Dictionary of Art and Artists











Paintings


that Changed the World



(by Klaus Reichold & Bernhard Graf)



From Lascaux to Warhol






Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth,
passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius,
but never abandoned.

William Butler Yeats


 

The Court and the Church: The Great Divide
 

An Emperor humbles himself

 

For three days he persevered, in pitiable attire, before the gate of the castle. He had divested himself of his royal robes and his shoes. In their stead he was clad in woollen dress. And he did not cease imploring the aid and consolation of Our Clemency with great lamentation ... until we ... persuaded by the duration of his penitence and the urgent intercession of those present, received him again in the lap of the Holy Mother Church.

Pope Gregory VII, on King Henry IV, 1077

 

The ruins of Canossa, destroyed m 1255, and its rocky outcrop

 

Formerly an impregnable mountain fortress,

Canossa loomed above the countryside like an eyrie, eighteen kilometres southwest of Reggio nell'Emilia. Here, where today geckoes can be found scurrying over its ruined walls in midday heat, an extraordinary chapter of European history was written in 1077. In this castle, which belonged to the pious and influential Countess Matilda of Tuscany, the most powerful ruler in the West fell on his knees before the Pope to beg for forgiveness. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Strife between temporal and spiritual authority had never escalated to such a degree. At that time. Henry IV, who was both the Holy Roman emperor (crowned in 1084) and German King (1056-1106), was only twenty-seven years old — half the age of his adversary, Pope Gregory VII (c. 1020—1085).These two men had heartily disliked each other for years and were locked in a power struggle, with the authority of each at stake.
Since his election in 1073, Pope Gregory VII had worked earnestly to reform the Church. He forbade priests to marry and prohibited the widespread practice of simony, the sale of lucrative ecclesiastical preferment to nobles without a vocation or theological background. In addition, Pope Gregory VII insisted that all temporal rulers were subject to him, Christ's deputy on earth, and that only he, the Pope, might determine who was to become an abbot or bishop and where such office should be held. From time immemorial, emperors, kings and dukes had appointed abbots and bishops, personally giving them their rings and croziers as the insignia of their ecclesiastical dignity. Things had progressed to such an extent that monasteries and bishoprics only existed because they had been endowed with land and wealth by the nobility. Abbots and bishops were required to place the possessions of their church at the disposal of their temporal rulers in time of war or economic necessity. As a result, the power of the rulers was based on the loyalty of their clergy. And now the pope was trying to create a clergy loyal to the ecclesiastical authorties! The enraged Emperor-King Henry IV proclaimed that Pope Gregory VII had been deposed — and the investiture strife broke out. Investiture (from the Latin investing means the clothing of abbots and bishops signifying that they are invested with their rank and office. The Pope excommunicated Henry IV, banishing him from the Church, and absolved his subjects from their oath of allegiance to their Emperor. The pontifical acts put Henry IV in checkmate.

This was an age in which belief meant life, and life meant faith. There was no doubt that anyone who had anything at all to do with an excommunicated person under the ban of the Church had made a pact with the devil. The only way Henry IV could free himself from this predicament was to travel to Canossa as a penitent and humbly beg the Pope to lift the ban. Before going, he cast about for powerful allies who might intercede for him. His godfather, Abbot Hugh of Cluny, and the Countess Matilda of Tuscany agreed to do so. Finally, on 27 January 1077, the Papal ban on Henry IV was lifted. The quarrel over investiture, however, dragged on until 1122.

 

Anonymous
King Henry IV Begging Countess Matilda
of Tuscany and Abbot Hugh of Cluny to
Intercede for Him with Pope Gregory VII
1111-1116
From the Donizo manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome







 

Medieval Medical Matters
 

Healing with stones

 

God has endowed precious stones with miraculous powers. They succour man in body and soul, banish Satan and protect all living beings from his malice. Therefore the devil shuns precious stones. They cause him to shudder by day and night.

