Fellowship: Tucher-Fellowship at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Deadline 13 July 2026

Find out more about this fellowship on the Germanisches Nationalmuseum website. 

Every two years the Tucher Kulturstiftung and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum award a fellowship to a doctoral candidate for research on a topic in German art and/or cultural history and, if possible, with a connection to the history of the patrician family Tucher. Applications from abroad receive priority.

The fellowship pays a monthly stipend of € 1,500.– and makes possible a six-month research stay at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. The earliest possible start date for the next fellowship is 1 April 2027.

While at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (GNM), the fellow will

  • be supported by the museum’s curatorial and research staff,
  • will have open access to the museum’s facilities,
  • be welcome to participate in the museum’s various events.

Furthermore, they will be involved in the museum’s trainee program.

Prerequisites for a fellowship application are a master’s degree (or equivalent) with high marks, candidacy for a doctoral degree, and a very good and proven knowledge of the German language.

Required application materials (preferably in German):

  • Research proposal (3 pages, 1.5 spaced), explaining one’s own interest in the topic, sketching the current state of the questions, describing preliminary work already com-pleted, explaining how a stay at the GNM would advance the dissertation project and how it relates to the von Tucher family.
  • Abstract of the research proposal (10–15 lines), which, if the fellowship is awarded, may be posted on the websites of the GNM and Tucher Kulturstiftung.
  • Curriculum vitae, list of publications, study and work certificates (as applicable)
  • A letter of recommendation

The fellow is required to present their findings at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum and also to present a final report at a meeting of the Tucher Kulturstiftung, to which the Stiftung will invite guests and, as the case may be, the press. Furthermore, they agree to provide both the German-isches Nationalmuseum and the Tucher Kulturstiftung with a written final report and a copy of the dissertation (paper or electronic).

A travel allowance can be requested from the Tucher Kulturstiftung.

Fellows from abroad must be in possession of a health insurance policy that covers possible costs of medical treatment in the Federal Republic of Germany. Proof of coverage must be submitted before the start of the fellowship period. The fellowship cannot be commenced without health insurance coverage.

A residence permit, if required, must be applied for by the fellow themself. The responsible authority in Nuremberg is the foreigners’ registration office (Ausländerbehörde) in the residents’ registra-tion office. (Contact: Einwohneramt/Ausländerbehörde, Äußere Laufer Gasse 29, 90403 Nürnberg, Tel.: +49911/231-45000; https://www.nuernberg.de/internet/auslaenderbehoerde-/aufenthaltstitel.html) It is a requirement that the fellow relocates their primary residence to Nuremberg for the duration of the fellowship.

Please submit your application, together with the required documents, via our online portal by 13 July 2026. The decision will be communicated in early October 2026.

The decision to award a fellowship lies with the Tucher Kulturstiftung and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Applicants have no legal claim to a fellowship.

Contact persons:

  • For questions relating to research: Herr Dr. Markus T. Huber (m.huber@gnm.de)
  • For administrative questions: Frau Gerlinde Schweikl (g.schweikl@gnm.de)

‘Ritualizing Rome: Visual Culture, Space, and Liturgy’, The Norwegian Institute in Rome (University of Oslo), deadline 15 June 2026

Rome, The Norwegian Institute in Rome (University of Oslo), 19-20 November 2026 

How was the city of Rome ritualized in Late Antiquity and during the Middle Ages, and what was the role of visual culture, architecture, materials, and religious practices in that process?

This seemingly straightforward yet immensely layered question has occupied scholars for decades. Since its foundation, the city of Rome served as a stage for a wide range of religious and civic rituals. During Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, its streets were used as processional routes, while novel spaces were conceived, adapted, and constructed to accommodate the needs of varied religious communities and their developing and changing rituals.

From the fourth century onward, Christian worship and liturgy began to weave one of the most impactful layers into the fabric of the city. Yet, in the art historical study of late antique and medieval Roman visual culture and architecture, liturgical sources have not always been fully integrated into analyses of ritual space. Even Richard Krautheimer’s Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae only occasionally engages with such documents, despite the valuable information they contain for many of the churches it discusses. More recently, scholarship has increasingly acknowledged the importance of liturgical evidence, building bridges between Roman visual culture, architecture, urban space, and ritual practice. In parallel, art historical research has paid growing attention to the notions of space, movement, and the built as well as natural environment, particularly in relation to the performative dimension of ritual. This international workshop seeks to address and build on such lines of inquiry by inviting contributions that engage with this cityscape in permanent mutation.

