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.

In CHROMA Derek Jarman explains the use of colour in Medieval paintingthrough the Renaissance to the modernists and draws on the great colour theorists from Pliny to Leonardo. He also talks about the meaning of colours in literature, science, philosophy, psychology, religion and alchemy. The colours on Jarman's palette are mixed with memory and insight to create an evocative and highly personal work.

A picture-driven account of this important period in the proven successful format of Egypt -- 4000 Years of Art (Phaidon 2003). Presenting 300 artworks from the years 240 to 1453, The Glory of Byzantium and Early Christendom encapsulates the development of art in eastern Europe and eastern Mediterranean from the very early days of Christianity to the fall of Constantinople. From architecture to jewellery, from coins to paintings, from mosaics to book illuminations, Byzantine art in all its forms is explored. Unique not only for its extensive variety of art forms, the book also has a vast geographic scope, including art from Britain to Syria, from Spain to Turkey, from Egypt to Georgia. A sumptuous volume with stunning illustrations and concise descriptions, it places each artwork in its social, religious and political context, with an informative survey of its significance in this history of Byzantine art. A book for dipping into, as well as an inspiring, authoritative appraisal of this magnificent millennium of artistic culture.

Scholarship often treats the post-Roman art produced in central and north-western Europe as representative of the pagan identities of the new 'Germanic' rulers of the early medieval world. In this book, Matthias Friedrich offers a critical reevaluation of the ethnic and religious categories of art that still inform our understanding of early medieval art and archaeology. He scrutinises early medieval visual culture by combining archaeological approaches with art historical methods based on contemporary theory. Friedrich examines the transformation of Roman imperial images, together with the contemporary, highly ornamented material culture that is epitomized by 'animal art.' Through a rigorous analysis of a range of objects, he demonstrates how these pathways produced an aesthetic that promoted variety (varietas), a cross-cultural concept that bridged the various ethnic and religious identities of post-Roman Europe and the Mediterranean worlds.

In this book, Liz James offers a comprehensive history of wall mosaics produced in the European and Islamic middle ages. Taking into account a wide range of issues, including style and iconography, technique and material, and function and patronage, she examines mosaics within their historical context. She asks why the mosaic was such a popular medium and considers how mosaics work as historical 'documents' that tell us about attitudes and beliefs in the medieval world. The book is divided into two part. Part I explores the technical aspects of mosaics, including glass production, labour and materials, and costs. In Part II, James provides a chronological history of mosaics, charting the low and high points of mosaic art up until its abrupt end in the late middle ages. Written in a clear and engaging style, her book will serve as an essential resource for scholars and students of medieval mosaics.

A fresh interpretation of an enigmatic illumination and its contexts. The Ashburnham Pentateuch is an early medieval manuscript of uncertain provenance, which has puzzled and intrigued scholars since the nineteenth century. Its first image, which depicts the Genesis creation narrative, is itself a site of mystery; originally, it presented the Trinity as three men in various vignettes, but in the early ninth century, by which time the manuscript had come to the monastery at Tours, most of the figures were obscured by paint, leaving behind a single creator. In this sense, the manuscript serves as a kind of hinge between the late antique and early medieval periods. Why was the Ashburnham Pentateuch's anthropomorphic image of the Trinity acceptable in the sixth century, but not in the ninth? This study examines the theological, political, and iconographic contexts of the production and later modification of the Ashburnham Pentateuch's creation image. The discussion focuses on materiality, the oft-contested relationship between image and word, and iconoclastic acts as "embodied responses". Ultimately, this book argues that the Carolingian-era reception and modification of the creation image is consistent with contemporaneous iconography, a concern for maintaining the absolute unity of the Trinity, as well as Carolingian image theory following the Byzantine iconoclastic controversy. Tracing the changes in Trinitarian theology and theories of the image offers us a better understanding of the mutual influences between art, theology, and politics during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

The Cleveland Museum of Art's medieval table fountain, c. 1320-40, is the only version of its kind to have survived in its complete form from the Middle Ages. A superb example of French Gothic goldsmithing, it is an exquisite metalwork structure and a unique example of courtly taste and princely fashion, which was designed not for any religious purpose but purely as an indulgence. Its uncertain provenance has added to its charm. This focus volume reassesses this extraordinary piece in the context of other similar luxury objects, analysing specifically the fountain's history, functionality, materials, and style.

