Medieval Art Research

Art Fair: Les Enluminures at Bibliography Week, New York, 22-27 January 2018

“Bibliography Week” happens every year in New York City at the end of January when principal national organizations devoted to book history have their annual meetings. Many interesting events are planned, since so many bibliophiles are in town.
Some events are open only to members of the Grolier Club, but others are public and anyone with an interest in books is invited to show up. Les Enluminures is proud to be participating this year in “Bibliography Week,” especially so because two of its principles Sandra Hindman, Founder and President, and Laura Light, Senior Specialist, have joined the Club in the last year.

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Call for papers: Re-Nationalisierung oder Sharing Heritage? (Tallinn, 4-6 Oct 18)

Tallinn, Estland, 04. – 06.10.2018
Deadline: Feb 28, 2018

Re-Nationalisierung oder Sharing Heritage? Wo steht die Denkmalpflege im europäischen Kulturerbejahr 2018
EAA
Jahrestagung des Arbeitskreises Theorie und lehre der Denkmalpflege e.V. in Zusammenarbeit mit ICOMOS Estland und der Estnischen Kunstakademie (Eesti Kunstiakadeemia), Tallinn, 4.-6. Oktober 2018
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CFP: Misericordia International Colloquium 2018: Choir Stalls & Their Patrons, Rijeka (Croatia), 13-16 September 2018

Call for Papers: Misericordia International Colloquium 2018: Choir Stalls & Their Patrons, Rijeka (Croatia), 13-16 September 2018
Deadline: Feb 15, 2018
Notification of paper acceptance: March 15, 2018

Misericordia International is an internationally active multidisciplinary network dedicated to the study of choir stalls and their relation to other artistic manifestations during the Middle Ages and to the dissemination of results. The intensive exchange with researchers from neighboring disciplines reveals interfaces between disciplines and subjects of research and provides new impulses for the study of choir stalls. The platform for scholarly exchange is the international conference organized every two years.

The next colloquium will be held in Rijeka (Croatia) in September 2018. The conference seeks to explore and discuss the relation between choir stalls and their patrons. It aims to present original research in this field as well as to establish productive dialogue between scholars with a particular research interest in choir stalls. Artworks and their patrons have raised and continue to raise many research questions. While choir stalls have been studied extensively for the misericords with profane carvings, less research has been done on the commissions for this type of church furniture. In recent years the focus of choir stall research has moved toward makers and patrons, hence the previous colloquium’s topic was dedicated to the craftsmen and their workshops. The 2018 conference will focus on problems of ecclesiastical and secular patrons and questions such as who were the patrons of choir stalls and to what extent were they responsible for the final result, or are there differences or similarities between choir stalls considering different patrons – members of chapters, parishes, female and male monastic communities, confraternities and private persons.

We welcome academic papers that will approach this subject in an interdisciplinary and methodologically diverse way.

Acceptable topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:
– collaboration between patrons and craftsmen (carpenters, sculptors and painters)
– results of the archival research;
– inscriptions and used typography on choir stalls;
– migrations of craftsmen and migrations of stylistic features;
– center versus periphery;
– depiction of patrons on choir stalls.

Following the conference, a two-day excursion – visit to selected choir stalls of the region – is planned.
The conference language is English. A publication of the proceedings of this conference is forseen.
Papers should not exceed anticipated maximum time of 20 minutes and will be followed by a 10-minute discussion.

A paper proposal should contain the title and abstract (500 words maximum). Each proposal should be accompanied by full contact information (home and office mailing addresses, e-mail address, and phone number) and a short CV.

Paper proposals should be submitted electronically to: choir_stalls2018@uniri.hr

There is NO registration fee. Administration and organizational costs, working materials, lunch and
coffee breaks during conference are covered by the organizers. Travel expenses and accomodation ARE NOT COVERED.

CFP: 5th Annual Jane Fortune Conference: The Colors of Paradise. Painting Miniatures in Italian Convents, ca. 1300-1700, The Library of San Marco, Florence, October 11 – 12, 2018

Call for Papers: 5th Annual Jane Fortune Conference: The Colors of Paradise. Painting Miniatures in Italian Convents, ca. 1300-1700, The Library of San Marco, Florence, October 11 – 12, 2018T
Deadline: 15 January, 2018

5th Annual Jane Fortune Conference

The Colors of Paradise. Painting Miniatures in Italian Convents, ca. 1300-1700

This conference is co-organized by The Medici Archive Project and the Museo Nazionale di San Marco.

