Le lettere nascoste: Caterina d'Aragona e le tappezzerie del liocorno

Le cinque celebri tappezzerie tradizionalmente denominate della Dame à Licorne (fi ne xv-inizi xvi° secolo), conservate al Museo di Cluny a Parigi, presentano, all'interno del loro fantastico disegno, un'unica scritta esplicativa del loro particolare messaggio e della loro nobile committenza. L'analisi della medesima, «A mon seul desir K», nasconde un'inedita chiave di lettura: l'alleanza matrimoniale tra Arturo Tudor e Katerina d'Aragona, principi destinati ad intrecciare, nel loro destino, due paesi europei, Inghilterra e Castiglia, dalle antiche e diverse tradizioni. Il tragico e brusco infrangersi dell'unione ebbe come conseguenza la comparsa delle tappezzerie sui mercati e la loro acquisizione da parte di una famiglia francese, i Le Viste, unita alle stesse per l'affi nità del simbolo araldico. L'articolo analizza l'ipotesi della genesi e delle fortune di un capolavoro cresciuto come alfabetiere di un sentimento d'amore dichiaratamente mediterraneo, ponte per mondi altrimenti incomunicabili, ed utilizzato, come immaginario di un sorprendente teatro popolare.The five celebrated tapestries traditionally referred to as Dame à Licorne (end of the 15th centurybeginning of the 16th century), housed in the Cluny Museum in Paris, present within their spectacular pattern a single piece of writing which explains their message and the fact that they were commissioned by nobles. An analysis of the writing, «A mon seul desir K» shows that it may hide an unpublished interpretation: namely the matrimonial alliance between Arthur Tudor and Katherine of Aragon, members of two royal families whose marriage was destined to unite the two European countries of England and Castile with their ancient but different traditions. The death of Arthur Tudor put an end to the proposed marriage and as a result the tapestries appeared on the market and were acquired by a French family, the Le Vistes, who were linked to them by an affinity with a heraldic symbol. This article analyses a hypothesis of the genesis and fortunes of a masterpiece that grew from the alphabetic blocks of a declaration of love that was clearly Mediterranean and that represented a bridge between two worlds that would otherwise not have communicated and it was later used as an image of a surprising popular theatre

Il motivo della ‘barca senza vele’ e varianti nelle letterature romanze medievali

The first known ship without sails is the Ark, and the absence of the sails makes it clear that it can float only because of divine intervention: Noah’s family trusted God’s commands and boarded the Ark without questioning its capacity of floating over the waters during the deluge. The second reference to this image in the Bible, albeit as an allegory, is in the tale of Moses: he was abandoned in a basket floating on the river’s waters until he was found. The basket could be seen as a little ‘sail-less boat’ and Moses’s rescue is clearly due to divine intervention. During the Middle Ages the iconography of the ‘sail-less ship’ was very popular, and it was used in prayer books and church paintings as a sign of supernatural situations. People were frequently forced to board one of such vessels as a punishment or as a death sentence. In some tales there were corpses abandoned in ‘sail-less vessels’ for various reasons. In Medieval literature, several cases of the ‘sail-less’ or ‘captain-less ship’ can be found. Various characters and ‘special’ objects (obviously with very different fates) board on such a ship: Mary Magdalene, James the Great, the Holy Face of Lucca, knights and dames from England and Catalonia, even the Holy Grail. Examples of these journeys are presented and discussed

Introduzione

The term ‘macabre’, travelling through the cultures of Spain and France, possesses a broad range of etymologies. The intermingling of all these etymologies reveals how the attention to that kind of manifestations has always been connected to moments and situations belonging to all branches of art, from visual, to literary, musical, dramatic and cinematic arts, as the articles written for the International Conference held in Trieste in 2007 “Balla con la morte: estetica del macabro dal medioevo ai nostri giorni” (“Dance with Death: The Aesthetics of Macabre from the Middle Ages to the Present Day”) demonstrate

Alda Rossebastiano, Knowledge of French in Piedmont

Alda Rossebastiano ha posto come obiettivo alla sua ricerca la storia dell’uso, conoscenza e influenza della lingua francese all’interno del territorio piemontese, già Ducato dei Savoia e Regno di Sardegna, nel passare dei secoli, dal tardomedioevo a oggi, argomento impegnativo e inedito nel suo insieme. Ne è venuto fuori un contributo linguistico estremamente importante, di grande interesse e di notevole stimolo per gli studi che potranno farvi riferimento, in quanto l’A., grazie alla lunga ..

Lamenti di Dame al tempo delle Crociate

El período de las Cruzadas dejó múltiples sugerencias en las obras literarias de la época que, junto con los anales y crónicas, destacaron fenómenos y mentalidades propios de los siglos XI-XIII. Entre las expresiones más típicas de la época hay algunos cantos, difundidos sobre todo en Francia, pero también en Occitania, y no desconocidos en Italia, que celebran el motivo de ‘ir a las cruzadas’ como una experiencia esencialmente de peregrinación o de aventura espiritual, revelando la existencia de un fermento cultural de gran interés. Algunos cantos relativos a la partida hacia Tierra Santa se actualizan a través del saludo del poeta a su amada-dama con voz femenina. Los textos ilustrativos seleccionados para la contribución se inscriben en la variante del motivo de la distancia del amor, ya conocido en el género de las ‘chansons d’ami’, y trasladan el escenario de los suspiros de amor de las regiones de Europa a las temidas tierras de ‘ultramar’. Y en esto, parecen alzar la voz de protesta contra un poder que no tiene en cuenta los sentimientos humanos

