Article
-
The corporeal and the ethereal: the abstraction of color in Fra Angelico
Águeda ASENJO BEJARANO
Original title: Lo corpóreo y lo etéreo: la abstracción del color en Fra Angélico
Published in Mirabilia Journal 31 (2020/2)
With this study I intend to carry out a plastic and pictorial analysis of the work of the famous quattrocentist author Fra Angelico from the details that the Italian painter captured in his works where he combined colors in a totally heterogeneous way as watercolor surfaces, which recall and emulate to small abstract paintings generating an interconnection between the author’s innate creativity and his context. These fragments are like fields soaked in water and the colors flashes of pigment that spread across the canvas. He experimented with color and its possibilities within the painting, since although many authors define it as marbles, its originality and uniqueness are undoubted.
-
The Christian itinerary according to Evagrius Ponticus: the reach of its exegetical projections on the Holy Scriptures in general, and on the book of Ecclesiastes in particular
Santiago Hernán VÁZQUEZ, Ana Laura QUIROGA
Original title: El itinerario cristiano según Evagrio Póntico: sus proyecciones exegéticas en la Sagrada Escritura en general y en el libro del Eclesiastés en particular
Published in War and Disease in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
In the context of current studies on the thought of Evagrius Ponticus we are interested in deepening the exegetical projections that –following a well– identified classical–Christian tradition– possesses the evagrian conception of Christianity as an itinerary of salvation. These projections extend to Sacred Scripture in general and, in a way, to the book of Ecclesiastes. Thus, after developing the sense of the evagrian itinerary and its general exegetical projections, our work will focus on the evagrian commentary entitled “Scholia on Ecclesiastes” and its place within the framework of the thought of the philosopher of Ponto. This work has been little studied but it constitutes a unique exegetical piece within the evagrian corpus. Through this work we access a deeper understanding of what Evagrius wanted to designate with the concept of “natural contemplation”. In this sense, deepening this work allows –in our view– a renewed understanding of the spiritual itinerary that constitutes, for Evagrius, the essence of Christianity. Similarly, Scholia on Ecclesiastes allow us to understand more fully the particularities of the exegetical evagrian method.
-
The papyri of The Book of Jannes and Jambres in the context of the lost Greek novels
María Paz LÓPEZ MARTÍNEZ
Published in War and Disease in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
A revision of some of the Greek novel topics and loci paralleli that we can find in a lost work, known as The Apocryphon of Jannes and Jambres. The author and the date are unknown but 7 –perhaps 8– testimonies from the original text have been preserved thanks to the papyri and parchments. They correspond to different supports and languages.
-
The control of the bodies in The Physician’s Tale and The Wife of Bath’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400)
Candela ARRAIGADA
Original title: El control de los cuerpos en The Physician’s Tale y The Wife of Bath’s Tale, de Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400)
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
In Una historia del cuerpo en La Edad Media (2005), Jacques Le Goff and Nicolas Truong point out that the oscillations between rejection and exaltation, humiliation and veneration, cross the medieval Christian body. In line with this approach, our paper aims to examine two stories belonging to The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, in which the conflicts between old age and youth are glimpsed, articulated mainly around the ideals of virginity and chastity, which reveal the links between eroticism and control over bodies. Both stories will establish a counterpoint between two models of women. The Physician’s Tale offers a paradigmatic perspective of the physical and psychic virtues of a young woman and reveals the absolute value given to virginity. On the other hand, in The Wife of Bath’s Tale the Arthurian subject and the structure of the quest will serve the analysis of the power relationships between oldness / ugliness and youth / beauty, in intimate relation with the Prologue that precedes it, focused on the modern notion of experience.
-
Approach to the theatrical use of the body in La Farce de Pathelin (c. 1470)
Alejandra DA CRUZ; Juan Cruz ZARIELLO VILLAR
Original title: Aproximación al uso teatral del cuerpo en La Farce de Pathelin (c. 1470)
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
In this paper, we will try to examine the functions of the body in La Farce de Pathelin (c. 1470), a significative text in French profane theatre in the Low Middle Ages. Despite the moral and formative intentions of the religious representations, the farce seeks the spectator’s laugh, with a simple plot and scenic resources related to the disguise or violence. Our analysis focus on body’s representations in three dimensions: body and knowledge and the figure of the doctor; the interactions between both sick body and mind; the relationship between body and religion. We will highlight the theatrical simulation of Maese Pathelin in order to fool the draper.
