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Relics container from Sant Pere in Casserres

Furniture

Anonymous

Around the year 1000

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Fig-shaped Cordoban caliphal receptacle, of moulded glass, from the second half of the 10th century. This object is one of the most significant with regard to the Hispanic March's relations with the Caliphate. It must have been introduced to the county of Besalú as the container of a valuable liquid (perfume or medicine) and, once its contents had been consumed, it was used as a relics container, its tubular neck being broken in order to put them in. It was closed and used as a relics container in the first half of the 11th century. It is globular, with projections: elongated, truncated drops, and a hexagon at the base. The sacred contents were guaranteed by sealing it with wax (or wax-pitch) and impressing on it the seal of Count Bernat Tallaferro (d. 1020) four times. While the monastery church of Sant Pere in Casserres, its place of origin, was thought to have been built in about 1006, there were no problems dating the seal of the piece. Now, however, it is thought that the consecration must have taken place in about 1050, and therefore the explanation of the sealing would be doubtful: either the container from an earlier altar was used, or it was sealed after Tallaferro's death, with his seal given to the church. Whatever the case, the object's artistic importance resides primarily in it being one of a group of half a dozen Cordoban caliphal glass pieces, unique, conserved almost intact thanks to their religious reuse during the Catalan Romanesque period. On caliphal archaeological sites this type of moulded glass is common, but extremely fragmentary.

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Location

Room4 ,Floor0

4 Romanesque Art

5-6-7-8 Gothic Art

Detalls de l’obra

PLACE OF EXECUTION

Córdoba

PERIOD

Around the year 1000

Material

Moulded glass and wax

Dimensions

6.5 x 7.3 cm

Origin

From the monastery of Sant Pere in Casserres, Les Masies de Roda (Osona)

WORK NUMBER

MEV 2286