Article (Mirabilia Ars)
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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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Keywords: Apollo, Early Christianity, Flight to Egypt of the Holy Family, Late Middle Ages.
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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Suger (1081-1151) and the spiritual work at the Abbey of Saint-Denis (12th century)
Tainah Moreira NEVES
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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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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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Keywords: Alterity, Authorship, Bakhtin, Dialogism, Jewish, Knowledge Transmission, Music, Palimpsestic, Sacred, Secular.
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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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)
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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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Presentation: The Architecture in the Cantigas de Santa María
José María SALVADOR GONZÁLEZ; Matheus Corassa da SILVA
Original title: Apresentação: A Arquitetura nas Cantigas de Santa María
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Presentation: Art and spirituality: questions about religious iconography
José María SALVADOR GONZÁLEZ; Matheus Corassa da SILVA
Original title: Apresentação: Arte e espiritualidade: questões sobre iconografia religiosa
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The School of Alexandria and the use of allegorical method by Origen of Alexandria
Eirini ARTEMI
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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 sacred and the profane in the Three Wise Kings. From the Middle Ages to their origins
Irene ROMO PODERÓS
Original title: Lo sagrado y lo profano en los Reyes Magos. De la Edad Media a los orígenes
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Keywords: Magi, Middle Ages, Representation, Symbolism.
In the countries of Christian tradition as well as in many others to different degrees the story of the “Three Wise Men” of the East is known who, according to the Christian version, gave their offerings to the “King of Kings” on his birth. However, beyond the myth, who were the so called Magi who according to one legend left behind trails of aromatic herbs in their wake? Are they based on real figures? Is their symbolic origin to be found in the sacred or in the profane? The purpose of this article is to explore the idea of the Three Magician of the East and to try to clarify its historical, legendary, secular and religious aspects. It will also try to show its role as a religious tool used to condition secular thought in medieval Europe. In this way, it will try to analyze how the figure of the Magi constitutes an artistic and literary symbol used for the propagation of Christianity in Medieval Europe, an example of the sacred versus secular dichotomy so characteristic of that continent. To do this, it will explore a variety of different aspects of the culture in the medieval period, as it is in this moment that the representation of the Magi as they are known today is definitively fixed in human memory.
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Fashion in M.S.A. 1 of the General Chronicle of Spain of 1344. Contribution to the dating of the illuminura
Catarina Martins TIBÚRCIO
Original title: A moda no M.S.A. 1 da Crónica Geral de Espanha de 1344. Contributo para a datação da iluminura
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Keywords: 15th Century, Chronic, Fashion, Illumination.
This article starts from a study about the fashion we could observe in the illumination of the manuscript of the Science Academy of Lisbon, known as M.S.A. 1 of the Crónica Geral de Espanha de 1344. We believe that this kind of reproduction reveals us the daily habits of kings, noble men and people, in what concern the dress fashion of a precise time of Portugal’s history, in this particular case, the fashion habits from the period this manuscript was made. We will use that information to contribute to a more accurate date for the illumination of this manuscript, which is now a controversial question. To give to our conclusions a bigger consistency, we will do a comparison between the fashion in the illumination of M.S.A. 1 and the fashion in the illumination of other international contemporary illuminated manuscripts.
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Loyset Liédet (1420-1479): le duché de Bourgogne et des enluminures flamandes
Vinícius Saebel LEMOS
Original title: Loyset Liédet (1420-1479): o ducado borgonhês e as iluminuras flamengas
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Keywords: Duché de Bourgogne, Enluminures, Loyset Liédet, Moyen Âge.
Cet article vise à présenter l’importance du Duché de Bourgogne sous la gouvernance de la Maison Valois (1365-1477) dans la production historique et artistique sur le seuil entre le Moyen Âge et la Modernité. Sa position et sa géographie a facilité le passage des personnes, des idées et des biens de divers types ont fait la région une des plus riches du XVe siècle. Son lien dynastique avec la couronne française et de ses limites en contact permanent avec le royaume français et le Saint-Empire Romain Germanique ne duché sensible à la recherche de maintenir leur existence. La vie des ducs attestent cette quête, en encourageant la production artistique et étaient la source narrative de chroniques témoignent cette demande pour la gloire et la splendeur bourguignonne. Les écrivains et enlumineurs ont été largement employés dans la cour des ducs, leurs guildes ont une action vigoureuse dans la production d’objets d’art, y compris des manuscrits enluminés. Il est de cette association entre l'art et l'histoire en Bourgogne que nous avons sélectionné un de ces maîtres, Loyset Liédet (1420-1479), son histoire et sa production artistique ont été répertoriés et quelques images analysées dans ce travail selon les niveaux de compréhension de Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968).