In this fascinating new book, Malcolm Vale sets out to recapture the splendour of the court culture of western Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Exploring the century or so between the death of St Louis and the rise of Burgundian power in the Low Countries, he illuminates a period in the history of princes and court life previously overshadowed by that of the courts of the dukes of Burgundy. Taking in subjects as diverse as art patronage and gambling, hunting and devotional religion, Malcolm Vale rediscovers a richness and abundance of artistic, literary, and musical life. He shows how, despite the pressures of political fragmentation, unrest, and a nascent awareness of national identity, a common culture emerged in English, French, and Dutch court societies at this time. The result is a ground-breaking re-evaluation of the nature and role of the court in European history and a celebration of a forgotten age.

This is the first scholarly art historical appraisal of early Anglo-Saxon coinage. Anna Gannon examines the many coins produced during this most vibrant period of English coinage. She analyses their prototypes and explores their sources and parallels with contemporary arts, literature, and theology, setting their meaning in context.

Where do we go after we die? This book traces how the European Middle Ages offered distinctive answers to this universal question, evolving from Antiquity through to the sixteenth century, to reflect a variety of problems and developments. Focussing on texts describing visions of the afterlife, alongside art and theology, this volume explores heaven, hell, and purgatory as they were imagined across Europe, as well as by noted authors including Gregory the Great and Dante. A cross-disciplinary team of contributors including historians, literary scholars, classicists, art historians and theologians offer not only a fascinating sketch of both medieval perceptions and the wide scholarship on this question: they also provide a much-needed new perspective. Where the twelfth century was once the 'high point' of the medieval afterlife, the essays here show that the afterlives of the early and later Middle Ages were far more important and imaginative than we once thought.

The pressure to destroy images was not an exclusively sixteenth-century phenomenon. The late medieval period witnessed both religious and secular conflicts over images. The essays in this book, each by an outstanding scholar, consider issues of central concern - literary, political, and art-historical - that arise from image making and breaking.

In this book, Irina Chernetsky examines how humanists, patrons, and artists promoted Florence as the reincarnation of the great cities of pagan and Christian antiquity - Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. The architectural image of an ideal Florence was discussed in chronicles and histories, poetry and prose, and treatises on art and religious sermons. It was also portrayed in paintings, sculpture, and sketches, as well as encoded in buildings erected during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Over time, the concept of an ideal Florence became inseparable from the real city, in both its social and architectural structures. Chernetsky demonstrates how the Renaissance notion of genealogy was applied to Florence, which was considered to be part of a family of illustrious cities of both the past and present. She also explores the concept of the ideal city in its intellectual, political, and aesthetic contexts, while offering new insights into the experience of urban space.

The subject of this book is the so-called London Qazvini, an early 14th-century illustrated Arabic copy of al-Qazvini's The Wonders of Creation and the Oddities of Existing Things, which was acquired by the British Library in 1983 (Or. 14140). As is commonly the case for copies of this text, the London Qazvini is lavishly illustrated, with 368 extant paintings out of the estimated original ca. 520. Its large format, ambitious illustrative cycle and the fine quality of many of the illustrations suggest that the atelier where it was produced must have been well-established and able to attract craftsmen from different parts of the Ilkhanid area. It also suggests that its patron was wealthy and curious about scientific, encyclopedic and caja'ib literature, and keen to experiment with the illustration of new texts like this work, which had been composed by the author only two or three decades earlier. The only centre that was capable of gathering such artistic influences ranging from Anatolia to Mesopotamia appears to have been Mosul. The London Qazvini is an important newly surfaced document for the study of early illustrated Arabic copies of this text, representing the second earliest known surviving manuscript, as well as for the study of Ilkhanid painting. In a single and unique manuscript are gathered earlier Mesopotamian painting traditions, North Jaziran-Seljuq elements, Anatolian inspirations, the latest changes brought about after the advent of the Mongols, and a number of illustrations of extraordinary subjects which escape a proper classification.

