Monday, June 20, 2011

British Museum to host “Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relic and Devotion in Medieval Europe”

The British Museum’s major summer exhibition explores the spiritual and artistic significance of Christian relics and reliquaries in medieval Europe. Featuring some of the finest sacred treasures of the medieval age, Treasures of Heaven: saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe will give visitors the opportunity to see objects from more than forty institutions, many of which have not been seen in the UK before, brought together for the first time.

The exhibition, which runs between June 23rd and October 9th, will largely draw on the pre-eminent collections of the British Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, and the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Rare loans from the Vatican, including from the private chapel of the popes, the Sancta Sanctorum, as well as from lesser-known European church treasuries will also be on display. A variety of objects such as manuscripts, prints and pilgrim badges will be exhibited alongside the relics and reliquaries themselves, adding depth and context to the exhibition’s examination of this critical aspect of European history.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net