Call for Journal Submissions: Dominion of the Sacred: Image, Cartography, Knowledge of the City, deadline 1 October 2020

Dominion of the Sacred. Image, Cartography, Knowledge of the City after the Council of Trent (In_bo vol. 12, no. 16)

Between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Italian political geography was polarized by a number of cities of different sizes and traditions: Rome and Florence, Milan and Naples, Genoa and Venice, Turin and Modena, either ancient republics or new dynastic capitals, satellites of the great European monarchies or small Signorias. The conjunction — less frequently the conflict — between the mandates of the Council of Trent and the interests of the ruling élites of those cities set the foundation for novel forms of social, cultural and spiritual control, fostering new urban structures and policies, deeply conditioned by the presence and government of the sacred.

Prominent issues at the time were the widespread presence of male religious orders and cloistered female orders, the renewed role played by the residing diocesan curias, the parishes with their activities of social recording and control, the stabilization of the confraternities, the construction of places of worship, and the emergence of devotional practices.

In these circumstances, the Italian city became the object of a renewed attention, partly reflecting the political-religious context, and partly responding to some tangible developments of the European urban landscapes: changes in scale due to economic or demographic dynamics, ‘aristocratization’ processes, a broad stiffening of the habits, of relationships and values affecting all aspects of urban life. These are all phenomena that were keenly observed by the contemporaries, who in turn developed new tools for the investigation, analysis and representation of the city, of its spaces and buildings, with the intention of directing its transformation, its architectural and urban renewal.

The culture at that time was imbued with a new interest for the city, for its history and its present condition: the emergence and first orientations of Christian archaeology are just one among many possible examples of this tendency. In the printing market this interest for the city fed into new editorial fields; some books came to have great success and can be considered as emblematic, such as Delle cause della grandezza delle città by Giovanni Botero or Roma sotterranea by Antonio Bosio. Municipal histories, antiquarian guides, inventories of epigraphs, genealogical histories, lives of local saints, heroes and artists, all contributed to a collective imaginary that was built around the definition of the sacred.

A widespread necessity was to develop instruments to understand the city in its topography: plans, views, measurements, either handwritten or printed. Engravings, illustrated books and cartographies became means of government and instruments to disseminate official and controlled representations, hagiographical or slandering in nature, political or polemical. The case of Bologna — subject of printed plans, surveys and of the grand view in the Sala Bologna of the Vatican palace — is emblematic, but the case of the new capital of Turin is equally as compelling. Images of exemplary symbolic significance were conceived in Rome (where the ancient, the Christian and the Papal cities were stratified one onto another), as well as in Milan, Siena, Naples, just to remember a few of the most renowned cases.

New magistracies responsible for water and street management were established in different urban contexts, while medieval magistracies became subject to more rigid control by the ruling authorities. Specific laws were promulgated to regulate the regime of public spaces, more accurately than in the past: rules of urban decorum, expropriation laws, incentives for architectural renewal, etc. The ‘technical’ knowledges and their actors (architects, engineers, land surveyors, jurists, consultants of various kinds) acquired a more relevant and specific role.

We encourage contributions regarding:

  • individual urban realities and aspects of their topographical, landscape and symbolic representations, in relation to the different uses and intentions that arose specifically in the post-Tridentine age;
  • cases of urban interventions directed towards the construction of a new city image in the post-Tridentine age;
  • cross-cutting analyses of aspects, dynamics, and issues connected to the topics previously mentioned (conjunctures, contaminations, turning points, generational affinities …).

This issue of In_bo aims to shed new light on the many grey areas — within a relatively well-known research field — that have not been studied extensively yet: cities, magistracies, emblematic personalities; documentary, graphic and cartographic sources, either ignored in the past, or looking for a new interpretation; paradigmatic cases of urban images and their dissemination.

From a chronological standpoint, the definition ‘post-Tridentine’ must be intended in a wide sense: contributions regarding later transformations of the post-Tridentine layouts, will be welcome.
We also wish to read comparisons with other political-institutional, social and cultural contexts, as well as for insights on cases where the instances of the reform of Roman Catholicism met/conflicted with the Protestant Reformations or with non-Christian beliefs.

