Ground-breaking study of the enigmatic and unique tabernacles from fourteenth-century Italy, which for the first time combined relics and images. Images and relics were central tools in the process of devotional practice in medieval Europe. The reliquary tabernacles that emerged in the 1340s, in the area of Central Italy surrounding the city of Siena, combinedContinue reading “New Publication: Reliquary Tabernacles in Fourteenth-Century Italy: Image, Relic and Material Culture, by Beth Williamson”
Category Archives: New Publications
New Publication: Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages, by Roland Betancourt
Showing how understandings of gender, sexuality, and race have long been enmeshed, Byzantine Intersectionality offers a groundbreaking look at the culture of the medieval world.
New Publication: Medieval Monster Hunter, by Damien Kempf
A beautifully designed book, Dr Damien Kempf’s Medieval Monster Hunter brings medieval illuminations to life through his humours captions.
New Publication: Architecture of the Islamic West: North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, 700–1800, by Jonathan M. Bloom
An authoritative survey situating some of the Western world’s most renowned buildings within a millennium of Islamic history.Some of the most outstanding examples of world architecture, such as the Mosque of Córdoba, the ceiling of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, the Giralda tower in Seville, and the Alhambra Palace in Granada, belong to the WesternContinue reading “New Publication: Architecture of the Islamic West: North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, 700–1800, by Jonathan M. Bloom”
New Publication: Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr, by D. Fairchild Ruggles
Shajar al-Durr—known as “Tree of Pearls”—began her remarkable career as a child slave, given as property to the Ayyubid Sultan Salih of Egypt. She became his favorite concubine, was manumitted, became the sultan’s wife, served as governing regent, and ultimately rose to become the legitimately appointed sultan of Egypt in 1250 after her husband’s death.Continue reading “New Publication: Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr, by D. Fairchild Ruggles”
New publication: Architecture of Disjuncture: Mediterranean Trade and Cathedral Building in a New Diocese (11th-13th Centuries), by Joseph C. Williams
Through careful analysis of the Romanesque cathedral of Molfetta (in Apulia, southern Italy), Williams demonstrates how the commercial boom of the medieval Mediterranean changed the way churches were funded, designed, and built. The young bishopric of Molfetta, emerging in an economy of long-distance trade, competed with much wealthier institutions in its own diocese. Funding forContinue reading “New publication: Architecture of Disjuncture: Mediterranean Trade and Cathedral Building in a New Diocese (11th-13th Centuries), by Joseph C. Williams”
New Publication: Medieval Things: Agency, Materiality, and Narratives of Objects in Medieval German Literature and Beyond, by Bettina Bildhauer
What does medieval literature look like from the point of view not of knights and ladies, but of treasure, and rings, nets and the grail? How does medieval literature imagine the agency of material things, and what exactly distinguishes human subjects from inanimate objects? Medieval Things: Agency, Materiality, and Narratives of Objects in Medieval German LiteratureContinue reading “New Publication: Medieval Things: Agency, Materiality, and Narratives of Objects in Medieval German Literature and Beyond, by Bettina Bildhauer”
New Publication: Rome in the Eighth Century: A History in Art, by John Osborne
This book addresses a critical era in the history of the city of Rome, the eighth century CE. This was the moment when the bishops of Rome assumed political and administrative responsibility for the city’s infrastructure and the physical welfare of its inhabitants, in the process creating the papal state that still survives today. JohnContinue reading “New Publication: Rome in the Eighth Century: A History in Art, by John Osborne”
New Publication: Catalan Maps and Jewish Books: The Intellectual Profile of Elisha ben Abraham Cresques (1325-1387), by Katrin Kogman-Appel
This books describes the life of Elisa ben Abraham Cresques, known to many as the author of the Catalan Atlas, and focuses on the Jewish aspects of his fascinating career, his professional profile, and his scholarship. This book presents a small chapter in the intellectual history of the Jews of Majorca. Its key figure isContinue reading “New Publication: Catalan Maps and Jewish Books: The Intellectual Profile of Elisha ben Abraham Cresques (1325-1387), by Katrin Kogman-Appel”
New Publication: Building the Caliphate: Construction, Destruction, and Sectarian Identity in Early Fatimid Architecture, by Jennifer Pruitt
A riveting exploration of how the Fatimid dynasty carefully orchestrated an architectural program that proclaimed their legitimacy This groundbreaking study investigates the early architecture of the Fatimids, an Ismaili Shi‘i Muslim dynasty that dominated the Mediterranean world from the 10th to the 12th century. This period, considered a golden age of multicultural and interfaith tolerance,Continue reading “New Publication: Building the Caliphate: Construction, Destruction, and Sectarian Identity in Early Fatimid Architecture, by Jennifer Pruitt”
Medieval Art Research 