Conference: Secret Spaces: Medieval Sacristies, Vestries, Treasure Rooms & their Contents, Society of Antiquaries of London, 25 February 2019

The aim of the conference is to introduce the subject of ecclesiastical treasure houses to both the academic world and the wider public.

Treasure houses take the form of small buildings attached as annexes to the cathedrals and churches which they served. Their function as store houses of the priceless ecclesiastical treasure belonging to the church meant that they were accessible to only a few privileged individuals but many are resplendent pieces of architecture in their own right. Recently Yves Gallet, in discussing an ambitious vault within the thirteenth-century treasure house of Saint-Urbain, Troyes, noted that ‘it is curious that they should have placed such a spectacular and up-to-date ornament in a place where it was never going to be seen’. Notable treasure houses in Britain are attached to the cathedrals of Canterbury, Lincoln, Wells, and Bristol, to name but a few. However, medieval ecclesiastical treasure houses existed everywhere in the medieval West and this will be reflected in the conference, which will bring together scholars from different countries. Ecclesiastical treasure houses also stored money, the presence of which necessitated the activities of depositing, guarding and counting. The ecclesiastical treasure house thus occupied a fault line between two opposing ideologies in medieval Christian thinking, the first condemning the accumulation of worldly treasure and the second promoting its use for God’s service.

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CFP: Litany in the Arts and Culture, An Edited Volume

Scholars representing various disciplines are kindly encouraged to submit paper proposals focusing on litanies and their forms and representations in different spheres of culture, including liturgy, literature, music, the visual arts, spirituality, and philosophy. The book Litany in the Arts and Culture edited by Witold Sadowski (University of Warsaw) and Francesco Marsciani (University of Bologna) and composed of selected best papers will be proposed for publication to the editorial board of the Brepols series: Studia Traditionis Theologiae Explorations in Early and Medieval Theology.

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Arte, Architettura e Umanesimo a Bologna, 1446-1530 (Bologna, 13-15 Jun 2018)

humanism, bolognaBologna (Italia), June 13 – 15, 2018

Dipartimento delle Arti, Complesso di S. Cristina, piazzetta G. Morandi 2 – Bologna

Bologna non è unanimemente riconosciuta come una delle capitali dell’Umanesimo, al pari di Firenze e Padova. Tuttavia la qualità delle scelte operate in campo artistico sottintende un rinnovamento culturale che gli studi moderni hanno cominciato a indagare. Da sempre crocevia di esperienze, anche nel Rinascimento Bologna riuscì a produrre e attrarre talenti d’eccellenza che seppero naturalizzarsi nel contesto cittadino e ricavarne nuovi spunti di riflessione e di creazione. Ne nacque, anche grazie all’ambiziosa magnificenza del clan bentivolesco e alla perdurante vitalità dell’antico Studium, una civiltà figurativa, architettonica e letteraria omogenea e ben connotata, capace di muoversi tra stravaganze eccentriche e punte di rustica classicità. Un processo che non si interruppe nemmeno dopo la traumatica cacciata degli stessi Bentivoglio, ma che anzi toccò un apice nel 1530, quando la solenne incoronazione di Carlo V riportò Bologna al centro della scena continentale.
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Horse History and Art History:  A Potential for Multidisciplinary Research

The horses, a major factor in medieval life, its way into medieval art in its various manifestations: in manuscript illuminations and sculptures, in tapestries and frescoes, in metalwork and household objects, horses, real and imaginary, ridden and free, are ubiquitous. Moreover, art was also an integral part of equestrian culture – although horse harness and equipment were usually plain and functional, some of the surviving objects are lavishly decorated. Finally, at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Early Modern period, riding itself became an art, performed and orchestrated, so that it evolved into a spectacle known today as dressage.

Can we ignore this wealth of evidence when approaching horse history? Can we ignore the presence of horses when studying medieval art?

1330-Harrowing-l

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Resources: Collection of the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin now published online

The Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin now provides access to more than 11.000 objects online on its website. This is a fundamental milestone in the accessibility of the museum collection and would not have been possible without the generosity of Yousef Jameel, Hon. LHD, a private supporter of the arts, education, and research.

Yousef Jameel facilitated the development of a special project team of art historians, archaeologists, photographers and conservators who, alongside permanent museum staff, recorded, documented and photographed large parts of its collection between 2012 and 2017. They compiled important information about the objects including their dating, provenance, materials, and techniques. In addition, various views and interesting details of the artefacts were photographed.

