In the first full-length study of Judith of Flanders (c. 1032-1094), Mary Dockray-Miller provides a narrative of Judith's life through analysis of the books and art objects she commissioned and collected. Organizing her book chronologically by Judith's marriages and commissions, Dockray-Miller argues that Judith consciously and successfully deployed patronage to support her political and marital maneuverings in the eleventh-century European political theater. During her marriage to Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria, she commissioned at least four Gospel books for herself in addition to the numerous art objects that she gave to English churches as part of her devotional practices. The multiple treasures Judith donated to Weingarten Abbey while she was married to Welf of Bavaria culminated in the posthumous gift of the relic of the Holy Blood, still celebrated as the Abbey's most important holding. Lavishly illustrated with never before published full-color reproductions from Monte Cassino MS 437 and Fulda Landesbibliothek MS Aa.21, The Books and the Life of Judith of Flanders features English translations of relevant excerpts from the Vita Oswinii and De Translatione Sanguinis Christi. Dockray-Miller's book is a fascinating account of this intriguing woman who successfully negotiated the pitfalls of being on the losing side of both the Norman Conquest and the Investiture Controversy.

The Carolingian 'Renaissance' of the late eighth and ninth centuries, in what is now France, western Germany and northern Italy, transformed medieval European culture. At the same time it engendered a need to ensure that clergy, monks and laity embraced orthodox Christian doctrine. This book offers a fresh perspective on the period by examining transformations in a major current of thought as revealed through literature and artistic imagery: the doctrine of the Passion and the crucified Christ. The evidence of a range of literary sources is surveyed - liturgical texts, poetry, hagiography, letters, homilies, exegetical and moral tractates - but special attention is given to writings from the discussions and debates concerning artistic images, Adoptionism, predestination and the Eucharist.

From its foundation in the fourth century to its fall to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth, the city of Constantinople boasted a collection of antiquities unrivalled by any city of the medieval world. The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople reconstructs the collection from the time that the city was founded by Constantine the Great through the sixth-century reign of the emperor Justinian. Drawing on medieval literary sources and, to a lesser extent, graphic and archaeological material, it identifies and describes the antiquities that were known to have stood in the city's public spaces. Individual displays of statues are analysed as well as examined in conjunction with one another against the city's topographical setting, in an effort to understand how ancient sculpture was used to create a distinct historical identity for Constantinople.

This 1999 book is concerned with the pictorial language of gesture revealed in Anglo-Saxon art, and its debt to classical Rome. Reginald Dodwell was an eminent art historian and former Director of the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. In this, his last book, he notes a striking similarity of both form and meaning between Anglo-Saxon gestures and those in illustrated manuscripts of the plays of Terence. He presents evidence for dating the archetype of the Terence manuscripts to the mid-third century, and argues persuasively that their gestures reflect actual stage conventions. He identifies a repertory of eighteen Terentian gestures whose meaning can be ascertained from the dramatic contexts in which they occur, and conducts a detailed examination of the use of the gestures in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The book, which is extensively illustrated, illuminates our understanding of the vigour of late Anglo-Saxon art and its ability to absorb and transpose continental influence.

Sir Steven Runciman's History of the Crusades (1951-4) remains widely read and influential to this day but represents only a part of his wide-ranging, erudite and immensely readable literary activity. His early work focused on Byzantium in the tenth century (The Emperor Romanus Lecapenus) and the history of the first Bulgarian empire. Later he wrote with authority on ecclesiastical relations between the eastern and western churches (The Eastern Schism), more generally on Byzantine culture (Byzantine Style and Civilization), with forays into medieval diplomacy (The Sicilian Vespers) and British colonial society (The White Rajahs). With a diplomatic past which informed his studies, he was the doyen of Byzantine studies in Britain. This volume of essays on topics relevant to Sir Steven's interests, long planned in his honour by British Byzantinists of all generations, includes a memoir of his life and a full bibliography of his work.

Richly-illustrated consideration of the meaning of the carvings of non-human beings, from centaurs to eagles, found in ecclesiastical settings. Representations of monsters and the monstrous are common in medieval art and architecture, from the grotesques in the borders of illuminated manuscripts to the symbol of the "green man", widespread in churches and cathedrals. These mysterious depictions are frequently interpreted as embodying or mitigating the fears symptomatic of a "dark age". This book, however, considers an alternative scenario: in what ways did monsters in twelfth-century sculpture help audiences envision, perhaps even achieve, various ambitions? Using examples of Romanesque sculpture from across Europe, with a focus on France and northern Portugal, the author suggests that medieval representations of monsterscould service ideals, whether intellectual, political, religious, and social, even as they could simultaneously articulate fears; he argues that their material presence energizes works of art in paradoxical, even contradictory ways. In this way, Romanesque monsters resist containment within modern interpretive categories and offer testimony to the density and nuance of the medieval imagination. KIRK AMBROSE is Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Art and Art History, University of Colorado Boulder.

