(Re)Birth of a Seal: Power and Pretense

at San Nicola, Bari, ca. 1300

JI LL CASK EY University of Toronto

Abstract
This study introduces and contextualizes the artistic patronage
of Petrus de Angeriacus (d. 1313), the powerful yet controver-
sial treasurer of the pilgrimage church of San Nicola in Bari,
Italy. It begins by assessing the life and activities of the treasurer
within the dramatic political, religious, and social setting of
the Kingdom of Sicily during the reign of Charles II. It proceeds
to evaluate Petrus’s commissions for San Nicola, four lost can-
dlesticks described in inventories from 1326 and 1362. It then
probes in detail a work intended to travel beyond San Nicola—
a seal impression previously concealed within a protective
sac—and reconstructs its genesis within European currents
of art production. Both the seal and candlesticks are placed
in conversation with Charles II’s political and artistic initia-
tives and contested endeavors to expand royal jurisdiction. Ul-
timately, the treasurer’s commissions materialize networks of
authority that have not previously registered in our under-
able pilgrimage site into a major feudal power closely linked
to the crown. Yet while Petrus actively managed San Nicola’s
ever-expanding collections and thus helped shape its visual,
material, and liturgical fields, evidence of his own artistic pa-
tronage has been scant, limited to terse descriptions of can-
dlesticks in inventories composed after his death. While
this study considers the lost candlesticks, it focuses on Petrus’s
only extant commission, his newly discovered seal, and probes
the connections between his acts of patronage.
Appended to a document of 20 January 1301 (Bari, Ar-
chivio della Basilica di San Nicola, Pergamene Angioino
D10; hereafter Ang D10), the seal was concealed within a pro-
tective sac until 2017 (Fig. 1). Like most medieval seal impres-
sions, Petrus’s was made by a matrix produced by skilled
metalworkers. The matrix’s sculpted contours were pressed
into molten wax to create a reverse image in the new mallea-

P
standing of Bari or southern Italy around the year 1300.
etrus de Angeriacus was the treasurer of San
Nicola in Bari, Italy, from 1296 until his death
in 1313. Appointed by King Charles II of Sicily,
Petrus accumulated, maintained, documented,
and distributed various kinds of wealth at a time of intense
royal patronage and controversial institutional change in
Bari. His administrative acumen helped transform the vener-
ble medium; this action transferred and transformed what
was cold, fixed, and solid into what was initially warm, incho-
ate, and labile. Within medieval discourse, compelling theo-
logical metaphors underpinned sealing, with the impressing
and shaping of flesh-like wax seen as analogous to creation,
baptism, conversion, or stigmatization.1 This study considers
such valences, but given the inherently multimedia nature of
sealing, it also brings theories of intermediality into play.
Developed in literary, cinema, and new media studies, these
ideas examine the dynamics of transfer from one medium

A version of this paper was presented at the Branner Forum at Columbia University in 2018; many thanks to Caitlin Miller for the in-
vitation to lecture there and to all who participated in fruitful discussions thereafter. I also owe thanks to the students in my 2016 graduate
seminar on treasuries, as well as to Bridget Riley, Orvis Starkweather, and Rebecca Golding for assistance in Toronto. I am indebted to Linda
Safran and Antonella Di Marzo, who facilitated my initial forays into Bari, and to Gerardo Cioffari, Francesco Innamorato, Bridget Riley, and
Claire Jensen for their assistance in the Archivio della Basilica di San Nicola. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for Gesta, who helped
me clarify key points, and to Susan Boynton and Diane Reilly, who were reassuring when the pandemic made photographs and other re-
sources difficult to procure. Research for this paper was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. I
dedicate this work to Gerardo Cioffari, O.P., without whose generosity and curiosity this rebirth would not have occurred.

1. E.g., Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, “The Efficacy of Signs and the Matter of Authenticity in Canon Law (800–1250),” in Zwischen
Pragmatik und Performanz: Dimensionen mittelalterlicher Schriftkultur, ed. Christoph Dartmann, Thomas Scharff, and Christoph Friedrich
Weber, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 18 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 199–236; Ruth Wolff, “The Sealed Saint: Representations of
Saint Francis of Assisi on Medieval Italian Seals,” in Good Impressions: Image and Authority in Medieval Seals, ed. Noël Adams, John Cherry,
and James Robinson, Research Publication 168 (London: British Museum, 1998), 91–99.

Gesta v60n1 (Spring 2021).

0031-8248/2021/7703-0003 $10.00. Copyright 2021 by the International Center of Medieval Art. All rights reserved.

v60n1, Spring 2021 (Re)Birth of a Seal D 51


Figure 1. Charter with seals, 1301, Bari, Archivio della Basilica di
San Nicola (henceforth ABSN), Pergamene Angioino D10 (photo:
author). See the electronic edition of Gesta for color versions of
most images.
to another, with medium being understood here as physical
or material and semiotic;2 such concepts are particularly ger-
mane to the domain of seals and sealing and its serial acts of
transfer. Intermediality also helps illuminate the dynamics of
seal matrix design and production and, on a broader level,
Gothic art as a whole.
2. Contemporary theorizations of intermediality emerged in lit-
erary criticism and have gained traction in the visual arts, particu-
larly in film and new media studies. Outline of origins and theories
in Werner Wolf, “Intermediality,” in The Routledge Encyclopedia of
Narrative Theory, ed. David Herman, Manfred Jahn, and Marie-
Laure Ryan (London/New York: Routledge, 2005), 252–56; Irina
O. Rajewsky, “Intermediality, Intertextuality, and Remediation: A
Literary Perspective on Intermediality,” Remédier. Intermédialités.
Histoire et théorie des arts, des lettres et des techniques 6 (Fall 2005):
43–64; Andrew Shail, “Introduction. Intermediality: Disciplinary
Flux or Formalist Retrenchment?” Special Issue: Intermediality in
Early and Silent Cinema, Early Popular Visual Culture 8, no. 1
(2010): 3–15.
52 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
Yet Petrus’s seal was not his only commission, and it must
be considered in conjunction with the lost candlesticks. De-
spite their different functions, the seal and candlesticks share
key features and concerns. Both the seal matrix and silver
candlesticks were made in sophisticated workshops engaged
by Italy’s most elite patrons. Both foreground images of self-
representation, for the seal represents Petrus in words and
image and the candlesticks depicted his coat of arms. While
heraldry developed as a way to differentiate troops on the bat-
tlefield and then spread into non-martial contexts, both her-
aldry and seals flourished in southern Italy in the second half
of the thirteenth century, when they extended for the first
time beyond dynastic and ecclesiastical circles.
The seal and candlesticks also occupy overlapping concep-
tual frameworks. Although they use different strategies of
self-representation, seals and heraldry both express and as-
sert the patron’s presence and authority far from his physical
body. As seal impressions circulated, their efficacy as sources
of verification and validation depended upon their recogniz-
ability, just as heraldry’s did. In addition, seals and heraldry
both entail systems of replication. Seals were among the very
few mechanically produced images from the later Middle
Ages, along with coins, pilgrimage souvenirs, and eucharistic
hosts. Meanwhile, heraldic devices tended to be copied in a
wide range of techniques, media, and scales, from enameled
horse tack and woven clothing to architectural sculpture
and fresco painting.3
Although this study engages theories that have enlivened
heraldry, sigillography, and intermediality in recent years,
its aim is fairly straightforward: to introduce and contextual-
ize Petrus and his commissions. It begins by assessing the life
and activities of the treasurer within the dramatic political,
religious, and social setting of San Nicola and the Kingdom
of Sicily in the years around 1300 (Fig. 2). It proceeds to eval-
uate his commissions for his home base, San Nicola itself, the
four lost candlesticks described in an inventory from 1326. It
then probes in detail the work that was commissioned to travel
beyond San Nicola—the seal—and reconstructs its genesis
within European currents of art production. Both the seal and
candlesticks are placed in conversation with Charles II’s po-
litical and artistic initiatives and contested endeavors to
expand royal jurisdiction. Ultimately, the treasurer’s com-
missions materialize networks of authority that have not
3. See Aden Kumler, “The Multiplication of the Species: Eucha-
ristic Morphology in the Middle Ages,” RES: Anthropology and
Aesthetics 59–60 (2011): 179–91; Brian Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs
and Secular Badges, Museum of London Medieval Finds from Ex-
cavations in London 7 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press; London: Sta-
tionery Office, 1998; reprint 2010), 7–16.

Figure 2. Map of the Kingdom of Sicily, with key cities and major
Roman roads (map: Jeff Allen).
previously registered in our understanding of Bari or south-
ern Italy around the year 1300.
Bari and San Nicola
During the early Middle Ages, the city of Bari was contested
territory, aptly described by a leading historian as a place
of “dramatic encounter and conflict for all of the Mediterra-
nean faiths.”4 Rival regional powers occupied the city from
the fall of the Roman Empire to the eleventh century, includ-
ing Byzantines, Lombards, and North Africans; even an emir-
ate linked to the Abbasids in distant Baghdad ruled Bari from
840 to 871.5 The arrival of the relics of St. Nicholas of Myra in
1087 was a pivotal moment for the city. This furta sacra, or
holy theft, performed by sixty-two local sailors during the
early years of Norman rule, transformed the city from but
4. “in una fitta trama di incontri e scontri con tutti i culti medi-
terranei.” Nino Lavermicocca, Bari bizantina: capitale mediter-
ranea (Bari: Pagina, 2003), 34.
5. Overviews based on Lavermicocca, Bari bizantina; Raffaele
Licinio, “Bari angioina,” in Storia di Bari dalla conquista al ducato
sforzesco, ed. Francesco Tateo (Rome: Laterza, 1990), 95–144;
Lorenzo M. Bondioli, “Islamic Bari between the Aghlabids and
the Two Empires,” in The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors: Art and
Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa, ed. Glaire D. An-
derson, Corisande Fenwick, and Mariam Rosser-Owen, with Sihem
Lamine, Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section One, Near and Mid-
dle East 122 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 470–90.
one of the many busy ports on the Adriatic coast to the most
significant religious site in southern Italy.6 Construction of a
new basilica to house the saint began quickly, and Pope Ur-
ban II consecrated its expansive crypt in 1089. The church,
with its massive arcades, rigorous geometry, and elaborate
figural sculpture, is among the most widely emulated medie-
val buildings of southern Italy (Fig. 3).
The fourth-century bishop St. Nicholas was beloved and
revered in Western Europe long before the translation of his
relics. As the patron saint of sailors, youth, and the unjustly im-
prisoned, to name just a few of his areas of expertise, he was
“an ecclesiastical one-man band,” as the journalist R. W. Apple
memorably put it.7 An indication of Nicholas’s fame can be
seen in the remarkable maps painted by the English Benedic-
tine monk Matthew Paris in the mid-thirteenth century. As a
preface to his Chronica majora, Matthew represented an itin-
erary from his abbey at St. Albans to Jerusalem in a series of
strip maps. In the copy of the Chronica preserved in British
Library MS Royal 14 C VII, his detailed image of the coast
of Apulia does not represent Bari as a city, but instead as a
church labelled Seint Nicholas du Bar—the only place in his
maps of Italy where cult site replaces city, in both text and im-
age (Fig. 4).8
Despite Matthew’s equation of San Nicola with Bari, the
great pilgrimage church was not the ecclesiastical center of
the city; Bari was an archiepiscopal see. By the time Matthew
6. The bibliography on the translation and pilgrimage is consid-
erable. Recent studies include Dawn Marie Hayes, “The Cult of
St. Nicholas of Myra in Norman Bari, c. 1071–c. 1111,” Journal of
Ecclesiastical History 67, no. 3 (2016): 492–512; Paul Oldfield, Sanc-
tity and Pilgrimage in Medieval Southern Italy, 1000–1200 (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), esp. 97–106, 202–25;
Silvia Silvestro, Santi, reliquie e sacri furti: San Nicola di Bari fra
Montecassino e Normanni, Nuovo Medioevo 93 (Naples: Liguori,
2013). Foundational studies include Gerardo Cioffari, Storia della
Basilica di S. Nicola di Bari 1: L’Epoca normanna sveva (Bari: Centro
Studi Nicolaiani della Basilica di San Nicola, 1984); Patrick Geary,
Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 94–103; Charles W. Jones,
Saint Nicholas of Myra, Bari and Manhattan. Biography of a Legend
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
7. Raymond W. Apple Jr., Apple’s Europe: An Uncommon Guide
(New York: Atheneum, 1986), 148.
8. London, British Library, MS Royal 14 C VII, fol. 4, http://
www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size
=mid&IllID=45875.
In the Cambridge manuscript of the Chronica, Bari is also differ-
entiated from other cities; Matthew gave it his conventional city
form with crenellated walls encircling towers, but rather than in-
scribing the name of the city on the walls, as he did elsewhere, he
wrote “Seint Nicholas” on Bari’s walls and the word “Bar” in the up-
per left of the image (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 26,
fol. iiir, https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/catalog/rf352tc5448).
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 53
Figure 3. San Nicola, Bari, late eleventh and twelfth centuries
(photo: Ra Boe/Wikipedia/Lizenz: cc by-sa 3.0).

created his maps, relations between the cathedral and pil-

grimage church were often poor. The archbishop Marino
Filangieri sought to make San Nicola a dependency of the
see in the 1230s, and although his plan did not succeed, the
tensions it created endured for years.9 Acrimonious clerics as-
sociated with the cathedral discouraged locals from going to
San Nicola, claiming that the priests at the pilgrimage site
were corrupt and immoral. An unseemly lack of discipline
among some of San Nicola’s canons did not stop its prior
from accusing cathedral clerics of robbing pilgrims. At one
point the archbishop excommunicated the clerics at San
Nicola. Fueling such debates were economic pressures exac-
erbated by confiscations of San Nicola’s agricultural depen-
dencies under Hohenstaufen rule and the cathedral’s need
for extensive repairs after the earthquake of 1267. However
dramatic these episodes may seem, they are not surprising;
anthropological theories of pilgrimage hold that contestation
is a dominant if not inevitable characteristic of pilgrimage
sites, given the competing interests, ideals, priorities, and prac-
tices of locals and visitors to a shrine.10 Contestation may not
be the only interpretive model that can illuminate the phe-
9. This passage is based on Raffaele Iorio, Raffaele Licinio, and
Giosuè Musca, “Sotto la monarchia normanna-svevo,” in Storia
di Bari, ed. Tateo, 75–85; Cioffari, Storia della Basilica, 201–17;
Les registres de Nicolas IV: Recueil des bulles de ce pape, ed. Ernest
Langlois, 2 vols., Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de
Rome, 2e série, 5 (Paris: Ernest Thorin, 1886–93), 2:681–82, doc.
4758.
10. Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pil-
grimage, ed. John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow (London/New York:
Routledge, 1991); Simon Coleman, “Do You Believe in Pilgrimage?
Communitas, Contestation, and Beyond,” Anthropological Theory
2, no. 3 (2002): 355–68.
Figure 4. Coast of Apulia, detail, fol. 4, 1250–59, Matthew Paris,
Historia Anglorum, London, British Library MS Royal 14 C.VII
(photo: British Library Board, 04/07/2020).
nomenon of pilgrimage, but its demonstrable relevance to late
medieval Bari helps place these dysfunctional dynamics within
larger frames of reference.
While Bari’s conflicts were not exceptional in and of them-
selves, the efforts to resolve them were. Into this setting of
contestation and confrontation stepped the king of Sicily,
Charles II of Anjou. In April 1296, he designated San Nicola
a capella regis, or royal chapel, subject to his authority. His
decree did not involve major reconstruction of the great pil-
grimage church itself. Rather, this new identity as a capella
was institutional, centered around a collection of liturgical
objects, books, lands, and privileges, as well as a governing body
appointed by the king. Charles’s overt aims were twofold:
to renew and bolster the prestige and authority of San Ni-
cola, which had languished during the last decades of Ho-
henstaufen rule; and to express his “deep and longstanding”
devotion to St. Nicholas. Over the next few years, the king re-
peatedly gave the capella material expressions of his piety and
seriousness of purpose. Inventories and chancery documents
indicate his patronage of new works of art, such as the extant
Reliquary of the True Cross, commissioned in Naples in

