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Subversive images of women in Medieval English literature : a selective reading

Subversive images of women in Medieval English literature : a selective reading

By Sheikh F. Shams

BRAC University Journal, Vol. 5 No. 2 (2008)

Abstract: It is commonly assumed that medieval society is hostile to women’s power. Women are continuously contained and constrained by the patriarchal norms of medieval Europe to strengthen the heroic ideals of masculinity, while maintaining the ideals of the domestic private sphere. This study shows that even within the domestic private sphere, women exert considerable amount of power to influence men’s actions. In fact, what we see are models of powerful women capable of damaging the heroic ideals of men. Hence there is a tendency to control women’s power. This essay explores how far this tendency to control is actually successful. If not then we are witnessing a tension between dominant Patriarchal ideology and the subversive images of women. The resistance that women characters in medieval literatures pose to the hegemonic ideology is a matter of particular interest of this paper. At the same time, the nature of their containment and appropriation is also something that this paper wishes to examine.

Introduction: In many instances of medieval English writing, we observe women characters that shatter our preconceived notion about the behaviour of medieval womanhood. For our pre-conceived notion is based on the conventional assumption attacked by Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski’s edited work, Women and Power in the Middle Ages: “[m]edieval society with its wars, territorial struggles, and violence, seems particularly hostile to the exercise of female initiative and power”. But, in contrast what we see in these writings are women characters who instead of being passively confined to the domestic and private sphere, participate in adventures along with men, control men’s courtly behaviour, and even in extreme cases take arms when they need to retaliate. Even within the domestic private sphere, women exert considerable amount of power to influence men’s actions.

In a nutshell, what we see are models of powerful women capable of causing damage to the heroic ideals of men, as the heroic ideals require feminization and repression of women. Grace Armstrong in her essay “Women of Power: Chretien de Troyes’s Female Clerks” refers to the theological justification of women’s repression: “she is a powerful and dangerous foe of man; her sexuality must be firmly controlled if she is not to betray him or make him lose his soul”. This explains why “medieval society . . . seems particularly hostile to the exercise of female initiative and power”.

Consequently, there exists a tendency to control women’s power. The question that arises from this assumption is worth pursuing: how far is this tendency to control women’s power actually successful. If not, then what we are witnessing is reduced (castrated) masculinity; hence a subversion of heroic ideals, as masculinity is one of the important bases of heroic ideals. In other terms, how ‘manly’ are the men portrayed in these works? Do we see a complete undoing of heroic ideals, or a readjustment and negotiation? The answers to these questions—yes or no—will certainly lead us to a larger historical question: whether these women represent the actual historical womanhood of the time, which I wish to address in this paper. At the same time we need to recognize the importance of genre in creating these anomalous portrayals of women.

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11 Mar 2010
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The Venerable Bede and Gregory the Great: exegetical connections, spiritual departures

The Venerable Bede and Gregory the Great: exegetical connections, spiritual departures

By Scott DeGregorio

Early Medieval Europe, Vol.18:1 (2010)

Abstract: This article revisits the familiar comparison between the thought and writings of Bede and Gregory the Great. Bede was keen to foreground his debt to Gregory and past assessments have illuminated aspects of it, but this investigation offers a more searching analysis of the interface between biblical exegesis and spiritual teaching, a subject that highlights Bede’s frequent reliance on Gregory as well as his calculated departures from him. Accordingly, the article first examines the different ways Bede in his commentaries could deploy Gregory’s writings as a source, then discusses the more pragmatic, less mystical thrust of Bede’s thought that sets him apart from Gregory.

