In 1246, a lavishly ornamented baptismal font was completed in Pisa, shortly after a papal interdict had been laid upon the city. What did it mean to the Pisans to erect such a grandiose religious monument precisely at this moment? And how is this reflected in the font’s decorative scheme? This article argues that not only the figurative elements in the font’s overall design, but most decidedly also its ornament, contribute to shaping a specific image of Pisan identity that closely responds to the political needs of the time.
{"title":"The Font of the Interdict: Reconsidering the Function of Ornament on the Baptismal Font of San Giovanni in Pisa","authors":"Isabelle Dolezalek","doi":"10.1086/707335","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/707335","url":null,"abstract":"In 1246, a lavishly ornamented baptismal font was completed in Pisa, shortly after a papal interdict had been laid upon the city. What did it mean to the Pisans to erect such a grandiose religious monument precisely at this moment? And how is this reflected in the font’s decorative scheme? This article argues that not only the figurative elements in the font’s overall design, but most decidedly also its ornament, contribute to shaping a specific image of Pisan identity that closely responds to the political needs of the time.","PeriodicalId":43922,"journal":{"name":"GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART","volume":"59 1","pages":"73 - 90"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/707335","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60710007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Front Cover","authors":"","doi":"10.1086/709702","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/709702","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43922,"journal":{"name":"GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/709702","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45755540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper is devoted to the case—hitherto virtually unknown—of an anonymous French master mason from St.-Denis, active around 1416–30 in the wealthy town of Legnica in Silesia. Invited to Central Europe in the turbulent times of the Hundred Years’ War by the local duke Louis II, in Legnica he executed several works, foremost among them the von der Heyde Chapel at the parish church of Saints Peter and Paul, featuring an impressive stellar vault with a hanging boss. Attributed to the French master on stylistic grounds, it constitutes a unique example of a remarkably mature design from the early phase of Flamboyant architecture, in some respects predating its geographically distant yet stylistically proximate parallels in France itself. This article reconstructs the master’s oeuvre, discusses the chapel’s artistic origin in the Île-de-France of the early fifteenth century, and shows its surprising importance in the history of French late medieval architecture. In this context, the Silesian monument is all the more important because so little architecture survives from the Parisian milieu of the early fifteenth century. The works of the French master active in Legnica analyzed here should be considered as representative examples of the rapid stylistic development that occurred within the initial phase of Flamboyant architecture in France.
{"title":"The von der Heyde Chapel at Legnica in Silesia and the Early Phase of the French Flamboyant Style","authors":"J. Adamski","doi":"10.1086/704253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/704253","url":null,"abstract":"This paper is devoted to the case—hitherto virtually unknown—of an anonymous French master mason from St.-Denis, active around 1416–30 in the wealthy town of Legnica in Silesia. Invited to Central Europe in the turbulent times of the Hundred Years’ War by the local duke Louis II, in Legnica he executed several works, foremost among them the von der Heyde Chapel at the parish church of Saints Peter and Paul, featuring an impressive stellar vault with a hanging boss. Attributed to the French master on stylistic grounds, it constitutes a unique example of a remarkably mature design from the early phase of Flamboyant architecture, in some respects predating its geographically distant yet stylistically proximate parallels in France itself. This article reconstructs the master’s oeuvre, discusses the chapel’s artistic origin in the Île-de-France of the early fifteenth century, and shows its surprising importance in the history of French late medieval architecture. In this context, the Silesian monument is all the more important because so little architecture survives from the Parisian milieu of the early fifteenth century. The works of the French master active in Legnica analyzed here should be considered as representative examples of the rapid stylistic development that occurred within the initial phase of Flamboyant architecture in France.","PeriodicalId":43922,"journal":{"name":"GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART","volume":"58 1","pages":"183 - 205"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/704253","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46686482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Though Rome has a long history of domed constructions, not one dome was built in that city during a one-thousand-year period—roughly between the mid-fifth and the mid-fifteenth century. How can we explain such a gap and what is implied by this absence? This paper begins by asking why dome construction in Rome stopped after the mid-fifth century. Typological, political, ideological, and possibly technical reasons lie at the root of this rupture, which itself urges a reevaluation of the significance and function of domes across time, and of the cultural context that allowed for their demise. A second question is then posed about why Romans were slow to return to dome construction after the form blossomed elsewhere on the Italian peninsula between the eleventh and early fifteenth centuries. This delayed reappearance discloses distinct attitudes toward domes and suggests Romans lacked the desire to build them; indeed, they were quite content with the alternative solutions they had developed in the intervening centuries, chief among which were thin-walled basilicas and their mosaic-encrusted half-dome apses. All told, Rome’s millennial gap in dome construction invites us to reconsider longstanding historiographical assumptions about medieval architecture.