54 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021

1298;11 they also note that he (re)gifted older works, including
manuscripts and vestments from the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.12
Many sources indicate his deep concern with the details
of liturgical performance and display. He required the obser-
vance of the Office of St. Louis in 1300, three years after his
uncle’s canonization. His francophilia was even more pro-
nounced in his most detailed intervention into the adminis-
tration of San Nicola, the Constitution of 1304, in which he
mandated that the church observe the liturgical Use of
Paris.13 San Nicola retained the Use of Paris for three hun-
dred years.
In the foundation charter of 1296, the king named the
treasurer who would oversee the expanding holdings of the
capella: Petrus de Angeriacus.14 Petrus was not a newcomer
to Bari. He was documented as the treasurer of San Nicola
a few months before the foundation of the capella and was
likely appointed to that position by Martin Ermencuriassica,
who served as prior of San Nicola in 1293–94.15 Nonetheless,
Petrus’s status changed with Charles II’s decree. First, the
capella treasurer was no longer appointed by the prior, as
had been customary, but by the king. Second, the materials
overseen by the treasurer—lands, privileges, money, precious
objects, books, and liturgical implements—were deemed in-
alienable and literally in the treasurer’s possession. Petrus
was entrusted with these resources and responsibilities not
only because he was already on site and working in a similar
position, but also because he was well known in Naples; he is
described as a royal familiar, or member of the royal house-
hold, in a charter issued a month after the foundation.16 As
11. 23 January 1298 commission “pro faciendis crucibus et
imaginibus Sancti Nicolai de Baro,” transcribed in Émile Bertaux,
“Les artistes français au service des rois angevins de Naples. Les
orfèvres,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 23 (1905): 265–81, at 267n3.
12. Jill Caskey, “The Look of Liturgy: Identity and ars sacra in
Southern Italy,” in Ritual Space in Medieval Europe, Proceedings
of the 2009 Harlaxton Symposium, Harlaxton Medieval Studies 21
(new series), ed. Frances Andrews (Donington: Shaun Tyas,
2011), 108–29; Gerardo Cioffari, “L’Epoca d’oro della Basilica di
San Nicola, Carlo I e Carlo II d’Angiò (1266–1309),” Nicolaus,
Rivista storico-teologica dei PP Domenicani della Basilica di San
Nicola 1 (2015): 11–140; Il Tesoro della Basilica di San Nicola di
Bari, catalogo della mostra: Museo storico di Stato, Mosca, 22
giugno–28 agosto 2005, ed. Gerardo Cioffari and Marisa Milella
(Rome: Edindustria; Bari: Centro Studi Nicolaiani, 2005).
13. Le Pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari, ed. Francesco Nitti di Vito,
vol. 4, Codice diplomatico Barese (hereafter CDB) 13 (Trani: Vecchi,
1936): 196–201, doc. 133.
14. CDB 13: 100–101, doc. 72.
15. Cioffari, Epoca d’oro, 47–49, 68.
16. “Dilectus clericus familiaris et fidelis noster”; Le carte di Al-
tamura 1232–1502, ed. Angelantonio Giannuzzi, CDB 12 (Bari: Com-
missione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1935), 66,
doc. 66; Cioffari, Epoca d’oro, 69–70.
a trusted member of the king’s inner circle, he would help
develop and strengthen connections between Bari and the
court and crown in Naples, while bolstering Charles’s author-
ity in Bari and his presence at the shrine. Petrus held the po-
sition of treasurer until his death in 1313.
Petrus
Petrus probably belonged to the large flock of clerics who
migrated to the Kingdom of Sicily from Angevin jurisdictions
north of the Alps. As with many other people in this era when
the codification of surnames began, his name appears to
incorporate his family’s place of origin, which was perhaps
Saint-Jean-d’Angély, near Saintes, or more likely Angers,
the principal city in the region of Anjou.17 Angers had grown
in importance after Louis IX ceded Anjou en apanage (as a
grant) to his youngest brother Charles in 1246. Alongside
the city’s new castle, collegiate churches and monasteries
multiplied, helping to train administrators to serve Charles,
who now bore the title Count of Anjou—this is the man
who became the first Angevin king of Sicily in 1266 and the
father of Charles II.18 The aforementioned prior of San Nicola
17. The origins of his family remain equivocal, however, because
the Latin for “Angers” is Andegavensis. In a document issued in Na-
ples in 1312 (CDB 16: 30, doc. 16), Petrus is referred to as “De
Angelerio,” perhaps suggesting links to Saint-Jean-d’Angély, the
Gallo-Roman settlement also referred to as Angeriacum and En-
geriacum. However, unlike immigration from Anjou, which was very
common in the first decades of Angevin rule, settlers from the region
around Saintes are not attested; thus, the balance tips slightly to-
ward Angers. On Saint-Jean-d’Angély and its royal abbey allegedly
founded by Pepin, see Georges Musset, ed., Archives historiques de
la Saintonge et de l’Aunis 30, Cartulaire de Sainte-Jean d’Angély
(Paris: Picard, 1901), albeit with little information on the thirteenth
century; on immigration from parts of France, see Luciano Catalioto,
Terre, baroni e città in Sicilia nell’età di Carlo I d’Angìo (Messina:
Intilla, 1995), esp. 253–82, and Sylvie Pollastri, “Le Liber donationum
et la conquête angevine du royaume de Sicile (1268–1281),” Mé-
langes de l’École française de Rome, Moyen Âge 116, no. 2 (2004):
657–727. Many thanks to Susan Boynton for prompting me to in-
clude this note.
18. Angers had a large population of secular clergy; the cathedral
chapter had thirty canons, and the city’s collegiate churches and
chapels provided sixty other prebends in the late Middle Ages. Petrus
may have come from one of these institutions. Jean-Michel Matz,
“Les chanoines d’Angers au temps du roi René (1434–1480): ser-
viteurs de l’État ducal et de l’État royal,” in Les serviteurs de l’État
au Moyen Âge, Actes des congrès de la Société des historiens médiévistes
de l’enseignement supérieur public, 29e congrès, Pau, Histoire an-
cienne et médiévale 57 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1999),
105–16, at 106; François Comte, “Angers sous les premiers comtes
apanagés (2e moitié du XIIIe siècle),” in L’Europe des Anjou: aventure
des princes angevins du XIIIe au XVe siècle, ed. Guy Le Goff and
Francesco Aceto, exhibition, Abbaye royale de Fontevraud, 2001
(Paris: Somogy, 2001), 248–53.
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 55
who first appointed Petrus, Martin Ermencuriassica, had a
trajectory similar to Petrus’s; his last name is thought to de-
rive from a Latinization of Armentières, a village in Anjou,
and he held prebends in Angers before becoming a member
of the royal household and serving as the custodian of the
king’s seal.19
As the appointed treasurer of San Nicola, Petrus was in
charge of the church’s treasures—that is, what might be gen-
erally considered liturgical vessels, vestments, reliquaries, and
service books, along with the charters, bulls, and other docu-
ments supporting the shrine’s privileges and prerogatives.20
This curatorial role carried immense prestige. The care and
display of treasury possessions could express an institution’s
spiritual identity while cultivating and protecting its memoria
and claims to temporal and spiritual authority.21 At Bari, these
responsibilities were fundamental to the king’s desire to re-
constitute the foundation’s former prestige and to strengthen
its connections to Naples.
Petrus had other responsibilities in the new capella. The
king granted the treasurer the authority to name half the can-
ons in the chapter at San Nicola. In 1298, the king also des-
ignated him rector and archpriest at Santa Maria in nearby
Altamura.22 This new appointment generated a radical shift
in ecclesiastical politics. Altamura had been founded in
1248 by the emperor Frederick II and had been free—in the-
ory, at least—of metropolitan authority. Charles II’s installa-
tion of Petrus at Altamura served to bring that Hohenstaufen
stronghold into the Angevin fold and to “nearly obfuscate or
erase its Ghibelline origin,” as the distinguished historian and
canon of San Nicola, Francesco Nitti di Vito, wrote in 1936.23
19. Cioffari, Epoca d’oro, 47–49.
20. On treasuries and treasurers in general, see Cynthia Hahn,
“The Meaning of Early Medieval Treasuries,” in Reliquiare im
Mittelalter, ed. Bruno Reudenbach and Gia Toussaint, Hamburger
Forschungen zur Kunstgeschichte 5 (Berlin: Akademie, 2005), 1–
20; Lucas Burkart, Philippe Cordez, Pierre Alain Mariaux, and
Yann Potin, Le trésor au Moyen Âge: Discours, pratiques et objets
(Florence: SISMEL/Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2010); Philippe Cordez,
Trésor, mémoire, merveilles: les objets des églises au Moyen Âge
(Paris: Éditions de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales,
2016); also Joseph Salvatore Ackley, “Re-approaching the Western
Medieval Church Treasury Inventory, c. 800–1250,” Journal of Art
Historiography 11 (2014): 1–37.
21. Éric Palazzo, “Le Livre dans les trésors du Moyen Âge. Con-
tribution à l’histoire de la Memoria médiévale,” in Les Trésors de
sanctuaires, de l’Antiquité à l’époque romane, ed. Jean-Pierre Caillet
with Pierre Bazin, Cahiers du CRATHMA (Centre de recherche sur
l’Antiquité tardive et le Haut Moyen Âge) 7 (Paris: Université de
Paris X-Nanterre, 1996), 137–60, esp. 143.
22. CDB 13: 111–12, doc. 80.
23. “quasi ad offuscare o cancellare l’origine ghibellina.” Nitti di
Vito, CDB 13: xlvi.
56 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
This move was not merely about dismantling Frederick’s leg-
acy; Altamura held considerable strategic and economic im-
portance as well. Its numerous feudal and ecclesiastical
dependencies were placed under San Nicola’s jurisdiction,
thereby fortifying the shrine’s diminished coffers. In addition,
the city is located near the Via Appia, the major overland ar-
tery linking Rome to the Adriatic port city of Brindisi. This
ancient road was the main alternative to the Via Traiana,
the route painted by Matthew Paris that also linked Benevento
to Brindisi but ran closer to the coast after Trani. In other
words, the newly established structure of the capella and its
head, Petrus, extended and consolidated the king’s network
in Apulia (Fig. 2).
Back in Bari, the treasurer was occupied with what could
be called the “new acquisitions” side of his curatorial practice.
A steady stream of royal gifts and commissions, including rel-
iquaries, vestments, liturgical vessels, and books, asserted the
king’s ongoing commitment to San Nicola. Some of these ob-
jects were commissioned expressly for San Nicola, such as the
silver-gilt reliquary bust of St. Nicholas himself. Although
known only from documents, it presumably resembled the
reliquary bust of Saint Januarius (San Gennaro) commis-
sioned by the king from the same workshop a few years later
(Fig. 5).24 Other gifts, such as the lost stole and maniple bear-
ing the emblems of Louis IX and Blanche of Castile or the
extant pair of rock-crystal candlesticks, were older works
(re)gifted to Bari (Fig. 6).25 It was Petrus who was entrusted
with the care of these now inalienable objects. It was Petrus
who received literally into his hands the donations of faithful
pilgrims, including land, money, and precious objects. It was
Petrus who filled the coffers of San Nicola with generous gifts
made by newly converted Jews, of whom there were many be-
tween 1301 and 1309.26 And it was he who, after the violent
purge of the nearby Muslim city of Lucera in 1300, organized
and presided over appraising, distributing, and selling the
former inhabitants and their properties. This was a complex
and controversial undertaking that involved considerable
sums of money; after all, the purge was initiated in part “to
provide a windfall of revenue” for the cash-starved king, as
24. For the commission, see Bertaux, “Artistes français,” 267n3;
the bust is noted in the inventory of 1313 (ABSN Ang G17): Item
“4— Imaginem 1 argenti deauratam in figura s. Nicolai cum crocia
mitra et anulo in digito de lapide zaffiro.” Transcribed in Francesco
Nitti di Vito, CDB 16, Le pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari, Periodo
angioino (1309–1343) (Trani: Vecchi, 1941), 43, doc. 23.
25. For the candlesticks, see Lo scrigno del tesoro di San Nicola di
Bari, ed. Eugenio Scandale (Bari: Mario Adda, 2009), 68–77; Tesoro
della Basilica, ed. Cioffari and Milella, 154–57.
26. E.g., CDB 13: 152–53, doc. 103 (dated 1301); 175–77, doc. 116
(dated 1302); 185–86, doc. 124 (dated 1302).
Figure 5. Bust of Saint Januarius (San Gennaro), Naples,
ca. 1306, silver-gilt with enamels and gems, height 45 cm, Cathedral
of Naples (photo: © Archivio dell’arte/Pedicini fotografi).
the historian Alex Metcalfe recently put it.27 The sale required
close inspection of people and property. Petrus had to assess a
captive’s artistic skill; people like the Muslim silversmith
Adelasis were worth four uncie, if they were not immediately
gifted to the king, whereas the unskilled Muslims sold for
three.28 Petrus also inventoried livestock owned by the de-
feated Lucerans, appraising their value according to species,
sex, and age. The sale required closely monitoring and man-
aging mobile “property,” as some prisoners of war escaped
before being sold, and goods and people had a tendency to
disappear without a record of any transaction.
Petrus’s performance as manager of such complex situa-
tions earned the trust of Charles II and his successor, Robert.
27. Alex Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, New Edin-
burgh Islamic Surveys (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
2009), 294. For a detailed analysis of the rationales for the purge
and the Christianization of Lucera, see Alexander Harper, “Patron-
age in the Re-Christianized Landscape of Angevin Apulia: The Re-
building of Lucera sarracenorum into Civitas Sanctae Mariae”
(PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2014), 61–83.
28. CDB 13: 150, doc. 101; discussion in Cioffari, Epoca d’oro,
86–90. Four uncie purchased approximately 5500 liters of husked,
unmilled barley during the reign of Charles I, although it is difficult
to determine exact equivalents given currency fluctuations. Carola
M. Small, “The Crown as an Employer of Wage Labour in Angevin
Basilicata,” Social History 14, no. 3 (1989): 323–41, at 328.
Figure 6. Candlesticks, Venice, ca. 1280–95, rock-crystal with sil-
ver filigree and gems, height 65 cm, San Nicola, Bari (photo:
Beppe Gernone).
The treasurer maintained his title and job after Charles’s
death in 1309. King Robert’s high regard for Petrus is indicated
by his designation of Petrus as the collector of tithes for the
Terra di Bari and Capitanata in 1312, with the proviso that
Petrus not delegate the task to others. These densely populated
districts included many of the kingdom’s largest cities. It is
worth noting that the archbishops of Naples and Brindisi
were ordered to perform this task within their lands. Robert,
then, was asserting the authority of Petrus and the church of
San Nicola over the archbishop of Bari and Canosa, as had
Charles II.
These multifaceted activities made Petrus a controversial
figure. In 1299, the citizens of Altamura and Gravina peti-
tioned Charles II to clarify their new obligations to San
Nicola. Some confusion stemmed from long-simmering de-
bates about the foundation of the city. Could the Altamura
church have been free of ecclesiastical jurisdiction when it
was founded, if Frederick II was excommunicated at the
time? Had the bishop of nearby Gravina or Bitetto laid the
first stone, thereby asserting episcopal claims on the impe-
rial foundation? To help Charles II resolve this conflict, the
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 57
testimony of forty-eight witnesses was collected and recorded
on a ten-meter-long scroll.29 With twenty-four witnesses re-
