Lecture: ‘Risky Investments? Mercantile patronage at Santa María del Mar in Barcelona’, Dr Tom Nickson, Thursday, 6 October 2022, 18:30-19:30 (BST)

Why give money to your local church? In this paper Tom Nickson focuses on the 14th-century parish church of Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona, and explores the risks and rewards it offered to the local merchant community who invested in its construction.

This will be a hybrid event, taking place online and in person at the Institute of Historical Research, Pollard N301.

The church of Santa María del Mar in Barcelona is justly famous for its soaring, spacious Gothic interior, a parish church that rivals Barcelona cathedral in size and splendour. The local merchants who sponsored construction of the new church in the 1320s and 1330s doubtless hoped for such an outcome, but it was far from guaranteed, and many other ambitious building projects of the period – including Barcelona cathedral itself – remained incomplete until the 19th century. In this paper Tom Nickson explores construction of Santa Maria del Mar, and the community of merchants, widows and civic officers who financed it. They were motivated by the promise that good works would be rewarded in heaven, but also by opportunities to colonise the church interior with family heraldry and create family burial chapels – opportunities hitherto restricted to the nobility. In this paper Tom Nickson explores the financing of Santa Maria del Mar in relation to new fiscal systems developed by Barcelona’s merchants in the 14th century. He compares the risks and rewards of sponsoring church construction with those of long distance trade, and consider the architectural consequences of new systems of finance.

Tom Nickson is Reader in Medieval Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. His research and teaching focus on the art and architecture of medieval England and Iberia, and his talk stems from research for one chapter of his forthcoming book, Architecture in Medieval Spain and Portugal: Seven Moments. 

Find out more information here.

Conference: ‘Monumental Medievalism, Public Monuments & the (Mis)Use of the Medieval Past’, 5-6 October 2022

In the summer of 2020, one of several dozen protests organised throughout the world in response to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis (USA) culminated in the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston being dumped into the water of Bristol Harbour (England). The ripples were felt across the globe. In the ensuing days, weeks and months, scores of other monuments depicting historical figures were variously defaced, toppled, removed from view, or placed under new scrutiny. Many of these had played prominent roles in the slave trade and/or in European colonialism. Some of these monuments were of medieval figures, while others were evocative—to varying degrees of credibility—of the (faux-)chivalric codes and rose-tinted regalia of the medieval past. Of course, to medievalists, the convergence of civic and civil statuary with protest and activism was nothing new. In fact—from the damnatio memoriae of later Roman Emperors to Saints Florus and Laurus smashing statues in Kosovo; Byzantine Eikonomachía; Aniconism in medieval Islam; the Huichang Persecution of Buddhist images; the Ghaznavid plundering of Mathura and Somnath; the Khmer intolerance of Jayavarman monuments in Angkor; the Strigólnik stripping of Pskov and Novgorod; and the First and Second Suppression Acts of the 1530s—many of its roots actually lie in the medieval world. What use then, or advantage, might the study of the Middle Ages hold in evaluating these modern political struggles? This workshop will address precisely this question.

The workshop has three aims. Firstly, it will explore examples of statues, monuments and related forms of public sculpture which speak to the ongoing making and unmaking of medieval figures, images and histories: what we term ‘Monumental Medievalism’. Secondly, in addition to considering the ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of monuments’ original production, it will interrogate the varied and often contested meanings that monuments later acquired over time. Of special interest, moreover, will be papers that address not only the use but the misuse of the Middle Ages, in connection to questions of local identity, gender, sexuality, race, religion and/or marginalisation. Thirdly, it will take the measure of nostalgia for the Middle Ages in the twenty-first century, asking questions of appropriation, anachronism, authenticity, nationalism and reflecting upon the possibilities and pitfalls of conscripting medieval images to serve as contemporary cultural conduits.

Find out more information and book your tickets here.

