Two lavish, illustrated histories confronted and contested the Byzantine model of empire. The Madrid Skylitzes was created at the court of Roger II of Sicily in the mid-twelfth century. The Vatican Manasses was produced for Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria in the mid-fourteenth century. Through close analysis of how each chronicle was methodically manipulated, this study argues that Byzantine history was selectively re-imagined to suit the interests of outsiders. The Madrid Skylitzes foregrounds regicides, rebellions, and palace intrigue in order to subvert the divinely ordained image of order that Byzantine rulers preferred to project. The Vatican Manasses presents Byzantium as a platform for the accession of Ivan Alexander to the throne of the Third Rome, the last and final world-empire. Imagining the Byzantine Past demonstrates how distinct visions of empire generated diverging versions of Byzantium's past in the aftermath of the Crusades.

This book focuses on apse mosaics in Rome, which were commissioned by a series of popes between the sixth and ninth centuries CE. Through a synchronic approach that challenges current conceptions about how works of art interact with historical time, Erik Thuno proposes that the apse mosaics produce an inter-visual network that collapses their chronological succession in time into a continuous present in which the faithful join the saints in the one living body of the Church of Rome. Throughout, this book situates the apse mosaics within the broader context of viewership, the cult of relics, epigraphic tradition, and church ritual while engaging topics concerned with intercession, materiality, repetition and vision.

This book offers an analysis of Giotto's painted architecture, focusing on issues of structural logic, clarity of composition, and its role within the narrative of the painting. Giotto was the first artist since antiquity to feature highly-detailed architecture in a primary role in his paintings. Francesco Benelli demonstrates how architecture was used to create pictorial space, one of Giotto's key inventions. He argues that Giotto's innovation was driven by a new attention to classical sources, including low reliefs, mosaics, mural paintings, coins, and Roman ruins. The book shows how Giotto's images of fictive buildings, as well as portraits of well-known monuments, both ancient and contemporary, play an important role in the overall narrative, iconography, and meaning of his works. The conventions established by Giotto remained at the heart of early modern Italian painting until the sixteenth century.

From the acclaimed author of Blue, a beautifully illustrated history of yellow from antiquity to the present In this richly illustrated book, Michel Pastoureau-a renowned authority on the history of color and the author of celebrated volumes on blue, black, green, and red-now traces the visual, social, and cultural history of yellow. Focusing on European societies, with comparisons from East Asia, India, Africa, and South America, Yellow tells the intriguing story of the color's evolving place in art, religion, fashion, literature, and science. In Europe today, yellow is a discreet color, little present in everyday life and rarely carrying great symbolism. This has not always been the case. In antiquity, yellow was almost sacred, a symbol of light, warmth, and prosperity. It became highly ambivalent in medieval Europe: greenish yellow came to signify demonic sulfur and bile, the color of forgers, lawless knights, Judas, and Lucifer-while warm yellow recalled honey and gold, serving as a sign of pleasure and abundance. In Asia, yellow has generally had a positive meaning. In ancient China, yellow clothing was reserved for the emperor, while in India the color is associated with happiness. Above all, yellow is the color of Buddhism, whose temple doors are marked with it. Throughout, Pastoureau illuminates the history of yellow with a wealth of captivating images. With its striking design and compelling text, Yellow is a feast for the eye and mind.

The Framing of Sacred Space offers the first topical study of canopies as essential spatial and symbolic units in Byzantine-rite churches. Centrally planned columnar structures-typically comprised of four columns and a roof-canopies had a critical role in the modular processes of church design, from actual church furnishings in the shape of a canopy to the church's structural core. As architectonic objects of basic structural and design integrity, canopies integrate an archetypical image of architecture and provide means for an innovative understanding of the materialization of the idea of the Byzantine church and its multi-focal spatial presence. The Framing of Sacred Space considers both the material and conceptual framing of sacred space and explains how the canopy bridges the physical and transcendental realms. As a crucial element of church design in the Byzantine world, a world that gradually abandoned the basilica as a typical building of Roman imperial secular architecture, the canopy carried tectonic and theological meanings and, through vaulted, canopied bays and recognizable Byzantine domed churches, established organic architectural, symbolic, and sacred ties between the Old and New Covenants. In such an overarching context, the canopy becomes an architectural parti, a vital concept and dynamic design principle that carries the essence of the Byzantine church. The Framing of Sacred Space highlights significant factors in understanding canopies through specific architectural settings and the Byzantine concepts of space, thus also contributing to larger debates about the creation of sacred space and related architectural taxonomy.

