Reliquary of St. Donatus Martyr
PLACE/DATE
Germany (South), mid-14th century
MATERIALS
Gilt silver and glass
DIMENSIONS
32,2 x Ø 10 cm (base)
INV
RL.280
This architectural reliquary displays a Gothic structure and decorative programme. It has a foot with a hexagonal base decorated with dragons at its apexes, from which a stem with a central knot emerges, with lozenge reliefs imitating precious stones' beads.
The central body is formed by a cylindrical glass display case reinforced by three silver rods, as if in the shape of edging, which support a finial in conical spire. Inside, there is a relic of a saint, a bone from the clavicle, identified as being from St. Donatus Martyr.
This reliquary is the oldest piece in the Museum of São Roque, there being a very similar one in the Diocesan Museum of Regensburg (Inv. D 1974/71), which production was associated with a workshop in southern Germany. It is part of the important collection of reliquaries still preserved in the Church of São Roque, partly as a result of a donation by João de Borja (1533-1606), ambassador of King Philip I of Portugal (1527-1598) at the court of the Emperor Rudolph II (1552-1612), to that shrine in 1588.