit Institute of Arts , appear to be cast from the same mould. There is an example with a Crucifixion and Ascension in the Cleveland Museum of Art (clear image online). A single example was found in 1952 at the monastery church of Sant Pere de Casseres, near Tavèrnoles in Catalonia . As at Monza, it

SECTION 20

#1732868889596

1628-523: The Vienna Dioscurides may well reflect a long-established classical tradition, just as the author portraits found in the same manuscript are believed to do. A painting in the Catacombs of Commodilla of 528 shows a throned Virgin and Child flanked by two saints, with Turtura, a female donor, in front of the left hand saint, who has his hand on her shoulder; very similar compositions were being produced

1702-503: The Women at the empty tomb , which are also on the two faces in other examples. Two of the flasks, one each at Bobbio and Monza, show a large Christ walking on water and rescuing Saint Peter from drowning, as the other apostles watch from a boat, perhaps reflecting the anxieties of the sea voyages many pilgrims faced as they returned home. Another Bobbio scene shows a Virgin Orant flanked by John

1776-579: The 15th century Early Netherlandish painters like Jan van Eyck integrated, with varying degrees of subtlety, donor portraits into the space of the main scene of altarpieces, at the same scale as the main figures. A comparable style can be found in Florentine painting from the same date, as in Masaccio 's Holy Trinity (1425–28) in Santa Maria Novella where, however, the donors are shown kneeling on

1850-514: The 570s earth was kept piled up in the tomb of Christ to be taken by pilgrims. Most of these pieces, in the words of John Beckwith, "rate as works of art little more than a hot cross bun ". However few of these works have images with the complexity of those on the ampullae. There is a small wooden box in the Vatican Museums containing earth and rocks from the Holy Land, some tied up in cloth and labelled with their site of origin. The inside of

1924-539: The Abbey grew; in 1153 Frederick Barbarossa confirmed by two charters various rights and possessions. The fame of Bobbio reached the shores of Ireland, and Columbanus' reputation attracted many more Irish religious. Bobolen's successor may have been a certain 'Comgall'. Bishop Cumianus , who had resigned his see in Ireland to become a monk of Bobbio, died in the abbey in about 736, as his poetic inscription there attests. In 1014,

1998-497: The Abbey includes findings and remains from Roman (tombs, altars, sculptures) and Lombard ages (capitals, tombstones). It houses also a polyptych by Bernardino Luini and the Bobbio collection, the second largest in the world, of Monza ampullae , pilgrimage flasks from the 6th century. The cloisters of the abbey house a display of Collezione Mazzolini. The collection of nearly 900 works was donated in 2005 by Domenica Rosa Mazzolini to

2072-658: The Baptist and his father Zacharias . Figures that appear to be images of pilgrims, as a kind of generalised donor portrait , appear in many scenes, usually kneeling, as part of the emphasis on the pilgrim experience noted above in discussing the Doubting Thomas scenes. The ampullae join other small-scale Christian works of art from this period, from which almost no major works have survived, and very few manuscript illuminations. These include amulets , devotional medals and other forms of pilgrimage souvenirs. Many of these are in

2146-555: The Baroque period, and developed a secular equivalent in history painting , although here it was often the principal figures who were given the features of the commissioner. A very late example of the old Netherlandish format of the triptych with the donors on the wing panels is Rubens ' Rockox Triptych of 1613–15, once in a church over the tombstone of the donors and now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp . The central panel shows

2220-489: The Lombard seizure, had been property of the papacy. Columbanus particularly wanted this secluded place, for while enthusiastic for the conversion of the Lombards, he preferred eremitic solitude for his monks and himself. Next to this little church, dedicated to Saint Peter , a monastery was soon built. The abbey at its foundation followed the Rule of St Columbanus, based on the monastic practices of Celtic Christianity . Columbanus

2294-515: The Memling above, daughters in particular often appear as standardized beauties in the style of the day. In narrative scenes they began to be worked into the figures of the scene depicted, perhaps an innovation of Rogier van der Weyden , where they can often be distinguished by their expensive contemporary dress. In Florence, where there was already a tradition of including portraits of city notables in crowd scenes (mentioned by Leon Battista Alberti ),

