Migrating Art Historians Workshop III : Traveling, Dreaming and Reaching the Holy Place (original) (raw)

Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 16th–17th centuries disconnectivities and the shaping of cultural imaginaries

static, 2024

I want to show how pilgrimage to the Holy Land helped mitigate Europeans’ fear of the Turks and the Ottoman world. Especially the accounts of the Holy Land produced between the 16th and 17th centuries are valuable testimonies that show us not only a real journey, but an inner journey as well. These accounts reveal how fragile the popular imaginary was, made up of the pilgrims’ own fears, highlighting the dynamics of cultural disconnections and reconnections, especially between Italian-Christian and Ottoman- Islamic popular culture. Starting with the European popular context, I will show the common imaginary of ‘the Turk’ and how pilgrimage, along with other factors, eased collective fears.

Sweat, Fear, Joy, and Amazement: Personal Experience and Mental Journeys of Orthodox Pilgrims to the Holy Land (12th to 15th Century)

2021

This essay analyzes emotionally-charged descriptions of the Holy Land's locations, composed by Byzantine and Slavic pilgrims, from the 12th to the 15th century. The author considers that such episodes were meant to assist the audience in their imaginary journey. By concentrating on curiosities, dangers, beauties of landscape, or physical efforts, the authors created a feeling of presence at the sites, <em>hereandnow</em>. On the other hand, the accounts of pious, bodily performances and the <em>Erlebnisse</em> of encounters with the Divine facilitated the audience's access to the spiritual experiences and helped them to conduct the transformative journey mentally.

"The Worthless Stories of Pilgrims"? The Art Historical Imagination of Fifteenth-century travelers to Jerusalem

Viator, 2013

This study analyzes what fifteenth century pilgrims from Northern Europe wrote about the art and architecture they encountered while on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Although these pilgrims did not have the discipline of art history, they nonetheless had a strong art historical imagination that conditioned their reception of old art and architecture. Their attempts at dating objects demonstrate a pre-modern periodization in which important rulers or dynasties matter most, and the terms medieval and Renaissance are unknown. They expected striking objects to have significant histories, studied those objects appearance for clues to those histories, and read a city’s buildings as a trustworthy barometer of its vitality. Lacking our hierarchy of fine and applied arts, they were open to appreciate a wide range of objects, which they frequently praise in terms of their workmanship.

A Textual Landscape: the Mapping of a Holy Land in the Fourth-Century Itinerarium of the Bordeaux Pilgrim

2001

In a recent article Robert Markus queries-with reference to the fourth century CE emergence of a Christian network of holy sites-“why, how was it possible that any place should become holy?” 1. He proceeds to analyse a sacralysing transformation of places in popular perceptions and practices as the reflection of a shift in Christian devotion “from the eschatological meaning of the historical narratives to their topographical associations”(Markus 267).

Images, Views and Landscapes of the Holy Land. Catholic and Protestant Travels to Ottoman Palestine during the 19th Century

Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History. Journal of Fondazione CDEC, 2013

Rich in historical details and artistic illustrations of the Near East and the Holy Land, the selected accounts of journeys and pilgrimages written by European and American Christians (Catholic and Protestant) provide numerous and broad sets of views, landscapes, sketches and scenarios. This article analyses them in order to define and point out the structure and the ratio of organizing and cataloguing these “epic” stories, and their relationship and connection with the socio-political dimension of the time. In particular, this article analyses the concept and the image produced by Christian missionaries and travelers of various affiliations, thus identifying similarities and differences between their visions of the Holy Land and pointing out to what extent they contributed to the creation of an univocal “Christian” image of the Holy Land during the 19th century and/or there were perceptible and significant divergences.