St Hildegard von Bingen, Physica (The Healing Powers of Nature), с/ 1151-1158

 

Early eighteenth-century pharmacy


Herbal recipes prescribed by St Hildegard of Bingen have been used since the Middle Ages.
Containers from the Carmelite Convent in Schongau, c. 1700
 

In Europe and America, the trade of precious stones is booming and exhibitions of common minerals attract more visitors every year. The sheer volume of advertising for alternative therapy alone is astonishing. Increased dissatisfaction with the results of scientific medicine is promoting a search for different treatments. This quest for healing has led to the rediscovery of all sorts of forgotten cures and remedies for disease, among them the therapeutic use of precious stones. The practice of healing through the use of such stones has a long tradition. Pliny the Elder, a Roman writer who perished at Pompeii when Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, wrote at length about the healing properties of gems and minerals in his Historia naturalis, an encyclopaedia of natural science. Later Pope Gregory the Great (c. 540—604) and the Benedictine monk known as the Venerable Bede (672/73—735), the founder of English historiography and author of De natura rerum, joined the circle of those "in the know" on the healing properties of precious stones. These two men drew their inspiration from the Revelation of St John the Divine, which mentions crystals and precious stones in connection with his vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem. During the Middle Ages, the first person to advance the practice of this type of alternative medicine was a woman: St Hildegard of Bingen (1098—1179), an abbess who was later canonized and is today regarded as the first German mystic and one of the great women of the Middle Ages. Her writings deal with the aetiology of disease and the treatment of patients, and she even corresponded with emperors, kings, popes and scholars on the subject. St Hildegard's natural remedies included herbal infusions and elixirs distilled from metals or precious stones dissolved in wine, and according to one: "A sufferer from gout should place a diamond in some wine for a whole day and then drink of it. The gout will depart from him." By the late Middle Ages, however, healing with precious stones was seen as witchcraft and black magic, and its practice seemed threatened into oblivion. In the fifteenth century, Paracelsus (1493—1541), alchemist and the city physician to Salzburg and Basel, staunchly defended this form of alternative medicine, and encouraged the therapeutic use of mineral baths and minerals as medicine. Jakob Bohme (1575—1624), and his circle of mystic philosophers, also defended nature-based medicine — their teachings later exercised great influence on the German Romantics, especially the nineteenth-century poets who reawakened interest in alternative medicine.

Today, at the close of the twentieth century, St Hildegard of Bingen's remedies, the resurgence of nineteenth-century homeopathic medicine, together with the flower-essence therapy developed by English herbalist Edward Bach, form the basis of a type of medical treatment advocated by New Age circles. Furthermore, St Hildegard's knowledge of the psychological aspects of disease finds its resonance in modern psychosomatic medicine. In the work illustrated here, the saint and visionary is seen dictating a letter in her cell, whose columns symbolize the Old and the New Covenant, and above her is the five-tongued ray of divine inspiration.

 

Anonymous, German
St Hildegard Dictating Her Letters to Monk Volmar
с. 1180
Detail from the Liber Scivias,
copy of the former Rupertsberg Codex
Illuminated manuscript
Abbey of St Hildegard, Eibingen






 

Fate and the Entire Cosmos of Medieval Life
 

Keeping the Wheel of Fortune turning

 

О Fortuna!

Like the Moon

Fickle in her state of being

Always waxing

Also waning

Fate thus unfettered

And so fearful

Wheel keeps rolling on and on

Evil state

In vain our fate

Wreaking our dissolution

Shadowed darkly

Veiled so thickly

Now on me you do descend

Now you play

Оn my bare back

Bent to you, I bear the brunt.

"Fortuna imperatrix mundi" chorus from Carmina Burana

 

Drums pound as the choral music swells to a crescendo: "O Fortuna!" The first two words of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana are a cry of helplessness under the lash of destiny. The name of this powerful work, "Songs from Beuern", conies from Benediktbeuern, a Benedictine monastery in Upper Bavaria. It was there, in 1803, that a manuscript containing 318 medieval poems was found. Originating from the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries from South Tyrol or Austrian Styria, this manuscript proved to be the most important collection of medieval profane lyric poetry. Most of the texts were written in medieval Latin by anonymous scholars and itinerant priests, but there are also works by major German poets, including Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170—с 1230) and Neidhart von Reuenthal (c 1180—с 1250).

