Conference: Southeast European Silversmithing: Artisans, Donors, and the Concept of Piety during the Early Modern Period, Sofia, Bulgaria, 17-18 October 2024

On 17th and 18th October 2024 in Sofia (Bulgaria) will be held the international scientific conference “Southeast European Silversmithing: Artisans, Donors, and the Concept of Piety during the Early Modern Period.” The conference aims to gather specialists studying sacral silver objects from the early modern period who, through their research, contribute to the field of applied arts with religious use. The scientific forum will enable the presentation of sacral silver objects still far unpublished and unknown to the academic community. It will stimulate the comparative analysis of silversmiths’ works in wide geographic regions, which will also help improve the methodological means of their interpretation. A more meticulous approach to this field will represent a valuable contribution to art historical scholarship and a more comprehensive understanding of the visual culture of the early modern period.

At the conference, 26 specialists from prestigious scientific organisations, universities, and cultural institutions from Austria, Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, the USA, Serbia, and Hungary will discuss issues related to the production and circulation of liturgical objects, as well as their role in shaping the pious image of the faithful in Southeastern Europe between the 15th and 19th centuries.

Academic Committee

Darina Boykina, PhD, Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bulgaria
Mateja Jerman, PhD, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka, Croatia
Vuk Dautović, PhD, University of Belgrade, Serbia

Conference locations:

Thursday 17 October 2024

Sofia, 6A Moskovska Str., Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Conference Hall 19

Friday 18 October 2024

Sofia, 21 Krakra Str., Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Conference Hall 1

Conference Programme

Thursday, 17 October 2024

Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 6A Moskovska Str. Conference Hall 19

9:30–10:00: Registration

10:00–10:15: Welcoming Address

10:15–11:30: Constructing Piety

Chair: Vuk Dautović

Dimitris Liakos, Constructing the Pious Image in Southeastern Europe at the Turn of an Era. Valuable Objects as Gifts to Athonite Monasteries from the 15th to the 16th Century
Miljana Matić, Monks as Authors and Donors of Applied Art Objects (15th – 17th Centuries) from the Serbian Orthodox Church Museum Collection
Darina Boykina, Artisans’ Patronage. The Case of the Guild of Silversmiths in Tatar Pazardzhik during the Early Modern Period

11:30–11:50: Coffee Break

11:50–13:30: Personal and collective patronage

Chair: Teodor Lucian Lechintan

Nikolaos Mertzimekis, The Silver Cover of the Gospel of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1645–1676) in the Sacristy of the Iviron Monastery
Paschalis Androudis, On a Pair of Candlesticks from the Metropolitan Church of Kastoria, 1708
Nicoleta Bădilă, Donors’ Portraits from the Silver Liturgical Fans from Wallachia
Nona Petkova, Examples of Faith and Community Belonging: Eucharistic Chalices from the National Church Museum of History and Archaeology in Sofia

13:30–15:0: Lunch

15:00–16:15: Influential Objects: Appearance and Morphology

Chair: Livia Stoenescu

Mila Santova, Once Again About the Gospel Covers from the Teteven Monastery of Prophet Elijah (Teteven Gospel Covers from 1675)
Georgi Parpulov, Two Romanian Ciboria at the Sinai Monastery
Mariam Vardanyan, Innovative Tendencies in the Art of Armenian Book Binding: Myrrophores Gospels Bindings

16:15–16:30: Coffee Break

16:30–18:10: Silver Objects as Emissary: Circulation, Diplomacy and Gifts

Chair: Paschalis Androudis

Mateja Jerman, Goldsmiths’ Works as Gifts to Our Lady of Trsat (Croatia)
Milena Ulčar, Collective Patronage of St. Tryphon’s Head Reliquary in Venetian Kotor
Arijana Koprčina, Gifts of Bishop Emerik Esterházy to Zagreb (Arch)diocese
Francesca Stopper, La Serenissima and the Papal States: Liturgical Objects as Diplomatic Gifts in the 18th Century

Friday, 18 October 2024

Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences 21 Krakra Str., Conference Hall 1

9:30–10:45: Patrons and Silversmiths Creating Visual Culture
Chair: Darina Boykina

