The anti-biography of Gregorio Lopez:Deconstructing a sixteenth-century vita

Deconstructing a sixteenth-century vitaThe aim of this anti-biography is to challenge the traditional discourse on Gregorio Lopez, in searching for him and his story in the most varied contexts. My proposal is to go by the largest perimeter of the spiral to collect as much data as possible, thus reversing the chronology of three phases, connecting that which we could designate as Gregorio Lopez’s after-life (the reception of Vida ), life (the production of the hagiography of a living saint) and pre-life (the historical facts in - against - and - beyond the ´alter-native (hi)stories´ upon which a religious discourse was elaborated). The anti-biography of Gregorio Lopez brings forward the analysis of how a hagiographical legend was produced and propagated in Early-Modern History and how, although the creation of this same legend failed the canonising purpose that lay behind it, it demonstrates, through the (hi)stories of a single man, the complexity of the processes of colonisation and evangelisation of the American continent. The main question that remains is knowing whether the success of the cultural and religious colonisation as a civilisation process was/is itself a historiographic myth that we have to deconstruct. Can Gregorio be an example of other traditions to be recovered in the reconstruction of a more encompassing memory of territories that already were in and of themselves before becoming America , although their respective natives lived during his lifetime their own apocalypse

Scripta in honorem Igor Fisković: zbornik povodom sedamdesetog rođendana

The International Research Centre for Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages prepared a Festschrift in honour of one of its founders, Igor Fisković on the occassion of his 70th birthday. The Festschrift  includes works addressing the periods that Igor Fisković has dealt with most, thus reflecting the diversity of his interests, ranging from Late Antiquity to contemporary art, with key emphasis on the Late Middle Ages and early modernity. Due to the diversity and the broad period of time the texts are covering, they have been arranged more or less chronologically. The works focus mainly on the Late Middle Ages and the early modern period, Fisković’s forte and the topic of some of his best writings. There are also several texts addressing the baroque period, which was not one of the honouree’s interests, but they were written by some of his closest friends and members of the generation of his former students who have had prestigious careers. (from the Foreword)Zbornik je pripredio Međunarodni istraživački centar za kasnu antiku i srednji vijek povodom sedamdesetog rođendana jednog od svojih osnivača Igora Fiskovića. Zbornik obuhvaća radove koje pokrivaju razdoblja kojima se Igor Fisković ponajviše bavio, reflektirajući raznolikost njegovih interesa, od početne kasne antike i suvremene umjetnosti, do ključnoga naglaska na kasnom srednjem vijeku i početku modernog doba. Zbog te raznolikosti i širokog vremenskog razdoblja koje pokrivaju, radovi su poredani manje-više kronološki. Ističe se brojem radova upravo kasnosrednjovjekovno doba i početci modernoga, forte u kojem je Igor Fisković dao svoje ponajbolje radove. Uz njih je i više priloga koji pokrivaju razdoblje baroka, kojim se slavljenik nije bavio, no koji su iz pera njegovih najbliskijih prijatelja i one generacije njegovih bivših studenata koji su danas ostvarili ugledne karijere. (iz Predgovora

Scripta in honorem Igor Fisković: zbornik povodom sedamdesetog rođendana

The International Research Centre for Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages prepared a Festschrift in honour of one of its founders, Igor Fisković on the occassion of his 70th birthday. The Festschrift  includes works addressing the periods that Igor Fisković has dealt with most, thus reflecting the diversity of his interests, ranging from Late Antiquity to contemporary art, with key emphasis on the Late Middle Ages and early modernity. Due to the diversity and the broad period of time the texts are covering, they have been arranged more or less chronologically. The works focus mainly on the Late Middle Ages and the early modern period, Fisković’s forte and the topic of some of his best writings. There are also several texts addressing the baroque period, which was not one of the honouree’s interests, but they were written by some of his closest friends and members of the generation of his former students who have had prestigious careers. (from the Foreword)Zbornik je pripredio Međunarodni istraživački centar za kasnu antiku i srednji vijek povodom sedamdesetog rođendana jednog od svojih osnivača Igora Fiskovića. Zbornik obuhvaća radove koje pokrivaju razdoblja kojima se Igor Fisković ponajviše bavio, reflektirajući raznolikost njegovih interesa, od početne kasne antike i suvremene umjetnosti, do ključnoga naglaska na kasnom srednjem vijeku i početku modernog doba. Zbog te raznolikosti i širokog vremenskog razdoblja koje pokrivaju, radovi su poredani manje-više kronološki. Ističe se brojem radova upravo kasnosrednjovjekovno doba i početci modernoga, forte u kojem je Igor Fisković dao svoje ponajbolje radove. Uz njih je i više priloga koji pokrivaju razdoblje baroka, kojim se slavljenik nije bavio, no koji su iz pera njegovih najbliskijih prijatelja i one generacije njegovih bivših studenata koji su danas ostvarili ugledne karijere. (iz Predgovora

2018

The Yearbook mirrors the annual activities of staff and visiting fellows of the Maimonides Centre and reports on symposia, workshops, and lectures taking place at the Centre. Although aimed at a wider audience, the yearbook also contains academic articles and book reviews on scepticism in Judaism and scepticism in general. Staff, visiting fellows, and other international scholars are invited to contribute

“A whole chapel cast and engraved with images”: New Perspectives on the Tomb of Saint Sebald in Nuremberg