laying a history of autonomy and twenty-four supporting
episcopal control, the petition revealed the deep roots of
the conflict as well as the disreputable behavior that fueled
it, including the presence of concubines in the domiciles of
a handful of priests. The document bearing Petrus’s seal,
Ang D10, marks one of Charles II’s efforts to resolve institu-
tional and personal conflicts surrounding this jurisdictional
debate.
Objections to Petrus also followed extralegal channels. In
December 1300, he was attacked inside San Nicola while pre-
paring to celebrate the office of matins.30 Assaulted by three
“malefactores” bearing swords and “evil spirits,” the treasurer
survived the mêlée, but the chaplain who was accompanying
him did not. Despite such challenges to Petrus’s authority, his
administrative acumen and zeal helped inaugurate what the
preeminent historian of San Nicola, Gerardo Cioffari OP,
has called the church’s golden age.31 In fact, Charles II should
not be seen as the only protagonist in narratives of San Nicola’s
multifaceted resurgence; Petrus clearly played a key role in
enhancing its spiritual, economic, political, cultural, and ar-
tistic prestige.
In what was until very recently the only detailed assess-
ment of the capella’s first treasurer, Francesco Nitti di Vito
(d. 1947) described Petrus de Angeriacus as “ambitious, able,
[and] resourceful.”32 My research does not challenge this apt
characterization, but seeks to draw the ambizioso, abile, and
fattivo Petrus into art history. Besides curating an ever-
expanding collection of inalienable objects and properties,
what did Petrus add of himself to the visual and material
fields of southern Italy? For a man who held so much power
in the kingdom, and who held in his very hands the consid-
erable corpus of new Gothic metalwork commissioned by the
king, as well as venerable reliquaries, books, and the appro-
priated possessions of the Muslims of Lucera, he saw a lot,
he appraised a lot, and his eye must have been good.
But evidence of objects that he himself owned or commis-
sioned is very limited. His will has not survived, as is often the
case in southern Italy where so much documentation is lost;
29. The Altamura scroll consists of fourteen pieces of parchment
and measures 10.52 × 0.46 meters. Bari, ABSN Ang C21; transcrip-
tion in CDB 13: 118–34, doc. 85.
30. Cioffari, Epoca d’oro, 96–97; Licinio, “Bari angioina,” 101;
CDB 13: 142–43, doc. 93.
31. Cioffari, Epoca d’oro.
32. “ambizioso, abile, fattivo, aveva . . . un grande ascendente
nelle alte e nelle basse sfere.” CDB 13: xlv–l, at xlv. For a recent
and more detailed account of the treasurer, see Cioffari, Epoca
d’oro, 67–101.
58 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
the site of his tomb is not known, either, although it was prob-
ably at San Nicola. However, an inventory drawn up in 1326
by one of his successors, the treasurer Guglielmus de Ferraria,
with the notary Lucas Thome, mentions four works in the
treasury that bear his coat of arms: the two pairs of silver can-
dlesticks.33 The works are lost, but the inventory is detailed
enough to indicate their general features and the complexity
of their designs. Both pairs were made of silver and had eight
enamels arrayed around a gilded knop.34 The text describes
one pair as standing two palms high and having the arms
of Petrus sculpted on the feet (suggestive of repoussé or chas-
ing techniques), whereas the entry for the other pair mentions
only arms on the bases, with no reference to the form, mate-
rial, or technique of the heraldic representations. The inven-
tory of 1362 provides a few more details, even though much
of it copies the older document. For instance, the arms are
“sculpted” on the feet of both pairs.35 In addition, the later in-
ventory included weights of each pair, which differ and prob-
ably mean that one pair was larger than the other. While
extant candlesticks of such form are somewhat rare—the sil-
ver pair made in Transylvania in the mid-fourteenth century
and now in the cathedral treasury at Aachen is among the few
to have survived—chalices with enameled knops and bases
33. Bari, ABSN Ang I20, transcribed in CDB 16: 125–32, doc. 72.
34. “—24. Candelabra 2 de arg. fere altitudinis palmorum
duorum cum smaltis 8 in quolibet ipsorum in pomo et sunt in
parte deaur. et in pede sculta sunt arma quondam domini Petri
de Angeriaco Thesaurii ipsius ecclesie.—25. Candelabra 2 de arg.
fere eiusdem altitudinis cum smaltis 8 in pomo cuiuslibet ipsorum
et sunt in parte deaur. in quo pede sunt arma dicti quondam do-
mini Thesaurarii.” CDB 16: 129, doc. 72. Note that for Item 25,
“eiusdem altitudinis” could mean that the two objects in Item 25
were the same height, rather than meaning that they were the same
height as those in Item 24; the description of each Item is usually
self-contained in this and other San Nicola inventories. However,
Item 25 lacks a measurement, meaning that the compilers deviated
from convention either by omitting height or by applying data
from one Item to another.
35. ABSN Ang N23; transcription in CDB 18: 132, doc. 74: “5. —
candelabra duo de argento fere altitudinis palmorum duorum cum
xmaltis octo in quolibet ipsorum pomo et sunt in parte deaurata. et
in pede ipsorum sculpta sunt arma quondam domini petri de an-
geriaco thesaurarii que sunt in pondere librarum unius et unciarum
quinque. 6.—Candelabra duo de argento fere eiusdem lungitudinis
cum xmaltis octo in pomo cuiuslibet ipsorum et sunt in parte deau-
rata. In quorum pedibus sunt sculpta arma dicti thesaurarii que
sunt in pondere librarum novem et unciam quattuor cum dimidia.”
Why the writer switched from “altitudinis” to “lungitudinis” is un-
clear. This inventory is the first one from San Nicola to record
weight, reflecting the desire to signal the value of objects, to be sure,
but also to differentiate similar objects within the treasury’s ex-
panding collection, as this case illustrates. In general, weights are
included more frequently in fourteenth-century inventories than
in those of the thirteenth.
are not;36 this formal and material affinity with chalices sug-
gests that Petrus’s commissions were made for liturgical use
and also helps support a basic reconstruction of them (Fig. 7).
An exploration of the larger material and visual field of
San Nicola can help animate these terse inventory descrip-
tions. Although candlesticks were not a common gift to San
Nicola, there are precedents in the treasury for Petrus’s com-
missions, including the two rock-crystal candlesticks donated
by Charles II in 1296 (Fig. 6). Such objects tend to come in
pairs. In the 1313 inventory, ten out of the thirteen candle-
sticks listed are itemized as pairs, and in the 1326 inventory,
all of them are.37 This generalization holds elsewhere; in the
papal inventory of 1295, seventeen out of nineteen candle-
sticks are pairs, and candlesticks appear only as pairs in inven-
tories from the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (ca. 1280), San Marco
in Venice (1283), and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo
(1309), to name a few collections of comparable date and sta-
tus.38 Candlesticks may be conceptualized as pairs even if they
are not identical. Inventories define each pair by its predom-
inant core material, such as alabaster, silver-gilt, or crystal, but
some twins differ in height.
The canonist and liturgical exegete Gulielmus Durandus
(Guillaume Durand), who served in the papal court under
Clement IV and his successors until his death in Rome in
1296, helps explain the predilection for candlestick pairs at
this time.39 He described their function in typological terms:
“There are two candelabra placed on the corners of the altar,
to signify the joy of the two people [Jews and Gentiles] rejoic-
36. The silver-gilt candlesticks with heraldic enamels were made
in Transylvania (then in the Kingdom of Hungary) and donated to
the Hungarian Chapel at Aachen by Louis the Great of Hungary in
1267. Ernst Günther Grimme, Der aachener Domschatz, Aachener
Kunstblätter 42 (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1973), 103, no. 81.
37. ABSN Ang G17 (dated 1313), transcribed in CDB 16: 42–50,
doc. 23; ABSN Ang I20 (dated 1326), transcribed in CDB 16: 125–
32, doc. 72.
38. Émile Molinier, “Inventaire du Trésor du Saint Siège sous
Boniface VIII (1295) (suite),” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 45
(1884): 31–57, at 36–37; Alexandre Vidier, Le Trésor de la Sainte-
Chapelle, Inventaires et documents, extract from Mémoires de la
Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Ile-de-France 34–37, 1907–
1910 (Paris: Société de l’Histoire de Paris, 1911), 2–4; Rodolfo Gallo,
Il Tesoro di San Marco e la sua storia (Venice: Fondazione Giorgio
Cini, Istituto di Storia dell’Arte, Venice–Rome, 1967), 273–75; Luigi
Garofalo, Tabularium regiae ac imperialis capellae collegiatae Divi
Petri sacri et regii palatii Panormitani (Palermo: Regia typographia,
1835), 98–103.
39. Placing candles on altars was not standard practice until the
eleventh century, and multiple customaries and ordos of the
1200s prescribe their use in this way. Joseph Braun, Das christliche
Altargerät in seinem Sein und in seiner Entwicklung (Munich:
Max Hüber, 1932), 492–98.
Figure 7. Candlesticks of Petrus de Angeriacus, hypothetical recon-
struction (drawing: G. Ieraci).
ing in the Nativity of Christ,” he wrote. “The light from the
candelabra is the faith of the people, since the Prophet said
to the Jewish people: Arise and illumine Jerusalem, since your
light has come, and the glory of the Lord has come upon you
[Isaiah 60:1]. To the Gentiles the Apostle says: For you once
were in darkness, now you are light in the Lord [Ephesians
5:8]. Now in the birth of Christ a new star appeared to the
Magi, following the prophecy of Balaam: A star shall rise,
he says, from Jacob, and a staff shall come forth from Israel
[Numbers 24:17].”40 Durandus’s theological metaphors pro-
vide one way to understand the significance of such late me-
dieval objects as sources of light, faith, and prophetic truth.
Petrus’s candlesticks functioned in an additional way that
merits attention. Both pairs bore representations of his coat
of arms, and, critically, were the only ones listed in the 1326
inventory of San Nicola to do so.41 Note, too, that heraldry
is absent from descriptions of candlesticks in the aforemen-
tioned inventories from Paris, Venice, and Palermo, although
one pair in the papal treasury—the only pair described as
large—bore the arms of the king of France.42 Heraldry is a
form of self-representation that elaborates upon dynastic em-
blems—the lily for the French crown, castle for the Castilians,
40. The Rationale Divinorum officiorum of William Durand of
Mende. A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One, trans.
Timothy M. Thibodeau (New York: Columbia University Press,
2007), 40–41.
41. However, in the inventory of 1313, one pair is noted with
royal arms; they are not mentioned in 1326. See discussion below.
42. Item 531: “duo magna candelabra cum pedibus rotundis
de argento, quorum quodlibet habet tria capita pro pedibus et in
plano tria scuta ad arma regis Franciae et in canulo vij. poma de
nichilo, calcidoni[o] et sardonice, et vj. poma de argento retorta
cum scutellis suis.” Molinier, “Inventaire du Trésor du Saint Siège,”
37. Also, Gallo, Tesoro di San Marco, 273–75; Vidier, Trésor de la
Sainte-Chapelle, 2–4; Garofalo, Tabularium regiae, 98–103.
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 59
and so on.43 The shield form derives from military contexts of
tournament and battle, where the easy legibility of symbols of
alliance was essential for strategy and survival. Yet as heraldry
expanded to new environments—including religious ones—
and as it encompassed new types of objects, its material bases
could multiply and its scale could vary, thereby altering the
very physical and visual properties that had been essential
to its formation. Thus, heraldry composed of shining mosaic
tesserae seemingly undermines the first principle of instant
legibility, as with the tomb of Durandus (d. 1296) in Santa
Maria sopra Minerva in Rome (Fig. 8);44 and the coats of arms
on Petrus’s candlesticks were rendered in precious materials
and at a small scale, thereby requiring close inspection within
a tight visual field. Late medieval heraldry can be seen as a
transmedial phenomenon, then, meaning that it is a type of
representation that spread across different environments and
artistic media.45 Each material manifestation, however, en-
gages, plays with, or subverts heraldry’s key concepts in dif-
ferent ways.
At the same time, the foundational ideas of replication and
presence remain in these varied and transformed material
manifestations. As heraldry spreads outside of martial con-
Figure 8. Tomb of Gulielmus Durandus (d. 1296), by Giovanni di
texts, its imagery remains potent; it designates the presence Cosma, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome (photo: livioandronico2013,
and power of the sovereign at sites remote from his physical https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en).
body. For Hans Belting, heraldry is one of the “media of the
body”; it is a vehicle of transmitting presence through time
and space.46 A gate demarcating the precinct of San Nicola tions with the cathedral of Bari;47 only after that change in ju-
from the dense urban fabric of the city of Bari helps illustrate risdiction could the walls surrounding the pilgrimage center
these ideas and develop their implications. At the top of the extend to incorporate the smaller church.
gate’s arch, resting above the keystone and slightly off-center Together, the relief panel and two large flanking shields
to the right—in the direction of the basilica behind it—is a enact what Michael A. Michael has called the “privilege of
relief of a standing St. Nicholas. Dressed in Byzantine episco- proximity,” whereby coats of arms co-opt the power of an ad-
pal garb, he carries a book in his left hand and blesses with his jacent intercessory figure and “claim” him or her as their
right (Fig. 9). The figure is flanked by two shields, carved in own.48 The Angevins are, in other words, first in line to re-
relief, that bear the coat of arms of the Angevin dynasty. ceive Nicholas’s favors. Yet the relationship between patron
The gate likely dates from after 1309, when the adjacent early and saint is also symbiotic; the saint’s prestige and miracles
eleventh-century church of San Gregorio was ceded to San reflect well upon the patrons and may benefit them, to be
Nicola as part of a deal struck by Charles II to smooth rela- sure, but the patrons’ endorsement also enhances the saint’s
holy potential. In addition, the juxtaposition articulates that
the Angevins protect the saint’s house on Earth and mediate
43. Jill Caskey, Art and Patronage in the Medieval Mediterranean: access to it. The structure establishes that those who move
Merchant Culture in the Region of Amalfi (Cambridge: Cambridge from the dense city center through the gate are entering a
University Press, 2004), 169–74.
royal domain; heraldry makes a jurisdictional and spatial claim.
44. On this tomb by Giovanni di Cosma, see Julian Gardner, The
Tomb and the Tiara: Curial Tomb Sculpture in Rome and Avignon
in the Later Middle Ages, Clarendon Studies in the History of Art
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 82–83.
45. Rajewsky, “Intermediality, Intertextuality, and Remediation,” 47. CDB 13: 241–43, doc. 159.
46. 48. Michael A. Michael, “The Privilege of ‘Proximity’: Towards a
46. Hans Belting, “The Coat of Arms and the Portrait: Two Me- Re-Definition of the Function of Armorials,” Journal of Medieval
dia of the Body,” in An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, History 23, no. 1 (1997): 55–75; other south Italian examples from
Body, ed. Hans Belting, trans. Thomas Dunlap (Princeton: Prince- the thirteenth century in Caskey, Art and Patronage, 174–77; Belt-
ton University Press, 2011), 62–83. ing, “Coat of Arms.”

