While the idea of preserving a child's skull in a gem-studded gold statue may be off-putting in the twenty-first century, there are yet remnants of sacred materiality—often tied to memorial—at work in contemporary culture. From celebrity paraphernalia to a photograph of a deceased relative, memory and presence are communicated through material effects and visual representations. A more public and persistent example includes the various building, vehicular, and clothing remains from the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11; these objects have drawn patriotic pilgrims from around the country, and themselves were circulated internationally to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the tragedy. Cynthia Hahn's The Reliquary Effect: Enshrining the Sacred Object helpfully traces the history of the power of relics and their encasements. This book follows her 2015 volume Saints and Sacred Matter: The Cult of Relics in Byzantium and Beyond, co-edited with H. Klein (Dumbarton Oaks), and her 2012 Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204 (Pennsylvania State University Press), which was an exhaustive and influential study of the social, political, theological, aesthetic, and material aspects of medieval reliquaries. In comparison, The Reliquary Effect is intended for a broader, not necessarily academic, audience, which is evidenced in the physical appearance of the book, from its glossy pages and use of endnotes (which are minimal) to its lack of a bibliography.

In the introduction, Hahn identifies key issues around the “reliquary effect,” including: “relic-ing” (the ritual process of selection and enshrinement), beauty (which stems primarily from the authenticity of a relic, not the aesthetic qualities of its reliquary), (in)visibility, and containing the uncontainable. The reliquary has the ability to collapse time in its material juxtaposition of old (relic) and new (reliquary). It is essential in demarcating sacred space, “The reliquary makes the relic” (11), even as the reliquary itself fades into the background. Seeing a reliquary becomes synonymous with seeing the relic it contains (even when that relic is completely obscured).

The first chapter, “Relics and Reliquaries: Matter, Meaning, Multiplication,” reflects on the main material categories of relics: dust, for example, is potent in its paradoxical transformation from unwanted and inanimate detritus to glorified and enlivened presence. As Hahn summarizes: “If a generalization can be made about relics, it is that they represent the paradoxical and the persistent” (32). The reliquary plays an essential role in this communication and, as Hahn demonstrates, not only highlights the relic with precious materials but also makes rhetorical claims in the various forms it can take. For example, reliquaries may inform or instruct their viewers through inscriptions or figural gestures. This chapter also indicates the breadth of evidence Hahn engages in The Reliquary Effect, which occasionally extends beyond that of medieval Europe to include references to the materials of Tibetan Buddhism and Islam.

From this point, the book progresses in a more or less chronological fashion. Chapter 2, “Objects of Infinite Power: Relics in the Early Middle Ages,” outlines the nesting or enclosures of relics, the use of variously shaped reliquaries (e.g., as body parts, churches, sarcophagi), and the “gregarious” collection, travel, and display of relics and their reliquaries from about the fourth to the twelfth centuries. The next chapter, “Reliquaries of the Late Medieval and Renaissance,” takes up the development of reliquaries from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, during which time they seem to have grown in number, variety, and spiritual power. A characterizing theme of Gothic reliquaries is an interest in “micro” architecture, which, as Hahn demonstrates, builds on the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, and the Heavenly Jerusalem, as well as contemporaneous sacred structures. Hahn argues that such “micro” architectural reliquaries “create a space for veneration that imaginatively expands the power of the tiny relic fragments they display” (110). The social, political, and spiritual power of relics and their enclosures reached a fevered pitch before becoming a target of reform in the early sixteenth century.

Chapter 4, “The Reliquary after Trent: The Affective, the Collective,” accounts for the fate of relics and reliquaries in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation. Hahn demonstrates here that several European Catholic communities were more influential and innovative than Rome, for example, in the use of silver and terracotta in Spain and Portugal, and the embroidered ornamentations of the Holy Bodies at Waldsassen. “Relics Destroyed, Relics Returned, Relics Reinvented: The French Revolution, Napoleon, Celebrity, the Photograph” advances the conversation to the early modern era. Hahn argues that with the birth of “celebrity” in the Napoleonic era, “the western European instinct to create and venerate relics was transferred from the sole domain of religious veneration to include secular obsession with the events and emerging celebrities of the era” (212). Indeed, this is a trend that continues today. Hahn traces the memorial presence and self-aware visibility of “eye miniatures” and portrait miniatures to the advent of photography. The final chapter of the book's corpus, “The Reliquary Effect: Contemporary Artists and Strategies of the Relic,” broadens the discussion of the afterlife of the relic to consider the ways in which contemporary artists have meditated upon concepts of materiality, presence, agency, and signification. This chapter is perhaps the most exciting contribution, as it helpfully contextualizes the works of Joseph Beuys, Paul Thek, and Anselm Kiefer, who employ “reliquary strategies” in their sculptures and installations.

Hahn concludes with comparisons between reliquaries and museum vitrines, recommendations for further study of African reliquaries, and a reflection on the “reliquary effect” of Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial. There is little to grieve about this book: given both its wider intended readership and the materiality that is at the heart of the book, additional images (and details) would have been appreciated. As indicated in her acknowledgements, Hahn is at play in The Reliquary Effect; much like the sacred contagion of relics and reliquaries illuminated therein, Hahn's enthusiasm and thought-provoking scholarship is sure to spread beyond the borders of academia.