Article (Mirabilia Ars)
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Byzantine iconography of The Nativity of the Virgin Mary in the light of a homily of St. John Damascene
José María SALVADOR GONZÁLEZ
Original title: Byzantine iconography of The Nativity of the Virgin Mary in the light of a homily of St. John Damascene
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As a result of the fact that the New Testament mentions little episodes and provides very few details of the real life of the Virgin Mary, several pious apocryphal legends emerged during the first centuries between the eastern Christian communities, which tried by all means to solve this hermetic silence surrounding the birth, childhood, youth, adulthood and death of the Mother of Jesus. These apocryphal accounts were then assumed and interpreted by numerous Church Fathers, theologians and sacral orators. These reflections of such prestigious thinkers structured a solid corpus of doctrine from which several devotions and Marian liturgical feasts of great importance would arise shortly after. The supernatural birth of Mary, after her miraculous conception in the womb of her elderly and sterile mother Anne, is a primary milestone in her “imaginary” life. As natural fruit of these heterogeneous literary and theological sources, the European medieval art and, in a very special way, the Byzantine one, addressed with remarkable enthusiasm the iconographic theme of The Nativity of the Virgin Mary, especially since the 10th-11th centuries, as one of the most significant episodes in the life of the Theotókos. On this basis, our paper proposes a triple complementary objective. First and foremost, it will highlight the content of the apocryphal sources and some thoughts or patristic exegesis on the subject, with particular emphasis in the homilies of St. John Damascene. Secondly, it will look at some Byzantine paintings on The Nativity of Mary, to determine to what extent the apocryphal accounts and the exegetical or doctrinal reflections on this Marian event are reflected in the characters, situations, attitudes, accessories and scenic items represented in these paintings. Finally, it will suggest some author’s interpretations which seem plausible on the possible symbolic meanings underlying in this relevant, dogmatic core and in its corresponding iconographic theme.
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The monastery and the social function of religious architecture: the Cantiga 45 of the Cantigas de Santa Maria by king Alfonso X (13th century)
Bárbara DANTAS
Original title: O mosteiro e a função social da arquitetura religiosa: a Cantiga 45 das Cantigas de Santa Maria do rei Afonso X (século XIII)
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D. Afonso wanted his obra maestra, the Cantigas de Santa Maria, to encompass everything that man sees and feels. And there is nothing more seen and felt than Architecture. Especially for us Religious Architecture. In Cantiga 45, the wise king presents us with a miracle report in which a knight, very affectionate to bad attitudes, wished to repair his errors and build a monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary. His monastery would have all the rooms and spaces necessary for the monastic life.
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Between the sacred and the profane: the case of the Portrait of Dame as Saint Cecilia (c. 1720) and its sacred-profane relations at Ema Gordon Klabin’s collection
Karin PHILIPPOV
Original title: Entre o sacro e o profano: o caso do Retrato de Dama como Santa Cecília (c. 1720) e suas relações sacro-profanas na Coleção Ema Gordon Klabin
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From the Portrait of Dame as Saint Cecilia (c. 1720), attributed to Pierre Gobert’s circle (1662-1744), this article aims at problematizing its relations between sacred and profane which occurs both inside the picture, and regarding its collector, Ema Gordon Klabin (1907-1994), who acquires it in the 1950 decade and hangs it over her bed.
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Musical Palimpsestism in the Sephardic traditions in the profane/sacred context in the transmission of knowledge and the perpetuation of traditions
Antonio Celso RIBEIRO
Original title: O Palimpsetismo musical nas tradições judaicas sefarditas no contexto profano/sacro na transmissão do conhecimento e perpetuação de tradições
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The aim of the present work is to analyze the reuse of secular traditional melodies from the Sephardic culture with sacred texts adapted for liturgical service, hypothesizing that this procedure works well for knowledge transmission and perpetuating traditions. Disregarding any insinuation or intention of profanity in making this interchange of melody/text, profane/sacred, a convention enshrined by a custom consecrated since the Middle Ages, the main scope of this paper, both among Christians and Jews, I resort to the analogy with the technique of palimpsest – reutilization of parchment whose primitive text has been scraped or washed off to give way to another – to understand the migration of meanings between the profane/sacred genres covering en passant the concept of authorship, alterity and dialogism of the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin.
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Idols that collapse. The memory of the cult of Apollo in the Flight into Egypt of the Holy Family
Patricia GRAU-DIECKMANN
Original title: Ídolos que se derrumban. El recuerdo del culto a Apolo en la Huida a Egipto de la Sagrada Familia
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Through the iconographic analysis of two representations of the Flight to Egypt of the Holy Family, one of the fifth century and another of the fourteenth century, an attempt will be made to consider the possibility of the durability in Christian art of motifs linked to the ancient Greco-Roman religion, syncretized in the cult of Apollo settled in Egypt. Two emblematic works of this iconography will be analyzed, but chronologically and geographically opposed. They are the mosaic representation of the Flight to Egypt in Santa Maria Mayor of Rome (432) and the flemish diptych of Dijon (c. 1390), by Melchor Broederlam (c. 1355-1411). Both will serve as paradigmatic images to suspect that the presence of the ancient myths was not totally eradicated from the popular imagination, at least during the period from the Early Christianity to the Late Middle Ages. The written sustenance is found in the narrations of the earliest Apocryphal Gospels. The central theme is the plastic repetition of the presence of the idols of the temples of the god Apollo that fall from their pedestals when the Holy Child is present.