60 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021


Figure 9. Gate to San Nicola, with Angevin heraldry and St. Nich-
olas, after 1309 (photo: author).
This logic may be extended to Petrus’s candlesticks. His
heraldic imagery established and ensured his continuing pres-
ence at San Nicola, irrespective of the location or condition
of his physical body. The light that the candlesticks radiated
emanated from a representation of him; metal, enamel, wax,
and immaterial light together extended his claim over the
space that they activated. If placed on the altar, as Durandus
described, the heraldic candlesticks would have prompted the
celebrants and members of the community to remember
Petrus and keep him in their prayers. The objects also would
have provided the source of illumination for the eucharistic
miracle itself. The heraldry and candlelight worked together
to place Petrus within the space of liturgical performance,
commemoration, and transubstantiation. In other words,
these gifts, now lost, were not insignificant; they did a lot of
cultural work and testify to the forward-looking sophistica-
tion of their “ambitious, able, and resourceful” patron.
Seeking a place of manufacture for the candlesticks may
seem a futile endeavor since they do not survive. But the de-
scriptions of their form and material suggest connections to
the royal workshops in Naples, which Charles II established
in Castel Nuovo in 1297.49 Home to goldsmiths from France
and Flanders, the workshop produced such prestigious works
as the reliquary bust of San Gennaro for the enlarged cathe-
dral of Naples and the now-lost processional cross for the
new cathedral of Civitas Sanctae Mariae, the newly Christian-
ized city formerly known as Lucera (Fig. 5).50 The multiplica-
tion of opaque enamel roundels with heraldic imagery on the
reliquary bust recalls the description of enamels and coats of
arms on Petrus’s candlesticks; the royal workshops intro-
duced large-scale serial production of small-scale heraldic de-
vices for an array of secular and religious objects. Much of the
workshop’s production filled the more functional needs of lit-
urgy, albeit with costly and complex objects. San Nicola’s in-
ventory of 1313 includes a set of fifteen silver-gilt chalices,
one of which bore enamels of the royal coat of arms on the
knop, base, and accompanying paten.51 Critically, the text
also lists two pairs of silver-gilt candlesticks, one large and
one small, with enamels of the royal coat of arms.52 Petrus’s
candlesticks seemingly echo these lost royal works for San
Nicola; perhaps he had access to the Neapolitan workshop,
as did other ecclesiastical and lay officials in the orbit of the
court.53 Regardless of their precise place of manufacture,
Petrus’s candlesticks appropriated designs that were charac-
teristic of up-to-date royal commissions. Consequently, they
would have reinforced political connections between San Ni-
cola and the Angevins while enhancing the Neapolitan and
northern European features of San Nicola’s visual culture.
Birth of a Seal
Heraldry and seals are image types that share key features.
Both are early modes of self-representation that flourished in
the later Middle Ages, first in elite circles and then more
widely; both were conceptualized as multiples intended to
be duplicated; and both disseminate the presence and author-
ity of the patron in time and space, within private and public
settings, to audiences both intended and unforeseen. Yet
while heraldic representations are abstract, geometric, and
49. Pierluigi Leone de Castris, ed., Ori, argenti, gemme e smalti
della Napoli angioina, 1266–1381. L’oreficeria e l’arte alla corte degli
Angiò di Napoli, exhibition, Naples, Cappella e Museo del Tesoro di
San Gennaro, 2014 (Naples: Prismi, 2014), 20.
50. On the bust of San Gennaro, see Leone de Castris, ed., Ori,
argenti, 76–85, and Caskey, “Look of Liturgy,” 120–29.
51. ABSN Ang G17, CDB 16: 43, doc. 23, Item 6.
52. ABSN Ang G17, CDB 16: 44, doc. 23, Item 17: “Paria 2 de
candelabris de arg., 1 magnum et aliud parvum deaur. cum smaltis
ad arma regalia.”
53. E.g., crozier commissioned by Bernard of Angers, bishop of
Atri and Penne (1302–21), now in the Museo Capitolare in Atri.
Leone di Castris, ed., Ori, argenti, 96–101.
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 61
tidy—they are, after all, meant to be recognized instantly from
afar—seals can be intricate and require intimate viewing. The
leading theorists of sigillography, Brigitte Bedos-Rezak and
Michel Pastoureau, have emphasized that seals were made
to be circulated, to be sure, but also to be touched, held, and
examined closely.54 Wax impressions can be shaped by the
warmth of our hands, adding to their animated, intimate
quality. Wax, the organic medium created by bees, has long
been appreciated for its flesh-like qualities, as the long histo-
ries of death masks, votive statuary, and encaustic painting
demonstrate.55 Seal impressions constitute “a kind of emana-
tion of the sigillant, an extension of his or her body,” Pastou-
reau has written, recalling Belting’s formulation of coats of
arms as “media of the body.”56 But Pastoureau pushes the idea
into the haptic realm, positing that seals seemingly materialize
the body, to such an extent that “a sort of fluid seems to cir-
culate” between sender and recipient—the oily residue on wax
that is created and felt by a warm human hand.57 On Ang D10,
Petrus performed this intimate “emanation of the sigillant”
explicitly; he signed the document “I, Petrus the Treasurer
the Undersigned,” as if the wax impression hanging from
the bottom edge of the parchment were the conceptual equiv-
alent of his signature and self.
Ang D10 is a charter that testifies to a flurry of activity at
San Nicola in 1301, when Charles II was in the city along with
high-ranking members of his court. Penned in Bari on 20 Jan-
uary by Nicola Freccia of Ravello, Protonotary and Lieuten-
ant of the Kingdom, Ang D10 seeks to clarify the contested
status of Altamura and to resolve disputes aggravated by its
54. Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, “In Search of a Semiotic Para-
digm: The Matter of Sealing in Medieval Thought and Praxis
(1050–1400),” in Good Impressions, ed. Adams, Cherry, and Robin-
son, 1–7; Bedos-Rezak, “Medieval Identity: A Sign and a Concept,”
American Historical Review 105, no. 5 (2000): 1489–1533; Bedos-
Rezak, When Image was Imago: Signs of Identity in the Middle Ages
(Leiden: Brill, 2011); Michel Pastoureau, “Les sceaux et la fonction
sociale des images,” in L’image: fonctions et usages des images dans
l’Occident médiéval, ed. Jérôme Baschet and Jean-Claude Schmitt,
Cahiers du Léopard d’Or 5 (Paris: Léopard d’Or, 1996), 275–308.
See also Michel Pastoureau, Les Sceaux, Typologie des sources du
Moyen Age Occidental 36 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981); and Pourquoi
des sceaux? La sigillographie, nouvel enjeu de l’histoire de l’art, ed.
Marc Gil Chassel and Jean-Luc Chassel, Histoire de l’Europe du
Nord-Ouest 46 (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: CEGES, Université Charles de
Gaulle-Lille III, 2011).
55. Georges Didi-Huberman, “Ex-voto: Image, Organ, Time,”
L’Esprit Créateur 47, no. 3 (2007): 7–16; Ittai Weinryb, “Votive Ma-
terials: Bodies and Beyond,” in Agents of Faith: Votive Objects in
Time and Place, ed. Ittai Weinryb (New York: Bard Graduate Cen-
ter Gallery; New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2019), 33–
59, esp. 49–56.
56. Pastoureau, “Sceaux,” 283; Belting, “Coat of Arms.”
57. Pastoureau, “Sceaux,” 283.
62 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
new dependence on San Nicola. Having considered the testi-
mony collected in the aforementioned Altamura scroll, the
king ruled that Giacomo, bishop of Gravina, respect the au-
thority of Petrus, treasurer of San Nicola and archpriest of Al-
tamura, and that Petrus stop making additional claims on the
bishop and interfering with his duties.
Ang D10 follows the conventional format of charters. It
measures about 48 by 34 centimeters and is ruled, with
31 lines of text plus the three signatures.58 Its bottom edge fea-
tures a turn-up that secures three seals. Each seal is enclosed
within a protective membrane of folded parchment.59 These
enclosures serve the same function as seal bags, which could
be as ornate as the specially commissioned Opus Anglicanum
embroidery for the Great Seal of Edward I (1280; Fig. 10,
left);60 more often the bags featured woven textiles, including
scraps of vestments, as in the cover for another seal of
Charles II’s at San Nicola (Fig. 10, right).61 This practice re-
calls the wrapping of relics in silk, with the difference that
relic bundles often had the patterned side facing inward,
touching the holy object.62 The Bari sacs are recycled materi-
als, but they come from an archive, not a sacristy; they are
made of parchment pieces bearing traces of fifteenth-century
curial script. On Ang D10, each of these enclosures has the
flesh side of the parchment on the inside and the hair side fac-
ing outward, recalling the configuration of animal skin in its
original, embodied state. Thus, the softest surface of these
membranes envelops the contoured surfaces of the seals
within. On Petrus’s seal, the parchment fold is on the right,
and five running stitches of double thread secure the top, left,
and bottom edges (Fig. 11). These sutures are carefully and
consistently sewn on all the seals, showing an effort to mini-
mize the number of holes in the parchment sacs while secur-
ing the delicate and vulnerable entities within.
58. Ang D10 transcribed in CDB 13: 147–49, doc. 99–100.
59. Nitti di Vito described the seals as “chiusi in pergamena per
opera dei capitolari.” CDB 13: 147. When this occurred is not clear,
although the faded script on the exterior of the bags may suggest
the sixteenth century.
60. The elaborate embroidered seal bag protects the Great Seal of
Edward I. Westminster Abbey, inv. no. WAM 1494*, in English
Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum, ed. Claire Browne, Glyn
Davies, and Michael A. Michael, with the assistance of Michaela
Zöschg (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 151, cat. no. 24;
on methods of enclosing and protecting seals from dessication
and breakage, see Martine Fabre, Sceau médiéval: analyse d’une
pratique culturelle (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001), 78.
61. ABSN E19 (Constitution of 1304) has textile wrapping for
Charles II’s red wax seal, appended with a red and gold silk cord.
62. E.g., Byzantine silk fragment of the ninth or tenth century in
the Abegg-Stiftung, inv. 1827. Catherine Depierraz, Treasures of
the Abegg-Stiftung (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2004), 78.
Figure 10. Left: Embroidered seal bag for the Great Seal of Edward I, ca. 1280, wool and colored silk, 13.2 × 12.3 cm, London, Westminster
Abbey, inv. WAM 1494* (photo: © Dean and Chapter of Westminster). Right: Seal bag and seal of Charles II, 1304, Bari ABSN, Ang E19
(photo: author).
On the outside of each sac are notes in faded brown ink
that reveal the identities of the three sigillants whose imprints
rest within (Fig. 1): Charles II (left), Iacobus, the aggrieved
bishop of Gravina (center), and Petrus de Angeriacus (right).63
Sealing practices are not wholly consistent here or elsewhere,
but the placement of seals on a document is often hierarchical,
with the most senior sigillant positioned on the left and the
least on the right. The size of wax impressions also signals au-
thority, and on Ang D10 the king’s asserts its prominence
even within its sutured sac. Yet while size and placement reg-
ister differences of power, the (umbilical) cords attaching each
seal and sac to the body of the charter contain the same quality
and quantity of materials. Each seal is affixed to the parch-
ment with a thick cord composed of red and yellow silk
thread. Tightly twisted, the striped cords are threaded through
two eyelets and secured with a loop. This use of tightly wound,
two-color silk contrasts with earlier sealing practices associ-
ated with San Nicola. For instance, the king’s gold seal is ap-
pended to another charter of 1301 with undyed string, and
to the foundation charter of 1296 with a parchment strip.64
63. For Iacobus, see Ferdinando Ughelli, Italia sacra; sive, De
episcopis Italiae, et insularum adiacentium, ed. Niccolo Coleti, 9 vols.
(Venice: Sebastiano Coleti, 1717–22; reprint Bologna: Arnaldo Forni,
1972–74), 7:119.
64. ABSN Ang E3, now displayed in the Museo Nicolaiano, Bari
(the string may be a replacement for dyed silk); ABSN Ang C9.
The materials, colors, and twisted form of Ang D10’s cords re-
call the cords utilized in papal documents, as well as those
threaded through the rock-crystal candlesticks that Charles
gave to the capella at the time of its foundation (Fig. 6); they
link the charter to other expressions of visual and material au-
thority within and beyond San Nicola.
Although the king’s seal on Ang D10 remains enclosed in
its protective sac, an inventory from the year 1326 compiled
by one of Petrus’s successors describes it as red.65 It likely re-
sembles another royal seal that survives in multiple impres-
sions at San Nicola, here appended to a charter dated 1304
(Fig. 12; also Fig. 10, right). This round blood-red wax relief
features the enthroned sovereign in majesty on the obverse;
on the reverse, an equestrian king brandishes a shield and
sword, his horse’s hooves and head bursting out of the central
field and interrupting the legend that runs along the perim-
eter of the wax.66 Both horse and rider are marked with
65. ABSN I20 (dated 1326), “aliud q. i. in prima lin. Karolus
secundus et finit in tertia ex collactione Regia exinde sigillatum
sigillo regio in cera rubea et duobus aliis pendentibus cum seta.”
CDB 16: 130, doc. 72.
66. See also impression in the Archives Nationales, Paris, in
Louis Douët d’Arcq, Collection de sceaux 3 (Paris: Henri Plon,
1868), 511, no. 11767, from 1289; round, fragment, 100 mm; leg-
end on this impression is “Karolus, Dei gracia rex Jerusalem et
Sicilie, ducatus Apulie . . . princeps Achaye.” Charles lost Achaea
in 1289.
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 63

