Lecture Series: Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group (10 May, 17 May, & 7 June 2024 (Fridays, 5pm GMT)), Register by 1 May, 10 May, & 31 May 2024

Lecture Series

Oxford Medieval Manuscripts Group

Merton College, Oxford University

10 May, 17 May, & 7 June 2024 (Fridays, 5pm GMT)

Register by 1 May, 10 May, & 31 May 2024

This is a new seminar series whose goal is to foster a community at Oxford University, and beyond, of those who study medieval manuscripts. With a particular focus on illuminated manuscripts, we will be discussing the most exciting recent research in this field; sharing our own projects and ideas in a supportive and friendly environment; learning from seminars given by experienced colleagues; and examining medieval manuscripts together during library visits.

Seminars will take place on Fridays at 17:00, at Merton College, unless otherwise specified.

To subscribe to our mailing list, participate in library visits, propose a presentation of your research for work in progress meetings, or submit any queries, please write to: mailto:elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk

Friday 10 May 2024 (3rd Week, Trinity Term)

Friday 17 May 2024 (4th Week, Trinity Term)

Friday 7 June 2024 (7th Week, Trinity Term)

Series organisers: Elena Lichmanova (Merton), Mathilde Mioche, Fergus Bovill, Celeste Pan, Irina Boeru, Charly Driscoll, Ana Dias, Klara Zhao

Online Lecture Series: Material Migrations I, 29 April - 09 September 2024 (5pm CET)

Online Lecture Series

Material Migrations I

29 April - 09 September 2024 (5pm CET)

The “Material Migrations” lecture series centers issues of object mobility, transcultural dynamics, and notions of connectivity and resistance with case studies from the Middle Ages until today. Connected to the international collaborative research project “Material Migrations: Mamluk Metalwork across Afro-Eurasia”, funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation and directed by Gertrude Aba Mansah Eyifa-Dzidzienyo and Vera-Simone Schulz, the online lecture series sheds new light on the lives and afterlives of objects, but also counterbalances an object-centered with a people-centered approach. Interdisciplinary in nature, the series brings together researchers and cultural practitioners from different institutions across the globe, fostering nuanced analyses that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. Through engagement with art history, history, archaeology, anthropology, literary studies, and contemporary art, the lectures offer innovative perspectives on questions of canonization and the overcoming of canons, on visual and material culture, critical museology, critical heritage studies, preservation, conservation, and questions of care. The first round of talks and conversations this year will focus on Afro-Eurasian and global dynamics, on Durbi Takusheyi as a hub for people and objects crisscrossing the African continent, on objects and materials in relation to sites and the environment, on the present and future of heritage sites and museums, on contemporary approaches to Black presence in the Uffizi galleries, and on present pasts in the medium of film. Illuminating the interconnectedness of human experiences and material artifacts, “Material Migrations” highlights their enduring significance in contemporary contexts.

The on-going lecture series is free, online and open to the public. Everyone is welcome to register and attend. A follow-up program will be published in the coming months.

For more information on the “Material Migrations” project, please visit: https://lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/material_migrations_mamluk_metalwork_across_afro_eurasia
Program

Monday, April 29, 5pm CET
Albrecht Fuess (Philipps-Universität Marburg): A Clash between Muslim Empires: The Struggle between Ottomans, Mamluks and Safavids in the Years 1470-1520

Monday, May 20, 5pm CET
Akanni Olusegun Opadeji (MOWAA): New Light on Durbi Takusheyi and the Katsina Excavations

Registration link: click here

Monday, May 27, 5pm CET
Mark Seyram Amenyo-Xa (University of Ghana): The Forts and Castles of Ghana: 4+ Decades of World Heritage Status

Registration link: click here

Monday, June 24, 5pm CET
Musa Oluwaseyi Hambolu (University of Jos, former Director of Research, NCMM Nigeria): The Present and Future of Museums in Nigeria

Registration link: click here

Monday, July 1, 5pm CET
Jenny Bulstrode (University College London): The Cogs and the Wheels in the Webs of Resistance

Registration link: click here

Monday, July 15, 5pm CET
Justin Randolph Thompson (The Recovery Plan): The Limitations of Presence: Contested Framings of Access

Registration link: click here

Monday, September 9, 5pm CET
Elizabeth Lambourn (De Montfort University): Metals and Models: The Exchange of Technologies between Aden and the Malabar Coast as Recorded in Geniza Documents

Registration link: click here

This first round of the online series will also include a virtual screening of:

“Il Moro”, the Oscar longlisted film on the life of the Duke of Florence Alessandro de’ Medici of African descent followed by a discussion with the film director Daphne Di Cinto. Information how to register for this event will be made available on the Gerda Henkel website

Concept and organization: Gertrude Aba Mansah Eyifa-Dzidzienyo and Vera-Simone Schulz

Call for Papers: Southeast European Silversmithing: Artisans, Donors, and the Concept of Piety During the Early Modern Period, Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian academy of sciences, Due 15 May 2024

Call for Papers for International Conference

Southeast European Silversmithing: Artisans, Donors, and the Concept of Piety During the Early Modern Period

Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian academy of sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria, 17-18 October 2024

Deadline: 15 May 2024

Commissioning and donation of liturgical objects is among the most vivid manifestations of religiosity and an expression of pious devotion to God. Through the centuries, gradually, more sacred silver objects and various sources of information about them reached us which gave the art historians a unique opportunity to examine and understand the impact of material culture in shaping the religious life of Christians. Despite the increasing number of studies dedicated to the historical, technological, iconographical, and functional aspects of liturgical objects which undoubtedly are giving us a much better understanding of them, we still know comparatively little about the silversmiths, the organisation of their profession and the artistic process, the donors and the circumstances of their commissions. In other words, we, as researchers in that field, often struggle to identify all the stipulations that resulted in the emergence of church utensils made of precious metals.

The conference will focus on the issues regarding the manufacturing and circulation of liturgical objects as well as their role in the construction of the pious image of the believers in Southeast Europe during the early modern period. We believe that this research area offers a good potential for academic discussion and interdisciplinary investigations combining art historical methods with critical analysis of a variety of written sources, archival documentation, and contemporary approaches in humanitarian studies. We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers exploring material across the topic that deal with either case studies or broader methodological questions. Papers that take an interdisciplinary approach, breaking the traditional boundaries between art history and history, especially economic history and the history of guilds, and museum studies, are particularly welcome. Topics of interest may include, but are not limited to: 

  • Commission and donation of liturgical objects. 

  • Objects reflecting personal and collective piety through the mechanisms of production and donorship. 

  • Social status of donors and silversmiths within the society and their “biographies”. 

  • Production of liturgical objects, issues of artistic process and technological peculiarities. 

  • Silversmiths’ guilds, professional organization, state regulations and control on precious metals. 

  • Interaction of silversmiths’ guild with local Church authorities and other institutions. Manufacturing and trading liturgical objects. 

  • Circulation of liturgical objects and mobility of silversmiths. 

  • Provenance and hallmarks on liturgical objects, style, attribution and authorship. 

  • The „afterlife“ of profane silver as liturgical objects in the secondary use, transformation and utilisation of exotic materials for sacred purposes. 

  • Liturgical silver as a deposit for the state economy in peace and war.

  • Liturgical objects in written sources such as various types of chronicles, inventories, wills, travel accounts, memoirs, marginal notes, etc. 

  • Inscriptions on liturgical objects and their interpretation.

Academic research on wider aspects of the topic such as exploring the destiny of liturgical objects through time, their later “life”, and changes in form and function, the place of church utensils and silversmithing in art historiography, archival documents and photographs, and museum and private collections, will also be considered. 

We are inviting papers in all relevant disciplines and scholars working on similar topics in areas other than art history are encouraged to apply. 

The conference’s working languages will be English and Bulgarian. Please submit your abstracts of 400 words in English no later than 15 May 2024 and a short biography of 300 words, including email and current affiliation. 

You should also provide a personal photo for use on the conference website. 

Prospective conference participants will be notified if their paper has been accepted no later than 25 May 2024. Please note that the accommodation costs for speakers will be covered.

The conference papers are planned to be published by 2026. All information about the conference, including participants and proposed abstracts will be made available on the website of the conference and the website of the Liturgical Objects in the Context of Silversmith’s Art During the Ottoman period (Based on Materials from the Diocese of Plovdiv) project. Please send your applications to: southeasteusilversmithing@gmail.com or liturgicalobjectsproject@gmail.com

Academic Committee: 

  • Darina Boykina, PhD, Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,

  • Republic of Bulgaria

  • Mateja Jerman, PhD, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and

  • Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka, Republic of Croatia

  • Vuk Dautović, PhD, Department of History of Art, Faculty of Philosophy, University

  • of Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

Organising Committee:

  • Darina Boykina, PhD, Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,

  • Republic of Bulgaria

  • Tereza Bacheva, PhD, Institute of Art Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,

  • Republic of Bulgaria

Timeline:

  • Open CFPs: 15 March 2024

  • Deadline for submission of abstracts and CVs: 15 May 2024

  • Feedback on abstracts: 25 May 2024

  • Date of the conference: 17 – 18 October 2024

  • Submission of papers for publication: 30 June 2025

Further Information

  • You can download the invitation for the conference here.

  • You can download the application form here.

  • Find out more here.

Conference: Connecting Stucco in the Mediterranean (c. 300 BCE- c. 1200 CE), Methodological approaches and the State of Research, Bilkent University, Türkiye, 16-18 May 2024

Conference

Connecting Stucco in the Mediterranean (c. 300 BCE- c. 1200 CE)

Methodological approaches and the State of Research

Bilkent University, Üniversiteler, 06800 Çankaya/Ankara, Türkiye

16-18 May 2024

The use of plaster reliefs (stuccoes) as architectural decoration is a well-known phenomenon in the Mediterranean, with roots already in ancient Egyptian architecture. However, it has been mainly studied within the boundaries of specific disciplines and chronological specialisations. While this allowed scholars to recognise the relationship of stucco with specific architectural traditions and technologies, it did not allow to spot long-term trends and cross-cultural interactions. This is due to the lack of coordination of scholarship on the study of stucco, which appears to develop at different speeds and aim at different goals depending on the field of study. For example, in the field of Islamic art and archaeology, stucco has mainly been studied in terms of stylistic and iconographic aspects in order to spot cultural exchanges within the Islamicate world; the technological aspect has only recently started to be addressed with archaeometric analyses. At the same time, research on Western Medieval stuccoes benefitted from a more holistic approach, which started to answer the changes in iconography, style, and technologies from the Late Antique to the Early Medieval period. However, the last comprehensive publications on the subject date to the early 2000s and little has been done since then, especially on the archaeometric analyses and their interpretation. The study of stucco makers, their legal and social status have been analysed for Roman stucco and partially for the Western Medieval world, while it is largely missing for the other fields of study on stucco in the period of interest here. The knowledge of Byzantine stucco is still in its infancy, lacking archaeometric analysis and not going beyond the single case studies, except for a limited number of studies.