Possible leads:

  • Sacred cartography (maps and views of the city under the auspices of the Virgin or of patron saints)
  • Cartographies of catastrophe (pestilence, earthquakes, fires, war destructions)
  • Religious orders and maps of the city (surveys commissioned within specific religious orders; maps of convents and monasteries…)
  • Maps and views of poverty/marginality/segregation in the city (hospitals, hospices, ghettos…)
  • Urban images as instruments of religious controversy
  • Urban iconography in the printing market (one-page prints, auteur engravings, book illustrations…)
  • Plans and surveys in the office of urban magistracies
  • City of paper VS city of stone (graphic inventories/physical demarcations of streets, quarters, districts)
  • The representation of the city in the great geo-iconographic cycles (e.g. the Gallery of Maps in the Vatican)
  • Urban images and class distinctions (maps and views as instruments for social demarcation)
  • Instruments, practices, manuals, crafts of urban survey and urban representation

Application process:

Authors are invited to submit an abstract in Italian or English (3000–4000 characters, spaces included) to the email address in_bo@unibo.it, no later than October 1st, 2020.

Abstracts have to follow the Journal guidelines. The submission must include a short bio statement (350 characters max, spaces included) and the author’s affiliation.

In case of acceptance of the abstract, the full paper must be uploaded on the website https://in_bo.unibo.it. The essay could be in Italian or English, between 20.000 and 60.000 characters, spaces included. Full papers will undergo a double-blind peer review process.

Deadlines:

October 1st, 2020 | Abstract submission
October 31st, 2020 | Abstract acceptance notification
April 30th, 2021 | Full paper submission
June 2021 | Results of peer review process
September 2021 | Publication

More information can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fgj5xQfGOYu25KIZodg6sfyoRtDTtiaJ/view

The Journal:

The journal In_bo, owned by the Department of Architecture of the University of Bologna, has been managed for a number of years through a partnership with the Centro Studi Cherubino Ghirardacci in Bologna and with the Fondazione Flaminia in Ravenna. This long-standing collaboration was recently formalized with an agreement that defines the roles and responsibilities of each partner institution, thereby strengthening the cultural identity and the influence of the journal. At the core of In_bo’s research interests lies the theme of space (architectural, urban, territorial) as it is inhabited by people, which leads us to consider space as a complex cultural construct. Functions, uses, and varying perceptions are all understood as the products of a specific social form, of a comprehensive view of the world, a Weltanschauung, either private or shared among an élite, among some prominent personalities or within a structured community.

This interweaving of meanings and values becomes especially evident in the urban phenomenon. Therefore, cities should not be regarded just as particular or exemplary forms of dwelling, but rather as its very paradigm.

With this new issue, we are trying to look back at the roots of the modern Western city, focusing our gaze on the historical evolution of the tools and practices that have been adopted in order to understand and control the urban scale.

The opportunity to set forth this in-depth analysis was offered by the 500th anniversary of the birth of Cherubino Ghirardacci (1519–2019), Augustinian monk from Bologna, historian and cartographer, who authored the first studies for a bird’s eye view of the city of Bologna, later perfected in the renowned frescoes of the Vatican Palace.

The Centro Studi Cherubino Ghirardacci celebrated this anniversary with an interdisciplinary seminar and an exhibition in the Museo dell’Archiginnasio in Bologna (6/12/2019 – 6/1/2020).
With this call we intend to start from and expand on the themes of the seminar, looking at a very specific time in history, when the ways in which the Western city was understood, represented, and governed were significantly transformed.

Acknowledging the bounds of our expertise and recognizing how these topics have already been the subject of specific studies, we have thus entrusted this issue to two guest editors: professors Mario Carlo Alberto Bevilacqua (University of Florence) and Marco Folin (University of Genoa). We thank them again for having accepted our invitation in taking on this task.

