Lateness and Modernity in Medieval Architecture 9004538437, 9789004538436

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
1 Scholarly Constructs and Challenges: Gothic, Lateness, and Modernity
1.1 Negotiating the Gothic Canon
1.2 Late Gothic Architecture and Historicism
2 Chapter Overviews
Relativizing the Lateness of Late Gothic Architecture
Part 1 Space and Reception: Western Perspectives
1 Late Gothic Medieval Imaginations in Jean Fouquet’s Grandes chroniques de France
1 Architectural Representation in the Grandes chroniques
2 Fouquet’s Chapels and Architectural Typology
3 Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
2 Reading Late Gothic Architecture
1 The Town and the Parish Church
2 A Gilded Balustrade
3 Visibility and Legibility
4 Textual Ornamentation in Late Gothic Architecture
Acknowledgments
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
3 The Plague, the Parish, and the Perpendicular Style
4 “Toutefois moderne, sans tenir de l’antique”
1 Flamboyant and Première Renaissance: The Reasons for a Possible Dialogue
2 A Multilingual Building Site, a Work of Synthesis: The Château de Gaillon at the Dawn of the 16th Century
3 “Il più magnifico et superbo a pena se potria retrovare”: Gaillon in the Eyes of Contemporaries
4 A Gradual Change in Taste: Descriptions of Gaillon in the 17th and 18th Centuries
5 Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Part 2 Experimentation and Innovation in Central Europe
5 The Development of Western and Central European Gothic
1 Evaluations of the European Architecture of ca.1300 in 20th-Century Scholarship
2 Various Stylistic Currents in the French Architecture of ca.1250–1350
3 “Modernity” and “Avant-Garde” in the European Architecture at the Turn of the 14th Century
4 Conclusion: Understanding Advancement of the Architecture around 1300
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
6 Did Jan Długosz Read Vitruvius?
1 Architecture and Illusion
2 Between Abstraction and Figuration
3 Emblematic Architecture
4 To the Sources of the Art of Building
5 Stone and Timber
6 Conclusion
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
7 Entwined Meanings and Organic Form at the Prague Cathedral Royal Oratory
1 Royal Display
2 Green Chambers and Primitive Huts
3 A Divided Land Entwined
Acknowledgments
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
8 Conflicting Views
1 The Patron
2 Peter Parler
3 The South Transept Façade
4 The Mosaic
5 The Compromise
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Part 3 Global Gothics on the Margins of Europe and Beyond
9 The Currency of the Gothic in the Carpathian Mountain Regions
1 Transylvania
2 Moldavia and Wallachia
3 Conclusion
10 When Venus Met Godfrey
1 Staging Classical Antiquity as the Visualization of Dominion: Venus and Venice in Famagusta’s Early Modern Townscape
2 Fusing Classical and Gothic into a Visual Paean of the Lusignan Past: The Design of the Bembo Loggia
3 Anchoring the Memory of the Crusades in Gothic Grandeur: Godfrey of Bouillon, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Famagusta’s Latin Cathedral
4 Erudite Perceptions of Local History and the Gothic as Antique in the Architecture of Venetian Cyprus
Acknowledgments
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
11 Memory, Modernity, and Anachronism at the Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo
1 Telling the Hour
2 Weaving Histories
3 Unstitching the Tapestry of Time
4 Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Secondary Sources
12 Colonial Gothic and the Negotiation of Worlds in 16th-Century Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
1 Memory
2 Labor
3 Domestication
Acknowledgements
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Afterword: Unruly Gothic
Acknowledgements
Select Bibliography
Biblical Index
Index of Repositories: Archives, Libraries, and Museums
Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Citation preview

30mm

Contributors are: Jakub Adamski, Flaminia Bardati, Costanza Beltrami, Robert Bork, Jana Gajdošová, Maile S. Hutterer, Jacqueline E. Jung, Alice Klima, Abby McGehee, Paul Niell, Michalis Olympios, Zachary Stewart, Alice Isabella Sullivan, Kyle G. Sweeney, and Marek Walczak. Alice Isabella Sullivan, Ph.D., (2017), University of Michigan, is Assistant Professor of Medieval Art and Architecture and Director of Graduate Studies at Tufts University. She specializes in the artistic production of Eastern Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres.

Lateness and Modernity in Medieval Architecture

Drawing on case studies from Cyprus to the Dominican Republic, the book explores historiographical, methodological, and theoretical concerns related to the study of medieval architecture, bringing to the fore the meanings and functions of the Gothic in specific contexts of use and display. The development of local styles relative to competing traditions, and instances of coexistence and hybridization, are considered in relation to workshop practices and design theory, the role of ornament, the circulation of people and knowledge, spatial experiences, as well as notions of old and new.

Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney (Eds.)

How have the concepts of “lateness” and “modernity” inflected the study of medieval and early modern architecture? This volume seeks to (re)situate monuments from the 14th—16th centuries that are indebted to medieval building practices and designs within the more established narratives of art and architectural history.

AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art  |  16

MTSA 16

Kyle G. Sweeney, Ph.D., (2017), Rice University, is Assistant Professor of Art History at Winthrop University and a specialist in the architectural and urban history of late medieval and early modern France.

Lateness and Modernity in Medieval Architecture isbn 978 90 04 53843 6 issn 2634-4750 brill.com/mtsa

Edited by Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney

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Lateness and Modernity in Medieval Architecture

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AVISTA Studies in Medieval Technology, Science, and Art Editor-in-Chief Jennifer M. Feltman (University of Alabama)

Editorial Board Robert Bork (University of Iowa) George Brooks (Valencia College) Ellen M. Shortell (Massachusetts College of Art & Design) Sarah Thompson (Rochester Institute of Technology)

volume 16

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mtsa

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Lateness and Modernity in Medieval Architecture Edited by

Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney

leiden | boston

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Cover illustration: Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, apse window, early 16th century (source: P. Niell) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sullivan, Alice Isabella, editor. | Sweeney, Kyle G., editor. Title: Lateness and modernity in Medieval architecture / edited by Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2023] | Series: AVISTA studies in the history of Medieval technology, science, and art, 2634-4750 ; volume 16 | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2023003858 (print) | LCCN 2023003859 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004538436 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004538467 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Architecture, Gothic. | Architecture–Historiography. | Building--History. | New and old in art. Classification: LCC NA440 .L38 2023 (print) | LCC NA440 (ebook) | DDC 723/.5–dc23/eng/20230217 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023003858 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023003859

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2634-4750 isbn 978-90-04-53843-6 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-53846-7 (e-book) Copyright 2023 by Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

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Contents

Acknowledgments vii List of illustrations ix Notes on Contributors xv



Introduction 1 Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney



Relativizing the Lateness of Late Gothic Architecture 36 Robert Bork

Part 1 Space and Reception: Western Perspectives 1

Late Gothic Medieval Imaginations in Jean Fouquet’s Grandes chroniques de France 73 Maile S. Hutterer

2

Reading Late Gothic Architecture The Balustrades at Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux 105 Abby McGehee

3

The Plague, the Parish, and the Perpendicular Style Theories of Change in Late Medieval English Architecture from John Aubrey to John Harvey  131 Zachary Stewart

4

“Toutefois moderne, sans tenir de l’antique” Critical Views on Gothic and Renaissance Interaction in Early Modern French Architecture between the 16th and 18th Centuries 153 Flaminia Bardati

Part 2 Experimentation and Innovation in Central Europe 5

The Development of Western and Central European Gothic Architecture around 1300 and Its Modern Historiography 183 Jakub Adamski - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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6

Did Jan Długosz Read Vitruvius? On the Reception of the Myth about the Natural Origins of Architecture in Central Europe in the Late Middle Ages 211 Marek Walczak

7

Entwined Meanings and Organic Form at the Prague Cathedral Royal Oratory 237 Alice Klima

8

Conflicting Views Designing the South Transept of Prague Cathedral 262 Jana Gajdošová

Part 3 Global Gothics on the Margins of Europe and Beyond 9

The Currency of the Gothic in the Carpathian Mountain Regions 287 Alice Isabella Sullivan

10

When Venus Met Godfrey The Evocation of Gothic Antiquity in the Architecture of Venetian Cyprus 314 Michalis Olympios

11

Memory, Modernity, and Anachronism at the Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo 346 Costanza Beltrami

12

Colonial Gothic and the Negotiation of Worlds in 16th-Century Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 395 Paul Niell



Afterword: Unruly Gothic 423 Jacqueline E. Jung



Select Bibliography 447 Biblical Index 453 Index of Repositories: Archives, Libraries, and Museums 454 Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia 456

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Acknowledgments The origins of this publication lie in a session held at the 108th College Art Association Annual Conference titled “Reassessing ‘Lateness’: Issues of Periodization and Style in Late Medieval Architecture.” The number of interested colleagues who joined us for the session despite the early hour and subfreezing temperatures in Chicago, as well as the many animated conversations that followed, confirmed to us that this topic was an area of interest among scholars at all career stages. Encouraged by our colleagues, we held a virtual follow-up session at the 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies in 2021. Both of these panels aimed to engage with notions of lateness and modernity in medieval architecture, broadly conceived geographically and temporally, with the goal of (re)situating the eclectic visual vocabularies of secular and religious buildings from the 14th through the 16th centuries that are indebted to medieval building practices and designs within the larger and more established narratives of art history and architectural history. The panelists in our sessions considered issues related to periodization, as well as the historiography of medieval architecture and its forms, while bringing to the fore the geographic expanse of the Gothic, its multifaceted meanings and functions in particular contexts of use and display, workshop practices and the movements of people and knowledge across the medieval world, as well as the development of local styles relative to competing traditions. Moving past the limitations of chronologically-driven studies that often privilege a singular, “ideal” moment in the life of a building, many of the papers investigated issues related to reception, spatial experience, coexistence, visual networks, urban identities, and meanings. In addition to the session speakers, we have invited several other scholars to contribute to this publication in efforts to expand its scope and approach to the topics under consideration. We wish to thank all of our authors for remaining steadfast and committed to this project each step of the way—especially given the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The resulting volume was made possible with generous support from the following institutions and organizations: the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA), Tufts University, and Winthrop University. In particular, we are grateful for funding support from the ICMA through a Kress Foundation Research and Publication Grant, a Faculty Research Award from Tufts University, and the Dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Winthrop University. We also wish to thank the Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Interdisciplinary Study of Technology, Science, and Art (AVISTA) for providing - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Acknowledgments

a supportive framework within which to publish the volume and, especially, Jennifer M. Feltman, the Editor-in-Chief of the AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science and Art series published by Brill, for her encouragement and advice along the way. Alessandra Giliberto’s kindness and attention to detail throughout the entire editorial and publishing process were appreciated immensely, and we extend our thanks to her, her colleagues at Brill, especially Pieter te Velde, and the two anonymous reviewers whose critical feedback helped strengthen the volume. Finally, we are indebted to our copyeditor, Annika Fisher, for her assistance and careful attention to detail; to our research and editorial assistant Rileigh K. Clarke from Tufts University for their invaluable assistance in the later stages of the project; to our indexer, Sever J. Voicu, for his thoughtful and detailed work on a tight deadline; and to Richard Thomson (rt-imagery.com), for designing the illuminating map in the introduction to the volume and several other plans of medieval churches. Many mentors, colleagues, and friends have supported our work on this topic from the very beginning, especially Robert Bork. His work on late Gothic architecture, as well as his enthusiasm about issues related to its study and interpretation, encouraged us to pursue this project. We are grateful for his sustained interest in the present volume and the countless contributions he made to it.

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Illustrations 1

Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, interior view of the nave, ca. 1511–37 2 2 Map of key monuments discussed in the volume 6 3 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Louviers, France, view of south porch, ca. 1506–10 10 4 Nonnberg Benedictine Church, Salzburg, Austria, ca. 1493–1506 12 5 Hector Sohier, Church of Saint-Pierre, Caen, France, chevet, ca. 1518–45  14 6 Church of Saint Nicholas, Probota Monastery, Moldavia, modern Romania, interior of pronaos, looking toward the east, 1530 16 7 Saint Wenceslas Chapel, Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, 1358–66 22 0.1 Beauvais Cathedral, view from the southeast; choir mostly 1225–72, transept mostly 1500–50 37 0.2 Strasbourg Cathedral, view of west block from the southeast; Tower shaft built 1400–20, spire completed near the middle of the 15th century 39 0.3 San Lorenzo, Florence, axial view of interior; building begun 1419, nave mostly from the middle decades of the 15th century 40 0.4 Jan van Eyck, Madonna in the Church, oil on panel, late 1430s, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie 41 0.5 Church of Saint Mary (now cathedral), Antwerp, spire, completed 1521 43 0.6 Church of Saint Mary (Frauenkirche), Munich, exterior from south; 1468–1520  44 0.7 Chapel of Henry VII, Westminster, exterior from southeast; 1503–09  44 0.8 Vladislav Hall, Prague Castle, exterior facing courtyard, 1493–1502 46 0.9 Jan Gossart, Neptune and Amphitrite, 1516, oil on panel, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie 47 0.10 Unfinished Chapels, Batalha Abbey, view of interior, begun 1434, abandoned 1533 48 0.11 Saint-Eustache, Paris, view of nave interior, begun 1532, nave walls mostly from the late 16th century 48 0.12 Houses of Parliament, Westminster, exterior, designed late 1830s, built 1840–70 52 1.1 Coronation of Louis VI at Orléans Cathedral. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 183r 74 1.2 Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 247, fol 213v 78 1.3 Coronation of Louis X at the Sainte-Chapelle. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 326r 81 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

x 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 4.1 4.2

Illustrations Coronation of Charlemagne in Old Saint Peter’s. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 89v 82 Sainte-Chapelle, Paris 84 Coronation of Louis IV at Laon Cathedral. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 159v 87 Coronation of Louis IX at Reims Cathedral. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 251v 88 Deposition of Archbishop Arnoul at Saint Basle Monastery in Verzy. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 165v 89 Coronation of Lothar in Reims Cathedral. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 163r 91 Archiepiscopal Chapel, Reims, France, ca. 1211–20 93 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, 15th–16th centuries 106 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, detail of balustrade, south side, ca. 1490–1520 111 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, detail of balustrade, east end, ca. 1490–1520 112 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, detail of balustrade, west façade, ca. 1490–1520 113 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, detail of tympanum, 15th–16th centuries 116 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, south door, tower and treasury, late 15th–early 16th centuries 117 Jan Gossart, Malvagna Triptych, oil on panel, 17 7/8 by 13 3/4 inches, ca. 1513–15, Palermo, Galleria Regionale della Sicilia 125 Jan Gossart, Virgin and Child, oil on panel, 12 by 9 1/2 inches, 1527, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum 126 Westminster Abbey, Lady Chapel of Henry VII, exterior view looking west,  ca. 1510 133 Westminster Abbey, Lady Chapel of Henry VII, interior view looking east,  ca. 1510 134 Gloucester Abbey (now cathedral), south transept arm, view looking east, 1331–36 135 Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, cloister and chapter house, view looking north, ca. 1332 136 Norwich Cathedral, cloister, north walk, 1382–95 147 Norwich Great Hospital, chancel, north wall, ca. 1380–84 147 Nativity, fresco, detail with view of the Grant’ Maison of Gaillon, Castle of Gaglianico, Biella, Italy, ca. 1510 154 Château de Meillant, Charles II de Chaumont’s wing, before 1511 157

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Illustrations  4.3 4.4 4.5

4.6 4.7

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9

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Château de Gaillon, grande cour, Flamboyant pillar with decorations inspired by antiquity, stone of Vernon, 1508 158 Château de Gaillon around 1510, first floor plan. A: main stair. B: upper chapel. C: cardinal’s bedroom 161 On the left: Girolamo Pacherot, detail of the altarpiece of the high chapel of Gaillon, now in the Musée du Louvre, marble, 1508–09. On the right: Pierre Fain and collaborators, pilaster of the porte de Gênes, stone of Vernon, 1508–09 163 Château de Gaillon, fragments of the upper chapel wooden screen, now in the Musée de la Renaissance, Écouen, 1508–09  164 Château de Gaillon, grande cour, vestiges of the façade of the Grant’ Maison, with the coexistence of Flamboyant pillars, Renaissance decoration, and tondi originally with the emperors’ profiles, before 1510 168 Salem on Lake Constance, Cistercian Church, interior elevation of the nave, ca. 1285–1300 187 Constance, Cathedral, tracery windows in the east wing of the cloister, ca. 1300–17 189 Troyes, Collegiate Church of Saint-Urbain, south-western pier of the nave, ca. 1280–90 196 Niederhaslach, Collegiate Church of Saint Florentius, interior of the nave, ca. 1300–before 1330 198 Wimpfen im Tal, Abbey-Church of the Knights of Saint John, eastern part, 1269–ca. 1280 202 Stary Sącz, Church of Poor Clares, tracery in the nuns’ choir, ca. 1320–32 205 Stary Sącz, Church of Poor Clares, interior of the former chapter house, ca. 1320–32 206 South doorway, Raciborowice, parish church, before 1476 212 Doorway from the Jagiellonian University law students’ hall of residence, Cracow, Collegium Maius, Jagiellonian University, ca. 1474–79  212 Wall piers between windows in a town house of the cathedral chapter, Cracow, No. 5 Kanonicza street, 3rd quarter of the 15th century 213 Tracery, Maastricht, Church of Saint Servatius, cloister, ca. 1440–60 217 Doorway from Strasbourg, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, ca. 1500 218 Tomb slab of Maciej Tenczel (d. 1542), Sveraz, Church of Saints Peter and Paul 220 North doorway of the Black Church, Braşov, 15th century or after 1698 225 Wooden summer-beam decorated with the chain motif, Szadek, parish church, early 16th century 228 Coffered ceiling, Cracow, the Hebda house, No. 7 Poselska street, early 16th century 229

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6.10 Beam ceiling, Wiślica, house of the collegiate church vicars, ca. 1460 231 7.1 Royal Oratory, Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, attributed to Benedikt Ried and Hans Spiess, ca. 1500 238 7.2 Klaudyán’s Map of Bohemia, 137 x 64 cm, print on paper, printed in Nuremberg, 1518 238 7.3 Detail, lower half, Klaudyán’s Map of Bohemia, 137 x 64 cm, print on paper, printed in Nuremberg, 1518 243 7.4 Sala delle Asse, Sforza Castle, Milan, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, fresco, 1498 244 7.5 Tree Chamber, Bechyně castle, attributed to Wendel Roskopf, ca. 1515 246 7.6 Tábor City Coat of Arms, attributed to Wendel Roskopf, 1515–16 247 7.7 Tábor City Coat of Arms, detail of frame with Hus at the stake, attributed to Wendel Roskopf, 1515–16 249 7.8 Royal Oratory, detail, Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, attributed to Benedikt Ried and Hans Spiess, ca. 1500 252 7.9 Royal Oratory, detail, Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, attributed to Benedikt Ried and Hans Spiess, ca. 1500 257 8.1 South Transept of Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, 1367–1410 263 8.2 Porch of the South Transept of Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, 1367 269 8.3 Drawing for the south tower of Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, ca. 1365 272 8.4 Last Judgment, mosaic on the south transept of Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, 1370–71 273 9.1 Map of Eastern Europe ca. 1550 288 9.2 Cistercian Monastery, Cârța, Transylvania, modern Romania, view from southeast, 12th century 292 9.3 (a) Church of Saint Michael, Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, modern Romania, view from southeast, 1316–90. (b) Plan 293 9.4 Interior vault, Church of Saint Michael, Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, modern Romania 295 9.5 (a) Black Church, Brașov, Transylvania, modern Romania, view from the northwest, 1383–1476. (b) Plan 296 9.6 Black Church, Brașov, Transylvania, modern Romania, view from the southeast, 1383–1476 297 9.7 West entrance, Black Church, Brașov, Transylvania, modern Romania, 1383–1476 298 9.8 (a) Church of Saint Nicholas, Bogdana Monastery, Rădăuți, Moldavia, modern Romania, view from northwest, ca. 1360. (b) Plan 302 9.9 (a) Church of the Annunciation, Moldovița Monastery, Moldavia, modern Romania, view from southwest, 1532–37. (b) Plan  304 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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9.10 Portal, originally in the interior at the threshold between pronaos and naos, now outside of the church, Church of Saint John the Baptist, Piatra Neamț, Moldavia, modern Romania, second half of the 15th century 306 9.11 Portals, Church of the Virgin Mary, Biertan (Birthälm), Transylvania, modern Romania, 1486–1524 308 10.1 Plan of Famagusta’s main square in the 1550s–60s 315 10.2 ‘Bembo Loggia’, general view of the north wall, Famagusta, main square 315 10.3 ‘Bembo Loggia’, detail of decorative friezes and Bembo arms on the building’s eastern half, Famagusta, main square 316 10.4 ‘Bembo Loggia’, detail of north portal, Famagusta, main square 318 10.5 Torre dell’Orologio, Venice, Piazza San Marco 319 10.6 ‘Bembo Loggia’, ground story interior, western half looking southwest, Famagusta, main square 322 10.7 Lala Mustafa Paşa Mosque (former Latin cathedral of Saint Nicholas the Confessor), lower and middle stories of west front, Famagusta, main square 325 10.8 ‘Bembo Loggia’, north portal, detail of western jamb, Famagusta, main square 326 11.1 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, view of the crossing and east end, begun 1477 and mostly complete by 1495 347 11.2 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, exterior view from N, begun 1477 and completed after 1492 (portal 1605) 347 11.3 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, view of the nave and west end, begun 1477 and completed in the early 16th century 353 11.4 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, south transept frieze, before 1492 354 11.5 Cecilio Pizarro y Librado, Ruinas de San Juan de los Reyes de Toledo (Ruins of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo), 1846, oil on canvas, 80 x 65.7 cm, Museo del Romanticismo, Madrid, CE1570 362 11.6 Arturo Mélida, sketch of a representation of the surrender of Granada for the decoration of the cloister of San Juan de los Reyes, Proyecto de restauración de San Juan de los Reyes. Presupuesto adicional, 1889, Archivo General de la Administración, Fondo Ministerio de la Educación, IDD (05)014.002, Caja 31/08220, s/n 366 11.7 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, east end, detail of a capital with heads and muqarnas, after 1492 376 11.8 Capital and impost, Cuarto Dorado, Alhambra, Granada, 14th century. Photographed in 1924. 377 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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11.9