Monza ampullae - Misplaced Pages Continue

2368-461: The abbey was suppressed. The current Basilica of San Colombano was built during 1456–1530 in a Renaissance style. The Basilica has a Latin cross layout with a nave and two aisles, a transept and a rectangular apse. It includes a 9th-century baptismal font. The nave fresco decoration was completed in the 16th century by Bernardino Lanzani . The 15th-century crypt houses the sarcophagus of St. Columbanus, by Giovanni dei Patriarchi (1480), and those of

2442-404: The abbey's library may have been formed by the manuscripts which Columbanus had brought from Ireland (though these must have been exceedingly few) and the treatises which he wrote himself. The learned Saint Dungal (d. after 827) bequeathed to the abbey his valuable library, consisting of some 27 volumes. A late 9th-century catalogue, published by Lodovico Antonio Muratori (but now superseded by

2516-545: The aid of the numerous ancient treatises he found there, composed his celebrated work on geometry. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Walsh, Reginald (1907). " Abbey and Diocese of Bobbio ". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia . Vol. 2. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 44°46′00″N 9°23′13″E  /  44.7667°N 9.3870°E  / 44.7667; 9.3870 Donor portrait A donor portrait or votive portrait

2590-456: The author or the scribe, in which cases the recipient had actually paid for the manuscript. During the Middle Ages the donor figures often were shown on a far smaller scale than the sacred figures; a change dated by Dirk Kocks to the 14th century, though earlier examples in manuscripts can be found. A later convention was for figures at about three-quarters of the size of the main ones. From

2664-453: The bedpost for protection from demons at night, and the oil, or just the relic, was believed to be able to heal the sick when applied to them. Often there is a strip in a different metal running round the edge of the faces and up the sides of the neck, with little rings for a suspension cord. In the Monza examples these strips are secured by wire wound rather untidily round the neck. A diameter for

2738-622: The cheaper material of terracotta , such as the Menas flasks that have been found from Cheshire to the Sudan and come from Abu Mena in Egypt , the exceptionally popular shrine of Saint Menas . Small round terracotta "pilgrimage tokens" or ampullae for oil, water or earth from the Holy Land, are often excavated, and examples of the tokens are also in the Monza treasury; the Piacenza Pilgrim records that in

2812-439: The church of buildings, altarpieces , or large areas of stained glass were often accompanied by a bequest or condition that masses for the donor be said in perpetuity, and portraits of the persons concerned were thought to encourage prayers on their behalf during these, and at other times. Displaying portraits in a public place was also an expression of social status; donor portraits overlapped with tomb monuments in churches,

2886-488: The conversion of Agilulf and his son, and also sending holy oil in ampullae. Bobbio Abbey was founded in 613 by the Irish missionary Saint Columbanus in 613, with land and funds from Theodelinda. The Bobbio ampullae were discovered in the 1920s in the crypt of the abbey church, and are presumed to have been given by Theodelinda or her family. Apart from the collections at Monza and Bobbio, other examples include two owned by

2960-440: The diocese of Piacenza-Bobbio Part of the collection was amassed earlier by the sister of the physician Giovanni Battista Ettore Simonetti. The collection includes works by Enrico Baj , Renato Birolli , Carlo Carrà , Massimo Campigli , Giuseppe Capogrossi , Giorgio De Chirico , Filippo De Pisis , Ottone Rosai , Lucio Fontana , Achille Funi , Piero Manzoni , Mario Nigro , Giò Pomodoro , and Mario Sironi . The nucleus of

3034-444: The donor is very prominent. The terms are not used very consistently by art historians, as Angela Marisol Roberts points out, and may also be used for smaller religious subjects that were probably made to be retained by the commissioner rather than donated to a church. Donor portraits are very common in religious works of art, especially paintings, of the Middle Ages and Renaissance , the donor usually shown kneeling to one side, in

