Mercedes López-Mayán - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mercedes López-Mayán

The process of creation of the Pontifical’s iconographic cycle, which took place in the reforming... more The process of creation of the Pontifical’s iconographic cycle, which took place in the reforming context promoted by papacy in the 13th century, still raises many questions. In some way, this problem arises from the lack of a comprehensive study –or, even, from the total ignorance– of some of the manuscripts that have survived until now. In this sense, the discovery of one example totally ignored and kept in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Vat. lat. 10684, has provided some important new information.
Belonging to a peculiar group of mixed pontificals, part of the so-called «family of the Roman Curia of the 13th century», its ornamental vocabulary is directly linked to the Roman-Abruzzi style identified in several manuscripts produced in Rome at the end of the Duecento. This circumstance allows us to attribute its production to the same workshop and, by doing so, to expand our knowledge of the complexity and diversity of cultural lines that combined in the illumination produced around the Curia. At the same time, its rich iconography, including the representation of several Canons of Saint Peter’s –to now undocumented in a Pontifical– reveals that it was made for being used in the Papal chapel. This remarkable purpose explains the prodigious creativity of its illumination, far detached from the ‘uniformity’ traditionally assigned to this type of books. This also leads us to re-think and re-place the artistic process of gestation of each manuscript as closely depending on its promoter’s decisions and its creators’ abilities. Therefore, manuscript Vat. lat. 10684 should be added to the list of the earliest illuminated pontificals preserved, explaining and even correcting the vision about its illustration which historiography has built to date.

This article aims to extend and review our knowledge about the liturgical and artistic transfers ... more This article aims to extend and review our knowledge about the liturgical and artistic transfers that occurred between Avignon and Rome in the decades fol- lowing the end of the Schism and that were decisive in the ritual and cultural configuration of the Papal Curia and its entourage in the first half of the 15th century. To that purpose, I examine a manuscript ignored to date: the BCT 56- 23, both from a material and a textual point of view —it contains a pontifical followed by several additions (the Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae by Mallius Petrus, the Indulgentie ecclesiarum urbis Rome and some notes for a crusading project against the Ottoman Empire in 1458)—. By doing so, and through its compari- son with other similar manuscripts, it has been possible to determine, firstly, that this codex can be fully related to the so-called forme remaniée (M. Andrieu) of the Durandus pontifical; and, secondly, that it was made in Basel around the 1430’s commissioned by a clergyman belonging to the papal entourage but also closely connected to the French southeast. Following the path of this manuscript, my study concludes that the process of exchanges and transfers between Avignon and Rome after the Schism was not unidirectional or unique, but took the form of a network of complex contacts, prolonged in time and space, in which foreign influences —even from the Netherlands— also played a decisive role. But it will only be possible to reconstruct this process in its entirety from the analysis of manuscripts that have survive to date.

The examination of the liturgical codex 56-23 from Toledo’s Cathedral Library has revealed the ex... more The examination of the liturgical codex 56-23 from Toledo’s Cathedral Library has revealed the existence of an exceptionally rich text, unnoticed by other researchers so far. This document contains an exhaustive assessment of the economic and military capabilities of the Christian and Turkish powers, as well as a description of their strengths and weaknesses in combat. Through the analysis of its contents and its materiality, the aim of this article is, on the one hand, to relate its circumstances of origin and use with the preparation of the crusading project that Pius II waged against the Ottoman Empire in 1458. And, on the other, to contextualize and interpret this new evidence within the literary genre of the crusading projects and texts that proliferated in the humanist Europe after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

Descrizione bibliografica in www.vaticanlibrary.va ------Proprietà letteraria riservata

À la fin du XI e siècle et parallèlement au développement de la « réforme grégorienne », le rite ... more À la fin du XI e siècle et parallèlement au développement de la « réforme grégorienne », le rite romain fut introduit en Castille à travers les nombreux prêtres d'origine outre-pyrénéenne qui accaparèrent les plus hauts postes de la hiérarchie ecclésiastique. L'historiographie espagnole s'est toujours intéressée à ce processus, mais elle ne s'était jamais interrogée sur les caractéristiques des manuscrits liturgiques employés par ces évêques et leurs successeurs. Mon article portera, donc, sur les particularités textuelles et décoratives des sept pontificaux castillans d'époque romane qui ont survécu jusqu'à nos jours, en fournissant des éléments de réflexion sur la construction d'une nouvelle image -liturgique, manuscrite et artistique -de l'évêque dans la Castille du XI e au XIII e siècle.

