The treasures of the Custody of the Holy Land arrive in Santiago de Compostela

The pieces of gold, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, amethysts or diamonds that will be part of the exhibition

Tesouros Reais, Obras Mestras do Terra Sancta Museum

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“were not created for our eyes, they were created for the eyes of God,” as announced by the Cidade da Cultura, in Santiago de Compostela.

The exhibition is open to the public from this Friday until August 4 at the Centro Gaiás Museum.

It was first exhibited in Lisbon (Museu Calouste Gulbenkian), and after passing through Spain, before returning to Jerusalem - where it is planned to be exhibited in a museum that is being renovated and expanded - it can be visited in two other cities, one in Italy and another in the United States.

Those in charge of protecting the treasure of the Holy Land for eight centuries, the Franciscan friars of the Custodia Terrae Sanctae, keep the exact location secret.

Behind these jewels of “extreme luxury,” as Miguel Cajigal, art historian, disseminator and technician at the Gaiás Museum Education Service (better known online by the alias El

Barroquista)

described them, is the vanity of kings.

The conviction that “to be someone you had to be present, while absent, in the Holy Land” and the stage fright of appearing in this universal showcase as “a shabby king.”

The exhibition brings together 108 treasures that include works of art, staffs, chalices, codices, silk liturgical clothing, pearls and silver and gold thread: objects that the European crowns sent to Jerusalem, a fundamental place of meeting and disagreement, for three great monotheistic religions.

Generous offerings commissioned by kings to earn heaven at the price of precious metal, without having to sacrifice themselves in the uncomfortable (and sometimes risky) task of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre.

It was, at the same time, a competition, a fight between European dynasties, which turned Jerusalem for centuries into the 'Theater of the World' (

Theatrum Mundi

), as one of the three sections of the exhibition has been named.

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The tour begins by delving into the symbolic weight of the city of Jerusalem (

Xerusalén, Centro do Mundo

) for Christianity, Judaism and Islam;

It recreates the time of Emperor Constantine when the basilica that attracts millions of pilgrims from all over the planet was founded, and reviews the great donations to the Holy Land ordered by the kingdoms of Spain, Portugal, Naples, France and the Holy Empire Romano-Germanic.

Among the pieces, 75 come from the Jerusalem collection and the rest are kept in other institutions, such as a huge model of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher that is kept in the Museum of the Holy Land of the Monastery of San Francisco in Santiago.

It was made by Brother Bartolomé de las Heras, head of the carpentry workshops of San Salvador de Jerusalem, in wood from Gethsemane cypresses and is made up of eight parts that are separated to be able to see the detailed interior of the building, down to its pavements and inscriptions.

Exhibition 'Tesouros realis.

Masterworks of the Terra Sancta Museum'.

OSCAR CORRAL

The treasures presented in the exhibition are a selection from the large collection guarded by the Franciscans in Jerusalem, and which, until now, had only been released in 2013 for an exhibition in Versailles.

The pieces arrived in Lisbon in autumn days before the war broke out in Gaza and in the midst of an atmosphere of increasing cornering denounced by Christians in the Israeli city.

In addition to police capacity restrictions, which limit visits by pilgrims to ceremonies in the Christian area, in the last two decades tension has been fueled by desecrations of tombs, attacks on churches and sacred places in the life of Jesus, as well as shopping of real estate in charge of radical organizations, dedicated to the Jewish colonization of the old city of Jerusalem.

But the greatest difficulties faced by the Franciscan custodians of the treasure are at the very heart of Christianity.

“Copts, Orthodox, Catholics... the Franciscans always had a role as peacekeepers, mediating between the different groups,” says Cajigal, “the keys to the Holy Sepulcher are held by a Palestinian family that has opened it every morning for centuries.” because the Christian factions do not agree who has the right to do it.”

A simple ladder has been leaning on an exterior wall of the Basilica "for three centuries," recalls the historian: it was left there from a construction site, and "they don't touch it because they can't agree" on who it belongs to.

All donations from royalty and nobility, century after century, were meticulously recorded in volumes called

condottes;

In these lists you can see the number of wonders that were lost.

Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV of France, João V of Portugal, Charles VII of Naples and María Teresa of Austria were some of the senders of gifts and financial resources.

From gold coins, wax, oil, balms, perfumes, spices or tea to those furniture, thrones, canopies and liturgical works of art created “for the eyes of God” with which they flaunted their devotion and power before others. sovereigns.

