Review: Treasures Of Heaven at The British Museum

THE LONDON EVENING STANDARD
By Brian Sewell

Pied noir: reliquary of St Blaise, a 4th century Armenian bishop, c.1260

UNITED KINGDOM - By 1387, or then about, driven by unquestioning belief that the bodily remains of the righteous were lively conduits of the spiritual power that they exercised in Heaven, pilgrims turned to them for the forgiveness of sins and the curing of ills, and were prepared to suffer the physical and often even mortal hazards of journeys on ship, horseback and foot that might take many months to complete. The British Museum's summer exhibition, "Treasures of Heaven," is an astonishing accumulation of these things, beautifully displayed, the soaring dome of the Reading Room seeming suitably ecclesiastical. [link]