Introduction

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is Christianity's most sacred building. Believed to be the site of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it has been a destination for pilgrims for two millennia. Several Christian denominations worship at, and share the care of, the church: Greek (Orthodox), Latin (Roman Catholic), Armenian, Syrian Orthodox, Coptic, and Ethiopian. Their coexistence at the Holy Sepulcher has not always been easy, reflecting the conflicts that have beset the Middle East since antiquity.

In the first half of the fourteenth century, the pope (head of the Roman Catholic Church) entrusted the Order of Friars Minor, generally known as Franciscans, with the care of the Christian sites in the Holy Land, thereby establishing the Custody of the Holy Land. Since that time, the Custody—whose head, the Custos, reports directly to the pope—has continued its mission in the Middle East. To this day, the Custody fulfills its task of “guarding the holy places, promoting divine worship within them, fostering the devotion of pilgrims, carrying out the task of evangelization there, exercising pastoral activity in accordance with the spirituality of the Order, and establishing and conducting apostolic works.”

Throughout the Custody's history, European Catholic monarchs, nations, and pious individuals sent gifts to Jerusalem to be used at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and other churches in the Middle East. These were predominantly goldsmith works and liturgical vestments specially made for the occasion. Only in the 1980s did the Latin Treasure, as it came to be known, begin to be studied by scholars and known outside Jerusalem. Construction of the Terra Santa Museum—a new museum to house these works of art for posterity—is currently underway at the Monastery of St. Savior in Jerusalem.

The works of art in this exhibition, shown here for the first time in the United States, were created for the Custody between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the time, Christians were a minority in Jerusalem as the Middle East was part of the Ottoman Empire and thus ruled by Muslim leaders. Uninterruptedly owned by the Franciscans, the objects seen here offer an extraordinary, and in many instances unique, survival of these types of works.