Unidentified tomb, Church of San Andrés, Toledo, Spain, early 15th century (?)  379 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, detail of the west end and choir tribune, after 1492? 381 Doorway with plasterwork decoration, Sala de los Reyes Católicos, Aljafería palace, Zaragoza, Spain, before 1493 382 Drawings of caney and bohío, from Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Historia general y natural de las Indias, 1535, Book VI 399 Exterior view: façade, detail of arrabá, The House of Ovando, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1502 402 Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, main (west) entryway and façade, 1512 or 1528–41 404 Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Dominican Republic, nave vaulting, ca. 1511–37 407 Plan, Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 407 Cathedral of Las Palmas, Canary Islands, nave vaulting, begun 1497–1500 408 Diego de Riaño and others, Casa consistorial, Seville, Spain, 1527–40 412 Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, spherical ornaments, west façade, 1540s 414 Casa de Tostado, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1502 415 Palace of Diego Columbus, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, east façade overlooking the Ozama River, 1509–10 418 Naumburg Cathedral, west choir, ca. 1242–50. View of choir, with sculpted donor figures, from atop the west choir screen 424 Amiens Cathedral, south aisle of chevet, choir enclosure with Life of Saint Firmin, 1489–1532 432 Amiens Cathedral, south choir enclosure, detail of scene of the Arrest of Saint Firmin, with background painting showing the cathedral’s west façade 433 Chartres Cathedral, south choir enclosure with scene from the Life of the Virgin and view of north clerestory windows. Sculptures by Jean Soulas and microarchitecture by Jean de Beauce, 1519–21. 433 Chartres Cathedral, view of building from northwest, featuring the northern spire by Jean de Beauce, ca. 1507–13 434 Reims Cathedral, west façade, ca. 1230–80, photographed in June 2022  438 Reims Cathedral, west façade, sculptures from ca. 1220–40. The upper image shows the right jamb of the center portal with the Annunciation and Visitation; the lower one shows the left jamb of the north (left) portal, with Saint Nicaise flanked by angels. 439

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Notes on Contributors Jakub Adamski is an art historian and medievalist. He graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and, since 2012, has been assistant and associate professor at the Institute of Art History of the University of Warsaw. His main areas of research are the history of medieval, especially Gothic, architecture and sculpture. He is interested in 13th- to 16th-century church architecture in Poland, the German Empire, France, and England, especially its style, the history of rib vaulting, and the development of spatial types in late Gothic architecture. His research focuses on issues of “architecture around 1300.” Flaminia Bardati is Associate Professor in Architectural History at Sapienza University of Rome. She studies artistic and cultural exchanges between Italy and France during the Renaissance; the transmission and reception of functional, formal, and constructional models; and the role of clients in the genesis of architectural projects. Her research focuses on some of the major buildings of the French Renaissance (Gaillon, Chambord, Fontainebleau, Hôtel de Ville in Paris) and on a number of Italian architects and artists working in France in the 16th century (Pacherot, the Giusti family, Domenico da Cortona, Leonardo da Vinci, Primaticcio, Vignola). She is the author of numerous essays and the monographs, including “Il bel palatio in forma di castello”: Gaillon tra Flamboyant e Rinascimento (Campisano, 2009); and Hommes du roi et princes de l’Église romaine: Les cardinaux français et l’art italien (1495–1560) (Rome, 2015). Costanza Beltrami is Departmental Lecturer in Medieval and Renaissance Art History at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on Gothic architecture in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. She is particularly interested in the representation of buildings in accounts, ornamental prints, and other media. Her book Building a Crossing Tower: A Design for Rouen Cathedral of 1516 (Paul Holberton, 2016) explores a newly discovered drawing of monumental scale, placing it in the context of architectural aspirations and conflicts in the northern French city of Rouen. Her current project focuses on the master mason Juan Guas (active 1453–96) and on craft networks, collaboration, and exchange in late 15th-century Castile. Robert Bork is Professor of Art History at the University of Iowa, specializing in the study of Gothic architecture. His research has received support from the American - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Philosophical Society, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts. Bork served from 2004 to 2009 as president of AVISTA, and he has edited three books for the group: De Re Metallica (2005), The Art and Science of Medieval Travel (2008), and New Approaches to Medieval Architecture (2011). He is the author of Great Spires: Skyscrapers of the New Jerusalem (2003), Gotische Türme in Mitteleuropa (2008), The Geometry of Creation (2011), and, most recently, Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception (2018). His articles have appeared in many books and journals, including The Art Bulletin, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, and Bulletin monumental. Jana Gajdošová completed her doctoral thesis at the University of London in 2015, focusing on the iconography and building history of the Charles Bridge in Prague. She has since taught at Cambridge University and at Christies Education. Currently, she is a medieval art specialist at Sam Fogg Gallery in London and teaches a variety of courses for the Victoria & Albert Museum. Maile S. Hutterer is Associate Professor at the University of Oregon. Her work focuses on the reception of Gothic architecture in high and late medieval France, with a particular emphasis on how audiences understood architectural and structural innovations. Her first book, Framing the Church: The Social, Contextual, and Artistic Power of Gothic Buttresses, was published by Penn State University Press in 2020. Jacqueline E. Jung is Professor in the department of History of Art and the Medieval Studies program at Yale University. She is the author of The Gothic Screen: Space, Sculpture, and Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany, ca. 1200–1400 (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and Eloquent Bodies: Movement, Expression, and the Human Figure in Gothic Sculpture (Yale University Press, 2020). Alice Klima received her Ph.D. in the History of Art and Architecture Department at Brown University. Currently, she teaches medieval architecture and visual culture and the history of architecture at the University of Georgia, Athens. Her research focuses on the late medieval Central European built environment and highlights Bohemian architecture within the broader European context. She is also interested in the meaning of architecture as generated through daily use and function of space, especially in monastic communities, in addition to the pro- 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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cess of building and patronage. She has published on the Roudnice statutes in collaboration with Czech scholars, Ubi est finis huius libri deus scit: Středověká knihovna augustiniánských kanovníků v Roudnici nad Labem [The Medieval Augustinian Canon Library in Roudnice on the Elbe], 2015. Abby McGehee is an art historian and arts educator who lives and works in Portland, OR. From 1997 to 2019, she taught art and craft history at the now-closed Oregon College of Art and Craft. Her work focuses on late Gothic parish church architecture in France. Paul Niell focuses primarily on the art, architecture, and material culture of the Hispanophone Caribbean in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He is interested in a wide range of critical and theoretical literatures, including colonial theory, material culture theory, cultural landscape studies, and critical heritage studies. He teaches courses in the Visual Cultures of the Americas program in the Department of Art History at Florida State University, where he is Associate Professor. He is the author of Urban Space as Heritage in Late Colonial Cuba: Classicism and Dissonance on the Plaza de Armas of Havana, 1754–1828 (University of Texas Press, 2015) and co-editor with Stacie G. Widdifield of Buen Gusto and Classicism in the Visual Cultures of Latin American, 1780–1910 (University of New Mexico Press, 2013). His work appears in The Art Bulletin, Colonial Latin American Review, The Latin Americanist, and the Bulletin of Latin American Research. Michalis Olympios received his Ph.D. at the Courtauld Institute of Art and is now Associate Professor in the History of Western Art at the University of Cyprus. His research interests encompass the history of medieval art and architecture in Northern Europe and the Latin East, with a particular focus on the intersections between artistic form, use of space, and collective identities. He has published widely on Gothic architecture and sculpture in France, Cyprus, and Greece. His current projects include the editing of a collected essay volume on the medieval/early modern Greek cathedral of the Panagia Hodegetria (present-day Bedestan) in Nicosia and the study of the 14th-century architectural history of the Collège des Bernardins in Paris. He is also co-founder and current co-editor (with Chris Schabel) of Frankokratia: A Journal for the Study of Greek Lands under Latin Rule, which is published biannually by Brill. Zachary Stewart is Associate Professor of Architectural History and Theory in the Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University. His research focuses on the buildings, - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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cities, and landscapes of medieval Britain. He is co-editor with Amy E. Gillette of the forthcoming volume The Baptismal Font Canopy of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich: Interdisciplinary Studies of a Medieval Monument over Four Centuries. His current book project investigates the Perpendicular parish church as a vehicle for innovative material production in late medieval England. Alice Isabella Sullivan received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and is now Assistant Professor of Medieval Art and Architecture and Director of Graduate Studies at Tufts University. She is a historian of medieval art, architecture, and visual culture, specializing in the artistic production of Eastern Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres. She is the author of award-winning articles in The Art Bulletin (2017) and Speculum (2019), and the co-author of a study in Gesta (2021), among other peer-reviewed publications. She is author of The Eclectic Visual Culture of Medieval Moldavia (Brill, 2023), and co-editor of the volumes: Byz­antium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages (Brill, 2020), Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions (De Gruyter, 2022), and Natural Light in Medieval Churches (Brill, 2023). She is also co-founder of North of Byzantium and Mapping Eastern Europe—two initiatives that explore the history, art, and culture of the northern frontiers of the Byzantine Empire in Eastern Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. Kyle G. Sweeney is Assistant Professor of Art History at Winthrop University. A specialist in the architectural and urban history of late medieval France, his research has been supported by the Association Villard de Honnecourt for the Study of Medieval Science, Technology, and Art (AVISTA), International Center of Medieval Art/Kress Foundation Research and Publication Grant, the Brown Foundation, and the Humanities Research Center (HRC) at Rice University. He is currently preparing a book on architecture and society in Normandy that examines how churches, chapels, and châteaux shaped the experience of urban space, rituals, and class interactions in the early sixteenth century. Marek Walczak specializes in the medieval art of Central Europe, with particular emphasis on painting and sculpture in the 14th and 15th centuries. He is the director of the Institute of Art History of the Jagiellonian University and head of the Department of Medieval Art.

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Introduction Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney The first cathedral in the Americas was established in Santo Domingo, ­Dominican Republic, on 8 August 1511, by means of a papal bull (Figure 1). Like the many great medieval churches of Europe, the construction of Santa María la Menor unfolded gradually over several decades. With its sophisticated lierne vault, polygonal apse, trefoil windows, sculpted portals, and massive stone walls, the design of the new cathedral relied on a range of aesthetic and construction practices rooted in medieval European traditions.1 The master masons, stone carvers, and other craftspeople drew on the rich repertoire of designs and motifs associated with Spanish late Gothic buildings when planning the new cathedral located in the center of Spain’s first colonial city in the Americas.2 Work was overseen by two master builders, both of whom likely received some training in Spain before they traveled across the Atlantic on two separate occasions to direct work at the new cathedral. The Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, therefore, shares its principal stylistic affinities with many late Gothic monuments associated with Queen Isabella, such as the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, among others. Local forms were ostensibly rejected in order to underscore visually the links between Spain, its Catholic Monarchs, and the growing colonial city. Construction seems to have drawn to a close by the early 1540s, when the plateresque west façade was completed (Figure 12.3). The mixture of styles evident at Santo Domingo’s new cathedral reflected the contemporary visual cultures of Iberia.3 When completed, the imposing stone church conveyed a sense of identity, royal power, and religion that was legible to colonial settlers from a variety of social classes. 1 For more on the first cathedral in the Americas, in addition to chapter 12 in the present volume, see Paul B. Niell, “Late Gothic in the Sixteenth-Century Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic,” postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies 6, no. 3 (2015): 258–71. Important studies in Spanish include a large volume with a discussion of documents related to construction, a detailed chronology, an architectural survey of the cathedral, and an account of restoration efforts, as well as an edited volume with chapters that consider the structure from broader architectural and cultural contexts. See, respectively, José Chez Checo, Eugenio Pérez Montás, and Esteban Prieto Vicioso, eds., Basílica Catedral de Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo, 2011), and Begoña Alonso Ruiz, ed., La arquitectura tardogótica castellana entre Europa y América (Madrid, 2011). 2 Niell, “Late Gothic,” p. 258. 3 Ibid., p. 260. © Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_002 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 1 Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, ­ interior view of the nave, ca. 1511–37 source: Art Resource

That the oldest European city in the Americas was planned around a new cathedral designed and decorated primarily according to Gothic principles associated with medieval Europe speaks to the ongoing importance of the signifying potential of this design mode well into the 16th century. Indeed, with their ribbed vaults, compound piers, and sculpted portals, some of the oldest churches in the earliest colonized cities of the New World were constructed using elements of design and ornamentation closely associated with Gothic

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cathedrals and churches built across Europe in the Middle Ages. However, as with all monumental building projects, the modes of cultural contact over long distances were not linear; different regions served as intermediary zones for cultural transfer in terms of architectural knowledge and material exchange. Also, Indigenous builders and craftspeople often deliberately adopted and transformed models in local contexts, which resulted in distinctive design and decorative elements in new building projects. This may even be the case at Santa María la Menor, where there is the possibility that some aspects of its design and decoration were informed by an intermediary cathedral on the island of Las Palmas (Figure 12.6), a key layover for ships traveling between Spain and the Caribbean. Complicating matters, however, is the fact that Spanish colonizers of the Caribbean were not the only viewers of the new Cathedral of Santo Domingo; at once, multiple modes or levels of interaction with the church’s stylistic affinities, ornament, decoration, and symbolic content must be considered in relation to its social and multicultural contexts. Interestingly, however, many similar circumstances applied to contemporary late Gothic structures commissioned by patrons across Europe and the Mediterranean, which underscores interpretive and methodological issues related to the study of medieval architecture. The Cathedral of Santa María la Menor is just one case among many that problematizes Eurocentic taxonomies of the Gothic in 19th- and early-20th-century scholarship that presuppose a nascent, fully realized, and late style in architecture.4 This volume explores other such cases and issues, while engaging with notions of lateness and modernity in medieval architecture, broadly conceived geographically, temporally, methodologically, and theoretically.5 Choices of terminology derive from the current modes of temporal categorization in the fields of art and architectural history, which draw distinctions between the ‘late medieval’ and the ‘early modern’ moments in a Western European ­cultural 4 The taxonomy of Gothic architecture was first proposed by Arcisse de Caumont (1801–1873), a botanist from Normandy, who subdivided it into “Primordiale,” “Secondaire,” and “­Tertiaire” stages. See Essais sur l’architecture religieuse du Moyen-Âge particulièrement en Normandie, Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de la Normandie, 1824/2 (Paris, 1925). For a 20th-­ century example, see, among others, Paul Frankl, Gothic Architecture (Baltimore, 1962), which is organized into chapters and sections on transitions, culminations, beginnings, maturation, recession, survival, etc. 5 For issues related to periodization and the Middle Ages in general, see Carol Symes, “When We Talk About Modernity,” The American Historical Review 116, no. 3 (June 2011): 715–26; Jessica Keating and Lia Markey, “Response: Medievalists and Early Modernists—A World Divided?,” The Medieval Globe 3, no. 2 (2017): 203–18; and Margreta de Grazia, “The Modern Divide: From Either Side,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 37, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 453–67.

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context, with the latter encompassing the categories of Renaissance and Baroque.6 These periodizations impose limitations on the study of cultures and monuments that developed at the crossroads of traditions and competing perspectives and which negotiated locally between past and current modes of building practices and designs, especially between the 14th and 16th centuries. In vague and contingent attempts at definitions, ‘lateness’ implies decline while ‘modernity’ implies progress, and neither is adequately equipped to capture the cultural and stylistic developments evident in a particular place and time. Many medieval structures, in fact, do not fit neatly within any one of the established scholarly categories, thus offering fascinating case studies that could incite a revision of historiographical bias in the field. Still, on the one hand, these concepts are useful to work and think with, as both ­modern historians and medieval writers have employed them in efforts to describe and explain cultural, artistic, and architectural changes. It is known, for example, that medieval writers could distinguish the old parts of buildings from the newer and later sections.7 Phrases such as ‘novum opus’ (new work), ‘opus Francigenum,’ ‘maniera tedesca,’ ‘opus modernum’8 (modern work), and ‘al Moderno’9 have been used to describe or refer to structures designed using the principles of what has come to be called the ‘Gothic’ style in specific geographic and cultural areas of the Middle Ages. Before the term ‘Gothic’ appeared, however, the Florentine architect and sculptor Filarete (ca.1400– ca.1469) commented upon these different aesthetics and cultural geographies when he exclaimed in the 1460s, “cursed be the man who introduced ‘modern’ architecture.”10 Indeed, by the 15th century, if not earlier, there seems to have been a cultural awareness that what is broadly considered ‘Gothic’ in later 6

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See Alina Payne, “Materiality, Crafting, and Scale in Renaissance Architecture,” Oxford Art Journal 32, no. 3 (2009): 365–86; Alina Payne, “Introduction: Renaissance and Baroque Architecture,” in Renaissance and Baroque Architecture: The Companion to the History of Architecture, ed. Alina Payne (Hoboken, 2017), 1:xxv–xlvi. See, for example, Stephen Murray’s discussion of the juxtaposition of “old” and “new” in the accounts of Gervase of Canterbury (Plotting Gothic [Chicago, 2014], pp. 62–63). See Erwin Panofsky, ed. and trans., Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures, 2nd ed., ed. Gerda Panofsky-Soergel (Princeton, 1979), pp. 26, 36, 162. For more on the phrase, see Paul Binski, Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice, and the Decorated Style, 1290–1350 (New Haven, 2014), pp. 66–68. Tom Nickson, “Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation,” in Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation, ed. Tom Nickson and Nicola Jennings (Courtauld Books Online, 2020), p. 25. See Paul Frankl, Gothic Architecture, 2nd rev. ed. and intro. by Paul Crossley (New Haven, 2000), p. 263. See also Alina Payne, “Vasari, Architecture, and the Origins of Historicizing Art,” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 40 (2001): 65–66.

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d­ iscourse (e.g. the 16th century) was “self-consciously novel or modern,” with a discernible and active theoretical and aesthetic approach to space driven by experimentation and innovation in workshops through roughly 1500.11 On the other hand, contemporary terminology and scholarly frameworks have contributed to the marginalization of certain monuments and other critical issues that may shed light on the multifaceted nature of the study of medieval architecture within and beyond the Middle Ages. Adjectives such as ‘modern,’ ‘late,’ or ‘antique’ determine what is included or excluded from the canon of art and a­ rchitectural history, which (Western European) scholars typically divide into the R ­ omanesque, the Gothic, and even the early modern periods. In the Eastern Christian cultural spheres, the story is equally complicated, with monuments straddling the Byzantine and post-Byzantine eras. Such examples demonstrate the continuity and innovation in Eastern Christian architecture well after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Although medieval, Byzantine, and early ­modern monuments reveal diverging theories of design, workshop practices, structure, ornament, and spatial experiences, moments of coexistence occurred, and these are revealing. This is evident in buildings from across Europe and from Nicosia in Cyprus to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic (Figure 2). Through distinct and carefully chosen contributions, this volume aims to (re)situate the eclectic visual vocabularies of secular and religious buildings from the 14th through 16th centuries that are indebted to medieval building practices and designs, both east and west, within the larger and more established narratives of art and architectural history. 1 Scholarly Constructs and Challenges: Gothic, Lateness, and Modernity Although no longer derided as decadent or inferior, many striking monuments, like the Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, remain to be fully explored by historians of medieval and early modern architecture, as do the workshop practices that contributed to their distinct spatial and visual forms. The artificial periodizations that have long defined the study of medieval and early modern art and architecture certainly contributed to the marginalization of 11

Matthew M. Reeve, “Gothic,” Studies in Iconography 33 (2012): 235; see also, Robert Bork, Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), pp. 17–18; Madeline Caviness, “Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings: A Post-Modern Construct?” in Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, ed. Virginia C. Raguin, Kathryn Brush, and Peter Draper (Toronto, 1995), pp. 249–61.

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Figure 2 Map of key monuments discussed in the volume source: Richard Thomson / rt-imagery.com - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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monuments that fall ‘in between.’ This relegation also stems, in part, from the buildings themselves. Some feature dense ornamentation that seemingly overwhelms the putative supports for which the Gothic style is well known, while others lack complex decorative programs or sophisticated designs. Indeed, abundant studies devoted to the so-called classic High Gothic cathedrals built during the 13th century have come to define our notions of what a Gothic monument should look like and how it should function.12 But the exceedingly diverse array of parish churches, châteaux, chapels, town halls, hôtels particuliers, towers, spires, palaces, monasteries, and other buildings constructed across Europe and beyond through the 16th century demonstrate that the Gothic style continued to flourish and spread long after the so-called era of the cathedrals, which has been foregrounded in scholarship. As such, in addition to ‘canonical’ monuments from France and England, there were plenty of other important, late Gothic construction projects in Italy, Spain, and Bohemia, to name a few places, as well as building activity in other religious and secular contexts that problematize and expand the study of Gothic within and beyond the ‘era of the cathedrals.’ Theories of ‘lateness’ also contributed to the overshadowing of such monuments by their High Gothic predecessors as the modern historiography of medieval art and architecture unfolded during the early 19th century.13 Critics and writers such as Friedrich von Schlegel14 employed biological metaphors of growth and decline15 to create narratives of stylistic progress predicated on the development and classification of formal devices. Structures perceived to be illustrative of the end of a style (i.e. ‘late’) were cited as evidence of stagnation, decadence, decay, and the demise of a once-higher art form. Indeed, the late Gothic buildings commissioned in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries across Western Europe and beyond were celebrated by some 20th-century critics and scholars not for their sophistication, complexity, or striking variety but as reflective of the “gloriously 12 13

14 15

See, among others, Hans Jantzen, High Gothic: The Classic Cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, Amiens, trans. James Palmes (New York, 1962). Debates about constructs and theories of lateness are ongoing and inform not only the study of art and architecture but a range of disciplines, including literature, music, and philosophy. See, for example, Theodor W. Adorno, Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music: Fragments and Texts, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford, 1998); Edward Said, On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain (New York, 2006). Jan Białostocki, “Late Gothic: Disagreements About the Concept,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd ser., 29 (1966): 77. Birger Vanwesenbeeck, “Huizinga, Theorist of Lateness?,” in Rereading Huizinga: Autumn of the Middle Ages, a Century Later, ed. Peter Arnade, Martha Howell, Anton van der Lem (Amsterdam, 2019), 255.

