‘All that glisters is not gold ...’ New discoveries about precious-metal effigial monuments in Europe (original) (raw)
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A new Age of Bronze? Copper-alloy tomb monuments in medieval Europe
Georgitsoyanni, E. (ed.), Ancient Greek Art and European Funerary Art (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing), 2019
To quote Shakespeare: ‘All that glisters is not gold [...] Gilded tombs do worms infold’ (Merchant of Venice, II, vii). In the late eleventh century a spectacular new type of tomb monument emerged that was inspired directly or indirectly by Antiquity. The earliest known example is the extant gilt cast bronze (more correctly: copper-alloy) effigial tomb of Rudolf of Rheinfelden, duke of Swabia and anti-king to Emperor Henry IV (d. 1080), in Merseburg Cathedral. The material for his monument was clearly chosen for its prestige and its propaganda value: bronze has both biblical connotations and classical – especially imperial – antecedents as evident in the ninth-century bronze equestrian statuette (Louvre, Paris) representing either Charlemagne or his grandson Charles the Bald. However, bronze could also be gilded or polished to resemble gold, and this is how we should consider the present 'dull' appearance of many medieval tombs such as the two 'bronze' episcopal memorials in Amiens Cathedral. The impact of Rudolf's monument was immediate: others were soon created across Europe, albeit not yet in Italy where marble was favoured instead. This paper discusses the materiality, meaning, manufacture and dissemination of bronze tomb effigies while drawing comparisons with the use of bronze in Antiquity.
Medieval precious-metal effigial tomb monuments in Europe: the project continues
New discoveries and information are helping us to expand our survey, but also raise further questions about materiality, memoria, status and identity. Particularly intriguing are the ongoing case studies of precious-metal effigial tombs in Hildesheim and Amiens, where more examples are now known than we previously suspected, but we are reliant on antiquarian sources for evidence about them. Two episcopal monuments survive in Amiens Cathedral, which may well have been part of a larger series within the city, but questions surround their style, date, manufacture and placement. This short paper for the online MMR Newsletter (https://mmr.sites.uu.nl/) provides a further update to our project. Our (re)search continues.
Precious-metal effigial tomb monuments in medieval Europe 1080-1430
The aim of this joint project is to offer a survey of extant and lost medieval effigial tomb monuments made of different types of metal, ranging from copper alloy (often termed ‘bronze’) to silver and silver gilt. The findings already change the way we will henceforth view these tombs: for example, the survival of predominantly royal cast copper-alloy tombs in England has previously been misinterpreted as their being a ‘royal predilection’, whereas nearly twice that number were commissioned by patrons among the nobility and higher clergy. The project is a continuation of the authors' earlier work, including the joint article ‘The tomb monument of Katherine, daughter of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence (1253-7)’ published in The Antiquaries Journal, 92 (2012), pp. 169-196. Our initial survey has now been published in the peer-reviewed journal Church Monuments 30 (2015), pp. 7-105. A second article entitled ‘Copper-alloy tombs in medieval Europe: image, identity and reception’, has been accepted for publication in Jean Plumier and Nicolas Thomas (eds), Medieval copper, bronze and brass, Proceedings of the 2014 Dinant/Namur conference (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming). However, an inventory such as this is never finished so we welcome all new information about examples discussed in our 2015 paper or about new discoveries not yet included there. The work simply continues and may in due course result in a second article, while there is also the possibility of continuing the research into the later fifteenth century to include such examples as the extant monument to Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1439), or the output of the famous Vischer workshop in Nuremberg.
Church Monuments, 2016
Probably the most prestigious monuments produced in the Middle Ages were those constructed from (semi-)precious metals, sometimes enamelled or inlaid with real or fictive jewels. Some survive, especially in England and Germany. However, many more have been destroyed, especially in France, and are known of only through antiquarian sources. This preliminary materiality-based survey comprises 119 extant and lost examples throughout Europe in the 350-year period to 1430, starting with the monument to Rudolph of Swabia (d. 1080). It shows how magnificent such monuments could be, how widespread this type of monument once was and how it was favoured within certain families and locations, but also how much we have lost. To demonstrate the splendour of such memorials and the techniques involved, a case study is provided of the virtually unknown, but internationally important monument of Prince Afonso (d. 1400) in Braga Cathedral in northern Portugal, which has recently been the subject of detailed technical analysis.