To write about works that cannot be sensually perceived involves considerable strain. Absent the object, art historians must stretch their methods to, or even past, the breaking point. This concise volume addresses the problems inherent in studying medieval works of art, artifacts, and monuments that have disappeared, have been destroyed, or perhaps never existed in the first place. The contributors to this volume are confronted with the full expanse of what they cannot see, handle, or know. Connecting object histories, the anthropology of images, and historiography, they seek to understand how people have made sense of the past by examining objects, images, and architectural and urban spaces. Intersecting these approaches is a deep current of reflection upon the theorization of historical analysis and the ways in which the past is inscribed into layers of evidence that are only ever revealed in the historian’s present tense. Highly original and theoretically sophisticated, this volume will stimulate debate among art historians about the critical practices used to confront the formative presence of destruction, loss, obscurity, and existential uncertainty within the history of art and the study of historical material and visual cultures. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume are Michele Bacci, Claudia Brittenham, Sonja Drimmer, Jaś Elsner, Peter Geimer, Danielle B. Joyner, Kristopher W. Kersey, Lena Liepe, Meekyung MacMurdie, and Michelle McCoy.

This is a long-awaited reissue of Remnant's classic study of misericords (medieval church carvings) in the United Kingdom. First published in 1969, A Catalogue of Misericords in Great Britain provides a complete listing of misericords from parish churches throughout the UK. The book also features an informative chapter on the iconography of misericords from M. D. Anderson (Lady Trenchard Cox), well known for a number of authoritative books on medieval carving and mythology. The 48 illustrations cover both some of the better known misericords throughout the country, and a number of carvings of outstanding interest from smaller churches.

Fur den Deckenschmuck der Abtsstube schlagt die Studie erstmalig eine Deutung vor. Sie versteht die sieben Medaillons als Bildprogramm zur Verherrlichung des Klosterpatrons und bezieht die sechs Tiersujets, die den Drachentoeter St. Georg umgeben, typologisch auf die Zentralfigur. Zum Nachweis dieser Moeglichkeit ermittelt sie zunachst anhand von Quellen die herkoemmlichen allegorischen Auslegungen der Tiere (Physiologustradition); dann zeigt sie Analogien auf zwischen den Tiergeschichten bzw. -exegesen und dem legendaren Leben und Wirken des Martyrers. So interpretiert, erhalt das bislang unbeachtete Deckenprogramm kunsthistorische Relevanz als innovatives Beispiel der Heiligenverehrung.

"The grace of God, our savior, in these last days appeared in his servant Francis to all who are truly humble and truly friends of holy poverty." Bonaventure's Life of St. Francis Art historian Timothy Verdon tells the story of the life of St. Francis of Assisi in story and art. The 28 stunning thirteenth-century frescoes by Giotto that cover the walls of the famous Basilica in Assisi named for the saint are reproduced in full color, together with a schematic drawing showing their placement in the church. Through detailed descriptions and illuminating commentary on each of the famous frescoes, Verdon tells the story of Francis's extraordinary life, allowing today's reader the opportunity to "read" the art on those walls in the same way that a medieval Christian might have done.

This Element covers the art produced in early medieval England from the departure of the Romans to the early twelfth century, an art that shows the input of multi-ethnic artists, patrons, and influences as it develops over the centuries. Art in early medieval England is an art of migrants and colonisers and the Element considers the way in which it was defined and developed by the different groups that travelled to or settled on the island. It also explores some of the key forms and images that define the art of the period and the role of both material and artist/patron in their creation. Art is an expression of identity, whether individual, regional, national, religious, or institutional, and this volume sheds light on the way art in early medieval England was and continues to be used to define particular identities, including that of the island on which it was produced.

