Academic literature on the topic 'Allegory; Medieval; Renaissance'

The Department of English at McGill University has recently lost two of its medievalists, one to early retirement and one to another institution (a decision made largely for personal reasons), and for several years has had no specialist in medieval drama. The Department now has only two full-time medievalists, with the result that its offerings in medieval literature have fallen off somewhat. A few years ago, the Department also made the effort to change all its courses to 3-credits. The 6-credit introductory course in Old English thereby fell away, as did student interest. However, we have managed to keep an Old English course going at the upper level, and a new, 300-level, 3-credit Introduction to Old English is being offered next year, in the hopes of being able to offer both the introductory course in Old English and the upper-level course as a follow-up. The Department over the past few years has maintained its offerings in Chaucer, as well as in other medieval topics (gender, religion, folklore, Arthurian tradition, and literary theory); this year we were able to put on Chaucer at both the undergraduate and graduate level, an Old English undergraduate course, and two upper-level undergraduate courses in Middle English literature (on allegory and on romance). We have approval to advertise for a position in Late Medieval/Early Renaissance, which we hope we will be able to fill next year. The Department now has a very strong Renaissance studies component (especially in Shakespeare), and we are hoping to boost our medieval offerings by creating a bridge with the Renaissance.

Erasmus' "radical orientation towards continuities," coupled with a series of congruent physical and philosophical circumstances, suggests a possible relationship between certain medieval artes praedicandi and the Ecclesiastes sive de Ratione Concionandi. By exploring the parallels between these texts, especially in the areas of sermon structure and function, the meaning of amplification and allegory, and specifically used terminology, this study extends the parameters of continuity by allowing the earlier allusive material to enrich one's understanding of the great Renaissance sermon manual. Thus, Erasmus' achievement can be viewed, not as a miraculous aberration, but as part of a long and variegated preaching tradition.

In the medieval romances single combat was the knightly norm. The Italian chivalric epics sought to adapt this convention to the ideals of the Renaissance courtier. In Il Cortegiano, Frederico Fregoso explains “that where the Courtyer is at skirmishe, or assault, or battaile upon the land, or in such other places of enterprise, he ought to worke the matter wisely in seperating himself from the multitude, and undertake his notable and bould feates which he hath to doe, with as little company as he can.“’ But such displays of panache had little place in the massed infantry tactics that dominated the actual battlefields of the sixteenth century. It was disciplined self-restraint that made the Swiss and Spanish pike phalanxes so formidable, relegating cavalry to secondary importance. The Italian courtierknights had been rudely humbled, after all, when Charles XII invaded Italy in 1494 and deployed his excellent artillery.

The article defines the basic principles of the influence of biblical hermeneutics on the poetics of Ukrainian Baroque emblematic literature, which were determined by its general development trends. The four-sense biblical hermeneutics, founded by the Greek and Roman Church Fathers, played an important role in the formation of Ukrainian Baroque literature that mainly developed within the theological framework. The principles of biblical hermeneutics eventually began to go beyond the theological literature. Thus, the medieval interest in symbol and allegory led to the appearance of “empresas” – symbolic drawings that became fashionable at the royal courts of Europe in the 15th century. The Renaissance misunderstanding about the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphs, their perception as ideographic writing through which Egyptian priests expressed their wisdom, led to the appearance of emblems, allegorical prints with long explanatory verses, aimed at giving some moral lessons. It was believed that the emblem could communicate truth to the mind more directly than with the help of words. It was reflected in the mind, while the person’s gaze wandered through the symbolic details of the emblem. The research provides evidence that a large number of literary works of the 17th century showed the influence of the emblem on the formation of symbolic representation, arranged to reveal the truth implicitly or explicitly through the sequential placement of the elements. Many poetic images of the 17th century come from well-known emblems, which were means of perceiving, interpreting, and opening the world of the Bible to the Baroque reader.

