1 - Wax versus Wood: The Material of Votive Offerings in Renaissance Italy

Summary

Abstract

Since antiquity, people have recorded moments of divine intervention in their lives by leaving votive objects at religious shrines. In particular, there is a very long (and ongoing) tradition of offering anatomical models of eyes, ears, breasts, limbs, etc., in recognition of a healing located in a specific part of the body. In Renaissance Italy, anatomical votive objects – usually moulded in wax – remained popular, but they had to compete with several other votive trends, including colourful paintings on wooden boards depicting miracles. This chapter will assess these votive choices and seek to cast light on how materiality affected religious experience during the Italian Renaissance.

Keywords: candles; ex-votos; Renaissance; shrines; wax

The dichotomy suggested by my title is a false one. In Renaissance Italy, as elsewhere, many kinds of objects were left at shrines by the faithful who wished to record and give thanks for the graces that they had received. Propped up against a saint's tomb or heaped around a venerated image one might expect to see sacks of grain, candles, rosaries, strings of coral, crucifixes and – at the more lucrative shrines – an array of reliefs or statuettes wrought in gold and silver. These heteroclite gifts are referred to as ‘votive offerings’ because they were presented, whether explicitly or not, as the fulfilment of a promise or a vow, in Latin ‘ex voto’. While the language of the vow was transactional, gifts were not always weighed in terms of their financial worth. Some offerings derived their value and significance from having been present on the devotee's body at the moment of the cure or delivery from danger: discarded crutches; a bloodied shirt that had been worn during a near-fatal attack; the handcuffs or shackles from which a captive had escaped. Others represented those moments of miraculous intervention by means of objects or images: the wooden boats that commemorated survival at sea; anatomical models, most commonly made of wax, papier mâché or metal, that referred to the part of the body that had been healed; or painted votive tablets that depicted both devotee and intercessor within the unfolding scenario of the miracle