Figure 11. Stitches on Petrus’s seal bag, Bari, ABSN, Ang D10
(photo: author).
fleurs-de-lis, the lily emblem of the Angevins and their Cape-
tian forefathers, utilized in Angevin heraldry. The inventory
of 1326 does not describe the color or appearance of the other
two seals on Ang D10, but notes that they, too, are attached to
the document with silk. The color of the silk is not specified;
the material apparently was more important than its colors.
And the fact that all three seals utilize the same silk demon-
strates that the appending material was not considered a ve-
hicle for conveying relative status.
The twisted cord connecting Petrus’s seal to the body of
the document reinforces the spine of the vesical, or pointed-
oval-shaped, seal, yet emerges from below unwound and
splayed (Fig. 13). Its constituent parts are carefully arranged,
with gold threads defining the outer edges of a fan-like tassel,
and clusters of red and gold thread alternate between them.
The creators of the document clearly handled the parchment,
ink, silk threads, warmed wax, and seal matrices with preci-
sion, patience, and care. Ang D10 is highly suggestive of
64 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
Figure 12. Red wax seal of Charles II, 1304, diameter ca. 100 mm,
Bari, ABSN, Ang E19 (photo: Gerardo Cioffari).
the hierarchical, collaborative, ceremonial, and performative
aspects of document production and sealing—in this case, of
royal procedures enacted on the road and overseen by the
protonotary of the kingdom.67
Pointed oval seals are less susceptible to breakage than
round ones and are particularly well-suited to representa-
tions of standing bishops or abbots, who are often depicted
clad in vestments and carrying the insignia of their office.
Take, for instance, the matrix of Fra Francesco, bishop of
Avellino, who served from 1295 to 1310 in a see located in
the mountains east of Salerno.68 An image of the standing
bishop stretches along the vertical axis of the central field,
the pointed tip of his miter flush with the contours of the en-
circling legend band (Fig. 14). On Petrus’s seal, however, the
67. On the embodied and performative nature of sealing, see
Bedos-Rezak, When Image was Imago, 55–71; Pastoureau, “Sceaux
et la fonction sociale.”
68. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, inv. 1481, in Sigilli nel Museo
Nazionale del Bargello 1: Ecclesiastici, ed. Andrea Muzzi, Bruna
Tomasello, and Attilio Tori (Florence: Studio per Edizioni Scelte,
1988), 48, no. 82, pl. XVIII.
Figure 13. Detail of Petrus’s seal with cord, 1301, height 47 mm,
Bari, ABSN, Ang D10 (photo: author).
imagery does not correspond to that single-figure vesical
type. Despite the tiny size of the wax impression—it is 55 mil-
limeters high—the composition is complex and teeming with
textual, figural, and ornamental detail (Fig. 13). The legend
wraps along the outer edge of the seal and consists of
well-spaced Gothic majuscules. There is surface damage,
but it appears to read S(igillum) PETR(i) ANGIRIACU(s)
THES(au)RAR(ii) S(ancti) NICOL(ai) BAR(e)NS(is), or “Seal
of Petrus Angeriacus, Treasurer of St. Nicholas of Bari.” Only
the legend indicates Petrus’s office; its figural forms relay noth-
ing of the treasurer’s specific tasks or responsibilities. Perhaps
this is not surprising, for the seals of late medieval treasurers,
which are much rarer than those of, say, abbots, bishops, or
queens, do not coalesce around a common iconography.69 Here,
69. The seal of Geoffroi, treasurer of Saint-Hilaire in Poitiers
(1262), features a large single figure sitting at a desk with an open
book, a composition typical of scholars’ seals; the representation
highlights Geoffrey’s training in Paris rather than his specific re-
sponsibilities at Saint-Hilaire (although this training likely made
him a good fit for the job). François Eygun, Sigillographie du
Poitou jusqu’en 1515. Étude d’histoire provincial sur les institutions,
les arts et la civilisation d’après les sceaux (Poitiers: Société des
Antiquaires de l’Ouest, 1938), 377, no. 1293, pl. XLII, and 103–6;
on the seals of Parisian magistri, William Courtenay, “Magisterial
Authority, Philosophical Identity, and the Growth of Marian De-
Figure 14. Seal matrix of Francesco of Avellino, 1295–1310,
bronze, height 47 mm, Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello,
inv. 1481/Sigilli Bargello, Collezione Antinori (photo: Gabinetto
Fotografico, Gallerie degli Uffizi).
Petrus appears as a kneeling devotee in the lowest of three
registers. Framed by a trefoil in which the elongated central
arch shows a slight reverse-curve profile, Petrus has a lot of
room around him—enough, in fact, for two large fleurs-
de-lis to punctuate his prayer space. These flanking emblems
forge a visual and conceptual link with the king’s fleur-laden
seal located 20 centimeters to the left.70
The complex architectural setting that Petrus inhabits is
hierarchical and tripartite. Above him rises a double-niche
or two-aisle space that is flanked by two-story towers or pin-
nacles. Each of these niches frames a standing figure. Despite
losses to the red wax along the central axis of the seal, a few
key features of this middle zone can be discerned. The figure
votion: The Seals of Parisian Masters, 1190–1308,” Speculum 91,
no. 1 (2016): 63–114.
70. The seal bag of the bishop of Gravina has not been opened,
and I know of no other impressions. Its appearance remains a mys-
tery. Similarly, the condition of Petrus’s seal prevented looking for
a counterseal.
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 65
Figure 15. Left: Seal of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Langres, 1279, height 60 mm, Archives départementales de la Haute-Marne,
1 H 73Ch 1845 (photo: Archives départementales de la Haute-Marne). Right: Seal of Lorenzo dei Tiniosi, late thirteenth–early fourteenth
century, height 56 mm, Rome, Museo di Palazzo Venezia, Collezione Corvisieri Romana, no. 97 (photo: per gentile concessione della
Direzione Regionale Musei Lazio—Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia).

on the left appears to carry a crozier in his right hand, and the
outline of his head extends upward to indicate a miter; he pre-
sumably is St. Nicholas. The legend’s letters N-I-C-O-L align
precisely with the length of this figure, thereby strengthening
this identification. The figure on the right, to whom Petrus di-
rects his attention, is more difficult to decipher, but he may
well be Peter, the treasurer’s onomastic saint.
The top register of the tripartite composition features a
representation of Mary and Jesus. Mary is depicted in half-
figure form, gesturing toward the baby held on her left. They
sit below an inset trefoil arch, the profile of which echoes the
curves of their haloes. Crockets unfurl along the top of the ga-
ble. Placed within a five-sided frame, this image recalls the
large wooden dossals of the late thirteenth century, many
of which feature Marian imagery.71 Some thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century seals represent specific works of art in mi-
71. E.g., Duccio di Buoninsegna’s Rucellai Madonna (1295) for
Santa Maria Novella in Florence, which features an enthroned
Mary rather than a half-length one.
metic detail: that of the cathedral chapter of Langres (Haute-
Marne) depicts the arm reliquary of St. Mammes of Caesarea,
for instance (Fig. 15, left); and the surviving matrix of
Lorenzo dei Tiniosi, a canon of St. Peter’s in Rome, depicts
the bronze Pigna within its ciborium and the Veronica in
its clearly rendered rock-crystal frame (Fig. 15, right).72 These
mimetic representations of sacred objects have different
functions; for Langres, the reliquary highlights the saint’s
centrality to the authority and identity of the church, chapter,
and city; for Lorenzo, the Pigna signals the ancient roots of
72. On the Langres seal (impression from 1279), the words
BRACHIUM/B(eat)I MAMETIS extend along the sides of the
blessing arm; in Sceaux et usages de sceaux: images de la Cham-
pagne médiévale, ed. Jean-Luc Chassel (Paris: Somogy, 2003), cat.
nos. 97, 98; the reliquary also appears in the city seal of Langres,
in Corpus des sceaux français du Moyen Âge 1: Les sceaux des villes,
ed. Brigitte Bedos-Rezak (Paris: Archives Nationales, 1980), 267,
no. 336. For the matrix of Lorenzo dei Tiniosi, see Bonifacio VIII
e il suo tempo: anno 1300 il primo giubileo, ed. Marina Righetti
Tosti-Croce (Milan: Electa, 2000), 154, cat. no. 94.