The Editorial Team: edited by Mario Bevilacqua (Università degli Studi di Firenze), Marco Folin (Università degli Studi di Genova)

Virtual Book Launch: ‘From Granada to Berlin: The Alhambra Cupola’ by Anna McSweeney, Wednesday 30 September 6pm (GMT)

Presented by The Royal Asiatic Society, The Islamic Art Circle and the Friends of the Museum for Islamic Art in the Pergamon Museum

If you would like to attend, please contact Matty Brealey by email: mb@royalasiaticsociety.org – the zoom link and password will be provided. please note that the number of attendees is limited, so early registration is advised. Please register by 28September 2020.

‘From Granada to Berlin: The Alhambra Cupola’ by Anna McSweeney

This new book by Dr Anna McSweeney – From Granada to Berlin: the Alhambra Cupola (Verlag Kettler, 2020) – tells the long history of the Alhambra palace through the prism of one of its most extraordinary survivors: the Alhambra cupola, a carved and painted Islamic ceiling from the palace which is now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin.

Through a close examination of the cupola, it traces the long history of the palace from its Islamic origins, to today. The loss of the cupola from Granada, its move to Berlin and the complex reasons behind this loss are central to the biography. Through a focused study with extensive new research on this unique object and the societies through which it moved, this book cuts across academic and geographic boundaries to reveal a new perspective on the legacy of Islamic art in Europe and its continuing relevance today.

From Granada to Berlin: the Alhambra Cupola is a Connecting Art Histories in the Museum publication by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, and the Max-Planck-Institut.

Dr Anna McSweeney is lecturer in medieval and Islamic art history in Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

The book is available from the publisher’s website: https://www.verlag-kettler.de/en/product/granada-berlin-alhambra-cupola

Fellowships: I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, first deadline 15 October 2020

I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy, warmly invites applications for the 2021-2022 academic year.

I Tatti Fellowship (twelve months; deadline 15 October) for post-doctoral research in any aspect of the Italian Renaissance broadly understood historically to include the period from the 14th to the 17th century, and geographically to include transnational dialogues between Italy and other cultures (e.g. Latin American, Mediterranean, African, Asian etc.). Subjects covered include music and performance, art and architecture, history, literature, material culture, philosophy, religion, and science. https://itatti.harvard.edu/i-tatti-fellowship

Wallace Fellowship (four or six months; deadline November 16) for post-doctoral scholars who explore the historiography and impact of the Italian Renaissance in the Modern Era (19th-21st centuries). https://itatti.harvard.edu/wallace-fellowship

Berenson Fellowship (four or six months; deadline November 16) for post-doctoral scholars who explore “Italy in the World.” Projects should address the transnational dialogues between Italy and other cultures (e.g. Latin American, Mediterranean, African, Asian etc.) during the Renaissance, broadly understood historically to include the period from the 14th to the 17th century. https://itatti.harvard.edu/berenson-fellowship

Fellowship in the Digital Humanities (four or six months; deadline November 16) for projects that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries and actively employ technology. Applicants can be scholars in the humanities or social sciences, librarians, archivists, and data science professionals. Projects should apply digital technologies such as mapping, textual analysis, visualization, or the semantic web to topics on any aspect of the Italian Renaissance. https://itatti.harvard.edu/fellowship-digital-humanities

Craig Hugh Smyth Fellowship (four or six months; deadline November 16) for curators and conservators. Projects can address any aspect of Italian Renaissance art or architecture, including landscape architecture. https://itatti.harvard.edu/craig-hugh-smyth-fellowship

David and Julie Tobey Fellowship (four or six months; deadline November 16) for post-doctoral research on drawings, prints, and illustrated manuscripts from the Italian Renaissance, and especially the role that these works played in the creative process, the history of taste and collecting, and questions of connoisseurship. https://itatti.harvard.edu/david-and-julie-tobey-fellowship

Warburg/I Tatti Joint Fellowship (ten months; deadline November 16) designed for early and mid-career post-doctoral scholars in the field of history, with preference given to projects that address the history of science and knowledge related to early modern Italy, including transnational connections between Italy and other cultures. The Fellows will spend the fall term (September – December 2021) in London and the spring term (January – June 2022) in Florence. https://itatti.harvard.edu/warburgi-tatti-joint-fellowship

