Article
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The iconography of the Virgin Mary’s Assumption in the Italian Quattrocento’s painting from the prospective of its patristic and theological sources
José María SALVADOR GONZÁLEZ
Original title: La iconografía de La Asunción de la Virgen María en la pintura del Quattrocento italiano a la luz de sus fuentes patrísticas y teológicas
Published in Paradise, Purgatory and Hell: the Religiosity in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Assomption, Iconography, Medieval Art, Patrology, Quattrocento.
The iconographic subject of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary to the heaven is based on a certain oral tradition and on some apocryphal writings, as well on a lot of homilies and interpretations of several Church Fathers and Doctors, such as John of Thessalonica, Saint John of Damascus and Saint Andrew of Crete, and a great number of other medieval theologians. All those literary sources, apocryphal and canonical, constitute the conceptual basis on which the Church has based the liturgical feasts and the iconography of the Death and the Assumption of the Mother of God. The iconography of the Mary’s Death, widely expressed in the Byzantine art since the 11th century, will begin to acquire some relevance in Europe since the 12th century, associating the Virgin’s triumph to the one of Jesus Christ in three characteristic subjects: the Death, the Assumption and the Coronation of Mary. Through the analysis of nine Italian paintings of the Quattrocento, our paper aims to show that such patristic and theological sources constitute the conceptual “model” that inspires in a direct and essential way the medieval iconography of Mary’s Assumption.
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The Royal Chapel of the Córdoba Cathedral and its repercussion on the noble foundations during the Late Middle Ages
Mª Ángeles JORDANO BARBUDO
Original title: La Capilla Real de la Catedral de Córdoba y su repercusión en las fundaciones nobiliarias durante la Baja Edad Media
Published in Aristocracy and nobility in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Cordoba Cathedral, Mudejar, Royal Chapel, inscriptions, reforms.
The Royal Chapel, completed under Henry II of Trastamara in 1371, exerted a powerful influence on the nobility in Cordoba, which in its monumental buildings, be they funerary chapels, palatial houses or castles, adopted the Mudejar style as an expression of ostentation and power. Such glorification of their lineage can be seen in the representation of their coats of arms above the entrances to the halls and in their private chapels, decorated with plasterwork inspired by the flamboyant decoration of the Royal Chapel, whose excellent state of conservation is due to various reforms carried out between the 16th and 19th centuries, as has been shown by the inscriptions we have discovered on the base of the arches of the vaults and which we would like to make public in this article.
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A look at the alterity between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. The perception of the other in some medieval and modern texts (1200-1600)
Marica COSTIGLIOLO
Original title: Uno sguardo sull’alterità tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna. La percezione dell’altro in alcuni testi medievali e moderni (1200-1600)
Published in Mirabilia Journal 34
Keywords: Alterity, Colonialism, Diversity, Islam, Middle Ages, New World, Renaissance.
The concept of otherness is complex and layered. To understand how the Western world has received, rejected, or dominated the Other is crucial for the understanding of the construction of the Western cultural identity and for trying to find the motivations that have brought Europe to a politics of colonialism that has characterized social, economic, and political relations up to modern times. In this short essay I analyse some medieval and modern works to trace the textual strategies that testify the passage from the perception of difference as a possible source of threat, of danger, to its delegitimization to existence and consequently to the “justified” dominion over the other.
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The Interaction of Ambrose of Milan with the Emperor Theodosius the Great over the Dignity of Human Life
Eirini ARTEMI
Published in Mirabilia Journal 34
Keywords: Ambrosius of Milan, Byzantine Greek Macedonia, Massacre in Thessalonica, Theodosius the Great.
When Theodosius the Great became emperor, the influence of Christianity had expanded throughout the Roman Empire. The Christians gained the upper hand in the Empire mainly after the death of Julian and when they became in majority. This power led the emperor Theodosius to behave to pagans with cruelty that didn’t match to a Christian emperor. He was responsible for the massacre in Thessalonica of the province of byzantine Greek Macedonia. There 7000 thousand people were killed. In this paper, we will examine which was the attitude Ambrosius of Milan to the emperor, when the bishop though that the Church was just be used as a political prop or fig leaf. Which is the importance of the letter of Ambrose that was written to Theodosius? How did this Ambrose’s criticism to Theodosius for his ruthless slaughter, barring the emperor from entering church or taking communion for several months, and ordering him to do penance for several months before he could enter again and receive the host, change Theodosius’ behaviour as Christian? Did the letter of Ambrose to Theodosius have a catalytic role to later sanctity of the emperor? Ambrose’s penance should not be accepted as a win of the church over the emperor but only as a demonstration of the power of atonement over the penitent sinner. This power should not discriminate people according to their political power but according to their actions as Christians.
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Fleeing from the profane society: on the obstacles for the construction of authority, rule and the support of the church in the Passio sancti Venceslavi martyris
Andrea Vanina NEYRA
Original title: Huir de la sociedad profana: sobre los obstáculos en la construcción de la autoridad, el gobierno y el fomento de la Iglesia en la Passio sancti Venceslavi martyris
Published in Idea and image of royal power of the monarchies in Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Authority, Church, Obstacles, Wenceslas.