Since the late Medieval period, members of female religious communities have engaged in the making of small-scale paintings, or miniatures, on a wide variety of supports. Many of these miniatures were produced to ornament liturgical and devotional books; others graced objects such as candles and altar frontals. While nuns’ activity in this realm has been documented quite extensively in northern Europe, the Italian production of miniatures is less understood, aside from case studies of a few individuals such as Eufrasia Burlamacchi (1482 –1548). It is hoped that this conference will not only consolidate what is known about the production of miniatures by Italian nuns, but also catalyze new research. To encourage reflection upon the continuity of technical practices and models across arbitrary period divisions, the time frame of this conference has been extended broadly. Insight obtained through technical examination or the material analysis of nuns’ artworks will be especially welcome.

Papers may be given in Italian or English.

Call for Papers: Petrarch and Portraiture, XIV-XVI century

University of Cambridge, 8 June 2018

Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Dr Federica Pich, University of Leeds.

Confirmed Respondent: Dr Abigail Brundin, University of Cambridge.

The aim of the conference is to investigate the interplay between Petrarch’s writings and later Petrarchan literature with portraiture.

Through his works in both Latin and in vernacular Petrarch made crucial contributions to the establishment of new models for representation and self-representation, both in literature and in the visual arts. Portraiture – the visual celebration of the individual – offers a particularly appropriate vantage point from which to investigate this influence. Throughout Petrarch’s extensive corpus, the reader engages with diverse types of portraits. In De viris illustribus, for instance, Petrarch presents literary depictions of many of the most important scriptural and classical personalities. The text inspired the tradition of portraits of famous men and women depicted as examples of conduct in private homes and studioli, a tradition that culminated in Paolo Giovio’s Musaeo of portraits on Lake Como. In the Letters and the Canzoniere, Petrarch fashions a literary portrait of his poetic alter-ego. His engagement with portraiture culminates in Rvf 77 and 78, which are dedicated to a portrait of Laura painted by Simone Martini. By weaving together the notions of literary and visual portraiture, the poet touches on issues such as the dialogue with the effigy of the beloved, the perceived conflict between the soul and the veil of appearances, and the dynamic relationship between word and image. These aspects of Petrarch’s work influenced subsequent reflections on the limits of art and literature in representing the complex nature of the individual. Literary texts dedicated to portraits became an extremely popular genre during the Renaissance, and contributed to the debate on ut pictura poesis. Significant examples are found in the poetry of Gaspara Stampa, Pietro Bembo, and Giovanni della Casa.
If, as John Pope-Hennessy wrote, the modern portrait ‘reflects the reawakening interest in human motives and the human character, the resurgent recognition of those factors which make human beings individual’, Petrarch’s intellectual legacy becomes a central reference for scholars.

The conference welcomes proposals exploring the dialogue and reciprocal influence between portraiture in all media (painting, sculpture, prints, medals, tapestry, jewellery, manuscripts, etc.) and Petrarch’s production as well as that of his imitators. Although the conference will focus principally on the European context, proposals concerning relevant non-European case-studies will be equally welcome. Papers should be presented in English and will last 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of questions.

To apply please send a title, short abstract (no more than 300 words), and a short CV (no more than 2 pages) to Ilaria Bernocchi ib364@cam.ac.uk and Nicolò Morelli nm505@cam.ac.uk by 31 January 2018.
The conference is kindly supported by the Department of Italian, University of Cambridge, through ‘The Italianist’ fund, by Pembroke College, Cambridge, and by the School of Arts and Humanities.

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Call for papers: Art, Artists, Materials and Ideas Crossing Borders (Cambridge, 15-16 Nov 18)

Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge, UK, November 15 – 16, 2018
Deadline: Feb 28, 2018

“Migrants: Art, Artists, Materials and Ideas Crossing Borders”

This two-day conference organised by the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge, will reflect on the role of migration as embodied in works of art and material culture as documented in visual and written sources.
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CFP: Living in a Magical World: Inner Lives, 1300–1900, St Anne’s College Oxford 2018, deadline 12 January 2018

Historians have learned to regard the supernatural as integral to past lives. No longer are magical and occult beliefs anachronistically condescended to as mere ‘superstitions’, entertained only by a credulous minority and for the most part ancillary to temporal existence. Instead, the near-constant presence of unseen yet powerful forces – both benevolent and malign, and across domestic, communal, and cosmic environments – now seems central to a subtle and pervasive worldview held by sane, intelligent people whose outlook on the universe was no less sophisticated or coherent than our own. At the same time, supernatural beliefs were unstable, inconsistent, and contested.