In sensuous, humorous, and graphic terms, this collection of poems offers us a candid picture of medieval life: one tells of a drunken abbot, carousing with cronies and dice players, while another of a roasted swan, complaining about its sufferings. Here, conventional morality rubs shoulders with mocking satire, virginal love with obscene songs to Venus. Verses on the Crusades, replete with mythological allusions, clerical games and tender poetic songs round off this fascinating poetic assemblage. Panoramic in scope, it unveils the entire cosmos of medieval life, and enthroned above it all is Fortuna. the goddess of fate.

For Carmina Burana, Carl Orff composed a musical score which synthesised twenty-four of these lyric poems, taking fate as the unifying theme: Fortuna, whose name derives from the Latin Vortumna. She turns the wheel of the seasons, bringing good and bad to kings and commoners alike: one day on top of the wheel (regno, I rule) the next at the bottom (regnavi, I have ruled). And yet, for those who ultimately end up at the bottom (sum sine regno, I am without rule), there is still hope (regnabo, I will rule). As with Tarot (another New Age fad drawn from the Middle Ages), where the Wheel of Fortune adorns the card marked "X", the basic tenor of Carmina Burana is ambivalent; it can also be interpreted optimistically, for it is always possible to begin again.

The Wheel of Fortune is ubiquitous in medieval art and architecture. It appears in the form of a rose window in Gothic cathedrals, as a mechanical wheel in Fecamp monastery in Normandy, as a floor design in Siena Cathedral and as a motif in illuminated manuscripts. It is a wheel that will always turn: "O Fortuna! Like the Moon, fickle m her state of being, always waxing, also waning ..."

 

Anonymous
Wheel of Fortune with Christ Enthroned in Judgement Instead of the Goddess Fortuna
12th-13th century
From the illuminated manuscript Carmina Burana
Parchment
Found in Benediktbeuern, Upper Bavaria Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich








 

The Art of Falconry
 

An Emperor's book of tricks

 

The noble and powerful of this world, who are burdened with the duties of ruling, can, through the practice of this art, find beneficial distraction from their cares. The poor and the less elegant can, on the other hand, earn their living from it, assisting at the hunt.

Emperor Frederick II, De arte venandi cum avibus (On the art of hunting with falcons), before 1248

 

Falconer at a medieval pageant in Landshut

 

The margins of the so-called "Falcon Book"

are like an aviary, teeming with pheasants and quail, red-legged partridges and swallows, turtledoves and plovers, oyster catchers and vultures. More than 500 representations of at least 80 different species of bird adorn one of the most famous medieval manuscripts, and the author of this work is no less a personage than Emperor Frederick II. According to the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Giawzi, the Emperor was a bald-headed man, near-sighted and of reddish complexion and, had he been a slave, would have been worth little. Yet, to his admirers he was the "wonder of the world". Born in 1194 at Jesi near Ancona, Frederick II was considered to be "the first modern ruler" by Jacob Burckhardt. He spoke not only "vulgar Latin", the Italian vernacular, but also mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, French and a Provencal dialect. His court was the Western centre of science and art during the first half of the thirteenth century.

Frederick II was a patron of the arts, open to Judaic and Islamic culture, and interested in astrology and medicine. Driven by insatiable curiosity, he laid the ground work for Italian poetry, introduced — and this was of great controversy — experiments on human beings, and earned a reputation as a natural scientist. A great deal of his knowledge in this last field is contained in his "Falcon Book". In it he describes how falcons, eagles and hawks can be tamed and trained to hunt game birds and small animals. He is just as well-informed on the prey of his falcons. An inveterate polymath, the Emperor, in loving detail, describes their appearance, anatomy, habits, flight patterns and defensive strategies — so precisely that the "Falcon Book" is still used today as a basic textbook in the field of ornithology. He was the first to present evidence on the cuckoo bird's sneaky habit of laying its eggs in other birds' nests.

For all the admiration he receives, Frederick II owed his sole military defeat to his passion for science and hunting. On 18 February 1248, the city of Parma went on the offensive against the Emperor's troops after he had besieged the city for months. The offensive succeeded and part of the imperial treasure was lost, including the original manuscript of the "Falcon Book". Frederick II was out hunting with his birds of prey when the surprise attack was mounted. Adding insult to injury, the biographer of Pope Gregory IX, who did not care much for the Emperor, implied that the Emperor had degraded the title of "His Imperial Highness" to that of a game-keeper.

