Body-worlds : Opicinus de Canistris and the medieval cartographic imagination / Karl Whittington.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whittington, Karl, author.

Contributor:

Opicino, de Canistris, 1296-approximately 1354, contributor.

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, issuing body.

Series:

Studies and texts (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies) ; 186.

Text, image, context ; 1.

[Studies and texts ; 186]

Text image context: studies in medieval manuscript illumination ; 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Opicino, de Canistris, 1296-approximately 1354--Criticism and interpretation.

Opicino.

Biblioteca apostolica vaticana--Manuscript--Vat. Lat. 6435.

Biblioteca apostolica vaticana.

Biblioteca apostolica vaticana--Manuscript--Pal. lat. 1993.

Drawing, Medieval--Italy.

Drawing, Medieval.

Art, Medieval--Italy.

Art, Medieval.

Maps in art.

Geography, Medieval--Maps.

Geography, Medieval.

Nautical charts--Europe--History--To 1500.

Nautical charts.

Human body--Symbolic aspects--Italy--History--To 1500.

Human body.

Human figure in art.

Visual communication--Italy--History--To 1500.

Visual communication.

Visions in art.

Art and mental illness--Case studies.

Art and mental illness.

Medicine, Medieval.

Maps.

Opicino, de Canistris, 1296-approximately 1354.

History, Medieval.

Maps as Topic.

Human Body.

Italy.

Human body--Symbolic aspects.

Europe.

Medical Subjects:

Opicino, de Canistris, 1296-approximately 1354.

History, Medieval.

Maps as Topic.

Human Body.

Italy.

Local Subjects:

Opicino, de Canistris, 1296-approximately 1354.

Biblioteca apostolica vaticana.

Genre:

drawings (visual works)

Case studies.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Maps.

Drawings.

Physical Description:

xii, 212 pages : colour illustrations, facsimiles (chiefly color), maps ; 27 cm.

Other Title:

Opicinus de Canistris and the medieval cartographic imagination

Place of Publication:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada : Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, [2014]

Summary:

"On the last day of March in 1334, an Italian priest named Opicinus de Canistris fell ill. His body slowly became paralyzed, and he temporarily lost his ability to speak. But during this illness, he had a divine vision, and his interior eyes were opened to discern the images of the earth and the sea. These images, visions of continents and oceans transformed into human figures, resulted in drawings that combined highly accurate maps of the pan-Mediterranean world with striking and often highly sexualized images of human bodies, forms that Karl Whittington calls 'body-worlds'. Creating allegories of natural and spiritual worlds, these drawings defy classification. While they relate closely to contemporary maps and seacharts, religious iconography, medical illustration, and cosmological diagrams, Opicinus's drawings cannot be assimilated to any of these categories. In seeking to visualize the possibilities raised by an entire new way of looking at the world they remain sui generis and a formidable challenge to interpretation. In their beautiful strangeness they complicate many of our most fundamental assumptions about medieval visual culture, even as they help us grasp some of its most basic operations. Body-Worlds demonstrates the ways that Opicinus's images spark multiple lines of inquiry, for both the medieval viewer and the modern scholar, into the interplay of religion and science, the practice of experimentation, the operations of allegory in the fourteenth century, and ultimately into the status of representation itself. The multiplication of meaning in these drawings is reflected in the book's structure and methodology: it examines Opicinus's imaginary both in relation to medieval forms of knowing and in light of modern theories; at the same time, it remains unwavering in its focus on the visual logic that connects these variegated drawings but also allows them their stubborn individuality and otherness."--Front inside flap of dust jacket.

Contents:

Opicinus's cartography : rethinking early Portolan charts

Empirical allegory : structure, vision, and experimentation in four drawings

Diagramming everything : Opicinus's cosmologies

Graphic art : gender, sex, and queer bodies in form and metaphor.

Notes:

This volume includes a study of drawings found in Opicinus's journal, Biblioteca apostolica vaticana MS Vat. lat. 6435 and others in Biblioteca apostolica vaticana MS Pal. lat. 1993.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-208) and index.

Other Format:

Whittington, Karl, 1982- Body-worlds.

Online version: Whittington, Karl. Body-worlds

ISBN:

9780888441867

088844186X

9780888444264

0888444265

OCLC:

859431898