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Workshop: Inheriting Byzantium: Religion, Art and Literature in Pre-Modern Eastern Europe, University of Cologne,18 June 2018

Alter Senatssaal, Hauptgebäude der Universität zu Köln (University of Cologne, main building); Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Köln, Germany

11.00 Introduction / Welcome

11.10 Panel I

Charles Barber (Princeton University)

Theophanes of Nicaea on the icon of the Transfiguration

Ágnes Kriza (University of Cologne)

The “eleventh-century watershed” in Byzantine art and the beginnings of apse decoration in medieval Rus’

Elena Boeck (DePaul University, Chicago)

From Pillar of Empire to Ghost Rider in the Sky: Russian responses to Justinian’s Bronze Horseman between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

12.40 Lunch Break

14.10 Panel II

Brian Boeck (DePaul University, Chicago)

Crisis of Confidence: Explaining why Ivan the Terrible’s enormous Illuminated Chronicle Compilation was never finished

Ovidiu Olar (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)

The Missing Link: Seventeenth-century Moldavian and Wallachian manuscripts between Slavia Orthodoxa and the Greek-speaking Christianity

Aleksandr Lavrov (Université Paris-Sorbonne)

Die Gläubigen der Bistümer Vologda und Velikij Ustjug und der plötzliche Tod (vnezapnaja smert’) im siebzehnten und achtzehnten Jahrhundert

15.40 Coffee Break

16.00 Panel III

Cornelia Soldat (University of Cologne)

Type and Prototype – or: how to become the Chosen People

Justin Willson (Princeton University)

Seeing Nimbi in the fourteenth century in Byzantium

Christoph Witzenrath (University of Bonn)
Sari Saltuk and St. Nicholas between the Ottomans and Muscovy

Nataliia Sinkevych (University of Tübingen)

The cult of saints in early modern Ukrainian society

Conveners: Ágnes Kriza & Cornelia Soldat

Email: agnes.kriza@uni-koeln.de

For more information:

http://www.slavistik.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/2306.html

Poster

CFP: Papal Patronage and Interventions at RSA Conference 2019

Papal Patronage and Interventions | Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference 2019 | Toronto, CA | 17-19 March, 2019

One of the several panels at next year’s RSA Annual Conference will be Papal Patronage and Interventions. From the Schism to the Counter-Reformation, the pope and his court are among the greatest patrons of early modern Europe, seizing upon art and literature as harbingers of Christian order, power, and prosperity. These commissions include a dazzling array of objects, ensembles, and spaces, ranging from miniature vessels to grand palaces – even the renovation of Saint Peter’s itself. We invite proposals for papers that examine the role of artistic and architectural activities in shaping the image, identity, and office of the papacy in the Renaissance. What were the visual, ecclesiastical, and political motors that inspired patterns of patronage? In what ways did these currents stimulate artistic response? What were the stakes of individual objects and monuments commissioned in this heady atmosphere? We conceive of subjects broadly, spanning the European continent from the thirteenth through the sixteenth century.

This panel is sponsored by the Association of Textual Scholarship in Art History.

Please send a short C.V. (no more than one page), a 150-word abstract, and a list of keywords to Tracy Cosgriff (tcosgriff@wooster.edu) and Sara Nair James (sjames@marybaldwin.edu) by July 15.

CFP: Imago & Mirabilia (Barcelona, 18-20 Oct 2018)

Extended deadline!

The Ways of Wonder in the Medieval Mediterranean

18-20 October 2018 | Museu Nacional d’Art de Cataluyna

The ways of wonder in the middle Ages were shaped by a variety of places, stories and beliefs with ancient sources reworked by the Christian tradition. Activated by the opening of the Mediterranean, religious, commercial and military travels spread Christian worship, accounts and prized objects throughout Christianity. The real and the imaginary adventures confronted their protagonists with fabulous characters and places. The cult of Eastern saints found anchor points in the Western world where they sometimes developed as strongly or even more, proving, therefore, their polycentric nature.

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CONF: An Abbey Between Two Worlds San Nicolò in San Gemini and the Dislocation of Monumental Artworks in the first Half of the 20th Century (8-9 June 2018)

San Nicolo doorway

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Abbey’s restoration (1967-2017), the conference will address the phenomenon of legal exportation and reinstallation of monumental

complexes and oversized artworks in the first half of the 20th century. The Abbey’s portal, which arrived in the United States in 1936 and stands today at the entrance of the medieval collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, will serve as the starting point to examine the circumstances around the exportation of works from Italy until the Second World War.

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