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An important reappraisal of the image of St Francis as it was recorded in literature, documents, architecture and art. Highly illustrated throughout, including colour and black and white plates, and containing key extracts from the major sources, this book bridges the boundaries of history and the history of art.
In September of 1701, events transpired in Naples that, through frequent retellings, became popularly known as “the conspiracy of the Prince of Macchia.” Rapidly gaining fame, this apparently anonymous narrative was soon incorporated by different historians in their history of the transition years between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But who was the initial bard or narrator, the town clerk or citizen who first gave testimony of this event by creating a Latin text of the story of the Prince of Macchia? Giambattista Vico was not among the claimants to the authorship of the fabulous story that changed the future of the Kingdom of Naples. Nevertheless, four scholars across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were themselves convinced, and managed to convince the intellectual world as well, that Vico, then a young teacher of rhetoric at the University of Naples, was indeed the source of this original Latin narration of this oft retold Neapolitan history. This book provides the original Latin text with a parallel translation, as well as historical context and analysis of both the text’s authorship history and the account itself.
New studies of the Basilica in Assisi as well as innovative looks at early panel paintings and Franciscan stained glass are included.
In The Anxieties of a Citizen Class: The Miracles of the True Cross of San Giovanni Evangelista, Venice 1370-1480 Kiril Petkov identifies the socio-psychological preoccupations accompanying the formation of the leading commoner group of early Renaissance Venice, the cittadini originarii, as revealed in a cycle of miracles performed by a fragment of the True Cross owned by the brotherhood of San Giovanni Evangelista. The study’s principal contention is that the miracles trace the evolution of the citizen elite from members of a large, fluid group of men of affairs to community managers to state servants. Each miracle highlights a stage of that process and the social anxieties engendered in the acquisition of a specific social identity.
This book explores the complexity of preaching as a phenomenon in the medieval Jewish-Christian encounter. This was not only an "encounter" as physical meeting or confrontation (such as the forced attendance of Jews at Christian sermons that took place across Europe), but also an "imaginary" or theological encounter in which Jews remained a figure from a distant constructed time and place who served only to underline and verify Christian teachings. Contributors also explore the Jewish response to Christian anti-Jewish preaching in their own preaching and religious instruction.
Dedicated to Erica Cruikshank Dodd, Art and Material Culture in the Byzantine and Islamic Worlds offers new perspectives on the Christian and Muslim communities of the east Mediterranean from medieval to contemporary times. The contributors examine how people from diverse religious backgrounds adapted to their changing political landscapes and show that artistic patronage, consumption, and practices are interwoven with constructed narratives. The essays consider material and textual evidence for painted media, architecture, and the creative process in Byzantium, Crusader-era polities, the Ottoman empire, and the modern Middle East, thus demonstrating the importance of the past in understanding the present. Contributors: Evanthia Baboula, Lesley Jessop, Anthony Cutler, Jaroslav Folda, John Osborne, Glenn Peers, Annemarie Weyl Carr, Mat Immerzeel, Bas Snelders, Angela Andersen, May Farhat, Marcus Milwright, Rico Franses.
Many saints have borne the stigmata - wounds resembling those of Christ's crucifixion. While some of those saints have written about their experience, little is known of the personal experience of the first of all saints to brandish this extraordinary sign, Francis of Assisi. They were and have remained his carefully guarded secret. In The Five Wounds of Saint Francis, author Fr. Solanus Benfatti, CFR, explores the significance of this miraculous event in the Saint's life through careful analysis of pertinent medieval literature and recent scholarly studies. He establishes the historicity of the event, which has been called into question, and draws surprising and inspiring conclusions, leaving the reader with a afresh understanding of Saint Francis's spiritual experience.
As well as presenting articles on Neo-Latin topics, the annual journal Humanistica Lovaniensia is a major source for critical editions of Neo-Latin texts with translations and commentaries. Please visit www.lup.be for the full table of contents.
The book shows how the Franciscans in Jerusalem in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries wrote works which standardized the cultural memory of the Holy Land. The experience of the late medieval Holy Land was deeply connected to the presence of the Franciscans of the Convent of Mount Zion in Jerusalem, who welcomed and guided pilgrims. This book analyses this construction of a shared memory based on the continuous availability of these texts in the Franciscan library of Mount Zion, where they were copied and adapted to respond to new historical contexts. This book shows how the Franciscans developed a representation of the Holy Land by elaborating on its history and describing its religious groups and the geography of the region. This representation circulated among pilgrims and influenced how contemporaries imagined the Holy Land
The art of the Sistine Chapel, decorated by artists who competed with one another and commissioned by popes who were equally competitive, is a complex fabric of thematic, chronological, and artistic references. Four main campaigns were undertaken to decorate the chapel between 1481 and 1541, and with each new addition, fundamental themes found increasingly concrete expression. One overarching theme plays a central role in the chapel: the legitimization of papal authority, as symbolized by two keys—one silver, one gold—to the kingdom of heaven. The Sistine Chapel: Paradise in Rome is a concise, informative account of the Sistine Chapel. In unpacking this complex history, Ulrich Pfisterer ...