This dissertation critiques the concept of art-historical periodization through a monographic study of the brass tomb of St. Sebald in the Church of St. Sebald in Nuremberg, Germany. From the time it was designed and cast between 1488 and 1519 by the Vischer family workshop, this object has been considered a sculptural masterpiece, often called the first Renaissance sculpture north of the Alps. And yet, it has not been the subject of a monograph since 1970. The tomb is unique; no other saint’s tomb from the Holy Roman Empire displays such a dominant use of architectural forms. No other is cast in costly brass. No other employs classical and pagan motifs and ornament. And no other saint’s tomb remains preserved in a Protestant church. The Vischer family executed the tomb at a time when certain Nuremberg artists and intellectuals became interested in the forms of the Italian Renaissance, and the tomb displays an arresting blend of traditional Gothic, Germanic elements and Italianate figure types and themes. It is an object that preserves a period of transformation for a great city in visual form. Through examination of the specific religious, economic, political, and cultural context in which the tomb was commissioned, the formal vocabularies employed in its design, the technology that was harnessed to cast it, and the ways observers have reacted to it throughout history, I distance the work from assumptions made by previous scholars intent on viewing the work as a Renaissance sculpture deeply indebted to Italianate notions about art and artists. The first chapter of this dissertation considers the specific ways in which the Vischer workshop cast the tomb of St. Sebald, and the relationship of those techniques to the rest of the workshop’s objects, other founders in Nuremberg, and traditional casting techniques in German-speaking lands. The second chapter examines the tomb of St. Sebald as a site of saintly veneration, examining the ritual and economic aspects of the cult of St. Sebald in Nuremberg in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century and the ways these factors may have affected the form and function of the brass tomb monument. My third chapter discusses the formal elements of the tomb, considering not only the classicizing ornament and pagan narratives, but also the ways that the Vischers employed traditional Gothic structural and decorative programs. This chapter also considers the specific motivations the patrons of the tomb may have had in encouraging these elements, and how they play off one another in a way that conforms to traditional hagiographic narratives. Finally, the fourth chapter traces the circulation of plaster casts of the whole tomb and its parts in the nineteenth century as a way to understand how the tomb and related objects were used to construct a sense of German national identity at the dawn of Germany as a unified nation. Through these various strands of investigation, a clearer picture of the role the tomb of St. Sebald played both in the time and place of its creation and the centuries of its continued existence will emerge, distinct from generalized conceptions of medieval or Renaissance artistic production

2018

The Yearbook mirrors the annual activities of staff and visiting fellows of the Maimonides Centre and reports on symposia, workshops, and lectures taking place at the Centre. Although aimed at a wider audience, the yearbook also contains academic articles and book reviews on scepticism in Judaism and scepticism in general. Staff, visiting fellows, and other international scholars are invited to contribute

Stabilitas In Congregatione: The Benedictine Evangelization Of America In The Life And Thought Of Martin Marty, O.s.b.

Historians and theologians commonly overlook how the Benedictine revival of the nineteenth century arose not only in Europe but also in the United States. Monks from Bavaria and Switzerland looked to America as a providential setting for restoring the Benedictine Order to its original glory through missionary activity. As missionaries, their vision manifested a reinterpretation of the Benedictine tradition and its principle of stability. Embodying this vision was the life and thought of Martin Marty (1834-1896), a Swiss-Benedictine monk who became the first abbot of St. Meinrad Abbey in Indiana and later a missionary and bishop in Dakota Territory. Despite his famous interaction with Sitting Bull (ca. 1831-1890), few historians have explored how Marty influenced the development of Benedictine missionary activity in the United States. The present dissertation reconstructs and analyzes Marty\u27s life and thought through a distinctly theological lens. This study poses a theological question with ecclesiological and missiological consequences: how does Marty the Benedictine monk become Marty the itinerant missionary? It argues that Marty\u27s vision for Benedictine evangelization in America transforms the Rule\u27s principle of stabilitas in congregatione, stability in community, into an original missionary paradigm of ora et labora, prayer and work. The study demonstrates the development of this vision through three stages of Marty\u27s monastic vocation. During his monastic formation (1834-1860), Marty combines old and new elements of Einsiedeln\u27s Swiss-Benedictine tradition to create a vision of the monastery as a spiritual family educating and unifying Catholics. As the administrator and prior of St. Meinrad in Indiana (1860-1870), Marty applies this familial imagination to the community\u27s monastic life, school, and missionary work. He further advances the Benedictine principle of stability (stabilitas) as an agent of lasting evangelization through the education and unity of the local ecclesial community (congregatio). Finally, through his reform agenda as abbot (1870-1880), Marty transforms his vision of stability in the community into a missionary model of prayer and work designed to educate the indigenous faithful and to unify monastic and ecclesial families

Approaches to the Medieval Self: Representations and Conceptualizations of the Self in the Textual and Material Culture of Western Scandinavia, c. 800-1500

The self and how it relates to its surrounding world and history is a main concern of humanities and social sciences. This book addresses the issue by discussing various modes of studying and defining the self, based on a wide span of sources from medieval Western Scandinavia, ca. 800-1500, such as archaeology, art and architecture, documents, literature, and runic inscriptions

Approaches to the Medieval Self

The self and how it relates to its surrounding world and history is a main concern of the humanities and social sciences. This book addresses the issue by discussing various modes of studying and defining the self, based on a wide span of sources from medieval Western Scandinavia, c. 800–1500, such as archeological evidence, art and architecture, documents, literature, and runic inscriptions