Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections
October 6 2013- March 2 2014
In 330 Emperor Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Italy some thousand miles to the east, near the site of the ancient Greek city of Byzantium on the Bosphorus Strait linking the Aegean and Black Seas. Renamed Constantinople (now Istanbul), the city became the largest and wealthiest in the Christian world. It remained the dominant power, especially in the eastern Mediterranean, for more than 1,000 years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. In the first-ever exhibition of Byzantine art at the Gallery, some 170 works of art, many never before lent to the United States, will be on view—among them mosaics, icons, manuscripts, jewelry, and ceramics. The works include newly discovered and unpublished objects and reveal the rich and multifaceted culture of Byzantium. Divided into five thematic sections, the exhibition explores the coexistence of paganism and Christianity, spiritual life in Byzantium, secular works of art used in the home, the intellectual life of Byzantine scholars, and the cross-influences that occurred between Byzantine and Western artists before the fall of Byzantium.
Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections presents life inByzantium through approximately 170 works ofart dating from the inception of the empire to itsclose. Drawn from collections throughout Greece,they include sculpture, mosaics, icons, frescoes,manuscripts, metalwork, jewelry, glass, embroideries,coins, and ceramics. The works are arrangedin five sections: From the Ancient to the Byzantine World, Spiritual Life,Pleasures of Life, Intellectual Life, andThe Last Phase: Crosscurrents.
Organization: The exhibition was organized by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, Athens, with the collaboration of the Benaki Museum, Athens, and in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
Sponsors: The exhibition’s international tour is made possible by major funding from OPAP S.A.
Financial support is also provided by the A.G. Leventis Foundation.
Other Venues: J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, April 9–August 25, 2014
For centuries pilgrimage was one of the greatest adventures on earth, involving epic journeys across the country and around the world. This series sees Simon Reeve retrace the exciting adventures of our ancestors. He learns about the forgotten aspects of pilgrimage, including the vice, thrills and dangers that all awaited travellers. He explores the faith, the hopes, desires, and even the food that helped to keep medieval travellers on the road.
1st Episode Simon Reeve embarks on pilgrimages across Britain, from Holy Island to Canterbury.
2nd Episode Simon Reeve travels from northern France to Spain, then crosses western Europe to Rome.
3rd Episode Simon Reeve travels from Istanbul across the Holy Land to Jerusalem.
Series in which historian Simon Sebag Montefiore traces the sacred history of Istanbul. Known as the ‘city of the world’s desire’, it’s a place that has been the focus of passion for believers of three different faiths – Paganism, Christianity and Islam – and for nearly 3,000 years its streets have been the battleground for some of the fiercest political and religious conflicts in history.
In three episodes Montefiore charts the rise of Istanbul from pagan trading post to capital of three empires and two religions, becoming not only holy but the most coveted city in the world.
Their Transcendence of Time and Space in Pre-Modern Europe
Munich, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, April 11 – 12, 2014
Deadline: Jan 10, 2014
According to Jean-Claude Schmitt, “the dead have no existence other
than that which the living imagine for them” – and sometimes, the
living not only force them to exist in their memory but also to persist
materially. By keeping the mortal remains above the earth, by dividing
them, manipulating them and moving them to different places, the
deceased are assigned a very active role within the world of the
living. The title of this workshop includes, however, also a second
“species” of migrating bodily fragments, namely body parts that are
imagined to be moving by themselves. We are not sure whether the
movement of real, physical body parts can reasonably be linked with the
stories of actively wandering body parts as they can be found in
hagiography, secular badges and popular literature of the time, but
from our perspective it seems worthwhile to think about it, the more so
as for some years now there has been developing a broad area of
research on objects that move and migrate. Within our workshop the
following perspectives on body parts in pre-modern Europe might be
addressed:
– the reasons why body parts were moved
– the way in which they were moved
– how they were visualized
– the nature of the transport media, both visual and material
– the benefits of body parts transcending space and time
– which body parts could be imagined to be moving
Organizers
Romedio Schmitz-Esser (Historisches Seminar der LMU München)
Urte Krass (Institut für Kunstgeschichte der LMU München)
Munich Research Center Foundations of Modernity
We welcome paper proposals from a variety of fields, including art
history, history, archaeology, philosophy, cultural history, visual
culture, and medieval literature.