Recent conservation and restoration work on the icon of the Virgin and Child which stood on the altar in the Church of St. Nicholas at Prijeko in Dubrovnik has enabled a new interpretation of this paining. The icon, painted on a panel made of poplar wood, features a centrally-placed Virgin holding the Child in her arms painted on a gold background between the two smaller figures of St. Peter and St. John the Baptist. The figures are painted in the manner of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Dubrovnik style, and represent a later intervention which significantly changed the original appearance and composition of the older icon by adding the two saints and touching up the Virgin’s clothes with Renaissance ornaments, all of which was performed by the well-known Dubrovnik painter Nikola Božidarević. It can be assumed that the icon originally featured a standing or seated Virgin and Child. The Virgin is depicted with her head slightly lowered and pointing to the Christ Child whom she is holding on her right side. The chubby boy is not seated on his mother’s lap but is reclining on his right side and leaningforward while his face is turned towards the spectator. He is dressed in a red sleeveless tunic with a simple neck-line which is embroidered with gold thread. The Child is leaning himself on the Virgin’s right hand which is holding him. He is firmly grasping her thumb with one hand and her index finger with the other in a very intimate nursing gesture while she, true to the Hodegitria scheme, is pointing at him with her left hand, which is raised to the level of her breasts. Such an almost-realistic depiction of Christ as a small child with tiny eyes, mouth and nose, drastically departs from the model which portrays him with the mature face of an adult, as was customary in icon painting. The Virgin is wearing a luxurious gold cloak which was repainted with large Renaissance-style flowers. Her head is covered with a traditional maphorion which forms a wide ring around it and is encircled by a nimbus which was bored into thegold background. Her skin tone is pink and lit diffusely, and was painted with almost no green shadows, which is typical of Byzantine painting. The Virgin’s face is striking and markedly oval. It is characterized by a silhouetted, long, thin nose which is connected to the eyebrows. The ridge of the nose is emphasized with a double edge and gently lit whilethe almond-shaped eyes with dark circles are set below the inky arches of the eyebrows. The Virgin’s cheeks are smooth and rosy while her lips are red. The plasticity of her round chin is emphasized by a crease below the lower lip and its shadow. The Virgin’s eyes, nose and mouth are outlined with a thick red line. Her hands are light pink in colour and haveelongated fingers and pronounced, round muscles on the wrists. The fingers are separated and the nails are outlined with precision. The deep, resounding hues of the colour red and the gilding, together with the pale pink skin tone of her face, create an impression of monumentality. The type of the reclining Christ Child has been identified in Byzantine iconography as the Anapeson. Its theological background lies in the emphasis of Christ’s dual nature: although the Christ Child is asleep, the Christ as God is always keeping watch over humans. The image was inspired by a phrase from Genesis 49: 9 about a sleeping lion to whom Christ is compared: the lion sleeps with his eyes open. The Anapeson is drowsy and awake at the same time, and therefore his eyes are not completely shut. Such a paradox is a theological anticipation of his “sleep” in the tomb and represents an allegory of his death and Resurrection. The position, gesture and clothes of the Anapeson in Byzantine art are not always the same. Most frequently, the ChristChild is not depicted lying in his mother’s arms but on an oval bed or pillow, resting his head on his hand, while the Virgin is kneeling by his side. Therefore, the Anapeson from Dubrovnik is unique thanks to the conspicuously humanized relationship between the figures which is particularly evident in Christ’s explicitly intimate gesture of grasping the fingers of his mother’s hand: his right hand is literally “inserting” itself in the space between the Virgin’s thumb and index finger. At the same time, the baring of his arms provided the painter with an opportunity to depict the pale tones of a child’s tender skin. The problem of the iconography of the Anapeson in the medieval painting at Dubrovnik is further complicated by a painting which was greatly venerated in Župa Dubrovačka as Santa Maria del Breno. It has not been preserved but an illustration of it was published in Gumppenberg’sfamous Atlas Marianus which shows the Virgin seated on a high-backed throne and holding the sleeping and reclining Child. The position of this Anapeson Christ does not correspond fully to the icon from the Church of St. Nicholas because the Child is lying on its back and his naked body is covered with the swaddling fabric. The icon of the Virgin and Child from Prijeko claims a special place in the corpus of Romanesque icons on the Adriatic through its monumentality and intimate character. The details of the striking and lively Virgin’s face, dominated by the pronounced and gently curved Cimabuesque nose joined to the shallow arches of her eyebrows, link her with the Benedictine Virgin at Zadar. Furthermore, based on the manner of painting characterized by the use of intense red for the shadows in the nose and eye area, together with the characteristic shape of the elongated, narrow eyes, this Virgin and Child should be brought into connection with the painter who is known as the Master of the Benedictine Virgin. The so-called Benedictine Virgin is an icon, now at the Benedictine Convent at Zadar, which depicts the Virgin seated on a throne with a red, ceremonial, imperial cushion, in a solemn scheme of the Kyriotissa, the heavenly queen holding the Christ Child on her lap. The throne is wooden and has a round back topped with wooden finials which can also be seen in the Byzantine Kahn Virgin and the Mellon Madonna, as well as in later Veneto-Cretan painting. The throne is set under a shallow ciborium arch which is rendered in relief and supportedby twisted colonettes and so the painting itself is sunk into the surface of the panel. A very similar scheme with a triumphal arch can be seen on Byzantine ivory diptychs with shallow ciborium arches and twisted colonettes. In its composition, the icon from Prijeko is a combination ofthe Kyr i ot i ss a and the Hodegitria, because the Virgin as the heavenly queen does not hold the Christ Child frontally before her but on her right-hand side while pointing at him as the road to salvation. He is seated on his mother’s arm and is supporting himself by pressing his crossed legsagainst her thigh