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An approach to the iconography of the Book of Hours of Isabel the Catholic, Ms. II / Tesoro, Real Biblioteca: 4 Marian Images between the biblical text and apocryphal legends
Herbert GONZÁLEZ ZYMLA, Concepción del CASTILLO BLASCO
Original title: Una aproximación a la iconografía del Libro de Horas de Isabel la Católica, Ms. II/Tesoro, Real Biblioteca: 4 Imágenes marianas entre el texto bíblico y las leyendas apócrifas
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This article focuses on highlighting the role that, in the context of the spread of the devotio moderna during the late Middle Ages, acquired the precious Book of Hours of Queen Isabel the Catholic. To focus as much as possible the research topic, our paper analyzes –between the many miniatures illustrating this splendid illuminated codex– only four images referred to Mary: the Presentation of the Virgin to the Temple, the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi and the Coronation of the Virgin Mary. We complete our analysis by comparing these four images with the biblical and apocryphal texts that narrate these Marian events.
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Greek Fathers of the 4th-5th centuries and the secular education. Their acceptance in Greek thinking while rejecting pagan cults
Eirini ARTEMI
Original title: Greek Fathers of the 4th-5th centuries and the secular education. Their acceptance in Greek thinking while rejecting pagan cults
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The Fathers were neither implacable enemies of Greek thought nor did they hate the works of the ancient Greek poets and writers. Great Basilius did not hesitate to show ancient people as examples of virtue who were referred to in the works of secular literature. He like others emphasized, however, that not everything within ancient literature is acceptable but that one should only keep what is useful for Christianity! The rest constituted sinister men’s acts and should therefore be avoided. No one must imitate their actions. Cyril of Alexandria did not reject the ancient Greek thought as philosophy but as theology. The motive was obvious. The contrast between Christian theology and Greek philosophy existed only when the latter was presented as theology. It was a feud between a presupposed common area which each claimed for herself. The rejection of the Greek “false worship as totally useless” took place as a theological crisis. When the Fathers condemned the “Greek and avid ... malice” and exercised “control of the Greek fraud” they essentially failed on Greek philosophy, while targeting ancient Greek religiosity. Hence, Greek Fathers honoured Greek thinking, Greek language and used both in their writings but tried to avoid ideas of Greek pagan practice and cult and fought against these with all their powers.
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Letting the wolf in: the duality of human and animal, inclusion and exclusion and the crossing of these boundaries of the werewolves in Gerald of Wales’ Topographia Hibernica
Julia van ROSMALEN
Original title: Letting the wolf in: the duality of human and animal, inclusion and exclusion and the crossing of these boundaries of the werewolves in Gerald of Wales’ Topographia Hibernica
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This article shows, using a close analysis of the images and text, that despite the initial association with ‘Othering’ and monstrousness, the werewolves from the Topographia Hibernica are not a perfect Other but rather assimilated into the community. They represent a transgression between the boundaries of the human and the animal that renders them porous and allows for movement between the two and an interplay of inclusion and exclusion. The werewolves aren’t hybrids in form or nature, but rather show a discordance between form and nature: They are perfectly animal in appearance and perfectly human in nature. The deliberate parallel with theory of form and nature in the eucharist which plays a central role in both the conclusion of the story, the final image and the authors theological discourse on transformation shows that the final verdict on the wolves is one of sameness rather than otherness.
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The rendering of Christ in the Temple icon of the Theotokos: a gaze from the fourth century. Part two
Elena ENE D-VASILESCU
Original title: The rendering of Christ in the Temple icon of the Theotokos: a gaze from the fourth century. Part two
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Reflections on the relation between Lilith and the femme fatale: the prostitution at the end of the 19th century
Marta MORUECO O’MULLONY
Original title: Reflexiones sobre la relación entre Lilith y la femme fatale: la prostitución a finales del siglo XIX
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The study of the figure of Lilith must be set in two very specific moments: first, the Ancient Times, in which the Lilith myth arises; and the nineteenth century, as “reawakening” of this character. This research deals with the relationship between women and evil, and its iconography; The negative view of the feminine was propagated during the Middle Ages mostly due, in large part, to the discovery of the Aristotelian texts, laden with a strong misogynistic content. It will be precisely in the twelfth century when Lilith is adopted as part of the Hebrew imaginary, assuming the negative character of the woman, freeing Eve from the only and absolute responsibility of the Original Sin. This idea will be recovered during the nineteenth century reincarnated in the figure of the femme fatale and the pleasure from the demonic and the forbidden thoughts, coming to fetishize it, which has a direct relationship with the rise of prostitution, in whose artistic representations we can find the Lilith’s seed.
