New publication: ‘Illuminating Metalwork. Metal, Object, and Image in Medieval Manuscripts’, edited by Joseph Salvatore Ackley and Shannon L. Wearing

The presence of gold, silver, and other metals is a hallmark of decorated manuscripts, the very characteristic that makes them “illuminated.” Medieval artists often used metal pigment and leaf to depict metal objects both real and imagined, such as chalices, crosses, tableware, and even idols; the luminosity of these representations contrasted pointedly with the surrounding paints, enriching the page and dazzling the viewer. To elucidate this key artistic tradition, this volume represents the first in-depth scholarly assessment of the depiction of precious-metal objects in manuscripts and the media used to conjure them.

From Paris to the Abbasid caliphate, and from Ethiopia to Bruges, the case studies gathered here forge novel approaches to the materiality and pictoriality of illumination. In exploring the semiotic, material, iconographic, and technical dimensions of these manuscripts, the authors reveal the canny ways in which painters generated metallic presence on the page. Illuminating Metalwork is a landmark contribution to the study of the medieval book and its visual and embodied reception, and is poised to be a staple of research in art history and manuscript studies, accessible to undergraduates and specialists alike

Author information: Joseph Salvatore Ackley, Wesleyan Univ., Middletown, USA; Shannon L. Wearing, Pontifical Inst. of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, Canada.

Published by De Gruyter, 2022. Volume 4 in the series Sense, Matter, and Medium

For more information and for the contents visit the De Gruyter website.

Image: Vision of the Son of Man, The Cloisters Apocalypse, ca. 1330, f.3v. Metropolitan Museum

CFP: Fenestella. Inside Medieval Art, Thematic Issue 3/2022: ‘Configuring Monastic Architectural Settings: Early Medieval Experiments’, deadline: 30 June 2022

Fenestella is a scholarly, multilingual, and peer-reviewed open access journal. Fenestella publishes scholarly papers on medieval art and architecture, between Late Antiquity and c. 1400, covering the Latin West, the Byzantine East and medieval Islam.

We are now accepting proposals for the 2022 Thematic Issue: CONFIGURING MONASTIC ARCHITECTURAL SETTINGS: EARLY MEDIEVAL EXPERIMENTS

The planimetric and functional standardisation of monastic architectural settings is an achievement of the Romanesque period, and of Cistercian complexes in particular. During the early Middle Ages, monastic settlements were shaped in a pragmatic manner through the progressive aggregation of spaces; pre-existencing structures and different levels of resources or skills often affected constructions. This approach led to a diversity of forms, sizes, site plans, and functions, though the latter also reflected differing liturgical customs.

The third issue of Fenestella will explore this architectural experimention, seeking to identify, and to contextualize, similarities, differences, and trends. We welcome submissions that address specific case studies as well as broader territorial frameworks.

Proposals should be uploaded to the Fenestella website. The deadline for submissions is 30 June 2022.

Submissions on different topics to be published in the section Varia will also be considered.

For more information contact redazione.fenestella@unimi.it.

New publication: ‘An Artful Relic. The Shroud of Turin in Baroque Italy’, by Andrew R. Casper

In 1578, a fourteen-foot linen sheet bearing the faint bloodstained imprint of a human corpse was presented to tens of thousands of worshippers in Turin, Italy, as one of the original shrouds used to prepare Jesus Christ’s body for entombment. From that year into the next century, the Shroud of Turin emerged as Christianity’s preeminent religious artifact. In an unprecedented new look, Andrew R. Casper sheds new light on one of the world’s most famous and controversial religious objects.

Since the early twentieth century, scores of scientists and forensic investigators have attributed the Shroud’s mysterious images to painterly, natural, or even supernatural forces. Casper, however, shows that this modern opposition of artifice and authenticity does not align with the cloth’s historical conception as an object of religious devotion. Examining the period of the Shroud’s most enthusiastic following, from the late 1500s through the 1600s, he reveals how it came to be considered an artful relic—a divine painting attributed to God’s artistry that contains traces of Christ’s body. Through probing analyses of materials created to perpetuate the Shroud’s cult following—including devotional, historical, and theological treatises as well as printed and painted reproductions—Casper uncovers historicized connections to late Renaissance and Baroque artistic cultures that frame an understanding of the Shroud’s bloodied corporeal impressions as an alloy of material authenticity and divine artifice.

