Invisible, in Full View

Ever since the publication of Peter Brown’s seminal study of the cult of saints in late antiquity, the nexus between presence (praesentia), visibility, and potency (potentia) has been central to scholarly debates about relics and their significance in medieval societies. As is now widely held, the power of relics to act within and to intercede for a given community rested on their localised presence and availability. However, relics were neither permanently nor directly visible to the faithfu..

Standardised profiling for tinnitus research: The European School for Interdisciplinary Tinnitus Research Screening Questionnaire (ESIT-SQ)

Background: The heterogeneity of tinnitus is substantial. Its numerous pathophysiological mechanisms and clinical manifestations have hampered fundamental and treatment research significantly. A decade ago, the Tinnitus Research Initiative introduced the Tinnitus Sample Case History Questionnaire, a case history instrument for standardised collection of information about the characteristics of the tinnitus patient. Since then, a number of studies have been published which characterise individuals and groups using data collected with this questionnaire. However, its use has been restricted to a clinical setting and to the evaluation of people with tinnitus only. In addition, it is limited in the ability to capture relevant comorbidities and evaluate their temporal relationship with tinnitus. Method: Here we present a new case history instrument which is comprehensive in scope and can be answered by people with and without tinnitus alike. This ‘European School for Interdisciplinary Tinnitus Research Screening Questionnaire’ (ESIT-SQ) was developed with specific attention to questions about potential risk factors for tinnitus (including demographics, lifestyle, general medical and otological histories), and tinnitus characteristics (including perceptual characteristics, modulating factors, and associations with co-existing conditions). It was first developed in English, then translated into Dutch, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish, and Swedish, thus having broad applicability and supporting international collaboration. Conclusions: With respect to better understanding tinnitus profiles, we anticipate the ESIT-SQ to be a starting point for comprehensive multi-variate analyses of tinnitus. Data collected with the ESIT-SQ can allow establishment of patterns that distinguish tinnitus from non-tinnitus, and definition of common sets of tinnitus characteristics which might be indicated by the presence of otological or comorbid systemic diseases for which tinnitus is a known symptom

Visibilité et présence de l’image dans l’espace ecclésial

Cet ouvrage met au cœur de son propos une interrogation simple : dans l’organisation complexe de l’espace de l’église médiévale, les emplacements choisis pour les images qui ornent les murs et les objets n’offrent pas toujours la possibilité de voir celles-ci, d’en déchiffrer le contenu. Certaines semblent réservées à des groupes de l’assemblée stationnant dans des espaces spécifiques, d’autres ne sont pas visibles depuis les principales zones affectées aux fidèles ou aux clercs, d’autres encore sont situées trop haut. Le rapport, a priori évident, entre représentation et visibilité se trouve donc souvent démenti, appelant alors une nouvelle notion, celle de présence. Analyser la tension existant entre ces trois catégories – figuration, visibilité et présence – implique une étude croisée des œuvres figurées, des monuments et des sources écrites. Les notions de mobilité et de fixité permettent également de prendre en compte les multiples jeux d’échelles à l’œuvre dans ce lieu rituel qu’est l’église, impliquant des objets, des manuscrits, des dispositifs liturgiques, des gestes, des déplacements physiques, dialoguant avec un décor appliqué au corps même du monument, épousant l’immobilité de l’architecture. Les cinq chapitres thématiques qui organisent ce volume mettent en regard différents cas issus de l’Occident médiéval et de l’Orient byzantin, selon une chronologie longue (de l’Antiquité tardive à la fin du Moyen Âge), dans une volonté de décloisonner les disciplines et les aires géographiques afin de tirer tous les enseignements d’une approche transversale de l’image médiévale

Review of: Byzantine Art and Renaissance Europe, by Angeliki Lymberopoulou and Rembrandt Duits.

This publication reviews a multi-author volume on the relationship between Byzantine art and the European Renaissance

Artistic appropriation, institutional identity, and civic religion in Fourteenth-century Siena: the Byzantine treasury of the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala

This essay explores the process of reinvention of a group of Byzantine relics and reliquaries as a public treasure in the city of Siena in the fourteenth century. Through analysis of this case study, this chapter investigates the broader meaning of artistic borrowing in the medieval Mediterranean, and its role and potential in the creation, redefinition and promotion of institutional identities

Dynamic splendor: the metalwork altarpieces of medieval Venetia

From the thirteenth century to early modern times, Venetian church interiors gleamed with brilliant gold and silver altarpieces and frontals. This article brings an initial analysis of these artifacts (and of the painted altarpieces that concealed them on minor feast days) into dialogue with broader art historical debates about the materiality and the performativity of medieval artworks

Topografia sacra e geografie del potere a Venezia nel Trecento

Questo capitolo interpreta la distribuzione e gestione del patrimonio sacro di Venezia - e le committenze artistiche ad esso legate - come manifestazione delle complesse dinamiche di confronto, opposizione, resistenza e cooperazione tra istituzioni locali ed autorità statale centrale, alla luce del processo di graduale centralizzazione della vita religiosa e civica di Venezia tra Tre e Quattrocento

The Grotto of the Virgin in San Marco: Artistic Reuse and Cultural Identity in Medieval Venice

This article reconsiders the significance of artistic reuse in medieval Venice, examining the reinvention of three distinct artifacts of diverse provenance into a unified artwork in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century in the ducal church of San Marco. Through an in-depth analysis of the material history of the work, known as the Grotto of the Virgin, this essay aims to solve one of the enigmas that surround its making and meaning: its function. The grotto is here associated with the feast of the Purification of the Virgin and identified as an unusual example of a light holder. By proposing a new approach to the study of the grotto and an innovative interpretation of its function and meaning in Venice, the article also addresses broader art historical questions concerning the nature of composite artifacts and the methodologies available for their study, the importance of the Fourth Crusade in the history of the treasury of San Marco, and the significance of artistic reuse in the construction of a Venetian public image at San Marco in the later Middle Ages

Inscribing history, (over)writing politics: word and image in the chapel of Sant’Isidoro at San Marco, Venice

Debates about the material, visual and perceptual aspects of inscriptions, and concerning interactions between verbal and pictorial modes of representation have been particularly vibrant in recent years. This essay contributes to such discussions by exploring how the epigraphic apparatus of the chapel of Sant’Isidoro in San Marco, Venice, functioned as a source of historical verification and of religious and political validation

Art as politics in the Baptistery and Chapel of Sant’Isidoro at San Marco, Venice

This article addresses questions of artistic diversity and political identity in the late medieval Mediterranean through analysis of the visual programs of the Baptistery and Chapel of St Isidore in the basilica of San Marco, Venice. The two rooms were embellished with extensive mosaic cycles during the dogate of Andrea Dandolo (r. 1343-1354), and have been described as ‘the great enigma of Trecento art in Venice’ on account of their ostensible juxtaposition of contemporary Byzantine and western visual elements. Moving away from binary approaches to artistic interaction, this article attends to the nexus between aesthetics and politics by examining the two cycles and their composite visual language in the context of the increased geopolitical instability of the Mediterranean in the mid-fourteenth century, and in relation to the important political challenges that Venice faced on the international stage at this time