Medieval Art Research

Conference: Minority Influences in Medieval Society, St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, 25-26 November 2016

Friday 25 November

9.45 Welcome (Nora Berend)

Session 1. 10-11.15

Nikolas Jaspert (Heidelberg) Influences of mudejar spirituality on majority Christian religious life
Teresa Shawcross (Princeton) Ethno-religious Minorities and the Shaping of Byzantine Society during the Crusades

COFFEE

Session 2. 11.30-12.45

Annette Kehnel (Mannheim) Minority language, minority culture, minority tradition: Who exactly cares?
Amira Bennison (Cambridge) The Berber imprint on the medieval Maghrib

LUNCH

Session 3. 14.15-15.30

Ana Echevarría (Madrid) Reinventing law codes under foreign conditions: influence, adaptation or endurance in the Iberian peninsula
Eduard Mühle (Münster) Real and perceived influence of minority groups in medieval Poland (12^th-13^th c)

COFFEE

Session 4. 16-18

Eva Haverkamp (München) Jews in the high medieval economy: how to evaluate their role
István Petrovics (Szeged) The Role of “Latin” Guests in the Economic Life and Urban Development of Medieval Hungary
James Barrett (Cambridge) Northern Peoples and Medieval European Trade: Locating Agency

Saturday 26 November

Session 1. 9.30-10.45

Przemysław Wiszewski (Wrocław) Cultural turn in 12^th-14^th c. Silesia: how the German-speaking minority became the cultural majority
Luciano Gallinari (Cagliari) Catalans in Sardinia and the transformation of Sardinians into a political minority

COFFEE

Session 2. 11.15-12.30

Matthias Hardt (Leipzig) Western immigrants in High Medieval Bohemia
Katalin Szende (Budapest) Iure Theutonico? German settlers, local rulers, and legal frameworks for immigration to medieval East Central Europe LUNCH

Supported by the DAAD Cambridge Research Hub with funds from the German
Federal Foreign Office (FFO)

How to register: To register for the conference, please email Dr Nora Berend, nb213@cam.ac.uk and send a cheque for £ 7 (or the appropriate cost for one day; an optional charge for lunch can also be added, see below) to her to St Catharine’s College, Cambridge CB2 1RL. Cheques must be made payable to St Catharine’s College. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Registration is £4 for Friday and £3 for Saturday; this is to cover the cost of refreshments during the day. Coffe, tea and biscuits will be available.

Lunch will ONLY be provided for those who order and pay £12 by 10 November, but it will be possible instead to leave during the lunch break to get some food in town.

CFP: ‘Autodidacts, Workshops, Academies – Architectural Education 1400 -1850,’ Sixth Colloquium on Architectural Theory at the Werner Oechslin Library, Einsiedeln, April 20 – 23, 2017

800px-geometria_deutsch_08 Call for Papers: Autodidacts, Workshops, Academies – Architectural Education 1400 -185o, Sixth Colloquium on Architectural Theory at the Werner Oechslin Library, Werner Oechslin Library, Einsiedeln, April 20 – 23, 2017
Deadline: 5 October 2016

Before the establishment of the major schools of architecture in the
nineteenth century, there were various ways to become an architect,
each with different focuses. A canonical system did not exist. Studies
based on books or travel, apprenticeships in workshops and studios, a
training in the military or building administration, as well as
academic lessons could all be part of the education of a prospective
architect. A talent for drawing was always a prerequisite, as were the
economic possibilities of the surroundings. Aspiring to a secure
position in the military or administration motivated the young
candidates, and family connections and knowledge fostered their
development. Furthermore, beginning in the 17th century, textbooks were
published specifically for the needs of the students. This gradually
led to the consolidation of formats and didactic conditions for
training architects, including (teaching) collections that made
available illustrative material – similar to the artists’ training for
sculptors or painters.

