Title

Reliquary Casket of Saints Adrian and Natalia

Generic classification

Object

Century

Cultural context / style

Dimensions

Material

Technique

Iconography / Theme

Provenance

Current location

Inventory Number in Current Collection

Inscriptions / Marks

MARTIRIS EXIMINI SACRUM/QUI MARTIR FACTUS SPREVIT EUM/[JA]CET HIC ADRIAN

Object history

Regarding this reliquary chest, destined to contain the relics of Saint Adrian, Ángela Franco Mata pointed out its possible origin from the monastery of San Adrián de Boñar (León), she endorsed such an assignment not only in stylistic and formal aspects, which could bring the piece closer to León, but also in the fact that one of the most outstanding monasteries dedicated to Saint Adrian was founded in 920 in Boñar; it was due to Count Guisvando Braoliz and his wife Leuvina, who had obtained the relics of the marriage composed of St. Adrian and St. Natalia in Rome (Franco Mata, 2010, pp. 218-219).

Saint Adrian was a guard at the court of Emperor Galerius Maximianus, although he went from persecuting Christians to communing with their faith, moved by the virtues he discovered among those who followed that creed; this was the cause of his martyrdom. His wife, Natalia, collected his body, after being quartered in Nicomedia, where he had been sacrificed with his companions, in the year 304; it was she who managed to transfer his remains to Constantinople and gradually spread the devotion to St. Adrian, but also to his wife, St. Natalia. The cult of St. Adrian, patron saint of soldiers and protector against evils such as the plague, reached the Iberian Peninsula in the 7th century. After the death of Ferdinand I, the monastery of Boñar passed into the hands of his daughter Urraca, who rebuilt the church of St. Adrian, and gave it to the monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza. Franco Mata estimates that it may have been Queen Urraca who commissioned such a piece (Franco Mata, 2010, pp. 218-219).

The relics of St. Adrian and St. Natalia, according to tradition, were given by the Pope to the Leonese nobleman Guisvando, from whose hand they arrived in the Astur-Leonese kingdom. He and his wife were mentioned in a consecration epigraph from a temple dedicated to Saint Adrian and Saint Natalia, located in La Losilla, near Boñar (León). The inscription, coming from that place, was photographed by Gómez-Moreno, which indicated that the construction was due to "the servant of God Guisvando, with his wife Leuvina" in the year 920 (Gómez-Moreno, 1925, pp. 162-167). However, the monastery had to gradually lose relevance, until it was transformed into a simple parish, and a short distance from the center dedicated to Saints Adrian and Natalia, another was erected dedicated to San Salvador and Santa Maria, in San Adrian de las Caldas, near Boñar (León)(Moráis Morán, 2017, pp. 9-20).

Pedro Alba still came to see, in 1863, "a stone that seems to have been part of the sarcophagus containing the relics of St. Adrian and St. Natalia: HIC JACENT OSSA DUORUM SANTORUM / PER QUOS FECIT DOMINUS MULTA / MIRABILIA" (Alba, 1864). The abbot of Eslonza, Pedro Martínez, in 1268, was in charge of the process of transferring the relics of San Adrián and Santa Natalia to the neighboring monastery of San Salvador and Santa María, as Morais Morán has studied in detail. This transfer was motivated by not finding the vestiges of the saints in the conditions they deserved in the primitive temple. An appropriate inscription was left. In its new location, an altar was placed on the wall of the church, on the Gospel side, in order to give a worthy reception to these relics (Moráis Morán, 2017, pp. 9-20). Later, these were transferred in 1601 to the monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza, and from there to the monastery of Carbajalas de León during the disentailment process in the 19th century (Rodríguez Montañés, 2002, pp. 207-208).

Perhaps in this silver reliquary were housed those venerated relics, if so, perhaps this chest also experienced the transfer to the various headquarters, which the historical sources testify made such vestiges of Saints Adrian and Natalia, and we have referred, we can not verify it. What is certain is that the piece was in 1914 in the circle of the German private collector, first in the hands of Julius Báhler (Munich), later belonged to Harry Fuld (Frankfurt), then to his widow, Lucie Mayer-Fuld, until in 1942 it was sold by the antique firm Stora to the Art Institute of Chicago.

Description

This reliquary, made up of silver plates arranged on an oak chest, was designed as if it were a miniature tomb. For this reason, we can appreciate very interesting details, such as the roof with well-defined tiles, as well as the succession of arches and columns that articulate each of the walls of the chest, in the manner of a Romanesque building. The episodes related to the martyrdom of the saint are described on the walls of the reliquary. It stands out, for example, in one of the smaller sides of the same, the moment in which Adrian and his wife recognize their faith before the emperor, followed in the larger front part by the dismemberment of the saint by five "sayones", while Natalia preserves a hand of her husband. In the next side scene Natalia together with two companions carry the hand of the deceased by ship to Constantinople. Another front of the chest depicts the terrible scene of two dismembered bodies, while the figure of Natalia, dejected, preserves Adrian's hand.

Locations

• 1268

  monastery

  Possible provenance of the Monastery of Saint Adrian, La Losilla y San Adrián (Spain)

• 1268 - 1601

  monastery

  Possibly Monastery of Saint Salvador and Santa María, San Adrián de las Caldas (Spain)

• 1601 - ca. 1835

  monastery

  Possibly Monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza, Gradefes (Spain)

• ca. 1914 - ca. 1918

  dealer/antiquarian

  Julius Böhler, Múnich (Germany) *

• ca. 1918 - ca. 1932

  private collection

  Harry Fuld, Frankfurt (Germany) *

• 1932 - 1942

  private collection

  Lucie Mayer-Fuld, Frankfurt / Berlín / Nueva York (Germany) *

• 1942

  dealer/antiquarian

  Stora, Paris (France) *

• 1942 - present

  museum

  The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (United States)