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deranged end”16 of the Gothic tradition, which allegedly carried on “like an endless organ postlude.”17 ‘Lateness,’ therefore, came to embody a moment of decline that draws attention to a continuity with the past and relegates to the margins issues of novelty, creativity, and diversity that best characterize the medieval architecture of the 14th through the 16th centuries.18 In 1966, Jan Białostocki called attention to these issues and the ambiguities inherent in the concept of the ‘Late Gothic’ style in his seminal article entitled “Late Gothic: Disagreements about the Concept.”19 The issues raised by Białostocki continued to be debated into the 1990s. Furthermore, William W. Clark lamented that “highly original and inventive” monuments do not deserve the “prejudices of past generations” and proclaimed that scholars must “look anew at Late Gothic architecture” in order to advance the field.20 As Robert Bork demonstrates in the initial chapter of this volume, the reasons for the stubborn persistence of these notions are both numerous and complex. A victim of the discipline’s obsession with periodization, preoccupations with categorization and classification, and modern nationalist discourses, 16 17

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François Bucher, “Micro-Architecture as the ‘Idea’ of a Gothic Theory and Style,” Gesta 15, no. 1 (1976): 83. Johan Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, trans. Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich ­Mammitzsch (Chicago, 1996), pp. 300–301. See also Henri Focillon, “The Spirit of Fantasy: Gothic Baroque,” in The Art of the West in the Middle Ages, vol. 2, Gothic Art (New York, 1963, trans. and repr. 1969), pp. 139–59, esp. pp. 144 and 149. For more on Huizinga’s legacy, see Diane Wolfthal, “Art History and Huizinga’s Autumn of the Middle Ages,” in Arnade, Howell, and Van der Lem, Rereading Huizinga, pp. 123–42. See also Ethan Matt Kavaler “Gothic Architecture and the Autumn of the Middle Ages,” in The Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity, ed. Richard Etlin (Cambridge, UK, 2022), vol. 1, 506–16. Consideration of late styles is a component of the historiography of other eras and cultures. Within the study of Antiquity, concepts of lateness have been used to underscore broad social phenomena and moments of continuity and decline. Alois Riegl first rejected the notion of decline with respect to the study of “Late Antiquity.” See Alois Riegl, Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik (Berlin, 1893); translated as Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament, trans. Evelyn Kain, ed. David ­Castriota (Princeton, 2018); Alois Riegl, Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie nach den Funden in Österreich-Ungarn im Zusammenhange mit der Gesamtentwicklung der Bildenden Künste bei den Mittelmeervölkern (Vienna, 1927). As Alina Payne observes, the art of the 17th century was “held to be a degeneration of the Renaissance” until the late 19th century, when old prejudices against the Baroque were eroded gradually—a process hastened by the use of the term “early modern,” which helped collapse some boundaries (“Introduction,” pp. xxv–xlvi). Theories of lateness also inform interpretations and critiques of ­modern architecture. See Peter Eisenman and Elisa Iturbe, Lateness (Princeton, 2020). Białostocki, “Late Gothic,” pp. 76–105. William W. Clark, “Gothic Architecture,” in Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, ed. William W. Kibler, Grover A. Zinn, Lawrence Earp, and John Bell Henneman, Jr. (London, 1995), pp. 404–05.

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late Gothic architecture has seldom figured p ­ ositively—if at all—into the prevailing narratives of art and architectural history. Still, recent scholarship has sought to untangle late Gothic from these issues by instead evaluating or reevaluating the work of architects and craftspeople of the era on its own merits and better situating the monuments in their

Figure 3 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Louviers, France, view of south porch, ca. 1506–10 source: K. G. Sweeney

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social, historical, and cultural contexts. In many cases, although key aspects of design and structure remained rooted in earlier practices, the circumstances of construction during the late Gothic period differed from those of the preceding centuries. Shifts in the performance of the liturgy and related practices led to new constructs of sacred space, which could be animated, accentuated, or demarcated by new pulpits, sacrament houses, reliquaries, and baptismal font covers—many of which took on the appearance of microarchitecture.21 One must also account for major demographic shifts, which resulted in both the rise of new social classes and new patterns of patronage. As cities grew in size, wealth, and prestige beginning in the second half of the 15th century, urban patrons sought opportunities to showcase their prosperity and piety by commissioning new fashionable monuments or expansions to existing structures and/or their furnishings.22 Architects designed imaginative, visually complex polygonal façades and projecting porches that were integrated carefully with the surrounding urban fabric, creating dramatic scenographic vistas, which seduced visitors and reflected the wealth and refined tastes of burgher patrons, such as those of Louviers (Figure 3).23 Although recent studies about the interpretation of late Gothic architecture and related issues have done much to unlink ‘lateness’ from older notions of decline, decadence, and corruption, current and future work should continue to investigate and highlight the intrinsic value of the works themselves, including their ornamentation and designs. The aesthetics and virtuosity of late Gothic ornament reflected the new privilege afforded to the sense of sight in the late medieval city, the availability of highly skilled craftspeople, and new modes of describing and quantifying artisanal labor.24 Indeed, the spread of intricate, lacelike stone façades; ornate, 21

22

23 24

Paul Crossley, “The Man from Inner Space: Architecture and Meditation in the Choir of St. Laurence of Nuremberg,” in Medieval Art: Recent Perspectives; A Memorial Tribute to C.R. Dodwell, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Timothy Graham (Manchester, 1998), pp. 165–82; see also, Norbert Nussbaum, “Space and Form Redefined. Paradigm Shifts in German Architecture, 1350–1550,” in La Piedra Postrera. V Centenario de la conclusión de la Catedral de Sevilla, ed. Alfonso Jiménez Martín (Salamanca, 2007), pp. 305–27. On microarchitecture, see, among others, Ambre Vilain and Jean-Marie Guillouët, Microarchitectures médiévales: L’échelle à l’épreuve de la matière (Paris, 2018); Achim Timmermann, Real Presence: Sacrament Houses and the Body of Christ, c.1270–1600 (Turnhout, 2009). Linda Elaine Neagley, “Late Gothic Architecture and Vision: Re-presentation, Scenography, and Illusionism,” in Reading Gothic Architecture, ed. Matthew M. Reeve (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 37–55; see also, Katherine M. Boivin, Riemenschneider in Rothenburg: Sacred Space and Civic Identity in the Late Medieval City (University Park, 2021). Neagley, “Late Gothic Architecture and Vision,” p. 45. Ibid; see also, Alfred Crosby, The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250–1600 (­Cambridge, UK, 1997).

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Figure 4 Nonnberg Benedictine Church, Salzburg, Austria, ca. 1493–1506 source: K. G. Sweeney

decorative vaults; and openwork spires across Europe underscores the creative possibilities afforded by late Gothic articulation that could be realized by talented craftspeople who created structures for visual delight and conspicuous consumption as opposed to merely functional spaces.25 The technical mastery and extravagance of late Gothic ornament was so advanced in the 16th century that witty architects “deconstructed” their designs or even created the illusion of fixing ‘damaged’ vaults with fictive ‘bolts’ and ‘boards’ that reconnected or reinforced ‘broken’ ribs (Figure 4).26 Some of this experimentation speaks to the surplus of sophisticated craftsmanship and increasing specialization within the late Gothic workshop, which continued to devise innovative techniques and theories that added to the complexity of new projects, as well as to their expense, which occasionally led to conflicts between patrons and architects.27 Perhaps less apparent but of equal importance to the visual splendor 25 26 27

Ethan Matt Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540 (New Haven, 2012). Ethan Matt Kavaler, “Architectural Wit: Playfulness and Deconstruction in the Gothic of the Sixteenth Century,” in Reeve, Reading Gothic Architecture, pp. 139–50. On techniques and theories, see, for example, Jean-Marie Guillouët, Flamboyant ­Architecture and Medieval Technicality (c.1400–1530): A Micro-History of the Rise of A ­ rtistic ­Consciousness at the End of Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2019); Norbert Nussbaum, “Patterns of Modernity. German Late Gothic Architecture Reconsidered,” in Le Gothique de la

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of the late Gothic were aspects of the design and construction process itself, including the masterful application of geometry, the use of detailed architectural drawings for various purposes, as well as the circulation and exchange of architectural knowledge and construction practices across cultures.28 What emerges from these and other examples is that Gothic was not an aesthetic in decline; rather, it was a living tradition enlivened by local customs and practices that was further enriched by the ongoing development of a wide variety of forms created by architects, masons, and other artisans—some of whom worked at multiple sites, traveled to participate in expertises, or otherwise facilitated the exchange of architectural knowledge.29 This culture of experimentation and exchange, however, is perhaps a factor that hastened the fascinating instances of “collision and hybridity” with classical forms that occurred in many places across Europe by the first quarter of the 16th century.30 The Italian Wars of Charles VIII (r. 1483–98) and Louis XII (r. 1498–1515) put the French in direct contact with the visual culture of the Italian Renaissance. After the First Italian War (1494–95), architects, sculptors, and artists from the peninsula appeared on the worksites of French châteaux, such as those at

­renaissance, ed. Monique Chatenet, Krista de Jonge, Ethan Matt Kavaler, and Norbert Nussbaum (Paris, 2011), pp. 9–18. Roulland Le Roux was reprimanded by the canons of Rouen Cathedral in 1512 for overworking the stones and sculptures intended for the upper portions of the central portal of the west façade. See Charles de Robillard de Beaurepaire, “Notes sur les architectes de Rouen,” Bulletin de la Société des Amis des Monuments rouennais IV (1904–06): 120. 28 On geometry, see Robert Bork, The Geometry of Creation: Architectural Drawing and the Dynamics of Gothic Design (Burlington, 2011). On drawing, see Costanza Beltrami, Building a Crossing Tower: A Design for Rouen Cathedral of 1516 (London, 2016). On ­intercultural exchange, see, among others, Jakub Adamski, “The von der Heyde Chapel at Legnica in Silesia and the Early Phase of the French Flamboyant Style,” Gesta 58, no. 2 (2019): 183–205; Linda Elaine Neagley, “Maestre Carlín and ‘Proto’ Flamboyant Architecture of Rouen (c.1380–1430),” in La piedra postrera: Simposium Internacional sobre la catedral de Sevilla en el contexto del gótico final, ed. Alfonso Jiménez Martín (Seville, 2007), pp. 47–59; James Ackerman,“‘Ars Sine Scientia Nihil Est’: Gothic Theory of Architecture at the ­Cathedral of Milan,” The Art Bulletin 31, no. 2 (June 1949): 84–111. 29 Expert masons from Chartres, Beauvais, Harfleur, Carentan, and elsewhere traveled to Rouen for an expertise in February 1516 to examine the cathedral and voice their opinions regarding a proposal to construct a new stone crossing tower. For a useful side-by-side presentation of the Latin text and an English translation, see Beltrami, Building a Crossing Tower, pp. 128–29. 30 Bork, Late Gothic Architecture, pp. 223–320. On coexistence, interaction, and hybridity more broadly, see Peter Burke, Hybrid Renaissance: Culture, Language, Architecture (­Budapest, 2016), esp. chs. 1 and 3.

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Figure 5 Hector Sohier, Church of Saint-Pierre, Caen, France, chevet, ca. 1518–45 source: K. G. Sweeney

Amboise and Gaillon, among others.31 Still, many of these structures remained rooted in medieval design and construction practices, though the ornamentation began to change perceptibly as imported forms entered the decorative repertoire of stone carvers north of the Alps. The mix of Gothic structure and design theory with decoration à l’antique is equally striking at the church of Saint-Pierre, Caen, where Hector Sohier designed and built a new chevet between 1518 and 1545 (Figure 5).32 The plan, structure, massing, and overall silhouette remained traditionally French Gothic, but Italianate ornamentation and motifs were selected instead to articulate and decorate both the interior and exterior of the new addition. On the outside, candelabras were substituted for pinnacles; round arches replaced pointed arches; and rinceaux, putti, and portrait-like medallions were added to spaces where Flamboyant double-curve tracery would have been typical only a few decades prior. This program is ­further enlivened by four tiers of Gothic gargoyles resting atop Corinthian pilasters connected by a series of classicizing moldings and architraves. Inside, effusive classicizing decoration encrusts the intrados of the ribbed vaults of the radiating chapels. The combination of elements may seem incompatible, 31

Flaminia Bardati, “Il bel palatio in forma di castello”: Gaillon tra Flamboyant e R ­ inascimento (Rome, 2009); see also Jean Pierre Babelon, Le château en France (Paris, 1988). 32 Frankl, Gothic Architecture, 2nd ed., p. 258.

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but Sohier clearly made choices in an attempt to create an integrated, cohesive, and logical design that may not have been viewed as transitional but, rather, as au courant and perhaps reflective of the exchange of architectural knowledge that resulted from the ongoing Italian Wars.33 But the intermingling of late Gothic and classical forms in both secular and ecclesiastical structures across Europe has presented interpretive hurdles for art and architectural historians because they defy classification, challenge periodizations, and disrupt neat narratives.34 The period between the 1490s and 1530 is particularly thorny across Western Europe, including the British Isles and Iberia. This has led to some monuments, which seem to belong neither to the Middle Ages nor the Renaissance, to be viewed by some as experimental, confused, transitional, and, in the case of the church of Saint-Eustache in Paris, “a kind of Gothic skeleton clothed in Roman rags and stitched together like the pieces of a harlequin’s costume”35 (Figure 0.11). Similar issues characterize the design and decorations of medieval churches in East-Central and Eastern Europe, where Gothic and classical features are integrated in buildings designed according to Byzantine and Slavic traditions. In the Carpathian Mountain regions, for example, workshop practices coupled with the desires of the patron yielded monuments that include variants of the Schulterbogenportal (shoulder-arch portal) set at the thresholds in the interiors of early 16th-century churches, juxtaposing Gothic forms with rounded arches (­Figure 6). Such examples demonstrate the availability of diverse models to local masons and patrons alike, as well as artistic choices that surpass stylistic parameters. These fascinating examples—in which an architect and workshops navigated between distinct modes of structure, design, and ornamentation—underscore why scholars must continue 33 34

35

For more on issues related to the unity of style, transitions, and the origins of the Gothic, see Willibald Sauerländer, “Style or Transition? The Fallacies of Classification Discussed in the Light of German Architecture, 1190–1260,” Architectural History 30 (1987): 1–29. See, for example, Anne-Marie Sankovitch, The Church of Saint-Eustache in the Early French Renaissance (Turnhout, 2015); idem, “A Reconsideration of French Renaissance Church Architecture,” in L’église dans l’architecture de la Renaissance: Actes du colloque tenu à Tours du 28 au 31 mai 1990, ed. Jean Guillaume (Paris, 1995), pp. 161–80; Henri Zerner, “The Gothic in the Renaissance,” in Renaissance Art in France: The Invention of Classicism (Paris, 2003), pp. 11–54; Chatenet, de Jonge, Kavaler, and Nussbaum, Gothique de la Renaissance; Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye, Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, and Thierry Crépin-Leblond, France 1500: Entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance (Paris, 2010); Jean Guillaume, ed., L’invention de la Renaissance: La réception des formes ‘à l’antique’ au début de la Renaissance (Paris, 2003); Norbert Nussbaum, “Gothic and Renaissance,” in German Gothic Church Architecture (New Haven, 2000), pp. 219–28. This critique was made by Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc. See David Thomson, Renaissance Paris: Architecture and Growth, 1475–1600 (Berkeley, 1984), p. 187.

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to overcome the false barriers created by typical academic periodizations and do more to understand the decision-making processes of patrons, architects,

Figure 6 Church of Saint Nicholas, Probota Monastery, Moldavia, modern Romania, interior of pronaos, looking toward the east, 1530 source: A. I. Sullivan

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and artists who negotiated the modernity of the Gothic and the antiquity of the Renaissance in diverse cultural contexts. Several scholars have already begun confronting the local negotiations between modernity (Gothic) with Antiquity (classical) head-on.36 Ethan Matt Kavaler published in 2012 his provocative study entitled Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540, which surveys the visual splendor of this architecture and its ornamentation while calling for additional work on its meanings. In Kavaler’s work, the shifting use and various functions of ornament (e.g. rich decorative carvings) take center stage, as do local cultural interventions that enabled such visual transformations in late Gothic architecture. Furthermore, Gothic architecture, as Stephen Murray summarizes, “has been interpreted as a sign of startling modernism: resulting not from slavish imitation—neither of nature nor of other buildings—but from a priori application of reason and ongoing creativity.”37 More recently, Robert Bork’s volume Late Gothic Archi­tecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception provides scholars with a much-needed synthetic, chronological narrative that traces the development of Gothic in Western and Central Europe well into the 16th century. Late Gothic, as such, offers a break with the classical and early medieval pasts, yet it eventually began to enter into a renewed dialogue with classical forms, as well as Romanesque and early Gothic models. 1.1 Negotiating the Gothic Canon Part of the late Gothic creative process itself could be informed by viewing the wide variety of great 12th- and 13th-century churches and abbeys that were still standing and quickly became important emblems of cultural heritage, national pride, and local prestige.38 Such monuments were valuable examples of Gothic design and ingenuity, helping inform the approach of later masters. Indeed, the 36

37 38

Anne-Marie Sankovitch, “Structure/Ornament and the Modern Figuration of ­ rchitecture,” The Art Bulletin 80, no. 4 (December 1998): 687–717; Stephen Murray, A “The Production of Meaning,” in Plotting Gothic (Chicago, 2014), pp. 133–75, esp. 153–63; Flaminia Bardati, “Flamboyant e première Renaissance: Due modernità a confronto,” in Renaissance Studies in Honor of Joseph Connors, ed. Machtelt Israëls and Louis Alexander Waldman, 2 vols (Florence, 2013), 1:514–19. Murray, Plotting Gothic, p. 153. Both Paul Binski and Erik Inglis have written about the rise of French “architectural ‘nationalism’ in the late Middle Ages.” One illustrative example is from the mid-­15thcentury Débat des hérauts d’armes de France et d’Angleterre, in which French and English churches are compared rather bluntly by an anonymous author: “Do you have churches of such decoration and magnificence as Notre-Dame of Paris, Chartres, Rouen, Amiens, Reims, Bourges? ​​I believe that you have nothing approaching them; and it is not worth arguing … as those who have been in both kingdoms can speak the truth.” See Paul Binski,