Research to date has focused primarily on architectural training in the
art academies, yet beyond this, no overview considers the other
relevant domains. At this upcoming event, the numerous paths to
knowledge and the varied acquisition of competencies will be presented
and compared in individual studies and analyses. Relying closely on
historical sources, the contributions will enable us to form a general
outline of the topic.

The event addresses architectural theoreticians, architects, art
historians, historians of technology and science, and others, and seeks
to bring together leading experts on the topics as well as, in
particular, young researchers from various countries.

Papers should be limited to twenty-minute presentations.

Languages for paper proposals and presentations: German, English,
French, Italian. At least a passive knowledge of German is expected of
all participants.

The Foundation assumes the hotel costs for course participants, as well
as for some group meals. Travel costs cannot be reimbursed.

How to Submit: Please send short paper proposals and CVs by e-mail to:
anja.buschow@bibliothek-oechslin.ch

CFP: “‘For I am a woman, ignorant, weak and frail’: Feminising Death, Disability and Disease in the later Middle Ages,” International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 3rd-6th July 2017

Call for Papers: “‘For I am a woman, ignorant, weak and frail’: Feminising Death, Disability and Disease in the later Middle Ages,” International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 3rd-6th July 2017
Deadline: 23rd September 2016.

**Should this session attract enough interest it will become a three-part series, with each session focussing more deeply on the individual themes of death, disability and disease.

Within late-medieval society, to be valued was to look and behave according to the societal ‘norm’ – dependency was largely represented as a feminine trait, whereas to be independent was to be masculine. How then did medieval people respond to deviations from these gendered expectations as a result of death (or dying), disabilities and chronic diseases?

This session will consider the feminisation of death, disability and disease through an interdisciplinary lens, in order to answer questions about the perceived ‘feminine’ dependency of the marginal ‘third state’ between being fully healthy and fully sick (i.e. to be dying, diseased or disabled). It will hope to consider the contradictory nature of female disease and disability which both engendered an elevated sense of holiness and, conversely, a sense of physical monstrosity; the female response to death, disability and disease as elements of daily life which were (largely) out of their control; the effect of death, disability and disease on medieval constructions of masculinity; and whether – if death, disease and disability dehumanise the body – is it even important to consider the effect of these states on an individual’s gendered identity?

We welcome multi-disciplinary papers from all geographical locations, c.1300-c.1500, which engage with themes such as (but not limited to): Representations of death, disease and/or (dis)ability; literature either for or by women dealing with the themes of death, disease and/or disability; the tradition of Memento Mori and/or the Danse Macabre; the gendering of ‘Death’; the Black Death’s impact on traditional gender roles; obstetric death; female piety and holy anorexia; the effect of chronic disease and/or disability on late-medieval constructions of masculinity; women and disease (as the developers of cures, writers of recipes, carers or patients, etc.); female use of disability aids and/or prosthetics; and self-inflicted disfigurement.

How to submit: Please send a paper title and an abstract of 100-200 words to Rachael Gillibrand at the Institute for Medieval Studies, University of Leeds (hy11rg@leeds.ac.uk) by 23rd September 2016.

CFP: Towards an Art History of the Parish Church, 1200-1399, The Courtauld Institute of Art (2-3 June 2017), deadline 15 December 2016

Organised by: Dr James Alexander Cameron (The Courtauld Institute of Art) and Meg Bernstein (University of California, Los Angeles/The Courtauld Institute Kress Fellow, 2015-2017)

Paul Binski, in his 1999 Studies in Iconography article, “The English Parish Church and its Art in the Later Middle Ages,” asked “how, and in what ways, we might place the imagery of the parish church at the centre of the study of medieval visual culture rather than seeing it as some unfathomable, and perhaps embarrassing, epiphenomenon of something that was ‘really’ going on elsewhere.” Though some 8,000 parish churches in England can be said to consist largely of medieval fabric, no overarching study of English medieval church architecture is available. Instead, scholarship is generally limited to descriptions of single buildings and their furnishings, and the broader historical significance of this building type has largely gone unaddressed.