Im Zuge der kaiserlichen Toleranzedikte und der "Bekehrung" Kaiser Konstantins konnte das Christentum seit dem 4. Jahrhundert starker in die OEffentlichkeit treten und seine Kultbauten und Versammlungsorte nach seinen Bedurfnissen gestalten und ausschmucken. Die prachtigen Mosaikfussboeden der spatantiken Kirchen an der oberen Adria sind grossartige Zeugnisse der fruhchristlichen Archaologie und Kultur. Der Verfasser untersucht diese Pavimente mit ihren Inschriften, den sogenannten Offerenteninschriften: Sie geben Auskunft uber die Namen der Stifter und deren Beitrag zum jeweiligen Bodenmosaik. Im ersten Teil des Bandes bietet der Autor einen historischen UEberblick. Es zeigt sich, dass die Wurzeln des auffalligen wie ratselhaften Brauches, Fussboeden als Bild- und Schriftmedium zu nutzen, bis ins heidnische Altertum zuruckreichen. Im Untersuchungsgebiet Histria et Venetia war der musivische (eingelegte) Bodenschmuck schon sehr stark verbreitet, bevor er in die kirchlichen Gebaude rund um das Mittelmeer seinen Einzug hielt. Der zweite Teil der Arbeit behandelt die kunst- und auch religionsgeschichtlichen Besonderheiten der adriatischen Offerenteninschriften: Sie erlauben Ruckschlusse sowohl auf die spatantike Kirchenorganisation wie auch auf die liturgischen Brauche und Heilsvorstellungen der Glaubigen.

For her commissioning and performance of a French vernacular version of the Arabic Tale of the Thousand and One Nights - recorded in one of the most vivid and sumptuous late thirteenth-century manuscripts extant - as well as for her numerous other commissions, Queen Marie de Brabant (1260-1321) was heralded as a literary and intellectual patron comparable to Alexander the Great and Charlemagne. Nevertheless, classic studies of the late medieval period understate Marie's connection to the contemporary rise of secular interests at the French court. My book, Pleasure and Politics at the Court of France: the Artistic Patronage of Marie de Brabant (1260-1321), by reshaping the inquiry into court patronage, posits that the historical record reveals exciting and important contributions Marie de Brabant made to this burgeoning secular court. This emerging importance of the secular and redefinition of the sacred during these last decades of Capetian rule becomes all the more striking when juxtaposed to the pious tone of the lengthy reign of Louis IX (1214-1270), which had ended just four years before Marie's marriage to his son. That Marie often chose innovative materials and iconographies - that would later in the fourteenth century become the norm - to create these images signals her importance in late medieval patronage. These themes of court, culture, politics, and gender reflect and connect the chronological and methodological organization of my fully drafted manuscript. A substantial revision and expansion of my dissertation, the book examines Marie's commissions from her arrival in Paris in 1274 until her death in 1321 and analyzes the dynamics of her patronage and its impact on other women and men of the royal house.

Art and Writing in the Maya Cities, AD 600-800 examines an important aspect of the visual cultures of the ancient Maya in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras. During a critical period of cultural evolution, artistic production changed significantly, as calligraphy became an increasingly important formal element in Maya aesthetics and was used extensively in monumental building, sculptural programs and small-scale utilitarian objects. Adam Herring's study analyzes art works, visual programs, and cultural sites of memory, providing an anthropologically-informed description of ancient Maya culture, vision, and artistic practice. An inquiry into the contexts and perceptions of the ancient Maya city, his book melds epigraphic and iconographic methodologies with the critical tradition of art-historical interpretation.

The Lithic Garden offers innovative perspectives on the role of ornament in medieval church design. Focusing on the foliate friezes articulating iconic French monuments such as Amiens Cathedral, it demonstrates that church builders strategically used organic motifs to integrate the interior and exterior of their structures, thus reinforcing the connections and distinctions between the entirety of the sacred edifice and the profane world beyond its boundaries. With this exquisitely illustrated monograph, Mailan S. Doquang argues that, contrary to widespread belief, monumental flora was not just an extravagant embellishment or secondary byproduct, but a semantically-charged, critical design component that inflected the stratified spaces of churches in myriad ways. By situating the proliferation of foliate friezes within the context of the Crusades, The Lithic Garden provides insights into the networks of exchange between France, Byzantium, and the Levant, contributing to the "global turn" in art and architectural History.