Introduction: Gregory the Great has loomed large over the study of early medieval England, especially the so-called ‘Age of the Bede’ where, amongst other things, the earliest known uita of the pope was authored, and the figure of Bede himself may hold claim to the title of his most fervent disciple. M.L.W. Laistner, in his 1935 inventory of Bede’s library, implied as much when he spoke of Bede’s ‘constant indebtedness to the pope’s writings’. Nearly thirty years later, Paul Meyvaert deemed the point self-evident when he devoted the entirety of his 1964 Jarrow Lecture to the subject of Bede and Gregory. Meyvaert’s inquiry remains the most thorough probing to date of the nature of Bede’s indebtedness to Gregory, making it a requisite starting point for further exploration of the topic. Much of his lecture focused on Bede’s use of the Liber pontificalis and the Libellus responsionum in crafting his account of the Gregorian mission, a topic I shall bypass in what follows. My interests lie rather in a set of questions Meyvaert addressed near the end of his lecture, having to do with the nature of Bede’s debt to Gregory ‘where his exegetical and theological opinions are concerned’. As far as I know, Meyvaert was the first to raise this issue seriously but was himself unable to resolve it, being hampered, as he lamented, by the lack at that time of ‘fully annotated editions of Bede’s works, especially of the Scriptural commentaries, listing all the known sources from which he borrowed, and therefore showing us in what sections Bede is most at his own’. Yet the want of proper resources did not stop him from wondering whether Gregory had influenced Bede ‘on some kind of “deeper level”‘ and, more boldly, from postulating that ‘[s]ome kind of spiritual affinity, not easily discernible, links them together in a subtle way’.

These are shrewd insights, and they are not easily improved upon even with the proper resources to hand. Nevertheless, having the critical editions of Bede’s exegetical works that Meyvaert longed for, we are better positioned to undertake a more searching examination of the impact of Gregory’s writings on them. The pages that follow attempt to take some additional steps towards assessing that impact. If Meyvaert was correct to observe that ‘from the beginning of his literary career the Jarrow monk was already well familiar with the pope’s works and was reading them with an attention to style as well as content’, then it remains a task for present and future scholarship to keep deepening our knowledge of Bede’s Gregorian inheritance. The conclusions offered here, it is hoped, will stimulate others to refine and build upon them. I shall first address the issue of determining how much and in what manner Bede’s commentaries borrow from the writings of Gregory, before turning in the second half of this article to a discussion of the long-term effects of this reliance, especially in terms of Meyvaert’s suggestive postulation of a ’spiritual affinity’.

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10 Mar 2010
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Editorial practice in Smaragdus of St Mihiel’s commentary on the Rule of St Benedict

Editorial practice in Smaragdus of St Mihiel’s commentary on the Rule of St Benedict

By Matthew D. Ponesse

Early Medieval Europe, Vol.18:1 (2010)

Abstract: This paper examines the editorial principles that guided Smaragdus of St Mihiel (fl. 809–26) in the composition of his commentary on the Rule of St Benedict. Scholars in the late eighth and early ninth centuries actively engaged in an official programme of educational reform that called for the production of accurate texts. Smaragdus’ commentary provides a valuable witness to this movement, revealing how scholars applied grammatical and doctrinal criteria to root out errors in the manuscript tradition. Smaragdus’ concern with the monastic life also draws attention to the importance of considerations of practice and observance in the pursuit of textual authority.

Introduction: The reception and transmission of knowledge in the Carolingian period is a subject that has long been tied to an institutionalized programme of educational reform begun by Charlemagne in the late eighth century. Much is known about the principles and aims of this movement, but questions remain about its implementation, particularly with regard to the activity of scholars who sought out and reworked the teachings of earlier writers for a new generation of readers. The impetus for educational reform can be traced to two documents that sought to improve the quality of education among the clergy: the Epistola de litteris colendis and the Admonitio generalis. The first, a letter sent by Charlemagne to Abbot Baugaulf of Fulda as early as 784, recalls the correspondence of several communities of monks on whose prayers Charlemagne relied for spiritual support.

While Charlemagne notes that the sense of various passages was correct, he laments the uncouth words and improper grammar that adorned them. He attributes the poor quality of their letters to negligence in learning, and urges all monks to attend to their studies so that a simple error in language might not lead to a more grievous error in understanding. The second document, the Admonitio generalis of 789, was more broadly conceived, intending to correct the practice of the clergy in general, but also containing specific articles pertaining to the reception, correction, and dissemination of texts.

Article 72, in particular, directs scholars to seek out canonical books – those written by the church Fathers – so that in reading them all Christians might approach Scripture without falling into doctrinal error. The article also points to the necessity of providing students with well-emended texts, indicating that manuscripts handed down to the current generation had been corrupted through careless transcription.