 

Anonymous, Italian
Frederick II with a Falcon
1258-1366
From the Manfred Manuscript of
De arte venandi cum avibus, III leaves
Parchment
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rome





 

How a Poor Little Man Put the World Right
 

St Francis of Assisi and poverty

 

Praise to you, O Lord, and all your creatures,
who, with our sister the Sun, give us the day
and light. Lovely she is - and she shines
with great glory. She reflects Your impress,
Most High.

St Francis of Assisi, "The Hymn of the Sun", autumn 1225

 

San Francesco in Assisi. The tomb of St Francis is a place of pilgrimage for millions
 

He was certainly not a handsome man, the way his ears stuck out from his head, nor, with his thin, small figure and modest education, did he cut an impressive figure — at least this is what his contemporaries said about him. Yet no other name from the thirteenth century is so well-known and loved. In January 1206 Francis heard a mysterious voice commanding him to "go and repair my house, for it is falling down". He obeyed, and, not only did he repair the physical structure of a church, he also found himself leading a powerful movement of religious renewal in the Church. At a time when lust for money and power had corrupted temporal and religious life, he set the example of an evangelical who cared nothing for possessions.

Born into a wealthy family, Francis had grown up living the life of a pleasure-seeker and enjoyed surrounding himself in luxury. He gave it all up so suddenly, so cheerfully and willingly, that he drew thousands along with him, even some of the most distinguished scholars. The "poor little man," who had experienced the Impression of the Stigmata, the wounds of Christ, on 14 September 1224 on Mount Le Vema, lived only forty-four years. Yet after his death, 20,000 men from all over Europe were seeking to emulate his life, as well as thousands of women. Caring for the urban destitute, his mendicant Order, the Franciscans, grew by leaps and bounds. The advocate of the poor, St Francis of Assist was the first to state publicly that work dignifies man, that its value is intrinsic and cannot be measured by the money it earns. He also loved animals and birds, seeing them as man's friends and his lovely "The Hymn of the Sun" was the first great poem in the Italian language. Dante remembered him with a ref-erence to Assisi in the XI Canto (Il Paradiso), of The Divine Comedy: "There at the edge of the cliff a Sun was born to the world."

Another monument to St Francis is a fresco, The Dream of Pope Innocent III from the cycle depicting the life of St Francis in the Upper Church of San Francesco in Assisi. It is frequently attributed to GIOTTO. Tradition has it that Pope Innocent III was dubious of Francis and his followers, and so had not given his approval to St Francis's Regula Prima, his Rule. The Pope's doubts vanished when he had a dream in which Francis of Assisi appeared to him as a pillar of the Church.
 

GIOTTO DI BONDONE
(Italian, c. 1267-1337)
Francis as a Pillar of the Church (The Dream of Pope Innocent III)
c. 1296-98
Detail
Fresco
Upper Church of San Francesco, Assisi








 

Thou Art Mine and I Am Thine
 

Knights and courtly love in the Middle Ages

 

I sat me on a stone, my legs were crossed, alone. Then rested I my elbow too, with chin and cheek in hand.
Sorrowfully did I then ponder, how one might live in this world of ours.

Walther von der Vogelweide, before 1230

 

The singing troubadours:
Kraft von Toggenburg, Hartmann von Aue and Werner von Teufen
in the Manesse illuminated manuscript

 

Draughty corridors and icy stone chambers. Medieval castles were anything but cosy. It was a time when glass was still a luxury that few could afford. During winter months, pelts and animal skins, instead of glass, covered the openings, or they were simply boarded up altogether. Castle kitchens promised a fire, where the residents gathered out of necessity to warm themselves around its large hearth. At times chivalrous life may have been adventurous, but it certainly was not easy. The medieval German lyric poet and soldier, Oswald von Wolkenstein, whose castle was in South Tyrol, complained that he led a wretched life. He struggled for his daily bread and in the lives of those around him, he saw nothing but intense hardship: ungainly people, filthy goats and cattle, all blackened by the soot of fires; nor could he take pleasure in the sounds he heard around him: braying donkeys and screaming peacocks.