Despite this dispersed character of research on stucco, many important studies on this material have been produced in the recent decades and the academic community has had multiple occasions to discuss stucco at various conferences and workshops. Therefore, we feel it is time to connect these efforts and address common questions that can help to see long-term phenomena and cross-cultural exchanges in the Mediterranean.

For more information, https://connectingstucco.com/

To register, https://connectingstucco.com/2023/10/15/registration-form/

For any questions please contact: connectingstucco@gmail.com

Publication of the conference proceedings is planned.

Conference programme

Thursday, 16th May – Bilkent University Campus C-Amphi Block

8:30-9:00 Registration and tea/coffee.

9:00-9:10 Opening remarks by Dominique Kassab Tezgör (Chair, Department of Archaeology) and Simon Wigley (Dean, Faculty of Humanities)

9:10-10:00 Opening lecture The “Byzantine” Mediterranean in transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (ca. 500-ca.900).

Luca Zavagno (Bilkent University).

10:00-10:20 Tea and coffee break.

10:20-11:20 Keynote lecture Looking Forwards, Looking Back: The state of the field of Medieval Stucco Studies in the Wider Mediterranean region

Richard McClary (University of York).

11:30-12:30 Session 1: Use and perception of stucco from the Roman to the Late Antique period

Chair: Dominique Kassab Tezgör (Bilkent University)

Stuccowork in the Herodian Palaces – A Roman influence in first-century BCE Middle East?

Lena Naama Sharabi (Hebrew University, Jerusalem).

Decorated stucco moulded cornices and faux-marble columns from Dura Europos (3rd cent. CE): ideological choice or practical necessity?

Barbara Crostini (Uppsala University).

12:30-13:30 Lunch 

13:30-15:00 Session 2: Stucco in the Late Antique built spaces

Chair: Roland Smith (Bilkent University)

When Change is a Relief: Stucco surfaces and aesthetic values in Late Antiquity.

Jessica Plant (University of Cambridge).

On a group of standing saints in stucco or the perception of “γυψοπλασίας“ in Late Antiquity.

Stefanie Archut (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn).

The virtual reconstruction of the Umayyad period revetments from Khirbat al Mafjar.

Ignacio Arce (German Jordanian University).

15:00-15:15 Tea and coffee break.

15:15-16:45 Session 3: Technical aspects in the Early Middle Ages: East and West

Chair: tbc

Stucco techniques in Lombard and Carolingian Architecture: insights from the “Tempietto Longobardo” in Cividale, the Church of St. Benedict in Mals, and the Monastery of St. John in Müstair.

Luca Villa and Patrick Cassitti (Stiftung Pro Kloster St. Johann).

Early Islamic Prefabricated Stuccowork.

Andrea Luigi Corsi (University of York).

Byzantine stucco recipes in the Mediterranean context (10th -11th c.)- first data from archaeometrical analyses.

Flavia Vanni, Eirini Tsardaka and Georgios Karagiannis (Newcastle University – Ormylia Art & Diagnosys Center).

16:45-17:00 Break

17:00-17:40 Session 4: New technologies for researching architectural decorations

Abstract modelling and virtual photography as architectural method for visualising uncertain archaeological knowledge.

Dominik Lengyel (Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus – Senftenberg)

Q&A for the poster: STUCCO: Stuccoes from the Roman Necropolises of Pozzuoli (1st-3rd century CE, Campania, Italy)- Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.

Dorothée Neyme (Université Paris Nanterre – CNR)

20:00 Speakers’ Dinner.


Friday, 17th May – Erimtan Museum, Ankara

9:00-9:10 Welcome speech by Nazan Gezer (Director of the Erimtan Museum)

9:15-10:15 Session 5: Between the Sassanian and Islamic stucco production (1)

Chair: Lutgarde Vandeput (Director of BIAA)

Stucco productions from Gawr Tepe (KRI, Iraq). Preliminary results of a MiSAK-eartHeritage multidisciplinary and comparative study.

Luca Colliva and Serenella Mancini (MiSAK – Alma Mater Studiorum-Università di Bologna).

The production process of traditional Gypsum in Iranian architecture. Case study: Takht-e Soleyman world heritage site.

Mozaffar Abbaszadeh and Mohammad Jafarpanah (Urmia University – Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran).

10:15-10:30 Tea and coffee break.

10:30-12:00 Session 6: Between the Sassanian and Islamic stucco production (2)

Chair: tbc.

The Ghassanid and Umayyad stucco revetments from Qasr al Hallabat.

Ignacio Arce (German Jordanian University).

East versus West: the origins of the Umayyad style in the art of stucco.

Siyana Georgieva (UniToscana).

Beyond borders: exploring the dispersed stucco treasures of Kharg Island.

Hassan Moradi (National Museum of Iran, Teheran).

12:10-13:40 Session 7: Methodological aspects

Chair: Pelin Yoncanci (METU)

Exploring the aesthetic harmony: Islamic stucco patterns and calligraphy in Architectural Design.

Engy Farrag (Delta University).

Methodological approach to characterize two stucco collections from Iran in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Atefeh Shekofteh and Federico Caro (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

Some remarks and recommendations for examination of Mediterranean stuccoes based on research of Medieval Persian carved stuccos, tiles and wall paintings.

Ana Marija Grbanovic (Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg).

13:40-14:30 Lunch.

14:30-15:30 Session 8: People, materials, and images on the move from the Persian Gulf to Egypt (1)

Chair: Alessandro Carabia (University of Birmingham)

Stucco workshops in the Early Islamic Bilad al-Sham and the Arabian/Persian Gulf. The problem of artistic patronage.

Agnieszka Lic (Polish Academy of Sciences).

Tracing decorative dialogues: cultural exchange and artistic assimilation in stucco and brickwork between the Iranian world and Armenian region in 11th-13th centuries.

Miriam Leonetti (Università di Firenze).

15:30-15:45 Tea and coffee break.

15:45-16:45 Session 9: People, materials, and images on the move from the Persian Gulf to Egypt (2)

Chair: Richard McClary (University of York).

The long-distance mobility of Iranian stucco craftsmanship in Cairo.

Leila Danesh (University of York).

How Mamluk stucco decorations inspired Revival architects during the 19th -20th Century AD?

Menna Naguib (Alexandria University).


Saturday 18th May – Bilkent University Campus C-Amphi Block

9:00-9:30 Roundtables.

9:35-10:10 Plenary discussion.

10:15-10:30 Closure remarks by Luca Zavagno, Flavia Vanni and Agnieszka Lic.

Afternoon: Visit to Ankara’s Castle and goodbyes.

Call for Submissions: 'Making for an uncertain future: material ecocritical approaches around the year 1000', Special Issue of Medieval Ecocriticisms, Due 10 June 2024

Call for Submissions

Special Issue of Medieval Ecocriticisms

Making for an uncertain future: material ecocritical approaches around the year 1000

Due 10 June 2024

This issue of Medieval Ecocriticisms looks at the abundant superfluity (or excess) of the long millennial moment, positioning it in dialogue with the anticipated end of the world in 1000, both anticipatory and hereditary, with all of its forecast systemic, ecological and eschatological collapse. In suggesting this, and in looking at this material through the lens of crisis, time and environment, we find ideas of what it might mean to live in the long end times of a/the ecological long durée of an uncertain future. We invite thoughts around how medieval millennial material, its art and literature might foreshadow the Anthropocene, particularly given how it might, in some way, be responding to the climactic non-apocalypse of 1000 that was forecast, but not realised.

Although there has been some scholarly discomfort around using the past as a tool for discussing later times and paradigms, this issue suggests that the past can be employed as a resource for other ways of thinking about the present and perhaps also the future. Thus, the eschatologically charged period that immediately anticipated the millennium, and the uncertain apotropaism and socio-temporal ‘renaissance’ of the Romanesque, together with their sculpted objects that perform as nodes responding to a network of anticipated crisis, might provide us, as eco-critically thoughtful and materially engaged medievalists, and as a society more broadly, with a critical parallel for thinking about current ecological events.

We ask contributors to think about the ways in which medieval millennial material may:

  • Connect or disrupt the medieval and the ‘modern’

  • Respond to the here and now, there and then, elsewhere and other-when

  • Consist of both deep time and deep history

  • React to or disrupt momentary or epochal thinking

  • Respond to crisis or an anticipated event that failed to happen or is still unfolding

  • Ask where and how we live

  • Think about place, environment, and ecology

  • Frame relationships between the human and non-human

Papers around 6000 words are sought. Please submit an abstract (300 word maximum) and cv to Meg Boulton (meg.boulton@york.ac.uk) and Meg Bernstein (bernsteinm@alfred.edu).

For more information on the journal, https://wmich.edu/medievalpublications/journals/ecocriticisms

Exhibition Closing: ARTS IN FRANCE DURING THE TIME OF CHARLES VII (1422-1461), Musée de Cluny, Ends 16 June 2024

Exhibition Closing

ARTS IN FRANCE DURING THE TIME OF CHARLES VII (1422-1461)

Musée de Cluny, 28 rue Du Sommerard 75005 Paris

Ends 16 June 2024

The exhibition “Arts in France during the time of Charles VII (1422-1461)” is organised by the Musée de Cluny – Musée National du Moyen Âge and the GrandPalaisRmn.
Several curators from major national institutions have been brought together for the exhibition, including Mathieu Deldicque, Chief Heritage Curator, Director of the Musée Condé in Chantilly, Maxence Hermant, Chief Curator at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Department of Manuscripts, Medieval Manuscripts Collection and Sophie Lagabrielle, Head Curator at the Musée de Cluny, in charge of paintings, stained glass and graphic arts. Séverine Lepape, Director of the Musée de Cluny and Head Conservator, is the Chief Curator.

