Central Italian “Tabernacula”: A Survey

This paper aims to provide an in-depth survey of grand-scale medieval Italian tabernacles and other types of closing altarpieces with all of their wings – or substantial parts thereof – still preserved (1200-1435). Most such altarpieces, enclosing a statue of the Virgin Mary or a Saint, come from the culturally homogeneous and generally conservative regions of the Central Apennines, in particular from Abruzzo. Structure, provenance, original location, function, patronage, iconography are only a few of the many questions raised by the surviving examples here discussed within a broader European frame.Notwithstanding the great variety and composite character of medieval altar furnishings, three major types of medieval Italian closing retables will be here described – according to Claude Lapaire’s formal classification (1969 and 1972): the tabernacle-altarpiece in the strict sense of the word, i.e. an open ciborium with the pedestal, rear wall, and canopy, equipped with carved or painted bi-fold wings; the polygonal tabernacle-altarpiece (“le retable à tabernacle polygonal”); and the cupboard-altarpiece (“le retable en forme d’armoire”). In Central Apennine regions all of these types coexisted throughout the fourteenth century at least, resisting the spread of Tuscan polyptychs.