which symbolizes his future Passion. He is wearing a formal classical costume with a red cloak over his shoulder. He is depicted in half profile which opens up the frontal view of the red clavus on his navy blue chiton.He is blessing with the two fingers of his right hand and at the same time reaching for the unusual flower rendered in pastiglia which the Virgin is raising in her left hand and offering to him. At the same time, she is holding the lower part of Christ’s body tightly with her right hand.Various scholars have dated the icon of the Benedictine Virgin to the early fourteenth century. While Gothic features are particularly evident in the costumes of the donors, the elements such as the modelling of the throne and the presence of the ceremonial cushion belong to the Byzantine style of the thirteenth century. The back of the icon of the Benedictine Virgin features the figure of St. Peter set within a border consisting of a lively and colourful vegetal scroll which could be understood as either Romanesque or Byzantine. However, St. Peter’s identifying titulus is written in Latin while that of the Virgin is in Greek. The figure of St. Peter was painted according to the Byzantine tradition: his striking and severe face is rendered linearly in a rigid composition, which is complemented by his classical contrapposto against a green-gray parapet wall, while the background is of dark green-blue colour. Equally Byzantine is themanner of depicting the drapery with flat, shallow folds filled with white lines at the bottom of the garment while, at the same time, the curved undulating hem of the cloak which falls down St. Peter’s right side is Gothic. The overall appearance of St. Peter is perhaps even more Byzantine than that of the Virgin. Such elements, together with the typically Byzantine costumes, speak clearly of a skilful artist who uses hybrid visual language consisting of Byzantine painting and elements of the Romanesque and Gothic. Of particular interest are the wide nimbuses surrounding the heads of the Virgin and Child (St. Peter has a flat one) which are rendered in relief and filled with a neat sequence of shallow blind archesexecuted in the pastiglia technique which, according to M. Frinta, originated in Cyprus. The Venetian and Byzantine elements of the Benedictine Virgin have already been pointed out in the scholarship. Apart from importing art works and artists such as painters and mosaic makers directly from Byzantium into Venice, what was the extent and nature of the Byzantineinfluence on Venetian artistic achievements in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? We know that the art of Venice and the West alike were affected by the Fourth Crusade and the sack of Constantinople in 1204, and by the newly founded Latin Empire which lasted until 1261.The Venetians played a particularly significant political and administrative role in this Empire and the contemporary hybrid artistic style of the eastern Mediterranean, called Crusader Art and marked by the strong involvement of the Knights Templar, must have been disseminated through the established routes. In addition to Cyprus, Apulia and Sicily which served as stops for the artists and art works en route to Venice and Tuscany, another station must have been Dalmatia where eastern and western influences intermingled and complemented each other.However, it is interesting that the icon of the Benedictine Virgin, apart from negligible variations, imitates almost completely the iconographic scheme of the Madonna di Ripalta at Cerignola on the Italian side of the Adriatic, which has been dated to the early thirteenth century and whose provenance has been sought in the area between southern Italy (Campania) and Cyprus. Far more Byzantine is another Apulian icon, that of a fourteenth-century enthroned Virgin from the basilica of St. Nicholas at Bari with which the Benedictine Virgin from Zadar shares certain features such as the composition and posture of the figures, the depictionof donors and Christ’s costume. A similar scheme, which indicates a common source, can be seen on a series of icons of the enthroned Virgin from Tuscany. The icon of the Virgin and Child from Prijeko is very important for local Romanesque painting of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century because it expands the oeuvre of the Master of the Benedictine Virgin. Anicon which is now at Toronto, in the University of Toronto Art Centre Malcove Collection, has also been attributed to this master. This small two-sided icon which might have been a diptych panel, as can be judged from its typology, depicts the Virgin with the Anapeson in the upper register while below is the scene from the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. The Virgin is flanked by the figures of saints: to the left is the figure of St. Francis while the saint on the right-hand side has been lost due to damage sustained to the icon. The busts of SS Peter and Paul are at the top.The physiognomies of the Virgin and Child correspond to those of the Benedictine Virgin and the Prijeko icon. The Anapeson, unlike the one at Dubrovnik, is wrapped in a rich, red cloak decorated with lumeggiature, which covers his entire body except the left fist and shin. On the basis of the upper register of this icon, it can be concluded that the Master of the Benedictine Virgin is equally adept at applying the repertoire and style of Byzantine and Western painting alike; the lower register of the icon with its descriptive depiction of the martyrdom of St.Lawrence is completely Byzantine in that it portrays the Roman emperor attending the saint’s torture as a crowned Byzantine ruler. Such unquestionable stylistic ambivalence – the presence of the elements from both Byzantine and Italian painting – can also be seen on the icons of theBenedictine and Prijeko Virgin and they point to a painter who works in a “combined style.” Perhaps he should be sought among the artists who are mentioned as pictores greci in Dubrovnik, Kotor and Zadar. The links between Dalmatian icons and Apulia and Tuscany have already been noted, but the analysis of these paintings should also contain the hitherto ignored segment of Sicilian and eastern Mediterranean Byzantinism, including Cyprus as the centre of Crusader Art. The question of the provenance of the Master of the Benedictine Virgin remains open although the icon of the Virgin and Child from Prijeko points to the possibility that he may have been active in Dalmatia.However, stylistic expressions of the two icons from Zadar and Dubrovnik, together with the one which is today at Toronto, clearly demonstrate the coalescing of cults and forms which arrived to the Adriatic shores fromfurther afield, well beyond the Adriatic, and which were influenced by the significant, hitherto unrecognized, role of the eastern Mediterranean.

