An examination of the passion and crucifixion of Christ as depicted in the visual and religious culture of Anglo-Norman England. The twelfth century has long been recognised as a period of unusual vibrancy and importance, witnessing seminal changes in the inter-related spheres of theology, devotional practice, and iconography, especially with regard to the cross and the crucifixion of Christ. However, the visual arts of the period have been somewhat neglected, scholarly activity tending to concentrate on its textual and intellectual heritage. This book explores this extraordinarily rich and vibrant visual and religious culture, offering new and exciting insights into its significance, and studying the dynamic relationships between ideas and images in England between 1066 and the first decades of the thirteenth century. In addition to providing the first extensive survey of surviving Passion imagery from the period, it explores those images' contexts: intellectual, cultural, religious, and art-historical. It thus not only enhances our understanding of the place of the cross in Anglo-Norman culture; it also demonstrates how new image theories and patterns of agency shaped the life of the later medieval church.

This is a study of early Christian (first three centuries C. E.) attitudes toward art. The traditional view is that the early Christians produced no art because they were opposed in principle to visual images. When Christian art finally does appear, it has been considered a popular development and a decline from earlier, more austere spiritual values. Corby Finney here refutes these traditional understandings, through a close examination of the archaeological and literary evidence in its cultural and social context. He finds that it was primarily the Christian belief in the invisibility of God that inhibited the production of images, rather than opposition to images as such. A contributory factor, he believes was the relative invisibility of the Christians themselves within Roman society. Christina art "came out" chiefly when the Christian acquired a legal status and the capacity to own property and to build (and hence to decorate) places of worship. Before this, says Finney, very little differentiated the Christians from society at large, and certainly not outward signs. When they did use decorated material objects (seals and lamps) they drew on symbols already in use. Offering an important corrective to prevailing views about early Christianity, this study will be of great importance not only to scholars and students of Christian theology and history, but to art historians as well.

Goldsmiths' products examined, combining discussion of object with analysis of inscription and design, and literary and archaeological evidence for smiths and their work. Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, goldsmiths produced work of a high standard in both design and craftsmanship, both for personal adornment, and to embellish bookbindings, reliquaries, vessels and weapons. Some works are well known, particularly the magnificent gold and garnet regalia from Sutton Hoo, but this represents only a fraction even of the surviving work, and much more has been lost. This book is the first to look at the goldsmiths' products through the eyes of both a specialist in the period and a practical craftsman, combining close examination of the surface and structure of the objects with analysis of inscriptions and evidence for design, and with literary and visualsources of evidence for smiths and their work. Archaeological and documentary evidence for workshops, tools and working processes is also assessed, and up-to-date technical information on materials and techniques is juxtaposed with new practical research to throw light on manufacturing and decorative processes, and, more widely, to give a fresh idea of the position of the goldsmith in his society. Dr ELIZABETH COATSWORTH is Senior Lecturer inthe Department of History of Art and Design, Manchester Metropolitan University; Dr MICHAEL PINDER is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Architecture, Landscape and 3DD, at the same university.

Integrating the written sources with Rome's surviving remains and, most importantly, with the results of the past half-century's worth of medieval archaeology in the city, The Making of Medieval Rome is the first in-depth profile of Rome's transformation over a millennium to appear in any language in over forty years. Though the main focus rests on Rome's urban trajectory in topographical, architectural, and archaeological terms, Hendrik folds aspects of ecclesiastical, political, social, military, economic, and intellectual history into the narrative in order to illustrate how and why the cityscape evolved as it did during the thousand years between the end of the Roman Empire and the start of the Renaissance. A wide-ranging synthesis of decades' worth of specialized research and remarkable archaeological discoveries, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in how and why the ancient imperial capital transformed into the spiritual heart of Western Christendom.