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10 Mar 2010
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On the Medieval Urban Economy in Wallachia

On the Medieval Urban Economy in Wallachia

By Laurentiu Radvan

Scientific Annals of the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi: Economic Sciences Series, V.56 (2009)

Abstract: The present study focuses on the background of the medieval urban economy in Wallachia. Townspeople earned most of their income through trade. Acting as middlemen in the trade between the Levant and Central Europe, the merchants in Brăila, Târgoviste, Câmpulung, Bucuresti or Târgsor became involved in trading goods that were local or had been brought from beyond the Carpathians or the Black Sea. Raw materials were the goods of choice, and Wallachia had vast amounts of them: salt, cereals, livestock or animal products, skins, wax, honey; mostly imported were expensive cloth or finer goods, much sought after by the local rulers and boyars. An analysis of the documents indicates that crafts were only secondary, witness the many raw goods imported: fine cloth (brought specifically from Flanders), weapons, tools. Products gained by practicing various crafts were sold, covering the food and clothing demand for townspeople and the rural population. As was the case with Moldavia, Wallachia stood out by its vintage wine, most of it coming from vineyards neighbouring towns. The study also deals with the ethnicity of the merchants present on the Wallachia market. Tradesmen from local towns were joined by numerous Transylvanians (Brasov, Sibiu), but also Balkans (Ragussa) or Poles (Lviv). The Transylvanian ones enjoyed some privileges, such as tax exemptions or reduced customs duties.

Introduction: The present study will look into the development of medieval urban economy in Wallachia, taking as its timeframe the 14th-16th centuries. The urban centres south of the Carpathians evolved in an unstable political climate. The throne was subject to almost constant competition, with only few longer reigns (such as that of Mircea the Old) having avoided this true curse, which brought along uncertainty and instability. Also, the frequent intermissions of neighbouring powers (Hungary, the Ottoman Empire) in the affairs of Wallachia impacted negatively the urban economy. As this study will show, this economy was grounded in trade, and towns in this area had flourished into true intermediaries between the centres of Central Europe, Transylvania, and South-Danubian land. Crafts were only secondary in nature, and, where agriculture was concerned, only viticulture was its most popular branch. Our study will look into every above-mentioned component of urban economy.

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9 Mar 2010
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Techniques of seigneurial war in the fourteenth century

Techniques of seigneurial war in the fourteenth century

By Justine Firnhaber-Baker

Journal of Medieval History, Vol.36:1 (2010)

Abstract: Despite the many studies devoted to medieval military history, most work has concentrated on royal wars, neglecting the petty seigneurial wars that made up most of the large-scale, organised violence of the middle ages. This article, based on judicial records for dozens of seigneurial wars waged in fourteenth-century southern France, shows that lords’ tactics were not keeping up with those of royal commanders. Although royal wars increasingly involved large numbers of foot soldiers, large siege engines, and artillery, local lords’ bureaucratic and financial limitations restricted their adoption of new techniques. As had been the case for centuries, most lords’ wars were focused on causing economic damage and affective trauma through raiding. After the first phase of the Hundred Years War, local lords began to employ significant numbers of mercenaries, allowing them to wage war more frequently and perhaps making their wars more violent, a development which partly reflects the economic pressures of the period.

Introduction: The mechanics and strategies of medieval warfare have been the subject of study for two centuries or more, but nearly all work has concentrated on the wars of great princes and kings. The Hundred Years War, for example, has generated exemplary studies like Philippe Contamine’s Guerre, État, et société à la fin du moyen âge and the essays edited by Anne Curry and Michael Hughes in Arms, armies, and fortifications in the Hundred Years War. Yet, most of the large-scale, organised violence that took place in the middle ages did not happen under a royal or national aegis, but was instead committed by lords in the innumerable ‘private wars’ that they fought against one another. As Contamine himself observed, we know almost nothing about how these wars were waged. The lack of information about such local conflicts has left scholars simply to assume that they were like royal wars but on a smaller scale. This may have in fact been true for much of the middle ages, especially on the continent after ad 1000, when many lords were quasi-independent, as their bureaucratic, financial, and diplomatic needs and capabilities differed little from those of the atrophied monarchies. By the fourteenth century, though, the paths of lords and kings had begun to diverge as the latter gained complex administrative and fiscal capabilities.

