ciborium - Synonyms of ciborium | Antonyms of ciborium | Definition of ciborium | Example of ciborium | Word Synonyms API

Article	Example
Ciborium (architecture)	The ciborium arose in the context of a wide range of canopies, both honorific and practical, used in the ancient world to cover both important persons and religious images or objects. Some of these were temporary and portable, including those using poles and textiles, and others permanent structures. Roman emperors are often shown underneath such a structure, often called an "aedicula" ("little house"), which term is reserved in modern architectural usage to a niche-like structure attached to a wall, but was originally used more widely. Examples can be seen on many coins, the Missorium of Theodosius I, the Chronography of 354, and other Late Antique works. The Holy of holies of the Jewish Temple of Jerusalem, a room whose entrance was covered by the "parochet", a curtain or "veil", was certainly regarded as a precedent by the church; the "naos" containing the cult image in an Egyptian temple is perhaps a comparable structure.
Ciborium (architecture)	Examples in Orthodox manuscripts mostly show rounded dome roofs, but surviving early examples in the West often placed a circular canopy over four columns, with tiers of little columns supporting two or more stages rising to a central finial, giving a very open appearance, and allowing candles to be placed along the beams between the columns. The example by the Cosmati in the gallery is similar to another 12th-century Italian ciborium now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and that in the Basilica di San Nicola in Bari. By the Romanesque, gabled forms, as at Sant'Ambrogio, or ones with a flat top, as at the Euphrasian Basilica (illustrated) or St Mark's, Venice, are more typical.
Ciborium (architecture)	A single curtain hung, usually on a wall, behind an altar, is called a dossal.
Ciborium (architecture)	The word "ciborium", in both senses, is said to derive from the cup-shaped seed vessel of the Egyptian water-lily "nelumbium speciosum", which is supposed to have been used as a cup itself, and to resemble both the metal cup shape and, when inverted, the dome of the architectural feature, though the Grove Dictionary of Art, the Catholic Encyclopedia and other sources are somewhat dubious about this etymology, which goes back to at least the Late Antique period. An alternative is to derive the word from "cibes" ("food"). Both senses of the word were in use in classical times. The word "baldachin" derives from a luxurious type of cloth from Baghdad, from which name the word is derived, in English as "baudekin" and other spellings. Matthew Paris records that Henry III of England wore a robe "de preciosissimo baldekino" at a ceremony at Westminster Abbey in 1247. The word for the cloth became the word for the ceremonial canopies made from the cloth.
Ciborium (container)	The ancient Greek word referred to the cup-shaped seed vessel of the Egyptian water-lily "nelumbium speciosum" and came to describe a drinking cup made from that seed casing, or in a similar shape. These vessels were particularly common in ancient Egypt and the Greek East. The word "'ciborium'" was also used in classical Latin to describe such cups, although the only example to have survived is in one of Horace’s odes (2.7.21–22).
Ciborium (container)	In medieval Latin, and in English, "Ciborium" more commonly refers to a covered container used in Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and related churches to store the consecrated hosts of the sacrament of Holy Communion. It resembles the shape of a chalice but its bowl is more round than conical, and takes its name from its cover, surmounted by a cross or other sacred design. In the Early Christian Church, Holy Communion was not kept in churches for fear of sacrilege or desecration. Later, the first ciboria were kept at homes to be handy for the Last Rites where needed. In churches, a ciborium is usually kept in a tabernacle or aumbry. In some cases, it may be veiled (see photograph below) to indicate the presence of the consecrated hosts. It is typically made, or at least plated, in a precious metal.
Ciborium (architecture)	In ecclesiastical architecture, a ciborium ("ciborion": κιβώριον in Greek) is a canopy or covering supported by columns, freestanding in the sanctuary, that stands over and covers the altar in a basilica or other church. It may also be known by the more general term of baldachin, though ciborium is often considered more correct for examples in churches. Early ciboria had curtains hanging from rods between the columns, so that the altar could be concealed from the congregation at points in the liturgy. Smaller examples may cover other objects in a church. In a very large church, a ciborium is an effective way of visually highlighting the altar, and emphasizing its importance. The altar and ciborium are often set upon a dais to raise it above the floor of the sanctuary.
Ciborium (architecture)	A ciborium is also a covered, chalice-shaped container for Eucharistic hosts. In Italian the word is often used for the tabernacle on the altar, which is incorrect in English.
Ciborium (architecture)	A very famous ciborium that apparently did not stand over an altar was one that apparently functioned as a quasi-reliquary shrine or symbolic tomb for the missing remains of St Demetrius of Thessaloniki in Hagios Demetrios, the large and important church erected in Thessaloniki over the mass grave in which he was traditionally buried. This appears, from various accounts of miracles associated with it, and depictions in mosaic, to have been a free-standing roofed structure inside the church, at one side of the nave, with doors or walls in precious metal all around it. It was hexagonal and made of or covered with silver; inside there was a couch or bed. The roof had flat triangular panels rising shallowly to a central point. It was rebuilt at least once. A medium-sized 13th-century ciborium in a corner of San Marco, Venice, known as the "capitello" ("little chapel"), was used for the display of important icons and relics in the Middle Ages.
Ciborium (architecture)	The free-standing domed ciborium-like structure that stood over what was thought to be the site of Jesus's tomb within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was called the "aedicula" (or "edicule"), and was a key sight for pilgrims, often shown in art, for example in the Monza Ampullae. This structure, erected under Constantine the Great, may itself have been important in spreading the idea of ciboria over altars. The later structure now in its place is far larger, with solid stone walls; the silver plaques covering the old structure were apparently used to make coins to pay the army defending Jerusalem against Saladin in the desperate days of 1187. Ciboria were placed over the shrines of martyrs, which then had churches built over them, with the altar over the spot believed to be the site of the burial. They also served to shelter the altar from dust and the like from high ceilings that could only rarely be reached.