This groundbreaking book introduces rich, new material about the Shroud’s emergence as a sacred artifact. It will appeal to art historians specializing in religious and material studies, historians of religion, and to general readers interested in the Shroud of Turin.

For more information, and to buy a hardback copy or e-book, click here.

Recorded lecture: ‘Leonardo da Vinci at the Louvre: how to organise an impossible exhibition’, by Vincent Delieuvin, hosted by the Research Forum, The Courtauld

In 2019-2020, the Louvre organized an exhibition to celebrate the 500-year anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci in France, of particular importance for the museum, which holds the largest collection in the world of da Vinci’s paintings, as well as 22 drawings. The retrospective of da Vinci’s painting career wanted to illustrate how he placed utmost importance on painting, and how his investigation of the world, which he referred to as “the science of painting,” was the instrument of his art, seeking nothing less than to bring life to his paintings.

The museum tried to seize the opportunity to gather as many of the artist’s paintings as possible around the five core works in its collections, but also a wide array of drawings as well as a small but significant series of paintings and sculptures from the master’s circle.

The exhibition was the culmination of more than ten years of work, notably including new scientific examinations of the Louvre’s paintings, and the conservation treatment of three of them, allowing for better understanding of da Vinci’s artistic practice and pictorial technique. Clarification of his biography has also emerged through the exhaustive reexamination of archival documents. Vincent Delieuvin, one of the two curators of the exhibition, explains in this recorded lecture how he conceived the project and tried to solve the important problems of loans.

Vincent Delieuvin is Chief curator for Italian Sixteenth Century Paintings at the Louvre. He organized several exhibitions on Italian Renaissance: « Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese… Rivals in Venice » in 2009, « The Saint Anne, Leonardo da Vinci’s Ultimate Masterpiece » in 2012 and « late Raphael » in 2012-2013. More recently, he published several articles on Leonardo da Vinci and organized in 2019-2020 the exhibition celebrating the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death in France.

Organised by Dr Scott Nethersole (The Courtauld) and Dr Guido Rebecchini (The Courtauld). Watch the video here, on The Courtauld’s YouTube channel, as part of the Research Forum’s Lecture Series.

Click here for a full playlist of recorded lectures on medieval and early modern art from the Research Forum at The Courtauld.

Online lecture: ‘Eroticism, emulation, and censorship: The Two Lovers by Giulio Romano,’ Barbara Furlotti, Murray Seminars on Medieval & Renaissance Art, Birkbeck, 10 February 2022, 4.45pm (GMT)

As part of the Murray Seminars on Medieval & Renaissance Art at Birkbeck, Dr Barbara Furlotti will present her online lecture ‘Eroticism, emulation, and censorship: The Two Lovers by Giulio Romano,’ at 4.45pm (GMT) on 10 February 2022.

Giulio Romano (1492/1499-1546), Raphael’s favourite pupil, played a key role in the awakening of a new approach to eroticism in Renaissance art. Engaging with openly pornographic subjects and more traditional mythological themes, such as the loves of the gods, Giulio became one of the most imaginative and provocative Renaissance painters of erotically charged scenes. This paper focuses on the most puzzling of his erotic paintings: the Two Lovers from the Hermitage. Relying on recent conservation data and primary evidence, it reconstructs the collecting history of the painting from its creation to its arrival in Russia, and the iconoclastic censorship it was subjected to. Moreover, by taking into account Giulio Romano’s antiquarian interests in conjunction with contemporary literary production, especially comedies and poesia burlesca, the paper clarifies the subject of the painting, which has been much-debated over the years but never fully explained.

