The rebirth of realistic representation in Italy around 1300 led to the materialization of a pictorial language, which dominated Western art until 1900, and it dominates global visual culture even today. Paralleling the development of mimesis, self-reflexive pictorial tendencies emerged as well. Images-within-images, visual commentaries of representations by representations, were essential to this trend. They facilitated the development of a critical pictorial attitude towards representation. This book offers the first comprehensive study of Italian meta-painting in the age of Giotto and sheds new light on the early modern and modern history of the phenomenon. By combining visual hermeneutics and iconography, it traces reflexivity in Italian mural and panel painting at the dawn of the Renaissance, and presents novel interpretations of several key works of Giotto di Bondone and the Lorenzetti brothers. The potential influence of the contemporary religious and social context on the program design is also examined situating the visual innovations within a broader historical horizon. The analysis of pictorial illusionism and reality effect together with the liturgical, narrative and typological role of images-within-images makes this work a pioneering contribution to visual studies and premodern Italian culture.

Emerging Iconographies of Medieval Rome examines the development of Christian iconographies that had not yet established themselves as canonical images, but which were being tried out in various ways in early Christian Rome. This book focuses on four different iconographical forms that appeared in Rome during the eighth and ninth centuries: the Anastasis, the Transfiguration, the Maria Regina, and the Sickness of Hezekiah—all of which were labeled “Byzantine” by major mid-twentieth century scholars. The trend has been to readily accede to the pronouncements of those prominent authors, subjugating these rich images to a grand narrative that privileges the East and turns Rome into an artistic backwater. In this study, Annie Montgomery Labatt reacts against traditional scholarship which presents Rome as merely an adjunct of the East. It studies medieval images with formal and stylistic analyses in combination with use of the writings of the patristics and early medieval thinkers. The experimentation and innovation in the Christian iconographies of Rome in the eighth and ninth centuries provides an affirmation of the artistic vibrancy of Rome in the period before a divided East and West. Labatt revisits and revives a lost and forgotten Rome—not as a peripheral adjunct of the East, but as a center of creativity and artistic innovation.

This is the first study to bring together all twenty-nine extant copies of the medieval Commentary on the Apocalypse, which was originally written by Spanish monk Beatus of Liebana. John Williams, a renowned expert on the Commentary, shares a lifetime of study and offers new insights on these strikingly illustrated manuscripts. As he shows, the Commentary responded to differing monastic needs within the shifting context of the Middle Ages. Of special interest is a discussion of the recently discovered Geneva copy: one of only three commentaries to be written outside of the Iberian Peninsula, this manuscript shows both close affinities to the Spanish model and fascinating deviations from it in terms of its script and style of illustrations.

It has long been an accepted assumption that the abstracted mode of visual representation that emerged in late antiquity reflected a collective shift from the outer-directed and 'material' world-view of classical antiquity to an inner-directed, 'spiritual' mentality informed by Christianity: the purpose of this volume is to offer a more nuanced and diverse image of the nature and meanings of abstraction and symbolism in late antique and early medieval art, beyond normative intepretation models, and from a number of different methodological and interpretative perspectives. In ten chapters, ten authors specialised in various fields of late-antique and Byzantine art explore the historiographical background of the 'spiritual' interpretation paradigm, neuroscientific and theological dimensions of Christian visual aesthetics, meanings and motive factors behind apparently wholly abstract and aniconic compositions, symbolic motifs and schemes for visualising cosmic order and the cosmic state of Christ, and the re-use of symbolic Greco-Roman themes in Christian contexts. The result is a multi-focal image of late antique abstraction and symbolism that illuminates the heterogeneity and complexity of the phenomena and of their study.

