Colloquium: “Secular Knowledge in Medieval Art,” XIII ARS MEDIAEVALIS COLLOQUIUM, Aguilar de Campoo (Palencia), 6-8 October 2023

A substantial part of the scientific knowledge developed in the Middle Ages was inherited from Roman (in Western Europe) and Greek (in the Byzantine and Islamic domains) culture. However, new cognitive procedures were also developed in medieval societies, among them some related to vision, astronomy or zoology. Knowledge of the secular world was translated and codified in the three domains of the Middle Ages (Latin, Greek and Arabic) through complex and varied visual devices. These ingenious images allow us to understand how the procedures of thought and memory were established. With these iconic creations, the most dynamic cultural centres sought to provide themselves with didactic and mnemonic tools to say, think or remember the universe, earthly creatures or celestial realities more efficiently. Both the European continent and the Mediterranean shores witnessed the fluid communication between different domains in order to advance in the knowledge of the created and populated space, translating, codifying or reinterpreting what others had proposed before, or else enlightening new formulas and channels to solve the questions of people who intensified their self-awareness.

PROGRAM

6 de octubre (Aguilar de Campoo: Sede Fundación Sta. Mª la Real)

Presidencia de sesión: Alejandro García Avilés (Universidad de Murcia)  

08.45 h.: Recepción de asistentes

09.15 h.: Presentación e inauguración del Coloquio

09.45 h.: Kathrin Müller (Humboldt-Universität, Berlin): Fundamental Knowledge. Personifications of the artes liberales on High Medieval Liturgical Objects

10.30 h.: Debate

10.45 h.: Pausa-café

11.15 h.: Anna Caiozzo (Université d’Orleans): Entre images scientifiques, merveilles (terrestres) de la Création et imaginaires religieux

12.00 h.: Martin Schwarz (Universität Basel): The Crucifixion Eclipse and the Illumination of Philosophy in the Vie de Saint Denis (BnF, fr. 2090)

12.45 h: Debate  

Sesión de tarde (Aguilar de Campoo: Sede Fundación Sta. Mª la Real)

Presidencia de sesión: Mª Teresa López de Guereño (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)  

16.00 h.: Laura Fernández Fernández (Universidad Complutense de Madrid): Entre fábulas y estrellas errantes. La luna en el imaginario alfonsí

16.45 h.: Debate

17.30 h.: Visita al monasterio de Santa María la Real  

7 de octubre (Saldaña. Villa romana La Olmeda)

Presidencia de sesión: Susana Clavo Capilla (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)  

09.15 h: Desplazamiento en autobús a la villa romana La Olmeda

10.30 h.: Licia Buttà (Universitat Rovira i Virgili): La danza en los tratados morales y de cortesía y su visualización en el relato poético narrativo en la Edad Media

11.15 h.: Begoña Cayuela (Universitat de Barcelona): Del stemma al grafo y viceversa. Los diagramas de las llamadas Tablas genealógicas en la miniatura hispana medieval: origen y pervivencias.

11.35 h.: Nerea Maestu Fonseca (Universidad Complutense de Madrid): Vislumbres de cometas entre rayos y truenos: astrometeorología y teoría cometaria en la Edad Media.

11.55 h.: Debate

12.30 h.: Visita a la villa romana de La Olmeda

14.00 h.: Comida (a cargo de la organización)

16.00 h.: Visita al arte medieval de Cisneros  

8 de octubre (Aguilar de Campoo: Monasterio Sta. Mª la Real)

Presidencia de Sesión: Fernando Gutiérrez Baños (Universidad de Valladolid)  

09.30 h.: Marius Hauknes (University of Notre Dame): Representing the Origins of Human Knowledge

10.15 h.: Hanna Wimmer (Universität Hamburg): Visualising Logic in the Middle Ages

11.00 h.: Debate

11.30 h.: Descanso

12.00 h.: Rosa Rodríguez Porto (Universidad de Santiago de Compostela): Incidentiae: Tiempo, espacio y sincronía en la historiografía medieval

