Sacred Skin: The Legend of St. Bartholomew in Spanish Art and Literature

Andrew M. Beresford is Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Durham. He has published widely on Spanish hagiography and devotional topics, including books on Agnes (2007), Thaïs and Pelagia (2007), and Agatha and Lucy (2010).

• PrefaceList of FiguresAbbreviations1Hagiographic Tradition and the Transformation of Identity: The Origin and Evolution of the Cult of St. Bartholomew1Bartholomew and the Classical Inheritance2Bartholomew in Iberian Literature and Culture3Bartholomew’s Hagiographic Legacy2The Infant on the Mountainside: The Abduction of St. Bartholomew in Early Iberian Art1The Legend of the Infant in Early Iberian Art2Bartholomew and the Diabolical Double3Prelapsarian Providence and the Infant on the Mountainside4The Cult of the Infant3St. Bartholomew’s Evangelical Ministry and the Cosmic Drama of Conversion1Bartholomew’s Threefold Ministry2Bartholomew’s Exorcistic Drama3Idolatry and Iconoclash: Bartholomew as Double-Edged Sword4Holy Water: Bartholomew as Baptizer4The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew in Early Iberian Art1From Ministry to Martyrdom2Flaying in Early Iberian Art3Flayed Skin and the Fragmented Self: Bartholomew as Dermaphore4Flaying, Decapitation, and Bartholomew as Devotional Icon5St. Bartholomew and the Formalization of Hagiographic Identity: Spanish Art in the Seventeenth Century1Bartholomew and the Early Iberian Legacy2Bartholomew: Portraits and Apostolates3Flaying as Narrative Representation4Colophon: Beyond Ribera, Tradition and InnovationAppendixesTexts and SourcesAppendix 1: A Fourteenth-Century Castilian Reworking of Pseudo-Abdias’sActa fabulosaAppendix 2: The Gran flos sanctorum (Compilation A)Appendix 3: The Leyenda de los santos (Compilation B)Appendix 4: Flos sanctorum from Fundación Casa de Alba MS 30 (Alternative Reading Related to Compilation B)Appendix 5: Locations in Spain with Bartholomew as PatronWorks CitedIndex

"Beresford’s richly detailed study proves that Bartholomew is much more than his skin, and that carefully woven, historically grounded interdisciplinary studies can underpin theoretical contributions (and vice versa). At once an extraordinarily deep dive into a very particular case of martyr cult in a particular region and also a wide-ranging study that covers over a dozen centuries of narrative and art alongside insights from contemporary theories of embodiment, Beresford’s Sacred Skin will reward both the specialist in medieval Iberia and any historian of art, body, or religion who seeks a model for how technical reconstruction of the evolution of a saint (or any influential figure) can address crucially broad questions such as identity, inter-religious conflict, or global historiography. [...] the true achievement of this text is to model the extraordinary range of methodologies, theories, and historical contexts it requires to fully probe a cultic devotion and its expression over centuries in a particular region. Beresford’s work is breathtaking in its methodological scope and profoundly comprehensive in its historical precision. No careful reader can end up anything less than an expert in the skin of the saint."Jessica A. Boon, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill in La Corónica, 49.3 (2021)