Medieval Art Research

Typical Venice? Venetian Commodities, 13th-16th centuries (3-6 March 2016)

Call for Papers

Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venice, Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza,
March 3 – 06, 2016
Deadline: Oct 31, 2015

Organizer: Dr. Philippe Cordez (ENB-Nachwuchsforschergruppe “Premodern
Objects”, Department Kunstwissenschaften, LMU Munich) and PD Dr.
Romedio Schmitz-Esser (Deutsches Studienzentrum in Venice)

What are “Venetian” commodities? More than any other medieval or early
modern city, Venice lived off of the trade of portable goods. In
addition to trading foreign imports, the city also engaged in intense
local production, manufacturing high quality glass, crystal, cloth,
metal, enamel, leather, and ceramic objects, characterized by their
exceedingly rich forms and complex production processes. Today, these
objects are scattered in collections throughout the world, but little
remains in Venice itself. In individual instances, it is often
difficult to tell whether the objects in question were actually made in
Venice or if they originated in Byzantine, Islamic, or other European
contexts.

This conference focuses on the question of how Venice designed and
exported its own identity through all kinds of its goods, long before
ideas about the city were propagated by, shaped through and crystalized
in images (the countless, largely standardized vedute). We especially
invite papers that address the following questions:
What was the relationship between raw commodities like wood, stone,
wool or foodstuffs, which varied in their degrees of value, and
specifically artistic products? Where do luxury goods that were
processed in Venice, such as medicines, spices, or pigments, fit into
the picture? What was the relationship between portable objects that
could be acquired and the city’s other, inalienable riches, such as
architecture and church treasures?
How could Venetian merchants, craftsmen, or artists generate a specific
set of expectations with respect to their wares and what kinds of
organizational and aesthetic strategies were used to meet these
expectations? What role did the Senate play, for instance, by imposing
import bans? What did travelers expect from Venice and what did they
find? Where and how were commodities from Venice received elsewhere?
What was perceived to be and labeled as “Venetian,” from medieval
“Orientalism” in the city to the “façon de Venise” in the whole of
Europe? Finally, can Venetian “commodity” concepts be reconstructed and
to what extent can similarities and differences be identified between
Venice and the commodity cultures of other cities in the Mediterranean
and in Europe?

Expected contributions could address “Venetian” commodity categories
and object groups individually or in relation to each other or in
relation to larger, overarching issues. Papers written from the
perspectives of the history of art, economy, law, literature or other
historical sciences are welcome.
Travel and accommodation costs will be defrayed. Speakers will be
invited to participate in an anthology on the same subject following
the conference. The working languages are mainly English and Italian,
but papers in German and French will also be considered.

Please send an abstract (one page) and a short CV to
Philippe.Cordez@kunstgeschichte.uni-muenchen.de.

The deadline for abstract submissions is 31.10.2015.

Medieval Charm: Illuminated Manuscripts for Royal, Aristocratic, and Ecclesiastical Patronage (Florence,

ISI Florence, International Studies Institute, Via della Vigna Nuova
18, 50123 Firenze, October 20, 2015

Medieval Charm: Illuminated Manuscripts for Royal, Aristocratic, and
Ecclesiastical Patronage // Fascino medievale: manoscritti miniati per
i sovrani, l’aristocrazia e il clero
International Conference // Convegno Internazionale

Organized by Stefano U.Baldassarri, Francesca Marini, Florence Moly

Among the main goals of this conference at ISI Florence is increasing
knowledge of medieval and Renaissance illuminated books, especially
luxury manuscripts.