A regional study of southern France based on about 500 documents from court cases involving seigneurial war gives valuable insight into the mechanics of this widespread practice and the relationship of its methods to those of royal warfare. These records — drawn mostly from the royal court known as the Parlement of Paris and lettres de rémission (royal letters of pardon) — show that southern lords waged somewhere been 59 and 72 wars between 1300 and 1400. The sources usually use the same word for seigneurial wars that they do for royal wars: guerrae. These wars, fought by the hereditary nobility, ecclesiastical lords, and even municipalities, generally arose over claims to lordship: conflicts over inheritance, over the possession of a castle, over the marriage of an heiress, over the right to execute justice or to collect taxes, and so forth. They were not ‘feuds’ in the sense of cyclical, vindicatory violence waged by kin groups, but rather political struggles pursued through military means. Vengeance entered the picture in that one had to preserve one’s rights and save face if attacked, and no doubt there was emotional satisfaction in defeating one’s opponent and getting one’s way. As I will discuss later in this article, the public performances of dominance and submission that warfare entailed were also a powerful impetus for violence. But the ultimate cause of these conflicts was not wounded honour or anger, but land, money, and power. In this they were similar to the wars of kings and princes, which had profoundly important affective dimensions but which were primarily fought over territorial and political claims.

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8 Mar 2010
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Preaching in thirteenth-century hospitals

Preaching in thirteenth-century hospitals

By Adam J. Davis

Journal of Medieval History, Vol.36:1 (2010)

Abstract: This article uses thirteenth-century hospital sermons as a window into the moral and religious environment of these charitable institutions, large numbers of which were founded during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. What emerges from the reportationes of sermons preached in the hôtel-dieu of Paris and ad status sermons directed at hospitals’ personnel and inmates by Jacques de Vitry, Humbert of Romans and Guibert de Tournai is a spirituality that stressed the penitential (and potentially salvific) power of doing works of mercy (in the case of hospital workers) and bodily suffering (in the case of hospital inmates). The particular social context of hospital preaching is also evident in preachers’ anxieties about the quality of hospital administration. The sermons that were preached in thirteenth-century hospitals reflect the heightened value placed on caring for the sick and poor, a historical development more often associated with the later middle ages.

Introduction: During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, hundreds of hospitals for the sick, poor, and powerless were founded all over western Europe, creating a dense network of charitable institutions, part of what André Vauchez has called ‘une véritable révolution de la charité’. Medieval hospitals were often multifunctional institutions that housed travellers, the indigent, widows, the elderly, the disabled, and those suffering from a variety of different illnesses. Managed mostly by quasi-religious women and men, hospitals represented a religious and social commitment to helping the poor and sick through the creation of a new kind of social-welfare institution. While hospitals were founded, at least in part, in response to demographic growth, urbanisation, commercial expansion, and the monetisation of the economy, they were also tied to a renewed concern with the poor and sick among theologians and canonists, and a rise in lay spirituality.

Most of the scholarly literature on medieval hospitals has relied on a range of sources — such as charters, wills, statutes, and archaeological evidence — to reconstruct daily life inside hospitals and the charitable support they received. Although wills and charter donations provide strong evidence for a new charitable impulse in twelfth and thirteenth-century society, they do not explain the source for this charitable impulse, nor do they reveal much about the experience of hospital inmates. Why did the corporal works of mercy enumerated in Matthew 25:31–46 (feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, granting hospitality to strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and visiting prisoners) resonate with hospital donors and hospital workers? What motivated those who worked in hospitals to do so, and how did they view their mission? What administrative challenges did they face?

The sermons that were preached to inmates and workers inside hospitals, which scholars of medieval hospitals have tended to neglect, represent a valuable source for understanding the moral and religious environment inside hospitals. Preaching represented an important opportunity for moral and religious edification inside hospitals, and sermons illustrate the ways that preachers sought to exhort, commend, comfort, and correct hospital workers and the inmates they served. For the historian of medieval hospitals, moreover, sermons that were directed at hospital audiences serve as windows not only into the values, ideals, and assumptions of the preacher, but into the particular moral and religious environment of these institutions, showing the ways that the themes of a sermon both shaped and were shaped by the particular social context of the preaching.