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merits of early and High Gothic churches were discussed and debated in active workshops—a practice that played a key role in the education and training of a new generation of late Gothic masons. As Murray points out, late Gothic masons “often received their training in workshops charged with the completion or maintenance and repair of High Gothic edifices.”39 The three major commissions of Martin Chambiges (1460–1532), a renowned Parisian architect, for example, were all projects intended to complete older Gothic cathedrals. Workshop practices and this approach to training new apprentices, Murray explains, helped extend older Gothic traditions and forms into the 14th century and beyond. This practice also plays out in the 1455–56 documents related to the design and construction of the west towers of Troyes Cathedral, in which Master Bluet spoke to the importance of examining the cathedrals of Reims, Amiens, and Paris as possible sources of inspiration.40 The fact that the master made drawings of their portals and towers alongside his companions demonstrates the currency and relevance of older Gothic models in 15th- and 16th-century workshop culture. Such sentiments are echoed, moreover, in documents removed from construction sites and builders. Erik Inglis observes that the mid-15th-century secretary to Charles d’Orléans, in a prologue to a book he was writing, praised the cathedrals in Bourges, Soissons, Laon, and Paris and declared that Amiens “is the most beautiful church,” though, “there are still those who prefer Chartres.”41 That these two-hundred-year-old buildings apparently still played a role in public discourse could have inspired new patrons, who may have considered commissioning new building projects that were evocative of the past due to the perception of beauty attached to such monuments, their continuing presence in public consciousness, and their allusions to a real or imagined glorious past. Furthermore, new French Flamboyant monuments integrated conservative forms and retrospective sentiments derived from local High Gothic models in their designs and ornamentation. As Roland Sanfaçon explains, “Toutes les régions ont retrouvé à l’époque flamboyante leur passé artistique” (All regions rediscovered their artistic past during the Flamboyant era).42 Linda Neagley cites several examples of this trend, such as the Flamboyant Gothic Gothic Wonder, 5, as well as Erik Inglis, Jean Fouquet and the Invention of France: Art and Nation after the Hundred Years War (New Haven, 2011), 200–203. 39 Stephen Murray, Beauvais Cathedral: Architecture of Transcendence (Princeton, 1989), p. 133. 40 Stephen Murray, Building Troyes Cathedral: The Late Gothic Campaigns (Bloomington, 1987), pp. 149–50. 41 Inglis, Jean Fouquet, p. 199. Inglis cites Antonio Astesano, Éloge descriptif de la ville de Paris et des principales villes de France, prologue to his Epistolae haeroicae, ed. Le Roux de Lincy and L. M. Tisserand (Paris, 1867), pp. 528–77. 42 Roland Sanfaçon, L’architecture flamboyante en France (Québec, 1971), p. 75. The original edition of this volume was republished and expanded with several new essays and an - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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parish church of Saint-Pierre, Coutances, which she describes as a “smaller version” of the city’s older cathedral.43 The parish church of Saint-Maclou, Rouen, which is frequently noted for its innovative features, nevertheless imitates elements of the city’s much larger, older cathedral, giving it an overall effect of “monumental architecture in miniature,” which underscored the prosperity and sophistication of its urban merchant-class patrons.44 High Gothic traditions also seem to have informed many aspects of the design of Notre-Dame de l’Épine (1410–ca.1524), which is strikingly conservative in both its basilica plan and the “retrograde” articulation of its three-part elevation.45 In this case, master masons were seemingly inspired by aspects of the nearby 13th-century cathedral of Reims, whose High Gothic characteristics, such as its three-part elevation, were miniaturized at l’Épine. Such archaizing design decisions—the nave of Reims predates that of l’Épine by over two hundred years—point to “a voluntarily retrospective act with a symbolic and ideological value” on the part of the patrons and/or master masons, as Henri Zerner notes.46 Robert Bork and Maile S. Hutterer, in their respective chapters in this volume, further explore the relevance of 13th-century architecture in the late Gothic period. 1.2 Late Gothic Architecture and Historicism Architects operating around the turn of the 16th century also consulted Romanesque monuments as sources of inspiration and, in some cases, carefully integrated or preserved older elements of these buildings in their designs for later renovations or expansions. In an era when patrons and architects could choose the ‘modern’ (i.e. Gothic) mode or the antique alternative, local Romanesque monuments could serve as potential models for those preferring the latter. Stephan Hoppe observes that, after 1513, Hans Schweiner, the architect of the west tower of the church of St. Kilian in Heilbronn, Germany, shifted from a ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’ Gothic design in the process of construction to one informed by specific components of Romanesque buildings in his own region, extensive, updated bibliography. See Stéphanie-Diane Daussy-Timbert, ed. L’architecture flamboyante en France: Autour de Roland Sanfaçon. Lille, 2020. 43 Linda Elaine Neagley, Disciplined Exuberance: The Parish Church of Saint-Maclou and Late Gothic Architecture in Rouen (University Park, 1998), p. 74. Other examples she mentions include the parish church of Saint-Séverin, Paris, and the choir of the church of Saint-­ Vincent, Rouen. 44 Neagley, Disciplined Exuberance, pp. 71–77; idem, “The Flamboyant Architecture of St.-Maclou, Rouen, and the Development of a Style,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 47, no. 4 (1988): 376 (for quotation). 45 Henri Zerner, Renaissance Art in France: The Invention of Classicism (Paris, 2004), pp. 24–25. 46 Ibid., p. 25. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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which he employed instead of searching out actual antique models further afield.47 In this way, Hoppe demonstrates that builders could turn to local Romanesque monuments as sources of knowledge about classical architecture in order to “refresh and update contemporary architectural practice with the new interest in antiquity.”48 In other cases, Romanesque monuments or components of such structures could be attributed to Antiquity or could serve as a proxy or symbol of the past, imbuing a medieval building with greater historical significance.49 Evidence of this can be seen in French Flanders, as Michalis Olympios demonstrates in a study of the collegiate church of Saint-Omer, where a decision was made during the mid-15th century enlargement of the north transept to preserve its existing Romanesque apsidiole, which was subsequently recontextualized as a surrogate for the long-gone 7th-century fabric of the church and refashioned as a site of institutional history.50 This type of reading puts into conversation stylistically disparate architectural elements, encouraging investigation of their interdependencies, interrelationships, and the creation of meaning. Such approaches can help us understand the motivations of patrons and architects who chose to combine deeply retrospective forms characteristic of late Antiquity, the early Middle Ages, and/or Byzantium with modern or progressive features. Along those lines, it has been well established that accounts of medieval buildings by contemporary authors often contain references to the ancient and early Christian worlds. Abbot Suger commented on the “wonderful” columns of the Baths of Diocletian and the superiority of the ornament and treasures of

47 48

49 50

Stephan Hoppe, “Northern Gothic, Italian Renaissance and Beyond: Towards a Thick Description of Style,” in Chatenet, de Jonge, Kavaler, and Nussbaum, Gothique de la Renaissance, p. 52. Hoppe goes on to argue that Romanesque monuments could themselves be “perceived as classical antiquity” in the “circles of painters and the master builders” based on early 16th-century descriptions of theologians in southern Germany (“Northern Gothic,” pp. 53–56). The reception of Romanesque architecture in 15th- and early 16th-century ­Germany and issues related to “traditional and general art historical (period) style labels” are explored further in Hoppe’s chapter entitled “Translating the Past: Local Romanesque Architecture in Germany and Its Fifteenth-Century Reinterpretation,” in The Quest for an Appropriate Past in Literature, Art and Architecture, ed. Karl A. E. Enenkel and Konrad A. Ottenheym (Leiden, 2018), pp. 511–85. For a variety of examples, see Konrad Adriaan Ottenheym, ed., Romanesque ­Renaissance: Carolingian, Byzantine and Romanesque Buildings (800–1200) as a Source for new ­All’Antica Architecture in Early Modern Europe (1400–1700) (Leiden, 2021). Michalis Olympios, “The Romanesque as Relic: Architecture and Institutional Memory at the Collegiate Church of Saint-Omer,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 77, no. 1 (2018): 10–28.

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Hagia Sophia.51 He had installed a mosaic in the tympanum of the north portal of the west façade of the abbey church of Saint-Denis, though it was “contrary to modern custom” and instead evocative of early Christian churches in Rome.52 ­Allusions to the glorious past can also be detected in structural devices, such as the cylindrical columns and carved capitals of Notre-Dame, Paris, which have drawn a great deal of interest from scholars,53 as well as the striking marble supports and classicizing foliate capitals of the Trinity Chapel at Canterbury Cathedral.54 In addition, words, structures, and rhetorical strategies employed in classical literary texts, such as Horace’s Ars poetica, informed critiques of Romanesque architectural sculpture and Hiberno-Saxon manuscript illuminations by 12th-century writers.55 The south transept stained glass of Chartres Cathedral also alludes to contemporary appreciation of Antiquity with its ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’ program that underscores the intellectual role of the cathedral schools in the medieval world and their place in the history of learning more broadly. There were a variety of ongoing touch points with Antiquity during the Middle Ages—both rhetorically and visually—that helped people understand how the achievements of the ancients related to the new developments of their own age as master masons engaged with and pushed past the accomplishments of their predecessors. 51 Panofsky, Abbot Suger, pp. 64–65, 90–91. 52 Panofsky, Abbot Suger, p. 47. Roland Recht, Believing and Seeing: The Art of the Gothic Cathedrals, trans. Mary Whittall (Chicago, 2008), p. 111. For more on Suger’s negotiation of ancient and modern at Saint-Denis, see Eric Fernie, “Suger’s ‘Completion’ of Saint-Denis,” in Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, ed. Kathryn Brush, Peter Draper, and Virginia Chieffo Raguin (Toronto, 1995), pp. 84–91, and, in the same volume, William W. Clark, “‘The Recollection of the Past is the Promise of the Future.’ Continuity and Contextuality: Saint-Denis, Merovingians, Capetians, and Paris,” pp. 92–113. 53 Willibald Sauerländer, “‘Première architecture gothique’ or Romanesque of the Twelfth Century? Changing Perspectives of Evaluation in Architectural History,” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium Occasional Papers 2 (1985): 25–44. See also Marvin Trachtenberg’s ­discussion of “classical-looking columns” in Gothic churches (“Desedimenting Time: Gothic Column / Paradigm Shifter,” RES 40 [2001]: 5–28). 54 Peter Draper, “Canterbury Cathedral: Classical Columns in the Trinity Chapel?,” Architectural History 44 (2001): 175–76. Draper notes that the columnar piers “were designed consciously to carry the appearance and connotations of Roman Corinthian” and places them within the broader context of the mid-12th-century interest in the Roman and early Christian pasts as reflected in the churches of Saint-Remi, Reims, and Saint-Denis, among others.” 55 See, for example, John Gage, “Horatian Reminiscences in Two Twelfth-Century Art ­Critics, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 36 (1973): 359–60, and T. A. Heslop, “Late Twelfth-Century Writing about Art, and Aesthetic Relativity,” in Owen-Crocker and Graham, Medieval Art, pp. 129–41.

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Figure 7 Saint Wenceslas Chapel, Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, 1358–66 source: DXR / Wikimedia Commons

The juxtaposition of old and new became an important strategy in the late Gothic period to highlight notions of legacy, continuity with the past, and legitimacy, while fostering collective identity and cultivating a unique sense of place. The new chapel of Saint Wenceslas at Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, which was completed by Peter Parler in 1366, was seemingly designed in a “deliberately archaizing” manner, with its dark wall paintings, bejeweled dado, and round-headed portal invoking early Christian, Italo-Byzantine, and Romanesque architecture (Figure 7).56 These choices helped artificially age the late Gothic chapel, giving it the aura of a space much older than it is. Such strategies conveyed visually the spatial relationship and ideological links between Wenceslas’s 10th-century rotunda, his grave, and the new chapel, which was built atop the old sacred sites and incorporated into the new light-filled fabric of the striking Gothic cathedral. Peter Parler’s work at 56 Bork, Late Gothic, p. 83. See also Paul Crossley and Zoë Opačić, “Prague as a New Capital,” in Prague: The Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437, ed. Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiří Fajt (New York, 2005), p. 68.

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once respected the ancient sanctity of this particular space through the use of sophisticated ornament associated with the era of Wenceslas I, while elevating the cult of the patron saint of Bohemia through the application of innovative yet elegant Gothic design and vaulting techniques that dramatically enhanced the display of the tomb and relics. The myriad ways late Gothic architects engaged with the past to inform the practice of their craft led to many variations and transformations of old designs and traditional structures. Indeed, after 1300, we might speak not so much of a Gothic style as of a Gothic tradition, which was adapted and reimagined in a variety of local contexts as both technology and the craft of masonry became increasingly sophisticated and generated new possibilities. This seems especially pertinent when we arrive at the 16th century, and patrons and architects had clear options with respect to choosing a modern (i.e. Gothic) or classicizing stylistic aesthetic for their new buildings. Late Gothic might be even better regarded as a creative mode, however, as opposed to a homogenous style based on rigid principles, immutable theories, and universally applied forms.57 Sanfaçon suggested something to this effect when he wrote of “the discovery of logic in individual expression” and surveyed the subsequent profusion, “expansibility,” and variety of late Gothic forms that spread across many regions of France beginning in the 14th century.58 This would suggest a gradual shift on the part of architects to break away from the past and the restraints of old models (i.e. rejecting historicism) in favor of developing new, modern solutions that satisfied the needs and desires of new patrons. Such impulses, however, may be detected already in the Gothic of the 13th century. Indeed, Matthew M. Reeve’s study of Salisbury Cathedral demonstrates that an awareness of the modernity of Gothic pervades many aspects of the design and decoration of the church, which eschews antique references to promote a forward-looking vision of the future based on religious reform.59 The total effect of the new construction was such that 13th-century observers celebrated the cathedral as a “wonder of novelty!” (O rerum novitas) and described it as “new and wonderful” (nova et mirabilis).60 Indeed, as the only English Gothic cathedral built on a virgin site, Salisbury’s design and ornamentation, as Christopher Wilson notes, likely became “the very model of Gothic modernity.”61 In other 57

Nussbaum, “Patterns of Modernity,” p. 9. For more on issues related to style, see Willibald Sauerländer, “From Stilus to Style: Reflections on the Fate of a Notion,” Art History 6, no. 3 (1983): 253–70. 58 Sanfaçon, L’architecture flamboyante, esp. chs. 1, 2, and 5. 59 Matthew M. Reeve, Thirteenth-Century Wall Painting of Salisbury Cathedral: Art, Liturgy, and Reform (Woodbridge, 2008), esp. pp. 27–30. 60 Ibid., p. 49. 61 Christopher Wilson, The Gothic Cathedral (London, 1990), p. 174.

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words, Gothic emerged as a mode that offered new possibilities and an increasingly modern alternative to legacy construction practices rooted in or derived from the traditions of the ancient world. Although it tends to dispense with historical legacy, late Gothic demonstrates a new kind of interaction with the classical past, not as a return to historicism but something new—a kind of confrontation, exchange, and incorporation of classical features in decorative elements. As Marvin Trachtenberg argues, the shrinkage and disappearance of capitals and bundles of continuous vertical moldings in place of columnar supports suggests a break with, or ­independence from, the historicist past, while active workshops c­ ontinued to receive commissions from new classes of patrons, who were active participants and consumers in the Gothic sociocultural construct, in some places into the 16th century.62 A continuation of a two-hundred-year-old tradition but with innovative approaches to space and articulation, late Gothic remained a system of design and construction based on a linear framework manipulated through the adept use of geometry and intended to accommodate large expanses of stained glass that showcased the decorative possibilities of bar t­ racery.63 Further, late Gothic design theory was a key aspect of the creative process and the proliferation of regional styles and variations well beyond Western Europe. But was this living tradition modern and progressive or retardataire? Although the “medieval modernism” paradigm continues to be debated, its p ­ roblematization of existing periodizations and terminology invites further exploration to examine how the concepts of modernity and lateness shaped the study of Gothic architecture, its ornamentation, and its reception.64 The issue of modernity in the study of Gothic art and architecture is closely linked to that of reception. How contemporary viewers understood the ­spatial and visual articulations of their surroundings helps illuminate these intricately designed and decorated buildings that offered something ‘new’ yet difficult to capture in full linguistically. This issue came to light in the 2021 ­exhibition at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin provocatively entitled “Late Gothic: Birth 62

Marvin Trachtenberg, “Suger’s Miracles, Branner’s Bourges: Reflections on ‘Gothic ­ rchitecture’ as Medieval Modernism,” Gesta 39, no. 2 (2000): 188–89. A 63 For more on ‘defining’ late Gothic, see Linda Elaine Neagley, “Late Gothic Architecture,” in The Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity, ed. Richard Etlin (Cambridge, UK, 2022), vol. 1, 495–505. 64 See Trachtenberg, “Suger’s Miracles,” idem, “Gothic/Italian ‘Gothic’: Toward a ­Redefinition,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 50 (1991): 22–37, and idem, “Desedimenting Time,” pp. 5–28. For responses to “medieval modernism,” see Paul Binski, “The Heroic Age of Gothic and the Metaphors of Modernism,” Gesta 52, no. 1 (2013): 3–19; Eric Fernie, “Medieval Modernism and the Origins of Gothic,” in Reeve, Reading Gothic Architecture, pp. 11–24.

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of Modernity.” Featuring 130 objects, this was “the first ever comprehensive exhibition in the German-speaking world on late Gothic art.”65 The ­exhibition pursued ‘modern’ aspects in the art of this time.66 As the introduction to the catalog states: “Our exhibition ... examines precisely these progressive ­tendencies of the long transitional period between the two epochs, c­ overing the time roughly between 1430 and 1500” when “contemporary artists and patrons saw the art produced in central Europe neither as ‘late Gothic’ nor as ‘modern,’ but simply as current.”67 This art of the moment—that is, of a particular time and place—defined relative to past accomplishments and new innovations is a kind of modernity characterized by creativity, cultural references, and stylistic negotiations, as well as its own logic and theory. This is evident in artworks but also, and perhaps more poignantly, in architecture.68 This volume offers a step forward, but more work is needed to understand the continued and persistent presence of Gothic architecture after the era of High Gothic cathedrals and in localities often excluded from mainstream narratives driven by old theories of stylistic progression that privilege singular moments in architectural history, which all too often become detached from broader artistic, social, and cultural contexts. Indeed, studies such as Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood’s Anachronic Renaissance, Jacques Le Goff’s Must We Divide History Into Periods?, and a series of publications by Marvin Trachtenberg and Anne-Marie Sankovitch have suggested that the division of architectural history into rigid periods principally defined by the evolution of formal attributes poorly reflects the ongoing transformations and innovations realized by master masons, stone carvers, carpenters, painters, and glazers skilled in Gothic theories of design rooted in active workshops that flourished and flaunted their technical virtuosity well into the 16th century across Europe, the ­Mediterranean, and the Americas.69

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The exhibition, entitled Spätgotik Aufbruch in die Neuzeit in German, was accompanied by a catalog: Julien Chapuis, Svea Janzen, Stephan Kemperdick, Lothar Lambacher, Jan Friedrich Richter, and Michael Roth, Late Gothic: Birth of Modernity (Berlin, 2021). 66 Julien Chapuis, “Introduction: On Images and Their Use,” in Chapuis et al., Late Gothic, p. 13. 67 Ibid. 68 The graphic arts—Northern Renaissance or International Gothic panel painting, ­sculpture, prints, etc.—have received far more scholarly attention than late Gothic architecture. Also, the interrelationships between architecture and other forms of artwork in current scholarship seldom feature together in terms of spatial experience. For more on these issues, see the chapter by Robert Bork. 69 Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (New York, 2010); Jacques Le Goff, Must We Divide History into Periods?, trans. Malcolm Debevoise (New

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Chapter Overviews

The essays are organized into three sections related to key issues and themes pertaining to the interpretation and study of architecture in the period between the 14th and 16th centuries: “Space and Reception: Western Perspectives,” “Experimentation and Innovation in Central Europe,” and “Global Gothics on the Margins of Europe and Beyond.” The individual chapters in this volume address historiographic, methodological, or theoretical concerns related to the study of architecture and its forms, focusing on the legibility and currency of medieval stylistic conventions across cultures over time; the relationships between monumental architecture and other forms of artistic expression, as well as the role of ornament as bearer of cultural meaning and identity; the coexistence of Gothic and antique features and the attribution of meaning; issues of eclecticism in architecture; and hierarchies, integration, or marginalization of style(s) in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Americas. The initial historiographic chapter by Robert Bork sets the stage for the individual contributions to follow and helps specialists and students alike understand why this lacuna in the history of architecture invites investigation. In the first section—“Space and Reception: Western Perspectives”—the chapters explore how religious texts, architectural treatises, and modes of representation contributed to the design, development, depiction, and reception of built environments and architectural features north of the Alps during the 15th and 16th centuries. Chapter 1, by Maile S. Hutterer, questions modes of representing real and imagined Gothic structures, as well as their underlying meanings and functions. The chapter focuses on a fantastical chapel that features in a series of miniatures in the Grandes chroniques de France (Paris, ­Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 6465). Through the key Gothic features of this structure, the artist, Jean Fouquet, deliberately drew on identifiable building typologies of the recent past to underscore larger messages related to a local uninterrupted Frankish rule, which would have been evident to an elite, learned audience. Artistic choices and the link between architecture and its ornamentation also take center stage in Chapter 2. Abby ­McGehee examines the complicated relationship that emerged in the 16th ­century between late Gothic and emerging classical/Renaissance forms through the ornamentation of the parish church of Caudebec-en-Caux and its limited reception. In Chapter 3, Zachary Stewart addresses the transition between the so-called Decorated and Perpendicular styles in late medieval York, 2015); Trachtenberg, “Suger’s Miracles, Branner’s Bourges,” pp. 183–205; Sankovitch, “Structure/Ornament,” pp. 687–717.

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England through the lens of early writers who sought to explain historical, artistic, and architectural changes through coded language that juxtaposed ‘medieval’ and ‘modern’ temporal paradigms. Issues of reception, language, and historiography are also the focus of Chapter 4 by Flaminia Bardati, which investigates textual sources from the 16th to the 18th centuries in relation to actual well-known French buildings in order to elucidate changing perceptions of the coexistence of Gothic and Renaissance forms. The book’s second section—“Experimentation and Innovation in Central Europe”—reveals how texts, maps, prints, and other mechanisms of cultural exchange inspired striking elements of fantasy and inventiveness in the structural forms and decoration featured on ecclesiastical and secular buildings across the kingdoms of Poland and Bohemia and beyond. Chapter 5 by Jakub Adamski examines the origins of this creative impulse relative to the stylistic innovation of religious buildings from around 1300 along the border of France and the Holy Roman Empire. The author interrogates the use of periodization labels and other ahistorical terms in historiographical contexts and underscores the need for a nuanced analysis of style within broader historical, regional, and interregional contexts, thus moving beyond the formalist approaches that governed 19th- and 20th-century scholarship. Remaining in the realm of stylistic innovation and the relationship between architecture and its decorations, Marek Walczak addresses in Chapter 6 a particular motif in architectural sculpture—the twisted rope—that is found in the decorations of doorways and tracery configurations in Gothic buildings and may allude to the ‘natural’ origins of architecture. The study focuses primarily on the presence of this motif in the architectural projects of Jan Długosz, Poland’s most eminent historian and chronicler of the 15th century, exploring what this motif may have meant for the patron. Questioning the meanings and functions of fantastic natural sculptural details in a broader cultural and historical context, Chapter 7 by Alice Klima takes as a case study the sculptural branchwork of the Prague Cathedral Royal Oratory from ca.1500, examining the organic forms and heraldic representations in the context of Bohemia’s royal authority, political status, and religious identity within the Central European milieux. Jana Gajdošová addresses in Chapter 8 the architectural and visual complexity of the south transept façade of Prague Cathedral, which juxtaposes Peter Parler’s triradial vault and flying ribs for the porch, as well as the openwork spiral staircase and the blind tracery of the window’s crested frame, with a large mosaic decoration. This carefully planned ensemble reveals the deep authority and piety of the patron, Emperor Charles IV, his interest in the past, present, and future through artistic projects, as well as the r­ elationship that he fostered with the architect and the artist for this ­particular project.