As part of investigating issues linked with the iconography, patronage,
collection, production, exchange, and costs of illuminated manuscripts,
the papers will focus on topics such as:
– The making of illuminated manuscripts and the collecting habits of
European courts, including the Visconti-Sforza in Lombardy, Alfonso V
of Aragon, and Charles V of France.
– Luxury books commissioned by either aristocrats or clergy in
Catalonia, and those produced for such important ecclesiastical
institutions as the Opera del Duomo in Florence.
– Iconographic themes that medieval and Renaissance culture considered
crucial to religious ideology, such as Paradise from the Divine Comedy
illustrated by the Sienese Giovanni di Paolo.
– Finally, an evaluation of female patronage of illustrated manuscripts
through examples such as The Book of Hours of Joana of Castile, and the
so-called «Alphabet» of Mary of Burgundy.

The conference will thus adopt a variety of scholarly approaches to
promote a fruitful interdisciplinary exchange stimulating dialogue on
the social and economic background of luxury manuscripts in medieval
and Renaissance Europe.

To this purpose, particular attention will be given to the role played
by the patrons who commissioned such works, their manner of choice for
the artists and the iconographic programs used on the basis of the
specific historic and geographic contexts for the splendid illuminated
manuscripts of the period.

PROGRAM

Tuesday, October 20, 2015 / Martedì, 20 ottobre 2015

9.00
Welcome remarks
Stefano U. Baldassarri (Director, ISI Florence)

9.15
Keynote speech
Giovanna Lazzi (Biblioteca Riccardiana)

Session 1
Chair: Gert Jan van der Sman (Istituto Universitario Olandese)

9.45
Florence Moly (Université du Temps Libre, Perpignan)
La culture des élites: la collection Visconti-Sforza de Pavie et leurs
grands connaisseurs, du chancelier ducal à l’historien moderne

10.15
Gennaro Toscano (Institut National du Patrimoine, Paris)
Una passione per i libri: la committenza di Alfonso V d’Aragona detto
il Magnanimo (1396-1458)

10.45 Coffee break

11.30
Francesca Marini (ISI Florence)
«Larghi d’oro in oro per parte di miniatura»: i costi della miniatura
tra ‘400 e ‘500 a partire da alcuni codici per l’Opera del Duomo di
Firenze

12.00
Discussion

13.00 Lunch break

Session 2
Chair : Sonia Chiodo (Università degli Studi, Firenze)

15.00
Annette Hoffmann (Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz)
The Great Feast: Courtiers and Crusaders in Charles V’s «Grandes
Chroniques de France»

15.30
Josefina Planas (Universitat de Lleida)
Manoscritti miniati in Catalogna durante gli ultimi secoli del
Medioevo: promotori, artisti e centri di creazione artistica

16.00
Bette Talvacchia (University of Oklahoma)
Paradise Emblazoned and Embodied in Giovanni di Paolo’s Illumination of
Dante’s «Commedia»

16.30
Eberhard König (Freie Universität, Berlin)
Books for Women Made by Men? The Hours of Juana la Loca in London (Add.
Ms. 18852) and the So-called «Alphabet» of Mary of Burgundy

17.00
Discussion

17.30
Concluding remarks

Partners:
International Studies Institute, Florence
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut
Istituto Universitario Olandese di Storia dell’Arte, Firenze
Biblioteca Riccardiana, Firenze
Universitat de Lleida
Crédit Agricole – France

Pardon our Dust: Reassessing Iconography at the Index of Christian Art (Kalamazoo 2016 sessions)

The International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS) at Western
Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, May 12 – 15, 2016
Deadline: Sep 15, 2015

Pardon our Dust: Reassessing Iconography at the Index of Christian Art

51st International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 12-15, 2016
Deadline: September 15, 2015

Organizers: Catherine Fernandez and Henry Schilb (Index of Christian
Art, Princeton University)