Please submit an abstract (with a maximum of 2.500 characters) plus a
brief CV along with your contact information in one PDF document by
January 10, 2014 to Romedio Schmitz-Esser (Historisches Seminar,
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1,
80539 München; e-mail: r.schmitz-esser@lmu.de).
The Courtauld has a reputation for getting up close to objects, sometimes to the concern of nearby gallery attendants. However, a number of handling sessions for postgraduate students to indulge in pawing exhibits without rebuke have been arranged at the British Museum with the kind assistance of Lloyd DeBeer and Naomi Speakman, both in progress with individual collaborative PhDs at the Museum. The theme for this December session was objects with apotropaic inscriptions, that is, words that apparently warded off evil, as requested and selected by Dr. Tom Nickson.
As we gathered round the table, putting on our unpleasant plastic gloves, what could not fail to draw attention was the impressive (and perhaps also apotropaic) axe-carved prow ornament under conservation for the forthcoming Viking exhibition. However the objects we were to be handling lay beyond this fearsome monster, and were of a much more manageable weight.
This bell was my first port of call, partly being the second biggest thing on the table after the prow, but also because I had just written about bell-founding through the lost wax method with my post on Courtauld favourite Tudor Monastery Farm. Bells are one of the most common medieval objects to be inscribed with the craftsman’s signature, but this one also had four holy figures inscribed upon it which perhaps were there to protect the bell, while the former maybe acting as a perpetual prayer to the maker. Handling a bell like this immediately gives you the impression that it is far too heavy to ring by hand. Instead, the shape of its upper aperture was suggested as perfect for it to be attached to a wooden frame, and rung by a mechanism. Although there were a few accidental semi-peels, we of course were not going to see if one could bear to have this bell hung low enough to be reminded of its maker while sounding the call to prayer.
One object that proved particularly popular was this French fifteenth-century finger ring, inscribed with an amorous inscription playing on Latin tenses. This blog is possibly not far from the truth in that it represents a particularly nerdy love-token: the image of the squirrel and lady on the inside being a not-so-subtle medieval double-entendré.
However, that ring represented an object that matched our expectations, ideally sized to be placed upon a lady’s finger for her to cringe at the grammar puns forever more. My personal favourite object of the day was the Coventry Ring, both for its content and the puzzles its actual presence made manifest. On the outside, we have an image of Christ, and a prayer that relates to each of His five wounds. This prayer is accompanied by the characteristic disembodied floating sharply-pointed ovoids dripping blood, which, after Caroline Walker Bynum and others’ in-depth investigations of textual and iconographic parallels for the femininity of Christological imagery and devotion, you are allowed to state the obvious resemblance without the risk of getting too Freudian. This prayer is obviously supposed to be read while the ring is turned around the finger, but even this does not explain why it is so conspicuously large when you try it on. Was it made to commission for a particularly big man? Was it designed to be worn over a leather glove? Was it even supposed to be worn other than for prayer? The startling condition of the ring, even the enamelling of lettering inside and out, suggests perhaps so.
These are just a few of the thoughtful fruits that were generated from handling the objects set out for us. But perhaps what never really came out were many opinions about the apotropaic inscriptions which they all had in common. The Coventry Ring was one of many of the objects that had the names of the Three Magi inscribed upon it for instance, clearly from some common mystical significance. Yet so often the more mysterious and magical inscriptions were sidelined in our discussions for other, seemingly more primary functions that the objects embodied. Perhaps it was the same for their users: these were merely conventions that it was proper to have, and even the owner of the Coventry Ring themselves may have been hard-pressed to explain what “ananyzapta tetragrammaton” was all about.
Forthcoming Exhibition: Vikings: life and legend London, 6 March – 22 June 2014
British Museum, the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery
In March 2014 the British Museum will open the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery with a major new exhibition on the Vikings, supported by BP. The exhibition, developed in cooperation with the National Museum of Denmark and the Berlin State Museum, is the first major exhibition in England on this subject for over 30 years, and presents a number of new archaeological discoveries and objects never before seen in the UK alongside important Viking Age artefacts from the British Museum’s own collection and elsewhere in Britain and Ireland. The star of the show will be the remains of a 37-metre-long Viking longship, the longest ever found, and the Vale of York hoard, whose size and quality make it one of the most important finds of its type.
Forthcoming Exhibition: the Council of Constance Konstanz, 27 April 2014 – 21 September 2014
2014 marks the 600th anniversary of the start of the Council of Constance. The Council was a major event in church politics which made Constance the center of European politics and a meeting place of European cultures in the years 1414-1418. Baden-Württemberg commemorates the anniversary of the world event of the late Middle Ages with a Great State Exhibition. The organizational responsibility was assigned to the Badische Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe.
