From Assisi's Treasury

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There is a lot of work in precious metals--reliquaries, chalices and other kinds of liturgical equipment. The reliquaries were done at the highest pitch of craft, mostly by goldsmiths whose names have not survived. A modern eye is more apt to enjoy the spectacle of the concentrated, disciplined labor that went into building a tiny sarcophagus out of gold and rock crystal to house a brown bit of human tissue that may or may not have been part of St. Vitus, or a supposed rag off the "seamless robe" worn by Christ at his Crucifixion. Seven hundred years ago, of course, it was the relic itself that really counted, that was "precious" and "unique"; the roles of container and content have reversed.

The single most dazzling object in the show is neither a reliquary nor a painting, nor even a manuscript illumination. It is the chalice made by the Sienese goldsmith Guccio di Mannaia, presented to the Franciscans by Pope Nicholas IV in the late 13th century. In design and workmanship it is more than a masterpiece--it's one of the greatest monuments of medieval art, standing only a little more than nine inches high. Its base, stem and bulb are decorated with some 80 tiny and exquisitely made enamel-glass plaques, representing mythical beasts, evangelists, angels, prophets and apostles. The gold surface between them carries a rich linear ornamentation that never gets congested. The silver-gilt cup, borne up on the stem, is quite plain: it shifts visual gear from the "worldly" solidity of the base to an abstract purity that seems transcendent. If you wanted a container for the blood of Jesus, it would be impossible to imagine a more fitting one than this.