Modern audiences are most likely to encounter Yvain and other Arthurian characters in literature. We read Chretien de Troyes's Yvain or Hartmann von Aue's Iwein, and easily slip into the assumption that during the Middle Ages the title character existed primarily, or even exclusively, in these canonical texts. James A. Rushing, Jr. contends, however, that many times the number of people who heard or read Chretien or Hartmann must have known the Ywain story through the varieties of second-hand narration, hearsay, and conversation that we may call secondary orality. And man other people would have known the story through its visual representations. Exploring the complex relationships between literature and the visual arts in the Middle Ages, Images of Adventure: Ywain in the Visual Arts examines pictorial representations of the story of Ywain, knight of the Round Table, from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries. Of the images Rushing studies, only those found in the manuscripts of Chretien's Yvain are placed in any obvious relation with a written text, and not even they can be construed as straightforward illustrations. Images of Ywain are presented without any textual anchor in the thirteenth-century wall paintings from Schmalkalden in eastern German and Rodenegg Castle in the South Tyrol; on the rich embroidery sewn in the fourteenth century for the patrician Malterer family of Freiburg; and in a group of English misericords that show Ywain caught in a moment of high adventure and perhaps comic embarrassment. "Pictures," according to Pope Gregory the Great, "are the literature of the laity." Navigating between the traditional disciplines of literary study and art history, Images of Adventure offers at once a detailed catalog of Ywain images, a series of close "readings" of works of art, and a concrete sense of what Gregory's oft-quoted statement may actually have meant in practice.

Despite China's long tradition of venerating the past as the ultimate source of cultural authority, the discourse of antiquity prior to the Song period (960-1279) demonstrated little concern for ancient objects. With a focus on physical artifacts of the past, Song intellectuals began a new discipline, "the study of bronze and stone" (jinshixue), that generated collections of items such as bronze vessels and bells, stone steles, and ink rubbings of inscriptions carved or cast on objects. This first comprehensive study in English of the Song antiquarian movement and how it refashioned the distant past uses textual and material evidence to examine this development, which has had long-lasting influence on Chinese intellectual history and on the preservation of material objects. In addition to collecting and comparing artifacts, Song antiquaries compiled extensive catalogs that included drawings, measurements, and meticulous descriptions. Their studies have contributed to the way history has been documented since the eleventh century and serve as a basis for archaeology of the modern period. Bronze and Stone contextualizes the Song antiquarian movement among previous Chinese engagements with antiquity, subsequent popular interest in ancient objects, and world antiquarianism.

An extraordinary and beautifully illustrated exploration of the medieval world through twelve manuscripts, from one of the world's leading experts. Winner of The Wolfson History Prize and The Duff Cooper Prize. A San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Book Gift Guide Pick! Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts is a captivating examination of twelve illuminated manuscripts from the medieval period. Noted authority Christopher de Hamel invites the reader into intimate conversations with these texts to explore what they tell us about nearly a thousand years of medieval history - and about the modern world, too. In so doing, de Hamel introduces us to kings, queens, saints, scribes, artists, librarians, thieves, dealers, and collectors. He traces the elaborate journeys that these exceptionally precious artifacts have made through time and shows us how they have been copied, how they have been embroiled in politics, how they have been regarded as objects of supreme beauty and as symbols of national identity, and who has owned them or lusted after them (and how we can tell). From the earliest book in medieval England to the incomparable Book of Kells to the oldest manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, these encounters tell a narrative of intellectual culture and art over the course of a millennium. Two of the manuscripts visited are now in libraries of North America, the Morgan Library in New York and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Part travel book, part detective story, part conversation with the reader, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts allows us to experience some of the greatest works of art in our culture to give us a different perspective on history and on how we come by knowledge.

This treatment of the monastic complex (also known as Centula) founded by Angilbert ca.790 includes chapters on Angilbert, Angilbert's symbolic understanding, theological issues of the 790s, and a proglomena. A fifth chapter addresses the program of Saint-Riquier: the physical arrangement of the monastery that featured three churches, the largest a basilica dedicated to S. Richarius, and the Holy Savior (known for its early westwork). The number three and trinitarian symbolism was ubiquitous throughout the complex, including the building proportions. The work summarizes what is known of the interior arrangement of the basilica and the other churches, their decoration, and liturgical processions and activities.