The exhibition is organised with the exceptional collaboration of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

It is supported by The Selz Foundation, The Ruddock Foundation for the Arts, the Fondation Etrillard and The New York Medieval Society.

For more information about the exhibition, click here and/or visit https://www.musee-moyenage.fr/en/activities/exhibitions/current-exhibitions.html

Call for Submissions: 2024 Stephen Croad Prize, Historic Buildings & Places, Deadline 2 August 2024

Call for Submissions

Historic Buildings & Places

2024 Stephen Croad Prize

Deadline: 2 August 2024

Do you have a new discovery on historical buildings of England and Wales?

Stephen Croad was an author, researcher and archivist of architectural history and during his career and in his voluntary roles made a profound impact on our knowledge and understanding of the UK’s architectural history.

In Stephen’s memory Historic Buildings & Places now run an annual competition, with a prize award of £500, to encourage new architectural research and writing.

In the spirit of Stephen’s own research and practice, the essay should be on factually verifiable, documented new discoveries on the historic buildings of England and Wales, whether less examined or part of the established canon.

Please read the linked document below for the full set of conditions for making a submission.

Conditions for Stephen Croad Prize.

Submissions should include the author’s full name and contact details and be sent to: editor@hbap.org.uk with the subject heading Stephen Croad Prize 2024.

Essays will be judged by the members of an expert panel and the decision of the panel will be final; the panel will reserve the right to make no award.

The winner of the award will be presented with a certificate at the Historic Buildings & Places’ Annual Lecture, held on Monday 2nd December 2024 at the Alan Baxter Gallery. We ask that the winner attend the Annual Lecture to give a brief talk about their essay and to receive the certificate.

The deadline for submission is 2 August 2024.

There is no age limit for contributors, and we welcome all contributions.

For more information, https://hbap.org.uk/2024-stephen-croad-prize/

Call for Participation: Medieval Art History Tomorrow: A Whiteboard Session, 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies, 11 May 2024 10:00-11:30 AM

Call for ParTiCipation

Medieval Art History Tomorrow: A Whiteboard Session

59th International Congress on Medieval Studies (Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI), 2024

Saturday, May 11, 10:00-11:30am
Sangren Hall 1730 [Session 344]

Organized by Ben Tilghman, Eliza Garrison, and Nina Rowe and Sponsored by Different Visions

Which theoretical approaches can best move the field of medieval art history into the future? Which objects or sites are well-suited to analysis energized by current priorities for the discipline? How can we work collectively and systematically to pursue research that realizes anti-racist principles and provides colleagues and students with tools for analyzing social inequity and environmental degradation?

“Medieval Art History Tomorrow” will be a whiteboard session in which Workshop Leaders will offer short presentations on a critical text and an object or site, making the case for how these materials can steer the field, and move it forward. Attendees of the session will be part of a workshop through which we aim to ignite a dynamic discussion and confirm a plan for linked projects to be pursued over the coming years. At the ICMS 2025, participants will reconvene to share findings and refine the projects’ goals. At the ICMS 2026, participants will deliver polished papers presenting the research kindled by our discussions and consider next steps.

Come join the conversation!

Pre-Registration and Preparation for the Workshop are encouraged but not required

  • The Workshop will be the most productive if participants arrive having reviewed the four texts selected by our Workshop Leaders. PDFs are linked to the titles in the list below.

  • And it will help with our preparations to know how many colleagues to expect. So if you plan to attend, please register by sending an email to: medievalarthistorytomorrow@gmail.com, giving your name, student or professional status, and general field/s of scholarship (“art history,” “gender studies,” “environmental studies,” and the like – nothing more specific than that).

Workshop Leaders and their Readings

Ground Rules for the ICMS Workshop

  • We encourage broad and open conversation about the texts and sites, and will map next steps for a collaborative investigation inspired by the discussion.

    1. This is a brainstorming session: no idea is dumb. Together, we will work towards bold and creative new ways of approaching our objects of study.

For more information, https://differentvisions.org/medieval-art-history-tomorrow-2024/

Call for Applications: Dumbarton Oaks Mentorship Program for East-Central European Scholars, Co-organized with North of Byzantium and Connected Central European Worlds, 1500-1700, Deadline 12 May 2024

Call for Applications

Dumbarton Oaks Mentorship Program for East-Central European Scholars

Co-organized with North of Byzantium and Connected Central European Worlds, 1500-1700

Deadline: 12 May 2024

We invite applications for a remote four-session mentorship program tailored to early-career scholars, with a special focus on those affected by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The four sessions will take place in Fall of 2024 (September-November) and Spring of 2025 (February-April).

We encourage historians and art historians with a specialty in the medieval or early modern visual culture of East-Central Europe to apply to this program. The successful applicants should be advanced PhD candidates (within 1 year of completion of their degrees) or junior-level scholars (up to 5 years since graduation with a doctoral degree).

The deadline for applications is May 12, 2024.

For more information,
https://www.doaks.org/research/fellowships-and-awards/opportunities-ukraine-scholars

Call for Sessions: Mary Jaharis Center Sponsored Panel, 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Deadline: 13 May 2024


Call for Sessions

Mary Jaharis Center Sponsored Panel, 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 8–10, 2024

Deadline: 13 May 2024

Bowl with Fish (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Christopher C. Grisanti and Suzanne P. Fawbush, 2000, 2000.322)

To encourage the integration of Byzantine studies within the scholarly community and medieval studies in particular, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for a Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 8–10, 2024. 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 May 13, 2024.

If the proposed session is approved, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 4 session participants (presenters and moderator) up to $800 maximum for scholars traveling from North America and up to $1400 maximum for those traveling from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided.

For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/60th-icms.

Contact Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

International conference: Refinement and/or Reduction? Gothic Art, Architecture and Culture, c. 1250 to 1350 (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, 23-25 May 2024), Register By 12 May 2024

International conference

Refinement and/or Reduction?
Gothic Art, Architecture and Culture, c. 1250 to 1350

Institut für Kunstgeschichte und Archäologien Europas
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg
23.05.–25.05.2024

Register By 12 May 2024

Concept and organization:
Prof. Dr Ute Engel (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg)
Prof. Dr Christian Freigang (Freie Universität Berlin)

The international conference aims at an interdisciplinary reassessment of Gothic art and architecture between c. 1250 and 1350 in a broad European perspective. With an increased diversity of patrons and new technical facilities, the design options for artists and architects alike extended to a virtuoso refinement across media, on the one hand. On the other hand, new modes of reduction emerge, probably originating in economic, technical or programmatic tendencies of the time. The conference elucidates and discusses the cultural background of this paradoxical situation. Additionally, the conference intends to honour Paul Frankl (1878–1962), professor of the History of Art at the University of Halle 1921–1934. Forced into American exile, he became one of the leading scholars of the Gothic, based at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton from 1940 onwards.

For more information, https://www.ikare.uni-halle.de/kunstgeschichte/forschung/tagungen/gotiktagung2024/

Programme

Thursday, 23.05.2024

15.00 h Registration
16.00 h Welcome

PANEL 1
GOTHIC ART AND ARCHITECTURE C. 1250 TO 1350, AND ITS HISTORIOGRAPHY
(Chairs: Prof. Dr Ute Engel and Prof. Dr Christian Freigang)

16.15 h
Prof. Dr Ute Engel (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg):
"Refinement and/or Reduction c. 1250 to 1350: An Introduction"

16.45 h
Prof. Dr Christian Freigang (Freie Universität Berlin):
“‘Doktrinäre Gotik – Reduktionsgotik‘. Architectural History between Criticism of Academicism and Theory of Space”

17.15 h
Prof. Dr Beatrice Kitzinger (Princeton University):
"Encountering Paul Frankl in the Princeton Archive"
17.45 h Discussion

19.00 h KEYNOTE LECTURE
Prof. Dr Paul Binski (University of Cambridge):
“Subtlety and Gothic Architecture”

20.00 h Reception


Friday, 24.5.2024

PANEL 2
PARIS AND COURT CULTURE
(Chair: Dr Antje Fehrmann)

9.00 h
Prof. Dr Dany Sandron (Sorbonne Université, Paris):
"Opus parisianum? Architecture in Paris c. 1250–1350"

9.30  h
Prof. Dr Lindy Grant (University of Reading):
“The Aesthetics of  Asceticism: Louis IX and Court Culture after the Return from the  1248–1254 Crusade”

10.00 h
Prof. Dr Michael T. Davis (Mount  Holyoke College):
"Synthesis, Invention and Transformation in French  Gothic Architecture, 1250–1320 "

10.30 h Discussion

10.45 h Coffee/Tea

PANEL 3
BEYOND PARIS  
(Chair: Prof. Dr Ute Engel)

11.15 h
Prof. Dr Michaelis Olympios (University of Cyprus, Nicosia):
"Architecture and Ritual at the Laon Cathedral Chapels"

11.45 h
Prof. Dr Christoph Brachmann (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill):
„The Simultaneity of the Non-Simultaneous”

12.15 h
Prof. Dr Etienne Hamon (Université de Lille):
"The Updating of Graphic Models from the 1300s in 15th-century Architecture and Decorative Arts: Some Examples from Central France"

12.45 h Discussion

13.00 h Lunch break

PANEL 4
CENTRES IN THE SOUTH  
(Chair: Prof. Dr Christian Freigang)

14.30 h
Dr Markus Schlicht (Université Bordeaux Montaigne):
"Refinement to Reduction: The Choir of Bordeaux Cathedral (from 1252)"

15.00  h
Dr Alexandra Gajewski (Burlington Magazine, London):
“Becoming a  Papal Residence: Churches and Chapels in Avignon, from John XXII to  Clement VI"

15.30 h
Dr Tom Nickson (Courtauld Institute of Art, London):
“Two for One? Berenguer de Montagut, Manresa, and Catalan Gothic”

16.00 h Discussion

16.15 h Coffee/Tea

PANEL 5
CROSS-MEDIA FIGURATIONS
(Chair: Prof. Dr Juliane von Fircks)

