This session seeks to expand on recent scholarly inquiries into the role of prints in both mediating and organizing knowledge in the early modern period. Current interdisciplinary interventions among art historians and historians of science, such as the Fogg Museum’s 2011 exhibition Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, have secured the place of print in the formalization of new disciplines and technologies.

Many printed genres of the early modern period asserted their informational properties and presented their contents as data; this panel will inspect the organization of that data into visual formats. Prints produced by artists in the age of expansion embraced, craftily adjusted, or outright rejected an engagement with naturalism to suit the demands of conveying unfamiliar material.

The frameworks of visualization that accommodated extra-European material often tread a tightrope between descriptive and normative ends, frequently producing hybrids to ratify claims of empirical experience. Here we will examine how information was recorded and formalized in the methods that early modern artists used to filter, organize, and familiarize strange new material with which they came into contact.

We invite papers that consider this phenomenon in cosmographies, natural histories, travel compendia, botanicals, costume books, physiognomies and other genres that explore things of the world in relation to the lay of the land.

Please send a 150-word abstract and an abbreviated c.v. to both Stephanie Leitch and Ashley West using the subject heading “RSA 2013″.

Deadline: 25 May 2012.

Source: H-ArtHist

CONFERENCE: Visual Interests: The Intellectual Legacy of Michael Baxandall, London, The Warburg Institute, University of London, School of Advanced Study (Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AB), 24-25 May 2012. A conference organised by Peter Mack and Robert Williams.

The work of Michael Baxandall (1933-2008) was of profound importance to the study of the visual arts: its impact extended to all branches of the humanities as well as to the social sciences. To commemorate his achievement, the Warburg Institute will host a two-day conference. Invited speakers include Elizabeth Cook (London), Paul Hills (Courtauld Institute), Jan Koenderink (Utrecht), Allan Langdale (University of California at Santa Cruz), Evelyn Lincoln (Brown), Stephen Melville (Ohio State) and Robert Williams (University of California at Santa Barbara).

Programme

Thursday 24 May
10.30: Registration and Coffee
* Peter Mack and Robert Williams, Welcome and Introduction
* Jan Koenderink, Visual Awareness and Artistic Expression
* Alex Potts, Painterly Envisaging and the Subject of Picturing
* Paul Hills, The Presence of Light
* Daniel Andersson, Shades of Intention: Baxandall and the Problem of Shadows
* Robert Williams, Baxandall and Gombrich
* Stephen Melville, On Being Struck by Some of Baxandall’s Sentences

Friday 25 May
10.00: Coffee
* Evelyn Lincoln, Printing and Experience in Eighteenth-Century Italy
* Kimberly Skelton, The Synecdochic Period Eye
* Thomas Willette, Talking about Pictures: Training the Eye
* Alberto Frigo, Baxandall and Gramsci: Pictorial Intelligence and Organic Intellectuals
* Herman Roodenburg, The Visceral Pleasure of Looking: On Baxandall, Langdale and Bourdieu
* Elizabeth Cook, Michael Baxandall’s Stationing
- Closing Discussion.

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Programme

Jeudi 24 mai, 14.00
- Accueil et introduction
* Stefano L’Occaso (Soprintendenza di Mantova), Pittura a Mantova tra Bonacolsi e Gonzaga
* Cristina Guarnieri (Università di Padova), I Gonzaga e la decorazione della cappella gentilizia in Palazzo Ducale
* Ettore Napione (Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio), Tornare a Julius von Schlosser: i palazzi scaligeri e il preumanesimo
* Tiziana Franco e Fausta Piccoli (Università degli Studi di Verona), Dentro e fuori la corte: note sulla pittura a Padova e a Verona nel Trecento
* Andrea De Marchi (Università degli Studi di Firenze), La percezione panottica delle « camerae pictae » profane di età gotica in Italia superiore
- Discussion

Vendredi 25 mai, 9.30
* Zuleika Murat (Università di Padova), L’arte al servizio della corte: propaganda politica e magnificenza dinastica nella decorazione pittorica delle arche Carraresi
* Laura Cavazzini (Università di Messina), Una sortita di Bonino da Campione alla Corte dei Carraresi
* Laura Alidori Battaglia (University of California at Santa Cruz), La miniatura lombarda del Trecento, novità e riletture
* Santina Novelli (Université de Lausanne), Il Maestro di Montiglio e i toscani d’Avignone
- Discussion

