Michael Pastoureau, Blue: The History of a Color. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018, pp. 216, 96 color ill.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 305-306
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen

This book appeared first in French in 2000, was then translated into English in 2001, and has now been reprinted, obviously for good reasons, considering the excellent cultural-historical or anthropological information presented here, and the large number of high-quality color images. This could easily be a much sought-after coffee-table book, since even the cover, showing the Virgin Mary holding the Christ child, both surrounded by a host of angels, all dressed in dark blue (except for Jesus, whose lower body is covered with a blanket in gold), taken from the Wilton-Diptych (ca. 1389), National Gallery, London, dazzles us. Scholars, however, will also enjoy the critical discussion of the color blue, which is focused primarily on the Middle Ages, but takes into view as well antiquity and the early modern and modern age.

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
Svetlana V. Bliznyuk

The era of the Crusades was also the era of pilgrims and pilgrimages to Jeru­salem. The Russian Orthodox world did not accept the idea of the Crusades and did not consider the Western European crusaders to be pilgrims. However, Russian people also sought to make pilgrimages, the purpose of which they saw in personal repentance and worship of the Lord. Visiting the Christian relics of Cyprus was desirable for pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. Based on the method of content analysis of a whole complex of the writings of Russian pil­grims, as well as the works of Cypriot, Byzantine, Arab and Russian chroniclers, the author explores the history of travels and pilgrimages of Russian people to Cyprus in the 12th–18th centuries, the origins of the Russian-Cypriot reli­gious, inter-cultural and political relationships, in addition to the dynamics of their development from the first contacts in the Middle Ages to the establish­ment of permanent diplomatic and political relations between the two coun­tries in the Early Modern Age. Starting with the 17th century, Russian-Cypriot relationships were developing in three fields: 1) Russians in Cyprus; 2) Cypri­ots in Russia; 3) knowledge of Cyprus and interest in Cyprus in Russia. Cyp­riots appeared in Russia (at the court of the Russian tsars) at the beginning of the 17th century. We know of constant correspondence and the exchange of embassies between the Russian tsars and the hierarchs of the Cypriot Ortho­dox Church that took place in the 17th–18th centuries. The presence of Cypri­ots in Russia, the acquisition of information, the study of Cypriot literature, and translations of some Cypriot writings into Russian all promoted interactions on both political and cultural levels. This article emphasizes the important histori­cal, cultural, diplomatic and political functions of the pilgrimages.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Hermenegildo Fernandes ◽  
Armando Norte ◽  
André de Oliveira Leitão

Abstract:This paper aims to present an existing research strand at the Centro de História da Universidade de Lisboa (CH-ULisboa), which is based on several resources related to digital humanities. This broader research strand has three main axes: the study of the University of Lisbon per se, the mobility of Portuguese scholars in the medieval and early modern periods, and the funding and management of the medieval Portuguese studium, which together can help generate a general picture of the history of the universityin Portugal. These three axes are based on different field of digital humanities, such as databases and GIS, which we intend to merge and make available online in the near future. Two of these databases (the Magistri Database and the Peregrinatio Database) are presented here as case studies to discuss different issues derived from the use of the prosopographical method, as well as to address several technical issues.Keywords: Portugal, University, peregrination academica, Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, digital humanities.Resumen: El presente artículo tiene como objetivo la presentación de una línea de investigación existente en el Centro de História da Universidade de Lisboa (CH-ULisboa) basada en varios recursos relacionados con las humanidades digitales. Esta línea de investigación más amplia tiene tres ejes principales: el estudio de la Universidad de Lisboa, la movilidad de los estudiantes portugueses en las épocas medieval y moderna, y la financiación y gestión del studium medieval portugués, todos entrelazados con el fin de obtener una imagen de la historia de la universidad en Portugal. Estos tres ejes se basan en diferentes campos de las humanidades digitales, tales como las bases de datos y los SIG, que tenemos la intención de fusionar y hacer disponibles en línea en un futuro próximo. Dos de estas bases de datos (Magistri y Peregrinatio) se presentan aquí como casos de estudio que permiten examinar las cuestiones derivadas de la utilización de una metodología basada en la prosopografía, así como intentar aclarar problemas técnicos relacionados con ella.Palabras clave: Portugal, Universidad, peregrinatio academica, Edades Media y Moderna, humanidades digitales.   


Author(s):  
Mauricio Drelichman ◽  
Hans-Joachim Voth

This chapter provides a brief history of Castilian ascendancy from the late Middle Ages through the end of Philip II's reign. After the marriage of Prince Ferdinand of Aragon and Princess Isabella of Castile, a series of agreements—both tacit and explicit—recognized Castile's exclusive sovereignty over all territories conquered in the future. Ferdinand and Isabella shed many of the medieval structures of administration, modernizing the apparatus of the state and preparing it for the coming expansion. At the dawn of the early modern age, Ferdinand and Isabella had succeeded in giving their kingdoms a relatively strong monarchy and streamlined state institutions. Castile, where reforms were particularly deep and the peace dividend sizable, flourished economically.


Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-254
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen

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.


Author(s):  
Irene Fosi

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.


Nuncius ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvia Marinozzi

In the early 1980s a systematic investigation was begun by G. Fornaciari and his staff of a series of mummies from central and southern Italy, and in particular of important Renaissance remains. The study of a substantial number of artificial mummies has shed light on the human embalming techniques connected with the methods and procedures described by medical and non-medical authors in the early modern period. This has made it possible to reconstruct the history of the art of mummification, from the ‘clyster’ techniques to the partial or total evisceration of the corpse, to the intravascular injection of drying and preserving liquors. In addition to the bodies of Aragonese princes and members of the Neapolitan nobility, interred in the Basilica of San Domenico in Naples are the remains of important French personages dating to the modern age. Among the tombs arranged in two parallel rows to the right of the balcony are four sarcophagi containing the bodies of the wife and three children of Jean Antoine Michel Agar, who served as the Minister of Finance of the Kingdom of Naples from 1809 to 1815. The type of wrapping used for the corpses of the children presents strong analogies to those of ancient Egyptian mummies.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document