Article (Mirabilia Ars)
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The School of Alexandria and the use of allegorical method by Origen of Alexandria
Eirini ARTEMI
Published in
Keywords: Allegory, Celsus, Neoplatonism, Origen, Platonism, School of Alexandria.
In this paper it will be examined the School of Alexandria. The latter was a great center of Christianity, for a span of five centuries, until the reign of Justinian (529 A.D.). In it, the first system of Christian theology was formed and the allegorical method of biblical exegesis was devised. The School of Alexandria adopted the allegorical interpretation of the Holy Scripture, believing that it hides the truth and at the same time reveals it. It hides the truth from the ignorant, whose eyes are blinded by sin and pride, hence they are prevented from the knowledge of the truth. Origen, one of the greatest Christian theologians employed the allegorical method of the interpretation of the Bible in the belief that he was explaining them, whereas he was exploiting them on behalf his own dogmatic teaching. He was accused of that by other fathers of the Christian Church but also by many heretics. Origen had to defend his exegetical method against the various attacks from heretics, from laymen the church and from Celsus who attacked the Christian writers because, being «ashamed of these things (which are written the Bible), they take refuge allegory». On the other hand, Origen was not a «pure» allegorist in that he has some place for literal interpretation as well. Finally, Origen’s basic commitments were to the Scriptures as the word of God, the church as the guardian of the tradition and the household of faith, and to Platonic metaphysics He thus wanted to hold both to his literally true Christian history, and to his spiritually true Platonism and Neoplatonism.
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The profane in the sacred: representations of peasant life in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (15th century)
Paula de Souza Santos Graciolli SILVA
Original title: O profano no sagrado: representações da vida camponesa em Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (século XV)
Published in
Keywords: Iluminures, Labours of the months, Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Peasants.
This work proposes to realize an iconographic analysis of the representations of the peasant life in two illuminations present in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, a book of hour richly illustrated and commissioned in 1413 by Jean de Valois (1340-1416) the Duke of Berry. The charge was initially given to the Limbourg brothers, but was only completed at the end of the 15th century by the illuminator Jean Colombe (1430-1493). We will analyze the illuminations referring to the months of July and September, where wheat and grape harvesting activities are presented respectively. To support our approach, we will start from the problematization of the notions of sacred and profane, recurrent in the visual culture of the Middle Ages, and from some reflections on the visions and interpretations of the medieval peasant.
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Suger (1081-1151) and the spiritual work at the Abbey of Saint-Denis (12th century)
Tainah Moreira NEVES
Published in
Keywords: Abbey of Saint-Denis, Gothic Architecture, Medieval Philosophy, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Suger of Saint-Denis.
This essay analyses Abbot Suger’s (1081-1151) spiritual work at the rebuilding of the entrance and the choir of the Abbey of Saint-Denis (1130/1137-1144). We based our research on his writings On the Consecration of the Church of Saint-Denis and On What Was Done under His Administration, as well as on the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Furthermore, the remnant physical structure of the church was analysed to strengthen the concepts advocated by the Abbot of Saint-Denis. Our intention was to demonstrate that in supervising the rebuilding of his abbey, Suger used Art and Architecture to communicate his spiritual beliefs based on the metaphysics of the light: the spirits would ascend from the material world, thanks to Christian contemplation, to the immaterial world, towards the Light.
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The Architecture in the Cantigas de Santa María
Bárbara Dantas
Original title: A Arquitetura nas Cantigas de Santa María
Published in
Keywords: Architecture, Cantigas de Santa María, King Alfonso X, Middle Ages.
The king Alfonso X believes in the power of the Virgin Mary to overcome the evil. He orders scholars and craftsmen to produce the Cantigas de Santa María, compendium with more than four hundred reports of miracles and praises to the Virgin, versed in galician-portuguese. Book illuminators have enriched your offering with hundreds of illuminations and thousands of capitular letters. In addition, the verses were accompanied by musical notations, labor that handed to troubadours. In the work, there are three artistic expressions: Literature, Painting and Music. The medieval world is represented in the Cantigas, an artistic prototype of a fully lived reality. Submissive to the temporality of the source, the research began with the reading of the Cantigas and the selection of the most cited artistic supports. Sixteen cantigas and their illuminations make mention of Architecture are present in this work. To analyze the historical illuminations, the method of iconographic analysis of Erwin Panofsky was used. Jean-Claude Schmitt's proposal of articulation between image and text was essential for this book. The objective of this work is to show that Architecture was the artistic expression chosen by the craftsmen of the alfonso´s codex to represent the mental dimension of the marian cult, faith in which the gothic architecture dignified those who worked for this purpose, from the peasantry to the king, but above, the work of the Master builders, doctors in stone, the architects.
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The choir stalls of the St. Nicholas´ parish of Úbeda
Pablo Jesús LORITE CRUZ
Original title: La sillería del coro de la parroquia de San Nicolás de Bari de Úbeda
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Keywords: Baroque, Choir stalls, Ghotic, Renaissance, St. Nicholas of Bari parish, Úbeda.
This little article talks about St. Nicholas of Bari medieval parish in the Úbeda town (South of Spain) and her choir stalls. We explain a photography that Georg Weise made before 1936.
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Isidore of Pelusium and the use of the Holy Bible in his epistles
Eirini ARTEMI
Original title: Isidore of Pelusium and the use of the Holy Bible in his epistles
Published in
Keywords: Apostles, Christ, Isidore the Pelousiotes, New Testament, Old Testament, One God in Three Persons, Scriptures.
