Congress 'Retablos-tabernáculo of the Lower Middle Ages in the Crown of Castile'
Congress 'Retablos-tabernáculo of the Lower Middle Ages in the Crown of Castile'
The annual magazine Medieval , edited by the Institute of Medieval Studies (IEM) of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has published in its 2020 issue the conferences of the international symposium The Saint Enshrined: European Tabernacle-altarpieces c.1150-1400, which took place in Valladolid on June 7 and 8, 2019.
This congress was organized by the research project Retablos-tabernacle of the Lower Middle Ages in the Crown of Castile: study, documentation and dissemination , which has the support of different bodies of the University of Valladolid (Doctoral School, Simancas University Institute of History, Department of Art History and G. I. R. IDINTAR), as well as the Spanish Committee for the History of Art and the Diocese of Vitoria and funding from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad and the contribution of the European Regional Development Fund (ref. HAR2017-82949-P).
The aim of the project, which has been developed during the period 2018-20, is to carry out, in the area of the old Crown of Castile, the exhaustive analysis of a characteristic type of primitive altarpiece, consisting of a canopy that houses a cult image and is equipped with folding wings. Most of these tabernacle altarpieces were relegated when they went out of fashion. Currently, around thirty of them are known, of which only five are preserved more or less complete.
The Frederic Marès Museum preserves what is, without a doubt, the best exponent of this typology, the altarpiece-tabernacle of Castildelgado (Burgos), and also fragments of two others, which gives it a prominent role in the development of the project. In this sense, the Museum lent the pieces for their study and observation. Al january 2019, Fernando Gutiérrez Baños, principal investigator of the research project, and Francisco Marcial Morillo, from the Photogrammetry Laboratory of the University of Valladolid, created a 3D model of the tabernacle from the Ermita de Santa María la Real del Campo de Castildelgado. Likewise, analyzes of samples of polychromes, radiographs of the pieces and a photo session of the Museum's tabernacles were also carried out.
The following have participated in the research: Fernando Gutiérrez Baños (principal researcher, UVa), Marcos González (UVa), Martínez Rubio (UVa) and Carme Sandalinas (MFM).