Lepsius, Susanne / Friedrich Vollhardt / Oliver Bach (Hrsg.), Von der Allegorie zur Empirie. Natur im Rechtsdenken des Spätmittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit (Abhandlungen zur rechtswissenschaftlichen Grundlagenforschung. Münchener Universitätsschriften. Juristische Fakultät, 100), Berlin 2018, Schmidt, VI u. 328 S., € 79,95. (Peter Oestmann, Münster) Baumgärtner, Ingrid / Nirit Ben-Aryeh Debby / Katrin Kogman-Appel (Hrsg.), Maps and Travel in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Knowledge, Imagination, and Visual Culture (Das Mittelalter. Beihefte, 9), Berlin / Boston 2019, de Gruyter, IX u. 412 S. / Abb., € 119, 95. (Gerda Brunnlechner, Hagen) Damen, Mario / Jelle Hamers / Alastair J. Mann (Hrsg.), Political Representation. Communities, Ideas and Institutions in Europe (c. 1200 – c. 1690) (Later Medieval Europe, 15), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XIV, 332 S. / Abb., € 143,00. (Olaf Mörke, Kiel) Erkens, Franz-Reiner, Sachwalter Gottes. Der Herrscher als „christus domini“, „vicarius Christi“ und „sacra majestas“. Gesammelte Aufsätze. Zum 65. Geburtstag hrsg. v. Martin Hille / Marc von Knorring / Hans-Cristof Kraus (Historische Forschungen, 116), Berlin 2017, Duncker & Humblot, 564 S., € 119,90. (Ludger Körntgen, Mainz) Scheller, Benjamin / Christian Hoffarth (Hrsg.), Ambiguität und die Ordnung des Sozialen im Mittelalter (Das Mittelalter. Beihefte, 10), Berlin / Boston 2018, de Gruyter, 236 S. / Abb., € 99,95. (Frank Rexroth, Göttingen) Jaspert, Nikolas / Imke Just (Hrsg.), Queens, Princesses and Mendicants. Close Relations in European Perspective (Vita regularis, 75), Wien / Zürich 2019, Lit, VI u. 301 S. / graph. Darst., € 44,90. (Christina Lutter, Wien) Schlotheuber, Eva, „Gelehrte Bräute Christi“. Religiöse Frauen in der mittelalterlichen Gesellschaft (Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation, 104), Tübingen 2018, Mohr Siebeck, IX u. 340 S., € 99,00. (Christine Kleinjung, Potsdam) Caflisch, Sophie, Spielend lernen. Spiel und Spielen in der mittelalterlichen Bildung (Vorträge und Forschungen, Sonderband 58), Ostfildern 2018, Thorbecke, 468 S., € 46,00. (Benjamin Müsegades, Heidelberg) Bolle, Katharina / Marc von der Höh / Nikolas Jaspert (Hrsg.), Inschriftenkulturen im kommunalen Italien. Traditionen, Brüche, Neuanfänge (Materiale Textkulturen, 21), Berlin / Boston 2019, de Gruyter, VIII u. 334 S. / Abb., € 79,95. (Eberhard J. Nikitsch, Mainz) Gamberini, Andrea, The Clash of Legitimacies. The State-Building Process in Late Medieval Lombardy (Oxford Studies in Medieval European History), Oxford / New York 2018, Oxford University Press, VIII u. 239 S. / Abb., £ 65,00. (Tom Scott, St Andrews) Roth, Prisca, Korporativ denken, genossenschaftlich organisieren, feudal handeln. Die Gemeinden und ihre Praktiken im Bergell des 14.–16. Jahrhunderts, Zürich 2018, Chronos, 427 S. / Abb., € 58,00. (Beat Kümin, Warwick) Hardy, Duncan, Associative Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire. Upper Germany, 1346 – 1521, Oxford 2018, Oxford University Press, XIII u. 320 S. / Abb., £ 75,00. (Christian Hesse, Bern) Pelc, Ortwin (Hrsg.), Hansestädte im Konflikt. Krisenmanagement und bewaffnete Auseinandersetzung vom 13. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert (Hansische Studien, 23), Wismar 2019, callidus, XIII u. 301 S., € 38,00. (Ulla Kypta, Hamburg) Bähr, Matthias / Florian Kühnel (Hrsg.), Verschränkte Ungleichheit. Praktiken der Intersektionalität in der Frühen Neuzeit (Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, Beiheft 56), Berlin 2018, Duncker & Humblot, 372 S., € 79,90. (Andrea Griesebner, Wien) Miller, Peter N., History and Its Objects. Antiquarianism and Material Culture since 1500, Ithaca / London 2017, Cornell University Press, VIII u. 300 S. / Abb., $ 39,95. (Sundar Henny, Bern) Behringer, Wolfgang / Eric-Oliver Mader / Justus Nipperdey (Hrsg.), Konversionen zum Katholizismus in der Frühen Neuzeit. Europäische und globale