Skip to main content

Home

Mirabilia - Journal of Antiquity, Middle & Modern Ages

  • Home
  • Issues
  • About
  • Send article
  • Contact
  • Editorial Policies
  • Publication Ethics
  • Peer Review Guidelines and Form

Section

  • Mirabilia/MedTrans

Archive

  • Mirabilia/Ars
  • Mirabilia/Medicinæ
  • View
  • Edit

Angelus or The touch of the Virgin: the Music in the Cantigas de Santa Maria (13th century) by King Alfonso X

Bárbara Dantas

Original title: Angelus ou O toque da Virgem: a Música nas Cantigas de Santa Maria (séc. XIII) do rei Afonso X

Published in Music in Middle Ages and Early Modernity

Keywords: Alfonso X, Architecture, Art, Cantigas de Santa María, Middle Ages, Music, Poetry.

Harmonious as a song, the Galician-Portuguese poetry, systematized by the zéjel metric, was the basis of the poetry of Cantigas de Santa Maria, a compilation that contains reports of miracles and praises to the Virgin performed in the second half of the 13th century at the request of the castilian king Alfonso X (1221-1284), creator, sponsor and supervisor of the work. In Cantigas, reality is overcome by imagination without limits and the relation of poetry with two other artistic forms (Music and image) makes it literary support in which the themes of the songs to the Virgin were formed. Music and image share with the poetry a sensitivity capable of expressing in different ways certain reports of miracles or praise. For this article, I present to you the Cantiga 276 of the Cantigas de Santa Maria. From iconographic and architectural analyzes, I realized the association between church bells, the architecture of the sanctuary towers where they are housed and the melody of the Angelus (The Virgin's Touch).

Architecture in the Cantigas de Santa Maria by Alfonso X (13th century): Huelva, the Islam and the triumph of the Virgin Mary

Bárbara DANTAS

Original title: Arquitetura nas Cantigas de Santa Maria de Afonso X (séc. XIII): Huelva, o Islã e o triunfo da Virgem Maria

Published in

Keywords: Architecture, Islam, Middle Ages, Virgin Mary, War.

The Cantigas de Santa Maria by king Alfonso X is a work with three artistic expressions: music, literature and painting. There are about 420 songs with reports of miracles and praises to the Virgin written in galician-portuguese and accompanied by illuminations that represent words in images. The focus will be to demonstrate the presence of architectural forms in the text and the illumination of the Cantiga 273, the miracle report of the city of Huelva-Andalusia. The architecture as a record of the defeats and victories occurred in the battles between christians and moors during the centuries of the Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the pacific artistic syncretism of that time.

Building the city: the role of women in late medieval construction

Marta REDONDO DE FUENMAYOR

Original title: Construyendo la ciudad: el rol femenino en la edilicia bajomedieval

Published in Mirabilia Journal 

Keywords: Architecture, Construction, Jobs on the construction site, Late Middle Ages, Women, Workshops.

Transgressors or submissive to established norms, women have been active subjects of architectural practice throughout history. This was the case in the Middle Ages, with its well-known patriarchal societies, where a clear hierarchy of the public, dominated by men, over the private, the place of women, was evident. Thus, it seems unthinkable to some that a percentage of the hands that built the great medieval buildings belonged to the gender relegated to the intimacy of the home. But nothing could be further from the truth: historical experiences show that medieval construction was a phenomenon of shared jurisdiction. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to make visible the role of women as construction workers. The starting point will be a bibliographical review, which reveals the dispersion, scarcity, and limited visibility that this subject has had in traditional historiography. On this basis, we will analyse the regulatory documents, builindg logs, statutes of professional guilds and municipal ordinances, as primary sources that have facilitated the understanding of the role of women within the social hierarchies established in the late medieval period. Subsequently, a general overview will be given of the activities carried out in the construction process, both the tasks on site and those carried out in trades and workshops. The starting point for this is the analysis of graphic and written sources. The images that accompany this chapter, unusually considered when dealing with the subject, support the documentation and become a magnificent exponent of the visual culture of the Middle Ages. Finally, the female stipend in construction work will be analysed, making it possible to ascertain the place of women in the late medieval building industry.

From Palma to Princeton: Reconstruction and translation of the (lost) Gothic-Renaissance staircase of Calle del Agua

Enric MALLORQUÍ-RUSCALLEDA

Original title: De Palma a Princeton: Reconstrucción y traducción de la escalinata (perdida) gótico-renacentista de la Calle del Agua

Published in Returning to Eden

Keywords: Architecture, Gothic-Renaissance, Heritage, Inscriptions, Mallorca, Medieval Catalan, Princeton University Art Museum, Reconstruction, Restoration, Translation.

In this paper, the staircase on Calle del Agua in Palma de Mallorca, previously considered lost, is studied from its documented Gothic-Renaissance historical context by Domenge Mesquida and Byne to its heritage significance. Specifically, it explains my experience as a researcher with the staircase, having to face complex challenges in identifying, reconstructing, and translating into English the inscriptions that adorn it. For the first time, the transcription and translation of the text on the stairway –medieval Catalan prayers– are presented, accompanied by photographs, thus highlighting its cultural and spiritual relevance. The collaboration of the curator from the Princeton University Art Museum in this significant discovery of Mallorca's architectural legacy is also acknowledged.