16.45 h
Prof. Dr Brigitte Kurmann-Schwarz (Universität Zürich)/Prof. Dr Peter Kurmann (Université de Fribourg):
„French Architecture and Stained Glass in Dialogue (1250–1350)“

17.15 h
Prof. Dr Tim Ayers (University of York):
“More or Less? The Chapter House and its Vestibule at York Minster”

17.45 h
Prof. Dr Evelin Wetter (Abegg-Stiftung, Riggisberg/Universität Leipzig):
"Embroidered Image and Surface. On the Reduction of the Background to Colour and Material in the Works of the  Opus anglicanum"

18.15 h Discussion


Saturday, 25.5.2024

PANEL 6
INNOVATION AND INVENTION
(Chair: Dr Sascha Köhl)

9.00 h
Prof. Dr Marc Carel Schurr (Universität Trier):
"Less is more - Strasbourg Cathedral and the 'Avant-garde' of Architecture around 1300"

9.30 h
Prof. Dr Jacqueline Jung (Yale University, New Haven):
"Refinements   of Time in Monumental Narrative Relief Sculpture after 1250"

10.00 h
PD Dr Christian Kayser (Technische Universität, München):
"The Western Tower of Freiburg Minster and the Invention of the Gothic Openwork Spire"

10.30 h Discussion

10.45 h Coffee/Tea

PANEL 7
CITYSCAPES
(Chair: Prof. Dr Markus Späth)

11.15 h
Dr Tobias Kunz (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin):
"Not Only Paris. Foreign Innovations and their Consequences in Cologne Sculpture"

11.45 h
Dr Zoe Opacic (Birkbeck College, University of London):
"Erfordia turrita: 'Reduktionsgotik' and Urban Refinement in Fourteenth-century Erfurt"

12.15 h
Dr Zoltán Bereczki (University of Debrecen):
“Franciscan Monasteries in the Medieval Cityscape. A Case Study of Sopron (HU) and Bratislava (SK)"

12.45 h Discussion

13.00 h Lunch break


PANEL 8
EUROPEAN TRANSFER
(Chair: Prof. Dr Christian Freigang)

14.00 h
Prof. Dr Robert Bork (University of Iowa):
“Reflections on Refinement: Plasticity versus Planarity between France and Germany, 1250–1350”

14.30 h
Prof. Dr Jakub Adamski (University of Warsaw):
“Strasbourg – Wrocław – Cracow. On the Transfer of Modern Architectural Design from the Upper Rhine Valley to Southern Poland  from  c. 1280“

15.00 h
Prof. Dr Yves Gallet (Université Bordeaux Montaigne):
"Refinement versus Reduction? A Showcase of Paradoxical Coexistence in 14th-Century Architecture: Matthias of Arras´s Work in Prague"

15.30 h Discussion

CONCLUSION
(Chair: Prof. Dr Ute Engel)

15.45 h
Prof. Dr Bruno Klein (Technische Universität, Dresden): "Conclusion and Perspectives on Gothic Art, Architecture and Culture c. 1250 to 1350"

16.15 h Coffee/Tea, End of conference



The conference will take place at Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle:
On 23 and 24 May 2024 at Universitätsplatz, Löwengebäude, Aula and Historischer Sessionssaal, Universitätsplatz 11, 06108 Halle (Saale);
on 25 May 2025 at Steintor-Campus, Hörsaal II, Emil-Abderhalden-Straße 28, 06108 Halle (Saale).
Additionally, there will be the chance to listen to the lectures online via web-link.

Registration

Please register for the conference until 12 May 2024, using the email address below.
Please note whether you will take part in presence or online:
sekretariat@kunstgesch.uni-halle.de

The conference is co-sponsered by:
Fritz Thyssen Stiftung
Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Energie, Klimaschutz und Umwelt Sachsen-Anhalt
Saalesparkasse

Contact: ute.engel@kunstgesch.uni-halle.de

CALL FOR PAPERS: XIV International Seminar “The Medieval Image: History and Theory”, MARGINALIA, FRONTIERS OF CONNECTION (7-9 Aug. 2024, SÃO PAULO), Due By 30 Apr. 2024

CALL FOR PAPERS

XIV International Seminar “The Medieval Image: History and Theory”

MARGINALIA, FRONTIERS OF CONNECTION

7-9 August 2024 University of São Paulo

Due By 30 April 2024

Margins are not mere blank spaces: they can bear various marks of the actions of manuscript producers and consumers. In them, for example, the coloration of the parchment becomes more evident, and sometimes holes for ruled lines can be seen. More importantly, annotations and images of various kinds may have been included there. The margins thus could function as spaces of multiple exchanges both within and outside of the book.

However, margins are not exclusive to manuscripts: they can be physical spaces on a geographical scale or in an architectural sense, as well as symbolic spaces. Travelers, the hungry, prostitutes, lepers, and other marginalized individuals inhabit the margins of the city, not only subverting social norms [1] but also reinventing them, becoming vehicles for the circulation of cultural practices between the center and the periphery and among different peripheral regions. They constituted spaces for the production of counter-hegemonic discourses and resistance [2], while simultaneously producing, disputing, and defining the center as a “social field” [3]. As borders of connection, margins were the first territory to be reached by famine, epidemics, outsiders, and commercial exchanges. It was the space where intentional marginalized individuals – such as the pauperes Christi – could build connections with unintentional marginalized individuals – such as the pauperes inviti.

[1] HOOKS, Bell. Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, n. 36, p. 15-23, 1989.
[2] BOURDIEU, Pierre. Razões práticas: sobre a teoria da ação. São Paulo: Papirus, 1996.
[3] SCHMITT, Jean-Claude. A história dos marginais. In: LE GOFF, Jacques. A História Nova. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1990. p. 261-290.

OBJECTIVE

The Seminar “Marginalia, Frontiers of Connection” aims to be, through the study of images and their modes of production in the Middle Ages, a space for discussion about margins and marginality as connected frontiers. The event will welcome papers that analyze strategies of connection between center/periphery and among different peripheral spaces, as well as the center-margin dichotomy. The fundamental question to be addressed is: How did the margins both produce and reveal spaces of connection in the Middle Ages?

CALL FOR PAPER SUBMISSIONS

Paper proposals must be submitted to the email lathimm.usp@gmail.com by April 30th, 2024. Written as expanded abstracts, they are to be published in a specific booklet, having to include a title, a summary of 5,000-7,000 characters (with spaces), 3 keywords, an indication of 4 essential bibliographic references, and the intended axis for the presentation.
Presentations can be delivered in Portuguese, English, or Spanish. The minimum academic level required for paper submissions is to be a Master’s graduate student.
Based on a specific or comparative case study, all presentations should aim to answer the same question: How did the margins produce spaces of connection in the Middle Ages? Presentations will be arranged into three axes, as detailed below:

  • MARGINAL TERRITORY: the margin as space

    • Marginal regions on maps or georeferencing data in digital maps.

    • Manuscript margins as spaces of creativity or interaction with center-page contents or other works.

    • Studies on illuminations, ornamented margins, glosses, or doodles.

    • Frames, binding, and/or architectural features with supportive functions and their interactions with the image.

    • Images of travelers, modes of transportation, informal trade, and commercial routes in spaces of marginality.

  • MARGINAL NONCONFORMITY: the margin as strangeness

    • Marginal/dissident iconographies.

    • Survivals of Antiquity in the Middle Ages.

    • Images of marginalized groups: sick or disabled individuals, gender and sexual minorities, prostitutes, drunkards, wanderers, the poor, the famished, charitable institutions, or of voluntary poverty.

    • Tools, practices and evidence regarding fixing material defects in image production (cuts, holes, scars, etc.).

  • MARGINAL SUBVERSION: the margin as dispute

    • Images of groups in dispute against hegemonic powers: enslaved individuals, minorities, and political oppositions.

    • Heretical movements, religious disputes, criminalities, and the justice system.

    • Images and revisions/notes in manuscripts supplementing/altering the content of the center of the page.

    • Graffiti, iconoclasms, scrapings, erasures subverting the content of the text/image.

SCHEDULE
Proposal submission until April 30th, 2024.
Announcement of approved submissions and program details by May 10th, 2024.
Publication of the abstract booklet by July 31st, 2024.
Event to be held from August 7th to 9th, 2024.

PARTICIPATION MODALITIES
The event will take place in person at the Nicolau Sevcenko Auditorium – Department of History – FFLCH, USP, São Paulo. In-person attendance is mandatory for researchers in Brazil. Remote participation will be allowed only for researchers in other countries. Questions, clarifications, and requests for remote participation should be sent to the email lathimm.usp@gmail.com.

ORGANIZATION
Laboratory of Theory and History of Medieval Media (LATHIMM-USP).
Thematic Project “A Connected History of the Middle Ages: Communication and Circulation from the Mediterranean Sea” (FAPESP 21/02912-3).
Supplementary aide:
Faculty of Philosophy, Letters, and Human Sciences, University of São Paulo

CHAMADA DE TRABALHOS

XIV Encontro Internacional “A Imagem Medieval: História e Teoria”

MARGINALIA, FRONTEIRAS DA CONEXÃO

7 a 9 de agosto de 2024, Universidade de São Paulo

até 30 de abril de 2024

O núcleo USP do LATHIMM (Laboratório de Teoria e História das Mídias Medievais), em parceria com o Projeto Temático "Uma História Conectada da Idade Média: Comunicação e Circulação a partir do Mediterrâneo", organiza o XIV Encontro Internacional "A Imagem Medieval: História e Teoria": MARGINALIA, FRONTEIRAS DA CONEXÃO, entre os dias 7 e 9 de agosto na Universidade de São Paulo.