Christopher Walter's study of the cult and iconography of Byzantine warrior saints - George, Demetrius, the two Theodores, and dozens more - is at once encyclopaedic and interpretative, and the first comprehensive study of the subject. The author delineates their origins and development as a distinctive category of saint, showing that in its definitive form this coincides with the apogee of the Byzantine empire in the 10th-11th centuries. He establishes a repertory, particularly of their commemorations in synaxaries and their representations in art, and describes their iconographical types and the functions ascribed to them once enrolled in the celestial army: support for the terrestrial army in its offensive campaigns, and a new protective role when the Byzantine Empire passed to the defensive. The survey highlights the lack of historicity among the Byzantines in their approach to the lives of these saints and their terrestrial careers. An epilogue briefly treats the analogous traditions in the cultures of neighbouring peoples. Walter draws attention to the development of an echelon of military saints, notably in church decoration, which provides the surest basis for defining their specificity; also to the way in which they were depicted, generally young, handsome and robust, and frequently 'twinned' in pairs, so calling attention to the importance of camaraderie among soldiers. At the same time, this work opens a new perspective on the military history of the Byzantine Empire. Its ideology of war consistently followed that of the Israelites; protected and favoured by divine intervention, there was no occasion to discuss the morality of a 'just war'. Consequently, when considering Byzantine methods of warfare, due attention should be given to the important role which they attributed to celestial help in their military campaigns.

This collection of essays considers artistic works that deal with the body without a visual representation. It explores a range of ways to represent this absence of the figure: from abject elements such as bodily fluids and waste to surrogate forms including reliquaries, manuscripts, and cloth. The collection focuses on two eras, medieval and modern, when images referencing the absent body have been far more prolific in the history of art. In medieval times, works of art became direct references to the absent corporal essence of a divine being, like Christ, or were used as devotional aids. By contrast, in the modern era artists often reject depictions of the physical body in order to distance themselves from the history of the idealized human form. Through these essays, it becomes apparent, even when the body is not visible in a work of art, it is often still present tangentially. Though the essays in this volume bridge two historical periods, they have coherent thematic links dealing with abjection, embodiment, and phenomenology. Whether figurative or abstract, sacred or secular, medieval or modern, the body maintains a presence in these works even when it is not at first apparent.

Dedicated to the topics of eroticism and sexuality in the visual production of the medieval and early modern Muslim world, this volume sheds light on the diverse socio-cultural milieus of erotic images, on the range of motivations that determined their production, and on the responses generated by their circulation. The articles revise what has been accepted as a truism in existing literature-that erotic motifs in the Islamic visual arts should be read metaphorically-offering, as an alternative, rigorous contextual and cultural analyses. Among the subjects discussed are male and female figures as sexualized objects; the spiritual dimensions of eroticism; licit versus illicit sexual practices; and the exotic and erotic 'others' as a source of sensual delight. As the first systematic study on these themes in the field of Islamic art history, this volume fills a considerable gap and contributes to the lively debates on the nature and function of erotic and sexual images that have featured prominently in broader art-historical discussions in recent decades.

This is the first full-length, English-language study of eleventh-century figural sculpture produced in Dalmatia and Croatia. Challenging the dependency on stylistic analysis in previous scholarship, Magdalena Skoblar contextualises the visual presence of these relief carvings in their local communities, focusing on five critical sites. Alongside an examination of architectural setting and iconography, this book also investigates archaeological and textual evidence to establish the historical situation within which these sculptures were produced and received. Croatia and Dalmatia in the eleventh century were a borderland between Byzantium and the Latin west where the balance of power was constantly changing. These sculptures speak of the fragmented and hybrid nature of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean as a whole, where well-connected trade routes and porous boundaries informed artistic production. Moreover, in contrast to elsewhere in Europe where contemporary figural sculpture was spurred on by monastic communities, this book argues that the patronage of such artworks in Dalmatia and Croatia was driven by members of the local secular elites. For the first time, these sculptures are being introduced to Anglophone scholarship, and this book contributes to a fuller understanding of the profound changes in medieval attitudes towards sculpture after the year 1000.

In Art as Politics in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena, contributors explore the evolving relationship between image and politics in Siena from the time of the city-state's defeat of Florence at the Battle of Montaperti in 1260 to the end of the Sienese Republic in 1550. Engaging issues of the politicization of art in Sienese painting, sculpture, architecture, and urban design, the volume challenges the still-prevalent myth of Siena's cultural and artistic conservatism after the mid fourteenth century. Clearly establishing uniquely Sienese artistic agendas and vocabulary, these essays broaden our understanding of the intersection of art, politics, and religion in Siena by revisiting its medieval origins and exploring its continuing role in the Renaissance.

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.

