Beautiful Liturgical Objects from the Holy Land

Thanks once again to our friend Fr Joseph Koczera SJ, who has often shared his photos with us, this time for these pictures of an exhibition going on at the Marino Matini Museum in Florence of items from the collection of the Terra Sancta Museum in Jerusalem. On display are vestments, books, and other liturgical items, many of the very highest quality, donated to the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem by the royal houses of Europe.

Father also pointed out to me one of the didactic panels from the exhibition, which offers a very wise rationale for the use of such beautiful and well-crafted objects. “… since the 1960s, certain currents within the Church have sought to condemn the existence and use of such riches, considered contrary to the spirit of the Gospel… However, striving to express the Truth as perfectly as possible through art and beauty, and aware that luxury offered to God brings nothing to the Creator, these extravagant gifts benefit their donors, bringing them closer to perfection, depending on the purity of the intention with which these offerings are placed at the foot of the altar. Thus, in Christian thought, Evil, the Prince of this world, can be defeated not only by Good, but also by Beauty.” Amen!

A fourteenth-century Office antiphonary, donated to the Franciscans of the Holy Land by King Henry IV of England. (It is here opened to a responsory for the feast of the Beheading of St John the Baptist.)

A portable altar given by King John VI of Portugal in the early 1820s; the Portuguese coat of arms are on the backboard and the missal cover.

A crucifix made of gold and lapis-lazuli, given by King Charles of Naples, the future King Charles III of Spain, in 1756.

Altar furnishings given by Kings Philip IV and Charles II of Spain in the 1660s and ‘70s.

A very nice set of vestments donated by the Serene Republic of Venice in the later part of the seventeenth century.

This covering was donated by Ferdinand de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1588, to encase the Stone of Unction (the slab on which the Lord’s body was prepared for burial) within the church of the Holy Sepulchre, but was apparently never installed.

Jerusalem cross embroidered on a Venetian chasuble dating from 1669.

Crozier donated by King Charles of Naples in 1756.

Floral decoration in metal, donated by King Charles II of Spain in 1673.  

Chalice given by Philip II of Spain in 1588.

Chalice, paten, ciborium, and crosier given by King Louis XIV of France. As a result of the barbarity and destruction visited upon the Church by the French revolution, very few contemporary examples of this kind of workmanship from France itself survive.

A silver basin given by King Louis XIII of France in 1625, decorated with the fleur-de-lys and the arms of the Kingdom of France and Navarre.

A silver basin given by the future King Peter II of Portugal in 1675, intended to be used in the ritual washing of the feet of pilgrims on their arrival in the Holy Land.

A sanctuary lamp given by King John VI of Portugal in 1752

Another donated by Charles III, King of Spain, in 1786.