The Index of Christian Art (ICA) at Princeton University houses the
largest archive dedicated to the study of medieval art in the world. It
was founded by Charles Rufus Morey in 1917. Created with the intention
of cataloguing all known works of medieval art according to subject
matter, the Index developed over the course of the twentieth century
into an ever-expanding resource for the study of iconography. Although
the archive originated as a physical catalogue, the information
contained in the subject files began migration to an online database in
1991. Now in its ninety-eighth year of existence, the ICA has embarked
on yet another conceptual and technological upgrade that will embrace a
more capacious understanding of medieval iconography through improved
functionality while preserving the knowledge amassed by Index scholars
during the previous century. Ever mindful that the ICA depends on the
scholarship of medievalists in order to maintain the database for our
researchers, we will sponsor two sessions that underscore this fruitful
reciprocity. As we reassess how specific fields are used within our
records, we seek the input of scholars who are actively engaged with
themes related to medieval iconography in the broadest sense of the
term. By focusing on issues related to the medieval program and
ornament, the panels address categories that currently merit further
consideration as fields of inquiry within the database.

We invite papers that explore new interpretive approaches or
historiographical analyses as a means to stimulate a lively
conversation on the ICA’s mission as an iconographical archive in the
twenty-first century. In mirroring the Index’s wide geographical and
chronological spectrum, we welcome proposals that explore any artistic
media produced during the Middle Ages in the Byzantine East and the
Latin West. Papers may consider specific case studies or address more
theoretical concerns.

I: Program
As Michel Pastoureau has observed, the concept of “program” as an art
historical term has been anachronistically applied to the study of
medieval art. The notion that an assemblage of images adheres to a
conceptual unity governed by the explicit wishes of an individual or
corporate patron remains a source of debate in the iconographic
interpretation of any number of monuments, manuscripts, or individual
objects. We seek papers that consider the advantages and limitations in
using the idea of “program” as an interpretive approach. We welcome
proposals that investigate themes related but not limited to the role
of patronage and iconography of medieval art works, the question of
iconographic unity in monuments, and the disjuncture between the
textual and the visual in the scholarly ekphrases of “programs” in
medieval art.
II: Ornament
Ornament occupies an ambiguous position within the study and
classification of medieval iconography. Recent scholarship, however,
has underscored the significance of ornament as a bearer of meaning. We
welcome proposals that investigate the role of ornament as an
iconographic element within works of medieval art. Topics of interest
include the iconographic function of vegetal ornamentation, the role of
ornament as a frame for narratives and portraits, the use of decorative
motifs as expressions of archaism or “foreignness,” as well as new
approaches in the language of describing medieval ornamentation.

Please send the abstract of your proposed paper (300 words maximum), CV
with current contact information, and completed Participant Information
Form, available at
http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#Paper to the
organizers:

Catherine Fernandez (caf3@princeton.edu) and Henry Schilb
(schilb@princeton.edu)

Deadline: September 15, 2015

Material Processes and Making In Medieval Art (Kalamazoo 2016 session)

The International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS) at Western
Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI, May 12 – 15, 2016
Deadline: Sep 15, 2015

Art historians traditionally focus on the finished work, yet attention
to the creative process of making allows us to consider how medieval
builders and artisans constructed monuments, made objects, and planned
workflow for large-scale projects. Furthermore, this line of inquiry
allows us to consider spatial planning and haptic encounters. The use
of new technologies such as digital reconstructions, laser scans, 3D
printing, and other imaging tools provides scholars with the
opportunity to understand the conceptual processes of art making in the
Middle Ages as never before through reverse engineering.

Recent art-historical scholarship has reintroduced interest in the
materiality/object-ness of medieval art and architecture and attendant
somatic responses. Analysis of the processes of making is fundamental
to this renewed interest in the relationship between materiality and
human experience of the art object. Together, these inquiries will
yield new insights into the social, economic, political, and practical
conditions of production.

For this session we are interested in presentations that investigate
the process of making medieval art and architecture and what these
processes tell us about medieval artistic production. We welcome papers
that explore questions such as:
• What can art historians learn from studying creative processes?
• What are the methods of design to finished product?
• How did masons and artisans revise work in progress or finished work?
• Why are some materials selected over others?