The relevance that the Church of Santiago reached in the Middle Ages resulted in an outstanding s... more The relevance that the Church of Santiago reached in the Middle Ages resulted in an outstanding scriptural activity and an intense circulation of diverse types of codex in order to ensure its government and the liturgical and cultural duties of its members. However, the fact that very few of these pieces have survived to this day raises significant methodological difficulties that, among other factors, explain the limited interest shown by researchers about Book History in the seat of the Apostle. To address this situation and through a deep examination of a variety of sources, this paper proposes a reconstruction of the late medieval bookish universe of one of the cathedral main actors: the canons. Thus, I will study the volume and type of books they possessed, their supply mechanisms, their use and circulation and the factors that led to the almost total disappearance within an institution that, as a rule, did not satisfy its members' needs of books.

Además de su trascendencia política y religiosa, la presencia de la Curia pontificia en Aviñón im... more Además de su trascendencia política y religiosa, la presencia de la Curia pontificia en Aviñón impulsó la creación artística al sostener, entre otras, una intensa producción de manuscritos. En las últimas décadas la historiografía ha progresado enormemente en el conocimiento de la miniatura elaborada en ese contexto; sin embargo, la enorme dispersión del fondo librario aviñonés hace que sigan siendo numerosos los manuscritos de esta procedencia que aún permanecen olvidados en archivos y bibliotecas de todo el mundo. En este artículo analizamos un nuevo hallazgo: un ejemplar de la Regula pastoralis conservado en Sevilla (BCC, ms. 56-1-1). Su importancia reside no solo en ser un testimonio de la iluminación aviñonesa ignorado hasta la fecha, sino en que, además, su aparato decorativo se puede relacionar con el presente en los pontificales de Vidal de Blanes y de Pedro de Luna, lo que enriquece nuestro conocimiento de los mecanismos de confección de manuscritos existentes en la ciudad del Ródano durante el siglo XIV y las primeras décadas del XV.

The process of creation of the Pontifical’s iconographic cycle, which took place in the reforming... more The process of creation of the Pontifical’s iconographic cycle, which took place in the reforming context promoted by papacy in the 13th century, still raises many questions. In some way, this problem arises from the lack of a comprehensive study –or, even, from the total ignorance– of some of the manuscripts that have survived until now. In this sense, the discovery of one example totally ignored and kept in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Vat. lat. 10684, has provided some important new information.
Belonging to a peculiar group of mixed pontificals, part of the so-called «family of the Roman Curia of the 13th century», its ornamental vocabulary is directly linked to the Roman-Abruzzi style identified in several manuscripts produced in Rome at the end of the Duecento. This circumstance allows us to attribute its production to the same workshop and, by doing so, to expand our knowledge of the complexity and diversity of cultural lines that combined in the illumination produced around the Curia. At the same time, its rich iconography, including the representation of several Canons of Saint Peter’s –to now undocumented in a Pontifical– reveals that it was made for being used in the Papal chapel. This remarkable purpose explains the prodigious creativity of its illumination, far detached from the ‘uniformity’ traditionally assigned to this type of books. This also leads us to re-think and re-place the artistic process of gestation of each manuscript as closely depending on its promoter’s decisions and its creators’ abilities. Therefore, manuscript Vat. lat. 10684 should be added to the list of the earliest illuminated pontificals preserved, explaining and even correcting the vision about its illustration which historiography has built to date.