Towards an Art History of the Parish Church, 1200-1399, to be held on 2-3 June, 2017 at The Courtauld Institute of Art, will gather scholars to revisit the question of the parish church and its relationship to medieval visual culture. Participants will contribute to a vibrant discussion of the Gothic parish church, its utility as an object of study, and the insights offered on the subject by diverse methodologies. In particular, the conference will prioritise ways in which scholars might think about Gothic parish churches collectively, profiting from the rapidly expanding technologies of the digital age. We are pleased to announce that Professor Paul Binski has agreed to give the closing remarks for the conference, and reflect upon how scholarship has progressed since his Studies in Iconography article.

The conference draws its temporal focus from the most notable lacuna in scholarship, which concerns the introduction and flowering of Gothic architecture across the English parish church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The thirteenth century saw a broadly Gothic style replace the Romanesque across England; although this has been studied with regard to great church architecture, the mechanics of what amounts to a major stylistic shift at parish level remain largely uninvestigated. Likewise, the quantity of fourteenth-century work in parish churches further shaped the manifestation of the Gothic style, particularly in features such as sedilia which were originally developed in outside of cathedrals and great monasteries. Given the impact of the English Decorated Style on Late Gothic architectural developments across Europe, the parish church promises to illuminate art historical questions beyond the borders of England. These lacunae are in stark contrast to the smaller corpus of the Romanesque period, which has had a large amount of attention via resources such as CRSBI; and the late medieval church after 1400, which draws on greater availability of documentary evidence.

The organisers invite postgraduate, early-career and established researchers to propose papers representing a revitalised approach to the study of parish churches of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and strategies for dealing with the vast amount of material evidence in tandem with a paucity of written records. They welcome contributions especially regarding architecture but also elements of sculpture, painting and glass, as well as their internal (and external) fittings and furnishings. Papers must be foremost concerned with buildings that are primarily parochial, as distinct from abbeys and cathedrals. Possible areas of inquiry include but are not limited to:

Big data and the understanding of artistic processes through comprehensive regional surveys and categorisation, including the use of online crowd-sourcing techniques
The intersection of liturgical function and architectural form, perhaps through innovative strategies such as practical re-enactment
Understanding architectural spaces through visual and other sensory perception
Aesthetics and allegory: the ’period eye’ approach to understanding medieval art through contemporary literature
Formal analysis, and its use in understanding the operation of architectural workshops
Archaeology and structural investigation
Interactions or distinctions between rural and urban parish churches
The geography and topography of the parish church in relation to its surroundings
The effect of funerary monuments and individual commemoration.
Lay sponsorship and creative involvement in parochial architecture
Replacement, retention or adaption of older fabric
Comparisons of English parochial architecture with that of the Continent

Please submit abstracts of up to 300 words, as well as a current c.v., to Dr James Alexander Cameron and Meg Bernstein at TAAHOTPC@gmail.com by December 15, 2016. There may be limited funds available to defray costs of travel for speakers. It is intended that conference transactions will be published.

For more updates on the conference, watch the page on The Courtauld website

Job: Residential Postdoctoral Fellowship, Lilly Fellows Program, Valparaiso University, Indiana, USA

Job: Residential Postdoctoral Fellowship, Lilly Fellows Program, Valparaiso University, Indiana, USA
Deadline: January 11, 2017.

We offer up to three two-year residential postdoctoral teaching fellowships in all areas of the Humanities and the Arts for 2017-2019 for scholars seriously considering academic careers in church‑related institutions. Ph.D., D.M.A., D.F.A., M.F.A., or equivalent terminal degree must have been received no earlier than December, 2015. Fellows will teach eight courses over a two‑year period, engage in scholarship or creative work, participate in a two‑year colloquium, work with a VU faculty mentor, and interact with representatives from a national network of church‑related institutions. Faculty privileges, $47,800 stipend per year plus benefits, professional fund.