This volume completes Part II of Series A of the Paper Museum. Together with the first volume, it reflects an unusual aspect of Cassiano's interests, but a particularly relevant one for modern scholars: the material remains of post-classical culture in Rome and the psychical inheritance from the earliest centuries of Christianity. Catalogued here is a diverse and fascinating range of antiquities: reliefs, inscriptions, sarcophagi, sculpture, manuscript illuminations, gold-glass, gems, ivories, lamps, metalwork and 'instruments of martyrdom'. The drawings were mainly collected by Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, Cassiano's brother, in the later seventeeth century and include some of the finest examples of archaeological draughtsmanship of the period. Catalogued here is a diverse and fascinating range of antiquities, mainly collected in the later seventeeth century: reliefs, inscriptions, sarcophagi, sculpture, manuscript illuminations, gold-glass, gems, ivories, lamps, metalwork and 'instruments of martyrdom'.

New approaches to what is arguably the most famous artefact from the Middle Ages. In the past two decades, scholarly assessment of the Bayeux Tapestry has moved beyond studies of its sources and analogues, dating, origin and purpose, and site of display. This volume demonstrates the value of more recent interpretive approaches to this famous and iconic artefact, by examining the textile's materiality, visuality, reception and historiography, and its constructions of gender, territory and cultural memory. The essays it contains frame discussions vital to the future of Tapestry scholarship and are complemented by a bibliography covering three centuries of critical writings. Contributors: Valerie Allen, Richard Brilliant, Shirley Ann Brown, Elizabeth Carson Pastan, Madeline H. Cavines, Martin K. Foys, Michael John Lewis, Karen Eileen Overbey, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dan Terkla, Stephen D. White.

Gender, Piety, and Production in Fourteenth-Century English Apocalypse Manuscripts is the first in-depth study of three textually and iconographically diverse Apocalypses illustrated in England in the first half of the fourteenth century by a single group of artists. It offers a close look at a group of illuminators previously on the fringe of art historical scholarship, challenging the commonly-held perception of them as mere craftsmen at a time when both audiences and methods of production were becoming increasingly varied. Analyzing the manuscripts' codicological features, visual and textual programmes, and social contexts, it explores the mechanisms of a fourteenth-century commercial workshop and traces the customization of these books of the same genre to the needs and expectations of varied readers, revealing the crucial influence of their female audience. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of English medieval art, medieval manuscripts, and the medieval Apocalypse, as well as medievalists interested in late medieval spirituality and theology, medieval religious and intellectual culture, book patronage and ownership, and female patronage and ownership.

For generations maps of the pilgrimage roads and of the reconquista have bedevilled the study of Spanish art and architecture. They have also infiltrated the popular imagination and come to dominate the ways we think about Spain and Portugal. Art in Spain and Portugal from the Romans to the Early Middle Ages: Routes and Myths sets out to diminish the power of these images and to enrich the wider English-language literature on early medieval art. Starting with the Romans and working through the vertical layers to the early Romanesque period Rose Walker draws together scholarly work hitherto confined within disciplinary boundaries, specialist regional studies, and findings familiar only to Spanish-speaking audiences. The author builds on these studies and her own research to present narratives that question art historical and archaeological orthodoxies. New perspectives emerge from the routes along which wealth and artistic expertise crossed the peninsula, showing the endurance of the north-south axis and the strength of networks and pragmatic alliances that often operated without regard for religious difference.

This is a detailed study of the illustrations to Amir Khusrau's Khamsah, in which twenty discourses are followed by a brief parable, and four romances. Amir Khusrau (1253-1325) lived the greater part of adventurous life in Delhi; he composed in Persian, and also in Hindi. From the point of view of manuscript illustration, his most important work is his Khamsah (Quintet'). Khusrau's position as a link between cultures of Persia and India means that the early illustrated copies of the Khamsah have a particular interest. The first extant exemplar is from the Persian area in the late 14th century, but a case can be made that work was probably illustrated earlier in India.

The crusades, whether realized or merely planned, had a profound impact on medieval and early modern societies. Numerous scholars in the fields of history and literature have explored the influence of crusading ideas, values, aspirations and anxieties in both the Latin States and Europe. However, there have been few studies dedicated to investigating how the crusading movement influenced and was reflected in medieval visual cultures. Written by scholars from around the world working in the domains of art history and history, the essays in this volume examine the ways in which ideas of crusading were realized in a broad variety of media (including manuscripts, cartography, sculpture, mural paintings, and metalwork). Arguing implicitly for recognition of the conceptual frameworks of crusades that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, the volume explores the pervasive influence and diverse expression of the crusading movement from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries.