I Tatti/Museo Nacional del Prado Joint Fellowship (ten months; deadline November 16) designed for early and mid-career scholars in the field of art history, with preference given to advanced research projects that address the relationship between Spain and Italy (including transnational connections and dialogues with Latin America) during the Renaissance. The Fellow will spend the fall term (September – December 2021) in Madrid, with the support of the Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica (CEEH) and the spring term (January – June 2022) in Florence. https://itatti.harvard.edu/i-tattimuseo-nacional-del-prado-joint-fellowship

I Tatti/DHI Rom Joint Fellowship for African Studies (ten months; deadline November 16) for post-doctoral scholars working in fields related to the study of precolonial and colonial African history c. 1250-1750, including art history, the history of expressive cultures, musicology, economic history, intellectual, political, and religious history, as well as literature and languages. Preference will be given to projects that address the relationship between the African continent and the Mediterranean world during the early modern period, broadly understood historically to include the period from the 14th through the 17th centuries. Fellows will spend five months (September 1, 2021 – January 30, 2022) in Rome at the DHI and five months (February 1 – June 30, 2022) in Florence at I Tatti. https://itatti.harvard.edu/i-tatti-dhi-rom-joint-fellowship-african-studies

For more information on all fellowships at I Tatti please visit https://itatti.harvard.edu/fellowships

For specific questions, please email amanda_smith@harvard.edu

CFP: Connectivity, Transcultural Entanglements and the Power of Aesthetic Choices in Africa, Association for Art History’s Annual Conference 2021, deadline 19 October 2020

Session at Association for Art History’s Annual Conference 2021 (Birmingham, 14-17 April 2021)

Following the transcultural and global turns in the humanities and social sciences, studies of issues of connectivity, transcultural interactions, processes of exchange and long-distance entanglements have been key contributions to the fields in the past 15 years, when also the mobility of objects and artistic responses to imported artefacts from the medieval to the contemporary period gained more and more prominence throughout the disciplines. When it comes to the African continent, however, such questions are often deeply problematic, since the humanities still have to deal with the weight of colonial discourses, racist concepts and rhetoric.

This session seeks to sound out ways of how to study connectivity, transcultural entanglements, and the role of and artistic responses to imported artefacts from 500 CE to the present-day in Africa without seeing Africans as passive beings ‘influenced’ by people and objects from afar. The session will provide a platform for transdisciplinary dialogue between art history, archaeology, anthropology and history. It will investigate issues of connectivity and mobility both across and beyond the continent, often evident in complex networks of proximity and distance. It will illuminate the impact of imported objects and the key role of local production. It will also unpack issues such as mimesis, inventiveness, the use of imported artefacts, their adaptations and transformations, creative responses to possibilities and challenges, and the power of aesthetic choices by means of case studies to probe methodologies and conceptual innovations for new studies on Africa’s multiple entanglements with the wider world.

Please send abstracts according to the AAH guidelines to:

Lecture: The Other Christians of the Late Medieval Mediterranean: Ethiopian Settlement and Exchange with Latin Europe, c. 1200-1550, 1st October 5:00pm (EST)

The Marco Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) invites you to virtually attend the 17th annual Riggsby Lecture on Thursday, October 1 at 5:00pm EST. Samantha Kelly of Rutgers University will present, The Other Christians of the Late Medieval Mediterranean: Ethiopian Settlement and Exchange with Latin Europe, c. 1200-1550.

Ethiopian Christian settlements, which dotted the eastern Mediterranean from the twelfth century, became both a primary source of Latin Christian knowledge about Ethiopia and the springboard for a similar settlement in Rome around 1500. This talk explores the Mediterranean facet of Ethiopian Christianity in these centuries, both as a network for Ethiopian pilgrims and settlers and in the perception of many Latin Christians.