12.45 h.: Debate

13.00 h:  Conclusiones y perspectivas

13.15 h.: Clausura y entrega de certificados a los asistentes  

Register here: https://tienda.santamarialareal.org/es/productos/detalles/xiii-coloquio-ars-mediaevalis-saberes-seculares-en-el-arte-medieval/761

CFP: “Monastic libraries and book collections in times of crisis, c. 1000-c. 1600,” International Medieval Congress, Leeds, Deadline 12 September 2023

The proposed session(s) focuses on religious communities’ responses to crisis in relation to convent libraries and book collections. We aim to investigate what happened to medieval convent libraries and book collections in times of peril during the Middle Ages, but also the early modern period and up until our time. At certain times, these changes were detrimental and meant the original context of collections was lost. On other occasions, crises’ effects were incremental in book collections of various religious institutions.


Written documents and book collections were used to address the economic, social, political, and cultural crises that affected religious communities. The organizers aim to discuss how manuscripts and book collections were used to mitigate or reject the impact of external or internal crises, to create a narrative about these upheavals and to foster renewal. The organizers also aim to establish a broader comparative and geographical approach opening new perspectives, provoking new questions, and reformulating questions widely debated in the historiography.


Suggested topics on book collections in times of crisis from any geographic area and encompassing a wide chronological framework may include, but are not limited to:
• Dismembering and dispersion of manuscripts in times of peril. How could these collections be interpreted anew? What happened to the identity of these collections in their new surroundings? How were these ‘orphan’ collections used by their, potentially, new owners? Was there re-assembly?
• The post-medieval life and Nachleben of book collections. Dispersion and loss as a result of wars, turmoil, and ecclesiastical suppression during the modern times.
• Assembling of manuscripts as a result of crisis. Medieval and early modern recycling history of manuscripts, and how these processes inform not only medieval book culture but also religious communities’ identities and religious and cultural networks more broadly.
• Assembling versus dismembering manuscripts as a result of crisis. Analysis of the factors that led to one or the other option. Did these occur at the same time in the same community?
• Crisis, continuities, and disruptions in production of manuscripts, re-use, and function of books within religious communities.
• Interplay between manuscript production and the making of other ornamenta sacra in times of crisis.
• The role of manuscripts and book collections in the creation of crisis narratives among religious communities. Who is to blame during crisis? Entangled scales and agents involved at micro and macro levels.
• Explicitly gendered approaches to crises in religious communities. In what way religious women, including nuns and mulieres religiosae, used manuscripts and book collections.
We welcome papers from a variety of disciplines including but not limited to history, art history, material culture, codicology, cultural history, musicology, history of liturgy, anthropology, literature, gender studies with a focus on religious communities from different orders/religions, different territories, and geographical regions exploring what happened to medieval book collections (c. 1000-c. 1600) during and beyond the Middle Ages. We invite speakers to explore the impact of crisis in book collections from religious communities and these communities’ management of their libraries in times of peril.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short bio to Julie Beckers (julie.beckers@kuleuven.be) and Mercedes Pérez Vidal (mercedes.pvidal@uam.es) by 12 September 2023. All proposals should include your name, email address and academic affiliation, and your preferred format (in-person or virtual).

Call for Participants: “Studying East of Byzantium X: Communities” Workshop, Deadline 13 September 2023

The Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA, are pleased to invite abstracts for the next Studying East of Byzantium workshop: Studying East of Byzantium IX: Communities.

Studying East of Byzantium IX: Communities is a three-part workshop that intends to bring together doctoral students and very recent PhDs studying the Christian East to reflect on how to reflect on the usefulness of the concept of “Community” in studying the Christian East, to share methodologies, and to discuss their research with workshop respondents, Michael Pifer, University of Michigan, and Salam Rassi, University of Edinburgh. The workshop will meet on November 17, 2023, February 9, 2024, and June 6–7, 2024, on Zoom. The timing of the workshop meetings will be determined when the participant list is finalized.