66 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021

St. Peter’s, and the Veronica the prestige of the chapter that
oversaw processions of the miraculous icon of Christ. By con-
trast, there likely is no precise referent here with Petrus’s half-
length image of Mary and Jesus, as it was so widely diffused
in painting and sculpture, including in southern Italy. More-
over, the Marian component of Petrus’s seal should not be
read as an isolated image, but as part of a vertical composition
akin to Gothic portals and baldachin tombs, where the im-
ages displayed on different registers constitute interacting
spiritual domains. Akin to the tessellated tomb of Durandus
(Fig. 8), the seal generates an intercessory hierarchy, with the
earthly devotee kneeling in the lowest earthly zone, praying to
the intermediary saints of relevance to him and his work-
place, who in turn convey his prayers to Mary and Jesus in
the uppermost heavenly realm. Without narrative or move-
ment, the seal is suggestive of a devotional tableau.
Where did such an intricate design come from? Extant seal
impressions from the Kingdom of Sicily provide no close
comparanda for Petrus’s work, indicating that his matrix
was not made in such centers of metalworking in southern
Italy as Naples or Sulmona or in smaller locales; it must have
been produced elsewhere and therefore seemed exceptional
in local and regional settings. For instance, it is significantly
more complex and detailed than others preserved at San
Nicola. Most of the documents dealing with local transac-
tions at the basilica—bequests, conversions, transfers of prop-
erty, and the like—are not sealed; the notary’s signum and
witnesses’ signatures apparently were enough to guarantee
authenticity and efficacy. By contrast, documents with greater
geographical and institutional reach often bear the seals of lo-
cal judges.73 The vast majority of them are attached to the
parchment surface rather than hanging from its lower edge.
Anchored by narrow strips of parchment that are threaded
from the verso, most are round and measure from 20 to
30 millimeters in diameter, indicating wax impressions made
from rings. As a whole, this class of seals is poorly preserved;
the size and color of the wax impressions are often known
from stains or fragments.74
73. This type of seal is the most common in the sources dating to
Petrus’s tenure; many appear on documents relating to the sale of
the captured Muslims of Lucera and their appropriated properties,
such as four documents from 1301: Ang C6 (CDB 13: 143–44,
doc. 94); Ang D19 (CDB 13: 160, doc. 108); Ang D22 (CDB 13:
167–68, doc. 111); Ang D23 (CDB 13: 169, doc. 112).
74. E.g., round seal of Augustinus, iudex of Giovinazzo, Ang
D19, dated 1301; or oval green stain of seal of Nicolas de Marseilles,
iudex of Bari, on Ang F6, dated 1306. Placement varies on the
sheets, but most are clustered between the notary’s signum at the
end of the text and the signatures of the judicial sigillants and wit-
nesses. Only one seal design in this group is decipherable: that of
Jacobus Caputursius, iudex of Bari, which has a simple shield at
Figure 16. Seal of the Chapter of San Nicola, 1353, Bari, ABSN,
Ang M10 (photo: author).
The seal of the Chapter of San Nicola also points to the sin-
gularity of Petrus’s seal in Bari. Known from a few fourteenth-
century impressions in brown wax, it eschews Gothic forms
and maintains a strong connection to earlier Nicholas im-
agery in Bari. The impression affixed to a document dated
1352 is circular and features a half-length image of the saint
holding a book in his left hand and blessing with his right
(Fig. 16). Signaling his Eastern Mediterranean origins and
episcopal status is his Byzantine omophorion. He does not
wear a miter, as Western bishops and images of them do by this
time (e.g., the Cappella San Silvestro at SS. Quattro Coronati
in Rome, ca. 1250; the Francis cycle in the Upper Church at
San Francesco in Assisi, 1290s). Even within the pilgrimage
church itself, early fourteenth-century representations in-
clude this Western vestment, as with the lost silver-gilt imago
of Nicholas created in the royal workshops in Naples that in-
ventories describe as possessing a crozier, miter, and ring.75
With Nicholas’s sharply receding hairline, sloping shoul-
ders, and arms, the Chapter’s seal emulates the images on
one of the most venerable objects in Bari, those on the silver
seal—that is, seal as in lock—on the tomb of Nicholas
(Fig. 17). This two-sided device, opened only for the collec-
tion of the holy manna or liquore exuded miraculously by
the saint’s remains, dates to the foundation of the cult in Bari,
soon after the translation of the relics in 1087 (note that only
the treasurer of San Nicola had the authority to open this
seal). Yet while the shape and iconography of the Chapter’s
the center encircled by a now illegible legend (Ang E25, dated
1305).
75. “Imaginem 1 argenti deauratam in figura s. nicolai cum
crocia mitra et anulo in digito de lapide zaffiro,” just one of three
“mitered” images of Nicholas listed in the inventory of 1313. ABSN
G17; CDB 16: 43, doc. 23.
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 67
Figure 17. Two-sided seal from the tomb of St. Nicholas, late eleventh century, silver, diameter 17 cm, Bari, Museo Nicolaiano
(photo: author).
fourteenth-century seal are deliberately archaizing, the atten-
tion to mimetic detail on the image is strikingly modern. The
tiny metal clasps of Nicholas’s book are rendered with curved
profiles, and the omophorion with tiny cross-hatching evokes
woven cloth. The Gothic majuscule of the legend and the An-
gevin heraldic devices of the background also bring this au-
thoritative image into the visual and political culture of the
mid-fourteenth century. The Chapter’s seal was made by a
highly skilled goldsmith conversant in up-to-date ideas and
familiar with the shrine’s venerable imagery, thereby suggest-
ing a workshop located within or near Bari. This artist stands
apart from other local metalworkers who were working with
anachronistic imagery, matrices, and multiples: pilgrimage
badges from Bari are much less detailed in their renditions
of the omophorion-clad and bare-headed saint, as can be ob-
served in a representative example from the late thirteenth or
early fourteenth century (Fig. 18).
Contemporary pointed oval seals in the Kingdom of Sicily
are also distant from Petrus’s. Some feature a single register
within the image field, as with the aforementioned matrix
of Francesco, the Franciscan bishop of Avellino (1295–1310;
Fig. 14). Here, the goldsmith’s efforts are concentrated not
on complex compositions, but on the textured diaper pattern
of the background. This motif, associated with Sienese metal-
workers, became widespread in Italy only in the late four-
teenth century; its early appearance here may suggest that
the matrix was produced in nearby Naples.76 A single-register
76. Sienese goldsmiths arrived in Naples in the second decade of
the fourteenth century, however. Leone de Castris, ed., Ori, argenti,
70–72. On Sienese goldsmiths in general, Elisabetta Cione, Scultura
68 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
design also appears on the seal of another church official from
near Naples, that of Pietro, bishop of Lettere (1327–49), a
small fortified settlement overlooking Mt. Vesuvius and the
Sarno valley.77 Two-register pointed-oval seals are not un-
known in the south, however. One such work from the earliest
years of Angevin rule belonged to Theobald, bishop of Canosa
(Fig. 19). Dated 1266, this wide matrix (51 × 35 mm) features
a kneeling bishop in the lower register and a half-length Vir-
gin and Child above; a thick horizontal line emphatically di-
vides the two realms. Surrounded by small images of the
moon and stars, the devotee cradles his crozier in his praying
arms while craning his neck to meet the gaze of Mary.78 A nar-
rower exemplar belonged to Nicola de Gabrielli, bishop of
e smalto nell’oreficeria senese dei secoli XIII e XIV (Florence: Studio
per Edizioni Scelte, 1998); Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello,
inv. 380, in Sigilli 1: Ecclesiastici, ed. Muzzi, Tomasello, and Tori,
295–96, no. 776, pl. CXLII (late fourteenth/early fifteenth century);
Bargello, inv. 266, in ibid., 252–53, no. 664 (second half of the
fourteenth century).
77. Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, inv. 1728, in Sigilli 1:
Ecclesiastici, 56, no. 101, pl. XXII. This pointed oval (43 × 27 mm)
frames an image of Mary enthroned holding Jesus in one arm and
a large lily in the other; with its emphatic form, the lily proclaims
Pietro’s affiliation with the Angevins as much as it symbolizes
Mary’s purity. The cathedral of Lettere, now largely in ruins, lies ad-
jacent to the Castello; the castle, cathedral, and accompanying settle-
ment, whose medieval morphology remains clear, are discussed in
Domenico Camadro and Mario Notomista, Alle origini di Lettere:
la Cattedrale ed il Borgo medievale nell’area del Castello (Castellam-
mare di Stabia: Nicola Langobardi, 2008).
78. Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, inv. 2361, in Sigilli
1: Ecclesiastici, 61–62, no. 116, pl. XXV.
Figure 18. Pilgrim badge of St. Nicholas, thirteenth–fourteenth
century, Bari, Museo Nicolaiano (photo: Dana Katz).
Ruvo (50 × 30 mm).79 Known from the fragments of an im-
pression on green wax dated 1325, the design is very simple,
with relatively large figures and little space dedicated to archi-
tectural details.80 While such single- and double-register seals
are well attested in southern Italy for the thirteenth and early
fourteenth centuries, tripartite designs like Petrus’s are not;
those that survive tend to date from the second half of the
fourteenth century or feature simpler compositions.81
Pretense
This survey of works from southern Italy indicates that
Petrus’s seal did not follow south Italian conventions, but
rather broke emphatically from them. For the fabrication of
his matrix, the treasurer apparently turned to Rome, one of
the most dynamic sites of artistic production in Italy at the
time. Serena Romano has described the Urbs in the last
decade of the thirteenth century as a “type of enormous
open-air workshop,” responding to the “urgency of taste that
79. The Archivio Apostolico Vaticano (formerly Archivio
Segreto Vaticano) did not grant the electronic rights required for
publishing a photo of this seal; for an image, see Luca Becchetti,
I sigilli dell’Archivio Segreto Vaticano: nuove ricerche sfragistiche
(Vatican City: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, 2013), 422, no. 827.
80. Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, inv. 1660, in Sigilli 1:
Ecclesiastici, 254, no. 665, pl. CXXII.
81. E.g., bronze matrix of Fra Riccardo da Aversa, with its rela-
tively crude design, dated to the fourteenth century; Florence,
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, inv. 2582, in Sigilli 1: Ecclesiastici,
238–39, no. 621, pl. CXIV.
Figure 19. Seal matrix of Theobald, bishop of Canosa, 1266,
bronze, height 51 mm, Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello,
inv. 2361/Sigilli Bargello, Collezione Viviano Guastalla (photo:
Gabinetto Fotografico, Gallerie degli Uffizi).
was perhaps changing faster than ever before in the city.”82
Indeed, the commissions of the popes and great Roman fam-
ilies included such works as Pietro Cavallini’s wall paintings
at Santa Cecilia (1293), Jacopo Torriti’s mosaics at Santa
Maria Maggiore (ca. 1295–96), and Arnolfo di Cambio’s ci-
borium at Santa Cecilia (1293)—works of monumental scale
that have exerted an equally monumental influence on art
historical literature. Julian Gardner has illuminated compa-
rable activity for smaller works of art, characterizing the Urbs
82. Serena Romano, La pittura medievale a Roma, Corpus 6,
Apogeo e fine del Medioevo (Milan: Jaca Book, 2017), 15. “frutto
di un attivismo sfrenato che aveva trasformato la città in una specie
di enorme cantiere a cielo aperto. . . . Quasi ogni chiesa, ogni basil-
ica, deve essersi almeno in parte rimessa a nuovo, sotto l’urgenza di
un gusto che cambiava rapidamente come forse mai prima in città;
deve aver lanciato piccole o grandi programme decorative, o aver
accolto i frutti di questa contagiosa frenesia tra grandi e meno
grandi famiglie, tra cardinali e laici, tra frati e monaci, abati; tra
i commitenti si affacciano anche alcune donne.”
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 69
in the second half of the thirteenth century as a crucible.83 His
metalworking metaphor conveys the richness of this environ-
ment in which diverse artists, patrons, objects, techniques,
materials, and styles converged—a precondition for inven-
tion, as Paul Binski has argued.84 Instrumental in transform-
ing Rome’s visual culture were the French popes Urban IV
(1261–64), Clement IV (1265–68), and Martin IV (1281–
85), along with members of the Curia appointed by them;
their portable possessions, including books, vestments, and,
naturally, seals, helped disseminate northern European de-
signs and styles, as did their commissions in Rome.85 Large
and small works feature microarchitecture and figural styles
emanating from France, including the fashionable ogee arch
seen on Petrus’s seal.86 Rome testifies to one of the defining
characteristics of the art of this era: the ease and rapidity with
which designs moved across media and scales in public, pri-
vate, religious, and secular settings. Gothic is a pan-medial
phenomenon, with architectural motifs embellishing not
only buildings, but also their contents—including walls, win-
dows, furnishings, and bodies, from head to toe, crown to
shoes. This aspect of Gothic art sets it apart from other style-
or date-based taxonomies in which particular media embody
the defining forms, but many others do not. Gardner, whose
expertise in Roman seals goes back decades, identifies seals as
key vectors in the circulation and dissemination of visual
83. Julian Gardner, The Roman Crucible: The Artistic Patronage
of the Papacy, 1198–1304, Römische Forschungen der Bibliotheca
Hertziana 33 (Munich: Hirmer, 2013).
84. Paul Binski, “London, Paris, Assisi, Rome around 1300: Ques-
tioning Art Hierarchies,” in From Minor to Major: The Minor Arts in
Medieval Art History, ed. Colum Hourihane, Occasional Papers
(Princeton University, Department of Art and Archaeology, Index
of Christian Art) 14 (Princeton: Princeton University Press; College
Station: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 3–21, at 14.
85. Scholarship on this issue is vast; see recent bibliographies in
Romano, Pittura medievale a Roma; Binski, “London, Paris”; Gard-
ner, Roman Crucible; Il Gotico europeo in Italia, ed. Valentino Pace
and Martina Bagnoli (Naples: Electa, 1995); Valentino Pace, Arte a
Roma nel medioevo: committenza, ideologia e cultura figurativa in
monumenti e libri, Nuovo Medioevo 56 (Naples: Liguori, 2000).
For curial seals over a longer period, Werner Maleczek, “Kardi-
nalssiegel und andere Abbildungen von Kardinälen während des
13. Jahrhunderts,” in Die Kardinäle des Mittelalters und der frühen
Renaissance, ed. Jürgen Dendorfer and Ralf Lützelschwab, with
Jessika Nowak (Florence: SISMEL/Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2013),
227–64.
86. Binski sees the origins of the ogee arch “in the supple manip-
ulation of gold, and certainly in the sphere of metalwork. The ogee’s
future as an inventive form, a seed, in the plastic arts and architec-
ture was to be immense.” Binski, “London, Paris,” 12. Gardner notes
the “precocious appearance” of the ogee on the seal of Cardinal Gio-
vanni Gaetano Orsini in 1270. Gardner, Roman Crucible, 407n251.
70 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
ideas across media; they are “pioneers” that very clearly chart
the emergence and dissemination of the new Gothic style.87
Yet paradoxically, while occupying the visual avant-garde,
their efficacy as sources of verification and validation de-
pended upon the ability of viewers to identify them correctly
and accept their authenticity.88
The election decree of Pope Celestine V (1294) summa-
rizes the variety of curial seals in the formative last decade of
the fourteenth century—that is, on the eve of Petrus’s com-
mission.89 Designs range from the single standing figure of
Gerardo Bianchi, second from the left (on the side of senior-
ity), to the more complex two- and three-register composi-
tions of more recently appointed cardinals to the right
(Fig. 20).90 Tripartite designs like those on the seals of Pietro
Peregrosso, cardinal of San Marco from 1288 to 1295 (sixth
from the left, with a kneeling sigillant, the leonine symbol
of the evangelist, and an enthroned Virgin and Child), and
Matteo d’Aquasparta, cardinal bishop at Porto from 1288
to 1302 (fourth from the left, with the supplicant, two stand-
ing saints, and a Crucifixion with Mary and John), started
taking off in the curia in the late 1270s and 1280s. Such works
build upon standing figures within gabled niches, the domi-
nant features of great church portals;91 they thereby illustrate
the fluidity of boundaries between media around 1300, a con-
cept noted in 1976 by François Bucher in his influential study
of microarchitecture.92 Moreover, the seals display not only
sophisticated compositions, iconography, and an occasional
narrative, but a confident handling of form that lends the tiny
figures an emotional power that Gardner associates with
Franciscan ideals and Gothic art in France in the second half
87. Julian Gardner, “Curial Narratives: The Seals of Cardinal
Deacons, 1280–1305,” in Good Impressions, ed. Adams, Cherry,
and Robinson, 85–90, at 86. See also Gardner, “Who Were the
Microarchitects?” in Microarchitectures médiévales: l’échelle à l’épreuve
de la matière, ed. Jean-Marie Guillouët and Ambre Vilain (Paris:
Éditions de l’INHA-Éditions Picard, 2018), 37–46.
88. Bedos-Rezak, “Efficacy of Signs”; Julian Gardner, “The Ar-
chitecture of Cardinals’ Seals, c. 1244–1304,” in Pourquoi des
sceaux, ed. Chassel and Chassel, 437–50, at 437.
89. Gardner, “Curial Narratives,” 85–86.
90. The Archivio Apostolico Vaticano did not grant the elec-
tronic rights required for publishing a photo of this sealed docu-
ment; for an image, see Gardner, “Curial Narratives,” fig. 1.
91. Gardner, “Architecture of Cardinals’ Seals,” esp. 439–43;
Gardner, Roman Crucible, esp. 407–8.
92. François Bucher, “Micro-Architecture as the ‘Idea’ of Gothic
Theory and Style,” Gesta 15, nos. 1–2 (1976): 71–89, at 71; also,
Paul Williamson, “Symbiosis across Scale: Gothic Ivories and Sculp-
ture in Stone and Wood in the Thirteenth Century,” in Images in
Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. Peter Barnet, exhibi-
tion, Detroit Institute of Arts and Walters Art Gallery (Detroit: De-
troit Institute of Arts; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997),
39–45.
Figure 20. Rendering of seals on election decree for Celestine V, 1294, after Archivio Secreto Vaticano AA.Arm.1-XVIII, 2178 (rendering:
John Wilder Pfohl).

of the thirteenth century.93 The book cover or box likely made motifs likely allude to the cathedral of Poitiers, interior and
in Strasbourg around 1270 and now at the abbey of Sankt exterior respectively. However, what is most striking about
Paul im Lavanttal (Austria) is a larger metalwork object that the seal and relevant to Petrus and the cardinals are the
illustrates this combination of compositional and figural fi- dynamic ways in which the elements of the composition
nesse (Fig. 21).94
A French seal of the type that informed curial commis-
sions is that of Gauthier de Bruges, the Franciscan bishop
of Poitiers (1281–86; Fig. 22).95 While his counterseal shows
a frontal and standing image of Gauthier with his episcopal
insignia, the main design combines earlier conventions, such
as steep-roofed buildings at the apex of the pointed oval,
with inventive, detailed, and expressive forms. A large round
arch frames two pointed trefoil niches that hold St. Peter on
the left and St. Francis on the right. The saints turn toward
each other, extending their hands in a lively gesture that con-
veys openness to communication and intercession. Piercing
their ground line is a pointed arch that frames the standing
devotee outfitted in episcopal garb—Gauthier, who clasps
his hands in prayer and looks up at Francis. The figures are
rendered in minute detail; each of the saints’ extended hands
displays five fingers, Peter’s key three bits, and Francis’s cord
multiple knots. In addition, the seal’s architectural frame-
work is highly detailed, from the dentils in the intrados of
the round arch to the gabled building with roof tiles and tre-
foil tracery at the apex of the pointed oval; these building

93. Gardner, Roman Crucible, 178–86.

94. Les batisseurs des cathédrales gothiques, ed. Roland Recht, ex-
hibition, Ancienne Douane, Strasbourg, 1989 (Strasbourg: Éditions
des Musées de la ville de Strasbourg, 1989), 445–47, cat. no. E-3;
Detlef Zinke, “Das Museum der Abtei St. Paul im Lavanttal,” Das
Münster: Zeitschrift für christliche Kunst und Kunstwissenschaft
37, no. 1 (1984): 10–20, esp. 10–11.
95. Eygun, Sigillographie du Poitou, 362, no. 1218, pl. XXIX; also
in Douët d’Arcq, Collection de sceaux 2 (Paris: Henri Plon, 1867), Figure 21. Book cover or box, Strasbourg (?), ca. 1270, silver-gilt
540, no. 6819. Many thanks to the anonymous Gesta reviewer for with champlevé and translucid enamels, gems, and niello, 38.6 ×
the second and more accurate source. 27 cm, Abbey of Sankt Paul im Lavanttal, Austria (photo: AKG).