DEADLINE FOR PAPER PROPOSALS: 15 September 2015
Paper proposals should consist of the following:
• Abstract of proposed paper (300 words maximum)
• Completed Participation Information Form available at:
http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#Paper
• CV with mailing information and email address.

PLEASE DIRECT INQUIRIES/SUBMISSIONS TO THE
ORGANIZERS:
Meredith Cohen: mcohen@humnet.ucla.edu
Kristine Tanton: kristanton@gmail.com.

Information about the conference, including proposal submission forms,
may be found at
http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html.

“Reassessing Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two Bodies: Representations of Secular Power in Word and Image” (Kalamazoo 2016)

Since its publication in 1957, Ernst Kantorowicz’s The King’s Two
Bodies has achieved canonical status in the field of medieval history.
This sweeping account of medieval political theology describes how the
king came to be perceived as a gemina persona, possessing both a “body
natural” (material and mortal) and a “body politic” (immaterial and
immortal). While art historians frequently cite the book in their
analyses of medieval iconography, many scholars have criticized
Kantorowicz’s study for a variety of perceived faults, in particular
for being reductive or anachronistic, as epitomized by its application
of an early modern (Tudor) political theory to earlier centuries. One
of the best-known and most pointed critiques came early on from R. W.
Southern, who accused it of “put[ting] the symbol before the reality.”

This session invites papers that critically engage with Kantorowicz’s
paradigm of the king’s two bodies in order to reassess its benefits
and/or limitations as a means of interpreting medieval texts and
images. The organizers conceive of this panel as an opportunity to
interrogate Kantorowicz’s methods and conclusions, to examine the
utility of the “two bodies” as a hermeneutic paradigm, and to consider
the implications of this provocative book for twenty-first-century
scholarship.

While all of the selected papers will address articulations of secular
power, a variety of approaches is possible. Questions and issues might
include: regional specificities in the expression of power; the
differentiation in the perception of power as embodied by female versus
male rulers; the conspicuous presence or conspicuous absence of sacred
references in courtly texts/images/objects; the formation of royal
identity and the legitimization of new or contested rulers; religious
language, symbolism, or imagery in diplomatics; the pragmatic and/or
legal function of images of power; shifts in imagery and meaning across
time; the role of likeness and naturalism (or, conversely, of
abstraction) in identity formation; etc. Submissions from historians
and art historians are encouraged.

Proposals should include the following:
1) a one-page abstract
2) a completed Participant Information Form (PIF)
http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF
3) a CV with email, mailing address, and phone number

Please forward proposals to the organizers:
Melanie Hanan, Fordham University, mhanan@fordham.edu
AND
Shannon L. Wearing, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University,
slwearing@gmail.com by 15 September 2015.

Crossing the Hanseatic Threshold and Beyond: Making Connections in Medieval Art, c. 1200-1500 (Kalamazoo 2016)

The Hanse, also known as the Hanseatic League, was a trade network of
merchants and cities across the Northern and Baltic Seas that
flourished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Due to its
geographic reach, the Hanse provided a framework to connect distant
towns, peoples, cultures, ideas, and materials together. This session
aims to explore the often-overlooked artistic production in the
transnational Hanseatic region. Artistic exchange across Hanse trade
routes was extensive and wide reaching. Art objects traveled long
distances and were produced with great variety to reflect the
multi-faceted identities and goals of their patrons.

For this session, we invite papers that address artistic circulation,
mobility, exchange, networks, identity, media, and/or patronage in the
Hanseatic arena. We welcome both specific case studies as well as
papers that interrogate larger questions on ‘Hanseatic art’, Hanse art
historical historiography, and the self-fashioning of Hanse merchants
or patrons. Along these lines, papers could also explore artistic links
between the Hanse and other trade networks or more generally, art and
mercantile trade in littoral and riverine towns in Europe, c. 1200-1500.

The Student Committee of the International Center of Medieval Art
involves and advocates for all members with student status. As a
committee that addresses the concerns of students, we see this session
as a forum for discussion and informal mentorship within our field.