Mountains and Pilgrims Along the Roads to Santiago

Throughout the Middle Ages, mountains have been part of the natural landscape which man has been inevitably encountered: for this reason it has become a part of the heritage of emotions that many narrators, especially pilgrim-travellers, have wanted to express in various languages. An excellent example of the problems related to the ascent or crossing of the mountains in the several countries that are encountered, together with their mental representations, can be found in the texts that make up the rich hodoeporic tradition of the journeys to Santiago de Compostela. Here, the cultural references become continuous and persistent. on certain occasions the concept of the mountain has echoes of ancient civilisations’ cultures and traditions, while on others, the specific perils of the crossing –especially during the winter months– when they represent a true signal of diabolical presences, and on others, when they become accounts of a moment in history when the desperate –like wolves stalking prey– saw in the mountains their chance to escape from their miserable fate... For the pilgrims to Santiago, however, there were specific mountains, pure places, where sacredness shone; some located close to the point of departure, another –an important one– near Spanish territory, but the largest, the “joyous” one, rose before the doors to the city of Santiago. These notes want to be a short invitation to travel, if only virtually, from the encounter with the mountains, to the ascent

Le lettere nascoste: Caterina d'Aragona e le tappezzerie del liocorno

Le cinque celebri tappezzerie tradizionalmente denominate della Dame à Licorne (fi ne xv-inizi xvi° secolo), conservate al Museo di Cluny a Parigi, presentano, all'interno del loro fantastico disegno, un'unica scritta esplicativa del loro particolare messaggio e della loro nobile committenza. L'analisi della medesima, «A mon seul desir K», nasconde un'inedita chiave di lettura: l'alleanza matrimoniale tra Arturo Tudor e Katerina d'Aragona, principi destinati ad intrecciare, nel loro destino, due paesi europei, Inghilterra e Castiglia, dalle antiche e diverse tradizioni. Il tragico e brusco infrangersi dell'unione ebbe come conseguenza la comparsa delle tappezzerie sui mercati e la loro acquisizione da parte di una famiglia francese, i Le Viste, unita alle stesse per l'affi nità del simbolo araldico. L'articolo analizza l'ipotesi della genesi e delle fortune di un capolavoro cresciuto come alfabetiere di un sentimento d'amore dichiaratamente mediterraneo, ponte per mondi altrimenti incomunicabili, ed utilizzato, come immaginario di un sorprendente teatro popolare.The five celebrated tapestries traditionally referred to as Dame à Licorne (end of the 15th centurybeginning of the 16th century), housed in the Cluny Museum in Paris, present within their spectacular pattern a single piece of writing which explains their message and the fact that they were commissioned by nobles. An analysis of the writing, «A mon seul desir K» shows that it may hide an unpublished interpretation: namely the matrimonial alliance between Arthur Tudor and Katherine of Aragon, members of two royal families whose marriage was destined to unite the two European countries of England and Castile with their ancient but different traditions. The death of Arthur Tudor put an end to the proposed marriage and as a result the tapestries appeared on the market and were acquired by a French family, the Le Vistes, who were linked to them by an affinity with a heraldic symbol. This article analyses a hypothesis of the genesis and fortunes of a masterpiece that grew from the alphabetic blocks of a declaration of love that was clearly Mediterranean and that represented a bridge between two worlds that would otherwise not have communicated and it was later used as an image of a surprising popular theatre

Il “Liber Miraculorum sanctae Fidis” della Biblioteca di Sélestat

The codex ms. 22 de la Bibliothèque Humaniste de Sélestat from the end of the 11th century contains an excellent testimony of the Liber Miraculorum sanctae Fidis: and in the group of manuscripts which have been preserved, according to the same A. Bouillet “...est de beaucoup le plus important et le plus complet de tous parce que qu’il a le plus grand nombre de miracles”.( it is by far the most important and most complete of all because there is the greatest number of miracles) He cites a series of latin texts, written between the 11th and 12th centuries, in honour of Sainte Foi, the young virgin venerated in Conques, in addition to hymns to St. Nicolas and St. James the Great, together with official documents belonging to the Priory of Sélestat, dating from the year 1094 at the wish of Hildegarde de Bar and de Mousson, widow de Frédéric de Büren, depending directly and exclusively on the Benedictine abbey of Rouergue. El Liber Miracolorum de Sélestat is composed of four parts and is the work of two different authors: according to the note on f. 64 v. the first two parts are the work of Bernard d’Angers and the last two to an anonymous monk, very probably from Conques. The obvious difference between the two first and the two last books, important from an historical point of view in that they both testify to different moments of composition, would appear to be limited by the uniformity of figurative language which was used at the end of the second series of miracles, and brings the work to its completion. The different typologies in which the saint is represented in different chapters of books I, II, and III, IV seem very clearly to follow its own particular interpretive model.The image of the young elegant maiden, wearing a dress with wide sleeves, a large veil, jewels and coiffe, constantly referred to throughout the Liber Miracolorum, was reproduced by the illustrator, along with others of similar importance as being the sign of the evolution in figurative art