Exhibition: The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World, The Morgan Library & Museum, Until 25 May 2025

Exhibition

The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World

The Morgan Library & Museum, New york, NY

January 24 through May 25, 2025

From the tales of famous travelers like Marco Polo and Alexander the Great to the ancient encyclopedias of Pliny and Isidore, medieval conceptions of the world were often based more on authoritative tradition than direct observation. This exhibition presents one of the most fascinating examples of a medieval guide to the globe, known as the Book of the Marvels of the World. Written in France by an unknown author, this fifteenth-century illustrated text vividly depicts the remarkable inhabitants, customs, and natural phenomena of various regions, both near and far. Reuniting two of the four surviving copies, The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World brings to life medieval conceptions—and misconceptions—of a global world.

Additional objects in the exhibition demonstrate how foreign cultures were imagined in the Middle Ages, and what the assumptions of medieval Europeans tell us about their own implicit biases and beliefs. Highlights include rare illustrated manuscripts of Marco Polo and John Mandeville; a richly ornamented Ottoman Book of Wonders, made for a sultan’s daughter; and a spectacular medieval map of the Holy Land, based on pilgrimage accounts.

For more information, visit https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/book-of-marvels

Exhibition: Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300 ‒1350, The National Gallery, Until 22 June 2025

Exhibition

Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300 ‒1350

Ground Floor Galleries, The National Gallery, London

Until 22 June 2025

Step into Siena. It’s the beginning of the 14th century in central Italy. A golden moment for art, a catalyst of change. Artists Duccio, Simone Martini and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti are forging a new way of painting.

They paint with a drama that no one has seen before. Faces show emotion. Bodies move in space. Stories flow across panels in colourful scenes.

We bring to life a vibrant city of artists collaborating, learning and looking. After centuries of separation, we reunite scenes that once formed part of Duccio’s monumental 'Maestà' altarpiece. Panels from Simone Martini’s glittering Orsini polyptych come together for the first time in living memory.

This local artistic phenomenon made waves internationally. Gilded glass, illuminated manuscripts, ivory Madonnas, rugs and silks show Siena’s creative energy spilling over between painters, metalworkers, weavers and carvers across Europe.

With over a hundred exhibits made by artisans working in Siena, Naples, Avignon and beyond, see some of Europe's earliest, most exquisite and most significant artworks.

The exhibition was organised by the National Gallery and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

For more information, visit https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/siena-the-rise-of-painting

Church Monuments Society Symposium 2025: Tombs of the Aristocracy, Chichester, 29-31 August 2025

Church Monuments Society Symposium 2025

Tombs of the Aristocracy

29th August 2025 — 31st August 2025

West Dean College, West Dean, Chichester, West Sussex PO18 0QZ

We are delighted to invite you to the next Church Monuments Society symposium, which will be held at West Dean College from Friday 29th to Sunday 31st August 2025.

Our theme, Tombs of the Aristocracy, is inspired by the magnificent tombs of the Fitzalans and Howards (Earls and Dukes of Norfolk) in Arundel and Chichester but covers so much more (see the provisional programme below). The event will include expert lectures and two excursions, with both residential and non-residential options for attending. Please download the relevant booking form from below, which can be emailed to us (instructions on the form).

The symposium is open to anyone. The final deadline for bookings is 30th June 2025. Those aged under 30, and/or registered on full- or part-time degree courses, are eligible for a special reduced rate, but these are strictly limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis. See the booking forms for more details and conditions.

Non-residential attendees have the option to pay for the evening meal and lecture on Friday, and the extra meal on Saturday evening. Sunday-only attendees are able to attend the evening lecture (but not the evening meal) on Saturday with their Sunday-only ticket because, due to extra speakers filling the programme, Saturday now has a fuller programme of talks. 

For more information and the booking forms, visit https://churchmonumentssociety.org/events/symposium-2025-tombs-of-the-aristocracy

Provisional Programme (detailed timings to be confirmed nearer the time)

Friday 29th August: West Dean College

  • Registration (time TBC but after 3pm)

  • Hot buffet dinner (private room) with President’s Welcome

  • After dinner lecture: Dr Dirk Breiding on commonalities and differences in iconography between English and Continental aristocratic tombs

Saturday 30th August: West Dean College lectures and excursion to Chichester Cathedral

  • Brian & Moira Gittos, ‘Beaufort’s pride’: the Tomb of John, 1st Duke of Somerset at Wimborne Minster

  • Dr Keith Dowen, All’Antica or Alla Moderna? The Monuments of Erasmo and Giantonio di Narni in Padua

  • Mid-morning refreshments

  • Sophia Dumoulin, ‘meete for my degree and callinge’: The Monument to Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex, in Westminster Abbey

  • Pat Poppy, Fashion, status or timeless: clothing in 17th century church monuments.

  • Buffet lunch at West Dean

  • Visit to Chichester Cathedral

  • Optional evening buffet meal (self-service)

  • After dinner lecture: Dr Roger Bowdler, Humility in the Grave: outdoor aristocratic monuments over the centuries

Sunday 31st August: West Dean College lectures and excursion to Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel

  • Dr David Carrington, The Church Monuments Society in Action: progress report on the Getty-funded North Yorkshire monument conservation publication

  • Dr Adam White, John, Lord Lumley, the last of his line

  • Mid-morning refreshments

  • Dr Tobias Capwell, The French Connection: Refining the Stylistic Attribution of Armour Represented on Certain English Effigies c. 1435-1450

  • Buffet lunch at West Dean

  • Visit to Fitzalan Chapel, with talks

We look forward to seeing you at this exciting event!

The CRSBI Annual Lecture: Romanesque Sculpture and Water: the Art of Carved Vessels, Dr Michele Luigi Vescovi, 30 April 2025, 18:00-19:30, The Courtauld

The CRSBI Annual Lecture for 2025

Romanesque Sculpture and Water: the Art of Carved Vessels

Speaker: Dr Michele Luigi Vescovi

Vernon Square Campus, Lecture Theatre 2, The Courtauld

30 April 2025, 18:00 - 19:30

Romanesque font, Cremona Baptistry (photo: Michele Luigi Vescovi)

The Courtauld is delighted to host the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland for the 2025 Annual Lecture.

In this talk, Dr Michele Luigi Vescovi will explore the intersections of Romanesque sculpture and water in medieval stone vessels. Examining carved well heads and holy water fonts throughout the Italian peninsula, mostly dating from the twelfth century, he will interrogate the ways in which their content – water – and its agency relate to their imagery. Furthermore, he will show how script and image, in turn, sought to shape the experience of the vessels’ viewers.

Dr Michele Luigi Vescovi, Associate Professor in Medieval Art and Architecture, University of Lincoln.

Organised by Dr John Munns, Associate Professor of History and Art History, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and Dr Tom Nickson, Reader in Medieval Art and Architecture, The Courtauld, as part of the Medieval Work-in-Progress series

Free, booking essential

For more information and to book tickets, visit https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/romanesque-sculpture-and-water-the-art-of-carved-vessels/

Call for Sessions: Mary Jaharis Center Sponsored Panel, 51st Annual Byzantine Studies Conference (Oct.30-Nov.2, 2025, Detroit), Due 14 Apr. 2025

Call for Sessions

Mary Jaharis Center Sponsored Panel, 51st Annual Byzantine Studies Conference

30 October - 2 November 2025, Detroit, Michigan

Due 14 April 2025

Panel from a Cover for an Icon of the Virgin, detail (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917, 17.190.645). Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/464515)

As part of its ongoing commitment to Byzantine studies, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for Mary Jaharis Center sponsored sessions at the 51st Annual Byzantine Studies Conference to be held in Detroit, Michigan, October 30–November 2, 2025. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is April 14, 2025.

