Description

The module investigates the complex relationships between bodies, images and sacred spaces in Europe and in the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages. Spanning from the fourth to the fourteenth century, the module offers not only a general approach to Medieval Art and its methodologies, but also an in-depth analysis of different cases of study, from Early Christian martyria and acheiropoietas (miraculously-created) icons in the Mediterranean, to the Romanesque shrines of venerated saints in France and in Italy.

The course concludes with the famed site of San Francesco, Assisi and the perception of the body in its frescoed decoration, a subject of much recent interest. One of the aims of this module is to address the complex associations between burials and sacred sites, investigating this not only from the perspective of holy bodies and relics, pilgrimage and devotion, but also widening the focus to royal burials, their images and the related rituals, exploring, for example, the case of Saint-Denis and the gisants of the kings of France.

Investigating the interrelations between sacred bodies, images and architecture, the module takes an interdiscidisciplinary approach to the study of Medieval Art, offering new perspectives on some of the most famed art and architecture of the period across the shores of the Mediterranean and beyond.    

Objectives

By the end of the module students should have acquired:

• a general knowledge of Medieval Art and Architecture (4^th-14^th century)
• a specific knowledge of key monuments (Vezelay, Autun, Saint-Denis, Assisi, among others)
• an approach to interdisciplinary research on Medieval Art, from the perspective of devotional practices, pilgrimage and the allegedly miraculous powers of holy bodies

Preliminary Reading

• P. Geary, Furta Sacra, Princeton 1978
• H. Belting, Likeness and presence, Chicago 1994
• L. Seidel, Legends in Limestone, Chicago 1999
• K. Ambrose, Attunement to the damned of the Conques tympanum, in Gesta, 50.2011, 1-17
• W. J. Travis, The iconography of the choir capitals at Saint-Lazare of Autun and the anagogical way in Romanesque sculpture, in Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History, 68.4 1999, 220-249
• A. Gajewsky, The abbey church at Vezelay and the cult of Mary Magdalene, in Z. Opacic, A. Timmermann (eds.), Architecture, liturgy and identity, Turnhout 2011, 221-240
• J. Gardner, Giotto and his publics, Cambridge-London 2011
• R. Brooke, The image of St. Francis: responses to sainthood in the thirteenth century, Cambridge 2006