How are spaces created, staged, and maintained to accommodate existing or developing Christian as well as non-Christian ritual practices? What were the sensorial dimensions of rituals, and how did such experiences shape subsequent understandings of space? Which material and textual sources allow us to explore these issues, and what are their limits? These are some of the central questions of the workshop, which aims to open new avenues for interdisciplinary research that bring into dialogue art history, liturgical studies, archaeology, architectural history, religious history, and more.

We especially welcome contributions that:

  • examine the interaction between ritual practice and the visual, architectural, and urban transformation of Rome;
  • analyze the historical and liturgical sources to reconstruct ritual practices and their development;
  • explore processions and other forms of ritual movement within and beyond the city walls;
  • address the sensorial and performative dimensions of ritual in relation to artworks and built as well as natural environments;
  • investigate questions of memory, identity, authority, and community formation as shaped through visual culture, space, architecture, and ritual.

Confirmed invited speakers include Professors Kristin B. Aavitsland (Oslo), Harald Buchinger (Regensburg), Manuela Gianandrea (Rome), and, for the keynote lecture, Sible de Blaauw (Nijmegen).

Interested scholars from various career stages may send a short bio, selected list of publications and an abstract of c. 250 words to martin.lesak@roma.uio.no before 15 June 2026. 

Further practical information will be circulated after the selection process.

Researchers without access to institutional funding may apply for a travel grant. Please indicate in your proposal if you would like to be considered for this support.

New Publication: ‘The Sculptures of the Judgement Porch of Lincoln Cathedral’ by Paul Williamson

The first monograph dedicated to the Judgement Porch of Lincoln Cathedral, one of the greatest buildings of medieval Europe

Lincoln Cathedral is one of the greatest buildings of medieval Europe, remarkable both for its architectural form and its sculptural treasures.  Unlike the celebrated Angel Choir, the great portal on its south side has until now not been the subject of a dedicated monograph. The Judgement Porch, so-called because of the subject matter of the tympanum, showing Christ present at the Last Judgement, with angels, devils, the blessed and the damned, is one of the key monuments of English Gothic sculpture, and the present publication demonstrates its importance with a detailed investigation of the doorway’s history, iconography, facture and style.

The text is accompanied by a comprehensive series of photographs, many taken especially for this book, with details illustrating the less well-known sculptures, including the voussoir figures of the arch.  Every one of the individual sculptures of the voussoirs, showing queens, kings, the wise and foolish virgins, and the apostles, have been photographed; together with the relief sculptures of the tympanum and the flanking life-size statues connected with the sculptural programme, they collectively demonstrate the extremely high quality of the work at Lincoln.

Paul Williamson is Keeper Emeritus and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He has written widely on medieval sculpture, including the Pelican History of Art volume Gothic Sculpture 1140–1300 (Yale, 1995), and has advised many churches and cathedrals, including Wells and Lincoln, on the subject.

Find out more about the book on the Yale University Press website.

Lecture: ‘Making/Matter: The Aetiology of Miraculous Images in Venice, c. 1200–1700’ with Jessica N. Richardson, Courtauld Institute of Art, 17 June 2026, 17:30 – 19:00 (BST)

Courtauld Institute of Art, Vernon Square Campus, Lecture Theatre 2

Book your place on the Courtauld’s website.

Miracle-working images raise fundamental questions about trust, both in their materiality and in the very legends surrounding their making. A long tradition of scholarship has centred not only on the relationship between image and divine prototype, but also on provenance and authorship—with icons often ascribed a holy artistry, either “not made by human hands” (acheiropoieta) or painted by St Luke the Evangelist.  These attributions—known through written legends and oral tradition—cemented trust in the “power” of the image. Yet it is now widely acknowledged that throughout the Italian peninsula, beginning around the fourteenth century, many of the images credited with performing miracles were locally made, earlier works that did not necessarily, or at least initially, claim divine authorship or an ‘eastern’ and ‘ancient’ pedigree. The extent to which these works relate to wider visual culture and period notions of ‘art’ has generated a lively scholarly debate.