Please note that all times are in British Summer Time (UTC +1hr)

Conference programme

Wednesday 5th October 2022

12:45-13:00

Welcome, Euan McCartney Robson and Simon John

13:00-14:45

Session 1: Monumental Medievalism in Modern Japan
Chair: Simon John (Swansea University, UK)

Sven Saaler (Sophia University, Japan): ‘The medieval roots of imperial loyalty: the cult of Kusunoki Masashige in modern Japan’

Judith Vitale (University of Zurich, Switzerland): ‘The “Movement for the Establishment of a Monument for the Mongol invasions”’

Ran Zwigenberg (Pennsylvania State University, USA): ‘Date Masamune: In (and off) the Saddle of History on Japan’s Periphery’

Oleg Benesch (University of York, UK), ‘A Japanese Monument to Global Medievalism: The Origins of the Yasukuni Shrine Yushukan Military Museum’

14:45-15:15

Break

15:15-16:45

Session 2: Encountering the Middle Ages through Monuments: approaches and debates
Chair: Euan McCartney Robson (Paul Mellon Centre, UK)

Laura S. Harrison (Independent Scholar, UK) & Andrew B.R. Elliott (University of Lincoln, UK): ‘“Set in Stone”: The Participatory Function of Medieval Statues’

Sarah Gordon (Utah State University, USA): ‘“Tear it Down”: Controversial Statues of Medieval Figures in the US (Joan of Arc and St. Louis)’

Simon John (Swansea University, UK): ‘The uses of medieval traditions, invented and otherwise: Brussels’ 1848 statue of Godfrey of Bouillon and perceptions of the (mostly) medieval past’

16:45-17:15

Break

17:15-18:15

Session 3: Monuments and the Medieval Past in Ukraine and Russia
Chair: Markian Prokopovych (Durham University, UK)

Emma Louise Leahy (Independent Scholar, Germany): ‘The Kyivan Rus’ as Origin Story in Soviet and National Historiographies: The Changing Meanings of Medieval Images in the Monumental Mosaic Art of Ukraine (1960s to 2010s)’

Anastasija Ropa (Latvian Academy of Sport Education, Latvia), Edgar Rops (Independent Scholar, Latvia), and Maria Inês Bolinhas (Catholic University of Portugal): ‘The Contested Statue of Knyaz Vladimir/Volodymyr’

Thursday 6th October 2022

12:00-13:30

Session 4: Monuments, Medieval History and Nation-Building
Chair: Christoph Laucht (Conflict, Reconstruction and Memory research group, Swansea University)

Anna Lidor-Osprian and Romedio Schmitz-Esser (both Heidelberg University, Germany): ‘Between Medievalism and Baroque Maternalism: The Multifaceted Historical Monumentalism of nineteenth-century Austria’

Len Scales (Durham University, UK): ‘Unsettled Memories: Henry I (r. 919-936) in Quedlinburg’

Tommaso Zerbi (Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History, Italy): ‘A Tale of Two Monuments: Making, Remaking, and Unmaking the Myth of Amadeus VI of Savoy from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century’

13:30-14:00

Break

15:30-17:00

Session 6: Monumental Women
Chair: Euan McCartney Robson

Julia Faiers (University of St Andrews, UK): ‘The invention and reinvention of Clémence Isaure in modern Toulouse’

Christopher Crocker (University of Manitoba, Canada): ‘Ásmundur Sveinsson’s “The First White Mother in America”: Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir as a (white-) feminist icon’

Caroline Bourne (University of Reading, UK): ‘The Gwenllian Monument at Kidwelly: Issues of Gender and a Contested Landscape in Commemorating Medieval Welsh History’

17:00-17:30

Break


17:30-19:00

Session 7: The Monumental Heritage of the Middle Ages
Chair: Anna Lisor-Osprian

Teresa Soley (Columbia University, USA): ‘Sculpting Portugal’s Golden Age: Tombs and the Image of the “Age of Discovery”’

Jessica Barker (The Courtauld Institute, UK): ‘Anachronic Empire: The Afterlives of the Padrões of Diogo Cão’

Ethel Sara Wolper (University of New Hampshire, USA): ‘Lessons from Mosul: ISIS, UNESCO, and the Spectacle of Definition’

19:00

Concluding remarks

New Publication: Bloomsbury’s ‘A Cultural History of Color’

A Cultural History of Color, Volumes 1-6 Carole P. Biggam (Anthology Editor), Kirsten Wolf (Anthology Editor)

A Cultural History of Color presents a history of 5000 years of color in western culture. The first systematic and comprehensive history, the work examines how color has been perceived, developed, produced and traded, and how it has been used in all aspects of performance – from the political to the religious to the artistic – and how it shapes all we see, from food and nature to interiors and architecture, to objects and art, to fashion and adornment, to the color of the naked human body, and to the way our minds work and our languages are created.

Chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six. The themes (and chapter titles) are: Color Philosophy and Science; Color Technology and Trade; Power and Identity; Religion and Ritual; Body and Clothing; Language and Psychology; Literature and the Performing Arts; Art; Architecture and Interiors; Artefacts.

The six volumes cover: 1 – Antiquity (3,000 BCE to 500 CE); 2 – Medieval Age (500 to 1400); 3 – Renaissance (1400 to 1650); 4 – Age of Enlightenment (1650 to 1800); 5 – Age of Industry (1800 to 1920); 6 – Modern Age (1920 to the present).

The page extent for the pack is approximately 1760pp. Each volume opens with Notes on Contributors and an Introduction and concludes with Notes, Bibliography, and an Index.

The Cultural Histories Series
A Cultural History of Color is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available as hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a tangible reference for their shelves or as part of a fully-searchable digital library. The digital product is available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access via www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com. Individual volumes for academics and researchers interested in specific historical periods are also available in print or digitally via www.bloomsburycollections.com.

Find out more information here.

Medieval Related Volumes:

Vol. 1: A Cultural History of Color in Antiquity

Vol. 1: A Cultural History of Color in Antiquity

Edited by David Wharton, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA

1. Philosophy and Science, Katerina Ierodiakonou
2. Technology and Trade, Hilary Becker
3. Power and Identity, Kelly Olson and David Wharton
4. Religion and Ritual, Verity Platt
5. Body and Clothing, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
6. Language and Psychology, Katherine McDonald
7. Literature and the Performing Arts, Karen Bassi and David Wharton
8. Art, Mark Abbe
9. Architecture and Interiors, Stephan Zink
10. Artefacts, Ellen Swift

A Cultural History of Color in the Medieval Age cover

Vol. 1: A Cultural History of Color in the Medieval Age

Edited by Carole Biggam, University of Glasgow, UK, & Kirsten Wolf, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

1. Philosophy and Science, A. Mark Smith
2. Technology and Trade, Jo Kirby
3. Power and Identity, Wim Blockmans
4. Religion and Ritual, Andreas Petzold
5. Body and Clothing, Gale R. Owen-Crocker
6. Language and Psychology, Carole P. Biggam, Roman Krivko, Piera Molinelli, and Kirsten Wolf
7. Literature and the Performing Arts, Mark Cruse
8. Art, Thomas Dale
9. Architecture and Interiors, Eva Oledzka
10. Artefacts, Leslie Webster

A Cultural History of Color in the Renaissance

Vol. 3: A Cultural History of Color in the Medieval Age

Edited by Sven Dupré, Utrecht University, The Netherlands, & Amy Buono, Rio De Janeiro State University, Brazil

1. Philosophy and Science, Tawrin Baker
2. Technology and Trade, Jo Kirby
3. Power and Identity, Peter C. Mancall
4. Religion and Ritual, Lisa Pon
5. Body and Clothing, Carole Frick
6. Language and Psychology, Doris Oltrogge
7. Literature & the Performing Arts, Bruce R. Smith
8. Art, Marcia Hall
9. Architecture and Interiors, Cammy Brothers
10. Artefacts, Leah R. Clark

Call for papers for an edited book on ‘Female religion and practices in Late Antiquity and early Medieval Christianity’, deadline 14th November 2022

This edited volume aims to bring an interdisciplinary view on how women were living and practicing Christianity from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle ages (from the III to XII century). The volume expects to bring together articles dealing with how women perceived and practiced Christianity in their own or shared spaces; how their practices differed from the norm, or were perceived by their peers or religious authorities; and how women can be perceived as agents of religious transformations.

The aim of the volume is to demonstrate the diversity of what could have been the female religious identity of Late Antique and Early Medieval individuals through their own practices (as perceived by others or described by themselves). Therefore, the book will focus on the religious experience of lay and religious women.

