Article
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Vasa Sacra or Non Sacra? The Aquila Beaker Bearing a Kabbalistic Inscription from the Medieval Hoard from Vinerea, Transylvania
Cristian Ioan POPA
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Aquila symbol, Gothic Kabbalistic Inscription, Middle Ages, Silver Becker.
In the middle of the last century, a medieval treasure, made of gold and silver objects, was accidentally discovered in Transylvania on Vinerea (Cugir town). The hoard contained several precious metal objects and several hundred coins, out of which 396 are still preserved today, after a small part was stolen upon discovery. An extremely interesting item is the gold plated silver becker. On its surface was incised a ribbon that contains a text written in Gothic characters – nceirmoiahedrpma // indecmhpeoirsli. The text is most likely encrypted, making the message difficult to interpret. Towards the centre the ribbon is interrupted by the presence of a carefully incised aquila. The becker has analogies with similar items from Central Europe, datable around the year 1500. The aquila could be considered as a Christian symbol, in relation with Saint John’s (?) iconography.
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The flourishing of painting in the time of Plato (427-347 a. C.) and Aristotle (384-322 a. C.). Hunting scene
Miháy BODÓ
Original title: El florecimiento de la pintura en la época de Platón (427-347 a. C.) y Aristóteles (384-322 a. C.). Escena de caza
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Aigai, Central perspective, Greek Painting, Greek Theater, Hunting scene, Scenography, Tomb II, Vergina.
The essay focuses on Hunting scene, mural painting from Tomb II of Vergina, and is part of a larger investigation in which I have set out to analyze the pictorial structures of the few Greek works that have been preserved and have survived to this day. Through the reconstruction of the artistic creation processes, the article tries to reveal the knowledge of the craft of painting of the time. The results of the analysis show that it was the Hellenic workshops that laid the foundations for the visual communication tools that we use the most today, as well as the representation of form, light and shadow, space and even the use of linear perspective. The text is addressed both to specialists in the subject and to a wider audience. The graphic images produced by the author facilitate the understanding of the painting's high pictorial level.
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The Music. One of the keys to understanding Time
Ricardo da COSTA
Original title: A Música. Uma das chaves para a compreensão do Tempo
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: History, Liberal Arts, Methodology, Music.
The purpose is to present José Enrique Ruiz-Domènec’s (Spanish Historian 1948- ) methodology for the study of the Past: the appreciation of Music – traditionally one of the seven liberal arts – in historical studies as a key element for understanding the history of cultures in time. To do this, we will concentrate on four of his books: España, una nueva historia (2009), Personajes intempestivos de la Historia (2011), Europa. Las claves de su historia (2012), and Escuchar el pasado. Ocho siglos de música europea (2012). In them three characters are presented that symbolize the imperative need for Music studies to find the key to the Past: Pope Gregory, the Great (540-604) and the creation of the universe European sound with Gregorian chant, Mozart (1756-1791) and the rational sense of civilization of the Ancien Régime, and Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999) and the incurable nostalgia of Spanish in Aranjuez Concert (1939).
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Marin Marais (1656-1728) and the didactic function of the Avertissement
Kristina AUGUSTIN
Original title: Marin Marais (1656-1728) e a função didática dos Avertissement
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Avertissement, Early Music, Historically Informed Performance, Marin Marais, Viol.
This text concludes a work begun in 2019 that included the production of an article on the life of the gambist Marin Marais, published in this magazine, with the respective review of primary sources. This was followed by the publication of a second article with the translation of the prefaces (Avertissement) of the five books of Marais. This article seeks to analyze the didactic function of the afore mentioned Avertissement and demonstrate in what aspects they contribute to a better understanding and execution of the works of Marin Marais.
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The musical esoterism of Francesco Zorzi (1466-1540) in the work De harmonia mundi totius (1525)
André GABY
Original title: O esoterismo musical de Francesco Zorzi (1466-1540) na obra De harmonia mundi totius (1525)
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Christian Kabbalah, Esoterism, Philosophy of music, Pythagoreanism, Renaissance.
