A Reinterpretation of Art at the Court of Charles V: the Moment 1378

The article focuses on some miniatures attributable to the last years of the life of Charles V such as the Coronation of the King, c. 3v of the Great Chronicles of France, BnF, ms. Fr. 2813, and The massacre of innocent, c. 61v of the Tres Belles Heures de Notre Dame de Jean de Berry, BnF, ms NAL 3093, traced back to years prior 1380, whose links with the enamel sur ronde-bosse of the contemporary goldsmithery could justify a dating of the Reliquary of Montalto in the 'same period. Later it dwells on the scepter of Charles V preserved in the Louvre, executed for the same sovereign in 1378 with precise political intentions; of this object the article bring in highlights the close ties with the reliquary of Montalto itself, whose enamel sur ronde-bosse of the lily, the lockets of the knot and perhaps the backgrounds of the stories of st. James are repeated, with reference also to the two . flacons d'or with the figure of Charlemagne that the king of France donated to the emperor at the time of the farewell. Recalling that 1378 is the year in which developed the "Great Schism. , and that of the visit of Emperor Charles IV in Paris with the aim of averting it, the article asks whether the exposition of Christ's wounds in the reliquary can also be read as an exposition of the wounds inflicted on the church at this time, concluding that three thematic lines seem characterize the artistic commission of Charles V in anticipation of the emperor's trip to Paris: an historical-dynastic one (frontispieces of the Great Chronicles of France); a political-territorial one (the scepter and the two flacons); an ecclesiastical-devotional one (the Reliquary of Montalto): all objects that we can consider as vehicles of precise and very current messages at this date.