Dr Barbara Furlotti is Associate Lecturer at The Courtauld, London. She was the recipient of several grants including a post–doctoral fellowship at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles (2009-2010) and a Marie Curie fellowship at the Warburg Institute (2012-2015). Barbara has published extensively on the history of collecting, especially in relation to Rome and Mantua, display practices, the art market, and antiquarianism. Her last book, Antiquities in Motion: From Excavation Sites to Renaissance Collections, on the market for antiquities in sixteenth century Rome, was published by The Getty Publications in 2019. In 2029, Barbara co–curated the exhibition Giulio Romano: Art and Desire with Guido Rebecchini, held in Mantua, Palazzo Te, and is currently working on a new exhibition, Giulio Romano: the Art of Living, on Renaissance design for luxury objects, to be held again in Mantua, in Palazzo Te in October 2022.

Please note: the date of this online lecture has changed to 10 February (from 16 February).

For more information and to register to attend this free online lecture, click here.

Online lecture: ‘Syriac Villages in the Tur Abdin: A Microhistory of the Medieval Middle East’, Marica Cassis (University of Calgary), 15 February 2022, 12pm (EST), 5pm (GMT)

Marica Cassis, University of Calgary, considers the significance of colonialism in the study of Tur Abdin, the importance of microhistory in understanding archaeological material, and the overall underdiscussed material present in the region.

While scholarly work on the churches of the Tur Abdin dates back to the work of Gertrude Bell, and subsequently continued off and on through the twentieth century, the focus of most research has consistently been the churches in the region. However, churches are the heart of communities, whether villages or monasteries, and need to be considered as part of the whole. What has not been considered in detail is the importance of contextualizing churches in the villages and cities in the region, both in terms of the material remains and the literary sources.

This paper is meant to start a discussion about the significance of colonialism in the study of this region, the importance of microhistory in understanding archaeological material, and the overall underdiscussed material present in the Tur Abdin.

Marica Cassis is the Head of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary. She specializes in the Late Roman, Byzantine, and Syriac past in Anatolia. Professor Cassis is the director of the SSHRC-funded Byzantine excavations at Çadır Höyük, a multi-period site in Yozgat province Turkey. She also works on the intersection of colonialism, orientalism, and gender theory with Byzantine and Syriac archaeology, considering new ways of reconsidering the material to provide a more nuanced view of the past.

This lecture will take place live on Zoom, 15 February 2022 at 12pm EST, followed by a question and answer period. Please register to receive the Zoom link.

An East of Byzantium lecture. EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Arthur H. Dadian and Ara Oztemel Chair of Armenian Art at Tufts University and the Mary Jaharis Center that explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

Image: Deyrulumur (Mor Gabriel monastery), Midyat, Turkey. Credit: Nevit Dilmen, Wikimedia Commons

CFP: ‘The Traces of the Colorful Souls: Visual & Material Arts in the Chromatic Middle Ages’, 2-4 March 2022, Madrid, deadline: 1 February 2022

Organised by: Medieval Colors Network. Universidad Complutense de Madrid (CAPIRE Research Group), Freie Universität Berlin, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, Università di Bologna, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Helsingin Yliopisto.

In recent years, the research of the chromatic reality of the Middle Ages has received increasing attention from specialists in different academic disciplines. Fortunately, the vision of a dark and monochrome Middle Ages – propagated by nineteenth-century historiography – is gradually being banished from the collective imagination thanks to important actions for the transfer of scientific knowledge in the media, informative books, and fiction creations. A large number of medieval artworks that are preserved today in museums, cathedrals, or churches bring us to the present time important data about the technical composition or the material creation processes associated with colors. Likewise, the understanding of the different dimensions of medieval colors has important implications that go beyond the purely material and are connected with the sensory experience of medieval men, true colorful souls whose life experience connects the use of certain colors with emotional and sensory values.