Dragoş Năstăsoiu, Cross-confessional Artistic Negotiation: Transylvanian Saxon Silversmith Masters and Their Orthodox Patrons in 14th to 17th-Century Wallachia and Moldavia
Teodor Lucian Lechintan, On Some Early Modern Silver Revetments of Romanian Icons: Donors, Techniques, Horizons
Vuk Dautović, Silver Votive Offerings of 19th-Century Serbian Rulers: Shaping Church Visual Culture and their Role in Changing Cultural Models

10:45–11:00: Coffee Break

11:00–12:15: Silversmithing Centres and Production of the Liturgical Objects

Chair: Mila Santova

Stavroula Sdrolia, Paschalis Androudis, 17th-Century Goldsmiths’ Enamelled Production in Thessaly
Barbara Kamler-Wild, Silversmithing in Vienna in the Golden Age of Empress Maria Theresia
Livia Stoenescu, To Be Worth a Potosí: Mines, Wealth, and Global Crafting of Silver Liturgical Objects in Early Modernity

12:15–12:30: Coffee Break

12:30–13:20: Silver Embodying Sanctity

Chair: Milena Ulčar

Konstantinos Dolmas, Like a Second Skin: The Head-Reliquary of St. Kliment of Ohrid
Simeon Tonchev, The Reliquary from the Church “Mother of God the Fountain of Life” in Svilengrad and its context

13:20–15:00: Lunch

15:00–16:40: Imagery and Iconography

Chair: Mateja Jerman

Anna Mária Nyárádi, Images Between the Latin and Greek Worlds. Prints and Book Illustrations as Models for Gospel Covers
Iglika Mishkova, Bread Stamps
Carmen Tănăsoiu, Behold the Lamb of God: About a Certain Iconographic Type Found on Diskoi from the Collection of the National Museum of Art of Romania
Ruth Bryant, Analyzing the Torah Shield: Understanding the Abundance of Animal Imagery through the Zohar

16:45–17:00: Closing remarks

The conference is organised within the framework of the project “Liturgical Objects in the Context of Silversmiths’ Art during the Ottoman Period (Based on Materials from the Diocese of Plovdiv),” funded by the Bulgarian National Science Fund, Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Bulgaria (contract No. КП-06-М80/2/7.12.2023).

For more information

Lecture: Entangled Objects of Eurasia: Persian Metalwork along the Silk Road (Vienna /online, Wednesday 16 October 2024, 15:00-17:00 CET)

https://persicacentropa.univie.ac.at/events/

Zoom registration required (anton.matejicka@univie.ac.at)

Coinciding with the 700th anniversary of the death of Marco Polo, this international research forum invites three distinguished art historians with particular expertise in non-European arts who will examine the modes and modalities of portable objects, other than silk textiles, from fresh perspectives. With the focus on metalwork, especially silver, three papers will collectively investigate different phases of material connectivities from the Asia Pacific to Mediterranean regions, from the time of Alexander the Great to the Mongol invasion of Eurasia.

This forum is organised by Persica Centropa: Cosmopolitan Artefacts and Artifices in the Age of Crises, 1900-1950 (FWF V-995) and held in conjunction with the workshop, “Entangled Charters of Eurasia”, at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (16-18 October 2024).

https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/imafo/events/event-details/entangled-charters-of-eurasia

Programme

Johannes Preiser-Kapeller (ÖAW – IMAFO), Chair and moderator
Matthew Canepa (University of California, Irvine), Scriptive Things and Commensal Warfare: Luxury Vessels across post-Achaemenid Asia
Yukio Lippit (Harvard University), Echoes of Persian Silverware in the Shosoin Treasury
Yuka Kadoi (University of Vienna), Silver in the Mongol Empire: Alternative Nomadic Aesthetics

Seminar series: IHR seminar in European History 1150-1550, 2024-2025

Hybrid Meeting: Online- via zoom & Wolfson NB02, IHR | Thursdays 17:30pm (BST)

We are pleased to announce this year’s programme for the IHR seminar European History 1150-1550. All seminars take place on Thursdays at 5.30pm. If you would like to attend, please book via the IHR website here.