We invite all graduate students and recent PhDs working in the Christian East whose work considers, or hopes to consider, the theme of communities in their own research to apply.

Participation is limited to 10 students. The full workshop description is available on the East of Byzantium website (https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/). Those interested in attending should submit a C.V. and 200-word abstract through the East of Byzantium website no later than September 13, 2023.

For questions, please contact East of Byzantium organizers, Christina Maranci, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, Harvard University, and Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at contact@eastofbyzantium.org.

EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA. It explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

CFP: “Virgin Mary’s relics – Prestige, Rivalry, Forgery and Reproducibility,” International Congress on Medieval Studies (Online Session), Deadline 15 September 2023

This special online session wishes to analyze the power of the Virgin Mary’s relics as triggers not only to processions and pilgrimages but also to Marian cults competition. The scientific importance of the session lies in understanding how these devotional objects could be perceived as activators of civic prestige. The possession of these relics encouraged a deep local cohesion outside the church. Therefore, how did the custody of a Marian relic interact and enhance rivalry between cities? And finally, how did the forgery and reproducibility of these relics contribute to developing the Marian cult by enhancing the creation of sacred topographies?

The session will encourage an interdisciplinary approach. Civic, political, and religious powers were deeply interconnected to control devotion to Marian relics. For this reason, these aspects will be examined in relation to the instauration of civic identity and religious authority to understand the adaptation of the Virgin’s cult to the local needs. This approach provides the groundwork for new perspectives on Medieval relics’ devotion in general. Moreover, the analysis of case studies will not only aim to highlight specific aspects and general phenomena in Late Medieval Europe but also to define identities and devotees’ experiences about relics.

Scholars are invited to submit a 300-word abstract, excluding references. Proposals should also include name, affiliation, email address, the title of the presentation, 6 keywords, a selective bibliography, and a short CV. Please send the documents to maryandthecity.imc2022@gmail.com by 15 September 2023.

CFP: “Saints in Crisis: Emotional Responses to Sanctity in the Middle Ages,” International Medieval Congress (IMC 2024), University of Leeds, Deadline 12 September 2023

They were frightened and they hit in great pain their heads and hearts– How do people react when they encounter the sanctity of saints? How do they feel? Are they in crisis – crisis for whom? Does crisis change individuals?

The proposed session focuses on the emotional responses of individuals/communities in relation to sanctity. Suggested topics on the emotional reactions of individuals/communities, from any geographic area or time period (between 300-1500), may include, but are not limited to:

  • Visual representations of emotions (behavior of the body, gestures, looks); 
  • Textual sources on emotional reactions (hagiographies, miracle stories, narratives in relation to crisis and sanctity);
  • Medical (psychological, neurological, physical, and mental) responses;
  • Liturgy and music culture;
  • Regions/areas of communities (rural, urban, monastic, ecclesiastic), emotions, and sanctity;
  • Living saints, discoveries of saints, relics – reliquaries, icons, and viewership reactions;
  • Performance, sanctity, and emotions;
  • External crisis/internal crisis, positive/negative emotional reactions, and sanctity;
  • Conversion stories/lack of conversion/otherness and emotional reactions;

Submissions from a variety of disciplines are accepted including but not limited to: history, art history, visual culture, social history, cultural history, hagiography, religious studies, cultural studies, textual studies in a transdisciplinary perspective. 

Please submit a 250- 400 word proposal (in English) for a 15-20 minute paper. Proposals should have an abstract format and be accompanied by a short CV, of no more than 800 words, including e-mail, institution, and profession. The session is planned to be in-presence. Please submit all relevant documents by 12 September 2023 to the e-mail address: znorovszkyandrea@usal.es

Contact information: Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain (znorovszkyandrea@usal.es)

CFP: New Perspectives on Personifications in Roman, Late Antique and Early Byzantine Art (200-800 AD), deadline 15 September 2023


Paper proposals are invited for the international workshop “New Perspectives on Personifications in Roman, Late Antique and Early Byzantine Art (200-800 AD)” with keynote lecture by Professor Emma Stafford, University of Leeds, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies.