Margens não são meros espaços vazios: nelas podem se inscrever as mais variadas marcas de produção e consumo de um manuscrito. É nelas, por exemplo, que a coloração do pergaminho fica mais evidente e onde por vezes podem ser vistos os furos para o raiado. Mais importante ainda, lá podem ter sido incluídas anotações e imagens de vários tipos. As margens serviriam, portanto, como espaço de múltiplas trocas internas e externas ao livro.
Mas as margens não são exclusivas aos manuscritos: elas podem ser espaços físicos em escala geográfica, arquitetônica ou mesmo simbólica. À margem da cidade, por exemplo, habitavam viajantes, famélicos, prostitutas, leprosos e outros marginais que não apenas subvertiam os padrões sociais [1], mas os reinventavam, tornando-se veículos de circulação de práticas culturais entre centro e periferia e entre diferentes regiões periféricas. Elas também constituíam espaços para a produção de discursos contra-hegemônicos e de resistência [2], ao mesmo tempo que produziam, disputavam e restringiam o centro como “campo social” [3]. Enquanto fronteiras da conexão, as margens eram o primeiro território a ser alcançado pela fome, pela peste, pelos forasteiros e pelas trocas comerciais, era o espaço onde os marginalizados intencionais – como os pauperes Christi – construíam conexões com os marginalizados não intencionais – como os pauperes inviti.
[1] HOOKS, Bell. Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, n. 36, p. 15-23, 1989.
[2] BOURDIEU, Pierre. Razões práticas: sobre a teoria da ação. São Paulo: Papirus, 1996.
[3] SCHMITT, Jean-Claude. A história dos marginais. In: LE GOFF, Jacques. A História Nova. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1990. p. 261-290.

OBJETIVO

O Encontro “Marginalia, Fronteiras da Conexão" busca ser, por meio do estudo das imagens e de seus modos de produção no Medievo, um espaço de discussão sobre as margens e a marginalidade como fronteiras de conexão e de encontro. Serão acolhidos trabalhos que analisem as estratégias de conexão entre centro/periferia e entre diferentes espaços periféricos, bem como a dicotomia centro-margem. A questão fundamental a ser respondida é: Como as margens produziam e davam a ver espaços de conexão no Medievo?

SUBMISSÕES DE PROPOSTAS DE COMUNICAÇÃO

As propostas de comunicação devem ser enviadas para o e-mail lathimm.usp@gmail.com até o dia 30 de abril de 2024. Os resumos expandidos, a serem publicados em um caderno específico, devem conter título, resumo de 5.000-7.000 caracteres (com espaços), 3 palavras-chave, indicação de 4 referências bibliográficas essenciais e eixo pretendido para a comunicação. As comunicações podem ser feitas em português, inglês e espanhol, e a titulação mínima para proposição é a de mestrando.

Todas as comunicações deverão buscar responder, a partir do estudo de caso realizado, à mesma questão: Como as margens produziam espaços de conexão no Medievo? As comunicações serão alocadas em três eixos, como sugerido abaixo:

TERRITÓRIO MARGINAL: a margem como espaço
- Regiões marginais na cartografia. Georreferenciamento de dados em mapas digitais.
- As margens dos manuscritos como espaços de inventividade ou interação com o centro da página ou com outras obras. Estudo de iluminuras, margens ornamentadas, glosas ou garatujas.
- Molduras, encadernação e/ou arquitetura com função de suporte e suas interações com a imagem.
- Imagens de viajantes, meios de transporte, comércio informal e rotas comerciais em espaços de marginalidade.

DESCONFORMIDADE MARGINAL: a margem como estranhamento
- Iconografias marginais/dissidentes. Sobrevivências da Antiguidade no Medievo.
- Imagens de grupos marginalizados: enfermos, portadores de deficiência, minorias de gênero e sexuais, prostitutas, bêbados, andarilhos, pobres e/ou famélicos, instituições de caridade, pobres voluntários, etc.
- Soluções para defeitos materiais na produção de imagens (cortes, furos, cicatrizes, etc.).

SUBVERSÃO MARGINAL: a margem como disputa
- Imagens de grupos em disputa contra-hegemônicas: escravizados, minorias e oposições políticas. Movimentos heréticos, disputas religiosas, criminalidades e sistema de justiça.
- Imagens e revisões/notas em manuscritos concorrendo/alterando o conteúdo do centro da página.
- Grafites, iconoclastias, raspagens, rasuras subvertendo o conteúdo do texto/imagem.

CRONOGRAMA

Envio de propostas até 30 de abril de 2024.
Divulgação dos aprovados e da programação até 10 de maio de 2024.
Publicação do caderno de resumos até o dia 31 de julho de 2024.
Encontro entre os dias 7 e 9 de agosto de 2024.

MODALIDADES DE PARTICIPAÇÃO

O Encontro ocorrerá no formato presencial no Auditório Nicolau Sevcenko – Departamento de História – FFLCH, USP, São Paulo, sendo obrigatória a participação presencial para pesquisadores que se encontram no Brasil. A participação à distância será permitida apenas para pesquisadores que se encontram em outros países. Dúvidas, esclarecimentos e pedidos de participação à distância devem ser enviados ao e-mail lathimm.usp@gmail.com.

ORGANIZAÇÃO

Laboratório de Teoria e História das Mídias Medievais (LATHIMM-USP).
Projeto Temático “Uma história conectada da Idade Média: comunicação e circulação a partir do Mediterrâneo” (FAPESP 21/02912-3).
Apoio: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Universidade de São Paulo.

Virtual Exhibition: ‘Opus Venetum: The Forgotten Venetian Heritage’, Ongoing

Virtual Exhibition

Opus Venetum: The Forgotten Venetian Heritage

Ongoing

The virtual exhibition called OPUS VENETUM: The Forgotten Venetian Heritage is a result of a collaboration between the Ph.D. Iva Jazbec Tomaić (Academy of Applied Arts, University of Rijeka), Ph.D. Danijel Ciković (Academy of Applied Arts, University of Rijeka) and Ph.D. Valentina Baradel (Dipartimento dei Beni Culturali: archeologia, storia dell’arte, del cinema e della musica, Università degli Studi di Padova). The project is financed by The University of Rijeka and co-financed by the Foundation of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Francis Haskell Memorial Fund. 

The implementation of this virtual exhibition was made possible thanks to the support of other foreign institutions namely Almae Matris Alumni Croaticae – United Kingdom Association of Alumni and Friends of Croatian Universities and Laboratoire HiSoMA, Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée / Université Lumière Lyon 2 and is a result of several years of project work on the systematization and analysis of preserved Venetian 14th-century embroidery heritage.

The exhibition is of a permanent nature, and new content is planned to be added through the work on this topic in the coming period. The website’s content refers to the virtual exhibition, information about the project and work process as well as information about team members and finally acknowledgements with a list of institutions thanks to which the exhibition was made possible.  The virtual exhibition itself consists of the following chapters: Introduction, Opus Venetum, Masterpiece of Venetian Embroidery: The Veglia Altar Frontal, The Hands Behind the Preparatory Drawing, Revealing the Secrets of the Art of Embroidery and Mapping of the 14th Century Venetian Embroidery.

Through the text and reproductions, the authors tried to give an insight into Venetian 14th-century embroidery workshop practice and to create, for the first time, a comprehensive catalogue of embroideries crafted in Venice during the 14th century. This catalogue will serve as a cornerstone for directing future research endeavours towards the proper valorisation of individual works of art and the distribution of ideas and commissioning models among the prominent representatives of the ecclesiastical and secular elites on the Adriatic.

To visit the virtual exhibition: https://opusvenetum.uniri.hr/en/

Mediterranean Art History Summer Skills Seminar: Mediterranean Art History: An Introduction (17-20 June 2024), Regular Application Period ends 15 April 2024

Mediterranean Art History Summer Skills Seminar

Mediterranean Art History: An Introduction

17—20 June 2024
Led by Dr. Karen Rose Mathews, University of Miami

Regular Application Period Ends 15 April 2024

This online Summer Skills Seminar provides participants with an overview of key concepts and methodologies in the study of Mediterranean art history. The course will address the themes of mobility, connectivity, and encounter in relation to the visual culture of peoples and territories across the sea. Participants will acquire an art historical tool kit to assist them in conducting their own research on the visual culture and artistic production of the medieval Mediterranean.

For more information, please see the link below:
https://www.mediterraneanseminar.org/overview-mediterranean-art-2024

Call for Papers: Moving Pictures, Living Objects : ICMA sponsored session at CAA (College Art Association) (New York City, 12-15 Feb. 2025), Due 22 Apr. 2024 at 17:00GMT

Call for Papers

Moving Pictures, Living Objects 

ICMA sponsored session at CAA (College Art Association)

New York City, 12-15 February 2025

Deadline: 22 April 2024 at 17:00 GMT

The Cloisters Collection, 1955

Organisers: Prof. Heather Pulliam, University of Edinburgh Prof. Kathryn Rudy, University of St. Andrews

Many premodern objects require human interaction to animate them and reveal their contents: turning the pages of manuscripts, moving the hinged limbs of figurative sculpture, unrolling scrolls, or opening screens. Others involve the dynamic effects of natural light. Like films or music, many medieval works invite sequential viewing that incorporates repetition and revelation. In art historical research, images do not merely illustrate arguments, they evidence them as much as written text does. Art historians abandoned their slide projectors long ago and have recently embraced e-publishing, but static imagery remains the dominant format for illustrating conference talks and academic publications. However, static images fail to capture aspects of performance essential to the function and meaning of many medieval objects. This session proposes to experiment with a shift in format, one that uses videos or the many tools now available for the analysis of artworks: rotational 3D scans, IIIF, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and 3D reconstructions. The session will be the first on premodern art to be exclusively illustrated with moving pictures, testing the boundaries of performativity and reception and questioning how we analyse, discuss, illustrate, and display artworks. This conversation is timely, as we move away from art histories that prioritised European fine art—traditionally static and displayed in galleries—to a more inclusive and diverse definition of art.  We are planning a special-issue journal on this theme, illustrated by moving images. 

The 90-minute session will consist of an introduction by the session organizers; 5 speakers each presenting a 5-minute video and a 7-minute analysis/discussion; and a Q&A.

To apply to be one of the speakers, please send a 250-word abstract to Heather Pulliam h.pulliam@ed.ac.uk and Kathryn Rudy kmr7@st-andrews.ac.uk with ‘ICMA-CAA Abstract’ in the subject line. Deadline: 22 April at 17:00 GMT. In your abstract, be sure to tell us why the academic argument you are making can only be illustrated by moving images.

The ICMA through the Kress Foundation is able to offer reimbursements for domestic travel to New York for up to $600; overseas travel for up to $1200. For the full description of qualified travel expenses, please check the full Kress Travel Grant site: https://www.medievalart.org/kress-travel-grant.