{"title":"The Millennial Gap in Dome Construction in Rome","authors":"N. Camerlenghi","doi":"10.1086/704636","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/704636","url":null,"abstract":"Though Rome has a long history of domed constructions, not one dome was built in that city during a one-thousand-year period—roughly between the mid-fifth and the mid-fifteenth century. How can we explain such a gap and what is implied by this absence? This paper begins by asking why dome construction in Rome stopped after the mid-fifth century. Typological, political, ideological, and possibly technical reasons lie at the root of this rupture, which itself urges a reevaluation of the significance and function of domes across time, and of the cultural context that allowed for their demise. A second question is then posed about why Romans were slow to return to dome construction after the form blossomed elsewhere on the Italian peninsula between the eleventh and early fifteenth centuries. This delayed reappearance discloses distinct attitudes toward domes and suggests Romans lacked the desire to build them; indeed, they were quite content with the alternative solutions they had developed in the intervening centuries, chief among which were thin-walled basilicas and their mosaic-encrusted half-dome apses. All told, Rome’s millennial gap in dome construction invites us to reconsider longstanding historiographical assumptions about medieval architecture.","PeriodicalId":43922,"journal":{"name":"GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART","volume":"58 1","pages":"103 - 135"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/704636","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47665012","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The nave paintings at the monastery of St. Anthony were executed by local artists in the early thirteenth century, during a period of mounting concerns over the Arabization and Islamization of the Coptic community. The cycle, which depicts thirty-one images of military martyrs and monastic saints, stands out from contemporary programs owing to its structure and its inclusion of rarely depicted hagiographic episodes. The program juxtaposes early Christian martyrs and the great Desert Fathers of Egypt, demonstrating a preoccupation with sacred ancestry and lineage. Within the martyr cycle, the preponderance of warrior saints shown violently slaying traditional enemies of the faith (pagans, heretics, and a Jew) is striking, as most of these refer to miracles that have no textual analogue. To some extent, the presence of warrior saints can be explained within a local devotional context, in which the paintings served as the liturgical backdrop for a monastic community that regarded itself as the heir to the community founded by St. Anthony, who engaged in spiritual combat at the site where the monastery was constructed. Lost in this interpretation is how the images might relate to broader religious debates in the Islamic period. This study engages with a little-known corpus of Arab Christian texts and recent scholarship on the religious history of Egypt. I argue that the unusually violent iconography reveals an awareness of Islamic historiographic narratives and should be understood in light of east Christian hagiographic and polemical texts then circulating in Egypt. Stories in these works are characteristically structured to draw out similarities between Christianity and Islam as a step toward staking out exclusive claims to religious truth and Christian preeminence. The unusual cycle provides evidence of how Coptic Christians employed paintings to fortify the faith.