(Re)Birth of a Seal D 71

Figure 22. Seal of Gauthier de Bruges, bishop of Poitiers, 1281,
height 68 mm, Paris, Archives nationales, Douët d’Arcq 6819
(photo: Archives nationales).
interact. The central round arch does not define a free-
standing ciborium, but a single bay of an expansive arcade,
which extends outward from the saints and breaks through
the band normally reserved for the legend. This allows the
image of the exterior of the church to extend along the central
arch and generate the two pinnacles above the arcade. The ex-
tension of the arcade also shifts the legend down the oval, so
that the opening words––S(igillum) FR(at)RIS GALTERI D(e)
ORDINE (frat)RV(m) minorum EPISCOPI PICTAVEN(sis)––
align with the head and shoulders of Francis;96 on the left side,
then, EPI(scopi) begins just above the feet of Peter. Thus, the
design confirms the identity of the standing saints in text and
image, as Petrus de Angeriacus’s seal does with Nicholas. It
also maps Gauthier’s identity onto these holy bodies and es-
tablishes him as a legitimate successor to them.
96. Legend of seal and counterseal (Contrasigillum fratris
Galteri, episcopi Pictavensis) in Douët d’Arcq, Collection de sceaux 2,
540, no. 6819.
72 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
Similar spatial configurations and shifted legends appear
in the seals of cardinals in the middle of the thirteenth cen-
tury, but this corpus becomes more complex and favors tri-
partite designs after the election of Celestine—a key context
for the creation of Petrus’s seal. Celestine’s choices for the cu-
ria, which he sought to expand to prevent future deadlocks,
likely betray the machinations of Charles II; the king was re-
sponsible for the manipulation of the conclave that elected
the hermit, and he remained the pope’s advisor and protector
throughout the struggles of his short pontificate.97 The seals
of Robert de Pontigny (Fig. 23, left) and Simon de Beaulieu
(Fig. 23, right), two of the seven French cardinals appointed
by Celestine, feature tripartite designs with standing figures
articulated by pronounced Gothic S-curves in the middle
register (the impressions date from 1302 and 1296, respec-
tively).98 The sigillants kneel below them and a half-length
Virgin and Child rest above. Simon, who had been arch-
bishop of Bourges before his appointment to Palestrina, has
a prominent ogee arch and fleurs-de-lis on his seal, as Petrus
does (although Simon’s ogee frames the Virgin and Child,
not the sigillant). The seals of Robert and Simon have been ap-
preciated as sophisticated responses to “pioneer” works of the
previous decades, like that of Umberto da Cocconato (1270).99
An Italian appointed by Celestine, Guglielmo Longhi of Ber-
gamo, had a similar response. An impression of Longhi’s seal
from 1302 also bears a tripartite design rich in architectural
and theological detail (Fig. 24).100 The half-figure devotee
prays within a crenellated enclosure topped by crockets, above
which a double niche frames three-quarter-length figures
holding books. Gardner has identified one saint as Nicholas
(the seals of cardinals usually bear images related to their tit-
ular church);101 the identity of the other saint is not clear. The
97. Peter Herde, Cölestin V. (1294) (Peter vom Morrone), Der
Engelpapst, Päpste und Papsttum 16 (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann,
1981); for Guglielmo, esp. 101–6 and 186. Also, Ludovico Gatto, “La
vera storia di Celestino V,” in Celestino V: cultura e società, Atti della
giornata di studio, Ferentino 17 maggio 2003, ed. Ludovico Gatto
and Eleonora Plebani (Rome: La Sapienza, 2007), 7–108; and Robert
Brentano, “Sulmona Society and the Miracles of Peter of Morrone,”
in Brentano, Bishops, Saints, and Historians: Studies in Ecclesiastical
History of Medieval Britain and Italy, ed. William L. North, Vario-
rum Collected Studies 898 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 79–86.
98. Gardner, Roman Crucible, 184–86; and Gardner, “Some
Cardinals’ Seals of the Thirteenth Century,” Journal of the War-
burg and Courtauld Institutes 38 (1975): 72–96, esp. 91–93.
99. Gardner, Roman Crucible, 184; for Umberto da Cocconato,
ibid., 177, fig. 175.
100. Gardner, Roman Crucible, 184; and Gardner, “Some Car-
dinals’ Seals,” 91–92.
101. Gardner, “Some Cardinals’ Seals,” 91–92. Guglielmo’s other
major commissions—the reconstruction of the Cluniac abbey
church at San Giacomo, Pontida (near Bergamo, his hometown),
Figure 23. Left: Seal of Robert de Pontigny, cardinal priest of Santa Pudenziana, 1302, height 60 mm, Paris, Archives nationales, Douët
d’Arcq 6170 (photo: Archives nationales). Right: Seal of Simon de Beaulieu, cardinal bishop of Palestrina, 1296, height 65 mm, Paris,
Archives nationales, Douët d’Arcq 6161 (photo: Archives nationales).
Virgin and Child perch above, enthroned within a ciborium
topped with crockets. Crockets and pinnacles with ornate
tracery pierce the space of the legend, shifting the incipit down
from the apex to align with Mary’s head. Here, as in Petrus’s
commission, architectural and figural modes demarcate
heaven from Earth and help establish celestial and interces-
sory hierarchies.
In some ways, the seal of Petrus de Angeriacus is more
complex than these Roman works, and, significantly, it is
more focused on the figure of the sigillant. Whereas hierar-
chies and differentiation dominate Longhi’s sophisticated
seal, Petrus’s stands out for its more balanced yet intricate tri-
and the reliquary of James donated to the same foundation—lack
this ornamental inventiveness and complexity, as well as Nicoline
iconography; in keeping with Gothic in Lombardy, they emphasize
geometric simplicity rather than ornamentation and figural elabora-
tion. For the tomb, Gardner, Tomb and the Tiara, 114–15; for
Pontida and the reliquary, Giuseppe Marchetti-Longhi, Il Cardinale
Guglielmo de Longis de Adraria di Bergamo. La sua famiglia e la sua
discendenza (Rome: Staderini, 1961), 43–53; illustration of reli-
quary, ibid., 48.
partite design. Similar quantities of space and degrees of
graphic complexity characterize each horizontal register.
Petrus’s whole body is depicted kneeling in prayer, in contrast
to many of the curial examples in which the sigillant is repre-
sented as a half-figure or bust, usually within a much smaller
space or at a much smaller scale than the central holy figures.
Seals in which devotees are fully rendered tend to have two-
register designs, with the sigillant sharing the main architec-
tural space with the object of his devotion.102
It is striking that in no other tripartite designs from the cu-
ria in the 1290s is as much space relegated to the sigillant at
the bottom of the pointed oval as in Petrus’s. In the curial
seals, the lowest niche may extend into the legend band,
but it tends to occupy less than a third of the field. In the trea-
surer’s seal, the niche’s wide proportions and ogival profile
create more space around Petrus. Two large fleurs-de-lis flank
his body, signaling his affiliation with the Angevin crown and
102. E.g., Giacomo Colonna, Cardinal Deacon of Santa Maria in
Via Lata, who kneels before St. Peter (1294); discussion in Gardner,
Tomb and the Tiara; and Maleczek, “Kardinalssiegel,” 239.
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 73