Bishop Gumpold of Mantua’s Passio sancti Venceslavi martyris, commissioned by King Otto II, depicts Wenceslas as a Christian ruler who brought together Christian virtues, ascetic practices along with active political power. This paper outlines the manifest opposition between those features and the characteristics attributed to the people subject to the přemyslid duke’s authority. The population was described as a society of savage people, tied to pagan error and heresy, who imposed significant barriers to the expansion of Christ’s faith in the region of Bohemia. Their incivility, lack of culture and infidelitas are all apparent through the use of certain attributes used to describe the population, its customs and beliefs: impious, delusional, profane, arrogant, inhuman. Thereby, the specificities defining the Bohemian society at the end of the 10th century coincide with Wenceslas’ most important opponent, his brother and fratricide Boleslav. The depiction of the savage, profane and illicit environment is a prefiguration of the final episode of the hagiographical text: the scandalous martyrdom of the future Bohemian patron saint. Similarly, the predestined Christian future of the Kingdom is prefigured in the hero’s early life –a Christian among an erring surrounding– as well as in his miracles.
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The names of the Moors: the perception of the ethnic-cultural differences of the Islamic populations in a Castilian documentation of the 13th century
Renata VEREZA
Original title: Os nomes dos mouros: a percepção das diferenças étnico-culturais das populações islâmicas em uma documentação castelhana do século XIII
Published in Ramon Llull. Seventh centenary
Keywords: 13th century, Alfonso X, Cantigas de Santa Maria, Castille, Moors.
The present work analyzes how the Muslims are represented, particularly in the Marian songbook produced by Alfonso X of Castile in the second half of the 13th century (“Cantigas de Santa Maria”), in order to verify if the ethnic cultural differences of the Islamic populations, both of the Iberian Peninsula, and from North Africa and the East are reflected in the documentation. In addition, it seeks to ascertain whether it is possible to affirm ignorance on the part of Christians in relation to the internal divisions of the Islamic world, or whether missing information is due to the specific political agenda.
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The legislative panorama of the territories of the Castile’s Crown in the beginning of the reign of Alfonso X, The Wise
Jaime Estevão dos REIS
Original title: O panorama legislativo dos territórios da Coroa de Castela no início do reinado de Alfonso X, o Sábio
Published in Monastic and Scholastic Philosophy in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Alfonso X, Castile, Legislation, León, Territories.
This article has the objective of discussing the effective legislation in the territories of the Castile’s Crown in the beginning of the reign of Alfonso X, The Wise (1252-1284). In the middle of the thirteenth century, the territories belonging to the kingdoms of Castile and León, unified in 1230, by Fernando III (1217-1252), father of Alfonso X, had their own legislation, without a unity among the several juridical codes. In the kingdom of León, as well as in the territories belonging to him, the rights originating from the visigothic Liber Iudiciorum remained. In the territories of the Castile’s kingdom, the old Castilian right was in force, the Fuero Viejo of Castilla, codified in the beginning of the thirteenth century for Alfonso VIII (1158-1214). In the Andalusia territories that were incorporated to the Castilian crown by Fernando III, the Fuero Juzgo ruled, adapted to the local reality. The main task of Alfonso XI in the beginning of his reign was the one of idealizing a project of juridical unification of the several codes on going in the territories of the Castile’s Crown.
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The "cinocephalus" and the "úlfheðnar": the representation of the wolf-warrior in the Historia Langobardorum (VIII century) and in the Egils saga (c. 1230)
Renan Marques Birro and Jardel Modenesi Fiorio
Original title: Os Cynocephalus e os Úlfheðnar: a representação do guerreiro canídeo na Historia Langobardorum (séc. VIII) e na Egils saga (c. 1230)
Published in The chivalry and the art of war in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Icelanders, Lombards, Middle Ages, Myths, War.
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The philosophical contribution to the constitution of the political theory at the end of the XIII century
Francisco Bertelloni
Original title: La contribución de la filosofía a la formación del pensamiento político laico a fines del siglo XIII y comienzos del siglo XIV
Published in Mirabilia 1
Keywords: Aristotle, Ethics, Political theory., radical aristotelism.
This paper deals with the treatment of the philosophia moralis in the Student´s Guide or guidebook of Barcelona as prelude to the Western reception of the aristotelian libri morales.The author analyzes the political consequences of the guide in connection with the methodical separation between philosophy and theology as antecedent of the same distinction in the political theory of the second half of the XIII. century.
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The victorious life and the disenchanted end of the great Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great and the novelesque knight Tirant lo Blanc
Anastasia TERZOPOULOU
Original title: La vida victoriosa y el final desencantado del gran conquistador macedonio Alejandro Magno y del caballero novelesco Tirant lo Blanc
Published in Mirabilia Journal
Keywords: Ambition, Conquests, Death, Feats, Fortune, Testament.
The aim of this article is not to analyze the details of the life of Tirant lo Blanc, a literary figure from the Valencian Golden Age, and Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia, a real historical person of Ancient Greece; but to expose the common features that life presents and, above all, the early, bitter and unexpected end of two great warriors and military strategists.