The Exhibition can be viewed from 27 April to 21 September 2014 in the actual building in which events took place in Constance. The Conclave moved into the Merchants Guildhall in 1417 with the intention of not leaving until the church could be united by the successful election of a single Pope. We are in the thick of the historical events in the building now called the Council House, which is a landmark of the city.
President Joachim Gauck has consented to act as patron of the Great State Exhibition
PEREGRINATIONS: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture
Vol. IV, No. 2 is now accessible at http://peregrinations.kenyon.eduFeatured Articles:
“Christ’s Money. Eucharistic Azyme Hosts in the Ninth Century According to Bishop Eldefonsus of Spain: Observations on the Origin, Meaning, and Context of a Mysterious Revelation”
by Roger E. Reynolds, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of Toronto, Canada
“Eucharistic Adoration in the Carolingian Era? Exposition of Christ in the Host” by Roger E. Reynolds, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of Toronto, Canada
“Vetera analecta, sive collectio veterum aliquot opera & opusculorum omnis generis, carminum, epistolarum, diplomaton, epitaphiorum, &, cum itinere germanico, adaptationibus & aliquot disquisitionbus R.P.D. Joannis Mabillon, Presbiteri ac Monachi Ord. Sancti Benedicti e Congregatione S. Mauri. Nova Editio cui accessere Mabilloni vita & aliquot opuscula, scilicet Dissertatio de Pane Eucharistico, Azymo et Fermentatio ad Eminentiss. Cardinalem Bona. Subiungitur opusculum Eldefonsi Hispaniensis Episcopi de eodem argumentum. Et Eusebii Romani ad Theophilum Gallum epistola, De cultu sanctorum ignotorum, Parisiis, apud Levesque, ad Pontem S. Michaelis, MDCCXXI, cum privilegio Regis. PROVISIONAL TEXT” by Roger E. Reynolds, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, University of Toronto, Canada
“Barking Abbey: A GIS Map of a Medieval Nunnery” by Donna Alfano Bussell, English Department, University of Illinois Springfield, & Joseph M. McNamara, Geographic Information Systems Laboratory, University of Illinois Springfield
“Disfluency and Deep Processing as Paths to Devotion: Reading and Praying with the Veronica in the Psalter and Hours of “Yolande of Soissons” (M. 729)” by David Boffa, Beloit College
“Annunciation and Dedication on Aachen Pilgrim Badges. Notes on the Early Badge Production in Aachen and Some New Attributions” by Hanneke van Asperen, Medieval Badges Foundation and Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
The new issue also includes information on medieval organisations, several book reviews, short notices and new art historical and archaeological discoveries. For more information, see the journal’s website.
Forthcoming Exhibition: Saint Louis Paris, 8 October 2014 – 11 January 2015
King Louis IX (1214-1270) was a personality that exercised an unusually high amount of influence throughout the medieval West. Few other French kings possessed a comparable charisma, and no other was canonised. Louis IX’s double identity as a king and a saint created an almost mythical figure, whose ideological instrumentalisation obscured his actual character. In 2014, on occasion of the eight centenary of the king’s birth, the imprints of Louis IX, both within the domaines of political action and royal artistic patronage, will be revisited. A selection of 130 works of art of exceptionally high quality, coming from some of the most renowned French collections (Louvre, Cluny, Orsay, Archives Nationales and BnF), and accompanied by rare manuscripts, ivories and reliquaries kept outside of France (United States, Italy, Netherlands, Vatican State), will bear witness to the greatness of Parisian art under the reign of Louis IX.
The Sainte-Chapelle which was erected at the heart of the royal palace in order to treasure the Passion relics and which is one of the most elegant expressions of Gothic architecture, will be one of the highlights of the exhibition parcours.
Further highlights to be expected:
The Treasure of the Sainte-Chapelle
A previously unpublished 3D-reconstruction of the Palais de la Cité in the 13th century
Original stained glass windows from the Sainte-Chapelle, in storage since the 19th century and now restored
Rarely exhibited artworks
Reconstitution of artistic ensembles nowadays dispersed
Commissariat: Pierre-Yves Le Pogam, Chief Conservator at the Musée du Louvre. Catalogue: Saint Louis, with a foreword by Jacques Le Goff and edited by Pierre-Yves Le Pogam. Editions du patrimoine.
Washington, National Gallery, West Building
Medieval Art Research 