Monza ampullae - Misplaced Pages Continue

3108-446: The donor's home, the main figures may look at or bless the donor, as in the Memling shown. Before the 15th century a physical likeness may not have often been attempted, or achieved; the individuals depicted may in any case often not have been available to the artist, or even alive. By the mid-15th century this was no longer the case, and donors of whom other likenesses survive can often be seen to be carefully portrayed, although, as in

3182-477: The donors most commonly shown, other than royalty, and they remained prominently represented in later periods. Donor portraits of noblemen and wealthy businessmen were becoming common in commissions by the 15th century, at the same time as the panel portrait was beginning to be commissioned by this class - though there are perhaps more donor portraits in larger works from churches surviving from before 1450 than panel portraits. A very common Netherlandish format from

3256-512: The edition of M. Tosi), shows that at that period every branch of knowledge, divine and human, was represented in this library. The catalogue lists more than 600 volumes. Many of the books have been lost, the rest have long since been dispersed and are still reckoned among the chief treasures of the later collections which possess them. In 1616 Cardinal Federico Borromeo took for the Ambrosian Library of Milan eighty-six volumes, including

3330-777: The famous " Bobbio Orosius ", the " Antiphonary of Bangor ", and the Bobbio Jerome , a palimpsest of Ulfilas ' Gothic version of the Bible. Twenty-six volumes were given, in 1618, to Pope Paul V for the Vatican Library . Many others were sent to Turin, where, besides those in the Royal Archives, there were seventy-one in the University Library until the disastrous fire of 26 January 1904. Gerbert of Aurillac (afterwards Pope Sylvester II ) became abbot of Bobbio in 982, and with

3404-481: The few figures respectable Venetians were unwilling to impersonate. ... the only contingency they did not envisage was what actually occurred, that their faces would survive but their names go astray. In Italy donors, or owners, were rarely depicted as the major religious figures, but in the courts of Northern Europe there are several examples of this in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, mostly in small panels not for public viewing. The most notorious of these

3478-494: The figures are usually divided by gender. Groups of members of confraternities , sometimes with their wives, are also found. Additional family members, from births or marriages, might be added later, and deaths might be recorded by the addition of small crosses held in the clasped hands. At least in Northern Italy, as well as the grand altarpieces and frescos by leading masters that attract most art-historical attention, there

3552-560: The first two abbots, St. Attala and St. Bertulf. Also in the crypt is a 12th-century pavement mosaic with the histories of the Maccabeans and the Cycle of the Months. No structures of the earliest monastery buildings are visible. The bell-tower (late 9th century) and the smaller apse are from the original Romanesque edifice. The Torre del Comune (Communal Tower) was built in 1456–85. The Museum of

3626-545: The foreground of the image. Often, even late into the Renaissance, the donor portraits, especially when of a whole family, will be at a much smaller scale than the principal figures, in defiance of linear perspective . By the mid-15th century donors began to be shown integrated into the main scene, as bystanders and even participants. The purpose of donor portraits was to memorialize the donor and his family, and especially to solicit prayers for them after their death. Gifts to

3700-531: The heart of the institutional church under royal patronage, the ampullae were made as mass-produced souvenirs, probably relatively inexpensive, whose designs reflect the experiences and concerns of pilgrims as well as those of the church. The ampullae are round when seen from the front, with a flattened body giving convex faces and a small neck, often with a fitting round the neck for a chain or cord by which they could be suspended, or perhaps worn. There are records of similar blessed objects, or eulogia , being hung on

3774-551: The main body of about 5–7 cm is typical, and in a side view the body swells to a maximum thickness of about 3 cm. Those at Monza are in generally good condition, but those from Bobbio and other examples such as the one at Dumbarton Oaks are flattened and damaged; they are now mostly black in colour. Despite their small size, the images are typically crowded multi-figure compositions, sometimes with extensive depiction of architectural elements, and somewhat crude in execution. They appear in low relief , typically occupying all