A one-volume introduction to and overview of Christian art, from its earliest history to the present day. Diane Apostolos-Cappadona begins by examining how art and Christianity have intersected throughout history, and charts this tumultuous relationship that has yielded some of the greatest outpourings of human creativity. To introduce readers to the way a painting can be read Apostolos-Cappadona begins with an analysis of a painting of the Adoration of the Magi, helping readers to see how they can interpret for themselves the signs, symbols and figures that the book covers. In the more-than 1000 entries that follow Apostolos-Cappadona gives readers an expert overview of all the frequently used symbols and motifs in Christian art as well as the various saints, historical figures, religious events, and biblical scenes most frequently depicted. Readers are introduced to the ways in which religious paintings are often "coded'" such as what a lily means in a picture of Mary, how a goldfinch can be "Christological", or how the presence of an Eagle means it is likely to be a picture of St John. The entries are organized by topic, so that students and beginners can easily find their way to discussion of the themes and motifs they see before them when looking at a painting.

Medieval Europe inherited from antiquity a rich and varied tradition of thought about the aetates hominum. Scholars divided human life into three, four, six, or seven ages, and so related it to larger orders of nature and history in which similar patterns were to be found. Thus, the seven ages correspond to and are governed by the seven planets. These ideas flowed through the Middle Ages in many channels: sermons and Bible commentaries, moral and political treatises, encyclopaedias and lexicons, medical and astrological handbooks, didactic and courtly poems, tapestries, wall-paintings, and stained-glass windows. Professor Burrow's account of this material, using mainly but not exclusively English medieval sources, includes a consideration of some of the ways in which such ideas of natural order entered into the medieval writer's assessment of human behaviour. The book ends by showing how medieval writers commonly recognize and endorse the natural processes by which ordinary folk pass from the joys and folly of youth to the sorrows and wisdom of old age. `I cannot believe that it will ever be superseded... it is the very strong but perfectly clear distillate of a great amount of labour and thought.' London Review of Books `short, pointed, witty, tightly packed, richly illustrated, inspired and illuminating.' Essays in Criticism `If we regret anything as we read this excellent book, we regret that it is not longer.' Christina von Nolcken, Review of English Studies `There is much to praise in the book; Burrow is learned and imaginative, writes lucidly, and... has illuminating things to say... J. A. Burrow is one of the best living critics of medieval English literature, and this book is a rich and informative literary history of an important topic.' Studies in the Age of Chaucer

The Hippodrome of Constantinople was constructed in the fourth century AD, by the Roman Emperor Constantine I, in his new capital. Throughout Byzantine history the Hippodrome served as a ceremonial, sportive and recreational center of the city; in the early period, it was used mainly as an arena for very popular, competitive, and occasionally violent chariot races, while the Middle Ages witnessed the imperial ceremonies coming to the fore gradually, although the races continued. The ceremonial and recreational role of the Hippodrome somehow continued during the Ottoman period. Being the oldest structure in the city, the Hippodrome has witnessed exciting chariot races, ceremonies glorifying victorious emperors as well as the charioteers, and the riots that shook the imperial authority. Today, looking to the remnants of the Hippodrome, one can imagine the glorious past of the site.

A single, monumental mappa mundi (world map), made around 1300 for Hereford Cathedral, survives intact from the Middle Ages. As Marcia Kupfer reveals in her arresting new study, this celebrated testament to medieval learning has long been profoundly misunderstood. Features of the colored and gilded map that baffle modern expectations are typically dismissed as the product of careless execution. Kupfer argues that they should rightly be seen as part of the map's encoded commentary on the nature of vision itself. Optical conceits and perspectival games formed part of the map's language of vision, were central to its commission, and shaped its display, formal design, and allegorical fabric. These discoveries compel a sweeping revision of the artwork's intellectual and art-historical genealogy, as well as its function and aesthetic significance, shedding new light on the impact of scientific discourses in late medieval art. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

Although objects associated with the Passion and suffering of Christ are among the most important and sacred relics venerated by the Catholic Church, this is the first study that considers how they were presented to the faithful. Cynthia Hahn adopts an accessible, informative, and holistic approach to the important history of Passion relics-first the True Cross, and then the collective group of Passion relics-examining their display in reliquaries, their presentation in church environments, their purposeful collection as centerpieces in royal and imperial collections, and finally their veneration in pictorial form as Arma Christi. Tracing the ways that Passion relics appear and disappear in response to Christian devotion and to historical phenomena, ranging from pilgrimage and the Crusades to the promotion of imperial power, this groundbreaking investigation presents a compelling picture of a very important aspect of late medieval and early modern devotion.