Focusing on two miracle-working sculptures in medieval and Renaissance Venice, this talk addresses a central preoccupation of both early modern writing and current scholarship: the aetiology or origins of miracle-working images. It excavates the making of these images and their originary legends—linked to their authorship, making and materiality—with particular attention to the unfinished (non finito in later art-historical terminology). Furthermore, it investigates cultic accretions and the visual arguments constructed at the shrines through the diachronic dialogue between images. Ultimately, it considers how different agencies worked together to generate knowledge and substantiate claims about the creation of these sculptures, challenging our understanding of the entanglements between artistic practices, aesthetics and devotion.

This event is organised by Dr Robert Brennan, Lecturer in Italian Art 1300-1500, as part of the Medieval Work-in-Progress Series. The series is generously supported by Sam Fogg. 

Speaker:

Jessica N. Richardson is Lecturer in the Department of History of Art at the University of York. She previously held positions at the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, in Florence at Villa I Tatti (The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies) and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz. Recent publications include the co-edited volume The Aesthetics of Marble (2021) and a special issue of Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics titled Fashioned from Holy Matter (2021). Her current work focuses on miraculous images and the reworking of medieval images in Renaissance Italy.

Harlaxton Medieval Symposium 2026: ‘The Rural Parish in Late Medieval England’, 17-20 August 2026

The 2026 Harlaxton Medieval Symposium will take place between Monday 17th and Thursday 20th August at Madingley Hall, Cambridge, and the theme will be The Rural Parish in Late Medieval England. It will be convened by Robert Swanson. Please see the Symposium’s website for full details, including a provisional programme and a booking form.

Booking deadlines:

  • Deadline for residential bookings is Friday 19th June 2026
  • Deadline for non-residential bookings Friday 17th July 2026

We are also pleased to offer two Dobson Scholarships for PGRs whose work closely aligns with the theme of the Symposium. Scholarships cover all conference and accommodation costs but exclude travel expenses. The deadline for applications is Sunday 31st May, and should be made via the Symposium’s website with a letter of recommendation sent separately.

Find out more about the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium on their website. 

Conference: ‘The Gigantic in Medieval and Early Modern Art’, University of Vienna, 18-20 June 2026

University of Vienna, Department of Art History, Garnisongasse 13, Campus courtyard 9, Seminarraum 1, 18–20 June 2026

Giants captivated medieval and Early Modern cultures – not merely as myth, but as imagined realities grounded in bones, ruins, and landscapes. This conference explores their visual forms, cultural functions, and the broader concept of the “Gigantic.”

More information can be found on the University of Vienna website.

Conference Programme

Thursday, 18 June 2026

10:00-10:30: Greetings

  • Assaf Pinkus, University of Vienna
  • Raphael Rosenberg, Head of the Department, University of Vienna

Morning Sessions: 10:30-12:00 — Manipulating Scale

Moderator: Manuela Studer-Karlen, University of Vienna

  • Alixe Bovey, The Courtauld Institute: Miniature Giants: Paradoxical Scale in Medieval and Early Modern England
  • Robin O’Bryan, Independent Scholar: The ‘Gigantic’ against the ‘Miniature’ in Italian Art: Bodily Construction, Pictorial Relationships, and Audience Perception

12:30-14:00 — Biblical Giants I: Scaling Up

Moderator: Giosuè Fabiano, University of Vienna

  • Michael Viktor Schwarz, University of Vienna: Michelangelo’s David: Colossus in Foro Florentino
  • Alfons Puigarnau, Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca: The Giant in Eden: Adam and the Language of Scale in Medieval Art

Afternoon Session: 15:30-17:30 — The Marvelous

Moderator: Lucia Simonato, University of Vienna

  • Sophie Page, University College London: The Dragon, the Whale, and the Questing Beast: Giant Animals and Narratives of Extinction and Fantasy in Medieval Europe
  • Jutta Eming, Freie Universität, Berlin: Facing the Giant: Knightly Identity between Adventure and the Marvelous
  • Thomas Kuster, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Schloss Ambras Innsbruck: “Von aim Rysen”. Gigantic Collector’s Items in the Princely Ambras Collection

Friday, 19 June 2026

10:00-11:30 — Overscaling: Mediating Human and Divine

Chair: Aleuna Macarenko, Pächt Archive, University of Vienna

  • Anna Kónya, Hungarian Museum of Architecture and Monument, Budapest: Visual Contexts of Monumental Images of Saint Christopher in the Medieval Kingdom of Hungary and Beyond
  • Manuela Studer Karlen, University of Vienna: The Gigantic in Byzantine Cosmology: Visualizing Cosmic Scale in Sacred Space