Convenors:

David Carpenter, Emily Corran, David D’Avray, Delfi Nieto-Isabel, Rodrigo Garcia-Velasco, Lindy Grant, Andrew Jotischky, Patrick Lantschner, Sophie Page, Eyal Poleg, Miri Rubin, John Sabapathy, Alex Sapozniak and Alice Taylor

Please check the programme and enter the dates in your diaries: https://www.history.ac.uk/seminars/european-history-1150-1550

Seminar series programme: Winter term 2024

10th October 2024

(101, seminar 4, 20 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PQ)

Kristina Ilko (Cambridge), Chess, Race, and Race-Thinking in the Global Middle Ages

24th October 2024

(IHR, Wolfson NB02)

PhD session: European perspectives from English early Thirteenth-century chroniclers

Jennifer Jolly (KCL), The Waverley Annals and the reign of King John
Marie Tranchant (KCL), The Chronicler of Burton’s perspective on Europe

7th November 2024

(105 in no 24 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PQ)

Joerg Peltzer (Heidelberg University/UEA International professorship), Richard of Cornwall’s imperial ambitions

21st November 2024

(IHR, Wolfson NB02): Session in conjunction with, and generously supported by, GHIL

Professor Eva Schlotheuber (Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften der HHU,Dusseldorf), The Materials of Imagination. German Nuns, Tapestries, and the meaning of learned knowledge

5th December 2024

(106, Gordon House, Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PQ)

Luca Zenobi (Edinburgh), A Europe of Network States? The View from Italy

Spring Term 2025 Programme

16th January 2025

(Room to be confirmed)

Tom Nickson (Courtauld Institute): “He kissed me with the kiss of his mouth”: Art, Devotion and Society in 14th-century Burgos

23rd January 2025

(IHR, Wolfson NB02)

Lidia Zanetti-Dominguez (Sheffield): Judicial violence in late medieval Europe: corporal punishments in Tuscany in the period 1260-1360

6th February 2025

(Room to be confirmed)

Lesley Smith (Oxford), William of Auvergne

20th February 2025

(IHR, Wolfson NB02)

Lorenzo Caravaggi (Lancaster): Citizens and peacekeeping in late-medieval Italy

6th March 2025

(Room to be confirmed): Phd Student session: Europeans across the Mediterranean

Alessandro Scallone (RHUL), Innocent IV and Fieschi family interest in North Africa
Cheryl Midson (Reading), The Dominican Network- connections between the Latin East and West in 13th century

20th March 2025

(IHR, Wolfson, NB02)

Cecily Hennessy (Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow): Child Brides: Byzantium and Bulgaria in the 14th Century

Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group, Trinity Term 2024, Fridays 5pm (BST)

Michaelmas Term 2024 | Fridays 5 pm (unless otherwise stated)

Organisers: Irina Boeru, Fergus Bovill, Ana Dias, Charly Driscoll, Antonia Delle Fratte, Elena Lichmanova, Mathilde Mioche, Celeste Pan, Klara Zhao For all queries: elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk

To subscribe to our mailing list, participate in library visits, propose a presentation of your research for work in progress meetings, or submit any queries, please write to: elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk

Week 1, 18 October 2024, 3pm, Weston Library

Andrew Honey (Bodleian Library), Cataloguing Medieval Bookbindings at the Bodleian: Manuscripts from Reading Abbey as a Case Study

Limited places, please write to the email below by 16/10/2024

Week 3, 1 November 2024, Hawkins Room, Merton College

If you would like to present your work in progress and receive our feedback, please write to the email below by 28/10/2024

Week 4, 8 November 2024, Online

Reading Group: Audience and the Senses

K. Rudy, ‘Introduction’, Touching Parchment (vol.2, 2024)
E. Duffy, Ch.1, ‘A Book for Lay People’, Marking the Hours (2008)

Please write to the email below to join.

Week 5, 15 November 2024: The New College Archives Visit (Muniment Tower)

Introduction to the collection with Michael Stansfield

Limited places, please write to the email below by 8/11/2024

Week 7, 29 November 2024, Mure Room, Merton College

Eleanor Jackson (British Library), Medieval Women in Their Own Words: Curating the British Library Exhibition

Week 9, 14 December 2024, Saturday noon

Bonus: Casual trip to see the ‘Medieval Women in Their Own Words’ exhibition at the British Library together

Please write to the email below to join

Lecture Series: Medieval Visual Culture Seminar, University of Oxford, Michaelmas Term 2024

St Catherine’s College, Oxford, Arumugam Building 1.2 | Thursdays 5pm (GMT) | All welcome

Convenors: Nancy Thebaut, Associate Professor, History of Art & Fellow, St Catherine’s College (nancy.thebaut@history.ox.ac.uk)

Join the University of Oxford for their in-person Medieval Visual Culture Seminar Series this Michaelmas Term.