If the proposed session is accepted, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 5 session participants (presenters and chair) up to $800 maximum for scholars traveling from inside North America and up to $1400 maximum for those coming from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided. Eligible expenses include conference registration, transportation, and food and lodging. Receipts are required for reimbursement.

For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/51st-bsc

Contact Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions (mjcbac@hchc.edu).

Call for Applications: Pasold Research Fund Grants, Various Dates

Call for Applications

Pasold Research Fund Grants

Various Dates

Pasold research grants are awarded to fund high quality research, relating to all branches of textile history including the history of dress and fashion.

Applications are encouraged for projects where there will be a lasting outcome in the form of a publication or an exhibition or similar. This includes conservation related projects, leading to publications, but excludes the purchase or repair of objects and the purchase of hardware (eg cameras or computing equipment or computer software).

Applications will also be considered where preliminary work is needed for the preparation of a more substantial grant application to one of the major funding bodies.

Applications may be made to fund conference attendance – these applications may come from individuals or from conference organisers seeking funding for a named applicant.

However, it is important to provide an abstract of the paper and details of the nature of the conference and its significance. Where a conference organiser is seeking support for a named delegate details of the conference, a CV of the delegate and title and abstract of the paper are required.

All successful grant applicants, where appropriate, will be encouraged to consider submitting the outcome of their research to Textile History.

Publication would of course be subject to editorial refereeing and decision. Grants in aid of publicationfor a contribution towards illustrations, will be considered where a clear case is made explaining the absence of funding from other sources and the way in which the illustrative material is essential to the analysis and quality of the research output. Where funding is sought to complete or to part-finance a commissioned work and/or a work to be published under the auspices of a university, museum, gallery or similar, please specify the necessity, the case for, and the role of, the additional external funding.

PLEASE NOTE:

• The Pasold Research Fund will not fund salaries.
• Only research expenses such as travel, subsistence, photocopying, microfilming and similar are funded.
• We do not accept retrospective applications.
• All costing must be in GB£ sterling;
• Grants are awarded in GB£ sterling. A sterling cheque is sent to the grant recipient.
• Successful applicants must wait a full calendar year following the end of their grant before submitting another application for Pasold funding.

IMPORTANT:

Applications must be submitted at least 80 days before the beginning of the research project/conference attendance or other activity; or for grants schemes with named deadlines, the project should start at least 80 days after the deadline. The Pasold wishes to ensure that sufficient time is given to referees to assess applications and that applications' outcomes are notified well in advance of the starting date of the research activity.

Please also note that the Pasold Research Fund will not fund salaries, only research expenses such as travel, subsistence, photocopying, microfilming and similar. We do not accept retrospective applications. All costings must be in GB£ sterling.

APPLICATIONS

Application forms should be submitted electronically to: histart-pasold@york.ac.uk

DETAILS AND DEADLINES FOR RESEARCH GRANTS

The Pasold has recently changed its Grants structure. Please read carefully. 

1. Research Activity Grants (under £750).
Applications may be made at any time.
2. Research Project Grants (between £751 and £2,500).
Two deadlines 1 March and 1 October each year.
3. PhD Grants for PhD students registered at a British institution (up to £2,500). 
Single deadline: 15 June each year.
4. MA Grants for MA students registered at a British institution (up to £500).
Single deadline: 15 April each year.
5. Publication Grants (up to £1,000). 
Two deadlines: 15 February and 1 September each year.
6. Raine Grants to assist individual staff working in UK museums (up to £500).
One deadline: 30 June each year.
7. Pasold Fellowships in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum  (up to £1,500).
The Research Fellowship schemes are suspended at present due to collections movement at both the V&A and Museum of London.
8. Neaverson Pasold Postdoctoral Fellowship (up to £20,000)
One deadline: 1 April 2025
 

THE CRITERIA APPLIED IN JUDGING RESEARCH GRANT APPLICATIONS

which can be in ANY area of the history of textiles including multidisciplinary approaches, are as follows:
1. Originality and rigour of the research, especially where the study of the history of textiles is being approached from a new angle, using new sources or new methodology. You must demonstrate that the history of textiles is the central area of concern and study.
2. The care given to laying out of objectives and design of the research.
3. The viability of the research within the timescale laid out and in view of the research training or experience of the applicant.
4. The contribution of the research in terms of publications, the development of web based materials, exhibitions or similar.
5. Referees’ reports (at least one nominated referee should be from outside the applicant's own institution).

SOME REASONS WHY APPLICATIONS ARE TURNED DOWN

Competition for our grants has grown significantly in the last few years. We are sometimes surprised by the poor presentation of applications. We thought it would help applicants to know the most common reasons for applications being turned down:
1. Applications in which the history of textiles is peripheral and not central to research (if in doubt please make preliminary enquiries to the Director).
2. Applications which fail to convey the scope and significance of the research and its wider contribution. If it is necessary for applicants to write at length they should not confine themselves to the short space on the form. You are invited to use a continuation sheet. Many applicants ignore this.
3. Applications where the costings are incomplete, inaccurate, do not give totals and sub-totals, are not in £ sterling or where the cheapest method of transport has not been investigated.
4. Applications for travel to conferences which do not provide an abstract of the paper or the significance of the conference – a title is not enough.
5. Carelessly prepared applications.

If you have further queries as to whether you are eligible or about the type of support do please contact the Pasold Research Fund's Director, Dr Bethan Bide at 
histart-pasold@york.ac.uk or bethan.bide@york.ac.uk.

For more information, visit https://www.pasold.co.uk/important-information

Online Lecture: The Blood of His Flesh? Controversial Relics from Byzantium in Venice, Karin Krause, 10 Apr. 2025, 12:00-1:30PM

Online Lecture

Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture

The Blood of His Flesh? Controversial Relics from Byzantium in Venice

Karin Krause, University of Chicago

April 10, 2025 | 12:00 PM (EDT, UTC -4) | Zoom

Mosaic of the Crucifixion (detail), Monastery of Hosios Loukas, Greece. CC Public Domain Mark 1.0. https://www.wikiart.org/en/byzantine-mosaics/crucifixion-1025

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the next lecture in our 2024–2025 lecture series.

This lecture examines the history and shifting interpretations of two relics of the Holy Blood of Christ in the Church of St. Mark’s in Venice between the late Middle Ages and the Baroque era.

One is kept in a Byzantine rock crystal pyx bearing a Greek inscription that identifies its contents as Christ’s carnal blood. Although the artifact is listed in an inventory drawn up in 1325, Venetian sources before the seventeenth century are suspiciously silent about the veneration and whereabouts of this relic. Evidently, the reliquary remained concealed in the Santuario, the relic chamber of St. Mark’s, until its miraculous rediscovery in 1617.

Drawing on sources from Venice and elsewhere, I argue that soon after the arrival of the pyx, its contents must have become part of the theological controversy over the bodily blood of Christ, a Catholic debate questioning the authenticity of such relics. Because of its problematic contents, I conclude, the doges decided not to make the pyx available for public veneration for several centuries. The theological disputes surrounding the relic inside the pyx can be better understood in light of the fate of a second reliquary of the Holy Blood of Christ from Constantinople, which has been in the same church since the thirteenth century.

