Digital reconstruction of a medieval sculpture from Shaftesbury

The BBC News website reported upon a computer project to digitally reconstruct a shattered late mediaeval sculpture depicting the Mass of Saint Gregory which was found buried in a wall in St Peter’s church in Shaftesbury in the 1970s. 

Digital imaging of all the 170 or so fragments has enabled a beginning to be made on piecing together this once very substantial statue. It is thought to have been six feet or so high when complete.

The report can be read at Smashed medieval statue from Dorset church reformed digitally

There is more about the computer work from the experts involved at Bournemouth University at BU computer animation experts and archaeologists use digital technology to reassemble shattered statue

An idea of the considerable size of the statue can be gleaned from a film clip of the unveiling of the larger portion of the remains of the statue in Shaftesbury Museum by H.M. Deputy Lord Lieutenant. This can be seen at Shaftesbury Abbey on Instagram: "Our restored 15th century St Gregory Mass statue has been unveiled! 

Looking at what survives and the many small fragments of the whole work I am once again appalled by the ferocity of destruction wrought by fanatics in the mid-sixteenth century.

On the positive side to go and see the remains of the sculpture is yet another excellent reason for going to visit the beautiful and historic, and in some ways little known, county of Dorset.

Celebrating St Gregory

Today is the EF feast of St Gregory the Great, and yesterday evening I attended an anticipated celebration of the day which was also the patronal feast at SS Gregory and Augustine in north Oxford. Fr John Saward offered a Missa Cantata in his church, which had put aside Lenten austerity and was suitably decorated with spring flowers in a style which complemented the Arts and Crafts style of the building.

A good occasion, if not quite as spectacular as the Mass of St Gregory...

 

The Mass of St Gregory 

 Image:cathcon.blogspot.uk

Images of St Gregory the Great

Today is the traditional feast day of Pope St Gregory the Great.

Here, from contributors to the Medieval Religion discussion group, are a selection of images of him.

Gordon Plumb posted the following images in stained glass:

York Minster, NXI, 2b-4b (right-hand light)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/5019923265

Winchester, Hospital of St Cross & St Faith, South Transept, North-East Clerestory window:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/5759439053

and detail:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/5759982642

Saint-Nicholas-de-Port, Bay 101, 6a-10a, (left-hand light):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/22274117@N08/4125529241

Genevra Kornbluth added a page of sculpted and painted depictions of St Gregory, and dating from the 14th-16th centuries:

http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/SaintGregory.html

Jim Bugslag posted the manuscript illumination in the Très Riches Heures of Gregory's procession in Rome against the plague, when he saw the apparition of St Michael sheathing his sword atop Hadrian's Tomb, aka the Castel S. Angelo.

http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/Images/ARTH212images/liturgical_objects/Relics/TRH_Litany.jpg

There are aselection of images of him from over the centuries illustrating the Wikipedia biography and article about him at Pope Gregory I 

The nearest thing we possess as a contemporary likeness of St Gregory is one which depicts him, flanked by his parents, but which I cannot track down on the internet today.

A very popular dedpiction of him in the later middle ages was in the context of the story of the Mass of St Gregory, when there was vouchsafed a vision of Our Lord whilst St Gregory was celebrating Mass, so as to confound a member of the congregation who doubted Transubstantiation.

Image:traditionalcatholicpriest.com

St Gregory the Great

Today, in the novus ordo calendar, is the feast of St Gregory the Great, Pope from 590 until 604, and the Apostle of the English.

To mark his feast day here is another depiction of the Mass of St Gregory, the oft-used later medieval story of how he convinced a doubter of the reality of Transubstantiation. As became usual the scene is shown with the Saint having a vision of the Man of Sorrows.

The Mass of Saint Gregory Student or follower of Robert Campin about 1440 Oil on panel, 85 x 73 cm Brussels, Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts

Some scholars have thought that the Mass of Saint Gregory was a copy after a lost original by Robert Campin dating from around 1410-1415. Image: aiwaz.net

As with other depictions of this story the painting is an insight into late medieval liturgical practice and also late medieval expectations of what churches and liturgies looked like.

The Mass of St Gregory

Today in the usus antiquior it is the feast of St Gregory the Great, and this evening I shall be attending the Solemn Mass in that form at SS Gregory and Augustine here in Oxford. Not only is it the patronal feast of the parish but also marks the centenary of the building of the church.

That put me in mind of the Mass of St Gregory, the story of how a woman who did not believe in the Real Presence was led to belief by a vision at Mass celebrated by Pope St Gregory. This was a popular subject with artists in the middle ages and a teaching aid as to the doctrine of Transubstantiation and devotion to the Eucharist. Something of the origins and development of the story can be read here.

The artistic representations of the story have another benefit - they are a splendid record of liturgical practice in past centuries. In other words an excuse to talk about liturgy and vestments...

The Mass of St Gregory by Bernt Notke (c1435-1508/9)
Aarhus Cathedral (Århus Domkirke)

A more spectacular example of the subject which has been attributed to Notke, but which can, alas, no longer be viewed other than in old photographs, can be seen here:

Mass of St Gregory c.1504, attributed to Bernt Notke.
St. Mary's Church, Lübeck, destroyed in 1942

Image:dodedans.com

There is something about Bernt Notke and his work here. There is an illustrated website here which discusses the links between the surviving works known to be by him or attributed to him, and which has larger version of the Lübeck painting.

The Mass of St Gregory

Adriaen Isenbrandt (1480/90 -1551) Prado Museum Madrid

Image:restoredtraditions.com