SECTION 50

#1732868889596

3848-472: The male members of the Cornaro family, who sit in boxes as if at the theatre to either side of the sculpted altarpiece of Gian Lorenzo Bernini 's Ecstasy of St Theresa (1652). These were derived from frescoes by Pellegrino Tibaldi a century early, which use the same conceit. Although donor portraits have been relatively little studied as a distinct genre, there has been more interest in recent years, and

3922-434: The mid-century was a small diptych with a Madonna and Child, usually on the left wing, and a "donor" on the right - the donor being here an owner, as these were normally intended to be kept in the subject's home. In these the portrait may adopt a praying pose, or may pose more like the subject in a purely secular portrait. The Wilton Diptych of Richard II of England was a forerunner of these. In some of these diptychs

3996-454: The oil was blended from that used in several places. There is some scholarly confusion as to how this list relates to the glass and metal ampullae. The origin of ampullae other than those produced by John is unknown, although scholars are unanimous that, wherever they went afterwards, the metal ampullae had been made in Palestine. Gregory is recorded as presenting gifts to Theodelinda in 603 after

4070-463: The other main way of achieving these ends, although donor portraits had the advantage that the donor could see them displayed in his own lifetime. Furthermore, donor portraits in Early Netherlandish painting suggest that their additional purpose was to serve as role models for the praying beholder during his own emotional meditation and prayer – not in order to be imitated as ideal persons like

4144-720: The overall design. Subjects were linked with the most famous pilgrimage sites of the Holy Land, and especially Jerusalem , where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre contained both the greater part of the True Cross and the Tomb of Christ, as well as an altar dedicated to the Adoration of the Magi . Common subjects, which account for the great majority of the designs, are: Fourteen of the Monza and Bobbio ampullae combine on one face Crucifixions above

4218-468: The painted Saints but to serve as a mirror for the recipient to reflect on himself and his sinful status, ideally leading him to a knowledge of himself and God. To do so during prayer is in accord with late medieval concepts of prayer, fully developed by the Modern Devotion . This process may be intensified if the praying beholder is the donor himself. When a whole building was financed, a sculpture of

4292-452: The patron might be included on the facade or elsewhere in the building. Jan van Eyck 's Rolin Madonna is a small painting where the donor Nicolas Rolin shares the painting space equally with the Madonna and Child, but Rolin had given great sums to his parish church, where it was hung, which is represented by the church above his praying hands in the townscape behind him. Sometimes, as in

4366-470: The popes again, but in 756 Aistulf was compelled by Pepin the Younger to give up the lands. In 774 Charlemagne made liberal grants to the abbey. In the last decades of the 9th century, Abbot Agilulph moved the monastery complex farther downstream on the left bank of the river Trebbia . The medieval village started to grow around the large monastery area. Over time, the cultural and political importance of

4440-401: The portrait of the original owner has been over-painted with that of a later one. A particular convention in illuminated manuscripts was the "presentation portrait", where the manuscript began with a figure, often kneeling, presenting the manuscript to its owner, or sometimes the owner commissioning the book. The person presenting might be a courtier making a gift to his prince, but is often

4514-458: The social scale, especially in illuminated manuscripts , where they are often owner portraits, as the manuscripts were retained for use by the person commissioning them. For example, a chapel at Mals in South Tyrol has two fresco donor figures from before 881, one lay and the other of a tonsured cleric holding a model building. In subsequent centuries bishops, abbots and other clergy were

SECTION 60

#1732868889596

4588-401: The space of the faces on both sides of the ampulla, though some have figureless decoration, usually centred on a cross, on the reverse face. There are often inscriptions and tituli in medieval Greek, many running round the outside of a face, or dividing an upper scene from a lower one. A smaller scene may occupy the lower part of a face, or scenes may appear in small roundels grouped across

4662-436: The subject in the early decades of the 20th century, and for which the style of Syria and Palestine was a key battleground. In his monograph of 1957, which for the first time gave scholars good images of all the Monza and Bobbio ampullae, and an extensive analysis of their iconography, André Grabar proposed instead that they derived from the style of Constantinople itself, spread to the provinces by Imperial patronage, which