The bleak existence of daily life may explain the medieval passion for elaborate and lively banquets; these were frequent and certainly would have filled their dining halls with food and good cheer. Residents and guests at the Frohburg Castle (which literally translated means "happy castle") in Switzerland, for example, devoured "106 wild boar, 73 deer, 61 bear, 3 elk and 2 aurochs (now extinct)" during the course of a long winter. These festivities also meant good business for the Teutonic troubadours or minnesingers. Most of these minnesingers were errant knights, meaning that they were "chansonniers". Their songs dealt with Platonic or chaste courtly love.

When chivalry was at its peak in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, courage and loyalty were not the only virtues to be sung. Songs which praised a pure Christian life, defended the poor and, above all, paid homage to the ladies of the court, could also be heard. Although aristocratic ladies were always under the authority of their fathers, brothers or husbands, they enjoyed the status of goddesses in chivalric society. Courtly love, Minne, became an ideal because it exacted the patience, endurance and submission of its practitioners. Men courted the favour of ladies whose social status was often higher than their own. Consequently, they had to "earn" the favour they sought by winning tournaments or writing poetry, setting it to music and singing it.

The most important itinerant troubadour in central Europe was Walther von der Vogelweide. Born in about 1170 in Lower Austria, be lived at various courts until he received a fief from the Emperor Frederick II which ensured him a steady income. Some of his poetry has been preserved in the Manesse illuminated manuscript, which contains nearly 6,000 stanzas of verse written by 140 poets between 1160 and 1350. It is said to have been collated and illuminated at the court of Ruedtger Manesse, who represented the knights' estate in the Zurich City Council from 1264. This magnificent codex, which includes sumptuous full-page portraits of the authors, is one of the most important medieval illuminated manuscripts in the world.

 

Anonymous
The Minnesinger Walther von der Vogelweide as a Knight Errant
1300-1340
From the Codex Manesse
Illuminated manuscript
Heidelberg University Library, Heidelberg






 

A Useful Thing, Peace!
 

Siena and the Allegory of Good Government

 

It is a great joy to see peace represented by Lorenzetti. I see merchants travelling from city to city, selling their wares without a care in the world. I see how houses are being built by men full of hope and how girls rejoice in dancing round dances. A useful thing, pace (peace)! The word falls so sweetly from one's lips, as compared to its antonym, guerra (war), which sounds rough, redolent-with so much crudeness that it twists the mouth.

Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444) "Sermon on Good Government", 1427

 

Ambrogio Lorenzetti
The Effects of Good and Bad Government in the Town
1337-39
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
 

In the evening when the sun is setting, Siena's brick patrician town houses glow in warm tones of brown and ochre: at the heart of the city is the Campo, a shell-shaped, cobble-stoned square that slopes downward, where the shadow of the Torre del Mangia grows longer. After the sun has disappeared, young people, who gather in the square "to see and to be seen", continue to radiate the heat of the day. Time seems to have stood still in Siena. The Gothic cityscape has essentially survived intact with its striking silhouette of the cathedral, steep alleys and imposing city wall.

Today, major roads do not lead to Siena. However, during the late Middle Ages this was not the case: merchants, pilgrims, knights and emperors had to pass through the city on their way to and from Rome. This Frankish road, built by the Lombards, brought additional prosperity to the city, whose affluence was assured by the nearby silver mines. The Sienese banking houses were among the most powerful in Europe and the Sienese sought to express their prosperity through grand building projects. As evidence of their mercantile confidence and assertiveness, between 1288 and 1309, they built their town hall, the Palazzo Pubblico, in travertine and brick. To adorn the interior of the Palazzo, elaborate fresco cycles were commissioned, among them Allegory of Good Government and Allegory of Bad Government, painted by a native of Siena, the artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Masterpieces of medieval painting, these enormous works fill the room used by the governing Council of the city-state from 1292 until 1355. Panoramic in style and unusually profuse in detail for that time period, they are probably the first realistic townscapes in Western painting.