12:00-13:30 — Biblical Giants II: Rhetoric of the Gigantic

Moderator: Esther Pitoun, University of Vienna

  • Naïs Virenque, École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales, Paris: Giant Creature and Gigantic Construction: Figurations of the Giant of Babel in the Romance-Speaking West
  • Michal Ozeri, Tel Aviv University: ‘Whom the Lord Knew Face to Face:’ Moses and the Gigantic Transgression

Afternoon Sessions: 14:30-16:00 — Into the Wilderness

Chair: Andreas Nierhaus, University of Vienna and Wien Museum

  • Assaf Pinkus, University of Vienna: Into the Wilderness: St. Christopher the Giant and the Four Ways of Knowing God
  • Robert Mills, University College London: “Great lyke a giant”: Eremitism, Wildness and the Politics of Scale in Late Medieval England

16:30-18:00 — Keynote

  • Moderator: Assaf Pinkus
  • Greeting: Sebastian Schütze, Rector of the University of Vienna

Keynote: Emanuele Lugli, Stanford University: Giants, Bigger Giants.

Saturday, 20 June 2026

09:30-11:00 — Gigantomachia: The Politic of Aesthetics

Moderator: Silvia Tammaro, University of Vienna

  • David Zagoury, Université de Fribourg: In the Eye of Polyphemus: Cyclopean Gazes at Palazzo Te
  • Claudio Castelletti, Tor Vergata University of Rome: “Giganti stolti.” Muslim ‘Infidels’ as Giants in Renaissance Rhetorical Imagery and Political Iconography

11:30-13:30 — The Giant of Kenaan

Moderator: Markus Ritter, University of Vienna

  • Sandra Hindriks, University of Vienna: Forces at Play: Strength and Strain in Northern Saint Christopher Paintings of the 15th and Early 16th Centuries
  • Thomas Dale, University of Wisconsin–Madison: A Saintly Giant, Merchants, Converts and Plague Victims: Saint Christopher in the Art of Medieval & Early Modern Venice

New Publication: ‘The Lutheran Middle Ages: The Survival of Medieval Art in Protestant Churches in Germany’, by Justin Kroesen

This book offers the first visual account of the wealth of medieval art works surviving in Lutheran churches in Germany by means of c. 500 colour photographs. Surviving church furnishings are presented and discussed both as elements in the medieval church interior and in view of their preservation though Protestantism.

The wealth of medieval art found in Germany’s Protestant churches is unparalleled; contrary to what is generally believed, Lutherans were often tolerant to medieval church interiors, maintaining or altering the use of furnishings and images or simply accepting them as neutral things (adiaphora) and as objects of tradition. In consequence, it is the country’s Lutheran churches that offer the most insight into what churches looked like before the Reformation, not only in Germany but even across the Latin West.

This book, illustrated with over 500 colour photographs by the author, visually explores Germany’s best medieval church interiors. A presentation of twenty-five outstanding examples is followed by analysis of the primary factors in the survival of medieval art through five centuries of Protestantism. Then, ten thematic chapters discuss the most important furnishings, including altars and their decorations, tabernacles, stalls and benches, screens, pulpits, sculptures, and baptismal fonts.

Justin Kroesen is Professor of Cultural History at the University of Bergen, Norway, and scientific curator of the University Museum’s art collection. His research focuses on the art and architecture of medieval churches, the material culture of worship, and the impact of the Reformations.

All information available and how to order the book can be found on the Brepols website.

Workshop: ‘Gaining External Funding for Research in Medieval and Early Modern Studies’, 23 June 2026, London, 2-5pm (BST)

CCLS, Queen Mary, University of London, 67-69 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3JB, Room 3.1 

Learn how to score funding for your medieval and early modern research.

This workshop is for anyone from pre-doctoral to senior level in any discipline who is contemplating applying for external funding for premodern research from the major bodies or who has been successful with one of these funders and is looking for further opportunities with the same or other funders. What makes a medieval or early modern research project successful with different funders such as the AHRC/ UKRI, the ERC, the Leverhulme? Are there differences and similarities in what these funders are looking for, and in their track records in funding premodern research? What are the different requirements for public engagement and impact, and how can premodern projects best address them?