Figure 24. Seal of Guglielmo Longhi, cardinal deacon of San
Nicola in Carcere, 1302, height 55 mm, Paris, Archives nationales,
Douët d’Arcq 6166 (photo: Archives nationales).
its Capetian origins. Following the logic of heraldry discussed
above, these emblems establish Petrus’s affiliation with the
crown and create a symbiosis in which the prestige and power
of one enhances and protects the other; they bring the sover-
eign into the dynamic of holy intercession enacted in the seal’s
devotional tableau. In visualizing the royal source of the trea-
surer’s authority, the flowers underscore Petrus’s ambition,
one of the traits that Nitti di Vito emphasized in his founda-
tional portrait of the treasurer. Moreover, Petrus was able to
realize this ambitious self-representation because he was re-
sourceful, fattivo, operating within networks of power sus-
tained in part by the king.
One key figure in this network was Martin Ermencu-
riassica, the aforementioned prior of San Nicola who is thought
to have appointed Petrus. As the former keeper of the king’s
seal, he must have had a keen sense of the power of sealing
and sealed documents; perhaps he encouraged enhanced
sealing practices at San Nicola to increase the institution’s
prestige and legitimacy (no seal of his survives, however,
and no evidence indicates that he had one). While Martin
may have laid the conceptual groundwork for Petrus’s com-
mission, another intermediary in this network, the cardinal
Guglielmo Longhi, likely provided logistical support. Not only
74 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
are the seals of Guglielmo and Petrus very similar, but the
professional paths of the two men intersected. Guglielmo,
who likely studied theology and law at Padua, first served
as papal chaplain to Celestine V before being elevated to car-
dinal deacon at San Nicola in Carcere Tulliano, where he may
have been responsible for the expansion of that church in the
early fourteenth century.103 He was also esteemed within An-
gevin circles; among the many positions he obtained through
Charles II were rector and prior of San Nicola in Bari (1295)
and archbishop of Monreale (1307). Unlike many of the offi-
cials appointed by Celestine, Guglielmo remained a powerful
and active figure under Boniface VIII, even as he was the only
cardinal to vote in favor of all of Celestine’s miracles in the
hermit pope’s canonization processus.104 His various appoint-
ments helped the king forge links between and maintain con-
trol over the cult site in Bari and the center of papal power in
this period of shifting alliances. In helping Petrus secure a
seal, Guglielmo would have benefitted the institution where
both held royal appointments. He likely helped Petrus access
the busy artists who were working for French and Italian
cardinals in Rome.
But which artists? Because the appearance of architectural
motifs across media and scale is a defining feature of Gothic
art, how seals deploy such motifs is an aspect of style that can
help characterize the products of particular workshops or re-
gions. A number of goldsmiths from Siena were working for
popes in this era, including Guccio di Mannaia, Pax, and
Toro; Sienese seals from around 1300 utilize the ornament
of Gothic architecture in a spare manner and at a larger scale,
highlighting clarity of line and the placement of figures
within a definable three-dimensional space, versus the multi-
plication of pinnacles, crockets, and buttresses seen on many
103. The following discussion of Guglielmo’s life draws upon
Marchetti-Longhi, Cardinale Guglielmo; Guido Caraboni, s.v.,
“Longhi, Guglielmo,” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 65 (2005),
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/guglielmo-longhi_(Dizionario
-Biografico)/; Cioffari, Epoca d’oro, 51–55; for interventions at San
Nicola in Carcere, see Romano, Pittura romana, 381.
104. Caraboni, “Longhi, Guglielmo”; Marchetti-Longhi, Car-
dinale Guglielmo, 259–60; Alessandra Bartolomei Romagnoli and
Alfonso Marini, with Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, eds., Il processo
di canonizzazione di Celestino V. Corpus Coelestinianum 1 (Flor-
ence: SISMEL/Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2015), 238, 245–56, 267–78.
His long-term support of Celestine can be seen in his foundation
of two chapels in Bergamo dedicated to the hermit saint, one in
San Francesco and one in Santo Stefano (demolished 1561)—the lat-
ter where the cardinal probably was buried before his tomb, signed
by Ugo di Giovanni da Campione, was commissioned by his nephew
Cipriano, bishop of Bergamo, for San Francesco; the tomb is now
located in Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. Marchetti-Longhi,
Cardinale Guglielmo, 45; Gardner, Tomb and the Tiara, 114–15.
of the Roman exemplars, including Petrus’s.105 Film scholars
have noted how representations of one medium or material
in another can comment upon the represented and repre-
senting media, forming what can be called a transmedial ref-
erence.106 The aforementioned seal of Gauthier of Bruges
works in this way (Fig. 22). The extension of the arcade be-
yond the seal’s pictorial frame points to the existence of a
larger community of the holy, a larger church triumphant,
to which the friar has access and belongs. The design thus
conveys that his episcopal authority extends beyond the con-
fines of the represented space, beyond his physical church.
Here, then, transmediality reinforces the seal’s function: as
“media of the body” that also depicts the body, the seal carries
the authority and presence of the sigillant outward from the
cathedral of Poitiers.
In late medieval seals, such transmedial references are not
limited to architectural imagery. Seals may depict objects
made of a particular medium, as with Lorenzo dei Tiniosi’s
matrix (Fig. 15, right). In this case, the representation of
the Pigna maintains the bulbous character of the ancient
bronze sculpture in the metal matrix and in the wax impres-
sion. By contrast, the Veronica’s original two-dimensional
image swells into a relief. This translation of the Veronica
to three dimensions distorts the character of the icon, to be
sure. But it also replicates the icon’s birth: just as Christ im-
pressed his face onto the cloth and left its image there, so the
act of sealing would reenact this original miracle, with the
solid matrix begetting its reverse image in wax.
While Lorenzo dei Tiniosi’s seal highlights the dynamics
of transmedial mimesis, other Roman examples include rep-
resentations that seem to be made of particular materials.
The delicate architectural setting of Simon de Beaulieu’s seal
105. The Sienese metalworkers helped define a Franciscan avant-
garde with such works as Guccio’s Assisi chalice for Nicholas IV
and matrix for Santa Chiara in Siena, among others. Elisabetta
Cioni, Scultura e smalto nell’oreficeria senese dei secoli XIII e XIV
(Florence: Studio per Edizioni Scelte, 1998), 65, fig. 94 (Santa
Chiara); and Elisabetta Cioni Liserani, Sigilli medioevali senesi, ex-
hibition, Florence, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, 1981 (Florence:
SPES, 1981); on Magister Pax, Friedrich Baethgen, “Quellen und
Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der päpstlichen Hof- und Finanz-
verwaltung unter Bonifaz VIII,” Quellen und Forschungen aus
italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 20 (1928/29): 114–237,
esp. 224–26; also, M. H. Laurent, “Orafi senesi dei secoli XIII,”
Bullettino senese di storia patria 8 (1937): 176–95.
106. Schröter calls this “transformational mediality” while
Rajewsky prefers “intermedial reference”; the fluidity of terminol-
ogy is one of the challenges of working with this discourse. Jens
Schröter, “Discourses and Models of Intermediality,” CLCWeb:
Comparative Literature and Culture 13, no. 3 (2011): https://doi
.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1790; Rajewsky, “Intermediality, Intertex-
tuality, and Remediation,” 53.
(Fig. 23, right) features crisp geometry, detailed buttresses,
and prominent pinnacles that recall metalwork shrines made
in northern France, such as that of St. Gertrude of Nivelles
(before 1298) or St. Romanus of Rouen (ca. 1270–90; Fig. 25).107
Similarly, the swaying stance and animated gestures of the
central figures resemble those of the shrines, as well as ones
stitched, painted, or sculpted in many media and scales at
the same time. By contrast, more robust architectural forms,
pronounced relief, and figures facing forward characterize the
seals of Robert de Pontigny, Guglielmo de Longhi, and Petrus
de Angeriacus, with thick columns complete with bases and
capitals along with multiplication of trefoils in arcades. These
different forms of transmedial reference and their overall ef-
fect, manifest in wax, help magnify the similarities between
the seals of Guglielmo and Petrus in particular—similarities
that include the identical height of 55 millimeters. Given
the comparable approaches to media, composition, iconogra-
phy, and scale apparent in the seals commissioned by these
two men affiliated with San Nicola, the matrices must have
come from the same workshop in Rome.
But when? Although Petrus was appointed treasurer of
San Nicola in 1294–95, the seal matrix was probably commis-
sioned after the foundation of the capella regis in 1296, when
Charles II increased Petrus’s responsibilities, enhanced his
prestige, and expanded his jurisdiction to Altamura; an im-
pressive seal would ease this institutional transition by adding
authority to a controversial appointee and gravitas to docu-
ment production. The span between the foundation and
the only extant seal impression (January 1301) perhaps can
be narrowed. In a charter dated 11 August 1300, Charles II
asserted that the treasurer’s travel costs to Rome be covered.
The king stipulated that when Petrus was in Rome, he would
receive the Hours of St. Louis, and that the Hours were to be
celebrated at San Nicola each year on his uncle’s feast day
(25 August).108 Charles probably assumed that Petrus would
return to Bari in time for the new liturgy to be performed that
year. Perhaps Petrus returned to Bari not only bearing a litur-
gical book about the newly canonized French royal saint, but
also a French-looking seal made in Rome.
Scholars have noted that within dynamics of transme-
diality, forms rooted in one arena are “defamiliarized” when
transposed into a new one.109 Whether through mimesis, as in
the bulbous forms of the Pigna, or through evocations of
107. Commissioned in 1272, completed in 1298, now frag-
mented; see Un trésor gothique. La châsse de Nivelles, exhibition,
Paris, Musée national du Moyen Age, Thermes de Cluny, and Co-
logne, Schnütgen-Museum, 1995–96 (Paris: Réunion des Musées
Nationaux, 1996).
108. CDB 13, 139–40, doc. 90.
109. Schröter, “Discourses and Models,” 5.
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 75
Figure 25. Shrine of St. Romanus, Paris (?), ca. 1270–90, copper-gilt with repoussé, enamels, 73 × 85 × 42 cm, Treasury of Rouen Cathe-
dral (photo: Henri Graindorge, b. 1904, c RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY).
other media, as in the spiky shrine-like enclosures or robust
stone arcades, the transmedial references in the seals consid-
ered here achieve the same result: they transform and distill
the multifocal spaces of churches, along with their disparate
furnishings and still devotees, into a tightly compressed, fro-
zen, and more readily apprehended image. Generations of art
historians tended to see small and portable works of this type
as secondary, as “minor” art forms, a trend that has been re-
versed in recent years.110 Newer approaches have illuminated
scale as a continuum. Mary Carruthers has written that
“minificence, ‘making small,’ is just as awe-inspiring as mag-
nificence, ‘making large,’ and the two often imply each
110. Milestones in this ongoing project to dismantle such hierar-
chies include Brigitte Buettner, “Toward a Historiography of the
Sumptuous Arts,” in A Companion to Medieval Art, ed. Conrad
Rudolph (Oxford and Malden: Blackwell, 2006), 466–87; Houri-
hane, ed., From Minor to Major; and Cynthia Hahn, Strange Beauty:
Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400–circa 1204
(College Station: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012).
76 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
other.”111 In a similar vein, Paul Binski refers to “sublime
smallness” and “hyperminiaturization” as a key aspect of aes-
thetics around 1300, one often overlooked by our tendency to
locate wonder in monumentality.112 The miniature facilitates
what Susan Stewart calls the transcendent view, versus the
partial and more quotidian view that shifts and expands with
movement through space and the elapsing of time.113 In
111. Mary Carruthers, The Experience of Beauty in the Middle
Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 173. Indeed, scale
is relative and its meaning understood as such, as John Mack has
pointed out. John Mack, The Art of Small Things (London: British
Museum, 2007), 49.
112. Paul Binski, “The Heroic Age of Gothic and the Metaphors
of Modernism,” Gesta 52, no. 1 (2013): 3–19, at 10; also, Adam S.
Cohen, “Magnificence in Miniature: The Case of Early Medieval
Manuscripts,” in Magnificence and the Sublime in Medieval Aes-
thetics: Art, Architecture, Literature, Music, ed. C. Stephen Jaeger
(New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 79–101.
113. Examining miniature things can have the effect of chang-
ing how time is experienced, of slowing it down. Stewart cites
reducing monumentality and spatial complexity into the
tight visual field of close viewing, the imagery of seals antic-
ipates the emergence of boxwood prayer beads and Elizabe-
than miniatures—works that favor private viewing and, as
Stewart notes, are imbricated in notions of interiority.114
Although Stewart’s theories of the miniature are grounded
in literature, early modernism, and industrialization, her ob-
servations about scale, perception, and artistic production are
helpful here. Micrographia, she writes, foregrounds skill,
craft, and discipline; “while the materiality of the product is
diminished, the labor involved multiplies.”115 Producing ma-
trices is a long, costly, and delicate labor, as Pastoureau ob-
serves116—hence its emergence within the most elite circles
of medieval society and gradual expansion with urbanization
and rising affluence. In thirteenth-century Rome, the sharp-
ening of skills required to transform spatially complex and
monumental forms into low relief at a tiny scale can be de-
tected in the changing dimensions of the seals. The earliest
matrices with figural imagery in the legend or tripartite de-
signs are larger than their simpler contemporaries, suggesting
that artists first expanded their working surfaces to accommo-
date the additional figures and increasingly complex micro-
architecture. While the average height of thirteenth-century
curial exemplars is around 53 millimeters during the 1260s
and 1270s, seals grow when imagery expands beyond two reg-
isters, reaching 68 millimeters with the 1286 seal of Giovanni
Boccamazza, cardinal bishop of Tusculum from 1285 to 1310
(Fig. 26). The artists apparently required additional space to
work out the new and demanding compositions that were
teeming with figures and detailed architectural motifs. After
1290, most of these tripartite matrices shrink by several mil-
limeters, matching the size of single- and double-register seals
while maintaining their newer and more complex designs.
Petrus’s commission comes at this moment of refined skill,
experiments conducted at the University of Tennessee School of
Architecture that demonstrated correlations between how scale
and the passage of time were experienced as subjects interacted
with scaled models of buildings; the smaller the scale, the more
compressed the sense of time, with an oddly proportional consis-
tency. Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the
Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Durham: Duke University
Press, 1993), 66–67. On Edmund Burke and perception, Mack,
Art of Small Things, 54.
114. Lisa Ellis and Alexandra Suda, eds., Small Wonders: Gothic
Boxwood Miniatures, exhibition, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
(Toronto: AGO, 2016); jewelry in John Mack, Art of Small Things;
Stewart, On Longing, ix–xiv and 67.
115. Stewart, On Longing, 38.
116. “La fabrication d’une matrice semble avoir toujours été un
travail long, coûteux et délicat.” Pastoureau, Sceaux, 33; on the
physical rigor and discipline required for working on such a small
scale, see also Mack, Art of Small Things, 18–29.
when sigillants must have desired small, compact fields teem-
ing with activity and detail. Small size becomes the marker of
artistic excellence and patronal prestige.
With medieval seals, this minificence derived from the
ability of the goldsmith to manufacture highly detailed worlds
on a tiny scale. But the need for skillful dexterity did not dis-
appear when the matrix was completed. Unlike patrons of
most other art forms, the sigillant had to possess dexterity
to perform the act of sealing—or had to delegate the task to
a reputable person possessing that trait. After all, sealing re-
quired handling the parchment, silk cords, matrix, and mol-
ten wax with the care, precision, and patience required to
create a legible impression on the malleable substance. As
Bedos-Rezak has emphasized, sealing was an embodied prac-
tice and performance that often took place before witnesses
and dignitaries;117 Ang D10, born as it was of jurisdictional
conflict, was produced in the presence of the king. Within this
atmosphere charged with political and personal tension, the
steady hand of the abile Petrus produced a good impression.
Petrus’s Commissions in Time and Space
In one of his studies of medieval patronage, Beat Brenk
argues that medieval patrons who sought out innovation of-
ten did so in order to shape how their commissions were
seen and received.118 He detects this motivated and rare in-
terest in reception in cases where the representational power
of an object far outstrips its functional requirements and the
norms of its antecedents. Petrus seems to have developed his
self-images with such ideas in mind. He utilized modes of
representation that went well beyond local conventions; his
seal appropriated key ideas from elite members of the papal
curia in Rome. In other words, it deployed imagery associated
with an office that he did not hold. The fact that he did this for
a seal commission—a stand-in for the body and a mode of
self-representation meant to be widely circulated and closely
inspected—is a brazen act of ambition and pretense. That be-
ing said, the seal’s design does not assert that he was a car-
dinal; its legend spells out the office that he held. But in
appropriating up-to-date visualizations of curial power in
Rome and extending them into the new jurisdictions of the
capella regis, he ensured that his seal was singular; it regis-
tered as a sign of authority that was born of, validated, and
upheld by power structures located outside of San Nicola
and Bari, and as such enhanced his status and prestige.
117. Bedos-Rezak, “Medieval Identity,” 1527–29.
118. Beat Brenk, “Les églises de pèlerinage et le concept de
prétention,” in Art, cérémonial et liturgie au Moyen Âge, Actes
du colloque de 3e Cycle Romand de Lettres Lausanne-Fribourg,
2000, ed. Nicolas Bock, Peter Kurmann, Serena Romano, and
Jean-Michel Spieser (Rome: Viella, 2002), 125–39, esp. 126–27.
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 77
 Figure 26. Designs and dimensions of cardinals’ seals, ca. 1270–1305 (diagram: author).
This first act of patronal overreaching set the stage for two
interrelated episodes of self-representation: Petrus’s adoption
of heraldry and his commission of the two pairs of candle-
sticks for San Nicola. Given heraldry’s apparent absence on
the seal and presence on the candlesticks, he probably adopted
a coat of arms after the commission of the matrix. Because
his arms are not described, speculating about their possible
form may seem fruitless. But given the unusually large size
of the fleurs-de-lis on his seal and the unflagging support of
Kings Charles II and Robert, he likely continued to use this
motif in some way, as other elites did in the kingdom.119 After
all, royal affiliation remained the primary source of his au-
thority, and thus would have provided a logical and easily
identifiable basis for visualizing his identity. Also supporting
this hypothesis is his presumed status as celibate. As a mode
of self-representation, heraldry is diachronic; it articulates the
genealogical roots of identity while imagining their continu-
ity through future progeny. Petrus, however, could envision
no legitimate offspring, and as an apparent newcomer to
the kingdom, he lacked a distinguished family history. In this
119. Caskey, Art and Patronage, 174–77.
78 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
setting of emergent heraldry in late medieval Italy, then, he
was perhaps more inclined to generate imagery that spoke
to synchronic realities: to affiliations in the here-and-now,
to his status as royal familiar, rather than to an idealized or
imagined past and future.120
In Petrus’s case, the diachronic potential of heraldry was
not realized through any offspring, but through the long
“lives” of his candlesticks and their use at San Nicola. The
heraldic devices, in their repetition and replication in relief,
placed Petrus on the altar and within liturgical performance
of the mass, likely during his life and for years after his
death. They also ensured that he remained in the memories
and prayers of the canons and community of the faithful at
San Nicola. In this regard, the commissions were successful,
as his candlesticks are listed and identified with him in two
inventories composed after his death. The objects reached
back in time as well; Durandus interpreted them as creating
connections between the incarnational eucharist and Old Tes-
tament prophets.
120. The fleur-de-lis could allude to his origins in Anjou as well
as to his affiliation with the Angevin kings.
 Considered together, the commissions of Petrus de Ange-
riacus show a mastery of different forms of self-representation
that share salient features, including the aesthetics of replica-
tion and dissemination of bodily presence through material
forms. The candlesticks were initially spatially bound, des-
tined for use in the church of San Nicola, but they were not
conceptualized as temporally bound, as their functions within
the liturgy ensured their continuing role as a conduit of typol-
ogy and Petrus’s memory. The seal, by contrast, was intended
to establish Petrus’s power as a royal office-holder beyond
the walls of San Nicola, thus emphasizing synchronic struc-
tures of power and spatial dominion. Both works were im-
bricated in the intertwining artistic initiatives and political
interventions of Charles II, operating in Bari, Naples, and
Rome, and to a lesser extent, of Celestine V, with whom the
king was allied. The candlesticks were probably made in
the royal workshops in Naples, for the works seemingly dis-
played the techniques and visual effects of works made there
at the same time. The seal matrix, by contrast, was probably
made in Rome, and came into being because of Petrus’s royal
appointment to San Nicola and connections to cardinals who
were active patrons in Rome. Petrus’s commissions thus
demonstrate two salient and interrelated aspects of Bari’s vi-
sual culture around 1300: that new commissions in cutting-
edge Gothic forms were coming to San Nicola from Rome;
and that the king’s newly commissioned gifts for San Ni-
cola were not the only objects that promoted Neapolitan or
French-looking art in Bari. The seal and candlesticks materi-
alize the institutional channels and affiliations that both de-
fined the king’s networks of jurisdictional power and also
allowed Petrus to become an ambitious, able, and resource-
ful patron.
(Re)Birth of a Seal D 79