Promoting the consequences of good politics, Allegory of Good Government proclaims peacekeeping as the loftiest aim of a just governance. Peace is the only guarantor that trade and commerce will flourish and that life will bring serenity and joy. Although these are allegorical scenes, Lorenzetti chose to paint the people of his day, engaged in everyday activities. Dwellings, shops and palaces with towers and crenellations give us a realistic picture of how Siena must have looked in the first half of the fourteenth century. Allegory of Bad Government, located on the opposite wall, depicts the same townscape scene, only devastated by war. Bernardino of Siena described it thus in a sermon: "Here I see no commerce, no dances. I see only death. No houses are being built, fields are no longer being cultivated and grapes are no longer being harvested." Only a few years after Lorenzetti had finished the frescoes, this bleak picture of Siena essentially became reality, although not by human contrivance. Siena lost more than two-thirds of her townspeople to the plague and among the victims was the painter himself, Ambrogio Lorenzetti.

 

Ambrogio Lorenzetti
The Effects of Good and Bad Government in the Town
Detail
1337-39
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena






 

God Moves in Mysterious Ways
 

Karlstein Castle and the medieval cult of relics

 

When the body of the dead Saint was lying on the bier, many of the faithful came to do it reverence. And, they cut off her fingernails and the nails of her feet, the tips of her breasts and even her thumbs to keep all these things as relics.

Caesarius of Heisterbach, Notes on St Elizabeth, с. 1231

 

Christians fought over them, for to many these relics were more valuable than gold or precious stones. Relics were earthly remains or objects and scraps of cloth which had come into contact with the living or dead body of a saint. Above all, the bones were the most precious. Since ancient times, it was believed that through them God very often continued to work in mysterious ways, and those who venerated them received special graces. Some medieval Christians, however, saw them as possessing magical powers, and so an illegal trade in relics grew up. Traders would do almost anything to get hold of these sacred objects. They robbed graves, skeletons were taken apart or stolen and limbs hacked off; the head of a saint was particularly sought after. The trade was so grotesque that St Francis gave Perugia a wide berth on his last journey from Siena to Assisi; he was afraid the traders would tear him apart. And it is said, though we cannot know for certain, that Bishop Hugh of Lincoln shocked the monks at Fecamp monastery in France by gnawing "like a dog" on a bone, reputedly that of Mary Magdalene's arm, in order to ensure protection from all harm.

The monasteries and secular princes were the chief collectors of relics, as well as the precious reliquaries which housed them. Assembled between 1347 and 1378, the most important collection of this kind was owned by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. The relics and reliquaries amassed by this inveterate collector represented all the countries he ruled. His collection included bones from the skeletons of St Palmatius (Italy), St Sigismund (Burgundy) and Wenceslas (Bohemia). The Emperor never tired of praising the "empire-preserving powers" inherent in his relics.

He also owned treasures which signified his omnipotence: crown, sceptre, orb and the Imperial sword. These symbols of the temporal power of the Holy Roman Empire were regarded as relics of Charlemagne, who was then venerated as a saint, and who, according to legend, commissioned and first used these objects. Even more sacred were the sacred lance and nails thought to be from the True Cross. The lance itself was believed to be the very one with which the soldier Longinus pierced the side of Christ on Mount Calvary.

Utterly convinced that his relics were genuine, Charles IV had Karlstein Castle built near Prague to house these sacred treasures. It became a gathering place for knights of the Grail and was the spiritual centre of his reign. Today, the Imperial Jewels are kept in Vienna. However, Karlstein Castle is still a delight to visit due to its magnificent frescoes, and it is the Bohemian national monument.

 

NIKOLAUS WURMSER
The Emperor Charles IV Consigning Relics to a Reliquary
1356
Fresco
Chapel of Our Lady, Karlstein Castle, Prague







 

Miniature Kings and Peasants
 

The Due de Berry's Book of Hours

 

Others may amass riches of glittering gold, or have as much farmland as they desire! I wish only for modest possessions and to have a peaceful life; if only the fire keeps burning on my own hearth.