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8 Mar 2010
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Philip of Harvengt’s Life of the Blessed Virgin Oda

Philip of Harvengt’s Life of the Blessed Virgin Oda

By Lynsey Robertson

Journal of Medieval History, Vol.36:1 (2010)

Abstract: For every famous author of the twelfth-century renaissance, there are numerous lesser-known writers. Despite being overshadowed by more brilliant scholars or those closer to the centre of important events, their voices add depth to the study of the intellectual and religious history of this period. A founding member of one of the earliest Premonstratensian houses, a highly-educated and prolific author, much in demand as a hagiographer, and a vigorous defender of the clerical order, Philip of Harvengt is one such writer, and a worthy subject for study. This article examines one of his hagiographical works, the Life of the Blessed Virgin Oda, a nun attached to his own house, whom he portrays as a martyr. It analyses the predominant and recurrent concerns and ideals expressed in the Life, particularly the claim to martyrdom, and the means by which this is expressed.

Introduction: Philip of Harvengt (c.1100–83) is not a well-known figure in the history of the middle ages, although he was an able and prolific author, and in his lifetime a sought-after writer of hagiographies. Alongside the ‘big names’ of the twelfth-century intellectual and religious ferment, such as St Bernard and Peter Abelard, it is easy for less controversial figures such as Philip to be overlooked. Yet he was one of the earliest members of a new religious order, corresponded with princes and bishops, and, as a vigorous defender of the clerical order, engaged in the passionate debate concerning the respective roles of clerks and monks. This is not to say that his work has gone unnoticed. There has been long-standing interest in Philip’s writings on the part of monastic historians, and in more recent years his profile has increasingly been raised. Articles have been published on aspects of Philip’s work, his treatise De institutione clericorum has been consulted in discussions on the spirituality of the regular canons, and his commentary In Cantica Canticorum has been studied alongside similar works by Rupert of Deutz and William of Newburgh. Yet there are still many aspects of his life and writings which are worthy of further examination, and his oeuvre as a hagiographer is one of these. This article investigates a portion of the last, by examining in detail his Life of the Blessed Virgin Oda.

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8 Mar 2010
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The Saint-Vaast Bible, politics and theology in eleventh-century Capetian France

The Saint-Vaast Bible, politics and theology in eleventh-century Capetian France

By Diane J. Reilly

PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto, 1999

Abstract: Arras BM MS 559 (435) is a three-volume Bible of grand dimensions produced during the first half of the eleventh century at the monastery of Saint-Vaast, in the city of Arras in Northem France. It indudes an elaborate programme of twenty-four figural scenes illustrating many parts of the Old and New Testaments. There is no precedent for a work of this kind surviving from the earlier, Carolingian scriptorhm of Saint-Vaast, and no contemporary Bible from Northem Europe offers as complex a programme. This thesis is the first contextual study of the programme as a whole.

The Saint-Vaast Bible is the first of a series of Bibles produced in Northem France in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries within monasteries connected to the reform of Richard of Saint-Vanne. All of these Bibles lack the Gospels and Psalter, and several indude evidence that they were created specifically for the newly revived pradice of choir and refedory reading in reformed monasteries. The Saint-Vaast Bible’s pictorid programme reflects another aspect of Richard of Saint-Vanne’s monastic reform, his willingness to submit his monasteries to the authority of the local bishop, through its depiction of a glorified bishop before the Book of Jeremiah.

Much of the Bible’s cycle of images parallels the writings associated with Bishop Gerard of Cambrai, particularly the Acta Synodi Atrebafensis and the Gesta Episcoporum Cameracensium. Both texts encapsulate Gerard’s belief in the divine origin of the offices of king and bishop. an ideology then under attack with the rise of feudalism. The artists of the Saint-Vaast Bible’s pictorial programme used the images of prototypical Old and New Testament leaders to visualize this belief by investing these figures with Christological attributes and anachronistic regalia.

The Arras Bible also indudes a series of images of Old Testament women who embodied the virtues of an idealized queen, according to Carolingian and contemporary Capetian beliefs. Using biblical women who were interpreted as types of Ecclesia in biblical exegesis and writings on queenship, the artists attempted to underline the appropriate duties of a queen as the wife of the king, himself a type of Christ.