This article aims to extend and review our knowledge about the liturgical and artistic transfers ... more This article aims to extend and review our knowledge about the liturgical and artistic transfers that occurred between Avignon and Rome in the decades fol- lowing the end of the Schism and that were decisive in the ritual and cultural configuration of the Papal Curia and its entourage in the first half of the 15th century. To that purpose, I examine a manuscript ignored to date: the BCT 56- 23, both from a material and a textual point of view —it contains a pontifical followed by several additions (the Descriptio basilicae Vaticanae by Mallius Petrus, the Indulgentie ecclesiarum urbis Rome and some notes for a crusading project against the Ottoman Empire in 1458)—. By doing so, and through its compari- son with other similar manuscripts, it has been possible to determine, firstly, that this codex can be fully related to the so-called forme remaniée (M. Andrieu) of the Durandus pontifical; and, secondly, that it was made in Basel around the 1430’s commissioned by a clergyman belonging to the papal entourage but also closely connected to the French southeast. Following the path of this manuscript, my study concludes that the process of exchanges and transfers between Avignon and Rome after the Schism was not unidirectional or unique, but took the form of a network of complex contacts, prolonged in time and space, in which foreign influences —even from the Netherlands— also played a decisive role. But it will only be possible to reconstruct this process in its entirety from the analysis of manuscripts that have survive to date.

The examination of the liturgical codex 56-23 from Toledo’s Cathedral Library has revealed the ex... more The examination of the liturgical codex 56-23 from Toledo’s Cathedral Library has revealed the existence of an exceptionally rich text, unnoticed by other researchers so far. This document contains an exhaustive assessment of the economic and military capabilities of the Christian and Turkish powers, as well as a description of their strengths and weaknesses in combat. Through the analysis of its contents and its materiality, the aim of this article is, on the one hand, to relate its circumstances of origin and use with the preparation of the crusading project that Pius II waged against the Ottoman Empire in 1458. And, on the other, to contextualize and interpret this new evidence within the literary genre of the crusading projects and texts that proliferated in the humanist Europe after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

Descrizione bibliografica in www.vaticanlibrary.va ------Proprietà letteraria riservata

À la fin du XI e siècle et parallèlement au développement de la « réforme grégorienne », le rite ... more À la fin du XI e siècle et parallèlement au développement de la « réforme grégorienne », le rite romain fut introduit en Castille à travers les nombreux prêtres d'origine outre-pyrénéenne qui accaparèrent les plus hauts postes de la hiérarchie ecclésiastique. L'historiographie espagnole s'est toujours intéressée à ce processus, mais elle ne s'était jamais interrogée sur les caractéristiques des manuscrits liturgiques employés par ces évêques et leurs successeurs. Mon article portera, donc, sur les particularités textuelles et décoratives des sept pontificaux castillans d'époque romane qui ont survécu jusqu'à nos jours, en fournissant des éléments de réflexion sur la construction d'une nouvelle image -liturgique, manuscrite et artistique -de l'évêque dans la Castille du XI e au XIII e siècle.

The relevance that the Church of Santiago reached in the Middle Ages resulted in an outstanding s... more The relevance that the Church of Santiago reached in the Middle Ages resulted in an outstanding scriptural activity and an intense circulation of diverse types of codex in order to ensure its government and the liturgical and cultural duties of its members. However, the fact that very few of these pieces have survived to this day raises significant methodological difficulties that, among other factors, explain the limited interest shown by researchers about Book History in the seat of the Apostle. To address this situation and through a deep examination of a variety of sources, this paper proposes a reconstruction of the late medieval bookish universe of one of the cathedral main actors: the canons. Thus, I will study the volume and type of books they possessed, their supply mechanisms, their use and circulation and the factors that led to the almost total disappearance within an institution that, as a rule, did not satisfy its members' needs of books.