Tibullus, "Happiness in the Country" from the Elegies, first century ВС

 

Limbourg brothers
Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
c. 1413-1416
 Musee Conde, Chantilly
 

The Due de Berry collected only precious things: jewels, Italian cloth woven from gold, valuable musical instruments, porcelain, timepieces, embroidered tapestries and reliquaries. He owned seventeen castles, a zoo with ostriches, camels, chamois, a tooth of Charlemagne's and the finest ruby collection of his day. But books were his first love. His library contained Roman classics, chronicles, chansons de geste and an edition of The Travels of Marco Polo.

A true connoisseur, the Due de Berry never missed a chance to indulge in pomp and luxury. The Due de Berry, or Jean de France, was the son of the French King Jean II. so he could afford such expensive taste. And when his money ran low, he could simply raise the taxes in central France, an area which fell mostly under his rule.

The Duke was not just a consumer of extravagant things, but also an active patron of the arts, commissioning countless artists and artisans. Some of his most famous commissions were Books of Hours. These illuminated manuscripts contained prayers which the laity recited in their personal devotions, so-called because the prayers were to be said at particular times of the day.

The Due de Berry owned several Books of Hours, and, in 1413, he commissioned the Limbourg brothers to execute Les Tres Riches Hams, which became his most valuable example. The preliminary work for this book was actually completed by another artist who died shortly after receiving the commission. When the three brothers from Nijmegen in the Netherlands started to work on this book, they were all in their thirties and must have realised that this would be the work of a lifetime. In 1416, all three brothers died, as did their patron, probably from one of the many epidemics rampant at that time throughout Europe.

Les Tres Riches Heures, with its 206 leaves, was actually never finished. Despite this, it is regarded as one of the greatest works of European medieval art: the finest fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript and a supreme example of painting in the International Gothic style. Here, for the first time in the history of manuscript illumination, idealistic landscapes were replaced by real landscapes, in this case depicting the regions belonging to the Due de Berry. The Month of August shows the Chateau d'Etampes, a massive twelfth-century castle which still looms above the countryside today. In this calendar cycle, August is the only one to depict courtiers and peasants together in the same scene. The court, however, does not come into contact with the peasants, who labour in the hot fields and bathe in a stream, while the court solemnly passes by on horseback in the foreground. How different peasant existence must have been from that of the Due de Berry's: oatmeal instead of capons, water instead of wine and straw mattresses instead of featherbeds.

 

Herman, Jean and Paul Limbourg
(c. 1385/1390-c. 1416)
The Month of August
1413-1416
From Les Tres Rukes Fleures du Due de Berry
Illuminated manuscript
Musee Conde, Chantilly






 

To You Have I Given Myself

Nuptials and marriage in the Middle Ages

 

My dearest, of you alone I think day and night. Your red lips take all that is sad from me. To you have I given myself. Your own will I be, with you to live in joy until my ending.

Hans Leo Hassler, taken from a new German madrigal in the Gallic mode, late sixteenth century

 

"The beginning was sweet and good ..."
Blessing the Bridal Bed, Bernard Picard (1673-1733)
 

In the Middle Ages, banquets were particularly sumptuous, and above all those for a wedding's celebration: partridges and woodcock, cheese and pastries, nuts and dried fruits — banqueting boards piled high groaned under the weight of such delicacies. In fact, governing authorities were often forced to counteract the excesses of such festivities with ordinances regulating how many guests might be invited and how many courses served. The ordinances, however, were not always effective. It was difficult to forbid lavish spreads and excessive drinking, or to prevent guests from dancing after a banquet. By the end of such wedding festivities, the men were often so drunk that brawls were the order of the day.

A wedding has always been one of life's great events. And, in fact, most people had little choice about whom they married at that time since marriages were usually arranged by families. The needs of the family and the desire to advance its position in society dictated the terms, and as a result influence, money and power were what counted. Naturally, there were always those who advocated marriages for love and not money or influence, though even love matches could not guarantee future happiness, as a fifteenth-century Flemish song shows: "The beginning was sweet and good when I was courting my wife. Now heart, mind and soul have turned. I regret the first steps I took, poor man that I am. She rules the roost and I am like the chickens." In those days people often married very young and a Church ceremony was not the norm. Nuptials, at which marriage vows were exchanged in the presence of two witnesses, were a purely secular matter. They often took place at home, in larger rooms or even in bedchambers, but the ceremonies were seldom recorded in paintings for posterity.

