Iconographic analysis of the Façade of the Temple of San Pablo, in Yuriria, Guanajuato
Carmen Fabiola MORENO VIDAL
Original title: Análisis iconográfico de la Portada del Templo de San Pablo, en Yuriria, Guanajuato
Published in Games from Antiquity to Baroque
Keywords: Apollo, Augustinians, Caliculus, Candelieri, Façade, Hades, Heracles canephores, Yuriria.
The plateresque doorway of the temple of San Pablo in Yuriria, incorporates elements of the classical world with a clear Christological allusion where the representation of Apollo is a prefiguration of Christ and Hades of death through sin, which are in permanent struggle and for this reason they are represented as archers facing each other, sirens are evil beings who tempt with their songs and canephores are carriers of divine grace through the abundance of fruits of the earth and food dishes. The program of the theological discourse is organized in eminently didactic terms where the abundance of nutritious food for man can only be given through divine mercy. The novelty of this Façade is the profuse decoration with caliculus, these are present in all the bodies and in an infinity of compositions, in addition to incorporating in the auction the holy founder of the Augustinian order, of gigantic dimensions, making this one of the most notable convent Façade of the 16th century in Mexico.
Iconographic analysis of the façade of the Nuestra Señora de Loreto Temple, in Molango, Hidalgo
Carmen Fabiola MORENO VIDAL
Original title: Análisis Iconográfico de la Portada del Templo Nuestra Señora de Loreto, en Molango, Hidalgo
Published in Mirabilia Journal
Keywords: Corn, Façade, Glyph, Maguey, Molango, Nahui-Ōlin, Pumpkin.
The façade of the temple of Nuestra Señora de Loreto belongs to the Plateresque style as it presents elements of Romanesque, Gothic art such as the rose window and Mudejar such as the alfiz. But the most outstanding thing that includes the substance of this work is the use, in a somewhat veiled way, of pre-Hispanic elements, figures and symbols distributed throughout the cover as decoration, from the bases of columns and jambs, with glyphs of the corn, stars and agave, passing through shafts with pumpkin plants, the capitals with representations of the Mexica sky, reaching the cross, an element common in form and meaning to both cultures and ending in the rose window, an element that represents the cosmos whose cosmic meaning it is reinforced with the pre-Hispanic symbols of the movement of the stars such as the Ōlin and Nahui-Ōlin.
If God is eternal
Pe. Dilonei Pedro MÜLLER
Original title: Se Deus é eterno
Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Being, Duration, Eternity, God, Time.
This study focuses on comprehending some of the aspects about God’s eternity in São Tomas. He talks about the question of the eternity of God in the first part of the Summa Theologiae, the tenth question. The eternity concept acquires itself throughout the knowledge of time. Such as to the knowledge of the simple things gets through the knowledge of the composed things, and the knowledge of God’s eternity is acquired through the knowledge of time. Time is the enumeration of the movement one second before and one second after and characterizes itself by own succession. In a not moving endowed being, which, in fact is always the same one, there isn’t one second before and one after. This comprehension derives the idea of eternity. So, what is totally immutable doesn’t carry any succession, and, because of this it doesn’t have either a beginning or an end.
If it's not true, what it is? Saint Augustine against the Lie
Gabriele Greggersen
Original title: Se não é Verdade, é o que? Agostinho contra a Mentira
Published in Mirabilia 4
Keywords: Lie, heresy, intencionality, truth.
If there are lies, which is their limit in relation to truth? Out of real problems that he was facing at the time, related the religious heresies and conflicts, Saint Augustine supplies insights on the subject in two texts “On Lie” (De Mendacium) and “Against Lie” (Contra Mendacium). There are good reasons to believe that his concern with the subject was recurrent, since the two texts are practically identical. Without pretensions to define what truth is, the bishop of Hippona applies his negative method to create a tipology of existing kinds of lies. Thus, he evidences a almost completely forgotten fact nowadays: beyond the diversity of species of lie, if something is not true, it only can be false.
Images of nobility in life and works of Meister Eckhart
Matteo RASCHIETTI
Original title: As imagens da nobreza na vida e nas obras de Mestre Eckhart
Published in Aristocracy and nobility in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Eckhart, Nobility, deep of soul, intellect, soul.
Noble as provenance, dominicam master’s life had a plebeian destiny when he was condemned for heresy post mortem. In despite of this, his disciples setted on fire the flame of true nobilty indicated by Eckhart, that is peculiar of soul, intellect and human being free and detached of all images, inclusively of God’s image. Only when human being will recognise His presence in the deep of soul, finding the similarity with Him in the dissimilarity of himself and of all creatures, will be possible to experiment the true nobilty and the end of alterity between deus absconditus and His masterpiece of creation.
