A Reliquary “Book Amulet,” ca. 1760
“Book amulets” (German, breverl; Italian, brevi), were normally associated with conventual manuscripts made by nuns for sale to pilgrims as talismans against all kinds of afflictions and dangers, both corporeal and spiritual. The most common of these were normally comprised of an outer sheet of heavy ornamental paper folded and mounted on either side with bespoke engravings depicting the five wounds of Christ and the seven swords of the Virgin of Sorrows, the holy names of Jesus and Mary, the double-staved “Pestkreuz” (a traditional cross inscribed with invocations protective against plague), and so on. On the verso of this outer sheet was an arrangement of tipped-in miniature prints depicting and invoking the protection of patron saints; in especially elaborate examples, still smaller printed or bespoke scribal prayers might be folded and affixed below these.
These illustrated patron saint sequences customarily surround a central panel that unfolds to reveal a specially printed broadside containing benedictions and prayers intended to provide the bearer with still further divine protections. Finally, many breverl feature another panel affixed to the center of the benediction and prayer sheet, forming a miniature reliquary containing a variety of tin or wax badges, wooden crucifixes, blessed grains, dried flowers, fruit pips, pebbles, and so on. Rare examples of breverl are preserved in small scapular pouches or even elaborately embroidered cases designed to be worn around the neck. It is generally held that the spiritual power of these book amulets would be canceled if they were opened and examined by their owners, suggesting a strong reverence for the special apotropaic potency granted them through the careful labors and prayers of the nuns who made them.
Breverl are notoriously hard to locate geographically or to date, though the printed and handwritten texts inside them are usually in the German vernacular, suggesting that they were particularly concentrated in Italian, Swiss, and Tyrolean alpine lands. They are also notoriously difficult to isolate chronologically, for the broadsheets that contain the most extensive discursive information about these amulets rarely record either a place or a date of printing. Numerous examples do, however, contain some version of the “Breve super se portandum ad gloriam dei, suorumque sanctorum contra daemones” (A brief to be carried for the glory of God and his saints against demons). First published by Pope Urban VIII in 1635, this papal brief declares that those who carry amulets bearing the text of the brief will enjoy saintly protection against all manner of diabolical “maleficium.”
Though the particular illustrations that comprise a gallery of saints may vary considerably depending on the particular attributes of patronage being sought and invoked, among the most common were the Virgin and Child (a patron saint of childbirth), the decapitated Saint Anastasius (headaches, demons), Francis of Assisi (fire), Anthony of Padua (shipwreck), Johannes Nepomuc (drowning), James of the Marches (heretics), Ignatius Loyola (exorcism of demons), and Franciscus Solanus (earthquakes). The putative date of breverl bearing the image of Solanus, who was not canonized until December 27, 1726, strongly suggests that many were produced during the mid-to-late eighteenth century.
The Women of the Book collection currently includes three examples of this particular form. Perhaps the earliest, and simplest, does bear the rare city of publication, Munich, and may even date back to the earlier eighteenth century, if an anecdote recorded in the Swiss historian Abraham Ruchat’s Les délices de la Suisse (1714) is to be believed. There Ruchat noted that in 1712, during the War of the Spanish Succession when various Swiss cantons were arrayed against one other on confessional grounds, the Capuchins “distributed to soldiers billets magiques (amulets) printed and approved by Pope Urban VIII, which protected against every ill those who carried it. They wore them around the neck, folded up very small, and securely attached.” Though contemporary paintings and engravings of breverl are rare, at least one later, ca. 1850 Czech holy card of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel represents the Virgin and Child holding up small amulets attached to necklaces, their covers reflecting the holy names of Jesus and Mary.
Interestingly, in the Hopkins Munich breverl, inside the central reliquary are multiple letterpress invocations of the female saints Clare, Prisca, Fortunata, and Hyacintha cut out, mounted on variously colored silks, and arranged at deliberate angles in the design, perhaps in this particular case suggesting an intended female audience. The various benedictions and supplications on the printed broadside invoke the protections of Saints Anthony of Padua and Vincent Ferrer, as well as Jesus and the Holy Trinity, among others. There is found the “Oratio deprecativa ad maleficia, & quaevis mala expellenda & evadenda” from Candido Brognolo’s 1651 Manuale exorcistarum, ac parochorum, a guide to exorcism, despite its being placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1727.
A second paper breverl in the Women of the Book Collection is folded inside a distinctive orange-patterned envelope of heavy paper. This is surmounted on recto and verso with striking engravings of the wounds and holy names of Christ and the Virgin, as well as an elaborately inscribed plague cross that very much resembles another associated with the Ursulines at Landshut held by the Wellcome Institute. Unlike the more modest Munich breverl described above, this one is filled to the brim with a full gallery of eight engraved protective saints, each of which is hinged so as to reveal underneath still more folded swatches of letterpress prayers and bespoke scribal benedictions. The central reliquary is also quite elaborate, with several wooden crosses, a tin plague cross and two other tin badges, a swatch of velvet, pebbles, and a snippet of a manuscript prayer.
Far more elaborate than these two exemplars is a finely embroidered breverl bearing a beautifully brocaded IHS emblem on one side and the initial M of the Virgin Mary on the other. It is attached to a silk ribbon that would allow the bearer to wear the amulet around her neck. Other luxurious elements include substantial quantities of cotton or wool, a strip of gilt and red brocade paper, and two smaller engravings pasted loosely on the verso: one is the beheaded Saint Anastasius; the other Saint Franciscus Solanus set into an exotic background and shown ministering to natives of South America. Brocade paper is folded around a collection of four unidentified tiny red wax seals, two with paper appendages. Unlike the examples described above, this breverl is devoid of any printed text, making it a unique production on every level.
—Kelsey Champagne, Earle Havens
Full Citation
Bibliography
Ellen Ettlinger, “The Hildburgh Collection of Austrian and Bavarian Amulets in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum,” Folklore 76:2 (Summer 1965), esp.110–11; Don Skemer, “Magic Writ: Textual Amulets Worn on the Body for Protection,” in Annette Kehnel et al. (eds.), Schriftträger—Textträger: Zur materialen Präsenz des Geschriebenen in frühen Gesellschaften (Walter de Gruyter, 2015), 127–50; Sharon Strocchia, Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy (Harvard University Press, 2019), esp. 75–84; Katherine M. Tycz, “Material Prayers and Maternity in Early Modern Italy: Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” in Maya Corry et al. (eds.), Domestic Devotions in Early Modern Italy (Brill, 2018), esp. 250–60; Abraham Ruchat, Les délices de la Suisse (Leiden, 1744), 4:866; Candido Brognolo Manuale exorcistarum, ac parochorum (Venice, 1714), 242.
