From the Medieval to the Baroque

Cyclops ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 235-304
Author(s):  
Mercedes Aguirre ◽  
Richard Buxton
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Classical Reception ◽  
Baroque Opera ◽  
A Site

This chapter is the first of the authors’ two substantial investigations into the post-classical reception of Cyclopean mythology. The account begins in the European Middle Ages, with representations of ‘races’ of Wild Men, some of whom are one-eyed. A more explicit echo of the classical Cyclopes occurs in numerous allegorical readings of the Ulysses–Polyphemus and Polyphemus–Galatea–Acis encounters. For all the apparent implausibility of such readings, it is important to realize that in allegory myths constitute a site for the allegorist’s display of interpretative prowess. The myths’ continuing relevance, and indeed their very survival, are thereby enhanced rather than reduced. The next section of the chapter looks at some virtuoso painted Polyphemuses from major Renaissance artists; after that the argument turns to some early modern one-eyed ogres, and then to the blacksmiths, returning to the theme of fire. There follows a detailed look at some Cyclopes sculpted in grottoes—a development of the ancient motif of the cave. The chapter concludes with studies of some major literary reworkings within the framework of European pastoral, ranging from the poetry of Dante (Latin eclogues) Marino, and Góngora, through baroque opera, to the contrasting Spanish dramas of Juan Pérez de Montalbán and José de Cañizares.

From Craft to Institution: Accounting in Italy from the Middle ages to the Early Modern Period

2012 ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Volkova
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Technical Standards ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Professional Field

The article describes the evolution of accounting from the simple registration technique to economic and social institution in medieval Italy. We used methods of institutional analysis and historical research. It is shown that the institutionalization of accounting had been completed by the XIV century, when it became a system of codified technical standards, scholar discipline and a professional field. We examine the interrelations of this process with business environment, political, social, economic and cultural factors of Italy by the XII—XVI centuries. Stages of institutionalization are outlined.

Allegra Iafrate, The Long Life of Magical Objects: A Study in the Solomonic Tradition. The Magic in History Series. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019, xi, 235 pp., 19 b/w images, 2 tables.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-254
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Modern World ◽  
State University ◽  
Eastern Culture ◽  
Historical Objects ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Objects ◽  
The Middle Ages

Throughout times, magic and magicians have exerted a tremendous influence, and this even in our (post)modern world (see now the contributions to Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2017; here not mentioned). Allegra Iafrate here presents a fourth monograph dedicated to magical objects, primarily those associated with the biblical King Solomon, especially the ring, the bottle which holds a demon, knots, and the flying carpet. She is especially interested in the reception history of those symbolic objects, both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, both in western and in eastern culture, that is, above all, in the Arabic world, and also pursues the afterlife of those objects in the early modern age. Iafrate pursues not only the actual history of King Solomon and those religious objects associated with him, but the metaphorical objects as they made their presence felt throughout time, and this especially in literary texts and in art-historical objects.

Witches, Female Weather Makers, and Poisoners in the Carolingian Empire

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-211
Author(s):  
Christoph Galle
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
General Situation ◽  
Carolingian Empire ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
Witch Hunt

<?page nr="201"?>Abstract The question about the role of women within medieval societies associatively makes one think of witches who allegedly were up to mischief by using poison or all kinds of magic to inflict maliciously harm on other people. But this impression results too much from an uncritical reception of such propagandistic conceptions that arose from the later medieval and early modern witch-hunt ideology. This cliché of medieval witches neither does justice to the general situation nor can it be transferred to the entire Middle Ages, as a representative view into the Carolingian empire of the eighth and ninth centuries shows.

Baroque Opera

2018 ◽  
pp. 369-385
Author(s):  
Downing A. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Social World ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Nested Structures ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
Baroque Opera

The fundamental assumption of commentators from the early modern period is that tasteful music functions simultaneously to express sentiment and to move listener-spectators. The three core elements of the baroque operatic spectacle—poetry, music, and dance—are defined by their ability to express and convey passion. Commentators point to the particular ability of musical language—and its combination with poetry and movement—to represent that which is out of reach of spoken language, or below the threshold of linguistic representation. Although both dramma per musica and the tragédie en musique arose and were fundamentally grounded in monarchical cultural worlds, both also endured successfully as public art forms. Aesthetically, baroque opera exhibits and revels in nested structures, manifested in plays within plays and in references that place the operatic moment within a social world outside the opera. Opera left this aesthetic behind as it moved into the second half of the eighteenth century, influenced by the views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the works of Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck among others.

The Oxford Handbook of Latin Palaeography

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Book Production ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Oxford Handbook of Latin Palaeography provides a comprehensive overview of the development of Latin scripts from Antiquity to the Early Modern period, of codicology, and of the cultural setting of the mediaeval manuscript. The opening section, on Latin Palaeography, treats a full range of Latin book hands, beginning with Square and Rustic Capitals and finishing with Humanistic minuscule. The Handbook is groundbreaking in giving extensive treatment to such scripts as Old Roman Cursive, New Roman Cursive, and Visigothic. Each article is written by a leading expert in the field and is copiously illustrated with figures and plates. Examples of each script with full transcription of selected plates are frequently provided for the benefit of newcomers to the field. The second section, on Codicology, contains essays on the design and physical make-up of the manuscript book, and it includes as well articles in newly-created disciplines, such as comparative codicology. The third and final section, Manuscript Setting, places the mediaeval manuscript within its cultural and intellectual setting, with extended essays on the mediaeval library, particular genres and types of manuscript production, the book trade in antiquity and the Middle Ages, and manuscript cataloguing. All articles are in English. The Handbook will be an indispensable guide to all those working in the various fields concerned with the literary and cultural dynamics of book production in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period.

La Storia dell’Età Moderna nelle „Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Biblioteken“: lo specchio di un secolo di ricerche

2020 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-46
Author(s):  
Irene Fosi
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Social Composition ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Papal Court

AbstractThe article examines the topics relating to the early modern period covered by the journal „Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken“ in the hundred volumes since its first publication. Thanks to the index (1898–1995), published in 1997 and the availability online on the website perpectivia.net (since 1958), it is possible to identify constants and changes in historiographical interests. Initially, the focus was on the publication of sources in the Vatican Secret Archive (now the Vatican Apostolic Archive) relating to the history of Germany. The topics covered later gradually broadened to include the history of the Papacy, the social composition of the Curia and the Papal court and Papal diplomacy with a specific focus on nunciatures, among others. Within a lively historiographical context, connected to historical events in Germany in the 20th century, attention to themes and sources relating to the Middle Ages continues to predominate with respect to topics connected to the early modern period.

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