How to Apply: For more information and to apply via Interfolio, visit http://www.lillyfellows.org and go to “Postdoctoral Fellows Program.”

CFP: Publishing in the Renaissance – Minor and Academic publishers

hypnerotomachia-poliphili_1 Call for Journal Submissions: Kunsttexte – Renaissance 2016: “Publishing in the Renaissance – Minor and Academic publishers”
Deadline: Nov 1, 2016

Some major publishers dominated the publishing scene in the
Renaissance, like Aldo Manuzio and his family in Venice, and the Giunti
family in Florence. From early on however there were many minor
publishers, often very engaged, but successful only for a few years.
These were often intellectuals, who followed special interests in their
publishing policy. In Florence there was Anton Francesco Doni, member
of the literary academy, who published his own works, but also those of
his academy fellows, for example the lessons they presented in the
Academy. His engagement did not lead to financial success and after a
few years he had to stop. In Venice Francesco Sansovino was a
likeminded, who published his own works as well and those of his
friends, and some literary editions. There are numerous examples of
private engagement in printing. We invite papers, which present in an
exemplary way minor printers in the Renaissance (in Italy, France,
Spain, Germany), concentrating on their formation, their printing
policy, their outreach and influence.

How to submit: The articles are due on November 1, 2016, but a short note of interest
would be welcome beforehand. Papers are welcome in German, English,
French, Italian or Spanish. For more information about the open access
online journal Kunsttexte and for the author guidelines please look at
www.kunsttexte.de.
Please send inquiries and proposals to
Angela Dressen (adressen@itatti.harvard.edu)
Susanne Gramatzki (gramatz@uni-wuppertal.de)

CFP: Various Sessions @Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, May 11 – 14, 2017

Call for Papers: Various Sessions @Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, May 11 – 14, 2017
Deadline: Sep 15, 2016

Reminder:
– The Stones Cry Out: Modes of Citation in Medieval Architecture
– Light and Darkness in Medieval Art, 1200-1450. ICMA sponsored
session

Other Sessions:

Obscured by the Alps: Medieval Italian Architecture and the
European Canon
800px-cathedrale_de_sienne_28duomo_di_siena29 Organizer: Erik Gustafson (edg218@nyu.edu)

The traditional canon of European architecture has been well established through both formal-stylistic aesthetics and periodized criteria, rooted ultimately in Hegelian notions of the underlying spirit of an age and Modern nationalist identities. Viewed from northern Europe, the canon’s trajectory moves fluidly from the halcyon
days of Greece and Rome to the stunted but ambitious Early Christian and Byzantine era, developing into the solidly reliable Romanesque
until the revolution of the transcendent Gothic is decapitated by the Renaissance counter-revolution and its florescent Baroque iteration, to
be overshadowed by the enlightened and reasoned Neoclassical age,
leading to the search for identity of the 19th century Historicist
styles and the return to the classically pure clarity of Modernism.
The contributions of the Italian peninsula are periodic, and are
generally defined within the canon by returns to classicism. In recent
decades, architectural historians have begun to challenge the Italian
canon, expanding its geographic scope from the old Rome-Florence-Venice
vector while also undermining chronological waypoints such as the
Medieval-Renaissance divide. The canon, however, remains infrangible,
still underwritten by the formalist priorities established at its
inception.

This session seeks to examine the utility of the European canon in
assessing the historical significance of Italian medieval architecture.
Is there more to Italian architectural history than recurrent bouts of
classicism? How can Italian architecture be understood positively
within the European context, rather than in opposition or subjection to
the canonical narratives? Possible avenues of inquiry might include
exploring the historiographical lacunae of the canon, considering
alternative criteria for structuring new canonical narratives,
examining socio-cultural phenomena otherwise elided by the canon, or
investigating other historically contingent trends which reflect
different scholarly treatments of Italy and the north. Medieval
architectural history has been “rethought” several times in the past
decade, bringing “new approaches” to old questions. Shifting the
discussion, this session seeks papers that ask broad new questions
about medieval architecture’s place in the history of European culture,
grounding such investigations in local Italian contexts. While Italy
has long been obscured by the Alps, this session seeks to begin new
conversations about medieval architecture driven by Italian challenges
to canonical understandings.