The Conference ‘The Traces of the Colorful Souls: Visual & Material Arts in the Chromatic Middle Ages’ aspires to become a meeting point and a forum for reflection on medieval colors and their importance in the life of the time (Art History, Aesthetics, Technology, Sensory Studies, Philosophy, Restoration, Artistic Technology, Linguistics, Psychology, Optics, etc.) trying to promote a more complete vision of the colorful souls of the Middle Ages. For this reason, a series of thematic lines are proposed around which different conferences and free communication sessions will revolve, all having as their central concept color in the Middle Ages:

  • The artistic and documentary dimension of medieval colors, traceable through documentary sources, treatises, artist’s books, as well as evidence of chromatic uses in the diversity of the arts.
  • The material dimension of medieval colors, evoked through the study of pigments, materials, dyes, and chromatic elements that served to give color to different artifacts and works.
  • The technical dimension of medieval colors, materialized in the plurality of uses in numerous artistic media and supports, such as illuminated manuscripts, polychrome in stone, wood, panel, or canvas, as well as the study of color in the diversity of the sumptuary arts, such as stained glass, enamels, ceramics, mosaics or textiles.
  • The symbolic dimension of medieval colors, reflected in the social and extra-semantic uses and values ​​conferred on the chromaticism of spaces, clothes, and objects for daily or festive use, both in the sacred space and in every day or court environment.

CONTRIBUTIONS
The paper proposals are to be sent by participants to the Organized Committee before February 1st 2022 in English, French, Italian or Spanish, through an online form.

The Conference will take place in Madrid (Spain) and the communicators must be able to manage their own journey to the event.

CFP: ‘Fragmented Illuminations’ online symposium, The V&A, early July 2022, deadline: 6 March 2022

With over 2,000 manuscript cuttings, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London holds one of the largest collections of this kind in the world. Cut out of Italian, Germanic, Netherlandish, French, Spanish, and English manuscripts, they range from the 12th to the 18th century, with a wealth of 15th- and 16th-century examples. They vary in size, from small border snippets and initials to full leaves and, though they have come largely from choirbooks, other types of books are also represented.

The V&A will be organising an online symposium in early July as a follow-up to the display Fragmented Illuminations: Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Cuttings at the Victoria and Albert Museum (extended until 5 June 2022). It will be held over one afternoon to allow for as large an audience as possible to join and participate, from different time zones.

We welcome papers focusing on any of the following themes and aspects, preferably in relation to pieces in the V&A collection:

  • Study of groups of cuttings from the same manuscript source
  • Provenance research and history of collections
  • Questions of attribution and iconography
  • Identification of parent manuscripts when extant; reconstructions of broken manuscripts
  • Materiality and digital display of manuscript cuttings: opportunities and challenges
  • Comparison with other types of intentionally cut-out medieval and Renaissance fragments, such as textile cuttings, cuttings from printed material, etc.
  • Relationship between manuscript cuttings and copies
  • 19th-century reception of, and responses to, medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts

This list is indicative rather than exhaustive.

A preference will be given to contributions focusing on lesser-known examples in the collection and adopting innovative approaches.

Please send an abstract (max. 300 words), a paper title, and a short biography (max. 150 words) to Dr Catherine Yvard, at c.yvard@vam.ac.uk. 

Papers should be no more than 15 minutes in length, to allow time for questions and discussion.

The deadline for submissions is 6 March 2022. Selected speakers will be notified by mid-March.

Image: Border ornaments attributed to Domenico Morone, from a Franciscan choirbook, Verona,
ca. 1500. Museum nos 4918:1 to 9 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Scholarship: Belle Da Costa Greene Award, The Medieval Academy of America, deadline: 15 February 2022

The Medieval Academy of America will award the Belle Da Costa Greene Award of $2,000 annually to a medievalist of color for research and travel. The award may be used to visit archives, attend conferences, or to facilitate writing and research. 

Special consideration will be given to graduate students, emerging junior scholars, adjunct, and unaffiliated scholars. Applicants must be members in good standing of the Medieval Academy of America as of 15 January of the year in which they apply.

Belle Da Costa Greene (1883-1950) was a prominent art historian and the first manuscript librarian of the Pierpont Morgan collection. She was also the first known person of color and second woman to be elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America (1939).

According to the Morgan Library & Museum website, “Greene was barely twenty when Morgan hired her, yet her intelligence, passion, and self-confidence eclipsed her relative inexperience, [and] she managed to help build one of America’s greatest private libraries.” She was, just as importantly, a black woman who passed as white in order to gain entrance and acceptance into the racially fraught professional landscape of early twentieth-century New York. Her legacy highlights the professional difficulties faced by medievalists of color, the personal sacrifices they make in order to belong to the field, and their extraordinary contributions to Medieval Studies.