Perspektiven (Kulturelle Grundlagen Europas, 5), Berlin 2019, Lit, 333 S. / Abb., € 39,90. (Christian Mühling, Würzburg) Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge / Robert A. Maryks / Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (Hrsg.), Encounters between Jesuits and Protestants in Asia and the Americas (Jesuit Studies, 14; The Boston College International Symposia on Jesuit Studies, 3), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, IX u. 365 S. / Abb., € 135,00. (Fabian Fechner, Hagen) Flüchter, Antje / Rouven Wirbser (Hrsg.), Translating Catechisms, Translating Cultures. The Expansion of Catholicism in the Early Modern World (Studies in Christian Mission, 52), Leiden / Boston 2017, Brill, VI u. 372 S., € 132,00. (Markus Friedrich, Hamburg) Županov, Ines G. / Pierre A. Fabre (Hrsg.), The Rites Controversies in the Early Modern World (Studies in Christian Missions, 53), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XXIV u. 403 S. / Abb., € 143,00. (Nadine Amsler, Bern) Aron-Beller, Katherine / Christopher F. Black (Hrsg.), The Roman Inquisition. Centre versus Peripheries (Catholic Christendom, 1300 – 1700), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XIII u. 411 S., € 139,00. (Kim Siebenhüner, Jena) Montesano, Marina, Classical Culture and Witchcraft in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic), Cham 2018, Palgrave Macmillan, IX u. 278 S. / Abb., € 74,89. (Tobias Daniels, München) Kounine, Laura, Imagining the Witch. Emotions, Gender, and Selfhood in Early Modern Germany (Emotions in History), Oxford / New York 2018, Oxford University Press, VII u. 279 S. / Abb., £ 60,00. (Sarah Masiak, Paderborn) Münster-Schröer, Erika, Hexenverfolgung und Kriminalität. Jülich-Kleve-Berg in der Frühen Neuzeit, Essen 2017, Klartext, 450 S., € 29,95. (Michael Ströhmer, Paderborn) Harst, Joachim / Christian Meierhofer (Hrsg.), Ehestand und Ehesachen. Literarische Aneignungen einer frühneuzeitlichen Institution (Zeitsprünge, 22, H. 1/2), Frankfurt a. M. 2018, Klostermann, 211 S., € 54,00. (Pia Claudia Doering, Münster) Peck, Linda L., Women of Fortune. Money, Marriage, and Murder in Early Modern England, Cambridge [u. a.] 2018, Cambridge University Press, XIV u. 335 S. / Abb., £ 26,99. (Katrin Keller, Wien) Amussen, Susan D. / David E. Underdown, Gender, Culture and Politics in England, 1560 – 1640. Turning the World Upside Down (Cultures of Early Modern Europe), London [u. a.] 2017, Bloomsbury Academic, XV u. 226 S., £ 95,00. (Daniela Hacke, Berlin) Raux, Sophie, Lotteries, Art Markets and Visual Culture in the Low Countries, 15th – 17th Centuries (Studies in the History of Collecting and Art Markets, 4), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XVII u. 369 S. / Abb., € 125,00. (Tilman Haug, Essen) Kullick, Christian, „Der herrschende Geist der Thorheit“. Die Frankfurter Lotterienormen des 18. Jahrhunderts und ihre Durchsetzung (Studien zu Policey, Kriminalitätsgeschichte und Konfliktregulierung), Frankfurt a. M. 2018, Klostermann, VII u. 433 S. / Abb., € 69,00. (Tilman Haug, Essen) Barzman, Karen-edis, The Limits of Identity. Early Modern Venice, Dalmatia, and the Representation of Difference (Art and Material Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, 7), Leiden / Boston 2017, Brill, XVII u. 315 S. / Abb., € 139,00. (Stefan Hanß, Manchester) Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Maximilian I., Bd. 10: Der Reichstag zu Worms 1509, bearb. v. Dietmar Heil (Deutsche Reichstagsakten. Mittlere Reihe, 10), Berlin / Boston 2017, de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 874 S., € 169,95. (Thomas Kirchner, Aachen) Deutsche Reichstagsakten unter Maximilian I., Bd. 11: Die Reichstage zu Augsburg 1510 und Trier/Köln 1512, 3 Bde., bearb. v. Reinhard Seyboth (Deutsche Reichstagsakten. Mittlere Reihe, 11), Berlin / Boston 2017, de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2822 S., € 349,00. (Thomas Kirchner, Aachen) Fitschen, Klaus / Marianne