Peregrinating Rome and Jerusalem in Enguerrand Quarton’s ‘Coronation of the Virgin’ (original) (raw)
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Gesta 61,2 (2022), pp. 1–41
Cladding the front of the most important pilgrimage site of Western Christendom, the mosaic commissioned by Pope Gregory IX (1227-41) for the façade of Old St. Peter's has received extraordinary scholarly attention, and yet its original appearance, meaning, and message have remained elusive. The identification of overlooked medieval sources, combined with a fresh reading of the known ones (both written and visual), suggests a new interpretation of this mosaic, together with the framing of its message in a broader context of transformation within the Roman Church and of changing relationships between Rome, Constantinople, and the Holy Land. Instead of focusing on relics of saints, images, or monuments-as in traditional readings-I offer a new approach to the basilica of St. Peter's: a reappraisal of its inner space that calls attention to a hitherto neglected display of material objects that articulated a rich discourse on compunction, contrition, and penance through the exemplars of Peter and Judas as his antithesis. It becomes clear that, in his own basilica, Peter was not only presented as the first pope and the very foundational stone of the Roman Church
2015
In his summa-like systematic theology De sacramentis (c. 1130-1137), Hugh of Saint Victor presents the Christian theological conception of the history of salvation on an epic scale. It is also an account that conceives of its subject almost completely in terms of time. However, in his image of The Mystic Ark (first painted at the abbey of Saint Victor, in Paris, 1125-1130), an image that is virtually the visual equivalent of the main themes of De sacramentis, the visual setting for the history of salvation–a world map–introduces the dimension of space into this comprehensive world view. While Jerusalem plays no role whatsoever in Hugh’s written conception of the history of salvation, “the city of the great king” plays a strikingly active role in its visual counterpart. At the same time, Hugh chose to follow one medieval tradition that placed Jerusalem in the center of the world in world maps, the same place primarily occupied by Christ in his image, the result being one of the earliest examples–perhaps the earliest significant example–of Jerusalem, in however veiled a form, at the centre of a medieval world map. In this lecture, I will investigate the role that Jerusalem, the city of the great king, plays in The Mystic Ark in regard to Hugh’s own formal methodological categories of place, time, and person–a unique role that is not articulated, to the best of my knowledge, in Hugh’s other writings or in the work of other Christian writers or images, but which is found only in The Mystic Ark, the most complex individual work of figural art of the Middle Ages. Hugh of Saint Victor's Mystic Ark: Illustrations: http://mysticark.ucr.edu. This site presents a collection of images of The Mystic Ark that repeat in greater visual detail the same illustrations published in my study The Mystic Ark: Hugh of Saint Victor, Art, and Thought in the Twelfth Century for those who would like to study the image of The Mystic Ark more closely than is possible with the printed illustrations.
6 Translations of the Sacred City between Jerusalem and Rome
2014
Several cities and individual churches in the Middle Ages were associated with the idea of representing or incorporating Jerusalem in one manner or another. This widely attested phenomenon occurred in a large range of variants, depending on the 'type' of Jerusalem represented and the way in which the representation was made concrete.1 In this contribution, I aim to discuss one of the earliest, and perhaps one of the most notable cases of 'being' Jerusalem outside Jerusalem. The church leaders of Rome may have had very specific reasons for appropriating the significance of the historical Jerusalem as the ancient capital of the Roman Empire. Moreover, they may have utilized very specific instruments in order for this claim to materialize. It was rooted in the idea that Christian Rome had been founded directly from Jerusalem by the mission of the apostles Peter and Paul. Rome was, in the words of Jennifer O'Reilly: 'the western extremity of their evangelizing mission from the biblical centre of the earth at Jerusalem and became the new centre from which their papal successors continued the apostolic mission to the ends of the earth' .2 The existence of the apostles' tombs, reinforced by the recollections of numerous Christian martyrs, was the fundamental factor in making Rome into the new spiritual capital of the Christian world. This claim urged Christian Rome to establish new terms for its relationship with what qualified, perhaps, as 'the ideological centre of the Christian empire' in Jerusalem.3 It has been argued that the Roman Church did so by a literal transfer of the significance of earthly Jerusalem to Rome, and hence by making Jerusalem superfluous. Hartmann Grisar's 1899 essay 'Antiche basiliche di Roma imitanti i santuarii di Gerusalemme e Betlemme' contained stimulating ideas and observations, which have largely been reproduced by later scholarship, often, however, without critical evaluation of the evidence.4
Seeing Jerusalem: schematic views of the Holy City, 1100–1300
Aspects of knowledge, 2018
This chapter, by Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Asa Simon Mittman, addresses the subject of cartography and medieval perceptions of geographical space, specifically in relation to Jerusalem. The chapter pays particularly attention to the map of the city in a manuscript from twelfth-century Flanders, doing so in the context of an overview of medieval map-making which stresses the symbolic function of maps within a Christian view of the physical world, with Jerusalem the ideal city at its centre. For the composer of the map examined here, however, Jerusalem is not just an ideal, but a real city. Thus theological understanding is strikingly combined with the practical knowledge.