4736-499: The top cover has five painted scenes from the New Testament relating to the main sites, or sights, on the pilgrimage route, in similar style to the ampullae, and believed to be made in Palestine in around 600. It was long thought that the ampullae reflected the style of art of Palestine itself, and as such they became involved in the intense scholarly debate over "Oriental" influences on Early Medieval art, which preoccupied scholars of

4810-611: The traditions of pagan temples. The 6th-century mosaic panels in the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna of the Emperor Justinian I and Empress Theodora with courtiers are not of the type showing the ruler receiving divine approval, but each show one of the imperial couple standing confidently with a group of attendants, looking out at the viewer. Their scale and composition are alone among large-scale survivals. Also in Ravenna, there

4884-454: The turbulent 7th century and through the efforts of Columbanus's disciples, increasing numbers of Arian Lombards were received into the Catholic form of Christianity. However, during the first half of the 7th century, the large tract of country lying between Turin and Verona , Genoa and Milan , remained a relatively lawless state, with a mix of Arian and pagan religious practice. Bobbio became

4958-402: The vogue of the collective portrait grew and grew ... status and portraiture became inextricably entwined, and there was almost nothing patrons would not do to intrude themselves in paintings; they would stone the women taken in adultery, they would clean up after martyrdoms, they would serve at the table at Emmaus or in the Pharisee's house. The elders in the story of Suzannah were some of

5032-408: Was a more numerous group of small frescoes with a single saint and donor on side-walls, that were liable to be re-painted as soon as the number of candles lit before them fell off, or a wealthy donor needed the space for a large fresco-cycle, as portrayed in a 15th-century tale from Italy: And going around with the master mason, examining which figures to leave and which to destroy, the priest spotted

5106-421: Was a suffragan see of the archdiocese of Genoa . From time to time disputes arose between the bishop and the monks, and in 1199 Pope Innocent III issued two bulls, restoring the abbey in spirituals and temporals, and empowering the bishop to depose an abbot if within a certain time he did not obey. Saint Columbanus' abbey and church were taken from the Benedictines by the French occupying forces in 1803, when

5180-401: Was buried on 23 November 615, but was followed by successors of high calibre in Attala (d. 627) and Bertulf (d. 640), who steered the new monastery through the threats from militant Arianism under King Rotharis (636–652). In 628, when Bertulf made a pilgrimage to Rome, he persuaded Pope Honorius I to exempt Bobbio from episcopal jurisdiction, thus making the abbey immediately subject to

5254-498: Was discovered within the main altar, adapted as a reliquary for a piece of bone, and near a glass vial similarly used. It is made of an iron alloy, is rather larger than most at 7.5 cm high and 5.7 cm wide, and has two handles at the neck. The decoration is a Crucifixion on the obverse, and Greek cross on the reverse. This may be later than the Monza and Bobbio ampullae by some considerable time. Bobbio Abbey Bobbio Abbey (Italian: Abbazia di San Colombano )

5328-504: Was founded soon after the Lombard invasion of Italy in 568. The Lombard king Agilulf married the devout Roman Catholic Theodelinda in 590, and under the influence of the Irish missionary Columbanus and his wife, Agilulf converted to Christianity. Upon the conversion of Agigulf and his Lombard followers, the king granted Columbanus a ruined church and wasted lands known as Ebovium, which prior to

5402-484: Was of crucial importance in establishing the iconography of many Christian subjects. They are also believed to represent buildings and shrines found in Jerusalem in the sixth and early seventh centuries, giving important evidence as to the early appearance of these. They were brought back from the Holy Land filled with oil which had been used in lamps burning before important pilgrimage shrines. Despite their ending up in

5476-466: Was taken to Avignon during the Avignon Papacy but later returned. However the ampullae were incorporated in the high altar and forgotten until rediscovered in the late 18th century. Their identification in the earlier inventories is complicated by the existence of a further set of glass vials, also used for holy oil. The notula ("little note"), a very early papyrus document, now itself regarded as

#595404