How to Submit: Please submit a paper proposal to the organizer, Erik Gustafson
(edg218@nyu.edu)
Deadline: September 15, 2016
Please include the following materials in your application:
1) A one-page abstract
2) Completed Participant Information Form available at the website of
the Medieval Congress:
http://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/submissions
3) A one-page CV

The Matter of Ornament
Organizer: Ashley Jones, University of Florida

Ornament has long occupied a troubled position in the history of
western art. Subject to rising and falling fashions, it has been beset
from all sides. Derided as feminine and dismissed as superficial,
ornament has been defined against both classical and modern
austerities. Medieval ornament, like so much of medieval art, has acted
as foil in the grand narratives of the rise and fall of figuration and
abstraction. But broader trends in the history of art and material
culture have, in recent years, highlighted the role medieval objects,
with their simultaneously heightened physicality and spirituality, can
play in illuminating profound questions of the nature of matter and
representation. This panel seeks to add ornament – arguably a
fundamental mode of premodern abstraction – to that equation. It
invites papers drawn from both material and textual traditions that
investigate the intersections of materiality, representationality, and
ornamentality in medieval material culture. Possible topics include but
are not limited to questions of the way in which matter gives rise to
ornament; the way in which matter, such as sacred relics, is made
legible through ornamentation; and the ways in which medieval ornament
evokes both the matter of nature and the matter of the cosmos.

How to Submit: Paper proposals should consist of the following:
– Abstract of proposed paper (no more than 350 words)
– Completed Participant Information Form – available on the conference
website here:
https://wmich.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/u434/2016/medieval-pif-2017.pdf
– CV with contact information.
ALL PROPOSALS AND INQUIRIES SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO:
Ashley Jones (ajones@arts.ufl.edu)

The Schematization of time
This session proposes to investigate visual strategies used in
time-reckoning and calendar constructions. Medieval illustrations of
scientific works, computus treatises (including Bede’s De temporum
ratione), historical chronicles, almanacs and moral and theological
tracts, display a vast spectrum of images dealing with the natural and
divine causes of time phenomena, their manifestations, their various
effects on the world and their universal significations. These images
testify to a wide range of subjects and interests, from cosmological
and astronomical explanations, to practical considerations regarding
liturgy, astrology, medicine, divination, prognostication, to history
and geography, to practical and speculative mathematics, and to
symbolic devices working as visual exegesis of the creation. Given the
rich corpus of source material, how might the visualization of time
through schematization and volvelles help us understand the role of
time in medieval life and culture? How did schemata and diagrams
represent specific strategies of knowledge transmission through
geometrical relationships, color systems, and numerical and spatial
representations? Although modern medieval studies witness an increasing
interest in schemata and diagrams, the omnipresence and diversity of
visual reflexions on time in the Middle Ages contrasts with the small
number of case studies dedicated to the subject.

This session welcomes papers focused on, but not limited to: the
visualization of relationships between time, space and matter; the
schmatization of time in medical theory and practice; the depiction of
liturgical time; the correlation between time-reckoning and celestial
phenomena, either astronomical or astrological; the calculation of past
and future dates through images concerning chronology and eschatology.

