Pain, plague, and power in Niccolò Semitecolo's reliquary cupboard for Padua cathedral

• Autores: Ashley Elston
• Localización: Gesta, ISSN 0016-920X, Vol. 51, Nº. 2, 2012, págs. 111-127
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Niccolò Semitecolo painted nine panels that decorated the doors of a large reliquary cupboard (armadio) in Padua's cathedral with an intriguing combination of iconic and narrative images, including a cycle of St. Sebastian's martyrdom, the Trinity, the Madonna and Child, and half-length depictions of SS. Sebastian and Daniel. This piece of liturgical furniture, completed in 1367, stored and honored the church's expanding collection of powerful saintly relics. This article considers the reliquary cupboard's function within the sacred environment of late medieval Padua. The reliquary armadio would be used during any ritual event requiring the display of relics and had two iconographic programs, depending on whether the cupboard doors were open or closed. Such potential mutability meant that occasionally Semitecolo's paintings were seen alongside the saints’ relics kept inside the cupboard; the structure thus presents a significant interaction between relics and images.

    This study explores the reliquary cupboard in the context of seigneurial patronage at the cathedral and also demonstrates its connection to devastating outbreaks of plague in Padua in the early 1360s. Semitecolo's cycle depicting St. Sebastian's martyrdom is iconographically different from other Italian Sebastian programs in its emphasis on the saint's prolonged physical suffering and the degradation of his body rather than his posthumous miracles. Such a message may have had particular resonance for a late trecento Paduan audience and may also explain the cupboard's curious inclusion of Sebastian imagery rather than that of a local saint.