Schröter / Christopher Spehr / Ernst-Joachim Waschke (Hrsg.), Kulturelle Wirkungen der Reformation / Cultural Impact of the Reformation. Kongressdokumentation Lutherstadt Wittenberg August 2017, 2 Bde. (Leucorea-Studien zur Geschichte der Reformation und der Lutherischen Orthodoxie, 36 u. 37), Leipzig 2018, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 639 S. / Abb.; 565 S. / Abb., je € 60,00. (Ingo Leinert, Quedlinburg) Johnson, Carina L. / David M. Luebke / Marjorie E. Plummer / Jesse Spohnholz (Hrsg.), Archeologies of Confession. Writing the German Reformation 1517 – 2017 (Spektrum, 16), New York / Oxford 2017, Berghahn, 345 S., £ 92,00. (Markus Wriedt, Frankfurt a. M.) Lukšaitė, Ingė, Die Reformation im Großfürstentum Litauen und in Preußisch-Litauen (1520er Jahre bis zum Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts), übers. v. Lilija Künstling / Gottfried Schneider, Leipzig 2017, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 662 S. / Abb., € 49,00. (Alfons Brüning, Nijmegen) Beutel, Albrecht (Hrsg.), Luther Handbuch, 3., neu bearb. u. erw. Aufl., Tübingen 2017, Mohr Siebeck, XVI u. 611 S., € 49,00. (Olaf Mörke, Kiel) Frank, Günter (Hrsg.), Philipp Melanchthon. Der Reformator zwischen Glauben und Wissen. Ein Handbuch, Berlin / Boston 2017, de Gruyter, XI u. 843 S. / Abb., € 149,95. (Olaf Mörke, Kiel) Tuininga, Matthew J., Calvin’s Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church. Christ’s Two Kingdoms (Law and Christianity), Cambridge [u. a.] 2017, Cambridge University Press, XIV u. 386 S., £ 27,99. (Volker Reinhardt, Fribourg) Becker, Michael, Kriegsrecht im frühneuzeitlichen Protestantismus. Eine Untersuchung zum Beitrag lutherischer und reformierter Theologen, Juristen und anderer Gelehrter zur Kriegsrechtsliteratur im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation, 103), Tübingen 2017, Mohr Siebeck, XIV u. 455 S., € 89,00. (Fabian Schulze, Elchingen / Augsburg) Reller, Jobst, Die Anfänge der evangelischen Militärseelsorge, Berlin 2019, Miles-Verlag, 180 S. / Abb., € 19,80. (Marianne Taatz-Jacobi, Halle a. d. S.) Mayenburg, David von, Gemeiner Mann und Gemeines Recht. Die Zwölf Artikel und das Recht des ländlichen Raums im Zeitalter des Bauernkriegs (Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte, 311), Frankfurt a. M. 2018, Klostermann, XIX u. 487 S., € 89,00. (Matthias Bähr, Dresden) Gleiß, Friedhelm, Die Weimarer Disputation von 1560. Theologische Konsenssuche und Konfessionspolitik Johann Friedrichs des Mittleren (Leucorea-Studien zur Geschichte der Reformation und der Lutherischen Orthodoxie, 34), Leipzig 2018, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 344 S. / Abb., € 68,00. (Ingo Leinert, Quedlinburg) Ulbricht, Otto, Missbrauch und andere Doku-Stories aus dem 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Wien / Köln / Weimar 2019, Böhlau, 248 S. / Abb., € 25,00. (Robert Jütte, Stuttgart) Hornung Gablinger, Petra, Gefühlsmedien. Das Nürnberger Ehepaar Paumgartner und seine Familienbriefe um 1600 (Medienwandel – Medienwechsel – Medienwissen, 39), Zürich 2018, Chronos, 275 S., € 48,00. (Margareth Lanzinger, Wien) Wüst, Wolfgang (Hrsg.) / Lisa Bauereisen (Red.), Der Dreißigjährige Krieg in Schwaben und seinen historischen Nachbarregionen: 1618 – 1648 – 2018. Ergebnisse einer interdisziplinären Tagung in Augsburg vom 1. bis 3. März 2018 (Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für Schwaben, 111), Augsburg 2018, Wißner, XXV u. 373 S. / Abb., € 29,00. (Georg Schmidt, Jena) Helgason, Þorsteinn, The Corsairs’ Longest Voyage. The Turkish Raid in Iceland, übers. v. Jóna A. Pétursdóttir, Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XIV u. 372 S. / Abb., € 154,00. (Hans Medick, Göttingen) Zurbuchen, Simone (Hrsg.), The Law of Nations and Natural Law 1625 – 1800 (Early Modern Natural Law, 1), Leiden / Boston 2019, Brill, X u. 337 S., € 131,00. (Miloš Vec, Wien) Mishra, Rupali, A Business of State. Commerce, Politics, and the Birth of the East