Paper -a:
The theme of my paper is the 'spiritual feast': I will explore the role of text in Irish medieval meditatio, connecting the purely visual with the strictly textual. By carefully pulling apart the contextual evidence that unites these text, my paper links the visual imagery of the Book of Kells with the descriptions of divinity and the heavenly realm present in the Fís Adomnán in the Leabhar na hUidre. The Fís Adomnán is an elaborate and illustrative discourse on the transformative power of the divine, replete with rich visual imagery that calls to mind the glimmering carpet and initial pages of earlier Irish illuminated manuscripts. Meditatio induced through the study of these texts and their images was a catalyst to saintly piety and asceticism, bringing the practitioner closer to Christ's suffering. In addition to the texts themselves, I will include discussion on the relevance of medieval cognition and theoretical thought.
Paper -b:
Junius 11 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius 11) is one major Anglo-Saxon 'illuminated' manuscripts that has survived entirely. All images are in the first poem that is a poetic version of the Biblical Genesis. One of the first images tells the story of rebellion and fall of Lucifer before the usual Creation of mankind. We will focus hereon the role of image of architectural elements not just as accessory, but also fundamental to understand the narrative.
Paper -c:
This paper intends to shed light on the nature of artistic exchange between Normandy and England around the year 1100. The case studies are Orderic Vitalis's community of Saint-Evroult-d'Ouche and its outstanding production of illuminated manuscripts. St Evroult provided with new abbots to post-1066 English houses and this phenomenon resulted in a widespread presence of Norman manuscripts and artistic motives on English soil. The French Ministry of Culture has recently digitized the abbey's collection, a movement intended to favour the enhancement of the state of the art. We will focus on a small number of manuscripts and we will rely on its well-known history to make the connexion with the artistic production of English institutions, such as Canterbury.
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