Call for Papers: Medievalisms Area, 2024 SWPACA Summer Salon, Virtual Conference (June 20-22, 2024), Due by 15 April 2024

Call for Papers

Medievalisms Area

Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA)

2024 SWPACA Summer Salon, Virtual Conference

June 20-22, 2024

Proposal submission deadline: April 15, 2024

Proposals for papers are now being accepted for the SWPACA Summer Salon. SWPACA offers nearly 70 subject areas in a variety of categories encompassing the following: Film, Television, Music, & Visual Media; Historic & Contemporary Cultures; Identities & Cultures; Language & Literature; Science Fiction & Fantasy; and Pedagogy & Popular Culture. For a full list of subject areas, area descriptions, and Area Chairs, please visit https://southwestpca.org/conference/call-for-papers/

The Medievalisms area invites paper and session proposals on any and all topics relevant to medievalism, which is described by Tison Pugh and Angela Jane Weisl in Medievalisms: Making the Past in the Present (2013) as “the art, literature, scholarship, avocational pastimes, and sundry forms of entertainment and culture that turn to the Middle Ages for their subject matter or inspiration, and in doing so…comment on the artist’s contemporary sociocultural milieu” (1). Medievalism can be approached in many ways, including in terms of media (e.g., literature, architecture, cinema, music, games), chronology (e.g., Early Modern, Romantic, Victorian), geography, and from any number of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives (e.g., cultural studies, media studies, race and ethnic studies, gender and queer studies). Presentations that engage with current conversations in the field are particularly welcome.

Examples of topics relevant to the Medievalisms area include (but are not limited to):

· Literary Medievalisms

· Cinematic Medievalisms

· Medievalisms in Art, Architecture, Music, and Performance

· Medievalisms in Gaming, LARPing, and Role-Playing

· Medievalisms of Place and Space

· Gender, Sexuality, Race, Ethnicity, Class, etc. in Medievalisms

· Global Medievalisms

· Queer Medievalisms

· Political Medievalisms

· Medievalisms in the Classroom

All proposals must be submitted through the conference’s database at https://register.southwestpca.org/southwestpca

For details on using the submission database and on the application process in general, please see the Proposal Submission FAQs and Tips page at https://southwestpca.org/conference/faqs-and-tips/ Registration information for the conference will be available at https://southwestpca.org/.../conference-registration.../

Individual proposals for 15-minute papers must include an abstract of approximately 200-500 words. Only one proposal per person, please; no roundtables.

If you have any questions about the Medievalisms area, please contact its Area Chair, Amber Dunai, at adunai@tamuct.edu. If you have general questions about the conference, please contact us at support@southwestpca.org, and a member of the executive team will get back to you.

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

Call for Applications: Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts, British Library, London, Due By 7 April 2024

Call for Applications

Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts

British Library, London

Due By 7 April 2024

The British Library holds an internationally renowned collection of manuscripts relating to the ancient and medieval world. As Curator of Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts, with a special responsibility for Classical, Biblical and Byzantine manuscripts, you will use innovative and traditional ways of interpreting and presenting these collections through online resources and engagement with academic and general users. You will also use your specialist knowledge to support the development, management and promotion of the ancient and medieval collections.

With a post-graduate degree, or equivalent, in a relevant subject, you will have extensive experience of research in Classical, Biblical and/or Byzantine Studies. Strong knowledge of Classical Latin and Ancient Greek, excellent written and oral communication skills in English, and the ability to promote the collections to a wide range of audiences are essential.

As one of the world's great libraries, our duty is to preserve the nation's intellectual memory for the future and make it available to all for research, inspiration and enjoyment. At present, we have well over 170 million items, in most known languages, with three million new items added every year. We have manuscripts, maps, newspapers, magazines, prints and drawings, music scores, and patents. We make our collections and programmes available to all. We operate the world's largest document delivery service providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world. What matters to us is that we preserve the national memory and enable knowledge to be created both now and in the future by anyone, anywhere.

In return, we offer a competitive salary and a number of excellent benefits. Our pension scheme is one of the most valuable benefits we offer, as our staff can become members of the Alpha Pension Scheme where the Library contributes a minimum of 26.6% (this may be higher dependant on grade. Another significant benefit the Library provides is the provision of a flexible working hours scheme which could allow you to work your hours flexibly over the week and to take up to 5 days flexi leave in a 3 month period. This is on top of 25 days holiday from entry and public and privilege holidays.

Location: St Pancras
Hours: Permanent - Full time
Grade: B
Salary: £33,600
Closing date: 7 April 2024
Interview date: 29 April 2024

We are unable to provide sponsorship under the UK Skilled Worker visa for this role, as it does not meet the eligibility criteria required for this immigration route.

To apply and for more information, https://www.vercida.com/uk/jobs/curator-of-ancient-and-medieval-manuscripts-british-library-st-pancras

Call for Papers: TRAVELLING TO THE EAST: Marco Polo and the Mendicant Friars, Venice (25-26 October 2024), Due by 7 April 2024

Call for Papers for International Conference

TRAVELLING TO THE EAST: Marco Polo and the Mendicant Friars

Dominican Study Institute

Istituto di Studi Ecumenici "San Bernardino", Biblioteca monumentale, Sestiere Castello 2786 - 30122 Venezia, Italy

Friday 25 - Saturday 26 October 2024

Due By 7 April 2024

Marco Polo, whose seven centuries since his death (1254 - 1324) will be celebrated in 2024, can be considered, in his own right, a privileged witness of fruitful intercultural relations between the Western and Eastern worlds. According to St. Augustine, the world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page of it. The Venetian traveller was undoubtedly an extraordinary reader of the book of the world: a man of wonder and curiosity....

His voyage, very long in time and space (three and a half years, between 1271 and 1275, and a distance of some 12,000 kilometres), crosses mythical lands, of different cultures and religions, from Venice to Xanadu (China): through Armenia, the Iranian plateau and the mountains of the

steppes and the inhospitable deserts of the Taklamakan and the Gobi. If the outward journey was almost entirely by land, the retum to Venice (24 years after departure) will be mainly by sea: through the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca, the Bay of Bengal, Ceylon, the Arabian Sea, the Persian

Marco Polo with his accounts arouses curiosity, great wonder. Although he is a typical western man and Christian educated, he observes facts and situations without too many prejudices and cultural blocks, even if there is a certain hostility towards Muslims, probably to be found in a historical-political context characterised by the Crusades.

Marco's voyage, with his father Niccolò and his uncle Matteo Polo, becomes much more than a simple and never-ending commercial voyage: it is an epic in which various actors join in, often by small strokes, including rehgious and ccelesiastical tigures, an expression of the Pope of Rome's desire to understand the real extent of those 'borders of the world', towards which the missionary mandate of evangelical memory was oriented.

Undoubtedly, members of the Order of the Black Friars (Dominican Preachers), already well present in Marco Polo's Venice, were among these ecclesiastical avant-garde wished by the pontiff.

However, Fra Francesco Pipino, a Dominican friar who translated Marco Polo's Il Milione into Latin between 1302 and 1315, partly condensing it and providing it with a new prologue, was not Venetian.

Pippin, for this translation, perhaps the best known of all, did not however use the original text, but had recourse to a Venetian vulgarization. There was probably another Dominican Latin version of 1l Milione, as can be deduced from archive documents showing links between the Venetian traveller and the Dominicans of the Serenissima. Members of the Order of Preachers, they advocated the spreading of the text in their preaching and teaching, not only in Italy, but also in France and England, combining approaches based on codicology, diplomatics, history, philology, religion and art history.

During the two days that will take place in Venice on 25 and 26 October 2024, the aim is to celebrate the story of Marco Polo through a multidisciplinary approach that sees Polo as the most famous figure but also covers themes and characters equally worthy of in-depth study. The papers will be divided into three sections: the first will be of a historical-philological nature and the history of thought (The Dominicans and Marco Polo); the second dedicated to the discovery of the literary genre linked to the journey, with particular reference to the missionary one (The Periegetic and the Missions to the East); and finally a third section focusing on artistic aspects and cultural exchanges (The East of Silk and the Arts, Maps and Polo's Iconographies).

Subjects of specific interest for the thematic sections:

  • Dominican manuscripts and scriptoria between Venice, Padua and Constantinople, locations of Dominican Studiorum

  • Mendicant Friars Narrators, between chronicle and apologetics

  • Travel narratives and geographical knowledge at the end of the Middle Ages

  • The reception and diffusion of travel texts from antiquity, in the medieval period, between fiction and reality

  • Travel and otherness: encounter-clash between cultures and religious traditions

  • Between West and East: exchanges and identity claims among Christian communities in constant interaction

  • Marco Polo's Iconographies

  • The depiction of the Mendicant Friars and the mediated image of the Bast

  • Oriental souvenirs: trade between Europe and the Far Bast (the role of the missions)

Scholars and young academies are invited to send, by 7 April 2024, the title of their contribution and an abstract of at least 1500 characters, with a short CV to the following email address: dosti.marcopolo@gmail.com

Proposals in Italian, English and French are accepted.

The Scientific Committee reserves the right to allocate some of the contribution proposals directly to the collection of proceedings to be published by the Institutum Historicum Ordinis Praedicatorum.

The Conference Scientific Committee

Colloque international: L’art roman au XXIe siècle. L’avenir d’un passé à réinventer, Poitiers, 28-31 Mai 2024

Colloque international

L’art roman au XXIe siècle. L’avenir d’un passé à réinventer

UFR SHA, bâtiment III, Amphithéâtre Descartes, POITIERS, France

28 au 31 mai 2024

Colloque international organisé par Cécile Voyer, Professeure d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Éric Palazzo, Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval et Marcello Angheben, Maître de conférences HDR en histoire de l’art médiéval / Sous la Présidence d’honneur de Marie-Thérèse Camus, Professeure honoraire d’histoire de l’art médiéval, CESCM, Université de Poitiers

Ce colloque vise à développer un bilan de l’historiographie de ces vingt dernières années et une réflexion épistémologique sur l’étude de ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler « art roman ». Il s’agira dans un premier temps de poursuivre les réflexions déjà amorcées par de nombreux chercheurs sur la définition de l’art roman et d’aborder ensuite les différents questionnements qui lui sont généralement appliqués, tout en envisageant de nouvelles pistes ou en reconsidérant des approches anciennes qui mériteraient d’être réhabilitées et renouvelées.

Entrée libre sur inscription et dans la limite des places disponibles.