{"title":"Depicting Religious Combat in the Thirteenth-Century Program at the Monastery of St. Anthony at the Red Sea","authors":"Heather A. Badamo","doi":"10.1086/704516","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/704516","url":null,"abstract":"The nave paintings at the monastery of St. Anthony were executed by local artists in the early thirteenth century, during a period of mounting concerns over the Arabization and Islamization of the Coptic community. The cycle, which depicts thirty-one images of military martyrs and monastic saints, stands out from contemporary programs owing to its structure and its inclusion of rarely depicted hagiographic episodes. The program juxtaposes early Christian martyrs and the great Desert Fathers of Egypt, demonstrating a preoccupation with sacred ancestry and lineage. Within the martyr cycle, the preponderance of warrior saints shown violently slaying traditional enemies of the faith (pagans, heretics, and a Jew) is striking, as most of these refer to miracles that have no textual analogue. To some extent, the presence of warrior saints can be explained within a local devotional context, in which the paintings served as the liturgical backdrop for a monastic community that regarded itself as the heir to the community founded by St. Anthony, who engaged in spiritual combat at the site where the monastery was constructed. Lost in this interpretation is how the images might relate to broader religious debates in the Islamic period. This study engages with a little-known corpus of Arab Christian texts and recent scholarship on the religious history of Egypt. I argue that the unusually violent iconography reveals an awareness of Islamic historiographic narratives and should be understood in light of east Christian hagiographic and polemical texts then circulating in Egypt. Stories in these works are characteristically structured to draw out similarities between Christianity and Islam as a step toward staking out exclusive claims to religious truth and Christian preeminence. The unusual cycle provides evidence of how Coptic Christians employed paintings to fortify the faith.","PeriodicalId":43922,"journal":{"name":"GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART","volume":"58 1","pages":"157 - 181"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/704516","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42302199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A seventeenth-century drawing now preserved in the Archives de l’État, Liège, records what must have been a spectacular retable from the Benedictine abbey of Stavelot, Belgium, made under the abbot Wibald in the middle of the twelfth century. Containing a series of images from the life of the founder of the abbey, Remaclus, the retable also had two intriguing inscriptions wrapping around its edge. One named Abbot Wibald as patron and recounted the object’s cost; the other listed a series of properties held by the monastery. Though the drawing has long been treasured by art historians as witness to an early altarpiece, the way in which the retable presents its own making has not been analyzed. This essay examines the perimeter texts, two surviving medallions depicting the personifications of Fides and Operatio, and the themes of the narrative images to reconsider how the production of the retable was presented to, and remembered for, its public, a community of lay, aristocratic, and monastic viewers. The imagery and inscriptions of this altar, I suggest, reveal themes of obligation that extend beyond the abbot to the community at large, and cast the making of the object as the fulfillment of Christian duty.
现在保存在列日国家档案馆（Archives de l‘État，Liège）的一幅七世纪的画作记录了12世纪中期在修道院院长威博尔德（Wibald）的领导下从比利时斯塔维洛（Stavelot）的本笃会修道院（Benedictine abbey）创作的一幅壮观的壁画。复刻塔包含了一系列修道院创始人雷马克洛斯的生活图像，其边缘还包裹着两个有趣的铭文。其中一位名叫维博尔德修道院院长（Abbot Wibald），并讲述了这件物品的成本；另一份列出了修道院持有的一系列财产。尽管这幅画长期以来一直被艺术史学家视为早期祭坛画的见证，但这幅壁画展示自己制作的方式尚未得到分析。本文考察了周边文本、两个幸存的奖章，这些奖章描绘了Fides和Operatio的人格化，以及叙事图像的主题，以重新考虑如何向公众——一个由世俗、贵族和修道院观众组成的群体——展示和记住可重复性的作品。我认为，这座祭坛的图像和铭文揭示了从住持到整个社区的义务主题，并将物品的制作视为基督教义务的履行。
{"title":"Memory, Making, and Duty in the Remaclus Retable of Stavelot","authors":"H. Gearhart","doi":"10.1086/704289","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/704289","url":null,"abstract":"A seventeenth-century drawing now preserved in the Archives de l’État, Liège, records what must have been a spectacular retable from the Benedictine abbey of Stavelot, Belgium, made under the abbot Wibald in the middle of the twelfth century. Containing a series of images from the life of the founder of the abbey, Remaclus, the retable also had two intriguing inscriptions wrapping around its edge. One named Abbot Wibald as patron and recounted the object’s cost; the other listed a series of properties held by the monastery. Though the drawing has long been treasured by art historians as witness to an early altarpiece, the way in which the retable presents its own making has not been analyzed. This essay examines the perimeter texts, two surviving medallions depicting the personifications of Fides and Operatio, and the themes of the narrative images to reconsider how the production of the retable was presented to, and remembered for, its public, a community of lay, aristocratic, and monastic viewers. The imagery and inscriptions of this altar, I suggest, reveal themes of obligation that extend beyond the abbot to the community at large, and cast the making of the object as the