The deadline for applications is 15 February 2022.

The application will consist of a biographical form, CV, a one-page proposal, and a simple budget. Letters of recommendation (no more than two) are optional. So as not to burden the applicant, it is perfectly appropriate to include material and letters prepared for other grant applications. Applicants must be members in good standing of the Medieval Academy as of 15 January of the year in which they apply.

Click here to read about previous winners.

To apply, click here.

CFP: ‘Passions and the Mystical: between Affecting and Being Affected’, International Conference, Nijmegen, Titus Brandsma Institute, 1-2 December 2022, deadline: 18 March 2022

It is a pleasure to invite you to Passions and the Mystical: between Affecting and Being Affected. The
conference is jointly organized by the Mystical Theology Network (MTN) and the Titus Brandsma
Institute of the Radboud University (TBI) and will take place in Nijmegen on 1-2 December, 2022.
The aim of this conference is to bring together theologians, religious studies scholars, philosophers,
literary scholars, historians and scholars working in related fields to discuss and map out the wider
semantic field of the ‘passion(s)’ across mystical traditions. The conference aims to address questions
such as:

  • How do the mystics across different traditions view their own passions and emotions?
  • What role do the passions of others play in accounts of the mystical?
  • How is gender factored into the mystical use of passions?
  • How do mystics understand their passions in relation to key events within their tradition (e.g. the
  • Passion of Christ within the Christian tradition)?
  • How is erotic language ‘translated’ into passionate mystic literature?
  • To what extent can mystical experiences be considered passions in their own right?
  • How do mystical passions relate to emotions and what can they contribute to the history of
  • emotions?
  • Can mystical passions contribute to social engagement and political resistance (e.g. D. Sölle, M.
  • de Certeau), including issue of race and gender?
  • How does modern artistic engagement deal with this passionate mystical heritage?

Topics for proposals include, but are not limited to:

  • Relationship between passions and emotions in mystical texts.
  • Mystical passions and the history of emotions.
  • Critical close-readings of mystical texts from various traditions focusing on ‘passions’.
  • Comparative studies of passions across mystical traditions.
  • Mysticism, Gender and Passions.
  • Conceptualization of the notions of passivity/agency, consent, effort and grace and their
  • interrelations in the mystical tradition.
  • The influence of philosophical discourses on the passions on mystical authors and, vice versa, the
  • influence of mystical discourses on philosophical passion theories (Descartes, Pascal…).
  • Reception and critique of mystical discourses on the Passion and the passions in recent non-
  • mystical (theological, philosophical, literary, historical etc.) authors.
  • Passions and intimacy in the mystical reception of the Song of Songs, Kabbalah, etc.
  • Influence of mystical passions on modern artistic practices and theories.
  • Persistence of mystical passions within political and social engagements, including issues of race
  • and gender.

The deadline to submit abstracts is Friday March 18th, 2022.
Proposals are accepted in English, Dutch, French and German.
Please send your abstract to stefaan.neirynck@titusbrandsmainstituut.nl

All proposals should include:

  • Full name
  • E-mail
  • Current institution and/or academic affiliation
  • Title of the paper of Project
  • Proposal (up to 350 words)

We invite the following proposals:

Paper proposal — A proposal for presenting a short (20 minute) original paper.

Session proposal — A proposal for a session or roundtable where different papers are
presented on a common theme and emphasis is placed on shared discourse. Session proposals
should include abstract, name of presider, list of panelists or respondents.

For more information, visit the Titus Brandsma Institute (Research centre for mysticism and spirituality) website.

For any enquiries, please contact: Lieven De Maeyer lieven.demaeyer@titusbrandsmainstituut.nl or
Stefaan Neirynck (stefaan.neirynck@titusbrandsmainstituut.nl )

Image: The Church, the Bride of Christ and Mother of the Faithful in Baptism. Illustration to Scivias II.3, fol. 51r from the 20th-century facsimile of the Rupertsberg manuscript, c. 1165–1180. Source: Wikimedia Commons