Typography and liturgical printing are one of those areas that frequently get neglected in our contemporary considerations of the liturgical arts and yet a well published liturgical book is not only of practical value, it is also yet another manifestation of the beauty that…
French Engraver François Houat's 1694 Edition of the Missale Romanum
Typography and liturgical printing are one of those areas that frequently get neglected in our contemporary considerations of the liturgical arts and yet a well published liturgical book is not only of practical value, it is also yet another manifestation of the beauty that…
An Early Eighteenth Century Monstrance Gifted by Pope Benedict XIII
The Terra Sancta Museum in the Holy Land has many important and prominent treasures of liturgical art within their collections and while we only just recently shared some of their monstrances, with Corpus Christi being observed in many places this past weekend, we couldn…
Boldly Coloured Copes from Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
The dominant design trends for vestments in recent centuries has gone something like this: some sort of damask is used over the entirety of the vestment, with galloons separating the orphreys form the rest of the design. Sometimes, the orphreys might be gold, however, to di…
Three Monstrances from the Collections of the Terra Sancta Museum
Within the collections of the Terra Sancta Museum are many stunning monstrances and to honour this time of the year I thought we would look at just three examples coming from their collections. The first monstrance we will look at today was crafted in Paris during the ninet…
Markos Kampanis' Romanesque Image of Christ in Majesty at Mary Help of Christians Parish in Chester, Illinois
M arkos Kampanis is a painter and muralist based in Athens, Greece. As one might expect, his work is heavily influenced by the Byzantine iconographic tradition, but the scope and potential of his work also extends well beyond that, seeking to "bridge tradition and moder…
The Fresco of the Annunciation at Wadi al-Natroun Monastery in Egypt
When one thinks of Coptic art, one tends to think of very highly stylized icons. Now of course, most icons in the iconographic tradition are highly stylized, including Byzantine and Russian icons for example, but the Coptic tradition took it to a whole other level, with ico…
A Set of Gold Vestments with the Trinitarian Eye
One of the most popularly misunderstood symbols in some parts of the world is that comprised of a triangle with an eye placed within it. Now symbols are the sort of thing that can have various meanings assigned (or re-assigned) to them of course, but within a Western Christ…
