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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture The OED stigmatises "ostension" as "Now rare." (It doesn't say when "now" is...) John Briggs On 09/09/2011 01:23, John Dillon wrote: > medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture > > Today being the feast of the Nativity of the BVM it is also the day of the most elaborate of what are now five ostensions (Christmas, Easter, 1. May, 15. August, and 8. September) at Prato of the object there proclaimed to be her belt (the Sacra Cintola), given to St. Thomas the > Apostle during her Assumption into heaven. In the earlier fourteenth century, when Duccio di Amadore wrote his _Cincturale_, a poem in 423 elegiac distichs celebrating the belt at Prato and its miracles, there were only two such ostensions per annum (those on Easter and on 8. > September). The ostensions take place in the evening on a specially designed viewing platform on the exterior of Prato's cathedral of St. > Stephen situated so as to admit viewing both from the great square facing the cathedral's facade and the smaller open space facing one of the building's flanks. Herewith a few views of the locale and of recent ostensions: > > The cathedral: > http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/6588728.jpg > http://tinyurl.com/3khdq2q > > The ostension platform (referred to locally as "il pulpito di Donatello"), this is a late twentieth-century facsimile of the platform created in the earlier fifteenth century (between 1434 and 1438) by Donatello and his workshop: > http://tinyurl.com/3ue2tfe > > The Holy Belt in its current display reliquary: > http://www.pratoartestoria.it/id19.htm > > The ostension: > http://www.arttrav.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/sacred_belt.jpg > http://foto.masternet.it/main.php?g2_itemId=14181 > http://tinyurl.com/3llomea > > The faithful: > http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3289/2845708568_b74e6b829f.jpg > http://www.comune.prato.it/civico/galleria/htm/pho6.htm > http://tinyurl.com/3pofjvu > > Since 2000 Donatello's platform has resided in the Sala del Pulpito of Prato's Museo dell'Opera del Duomo: > http://en.daringtodo.com/?attachment_id=14669 > Views of that platform when it was still _in situ_: > http://www.wga.hu/art/d/donatell/2_mature/prato/pulpit_1.jpg > http://www.wga.hu/art/d/donatell/2_mature/prato/pulpit_2.jpg > http://www.wga.hu/art/d/donatell/2_mature/prato/pulpit_3.jpg > > The same room in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Prato houses this earlier fifteenth-century reliquary (betw. 1446 and 1448) for the Holy Belt created by Maso di Bartolomeo: > http://tinyurl.com/42taxfn > http://tinyurl.com/3fpgrr2 > > Two sculpted panels from a predecessor platform (1358-60) by Niccolò di Cecco del Mercia and his son, now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo's Sala della Cintola: > http://tinyurl.com/mak5yk > http://tinyurl.com/ndl5d3 > > The cathedral of Prato has been showing this object since at least the early thirteenth century. In medieval local tradition, it was given to > the cathedral by a local merchant who, years earlier and while on pilgrimage in the Holy Land, had fallen in love with the daughter of a > priest who then gave the pair the Holy Belt as a symbol and guardian of their unity in marriage. Still according to this tradition, that priest > in turn was the last of a succession of priestly fathers and sons who had kept this Marian relic since the first of them had been given it for > safekeeping by St. Thomas. > > Best, > John Dillon > > ********************************************************************** > To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME > to: [log in to unmask] > To send a message to the list, address it to: > [log in to unmask] > To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion > to: [log in to unmask] > In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: > [log in to unmask] > For further information, visit our web site: > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html > ********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html