Personifications are some of the most geographically and chronologically widespread phenomena in Art History. From monumental sculpture or floor mosaics to textiles, coins or everyday objects, personifications were represented in all visual media to express and communicate a variety of different ideas, such as natural phenomena, months, seasons or geographical regions, personal qualities or intangible abstractions. While some are easily identifiable via specific attributes, others can only be recognized through name labels; some occur as isolated figures, others as active participants in complex scenes; some exist in countless examples, others survive in a singular image. They may have counterparts in contemporary written sources, or may be purely visual inventions. In addition, a single personification can carry multivalent meanings, which may allow for several layers of interpretation. Over time their ontological status, functions and meanings have undergone various changes. A significant period of transformation is the transition from the ancient to the mediaeval world. While personifications were seen as numinous figures in ancient Mediterranean societies, they may have been rather symbolic or allegorical in mediaeval visual cultures.

The aim of this workshop is to explore the formal patterns, roles and meanings, continuities and innovations in the depictions of personifications of this period to better understand their functions, their relationship to one another and to other iconographic tools, as well as the changes that occur between the second and ninth centuries in the Mediterranean world.

The organizers invite proposals for individual papers from the fields of classics, archaeology, art history, visual studies, numismatics, sigillography and related fields addressing especially, but not exclusively, the following topics:
– New research on individual personifications in all Roman, Late Antique and Byzantine visual media (sculpture, painting, mosaic, coins, seals, textiles, book illumination, jewellery, everyday and/or luxury objects, etc.)
– Methodological and theoretical approaches towards personifications (ontology, polysemy, etc.)
– Reflections on the relationship between text and image in the analysis of personifications
– Functional comparisons between different formats (stand-alone personifications, personifications in groups and/or narrative scenes)
– Chronological and geographical comparisons and iconographical developments in the depictions of personifications
– Relationship between the pictorial representation of personifications and their spatial and/or cultural context
– Relationship between personifications and the patrons, recipients and viewers of objects and works of art that include them

Please submit an abstract of 300 words and a bio of 100 words by 15 September 2023. All proposals should include your name, email address and academic affiliation (if applicable). Please also include a main subject field plus secondary subject field in the application. The participants are expected to deliver a 20-minute talk, followed by a Q&A session. The workshop will take place in-person at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the Museum für Abgüsse Klassischer Bildwerke in Munich on Friday and Saturday, 26-27 January 2024 and will be held in English. For the planned publication German, French and Italian will also be accepted.

The workshop is organized by Institut für Byzantinistik, Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte und Neogräzistik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München with the kind support of Spätantike Archäologie und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte e.V.

Please send any questions, abstracts, and bios to both:

Charles Wastiau
Cwastiau@uliege.be
Université de Liège
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Prolet Decheva
prolet.decheva@ucdconnect.ie
University College Dublin
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Virtual Conversation: Exhibitions, Museum Collections, and Environment, 27 July 2023

Join Heather Alexis Smith, Assistant Curator at the Pulitzer, and Dr. Julia Perratore, Assistant Curator at The Met Cloisters on Thursday, 27 July 2023 for a conversation about ecology-centered museum practices. Smith will describe the process of organizing the Pulitzer’s spring show The Nature of Things: Medieval Art and Ecology, 1100-1550 and will discuss how exhibitions can help us think differently about environments—both past and present. Perratore will detail efforts underway at the Met Cloisters—one of the most comprehensive collections of medieval art in the world—to build more climate-friendly installations and exhibitions.

This program will be hosted on Zoom; Registration is required.

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Of3jrjg_RaSn3dYzhXjoyg#/registration

Questions? Contact programs@pulitzerarts.org.

