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Wax Legs and Iron Eyes: Votive Practices from the Middle Ages to the Present Day

69.99 €
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Wax Legs and Iron Eyes: Votive Practices from the Middle Ages to the Present Day
69.99 €
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In this book, historians Mikhail Mayzuls, Sergei Zotov, and Dmitry Antonov tell how the exchange of gifts between people and higher powers was organized in the West and Russia, how the spaces of churches were turned into archives of miracles and a kind of portrait galleries and even kunstkamerias. Since the Middle Ages, many Christian churches were filled with wax legs and arms, silver eyes, iron cows, baby figures, old shackles and armor. Nearby hung paintings depicting the sick lying in beds, ships struggling with the waves, or travelers being attacked by brigands. Such items are called ex-voto, or votives. They are gifts to God and the saints that the faithful brought and still bring to enlist their help or to give thanks for a miracle. From peasant handicrafts to luxurious gifts from sovereigns, votives are important witnesses to history. They speak of the illnesses, troubles, or hopes of specific people, and at the same time they trace major shifts in the history of religion, art, and medicine.
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