It was only during the Baroque era that the relic inside the Byzantine pyx was rehabilitated as authentic resulting from the efforts of Giovanni Tiepolo, an accomplished theologian and ecclesiastical leader. I examine the strategies Tiepolo employed to establish the relic’s cult, strategies that illuminate the scholar’s familiarity with Byzantine history and religious culture.

Karin Krause is an Associate Professor in the University of Chicago Divinity School. Trained as an art historian, she specializes in the Christian visual cultures of Byzantium and the premodern Mediterranean region.

Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/the-blood-of-his-flesh

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

Call for Papers: Good Governance and the Built Environment of Late Medieval Cities (ca. 1200–1600), Belgium (3-5 Sept. 2025), Due By 7 Apr. 2025

Call for Papers

European Architectural History Network

Good Governance and the Built Environment of Late Medieval Cities (ca. 1200–1600)

Brussels, Belgium, 3-5 September 2025

Due By 7 April 2025

In the late Middle Ages, cities were governed through constant dialogue. Rulers, nobility, citizens and other social groups all found ways to shape urban governance, each articulating complex views on what “good” governance entailed. In order to meet expectations of justice, protection, economic welfare, and the common good, all the aforementioned individuals would often invest in the city’s built environment, either by initiating new architectural and infrastructural projects, or by securing the maintenance of existing ones.

The city as a built space thus required constant development, and in this upkeep and expansion, rulers and governors were attributed a specific responsibility. Scholarship has already extensively explored various policies initiated by rulers and governors for the construction and maintenance of the city’s built environment; Previous studies have, for example, drawn attention to the governmental structures set up in late medieval cities or have explored the legal measures implemented to control urban environments. Similarly, scholarly attention has also focused on individual architectural and infrastructural projects initiated by rulers and governors as a means to meet expectations regarding their governmental responsibilities. However, a systematic overview of how these tasks and obligations regarding the built environment of the city were linked to ideals of good governance is missing, as well as the scope to set individual cases within an overarching framework.

This conference seeks to address this lacuna by asking specifically how the built environment of late medieval cities was conceptualised and physically shaped in relation to ideals of good governance. The focus will be on urban centers in diverse geographical regions (from North-Western Europe and the Mediterranean to the Middle East), and this in the period of 1200 to 1600.

We invite contributions coming from a variety of disciplines (architectural history, art history, literary history, political history and so on) to explore how—and to what extent— building was integral to governing a late medieval city.

Themes may include, but are not limited to:
• The relationship between political and architectural thought with regards to good governance and the construction and maintenance of the city’s built environment.
• The various media (texts, images, etc.) through which political thinking on good governance with regards to the city’s built environment was expressed.
• The tasks, responsibilities, and expectations towards rulers and governing bodies in the construction and maintenance of a city’s built environment.
• The means through which rulers and governors hoped to translate policy for the city’s built environment into practice (administrative bodies, legal measures, direct patronage).
• Specific architectural and infrastructural projects initiated and overviewed by rulers, governors, but also other urban groups, and their relation to political ideals (such as authority, the common good, urban health, justice…).
• The overlapping jurisdictions and governmental structures within late medieval cities and their impact on the construction and maintenance of the urban built environment.

Please send an abstract (max 500 words) with a short CV (2 pages max) to governingandbuildingthecity@gmail.com by 7 April 2025. Contributions should be in English and the result of original research. Contributions should not be previously published or in the process of being published. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by the end of April. The conference will be held between 3-5 September 2025 in Brussels.

The conference is organised within the research project “Governing and Building the City: Mirrors-for-Magistrates as a lieu for theoretical reflection on architecture (1200-1600)” funded by an Incentive Grant for Scientific Research (FNRS, Belgium).
For more information on the project: see http://governingandbuilding.com.

Organisers:
• Nele De Raedt, professor of history, theory and criticism of architecture, LOCI/LAB, UCLouvain
• Minne De Boodt, post-doctoral researcher in political history, LOCI/LAB, UCLouvain/ Research Group Medieval History, KU Leuven
• Philip Muijtjens, post-doctoral researcher in art history, LOCI/LAB, UCLouvain

For more information on the call for papers, visit https://eahn.org/2025/03/good-governance-and-the-built-environment-of-late-medieval-cities-ca-1200-1600/

ICMA in Boston: Tour of "Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World" Wednesday 2 April 2025, 3pm ET - Register today!

ICMA in Boston
Tour of Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World
with exhibition curator Ladan Akbarnia

 

Wednesday 2 April 2025, 3pm ET
McMullen Museum of Art at Boston COLLEGE
In-person only


Register
HERE


Star map depicting the northern and southern celestial hemispheres (with constellations inscribed in Devanagari). India, Jaipur, ca. 1780. Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper. Pritzker Collection, Chicago. Photo: Michael Tropea.

ICMA members are invited to attend an exhibition tour of Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College with exhibition curator Ladan Akbarnia (The San Diego Museum of Art). 

Using wonder as a vehicle, Wonders of Creation illuminates the global impact of science and artistic production from the Islamic world and its diverse geographies and multifaceted visual cultures. Over 170 works, including illustrated manuscripts and paintings, maps, scientific instruments, magic bowls, luster dishes, architectural elements, and contemporary art, evoke wonder through a visual journey.

Drinks to follow at 5pm at an offsite location. 

Click HERE for exhibition and museum info.

Click HERE to register.


Symposium: From Jean le Bon to Good Duke Humfrey: a new manuscript witness to Anglo-French cultural exchange, In-Person (Oxford) and Online, 21 Mar. 2025, 11am-5pm

symposium

From Jean le Bon to Good Duke Humfrey: a new manuscript witness to Anglo-French cultural exchange

 Friday 21 March 2025, 11am–5pm

  Free and all welcome, booking required

 At the Weston Library and online

Book now – in person

Book now – online

Bodleian Library, MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1, fols. 72v-73r.

The Bodleian Libraries have recently acquired a previously unknown manuscript from the library of Humfrey Duke of Gloucester. First written and illuminated in Paris towards the end of the 13th century, the manuscript is an early example of the translation of the New Testament into French. Owned by Jean le Bon, King of France, in the middle of the 14th century, by the early 15th it was in England and came into the hands of a series of Lancastrian royal princes.

This symposium provides a first opportunity to explore this outstanding arrival and to point the way for future research.

Coffee and tea will be provided.

This symposium will be followed by a drinks reception in Blackwell Hall.

Programme

10.30–11am Arrival and coffee

11–11.15am Welcome from Richard Ovenden; Introduction by Martin Kauffmann

11.15am–12.30pm Origins (chaired by Daron Burrows)

Clive Sneddon, Translating the Bible into medieval French
Emily Guerry, The Cholet Master and manuscript illumination in Paris at the end of the 13th century

12.30–2pm Lunch (not provided)

2–3.15pm From France to England (chaired by Jocelyn Wogan-Browne)

Laure Rioust, Biblical manuscripts in the libraries of Kings John II the Good and Charles V the Wise: heritage and dispersal
Laure Miolo and Jean-Patrice Boudet, The circulation and spoliation of scientific manuscripts between France and England in the Hundred Years’ War

3.15–3.45pm Tea

3.45–5pm The manuscript in England (chaired by Daniel Wakelin)

David Rundle, The Lancastrian moment: the manuscript’s English owners
Daniel Wakelin, Conclusion and avenues for further research

Followed by a drinks reception and launch of the digital facsimile of MS. Duke Humfrey c. 1

 Speakers

  • Jean-Patrice Boudet, Université d'Orléans

  • Emily Guerry, University of Oxford

  • Laure Rioust, Bibliothèque nationale de France

  • David Rundle

  • Laure Miolo, University of Oxford

  • Clive Sneddon, University of St Andrews

  • Daniel Wakelin, University of Oxford

  Booking information

This event is free but booking is required. You can attend this event in person at the Weston Library or online via Zoom.

When you have booked your place, the ticketing system will send you an automated confirmation. If you book to attend this event online, you will receive details for joining the Zoom webinar by email.

Book now – in person

Book now – online

For More information

Visit https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/mar25/from-jean-le-bon-to-good-duke-humfrey or email csb@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

  Location

This symposium takes place in person in the Sir Victor Blank Lecture Theatre at the Weston Library.

Weston Library, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG. Find us on Google Maps.

 Wheelchair access

The Weston Library is wheelchair accessible.

Weston at 10

This event is part of 10 years of the Weston Library. Preserving knowledge, supporting scholarship and sharing culture.

Call for Papers: Venezia Arti 2025, Vol. 34, Soglia / Threshold and ALIA ITINERA miscellaneous section, Due By 31 Mar. 2025

Call for papers

Venezia Arti 2025, vol. 34

Thematic call: Soglia / Threshold and ALIA ITINERA miscellaneous section

 Deadline for Abstracts: 31 March 2025

In medieval art, the theme of the threshold, as the passage from one dimension to another, is crucial from a symbolic point of view and involves both spatiality and temporality (T. Bawden, Die Schwelle im Mittelalter, 2014). The definition that Christ gives of himself in the Gospel had great resonance in the realm of the sacred: “I am the door; if anyone enters through me, he will be saved” (Jn 10:9). Hence the high significance that Christianity attributes to the boundary between the human and the transcendent, between sin and salvation. Within the domain of representation, this message is conveyed both on a figurative level and in instances where lines of demarcation are drawn between the earthly world and the hereafter (P. Florenskij, Iconostasis, 1996). It is expressed also in architecture, as witnessed by the density of inscriptions and artistic expressions at the entrances to places of worship (M. Pastoureau, Tympans et portails romans, 2014) and, within them, between the space reserved for the faithful and the presbytery. The concept of the threshold is also linked to the temporal structuring of festivities, from the anxious anticipation on the eve to the celebration itself. A prime example of this can be found in the rite of baptism and the significance attributed to the spaces in which it takes place (R.M. Jensen, Living Water, 2011). These spaces are meticulously constructed and embellished with great creative effort, with multisensory mises-en-scène playing a pivotal role in the experience. The monumentalisation of entrances, rites of passage, and liminal zones exerts an influence on the secular world, manifesting in the form of urban infrastructure, such as city walls, as well as in the entrances to princely residences and military fortresses. Nor, on the other hand, would it be fair to separate the secular dimension from the religious one: suffice it to consider the fact that in Byzantium Iconoclasm began in 726 with the order - given by Leo III the Isauric - to remove the effigy of Christ on the Chalke, the gate of the imperial palace in Constantinople.

In the Early modern period until the Enlightenment, the European cultural universe has expanded and transformed beyond the borders of the Pillars of Hercules (F.A. Yates, Astrea. The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century, 1975). The introduction of unprecedented objects, naturalia and mirabilia to the European continent, as evidenced by a prolonged process extending throughout the 17th century, significantly influenced the prevailing mentalities of the era, thereby facilitating new forms of experimentation and figurative elaboration. The dissemination of knowledge from unknown civilisations, as exemplified by renowned Jesuits such as the geographer, mathematician and cartographer Matteo Ricci of Macerata and later Athanasius Kircher, who pioneered a form of Egyptology, resulted in the generation of new ways of contamination and unprecedented cross-fertilisation at the intersection of the ‘imaginary’ and the ‘imagined’ East. The encounter with the ‘other’ thus becomes a crucial interpretative framework, imbued with political and propagandistic connotations, and alternative forms of knowledge that are articulated through diverse media (an example of this is the encounter/clash with the infidels of the faith, in a paradigm where the image of the Turk become a symbol of the evil, following the political instability of the Mediterranean region - see for example, Images in the Borderlands, eds I. Čapeta Rakić, G. Capriotti, 2022). In this sense, the concept of threshold can be considered as a flexible framework that can be applied at will when exploring the ‘history’ of a cultural product in the broadest sense, as the outcome of a process of double-edged correspondence between one civilisation and another. Early modern period is in itself a season in which crossing a threshold becomes crossing a limit, whether geographical or cultural and esthetical as well, towards a “new unexplored worlds”. This development was significantly furthered by the revolution that followed the scientific discoveries of Galileo (1564-1642). Once considered insurmountable and as a limit (be it for political, religious, philosophical or technological reasons), the threshold is transformed, metaphorically speaking, into a springboard towards the globalised world (T. Brook, Vermeer’s Hat. The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, 2006).

 In more recent times, the out-of-frame device has prompted a heated debate in the arts, spanning from painting (V. Stoichita, A Short History of the Shadow, 1997) to cinema (A. Bazin, What is Cinema?, 1967; D. Morgan, The Lure of the Image, 2021). In the context of the ongoing development of virtual, immersive and interactive spaces, the distinction between image and reality is increasingly blurring (P. Conte, Unframing Aesthetics, 2020; A. Pinotti, Alla soglia dell'immagine, 2021). At the same time, the vanishing boundary between human contribution and generative development is the object of studies investigating the historical, aesthetical and ethical ramifications of artificial intelligence (R. Pedrazzi, Futuri possibili, 2021; M. Pasquinelli, The Eye of the Master, 2023; L. Manovich, E. Arielli, Artificial Aesthetics, 2024). In the context of the Cultural Cold War Studies, the concept of the threshold comes into play by questioning an alleged impenetrability of the Iron Curtain, whose points of contact are instead probed as generators of cultural, artistic and exhibition practices. Thresholds is the title of the exhibition hosted in the German pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale in 2024 as the debut, in the history of German participation, of a venue outside Giardini, in line with that ‘expanded format’ to multiple possibilities - physical or virtual - that characterises the format of Biennials on a global scale (C. Jones, The Global Work of Art, 2017). Finally, the concept of trespassing, in the sense of insisting on demarcation lines and on their political, social and cultural implications, is the object of artistic and curatorial practices that can be ascribed to the broader interdisciplinary field of the Border Studies.  

As is now customary, the 2025 issue will also welcome a number of contributions outside the monographic theme, in the specific section Alia itinera.

  

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS:

Abstract of approx. 2000 characters (including spaces), in the language of the article, with a title proposal.

Only proposals from scholars holding a Ph.D  may be considered.  

 

ABSTRACT DEADLINES: 

Abstracts deadline: 31 March 2025 

Notification of accepted abstracts: 14 April 2025

 

CALL FOR SELECTED PAPERS:

Admissible length: between 30,000 and 40,000 characters, including spaces and footnotes (not included in the final count: abstract, captions, bibliography).

The essay must be written according to the editorial standards of the journal.

The essay must also include:

  • an abstract in English of approx. 1000 characters including spaces;

  • 5 keywords in English;

  • a final, complete bibliography, written in alphabetical order according to Edizioni Ca' Foscari editorial standards

  • image captions including photo credits.

Illustrations: max 10 images,  in Jpeg format, 300 dpi resolution, with specification of credits already paid or authorised.

Languages allowed: Italian, English, French.

 

DEADLINES FOR ARTICLES

Deadline for the final version: 31 August 2025

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Please contact venezia.arti@unive.it.

Ongoing Exhibition: Cut and Paste: Reframing Medieval Art, The Morgan Library & Museum, Until 15 June 2025

Ongoing Exhibition

Cut and Paste: Reframing Medieval Art

The Morgan Library & Museum

New York City, NY

February 4, 2025 - June 15, 2025

Gospel Book; Rome, Italy, 1572–1585; Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), 1907; MS M.270

The idea of cutting up a medieval manuscript is almost unthinkable today. Historically, however, this practice was relatively common, and it reached a fever pitch in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. People cut up manuscripts for various reasons: Dealers unwilling to pay weight-based import duties on large choir books opted to remove their decorated initials and dispose of the heavy bindings. Art lovers excised pictures from manuscripts and pasted them into albums; many considered this an act of freeing precious artworks from the text-filled books that held them captive. The dismembering of manuscripts was thus regarded not as vandalism but as a tribute to the otherwise hidden illuminations.

Showcasing some of the Morgan’s finest single leaves, this installation seeks to explore the myriad factors that fueled the frenzy of manuscript cutting, and the creative ways in which cut-out miniatures were subsequently displayed.

This installation is organized by Emerald Lucas, Belle Da Costa Greene Curatorial Fellow, Department of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.

For more information, visit https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/cut-and-paste

Call for Papers: CERÆ Online Conference, Dreams, Visions, and Utopias (25-27 Apr. 2025), Due By 12 Mar. 2025

Call for Papers

Online Conference

CERÆ: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies

Dreams, Visions, and Utopias

26–27 April 2025

Due By 12 March 2025

Featured image: Humankind before the Flood (central panel detail), c. 1503, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymus Bosch; Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid/Taschen.

In 2024, the conference was organised in a unique continuous format over a 28-hour period in order to equitably accommodate presenters from 9 different time-zones. In 2025, (depending on the mix of accepted presentations) the conference committee hopes to replicate this format.

Presenters located west of the Atlantic Ocean should note that some sessions may be scheduled to take place in the evening of 25 April, local time.

The conference will be held entirely online, via Zoom, and all sessions will be recorded (with presenters reserving the right to not have their individual paper recorded). Recordings will be made available to registered conference attendees via the website for a limited time after the conference has concluded.

Abstract Submissions

The theme of the 2024 conference is the same as for Volume 12 of the journal, that is: Dreams, Visions, and Utopias.

Abstracts must be submitted by 12 March 2025 (Extended Deadline).

Please email your submission for a 20-minute (+ 10 minutes Q&A) presentation to ceraejournal@gmail.com, including:

  • A 150–200 word abstract.

  • Your academic affiliation and title (if any).

  • A short 50–100 word biography.

  • The time-zone from which you will be presenting.

While an accompanying presentation or slideshow is not mandatory, it is strongly encouraged as it greatly assists an online audience to follow a presentation, especially when the primary/preferred language of the presenter and/or the audience is not mutual.

We also strongly encourage all conference presenters to submit a full version of their presentation for publication within the journal (which will be subject to our standard peer-review procedures). Please refer to the Volume 12 CFP for further details, prompts, and deadlines relating to this theme.

Submissions to the conference will be advised of their paper’s acceptance by mid-March (if not earlier). The draft schedule will not be released until late March or early April 2025 .

Boydell & Brewer Discount

We are once again excited to be able to provide an exclusive discount on purchases from Boydell & Brewer for all conference attendees. Further details will be provided closer to the conference once registrations have opened in April.

Conference Aims

The purpose behind hosting our own conference is threefold:

  • Firstly, we are fulfilling our constitutional objectives of promoting high-quality, original scholarship within Medieval and Early Modern Studies, especially as undertaken by graduate and ECR scholars within the Australasian region. Our conference will encourage the development of the online community at both a national and an international level.

  • Secondly, this conference will, being held entirely online, promote the digital humanities and scholarship which utilises digital media and sources.

  • And last – but not least – establishing an annual Ceræ conference will go a significant way towards meeting our fundraising goals that, as a fully independent open-access journal, provide for our operational costs. It is anticipated that registration (as in 2024) will not exceed $5-10 AUD / day.

For more information, click here.

New Video! ICMA Annual IDEA Lecture, Staging medieval art: Photography, archaeology, and living objects in Afghanistan, Martina Rugiadi

New Video

ICMA Annual IDEA Lecture

Staging medieval art: Photography, archaeology, and living objects in Afghanistan

Martina Rugiadi, Curator, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thursday 6 February 2025 at 6:30pm ET

New York University and Online

Available to watch on the Special Online Lectures page of the ICMA Website: https://www.medievalart.org/special-online-lectures

Since centuries, the town of Ghazni has been the site of devotion, visited by those seeking to be blessed and healed at the tombs of its saints. Yet our scholarly gaze has primarily focused on the city’s short-lived royal past of the 11th-12th centuries, the remains of which were meticulously documented with stunning photographs in the 1950s and 60s. Uncovering these images, this talk aims to reveal broader, more inclusive histories that transcend disciplinary boundaries.

Martina Rugiadi is Curator in the Islamic Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where she is preparing an exhibition on medieval Afghan marbles. As an archaeologist, she has worked mostly in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria, and now co-directs the Towns of the Karakum project in Turkmenistan. Her recent research explores medieval drinking, Islamic-period spolia, agency and visual languages, and the juncture of art history, cultural heritage, and the museum. 

Murray Seminar: Nicola and Giovanni Pisano at the Fontana Maggiore in Perugia, Laura Jacobus, At Birkbeck University of London, 19 Mar. 2025, 17:00-18:30

Murray Seminar

Nicola and Giovanni Pisano at the Fontana Maggiore in Perugia

Laura Jacobus

19 March 2025, 17:00-18:30

Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square

A ‘Most Pleasing Flower among Equally Excellent Sculptors’: Nicola and Giovanni Pisano at the Fontana Maggiore in Perugia

The Fontana Maggiore of Perugia, one of the best-preserved secular monuments of medieval Europe, is decorated by more than fifty sculptures. Its creators, Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni, were the two star sculptors of thirteenth-century Italy. This seminar paper takes a fresh look at the work, arguing that it has been significantly misunderstood in modern scholarship. Touching on a number of aspects of this radical revision, the paper will concentrate on one: what does the work say about the relationship between Nicola and Giovanni, only one of whom could be the ‘most pleasing flower among equally excellent sculptors’ referred to in the fountain’s remarkable inscription?

For more information and to book your place, click here.

Call for Applications: Permanence et continuité dans l’art du Moyen Âge, Journées d’étude (24-25 Nov. 2025), Due By 15 Apr. 2025

Call for Applications

Journées d’étude

Permanence et continuité dans l’art du Moyen Âge

24 novembre 2025 — INHA, salle Vasari

25 novembre 2025 — Université de Lille, IRHiS

Due By 15 April 2025

"Continuity is undeniable; the first Gothic master builders or architects were raised in the Romanesque world. They naturally drew inspiration from it, but this continuity is a living and dynamic one; it is similar to life itself, where heredity, education, and the past weigh on each individual without compromising the emergence of freedom." 1 — Jacques Henriet

By questioning continuity and its intentionality in medieval production, Jacques Henriet highlights a widely observed process whose parameters have rarely been examined. Indeed, art history often analyzes its subject through the lens of innovation. This epistemological bias has led to the marginalization of the issues of permanence in the historiography of medieval artistic production, despite their essential role in understanding this period.

The study of this theme has also suffered from an almost exclusive focus on the legacy of antiquity in medieval art. While this question is crucial, it limits our overall perception of conservative forms and practices. An interest that may have seemed novel twenty years ago now appears to be a central concern in medieval studies.

These study days aim to explore the relationship between permanence and continuity in the use of models and forms specific to medieval culture. In particular, his perspective seeksto examine the existence of a genuine aesthetic conservatism, understood as a fertile artistic dynamic. We will address these notions through the lens of innovation, dissemination channels, creative contexts, and the various intellectual processes at work.

Theme 1: Permanence, Continuity, and Innovation

During this period, creation was often developed and justified by clerics according to a principle of continuity—one may recall the expression "dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants" which John of Salisbury attributed to his master Bernard of Chartres, and which he claimed as the only worthy path to intellectual creation. Therefore, we must question the originality of medieval works through the notion of borrowing from older formulas and the reactivation of past models. This unique relationship with temporality may be explored through the process of creating an artwork, such as an illuminated book or the reinterpretation of monumental works. This approach aims to critically assess the singularity of certain continuities, such as the Franco-Insular style of the Second Bible of Charles the Bald (BnF, Latin 2, c. 871-877), which may invoke notions of archaism and conservatism or even historicism, and reaction, whose relevance to the Middle Ages needs to be interrogated.

Theme 2: Networks and Agents of Dissemination

Understanding the phenomena of continuity requires analyzing the cultural context of these artistic productions. Indeed, continuity may find expression in the long-term realization of artistic programs, as seen in homogeneous projects spanning decades. Another approach involves questioning the notion of tradition; whether it is linked to a specific artistic practice, a defined space, or a particular milieu. Tradition may also exist within a network of actors, particularly institutional ones, that facilitate the dissemination of models, such as repertoires of forms within monastic orders, like the model books circulated in the Cistercian context. Therefore, we will examine the means of transmission and circulation of models and expertise among these various agents, particularly through apprenticeships...

Theme 3: Modalities of Reception

Were these phenomena as prominent to medieval contemporaries as they are to contemporary art historians? This final theme will explore the intentionality behind the use of forms or processes perceived as representative of an earlier period of creation. More specifically, it will examine the role of heritage, understood as the unconscious reproduction of knowledge acquired through education, and that of tradition, considered a deliberate citation of an ancient form, comprehensible only within a given context—such as the memorial project of Saint-Louis de Poissy (c. 1297-1331), for example. This element of intentionality invites us to refine the definition of aesthetic preferences in the medieval era, when the past was considered an aesthetic category in itself.

Keywords: practice; materials; tradition; heritage; recreation; canons; models; coherence; continuity; homogeneity; taste; aesthetics.

Submission Guidelines and Timeline

These study days aim to explore these transmission pathways through original case studies. Our intention is to bring together presentations covering all media of the medieval period (5th–15th centuries). Presentations should be 20 to 25 minutes long. A publication is planned.

Proposals for conference contributions may be submitted in French or English. They should take the form of a summary (approximately 300 words) with a title and be accompanied by a short biography.
Submissions should be sent to jepl.medieval@gmail.com by April 15, 2025. Feedback to authors will be provided by June 30, 2025.

Call for papers in English revised by Allyson Tadjer, PhD, Georgia State University, Professor of English at the University of Lille.

For a PDF of the Call for Papers, click here.

Scientific Committee

  • Mathieu Beaud, Associate Professor of Medieval Art History, UMR 8529 IRHiS, University of Lille.

  • Étienne Hamon, Professor of Medieval Art History, UMR 8529 IRHiS, University of Lille.

  • Anne-Orange Poilpré, Professor of Medieval Art History, UR 4100 HiCSA, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

  • Ambre Vilain, Associate Professor of Medieval Art History, UMR 6566 CReAAH, LARA Laboratory, Nantes University.

    Organizing Committee

    • Hugo Dehongher, PhD Candidate in Medieval Art History, UMR 8529 IRHiS, University of Lille.

    • Angèle Desmenez, PhD Candidate in Medieval Art History, UMR 8529 IRHiS, University of Lille.

    • Max Hello, PhD Candidate in Medieval Art History, UR 4100 HiCSA, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

    • Pierre Moyat, PhD Candidate in Medieval Art History, UR 4100 HiCSA, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Call for Applications: Connecting Histories: Manuscripts Research Opportunity, Princeton University Library Special Collections, Due By 1 May 2025

Call for Applications

Princeton University Library Special Collections

Connecting Histories: Manuscripts Research Opportunity

Due By 1 May 2025

Hieratikon (Princeton Greek MS. 58), fol. 24r, Princeton University Library.

We are excited to announce a new research opportunity connected to the multi-year project, Connecting Histories: The Princeton and Mount Athos Legacy. The position is for a one-month in-person stay in Princeton and focuses on manuscripts related to Mount Athos held by Princeton University Library. Generous funding for this position has been offered by the A.G. Leventis Foundation. The deadline is May 1, 2025.

For more information about the opportunity, click here.

New Video! Inaugural ICMA Associates Lecture, Royal Cemeteries in Medieval Iberia: Geopolitical System and Sites of Dynastic Memory,” Gerardo Boto Varela

New Video

Inaugural ICMA Associates Lecture

Royal Cemeteries in Medieval Iberia: Geopolitical System and Sites of Dynastic Memory

Gerardo Boto Varela, Universitat de Girona Saturday

15 February 2025, 17:00 CET / 11am ET

Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana

Available to watch on the Special Online Lectures page of the ICMA Website: https://www.medievalart.org/special-online-lectures

We have constructed a hyper-aulic medieval art history, both thematically and artistically. We continue to be fascinated by kings and queens and their post-mortem survival and remembrance. Medieval monarchs often chose burial sites with the intention that their legacy would be remembered and venerated within a center of significant symbolic or religious importance, such as a cathedral or a prominent monastery. In this way, they not only ensured their survival in a place in history, but also the spiritual intercession exercised on their behalf before the Divinity by a praying community. Thus, a king or queen decided to be buried in a particular church, either in front of its doors or inside them. However, this vital decision was not always straightforward or final. As expressed in the chronicles and testaments, which exist at least in medieval Spain since the 11th century, monarchs could change their minds and request a new burial place that better suited their personal, political or spiritual priorities, or the changing tensions in the political and religious landscape of their time.

Since the historiography that began this analysis, already in the 19th century, was French and Germanic, the cases of royal burial in those areas became paradigmatic. However, is it still acceptable today to consider that there is an artistic or political model of reference against which everything else is an anomaly? Should we continue to colonise the European Middle Ages from the propositions of the geographically central domains? Does it make sense to consider the multiplicity of Iberian burial sites, throughout historical phases, as a divergence from the presumed model of concentration and stability of French and English royal burials?

In the context of the Iberian Peninsula, the multiplication, distribution and ecclesiastical variety of royal burials is particularly unique compared to other European regions. This can be understood through the concept of ‘mnemotopia’, analysed by scholars such as Maurice Halbwachs and Jan Assmann. Mnemotopia refers to the idea of a place imbued with a high symbolic significance for the collective memory. The physical location of a burial place carried an important meaning – a place that preserved and evoked historical memory for the kingdom and its community.

Until now, historiography has explained the multiplicity of Iberian royal cemeteries (not only in Castile) as the expression of unquestioned power, which made it unnecessary to rely on a single, reiterative cemetery. This hypothesis is not accurate. Moreover, the political principles in Aragon and Navarre were no different from those of the western kingdoms of medieval Spain, and yet they did establish from the 14th century onwards a single coronation place and a single dynastic cemetery. That is why the central argument of this discussion must be approached from the perspective of geopolitics: 1.- How was the monumental memory of the kingdom articulated to dominate all the lands of the kingdom? 2.- Is it true that by gaining new frontiers with the territorial ‘Reconquest’ a city was designated as the most politically and ecclesiastically relevant, in order to compensate for the burdens of a presumably fragile and questionable legitimacy?

About the Speaker: Senior lecturer in the history of medieval art. Principal researcher in the TEMPLA international research team. Associate Professor (2010) at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, at the invitation of the Groupe d'Anthropologie historique de l'Occident médiéval. Member of the Scientific Council of Campus Condorcet. Campus de Recherche en Humanités de la région de Paris’. Chief scientific editor of the Codex Aquilarensis. Author specialising in the analysis of pre-Romanesque and Romanesque architecture and visual devices (in particular sculpture) deployed on the exterior and interior. He studies the morphogenesis of spaces of worship and institutional representation, the construction of sites and images, based on the importance of bringing together the perception and experience of immaterial factors and goods.

CFP: « La sculpture monumentale médiévale à l’épreuve du musée : enjeux, conceptions, réceptions », Paris & Toulouse, Due By 1 March 2025

Appel à communications

« La sculpture monumentale médiévale à l’épreuve du musée : enjeux, conceptions, réceptions »

Journées d’ études internationales

Paris, Musée du Louvre, Centre Dominique-Vivant Denon, 30 juin-1er juillet 2025 Toulouse, Université de Toulouse, IUT Paul Sabatier, 2-3 octobre 2025

jusqu’au 1er mars 2025

Salle romane, Musée des Augustins, Toulouse © Daniel Martin

Le musée du Louvre, le musée des Augustins de Toulouse, l’Université de Toulouse et le Groupement d’intérêt scientifique « Patrimoines en partage » organisent deux rencontres consacrées aux enjeux de la présentation, dans les salles permanentes des musées, de sculptures provenant d’édifices religieux majoritairement disparus, en direction de publics souvent peu avertis, auxquels il semble nécessaire de fournir quelques clés de compréhension pour une plus juste et plus agréable appréciation des œuvres monumentales médiévales.

Ce questionnement est né de l’expérience du musée des Augustins confronté au fil du temps à diverses présentations de ses collections médiévales, issues pour l’essentiel de trois cloîtres romans disparus. Les réflexions du musée des Augustins ont été nourries par les échanges avec le programme de recherche OCMI (Ontologie du Christianisme Médiéval en Image) de l’INHA, dirigé par Isabelle Marchesin et Mathieu Beaud. Le projet de rénovation du musée actuellement en cours offre l’occasion de partager les interrogations toulousaines. Dans un souci de prise en compte des publics et afin de favoriser une pluridisciplinarité au cœur des questionnements actuels, une large place sera faite aux apports de la muséologie et des sciences de l’information et de la communication.

L’exposition de fragments et d’œuvres détachés de la sculpture monumentale médiévale pose plusieurs problèmes spécifiques. Le premier, qui ne lui est pas propre, est la présentation d’une œuvre hors contexte, dans des conditions de visibilité différentes de celles d’origine (distance, lumière, contexte visuel effaçant les logiques d’ordonnancement spatial et iconique premier, disparition des marqueurs de sacralité, de liturgie, de communauté, etc.). La complexité est d’autant plus grande quand les édifices d’origine des œuvres ont eux-mêmes disparu ou ont été fortement remaniés, ou bien lorsque les fragments conservés sont dispersés, ou issus d’un contexte archéologique ancien, ou encore vendus sur le marché de l’art sans référence précise.

La différenciation entre contextes conservés, altérés ou disparus (liés au vandalisme, au collectionnisme, au marché de l’art, mais aussi aux changements de goût ou au hasard) est très importante pour la compréhension des œuvres, dont les états de conservation résultent d’histoires diverses.

Lorsque des fouilles ont pu être organisées, quel dialogue instaurer entre archéologie et histoire de l’art ? Comment rendre visible et compréhensible aux visiteurs un contexte disparu et la transdisciplinarité ? L’illusion d’une restitution topographique/archéologique est-elle la priorité muséologique et à quelle fin ?

L’altération des œuvres elles-mêmes est porteuse d’une difficulté supplémentaire. Une autre singularité est la présence proportionnellement forte de chapiteaux et de piliers historiés ou décorés, mais aussi de parties de linteaux, tailloirs, socles et autres plaques. Le fragment a-t-il vocation à être perçu comme une œuvre à part ? Quel niveau d’intelligibilité lui donner ?

Par ailleurs, le musée détermine un effet de « loupe » et même de consécration. Combien d’œuvres apparaissent comme des chefs-d’œuvre et sont publiées, empruntées, regardées, reproduites et commentées sans cesse, parce qu’elles sont conservées dans des musées (surtout si eux-mêmes sont célèbres et importants…), quand leurs jumelles restées sur place ne bénéficient pas du même intérêt ni de la même popularité (avec des exceptions, qu’il faudrait analyser) ?

Lorsque plusieurs pièces sont issues d’un même ensemble architectural, comment articuler les fragments exposés et l’édifice d’origine ? Par un récit, des plans, dessins, outils numériques ? Et par là-même, comment maintenir le lien de la pièce unique à l’édifice ? Quels outils de médiation mettre en place, des plus traditionnels aux plus innovants, et pour quels publics ?

Les conditions muséographiques donnent aux publics une proximité et une possibilité de scrutation des œuvres qui n’existaient pas de la même manière à l’origine. Comment tirer parti au mieux de ces nouvelles conditions pour transmettre des connaissances techniques, stylistiques et iconographiques ?

Comment hiérarchiser les réponses à toutes ces questions au sein d’un même lieu d’exposition et ce pour des visiteurs dont les attentes sont diverses en fonction des âges, des catégories socioprofessionnelles, du niveau d’étude ou des appétences ?

Il nous a paru essentiel de nous placer du côté des visiteurs, de leurs expériences de visite, de leurs envies, en intégrant à notre propos les apports des Sciences de l’information et de la communication (SIC), afin d’étudier la réception du discours scientifique et des propositions de médiation au sein des collections médiévales. Et sur ce sujet, que penser du succès d’un Moyen Âge fantasmé, renvoyé par tant de jeux, de films et de séries à succès ? Y a-t-il un enseignement à tirer du médiévalisme dans nos pratiques muséales ?

En effet, comment passer du discours scientifique élaboré en histoire de l’art, dans et hors du musée, à un discours d’exposition et/ou de médiation au musée, à partir de la muséographie et de la scénographie des vestiges monumentaux médiévaux ? Cette transposition médiatique correspond au passage du discours scientifique des spécialistes, publié dans la littérature grise des thèses et des publications plus ou moins confidentielles, au discours de vulgarisation des expositions ou au discours de médiation des dispositifs qui accompagnent les œuvres.

Les Sciences de l’information et de la communication ont montré toute la dynamique des recherches possibles sur les différentes muséologies (Jean Davallon : muséologies d’objet, d’idées ou de point de vue), sur le mouvement de la nouvelle muséologie qui s’intéresse aussi aux publics et aux communautés d’habitants pour construire un discours adapté voire co-construire l’exposition dans des muséographies participatives, immersives, ludiques.
Le tournant communicationnel des musées dans les années 1980 a abouti à la multiplication des expositions temporaires considérées désormais comme de véritables médias (Jean Davallon, Daniel Jacobi), mais aussi à la mise en place d’une panoplie de dispositifs de médiation, plus ou moins innovants, censés faciliter la compréhension des publics (Patrick Fraysse) qui ne sont pas sans conséquence sur les attentes des publics concernant les collections permanentes.

Ces interrogations très actuelles génèrent de nombreux débats et communications, comme dernièrement l’appel à publication de Géraldine Mallet et Sylvain Demarthe pour la revue en ligne exPosition sur le thème « Montrer les collections médiévales ». Notre proposition se veut complémentaire, par l’analyse du cas spécifique des collections de sculpture monumentale médiévale conservées dans des musées également impliqués dans l’inclusion de tous les publics, soucieux de la démocratisation des connaissances et à l’écoute des apports des SIC et de leurs précieux outils d’évaluation.

Propositions de communication

Les propositions de communication, qui peuvent concerner des approches théoriques comme des études de cas, sont attendues pour le 1er mars à l’adresse sculptures@louvre.fr 
Elles prendront la forme d’un résumé de l’intervention de 3000 signes accompagné d’une biographie du ou des communicants et d’une bibliographie (5 titres maximum). Si vous ne pouviez participer qu’à Paris ou à Toulouse, merci de nous l’indiquer.
La sélection des communications sera établie au début avril. Leur répartition entre Paris et Toulouse sera précisée en fonction des propositions et des disponibilités des intervenants.
Une publication des actes de ces journées d’étude est à l’étude.

Organisation

Musée du Louvre (Sophie Jugie, Pierre-Yves Le Pogam, département des Sculptures)
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse (Charlotte Riou)
Laboratoire d’Études et de Recherches Appliquées en Sciences Sociales, Université de Toulouse (Patrick Fraysse)
Groupement d’intérêt scientifique « Patrimoines en partage », réseau de chercheurs en sciences humaines et sociales et de professionnels du patrimoine sous la direction de Sylvie Sagnes, avec le soutien de l’Institut des sciences humaines et sociales du CNRS
Avec la collaboration de Mathieu Beaud, maître de conférence à l’Université de Lille

Programme prévisionnel

Paris, Musée du Louvre : Du monument au public des musées

La première étape aura lieu au Centre de recherche Dominique-Vivant Denon du musée du Louvre. Ouverte à tous et gratuite, elle sera dédiée à la problématique générale de l’exposition de ces œuvres et à des études de cas, avec intervention d’historiens de l’art, de responsables de collections et de médiateurs des musées.
– Restitution des contextes d’origine : utilité, enjeux, moyens ?
– Place et fonction des indications chronologiques et/ou périodiques ?
– Comment prendre en compte les contraintes techniques et administratives des lieux d’exposition et l’histoire des établissements ?
– Unicité de l’œuvre exposée : une force ou une limite ?
– Matériaux et techniques : pour approcher la culture des artisans médiévaux
– Élaborer des réseaux d’œuvres disparates : la possibilité typologique (structures et styles) et la possibilité iconographique
– L’apparat critique : place et format des textes et images autour des œuvres
– Contextualiser, expliciter, interpréter… jusqu’où ?
– Peut-on faire une archéologie de l’émotion ou en d’autres termes, peut-on viser la restitution d’un ressenti médiéval ?

Une visite sera proposée dans un musée parisien.

Toulouse : Contenus scientifiques – médiation – évaluation : la transposition des discours

La seconde partie, organisée à Toulouse, sera plus spécifiquement consacrée aux niveaux de contenus informatifs et aux publics, dans le cadre de témoignages croisés. Les points de vue exposés à Paris seront passés au crible des Sciences de l’information et de la communication. Un certain nombre d’enquêtes, effectuées sur le terrain dans les salles des musées, permettent en effet de valider certains dispositifs plébiscités par les visiteurs
– Capter et guider le regard : comment donner à voir l’ensemble et le particulier ?
– Comment impliquer le visiteur en le rendant acteur de sa perception ?
– Quelle place octroyer au style et à l’iconographie ?
– Quels dispositifs de médiation pour quelles attentes des publics ?
– Quelle fonction structurante accorder à la chronologie, la périodisation, et comment la construire ?
– Quelle articulation entre discours scientifique et médiation ?
– Quels outils pour une démocratisation du savoir scientifique en histoire de l’art ?
– Évaluation des expériences de visite ? Données qualitatives.
– Comment aborder au musée le fait religieux, les sources chrétiennes et le rôle de ces œuvres dans des édifices à vocation cultuelle ?

Une visite des collections du musée des Augustins sera proposée (en fonction des travaux de réaménagement du musée).

Informations pratiques

Paris, Musée du Louvre, Centre Dominique-Vivant Denon, 30 juin-1er juillet 2025
Toulouse, Université de Toulouse, IUT Paul Sabatier, 2-3 octobre 2025

Envoi des propositions de communication : jusqu’au 1er mars à l’adresse sculptures@louvre.fr 

Pour un PDF, Appel à communication La sculpture monumentale médiévale à l’épreuve du musée.

Pour plus d’informations, http://blog.apahau.org/la-sculpture-monumentale-medievale-a-lepreuve-du-musee-enjeux-conceptions-receptions-appel-a-communication-ouvert-jusquau-1er-mars-2025/

Online Levan Book Chat: Otherworld: Nine Tales of Wonder and Romance from Medieval Ireland, Lisa Bitel, 11 Mar. 2025, 12:00-1:00PM EST

Online Event

Levan Book Chat

Otherworld: Nine Tales of Wonder and Romance from Medieval Ireland

Lisa Bitel

11 March 2025, 12:00-1:00pm EST

A discussion of Lisa Bitel's new book, Otherworld: Nine Tales of Wonder and Romance from Medieval Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2024). The author will be joined in conversation by Eric Falci (UC Berkeley) and Siobhán McElduff (University of British Columbia), moderated by Daniela Bleichmar (USC). Organized in partnership with the Van Hunnick History Department and the School of Religion. Registration is required.

About the Book: A mysterious woman appears nightly at the bedside of a prince and sings to him until he falls sick with love for her. A determined hero tracks his beloved through several incarnations, struggling to win her back. A young warrior seeks a woman who turns into a swan. These are the plots of little-known, anonymous tales composed over a thousand years ago in the monastic libraries of Ireland. In poetry and prose, they tell us what happens when human and supernatural lovers cross the boundaries between our world and the Otherworld (síd). Set in a lost time of heroes, demi-gods, warrior queens, and other folk of the Irish Otherworld (áes síde), these stories inspired some of the earliest fairy tales of France and England. What is more, they are sexier, funnier, and bloodier than better-known medieval myths and romances.

In Otherworld, historian and novelist Lisa M. Bitel offers lively retellings of these Irish original myths using her expertise in Irish history and literature to guide modern readers. She traces themes and characters that link the nine magical tales, explains customs and locations, and brings out the humor. Like all storytellers--whether medieval or modern, performers or scribes--Bitel interprets the originals as she leads her readers over the boundary of reality to the Otherworld. Drawings especially created for the book by Saba Joshaghani accompany these astonishing tales.

About the Author: Lisa Bitel is Dean's Professor of Religion and Professor of Religion and History at USC. She discovered the magical literature of early Ireland while studying at Harvard University and later University College Dublin. Since then, she has written or edited six books and many articles about medieval Europe, focused on Ireland, gender, or the history of Christianity before 1000 C.E.

Open to attendants outside of USC. An excerpt of the book will be made available to registered attendants. This event is part of the Levan Institute for the Humanities' “Book Chats” series, conversations about new books published by USC scholars in the humanities and humanistic social sciences.

To register and to obtain more information, visit https://calendar.usc.edu/event/levan-book-chatlisa-bitel-otherworld