Arm Reliquary of Charlemagne
Unknown · c. 1165-1170
Shaped like a long casket rather than a sculpted arm, the reliquary was commissioned by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to hold an arm bone of Charlemagne, taken from his body when Barbarossa had him canonised in eleven sixty five. It is the earliest surviving object linked to the cult of Charlemagne as a saint. Along one face, busts under arcades show a chosen line of rulers, each named: Frederick himself with his wife Beatrix, his predecessor Conrad the Third, his father Duke Frederick of Swabia, Otto the Third and Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne. The other face shows the Virgin and Christ between two angels and Saints Peter and Paul.
The message is political as much as pious. By placing himself beside Carolingian and Ottonian emperors, Barbarossa presented the Hohenstaufen dynasty as their legitimate heir. The gilded silver and champlevé enamel connect the piece to the Rhine and Meuse workshops, most likely Liège. Taken from Aachen cathedral to Paris in seventeen ninety four, it was presented by the cathedral chapter to Empress Josephine in eighteen hundred and four with the famous talisman of Charlemagne, passed to the collector Edme-Antoine Durand, and was bought by the Louvre in eighteen twenty five.
Did You Know? Barbarossa had Charlemagne declared a saint and then put his own portrait on the box holding the new saint's arm.
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