Monza ampullae
They were made in Palestine, probably in the fifth to early seventh centuries,[1] and have been in the Treasury of Monza Cathedral north of Milan in Italy since they were donated by Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, (c. 570–628).
[2] The second largest group was discovered in a burial at Bobbio Abbey, not far from Monza, and names such as Monza/Bobbio flasks ampullae or flagons are among the many terms by which these objects are described.
There are records of similar blessed objects, or eulogia, being hung on the bedpost for protection from demons at night,[10] and the oil, or just the relic, was believed to be able to heal the sick when applied to them.
Those at Monza are in generally good condition, but those from Bobbio and other examples such as the one at Dumbarton Oaks are flattened and damaged; they are now mostly black in colour.
[12] Despite their small size, the images are typically crowded multi-figure compositions, sometimes with extensive depiction of architectural elements, and somewhat crude in execution.
[26] Two of the flasks, one each at Bobbio and Monza, show a large Christ walking on water and rescuing Saint Peter from drowning, as the other apostles watch from a boat, perhaps reflecting the anxieties of the sea voyages many pilgrims faced as they returned home.
There is a small wooden box in the Vatican Museums containing earth and rocks from the Holy Land, some tied up in cloth and labelled with their site of origin.
The inside of the top cover has five painted scenes from the New Testament relating to the main sites, or sights, on the pilgrimage route, in similar style to the ampullae, and believed to be made in Palestine in around 600.
In his monograph of 1957, which for the first time gave scholars good images of all the Monza and Bobbio ampullae, and an extensive analysis of their iconography, André Grabar proposed instead that they derived from the style of Constantinople itself, spread to the provinces by Imperial patronage, which is clearly recorded for the major pilgrimage sites.
[36] After the Persians under Khosrau II took and sacked Jerusalem in 614, and the Muslim conquest of the region in the 630s, pilgrimages to the Holy Land sites were greatly reduced, and pilgrim souvenirs with them.
[37] With the exception of the somewhat variant example from Sant Pere de Casseres (see below), which may be later, it is usually assumed that all the Monza-type ampullae predate the Persian sack, and probably come from the late sixth century, a few years before Theodelinda's reign.
The notula ("little note"), a very early papyrus document, now itself regarded as a treasure, records that a cleric called John, during the reign of Pope Gregory the Great (died 604), transferred (the nature of the transaction, whether a gift from Gregory, or John, or a purchase, is not clear) to Theodelinda small containers with oil that had been in lamps burning before the tombs of saints in Rome.