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The chapters of the third section—“Global Gothics on the Margins of Europe and Beyond”—bring into the conversation monuments from Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Americas, which have yet to be fully ­integrated into scholarly conversations and art-historical narratives. As in the preceding chapters, the four studies in this section also address issues that allow us to engage with concepts of old, late, new, and modern, which were invented, challenged, and reimagined by patrons and architects who sought to fashion their identities in diverse, multicultural regions of the world connected by the movements of people and the legacies of their visual cultures. The rich and dynamic visual culture of the 14th-16th centuries is further reflected in the array of stylistic choices that were available to patrons and architects across East-Central and Eastern Europe, where the transfer of Gothic building practices was mediated through a variety of interlocutors who were also negotiating local visual idioms relative to Byzantine, Slavic, and classical models. In Chapter 9, Alice Isabella Sullivan demonstrates this local negotiation as reflected in three key religious structures from the Romanian principalities around the Carpathian Mountains (Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia). The coexistence of these styles, the abundance of monuments eclectic with respect to sources, and notions of nostalgia underscore the currency of especially Gothic forms in not only East-Central and Eastern European cultural contexts, but also in the Mediterranean, southwestern Europe, and the New World through the mid-16th century. Chapter 10 by Michalis Olympios engages with the architecture, decoration, and overall urban planning of the main square in the town of Famagusta around the middle of the 16th century by taking as a case study the design of the so-called Bembo Loggia and its reception among traveling pilgrims. Blending Gothic and classical elements, this structure was meant to negotiate ideologically between a Venetian presence and aspects of local Antiquity (from the 11th century onward) intimately connected with the crusader Levant and the Lusignan kingdom. In Chapter 11, Costanza Beltrami examines the tensions in the competing styles and conflicting temporalities of San Juan de los Reyes, the Franciscan convent established by Ferdinand and Isabella in Toledo in 1477. The architecture, decorations, and inscriptions of the building complicate the picture of late Gothic architecture especially in late medieval Spain. Finally, the volume closes by highlighting the relevance of the Gothic beyond continental Europe on the island of Hispaniola during the Age of Exploration. Chapter 12 by Paul Niell takes the reader to the Dominican Republic and offers an examination of the 16th-century architecture of Santo Domingo, which is rooted in medieval Spanish traditions and a stylistic modernity characteristic of contemporary Europe. The architectural forms deployed demonstrate the processes through which a colonial urban society

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was established in the Caribbean. A reconsideration of the diverse audience(s) on the island, however, suggests that efforts to decolonize the cathedral have the potential to reveal how its exterior decoration could speak across cultures, religious practices, space, and time. Indeed, in returning to Santo Domingo and the Cathedral of Santa María la Menor—which we presented at the beginning of this introduction—we see the importance of expanding the timeline, and, thereby, the geography and audience, of Gothic structures, which remained active sites of transformation and change into the sixteenth century. As new research suggests, Taíno and West African viewers of the cathedral may have ascribed their own meanings to the building’s decorative program that were drawn from their religious and cultural beliefs (Figure 12.3). What appears to be, at first glance, a façade with classicizing ornament thus offered opportunities for the colonized to appropriate the cathedral’s visual program, generating a new set of meanings beyond those originally intended by its designers. In this way, the site may have played a role in the formation of multiple identities at once, challenging assumptions that the symbolic content and function of the new architecture was accessible only to Christians of European origin or descent and raising the possibility that ­Amerindian and African “co-participants” served as “active agents and creators in its form and meaning.”70 In the years around and after 1500, then, the reception of architecture by its varied audiences—intended or otherwise—was increasingly shifting and multivalent, as many of the following chapters highlight. This volume aims to expand traditional definitions of medieval architecture, probing issues related to style and periodization, including the constraints and limitations these constructs can impose. The individual contributions engage with historiographic, methodological, and theoretical concerns related to the study of medieval architecture and its forms across Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Americas. The volume brings to the fore the geographic expanse of the Gothic, workshop practices, the movements of people and knowledge, as well as the development of local styles relative to competing traditions, among other topics. It is our hope that this publication will incite future projects on the study of Gothic architecture as a creative mode beyond traditional paradigms, as well as its reception in new and diverse contexts.

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Raquel Flecha Vega, “A Decolonial Analysis of La Catedral de Santo Domingo Primada de América,” M.A. thesis (University of Colorado Boulder, 2015), pp. iii, 2.

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Caviness, Madeline. “Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings: A Post-Modern Construct?” In Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, edited by Virginia C. Raguin, Kathryn Brush, and Peter Draper, pp. 249–61. Toronto, 1995. Chapuis, Julien. “Introduction: On Images and Their Use.” In Chapuis et al. Late Gothic, pp. 12–19. Chapuis, Julien, Svea Janzen, Stephan Kemperdick, Lothar Lambacher, Jan Friedrich Richter, and Michael Roth. Late Gothic: Birth of Modernity. Berlin, 2021. Chatenet, Monique, Krista de Jonge, Ethan Matt Kavaler, and Norbert Nussbaum, eds. Le gothique de la Renaissance: Actes des quatrième Rencontres d’architecture européenne, Paris, 12–16 juin 2007. Paris, 2011. Chez Checo, José, Eugenio Pérez Montas, and Esteban Prieto Vicioso, eds. Basílica Cat­edral de Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo, 2011. Clark, William W. “Gothic Architecture.” In Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, edited by William W. Kibler, Grover A. Zinn, Lawrence Earp, and John Bell Henneman, Jr., pp. 400–405. London, 1995. Clark, William W. “‘The Recollection of the Past is the Promise of the Future.’ Continuity and Contextuality: Saint-Denis, Merovingians, Capetians, and Paris.” In Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, edited by Kathryn Brush, Peter Draper, and Virginia Chieffo Raguin, pp. 92–113. Toronto, 1995. Crosby, Alfred. The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250–1600. Cambridge, UK, 1997. Crossley, Paul. “The Man from Inner Space: Architecture and Meditation in the Choir of St. Laurence of Nuremberg.” In Medieval Art: Recent Perspectives. A Memorial Tribute to C.R. Dodwell, edited by Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Timothy Graham, pp. 165–82. Manchester, 1998. Crossley, Paul, and Zoë Opačić. “Prague as a New Capital.” In Prague: The Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437, edited by Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiří Fajt, pp. 59–74. New York, 2005. Daussy-Timbert, Stéphanie-Diane, ed. L’architecture flamboyante en France: Autour de Roland Sanfaçon. Lille, 2020. De Grazia, Margreta. “The Modern Divide: From Either Side.” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 37, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 453–67. Draper, Peter. “Canterbury Cathedral: Classical Columns in the Trinity Chapel?” ­Architectural History 44 (2001): 172–78. Eisenman, Peter, and Elisa Iturbe. Lateness. Princeton, 2020. Fernie, Eric. “Suger’s ‘Completion’ of Saint-Denis.” In Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, edited by Kathryn Brush, Peter Draper, and Virginia Chieffo Raguin, pp. 84–91. Toronto, 1995. Fernie, Eric. “Medieval Modernism and the Origins of Gothic.” In Reading Gothic ­Architecture, edited by Matthew M. Reeve, pp. 11–24. Turnhout, 2008.

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Murray, Stephen. Building Troyes Cathedral: The Late Gothic Campaigns. Bloomington, 1987. Murray, Stephen. Beauvais Cathedral: Architecture of Transcendence. Princeton, 1989. Murray, Stephen. Plotting Gothic. Chicago, 2014. Nagel, Alexander, and Christopher S. Wood. Anachronic Renaissance. New York, 2010. Neagley, Linda Elaine. “The Flamboyant Architecture of St.-Maclou, Rouen, and the Development of a Style.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 47, no. 4 (1988): 374–96. Neagley, Linda Elaine. Disciplined Exuberance: The Parish Church of Saint-Maclou and Late Gothic Architecture in Rouen. University Park, 1998. Neagley, Linda Elaine. “Maestre Carlín and ‘Proto’ Flamboyant Architecture of Rouen (c. 1380–1430).” In La piedra postrera: Simposium Internacional sobre la catedral de Sevilla en el contexto del gótico final, edited by Alfonso Jiménez Martín, pp. 47–59. Seville, 2007. Neagley, Linda Elaine. “Late Gothic Architecture and Vision: Re-presentation, ­Scenography, and Illusionism.” In Reading Gothic Architecture, edited by Matthew M. Reeve, pp. 37–55. Turnhout, 2008. Neagley, Linda Elaine. “Late Gothic Architecture.” In The Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity, edited by Richard Etlin, vol. 1, pp. 495–505. Cambridge, UK, 2022. Nickson, Tom. “Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation.” In Gothic ­Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation, edited by Tom Nickson and Nicola Jennings, pp. 17–36. Courtauld Books Online, 2020. Niell, Paul B. “Late Gothic in the Sixteenth-Century Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.” postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies 6, no. 3 (2015): 258–71. Nussbaum, Norbert. “Gothic and Renaissance.” In German Gothic Church Architecture, pp. 219–28. New Haven, 2000. Nussbaum, Norbert. “Space and Form Redefined: Paradigm Shifts in German Architecture, 1350–1550.” In La Piedra Postrera: V Centenario de la conclusión de la Catedral de Sevilla, edited by Alfonso Jiménez Martín, pp. 305–27. Salamanca, 2007. Nussbaum, Norbert. “Patterns of Modernity: German Late Gothic Architecture Reconsidered.” In Chatenet, de Jonge, Kavaler, and Nussbaum, Gothique de la renaissance, pp. 9–18. Olympios, Michalis. “The Romanesque as Relic: Architecture and Institutional ­Memory at the Collegiate Church of Saint-Omer.” Journal of the Society of Architectural ­Historians 77, no. 1 (2018): 10–28. Ottenheym, Konrad Adriaan, ed. Romanesque Renaissance: Carolingian, Byzantine and Romanesque Buildings (800–1200) as a Source for new All’Antica Architecture in Early Modern Europe (1400–1700). Leiden, 2021. Panofsky, Erwin, ed. Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures. 2nd edition, edited by Gerda Panofsky-Soergel. Princeton, 1979. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Payne, Alina. “Vasari, Architecture, and the Origins of Historicizing Art.” RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 40 (Autumn 2001): 51–76. Payne, Alina. “Materiality, Crafting, and Scale in Renaissance Architecture.” Oxford Art Journal 32, no. 3 (2009): 365–86. Payne, Alina. “Introduction: Renaissance and Baroque Architecture.” In Renaissance and Baroque Architecture: The Companion to the History of Architecture, edited by Alina Payne, 1:xxv–xlvi. Hoboken, 2017. Recht, Roland. Believing and Seeing: The Art of the Gothic Cathedrals. Translated by Mary Whittall. Chicago, 2008. Reeve, Matthew M., ed. Reading Gothic Architecture. Turnhout, 2008. Reeve, Matthew M. Thirteenth-Century Wall Painting of Salisbury Cathedral: Art, ­Liturgy, and Reform. Woodbridge, 2008. Reeve, Matthew M. “Gothic.” Studies in Iconography 33 (2012): 233–46. Riegl, Alois. Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik. Berlin, 1893. Riegl, Alois. Die spätrömische Kunst-Industrie nach den Funden in Österreich-Ungarn im Zusammenhange mit der Gesamtentwicklung der Bildenden Künste bei den Mittelmeervölkern. Vienna, 1927. Riegl, Alois. Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament. Translated by Evelyn Kain. Edited by David Castriota. Princeton, 2018. Said, Edward. On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain. New York, 2006. Sanfaçon, Roland. L’architecture flamboyante en France. Québec, 1971. Sankovitch, Anne-Marie. “A Reconsideration of French Renaissance Church Architecture.” In L’église dans l’architecture de la Renaissance: Actes du colloque tenu à Tours du 28 au 31 mai 1990, edited by Jean Guillaume, pp. 161–80. Paris, 1995. Sankovitch, Anne-Marie. “Structure/Ornament and the Modern Figuration of ­Architecture.” The Art Bulletin 80, no. 4 (December 1998): 687–717. Sankovitch, Anne-Marie. The Church of Saint-Eustache in the Early French Renaissance. Turnhout, 2015. Sauerländer, Willibald. “From Stilus to Style: Reflections on the Fate of a Notion.” Art History 6, no. 3 (1983): 253–70. Sauerländer, Willibald. “‘Première architecture gothique’ or Romanesque of the Twelfth Century? Changing Perspectives of Evaluation in Architectural History.” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium Occasional Papers 2 (1985): 25–44. Sauerländer, Willibald. “Style or Transition? The Fallacies of Classification Discussed in the Light of German Architecture, 1190–1260.” Architectural History 30 (1987): 1–29. Symes, Carol. “When We Talk About Modernity.” The American Historical Review 116, no. 3 (June 2011): 715–26. Taburet-Delahaye, Elisabeth, Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, and Thierry Crépin-Leblond. France 1500: Entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance. Paris, 2010. Thomson, David. Renaissance Paris: Architecture and Growth, 1475–1600. Berkeley, 1984.

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Timmermann, Achim. Real Presence: Sacrament Houses and the Body of Christ, c. 1270–1600. Turnhout, 2009. Trachtenberg, Marvin. “Gothic/Italian ‘Gothic’: Toward a Redefinition.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 50 (1991): 22–37. Trachtenberg, Marvin. “Suger’s Miracles, Branner’s Bourges: Reflections on ‘Gothic Architecture’ as Medieval Modernism.” Gesta 39, no. 2 (2000): 183–205. Trachtenberg, Marvin. “Desedimenting Time: Gothic Column / Paradigm Shifter.” RES 40 (2001): 5–28. Vanwesenbeeck, Birger. “Huizinga, Theorist of Lateness?” In Rereading Huizinga: Autumn of the Middle Ages, a Century Later, edited by Peter Arnade, Martha Howell, Anton van der Lem, pp. 245–58. Amsterdam, 2019. Vilain, Ambre, and Jean-Marie Guillouët. Microarchitectures médiévales: L’échelle à l’épreuve de la matière. Paris, 2018. Wilson, Christopher. The Gothic Cathedral. London, 1990. Wolfthal, Diane. “Art History and Huizinga’s Autumn of the Middle Ages.” In Rereading Huizinga: Autumn of the Middle Ages, a Century Later, edited by Peter Arnade, Martha Howell, and Anton van der Lem, pp. 123–42. Amsterdam, 2019. Zerner, Henri. “The Gothic in the Renaissance.” In Renaissance Art in France: The ­Invention of Classicism, pp. 11–60. Paris, 2003.

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Relativizing the Lateness of Late Gothic Architecture Robert Bork The notion of lateness becomes meaningful only through comparison. Most of the architecture produced in transalpine Europe in the 15th and early 16th ­centuries now tends to be described as late Gothic—because its lateness has been measured relative both to the supposed heyday of the Gothic tradition and to the advent of the Italian Renaissance. The representational art produced in the same milieu as late Gothic architecture, conversely, tends to be seen as expressing an early phase in the ‘Northern Renaissance.’ This rather incoherent historiographical situation has greatly inhibited the appreciation of late Gothic architecture, and it continues to do so even in the 21st century. To set the stage for consideration of this problem, it proves helpful to briefly consider the histories of the design modes in question.1 The Gothic architectural tradition first emerged in the region around Paris in the middle of the 12th century, and it flowered spectacularly for four ­centuries thereafter. Gothic has been aptly characterized as ‘medieval ­modernism’ because builders working in this mode broke free of classical tradition, using abstract geometry as a design tool and developing innovative forms, including pointed arches, rib vaults, window tracery, spires, and flying buttresses.2 In the first century of the Gothic era, French builders combined these elements in increasingly daring ways, eventually creating skeletal structures of unprecedented scale. This development culminated in 1272 with the completion of Beauvais Cathedral’s vertiginous choir, with its interior height 1 This essay distills some of the key themes I discuss in Robert Bork, Late Gothic ­Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception (Turnhout, 2018). That book includes an extensive bibliography from which the entries in the present essay have been selected. For the ­historiography of late Gothic up to 1966, a crucial source is Jan Białostocki, “Late Gothic: Disagreements about the Concept,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 3, no. 29 (1966): 76–105. For the historiography of Gothic even more broadly, with sympathetic attention to the later period of the style, see also Paul Frankl, The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries (Princeton, 1960). 2 On medieval modernism, see Marvin Trachtenberg, “Gothic/Italian ‘Gothic’: Toward a Redefinition,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 50 (1991): 22–37. See also idem, “Suger’s Miracles, Branner’s Bourges: Reflections on ‘Gothic Architecture’ as Medieval ­Modernism,” Gesta 39, no. 2 (2000): 183–205. © Robert Bork, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_003 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 0.1 Beauvais Cathedral, view from the southeast; choir mostly 1225–72, transept mostly 1500–50 source: David Iliff / Wikimedia Commons

of 48 meters (Figure 0.1, right). Portions of its high vaulting collapsed just a dozen years later, likely due to an unrecognized problem with the slender buttress uprights, and Gothic builders would never complete a taller interior.3 For this reason, the construction of the Beauvais choir can be seen as marking the end of one particularly heroic phase of structural experimentation. It would be unfair, however, to dismiss the later development of the Gothic tradition as anticlimactic. Already by 1300, English builders had begun to create vault and tracery patterns of stunning sophistication, in the innovative mode now described as the Decorated style.4 Despite the disruptions caused by the Black Death, these ideas had begun to enrich design practice on the continent by the late 14th century, as seen in the work of the Parler family and their followers 3 Robert Mark, Experiments in Gothic Structure (Cambridge, MA, 1982), pp. 58–75. See also ­Stephen Murray, Beauvais Cathedral (Princeton, 1989). 4 Jean Bony, The English Decorated Style: Gothic Architecture Transformed, 1250–1350, ­Wrightsman Lectures (Ithaca, 1979); Nicola Coldstream, The Decorated Style: Architecture and Ornament, 1240–1360 (Toronto, 1994); Paul Binski, Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice and the Decorated Style, 1290–1350 (New Haven, 2014).

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in the Germanic world.5 The virtuosity and daring of this tradition can be seen in the 15th-century tower and spire of Strasbourg Cathedral, whose height of 142 meters makes it the tallest surviving work of medieval architecture (Figure 0.2).6 In the 1420s and 1430s, as work on the Strasbourg spire was underway, Filippo Brunelleschi was pioneering the Italian Renaissance architectural mode in buildings such as the church of San Lorenzo in Florence (Figure 0.3). Instead of developing radically innovative forms like his northern European contemporaries, Brunelleschi looked backward to Florentine Romanesque prototypes and to the early Christian and classical traditions that lay behind them.7 Subsequent Renaissance artists, including Leon Battista Alberti, would engage with the legacy of Antiquity in increasingly methodical ways, developing an architectural system that would challenge and eventually displace the Gothic mode. In the century between roughly 1430 and 1530, however, the Gothic tradition continued to dominate architectural production throughout most of Europe. At the beginning of this period, meanwhile, Netherlandish artists, including Jan van Eyck, developed an impressively realistic mode of representation. Their work was certainly innovative in technical terms, incorporating the use of oil paint on panel, but in many respects it remained grounded in medieval tradition.8 In formal terms, its almost-clinical realism found its closest antecedents in northern Gothic sculpture rather than in the more idealized classical manner being explored by painters and sculptors in Renaissance Italy. In thematic terms, similarly, Netherlandish 15th-century painters used this realism to 5 Paul Crossley, “Peter Parler and England: A Problem Revisited,” Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch 64 (2003): 53–82; Christopher Wilson, “Why Did Peter Parler Come to England?” in Architecture, Liturgy, and Identity, ed. Achim Timmermann and Zoë Opačić (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 89–110. See also Anton Legner, ed., Die Parler und der schöne Stil, 1350–1400: Europäische Kunst unter den Luxemburgern (Cologne, 1978–80); Richard Strobel, ed., Parlerbauten—Architektur, Skulptur, Restaurierung (Stuttgart, 2004); Marc Carel Schurr, Die Baukunst Peter Parlers: Der Prager Veitsdom, das Heiligkreuzmünster in Schwäbisch Gmünd und die Bartholomäuskirche in Kolin im Spannungsfeld von Kunst und Geschichte (Ostfildern, 2003). 6 Christian Kayser, “La tour nord de la cathédrale de Strasbourg: Histoire de la construction et contexte,” Bulletin de la cathédrale de Strasbourg 33 (2018): 47–84. 7 Matthew Cohen, Beyond Beauty: Reexamining Architectural Proportion through the ­Basilicas of San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito in Florence (Marsilio, 2013). See also idem, “How Much Brunelleschi? A Late Medieval Proportional System in the Basilica of San Lorenzo in ­Florence,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67 (2008): 18–57. 8 Hanno Wijsman, “Northern Renaissance? Burgundy and Netherlandish Art in Fifteenth-­ Century Europe,” in Renaissance? Perceptions of Continuity and Discontinuity in Europe, c. 1300–1550, ed. Alexander Lee, Pit Peporte, and Harry Schnitker (Leiden, 2010), pp. 269–88.

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Figure 0.2 Strasbourg Cathedral, view of west block from the southeast; Tower shaft built 1400–20, spire completed near the middle of the 15th century source: R. Bork

vividly express a characteristically medieval spirituality, with God rather than humankind at center stage. Crucially, moreover, these artists worked within an overwhelmingly Gothic architectural environment. The Gothic mode thus predominates in their paintings, as seen in Jan van Eyck’s famous Madonna in a Church, from the 1430s (Figure 0.4), and in many of its successors from nearly a

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Figure 0.3 San Lorenzo, Florence, axial view of interior; building begun 1419, nave mostly from the middle decades of the 15th century source: Peter K. Kurian / Wikimedia Commons

century later. The Gothic tradition continued to thrive throughout this period not only in the Netherlands but across all of transalpine Europe, producing a wide variety of innovative regional styles, including the Flamboyant in France, the Perpendicular in England, the Isabelline in Spain, and the Manueline in Portugal.9 The scale and ambition of these late projects often surpassed the 9 These terms for various late Gothic styles, like the term ‘Gothic’ itself, are postmedieval coinages. In English, ‘Gothic’ seems first to have been used in architectural context by John Evelyn in 1641. See Frankl, The Gothic, pp. 356–60. The terms ‘Decorated’ and ‘Perpendicular’ were introduced by Thomas Rickman in An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture (London, 1819). The term ‘Flamboyant’ may have been invented by the antiquarian EustaceHyacinthe Langlois, but its earliest securely dated use seems to be by the historian Auguste Le Prévost, in 1830. See Georg Germann, Gothic Revival in Europe and Britain (­Cambridge, MA, 1973), p. 46; Achille Foville, “Réponse au discours de réception de M. Simon,” Précis analytique des travaux de l’Académie de Rouen (1879): 451–70. Francisco Aldolfo Varnhagen coined the

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Figure 0.4 Jan van Eyck, Madonna in the Church, oil on panel, late 1430s, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie source: Wikimedia Commons

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standards established earlier in the Gothic era. It is noteworthy in this c­ ontext, for example, that the 16th-century transept of Beauvais Cathedral fully matches the record-breaking height of its 13th-century choir (Figure 0.1, left).10 In both Antwerp and Munich, the city skylines even today are dominated by the 16th-century towers of great late Gothic parish churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary (Figures 0.5–0.6).11 The florid complexity of the Antwerp spire contrasts strikingly with the spartan streamlining of the Munich towers, and both modes contrast with the crisp intricacy of the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey, one of the last great masterpieces of the English Perpendicular style (Figure 0.7; Figures 3.1–3.2).12 This variety and the sophistication of the individual design solutions attest to the inherent vitality of the Gothic tradition in the decades around 1500. In this very period, nevertheless, several distinct factors conspired to undermine the long-standing dominance of the Gothic architectural mode. Most important, the Renaissance design mode first developed by Brunelleschi in the Florentine republic began to take on imperial rather than republican connotations as it was adopted by Italian warlords and then by the Papacy. Matthias Corvinus of Hungary was the first transalpine ruler to systematically employ Renaissance classicism as a visual language of royal propaganda, starting in the

10 11

12

term ‘Manueline’ in an 1842 study dedicated to the Jerónimos Monastery of Belém. See Paulo Pereira, Jerónimos Abbey of Santa Maria (London, 2002), p. 45. The term ‘Isabelline’ was introduced by Émile Bertaux in his chapter on the Renaissance in Spain and Portugal for the Histoire de l’art, edited by André Michel in 1911. See Roberto González Ramos, “The Hispano-Islamisms of Juan Guas: The Fabrication of a Historiographical Stereotype,” in La arquitectura tardogótica castellana entre Europa y América, ed. Begoña Alonso Ruiz (Madrid, 2011), pp. 325–37. Other noteworthy region-specific terms include ‘Deutsche Sondergotik,’ introduced in Kurt Gerstenberg, Deutsche Sondergotik (Munich, 1913); and ‘Brabantine Florid’ style, introduced in Christopher Wilson, The Gothic Cathedral (­London, 1990), p. 243. See Murray, Beauvais Cathedral, and Florian Meunier, Martin et Pierre Chambiges: ­Architectes des cathédrales flamboyantes (Paris, 2015). On Antwerp, see Linda van Langendonck, “The History of Construction,” in The Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, ed. Willem Aerts (Antwerp, 1993), pp. 107–25. On Munich, see Hans Ramisch and Peter Pfister, Die Frauenkirche in München: Geschichte, Baugeschichte und Ausstattung (Munich, 1983). On Gothic towers and spires more generally, see Thomas Von der Dunk, Toren versus Traditie (Leiden, 2014), and Robert Bork, Great Spires: ­Skyscrapers of the Heavenly Jerusalem (Cologne, 2003), available at https://geometriesofcreation .lib.uiowa.edu/further-readings. Tim Tatton-Brown and Richard Mortimer, ed., Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII (London, 2003). See also Christopher Wilson, “The Designer of the Henry VII Chapel, Westminster Abbey,” in The Reign of Henry VII, ed. Benjamin Thompson (­Stamford, 1995), pp. 133–56.

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Figure 0.5 Church of Saint Mary (now cathedral), Antwerp, spire, completed 1521 source: R. Bork

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Figure 0.6 Church of Saint Mary (Frauenkirche), Munich, exterior from south; 1468–1520 source: Chris 73 / Wikimedia Commons

Figure 0.7 Chapel of Henry VII, Westminster, exterior from southeast; 1503–09 source: Josh Hallett / Wikimedia Commons

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1470s.13 The kings of France followed suit after they began military campaigns in Italy in 1494, and the Habsburgs started to introduce the antique mode throughout their vast territories by the second quarter of the 16th century, as well, creating a ripple effect that influenced the whole of Europe.14 A second and closely related factor in the spread of Renaissance architecture, to be considered more fully below, was the publication of treatises that associated the classical vocabulary not only with political power but with artistic and cultural authority. Simultaneously, the chaos unleashed by the Protestant Reformation destabilized the foundations of religious patronage on which ambitious Gothic church-building projects had formerly depended. The Gothic architectural tradition, which had remained intrinsically vital until 1530 or so, thus lost much of its prestige and creative energy. This sea change in taste manifested itself in many different ways, depending on the region, the patron, and the genre of the work in question. Vladislav Hall in Prague Castle, built in the 1490s, incorporates both slender Gothic pinnacles and Italianate Renaissance window frames, creating a striking juxtaposition (Figure 0.8).15 It is interesting and significant that the hall’s designer, Benedikt Ried, employed a more strictly Gothic vocabulary in his church-building projects. As a general rule, in fact, Italianate classicism spread most rapidly in secular rather than ecclesiastical contexts. The boldly classicizing nudes seen in Jan Gossart’s painting of the pagan sea god Neptune and his consort Amphitrite, for instance, express the propagandistic desire of Prince Philip of Burgundy to connect his reign to the glories of ancient civilization (Figure 0.9).16 The interest in Antiquity, of course, could be expressed more quickly and more easily in paint than in the more expensive medium of full-scale architecture, but the proliferation of classical motifs in painting and prints contributed to a decisive change of taste on the part of leading patrons. King John III of Portugal thus chose to abandon construction of the remarkable chapel complex at Batalha Abbey that his father, Manuel, had promoted, leaving the incomplete fragment 13

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Rózsa Feuer-Tóth, Renaissance Architecture in Hungary (Budapest, 1981); Péter Farbaky, “Late Gothic and Early Renaissance Architecture in Hungary, ca. 1470–1540,” in The Architecture of Historic Hungary, ed. Dora Wiebenson and József Sisa (Cambridge, MA, 1998), pp. 45–66. Henri Zerner, Renaissance Art in France (Paris, 2004); Anne Schunicht-Rawe and Vera Lüpkes, eds., Handbuch der Renaissance (Cologne, 2002). Götz Fehr, Benedikt Ried: Ein deutscher Baumeister zwischen Gotik und Renaissance in Böhmen (Munich, 1961). See also Pavel Kalina, Benedikt Ried: A počátky záalpské renesance (Prague, 2009), and idem, “European Diplomacy, Family Strategies, and the Origins of Renaissance Architecture in Central and Eastern Europe,” Artibus et historiae 30, no. 60 (2009): 173–90. Marisa Bass, “Jan Gossaert’s Neptune and Amphitrite Reconsidered,” Simiolus 35 (2011): 61–83. See also idem, Jan Gossart and the Invention of Netherlandish Antiquity (Princeton, 2016). - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 0.8 Vladislav Hall, Prague Castle, exterior facing courtyard, 1493–1502 source: R. Bork

as a poignant witness of the Gothic tradition’s sudden eclipse (Figure 0.10).17 This change of taste played out differently in Paris, where the massive church of Saint-Eustache combines a substantially Gothic structural system with 17

Orlindo Jorge and Pedro Redol, “As Capelas Imperfeitas do Mosteiro da Batalha. Arqueologia e história da sua construção,” Cadernos de Estudos Leirienses 5 (2015): 301–16. See also Ralf Gottschlich, Das Kloster Santa Maria da Vitória in Batalha und seine Stellung in der iberischen Sakralarchitektur des Spätmittelalters (Hildesheim, 2012), and Jose Custodio Vieira da Silva, The Monastery of Batalha (London, 2007). - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 0.9 Jan Gossart, Neptune and Amphitrite, 1516, oil on panel, Berlin, Gemäldegalerie source: Wikimedia Commons

classicizing articulation (Figure 0.11).18 Such experimentation was mostly forsaken by the middle of the 16th century in favor of more canonically ‘correct’ uses of the antique formal vocabulary. Italianate classicism triumphed in the Renaissance largely because it had more eloquent and committed advocates. In the 1460s, when the Gothic 18

Anne-Marie Sankovitch, The Church of Saint-Eustache in the Early French Renaissance (Turnhout, 2015). - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 0.10 Unfinished Chapels, Batalha Abbey, view of interior, begun 1434, abandoned 1533 source: R. Bork

Figure 0.11 Saint-Eustache, Paris, view of nave interior, begun 1532, nave walls mostly from the late 16th century source: R. Bork

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t­ radition still enjoyed popularity across most of Europe, the Florentine-born architect and author Filarete argued for the rejection of this “barbarous ­modern style” and for a return to the original classical vocabulary from which medieval builders had deviated.19 Filarete thus helped to establish the misleading but influential association of late medieval architecture with the barbarian Goths who had sacked Rome, setting the stage for the later development of the term ‘Gothic.’ Alberti did not bother to address the Gothic tradition directly, but the publication of his De re aedificatoria in 1485 helped to make the principles of classical architecture accessible to learned patrons throughout Europe.20 Perhaps in response, the Germans Mathes Roriczer and Hans Schmuttermayr published handbooks on pinnacle design just a year later, but these short documents provided only a rather unsatisfying glimpse of Gothic architectural principles, and they could not compare to Alberti’s treatise in length, scope, or rhetorical sophistication. Three decades later, the Heidelberg court architect Lorenz Lechler wrote a more extensive set of instructions for his son Moritz, covering a greater range of topics than Roriczer and Schmuttermayr had, but his writings had little impact, especially compared to the illustrated treatises on classical design that were being published in the first half of the 16th century, including, most notably, Sebastiano Serlio’s Libri.21 It was Giorgio Vasari, however, who did the most to establish the historiographical relationship between the Gothic and Renaissance traditions. Vasari’s Vite, or Lives of the Artists, helped to launch a set of standards and narratives that continue, even today, to inhibit the scholarly appreciation of late Gothic architecture. Like Filarete, Vasari criticized medieval builders for deviating from classical standards, deriding their work as disorderly and confusing. Also like Filarete, he misleadingly associated even the most sophisticated products of the medieval architectural imagination with the barbarians who had sacked Rome. However, while this tradition was still seen as ‘modern’ 19

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On Filarete, see Paul Frankl, The Gothic, 255–56. See also Berthold Hub, “Filarete and the East: The Renaissance of a Prisca Architectura,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 70 (2011): 18–37. On conceptions of ‘modern’ and ‘classical’ architecture in the period, see Krista De Jonge, “Style and Manner in Early Modern Netherlandish ­Architecture (1450–1600), Contemporary Sources and Historiographical Tradition,” in Stil als Bedeutung in der nordalpinen Renaissance. Wiederentdeckung einer methodischen Nachbarschaft, ed. Stephan Hoppe, Matthias Müller, and Norbert Nußbaum (Regensburg, 2008), pp. 264–85. Anthony Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti: Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance (­Cambridge, MA, 2002). Ulrich Coenen, Die Spatgotischen Werkmeisterbucher in Deutschland (Munich, 1990). See also Lon R. Shelby, Gothic Design Techniques: The Fifteenth-century Design Booklets of Mathes Roriczer and Hanns Schmuttermayer (Carbondale, 1977).

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in the 15th century, it had become largely outmoded by Vasari’s day. He thus coined the term maniera tedesca, or German manner, to describe the architectural tradition of which he disapproved.22 Vasari needed to frame medieval architecture negatively so that it could serve as the anarchic foil to the classical tradition whose recovery he celebrated. By juxtaposing the biographies of many artists from the late 13th century to his own day, with an emphasis on the work of his fellow Florentines, Vasari was able to create a seductive narrative describing the recovery of art from its supposed medieval nadir. He had good reason to discuss architecture alongside painting and sculpture since architects such as Brunelleschi, Alberti, and Bramante had played such important roles in re-establishing the taste for classical design. Northern European responses to Vasari, conversely, have often neglected architecture, concentrating instead on the impressive realism achieved by Northern painters, sculptors, and graphic artists.23 In 1604, for example, Karel van Mander published his Schilderboeck, which considered a wide range of northern representational artists active from 1400 to 1600, alongside their ancient predecessors and Italian Renaissance contemporaries, whose biographies he drew largely from Vasari’s Vite.24 By omitting consideration of architecture, van Mander emphasized the continuity of the northern artistic tradition, while minimizing the dramatic disruption caused by the shift from Gothic to classical style. At the same time, this approach served to obscure the potentially embarrassing fact that northern architectural culture had been dominated by the Gothic tradition until at least 1520, more than a century after the emergence of Renaissance classicism in Florence. Van Mander’s ­architecture-free framing would prove to be highly influential in the 20th ­century, even though the late Gothic heritage was by no means forgotten in the meantime. In the centuries between roughly 1500 and 1800, when the Gothic tradition was mostly out of fashion, a few major late Gothic building projects slowly 22

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Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568 (Florence, 1966–76); Matteo Burioni, “Vasari’s Rinascita: History, Anthropology, or Art Criticism,” in Renaissance? Perceptions of Continuity and Discontinuity in Europe, c. 1300–1550, ed. Alexander Lee, Pit Peporte, and Harry Schnitker (Leiden, 2010), pp. 115–27; Anne-Marie Sankovitch, “The Myth of the ‘Myth of the Medieval,’” RES 40 (2001): 29–50; Markus Brandis, La maniera tedesca (Weimar, 2002). This historiography is traced in Marina Belozerskaya, Rethinking the Renaissance: ­Burgundian Arts across Europe (New York, 2002). An important precursor to the Schilderboeck was the series of short poems on Northern artists collected in Dominicus Lampsonius, Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies (Antwerp, 1572). On the Schilderboeck itself, see Walter Mellion, Shaping the Netherlandish Canon: Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck (Chicago, 1991).

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progressed, as with the cathedrals of Milan and Salamanca. Other prominent late Gothic structures, such as the spires of Strasbourg and Antwerp, continued to command admiration even in this period.25 Elements of the late Gothic design vocabulary remained in use, moreover, not only in provincial contexts but also at the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, where use of Perpendicular motifs could suggest institutional continuity with the medieval past, and at some churches in the German world, where complex vaults and window tracery were used as traditional signifiers of sacredness. These and other ‘­post-Gothic’ developments remained peripheral to the main currents of architectural development in the early modern era, and although they amounted to far less than a real survival of the Gothic tradition, they helped to set the stage for the Gothic Revival movement of the long 19th century.26 The role of late Gothic precedents in this movement varied dramatically from country to country, often fluctuating over time, even within each state. In England, Horace Walpole famously included late Gothic elements, such as fan vaults, in his Strawberry Hill house, whose ongoing reconstruction in the third quarter of the 18th century is often seen as marking the beginning of the English Gothic revival.27 Following the destruction by fire of the Houses of ­Parliament in 1834, moreover, the committee charged with the design competition for the replacement buildings recommended the Gothic or Elizabethan style over the classical because “the peculiar charm of Gothic architecture is in its associations; these are delightful because they are historical, patriotic, local, and intimately blended with early reminiscences.”28 Consequently, the walls of the Parliament buildings were designed to closely mimic those of Henry VII’s impressive chapel, located just across the street (Figures 0.7 and 0.12). In the 1830s, therefore, it must have seemed likely that the Perpendicular would emerge as the predominant national style in 19th-century England. This did not happen, however, largely because of a change of heart on the part of one of the principal contributors to the Parliament project, Augustus Welby Pugin. Early in his career, Pugin had quite plausibly blamed the demise 25 26

On praise of Strasbourg, see Frankl, The Gothic, esp. p. 426. Hermann Hipp, “Studien zur ‘Nachgotik‘ des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland, Böhmen, Österreich und der Schweiz” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tübingen, 1979); idem, “Early Modern Architecture and ‘the Gothic’,” in Le Gothique de la Renaissance, ed. Monique Chatenet (Paris, 2012), pp. 33–46. See also Michael J. Lewis, The Gothic Revival (London, 2002), and Giles Worsley, “The Origins of the Gothic Revival: A Reappraisal; The Alexander Prize Essay,” in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 3 (1993): 105–50. 27 See Matthew Reeve, Gothic Architecture and Sexuality in the Circle of Horace Walpole (­University Park, 2020). 28 Germann, Gothic Revival in Europe and Britain, p. 67.

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Figure 0.12 Houses of Parliament, Westminster, exterior, designed late 1830s, built 1840–70 source: Mike Gimelfarb / Wikimedia Commons

of the Gothic tradition on the Reformation, but by the 1840s, he was becoming suspicious that the energy of medieval Catholicism had waned already in the late 15th century. He concluded that Perpendicular buildings “exhibited various symptoms of the decay of the true Christian principle,” and his designs thus began to emulate the earlier phases of English Gothic.29 Many subsequent English Gothic revivalists followed Pugin’s lead in this respect, while others drew inspiration from Venetian Gothic rather than from their native late Gothic traditions.30 In France, not surprisingly, Gothic revivalists tended to emphasize the heroic work of the 12th and 13th centuries, when France had enjoyed the leading position in European architectural culture. Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel Notre-Dame de Paris, for example, played a crucial role in rebuilding patriotic enthusiasm for the country’s medieval cultural heritage after the tumult of the French ­Revolution and the Napoleonic era, in which Roman classicism 29

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Pugin, quoted in Cameron Macdonell, “The American Pugins: Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Goodhue,” in Gothic Revival Worldwide: A. W. N. Pugin’s Global Influence, ed. ­Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Jan De Maeyer, and Martin Bressani (Leuven, 2017), p. 99. See also Rosemary Hill, God’s Architect: Pugin and the Rebuilding of Romantic Britain (London, 2007), pp. 226–27; and Paul Atterbury and Clive Wainwright, eds., Pugin’s Gothic Passion (New Haven, 1994). Particularly influential was John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice (London, 1851). - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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had been the visual language of empire.31 In the middle of the 19th century, the most important advocate for French Gothic architecture was Eugène-­ Emmanuel Viollet-­le-Duc, who celebrated the rationality of medieval builders and the elegance of the structural solutions they developed. For Viollet-le-Duc, the ­comparatively simple architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries deserved praise because it expressed its structure honestly and clearly, whereas late Gothic architecture deserved censure because of its supposedly excessive ornamentation and because its creators delighted in treating stone as if it were wood or metal. In Viollet-le-Duc’s view, therefore, virtuosity could serve as the gateway to ­decadence. Late Gothic architecture has been subjected to critiques along these lines ever since Filarete’s day, often from champions of classical design. The fact that Viollet-le-Duc could celebrate the development of early Gothic while decrying the excesses of late Gothic, however, underscores the subjectivity involved in attempting to answer the question of how far is too far. As Viollet-le-Duc himself admitted, after all, Gothic builders were explorers not inclined to stop midstream.32 By emphasizing the period when the Gothic appeared most legible and most logical, though, he created an intellectual position defensible against French champions of classicism, his principal rivals. Although there was some interest in Flamboyant Gothic throughout the 19th century, by circa 1900, its reception became complicated by concerns that it was indebted to English Decorated precedents and was thus less ­characteristically French than the earlier phase of the style.33 In the German world, late Gothic generally had a greater relative prominence than in France, and opinions of the period evolved almost oppositely over the course of the long 19th century. The young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1772 essay “Von deutscher Baukunst,” which celebrates the 13th-century builder of the Strasbourg Cathedral façade, Erwin von Steinbach, has often been seen as the seed from which the German Gothic revival movement grew.34 At that 31 32 33

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Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris (Paris, 1831). Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1854–68), esp. “Arc-Boutant.” Anthyme de Saint-Paul argued that the Flamboyant was native to France; “Les origines du gothique flamboyant en France,” Bulletin monumental 70 (1906): 483–510. Francis Bond, though, called Flamboyant “nothing but our English Decorated carried to its logical issue,” in Gothic Architecture in England (London, 1906), p. 128. Most other authors of the period recognized a middle ground. See, for example, Camille Enlart, “Origine anglaise du style gothique flamboyant,” Bulletin monumental 70 (1906): 38–81. See also Robert de ­Lasteyrie, “Observations sur l’architecture gothique en Angleterre,” Journal des Savants (1908): 57–71. Bond adopted this synthetic view in “On the English Origin of French Flamboyant,” ­Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects 15 (1908): 356–58. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “On German Architecture,” in Goethe on Art, ed. John Gage (Berkeley, 1980), pp. 103–12. See also Frankl, The Gothic, pp. 417–27. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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time, the French origins of the Gothic mode were not yet widely recognized, and Goethe thus celebrated Erwin as an avatar of German national genius. German nationalism also fueled the completion of Cologne Cathedral, whose construction had begun in the 13th century, only to peter out at the end of the Middle Ages. By the time of the cathedral’s completion in 1880, however, it had become clear that its design was strongly dependent on French prototypes.35 In subsequent decades, therefore, scholars interested in the Germanic contribution to the Gothic tradition increasingly focused their attention on late Gothic structures, especially hall churches, which differed from French cathedrals both in their aesthetics and in their social meaning (compare Figures 0.1 and 0.6).36 This shift in emphasis was facilitated by a broader theoretical shift in Germanic literature on art. While authors in the early and middle decades of the 19th century, including Friedrich von Schlegel and Jacob Burckhardt, tended to associate late stylistic phases with decline and decadence, by the turn of the century, Alois Riegl had rejected this judgmental framing, arguing that late stylistic phases could have their own inherent formal logic.37 Beyond the ivory tower, moreover, revivalist builders throughout the Germanic and Central European world were drawing more inspiration than their colleagues in England and France from the late Gothic tradition, as a wide range of both secular and religious building projects attest.38 In Spain, Portugal, and Belgium, similarly, the decades around 1900 ­witnessed significant revivals of late Gothic architectural traditions, which were strongly associated with memories of the wealth and prestige that their home regions had enjoyed four centuries earlier. The Isabelline style of Spain, 35 36

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Hugo Borger, ed., Der Kölner Dom im Jahrhundert seiner Vollendung (Cologne, 1981). See, for instance, Cornelius Gurlitt, Kunst und Künstler am Vorabend der Reformation (Halle, 1890), and Gerstenberg, Deutsche Sondergotik. Their contributions are usefully discussed in Białostocki, “Late Gothic,” and in Frankl, The Gothic, pp. 641–47 and 680–84, respectively. On the contributions of Schlegel, Burckhardt, and Riegl, see Frankl, The Gothic, pp. 459–62, 599–608, and 627–38, respectively. Their relevant source texts are Friedrich von Schlegel, “Grundzüge der gotischen Baukunst,” from 1804, reproduced in Friedrich Schlegel: Kritische Schriften, ed. Wolfdietrich Rasch (Munich, 1964), 543–583, esp, 555; Jacob Burckhardt, Gesamtausgabe I (Stuttgart, 1930); Jacob Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien: Ein Versuch (Basel, 1860); and Alois Riegl, Late Roman Art Industry, trans. Rolf Winkes (Rome, 1985). In the religious sphere, prominent projects included the completions of Prague Cathedral and Ulm Minster and the remodeling of the Matthias Church in Budapest, while in the secular sphere, the construction of the Vajdahunyad Castle in Budapest and the new town hall in Munich deserve mention; many more anonymous apartment blocks in Germany also feature late Gothic motifs, including cusped windows inspired by the Albrechtsburg in Meissen.