This was first published in 2000: Introduced by Joanna Cannon, this volume of essays by postgraduate students at the Courtauld Institute, University of London, explores some of the ways in which art was used to express, to celebrate, and to promote the political and religious aims and aspirations of those in power in the city states of central Italy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The contributions focus on four centres: Siena, Arezzo, Pisa and Orvieto, and range over a number of media: fresco, panel painting, sculpture, metalwork, and translucent enamel. Employing a variety of methods and approaches, these stimulating essays offer a fresh look at some of the key artistic projects of the period. The dates cited in the title, 1261 and 1352, refer to two well-known works, Coppo di Marcovaldo's Madonna del Bordone and the Guidoriccio Fresco in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, here newly assigned to this date. By concentrating on individual cases such as these, the essays provide rewardingly sustained consideration, at the same time raising crucial issues concerning the role of art in the public life of the period. These generously-illustrated studies introduce new material and advance new arguments, and are all based on original research. Clear and lively presentation ensures that they are also accessible to students and scholars from other disciplines. Art, Politics and Civic Religion in Central Italy, 1261-1352 is the first volume in the new series Courtauld Institute Research Papers. The series makes available original recently researched material on western art history from classical antiquity to the present day.

The art of metalworking has been practiced continuously ll over the world. In this, the Islamic world is no exception. But if we look at the objects unearthed at archaeological digs or in the museums and private collections that have patiently collected them over the centuries, one cannot help but be surprised by the almost infinite quantity of materials, shapes and decorations created both by renowned artists and anonymous craftsmen. Metalworking is a highly important and characteristic sector of Islamic art, and the diffusion of these works in contexts other than where they originated is highly significant evidence of this fact. There can be no doubt that these artefacts were produced by a highly-advanced and structured society whose boundaries and remarkable technical expertise we are still unable to place in wider contexts, most notably historical and social. Prof. Giovanni Curatola took the objects in the Aron Collection as a cue for a meticulous comparative study of medieval Islamic metalwork, making this book a fundamental addition to the literature on the subject.

The Book of Kells, dating from about 800, is a brilliantly decorated manuscript of the four Gospels. This new official guide (German language edition), by the former Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College Library, Dublin, provides fascinating insights into the Book of Kells, revealing the astounding detail and richness of one of the greatest works of medieval art. The illustrations in the guide include reproductions of complete pages, and details that allow one to marvel at the intricacy of the decoration. The Book of Kells is explored through its historical background; its structure; its decorative elements, including the richness of its symbols and themes; the scribes and artists who worked on the manuscript; and the tools and pigments used in its creation.

The "Things of Greater Importance" provides a close look into the social and cultural context of medieval art, primarily as expressed in Bernard of Clairvaux's Apologia, the central document in the greatest artistic controversy to occur in the West prior to the Reformation and the most important source we have for understanding medieval attitudes toward art. Bernard wrote the Apologia during the medieval efflorescence of monumental sculpture and stained glass, of advanced architecture, of pilgrimage art, of high Romanesque, and of the origins of Gothic art. Rudolph places the Apologia, traditionally seen as a condemnation either of all religious art or of all monastic art, in a broader context, using it to explore the role of art in medieval society. He shows that Bernard was interested in the impact of art on contemporary monasticism in a more complex way than previously believed. The book offers the most thorough study available of the theoretical basis of medieval art as it functioned in society; and its implications for the art of both the Romanesque and Gothic periods, which were spanned by Bernard's life, are significant.

Over the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, European society confronted rapid monetization, a process that has been examined in depth by economic historians. Less well understood is the development of architecture to meet the needs of a burgeoning mercantile economy in the Late Middle Ages and early modern period. In this volume, Lauren Jacobi explores some of the repercussions of early capitalism through a study of the location and types of spaces that were used for banking and minting in Florence and other mercantile centers in Europe. Examining the historical relationships between banks and religious behavior, she also analyzes how urban geographies and architectural forms reveal moral attitudes toward money during the onset of capitalism. Jacobi's book offers new insights into the spaces and locations where pre-industrial European banking and minting transpired, as well as the impact of religious concerns and financial tools on those sites.

