Article
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The festive sensory model of John II of Castile (1406-1454)
Martina Magali DIAZ SAMMARONI
Original title: El modelo sensorial festivo de Juan II de Castilla (1406-1454)
Published in Senses and sensibilities in classical and medieval worlds
If we want to know and be able to understand how medieval men and women perceived, felt and thought their world, we have to turn our gaze to their festivities and the role that the senses played in them. Spaces for the exchange and circulation of a wide range of sacred, profane and magical practices, they presented themselves as unique opportunities for the manifestation of power by kings and nobles, especially in the late middle Ages. From the thirteenth century, the records of the different court’ celebrations show a growing artistic spectacularity associated with the intention of transmitting and reinforcing official ideology by evoking images aimed at making an impact and generating a strong sense of identity. In the fifthteen century, this can be clearly seen during the reign of John II (1406-1454) of Castile, signified by conflicts with the nobility, as well as by the war against the Moors of Granada. At this juncture there was a renaissance of the ideals of chivalrous and warrior’s life reflected in the multiplication of the organization of tournaments, jousting, reeds and other games. On this basis, through the contributions of the History of the senses – a transdisciplinary perspective that brings together the contributions of History, as well as Anthropology – we will analyse the Chronicle of the Falconer of John II, by Pedro Carillo de Huete, in order to identify and analyse how vision, taste, hearing, touch and smell intervened in the configuration of a particular festive sensory model.
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Tamerlane’s female court. Sensory and power from the perspective of Ruy González de Clavijo (1403-1406)
Laura CARBÓ
Original title: La corte femenina de Tamorlán. Sensorialidad y poder desde la perspectiva de Ruy González de Clavijo (1403-1406)
Published in Senses and sensibilities in classical and medieval worlds
Ruy González de Clavijo starred, together with a team of ambassadors, the second mission sent by Henry III of Castile to Tamerlan in 1403, whose round trip itinerary spans three years. Clavijo's meticulous account includes the timurid protocol deployment, which often has the women of the court as protagonists. The ambassadors' approach to the women's world was eminently sensory: the five senses came to the aid of the travel story, with visual, tactile, auditory, tasteful, olfactory experiences that allowed the narrator to communicate the experiences occurred in the presence of women. In addressing to "sensory" we mean both the material world and the sensory experience itself. The historical study will focus on the’ representations of medieval objects (clothing, meals, setting, organization of spaces, buildings) and the consideration of its users, simultaneously addressing both the intellectual and material substrates of medieval culture. This study of the particular feminine spaces allows showing a relationship between culture, materiality and power in a temporal and spatial arc reduced to the itinerary of the embassy.
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Membership marks. The worshipers of Dionysus and her sensory traces
María Cecilia COLOMBANI
Original title: Las marcas de la pertenencia. Las adoradoras de Dioniso en las huellas sensoriales
Published in Senses and sensibilities in classical and medieval worlds
The work traces the marks of the Dionysian thiasos as it appears in The Bacchae 1-134, fundamentally attending the relevant news of the choir. We do it from a theoretical installation model that seeks to relieve the sensory marks present in the Dionysian phenomenon. The polysemy of the god's thiasos as a moment of approach and fusion with the divinity provides us with a series of sensory elements of extreme wealth. Our project is to show how this body sensorial impacts two fundamental brands: strength and movement. The living body of the bacchante is movement captured from a visual dimension that, not only the texts but also the attic ceramic vessels, have helped to recreate from what we could call a visual metaphor. The visual impact of the ménade reflects a flexible, frantic body of ecstatic possession. The images we will analyse impact the view from its polysemy significance. The head, the torso, the hair, the feet, constitute the network of images that enter into a game of multiple meanings, which constitute the essence of Dionism. The ritual that unfolds in the festive dimension summons a second sensory mark: the auditory one. Indeed, festive excitement and divine possession generate a loudness that floods the tragic stage. From the Dioniso Bromio brand itself, which refers to the bellow of the god, to the musical instruments of dance, the sound accompanies the closeness of the god and his faithful within the framework of an auditory metaphor of marked symbolic repercussion.
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The sound of evil in two reflections of Francisco de Vitoria
Javier CHIMONDEGUY
Original title: La sonoridad del mal en dos relecciones de Francisco de Vitoria
Published in Senses and sensibilities in classical and medieval worlds
The present article seeks to interpret the concept of evil in the School of Salamanca in the first half of the XVIth century. Making an overview of the concept of evil related to the soundscape and the sensorial perception relying on the relections taught by the theologian from Burgos in the University of Salamanca.
