Note 26 — GOLD, SILVER, AND JEWEL WORK

This form of reliquary was not uncommon. Morales, in his Viaje Sacro, describes another one, also preserved at Santiago, saying that it was a bust of silver, life-size and gilded to the breast, “with a large diadem of rays and many stones, both small and great, all or most of them of fine quality, though not of the most precious.” Other bust-reliquaries belong, or have belonged, to the Cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo.