ICMA at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds 2025: Sponsored Sessions + Reception, Wednesday 9 July 2025

ICMA at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds 

ICMA Sponsored Session
International Medieval Congress, Leeds
Viewing the Invisible: Multi-Sensory Approaches to the Divine in East and West, I & II
I: Wednesday 9 July 2025, 14.15-15.45
II: Wednesday 9 July 2025, 16.30-18.00
Esther Simpson Building, Room 2.12


ICMA Reception 
International Medieval Congress, Leeds
The Dry Dock
Wednesday 9 July 2025, 19:30-21:30
Student Meet and Greet at 19:00
All are welcome! Invite a colleague! 

Register HERE to help us know how many to expect at the reception.

Dream of Constantine and the Battle of the Milvian Bridge

ICMA Sponsored Session
International Medieval Congress, Leeds
Viewing the Invisible: Multi-Sensory Approaches to the Divine in East and West I

Wednesday 9 July 2025, 14.15-15.45
Esther Simpson Building, Room 2.12
Session 1202

Organiser & Moderator: Ioanna Christoforaki, Research Centre for Byzantine & Post-Byzantine Art, Academy of Athens
 
Multi-Sensory Experiences of Water and Water Motifs in Early Byzantium
Evan Freeman, Department of Global Humanities / Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Centre for Hellenic Studies, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia

Liturgical Visions in the Life of Nephon (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca 1371z)
Vasileios Marinis, Yale Divinity School, Yale University

Looking at Relics, Seeking the Sacred
Cynthia Hahn, Department of Art & Art History, Hunter College, New York

Smelling the Divine: Multi-Sensory Devotion within the Cult of St Demetrios
Lucie Schwarz, Department of Art History, University of Pennsylvania

ICMA Sponsored Session
International Medieval Congress, Leeds
Viewing the Invisible: Multi-Sensory Approaches to the Divine in East and West II

Wednesday 9 July 2025, 16.30-18.00
Esther Simpson Building, Room 2.12
Session 1302

Organiser & Moderator: Ioanna Christoforaki, Research Centre for Byzantine & Post-Byzantine Art, Academy of Athens
 
Hierotopy and Singers 'on the Step': The Effect of Greek Liturgical Singing on Siculo-Norman Domes Joseph Williams, School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation,University of Maryland

Beyond Vision: Christians, Muslims, and Miracles at the Monastery of Our Lady of Saydnaya, 12th-13th Centuries
Pelia Werth, Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, Johns Hopkins University

Unveiling the Sacred: The Late Medieval Practice of Covering Altarpieces and Devotional Images
Ralf van Bühren, Facoltà di Comunicazione Sociale Istituzionale,Pontificia Università della Santa Croce, Roma

 

ICMA Reception 
International Medieval Congress, Leeds
The Dry Dock
Wednesday 9 July 2025, 19:30-21:30

Student Meet and Greet, 19:00
Reception, 19:30

All are welcome! Invite a colleague! 
Please register HERE, to help us know how many to expect (non-committal)


Join fellow ICMA members for a special off-site reception at The Dry Dock on Wednesday 9 July 2025 from 19:30-21:30. Students are invited to join early at 19:00 to meet other student colleagues. Complimentary drinks and small bites will be provided. Food is available for purchase.

The Dry Dock is about a 10 minute walk from the University of Leeds campus, en route to central Leeds. 

The Dry Dock
Woodhouse Lane
Leeds LS2 3AX

https://www.socialpubandkitchen.co.uk/dry-dock-leeds

Conference: Annual BAA Conference 2025: Leicester and Leicestershire: Roman and Medieval Architecture and Art, 21-25 July 2025

Conference

Annual BAA Conference 2025: Leicester and Leicestershire: Roman and Medieval Architecture and Art

Monday 21 July to Friday 25 July 2025

In 2025, the BAA will hold its summer conference in Leicester, which it last visited in 1900. While the built city has experienced great and destructive change since the turn of the twentieth century, there remains a lot of interesting Roman and medieval material to explore. The hinterland of Leicestershire, with south Derbyshire, also preserves a distinctive and fascinating architectural inheritance, particularly in its medieval churches. There are nationally important survivals from all artistic periods, from the collection of Anglo-Saxon sculpture at Breedon on the Hill to the Decorated Gothic style. Timber building is represented along with stone. Leicester itself has significant Roman remains. City and country alike were rich in religious houses. There are also significant survivals in stained glass, wall painting and other arts.

For more information about the conference, click here for the conference website.

Conference: Good Governance and the Built Environment of Late Medieval Cities (ca. 1200–1700), Royal Library of Belgium, 3-5 September 2025

Conference

Good Governance and the Built Environment of Late Medieval Cities (ca. 1200–1700)

Royal Library of Belgium, Kunstberg (Monts des arts) 28, 1000 Brussel (Salle Panorama)

3-5 September 2025

Join the Royal Library of Brussels to discuss and explore how the built environment of late medieval cities was conceptualized and physically shaped in relation to ideals of good governance. The conference covers a broad historical period (1200–1700) and includes urban centers ranging from Northwestern Europe to the Middle East.

Attendance is free of charge, but registration is required. Please register via this form.

Find out more information on the Governing and Building website.

Conference Programme

Wednesday 3 September 2025

13:00 Welcome

13:30-15:15 Session 1: Governing and Building the City: An Introduction (Session chair: Jan Dumolyn)

• Nele De Raedt (UCLouvain) – Good Governance and the Built Environment: Central Themes and Questions

• Philip Muijtjens (UCLouvain) – A Curriculum for a City? The Library in the Palazzo Comunale of Pistoia (1458-1461)

• Minne De Boodt (KU Leuven/UCLouvain) – Building Brussels in Time of Political Transformation: Dialogues on Good Governance and the Built Environment (1400-1466)

15:45-17:00 Session 2: Governing Ideals and the Built Environment (Session chair : Jelle Haemers)

• Niklas Groschinski (Oxford University) – Leisure Spaces, Sensorial Pleasure, and Public Health in Premodern City Planning

• Julien Régibeau (ULiège) – Order and Architecture: Policing the City of Liège during the Chiroux–Grignoux Conflict

Thursday 4 September 2025

09:00-10:15 Session 3: Municipal Authorities and the Design, Instrumentalization and Regulation of the Built Environment (Session chair: Chris Fletcher)

• Frans Camphuijsen & Nathan van Kleij (Amsterdam University) – A Matter of Morals: Stone Fines, Good Governance and the Urban Fabric in Late Medieval Towns

• Anna Pomierny-Wąsińska (University of Warsaw) – Just Measures: Surveyors, Space, and Urban (Good) Governance in Late Medieval Florence

10:45-12:30 Session 4: The Endowment of Semi-Public Organisations (Session chair: David Napolitano)

• Angela Isoldi (Radboud University) – Spatial and Social Networks: Endowments Shaping the Urban Fabric in Mamlūk Cairo (1250-1517)

• Theodora Giovanazzi (Swiss Federal Technology Institute Lausanne) – Governing through Housing: The Scuole Grandi and Urban Welfare in 16th-Century Venice

• Emine Öztaner (Ibn Haldun University) – Nurbanu Sultan’s “Waqf Neighborhood” in Üsküdar: Constructing, Populating and Governing Ma‘mûre (16th and 17thCenturies)

13:30-15:00 Visit to collections of the KBR

15:00-16:45 Session 5: Collaborating Social Groups (Session chair: Minne De Boodt)

• Merlijn Hurx (KU Leuven) – “Civic” and “Royal” Meat Halls in the Low Countries in the 15th and 16th Century

• Emmanuel Joly (UCLouvain/IRPA) – The Prince and the Canons: Collaboration and Decision-Making in the remodelling of Liège’s Built Environment in the First Half of the 16th Century

• Giuliana Mosca (Independent Scholar) – “In grande honore de la cità”: Government, Urban Space, and Architecture in 15th-century Perugia

Friday 5 September 2025

09:00-10:15 Session 6: The Representation of Governance (Session chair: Philip Muijtjens)

• Elizabeth Den Hartog (Leiden University) – Local Lords on the Façade of Veere’s Town Hall (Netherlands). The Lords of Veere and their Relations with the Habsburg Regime in the Late 15th and Early 16th Centuries

• Susan Tipton (Independent Scholar) – Good governance and the Built Environment: The Great Map of Augsburg (1626) and the Renewal of Civic Architecture in the Imperial City around 1600

10:45-12:00 Session 7: Ideal of Good Governance and Architectural Theory (Session chair: Nele De Raedt)

• Miara Fraikin (KU Leuven) – “Building on the Foundations of Piety”: Architecture and Female Governance in 16th-Century France and the Low Countries.

• Mats Dijkdrent (UCLouvain) – Engelbert of Admont as an Architectural Theorist: Ideas on Morally Good Architecture in 14th-Century Mirror Literature

13:30-15:00 Final discussion

Call for Papers: Bound for Devotion: The Prayer Book as Object and Practice, 1300–1800, Leiden University (1-3 July 2026), Due by 1 October 2025

Call for Papers

Bound for Devotion: The Prayer Book as Object and Practice, 1300–1800

Leiden University, Netherlands

1-3 July 2026

Due By 1 October 2025

Detail from Getijden van onser liever vrouwen (Paris: Wolfgang Hopyl, 10 September 1500), Brussels, KBR, INC A 2.188 (RP)

Prayer was central to religious life in the late medieval and early modern period. Despite growing scholarly interest in religious texts, devotional practices, and spirituality, prayer and prayer books remain comparatively understudied. Prayer could take on a multitude of forms and occur in a range of spaces, from public to secluded and private; from monastic, liturgical prayer to short, indulgenced invocations and meditative prayers that evoked a rich scala of emotions and mental images.

To pray, devotees – whether clerical or lay – often took a book to hand. Prayer books played a vital role during many moments in a person’s life in the performance of prayer and prayer-related practices. While the act of prayer is inherently transient, the books held or touched by late medieval and early modern devotees form codified and material evidence of the practices in which they engaged. Still extant in large numbers and containing a vast variety of textual and visual materials, these books – through both content and appearance – reflect the diversity of prayer practices as well as developments in book production. Taking the book as the central artefact for the study of prayer allows for an analysis that encompasses all aspects and components of prayer books, along with the actors involved in their production and use. This, in turn, enables us to chart the ‘cultural ecosystem’ in which prayer books were produced, circulated, and used.

This three-day international conference, hosted at Leiden University by the PRAYER project (ERC Starting Grant), with keynotes by Walter S. Melion (Emory University) and Kathryn M. Rudy (University of St Andrews), aims to bring together researchers working on books that were (intended to be) used in any form of prayer practice in the late medieval and early modern era (up to the eighteenth century). This conference aims to shed new light on prayer across late medieval and early modern Europe by exploring the broader ecosystem of prayer books. This includes a wide range of interactions between the material book, texts and images disseminated through it (and their connections to other types of objects, such as rosaries, small pipe clay figures, and single-sheet prints), the devotions inspired by these texts and images, the producers and buyers/readers of the books, and the communities they belonged to.

For further information on possible formats and topics for proposals, click here for a PDF of the entire Call for Papers.

Please submit an abstract (max. 300 words) and short biography (max. 100 words) to prayer@hum.leidenuniv.nl by 1 October 2025. We aim to inform our speakers by 1 November 2025.

A selection of revised contributions, pending double peer-review, will be published in an edited volume in Brill’s series 'Intersections: Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture' (https://brill.com/display/serial/INTE).

Organizing Committee: Anna Dlabačová, Irene Van Eldere, Susanne de Jong, and Lieke Smits

Call for Papers: Boundaries, Crossings, and Crossroads in the Medieval Iberian Worlds (500-1600), Fordham University, New York City (27 Feb.- 1 Mar. 2026), Due by 15 Sept. 2025

Call for Papers

44th Annual Medieval Studies Conference

Boundaries, Crossings, and Crossroads in the Medieval Iberian Worlds (500-1600)

February 27-March 1, 2026

Lincoln Center Campus, Fordham University, New York City

Due by September 15, 2025

We are excited to announce that the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University will host its 44th Annual Medieval Studies Conference on February 27-March 1, 2026 at Fordham's Lincoln Center campus in New York City on "Boundaries, Crossings, and Crossroads in the Medieval Iberian Worlds (500-1600)." The conference is hosted by Fordham's Center for Medieval Studies with additional support from el taller @ KJCC at New York University.

Plenary Speakers:

Thomas Burman (University of Notre Dame)

María Judith Feliciano (CSIC, Madrid)

Anita Savo (Boston University)

Please see the website for the call for papers: https://mvstconference.ace.fordham.edu/iberianworlds/

Those interested in presenting should submit a 250-word abstract and CV to medievals@fordham.edu by September 15, 2025. Registration will be waived for conference speakers.

Call for Papers: Polyptychs' fortune and misfortune. Provenance, reconstruction, restitution, Lucca (Oct. 7-9, 2025), Due by July 20, 2025

Call for Papers

Polyptychs' fortune and misfortune. Provenance, reconstruction, restitution

Lucca (October 7-9 2025)

Due by July 20th 2025

This conference explores the themes of dispersion and unity in the context of artistic production, encompassing both the materiality of works and their contextual significance and reception. The altarpiece is selected as a case study to examine these questions across different centuries, geographical areas, and artistic techniques.

Selected papers will address the dismantling of altarpieces over time, the dispersion of their components, and the possibilities for their reconstruction. Contributions are invited that explore the methods of reuniting dispersed elements – whether physically or digitally – as well as the conservation challenges involved. The dismantling of altarpieces is indicative of intricate historical dynamics, encompassing shifts in artistic taste, fluctuations in market demand, and evolving practices in preservation and art management. Furthermore, it invites a reconsideration of the epistemology of art history.

The reconstruction of dismantled polyptychs necessitates an interdisciplinary approach, underscoring the need for collective reflection on the epistemological foundations of art history. Addressing the disintegrating unity of these objects necessitates multifaceted research, encompassing domains such as conservation and restoration practices, as well as the global geography of art. History of art exhibitions and artworks restitution offers opportunities for the temporary reconstitution of these fragmented works, further enriching the discussion.

Submissions that engage with epistemological questions alongside data-driven research in areas such as technical art history, connoisseurship, iconographic analysis, provenance studies, museum studies, collecting history and restitution are invited.

The organizers will provide accommodation for two nights. Participants will be responsible for covering their own travel and meal expenses.

Contributors are requested to submit an abstract in Italian, English or French (maximum 300 words) and a brief CV by July 20th 2025 to: giulia.puma@univ-cotedazur.fr, ilaria.andreoli@inha.fr, emanuele.pellegrini@imtlucca.it 

Call for Papers: Reception and Public Uses of the Middle Ages Culture, Thought, and Politics (Valladolid, Spain, 27-28 Nov. 2025), Due by 7 Sept. 2025

Call for papers

Congreso internacional/ International Conference

Recepción y usos públicos de la Edad Media Cultura, pensamiento y política

Reception and Public Uses of the Middle Ages Culture, Thought, and Politics

Universidad de Valladolid, Spain, 27-28 November 2025

Due by 7 September 2025

The past, that «strange country», as David Lowenthal defined it, has always been subject to multiple treatments in order to make it intelligible and useful for a given present. In this respect, the period historically constructed and defined as the Middle Ages has been no exception. Defamed by humanists and the enlightened authors as a symbol of obscurantism and barbarism, mythologised by Romanticism as the setting for fantastic fables and legends, depositary of ancestral essences for nineteenth-century nationalisms, resituated in its historical agency by much of modern medievalism and again deformed in today's media, the multiform images projected on the Middle Ages have varied enormously depending on the historical context. This conference aims to study the different and ever-changing uses of the Middle Ages by historiography, the intellectuality, politics, the press and literature, among other social and cultural agents, from the Modern Age onwards.

For this reason, we welcome proposals that are interested in one or more of these aspects of the different images constructed about the period. For example, for its own denomination and chronological limits as a historical period, which have not innocently contributed in a decisive way to the consolidation of a certain vision of it. Also because of the very configuration and professionalisation of medievalism as a discipline and its attempts to banish some of the myths surrounding the period. Along the same line, from the point of view of the history of historiography, this conference is interested in the image of the time that was constructed by scholars and historians of the Enlightenment and the nineteenth century. On the other hand, the medieval period has been an important supplier of myths, clichés and all kinds of arguments to modern nationalist, political and religious movements for the justification of territorial, ideological and social ambitions of many different kinds, an aspect on which we also seek to receive proposals. At the same time, it has served as inspiration for various artistic and intellectual currents, feeding the conceptual renovation in different fields and the plurality of views on the period. Similarly, we seek to understand how cultural artifacts such as novels, films, series or video games have been inspired by the Middle Ages to set their stories, thus conveying a certain image of the period, issues that have been highlighted in recent years by some works in this regard. Finally, we would also like to draw attention to more recent phenomena: the distortion ―linked to the rise of pseudohistory and amplified by digital media, social networks or artificial intelligence― of visions of the Middle Ages, which threatens to impoverish historical knowledge in favour of simplified and digestible formats.

Therefore, the aim of this conference is to promote historiographical reflection on all these different uses, narratives, representations and visions produced about the Middle Ages, in order to understand how these images of the period have been constructed. We encourage the submission of proposals for papers on any of the thematic lines aforementioned above by filling in the form with an abstract (max. 500 words) and a brief CV (max. 250 words) which can be found on the conference website. Abstracts proposals will be accepted in Spanish, English, French, and Portuguese. The interval for submitting proposals is between 15 May and 7 September 2025.

The scientific committee of the congress will evaluate the proposals received and will communicate the decision on their acceptance by 15 September. Then, between 16 September and 1 October, participants will have to formalise their registration through the conference website. The registration fee is €60 for general participants and €50 reduced for students and unemployed. Every person can only submit one communication, alone or in co-authorship. The organising committee is currently considering how to publish the different contributions, aspect on which we hope to provide more information in the upcoming months.

For those interested, attendance will be free, and those who wish to receive a certificate of participation will be able to do so upon registration for a fee of €15.

For more information, click here.

Call for Papers: New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Sarasota, Florida, 5-7 Mar. 2026), Due by 1 Oct. 2025

Call for Papers

New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Sarasota, Florida, 5-7 March 2026

Due by 1 October 2025

The twenty-third biennial New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies will take place 5–7 March 2026 in Sarasota, Florida.  The program committee invites 250-word abstracts of proposed twenty-minute papers on topics in European and Mediterranean history, literature, art, music and religion from the fourth to the seventeenth centuries. Planned sessions are welcome (see guidelines below), and interdisciplinary work is particularly appropriate to the conference’s broad historical and disciplinary scope. The deadline for all abstracts is 1 October 2025. 

Junior scholars whose abstracts are accepted are encouraged to submit their papers for consideration for the Snyder Prize (named in honor of conference founder Lee Snyder), which carries an honorarium of $400.

The Conference is held on the campus of New College of Florida, the honors college of the Florida state system. The college, located on Sarasota Bay, is adjacent to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, which will offer tours arranged for conference participants. Sarasota is noted for its beautiful public beaches, theater, food, art and music. Average temperatures in March are a pleasant high of 77f (25c) and a low of 57f (14c).

More information will be posted here on the conference website as it becomes available, including plenary speakers, conference events, and area attractions. Click here for a downloadable PDF of this CFP.

For more information, click here.

Call for Papers Extended: Contemporary Approaches to Archaeology, Speaking Archaeology ECR Conference (Online, 15-18 Aug. 2025), Due by 30 June 2025

Call for Papers Extended

Speaking Archaeology ECR Conference

Contemporary Approaches to Archaeology

Due By 30 June 2025

We are pleased to invite graduate and early career researchers to share their work with the archaeological community. We welcome papers from across all geographical and chronological contexts to be presented at the Speaking Archaeologically Early Career Researchers Conference from 15th to 18th August 2025. Abstracts should not exceed 250 words and must be submitted by 30th June 2025 to speakingarch@gmail.com along with a brief biographical statement.

THEMES MAY INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

• Digital Archaeology

• Managing Museum Collections

• Public Archaeology

• Decolonisation

• Prehistory

• Ethnoarchaeology and Oral Traditions in
  Archaeological Research

• Bioarchaeology

• Conservation Approaches to Built Heritage

• New Perspectives in Epigraphic and

• Numismatic Research

Please submit your abstracts using the google form link: https://lnkd.in/guC3TYNH

The conference will be held online on Microsoft Teams and would include traditional paper presentations. Presenters will also have the opportunity to publish their work in the ISSN approved Speaking Archaeologically Journal.

Registration Fees:

• International: £20

• Researchers based in India: Rs. 800

Please contact us at speakingarch@gmail.com in case of any questions!

Call for Papers Extended: CULTURAL SYNCRETISM IN THE LITERARY TRADITIONS OF THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES (Bologna, 10-12 Dec. 2025), Due by 13 July 202

Call for Papers Extended

CULTURAL SYNCRETISM IN THE LITERARY TRADITIONS OF THE EUROPEAN MIDDLE AGES: ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN GERMANIC REALITIES AND OTHER CULTURES

Italian Association of Germanic Philology/Associazione Italiana di Filologia Germanica

Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna, December 10th - 12th 2025

Due by 13 July 2025

The deadline for the doctoral conference organized by the Italian Association of Germanic Philology "Associazione Italiana di Filologia Germanica" has been extended (July 13) and we are looking forward to receiving your proposals. We remind you that selected speakers will have the opportunity to submit their papers for publication, following a process of double-blind peer review.

For a PDF of the call for Papers, click here, or or use the QR code in the poster; feel free to contact us at convegnophd@aifg.it for inquiries.

Call for Members: London Society for Medieval Studies Steering Committee, Due by 21 June 2025

Call for Members

London Society for Medieval Studies Steering Committee

Due by 21 June 2025

BNF, MS Francais 134, f. 169r

The London Society for Medieval Studies (LSMS) is seeking new members to join its steering committee for the 2025/26 academic year. Founded in 1970/1, the LSMS is one of the longest running seminar series at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. Organised by postgraduates and early career academics, our regular Tuesday seminars seek to foster knowledge of, and dialogue about, the Middle Ages among both scholars and the wider public in London.

We welcome expressions of interest from postgraduates (both MA and PhD) and early career academics specialising in any area of medieval studies, including (but not limited to) the arts, literature, archaeology, economy, and history of the Middle Ages. Our conception of "the medieval" is global, c. 500 - c. 1500.

This is a fantastic opportunity for those in the early stages of their academic careers to join an established forum for the dissemination and discussion of new research, and to gain experience of organising academic events, working collaboratively as part of a committee, chairing sessions, and networking with senior academics. Committee members are normally expected to serve for at least one academic year, and to commit to attending events in London during term time.

If you are interested in joining the LSMS, please send a short biography (of around 150 words), including details of your previous and current education/position and academic interests, to londonsocformedievalstudies@gmail.com. If you would like any further information, please contact us on the same email address. The LSMS only has a limited number of committee spaces available, so we encourage interested parties to get in touch as soon as possible and before the 21st of June.

Conference: Un art mamlouk: évolutions et questions d’attributions, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 23 June 2025, 9am-5.30pm (CEST)

Conference

Un art mamlouk: évolutions et questions d’attributions

Musée du Louvre, Paris

23 June 2025, 9am-5.30pm (CEST)

Plateau, Égypte ou Syrie, fin du XVe siècle, Paris, musée du Louvre, département des Arts de l’Islam, dépôt du musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen Âge, CL 2392 © 2024 Musée du Louvre, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Raphaël Chipault

Conçue en parallèle de l’exposition Mamlouks 1250-1517, cette journée d’études propose une relecture de l’art mamlouk à travers une approche interdisciplinaire et transrégionale, mobilisant l’histoire de l’art, l’archéologie et les analyses techniques. Elle vise à renouveler la compréhension des productions du sultanat mamlouk en s’appuyant sur des études de cas précis, enrichies par des apports méthodologiques récents et l’accès à de nouvelles sources.

Les interventions porteront sur une diversité de médiums – métal, verre, ivoire, textile, céramique – et interrogeront les critères d’attribution, les dynamiques d’atelier ainsi que les logiques de circulation des formes, des techniques et des objets. Les processus de création et l’évolution stylistique y seront abordés en recontextualisant les productions dans leur cadre sociopolitique, celui de l’Égypte et de la Syrie médiévales. Plusieurs communications examineront les notions de frontières stylistiques, d’hybridation et de réception, notamment entre traditions mamloukes et mongoles.

La rencontre se conclura par une présentation exceptionnelle consacrée au patrimoine architectural mamlouk de Gaza, aujourd’hui gravement endommagé ou détruit.

Organisée par le département des Arts de l’Islam du musée du Louvre et l’Université Lumière Lyon 2 / CIHAM

Lundi 23 juin 2025, de 9h à 17h30, Centre Dominique-Vivant Denon (Musée du Louvre, entrée Porte des Arts, face au Pont des Arts)

Sur inscription : programmation-centre-vivant-denon@louvre.fr 

See the programme here.

Call for Papers: British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Conference (Online, 27 Nov. 2025), Due by 31 July 2025

Call for Papers

British Archaeological Association Postgraduate Conference

Online, 27 November 2025

Due by 31 July 2025

The BAA invites proposals by postgraduate and early career researchers in the field of medieval art history, architecture and archaeology. Papers can be on any aspect of the medieval period, from antiquity to the Later Middle Ages, across all geographical regions.

Send proposals of about 250 words for a 20 minute paper along with CV, to postgradconf@thebaa.org by 31 July 2025.

The conference will take place online on Thursday 27 November, with potentially a second day on Friday 28 November

Call for Papers: Metropolitan Museum Journal, Due by 15 September 2025

Call for Papers

Metropolitan Museum Journal

Sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Due By 15 September 2025

The Editorial Board of the peer-reviewed Metropolitan Museum Journal invites submissions of original research on works in the Museum’s collection. Beginning with Volume 52 (2017), there will be two sections: Full-length Articles and Research Notes. Full-length Articles contribute extensive and thoroughly argued scholarship. Research Notes typically present a concise, neatly bounded aspect of ongoing study, such as the presentation of a new acquisition or attribution, or a specific, resonant finding from technical analysis. All texts must take works of art in the collection as the point of departure.

We look forward to receiving your submission, whether a first-time investigation or a critical reassessment from the Museum's vast holdings.

To be considered for the following year’s volume, the complete article must be submitted by September 15.

Click here for more information.

Click here to view inspiration from the Collection

View the Journal here

View the instructions for authors 

Exhibition: From the Vault: Collecting Tapestries at the Worcester Art Museum, Until 27 July 2025

Exhibition

From the Vault: Collecting Tapestries at the Worcester Art Museum

Gallery 223, Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts

May 3, 2025–July 27, 2025

Colijn de Coter, The Last Judgment, about 1500, wool and silk tapestry, Museum Purchase, 1935.2

Tapestries: intricately designed, meticulously crafted, and often staggering in size. Delve into the history of tapestries as an art form, the methods by which they were created, the fascinating stories that brought them to the Worcester Art Museum, and their important role as a source of artistic creativity and innovation across disparate cultures and time periods. From the Vault features nearly 30 works—rarely on view due to their sensitivity to light—including 12 large-format tapestries and tapestry fragments spanning Antiquity to the present day.

Among the works on view is the massive, remarkably detailed 16th-century Flemish Last Judgment tapestry. One of the most significant Renaissance tapestries in America, it measures over 12 feet tall and more than 26 feet wide and will be on view for the first time in nearly a decade. Another highlight, Jean Lurçat’s Harvest Time (1937), marks a revival of tapestries as a medium for modern expression through its bold forms and vivid colors. This exhibition also marks the museum debut of dream disk (2024), a new acquisition by LA-based artist Diedrick Brackens (b. 1989), who is known for his intricate textile art that explores themes of identity, race, and queerness through the narratives he weaves.

This exhibition is curated by Delaney Keenan, Assistant Curator of European Art, in collaboration with Claire C. Whitner, the Museum’s Director of Curatorial Affairs and James A. Welu Curator of European Art.

For more information on the exhibition, click here.

Exhibition: Dark Ages? Jewelry from the Visigoth, Ostrogoth and Frankish Kingdoms, Sam Fogg, London, Until 5 July 2025

Exhibition

Dark Ages? Jewelry from the Visigoth, Ostrogoth and Frankish Kingdoms

Sam Fogg, London, England

5 June - 4 July 2025

A belt buckle with garnet loop and saltire cross, c. 540-560, Visigothic Spain

Dark Ages? invites you to reconsider the narrative of decline often associated with the 5th to 7th centuries. Featuring intricately crafted belt buckles and brooches from the Visigothic, Merovingian, and Ostrogothic Kingdoms, the exhibition reveals a world rich in artistry and cultural vitality. Adorned with red garnets, vibrant glass inlays, and sumptuous gilding, these ornate objects challenge the notion of a cultural void and instead showcase an era of remarkable craftsmanship and aesthetic sophistication.

For more information, visit https://www.samfogg.com/exhibitions/63/.

Exhibition: Words on the Wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in Early Medieval Europe, National Museum of Ireland, Archaeology, Dublin, Until 24 October 2025

Exhibition

Words on the Wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in Early Medieval Europe

National Museum of Ireland

Archaeology, Kildare St, Dublin 2 D02 FH48

30th May 2025 until 24th October 2025

Detail showing St Matthew applying a scribal knife or scraper to a page and dipping his pen in an inkwell (Cod. Sang. 1395, p. 418). © Stiftsbibliothek, St. Gallen

Experience the magic of metal, stone and manuscript art from Ireland’s Golden Age in this unique exhibition of early medieval treasures at the National Museum of Ireland, Kildare St. Explore extraordinary journeys of people, books and ideas between medieval Ireland and Europe. Immerse yourself in precious manuscripts from the Abbey of St Gall, Switzerland — some returning to Ireland for the first time in 1000 years — alongside spectacular objects from the Irish world from which they emerged.

For more information on the exhibition, click here.

Exhibition: Text & SpiritIlluminated Manuscripts from the Museum Collection and Their Digitization, Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany, Until 22 June 2025

Exhibition

Text & SpiritIlluminated Manuscripts from the Museum Collection and Their Digitization

Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany

13 March – 22 June 2025

For the first time, the Museum Angewandte Kunst is showcasing its complete collection of late medieval illuminated manuscripts in the Text & Spirit exhibition. These include books and fragments decorated with exquisite illuminations and ornaments in gold, lapis lazuli or purple. What use are books of hours from the Middle Ages to us today though? Text & Spirit sheds light on various parallels between then and now, drawing a comparison between the books of hours and today’s smartphones.

The digital copies of the illuminated manuscripts and the cuttings can be found here in the digital collection.

For more information about the digitization project and the exhibition, click here.

Exhibition: Taught by the Pen: The World of Islamic Manuscripts, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT, Until 10 August 2025

Exhibition

Taught by the Pen: The World of Islamic Manuscripts

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT

Monday, February 24, 2025 to Sunday, August 10, 2025

The Qur’an declares that God taught humanity the use of the pen. Taking this commandment to heart, Muslim scholars systematically organized and extended almost every field of knowledge in astonishing new ways. For over a thousand years, this pursuit of knowledge set in motion exchanges with other artistic, religious, and scholarly communities. Through themes such as literature, religion, and science, this exhibition reveals that Islamic civilization has never been a homogeneous phenomenon: ideas and artistic practices always circulated between and among Muslims, Jews, Christians, and other faith communities. 

Yale Library’s collection of manuscripts produced in the Islamic world is among the largest and oldest in the United States. Taught by the Pen: The World of Islamic Manuscripts celebrates Islamic civilization and its interconnected artistic, religious, and scholarly traditions. Through 150 items from the 9th to the 20th centuries, visitors are invited to engage with the intellectual and aesthetic values and practices of the many peoples and communities encompassed by Islamic civilization. The exhibition sheds light on how these manuscripts—and the ideas they contain—were transmitted and disseminated. Gallery guests will encounter diverse books, from lavishly illuminated Qur’ans, elegant calligraphy albums, and delicately illustrated epics and chronicles to well-thumbed prayer books, beloved poetry collections, detailed maps, learned science and mathematics volumes, and more. The papers, inks, and bindings that transmit these ideas and genres reveal a continuity of artistic traditions and new innovations in works from the Middle East to North Africa, Europe, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, and North America.

This exhibition is co-curated by Roberta L. Dougherty, Yale Library’s librarian for Middle East studies, Özgen Felek, a lector of Ottoman in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and Agnieszka Rec, curator at the Beinecke Library.  

For more information, visit https://beinecke.library.yale.edu/taughtbythepen

Exhibition: Summon the Chimeras: Medieval Heritage in Contemporary Art, Musée de Cluny, Paris, France, Until 20 July 2025

Exhibition

Summon the Chimeras: Medieval heritage in contemporary art

Musée de Cluny, Paris, France

25 March 2025 - 20 July 2025

This exhibition presents a number of artworks from the Fonds régional d’art contemporain Île-de-France (Île-de-France Regional Contemporary Art Fund), by artists working in the realm of the fantastical, carrying on the legacy of the medieval predilection for the hybrid and outlandish figures that inhabit our imaginations, tinged with the sense of heroic fantasy that is a frequent gateway to the Middle Ages – an often-romanticised era.

Moving through the museum, these chimeras are scattered among the museum’s own artworks, offering their interpretations of western medieval art and perpetuating its sources and their meanings: those of a predominantly Christian world imbued with spirituality, in which the visible and invisible are intertwined.

These contemporary artworks create a dialogue with medieval architecture and sculpture, in that their forms and patterns share the same wondrous, natural, botanical and animal inspirations. Many are also rooted in the history of decorative arts and religious ornaments; by revisiting the shapes of drinking horns, aquamaniles or reliquaries, for example, they refresh our imaginations of ancient customs and uses. The world that interests these contemporary artists is, first and foremost, a time that precedes the humanism of the Renaissance and the rationalism of the Enlightenment; a time whose everyday workings they strive to perceive. Directly echoing the historical artefacts showcased in the museum, these artworks help us explore the social conventions and activities of a world unto itself.

The same ancient traditions, legends and texts that fuelled the inspiration of medieval artists can be found in Jacopo Belloni’s “Green Man”, Corentin Darré’s drinking horns, Frederik Exner’s frogs and Xolo Cuintle’s “Soft Acanthus”, all of which speak to the pervasive animal and botanical motifs that permeate artworks of the past. Youri Johnson and Marion Verboom perpetuate certain votive practices by imagining contemporary forms of devotion, in which the same taste for the affective seems to forge a link between the eras, and enables us to grasp the internalisation of faith. The religious sphere generates artistic creation, and the works of Diego Giacometti and Alison Flora help us to understand the supernatural or divine power invoked therein. Finally, Erik Dietman and Richard Fauguet create echoes of items used in everyday and aristocratic life, while Lou le Forban does the same for popular and festive artefacts.

We thereby come to understand the historical transformations or legacies from which the artists, who are themselves visitors to the museum, draw inspiration in order to communicate the richness of a history that continues to fuel our imaginations and everyday customs, via the tastes and practices that emerged or took hold during the medieval era.

The exhibition is being held as part of the Berserk & Pyrrhia, art contemporain et art médiéval (“Berserk & Pyrrhia, Contemporary and Medieval Art”) programme, curated by Céline Poulin, director of the Frac Île-de-France.

Séverine Lepape, director of the Musée de Cluny, thanks the Frac, the artists and the Musée de Cluny team for putting this exhibition together.

For more information, visit https://www.musee-moyenage.fr/en/activities/exhibitions/medieval-and-contemporary-art.html