The 'Tabernacles’ War', c. 1367–1377: Civic versus papal authority in popular-regime Rome

This study revises our understanding of the use and function of icons and relics in Trecento Italy. It is original and innovative as it demonstrates that the competition was not only between icons (as it is usually thought), but also between icons and relics, and that it served to forge papal-religious identity in opposition to civic religious identity. The article also demonstrates that the competition was enacted through the construction of monumental Gothic tabernacles, previously overlooked in the literature. On the basis of rigorous empirical and archival research, this contribution uses the reconstruction of dismembered monuments in order to throw new light on the use and significance of art at the time of the papal return from Avignon in the last quarter of the 14th century.