In this lucid and meticulously researched book, Beth Williamson offers a richly nuanced consideration of eleven Sienese devotional paintings on wooden supports (8 single panels and 3 triptychs), all of which are framed by small, transparent, relic-bearing compartments. As Williamson demonstrates, this type of object was invented in Siena around 1340 and enjoyed popularity until the early fifteenth century, disappearing around 1450. Although poorly documented, these objects raise fascinating questions about artistic invention, the display of relics in the Trecento, and how devout viewers saw and experienced them.

The book is divided into two parts: “Making” and “Meaning.” “Making” focuses on the physical invention, production, and diffusion of these objects. “Meaning” adopts iconographic and anthropological lenses to reveal various ways in which such works may have been understood and appreciated by devout viewers.

Part 1 begins with a cursory historical overview of Christian attitudes toward relics and the prior history of reliquaries. While this section is understandably brief, it leaves the question of specific precedents for the hybrid works Williamson is studying largely unresolved, including the very similar looking metal reliquary created for the Cistercian abbey of San Galgano near Siena circa 1315–1320 (her figure 2). Unfortunately, the reliquary was stolen in 1989 and so could not be examined directly by the author, but since Cistercian monks held important positions in the Sienese state finance office, there is good reason to think that the San Galgano reliquary may have played a more important role in this story than the author suggests. Fortunately, the object was recovered by Italian State Police in a small town in the province of Catania, Sicily as this review was being prepared, so a closer examination and consideration will soon be possible (Vincenzo Sangalli, “Catania, a 32 anni dal furto I Carabinieri restituiscono il reliquiario di San Galgano e altre preziosissime oreficerie,” La Milano, 26 April 2021, https://lamilano.it/cronaca/catania-a-32-anni-dal-furto-i-carabinieri-restituiscono-il-reliquiario-di-san-galgano-e-altre-preziosissime-oreficerie/).

This is only a minor observation, however, insofar as Williamson has provided an otherwise remarkably detailed archeology of the objects she is studying and does call attention to the San Galgano reliquary several times. While “Making” is likely to be of more direct interest to traditional art historians and museum professionals than to scholars of religion and theology, it is well worth reading by all because it lays an absolutely essential foundation for her fascinating discussion of “Meaning” in the second part of the book. Williamson works out a convincing chronological sequence for the surviving objects, beginning with a penetrating analysis of the only securely dated and inscribed example, commissioned for the Ospedale della Scala in Siena in 1347 but now in the Cleveland Museum of Art, leading her back to the slightly earlier example of a double-sided tabernacle for Augustinian patrons attributed to Pietro Lorenzetti (now divided between the Berenson Collection at Villa I Tatti in Florence and a private collection in Milan). Her physical analysis of these objects convincingly confirms that many were originally highly portable and visible from front and back, so doubtless carried in procession as well as set on altars or in devotional niches.

Part 2, “Meaning,” begins with a lengthy discussion of the novel iconography employed on Sienese reliquary tabernacles, including images of the standing Madonna and Child that she relates to three-dimensional cult statues as well as to a revival in standing images of the Beato Novello, a reformer in the Augustinian Order, with which a number of the objects can be associated. The Madonna of Humility, invented by Sienese artist Simone Martini, was also popular, leading Williamson to posit Simone as the initial creator of the reliquary tabernacle type, though this may be shortchanging the inventiveness of Pietro Lorenzetti to whom the earliest surviving such tabernacle has been attributed.

Williamson's groundbreaking work in part 2 reaches full force in the final two chapters, “Relics and Other Matter” and “Abundance and Ensemble, Varietas and Bricolage.” Here is where scholars of church history and spirituality are likely to be most intrigued. Williamson tackles the interpretation of several peculiar relic-framed triptychs in this section, calling attention to possibilities for haptic as well as visual appreciation that physically, symbolically, and associatively addresses questions of materiality. She takes the time to imagine living with and thinking about reliquary tabernacles under varying circumstances and from different perspectives. Since a good number of these objects could be encountered in both stationary positions and carried in procession, she carefully signals how different materials and images would have been appreciated differently depending on whether they were seen close up or in motion. Parts could stand for the whole and imaginative contemplation knit them together. According to Williamson, relics that surround the devotional images on these panels are not to be seen as in the margins but as liminal objects that actively frame devotional practice reading both inward and outward. A wide variety of materials—from the unlovely bone fragments of the relics to the splendid gilding—encouraged the devout to search for and ultimately locate the divine. Thanks to Williamson's searching analysis, we now have a much richer appreciation not only for these objects but for late medieval devotional practice as well.