Inscription avant le 24 mai 2024 : secretariat.cescm@univ-poitiers.fr ou au 05.49.45.45.67

Pour plus d'informations. https://cescm.labo.univ-poitiers.fr/13722-2/

Mardi 28 mai

9h – Accueil

9h15 – Introduction

Qu’est-ce que l’art roman ? Définitions et limites

Présidence de séance : Christian Sapin, Directeur de recherche émérite, CNRS

9h30 – Xavier Barral i Altet, Professeur émérite d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Institut national d’histoire de l’art (Paris) : Chronologie et idéologie. Les positions des historiens de l’art français du XXe siècle face à l’art roman

10h – Éliane Vergnolle, Professeure honoraire d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Université de Besançon : Les débuts de l’architecture romane en Francie occidentale : regards d’hier et d’aujourd’hui

10h30 – Quitterie Cazes, Professeure d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Université de Toulouse Jean-Jaurès : Retour sur la pratique de la monographie d’édifice

11h – Pause

Aires culturelles et études de cas

Présidence de séance : Christian Sapin, Directeur de recherche émérite, CNRS

11h15 – Justin Kroesen, Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Bergen University Museum : Nordic Romanesque: some recent developments in research

11h45 – John McNeill, Secrétaire de la British Archaeological Association : Norman, Anglo-Norman, Anglo-Saxon: Recent debates on the Forms of Architecture in 11th-Century England

12h15 – Discussion

Aires culturelles et études de cas

Présidence de séance : Éliane Vergnolle, Professeure honoraire d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Université de Besançon

13h45 – Andreas Hartmann-Virnich, Professeur d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Université d’Aix-en-Provence : La vision de l’art roman dans l’historiographie allemande (XIXe-XXe siècle)

14h15 – Saverio Lomartire, Professeur d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria : L’art « roman » dans le Nord de l’Italie : synthèse historiographique et réflexions sur la validité et l’actualité d’une définition

14h45 – Linda Seidel, Professeure émérite d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, University of Chicago : Seeing the Present through the Past: Arles in the 12th and 20th Centuries

15h15 – Valentino Pace, Professeur émérite d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Università di Udine : Sant’Angelo in Formis: « romanica o bizantina »? Un caso esemplare di ambiguità storiografica fra cronologia e geografia

15h45 – Discussion et pause

Questions d’épistémologie 

Présidence de séance : Éliane Vergnolle, Professeure honoraire d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Université de Besançon

16h30 – Nicolas Reveyron, Professeur d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Université de Lyon II : De quoi « Art roman » est-il le nom ? Approche épistémologique d’une problématique d’axiologie esthétique

16h50 – Christian Gensbeitel, Maître de conférences en histoire de l’art médiéval, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne : L’architecture religieuse du XIe siècle à travers le prisme des édifices « mineurs ». Un autre point de vue sur l’élaboration des formes romanes

17h20 – Claude Andrault-Schmitt, Professeure émérite d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Université de Poitiers : Ranger donc dater les productions architecturales françaises : tendances historiographiques et rigueur méthodologique

17h50 – Gerardo Boto Varela, Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Universitat di Girona : Épistémologie et historiographie des chantiers de cathédrales espagnoles (ca. 1015-1203) : construire, aménager, décorer. Dialogue entre l’histoire de l’art et les autres disciplines

18h20 – Discussion

Mercredi 29 mai

Questions d’épistémologie 

Présidence de séance : Vinni Lucherini, Professeure d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Napoli

9h – Laurence Terrier, Professeure assistante en histoire de l’art médiéval, Université de Neuchâtel : Art roman vs art gothique : historiographie, épistémologie et perspectives

9h30 – Philippe Plagnieux, Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne : Revenir sur les derniers feux de la sculpture romane et ses tentatives de renouvellement. Une étude de cas : les sources antiques et byzantines du foyer bourbonno-nivernais dans le second quart du XIIe siècle

10h – Manuel Castiñeiras, Professeur d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Universitat Autònoma di Barcelona : L’art roman et les enjeux de l’art 1200 : dynamique, dialogues et transformations

10h30 – Lucien-Jean Bord, Bibliothécaire, Abbaye de Ligugé : Le voyage des images

11h – Pause

11h20 – Peter K. Klein, Professeur émérite d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Universität Tübingen : La reconstruction des traditions iconographiques est-elle obsolète ? L’exemple du Beatus de Saint-Sever

Manifestations du sacré

Présidence de séance : Daniel Russo, professeur honoraire d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Université de Bourgogne

13h30 – Marc Sureda, Conservateur, Museu Episcopal de Vic : L’architecture romane hispanique à l’épreuve de la liturgie : quelques problèmes et cas d’étude

14h – Kirk Ambrose, Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval, University of Colorado, Boulder : Navigation of Doubt in Romanesque Sculpture

14h30 – Estelle Ingrand-Varenne, Chargée de recherche, CNRS, CESCM-Université de Poitiers : À la recherche d’une épigraphie romane

15h – Gerhard Lutz, Conservateur, Cleveland Museum of Art : BERNVVARDVS PRESVL FECIT HOC – Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim and the Arts around 1000 Revisited.

15h30 – Cynthia Hahn, Professeure d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, CUNY, Hunter College : Is there such a thing as a « Romanesque » Reliquary?

16h – Pause

16h20 – Catherine Fernandez, Chercheuse en histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Index of Medieval Art, Princeton : Ordering the Cosmos: The Saint-Aubin Maiestas Domini and Romanesque Temporalities

16h50 – Charlotte Denoël, Conservatrice en chef, cheffe du service médiéval du département des Manuscrits, Bibliothèque nationale de France : Manuscrits sans frontières : le cas du Sacramentaire de Manassès (Paris, BnF latin 819)

17h20 – Discussion

18h30 – Espace Mendès France (Planétarium)

Michel Pastoureau, Directeur d’Études honoraire à l’École Pratique des Hautes Études (IVe Section)

L’art roman : une porte grande ouverte sur les divagations ésotériques

Jeudi 30 mai

Expressions du pouvoir et des idées

Présidence de séance : Xavier Barral i Altet, Professeur émérite d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Institut national d’histoire de l’art (Paris)

9h – Herbert L. Kessler, Professeur émérite d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Johns Hopkins University : « Velut sinuosum acanthi volumen »: Romanesque Ornament’s Meaningful Demeanor 

9h30 – Yves Christe, Professeur honoraire d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Université de Genève : Orient Oder Rom ? Colonnes et colonnettes jumelées dans l’architecture romane et islamique

10h – Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Professeur d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Harvard University : Avatars of Authorship

10h30 – Beate Fricke, Professeure d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Universität Bern : 4 Elements, 12 Stones

11h – Pause

11h20 – Marcia Kupfer, Chercheuse indépendante en histoire de l’art médiéval : The contributions of Romanesque art to Western Anti-Judaism

11h50 – Discussions

Expressions du pouvoir et des idées

Présidence de séance : Pierre-Alain Mariaux, Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Institut d’histoire de l’art et de muséologie, Université de Neuchâtel

13h45 – Nicolas Prouteau, Maître de conférences en archéologie médiévale, Université de Poitiers : Le palais et la tour-palais à l’époque romane : héritages, emprunts et construction du pouvoir royal

14h15 – Vinni Lucherini, Professeure d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Napoli : Les sceaux des XIIe et XIIIe siècles : une nouvelle manière d’appréhender l’art roman des rois et des orfèvres

14h45 – Serena Romano, Professeure émérite d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Université de Lausanne : Rome et ses environs à l’« âge de la Réforme ». Les approches de l’historiographie et les perspectives d’aujourd’hui

15h15 – Discussion et pause

Savoirs-faire médiévaux et techniques actuelles

Présidence de séance : Pierre-Alain Mariaux, Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Institut d’histoire de l’art et de muséologie, Université de Neuchâtel

15h50 – Christian Sapin, Directeur de recherche émérite, CNRS : L’art roman sous le scanner archéologique. Un nouveau regard ?

16h20 – Géraldine Mallet, Professeure d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier : De la sculpture romane en Catalogne du Nord : marbres locaux ou marbres antiques de remploi ?

16h50 – Thierry Gregor, Docteur en histoire, CESCM-Université de Poitiers : L’adaptation des graveurs de l’époque romane à la réalisation des inscriptions sur la pierre

17h 20 – Discussion

18h30 – Cérémonie de remise du titre de Docteur Honoris Causa

Palais de Poitiers – 10 place Alphonse Lepetit

L’Université de Poitiers décernera le Doctorat Honoris Causa à Herbert L. Kessler, Professeur émérite de l’Université Johns Hopkins

Vendredi 31 mai

Savoirs-faire médiévaux et techniques actuelles

Présidence de séance : Serena Romano, Professeure émérite d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Université de Lausanne

9h – Amaëlle Marzais, Maîtresse de conférences en histoire de l’art  médiéval, Université de Lyon II et Carolina Sarrade, Ingénieure d’études, CNRS, CESCM-Université de Poitiers : Les apports des nouvelles approches techniques pour l’étude des peintures murales romanes

9h30 – Florian Meunier, Conservateur, Musée du Louvre : Les objets d’art romans dans une perspective européenne : l’étude des ivoires, de l’orfèvrerie et des émaux des collections du Louvre

10h – Pierre-Alain Mariaux, Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Institut d’histoire de l’art et de muséologie, Université de Neuchâtel : L’orfèvrerie de la période romane : leçons matérielles de chantiers récents

10h30 – Discussion et pause

L’art « roman » à l’épreuve des sciences actuelles

Présidence de séance : Serena Romano, Professeure émérite d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Université de Lausanne

11h20 – Eduardo Carrero Santamaría, Professeur d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Universitat Autònoma di Barcelona : Romanesque architecture from virtual reality: what architecture and what reality?