Possible approaches:

  • Prescriptions for female behaviour from religious rules and ecclesiastical text: how a women should behave in the Church, what a virtuous Christian women should and should not do;
  • Female heretics: the role of women in heresies (Priscillianism, Montanism, Manichaeism, ecc.);
  • The space and role of women in private religion;
  • Female spaces and places of cult;
  • Female iconography and material culture related to Christian practices (everyday objects, epigraphy, ecc);

• Female Christian burials, funerary practices and their social and cultural meanings;

• Female martyrs and hagiography;

• The involvement of women in Christian practices: their presence in Mass, preaching as a women, female priesthood, women and the cult of saints and martyrs (in early Christianity women were often associated with these cults and were reputed as responsible for their excesses), women pilgrims;

• Unorthodox female practices as perceived by Christian authorities and their condemnation: magic, poisoning, curing practices, ecc;

  • Hybrid practices (Christian practices that incorporated influences from other religions).

Abstracts of 200-300 words and a short bio should be sent to lilian.goncalves@fu-berlin.de by 14th of November 2022.

Please note that if your abstract is retained to be a fit contribution to the volume, it will be part of a book proposal. Even though a preliminary draft of the book received a positive feedback from the editorial board, an official proposal still need to be sent. Therefore, the book will need to receive an official thumbs up in order to really happen.

Submission of accepted chapters, of 7000-9000 words including bibliography, are provisionally anticipated for Late Summer-Early Autumn 2023.

Conference: ‘Performance, Perception & Devotional Experiences in Medieval Sacred Spaces’, Universitat de Barcelona, 13-14 October 2022

Conference programme

13 October 2022 (Facultat de Geografia i Història. Sala Jane Addams)

9.00am: Núria Jornet (Universitat de Barcelona), Fabio Massaccesi (Università di Bologna), Zuleika Murat (Università di Padova): Welcome and Opening of the Conference

9.20am: Olivia Robinson (University of Birmingham), Performance and Pleasure in Convent Spaces: Practice-based Research and the Medieval Convent Drama Project

Session I: Creating, Sanctifying and Experiencing Space: Architecture, Objects and Paintings
Chaired by Maria Soler Sala (Universitat de Barcelona)

10.00am: Fabio Massaccesi (Università di Bologna), Seeing and Believing: How the Triumphal Cross Shaped the Sacred Space (11th-14th century)

10.30am: Maddalena Vaccaro (Università degli Studi di Salerno), Sanctifying Spaces: Transmedial Interactions, Relics, and Apsis (9th-13th century)

Coffee break

11.00am: Cristina Guarnieri (Università di Padova), Pilgrims, Cripples, and Worshippers: Patterns of Devotion and Experience in the Shrine of St. Anthony in the Basilica del Santo

11.30am: Marta Crispí (Universitat Internacional de Catalunya), Los coros altos de los
monasterios femeninos como espacios litúrgicos y devoción: los monasterios de Sant Pere de les Puelles, Sant Antoni i Santa Clara i Santa Maria de Pedralbes de Barcelona

12.00pm: Davide Tramarin (Università di Padova), The Death of Christ in German Nunneries: Liturgical Spaces and Sensorial Dynamics

12.30pm: Discussion

Session II: Sight and the Other Senses: Interferences, Synergies, Synaesthesia
Chaired by Silvia Pérez (Universidad Pablo de Olavide)

14.30pm: Zuleika Murat (Università di Padova), Scenting the Blood of Christ: Material and Immaterial Aspects of Eucharistic Devotion in Late Medieval Venice

15.00pm: Micol Long (Università di Padova), Liturgical Combs or Liturgical Use of Combs?An Evaluation of Textual and Material Evidence 10th-13th century

Coffee break

16.30pm: Valentina Baradel (Università di Padova), Sensing the Saint, Experiencing the Resurrection: the Shrine of Saint Lazarus in Autun

17.00pm: Sara Carreño (Università di Padova), Tactile Discourse: Material Transmission of Theological Ideas in 14th Century Castile

17.30pm: Discussion

14 October 2023 (Museu Monestir de Santa Maria de Pedralbes)

9.30am: Anna Castellano (Director of Museu Monestir de Pedralbes), Welcome

Session III: Performances in a Monastic Space: Legal, Devotional and Liturgical Rituals
Chaired by Marta Sancho (Universitat de Barcelona)

10.00am: Silvia Pérez (Universidad Pablo de Olavide), Alberto Ruiz Berdejo (Universidad Pablo de Olavide), Muerte conmemorada y muerte ritualizada en las cofradías andaluzas de finales de la Edad Media

10.30pm: Jordina Sales (Universitat de Barcelona), Crimen y castigo en los primitivos cenobios hispanos (s. VI-VII): escenificaciones y performances