Taking this insight as its starting point, this conference will explore the meanings, practices, and everyday consequences of living in a magical world, with special reference to its complex relationship to the inner lives of our forebears, from the late medieval to the modern period. We invite papers from all geographical contexts and disciplinary perspectives, and from researchers at all stages of their careers, that relate the history of magic, witchcraft, ghosts, and other supernatural phenomena to the following themes and research questions:

The history of selfhood, personal identity, phenomenology, and subjectivity;
The history of the emotions, and the significance of feeling states – insofar as we can ever recover them – for understanding and appreciating past experiences and interiorities;
And the extent to which interactions with occult realms and unseen worlds – which often engendered powerful feelings of anger, terror, and grief, but also of wonder, hope, and security – are privileged sites for understanding past emotional repertoires and experiences and, in turn, inner lives.

We hope that the assembled papers will shed new light on the role of the supernatural encounter in shaping the textures and meanings of lived experience over an unprecedentedly wide variety of time periods, national boundaries, and spatial and perceptual dimensions (from courtrooms, households, and urban and rural landscapes to dreamscapes, memory, and fantasy). Publication of an edited collection and/or journal special issue featuring a selection of the papers will be considered, while the conference will also incorporate a drinks reception at and private view of the project’s associated exhibition on the history of witchcraft and magic at the Ashmolean Museum. Provisionally entitled Spellbound: Thinking Magically, Past and Present, this will show from 6 September 2018 to 6 January 2019.

To propose a twenty-minute paper, please send a title and abstract of no more than 300 words, together with a short academic CV, to james.r.brown@uea.ac.uk by Friday 12 January 2018. Please also direct any queries to James in the first instance.

Call for Papers: Transmissions and Translations in the Medieval World

2 – 3 June 2018

Kings Manor, University of York

Keynote: Professor Roger Stalley

The Conference

The concepts of transmission and translation are central to the evolution of the pan-European multi-cultural nature of medieval society. Cross-cultural connections in the political arena, mercantile trade routes, the dissemination of Christianity and interactions with Islam and Judaism resulted in the appropriation and assimilation of practices, ideas and arts throughout the medieval world. These transactions were enabled by numerous factors and generated new fusions of style in architecture, art and iconography, literature and lifestyles which together importantly informed attitudes towards the self and others, senses of belonging and ownership, as well as conceptions of regionality. While these areas of enquiry have been much discussed in relation to contemporary society in sociological and anthropological scholarship, there remains much to explore about how they were articulated and achieved during the Middle Ages: what types of objects were transported and for what purpose(s); the impact of language on the transmission of ideas through manuscripts, literature and poetry; iconographic borrowings and theological impetus; processes of production; engagement with their societies of origin and those they infiltrated.

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Call for papers “Arte y producción textil en el Mediterráneo Medieval”

International conference “Arte y producción textil en el Mediterráneo Medieval”

Madrid, Museo del Traje. CIPE, 25-27 September 2018

Deadline: 15 March 2018

This conference aims to analyse medieval textile production from a cross-sectoral approach, focusing on the Mediterranean as an area of confluences that gave rise to varied manufactures with common links. This meeting, which will be attended by international specialists on textile research, proposes to re-examine assumptions on the production, functionality and circulation of these luxury objects. The collecting of these works, with regard to their archaeological and artistic value, as well as textile conservation, will also be under consideration.
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Call for Participation – Mediterranean Palimpsests: Connecting the Art and Architectural Histories of Medieval and Early Modern Cities

The Cyprus Institute, with support through the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories initiative, is launching a new research seminar project: Mediterranean Palimpsests: Connecting the Art and Architectural Histories of Medieval and Early Modern Cities. Interested scholars at a formative stage of their careers are encouraged to apply for participation in the project’s three planned workshops in Nicosia, Cordoba/Granada and Thessaloniki/Rhodes.

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