Elizabeth of Bosnia, Queen of Hungary, and the Tomb-Shrine of St. Simeon in Zadar: Power and Relics in Fourteenth-Century Dalmatia

• Autores: Marina Vidas
• Localización: Studies in iconography, ISSN 0148-1029, Nº. 29, 2008, págs. 136-175
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The writer examines implications of the commission and aspects of the visual program of the Tomb-Shrine of Saint Simeon, currently displayed in the church of St. Simeon, Zadar, on the Dalmatian coast. The Tomb-Shrine is the most impressive and complex object commissioned by Elizabeth Kotromanic, daughter of the Bosnian ban Stephen Kotromanic and second wife of King Louis of Hungary. Its visual imagery and design were intended to assure the citizens of Zadar and pilgrims to the town that the body inside the shrine was that of the prophet Simeon. Elizabeth's commission was also designed to ensure that she was commemorated, as the inscription on the shrine describes her as “powerful, illustrious, and exalted.” A third purpose of the commission and of the program of images was, it is argued, to affirm beliefs denied by dualist heretics; Elizabeth may have wished through her patronage of the shrine to put to rest any doubts about her own and her family's religious beliefs.