Illuminating Metalwork

Metal, Object, and Image in Medieval Manuscripts

Joseph Salvatore Ackley, Shannon L. Wearing, Joseph Salvatore Ackley, Shannon L. Wearing

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9783110620153
• eBook ISBN:
  9783110637526
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: Literature

The presence of gold, silver, and other metals is a hallmark of decorated manuscripts, the very characteristic that makes them "illuminated." Medieval artists often used metal pigment and leaf to depict metal objects both real and imagined, such as chalices, crosses, tableware, and even idols; the luminosity of these representations contrasted pointedly with the surrounding paints, enriching the page and dazzling the viewer. To elucidate this key artistic tradition, this volume represents the first in-depth scholarly assessment of the depiction of precious-metal objects in manuscripts and the media used to conjure them. From Paris to the Abbasid caliphate, and from Ethiopia to Bruges, the case studies gathered here forge novel approaches to the materiality and pictoriality of illumination. In exploring the semiotic, material, iconographic, and technical dimensions of these manuscripts, the authors reveal the canny ways in which painters generated metallic presence on the page. Illuminating Metalwork is a landmark contribution to the study of the medieval book and its visual and embodied reception, and is poised to be a staple of research in art history and manuscript studies, accessible to undergraduates and specialists alike.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Contributors
• Abbreviations
• I Introduction
• Preciousness on Parchment: Materiality, Pictoriality, and the Decorated Book
• II Technique
• Surface Effect and Substance: Precious Metals in Illuminated Manuscripts
• III Representation
• Metal Labor, Material Conversions: Goldsmiths in the Life of St. Denis and in Parisian Life, ca. 1300
• Copying, Imitation, and Intermediality in Illuminated Ethiopic Manuscripts from the Early Solomonic Period
• The Colors of Metalworks: The Painted Materials of Machinery in Byzantium
• IV Material Translations
• Metal, Materiality, and Maṣāḥif: Ornamentation in Abbasid Qur’ans
• Manuscript as Metalwork: Haptic Vision in Early Carolingian Gospel Books
• A “Multimedia” Manuscript: Metalwork and the Siegburg Lectionary
• Illuminating Luxury: The Gray-Gold Flemish Grisailles
• V Treasuries in Books, Books as Treasuries
• The Golden Spaces of the Uta Codex
• The Matter of Memory: Illuminated Metalwork in the Vita of St. Albinus of Angers
• Packaging the Sainte-Chapelle Relic Treasury, Paris ca. 1500
• VI Phenomenology and Piety
• Pilgrimage across Borders: Painted Pilgrim’s Badges in Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts
• Peripheral Primacy: Metallic Illumination and Material Illusion in the Aussem Hours
• A Curator’s Note: The Tarnished Reception of Remarkable Manuscripts
• Bibliography
• Index of Manuscripts
• Index of Names
• Index of Places
• Subject Index