Además de su trascendencia política y religiosa, la presencia de la Curia pontificia en Aviñón im... more Además de su trascendencia política y religiosa, la presencia de la Curia pontificia en Aviñón impulsó la creación artística al sostener, entre otras, una intensa producción de manuscritos. En las últimas décadas la historiografía ha progresado enormemente en el conocimiento de la miniatura elaborada en ese contexto; sin embargo, la enorme dispersión del fondo librario aviñonés hace que sigan siendo numerosos los manuscritos de esta procedencia que aún permanecen olvidados en archivos y bibliotecas de todo el mundo. En este artículo analizamos un nuevo hallazgo: un ejemplar de la Regula pastoralis conservado en Sevilla (BCC, ms. 56-1-1). Su importancia reside no solo en ser un testimonio de la iluminación aviñonesa ignorado hasta la fecha, sino en que, además, su aparato decorativo se puede relacionar con el presente en los pontificales de Vidal de Blanes y de Pedro de Luna, lo que enriquece nuestro conocimiento de los mecanismos de confección de manuscritos existentes en la ciudad del Ródano durante el siglo XIV y las primeras décadas del XV.

by Revista Quintana, Olaya Sanfuentes, Montserrat Capelán, francesco giaveri, Bruno Marques, ALEXANDRA MESA MENDIETA, Constanza Nieto Yusta, Marta Rico Cuesta, Fátima Díez-Platas, Mercedes López-Mayán, Capelan Montserrat, Poyato Pedro, and Alfredo Vigo Trasancos

by Revista Quintana, Alfredo Vigo Trasancos, Juan Miguel Muñoz Corbalán, Juan David Díaz López, Emma López Bahut, Juan Ignacio Prieto López, Antonio S. Río Vázquez, Inmaculada Rodriguez Moya, Imanol Zumalde, Mercedes López-Mayán, Leticia Bermejo de Rueda, Jesus Angel Sanchez-Garcia, and Pablo Allepuz García

Miscellanea Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae XXII (Studi e testi, 501), 2016

Descrizione bibliografica in www.vaticanlibrary.va ------Proprietà letteraria riservata

by Revista Quintana, José Manuel B. López Vázquez, minia bravo, Joaquín García Nistal, Fernando Gutiérrez Baños, Rosario LLamas-Pacheco, Maite Mendez-Baiges, Monica Ortuzar, rosa perales-piqueres, Iñigo Sarriugarte, Natalia Tielve, Carlos Villar-Taboada, Mercedes López-Mayán, Patricia Andrés González, María Rivo Vázquez, Teresa Llácer Viel, Victoria Soto Caba, Alfredo Vigo Trasancos, and Jesus Angel Sanchez-Garcia

Collection 'Culture et société médiévales ', nº 15. Turnhout, Brepols, 2008. 205 págs. ISBN: 978-... more Collection 'Culture et société médiévales ', nº 15. Turnhout, Brepols, 2008. 205 págs. ISBN: 978-2-503-52834-2. Devolver a su contexto original un objeto del pasado que ha adquirido el estatus de obra de arte y, en cierto modo, ha quedado fosilizado en las vitrinas de un museo no resulta sencillo. Sin embargo, es necesario trascender la valoración fetichista del objeto en sí mismo y analizar las circunstancias en que fue producido y utilizado, pues solo así se puede comprender la importancia real que tuvo en el seno de las sociedades que lo generaron.

La celebración del octavo centenario del otorgamiento a la ciudad de A Coruña de su carta de natu... more La celebración del octavo centenario del otorgamiento a la ciudad de A Coruña de su carta de naturaleza como lugar de realengo por parte de Alfonso IX (1188-1230) ha llevado al ayuntamiento coruñés, en colaboración con diversas instituciones, a organizar una serie de eventos conmemorativos, de entre los cuales ocupa un lugar destacado la exposición titulada Alfonso IX y su época. Pro utilitate regni mei, cuyos contenidos y argumentos expositivos se han plasmado en el catálogo que ahora comentamos.