The humanism and the musical renaissance derived from it are both the result of Italian thinkers contact with the Neoplatonic and Hermes Trimegistus works – coming from Byzantium thanks to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 – and with Kabbalistic works brought by Jews definitively expelled from Spain. in 1492. Among so many names in Italian humanist thought, stands out in Venice the Franciscan friar Francesco Zorzi (Giorgi). He learned the Hebrew language and the teachings of Kabbalah, dedicating his intellectual efforts to the continuation of the synthesis work of ideas on spiritual elevation (Platonic, Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, Hermetic, Jewish, or Christian) initiated by Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Zorzi believed that Kabbalah could prove the truths of the faith of Christianity present in the Bible, that is, the numbers generated by the letters of the Hebrew alphabet would be related to the Pythagorean “Harmony of the Spheres” conception, and the truths of the cosmos reality would be described in the scriptures enterlines of Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Our work consists of presenting to the Portuguese language community the esoteric-kabbalist musical conception present in the work Harmonia mundi totius by Francesco Zorzi, together with some extract’s translation into Portuguese.
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Oh Fortune! Reminiscence of the Boecian Consolatio in the moral verses of Carmina Burana
Mariano OLIVERA
Original title: ¡Oh Fortuna! Reminiscencia de la Consolatio boeciana en los versos morales de Carmina Burana
Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance
Keywords: Consolatio, Fortune, Philosophy, Poetry, Therapeutic.
The purpose of this article is to present reminiscences of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy in three goliard poems by Carmina Burana. To demonstrate the identity of rhetorical and philosophical style: consolatio, between the poems of Book I-II of the Consolation of Philosophy and the selected Goliard poems. From which we will glimpse their potential to awaken consolatory and therapeutic philosophical reflection. All this in an almost abysmal leap between the 5th century AD and the 13th century AD. The survival of the consolatio, not only as a rhetorical-poetic style but also as a spiritual exercise that continues to be present in monastic and clerical life, will be substantiated. To do this, first, we will justify in general the importance of the Consolation of Philosophy in courtly and monastic life, that is, its reception in the Latin Middle Ages. Then we will elaborate on the philosophical practice and the exercises that emerge around the speeches and consoling verses, which although they lack argumentation, in their entire poetic splendour, awaken the philosophical reflection of the present towards past goods, the loss of virtue and the deceptive nature of Fortune. Everything is resolved in four movements: aegritudo or perturbatio, lethargum, avocatio mentis, revocatio mentis that make up the consolation or recovery of what makes the soul and reason “sick”. To culminate our journey on such a therapeuo, we propose the key content that all the work signifies, a comparative analysis between the Boecian verses and the Burano verses.
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Building the city: the role of women in late medieval construction
Marta REDONDO DE FUENMAYOR
Original title: Construyendo la ciudad: el rol femenino en la edilicia bajomedieval
Published in Mirabilia Journal
Keywords: Architecture, Construction, Jobs on the construction site, Late Middle Ages, Women, Workshops.
Transgressors or submissive to established norms, women have been active subjects of architectural practice throughout history. This was the case in the Middle Ages, with its well-known patriarchal societies, where a clear hierarchy of the public, dominated by men, over the private, the place of women, was evident. Thus, it seems unthinkable to some that a percentage of the hands that built the great medieval buildings belonged to the gender relegated to the intimacy of the home. But nothing could be further from the truth: historical experiences show that medieval construction was a phenomenon of shared jurisdiction. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to make visible the role of women as construction workers. The starting point will be a bibliographical review, which reveals the dispersion, scarcity, and limited visibility that this subject has had in traditional historiography. On this basis, we will analyse the regulatory documents, builindg logs, statutes of professional guilds and municipal ordinances, as primary sources that have facilitated the understanding of the role of women within the social hierarchies established in the late medieval period. Subsequently, a general overview will be given of the activities carried out in the construction process, both the tasks on site and those carried out in trades and workshops. The starting point for this is the analysis of graphic and written sources. The images that accompany this chapter, unusually considered when dealing with the subject, support the documentation and become a magnificent exponent of the visual culture of the Middle Ages. Finally, the female stipend in construction work will be analysed, making it possible to ascertain the place of women in the late medieval building industry.
