| Abstract | Paper -a:
It is surely no coincidence that a new kind of book for the laity was designed in the years following the Lateran Council: the book of hours was perfectly formed to reflect Lateran emphasis on the spiritual life of the laity. That the first surviving book of hours was made to be used by a woman - a young, independent laywoman - was no coincidence either. Designed and illuminated in Oxford in about 1240, the de Brailes Hours (London, British Library MS Additional 49999) combines illustration and text to create a multi-layered devotional routine on the model of the Divine Office, a routine framed by visual narratives and enriched by meditation and memory. The paper will explore these visual narratives to reveal this new form of personal devotion, and will consider evidence of its legacy in the popularity of the book of hours in the later 13th century.
Paper -b:
This topic will show how Jewish images are relevant for the depiction of a special ritual meal (Seder) by Christians for the depiction of the Last Supper in Barcelona at the beginning of the 14th Century. Therefore we will focus our purpose on objects and meal prepared for the feast of Pessah and show how they participate to the construction of the Jewish identity. These images are taken from books written and illustrated for the ritual of the Seder, known as Haggadahs. Finally, we will show how Christian painters use these elements for a visual 'construction' of the image of Jews, to show their 'otherness' after the Black Death (1348).
Paper -c:
Canon 62 of the Lateran Council required that relics should only be displayed in containers. The Madonna Advocata of the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso in Rome is a panel painting that contains relics. Did icons become suitable containers for relics after the decree of the Lateran Council, or did the practice exist prior to 1215? Why were relics placed into these two-dimensional images, when the images per se could be regarded as sources of miraculous power? What other two-dimensional images were also treated as reliquaries? This paper will explore the emergence of the surviving examples of these two-dimensional image reliquaries and the possible reasons for storing relics in icons, and examine why the relics were placed in particular positions in the artworks.
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