The workshop will be comprised of discussions of each of the major funders in turn, featuring successful applicants for everything from doctoral to large grant funding, followed by a final discussion to tease out their different mindsets and emphases when it comes to their evaluation of premodern research ideas. 

It is organised by the London Forum for Premodern Studies, an informal association of the medieval and early modern research centers of Queen Mary University of London (CREMS), University College London (Centre for Early Modern Exchanges), King’s College London (Centre for Early Modern Studies), and The Warburg Institute. 

Please register with this Eventbrite link.

The CRSBI Annual Lecture: ‘The Romanesque Sculpture of Norwich Castle Keep’ with Dr Agata Gomółka & Professor Sandy Heslop, 24 June 2026, 6-7.30pm (BST) 

The Courtauld Institute of Art, Vernon Square Campus, Lecture Theatre 2

Book your tickets and learn more about the lecture on the Courtauld’s website.

The Courtauld is delighted to host the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland for the 2026 Annual Lecture.

In this talk, Dr Agata Gomółka and Professor Sandy Heslop will explore the The Romanesque Sculpture of Norwich Castle Keep. The doorway into the great hall of Norwich castle keep is the grandest early Romanesque portal in England both in terms of scale and the profusion of its carved stone elements. It has been little studied perhaps because it is in a secular rather than an ecclesiastical building. In this lecture, we discuss its contexts, in Norwich and beyond, and the date, purpose and sources of the sculpture.

Speakers:

Dr Agata Gomółka , Project Assistant Curator, Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery.

Professor Sandy Heslop, Emeritus Professor of Visual Arts, University of East Anglia

Co-organised by Dr Agata Gomółka and Dr Jessica Barker, Senior Lecturer in Medieval Art History at the Courtauld,  as part of the Medieval Work-in-Progress series. The series is generously supported by Sam Fogg.

Booking for this talk is available on the Courtauld Website.

Journal Issue: Convivium 12.1: Scent and Sense in Medieval Material Culture, edited by Elina Gertsman

Throughout the Middle Ages and across a staggering variety of sources, both the notion of smell and the olfactory sense responsible for smells’ discernment have been put through an exegetical, doctrinal, and mystical wringer by scores of philosophers, physicians, and theologians. Ephemeral and fleeting but emotionally, spiritually, and physiologically potent, olfaction was deeply embedded in humoral, anatomical, and cognitive theories. Odors could heal and odors could harm; they could purify and they could taint. Scent and Sense explores those images and objects that take smells as their predicates, directing the inquiry on their tropological and often paradoxical meanings, and on their place in the medieval economy of remembrance and reflection. Essays draw from several religious cultures of the global medieval world—Buddhist, Jewish, Christian (both western and eastern), Islamic—and offer a broad temporal span of several centuries. Authors engage with visual production of different kinds: from objects that emit smell to the representation of such objects, from monumental architectural structures and liturgical furnishings to illuminated miniatures in codices and paintings from palm-leaf manuscripts. All share an interest in the theoretical and metaphorical underpinnings of the olfactory sense, but all are thoroughly anchored in the material universe of the medieval cultural eco-system. Scent and Sense, thus, takes a holistic approach to its subject, crossing religions, territories, and media of the medieval world writ large; its inquiry, nevertheless, is tightly focused on the multivalent relationships between olfaction, material culture, and remembrance that manifest themselves along an extraordinarily varied spectrum of thought. Rooted equally in ritual and knowledge, metaphysically potent yet making a claim for absolute truth, the sensorial ephemera studied in this volume exist on the brink, infused with fraught self-contradictions, tethered to the divine but—like any memory—inherently untrustworthy.

Read the journal issue here.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Elina Gertsman, “Not like Poison”. Scent and Sense in Medieval Material Culture

Articles:

  • Adam Bursi, Columns of Scent. Perfumed Signs of the Prophet Muḥammad in Early Islamic Spaces
  • Sonya Rhie Mace, Scent of the Blue Nun. Utpalavarṇā in Palm-Leaf Manuscripts of Medieval India
  • Elisabeth Sobieczky, “and my breath was refreshed by the pleasant fragrance of the Lord” Mnemonic Functions of Image, Word, and Scent in the Freudenstadt Lectern
  • Reed O’Mara, Sensation and Olfaction: Experiencing Image and Text in the Golden Haggadah
  • Tera Lee Hedrick, Breath and Fire. Incense and Sanctification in the Late Byzantine Liturgy