7 November 2024

Elena Lichmanova, DPhil student, University of Oxford, Religious Storytelling and the Rise of Marginalia

21 November 2024

Alixe Bovey, Professor and Dean, Deputy Director, & Head of Research, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Visual Storytelling in 14th-century London: Subtexts, Pretexts, Contexts

5 December 2024

Ben Tilghman, Associate Professor of Art History, Washington College & Visiting Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh, What Art Does When It’s Doing Nothing: Stillness, Perdurance, and Agency in Medieval Art

CFP: ‘Images of Dancing Women in the Middle Ages: Joy and Sorrow’, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, 2025 (deadline 15 September 2024)

The session focuses on the close relationship that has been established since antiquity between the female body and choreographic movements. The iconography of dance has gained increasing ground in studies on the Middle Ages. Since the pioneering work of musicologist Tilman Seebass and art historian Jonathan J.G. Alexander, it has been clear that dance images, like the texts describing choreographic performances, are an exceptional means to deal with the history of the conception of the body and the centrality of religious and secular rituals, as well as a vehicle for interpreting exegetical approaches to sacred texts. Whatever the dance scenario, the importance of the dancing female body is evident both in the sacred sphere, with dance and celestial choruses of exaltation and praise to God, and in the imagination that stages idolatry, diabolical rites, or the perverse use of the body in earthly performances.

The tale of the young Muse, who converts the wholly worldly joy of dance into a prayer, becoming part of the choir of saints following the Virgin, or the dance of uncontainable joy of Miriam, sister of Moses, who celebrates the crossing of the Red Sea, are just two examples in which the joy that springs from movement deeply modifies the scenario and the protagonists of the narrative. In many medieval exempla, female dance turns into pain and suffering at the exact moment at which the female body is possessed by the devil. Literary, allegorical, and even historical dancing women reflect the medieval conception of the body and embody the dichotomy of joy and sorrow, which is expressed in the narrative capacity of gestures.

Through the study of the representations of dance, the aim of this session is to investigate the emotions linked to choreographic narratives. The objects of study could include the enjoyment of the celestial dance and its earthly mirror: the courtly dance, narratives of death and diabolical torments, ecstasy and possessions. Allegorical-courtly literature offers countless examples of dances of joy, as in the Roman de la Rose. Moreover, Islamic and Sasanian art left traces of the importance of dance in court ceremonials, as well as rituals, as in the case of the frescoes of Qusayr Amra or the several Sasanian silver bowls and ewers. In the production of material culture, objects also introduce the tactile dimension, in addition to sight and hearing, as the choreomusical scenes depicted on a plate, a jar or a gemellion were observed but also manipulated, understood and experienced in accordance with the rites in which they were displayed.

This session seeks to investigate the emotions generated by dance and music both in the performer and in those who observe the dance. The proposal is developed in the field of cultural history and the visual culture of dance in medieval Europe, Byzantium, Islam and beyond, and aims to provide a new vision of the role of the woman as dancing body, as a key element for investigating the history of emotions in the Middle Ages. The session will focus on approaches that take into account a methodology of image analysis with an anthropological and sociological dimension.

Delivery Mode: In-Person (The ICMA offers small travel subventions for the participants in this session)

Principal Sponsoring Organization: International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA)

Organizer: Licia Buttà, Rovira i Virgili University (licia.butta@urv.cat)

Proposals for papers will be accepted through September 15 and need to be submitted at: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6333

CFP: ‘Jewish Women in the Middle Ages’, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo 2025 (deadline 15 September 2024)

The contributions of Jewish women are often absent from broader discussions on Jewish-Christian relations, the production and use of Hebrew manuscripts, and representations of Jews in the art and artifacts of the Middle Ages. This session aims to highlight the active role of Jewish women in the Middle Ages.

We welcome proposals for 20-minute original papers that address any aspect of the lives of Jewish women in Ashkenaz, Sepharad, or Italy.

Topics may include, but are not limited to, Jewish women as patrons, merchants, collectors, readers, scribes, authors, and artisans. Papers dealing with understudied topics, such as Jewish women in pre-expulsion England, are especially encouraged.

