With its right hand, the figure points downward while the left, today damaged but still visible in situ, points toward Martin. The figure’s small size and wavy hair give it a childlike, even androgynous appearance the collar and borders of its long white robe are ornately patterned its feet are bare. 1 It depicts the nimbed saint Martin, seated and with book in hand, confronted by a richly garbed figure whose profile face displays brown skin, a large whitened eye, and a rounded, low-bridged nose. The work in question is a small but lively scene located on a soffit within the extensive ensemble of vault paintings that were added to the Panteón in the early twelfth century, very likely, as Therese Martin has argued, after 1109, when Queen Urraca (d. The present article aims to remedy this by considering how an exceptional painted portrayal of the Temptation of Saint Martin, still in situ in the so-called “Panteón de los Reyes” of San Isidoro, sheds new light on the cultural sophistication and international ambitions that led the patrons of San Isidoro to bestow upon their church the costly, transculturally resonant objects that survive in the treasury today. The objects may not always be so forthcoming, however, about the nature and outlook of those who viewed them, nor about the wider web of ideas, values and aspirations within which the treasury took shape. Many essays in this volume demonstrate how the caskets, vessels, textiles, and other precious works at the center of the Treasury project reward close scholarly scrutiny with vivid, often surprising testimony about their origins, their movements, and above all, the messages that they carried among patrons, makers, and viewers in the Leonese capital. Objects are at their most eloquent when studied intimately, and those in the San Isidoro treasury are no exception.
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