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The senses are hidden in documents
Gerardo RODRÍGUEZ; Gisela CORONADO SCHWINDT
Original title: Los sentidos se nos esconden en los documentos
Published in Senses and sensibilities in classical and medieval worlds
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On beauty and love in the transition from paganism to Christianity
Humberto Schubert COELHO
Original title: Sobre a beleza e o amor na transição do paganismo ao Cristianismo
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
While Plato is considered an absolute grounding for aesthetics, invaluable contributions to the concept of beauty were offered by the Christian thought. Although the underestimation of such contribution as a mere reflex of Platonism is not sustainable, it is undeniable that substantial part of platonic ideas on beauty and the role of love in the connection between consciousness and the supreme transcendent metaphysics of the source of being, which is identified with the beauty, exerts the most powerful influence on the Christian conception. The aesthetics in Antiquity, thus, consists in a dialogue between the beautiful Greek form and the Christian sentiment on the light of platonic idealism. Therefore, in order to understand the introspection and sublimation of Christian aesthetics the study of the delicate transition between cultural, religious and philosophical realms, and how this transition intensifies the emphasis on the role of love in the aesthetical economy, is mandatory.
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Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215) and the use of musical metaphors and musical myths in his texts
Eirini ARTEMI
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Clement of Alexandria or Titus Flavius Clemens was familiar with classical Greek philosophy and literature. When he converted to Christianity, he tried to draw some clear distinctions against the paganism. Many things from paganism were interpreted by a way that serve Christian theology. In Clement of Alexandria’s Protrepticus, the church father tries to explain how the well-known classical music-myths can be used to create the knowledge of a Superior “New Song”. Instead of that, Christians serve the New Song – Jesus in Church and outside the Church, they continue to “amuse themselves with impious playing, and amatory quavering, occupied with flute-playing, and dancing, and intoxication, and all kinds of trash. They who sing thus, and sing in response, are those who before hymned immortality, –found at last wicked and wickedly singing this most pernicious palinode, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”. Clement explains that by this way christians remain christians in name so they are dead in God not tomorrow. But not tomorrow in truth, but already, are these dead to God. In this paper, we are going to show that the polemic of Clement Alexandria was not against ancient music and musical instruments, but against the way that they were used by Christians. Also, we will analyse the method that Clement employs the musical metaphors and musical myths in his texts in order to educate Christians and to manage to earn the salvation.
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Alcibiades’s silens: notes of aesthetics and philosophy in Pico (1463-1494), Erasmus (1467-1436) and Bruno (1542-1600)
Julián BARENSTEIN
Original title: Los silenos de Alcibíades: notas de estética y filosofía en Pico (1463-1494), Erasmo (1467-1436) y Bruno (1542-1600)
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Of the multiple influences that Plato’s philosophy has had on Renaissance thought, in this paper we are interested in focusing on a specific and even minimal question, namely, that reference to the silens that appears in Sympsium (215b-c). In our work we propose, then, to trace the presence of the concept of Silenus in three authors: Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), Erasmus of Rotterdam (1467-1436) and Giordano Bruno (1542-1600). We will stop, in this way, in the famous Epistle that Pico sent to Ermolao Barbaro in 1485 and that is part of the De Genere dicendi philosophorum, in the monumental Adagia of Erasmus, especially in the adage 2201, Sileni Albibiadis, and in the dialogues Spaccio de la bestia trionfante and Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo by Giordano Bruno. The Silens, as is well known, are hollow figurines, horrible looking, disgusting and despicable, inside which are full of gems, exotic jewels and precious. Our research aims to show that, according to the selected authors, this is the philosopher’s own way of seeing himself, his aesthetics –whose most finished and original example is Socrates– and, by extension, the way of being proper to philosophy.
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Dialectic of Love: about the Far-near
Ernesto MANUEL ROMÁN
Original title: Dialéctica del amor: sobre lo Lejos-cerca
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
In this text we seek to explore The Mirror of simple souls that are annihilated and that only dwell in wanting and wanting love focusing on the problem of the Far-near. This concept, and its particular way of rationing with the image and the word, will allow us to draw relationships between Marguerite Porete and other writers of the period. We will also seek to explore the philosophical questions that arise from Marguerite's book and her conception of love. We will begin by seeing how, for Plato, love occupied the place of the demonic, that is, of the threshold between mortals and immortals. Then we will stop to analyse the love of far from the troubadour poetry, where the relation of distance-closeness of love that will characterize the Far-near is forged. Finally we will dwell on the use of this logic made by Hadewijch of Antwerp and Marguerite to think about their annihilation. The latter is also an abandonment of the virtues and an overcoming of the Reason in Love.
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Andreas Capellanus (XII century) and The game of Love
Nicolás MARTÍNEZ SÁEZ
Original title: Andrés el Capellán (siglo XII) y el juego del Amor
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Andreas Capellanus writes De amore at the end of the 12th century in a context of interweaving of traditions such as the Christian clerical, the feudal courtesan and the troubadour poetry. In this work, a new aesthetic sensibility is represented in love that acquires a playful dimension. The dialogues that arise between people of different social classes and the so-called Love´s Court reveal this game where men and women argue in favor of a love that does not obey social classes. De amore is composed of three books. The first two are those where seriousness and play seem to mix in a work that is both a scientific treatise and a practical manual of the rules governing worldly relations between men and women. The last book can be understood in a playful dimension where it is possible to win in only one way: by giving up.
