XLV
“A TOURNAMENT”
(Carved lid of box in ivory; 14th Century)

In the fortieth volume of España Sagrada it is stated that four ivory diptyches (quatuor dictacos eburneos) were offered in a.d. 897 to Lugo cathedral by Alfonso the Third and his queen Jimena. Other ivory diptyches were presented in a.d. 1063 by Ferdinand the Second to the church of Saint Isidore at León. José Villa-amil, in his study of an ivory statuette of the Virgin, belonging to the nuns of Allariz (Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones; nos. 76 and 77), mentions a carved ivory box (capsa eburnea) made in the year 1122 for Santiago cathedral by order of Archbishop Gelmirez; another which existed in the sixteenth century in the church of Santa María at Finisterre; and a third, used as a reliquary, which in 1572 was opened by the monks of Samos in presence of Ambrosio de Morales.

During the Middle Ages portable altars (altares portátiles) were widely used in Spain, and some were made of ivory. It was the custom to open them at the time of prayer, and as a rule they rested upon reclinatorios or hung upon the wall. The imagen abriente or “opening image” was also popular in Spain throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As the name implies, these images opened in the manner of a triptych, and were very often used as reliquaries. Specimens are preserved in many parts of Europe, but only one or two exist in Spain and Portugal. That which belongs to the nuns of Allariz dates from the end of the thirteenth century, and was a present from Queen Violante. It is described fantastically by Morales, and accurately by Villa-amil, but the quaintest account is by the chronicler Jacobo de Castro. It measures, Castro tells us, “about half-a-yard in length and is one of the fairest ever seen, since it opens downward from the neck, discovering, on plates of half-relief, the principal mysteries of Christ and of Our Lady. The devotion towards it of the people in this neighbourhood exceeds description, and God has wrought a quantity of miracles through the intercession thereof.”

A fourteenth-century triptych carved in bone with scenes from Scripture is in the National Museum. It proceeds from Aragon, and is said to have belonged to Jayme the Conqueror. The Escorial possesses a handsome ivory diptych (Plate [xlvi].) which is either Spanish or Italian—probably the former. It measures exactly a foot in height by nine inches across both leaves, and is deeply carved with passages from the life of Christ. The style is late Romanic merging into Gothic, and points to the second half of the thirteenth century.

XLVI
IVORY DIPTYCH
(13th Century. El Escorial)

Footnotes:

[56] I.e. as a signal to begin the sport. The same usage (except that the handkerchief is waved, and not thrown down) is followed at this moment in the Spanish bull-ring.