Kategoria BISAC: Art >> History - Medieval

The studies included in this volume supplement the work already published by the author on the imperial cult in the Roman West, focussing on the monuments of two cities in Roman Spain, Augusta Emerita (now Merida) and Tarraco (now Tarragona). The introduction gives the general background and context of the four following studies and argues in favour of proactive initiative from the centre.

The core of the book is a study of the provincial forum at Augusta Emerita. It opens with a historiographic survey followed by discussion of the plaza (location, portico, "Arco de Trajano"), then...

In Worlds Within, Elina Gertsman investigates the Shrine Madonnas, or Vierges ouvrantes--sculptures that conceal within their bodies complex carved and/or painted iconographies. The Shrine Madonna emerged in Europe at the end of the 1200s and reached a peak of popularity during the following three centuries. Gertsman argues that the appearance of these objects--predicated as they are on the dynamic of concealment, revelation, and fragmentation--points to the changing roles of vision and sensation in the complex, performative ways in which audiences were expected to engage...

Medieval Toledo is famous as a center of Arabic learning and as a home to sizable Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities. Yet its cathedral--one of the largest, richest, and best preserved in all of Europe--is little known outside Spain. In Toledo Cathedral, Tom Nickson provides the first in-depth analysis of the cathedral's art and architecture.

Focusing on the early thirteenth to the late fourteenth centuries, he examines over two hundred years of change and consolidation, tracing the growth of the cathedral in the city as well as the evolution of sacred places within...

Between 1170 and 1190 in Alsace, Abbess Herrad compiled for her canonesses an elaborate manuscript, the Hortus deliciarum, which combined resplendent images with quotations from more than fifty texts to portray a history of the Christian church across time and through eternity. Destroyed in a bombing during the 1870 siege of Strasbourg, Herrad's lavishly illuminated manuscript was one of the earliest works created by a woman expressly for other women, the nuns training at the Hohenbourg abbey.

In this close study of the art and history of the Hortus deliciarum,...

In the early 1800s, on a Hebridean beach in Scotland, the sea exposed an ancient treasure cache: 93 chessmen carved from walrus ivory. Norse netsuke, each face individual, each full of quirks, the Lewis Chessmen are probably the most famous chess pieces in the world. Harry played Wizard s Chess with them in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer s Stone. Housed at the British Museum, they are among its most visited and beloved objects.

Questions abounded: Who carved them? Where? Ivory Vikings by Nancy Marie Brown explores these mysteries by connecting medieval Icelandic sagas...

Exploring the medieval heritage of Aberdeenshire and Moray, the essays in this volume contain insights and recent work presented at the British Archaeological Association Conference of 2014, based at Aberdeen University. The opening, historical chapters establish the political, economic and administrative context of the region, looking at both the secular and religious worlds and include an examination of Elgin Cathedral and the bishops' palaces.

The discoveries at the excavations of the kirk of St Nicholas, which have revealed the early origins of religious life in...

Exploring the medieval heritage of Aberdeenshire and Moray, the essays in this volume contain insights and recent work presented at the British Archaeological Association Conference of 2014, based at Aberdeen University. The opening, historical chapters establish the political, economic and administrative context of the region, looking at both the secular and religious worlds and include an examination of Elgin Cathedral and the bishops' palaces.

The discoveries at the excavations of the kirk of St Nicholas, which have revealed the early origins of religious life in...