Samantha Kelly is a professor of history at Rutgers University. Her research examines relations between Europe and the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia in the pre-modern era.  She is the author of The ‘Cronaca di Partenope’: An Introduction to and Critical Edition of the First Vernacular History of Naples (2011) and The New Solomon: Robert of Anjou (1309-1343) and Fourteenth-Century Kingship (2003, winner of the Marraro Prize of the American Catholic Historical Association).

The Marco Institute is an internationally acclaimed center for the study of the history and culture of the period from roughly 300 to 1700 C.E. With its rich schedule of lectures, workshops, and symposia; multiple fellowship opportunities for faculty and graduate students; graduate certificate and Summer Latin Program; and undergraduate major and minor, the Institute pursues the research and teaching of the early periods at the highest levels. Thanks to the generous support of donors Stuart and Kate Riggsby, the Marco Institute was able to establish the annual Riggsby Lecture in 2004. This lecture series brings a prestigious scholar of the medieval Mediterranean to the University of Tennessee campus every fall to give a public talk on a medieval Mediterranean topic of the speaker’s choosing.

Registration is required. Please click here to receive the Zoom link.

CFP: Double-Sided Objects in the History of Art, College Art Association Annual Conference 2021, deadline 16 September 2020

College Art Association Annual Conference, New York City, February 10-13, 2021

Chairs: Nicole Pulichene (Harvard University) and Nancy Thebaut (Skidmore College)

Double-sided images are pervasive across art historical time and place, yet they are not always considered in their full physical integrity: one side is often studied, displayed, and photographed more than its counterpart. In the historiography of pre-modern art, for example, privileging one side of a work might reflect methodologies borrowed from the study of easel painting. This approach, however, risks flattening an object’s material complexity and obscuring evidence of making and use.

This panel seeks papers that consider the history and historiography of double-sided objects by attending to their many facets, whether “front” and “back,” oblique angles, or otherwise hidden images. We ask how more holistic approaches to works of art might complicate, or even confirm, long-standing art historical narratives. Topics and questions might include: if makers emphasized or concealed the multi-sidedness of an object; if (and how) one side became dominant over time; emergent iconographic or material patterns within an object corpus; and multifarious or changing viewing conditions. Participants might offer solutions to unsatisfying yet common descriptors like front/back, recto/verso, or obverse/reverse, which so often reinforce material hierarchies. In keeping with this year’s CAA theme of climate crisis, contributors may wish to explore double-sidedness as a solution to material scarcity, namely through reuse and recycling. Proposals dealing with multi-sided works of art are also encouraged to apply. We hope that this panel creates a unique space to confront methodological and visual blind spots within our discipline by revising and challenging one-dimensional modes of looking.

Please submit abstracts via email to Nicole Pulichene (npulichene@gmail.com) and Nancy Thebaut (nancy.thebaut@gmail.com) by September 16 2020.

Online Lecture: ‘The Impostor Sea: Fraud in the Medieval Mediterranean’ by Dr. Hussein Fancy, 29 September 2020, 5:30pm (EST)

The Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University, New York City, sponsors many events throughout the year to encourage increased interest, knowledge, and study of the Middle Ages. In light of covid-19, their Fall 2020 lecture series is now virtual. Join the Center for its first virtual lecture of the semester on Tuesday, September 29 at 5:30pm EST. Dr. Hussein Fancy (University of Michigan) will present, The Impostor Sea: Fraud in the Medieval Mediterranean.

Registration is required for this event. To register, please click here.

The Medieval Studies program at Fordham University was founded in 1971 to promote the interdisciplinary study of the Middle Ages. By the late 1970s, the program had grown to include an undergraduate element and was housed in the Center for Medieval Studies, which is now one of the university’s most active and well-known centers of advanced study. The Center has made a significant contribution to the promotion of the study and teaching of medieval Europe. Through its digital workshops and online projects, students have many opportunities to learn more about the digital humanities. The integrated interdisciplinary approach to the Middle Ages is a natural extension of Fordham’s long-standing commitment to the study of this crucial historical period, which has attracted some of the University’s most distinguished faculty and students.