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.

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.

Originally published in 1926, this book analyses the role of the Abbey of St Gall in the development of German arts in the Middle Ages. Clark examines the various influences on the abbey from other European traditions and the importance of its manuscript collection for medieval learning. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in medieval Europe and the role of the Church in the transmission of learning.

In the Middle Ages, liturgies, books, song, architecture and poetry were performed as collaborative activities in which performers and audience together realized their work anew. In this book, essays by leading scholars analyse how the medieval arts invited and delighted in collaborative performances designed to persuade. The essays cast fresh light on subjects ranging from pilgrim processions within Chartres Cathedral, to polyphonic song, and the 'rhetoric of silence' perfected by the Cistercians. Rhetoric is defined broadly in this book to encompass its relationship to its sister arts of music, architecture, and painting, all of which use materials and media in addition to words, sometimes altogether without words. Contributors have concentrated on those aspects of formal rhetoric that are performative in nature, the sound, gesture and facial expressions of persuasive speech in action. Delivery (performance) is shown to be at the heart of rhetoric, that aspect of it which is indeed beyond words.

Originally published in 1950, this book examines the art of the Cluniac religious order, specifically the sources of Cluniac iconography and the ways in which the life, practices and needs of the Order influenced the development of its art. Evans details the influence that liturgical dramas, Roman ruins and numismatic imagery held over the artists of the Order, and illustrates her text with over 200 photographs of Cluniac manuscripts, sculpture and architecture. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Cluniac art and its roots.

Originally published in 1922, and first delivered in a slightly altered form as lectures at the University of London in 1911, this book gives a general review of 'the Church-Building Arts of England' from the Roman occupation until 1540. Prior studies the effects of major political and social events on English church art and architecture, and the ways in which art, particularly art located in churches and cathedrals, served as 'the vehicle of medieval civilization'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in English medieval art and history.

Saints and Spectacle examines the origins and reception of the Middle Byzantine program of mosaic decoration. This complex and colorful system of images covers the walls and vaults of churches with figures and compositions seen against a dazzling gold ground. The surviving eleventh-century churches with their wall and vault mosaics largely intact, Hosios Loukas, Nea Moni and Daphni in Greece, pose the challenge of how, when and where this complex and gloriously conceived system was created. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Connor explores the urban culture and context of church-building in Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, during the century following the end of Iconoclasm, of around 843 to 950. The application of an innovative frame of reference, through ritual studies, helps recreate the likely scenario in which the medium of mosaics attained its highest potential, in the mosaiced Byzantine church. For mosaics were enlisted to convey a religious and political message that was too nuanced to be expressed in any other way. At a time of revival of learning and the arts, and development of ceremonial practices, the Byzantine emperor and patriarch were united in creating a solution to the problem of consolidating the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire. It was through promoting a vision of the unchallengeable authority residing in God and his earthly representative, the emperor. The beliefs and processional practices affirming the protective role of the saints in which the entire city participated, were critical to the reception of this vision by the populace as well as the court. Mosaics were a luxury medium that was ideally situated aesthetically to convey a message at a particularly important historical moment-a brilliant solution to a problem that was to subtly unite an empire for centuries to come. Supported by a wealth of testimony from literary sources, Saints and Spectacle brings the Middle Byzantine church to life as the witness to a compelling and fascinating drama.

Originally published in 1931, this was the first comprehensive textbook on the development of French medieval sculpture to appear in the English language. Detailed yet accessible, it was designed to 'cater for the intelligent tourist as well as the student'. Numerous photographs are contained throughout, the majority of which were taken by the author during various church visits. Examples are drawn from more genuine and less restored pieces, and where restoration is obvious it is pointed out in the text. This is a beautifully presented book that will be of value to anyone with an interest in medieval France, church architecture and sculpture.

