Vilnius (?), late 16th c. (after 1591) – early 17th c. (until 1621)

The ciborium was originally meant for the Church of St James (St Jacob) in Riga but when the Jesuits left there, it was brought to Vilnius. The fact that it belonged to the Riga church, now the cathedral, is confirmed by a unique decoration on the lid – a small figure of the apostle St James the Great symbolising the title of the church, standing under a renaissance-style canopy, with characteristic attributes: a book, a pilgrim walking stick, a flask and a hat adorned with a seashell. There are also three engravings of the three newly beatified Jesuits of that time – St Stanislaus Kostka, St Aloysius Gonzaga, and St Francis Xavier. The meanings encoded in the decorations of this magnificent ciborium are greatly complemented by the symbols on its eight-leafed base: the traditional Jesuit IHS emblem and the mythical bird, the Phoenix that symbolises Catholicism overcoming the Reformation in Livonia and rising again from the ashes.