However, the wedding portrait The Arnolfini Marriage, by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, is a notable exception. Michele Arnolfini, the scion of an Italian mercantile family from Lucca who had settled in Bruges, is depicted with his bride Elizabeth. This pictorial marriage certificate, however, could never guarantee that the couple would stay together. Divorce was possible even then: "Since it is known that we cannot remain together — the devil has wrought this and God does not want us to be together — it is best that we dissolve our marriage ties." Thus a Merovingian divorce formula that was in use for a long time. Nevertheless, divorced people, like the unmarried, were socially ostracised. In Flanders an ultimatum was issued to a man of thirty, if he was still a bachelor. He was given a time limit within which he had to marry or he would have to endure the humiliation of being recorded in what was known as the "Book of Disgrace". If he didn't marry after all, he may well have done what old maids, priests, monks and nuns of necessity did, and sought comfort in St Augustine's words: "Those who die unmarried, shine like stars in Heaven."

 

Jan van Eyck
(с. 1390-1441)
The Arnolfini Marriage







 

"In this Sign Thou Shalt Conquer"
 

Emperor Constantine and the Cross

 

When his rival Maxentius invaded the Roman Empire, Constantine marched as far as the Milvian Bridge to meet him. Yet he was concerned whether he would defeat Maxentius. Then one night, Constantine had a vision: he saw the Cross of Christ glowing in the heavens, surrounded by golden rays. Angels pointed to the Cross, saying to him: "In this sign thou shalt conquer!"

Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea (Golden Legend) с 1265-66

 

The choir in the church of San Francesco, Arezzo, showing the fresco cycle by Piero ciella Francesca
 

Constantine was a merciless Roman emperor.

Not only did he see to the execution of his coruler, Licinus, he also condemned close relatives to death, among them his son Crispus and his second wife Fausta. Despite his ruthlessness, however, Constantine the Great supposedly secured a place in Heaven, a saint who is still venerated in the Greek Orthodox Church. Although Constantine tended to sacrifice morals to expediency, he later became a key figure in the development of Christianity as a world religion. Legend has it that it all started with a dream.

When Emperor Constantius died in AD 311, there were two claimants to the throne: Constantine and Maxentius. On 28 October 312, at the Milvian Bridge, which spanned the Tiber north of Rome, these men fought the decisive battle over the succession. Constantine is said to have told the Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea that, on the day before the battle, a Cross of light appeared to him in the heavens, bearing the inscription: "In this sign thou shalt conquer!" Yet according to Jacobus de Voragine, the leading medieval compiler and specialist on the lives of the saints, Constantine had his vision at night in a dream. It was based on this report that the Italian Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca depicted the vision of Constantine at night, rather than by day. The artist was commissioned by the wealthiest family of Arezzo to paint a fresco cycle depicting the Legend of the True Cross for the choir in the church of San Francesco, and The Dream of Constantine is one scene in this cycle.

After the vision, it is said that Constantine had the symbol of the Cross painted on his soldiers' shields, which led them into their victorious battle. It is impossible to know whether his vision and the victory really led Constantine to convert to Christianity, but, during his reign, Christianity was legally established as a religion, enjoying the same status as the ancient pagan belief in the gods. From 312, Constantine also made impressive donations to the Church and had the first important Christian churches built. Among them were Old St Peter's in Rome, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Apostles in Constantinople, the foundation of which today supports Hagia Sophia. Constantine also introduced Sunday as a day set aside for church services and promoted the Christianising of public life by appointing Christians to high office in Rome. In fact, some of his legal reforms further suggest a Christian influence: criminals were no longer permitted to be branded on the face and the corporal punishment of slaves as well as the selling of children was restricted. In 325, in what is now the western Turkish city of Iznik, Constantine convened the first synod of bishops: the "Council of Nicaea", which stands out in ecclesiastical history. For all that though, the Emperor did not consent to baptism until he was on his deathbed.
 

Piero della Francesca
(c. 1412-1492)
The Dream of Constantine
1452-1466
Detail from Legend of the True Cross
Frsco
Choir of San Francesco, Arezzo