* Serena Romano (Université de Lausanne), Gothic and the Antique. Bernabò and Regina at Pandino Castle
* Pier Nicola Pagliara (Università di Roma Tre/ EPFL), Le residenze fortificate dei Visconti: testimonianze di palazzi urbani scomparsi
* Vinni Lucherini (Università Federico II di Napoli), Riflessioni sulla volontà di creare un’arte di corte “nazionale”: il caso dei re napoletani d’Ungheria nel corso del Trecento
* Klara Benesovska (Institute of Art History, Academy of Sciences, Prague), La Praga di Venceslao IV e la Milano di Giangaleazzo Visconti: somiglianze e differenze
- Discussion

Samedi 26 mai, 9.30
* Mateusz Grzeda (Jagiellonian University, Cracovie), Fantasia. Ritrarre and the Rise of Portraiture in Lombardy c. 1400
* Nathalie Roman (Université de Lausanne), Savoie, France, Milan: les choix artistiques de Blanche de Savoie
* Denise Zaru (Université de Lausanne), Autour des Visconti. Quelques réflexions sur les oratoires lombards
* Anne Dunlop (University of Tulane, New Orleans), Titre à définir
- Discussion.

En savoir plus

CALL FOR PAPERS: Illuminated Manuscripts and Their Users, Durham, Durham University, Wednesday, 6 June 2012 (beginning at 14.00).

The first session will focus on the use of digital resources in manuscript research, with a presentation by Dr Joanna Fronska (The British Library), Behind the scenes process of digitisation, followed by a roundtable discussion of the use and value of online digital resources.

The second session will consist of short panel presentations/discussion on illuminated manuscripts in the Royal collection, addressing one of the following questions:
* How were the illuminated manuscripts in the royal library used and received by their owners?
* What are the characteristics of illustrated manuscripts collected by English monarchs?
* How did monastic manuscripts enter the royal collection, or what was their function within the library?
* How representative is what survives of the royal library, and why is there a relative lack of liturgical or private devotional books in the royal collection?

The content of the presentations will be circulated before the workshop to enable participants to formulate questions/responses in advance.

If you would like to be considered as a presenter, please submit a 500-word essay to Professor Richard Gameson. Deadline: 25 May 2012.

A summary of the discussions will be published on the BL Medieval and Earlier MSS Blog, and papers may be offered to the Electronic British Library Journal for publication.

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La giornata si pone come obiettivo la formazione di un ponte tra gli storici della miniatura e gli esperti nel campo della diagnostica, i quali illustreranno le possibilità di indagine rese possibili dalle moderne tecniche di analisi. Si confronteranno esperti di miniatura orientale e comunque di paesi extraeuropei con scienziati competenti nel campo della diagnostica. Il seminario si articola nell’arco di una giornata.

PROGRAMMA

9.30 - Saluto delle autorità:
* Aldo Tomasi, Rettore dell’Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
* Luca Bellingeri, Direttore della Biblioteca Estense di Modena
* Euride Fregni, Direttrice dell’Archivio di Stato di Modena
* Franca Baldelli, Direttrice Archivio Storico Comunale
* Mario Lugli, Assessore alla Cultura del Comune di Modena

10.00 - Sessione mattutina: introduce e presenta Gianfranco Fiaccadori (Università degli Studi di Milano)
* Andrea De Pasquale (Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino, Biblioteca Braidense di Milano), I caratteri orientali nella stampa
* Giusi Zanichelli (Università degli Studi di Salerno), Lo studio dei manoscritti miniati orientali
* Massimo Rodella (Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano), I fondi orientali della Biblioteca Ambrosiana
* Carla Giunchedi (Biblioteca Braidense), I fondi orientali a Brera
* Biancastella Antonino (Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna), Rarità, fascino e curiosità nei manoscritti orientali della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna
* Franca Porticelli (Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino), I fondi orientali della Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino

14.10 - Sessione pomeridiana: introduce Danilo Bersani (Università degli Studi di Parma)
* Paola Ricciardi, Kristine Rose (Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge), Fusing Findings: An Inter-Disciplinary Approach to the Study of Islamic Manuscripts at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge
* Lorenzo Teodonio (ICPAL), Indagini sulla degradazione dei supporti cartacei orientali
* Pietro Baraldi (Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia), Yeghis Keheyan (Università degli Studi di Roma - La Sapienza), I materiali dei codici armeni
* Paolo Bensi (Università degli Studi di Genova), Materiali e tecniche della miniatura Medio-orientale
* Maurizio Aceto (Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale), I materiali dei codici persiani

16.30 - Tavola rotonda e conclusione dei lavori.