11h50 – Francisco Prado Vilar, Professeur d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela : Romanesque Transformations: Experience, Cognition, Technologies of the Image

12h20 – Discussion

L’art « roman » à l’épreuve des sciences actuelles

Présidence de séance : Valentino Pace, Professeur émérite d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Università di Udine

14h – Pierre-Olivier Dittmar, Maître de conférences en histoire médiévale, CRH-AHLoMA, EHESS : L’art roman au risque de l’animal

14h30 – Robert A. Maxwell, Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval, Sherman Fairchild Associate Professor of Fine Arts, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York : L’étrangeté de l’art roman

15h – Thomas E. A. Dale, Professeur d’histoire de l’art du Moyen Âge, University of Wisconsin-Madison : Genre, race et l’invalidité : perspectives alternatives sur la sculpture de Vézelay

15h30 – Peter Scott Brown, Professeur d’histoire de l’art médiéval, University of North Florida : A Work by the Doña Sancha Master in Northern Italy: On the Monumental Turn in Eleventh Century Sculpture, the Medieval Viewer, and the Modern Eye

16h – Discussion

16h30 – Remerciements

AFTERLIVES: REUSING THE PAST: A Day of Short Papers to Celebrate the Life of Jill Franklin, Hosted by the Society of Antiquaries of London, BAA, and CRSBI, 30 April 2024

hosted by the Society of Antiquaries, BAA, and CRSBI

AFTERLIVES: REUSING THE PAST

A Day of Short Papers to Celebrate the Life of Jill Franklin

Society Of Antiquaries of London, Burlington House Piccadilly London W1J 0BE United Kingdom

30 April 2024

Places are free to students, but students must first register by sending an email to: conferences@thebaa.org

To purchase tickets (£15), go to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-day-of-short-papers-to-celebrate-the-life-of-jill-franklin-tickets-859591169327

10.00-10.30 – Registration and Coffee

SESSION 1: 10.30-12.30

Bob Allies, Something in the air: the poetics and pragmatics of the pre-existing

A reflection on how, over the course of the last forty years, an appreciation of the potential of the pre-existing has consistently informed and shaped the work of our practice, together with some observations on the extent to which the climate emergency is now provoking a fundamental shift in the architectural profession’s attitude towards the recycling of materials and the reuse of buildings.

Eric Fernie, Enlarging English Medieval Great Churches

A common feature of English medieval great churches, especially cathedrals built in the Norman period, is the later rebuilding and enlarging of their eastern parts, with examples ranging from Canterbury to Ely and York. The purpose of the paper is to ask what this tells us about the financial resources needed to pay for the work, whether there was an increase in the power of the patrons or because of a wider increase in the size of the economy.

Nicola Coldstream, A village that moved: the early adventures of Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire

A late Romanesque capital built into an eighteenth-century gateway is among the few surviving remains of the early village site of Ascott-under-Wychwood in Oxfordshire. This paper discusses the original location of the capital and considers reasons why the village was moved.

John McNeill, A Norman Doric Cloister in the Aeolian Islands

The abbey of San Bartolommeo on Lipari was founded before 1088 by Roger I, count of Sicily, occupying an ancient Greek walled enclosure above the most important harbour in the Aeolian islands. Despite its replacement in the 16th century, the monastic church can be shown to have been aisleless and cruciform. To its south is the residue of a cloister made up, for the most part, of cut-down Doric columns and capitals. Usually dated to the 1130s, when its abbot was granted the title of bishop and San Bartolommeo became a monastic cathedral, the cloister seems more likely to date from the late 11th century, and to have formed a part of the original monastic complex. As a spolia curiosity off the north coast of Sicily, it is without rival.

David Robinson, The Augustinian Canons in the Twelfth Century: Reflections on an Architectural Identity

Our friend and much-missed colleague, Jill Franklin, devoted considerable energy to the occurrence and meaning of the aisleless cruciform church in Romanesque Europe. Jill’s interest in this particular form of building began in earnest with her contextual study of the Augustinian cathedral priory at Carlisle, delivered at the BAA annual conference held in that city in 2001. From there, Jill went on to write a number of extremely thought-provoking papers considering the twelfth-century churches of the Augustinian canons in general. Indeed, for many years, and almost single-handedly, Jill sought to give the early canons something of an architectural voice. This paper will offer a review of Jill’s important findings, assessing her contribution in a marginally wider overview of Augustinian architecture in England and Wales.

Questions/Discussion

12.30 – 1.30 – Lunch

SESSION 2: 1.30 – 3.15

Richard Halsey and Sandy Heslop, The Church of All Saints, West Acre (Norfolk)

The parish church of All Saints West Acre stands immediately east of the ruins of the gatehouse of the adjacent Augustinian priory of St Mary, suppressed at the Dissolution. Existing discussions of its architecture imply that All Saints is a medieval building restored or upgraded in the post-Reformation period. We propose instead that it is a new building of c.1637 constructed at the behest of Sir Edward Barkham in large part out of fragments of moulded stones, freestone rubble and flint taken from the demolished priory, the site of which he owned. Indeed, it is likely to have been designed deliberately to reuse available features. Its Laudian date (Laud was archbishop 1633-45) suggests the possibility that it deliberately harks back to pre-Reformation parish worship located within an aisle of the destroyed monastic church.

Christopher Wilson, Salvage from a Mighty Wreck: A Clearstorey Window from Vale Royal Abbey, Cheshire

Not hitherto recognised as an instance of the post-Suppression salvage of monastic fabric is some incongruously ambitious stonework incorporated into the exterior of the parish church of c. 1500 at Northwich, 4 km from the site of Vale Royal Abbey. Begun in 1277 by Edward I, Vale Royal’s church was by far the largest built for the Cistercian Order in England, and work surged ahead until 1290, when Edward suddenly withdrew his support. In 1353 a new chapter opened under the patronage of Edward Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester (the Black Prince). In June 1359 he and the abbey contracted with a master mason for a French-style circuit of chapels whose plan was partly uncovered by excavation in 1958. Two years later a hurricane blew down the entire central vessel of the nave. What happened after the completion of the radiating chapels has always been unclear, but the evidence of the Northwich stonework indicates that the choir was completed in fine style. The only documented fact about the choir, generated by the famous heraldic dispute between Sir Robert Grosvenor and the Scropes of Masham, is that the Grosvenor arms decorated its interior. Joining up the available dots outlines a collaborative project due to the Prince of Wales (and, from 1363, of Aquitaine) and the Cheshire gentry comrades who played a major role in the dramatic expansion of English territory in south-west France during the 1350s.

Ron Baxter, The Early Days of the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture

Officially the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture began in 1988 when George Zarnecki and Neil Stratford approached the British Academy and asked for a grant to start up a project to record all the stone sculpture produced between 1066 and 1200. In fact, George had clearly been thinking about it for several years, and contacted Jill Franklin much earlier than this, as a kind of pilot study. This talk will give a brief history of the early days of the Corpus with special reference to Jill’s work in Norfolk.

Richard Plant, Anglo-Saxon Roods in Romanesque Contexts

The survival of pre-Conquest sculpture as part of the fabric of later churches in England is peculiar. Apart from attesting the long-standing tradition of stone sculpture in the Atlantic Islands the re-setting of images of the Crucifixion in later walling raises a number of questions about how they would have been understood and used by later viewers. This paper will look at the instance in Langford in Oxfordshire, and especially at Romsey in Hampshire, where the reused crucifix is placed next to the entrance from the cloister into the church, suggesting a particular devotional focus on this earlier image.

Stephen Heywood, 'Let's Pretend!' The decoration of the north transept and the reused throne at Norwich Cathedral

Jill worked on the architectural sculpture of Norwich Cathedral and successfully analysed the meaning and place of the extraordinarily accomplished sculpture. This short paper touches on the earlier or at least less skilled sculpture and the deliberate archaising in reusing forms believed to be indicative of pre conquest date and the believed actual re use of St Felix’s throne recovered from Elmham which achieved relic status.

Questions/Discussion

3.15 – 3.45 – Tea

SESSION 3: 3.45 – 5.00

Lindy Grant, ‘Lapides pretiosi omnes muri tui’: Abbot Suger, buried capitals, and the laying of foundation stones

Recent excavations under the north-west tower at the Abbey of Saint-Denis have brought to light a set of capitals used as rubble in the foundations, adding to the capitals already extracted and now in the town museum. They are figural and narrative, if rustic in handling. Where were these capitals from, and by how long do they predate Suger’s new west front? I will suggest that they have parallels with work in Norman contexts in the late 11th century, including the figured archivolt panels from Montivilliers, so brilliantly discussed by Jill in her paper for the British Archaeological Association Rouen Conference. But how should we read the burial of these capitals in Suger’s west front: as rejection of old-fashioned sculpture, or as precious stones providing a solid foundation – that the house of the lord should be ‘bene fundata…supra firmam petram’, as the liturgy for the consecration of an altar has it? And how widespread were liturgical ceremonies for the laying of foundation stones? Suger appears to have invented his own to lay the foundation stones of his new choir in 1140.

Agata Gomølka, Idolising stone: the case of the Konin pillar

The Roadside Pillar of Konin (Greater Poland) is one of the most original monuments of the Romanesque period. An inscription on the pillar proclaims its date, states it function, and names its patron. The pillar was one of the final commissions of the formidable royal fixer and castellan Piotr Włostowic (d. 1153). Piotr’s life and deeds, along with his extensive patronage of buildings and furnishings, were widely celebrated by contemporaries. The Konin pillar is the only surviving secular monument associated with Włostowic. Yet what is it? Is it a reused pagan monolith? This has been the consensus among most scholars. Or is it something else? Is it a tribute to a very tradition of spolia? This paper will seek to offer some answers.

Tessa Garton and Rose Walker, Andalusi ivories and metalwork re-imagined in the North for female saints

The re-use of Islamic ivory caskets decorated with courtly imagery as containers for the relics of Christian saints in northern Spain has been interpreted both as triumphalist and as a recognition of the aesthetic qualities of Islamic culture. The re-use of similar imagery on capitals in the sanctuaries of Romanesque churches suggests the assimilation and re-interpretation of this imagery for a Christian context. Likewise, metal objects were sometimes repurposed as reliquaries. Within church treasuries, as at Oviedo, they could even inspire the revival of a cult.

Paul Williamson, Late Antique ivory carvings, their reuse and afterlife

The ivory carvings of Late Antiquity and the Early Byzantine period owe their survival to reuse and transformation. Some secular carvings - including several consular diptychs - were incorporated into Christian settings such as reliquaries and pulpits, while others provided the raw materials for recarving in the Carolingian and later periods. This paper will explore the phenomenon of ivory reuse with a selection of case studies, some well-known, others less so.

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5.00 – Drinks