An illustrated manual showing how a medieval tournament was organised, here presented in three volumes with essays on various aspects of the manuscript. Rene d'Anjou's Livre des tournois is famous as the most substantial account of the organisation of a medieval tournament that has come down to us. It survives in eight manuscripts, most of which have an almost identical layout; the best of these is a magnificent work of art in its own right. But these manuscripts have a further interest to the historian of culture, because they represent in effect the evidence for one of the first illustrated manuals, in which text and image are complementary, and form a single whole. The copyists understood this, and followed the original because the mise en page was an essential part of the whole. Justin Sturgeon's interdisciplinary study reveals the patterns and relationships which give the manual its very specific character. The study begins by exploring the relationship between the work's images and text, and brings into focus the author's identity as an authority on the subject matter. Next, the use and depiction of heraldry as essential to the construction of an embedded visual narrative within the work is explored. We then turn to the subject matter and to Rene's sources for the work and the form of tournament he describes, are examined and the author shows that Rene was drawing on specific precedents to construct his idealized version of such an event. Analysis of the visual presentation uses spatial and ritual theory to engage with a series of spectacles surrounding the punishment and review of the noble tourneyers. The last section of the book concentrates on the physical manuscripts.The codicological, textual and visual evidence from all eight known medieval manuscript copies is used to construct a new understanding of the provenance and transmission of the work, before turning to scrutinize the reception of two copies in detail. The conclusion draws together threads of identity, authority, and the importance of the Livre des tournois as a product of the culture and circumstances of its production. A series of appendices forms the second volume and directly supports the book. These appendices include the first scholarly edition of the source manuscript to make use of all eight medieval manuscripts,with full supporting data. The third volume contains 300 images of vital comparisons in high resolution close-ups using a special technique developed by the author which highlights important details within images while showing the detail in the context of the whole picture. Three Volume set.

This anthology of readings related to Western art history explains specific works of art illustrated in Janson's "History of Art" and De la Croix and Tansey's "Gardner's Art Through the Ages" in terms of the ideas, beliefs, and concerns of the people and cultures who created the art. It brings a new understanding of art because it shows the social and cultural basis of major works of art through history. The ten sections are Ancient Near East; Egyptian; Aegean; Greek; Etruscan; Roman; early Christian, Byzantine, and Islamic; early Medieval; Romanesque; and Gothic. The readings have been drawn from many areas of intellectual and social history, including religion, philosophy, literature, science, economics, and law. Each selection is preceded by an introductory note, which discusses the readings in terms of its subject and theme, its source and usage, and its relevance to the study of the work of art.

Francis Cheetham's classic survey of English medieval alabasters includes a richly illustrated catalogue of the Victoria and Albert Museum's unparalleled collection. English alabasters represent a unique contribution to medieval art. Less sophisticated, perhaps, than other contemporary forms of religious art, they were a neglected area of study until this volume was first published in 1984. Stories from the New Testament and The Golden Legend were the most favoured subjects, and the numerous examples that survive in churches and museums throughout Europe attest to their wide and enduring appeal. FrancisCheetham examines here all aspects of their production and demonstrates how the panels and altarpieces can aid our understanding of life and devotional practice in medieval times. At the heart of this fascinating study is arichly illustrated catalogue of the 260 examples in the collection of London's Victoria and Albert Museum: a collection "so comprehensive that it would be possible to write a survey of the subject almost without recourse to pieces elsewhere," as Sir Roy Strong notes in his Foreword. Their division into subject categories is an invaluable aid to identification and classification. The late Francis Cheetham was an acknowledged expert on medieval English alabasters, and this reissue of his classic work will be welcomed by historians, art historians, collectors and dealers alike, taking its place alongside his Alabaster Images of Medieval England which was published by the Boydell Press in 2003.

An investigation of the depiction of the story of Theophilus in both its original texts, and images. The legend of Theophilus stages an iconic medieval story, its widespread popularity attesting to its grip on the imagination. A pious clerk refuses a promotion, is demoted, becomes furious and makes a contract with the Devil. Later repentant, he seeks out a church and a statue of the Virgin; she appears to him, and he is transformed from apostate to saint. It is illustrated in a variety of media: texts, stained glass, sculpture, and manuscript illuminations. Through a wide range of manuscript illuminations and a selection of French texts, the book explores visual and textual representations of the legend, setting it in its social, cultural and material contexts, and showing how it explores medieval anxieties concerning salvation and identity. The author argues that the legend is a sustained meditation on the power of images, its popularity corresponding with the rise of their role in portraying medieval identity and salvation, and in acting as portals between the limits of the material and the possibilities of the spiritual world Jerry Root is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of Utah.