11.00pm: Sergi Sancho (Università di Padova), Monastic Performances, a Database. Conclusions on Perception and Categories

Coffee break

12.00 Núria Jornet-Benito (Universitat de Barcelona); Anna Castellano (Museu Monestir de Pedralbes), La ritualización de la obediencia a la abadesa: capellanes beneficiados y campesinos. Conventos de clarisas en la Barcelona de los siglos XIV y XV

12.30pm: Delfi Nieto (Queen Mary University of London), The Abbot, the Prior and the Destitute: The Washing of the Feet in Medieval Catalan Cloisters

13.00pm: Discussion and Closing Remarks

Organising Committee:

  • Núria Jornet (Universitat de Barcelona)
  • Fabio Massaccesi (Università di Bologna)
  • Zuleika Murat (Università di Padova)

Contact Details: Núria Jornet (Universitat de Barcelona): jornet@ub.edu

Those who wish to attend online are requested to send an email to Núria Jornet to get the link to connect via Teams.

The conference is sponsored by Universitat de Barcelona – Monastic Landscape PG2018-095350-B-100; Università di Bologna; Università di Padova – ERC StG Project “The Sensuous Appeal of the Holy. Sensory Agency of Sacred Art andSomatised Spiritual Experiences in Medieval Europe (12th-15th century) – SenSArt”. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 950248)

Online Lecture: ‘Medieval Formalism: The Corona-Crown in the Chants & Images of Ste. Foy at Conques’ with Dr Bissera V. Pentcheva, Institute of Historical Research, 3 October 2022, 5:30PM-7:30PM (GMT)

Medieval art is silent in modern times. It is neither displayed nor analytically considered within the envelope of sound, chant, prayer, and recitation. Excising this aural atmosphere in which these images once lived, has drained them of their energy to signify and to elicit affect. This paper turns to and recuperates the sonic environment of one famous imago – the late ninth-century golden statue of Holy Faith or Sainte Foy at Conques. Focus is on the eleventh-century Office of Ste. Foy, its design, and its interaction with the golden statue, with the narrative reliefs, and with the architecture at Conques. The analysis uncovers the figure of the crown, which signals the glorification of the saint, in the ring compositions of the chants and in the visual program. This audiovisual manifestation of the corona invites an engagement with the medieval fascination with form.

Find out more information and book your tickets here.

Online Lecture: ‘Opening the Case: The Giant Bible of Mainz at the Library of Congress’, Rare Book & Special Collections at the Library of Congress, 6 October 2022, 11am-12:30pm (EST)

On October 6, 2022 from 11:00am-12:30pm EST, the Rare Book & Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress will be hosting an online event: ‘Opening the Case: The Giant Bible of Mainz at the Library of Congress’. This virtual event celebrating the digitization of the Giant Bible of Mainz will present new research about the context and significance of one of the Library’s greatest treasures.

Given to the Library of Congress by philanthropist and bibliophile Lessing J. Rosenwald in 1952 as a part of the Rosenwald Collection, the Giant Bible of Mainz has captured the imagination of scholars and visitors to Library for more than half a century. Now, through digitization, a new level of public access has been achieved. In keeping with Rosenwald’s commitment to encouraging broad cultural engagement with the history of the illustrated book, these images allow anyone interested in medieval manuscripts to encounter each and every page of this singular codex.

One of the great illuminated manuscripts, the Giant Bible of Mainz represents an amazing moment of transition within the history of European book production. A magnificent Middle-Rhenish manuscript copied between April 1452 and July of 1453, the Giant Bible was written at the same time as Johann Gutenberg was printing his famous bible using moveable metal type. Join us on October 6th, 2022 to learn more about this fascinating moment in book history!

For more information and how to register click here.

New Publication: ‘Fotografare Bisanzio’ by Antonio Iacobini and Livia Bevilacqua

“Fotografare Bisanzio” addresses a hitherto unexplored topic, namely Italian archives that hold photographic images relating to the art of Byzantium and the Mediterranean East. As early as the end of the 19th century such collections were started by institutions and individual scholars in the wake of research, missions, and archaeological campaigns. This invaluable heritage offers unique testimony to the afterlife of monuments, the integrity of which has often been altered or lost due to restoration work, natural disasters, and wars. From page to page, from photograph to photograph, the reader is taken on an itinerary that moves across a vast geographical latitude, in the footsteps of prominent Italian and foreign scholars: from the Balkans to Anatolia, from Caucasus to Syria, from Egypt to Italy. In addition to presenting visual repositories of great historical importance, the book draws attention to a more general theme of pressing topicality: the fate of documents on physical supports in the digital age and the need to safeguard them as irreplaceable treasures of cultural memory.