Dr. Hussein Fancy earned his PhD from Princeton University. He is trained as a historian of medieval Europe and the Islamic world. His first book, The Mercenary Mediterranean, examined the service of Muslim soldiers from North Africa to the Christian kings of the Crown of Aragon in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Image credit: Book on Navigation, Turkish, Late 11th century AH / 17th CE — early 12th century AH / 18th CE, folio 64a, The Walters Art Museum. W. 658

Online Lecture: ‘Byzantine Pieces of an Umayyad Puzzle: A Basalt Platform in the Azraq Oasis’, Dr Alexander Brey, 1 October 2020, 4:00–5:00pm (ET)

We are pleased to announce that “Byzantine Pieces of an Umayyad Puzzle: A Basalt Platform in the Azraq Oasis” has been rescheduled. In this lecture, Dr. Alexander Brey, Wellesley College, will discuss an Umayyad-era basalt reservoir platform built within the Azraq oasis in eastern Jordan and places its carved interlocking stones in conservation with early Byzantine zodiac and celestial diagrams.

A basalt reservoir platform built within the Azraq oasis in eastern Jordan features carved stones that fit together like the interlocking pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. Combining Sasanian and Byzantine motifs, the bucolic and mythological imagery that once decorated the platform is typical of the courtly architectural decoration produced for the ruling families of the Umayyad caliphate (661–750 CE).

In this talk I argue that, although the platform does not contain a depiction of the zodiac as such, the logic of its design can be better understood through comparison with a group of Early Byzantine zodiac and celestial diagrams. Situating the platform in the context of the post-Byzantine visual and material culture of Greater Syria during the Umayyad era not only clarifies the composition of the platform, but also the different relationships between image-part and image-whole that were implicit in a variety of late antique media and artistic techniques.

October 1, 2020 | Zoom | 4:00–5:00 pm (Eastern time)

This lecture will take place live on ZOOM, followed by a question and answer period. Please register to receive the ZOOM link. An email with the relevant ZOOM information will be sent 1–2 hours ahead of the lecture. Registration closes at 11:00 AM on October 1, 2020.

REGISTER

Sponsored by the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and Harvard University Standing Committee on Medieval Studies.

Alexander Brey, Wellesley College

Alexander Brey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Wellesley College. He received his PhD and MA in the History of Art at Bryn Mawr College. His research interests include the cross-cultural reception of visual cultures in the Umayyad caliphate and the medieval Mediterranean more generally, ranging from studies of the built environment to the trade and reuse of luxury goods. He is currently working on his book project, “The Caliph’s Prey: Hunting in the Visual Cultures of the Umayyad Empire.” His work has been supported by fellowships at the Social Science Research Council and the Garden and Landscape Studies program at Dumbarton Oaks.

New Publication: The Visualization of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, edited by Marcia Kupfer, Adam Cohen, and J. H. Chajes

This collection of essays by leading scholars reflects new interest in how graphic devices contributed to the production of knowledge during a formative period of European history.

All of us are exposed to graphic means of communication on a daily basis. Our life seems flooded with lists, tables, charts, diagrams, models, maps, and forms of notation. Although we now take such devices for granted, their role in the codification and transmission of knowledge evolved within historical contexts where they performed particular tasks. The medieval and early modern periods stand as a formative era during which visual structures, both mental and material, increasingly shaped and systematized knowledge. Yet these periods have been sidelined as theorists interested in the epistemic potential of visual strategies have privileged the modern natural sciences. This volume expands the field of research by focusing on the relationship between the arts of memory and modes of graphic mediation through the sixteenth century. Chapters encompass Christian (Greek as well as Latin) production, Jewish (Hebrew) traditions, and the transfer of Arabic learning. The linked essays anthologized here consider the generative power of schemata, cartographic representation, and even the layout of text: more than merely compiling information, visual arrangements formalize abstract concepts, provide grids through which to process data, set in motion analytic operations that give rise to new ideas, and create interpretive frameworks for understanding the world.

Pre-order the book here.