New interpretations of an art form ubiquitious in the Middle Ages. English alabasters played a seminal role in the artistic development of late medieval and early modern Europe. Carvings made of this lustrous white stone were sold throughout England and abroad, and as a result many survived the iconoclasm that destroyed so much else from this period. They are a unique and valuable witness to the material culture of the Middle Ages. This volume incorporates a variety of new approaches to these artefacts, employing methodologies drawn from a number of different disciplines. Its chapters explore a range of key points connected to alabasters: their origins, their general history and their social, cultural, intellectual and devotional contexts. ZULEIKA MURAT is a Research Fellow and Lecturer in the History of Medieval Art at the University of Padua. Contributors: Jennifer Alexander, Jon Bayliss, Claire Blakey, Stephanie De Roemer, Rachel King, AndrewKirkman, Aleksandra Lipinska, Zuleika Murat, Luca Palozzi, Sophie Phillips, Nigel Ramsay, Christina Welch, Philip Weller, Kim Woods, Michaela Zoeschg

Late Byzantium Reconsidered offers a unique collection of essays analysing the artistic achievements of Mediterranean centres linked to the Byzantine Empire between 1261, when the Palaiologan dynasty re-conquered Constantinople, and the decades after 1453, when the Ottomans took the city, marking the end of the Empire. These centuries were characterised by the rising of socio-political elites, in regions such as Crete, Italy, Laconia, Serbia, and Trebizond, that, while sharing cultural and artistic values influenced by the Byzantine Empire, were also developing innovative and original visual and cultural standards. The comparative and interdisciplinary framework offered by this volume aims to challenge established ideas concerning the late Byzantine period such as decline, renewal, and innovation. By examining specific case studies of cultural production from within and outside Byzantium, the chapters in this volume highlight the intrinsic innovative nature of the socio-cultural identities active in the late medieval and early modern Mediterranean vis-a-vis the rhetorical assumption of the cultural contraction of the Byzantine Empire.

Pius VI was the last great papal patron of the arts in the Renaissance and Baroque tradition. This book presents the first synthetic study of his artistic patronage and policies in an effort to understand how he used the arts strategically, as a means of countering the growing hostility to the old order and the supremacy of the papacy. Pius' initiatives included the grand sacristy for St Peter's, the new Vatican Museum of ancient art, and the re-erection of Egyptian obelisks. These projects, along with Pius' use of prints, paintings, and performances, created Pius' public persona, and helped to anchor Rome's place as the cultural capital of Europe.

In recent years the study of medieval courts has become a flourishing field. The courts of kings and popes, or of the Burgundian dukes, have usually attracted most attention. This book offers by contrast a wide-ranging study of a little-known, medium-sized court - that of Guelders in the Low Countries. Guelders offers an excellent vantage point for the study of European late medieval court culture. It was surrounded by the vast territories of the dukes of Burgundy, and it felt the growing power of the Valois dukes, yet the duchy managed to remain independent until 1473. Rich archival sources - including a long and virtually unbroken series of ducal accounts - reveal much about the rise of territorial or 'proto-national' awareness and about the role of the court in this process. The book also conveys the striking cultural and political richness of the court, poised between French and German spheres of influence.

Richly-illustrated consideration of the meaning of the carvings of non-human beings, from centaurs to eagles, found in ecclesiastical settings. Representations of monsters and the monstrous are common in medieval art and architecture, from the grotesques in the borders of illuminated manuscripts to the symbol of the "green man", widespread in churches and cathedrals. These mysterious depictions are frequently interpreted as embodying or mitigating the fears symptomatic of a "dark age". This book, however, considers an alternative scenario: in what ways did monsters in twelfth-century sculpture help audiences envision, perhaps even achieve, various ambitions? Using examples of Romanesque sculpture from across Europe, with a focus on France and northern Portugal, the author suggests that medieval representations of monsterscould service ideals, whether intellectual, political, religious, and social, even as they could simultaneously articulate fears; he argues that their material presence energizes works of art in paradoxical, even contradictory ways. In this way, Romanesque monsters resist containment within modern interpretive categories and offer testimony to the density and nuance of the medieval imagination. KIRK AMBROSE is Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Art and Art History, University of Colorado Boulder.

Glorious works of art as well as chronicles of a past age, illuminated manuscripts supply some of the finest and best-preserved evidence of what life was like during the medieval and Renaissance periods. This little Tiny Folios book contains spectacular examples of early book illustration from one of the greatest libraries of illuminated manuscripts in the world. 240 full-color illus.