To propose a paper, please send an abstract, C.V., and a completed
Congress Participant Information Form
(http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html#PIF) to
Lehti Mairike Keelmann (lehtik@umich.edu) and Laura Tillery
(tillery@sas.upenn.edu).

Proposals should be emailed no later than September 15th, 2015.

Picturing the present: Structuring the medieval beholder’s relation towards time (Kalamazoo 2016)

Simone Martini, Agostino Novello polytych, simultaneous narrative showing resurrection of a child

Armin Bergmeier (Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich)
Andrew Griebeler (University of California, Berkeley)

“What then is time?” asks Augustine, the fourth-century bishop of
Hippo, “If no one asks me, I know, but if I wish to explain it, I do
not know.” Although intimately familiar, time eludes simple
description. For Augustine, it is a single, ever-moving point of the
present distended by the soul forward in anticipation of things to
come, and backward through memory and recollection. The centuries
following Augustine saw the continued emergence of Christian and
medieval approaches to time alongside the concurrent appropriation and
adaptation of older pagan models, such as Neoplatonic conceptions of
time as a moving image of eternity, or Aristotelian understandings of
time according to the change and movement of bodies.

This panel examines the relationship between medieval artworks and
their viewers’ conception and experience of the present. Scholars of
medieval art have mostly concentrated on imagery depicting the past or
the future, in particular, those that express anxiety about the end of
time. A wide range of images, however, was particularly concerned with
expressing ideas of the present and with depicting the relation between
the visible human world and the invisible divine realm. This panel,
therefore, emphasizes and explores the medieval viewers’ relationship
to the present and their current place in the cosmological system. We
invite proposals covering a wide range of media (portable objects,
manuscripts, sculpture, wall decorations) from Late Antiquity through
the late Middle Ages.

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to the following:
– How images relate to the conceptualization of the historical present
– How artworks structure or organize the experience of time
– How artworks reflect philosophical concepts of the nature of time
– Notions of temporality in depictions of visions and prophecies
– The visibility and visuality of time-keeping instruments and practices
– Medieval conceptions of change in the physical or natural historical
present, including seasons, tides,stages of life, and the movement of
stars

Please, send your abstracts (500 words maximum), CV with current
information, and completed Participant Information Form (available at
http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html) to the
organizers:
armin.bergmeier@campus.lmu.de and agriebeler@berkeley.edu

New Perspectives on Medieval Rome (2 sessions at Kalamazoo 2016)

The Last Judgment, detail. By Pietro Cavallini (c.1250-c.1330). Fresco, c.1293. Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, Italy .

Digital, environmental, material, Mediterranean, sensory, spatial:
these are among the recent “turns” taken by the medieval humanities,
including art history. The new perspectives on the past opened by these
approaches, many of which are informed by interdisciplinary research
and contemporary cultural interests in the natural and built world, are
fundamentally reshaping how we conceive of and study medieval art and
architecture. In the field of medieval art, the city of Rome has
traditionally been a key site for the formulation of innovative avenues
of approach, but what is its current status and its potential in
relation to the discipline’s new discourses?

These two linked sessions seek to assess the impact of recent
methodological developments on the study of the art, architecture, and
urban forms of Rome during the long middle ages, ca. 300–1500. We
invite papers that offer new research on, and new ways of thinking
about, the visual and material culture of medieval Rome.

Please direct inquiries/submissions to the organizers at
mhaukne1@jhu.edu and alison.perchuk@csuci.edu. Information about the
conference, including proposal submission forms, may be found at
http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/submissions/index.html.