New Publication: L’abbazia di San Leone a Bitonto. Un monumento nel tempo. by Marcello Mignozzi

This volume traces the history of the Abbey of San Leone in Bitonto, from its medieval origins to the current days. The fortunes of the monastery, first Benedictine, then Olivetan and finally Franciscan, are linked to those of its famous fair, even mentioned in Boccaccio’s Decameron. In-depth documentary analyses allow critical gaps to be filled, and then intertwine with the reading of artworks. The different building phases, the sculptural repertoire, restorative interventions and pictorial evidence are examined with extreme care. The most substantial part of the work is dedicated to the fourteenth-century frescoes in the choir, analyzed wall by wall and investigated under the stylistic-formal and iconographic-iconological aspects. Great attention is then given to bitontine monumental attestations from the Angevin period and to the numerous pictorial testimonies preserved, the examination of which allows us to draw valuable information on Apulian art between the 13th and 15th centuries. A fundamental scholarly text for the study of Art History in Apulia between the Middle Ages and the contemporary age.

CFP: “Landscapes of Sanctity,” Leeds International Medieval Congress 2024, Deadline 31 July 2023

The AHRC-funded project “Liturgical and Literary Landscapes” welcomes applications from Early Career Researchers to participate in panels on ‘Landscapes of Sanctity’ to be put forward for the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2024. The four successful applicants will each be given a bursary of £450 towards the costs of attending the conference.

‘Liturgical and Literary Landscapes’, led by Johanna Dale (UCL) and Sarah Bowden (King’s College
London) brings together historical approaches with those from literary studies to reassess the
transmission of the cult of St Oswald, and, more broadly, uses multi-disciplinary approaches to place,
space and landscapes to explore new ways of thinking about the transnational cults of saints. The organizers plan to propose two or three interlinked panels to the Leeds IMC 2024, with contributions from the project leads, a couple of established experts, and new ECR voices. In these panels, which will be brought together under the framework ‘Landscapes of Sanctity’, the organizers would like to explore the ways in which the cults of saints are connected to the landscape, both as physical reality and as experienced and constructed in the cultural memory and imagination. Papers might consider the ways in which cults change as they move, and how these movements can be traced through texts or material artefacts; or how cults leaves traces on landscapes through time (e.g. buildings or settlements) and how these traces and connections are manifest today, both physically and in the cultural imagination. They might explore the role and construction of landscape in lives of saints, or offer ecocritical readings; alternatively they might think about ways in which saintly cults are anchored across time in place, i.e. through liturgy.

Paper proposals are welcome from ECR researchers from a range of disciplines, including (but not
limited to): History, Literatures, Art History, Archaeology, Musicology, Theology. Those interested in
offering a paper and applying for a bursary should send an abstract and a short CV (one side) to Sarah
Bowden (sarah.bowden@kcl.ac.uk) by 31 July 2023. The organizers will prioritize applicants with no (or limited) access to funding for conference attendance, so please indicate whether or not other sources may be available to you.

Resource Update: Index of Medieval Art Open Access

The Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University is delighted to announce that as of July 1, 2023, its online database is free to all users. This change has been made possible by a generous bridge grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the ongoing support of Princeton’s Department of Art & Archaeology. The database can be consulted at https://theindex.princeton.edu/.  

The Index of Medieval Art looks forward to sharing resources with students and scholars at all levels and with public learners seeking reliable information about medieval art and culture. In the coming months several online training sessions will introduce the database to those who may be unfamiliar with it, the schedule and signups for which will be publicized on the Index of Medieval Art blog (https://ima.princeton.edu/) and through the Index social media accounts. The first session will be held on August 3, 2023 from 10:00 to 11:00am EDT; further information and registration can be found at this link: https://ima.princeton.edu/index_online_workshop_august_2023/. Index staff also remain available for researcher questions via our online form at https://ima.princeton.edu/research-inquiries/.