Sir Steven Runciman's History of the Crusades (1951-4) remains widely read and influential 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 explores topics relevant to Sir Steven's interests, long planned in his honour by British Byzantinists of all generations, and includes a memoir of his life and a full bibliography of his work.

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.

Notre-Dame of Amiens is one of the great Gothic cathedrals. Its construction began in 1220, and artistic production in the Gothic mode lasted well into the sixteenth century. In this magisterial chronicle, Stephen Murray invites readers to see the cathedral as more than just a thing of the past: it is a living document of medieval Christian society that endures in our own time. Murray tells the cathedral's story from the overlapping perspectives of the social groups connected to it, exploring the ways that the layfolk who visit the cathedral occasionally, the clergy who use it daily, and the artisans who created it have interacted with the building over the centuries. He considers the cycles of human activity around the cathedral and shows how groups of makers and users have been inextricably intertwined in collaboration and, occasionally, conflict. The book travels around and through the spaces of the cathedral, allowing us to re-create similar passages by our medieval predecessors. Murray reveals the many worlds of the cathedral and brings them together in the architectural triumph of its central space. A beautifully illustrated account of a grand, historically and religiously important building from a variety of perspectives and in a variety of time periods, this book offers readers a memorable tour of Notre-Dame of Amiens that celebrates the cathedral's eight hundredth anniversary. Notre-Dame of Amiens is enhanced by high-resolution images, liturgical music, and animations embedded in an innovative website.

A new and exciting interpretation of Bosch's masterpiece, repositioning the triptych as a history of humanity and the natural world Hieronymus Bosch's (c. 1450-1516) Garden of Earthly Delights has elicited a sense of wonder for centuries. Over ten feet long and seven feet tall, it demands that we step back to take it in, while its surface, intricately covered with fantastical creatures in dazzling detail, draws us closer. In this highly original reassessment, Margaret D. Carroll reads the Garden as a speculation about the origin of the cosmos, the life-history of earth, and the transformation of humankind from the first age of world history to the last. Upending traditional interpretations of the painting as a moralizing depiction of God's wrath, human sinfulness, and demonic agency, Carroll argues that it represents Bosch's exploration of progressive changes in the human condition and the natural world. Extensively researched and beautifully illustrated, this groundbreaking secular analysis draws on new findings about Bosch's idiosyncratic painting technique, his curiosity about natural history, his connections to the Burgundian court, and his experience of contemporary politics. The book offers fresh insights into the artist and his most beloved and elusive painting.

This book offers an analysis of Giotto's painted architecture, focusing on issues of structural logic, clarity of composition, and its role within the narrative of the painting. Giotto was the first artist since antiquity to feature highly-detailed architecture in a primary role in his paintings. Francesco Benelli demonstrates how architecture was used to create pictorial space, one of Giotto's key inventions. He argues that Giotto's innovation was driven by a new attention to classical sources, including low reliefs, mosaics, mural paintings, coins, and Roman ruins. The book shows how Giotto's images of fictive buildings, as well as portraits of well-known monuments, both ancient and contemporary, play an important role in the overall narrative, iconography, and meaning of his works. The conventions established by Giotto remained at the heart of early modern Italian painting until the sixteenth century.

The Bayeux Tapestry has long been recognized as one of the most problematical historical documents of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. More than a reinterpretation of the historical evidence, Suzanne Lewis's study explores the visual and textual strategies that have made the Bayeux Tapestry's narrative such a powerful experience for audiences over the centuries. The Rhetoric of Power focuses on how the Tapestry tells its story and how it shapes the responses of reader-viewers. This involves a detailed analysis of the way the visual narrative draws on diverse literary genres to establish the cultural resonance of the story it tells. The material is organized into self-contained yet cross-referencing episodes that not only portray the events of the Conquest but locate those events within the ideological codes of Norman feudalism. Lewis's analysis conveys how the whole 232-foot tapestry would have operated as a complex cultural 'fiction' comparable to modern cinema.