This volume explores the importance of Norwich as the second city of England for 500 years. It addresses two of the most ambitious Romanesque buildings in Europe: cathedral and castle, and illuminates the role of Norwich-based designers and makers in the region.

A breathtaking journey into the hidden history of medieval manuscripts, from the Lindisfarne Gospels to the ornate Psalter of Henry VIII.

Medieval manuscripts can tell us much about power and art, knowledge and beauty. Many have survived because of an author’s status—part of the reason we have so much of Chaucer’s writing, for example, is because he was a London-based government official first and a poet second. Other works by the less influential have narrowly avoided ruin, like the book of illiterate Margery Kempe, found in a country house closet, the cover nibbled on by mice. Scholar Mary Wellesley recounts the amazing origins of these remarkable manuscripts, surfacing the important roles played by women and ordinary people—the grinders, binders, and scribes—in their creation and survival.

The Gilded Page is the story of the written word in the manuscript age. Rich and surprising, it shows how the most exquisite objects ever made by human hands came from unexpected places.

The rebirth of realistic representation in Italy around 1300 led to the materialization of a pictorial language, which dominated Western art until 1900, and it dominates global visual culture even today. Paralleling the development of mimesis, self-reflexive pictorial tendencies emerged as well. Images-within-images, visual commentaries of representations by representations, were essential to this trend. They facilitated the development of a critical pictorial attitude towards representation. This book offers the first comprehensive study of Italian meta-painting in the age of Giotto and sheds new light on the early modern and modern history of the phenomenon. By combining visual hermeneutics and iconography, it traces reflexivity in Italian mural and panel painting at the dawn of the Renaissance, and presents novel interpretations of several key works of Giotto di Bondone and the Lorenzetti brothers. The potential influence of the contemporary religious and social context on the program design is also examined situating the visual innovations within a broader historical horizon. The analysis of pictorial illusionism and reality effect together with the liturgical, narrative and typological role of images-within-images makes this work a pioneering contribution to visual studies and premodern Italian culture.

Bodies mangled, limbs broken, skin flayed, blood spilled: from paintings to prints to small sculptures, the art of the late Middle Ages and early modern period gave rise to disturbing scenes of violence. Many of these torture scenes recall Christ's Passion and its aftermath, but the martyrdoms of saints, stories of justice visited on the wicked, and broadsheet reports of the atrocities of war provided fertile ground for scenes of the body's desecration. Contributors to this volume interpret pain, suffering, and the desecration of the human form not simply as the passing fancies of a cadre of proto-sadists, but also as serving larger social functions within European society. Taking advantage of the frameworks established by scholars such as Samuel Edgerton, Mitchell Merback, and Elaine Scarry (to name but a few), Death, Torture and the Broken Body in European Art, 1300-1650 provides an intriguing set of lenses through which to view such imagery and locate it within its wider social, political, and devotional contexts. Though the art works discussed are centuries old, the topics of the essays resonate today as twenty-first-century Western society is still absorbed in thorny debates about the ethics and consequences of the use of force, coercion (including torture), and execution, and about whether it is ever fully acceptable to write social norms on the bodies of those who will not conform.

For several years now, sigillography as an independent subject in the field of Byzantine studies, has received increasing attention from both Byzantine studies and related disciplines, because it is the only area still able to provide plenty of yet undiscovered material for research and study. The articles deal with all aspects of Byzantine sigillography: presentation of new finds, discussion of new methods, questions of the political and ecclesiastical administration of Byzantinum, prosopography, historical geography, and art historical and iconographical problems. In addition, the volumes contain a loosely arranged list of Byzantine seals, which have been published in essays and auction catalogues, thus enabling those from more obscure publications to be located and identified. Volume 9, currently in preparation, mainly contains lectures from the 8th International Symposium on Byzantine Sigillography held in October 2003, in Berlin. Besides the iconography of seals, much emphasis was placed on questions of Byzantine administration. Further, selected collections are presented, as well as a large number of new finds and new acquisitions.