A fresh appraisal of the art of Anglo-Saxon England, focusing on art as an aesthetic vehicle and art as an active political force. Two particular perspectives inform this wide-ranging and richly illustrated survey of the art produced in England, or by English artists, between c. 600 and c.1100, in a variety of media, manuscripts, stone and wooden sculpture, ivory carving, textiles, and architecture. Firstly, from a post-colonial angle, it examines the way art can both create and narrate national and cultural identity over the centuries during which England was coming into being, moving from Romano-Britain to Anglo-Saxon England to Anglo-Scandinavian England to Anglo-Norman England. Secondly, it treats Anglo-Saxon art as works of art, works that have both an aesthetic and an emotional value, rather than as simply passive historical or archaeological objects. This double focus on art as an aesthetic vehicle and art as an active political force allows us to ask questions not only about what makes something a work of art, but what makes itendure as such, as well as questions about the work that art does in the creation of peoples, cultures, nations and histories. Professor Catherine Karkov teaches in the School of Fine Art, University of Leeds.

Mater Misericordiae-Mother of Mercy-emerged as one of the most prolific subjects in central Italian art from the late thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries. With iconographic origins in Marian cult relics brought from Palestine to Constantinople in the fifth century, the amalgam of attributes coalesced in Armenian Cilicia then morphed as it spread to Cyprus. An early concept of Mary of Mercy-the Virgin standing with outstretched arms and a wide mantle under which kneel or stand devotees-entered the Italian peninsula at the ports of Bari and Venice during the Crusades, eventually converging in central Italy. The mendicant orders adopted the image as an easily recognizable symbol for mercy and aided in its diffusion. In this study, the author's primary goals are to explore the iconographic origins of the Madonna della Misericordia as a devotional image by identifying and analyzing key attributes; to consider circumstances for its eventual overlapping function as a secular symbol used by lay confraternities; and to discuss its diaspora throughout the Italian peninsula, Western Europe, and eastward into Russia and Ukraine. With over 100 illustrations, the book presents an array of works of art as examples, including altarpieces, frescoes, oil paintings, manuscript illuminations, metallurgy, glazed terracotta, stained glass, architectural relief sculpture, and processional banners.

Tracing the Gospel text from script to illustration to recitation, this study looks at how illuminated manuscripts operated within ritual and architecture. Focusing on a group of richly illuminated lectionaries from the late eleventh century, the book articulates how the process of textual recitation produced marginalia and miniatures that reflected and subverted the manner in which the Gospel was read and simultaneously imagined by readers and listeners alike. This unique approach to manuscript illumination points to images that slowly unfolded in the mind of its listeners as they imagined the text being recited, as meaning carefully changed and built as the text proceeded. By examining this process within specific acoustic architectural spaces and the sonic conditions of medieval chant, the volume brings together the concerns of sound studies, liturgical studies, and art history to demonstrate how images, texts, and recitations played with the environment of the Middle Byzantine church.

Before the late sixteenth century, the churches of Florence were internally divided by monumental screens that separated the laity in the nave from the clergy in the choir precinct. Enabling both separation and mediation, these screens were impressive artistic structures that controlled social interactions, facilitated liturgical performances, and variably framed or obscured religious ritual and imagery. In the 1560s and 70s, screens were routinely destroyed in a period of religious reforms, irreversibly transforming the function, meaning, and spatial dynamics of the church interior. In this volume, Joanne Allen explores the widespread presence of screens and their role in Florentine social and religious life prior to the Counter-Reformation. She presents unpublished documentation and new reconstructions of screens and the choir precincts which they delimited. Elucidating issues such as gender, patronage, and class, her study makes these vanished structures comprehensible and deepens our understanding of the impact of religious reform on church architecture.

These three volumes by Moshe Barasch consider the development of European art theory and its major trends from the time of Plato to the early 20th century.

Moshe Barasch argues that although art theory may have changed in intellectual outlook and artistic aims during the pre-modern period, the different attitudes and traditions were so intricately interwoven that they could not be separated from one another. He then shows how and why art theory broke into several disciplines in the 18th century.

Emile Male's book aids understanding of medieval art and medieval symbolism, and of the vision of the world which presided over the building of the French cathedrals. It looks at French religious art in the Middle Ages, its forms, and especially the Eastern sources of sculptural iconography used in the cathedrals of France. Fully illustrated with many footnotes it acts as a useful guide for the student of Western culture.

This is an English-language study on the architecture and art of medieval France of the Romanesque and Gothic periods between 1000-1500. In addition to essays on individual monuments there are general discussions of given periods and specific problems such as: why did Gothic come into being? Whitney Stoddard explores the interrelationship between all forms of medieval ecclesiastical art and characterization of the Gothic cathedral, which he believes to have an almost metaphysical basis.