Find out more information about the book here.

fotografare-bisanzio_cover-and-indexDownload

CFP: ‘Faites vos jeux: game and space in texts and of texts’, Universities of Udine and Trieste, 22-23 March 2023, deadline: 30 September 2022

The XXXVI PhD cycle of the course in Language and Literary Studies of the University of Udine and University of Trieste (Italy) is pleased to announce the doctoral conference “Faites vos jeux: game and space in texts and of texts”, which will take place on March 22-24, 2023 in Udine (on-site).

During the three-day conference participants will reflect and analyse how the concepts of ‘play/game’ and ‘space’ interact and contribute to constructing meanings in literary, linguistic, philological and medieval studies.

The conference is interdisciplinary and includes all periods, but a significant strand is dedicated to philology and medieval studies (see below).

Deadline for submission: September 30, 2022.
Communication of acceptance: November 16, 2022

More information (and the whole version of the CfP) can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/giocoudine2023.

  • Strand 3: Philology and medieval studies:
  • Lexicon and semantics of ‘play’ and ‘game’ (plega vs gamen in Old English or ludus vs iocus in Latin);
  • Game representation in the space of medieval texts: for instance, Alcuin’s propositiones or
  • ‘mathematical games’; the swimming contest between Breca and Beowulf; game and competition in Hemings þáttr Áslákssonar;
  • Texts as spaces where authors play with the meaning as well as with the ‘visible’ and/or phonic aspect of language (kenningar or heiti, runic acrostics and cryptography, anagrams, wordplays, puns, alliteration, rhyme, formulas, and other rhetorical-stylistic aspects);
  • ‘Intellectual’ games in the space of texts: riddles and enigmas;
  • Aspects of textual criticism, such as the interplay between authors and copyists in text transmission;
  • Playing beyond the borders of texts: medievalism (‘Neo-medievalism’ or Middle Ages in Popular Culture, for instance the roleplay Dungeons & Dragons, the imaginary Middle Ages in Game of Thrones, the riddle-game between Bilbo and Gollum in The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien), Digital Humanities (see, for instance, the paper by Karen Arthur titled Playing the Editing Game with an Electronic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight).

Lecture: ‘“So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty”: on the sculptures of knights and ladies at Santa María la Mayor de Toro (Zamora)’, with Marina Aurora Garzón Fernández, Courtauld Institute of Art, 23rd November, 5pm-6.30pm GMT

During the second half of the 12th century sculptures of knights and ladies started populating churches across the Iberian North. Particularly interesting is the case of Santa María la Mayor de Toro (Zamora) because it features three capitals carved in successive construction stages that can be linked to different traditions. First, in the apse, a victorious knight facing a lady, similar to scenes found in Lleida, León and Santillana del Mar, could be read as a representation of Psalm 44. Later, a capital with a knight and a lady in a farewell embrace was sculpted at the transept, an iconography that can be traced back to a cycle of the Song of Songs from the portal of San Pedro de Villanueva (Asturias). Finally, decades later, another victorious knight with lady was carved at the tower quoting the earlier sculptures. Traditionally interpreted as images of the fight against evil, a reading of these scenes based on Psalm 44 and the Song of Songs, biblical passages alluding to the marriage between Christ and the Church, offers a new perspective on the sculpture program of Santa María la Mayor de Toro.

Marina Aurora Garzón Fernández studied Art History at the University of Santiago de Compostela (2011) where she earned a Masters in Medieval Studies (2013) and obtained her Phd in Medieval Studies (2019) with the thesis “Santa María la Mayor de Toro (Zamora): Church and City (1157-1312)” focusing on the study of Visual Culture in Leon and Castile during the 12th and 13th century. She is currently pursuing her post-doctoral project about paper-cut calligraphy in the Middle Ages at the CRC 933 “Material Text Cultures” at the University of Heidelberg.

Organised by Dr Tom Nickson (The Courtauld). 

Find out more information and to book tickets here.