-
The Latin Middle Ages and Nature: the image of the garden in the Roman de la Rose
Adriana MARTÍNEZ
Original title: El Medievo latino y la Naturaleza: la imagen del jardín en el Roman de la Rose
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
The image of the garden, synecdoche of nature, which traverses the Latin middle ages is base don judeo-christian culture that makes the concept of Paradise. However, in the 12 th century a renewal is produced in thinking nature not only as a reality outside, inteligible, and in the following century, a text like the Roman de la Rose installed a concept of nature where the garden becomes privilegeg stage of love, a new Paradise.
-
Angelus or The touch of the Virgin: the Music in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (13th century) by King Alfonso X
Bárbara Dantas
Original title: Angelus ou O toque da Virgem: a Música nas Cantigas de Santa Maria (séc. XIII) do rei Afonso X
Published in Music in Middle Ages and Early Modernity
Harmonious as a song, the Galician-Portuguese poetry, systematized by the zéjel metric, was the basis of the poetry of Cantigas de Santa Maria, a compilation that contains reports of miracles and praises to the Virgin performed in the second half of the 13th century at the request of the castilian king Alfonso X (1221-1284), creator, sponsor and supervisor of the work. In Cantigas, reality is overcome by imagination without limits and the relation of poetry with two other artistic forms (Music and image) makes it literary support in which the themes of the songs to the Virgin were formed. Music and image share with the poetry a sensitivity capable of expressing in different ways certain reports of miracles or praise. For this article, I present to you the Cantiga 276 of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. From iconographic and architectural analyzes, I realized the association between church bells, the architecture of the sanctuary towers where they are housed and the melody of the Angelus (The Virgin's Touch).
-
The Imaginary Tradition of the Divine Voice in The Quest for the Holy Grail: Salvation and Revelation
Alessandra Fabrícia Conde da SILVA; Pedro Carlos Louzada FONSECA
Original title: A tradição imaginária da voz divina em A Demanda do Santo Graal: salvação e revelação
Published in Society and Culture in Portugal
The Divine Voice or voice without body appears in many episodes of The Quest for the Holy Grail, communicating with several characters in different ways. It represents one of the aspects of the medieval imaginary tradition present in the work. This article presents an overview of the manifestations of the Santa Voz, when in contact with several characters, especially with the sister maiden of Perceval and the Fisher King. And it shows what is special about this manifestation revealed to these characters. In the discussion of the theme the article argues on a possible rescue of the feminine figure within the scope of the medieval masculinist culture. For the accomplishment of this study, critical support was sought in Paul Zumthor, Gilbert Durand, Howard Bloch, Mario Pilosu, among other authors.
-
The role of Ephesus in the late antiquity from the period of Diocletian to 449AD the Robber Synod
Eirini ARTEMI
Published in Society and Culture in Portugal
During the reign of Diocletian (284-305AD), Ephesus was reorganized on centralized and authoritarian lines down to the provincial level. A big part of the city was rebuilt by Constantine I. In 401AD after the Edict of Thessalonica from Emperor Theodosius I, the ruins of temple of Artemis was destroyed. The most important role of the city took place in 431AD. There, the Council of Ephesus was assembled by the Emperor Theodosius the younger to settle the contentions which had been raised in the Church by the heretical teaching of Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople. Finally, in 449AD another council took place the Robber Synod, which was condemned by the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon in 451.
-
The Organization of the Church in the Iberian Peninsula: the Diocese of Coimbra (11th-12th Centuries)
Mário Jorge da Motta BASTOS
Original title: A estruturação da Igreja na Península Ibérica: a Diocese de Coimbra (sécs. XI-XII)
Published in Society and Culture in Portugal
Is there an object of study concerning the medieval civilization more wide, complex, diverse and controversial than that we use to call Church? Without losing the perspective of the institution in its amplitude, we intend to address, in this article, the structuring process of the portucalense Church in the context of the wars of conquest and the progressive autonomation of the geopolitical space of the formation of the kingdom of Portugal, paying attention to the process of restoration of the dioceses liberated from the Islamic domain and to the trajectory of the diocese of Coimbra in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