fulfillment of Christian duty.","PeriodicalId":43922,"journal":{"name":"GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART","volume":"58 1","pages":"137 - 155"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/704289","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42749847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Through the inclusion of newly invented scenes, innovative handling of established narratives, and symbolic use of clothing and hair, the Magdalen Chapel at San Francesco in Assisi (ca. 1305–19) presents a Magdalen who successfully models Franciscan values of renunciation, penitence, and caritas, her images thus resonating throughout the Upper and Lower Churches. Yet her position at San Francesco remains equivocal. As a New Testament saint, she logically functions as a model for St. Francis. His vita, however, anachronistically transforms her life, inspiring new narrative episodes—for example, her receipt of a garment—or reshaping established scenes, as at her conversion when demons fly from her submissive body toward the very altar where Francis exorcised sinners. Despite being honored in her chapel, she consistently appears needy, a passive recipient of charity and miraculous works, rather than a miracle worker. As a female, she carries the taint of sexual sin through her exposed and eroticized body; she thus needs to be clothed by a hermit, as elsewhere at San Francesco destitute individuals are clothed by Saints Francis and Martin. A terrible sinner, she is exorcised by Christ, just as Francis posthumously exorcises pilgrims visiting his nearby tomb. And as Christ is honored by the Magdalen’s submissive washing of his feet, so Francis is honored by the humble simpleton. Not obviously a miracle-working saint, Mary Magdalen remains like the Assisi pilgrims petitioning for assistance. Yet her power as intercessor remains unchallenged as her very weaknesses offer audiences hope: if she can be saved, so can they.
{"title":"Gender, Dress, and Franciscan Tradition in the Mary Magdalen Chapel at San Francesco, Assisi","authors":"P. Jolly","doi":"10.1086/701601","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701601","url":null,"abstract":"Through the inclusion of newly invented scenes, innovative handling of established narratives, and symbolic use of clothing and hair, the Magdalen Chapel at San Francesco in Assisi (ca. 1305–19) presents a Magdalen who successfully models Franciscan values of renunciation, penitence, and caritas, her images thus resonating throughout the Upper and Lower Churches. Yet her position at San Francesco remains equivocal. As a New Testament saint, she logically functions as a model for St. Francis. His vita, however, anachronistically transforms her life, inspiring new narrative episodes—for example, her receipt of a garment—or reshaping established scenes, as at her conversion when demons fly from her submissive body toward the very altar where Francis exorcised sinners. Despite being honored in her chapel, she consistently appears needy, a passive recipient of charity and miraculous works, rather than a miracle worker. As a female, she carries the taint of sexual sin through her exposed and eroticized body; she thus needs to be clothed by a hermit, as elsewhere at San Francesco destitute individuals are clothed by Saints Francis and Martin. A terrible sinner, she is exorcised by Christ, just as Francis posthumously exorcises pilgrims visiting his nearby tomb. And as Christ is honored by the Magdalen’s submissive washing of his feet, so Francis is honored by the humble simpleton. Not obviously a miracle-working saint, Mary Magdalen remains like the Assisi pilgrims petitioning for assistance. Yet her power as intercessor remains unchallenged as her very weaknesses offer audiences hope: if she can be saved, so can they.","PeriodicalId":43922,"journal":{"name":"GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART","volume":"58 1","pages":"1 - 25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701601","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49384495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
When the imperial coronation garments, the Reichskleinodien, arrived in Nuremberg in 1424, they were celebrated as the relics of Charlemagne. In reality, however, this collection included various Norman and Hohenstaufen Sicilian clothes, including the red mantle of Roger II, the white alb of William II, and the jeweled gloves of Frederick II. While scholars have studied the place of these textiles in Sicily, their afterlives remain unexamined. This study explores the mechanisms of conversion that transformed the Sicilian garments into holy objects in late medieval Nuremberg, focusing on the role of the representations of the clothing in constructing their new identity. The article argues that Nuremberg’s relic sheets and relic books, together with Albrecht Dürer’s fictive portraits of Charlemagne and Sigismund of Luxembourg, worked in coordination with the changing imperial conception, the myth of Charlemagne, and organized public performance to embed in the cultural memory an idea of the garments as Carolingian. Through their play of real and imagined details, the images of the regalia effaced their Mediterranean characteristics and refashioned them as Germanic objects. This review of the Sicilian regalia’s place in Nuremberg illuminates how artifacts are integrated into new settings and the roles they play in the construction of history.
