238 research outputs found
The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity. Volume 1: The Middle Ages
No full textThis ambitious and vivid study in six volumes explores the journey of a single, electrifying story, from its first incarnation in a medieval French poem through its prolific rebirth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Juggler of Notre Dame tells how an entertainer abandons the world to join a monastery, but is suspected of blasphemy after dancing his devotion before a statue of the Madonna in the crypt; he is saved when the statue, delighted by his skill, miraculously comes to life. Jan Ziolkowski tracks the poem from its medieval roots to its rediscovery in late nineteenth-century Paris, before its translation into English in Britain and the United States. The visual influence of the tale on Gothic revivalism and vice versa in America is carefully documented with lavish and inventive illustrations, and Ziolkowski concludes with an examination of the explosion of interest in The Juggler of Notre Dame in the twentieth century and its place in mass culture today. Volume 3: The American Middle Ages hinges upon two figures influenced by the juggler: Henry Adams, scion of Presidents and distinguished cultural historian whose works contributed to the rise of medievalism in America during the Gilded Age, and Ralph Adams Cram, the architect whose vision of Gothic accounts directly or indirectly for the campuses of West Point, Princeton, Yale, Chicago, Notre Dame, and many other universities across America. The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity is a rich case study for the reception of the Middle Ages in modernity. Spanning centuries and continents, the medieval period is understood through the lens of its (post)modern reception in Europe and America. Profound connections between the verbal and the visual are illustrated by a rich trove of images, including book illustrations, stained glass, postage stamps, architecture, and Christmas cards. Presented with great clarity and simplicity, Ziolkowski's work is accessible to the general reader, while its many new discoveries will be valuable to academics in such fields and disciplines as medieval studies, medievalism, philology, literary history, art history, folklore, performance studies, and reception studies
The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity: Volume 2: Medieval Meets Medievalism
No full textThis ambitious and vivid study in six volumes explores the journey of a single, electrifying story, from its first incarnation in a medieval French poem through its prolific rebirth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Juggler of Notre Dame tells how an entertainer abandons the world to join a monastery, but is suspected of blasphemy after dancing his devotion before a statue of the Madonna in the crypt. He is then saved when the statue, delighted by his skill, miraculously comes to life. Jan Ziolkowski tracks the poem from its medieval roots to its rediscovery in late nineteenth-century Paris, before its translation into English in Britain and the United States. The visual influence of the tale on Gothic revivalism and vice versa in America is carefully documented with lavish and inventive illustrations, and Ziolkowski concludes with an examination of the explosion of interest in The Juggler of Notre Dame in the twentieth century and its place in mass culture today. The Juggler of Notre Dame and the Medievalizing of Modernity is a rich case study for the reception of the Middle Ages in modernity. Spanning centuries and continents, the medieval period is understood through the lens of its postmodern reception in Europe and America. Profound connections between the verbal and the visual are illustrated by a rich trove of images, including book illustrations, stained glass, postage stamps, architecture, and Christmas cards. Presented with great clarity and simplicity, his work is accessible to the general reader, while its many new discoveries will be valuable to academics in such fields and disciplines as medieval studies, medievalism, philology, literary history, art history, folklore, performance studies, and reception studies
Virgil and the moderns
No full textVirgil has permeated modern culture like no other icon of Western civilization. In the United States, for example, three of his phrases appear on the dollar bill, and his Aeneid was often cited as a model for the nation's westward expansion. Theodore Ziolkowski traces the impact of the Roman poet into the twentieth century, showing how the Aeneid the Eclogues and the Georgics supplied the patterns, images, values, and often the very words used in key works of modern literature. Focusing on American and European writing produced between 1914 and 1945 - when Virgil figured prominently in works by Auden, Broch, Eliot, Frost, and Gide, and by Tate, Ungaretti, Valery and Wilder - this comparative analysis reveals a major cultural period in a fascinating new lightZiolkowski argues that after World War I people came to understand Virgil in a new way: exposed to the rhetoric of totalitarian dictators, and having experienced social upheaval and economic disaster, they recognized in his poetry similar stresses and noted in it a dark aspect not received by earlier generations. Exploring a wide range of modern works, the author demonstrates how preferences for Virgil's poems varied significantly among countries and individuals and how these texts provided a mirror in which readers found what they wished: populism or elitism, fascism or democracy, commitment or escapism. In his closing thoughts, Ziolkowski addresses the current decline of classical learning in the United States and encourages us to reclaim Virgil as an invaluable cultural possessio
La dialettica delle auctoritates da Aristotele ad Alberto Magno
No full textLa dialettica, cioè l’interazione fra le differenti 'auctoritates' che costituiscono la trama dei commentari sull’Aristotele delle opere naturalistiche nel XII e XIII secolo, è esaminata in questo studio attraverso l’impiego delle diverse modalità argomentative ('digressio', 'paraphrasis'), di cui si serve Alberto Magno nei suoi trattati scientifici su base aristotelica. Più in particolare sono qui considerati come 'specimen' interpretativo i 'Meteora' , il commento di Alberto ai 'Meteorologica' di Aristotele, nelle cui 'digressiones', veri e propri angoli di chiarimento, di approfondimento e di discussione di 'quaestiones' poste dal testo aristotelico conosciuto da Alberto nella versione arabo-latina di Gerardo da Cremona, s’incrociano e si confrontano 'auctores' greci, latini, arabi, quali Avicenna col' De mineralibus' che si fa significativamente testimone di passi perduti nella tradizione araba dei ‘Meteorologica’ di Aristotele, Alessandro di Afrodisia anch’egli commentatore della stessa opera aristotelica, scritti conosciuti entrambi nella traduzione di Alfredo Anglico, e Seneca delle Naturales quaestiones, ma anche 'auctoritates' anonime come gli 'alchimici', o come il 'Liber ignium' attribuito a Marchus Graecus, che fondano la loro conoscenza sull’esperienza, molto importanti per Alberto Magno 'experimentator', avviato criticamente verso nuove e più avanzate forme d’indagine scientifica, andando oltre la tradizione degli Antichi
«Ut patenter omnibus innotescat». Il trattato di Nicola Maniacutia (sec. XII) sull’immagine acheropita del Laterano
No full textIl contributo studia il sermone dedicato da Nicola Maniacutia, sec. XII, alla processione che si svolgeva a Roma in agosto in occasione dell'Assunzione con l'immagine 'non dipinta da mano umana' conservata nel Sancta Sanctorum del Laterano: se ne studiano la tradione e le fonti
«Proprie quidem compilare est aliena dicta suis intermiscere». Il riutilizzo di fonti antiche e coeve in tradizione medievale
No full textIn the intentions of mediaeval writers, each literary reference came to acquire one or more special meanings, linked either to the context, the transformation of genres, the reinterpretation of the myths or the taking on of a renewed spiritual (or ethical, ideological, pedagogical or political) value. Terms such as plagiarism, copy, model, calque and loanword are thus anachronistic in a context such as this, where repetition and resemblance are actually categories of the art and where the joy of reusing reigns supreme. Dictionary definitions of auctor and auctoritas also point us in this direction. They were polysemic terms, often the exclusive appanage of juridical (religious, lay or university) culture, but with enormous implications in history, philosophy, law, art, literature and philology. In this paper, therefore, I will focus in particular on their Greek and Latin etymologies according to Isidorus, Papias, Uguccione, Osbern, Brito and Balbus, going back, as far as possible, to the Late Antique grammatical origins, identifying the sources, if identifiable, and noting the graphical variations, the interpretations of symbolic genre and the continuity with the humanistic-Renaissance tradition
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