This book examines the architecture and urbanism in the Venetian colonies of the Eastern Mediterranean and how their built environments express the close cultural ties with both Venice and Byzantium. Using the island of Crete and its capital city, Candia (modern Herakleion) as a case study, Maria Georgopoulou exposes the dynamic relationship that existed between colonizer and colony. Georgopoulou demonstrates how the Venetian colonists manipulated Crete's past history in order to support and legitimate colonial rule, particularly through the appropriation of older Byzantine traditions in civic and religious ceremonies.

The classic work on the techniques, language and interpretation of icons in the context of theology and faith. Commentary and analysis of the main types of icons. Lavishly illustrated, with 160 pages of text with drawings, 13 b/w and 51 color plates.

The German mystic Gertrude the Great of Helfta (c.1256-1301) is a globally venerated saint who is still central to the Sacred Heart Devotion. Her visions were first recorded in Latin, and they inspired generations of readers in processes of creative rewriting. The vernacular copies of these redactions challenge the long-standing idea that translations do not bear the same literary or historical weight as the originals upon which they are based. In this study, Racha Kirakosian argues that manuscript transmission reveals how redactors serve as cultural agents. Examining the late medieval vernacular copies of Gertrude's visions, she demonstrates how redactors recast textual materials, reflected changes in piety, and generated new forms of devotional practices. She also shows how these texts served as a bridge between material culture, in the form of textiles and book illumination, and mysticism. Kirakosian's multi-faceted study is an important contribution to current debates on medieval manuscript culture, authorship, and translation as objects of study in their own right.

Two volume set The Second Council of Nicaea (787) decreed that religious images were to set up in churches and venerated. It thereby established the cult of icons as a central element in the piety of the Orthodox churches, as it has remained ever since. In the West its decrees received a new emphasis in the Counter-Reformation, in the defence of the role of art in religion. It is a text of prime importance for the iconoclast controversy of eighth-century Byzantium, one of the most explored and contested topics in Byzantine history. But it has also a more general significance - in the history of culture and the history of art. This edition offers the first translation that is based on the new critical edition of this text in the Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum series, and the first full commentary of this work that has ever been written. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers from a variety of disciplines.

Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck (c. 1390-1441) towered above his contemporaries. With his unprecedented technique, scientific knowledge and unparalleled powers of observation, Van Eyck lifted oil painting to previously unseen heights and helped determine the course of Western art. In 2020 the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent will host the largest ever exhibition of Van Eyck's work. An Optical Revolution includes artworks by Van Eyck, several pieces from his studio and international masterpieces from the late Middle Ages, which makes the world of Van Eyck more tangible than ever. This tie-in exhibition catalogue unravels some of the myths that surround Van Eyck and his technique while showing his complete oeuvre and his influence in a new perspective. Central to the exhibition are the eight restored exterior panels of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, a highly exceptional loan from St Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent. After the exhibition the panels will return to their original place in the cathedral and never again be shown elsewhere. Including essays by leading experts from around the world, this book will be an indispensable resource for Van Eyck fans and scholars alike.

This study examines the narrative paintings of the Passion of Christ created in Italy during the thirteenth century. Demonstrating the radical changes that occurred in the depiction of the Passion cycle during the Duecento, a period that has traditionally been dismissed as artistically stagnant, Anne Derbes analyzes the relationship between these new images and similar renderings found in Byzantine sources. She argues that the Franciscan order, which was active in the Levant by the 1230s, was largely responsible for introducing these images into Italy.

This book provides a standard introduction to Byzantine art and architecture for the university student and for anyone seriously interested in the subject. It covers the whole Byzantine period from the fourth to the fourteenth century in a systematic manner, by period, dealing with material culture under main section headings (such as architecture, sculpture, monumental art, minor arts and manuscripts) for ease of reference. The text is illustrated by well over 300 maps, plans and halftones.

The Virgin and Child Hodegetria was a widely venerated Byzantine image depicting the Virgin holding and pointing to her son as the way to salvation. In this book, Jaroslav Folda traces the appropriation of this image by thirteenth-century Crusader and central Italian painters, where the Virgin Mary is transformed from the human mother of god, the Theotokos, of Byzantine icons, to the resplendent Madonna radiant in her heavenly home with Christ and the angels. This transformation, Folda demonstrates, was brought about by using chrysography, or golden highlighting, which came to be used on both the Virgin and Child. This book shows the important role played by Crusader painters in bringing about this shift and in disseminating the new imagery to Central Italy. By focusing on the Virgin and Child Hodegetria, Folda reveals complex artistic interchanges and influences extending across the Mediterranean from Byzantium and the Holy Land to Italy.