How to Apply: The panel features 15-20 minutes papers. Please send an abstract (150
to 350 words), a short CV and completed Participant Information Form to
Arthur Hénaff (arthur.henaff@etu.ephe.fr) and Sarah Griffin
(sarah.griffin@kellogg.ox.ac.uk) by September 15, 2016

CFP: Reconsidering the Concept of Decline and the Arts of the Palaiologan Era

CFP: Reconsidering the Concept of Decline and the Arts of the Palaiologan Era, One day and a half Symposium & Worshop, University of Birmingham, February, 24-25, 2017.
Deadline: 30 September 2016

Organisers: Andrea Mattiello – University of Birmingham
Maria Alessia Rossi – The Courtauld Institute of Art

Keynote Speakers: Niels Gaul – University of Edinburgh
Cecily Hilsdale – McGill University
Angeliki Lymberopoulou – The Open University

This one day and a half conference combines a symposium and a workshop. The aim is to examine and contextualise the artistic and cultural production of the geopolitical centres that were controlled by or in contact with the late Byzantine Empire, such as the Adriatic and Balkan regions, the major islands of Cyprus and Crete, and the regions surrounding the cities of Constantinople, Thessaloniki, and Mystras. This conference will explore the many intellectual implications that are encoded in the innovative artistic production of the Palaiologan Era often simplified by a rigid understanding of what is Byzantine and what is not.

In its last centuries, the political entity of the Empire of the Romaioi released cultural and artistic energies migrating towards new frontiers of intellectual achievements. The intent is to counter-balance the innovation of these works of art with the notion of decline and the narrative of decay frequently acknowledged for this period; and to promote an understanding of transformation where previous cultural heritages were integrated into new socio-political orders.

The Symposium – hosted on the afternoon of the 24 and the morning of the 25February – will bring together established scholars, early-career scholars, and postgraduate students. Three keynotes will provide the methodological framework for the discussion; while the selected papers will focus solely on the visual expressions and cultural trajectories of the artworks produced during the late Palaiologan Era.

The Workshop, hosted on the afternoon of the 25February, will offer the opportunity to further the discussion in a more informal setting and for a selected number of Master students to interact and offer brief presentations.

Postgraduate students and early-career scholars are invited to submit proposals for twenty-minute papers on art and architecture history, material culture and archaeology, visual aspects of palaeography and codicology, and gender studies.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

– Gift exchange in view of diplomatic missions or dynastic marriages both within the Empire and with its neighbours

– Visual evidence of the interaction between the Emperor and the Patriarch

– Innovations in the visual agenda of the Palaiologan dynasty

– Aspects of religious iconography and visual representations of theological controversies, i.e. Hesychasm

– Artistic patronage and manuscript production as the outcome of dynastic and institutional interactions

– Visual and material production as the outcome of political and social circumstances, i.e. the Zealot uprising or the Unionist policy

– Evidence of artistic exchanges in the depictions of women, men, and children during the Palaiologan Era

How to submit: Titles of proposed papers, abstracts of 250 words, and a short CV should be sent to Maria Alessia Rossi – m.alessiarossi@icloud.com and Andrea Mattiello – axm570@bham.ac.uk by 30 September 2016.

CFP: The Network of Cassinese Arts, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Florence, 16-18 Mar 2017

800px-abbey_of_saint_scholastica2c_subiaco CFP: The Network of Cassinese Arts, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Florence, 16-18 Mar 2017
Deadline: Oct 30, 2016

Organized by Alessandro Nova and Giancarla Periti

From the late fifteenth to the mid sixteenth century, an impressive
corpus of architecture, sculpture, and painting was created to
embellish monastic sites affiliated with the Benedictine Cassinese
Congregation of Italy. A religious order of humanistically trained
monks whose mobility among the network of Cassinese monasteries was
paramount to their spiritual reformed agenda, the Cassinese fruitfully
engaged with the most eminent artists and architects of the early
modern period, supporting the production of imagery and architecture
that was often highly experimental in nature. The Cassinese
Congregation constituted a spiritual infrastructure that spread across
the northern, central and southern regions of Italy, through which not
only monks but also works and models circulated, intersected, and
interacted. The mobility and flow of artists, materials, and motifs
tied together the reformed religious communities affiliated with the
Cassinese Congregation and simultaneously connected an antique with a
modern Christian artistic corpus. This system resulted in a virtual
continuum linking works of architecture, sculpture, and painting,
including the Byzantine church of San Vitale in Ravenna, the Norman
cloister of Monreale (Palermo), and Raphael’s Sistine Madonna in
Piacenza.