Per l’iscrizione compilare il modulo online. A richiesta, gli studenti e dottorandi di ricerca del Corso di Laurea in Scienze dei Beni Culturali potranno ricevere un attestato di frequenza alla giornata da presentare alle loro Università per il rilascio di crediti formativi.

Per ulteriori informazioni contatta il Prof. Pietro Baraldi o visita il sito ARC

NEWS: St Cuthbert Gospel Saved for the Nation. Today a new display of the manuscript opens in the front hall of the British Library which runs until the 17th of June 2012.

The British Library has acquired the St Cuthbert Gospel after the most successful fundraising campaign in the Library’s history. Following a detailed conservation assessment, the manuscript has recently been fully digitised and you can now see it here on our Digitised Manuscripts site. The manuscript has been added to the Library’s collections as Additional MS 89000.

The Gospel, which is a manuscript copy of the Gospel of St John, is the earliest intact European book and is intimately associated with Cuthbert, one of Britain’s foremost saints. It was created in the late 7th century in the north-east of England and placed in St Cuthbert’s coffin, apparently in 698. It was discovered when the coffin was opened in Durham Cathedral in 1104 on the occasion of the removal of Cuthbert’s body to a new shrine. The Gospel has a beautifully-worked, original, red leather binding in excellent condition, and is the only surviving high-status manuscript from this crucial period in British history to retain its original appearance, both inside and out.

The British Library is now taking the first steps to increase public awareness and understanding of the Gospel. The new display explores both the significance of the Gospel as a book and its association with St Cuthbert, as well as charting the many journeys that the book has made. The Gospel itself is on display in the Sir John Ritblat Treasures of the British Library Gallery, along with a 9th-century copy of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People and a beautifully illuminated 12th-century copy of Bede’s prose Life of St Cuthbert. In recent years the Gospel has been displayed closed to show the outstanding decorated cover. Following the recent conservation assessment, is now on display open for the first time in the Library’s St Pancras building. Two pages of the text of St John’s Gospel will be shown until the display in the Entrance Hall closes on 17 June.

The fundraising campaign to acquire the St Cuthbert Gospel was the biggest that the Library has ever run. The single largest donation to the fundraising campaign was a £4.5m grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. Other major donors included the Art Fund, the Garfield Weston Foundation and the Foyle Foundation. There were many other donations from charitable trusts, foundations and hundreds of individuals and the Library is extremely grateful for every single donation which has enabled us to save this wonderful manuscript for the nation.

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Sommario:

*MIKLÓS BOSKOVITS, Carlo Volpe: alcuni ricordi, pp. 5-13
* LUCIANO BELLOSI, Testimonianze su Carlo Volpe, pp. 14-20
* MICHEL LACLOTTE, Rencontres siennoises avec Carlo Volpe, pp. 21-24
* MASSIMO MEDICA, Carlo Volpe, la pittura tardogotica a Bologna e l’avventura di una tesi, pp. 25-37
* DANIELE BENATI, Oltre l’Officina ferrarese: la riscoperta del Rinascimento a Bologna, pp. 38-55
* SERENA PADOVANI, Riflessioni su Raffaello giovane e il mistero della commissione della Pala Dei, pp. 56-68
* MINA GREGORI, Per Carlo Volpe: qualche ricordo, pp. 69-71
* RENATO BARILLI, Volpe e l’arte contemporanea, pp. 72-82
* ANGELO GUGLIELMI, Ricordando Carlo Volpe, pp. 83-90
* ANNA MARIA MATTEUCCI, Carlo Volpe: un maestro, un amico, pp. 91-99
* BRUNO TOSCANO, Coerenza e verità nell’amore per l’arte, pp. 100-110
Summary, p. 111.

