The Key to the Brescia Casket Typology and the Early Christian Imagination
- List Price: $60.00
- Binding: Paperback
- Publisher: Univ of Notre Dame Pr
- Publish date: 02/01/2002
Among the fifty-nine carvings on the Brescia Casket, most of them depicting biblical events, are five scenes of the Passion, more than any other carved object prior to this time period. These are arranged in historical order, which is also rare in fourth-century Christian art. Tkacz contends that the Casket is in effect a visual sermon on the unity of the Bible's two testaments, an important theological issue of the time.
This wonderfully illustrated and rigorously interdisciplinary volume, funded by a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, grounds the typological program of the Brescia Casket in fourth-century thought. In so doing, it suggests the real possibility that typology is more important for the understanding of Early Christian art than has previously been appreciated.