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Iconographic analysis of the façade of the Nuestra Señora de Loreto Temple, in Molango, Hidalgo
Carmen Fabiola MORENO VIDAL
Original title: Análisis Iconográfico de la Portada del Templo Nuestra Señora de Loreto, en Molango, Hidalgo
Published in Mirabilia Journal
Keywords: Corn, Façade, Glyph, Maguey, Molango, Nahui-Ōlin, Pumpkin.
The façade of the temple of Nuestra Señora de Loreto belongs to the Plateresque style as it presents elements of Romanesque, Gothic art such as the rose window and Mudejar such as the alfiz. But the most outstanding thing that includes the substance of this work is the use, in a somewhat veiled way, of pre-Hispanic elements, figures and symbols distributed throughout the cover as decoration, from the bases of columns and jambs, with glyphs of the corn, stars and agave, passing through shafts with pumpkin plants, the capitals with representations of the Mexica sky, reaching the cross, an element common in form and meaning to both cultures and ending in the rose window, an element that represents the cosmos whose cosmic meaning it is reinforced with the pre-Hispanic symbols of the movement of the stars such as the Ōlin and Nahui-Ōlin.
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The Symbolic and Moral Interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath
Hélio Angotti-Neto
Original title: A Interpretação Simbólica e Moral do Juramento Hipocrático
Published in Mirabilia Journal
Keywords: Aristotle, Hippocrates, Hippocratic Oath, History of Medicine, Medical Humanities.
The Hippocratic Oath remains as one of the most famous ethical texts in Medical Ethics and Bioethics. The objective of this essay is to clarify its poetic and symbolic interpretations, searching for the adequate comprehension of the Oath using a critical narrative approach with the Aristotelian Theory of the Four Discourses and the interpretation of its direct, indirect, specific and general moral prescriptions. The Oath is a poetic text, which can be used to cause a powerful impression upon the new physician, helping in his moral education and in his commitment with the moral community of Medicine. This analysis makes evident that the Hippocratic Oath still can be used for medical education and professional inspiration, rather than just be discarded as a historical curiosity. The conclusion is that the Oath can be approached more properly with specific literary and philosophical tools that can decode its meanings to better comprehension for the contemporary physician.
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The church of San Marco in the eleventh century
Elena Ene D-VASILESCU
Published in Mirabilia Journal 31 (2020/2)
Keywords: Byzantium, Dominico Selvo, Emperor Henry IV, St Mark’s church, The eleventh century, Venice.
In 1084 the most important of the few consecrations of St Mark’s church in Venice – that which solemnized the completion of its largest altar – took place. It is assumed that Doge Dominico Selvo (1071-1084) assigned Byzantine mosaicists to finish the decorative programme in time for the respective event. In part because of the beauty and the remarkable quality of the works they created, the eleventh century saw the prestige of this Venetian shrine increase. Also what in the popular imagination was the miraculous appearance of the relics of its patron saint from a pillar (either in 1084 or 1094, depending on the source employed) further augmented it. The article attempts to prove that the eleventh century was the most important period in the existence of the medieval Venetian church which much later became the cathedral San Marco. It will venture a description of this shrine not only on the basis of its similarities, claimed by most scholars, with the Apostoleion church in Constantinople, but also using information from extant documents as well as results of new scientific and archaeological discoveries, especially those published in the catalogue of the exhibition organised by its Procuratoria between July and November 2011, in Ken Dark and Ferudun Özgümüş’s works, in the reports concerning the research undertaken by the British Museum, and in other sources.