Exploring the Fourteenth Century Across the Eastern and Western Christian World (Leeds 2016 session)

“ […] and that Giotto changed the profession of painting from Greek back into Latin, and brought it up to date.” Cennino Cennini, The Craftsman’s Handbook, Chapter I

These words by the Italian artist Cennino Cennini, written just before the end of the fourteenth century, seem to testify to the definitive break between the Byzantine and the Western artistic traditions. Whilst studies of cultural and artistic relationships between the Catholic and Orthodox milieux during the thirteenth century are plentiful, the fourteenth century is considered as the culmination of the rupture between the two, a rupture initiated by the Fourth Crusade and the following Sack of Constantinople in 1204.

This session aims to challenge traditional assumptions about interactions between the East and the West, and explore possible points of contact between the Byzantine and the Latin traditions. Indeed, while the disastrous political and religious outcome of the Union of Lyon in 1274 seemed to presage a definitive break between the two Christian Worlds, their cultural and socio-political histories remained deeply intertwined. The Latin domination and the ongoing Franciscan missionary activities left profound traces in Constantinople and the Empire. Similarly, Byzantine merchants and scholars, as well as looted or exchanged artefacts, travelled to the West, influencing Latin culture and creating new artistic trends.

From an art historical point of view, it is commonly acknowledged that while fourteenth-century Western artists explored three-dimensionality, Byzantine art maintained an abstract character. However, visual evidence demonstrates that similar changes occurred in both Eastern and Western art at this time: the number of figures increases, architectural settings become more detailed and multiple episodes are adopted to expound a narrative that was previously encapsulated in one scene only. Are these changes linked? What are the similarities and dissimilarities?

Scholars within the field of late medieval Western and Byzantine history and art history are invited to submit proposals for twenty-minute papers. We propose a loose understanding of the fourteenth century that includes the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth to better contextualise the session’s findings. Topics may include but are not restricted to:

Contacts between Eastern and Western merchants, patrons, and artists

Diplomatic embassies, marriage alliances, and gift exchange between the Eastern and Western Christian world

Eastern scholars emigrating to the West and vice versa

Instances of comparison between specific monumental decorations across East and West

Examples of Orthodox churches build in the West or Catholic churches in the East, their influences and effects

The proliferation of more developed narratives and secondary hagiographical cycles

The increase in the number of figures and the role of architectural settings within the narrative

Please send papers’ titles, abstracts of 250 words and a 100-word biography by September 21, 2015 to:

Maria Alessia Rossi: Mariaalessia.rossi@courtauld.ac.uk and Livia Lupi: ll546@york.ac.uk

CFP: Reading Architecture Across the Arts and Humanities (University of Stirling, 5 December 2015), deadline 26 September 2015

An AHRC-Funded Interdisciplinary Conference University of Stirling, Saturday 5th December 2015

The organisers of this one-day multidisciplinary conference seek to solicit proposals for 20-minute papers that consider the creation, expression and subject-areas across the Arts and Humanities. Papers should seek to address the creation, understanding, circulation and cultural impact of both real and international contexts. Original and creative accounts of how architecture might variously be ‘read’ and interpreted across such disciplines as welcome.

Plenary Speakers: Rosemary Hill and Olivia Horsfall Turner

Possible topics may include, but are by no means limited to, the following:
– Historicism
– Responses to, and recreations of, the architectural past
– Reflections upon architectural styles and ‘movements’
– Assessments of architecture and architectural practices
– Representations of architecture in film
– Architecture and the law
– Antiquarianism and architecture
– Architectural ruin and the tourist industry
– Architectural conservationism
– The politics of architectural form
– Literary representations of architecture
– Lives of architects
– The aesthetics of architectural form
– Historiography
– Architectural Heritage

300-word proposals should be emailed to the conference organisers, Dr Dale Townshend and Dr Peter N. Lindfield — architecture@stir.ac.uk — by 26 September 2015.

The School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Stirling has generously agreed to fund a number of postgraduate travel-bursaries for this event. Please contact the conference organisers for further details.

This conference is the first event in a series of outputs arising from the AHRC-funded project, Writing Britain’s Ruins, 1700–1850: The Architectural Imagination at the University of Stirling (June 2015–December 2016).