Abraham, son of Terah or Azar and husband of Sarah, is one of the pivotal figures of the Old Testament and is generally seen as the founder of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths. He was a rich source of inspiration in all three faiths for artists of the medieval period. His life narrative from birth to death is richly recorded in a variety of media dating from the early Christian period to the end of the sixteenth century. As varied as they are numerous, the images in all three faiths show Abraham as father, husband, lover, warrior, politician, refugee, and traveler but most...

Despite the fact that the Gothic is one of the best known and most studied of all the fields of medieval art history, much remains for us to learn. Stretching in time from the early thirteenth to the middle of the sixteenth century and in space from the western shores of Ireland to the eastern borders of Europe, it is a style with many subdivisions and dialects. These papers--the fruits of a two-day conference at Princeton University--bring together some of the foremost scholars in the field and celebrate Willibald Sauerlander, the doyen of Gothic studies. Covering a variety of media, from...

Covering the arts of Ireland and England with some incursions onto mainland Europe, where the same stylistic influences are found, the terms "Insular" and "Anglo-Saxon" are two of the most problematic in medieval art history. Originally used to define the manuscripts of ninth- and tenth-century Ireland and the north of England, "Insular" is now more widely applied to include all of the media of these and earlier periods. It is a style that is closely related to the more narrowly defined Anglo-Saxon. Stretching from the sixth or seventh centuries possibly to the late eleventh century, these...

Whether we care to admit it or not, we have always distinguished between those arts that we consider superior and the lesser or minor forms. Giorgio Vasari is usually credited with formally structuring the primary nature of architecture, painting, and sculpture in his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, which was first published in 1568. Even though this division was initially applied to Italian art, it was not long before it gained more widespread currency. All of the other arts--such as ivory carving, glass, enamels, and goldsmiths' work--were lumped...

Princeton University first started collecting Western manuscripts in 1876 and continues to this day with the specific aim of developing a research and teaching tool. That unique collection of medieval manuscripts forms the nucleus of this collection of essays. Stretching from Ottonian to the late Gothic-early Renaissance periods, these studies examine the secular as well as the religious and look at a variety of themes, from the book of hours to the grisaille manuscript. The studies all attempt to place the university's collection in the broader framework of manuscript studies, and a...

Although the concept of patronage has long been central to medieval studies, it is still not well understood. In order to identify the person or institution responsible for the work, scholars have attempted to impose principles across a broad range of works to which they may or may not apply. In many cases this has prevented a full understanding of the work. As the essays in this volume demonstrate, the key to understanding patronage is to realize that a variety of contexts and situations may exist that prevent one definition from being imposed. The concept of patronage relates to issues...

Sometimes enjoying considerable favor, sometimes less, iconography has been an essential element in medieval art historical studies since the beginning of the discipline. Some of the greatest art historians including Male, Warburg, Panofsky, Morey, and Schapiro have devoted their lives to understanding and structuring what exactly the subject matter of a work of medieval art can tell. Over the last thirty or so years, scholarship has seen the meaning and methodologies of the term considerably broadened.
This companion provides a state-of-the-art assessment of the influence of the...