Sometimes they commissioned pieces while they were sick, and when they were finally finished to send to Jerusalem, the kings had already died.

This was the case with the altar set with Eucharistic baldachin and candelabra commissioned in Messina by Philip IV, one of the most sumptuous sets in the exhibition.

From Charles V to Alfonso

Then, they ordered to send them to the Holy Land.

Ferdinand VI and Bárbara de Bragança gave 20 liturgical garments, robes made of silk satin and embroidered with gold, silver and pearls.

João V of Portugal ordered a gold lamp to be sent, but not just any gold, but from Brazil, to show off his dominions in the New World.

This filigree, profusely decorated by Portuguese goldsmiths, also arrived in Jerusalem with the dead king.

In the second half of the 17th century, the Holy Roman Empire rises to become the second most important donor of art objects to the Custody of the Holy Land, only behind Spain and its viceroyalties of Naples and Sicily.

The votive lamp of Charles VI of Habsburg, one of the star pieces of the exhibition, arrived in Jerusalem in 1730 to be hung in front of the aedicule or temple of the Holy Sepulchre, where tradition places the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth.

As explained in the Cidade da Cultura exhibition, on the eve of Palm Sunday in 1757 the Orthodox Greeks destroyed the altars and decorations that the Franciscans had just installed for the ceremony.

The cause behind it was a dispute over the administration of some chapels of the temple.

Among the rubble, the friars rescued the battered lamp, which was repaired in Vienna and returned two years later.

The exhibition has five curators, two of them international and three local, such as Jacques Charles-Gaffiot, member of the Scientific Committee of the Terra Sancta Museum, or Esperanza Gigirey, director of the Museo das Peregrinaciones.

The official inauguration in Gaiás, this Thursday afternoon, was attended by representatives of the Compostela Archdiocese, authorities of the Custody of the Holy Land and the Pope's nuncio in Spain, Bernardito Auza, confirmed their attendance at the inauguration of the exhibition.

The Custody, founded by Francis of Assisi in 1217, is responsible for managing Christian places in Jerusalem and receiving pilgrims.

Its objective with this trip around the world, in four stages, of the exhibition is to “give greater visibility to the history of the Christian presence in the Holy Land and present it as a place of meeting and dialogue between different religions.”

When the collection returns to the starting point, it will be the core of the Terra Sancta Museum, which will open in the old city of Jerusalem.

“It was like having a bank at home”

Queen Maria Amalia of Saxony—wife of Charles VII of Naples, who later became Charles III of Spain—donated a silver star in the fourth decade of the 18th century to replace the one that already marked the supposed birthplace. of Jesus in the Nativity Grotto in Bethlehem.

The piece has a center of red porphyry, a rock reserved for imperial use, and bears the inscription “here Jesus Christ was born from the Virgin and became man.”

Another treasure that is not used for the purpose for which it was sent to the Holy Land is a relief carved in silver, weighing 200 kilos, donated by the Kingdom of Naples in 1737. It is believed that it was made to embellish the aedicula of the Saint Tomb.

Louis

He later sent other gifts, all commissioned from goldsmiths in Paris.

Exhibition 'Tesouros realis.

Masterpieces of the Terra Sancta Museum' in Santiago de Compostela.

OSCAR CORRAL

But Charles VII of Naples himself (Charles III of Spain, “the best mayor of Madrid”) went even further: he claimed the title of King of Jerusalem before the Church and other European kings by commissioning different artists to create different pieces in gold and stones. precious, such as the sumptuous Eucharistic baldachin of 1754, which includes a royal crown based on that of the monarch himself, enthroned a year earlier.

The offerings of this sovereign make up the richest set of goldwork made by a single king in the Holy Land, and include a crucifix of gold, lapis lazuli and precious stones;

a custody of gold, emeralds and diamonds;

and a staff with rubies.

“This is an extremely valuable exhibition to be traveling,” reflects El Barroquista, “it is very rare that these pieces have survived to this day, it is like a time chamber that gives us an idea of ​​what palaces and cathedrals could have had.

“Because in art we see paintings and sculptures,” he explains, “but gold could be melted down if necessary, and the kings did it to finance wars.”

In the great turbulent periods, of conflicts and revolutions, that Europe has experienced, "it was like having a bank at home."

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