NEWS: Presentazione del facsimile di due codici miniati presso la sede dell’Accademia d’Ungheria in Roma, (Palazzo Falconieri, Salone giallo, Via Giulia 1, 00186 Roma; tel. 06-6889671), giovedì 10 maggio 2012, ore 18.00: Concordantiae caritatis e Apollonius pictus

Intervengono:
* Dott. Comm. Marco Buonocore, Direttore “Sezione Archivi” della BAV
* Prof. Francesca Manzari, Sapienza – Università di Roma
* Prof. Xavier Barral i Altet, Université de Rennes II, Università Ca’Foscari di Venezia
* Prof. Herbert L. Kessler, John Hopkins University (Baltimore)
* Dott. Marco Guardo, Direttore della Biblioteca dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana
* Dott. Anna Boreczky, Biblioteca Nazionale Széchényi (Budapest)
* Dott. András Németh, Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Berlin).

This volume gives the reader side by side a facsimile and a manifold account of a thousand-year-old manuscript (Budapest, National Széchényi Library, Cod. Lat. 4), the oldest known illustrated copy of the late antique Latin adventure romance History of Apollonius, King of Tyre (Historia Apollonii).

The vicissitudes of king Apollonius, his daughter Tarsia, and her mother Lucina across the Mediterranean have enjoyed exceptional popularity since the early Middle Ages: among others, this story inspired Shakespeare’s Pericles. The narrative cycle depicting the adventure story is not only the most important evidence for the illustrated late antique romances, an almost entirely lost genre, but also a unique example of the narrative book illustrations at the turn of the first millennium. In addition to the thirty-eight uncoloured pen-and-ink drawings depicting the adventures of the plot in a cartoon-like cinematic narration, the fragmentary Budapest manuscript comprises half of a very early and valuable redaction of the text. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the drawings were glossed mostly in Old Saxonian, which gives a unique insight into the early reception of the romance in Germany and the peculiar sense of monastic humour. The reader has a chance to explore all these details and discover new layers of interpretation in the facsimile.

A richly illustrated commentary volume encourages the adventure of exploration with studies in English, German, and French. An international group of experts, Xavier Barral i Altet, Anna Boreczky, Herbert L. Kessler, András Németh, Andreas Nievergelt and Beatrice Radden Keefe investigate the tortuous history of the manuscript up to the present, its unique blend of late antique and Ottonian visual language, the successively alternating practices between illustrator and scribe in the joint transmission of depictions and text, and a full account of its glosses. The appendix invites the reader to continue unfolding multiple layers of the manuscript and includes the first full critical transcription of its Latin text.

Click here to order a copy.

FACSIMILE: Budapester Concordantiae Caritatis Budapester Concordantiae caritatis (Budapest, Central Library of the Ordo Scholarum Piarum, CX 2). Publisher: Schöck ArtPrint.

- Limited edition: 480 handnumbered copies
- Place and date of origin of the manuscript: Vienna, 1413
- Language of the manuscript: Latin, German
- Dimensions of the facsimile: 270×390 mm
- Number of pages of facsimile: 524 pages
- Binding of facsimile: hand-made
- Paper of facsimile: hand-made paper
- Cover of facsimile: gilded calf-skin
- Commentary volume: 150 pages
- Language of commentary volume: German
- Price: Euro 4.600.

The Budapest Concordantiae caritatis is the most richly illustrated medieval manuscript in Hungary. The work contained in it is that of a fourteenth-century author, Ulrich von Lilienfeld, who between 1345-1351 was the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Lilienfeld, Lower Austria. Concordantiae caritatis is a typological manuscript. The main characteristic of a typological work is that events described in the Old and in the New Testament are placed within a structure according to their role in the story of Redemption. The scenes in the Old Testament serve as a prototype for those in the New Testament, which are the final fulfillment, and form a unified, mutually enlightening whole.