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7 Mar 2010
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The Military Orders Established in Portugal in the Middle Ages: A Historiographical Overview

The Military Orders Established in Portugal in the Middle Ages: A Historiographical Overview

By Paula Pinto Costa

E-Journal of Portuguese History, Volume 2:1 (2004)

Abstract: The aim of this study is to single out the latest directions taken by the historiography of the Religious and Military Orders established in Portugal in the Middle Ages and to discuss the current state of research into them. We shall also examine the main tendencies characterised by such research and the way it has been formally organized, drawing attention to how it fits in with other historical topics. The historical course of the Military Orders in Portugal has influenced the documentary output that supports research into the topic, and also the actual organization of the archives and their use. In this regard, we should first describe the orders, showing how they originated and where they became implanted, as well as their relationship with the monarchy.

Introduction: The aim of this study is to single out the latest directions taken by the historiography of the Religious and Military Orders established in Portugal in the Middle Ages and to discuss the current state of research into them. We shall also examine the main tendencies characterised by such research and the way it has been formally organized, drawing attention to how it fits in with other historical topics. The theme follows the overall trends of Portuguese medievalism, which is opening up to new topics given the expansion of the chronologies covered, the increasing number of historians and the university setting for such coverage. In this context, research into the Military Orders is expressed in academic work related to a university career, and also involves the dynamics of institutionally structured working groups.

The historical course of the Military Orders in Portugal has influenced the documentary output that supports research into the topic, and also the actual organization of the archives and their use. In this regard, we should first describe the orders, showing how they originated and where they became implanted, as well as their relationship with the monarchy. These institutions, apart from the Order of Christ, first came into being beyond the frontiers of Portugal, and this is reflected in the recognition of their canon law and the management of their estates. The Orders became established in Portugal with the acquiescence of the county of Portucalense, represented either by Dom Henrique and Dona Teresa or by their son, Dom Afonso Henriques. There were several reasons favoring the support of this new monachism, emerging from the disputes between religious and civil powers and affiliated with the reform of the Church in the 11th century. In fact, Dom Henrique’s French origins, his empathy with the Crusade project and his close relations with Diogo Gelmires, archbishop of Compostela, in addition to the spread of Cistercianism and the restoration of certain lines of Saint Augustine’s thought, are essential points in this analysis.

All these factors, plus the circumstances prevailing in the Portuguese territory in the 12th century, helped to pave the way for the definition of a geographical area for the implantation of these institutions, which had fairly distinct schemes of operation. The Hospitallers first appeared in the northern part of the kingdom, around Leça do Balio, and were established throughout the North, attending to the needs of pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela. Towards the end of the 12th century, they spread into the southern interior regions, where their focal point was Crato/Flor da Rosa. The Templars, perhaps because of their early installation in Portugal, had a spatial distribution similar in many frontier points to that of the Hospitallers, notably along the whole stretch of the Tagus valley, and were based in Tomar. Underlying this geographical definition was a military program, with a high degree of commitment on the part of the knights, which responded to the interests of the monarchy, ensuring the successful defense of the central region. The difficulties inherent in the southward advance of the reconquest go a long way toward explaining the integration of the Orders of Santiago and Avis into the kingdom in the mid 1170s. The former was entrusted with the defense of the Sado valley, Baixo Alentejo and Algarve, and the latter was to protect most of the Alto Alentejo from the town of Évora.

Finally, the Order of Christ, founded in 1319, was fully identified with the monarchy from the outset. Generally speaking, this was to be the defining direction for the behavior of these institutions in the late Middle Ages, inasmuch as their presence in the kingdom was solid, linked to the affirmation of the border, in its religious and territorial dimension, and to the external projection of Portugal’s sovereignty, specifically at the maritime level.

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6 Mar 2010
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The Lombard connection: northern influences in the Basilicas of San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito in Florence

The Lombard connection: northern influences in the Basilicas of San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito in Florence

By Matthew A. Cohen

Annali di architettura n.21 (2009)

Introduction: This account of the enthusiastic public reception of Filippo Brunelleschi’s Old Sacristy as it reached completion in the late 1420s, even if it perhaps embellished by Brunelleschi’s admiring biographer to enhance the architect’s reputation, is a remarkable record of the novelty and aesthetic appeal of Brunelleschi’s early Renaissance style according to one later fifteenth-century resident of Florence. Indeed, the account is not hard to believe, for the sacristy continues to be filled with admiring visitors today. The universal appeal of Brunelleschi’s unique style has inspired many scholars to explore its formal origins. What precedents did Brunelleschi assemble as inspirational raw materials, and how did he meld them into such an artistically expressive and influential form of architecture?

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4 Mar 2010
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