Scholarship has presented the Cassinese monks principally as learned
patrons of ambitious but locally-inflected works created by credited
Renaissance masters. But such an approach has obscured the fact that
these modern instances of Cassinese Christian arts existed within a
larger cultural network and coexisted with others of differing value,
including the management of late antique buildings, the preservation of
Byzantine mosaics, and the custody of poorly made votive images in
popular shrines. Not only did these lesser-known episodes assure the
survival of late antique arts, and artifacts of limited aesthetic
appeal, but they also provided occasions for Renaissance masters active
in Cassinese communities to confront alternative forms of antiquity in
a dialogue among the arts for the reinvention of a modern Christianized
art.

The present conference proposes itself as a forum for the task of
reconnecting various artistic episodes that were once Cassinese
initiatives in Renaissance Mediterranean Italy and of re-considering
the spatial monastic settings in which the artworks were originally
placed. Investigating the network of Cassinese arts therefore offers a
fresh occasion to gain new perspectives on a rich body of antique and
Renaissance artworks and their life across time, as well as their
makers’ approaches to past models, recipients’ modalities of viewing
and the pressures put on images as agents of religious reform.

Proposals engaging with all aspects of the network of Cassinese arts
are welcome, with a preference for investigations of little-explored
Cassinese works in southern Italy or new readings of major artworks and
their modes of functioning. Comparative approaches to cycles depicting
rebus-like art forms such as grotesques and hieroglyphs are also of
great interest, as are explorations of the social life of Renaissance
artists building on the evidence that some set up workshops within the
Cassinese precincts while working for the monks. Other topics could
include the appropriation and recycling of Early Christian and
Byzantine materials in Cassinese edifices, the ecological management of
built resources (for example, the transfer of antique columns from San
Vitale in Ravenna to the abbey of Santa Maria del Monte in Cesena) that
served to symbolically link Cassinese monasteries, and considerations
on the Cassinese visual network of the sacred, spreading throughout
Mediterranean Italy by means of copies of primary objects and the
mobility of monks, artists and forms.

How to Submit: Please send your proposal (maximum 400 words) and CV in English, German and/or Italian to Dott.ssa Mandy Richter: Richter@khi.fi.it.

International Workshop: Relics @ the Lab, KIK-IRPA, Brussels, October 27-28 2016.

International Workshop: Relics @ the Lab, KIK-IRPA, Brussels, October 27-28 2016.

Over the past decade the scientific interest in relics and kindred artifacts has grown enormously. Without any doubt relics as well as relic shrines and associated objects have played a prominent role in European history since the introduction of Christianity. While in the past primary, secondary as well as tertiary relics were merely studied in relation to their religious and (art) historical background, recently the rise of a more scientific and archaeological approach is noticed. Nowadays researchers become more interested in the origin and nature of these sacred objects and ask different questions:

What information can relics give us about the people buried in the shrines? Who were these people? What do we know about the way they lived? When did they live? What about diseases and other disabilities?
What information can be retrieved from the objects kept with the relics and made of textile, wood, stone or metal. What was their purpose? Are they contemporaneous to the relic or are they older or younger additions? Why would they have been added? How should we preserve them?

Scientists of many different disciplines are involved in the study of relics and kindred artefacts, but till now there was no real forum for these people to exchange ideas and discuss methods. Therefore the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA, Brussels) is organising a two-day workshop on the scientific study of relics.
During this meeting we want to give analytical scientists, textile specialists, conservators, anthropologists, historical researchers, people involved in 3D-reconstruction as well as radiocarbon dating specialists a forum to exchange ideas about relics.

A full programme can be found here

Tickets: The registration fee is €75. This includes two lunches, coffee, tea and refreshments during the breaks and a book with the summaries of all the oral presentations and posters. Click here to register.