India Company (Harvard Historical Studies, 188), Cambridge / London 2018, Harvard University Press, VII u. 412 S., $ 35,00. (Christina Brauner, Tübingen) Towsey, Mark / Kyle B. Roberts (Hrsg.), Before the Public Library. Reading, Community, and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1650 – 1850 (Library of the Written Word, 61; The Handpress World, 46), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XVII u. 415 S., € 145,00. (Stefan Hanß, Manchester) Rosenmüller, Christoph, Corruption and Justice in Colonial Mexico, 1650 – 1755 (Cambridge Latin America Studies, 113), Cambridge / New York 2019, Cambridge University Press, XV u. 341 S. / Abb., £ 75,00. (Tobias Schenk, Wien) Tricoire, Damien, Der koloniale Traum. 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v anglickém jazyce: This thesis mainly analyzes the five-part novel Gargantua and Pantagruel written by the French author Francois Rabelais. Emphasis is based particularly on an inclusion of Rabelais's work in historical and literary context of the period of transformation between medieval and Renaissance society. More specifically, it deals with the author's humanist opinion and his critique of contemporary society, which is the main line of the work itself. The aim of our thesis is especially an attempt to outline the various possible meanings of the terms « road or path » and « stranger » in Rabelais's work and explain the role of these thematic concepts in the author's concept of criticism of society.

This book provides an innovative, authoritative, and richly illustrated study of the myths relating to the Cyclopes from classical antiquity until the present day. It is the first such book-length study of the topic in any language. The first part, dealing with classical antiquity, is organized thematically: after discussing various competing scholarly approaches to the myths, Aguirre and Buxton analyse ancient accounts and images of the Cyclopes in relation to landscape, physique (especially eyes, monstrosity, and hairiness), lifestyle, gods, names, love, and song. While the man-eating Cyclops Polyphemus, famous already in the Odyssey, plays a major part, so also do the Cyclopes who did monumental building work, as well as those who toiled as blacksmiths. The second part of the book concentrates on the post-classical reception of the myths. Topics discussed include medieval allegory, Renaissance grottoes, Italian and Spanish poetry, Spanish drama, and the novels of Hugo, Joyce, and Ellison; in the visual arts, dozens of images are examined, beginning with the medieval and early modern periods, moving on to Surrealism and Abstract Impressionism, and ending with contemporary painting and sculpture. Movie Cyclopes also appear, as does a wonderful circus performance. The overall aim of the authors is to explore, not just the perennial appeal of the Cyclopes as fearsome monsters, but the depth and subtlety of their mythology, which raises complex issues of thought and emotion. All too often, a Cyclops is assumed to be nothing more than a gruesome one-eyed monster. This book seeks to demonstrate that there is far more to it than that—quite apart from the fact that Cyclopes are by no means always one-eyed!

This chapter details how, from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, ideas of realism changed almost beyond recognition. We may think of realism as composed of two distinct strands. The first developed from medieval allegory into spectator realism and has been much discussed. But another strand is largely ignored and little understood. The chapter then discusses participative realism. It also considers the shifting viewpoints of Renaissance realism. Unlike Renaissance fiction, where perspectives perpetually change, medieval allegory shifted viewpoint less often. Ultimately, in fiction, elements of Renaissance realism persisted long after the emergence of the novel. At first, however, this was disguised by the dominance of the epistolary genre.