Concordantiae caritatis is the most complete typological collection of the Middle Ages. It comprises 238 typological units with an encyclopedic intention. Not only is it extraordinary because of its extent; it is also unique from the aspect of its content. Natural phenomena and scenes taken from the lives of saints, which, like that of Christ, serve as moral examples, became integral parts of its typological system. The typological units of Concordantiae caritatis each take up two facing pages. On the right we can read the text, while the illustrations are placed on the left. Every typological unit is made up of five parts. The main scene is found at the centre on the top of the page with two prototypes from the Old Testament below it, and two natural parallels at the bottom of the page. The work concludes with a “picturecatechism” the text of which is partly in German. Here the virtues and vices play the main role: they fight each other riding on the back of various animals; they assist the knight of Christ (Miles Christi) into the saddle, elsewhere they drive chariots to heaven or to hell.

Both because of its author and the spread of its copies, Concordantiae caritatis is a characteristically Central European work. All the copies that came down to us are manuscripts and most of them originate from Southern Germany and Austria. A good part of them are still preserved in German and Austrian libraries. These copies testify that although the author of Concordantiae caritatis destined it to be an illustrated volume equally suitable for educational and preaching purposes, his contemporaries would rather use it in preparation for sermons. Only eight copies of Concordantiae caritatis known today contain illustrations and of these few the Budapest manuscript is worthy of a high position due to the high quality and completeness of its cycle of illustrations.

In line with the wealth of contents of the Concordantiae caritatis we read descriptions of no less than 1225 scenes and natural phenomena over 524 pages in the Budapest manuscript. As many coloured pen-and-ink drawings help in understanding the text. They represent biblical events, legends, mythical and real animals coming to life in an environment that immortalizes many details of the age’s material culture. The technical peculiarities of the coloured pen-andink drawings give the illustrations an exceptionally immediate effect; to this day the moment of their creation is preserved for us. At the same time the Budapest

Concordantiae caritatis is worthy of notice not solely as an inexhaustible depository of representing the world surrounding us and created by the supernatural power and by mankind: the manuscript is at least as interesting in its own historicity. As the colophon betrays, the text was written in 1413 by the Viennese burgher Stephanus Lang, in his own home. Stephanus Lang was an educated person who, after receiving the degree of baccalaureus in artibus at Prague University, started a family in Vienna and occupied a number of municipal positions: as notary, as the Kirchmeister of Stephansdom, and more than once as a city alderman. His deep faith is borne out by his Memento mori, like meditative text on death, circulated under the title Memoria improvisae mortis and his will, composed in 1419, the latter of which provides a picture of his family and of his wealth.

Seven artists, visibly in contact with each other but of varying education, participated in the illustration of the Budapest Concordantiae caritatis. Of them the most talented one can be linked with the circle of the Master of the Sankt Lambrecht Votive Picture, a group whose style became dominant in Viennese panel painting in the first third of the fifteenth century. We know of no other works by the creators of the illustration cycle, or at least none that we can attribute to any one of them without any shadow of doubt. At the same time this means that without the Budapest Concordantiae caritatis Viennese art of the years around 1400 (important on its own right in the European context) would be poorer by more than 1,000 pictures and a good handful of artists. The difference in styles of the masters of the manuscript throw an interesting light on the cultural variety of old Vienna, while their interrelationships provide us with a glimpse of late medieval workshop-practice, the possible forms of cooperation among artists and in the final analysis the nature of art imagery.

The Budapest Concordantiae caritatis has formed a part of Hungarian book and library history since the seventeenth century. In 1646 it belonged to Pál Lászlóffy (who may have acquired it in Vienna), in 1666 it was held in Bajmóc Castle (today Bojnice, Slovakia) of the Pálffy family, and in 1795 it enriched the library of the Piarist Order in Pozsony szentgyörgy (today Svätý Jur, Slovakia). It was here that it was given a gilded leather binding. In 1906 the volume entered the possession of the Central Library of the Piarist Order in Budapest. The first publication about the work was by the Piarist monk László Papp, in 1979. Following this, the manuscript was quick to attract the attention of Hungarian and foreign researchers alike, although no thorough analysis could be undergone.

Our publication, comprising a facsimile of the manuscript (the first facsimile in the Concordantaie caritatis manuscript-family) and a commentary volume, will fill that gap and turn a work of outstanding significance from the aspect of cultural history and art history hitherto known yet unobtainable to a very small professional circle, and outside professional circles completely unknown, into a publich treasury.