St. Isidore the Pelousiotes studied the Bible carefully. Through his letters, he interpreted various biblical passages and he explained different biblical themes. The word of the Bible was for the Father an infallible guide to overcome the pitfall of every heretical teaching, which threatened the salvation of believers in Christ. At the same time according to the inspired work of the Bible he could proclaim that there is One God in Three Persons. He emphasized the unity of God's essence and at the same time he talked about the hypostases of the one God. Isidore knew, of course, that the human mind cannot grasp the incomprehensible wisdom, that God's wisdom, since that God overlies the limits of the human mind. Finally with the help of hagiographical passages he could comprehensively cover the letters of issues other than doctrinal, moral, ascetic, educational and interpretive. In the Scriptures, he supported that the believer finds in Christ supplies to strive for social and moral progress, but mainly in order to conquer spiritual godly progression and perfection. The profound study of the Scriptures provides to the human being the ability to keep alive the flame of faith. It is a safe guide for the course of the life in Christ according to what the Triune God revealed in the Old Testament, the incarnated Word taught in the New Testament and the Apostles preached. Through Isidore's letters, it seems the respect which nourishes the holy father for Old and New Testament. For him, both testaments have the same worth as sources the Bible. They proclaim strongly and unambiguously the existence of one and at the same time Triune God. Simultaneously he ridiculed those heretics like Marcion who distorted the truth and became enemies to the Testaments.
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Pagan syncretism in the Middle Ages: the zodiacal signs
Jesús CANTERA MONTENEGRO, Inmaculada ÁLVAREZ DEL OLMO
Original title: Sincretismo pagano en el medievo: Los signos zodiacales
Published in
Keywords: Astrological Studies, Calendars, Etimologies, Middle Ages, Pagan syncretism, San Isidoro de León, Signs of the Zodiac.
Study of signs of the Zodiac, essential element to understand the calendars configured in books of hours, as in the frescoes of temples, set during this historical period. These calendars were created from the astrological studies for good agricultural work and therefore shall be listed with their respective months, to somehow explain weather phenomena, as well as seasonal changes. A travel through its evolution and transformation since its inception in ancient times, to see its settings in medieval times. Many of them will be modified, either by the current fashion for illustrating images, or the meaning I wanted to give them.
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Relics, materiality and expression of the sacred body: a medieval wooden sculpture in the National Museum of Art of Buenos Aires
María Laura MONTEMURRO
Original title: Reliquias, materialidad y expresión del cuerpo sagrado: una talla medieval en el Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires
Published in
Keywords: National Museum of Art of Buenos Aires, Reliquary sculpture, Virgin and Child in Majesty.
Among the works of medieval art preserved at the National Art Museum of Buenos Aires, there is an important medieval sculpture of the Virgin and Child in Majesty. This 12th century wooden sculpture from the French region of Auvergne exemplifies a type of carving that became very popular around the second half of that century: the so-called “Throne of Wisdom” or Sedes Sapientiae. Such sculptures were generally employed as reliquaries and hold special interest for the art historian since they mark the renaissance of sculpture in the round nearly five hundred years after this technique had fallen into disuse. How can we explain then, the transition from a period of nearly complete lack of sculpture in the round to one of increasing popularity of these same carvings? In this paper we propose that the same motives argued by ecclesiastical authorities to object tridimensional sculpture, later became the reason why these Sedes Sapientiae sculptures turned to be regarded as objects of a foremost devotional value and attracted a massive popular cult. The same nature of the sculptural technique (its tridimensional character), as well as the focus on its materiality, together with the inclusion of built-in relics, resulted in the “epiphanic character” that Jean Claude Schmitt has assigned to the medieval image. We believe that the sculpture in Buenos Aires, and other similar carvings, did not only succeed in representing a sacred body but even, in a certain way, to restore it.
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The Ave Maria for four voice mixed choir attributed to Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611): a hermeneutic analysis of the text/compositional procedures relations
Ernesto HARTMANN
Original title: A Ave Maria para coro misto a quatro vozes atribuída a Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611): uma análise hermenêutica das relações entre texto e processos composicionais
Published in
Keywords: Ave Maria, Hermeneutical Windows, Tomás Luis de Victoria.
This research examines the work Ave Maria for mixed choir attributed to Iberian composer Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611). Seeking for new analytical perspectives I apply the notion of hermeneutical windows, by Lawrence Kramer, in order to elucidate the relations of the text and compositional procedures in the work. To do so, I first present a brief historical perspective of musical representation of text, I analyze the work outlining its texture, church mode and metric choices and discuss the results in order to open the hermeneutical windows and reach the possible meaning beyond the text.
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Álvaro de Luna and the political discourses of the Chapel of Saint James
Cinthia ROCHA
Original title: Álvaro de Luna e os discursos políticos da Capela de Santiago
Published in
Keywords: 15th century, Crown of Castile, Funerary chapels, Nobility, Álvaro de Luna.
The Chapel of Saint James, built in the Cathedral of Toledo during the fifteenth century to become the burial place of Alvaro de Luna and his lineage, is one of the leading exponents of Spanish Late Gothic. The construction process had two phases: during the life of the Constable, when he took charge of the work, and a few decades after the tragic death of the former Favorite, when the Chapel elements were completed and his body transferred under the responsibility of his daughter, María de Luna y Pimentel, II Duchess of the Infantado. As the building occurred at different moments of a broad process of transformations, the structure also indicates changes in the representations and strategies used by the noblemen within conflicts of intra-nobility nature. The objective of this paper is analyze the Chapel of Saint James, understanding it as a complex form of political action, whose examination may contribute to the comprehension of the transformations that marked the fifteenth century in Castile, as the conflicts that involved the representation of groups and/or individuals were active agents of the changes that engendered the consolidation of high-nobility ideology.