Rome and Religion in the Medieval World provides a panoramic and interdisciplinary exploration of Rome and religious culture. The studies build upon or engage Thomas F.X. Noble's interest in Rome, especially his landmark contributions to the origins of the Papal States and early medieval image controversies. Scholars from a variety of disciplines offer new viewpoints on key issues and questions relating to medieval religious, cultural and intellectual history. Each study explores different dimensions of Rome and religion, including medieval art, theology, material culture, politics, education, law, and religious practice. Drawing upon a wide range of sources, including manuscripts, relics, historical and normative texts, theological tracts, and poetry, the authors illuminate the complexities of medieval Christianity, especially as practiced in the city of Rome itself, and elsewhere in Europe when influenced by the idea of Rome. Some trace early medieval legacies to the early modern period when Protestant and Catholic theologians used early medieval religious texts to define and debate forms of Roman Christianity. The essays highlight and deepen scholarly appreciation of Rome in the rich and varied religious culture of the medieval world.

This thought-provoking book explores medieval perceptions of pilgrimage, gender and space. It examines real life evidence for the widespread presence of women pilgrims, as well as secular and literary texts concerning pilgrimage and women pilgrims represented in the visual arts. Women pilgrims were inextricably linked with sexuality and their presence on the pilgrimage trails was viewed as tainting sacred space.

This is a study of the artistic and political context that led to the production of a truly exceptional Byzantine illustrated manuscript. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France, codex grec 54 is one of the most ambitious and complex manuscripts produced during the Byzantine era. This thirteenth-century Greek and Latin Gospel book features full-page evangelist portraits, an extensive narrative cycle, and unique polychromatic texts. However, it has never been the subject of a comprehensive study and the circumstances of its commission are unknown. In this book Kathleen Maxwell addresses the following questions: what circumstances led to the creation of Paris 54? Who commissioned it and for what purpose? How was a deluxe manuscript such as this produced? Why was it left unfinished? How does it relate to other Byzantine illustrated Gospel books? Paris 54's innovations are a testament to the extraordinary circumstances of its commission. Maxwell's multi-disciplinary approach includes codicological and paleographical evidence together with New Testament textual criticism, artistic and historical analysis. She concludes that Paris 54 was never intended to copy any other manuscript. Rather, it was designed to eclipse its contemporaries and to physically embody a new relationship between Constantinople and the Latin West, as envisioned by its patron. Analysis of Paris 54's texts and miniature cycle indicates that it was created at the behest of a Byzantine emperor as a gift to a pope, in conjunction with imperial efforts to unify the Latin and Orthodox churches. As such, Paris 54 is a unique witness to early Palaeologan attempts to achieve church union with Rome.

The Arma Christi, the cluster of objects associated with Christ's Passion, was one of the most familiar iconographic devices of European medieval and early modern culture. From the weapons used to torment and sacrifice the body of Christ sprang a reliquary tradition that produced active and contemplative devotional practices, complex literary narratives, intense lyric poems, striking visual images, and innovative architectural ornament. This collection displays the fascinating range of intellectual possibilities generated by representations of these medieval 'objects,' and through the interdisciplinary collaboration of its contributors produces a fresh view of the multiple intersections of the spiritual and the material in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It also includes a new and authoritative critical edition of the Middle English Arma Christi poem known as 'O Vernicle' that takes account of all twenty surviving manuscripts. The book opens with a substantial introduction that surveys previous scholarship and situates the Arma in their historical and aesthetic contexts. The ten essays that follow explore representative examples of the instruments of the Passion across a broad swath of history, from some of their earliest formulations in late antiquity to their reformulations in early modern Europe. Together, they offer the first large-scale attempt to understand the arma Christi as a unique cultural phenomenon of its own, one that resonated across centuries in multiple languages, genres, and media. The collection directs particular attention to this array of implements as an example of the potency afforded material objects in medieval and early modern culture, from the glittering nails of the Old English poem Elene to the coins of the Middle English poem 'Sir Penny,' from garments and dice on Irish tomb sculptures to lanterns and ladders in Hieronymus Bosch's panel painting of St. Christopher, and from the altar of the Sistine Chapel to the printed prayer books of the Reformation.