Art History 705 - Grad Seminar in Medieval Art

This graduate seminar will introduce students to the history of manuscript illumination as well as printed illustration at the end of the Middle Ages, a period that experienced radical changes in the technology, function, and dissemination of the book. A number of theoretical perspectives and methodologies will inform our investigations, the opportunity to experience manuscripts and early printed books first-hand will deepen our analyses, and consideration of what "the book" is as a medium will carry us to the digital environment in which medieval objects are, nowadays, so often experienced.

Open to Graduate students only. The nucleus of this seminar is a work of art that you cannot see: the twelfth-century illuminated manuscript of Hildegard von Bingen?s visionary summa, Scivias. Either lost, stolen, or destroyed during WWII, the manuscript, for all intents and purposes, does not exist. And yet an exuberant array of copies of it abound, from black-and-white photos, and the hand-copied and hand-painted facsimile made by nuns and Dame Josepha Knips between 1927 and 1933, to the modern deluxe, printed facsimiles that reimagine the original manuscript through the lens of its twentieth-century recreations. Even beautifully produced LP records re-envision the musical and dramatic compositions contained in the manuscript?s final sections.

Originally designed as a hands-on introduction to illuminated manuscripts, this seminar faces a challenge presented by the need to teach remotely during a pandemic. Adapting to this challenge allows us an opportunity to think through the significance of mediation both in the Middle Ages and in modernity. Students will learn the skills fundamental to manuscripts research (paleography and codicology), gain a grounding in manuscript illumination of the high Middle Ages, and become conversant in theoretical approaches to mediation. Caroline Walker Bynum once remarked that the Scivias ?scintillates with a concern for embodiment.? This course will ask, ?can the Scivias scintillate from a screen??