Sculpted Thresholds And The Liturgy Of Transformation In Medieval Lombardy

This book explores the issue of ecclesiastical authority in Romanesque sculpture on the portals and other sculpted “gateways” of churches in the north Italian region of Lombardy. Gillian B. Elliott examines the liturgical connection between the ciborium over the altar (the most sacred threshold inside the church), and the sculpted portals that appeared on church exteriors in medieval Lombardy. In cities such as Milan, Civate, Como, and Pavia, the liturgy of Saint Ambrose was practiced as an alternative to the Roman liturgy and the churches were constructed to respond to the needs of Ambrosian liturgy. Not only do the Romanesque churches in these places correspond stylistically and iconographically, but they were also linked politically in an era of intense struggle for ultimate regional authority. The book considers liturgical and artistic links between interior church furnishings and exterior church sculptural programs, and also applies new spatial methodologies to the interior and exterior of churches in Lombardy. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, medieval studies, architectural history, and religious studies.

These essays address how narratives unfolded in time and space when a body or object moved through premodern architectural or natural environments. Such narratives encompass interpretations of topography, change in built environments over time, and spaces for public assembly.

This book focuses on the earliest surviving Christian icons, dated to the sixth and seventh centuries, which bear many resemblances to three other well-established genres of ‘sacred portrait’ also produced during late antiquity, namely Roman imperial portraiture, Graeco-Egyptian funerary portraiture and panel paintings depicting non-Christian deities. Andrew Paterson addresses two fundamental questions about devotional portraiture – both Christian and non-Christian – in the late antique period. Firstly, how did artists visualise and construct these images of divine or sanctified figures? And secondly, how did their intended viewers look at, respond to, and even interact with these images? Paterson argues that a key factor of many of these portrait images is the emphasis given to the depicted gaze, which invites an intensified form of personal encounter with the portrait’s subject. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, theology, religion and classical studies.

Arboreal Symbolism in European Art, 1300–1800 probes the significance of trees in religious iconography of Western art. Based in the disciplines of art history, botany, and theology, this study focuses on selected works of art in which tree forms embody and reflect Christian themes. Through this triple lens, Brown examines trees that early modern artists rendered as sacred symbols—symbols with origins in the Old Testament, New Testament, Greek and Roman cultures, and early medieval legends. Tree components and wood depicted in works of art can serve as evidence for early modern artists’ embrace of biblical metaphor, classical sources, and devotional connotations. The author considers how artists rendered seasonal change in Christian narratives to emphasize themes of spiritual transformation. Brown argues that many artists and their patrons drew parallels between the life cycle of a tree and events in the Gospels with their respective annual, liturgical celebrations. This book will interest scholars in art history, religion, humanities, and interdisciplinary studies.

Moving bodies in space and narrative -- Topography and politicizing space -- Spatial alteration and reception -- Assembly and space.

This book examines the creative exchanges between architects, artists and intellectuals, from the Early Renaissance to the beginning of the Enlightenment, in the forging of relationships between architecture and emerging concepts of language in early modern Italy. The study extends across the spectrum of linguistic disputes during this time – among members of the clergy, humanists, philosophers and polymaths – on issues of grammar, rhetoric, philology, etymology and epigraphy, and how these disputes paralleled and informed important developments in architectural thinking and practice. Drawing upon a wealth of primary source material, such as humanist tracts, philosophical works, architectural/antiquarian treatises, epigraphic/philological studies, religious sermons and grammaticae, the book traces key periods when the emerging field of linguistics in early modern Italy impacted on the theory, design and symbolism of buildings.

Monasticism, in all of its variations, was a feature of almost every landscape in the medieval West. So ubiquitous were religious women and men throughout the Middle Ages that all medievalists encounter monasticism in their intellectual worlds. While there is enormous interest in medieval monasticism among Anglophone scholars, language is often a barrier to accessing some of the most important and groundbreaking research emerging from Europe. Volume 2 of The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West offers a comprehensive treatment of medieval monasticism, from Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages. The essays, specially commissioned for this volume and written by an international team of scholars, with contributors from Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States, cover a range of topics and themes and represent the most up-to-date discoveries on this topic.

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. In Staging Holiness: The Case of Hospitaller Rhodes (ca. 1309-1522) Sofia Zoitou offers a study of the history of relic collections, devotional rituals, and sites invested with special meaning on Rhodes, during a time when the island became one of the most frequented ports of call for ships carrying pilgrims from Venice to the Holy Land. Scrutinizing late medieval travel reports by pilgrims from all over Europe along with extant historical, archaeological, visual, and material evidence, Sofia Zoitou traces the various forms of the Rhodian cultic sites’ evolution and perception, ultimately considered as an overall artistic strategy for the staging of the sacred.