{"title":"The Receptions and Rejections of Sicilian Regalia in Late Medieval Nuremberg","authors":"Elizabeth Rice Mattison","doi":"10.1086/701602","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701602","url":null,"abstract":"When the imperial coronation garments, the Reichskleinodien, arrived in Nuremberg in 1424, they were celebrated as the relics of Charlemagne. In reality, however, this collection included various Norman and Hohenstaufen Sicilian clothes, including the red mantle of Roger II, the white alb of William II, and the jeweled gloves of Frederick II. While scholars have studied the place of these textiles in Sicily, their afterlives remain unexamined. This study explores the mechanisms of conversion that transformed the Sicilian garments into holy objects in late medieval Nuremberg, focusing on the role of the representations of the clothing in constructing their new identity. The article argues that Nuremberg’s relic sheets and relic books, together with Albrecht Dürer’s fictive portraits of Charlemagne and Sigismund of Luxembourg, worked in coordination with the changing imperial conception, the myth of Charlemagne, and organized public performance to embed in the cultural memory an idea of the garments as Carolingian. Through their play of real and imagined details, the images of the regalia effaced their Mediterranean characteristics and refashioned them as Germanic objects. This review of the Sicilian regalia’s place in Nuremberg illuminates how artifacts are integrated into new settings and the roles they play in the construction of history.","PeriodicalId":43922,"journal":{"name":"GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART","volume":"58 1","pages":"77 - 102"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701602","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46766001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Front Cover","authors":"","doi":"10.1086/703997","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/703997","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43922,"journal":{"name":"GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/703997","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49598878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines instances and modes of interaction between monasticism and lay society in Late Byzantium. Offering a rare view of the little-known and decontextualized monastery of Linos located on Mount Papikion in Thrace, the hinterland of the empire, this study attempts to unveil the devotional practices and philanthropic activity of local communities in the fourteenth century. An anonymous donor portrait discovered in the narthex of the monastic church sheds light on the key role of lay families in making and sustaining rural monastic establishments amidst the turmoil of war, political dysfunction, and territorial shrinkage. In contextualizing and reconsidering the foundation process of the Linos Monastery, this analysis reveals the nature and magnitude of lay patronage within the broader social realities of the fourteenth century. Unlike data for other parts of the empire, the evidence on monastic renewal or production of painted decoration in Thrace tends to lack social documentation, especially in a period that has often been characterized as the age of patronage. Though numerous monastic complexes across the Byzantine countryside bear witness to an exceptional trend of generous benefactions on the part of laymen and women, the difference in the case of Linos lies in its setting on a holy mountain. A close reading of the archaeological site and the fragmentary painted decoration contributes to our understanding of women’s accessibility to holy mountains through pious donations and the commissioning of their images on church walls.
{"title":"Lay Authority and Meaningful Portraiture on Mount Papikion, Thrace","authors":"G. Makris","doi":"10.1086/701600","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/701600","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines instances and modes of interaction between monasticism and lay society in Late Byzantium. Offering a rare view of the little-known and decontextualized monastery of Linos located on Mount Papikion in Thrace, the hinterland of the empire, this study attempts to unveil the devotional practices and philanthropic activity of local communities in the fourteenth century. An anonymous donor portrait discovered in the narthex of the monastic church sheds light on the key role of lay families in making and sustaining rural monastic establishments amidst the turmoil of war, political dysfunction, and territorial shrinkage. In contextualizing and reconsidering the foundation process of the Linos Monastery, this analysis reveals the nature and magnitude of lay patronage within the broader social realities of the fourteenth century. Unlike data for other parts of the empire, the evidence on monastic renewal or production of painted decoration in Thrace tends to lack social documentation, especially in a period that has often been characterized as the age of patronage. Though numerous monastic complexes across the Byzantine countryside bear witness to an exceptional trend of generous benefactions on the part of laymen and women, the difference in the case of Linos lies in its setting on a holy mountain. A close reading of the archaeological site and the fragmentary painted decoration contributes to our understanding of women’s accessibility to holy mountains through pious donations and the commissioning of their images on church walls.","PeriodicalId":43922,"journal":{"name":"GESTA-INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF MEDIEVAL ART","volume":"58 1","pages":"55 - 75"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1086/701600","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46742177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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