Imaginari: the absent present in the Baroque
Waldir BARRETO; Thais CAREZZATO
Original title: Imaginari: a presença ausente no Barroco
Published in Games from Antiquity to Baroque
Keywords: Absence, Baroque, Imagination, Presence.
This essay presents an introductory and speculative approach to the paradigmatic change that occurred between the 16th and 17th centuries in the artistic treatment of the idea of “presence in absence”. Based on some comparative categories by Heinrich Wölfflin and semiotics by Charles Peirce, taken as merely functional tools and not directive concepts, it proposes the Baroque as the starting point of a historical process of relativization, opening and expansion of the space constituting a work of art.
Imperial administration and acquirement power in Late Antiquity: power agents from the viewpoint of Synesius
José Petrúcio de FARIAS JUNIOR
Original title: Administração imperial e aquisição de poder na Antiguidade Tardia: agentes de poder sob a ótica de Sinésio
Published in Nicholas of Cusa in Dialogue
Keywords: De Providentia, De Regno, Imperial Administration, Synesius of Cyrene, Theodosian Code.
Based on the comparative analysis between the Theodosian Code, specifically the laws promulgated in the fourth century, and the discourses De Regno and De Providentia of Synesius of Cyrene, produced on the occasion of his embassy to Constantinople, we reflect on the strategies of acquiring political power in Late Roman Empire, in view of the legal and non-legal institutional mechanisms that ensured the entry for political office in the imperial administration and how such mechanisms reaffirmed the theory of decline of the Roman Empire by contemporary historiography.
In perfect future. The End of Time in Augustine, the apocalyptic and Gnostic
Luis Felipe JIMÉNEZ JIMÉNEZ
Original title: En futuro perfecto. El fin del tiempo en Agustín, los apocalípticos y los gnósticos
Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World
Keywords: Apocalypse, Christianity, Culture, Gnosticism, Philosophy of History, Time.
Augustine's reflection on time, from the level of individual salvation and the transcendence of the heavenly city located from the beginning on Earth, able to characterize or shape of medieval culture, but it is also clear that the expectations generated apocalyptic positions – better known as millenarian sects – and the Gnostics did not fail to weigh heavily in the collective imagination that went through the end of the Roman Empire and the so-called Middle Ages. So the contrast between conceived notions about the future in these three directions, it allows you to understand the full extent the meaning and significance of the choice of linear and finite time, hidden under mythical notions as Revelation, Last Judgment, Kingdom of God, eternal salvation, is at the bottom of the beliefs that have been – and somehow still blowing – life to Western culture.
Iranian origins of millenialism
Edrisi FERNANDES
Original title: As origens iranianas do milenarismo
Published in Mystic and Millenarianism in Middle Ages
Keywords: Apocalypticism, Eschatology, Millennialism, Zoroastrianism, Zurvanism.
This essay consists in a critical evaluation of the Iranian contribution to the origins of Judaeo-Christian millennialism through Zoroastrianism and Zurvanism. With that aim, the beginnings of Iranian millennialism with Zarathustra (Zoroaster) are reviewed, and the reason for the creation of finite time, as well as its function as a bridge to the coming epoch of unlimited time, are analysed. Some aspects of the Greek reception and transmission of Iranian eschatological ideas are briefly discussed; the relation between Zoroastrian millennialism and soteriology is evaluated, and finally some traces of the lasting western heritage of Zoroastrian apocalypticism are pointed out.
Is there a great cosmic wheel hidden in the tympanum of Moissac Abbey?
Cécile M. FOSSOUL; Dominique J. PERSOONS
Original title: ¿Hay una gran rueda cósmica escondida en el tímpano de la Abadía de Moissac?
Published in Mirabilia Journal
Keywords: Cosmic, Invisible image, Moissac, Tympanum, Wheel.
The tympanum of the Abbey of Moissac, which belonged to the Cistercian order, known for its austerity, presents a strange iconography: Christ in Glory is surrounded by the four evangelists who adopt paradoxical positions, and a kind of laxity that seems at first glance incomprehensible. Also, the two angels keep their hands in the air for no apparent reason. When arranged symmetrically, Romanesque angels generally hold the halo of Christ. However, in Moissac those angels seem to be “paralyzed”. Does the tympanum contain a hidden iconography? Could the 12th century Christianity transmitted secret images? Today, this question could have been answered through the use of graphic design software.
