My wife and I recently visited an exhibition, or rather three exhibitions in one, in Beaune, the elegant wine capital of Burgundy in the heart of France. Entitled “The Treasures of European Cathedrals: Liège to Beaune,” it was put on at the Museum of Fine Arts, the Hôtel-Dieu and the Collégiale and contained a superlative collection of altar ware, reliquaries, paintings, tapestries, liturgical garments, jewelry and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia from Christian centers throughout Western Europe. The quality of materials, standards of workmanship and sheer ostentation of these trappings of religious observance in the Roman Catholic cathedrals and monasteries of […]