This chapter illustrates William Shakespeare’s Renaissance realism, an intermediate mode between medieval and modern. Locally, this may imitate reality naturalistically; but in its larger coherence, it adopts multiple-perspective viewpoints that are often related morally or psychologically rather than causally. Shakespeare’s comedies even combine allegory with illusionistic representation. The chapter then turns to Shakespeare’s tragedies, particularly examining Hamlet. In Shakespeare’s Renaissance realism, what may seem gaps are really transitions between perspectives. Realism through relational mirror images seems to have been quite accessible to Renaissance audiences. Direct and indirect mimesis were not conflicting opposites but complementary, mutually supportive perspectives. Shakespearean mimesis could ‘suit the action to the words’, combining indirect with direct representation, ‘external’ metaphors with subjective introspection.

The chapter argues for the centrality of the rhetorical trope of paradiastole in the Middle Ages: paradiastole redescribes something in terms of something else that is like it for the purposes of argument, so a virtue may be redescribed as an adjacent vice, or a vice redescribed as an adjacent virtue. Widespread in Classical rhetoric, the trope was said to have vanished in the Middle Ages, only to be rediscovered in the renaissance, when its corrosive effects were widely used to show the manipulability and instability of all moral categories. But this chapter argues that the figure never went away. In medieval pastoral and devotional theory, paradiastole became part of a subtle body of thought about the hypocritical or self-deceiving vices that nevertheless manage to ‘masquerade’ as virtues, as well as about virtues that turn into, or turn out to be, vices. This internally conflicted figure was thus central to medieval psychological, ethical, and devotional thought. However, paradiastole and the mutating vices and virtues also appear in medieval satirical and political writings. They are also widely used in medieval allegory, where they take the form of the paradiastolic ‘hypocritical personification’: this is a personification that involves some kind of structural contradiction signalling deceit—a figure whose name, appearance or words may signal virtue, for instance, but who nevertheless acts like the vice that is adjacent to the virtue. The chapter claims that such hypocritical figures are all-pervasive in medieval literature and allegory.

This chapter is the first of the authors’ two substantial investigations into the post-classical reception of Cyclopean mythology. The account begins in the European Middle Ages, with representations of ‘races’ of Wild Men, some of whom are one-eyed. A more explicit echo of the classical Cyclopes occurs in numerous allegorical readings of the Ulysses–Polyphemus and Polyphemus–Galatea–Acis encounters. For all the apparent implausibility of such readings, it is important to realize that in allegory myths constitute a site for the allegorist’s display of interpretative prowess. The myths’ continuing relevance, and indeed their very survival, are thereby enhanced rather than reduced. The next section of the chapter looks at some virtuoso painted Polyphemuses from major Renaissance artists; after that the argument turns to some early modern one-eyed ogres, and then to the blacksmiths, returning to the theme of fire. There follows a detailed look at some Cyclopes sculpted in grottoes—a development of the ancient motif of the cave. The chapter concludes with studies of some major literary reworkings within the framework of European pastoral, ranging from the poetry of Dante (Latin eclogues) Marino, and Góngora, through baroque opera, to the contrasting Spanish dramas of Juan Pérez de Montalbán and José de Cañizares.

This chapter focuses on a major exhibition at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, subtitled “Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka and Other Scandals.” The exhibition includes Nuda Veritas, a painting by Gustav Klimt, featuring a naked female figure whose gilded gaze—citing in all irony the icons of Byzantium—is sophic, knowing, grounded in a shameless sexuality. To honor matter, iconoclasm is never enough. And such honor is what John of Damascus directed, against an imperial iconoclasm, to the incarnation, “the matter which works my salvation.” From the Renaissance on, formalized conventions of nudity had overcome the modestly clad figures of medieval art—but ever in the service of allegory. Now emerges this painterly revelation, referred to as realism, that revels in the truth of the flesh itself. The chapter also considers another exhibition, Bruno Latour's Iconoclash.

Chapter 3 moves from the elements of the physical world to the elements of abstract geometry as set out in Euclid’s Elements. It looks at Euclid’s axiomatic method of building geometry step by step from a short collection of definite notions or axioms, and Plato’s allegory of the cave and the world of ideals. In his dialogue Timaeus Plato suggested that each element of matter, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, is composed of tiny regular solids. He identified the fifth regular solid, the dodecahedron, with the cosmos. Aristotle described the fifth element as aether or quintessence. These ideas lay at the heart of western thought for about 2,000 years, and their influence can be seen in the medieval Christian world system, Renaissance artworks, and the writings of the astronomer Johannes Kepler.