New Publication: Reliquary Tabernacles in Fourteenth-Century Italy: Image, Relic and Material Culture, by Beth Williamson

Ground-breaking study of the enigmatic and unique tabernacles from fourteenth-century Italy, which for the first time combined relics and images. Images and relics were central tools in the process of devotional practice in medieval Europe. The reliquary tabernacles that emerged in the 1340s, in the area of Central Italy surrounding the city of Siena, combinedContinue reading “New Publication: Reliquary Tabernacles in Fourteenth-Century Italy: Image, Relic and Material Culture, by Beth Williamson”

New Publication: Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr, by D. Fairchild Ruggles

Shajar al-Durr—known as “Tree of Pearls”—began her remarkable career as a child slave, given as property to the Ayyubid Sultan Salih of Egypt. She became his favorite concubine, was manumitted, became the sultan’s wife, served as governing regent, and ultimately rose to become the legitimately appointed sultan of Egypt in 1250 after her husband’s death.Continue reading “New Publication: Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr, by D. Fairchild Ruggles”

New publication: Architecture of Disjuncture: Mediterranean Trade and Cathedral Building in a New Diocese (11th-13th Centuries), by Joseph C. Williams

Through careful analysis of the Romanesque cathedral of Molfetta (in Apulia, southern Italy), Williams demonstrates how the commercial boom of the medieval Mediterranean changed the way churches were funded, designed, and built. The young bishopric of Molfetta, emerging in an economy of long-distance trade, competed with much wealthier institutions in its own diocese. Funding forContinue reading “New publication: Architecture of Disjuncture: Mediterranean Trade and Cathedral Building in a New Diocese (11th-13th Centuries), by Joseph C. Williams”

New Publication: Medieval Things: Agency, Materiality, and Narratives of Objects in Medieval German Literature and Beyond, by Bettina Bildhauer

What does medieval literature look like from the point of view not of knights and ladies, but of treasure, and rings, nets and the grail? How does medieval literature imagine the agency of material things, and what exactly distinguishes human subjects from inanimate objects? Medieval Things: Agency, Materiality, and Narratives of Objects in Medieval German LiteratureContinue reading “New Publication: Medieval Things: Agency, Materiality, and Narratives of Objects in Medieval German Literature and Beyond, by Bettina Bildhauer”

Call for Applications: ICMA Viewpoints Series Editor(s), deadline 15 July 2020

Applications due July 15, 2020, for position beginning January 1, 2021 The International Center of Medieval Art and the Pennsylvania State University Press announce a new book series: ICMA Books—Viewpoints. This series aims to engage with and instigate new conversations, debates, and perspectives not only about medieval art and visual-material culture, but also in relation toContinue reading “Call for Applications: ICMA Viewpoints Series Editor(s), deadline 15 July 2020”

New Publication: Rome in the Eighth Century: A History in Art, by John Osborne

This book addresses a critical era in the history of the city of Rome, the eighth century CE. This was the moment when the bishops of Rome assumed political and administrative responsibility for the city’s infrastructure and the physical welfare of its inhabitants, in the process creating the papal state that still survives today. JohnContinue reading “New Publication: Rome in the Eighth Century: A History in Art, by John Osborne”

New Publication: Catalan Maps and Jewish Books: The Intellectual Profile of Elisha ben Abraham Cresques (1325-1387), by Katrin Kogman-Appel

This books describes the life of Elisa ben Abraham Cresques, known to many as the author of the Catalan Atlas, and focuses on the Jewish aspects of his fascinating career, his professional profile, and his scholarship. This book presents a small chapter in the intellectual history of the Jews of Majorca. Its key figure isContinue reading “New Publication: Catalan Maps and Jewish Books: The Intellectual Profile of Elisha ben Abraham Cresques (1325-1387), by Katrin Kogman-Appel”

New Publication: Christ on the Cross, edited by Shirin Fozi and Gerhard Lutz

Volume 14 in the series Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, this publication provides a comprehensive view of the first generation of monumental crucifixes to appear in medieval Europe, which balances examinations of the history, theology, styles, and material properties of these evocative objects.