Musings and meditations on medieval monuments made of (precious) metal -- a discussion paper
MMR (Medieval Memoria Research) Newsletter, 2020
This discussion paper raises important questions about 'bronze' (or, more correctly, copper-alloy) monuments from Antiquity to the Renaissance and Baroque, but most of all the medieval period. As such it is an extension of my earlier work on medieval 'precious-metal' effigial monuments in Europe and the survey article published in 2015 in the journal Church Monuments 30. These questions relate in particular to their original appearance (esp. patina), their reception by contemporaries and later generations, and their wider cultural impact, esp. on literature of the period from Catullus to Shakespeare, but also on antiquarian writers. This is a discussion paper: comments (and answers) from all disciplines are very welcome.
Relief copper alloy tombs in medieval Europe: image, identity and reception
Nicolas Thomas and Pete Dandridge (eds), Medieval copper, bronze and brass: History, archaeology and archaeometry of the production of brass, bronze and other copper alloy objects in medieval Europe (12th-16th centuries), 2018
A miniature in a Flemish manuscript of c. 1464 may show the impact of gilt copper alloy relief tomb monuments on contemporary imagination. A decade earlier Philip the Good had commissioned two such monuments: a triple tomb for his great-grandparents Louis of Mâle and Margaret of Brabant and his grandmother Margaret of Flanders in Lille, and a tomb for his great-aunt Joanna of Brabant in Brussels—the latter of stone and wood, however, but made to resemble gilt copper alloy. Other copper alloy monuments were later erected for Philip's daughter-in-law Isabella of Bourbon in Antwerp, his son Charles the Bold and his granddaughter Mary of Burgundy in Bruges, and Mary's husband Maximilian I in Innsbruck. These Burgundian memorials are part of a long tradition of copper alloy monuments that were once found across medieval Europe, starting with the tomb of Rudolph of Rheinfelden († 1080) in Merseburg. Unfortunately our perception of these sumptuous tombs is affected by numerous losses over the centuries, including the triple tomb in Lille and the presumed copper alloy one in Brussels. Thus, the survival of three clusters of medieval royal monuments in England has led to the mistaken belief that the use of "gilt bronze" was a specifically royal preference in England, whereas they were actually exceeded in number by such memorials to the nobility and the clergy. Yet the monument to Prince Afonso in Braga (Portugal) was probably inspired by these English royal tombs. A recently compiled corpus of extant and lost European examples up to 1430 demonstrates their former spread and patrons' choices of material.
The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages
2016
This book presents the first full length study in English of monumental bronzes in the Middle Ages. Taking as its point of departure the common medieval reception of bronze sculpture as living or animated, the study closely analyzes the practice of lost wax casting (cire perdue) in western Europe and explores the cultural responses to large scale bronzes in the Middle Ages. Starting with mining, smelting, and the production of alloys, and ending with automata, water clocks and fountains, the book uncovers networks of meaning around which bronze sculptures were produced and consumed. The book is a path-breaking contribution to the study of metalwork in the Middle Ages and to the re-evaluation of medieval art more broadly, presenting an understudied body of work to reconsider what the materials and techniques embodied in public monuments meant to the medieval spectator.
Status and Salvation: The Design of Medieval English Brasses and Incised Slabs (MBS Trans 1995)
This paper explores the main functions of memorials and how they influenced iconographical aspects of late medieval tomb design, specifically English brasses and incised slabs. The secular aspects of medieval monuments, with their emphasis on status and family pride, are frequently more striking than the sacred aspects; often they dominate the composition and in many cases they have been more extensively studied. As St. Augustine recognised, as well as being a solace to the living, monuments served the purpose of providing assistance to the dead. Indeed many regarded this as their main purpose. Once a person was dead and in Purgatory, the sentence could be shortened by prayer and intercession. The value of the prayers of the living to the purification of the dead in Purgatory was a central tenet of medieval faith, and it was therefore vital to a believer that prayers for his or her soul should be said and masses sung. This aim was reflected in many aspects of tomb design, with attention being drawn to the good works of the person commemorated.