Submissions are due by 15 September 2024 through the ICMS conference portal, accessible via this link: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6348&stepsonly=1&username=14277&password=995618

For further inquiries, please email Laura Feigen at c1801872@courtauld.ac.uk and Reed O’Mara at rao44@case.edu

Grants: American Philosophical Society’s Franklin Research Grants, deadline 1 October and 1 December 2024

The American Philosophical Society’s Franklin Research Grants support the cost of research leading to publication in all areas of knowledge. The Franklin program is particularly designed to help meet the costs of travel to libraries and archives for research purposes; the purchase of microfilm, photocopies, or equivalent research materials; the costs associated with fieldwork; or laboratory research expenses. Special programs exist with the British Academy, the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, and the British Library.

Eligibility: Applicants are expected to have a doctorate or to have published work of doctoral character and quality. Ph.D. candidates are not eligible to apply, but the Society is especially interested in supporting the work of young scholars who have recently received the doctorate.

Award: From $1,000 to $6,500.

Deadlines: October 1, December 1; notification in January and March.Web: https://www.amphilsoc.org/grants/franklin-research-grants (for information and access to the application portal)

New Publication: ‘Zoomorphic Incense Burners of Medieval Khurasan: A study of Islamic metalwork’ by Elizabeth C. Kelly

Zoomorphic incense burners were produced in medieval Khurasan between c.441-597/1050-1200. This book examines their role, function and meaning. It includes a database with defined classification criteria that enables them to be contextualised with other contemporaneous metalwork.

Multicultural medieval Khurasan prospered from mercantile activities facilitated by the trade routes. The increased wealth, including middle-class patronage, movement of artisans and goods, along with the resultant transcultural exchanges, all contributed towards a changing aesthetic in artwork that reflect interests and lifestyles. The zoomorphic incense burners that emerged during this time displayed a hybridised iconography of feline and equine characteristics. The analysis indicates they are associated with symbols of power, sovereignty, the military and hunting. Their decorative palmette motifs provide representations of esfand, a plant considered to have talismanic and apotropaic properties known for inducing bravery amongst warriors.

AUTHOR
Elizabeth C. Kelly has a PhD in History of Art and Archaeology and a Master’s in History of Art and Architecture of the Islamic Middle East from SOAS University of London.

REVIEW
‘A richly illustrated and meticulously documented exploration of an intriguing aspect of Islamic art that touches on ancient universal traditions, as well as characteristic Iranian lore and Islamic aesthetics. The book is informative and entertaining.’ Professor (Emerita) Doris Behrens-Abouseif, SOAS University of London

‘This book takes scholarship on medieval Islamic metalwork to a new level: original, thorough, packed with insights, analysis, comparative material, tables and superb visual documentation.’ Professor Robert Hillenbrand, Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews

Find out more here.

CFP: ‘The Living Dead and the Transmission of Otherworldly Knowledge in Medieval Texts and Images’, International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds 2025 (deadline 16 September 2024)

Throughout the Middle Ages, narratives circulated in which the dead returned to convey special knowledge to the living, appearing in the form of ghosts, visions, and walking corpses. As intermediaries between the world of the living and the world of the dead, these figures revealed hidden truths, issued dire warnings, and imparted wisdom about the future and the afterlife. This session focuses on representations of the living dead in art and literature throughout the medieval period, with a particular focus on the role of the dead as keepers and transmitters of hidden knowledge.

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers on topics relating to the living dead in medieval art and literature, which may include:

Accounts of ghostly apparitions in waking life, dreams, and visions
Descriptions of the afterlife given by the dead as well as visionary encounters with the dead in heaven, hell, and purgatory
Encounters with walking corpses or other corporeal undead
Visual representations of interactions between the living and the undead
Necromancy and magical contact with the spirits of the dead
Warnings and prophecies pronounced by the dead
The living dead as conveyors of moral lessons in exempla and didactic literature
Confessions and revelations of hidden sins in encounters with the living dead
Discussions of commemorative practices between the living and dead
The nature of interactions with ghosts and other revenants, including noise and non-verbal communication

Submit abstracts of up to 250 words to Sam Truman (sat89@case.edu) and James Galvin (james.galvin@keysfamily.co.uk) by Monday, 16 September 2024. Please reach out if you have any questions.