ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for the significance of Thomas’s cult, and objects produced in that milieu, in a nexus of exchange between Medici Florence and India. Accounts beginning with Theophilus to Constantine in 354 C.E. reported that Thomas’s conversion of locals in Southern India had resulted in a community of “Thomas Christians” in and around the site of his burial in San Tome. Liturgical devices often accompanied the granite crosses that serve as the simple decorative centerpiece for many altarpieces in Saint Thomas churches throughout Kerala and Tamil Nadu. A valuable, organic material, tortoiseshell had been used since antiquity in the production of luxury items and was familiar to wealthy Europeans. The decorative elements of the rockery ivories vary but often include flora, fauna, and a spring or water source, and depict the reclining figure of Mary Magdalene at the base of the sculpture.
