Article (Mirabilia Ars)
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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
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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Juan Lovera, by himself (subject to citizen)
María Magdalena ZIEGLER
Original title: Juan Lovera, por sí mismo (de súbdito a ciudadano)
Published in
Juan Lovera, Venezuelan painter, born in 1776 and dead in 1841, brings us a life displayed in times of changes in the culture of the Province of Caracas, part of the old Spanish colonial territory, which ended the 18th Century with the promise of a growing prosperity due to the projection of cocoa trading revenues. Lovera saw the end of his life through the uncertain path of a republic which walked unsteadily in its infancy. With this in mind, we will attempt to structure the available data on Juan Lovera, the Colonial artist, the Republican artist, but also as the committed citizen he was. Although the data around his actions and decisions is not abundant, we can take a tour that will throw, repeatedly, elements which will outlined him as an individual aware of his place and possibilities at different stages of his life. This will allow us to value his artistic work in a fairer dimension.
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Ars moriendi. Ideas, rites and images of death
José María SALVADOR GONZÁLEZ
Original title: Ars moriendi. Ideas, ritos e imágenes de la muerte
Published in
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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
Published in
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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From Santiago Matamoros to Sen jak in the Haitian voodoo
Patricia GRAU-DIECKMANN
Original title: De Santiago Matamoros al Sen Jak del vudú haitiano
Published in
Few Christian characters have shown the ubiquity and the capacity to become syncretised into other religions such as St. James the Apostle. He became known by different names and nicknames and is revered as far afield as Spain, Ghana, Peru and Haiti. This article will review some of the many facets that portray the first Christian Martyr.
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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
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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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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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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Presentation
José María SALVADOR GONZÁLEZ
Original title: Presentación
Published in
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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
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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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
Published in
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.
