Staging the ruler's body in medieval cultures : a comparative perspective / edited by Michele Bacci, Gohar Grigoryan and Manuela Studer-Karlen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bacci, Michele, editor.

Grigoryan, Gohar, editor.

Studer-Karlen, Manuela, editor.

Series:

Studies in medieval and early Renaissance art history.

[Studies in medieval and early Renaissance art history], 2565-8409

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Kings and rulers in art.

Human body--Symbolic aspects.

Human body.

Art, Medieval.

Physical Description:

351 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 28 cm.

Place of Publication:

Turnhout, Belgium : Harvey Miller Publishers, [2023]

Summary:

This book explores the viewing and sensorial contexts in which the bodies of kings and queens were involved in the premodern societies of Europe, Asia, and Africa, relying on a methodology that aims to overcoming the traditional boundaries between material studies, art history, political theory, and Repräsentationsgeschichte. More specifically, it investigates the multiple ways in which the ruler's physical appearance was apprehended and invested with visual, metaphorical, and emotional associations, as well as the dynamics whereby such mise-en-scène devices either were inspired by or worked as sources of inspiration for textual and pictorial representations of royalty. The outcome is a multifaced analysis of the multiple, imaginative, and terribly ambiguous ways in which, in past societies, the notion of a God-driven, eternal, and transpersonal royal power came to be associated with the material bodies of kings and queens, and of the impressive efforts made, in different cultures, to elude the conundrum of the latter's weakness, transitoriness, and individual distinctiveness.

Contents:

The Ruler's Multiple Bodies and their Mise-en-scène : Some Introductory Remarks / Michele Bacci

Staging the Body of the Lord of the Sevenfold World : Methectic Spaces and Chiasmatic Viewing in Sasanian Iran / Matthew P. Canepa

Queen Consort Mariam Dadiani and Female Architectural Patronage in Late Medieval Georgia / Natia Natsvlishvili

The 'Just Judgement' of King Lewon IV : Representational Strategies of Righteous Rulership in Cilician Armenia / Gohar Grigoryan

Royal Imagery and Devotional Spaces in Early Solomonic Ethiopia : The Case of Gännätä Maryam / Jacopo Gnisci

Staging as Metaphor : The King's Body and the Theatricality of Power / Antony Eastmond

Clothes maketh the emperor? : Embodying and Performing Imperial Ideology in Byzantium through Dress / Maria Parani

Staging for Commemoration : The Cherubikos Hymnos / Manuela Studer-Karlen

The Khan in the West : The Reception of Mongol Political Power in the Texts and Images of Medieval Latin Europe / Eleonora Tioli

Staging the Virgin Mary as the Ruler of the Sienese City-State / Kayoko Ichikawa

Shaping the Face of Power : The Portraits of King Robert of Anjou (1309-1343) / Mirko Vagnoni

Staging the Royal Corpse : Reburials of Monarchical Bodies at the Basilica of San Isidoro in León / Aleksandra Rutkowska

The Presence and Propaganda of Jaime the Conqueror of Aragon (r. 1213-76) in the Llibre dels Fets : The Image, Action, and Rhetoric of a King / Sofia Fernandez Pozzo

The Royal Presence of Pedro IV (r. 1336-87) in Contemporary Textual and Iconographic Sources / Marta Serrano-Coll

Staging the Absent King : Effects of Presence on Medieval Royal Thrones / Rabine Sommerer.

Notes:

Series title from publisher's website.

Based on the international conferernce, Staging the Ruler's Body in Medieval Cultures: a Comparative Perspective, held on November 23-24, 2020 at the University of Fribourg.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-222) and indexes.

ISBN:

9781915487087

1915487080

OCLC:

1404815920