Table of Contents

Marcia Kupfer, Introduction

I. Visualization between Mind and Hand

Mary Carruthers, Geometries for Thinking Creatively

Lina Bolzoni, Visualization of a Universal Knowledge: Images and Rhetorical Machines in Giulio Camillo’s Theatre of Memory

Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Mindmapping: The Diagram Paradigm in Medieval Art – and Beyond

II. The Iconicity of Text

Beatrice Kitzinger, Framing the Gospels, c. 1000: Iconicity, Textuality, and Knowledge

Lesley Smith, Biblical Gloss and Commentary: the Scaffolding of Scripture

David Stern, The Topography of the Talmudic Page

Ayelet Even-Ezra, Seeing the Forest beyond the Trees: A Preliminary Overview of a Scholastic Habit of Visualization

Yuval Harari, Functional Paratexts and the Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish Manuscripts of Magic

A. Mark Smith, More than Meets the Eye: What Made the Printing Revolution Revolutionary

III. Graphic Vehicles of Scientia

Barbara Obrist, The Idea of a Spherical Universe and its Visualization in the Earlier Middle Ages (Seventh–Twelfth Centuries)

Marcia Kupfer, The Rhetoric of World Maps in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Faith Wallis, Visualizing Knowledge in Medieval Calendar Science: a Twelfth-Century Family of ‘Graphic Glosses’ on Bede’s De temporum ratione

John Haines, The Visualization of Music in the Middle Ages: Three Case Studies

Peter Murray Jones, Visualization in Medicine between Script and Print, c. 1375–1550

IV. Diagrammatic Traditions

Linda Safran, A Prolegomenon to Byzantine Diagrams

Adam S. Cohen, Diagramming the Diagrammatic: Twelfth-Century Europe

Madeline H. Caviness, Templates for Knowledge: Geometric Ordering of the Built Environment, Monumental Decoration, Illuminated Page

Lucy Freeman Sandler, Religious Instruction and Devotional Study: The Pictorial and the Textual in Gothic Diagrams

J. H. Chajes, The Kabbalistic Tree

New Publication: The Library of the Dukes of Burgundy, edited by Bernard Bousmanne and Elena Savini

Very richly illustrated, this volume re-frames this exceptional library within its political, economic, historical and artistic context, examining closely both scholarly literature and more than sixty manuscripts considered to be the jewels of the Library.

Formed under Philip the Bold and passed down to his successors, John the Fearless and Philip the Good, the Library of the Dukes of Burgundy comprised no less than nine hundred manuscripts copied and illuminated by the greatest artists of the Middle Ages by the time of Charles the Bold. This extraordinary and unique library included essential texts of medieval literature such as the works of Christine de Pizan, the Roman de la Rose by Jean de Meung and Guillaume de Lorris, the History of Charles Martel, as well as the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle. It was one of the largest collections of books of its time alongside those of the King of France Charles V, the Duke of Berry, the Medici and the papacy.

The two hundred and eighty manuscripts of the collection preserved today in the Royal Library of Belgium cover all fields of medieval thought: literature, ancient history, sciences, morals, religion philosophy, but also law, poetry and chivalric romance. The oldest of these works date back to the fourteenth century while the most recent date from the end of the feudal period. Many of them were transcribed at the express request of the dukes by renowned copyists such as Jean Miélot, Jean Wauquelin, and David Aubert. Many of these codices are absolute masterpieces of the French or Flemish miniature and have been illuminated by Willem Vrelant, Loyset Liédet, Jean le Tavernier, Philippe de Mazerolles, Simon Marmion, and Liévin Van Lathem, miniaturists whose fame and talent competed with Flemish Primitives such as Jan Van Eyck, Rogier Van der Weyden or Hans Memling. In the unanimous opinion of researchers, manuscripts that belong to the collection such as the Chronicles of Hainault by Jacques de Guise, the Hours of the Duke of Berry, the Psalter of Peterborough or the Cronic and Conquest of Charlemagne, are among the fifty most prestigious manuscripts in the world.

Mr Bernard Bousmanne is curator of the Manuscripts Room at the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels.

Find out more and order the book here.