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the Manueline style of Portugal, and Brabantine Florid style of Belgium had all been highly elaborate, and each mode had a distinctive flavor that allowed its use as an effective symbol of national brand identity. In the early 20th century, however, the various flavors of Gothic revivalism were challenged by the growing fashion for modernism, just as the original late Gothic styles had been challenged in the 16th century by the growing fashion for Renaissance classicism. In another echo of previous developments, the period around 1900 also saw the re-emergence of the interpretive framework developed by Karel van Mander three centuries earlier, in which the representational art of the period from 1400 to 1600 was considered independent of its architectural context. Just as in van Mander’s day, this decoupling served to obscure the awkward fact that transalpine architectural culture had remained overwhelmingly Gothic and medieval until 1500 and beyond. This allowed Jan van Eyck and his ­colleagues to be framed as early exponents of a ‘Northern Renaissance,’ contemporary with, and comparable to, the Italian one celebrated by authors such as Burckhardt. Louis Courajod was an important champion of this view, arguing in the 1890s that the crucial characteristic of the Renaissance in the visual arts was the adoption of realism rather than the adoption of classicism.39 This formulation, of course, could apply to representational arts, such as painting and sculpture, but not to architecture. Major exhibitions held in Bruges and Paris in 1902 and 1904 celebrated the quality of pioneering Belgian and French ‘primitives’ in decidedly nationalistic fashion. By framing 15th-century artists as ‘primitives,’ these exhibitions implied that their work represented an early phase in the development of the Northern Renaissance rather than a late phase of medieval art. Hippolyte Fierens-Gevaert elaborated further on this theme in 1905, while reasserting the centrality of Flemish painting in the establishment of the Northern Renaissance.40 In 1919, Johan Huizinga published a book advancing a very different and more negative view of northern 15th-century art and culture. Entitled Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen in the original Dutch, Huizinga’s study first gained prominence among English readers as The Waning of the Middle Ages, although a newer translation holds the more accurate title, The Autumn of the Middle Ages. In all of its variants, Huizinga’s title announces two of his key theses. First, it declares his view that the Franco-Burgundian culture of the 15th century should be described as medieval, rejecting the alternative ‘Northern 39 40

Louis Courajod, Leçons professées à l’École du Louvre (1887–1896) vol. 2 Origines de la Renaissance (Paris, 1901). Hippolyte Fierens-Gevaert, La renaissance septentrionale et les premiers maîtres des ­Flandres (Brussels, 1905).

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Renaissance’ framework. Huizinga’s periodization scheme certainly makes better sense from an architectural perspective because it implies that the Middle Ages continued in the North as long as Gothic architecture continued to be produced, with the decisive change coming only after 1500 with the adoption of Renaissance culture and the classical architecture that came with it. The way that Huizinga framed his second main thesis, that the Middle Ages waned, reinforced a strongly negative view of the period. Huizinga used harshly judgmental language to describe many aspects of late medieval culture, which he saw as simultaneously decadent and naïve. Although he admired the realistic representational art produced by painters such as Jan van Eyck (Figure 0.4), he disapproved of the late Gothic style seen in prominent structures such as the Antwerp spire (Figure 0.5). His brief remarks on architecture, therefore, were both evocative and critical: The flamboyant Gothic is like an endless organ postlude; it breaks down all forms by this self-analyzing process; every detail finds its continuous elaboration, each line its counter line. It is an unrestrainedly wild ­overgrowth of the idea by the form; ornate detail attacks every surface and line. That horror vacui, which may perhaps be identified as a ­characteristic of end periods of intellectual development, dominates in this art. This all means that the boundaries between splendor and beauty become less distinct. Embellishment and ornamentation no longer serve the glorification of the naturally beautiful, but rather overgrow and thus threaten to choke it. The farther the departure from purely pictorial art, the more unrestrained the wild overgrowth of formal ornamentation covering content.41 This passage encapsulates a still-pervasive critique of late Gothic design, one that had particular power and relevance in the age of modernist art.42 41 Huizinga, Autumn of the Middle Ages, pp. 300–1. For a useful perspective on Huizinga’s influence, see Peter Arnade, Martha Howell, and Anton van der Lem, eds., Rereading Huizinga: Autumn of the Middle Ages, a Century Later (Amsterdam, 2019). In this volume, see, in particular, Diane Wolfthal, “Art History and Huizinga’s Autumn of the Middle Ages,” pp. 123–41. One of my main goals in Late Gothic Architecture was to argue that a population-based metaphor of extinction describes the demise of the Gothic tradition far more satisfactorily than Huizinga’s individual-based metaphor of growth, maturity, decline, and death. 42 On the tension between modernist design and the Gothic more generally, see Pierre Vaisse, “Le Corbusier and the Gothic,” in Le Corbusier before Le Corbusier, ed. Stanislaus von Moos and Arthur Rüegg (New Haven, 2002), pp. 45–68. Interestingly, however, the German Bauhaus initially promoted itself with a woodcut of a cathedral by Lionel

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Similar critiques informed the writings of scholars far more systematically committed than Huizinga to the study of the Gothic architectural tradition. Henri Focillon, for example, preferred the comparatively crisp formal order of 13th-century buildings to the complex plays of elision and disjunction seen in their 15th-century successors, which he interpreted as symptomatic of decline, decadence, and confusion.43 Focillon’s predominantly negative view of the Flamboyant would go on to influence many of the most visible contributors to the study of Gothic in the United States during the decades after World War II. The career of Erwin Panofsky further exemplifies the relative marginalization of late Gothic by leading art historians of the 20th century. Panofsky’s two main studies dedicated to the Gothic tradition consider the writings of Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis and the relationship between Gothic architecture and scholasticism, topics emphasizing the 12th and 13th centuries.44 His most detailed consideration of 15th-century art in Northern Europe, conversely, came in Early Netherlandish Painting, which followed the architecture-free approach to the Northern Renaissance pioneered by van Mander more than four centuries earlier.45 Even when carefully exploring the relationship between late medieval and Renaissance visual cultures, as he did in Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, Panofsky paid only scant attention to the late Gothic architectural tradition.46 In the period following World War II, late Gothic architecture received far more attention in Europe than in the United States, where the influence of Focillon and Panofsky was most profound. The most visible contributors to the study of Gothic in America during the following decades include ­Robert Branner, Sumner Crosby, Charles Seymour, and the French émigré Jean Bony, all of whom were followers of Focillon and all of whom devoted most of their research to buildings of the 12th and 13th centuries. Otto von ­Simson ­concentrated on the same period in his widely read 1956 book The Gothic Cathedral.47 Paul Frankl, however, cast his net far more broadly in his magisterial 1962 survey of Gothic architecture, while arguing persuasively that late Gothic architecture represents not the bitter end of the Gothic tradition but

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Feininger, suggesting an analogy between the modern craft school and the medieval craft guilds. Henri Focillon, Art d’Occident (Paris, 1938), 2:290. Erwin Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and Its Art Treasures (­Princeton, 1948); idem, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (Latrobe, 1951). Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting (Cambridge, MA, 1953). Erwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (New York, 1972). Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order (New York, 1956).

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rather its culminating phase.48 In Europe, meanwhile, other major contributors to the late Gothic field were beginning to emerge, including Spain’s José María de Azcárate and England’s John Harvey, who wrote the first systematic study of the Perpendicular style.49 Despite the partition of Germany following World War II, the German-speaking world continued to occupy a leading position in the study of late Gothic architecture, thanks to the work of scholars such as Werner Gross, Karl-Heinz Clasen, Götz Fehr, Rupert Feuchtmüller, Karl Oettinger, Friedhelm Wilhelm Fischer, and Luc Mojon.50 By the time Jan Białostocki took stock of late Gothic scholarship in 1966, therefore, the field had advanced far beyond where it was in the prewar decades.51 As he noted, however, important disagreements about the concept of late Gothic persisted. The relationship of the late Gothic tradition to the emergent Renaissance, in particular, presented many problems of interpretation. H ­ uizinga’s broad condemnation of late medieval culture as decadent and autumnal created a kind of interpretive undertow that many subsequent ­scholars sought to avoid. The ‘Northern Renaissance’ framing adopted by P ­ anofsky and his ­followers, however, could not readily be applied to ­architecture since the distinctions between the Gothic and Renaissance architectural traditions were many and profound. The mutual incompatibility between these p ­ erspectives and the serious limitations of each taken on its own terms ­continue to loom large in the study of late Gothic architecture even today. The field of late Gothic architectural studies has certainly expanded greatly in the decades since Białostocki’s article appeared. Although the volume and variety of this work makes synopsis difficult, some basic developments in the 48 49

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Paul Frankl, Gothic Architecture (Baltimore, 1962). The book remains valuable, especially in the new version edited and amplified by Paul Crossley, as Gothic Architecture (New Haven, 2000). José María de Azcárate, La arquitectura gótica toledana del Siglo XV (Madrid, 1958); John Harvey, The Perpendicular Style: 1330–1485 (London, 1978). It is telling and unfortunate that Harvey neglected the final period of Perpendicular, after the rise of the Tudor dynasty, which he saw as impure because of its receptivity to foreign influence. Werner Gross, Gotik und Spätgotik (Frankfurt am Main, 1968); Fehr, Benedikt Ried; Karl Heinz Clasen, “Deutschlands Anteil am Gewölbebau der Spätgotik,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 4 (1937): 163–85; Rupert Feuchtmüller, Die spätgotische Architektur von A. Pilgram (Vienna, 1951); Karl Oettinger, “Laube, Garten, und Wald: Zu einer Theorie der süddeutschen Sakralkunst, 1470–1520,” in Festschrift für Hans Sedlmayr, ed. Karl Oettinger and Mohammed Rassem (Munich, 1962): 201–28; Friedhelm Wilhelm Fischer, Die spätgotische Kirchenbaukunst am Mittelrhein, 1410–1520 (Heidelberg, 1962); Luc Mojon, Der Münsterbaumeister Matthäus Ensinger: Studien zu seinem Werk (Bern, 1967). Białostocki, “Late Gothic.”

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main national traditions of scholarship deserve mention. French Flamboyant architecture finally began to receive sympathetic attention around 1970, most notably from Roland Sanfaçon, who provocatively argued that the variety and virtuosity of Flamboyant design reflected a flourishing of individual liberty in the late Middle Ages that was cut short by the rise of centralized kingship in the Renaissance.52 More soberly, archaeological and d­ ocumentary approaches to individual buildings and cities have characterized scholarship on the F­ lamboyant since the 1990s.53 In England, valuable studies have been devoted to the Decorated style, with the relative prominence of the Perpendicular declining somewhat during this period.54 In the Germanic world, which remains the heartland of late Gothic architectural studies, new and fruitful consideration has been given to the role of drawings in architectural design, to the theory and practice of vault construction, and to the development of architects’ professional networks, among other subjects.55 The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent political liberation of Eastern Europe has greatly facilitated analysis of the artistic connections between these regions.56 Spain has also emerged as a major center of late Gothic architectural scholarship in 52 53

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A new version of his book, augmented by essays from other authors, has recently been published as L’architecture flamboyante en France: Autour de Roland Sanfaçon, ed. ­Stéphanie-Diane Daussy-Timbert (Lille, 2020). Major contributors have included Agnès Bos, Florian Meunier, and Étienne Hamon. See, for example, Agnès Bos, Les églises flamboyantes de Paris XVe-XVIe siècles (Paris, 2003); ­Florian Meunier, Martin et Pierre Chambiges; Étienne Hamon, Un chantier flamboyant et son rayonnement: Gisors et les églises du Vexin français (Besançon, 2008); idem, Une capitale flamboyante: La création monumentale à Paris autour de 1500 (Paris, 2011). The only synoptic book dedicated to the subject is still Harvey, The Perpendicular Style. For a more recent perspective, see Christopher Wilson, “‘Excellent, New and Uniforme’: Perpendicular Architecture, c.1400–1547,” in Gothic: Art for England, 1400–1547, ed. ­Richard Marks and Paul Williamson (London, 2003), pp. 98–119. Valuable studies of the Decorated style include Bony, English Decorated Style; Coldstream, Decorated Style; and Binski, Gothic Wonder. Norbert Nussbaum, German Gothic Church Architecture (New Haven, 2000); idem, “Recherches récentes sur le gothique tardif (1350–1550),” Bulletin monumental 168 (2010): 243–80; Johann Josef Böker et al., Architektur der Gotik, three vols: Wien (Salzburg, 2005), Ulm und Donauraum (Salzburg, 2011), and Rheinlande (Salzburg, 2013); Schurr, Die Baukunst Peter Parlers; Bruno Klein and Stefan Bürger, eds., Werkmeister der S­ pätgotik: Position und Rolle der Architekten im Bauwesen des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts (Darmstadt, 2009); idem, eds., Werkmeister der Spätgotik: Personen, Amt und Image (Darmstadt, 2010); Werner Müller, Grundlagen gotischer Bautechnik (Berlin, 1990); Legner, Die Parler; Anne-Christine Brehm, “Organisation und Netzwerk spätmittelalterlicher Bauhütten: Die Regensburger Ordnungen und ihr Initiatoren,” Ulm und Oberschwaben 58 (2013): 71–101. Marek Walczak and Krzysztof Czyżewski, “Late Gothic Architecture in the Region of Lesser Poland and Its Central European Connections: Selected Issues,” in Die Länder der

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recent decades. Meanwhile, the connections between the Spanish Isabelline, Portuguese Manueline, and Brabantine Florid styles are receiving more consideration in their home regions, as are their connections to the Germanic and Italian traditions.57 Scholars based in North America, finally, have begun to contribute more to the discussion of late Gothic architecture, and their traditional emphasis on France has relaxed somewhat, giving way to a wider variety of international perspectives.58 Despite these significant advances, late Gothic architecture remains poorly integrated into the main narratives of art history for several complementary reasons. First and most fundamentally, the late Middle Ages still suffer from a bad reputation, measured in comparison both to the High Middle Ages and, especially, to the Renaissance. The period has become associated in the popular imagination with war, famine, and plague, and even its greatest achievements in the arts are often derided as failures because their traditions were largely forsaken in favor of more classicizing modes. It is hardly surprising, in this context, that the vast majority of the scholarship on Gothic architecture continues to emphasize the early history of the style in the 12th and 13th centuries. It makes sense, similarly, that most scholars studying the figural arts of the 15th century would prefer to work within the architecture-free framework of the ‘Northern Renaissance,’ thereby avoiding the autumnal undertow of Huizinga’s vision of a waning Middle Ages. These tendencies, which still affect

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Böhmischen Krone und ihre Nachbarn zur Zeit der Jagiellonenkönige (1471–1526): Kunst, ­Kultur, Geschichte, ed. Evelin Wetter (Ostfildern, 2004), pp. 325–33. On Belgium, see Marjan Buyle, Thomas Coomans, Jan Esther, and Luc-Francis Genicot, eds., Architecture gothique en Belgique (Brussels, 1997). See also Merlijn Hurx, Architecture as Profession: The Origins of Architectural Practice in the Low Countries in the Fifteenth Century (Turnhout, 2018). On Spain, see Begoña Alonso Ruiz, ed., Los últimos arquitectos del gótico (Madrid, 2010); and Álvaro Zamora, María Isabel, and Javier Ibáñez ­Fernández, eds., La arquitectura en la corona de Aragón entre el gótico y el renacimiento (1450–1550): Rasgos de unidad y diversidad, (Zaragoza, 2009). See also Tom Nickson and Nicola ­Jennings, eds., Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation (London, 2020). On Portugal, see Roberto Marta, Pedro Dias, and José Cornélio da Silva, eds., L’architettura manuelina: ­Protagonista dell’impero portoghese (Rome, 1998). François Bucher, “Micro-Architecture as the ‘Idea’ of Gothic Theory and Style,” Gesta 15, nos. 1/2 (1976): 71–89; Mark, Experiments in Gothic Structure; Shelby, Gothic Design Techniques; Bony, English Decorated Style; Stephen Murray, Building Troyes Cathedral: The Late Gothic Campaigns (Bloomington, 1987); Linda Elaine Neagley, Disciplined Exuberance: The Parish Church of Saint-Maclou and Late Gothic Architecture in Rouen (University Park, 1998); Robert Bork, The Geometry of Creation: Architectural Drawing and the Dynamics of Gothic Design (Farnham, 2011); Achim Timmermann, Real Presence: Sacrament Houses and the Body of Christ, c. 1270–1600 (Turnhout, 2009).

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practicing researchers, also percolate down to students through textbooks, perpetuating the cycle of relative neglect.59 A second major obstacle to the understanding of late Gothic has been the extent to which the cultural history of the 15th and 16th centuries has been written from the Renaissance perspective. This was already the case in the period itself, with authors such as Filarete and Vasari both chronicling and celebrating the recovery of the antique manner. In the following centuries, too, the story of the emergent Renaissance has attracted the attention and sympathy of gifted and influential cultural historians, including Jules Michelet and Burckhardt, while the late medieval tradition has had few comparable champions of its own. Huizinga wrote The Autumn of the Middle Ages with deep knowledge of the period but with scorn for its embrace of extravagance and splendor. Even in recent decades much of the best work on this pivotal era has been undertaken by historians specializing more in the study of the Renaissance than in the Gothic tradition.60 A final major obstacle to the appreciation of the late Gothic architectural achievement has been the fragmentation of scholarship along national lines, a problem that is only slowly being addressed by the publication of broad surveys of the field. Wim Swaan’s Art and Architecture of the Late Middle Ages of 1977 offered a straightforwardly descriptive survey of transalpine artistic culture between roughly 1350 and 1500.61 Because each of Swaan’s chapters deals with a given country in Western Europe, his book makes it easy to grasp the chief achievements of each region but hard to grasp the chronological dynamics of artistic change, especially since it pays scant attention to the spread of Italianate classicism that marked the end of the period. Although informative and still useful, Swaan’s book has little to say about the complex relationship between Gothic and Renaissance traditions. Ethan Matt Kavaler’s Renaissance Gothic, published in 2012, offers a very different perspective in which this problem occupies center stage.62 Kavaler 59

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For an example of a widely used textbook that includes architecture but that stops in 1400, see James Snyder, Medieval Art (Englewood Cliffs, 1989). Conversely, the same author omits architecture while discussing the period from 1350 to 1575 in the companion volume, Northern Renaissance Art (Englewood Cliffs, 1985). An alternative and more thematic construction with tangential mention of architecture can be seen in Jeffrey Chipps Smith, The Northern Renaissance (New York, 2004). For instance, Peter Burke, Hybrid Renaissance, Natalie Zemon Davis Annual Lectures (Budapest, 2015); and Thomas Dandelet, The Renaissance of Empire in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, UK, 2014). Wim Swaan, Art and Architecture of the Late Middle Ages: From 1350 to the Advent of the Renaissance (Ithaca, 1977). Ethan Matt Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540 (New Haven, 2012).