First published in 1951, as the revised edition of a 1935 original, this volume provides a historical study of English sculpture during the medieval period. It was created as a response to the increasing popularity of art history, providing students with a detailed, yet accessible, introduction to its subject. The text is particularly distinguished by its comprehensive range of illustrative material, containing 683 high-quality photographs from a broad range of sources. This is a fascinating book that will be of value to anyone with an interest in religious art and the development of medieval sculpture.

An important trade centre in the Medieval Mediterranean, Amalfi and the surrounding region of southern Italy sustained strong art production and patronage from the eleventh through to the thirteenth centuries. Merchant patrons realised a wide variety of religious and residential complexes that were evocative of Byzantine, Islamic, Western, and local traditions. With the rise of the Angevin kingdom, a demise of this eclectic art tradition took place and by the fourteenth century, Amalfitan painting and sculpture reflected compromises between local and Neapolitan styles, demonstrating the erosion of its autonomy. Originally published in 2004, this book evaluates the Amalfitan art production in terms of moral, economic, and social structures, including investment strategies, anxieties about wealth and salvation, and southern Italy's diverse religious communities. Historiographical analyses and postcolonial models of interpretation offer further insight into Amalfitan art and its ever-shifting relationship to the visual cultures of sovereign authorities in southern Italy.

The essays in this lavishly illustrated volume shed light on Ethiopia and Eritrea's fascinating past by looking at some of the most remarkable Ethiopic manuscripts kept at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. In Ethiopia and Eritrea, manuscripts, often beautifully illustrated, have for centuries been the principal means of recording not just the Scriptures but also historical information. Ethiopic manuscripts thus provide a unique window into the life and culture of Ethiopians and Eritreans up to the twenty-first century. The first three essays function as an introduction and examine the history of the collection, the classical Ethiopic (Ge'ez) language, and the production of manuscripts in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The remaining nine contributions-each devoted to one of the Bodleian's manuscripts-explore different facets of the manuscript tradition of Ethiopia and Eritrea. With its unique focus on the Bodleian's collection, this landmark volume presents a comprehensive and accessible overview of the context in which Ethiopic manuscripts were produced and makes the library's treasures more accessible to scholars and the interested public. The collection of Ethiopic manuscripts in the Bodleian Library in Oxford is one of the most significant in Europe. The Bodleian acquired its first Ge'ez manuscript in 1636 and further expanded its collection in 1843, when it acquired twenty-four of the manuscripts that the Scottish explorer James Bruce had brought back from Ethiopia and Eritrea. During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries the Bodleian Library has continued to expand its holdings of Ethiopic manuscripts through new acquisitions. Especially noteworthy are the forty-five manuscripts that the former Oxford University Medical Officer Bent Juel-Jensen bequeathed to the library at his death in 2007. Colour illustrations throughout.

Nicola Pisano was a much admired thirteenth-century Italian sculptor and architect, often considered to be the founder of modern sculpture. Within this 1938 text, G. H. and E. R. Crichton begin by giving a biographical background of Pisano, before looking at those early sculptors whose works may have inspired him. In the book's second part, the Crichtons write in detail about the sculptures of Pisano, describing the pulpits at Pisa and Siena as well as the Fountain at Perugia. The Crichtons also discuss those pieces often accredited to Pisano which seem unlikely to be his. Finally, they share their conclusions on Pisano's influence on Italian sculpture. These fascinating accounts of Pisano's life and works are supplemented by numerous illustrative plates. This book will appeal to scholars of art and sculpture in general, as well as of Pisano and thirteenth-century sculpture more specifically.

This book describes in detail the materials and techniques used by medieval iconographers. It offers information about the natural sources, the raw materials, the tools and the technologies involved in preparing them. The book allows entry into the secretive world of very knowledgeable and skilled artisans, about which very little is known. Topics covered include raw materials, pigments, binders, solvents, adhesives, inks and varnishes. Special chapters will be dedicated to the fresco technique as practiced by the early iconographers, grinding, painting on glass and the training/apprenticeship of these craftsmen.