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.

The portal and the rose window in the Praise 1 of the Cantigas de Santa Maria by Alfonso X (13th century)

Bárbara DANTAS

Original title: O portal e a rosácea no Louvor 1 das Cantigas de Santa Maria de Afonso X (século XIII)

Published in Intercultural Mediterranean

Keywords: Alfonso X, Architecture, Cantigas de Santa Maria, Virgin Mary.

Language:

The Cantigas de Santa Maria, in addition to their most obvious characteristic, that of King Alfonso X's homage to the Virgin Mary, through hundreds of praises, accounts of miracles and their corresponding images – in particular, more than four hundred full-page historical illuminations – are for us, art historians, a summary of medieval life, not only in the kingdoms of León and Castile, ruled by the Wise King in the second half of the 13th century, but throughout Europe and its surroundings. An example of this is right at the beginning of the Alfonsine compendium, in the Praise 1, since its 2nd stanza, as well as vignette 2 of the illumination, tell of an important event that took place in Bethlehem: the birth of Jesus. Focusing on this stanza and vignette – but without losing sight of the main theme of the praise of the Virgin, her seven moments of extreme happiness, or “goyos” in Galician language –, this article correlates biblical texts with the themes addressed in the Praise 1 of the Cantigas; it also correlates religion and architecture, goodness and beauty, as well as holiness and perfection of forms. Let us then delve into the religious universe that underpins the creation of the Gothic portal and rose window, according to the vision of Alfonso X and his Cantigas de Santa Maria.

Indexed by

Mirabilia on ERIH PLUS
Journal of Scholar Metrics logo Medievalismo.org Modern Language Association
Dulcinea logo MIAR logo Indexed articles on Google Scholar Dialnet (Difusión de Alertas en la Red) InterClassica - Investigación y Difusión del Mundo Griego y Romano Antiguo Latindex Regesta Imperii BIBP - Base d'Information Bibliographique en Patristique AHLM - Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval University of California, Berkeley CUNY - The City University of New York Diarium GrinUGR - co-laboratorio sobre cultura digital en ciencias sociales y humanidades Cambridge Journals Mètode Rebiun - Red de Bibliotecas Universitarias Stadt Regensburg Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin UC Santa Barbara Universidad de San Andrés Associazione italiana di studi catalani : AISC THE BRITISH LIBRARY - The world's knowledge Brepols Publishers Die Bayerische Staatsbibliothek: Aktuelles aus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek CBUC - Consorci de Biblioteques Universitàries de Catalunya A world top 100 University - Durham University Haverford College Institut d'Estudis Catalans: l'acadèmia catalana de les ciències i les humanitats University of Leeds Wissensportal ETH-Bibliothek RACO - Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert The Medieval Academy of America Qüern - Bibliographical Bulletin of Catalan Language and Literature of Mediaeval and Modern Ages Medievalists.net - Where the Middle Ages Begin Memorial University SLUB Dresden Staatsbibliothek Bamberg: Startseite UniFI - Corso di Laurea Triennale in Storia ORB - The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies Technische Informationsbibliothek und Universitätsbibliothek Hannover Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main Universidad de los Andes - Colombia Universität Hamburg Universität Regensburg UPR-RP The University of Tennessee at Martin Einrichtungen der Hochschule Darmstadt - Bibliothek- Hochschule Darmstadt Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek (ULB) Bibliothek der Hochschule Osnabrück: Bibliothek Universitätsbibliothek @ TU Braunschweig Universität Vechta - Niedersachsen - University of Vechta - Germany: Bibliothek Bibliotheken - EKHN | Evangelische Kirche in Hessen und Nassau GEI: Home Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek - Leibniz HsH - Bibliothek - Bibliothek im Kurt-Schwitters-Forum Herder-Institut: Startseite The University of Tennessee at Martin Hochschule Merseburg: Hochschulbibliothek Hochschule RheinMain IEG - Leibniz Institut für Europäische Geschichte Mainz Leuphana Universität Lüneburg: Bibliothek  Herzlich Willkommen auf der Homepage der Bibliothek Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg - Startseite Bibliothekssystem Universität Hamburg : Portrait Aktuelles aus der Hochschulbibliothek ThULB Jena - Thüringer Universitäts und Landesbibliothek UNIVERSITÄTSBIBLIOTHEK: Direktlinks Literaturrecherche Universitätsbibliothek Universitätsbibliothek Rostock - Home Startseite – Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt – Technische Universität Darmstadt Welcome to Justus Liebig University Giessen! — Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen Georg-August-Universität Göttingen Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Greifswald - Bibliothek Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel | Startseite Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg - Universität Regensburg IEG - Leibniz Institut für Europäische Geschichte Mainz Startseite - Philipps-Universität Marburg - Universitätsbibliothek Bibliothek der Hochschule Osnabrück: Bibliothek Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal Bauhaus-Universität Weimar: Universitätsbibliothek IEG - Leibniz Institut für Europäische Geschichte Mainz Startseite : Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur | Mainz
Ivitra - Institut Virtual Internacional de Traducción

ISSN 1676-5818

© 2000 Mirabilia Journal.

All rights reserved.

Web design by Felipe Lube de Bragança.