Muse, 2018
This article examines two carved bone plaques produced by the Embriachi workshop (Northern Italy, late 14th/early15th century) in the collection of the University of Missouri-Columbia's Museum of Art and Archaeology. Although they had been removed from their original framework by the time they were acquired by the Museum, I argue that iconographical, formal, and material clues point to their likely original inclusion in an altarpiece that depicted events from the Passion.
A Byzantine Jerusalem. The Imperial Pharos Chapel as the Holy Sepulchre
A Byzantine Jerusalem. The Imperial Pharos Chapel as the Holy Sepulchre. In the book: Jerusalem as Narrative Space, ed. Annette Hoffmann and Gerhard Wolf, Leiden, Boston: Koninklijke Brill, 2012, pp. 63-104. , 2012
Constantinople was perceived as a Holy City, the Second Jerusalem, an expected place of the Second Coming. In this study we examine the sacred space of the greatest importance in Byzantium, the church of the Virgin of the Pharos, which served from 864 to 1204 as an imperial repository of the main relics of Christendom. This ‘Byzantine Holy Sepulchre’ enshrined the collection of 10 most important relics pertaining to the Passions and the Crucifixion and was termed by contemporaries as ‘the Decalogue’. The two miraculous images ‘not made with hands’ (Mandilion and Keramion) were also kept in this church as well as the head and hand of John the Baptist and a large piece of the Holy Cross. The space of the church, so richly saturated with the relics of the Holy Land, was seen as another Jerusalem, the symbolic image of the Holy Land. One of the special services held in this church was the service ‘of the Holy City’ which resembled the services at the Resurrection church in Jerusalem. The spatial arrangement of relics in the Pharos Church entered as image-paradigm into the sacred space of many churches all over the Christian world and was represented in iconography.
De Medio Aevo 14, 2020
This article2 aims to unveil the doctrinal meanings that many Church Fathers and theologians have deciphered in some Old Testament terms such as templum, tabernaculum, domus Sapientiae, arca and other similar expressions related to sacred spaces or containers. In many specific cases, they have interpreted these expressions as metaphors or symbols of the Virgin Mary's womb and Christ's human nature. As a consequence, these interpretive approaches are reflected in some images of the Annunciation of the 14th and 15th centuries. So this article will analyze first a selected set of patristic, theological, and liturgical texts, and secondly, will examine eight paintings of the Annunciation with a temple-shaped house to see if there is an essential relation between those exegetical texts and these pictorial images. Based on that double analysis, it seems reasonable to conclude that the temple depicted in these Annunciations is a visual metaphor that illustrates the doctrinal meanings decrypted by the Fathers and theologians in their interpretations of the textual metaphors mentioned above. [es] The temple in images of the Annunciation: a double dogmatic symbol according to the Latin theological tradition (6th-15th centuries) Resumen. Este artículo tiene como objetivo desvelar los significados doctrinales que muchos Padres y teólogos de la Iglesia han descifrado en algunos términos del Antiguo Testamento, como templum, tabernaculum, domus Sapientiae, arca y otras expresiones similares relacionadas con espacios o contenedores de lo sagrado. En muchos casos específicos, interpretaron estas expresiones como metáforas o símbolos del vientre de la Virgen María y la naturaleza humana de Cristo. Como consecuencia, estos enfoques interpretativos se reflejan en algunas imágenes de la Anunciación de los siglos XIV y XV. Por lo tanto, este artículo analizará primero un selecto conjunto de textos patrísticos, teológicos y litúrgicos, y en segundo lugar analizará ocho pinturas de la Anunciación con una casa en forma de templo, para ver si hay alguna relación esencial entre esos textos exegéticos y esas imágenes pictóricas. Basado en ese doble análisis, parece razonable concluir que el templo representado en estas Anunciaciones es una metáfora visual que ilustra los significados doctrinales descifrados por los Padres y teólogos en sus interpretaciones de las metáforas textuales antes mencionadas. Palabras clave: Anunciación; templum Dei; Patrística Latina; encarnación de Cristo; maternidad divina de María. Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. Analysis of patristic, theological, and liturgical texts on the figure of templum Dei and other similar metaphors. 2.1. The interpretive tradition in Church Fathers and medieval theologians since the 6th century. 2.2. Doctrinal tradition on the figure of templum Dei and other similar metaphors in medieval Latin liturgical hymnals. 3. Analysis of some images of the Annunciation (ss. XIV-XV) with the house of Mary in the form of a temple, 4. Conclusions. 5. References. 5.1. Primary sources. 5.2. Bibliography. How to cite: Salvador-González, J. M. (2020). The temple in images of the Annunciation: a double dogmatic symbol according to the Latin theological tradition (6th-15th centuries). De Medio Aevo 14, 55-68.