Opera magazine
2024-11-13
The Near Distance: Photographs by Lilyana Karadjova
New exhibition curated by Vincenzo Circosta and Giuseppe Giari at Libreria Brunelleschi (Piazza San Giovanni, 7).
The exhibition will be freely visited from December 5, 2024 to March 31, 2025, all days from 9:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.
The Church of Light
The exhibition hosted in the Libreria Brunelleschi invites visitors to contemplate the beauty of the 'living stones'—the most precious relics of our Cathedral, the martyrs and other saints whose relics are preserved in the Duomo: Christians who, having offered the sacrifice of their own lives, have reached the heavenly assembly.
These photographs, made on glass by Lilyana Karadjova, represent some of the relics for which the faith of past Florentines provided splendid reliquaries, now displayed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. But while at the museum, the visitor's attention is drawn to the silver, gold, and gems of the containers, here the eye is focused on the content: the fragments of bones from the bodies of these witnesses to Christ and some pieces of the wood of his cross.
This is the true ‘treasure’ of the Duomo, as ancient writers insisted, who always began their account of the great church with a remembrance of the relics venerated there. They were inspired by Byzantine historians who, over a thousand years earlier, claimed that in the mosaics of the imperial basilica of Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, built in the 6th century, fragments of the martyrs’ bones were mixed in with the glass tesserae.
Lilyana Karadjova has imprinted her photographs on colored glass, evoking both the walls of the Celestial Jerusalem, built with precious stones, and the vibrant atmosphere inside the Florentine Duomo, where its more than fifty stained-glass windows from the 14th and 15th centuries flood the space with gem-colored hues. But while the light that illuminates the dimness of the Duomo passes through images of saints in the stained-glass windows, here the light reaches us through their bones and even through the dark wood of the Redeemer’s cross, in a process that is itself based on light: photography.
A photograph is not only an image obtained through photo-chemical methods but also a reliable sign of a presence. In 2006, Bernd Stiegler expanded on this thought in his book Images of Photography, where he notes that one of the significant metaphors related to photography is the Mandylion, the rectangular cloth relic on which it is believed the face of Christ was miraculously imprinted. In a similar way, photography translates light into an icon.
Light is the divine and pure principle of essence that Christ repeatedly applied to Himself, saying: «I am the light of the world» (John 8:12). In this case, the photographic icon does not represent a merely technical reproduction, as Walter Benjamin intended, but, from the perspective of the artist's living faith, a presence almost sacramental, and even endowed with an aura, that is, with that «the unique appearance of a distance, however close it may be».
Msgr. Timothy Verdon, Opera del Duomo Museum Director
Lilyana Karadjova
Lilyana Karadjova is a Bulgarian photographer and art historian who reinterprets ancient printing techniques taking contemporary approaches. Her work has been exhibited throughout Europe and the USA. She is a professor at New Bulgarian University and a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame and the Brera Academy.
The reliquaries and their relics
The photographs by Lilyana Karadjova reveal details that the artist has chosen to capture through her lens. Below, you will find the reliquaries photographed as they appear in the exhibition. If you wish to learn more about each piece, you can click on the corresponding title and you will be redirected to the full catalog of our collection.
- Byzantine Workshop; Bernardo Holzmann; Cosimo Merlini, Cross of the Grand Duchess (components of various periods: 11th-12th-17th-18th cent.).
- Matteo di Lorenzo (atr.) and other goldsmiths, Reliquary of Saint Philip and other saints (components of various periods from 1398 to 1723).
- Florentine Workshop, Reliquary of Saint Reparata (17th cent). Unlike the other reliquaries, which are all kept at the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, this one is located in the excavations of the ancient basilica of Santa Reparata.
- Francesco Vanni; Florentine Workshop, Reliquary of Saint Reparata (components of various periods: 1375, 1605).
- Pietro Cerluzi, Reliquary of the jaw of the Baptist (1564).
- Florentine Workshop, Reliquary of a finger of the Baptist (1450-1499).
- Matteo di Giovanni, Reliquary of a finger of the Baptist (1416-1426 ca.)
- Giovan Battista Foggini; Bernardo Holzmann, Reliquary of the Veil of Saint Agatha (1700-1714).
- Giovan Battista Foggini; Bernardo Holzmann, Reliquary of the Veil of Saint Agatha (1700-1714).
- Giovan Battista Foggini; Bernardo Holzmann, Reliquary of the Veil of Saint Agatha (1700-1714).