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concentrates on the period between 1470 and 1540, when Gothic builders were being most actively challenged by the emergent Renaissance mode. Instead of arranging his book geographically or chronologically, he devotes chapters to individual building components, such as towers, vaults, microarchitectural shrines, and vegetal ornament. Kavaler reads the late Gothic as a kind of antithesis to the more canonical Gothic of the 13th century, while noting parallels between this late architecture and the ‘Northern Renaissance’ representational art of its own era. In considering the creative permutation and subversion of 13th-century norms seen in late Gothic design, Kavaler cites the idea of ‘deconstruction,’ while, in discussing buildings with mixtures of Gothic and classical articulation such as Saint-Eustache (Figure 0.11), he invokes ‘hybridity.’ His book thus offers a much more analytical and theoretical approach than Swaan’s, emphasizing architectural developments in a narrower time span. Pablo de la Riestra has recently published a book on late Gothic architecture that focuses on the Germanic world, much as Sanfaçon had focused on France. De la Riestra entitled his book Die Revolte der Gotik to announce his central thesis, namely that late Gothic builders in the Holy Roman Empire emancipated themselves by revolting against the constraining conventions of 13th-century French cathedral design. His thesis thus recalls Sanfaçon’s argument about liberty, even though his consideration of national differences adds an important theme that had not arisen in the study of the French Flamboyant tradition. He organizes his discussion into a series of thematic chapters, most of which consider a specific building type or building element; this thematic organization recalls Kavaler’s book, although de la Riestra’s chapters are shorter and more numerous. In contrast to authors such as Kavaler, who emphasize the complex articulation characteristic of much late Gothic design, especially in France, de la Riestra stresses the development of simpler and more streamlined late Gothic idioms, as seen at the Frauenkirche in Munich (Figure 0.6). These, he argues, should be distinguished from the explicitly classicizing forms imported from Italy in the Renaissance, although the two modes could ­sometimes be hybridized, as he demonstrates in one of his longer chapters.63 De la Riestra uses numerous formal juxtapositions to demonstrate not only the diversity of the Germanic late Gothic but also its relationship to the French and Iberian Gothic traditions and to Italianate classicism. Despite this broad peripheral vision, however, his focus remains on the German world. My own 2018 book on late Gothic architecture differs significantly from those described above, which it hopefully complements.64 Unlike Swaan, Kavaler, and 63 Pablo de la Riestra, Die Revolte der Gotik (Lindenberg, 2018), esp. pp. 376–89. 64 Bork, Late Gothic Architecture.

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De la Riestra, I chose to adopt a basically chronological organization, and I also chose to cover a broad chronological and geographical range, so that I could consider not only the progressive development of late Gothic in all its regional variety but also the parallel emergence of Italian Renaissance classicism and the eventual collision between these two modes in the 16th century. I had two main goals in writing the book. First, I wanted to defend the late Gothic tradition, arguing that it deserves just as much sympathetic study as the early Gothic tradition that preceded it and the classicizing tradition that followed it. Second, I wanted to investigate the Gothic-to-Renaissance transition in architecture, asking what qualities of Italianate design appealed strongly enough to transalpine patrons to make them abandon their proud native traditions in the decades after 1500. After examining the dynamics of this transition in country after country, I conclude that several distinct factors conspired to undermine the long-­standing dominance of the Gothic architectural mode, as noted at the beginning of this essay: the appropriation of classicism as a propagandistic architecture of rulership, the publication of treatises associating classicism with artistic authority, and the chaos unleashed by the Protestant Reformation. In grappling with this material, I found myself navigating a complex historiographical landscape, inflected not only by the triumphalist legacy of Vasari but also by the near-­total omission of architecture in the literature on the ‘Northern Renaissance’ that evolved in response to his influence. Because these inherited biases continue to inflect discussion of this transitional period even today, I am particularly grateful for the chance to rehearse some of this history in the present volume, which should foster increased understanding both of late Gothic architecture itself and of its curious position in the larger narratives of European art history. Bibliography of Cited Sources Alonso Ruiz, Begoña, ed. Los últimos arquitectos del gótico. Madrid, 2010. Alonso Ruiz, Begoña. La arquitectura tardogótica castellana entre Europa y América. Madrid, 2011. Arnade, Peter, Martha Howell, and Anton van der Lem, eds. Rereading Huizinga: Autumn of the Middle Ages, a Century Later. Amsterdam, 2019. Atterbury, Paul, and Clive Wainwright, eds. Pugin’s Gothic Passion. New Haven, 1994. Azcárate, José María de. La arquitectura gótica toledana del Siglo XV. Madrid, 1958. Bass, Marisa. “Jan Gossaert’s Neptune and Amphitrite Reconsidered.” Simiolus 35 (2011): 61–83. Bass, Marisa. Jan Gossart and the Invention of Netherlandish Antiquity. Princeton, 2016.

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Belozerskaya, Marina. Rethinking the Renaissance: Burgundian Arts Across Europe. Cambridge, UK, 2002. Białostocki, Jan. “Late Gothic: Disagreements about the Concept.” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 3, no. 29 (1966): 76–105. Binski, Paul. Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice and the Decorated Style, 1290–1350. New Haven, 2014. Böker, Hans Josef. Architektur der Gotik: Bestandskatalog der weltgrössten Sammlung an gotischen Baurissen (Legat Franz Jäger) im Kupferstichkabinett der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien; Mit einem Anhang über die mittelalterlichen Bauzeichnungen im Wien Museum Karlsplatz. Salzburg, 2005. Böker, Hans Josef, Anne-Christine Brehm, Julian Hanschke, and Jean-Sébastien Sauvé. Architektur der Gotik: Ulm und Donauraum; Ein Bestandskatalog der mittelalterlichen Archtekturzeichnungen aus Ulm, Schwaben und dem Donaugebiet. Salzburg, 2011. Böker, Hans Josef, Anne-Christine Brehm, Julian Hanschke, Peter Völkle, and Jean-Sébastien Sauvé. Architektur der Gotik: Rheinlande; Ein Bestandskatalog der ­mittelalterlichen Architekturzeichnungen. Salzburg, 2013. Bond, Francis. Gothic Architecture in England. London, 1906. Bond, Francis. “On the English Origin of French Flamboyant.” Journal of the Royal ­Institute of British Architects 15 (1908): 356–58. Bony, Jean. The English Decorated Style: Gothic Architecture Transformed, 1250–1350. Wrightsman Lectures. Ithaca, 1979. Borger, Hugo, ed. Der Kölner Dom im Jahrhundert seiner Vollendung. Cologne, 1981. Bork, Robert. The Geometry of Creation: Architectural Drawing and the Dynamics of Gothic Design. Farnham, 2011. Bork, Robert. Great Spires: Skyscrapers of the New Jerusalem. Cologne, 2003. Bork, Robert. Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception. ­Turnhout, 2018. Bos, Agnès. Les églises flamboyantes de Paris, XVe–XVIe siècles. Paris, 2003. Brandis, Markus. La maniera tedesca. Weimar, 2002. Brehm, Anne-Christine. “Organisation und Netzwerk spätmittelalterlicher ­Bauhütten: Die Regensburger Ordnungen und ihr Initiatoren.” Ulm und Oberschwaben 58 (2013): 71–101. Bucher, François. “Micro-Architecture as the ‘Idea’ of Gothic Theory and Style.” Gesta 15, no. 1/2 (1976): 71–89. Burckhardt, Jacob. Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien: Ein Versuch. Basel, 1860. Burckhardt, Jacob. Gesamtausgabe I. Stuttgart, 1930. Burioni, Matteo. “Vasari’s Rinascita: History, Anthropology, or Art Criticism.” In Renaissance? Perceptions of Continuity and Discontinuity in Europe, c. 1300–1550, ed. ­Alexander Lee, Pit Peporte, and Harry Schnitker, pp. 115–27. Leiden, 2010. Burke, Peter. Hybrid Renaissance. Natalie Zemon Davies Annual Lectures. Budapest, 2015.

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Buyle, Marjan, Thomas Coomans, Jan Esther, and Luc-Francis Genicot, eds. ­Architecture gothique en Belgique. Brussels, 1997. Clasen, Karl Heinz. “Deutschlands Anteil am Gewölbebau der Spätgotik.” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft 4 (1937): 163–85. Coenen, Ulrich. Die spatgotischen Werkmeisterbucher in Deutschland. Munich, 1990. Cohen, Matthew. Beyond Beauty: Reexamining Architectural Proportion through the Basilicas of San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito in Florence. Marsilio, 2013. Cohen, Matthew. “How Much Brunelleschi? A Late Medieval Proportional System in the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence.” Journal of the Society of Architectural ­Historians 67 (2008): 18–57. Coldstream, Nicola. The Decorated Style: Architecture and Ornament, 1240–1360. Toronto, 1994. Courajod, Louis. Leçons professées à l’École du Louvre (1887–1896). Paris, 1899–1903. Crossley, Paul. “Peter Parler and England. A Problem Revisited.” Wallraf-Richartz ­Jahrbuch 64 (2003): 53–82. Dandelet, Thomas. The Renaissance of Empire in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, UK, 2014. Daussy-Timbert, Stéphanie-Diane, ed. L’architecture flamboyante en France: Autour de Roland Sanfaçon. Lille, 2020. De Jonge, Krista. “Style and Manner in Early Modern Netherlandish Architecture (1450–1600), Contemporary Sources and Historiographical Tradition.” In Stil als Bedeutung in der nordalpinen Renaissance: Wiederentdeckung einer methodischen Nachbarschaft, edited by Stephan Hoppe, Matthias Müller, and Norbert Nußbaum, pp. 264–85. Regensburg, 2008. de la Riestra, Pablo. Die Revolte der Gotik. Lindenberg, 2018. Enlart, Camille. “Origine anglaise du style gothique flamboyant.” Bulletin monumental 70 (1906): 38–81. Farbaky, Péter. “Late Gothic and Early Renaissance Architecture in Hungary, ca. 1470– 1540.” In The Architecture of Historic Hungary, edited by Dora Wiebenson and József Sisa, pp. 45–66. Cambridge, MA, 1998. Fehr, Götz. Benedikt Ried: Ein deutscher Baumeister zwischen Gotik und Renaissance in Böhmen. Munich, 1961. Feuchtmüller, Rupert. Die spätgotische Architektur von A. Pilgram. Vienna, 1951. Feuer-Tóth, Rózsa. Renaissance Architecture in Hungary. Budapest, 1981. Fierens Gevaert, Hippolyte. Études sur l’art flamand: La Renaissance septentrionale et les premiers maîtres des Flandres. Brussels, 1905. Fischer, Friedhelm Wilhelm. Die spätgotische Kirchenbaukunst am Mittelrhein, 1410–1520. Heidelberg, 1962. Focillon, Henri. Art d’Occident, vol. 2. Paris, 1938.

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Foville, Achille. “Réponse au discours de réception de M. Simon.” Précis analytique des travaux de l’Académie de Rouen (1879): 451–70. Frankl, Paul. The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries. Princeton, 1960. Frankl, Paul. Gothic Architecture. Baltimore, 1962. Frankl, Paul, and Paul Crossley. Gothic Architecture. New Haven, 2000. Germann, Georg. Gothic Revival in Europe and Britain: Sources, Influences and Ideas. Cambridge, MA, 1973. Gerstenberg, Kurt. Deutsche Sondergotik. Munich, 1913. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. “On German Architecture.” In Goethe on Art, edited by John Gage, pp. 103–12. Berkeley, 1980. González Ramos, Roberto. “The Hispano-Islamisms of Juan Guas: The Fabrication of a Historiographical Stereotype.” In La arquitectura tardogótica castellana entre Europa y América, edited by Begoña Alonso Ruiz, pp. 325–37. Madrid, 2011. Gottschlich, Ralf. Das Kloster Santa Maria da Vitória in Batalha und seine Stellung in der iberischen Sakralarchitektur des Spätmittelalters. Hildesheim, 2012. Grafton, Anthony. Leon Battista Alberti: Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance. ­Cambridge, MA, 2002. Gross, Werner. Gotik und Spätgotik. Frankfurt am Main, 1968. Gurlitt, Cornelius. Kunst und Künstler am Vorabend der Reformation. Halle, 1890. Hamon, Étienne. Un chantier flamboyant et son rayonnement: Gisors et les églises du Vexin français. Besançon, 2008. Hamon, Étienne. Une capitale flamboyante: La création monumentale à Paris autour de 1500. Paris, 2011. Harvey, John. The Perpendicular Style: 1330–1485. London, 1978. Hill, Rosemary. God’s Architect: Pugin and the Rebuilding of Romantic Britain. London, 2007. Hipp, Hermann. “Studien zur ‘Nachgotik’ des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland, Böhmen, Österreich und der Schweiz.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tübingen, 1979. Hipp, Hermann. “Early Modern Architecture and ‘the Gothic’.” In Le Gothique de la Renaissance, edited by Monique Chatenet, pp. 33–46. Paris, 2011. Hub, Berthold. “Filarete and the East: The Renaissance of a Prisca Architectura.” J­ ournal of the Society of Architectural Historians 70 (2011): 18–37. Hugo, Victor. Notre-Dame de Paris. Paris, 1831. Huizinga, Johan. The Autumn of the Middle Ages. Chicago, 1996. Hurx, Merlijn. Architecture as Profession: The Origins of Architectural Practice in the Low Countries in the Fifteenth Century. Turnhout, 2018. Jorge, Orlindo, and Pedro Redol. “As Capelas Imperfeitas do Mosteiro da Batalha. Arqueologia e história da sua construção.” Cadernos de Estudos Leirienses 5 (2015): 301–16.

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Kalina, Pavel. Benedikt Ried: A počátky záalpské renesance. 1st ed. Prague, 2009. Kalina, Pavel. “European Diplomacy, Family Strategies, and the Origins of Renaissance Architecture in Central and Eastern Europe.” Artibus et historiae 30, no. 60 (2009): 17. Kavaler, Ethan Matt. Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540. New Haven, 2012. Kayser, Christian. “La tour nord de la cathédrale de Strasbourg: Histoire de la construction et contexte.” Bulletin de la cathédrale de Strasbourg 33 (2018): 47–84. Klein, Bruno, and Stefan Bürger, eds. Werkmeister der Spätgotik: Position und Rolle der Architekten im Bauwesen des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts. Darmstadt, 2009. Klein, Bruno, and Stefan Bürger, eds. Werkmeister der Spätgotik: Personen, Amt und Image. Darmstadt, 2010. Lampsonius, Dominicus. Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies. ­Antwerp, 1572. Langendonck, Linda van. “The History of Construction.” In The Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, edited by Willem Aerts, pp. 107–25. Antwerp, 1993. Lasteyrie, Robert de. “Observations sur l’architecture gothique en Angleterre.” Journal des Savants (1908): 57–71. Legner, Anton, ed. Die Parler und der schöne Stil, 1350–1400: Europäische Kunst unter den Luxemburgern. Cologne, 1978–80. Lewis, Michael. The Gothic Revival. London, 2002. Macdonell, Cameron. “The American Pugins: Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Goodhue.” In Gothic Revival Worldwide: A.W.N. Pugin’s Global Influence, edited by Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Jan De Maeyer, and Martin Bressani, pp. 94–105. Leuven, 2017. Mark, Robert. Experiments in Gothic Structure. Cambridge, MA, 1982. Marta, Roberto, Pedro Dias, and José Cornélio da Silva, eds.. L’architettura manuelina: Protagonista dell’impero portoghese. Rome, 1998. Mellion, Walter S. Shaping the Netherlandish Canon: Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck. Chicago, 1991. Meunier, Florian. Martin et Pierre Chambiges: Architectes des cathédrales flamboyantes. Paris, 2015. Mojon, Luc. Der Münsterbaumeister Matthäus Ensinger: Studien zu seinem Werk. ­Berner Schriften zur Kunst. Bern, 1967. Müller, Werner. Grundlagen gotischer Bautechnik. Berlin, 1990. Murray, Stephen. Building Troyes Cathedral: The Late Gothic Campaigns. Bloomington, 1987. Murray, Stephen. Beauvais Cathedral: Architecture of Transcendence. Princeton, 1989. Neagley, Linda Elaine. Disciplined Exuberance: The Parish Church of Saint-Maclou and Late Gothic Architecture in Rouen. University Park, 1998. Nickson, Tom, and Nicola Jennings, eds. Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and ­Imitation. London, 2020.

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Nussbaum, Norbert. German Gothic Church Architecture. New Haven, 2000. Nussbaum, Norbert. “Recherches récentes sur le gothique tardif (1350–1550).” Bulletin monumental 168 (2010): 243–80. Oettinger, Karl. “Laube, Garten, und Wald: Zu einer Theorie der süddeutschen Sakralkunst 1470–1520.” In Festschrift für Hans Sedlmayr, edited by Karl Oettinger and Mohammed Rassem, pp. 201–28. Munich, 1962. Panofsky, Erwin. Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and Its Art Treasures. Princeton, 1948. Panofsky, Erwin. Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism. Latrobe, 1951. Panofsky, Erwin. Early Netherlandish Painting. Cambridge, MA, 1953. Panofsky, Erwin. Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art. New York, 1972. Pereira, Paulo. Jerónimos Abbey of Santa Maria. London, 2002. Ramisch, Hans, and Peter Pfister. Die Frauenkirche in München: Geschichte, Baugeschichte und Ausstattung. Munich, 1983. Reeve, Matthew. Gothic Architecture and Sexuality in the Circle of Horace Walpole. ­University Park, 2020. Rickman, Thomas. An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture. ­London, 1819. Riegl, Alois. Late Roman Art Industry. Translated by Rolf Winkes. Rome, 1985. Ruskin, John. The Stones of Venice. London, 1851. Saint-Paul, Anthyme de. “Les origines du gothique flamboyant en France.” Bulletin monumental 70 (1906): 483–510. Sanfaçon, Roland. L’architecture flamboyante en France. Québec, 1971. Sankovitch, Anne-Marie. “The Myth of the ‘Myth of the Medieval.’” RES 40 (2001): 29–50. Sankovitch, Anne-Marie. The Church of Saint-Eustache in the Early French Renaissance. Turnhout, 2015. Schlegel, Friedrich von. “Grundzüge der gotischen Baukunst.” (1804/05) in Friedrich Schlegel: Kritische Schriften, edited by Wolfdietrich Rasch, pp. 543–83. Munich, 1964. Schunicht-Rawe, Anne, and Vera Lüpkes, eds. Handbuch der Renaissance. Cologne, 2002. Schurr, Marc Carel. Die Baukunst Peter Parlers: Der Prager Veitsdom, das Heiligkreuzmünster in Schwäbisch Gmünd und die Bartholomäuskirche in Kolin im Spannungsfeld von Kunst und Geschichte. Ostfildern, 2003. Shelby, Lon R. Gothic Design Techniques: The Fifteenth-century Design Booklets of Mathes Roriczer and Hanns Schmuttermayer. Carbondale, 1977. Silva, Jose Custodio Vieira da. The Monastery of Batalha. London, 2007. Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. The Northern Renaissance. New York, 2004.

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Snyder, James. Northern Renaissance Art. Englewood Cliffs, 1985. Snyder, James. Medieval Art. Englewood Cliffs, 1989. Strobel, Richard, ed. Parlerbauten—Architektur, Skulptur, Restaurierung. Stuttgart, 2004. Swaan, Wim. Art and Architecture of the Late Middle Ages: From 1350 to the Advent of the Renaissance. Ithaca, 1977. Tatton-Brown, Tim, and Richard Mortimer, eds. Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII. London, 2003. Timmermann, Achim. Real Presence: Sacrament Houses and the Body of Christ, c. 1270– 1600. Turnhout, 2009. Trachtenberg, Marvin. “Gothic/Italian ‘Gothic’: Toward a Redefinition.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 50 (1991): 22–37. Trachtenberg, Marvin. “Suger’s Miracles, Branner’s Bourges: Reflections on ‘Gothic Architecture’ as Medieval Modernism.” Gesta 39, no. 2 (2000): 183–205. Vaisse, Pierre. “Le Corbusier and the Gothic.” In Le Corbusier before Le Corbusier, edited by Stanislaus von Moos and Arthur Rüegg, pp. 45–68. New Haven, 2002. Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’ piu eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568. Florence, 1966–76. Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène Emmanuel. Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture française du XIe au XVIe siècle. Paris, 1854–68. Von der Dunk, Thomas. Toren versus Traditie. Leiden, 2014. Von Simson, Otto. The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order. New York, 1956. Walczak, Marek, and Krzysztof Czyżewski. “Late Gothic Architecture in the Region of Lesser Poland and Its Central European Connections: Selected Issues.” In Die Länder der Böhmischen Krone und ihre Nachbarn zur Zeit der Jagiellonenkönige (1471–1526): Kunst, Kultur, Geschichte, edited by Evelin Wetter, pp. 325–39. Ostfildern, 2004. Wijsman, Hanno. “Northern Renaissance? Burgundy and Netherlandish Art in Fifteenth-Century Europe.” In Renaissance? Perceptions of Continuity and Discontinuity in Europe, c. 1300–1550, edited by Alexander Lee, Pit Peporte and Harry Schnitker, pp. 269–88. Leiden, 2010. Wilson, Christopher. The Gothic Cathedral: The Architecture of the Great Church, 1130–1530. New York, 1990. Wilson, Christopher. “The Designer of the Henry VII Chapel, Westminster Abbey.” In The Reign of Henry VII, edited by Benjamin Thompson, 133–56. Stamford, 1995. Wilson, Christopher. “‘Excellent, New and Uniforme’: Perpendicular Architecture, c.1400–1547.” In Gothic: Art for England, 1400–1547, edited by Richard Marks and Paul Williamson, pp. 98–119. London, 2003.

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Wilson, Christopher. “Why Did Peter Parler Come to England?” In Architecture, Liturgy, and Identity, edited by Achim Timmermann and Zoë Opačić, pp. 89–110. Turnhout, 2011. Wolfthal, Diane. “Art History and Huizinga’s Autumn of the Middle Ages.” In Arnade, Howell, and Van der Lem, Rereading Huizinga, pp. 123–41. Worsley, Giles. “The Origins of the Gothic Revival: A Reappraisal; The Alexander Prize Essay.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 3 (1993): 105–50. Zamora, Álvaro, María Isabel, and Javier Ibáñez Fernández, eds. La arquitectura en la corona de Aragón entre el gótico y el renacimiento (1450–1550): Rasgos de unidad y diversidad. Zaragoza, 2009. Zerner, Henri. Renaissance Art in France: The Invention of Classicism. Paris, 2004.

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PART 1 Space and Reception: Western Perspectives

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Chapter 1

Late Gothic Medieval Imaginations in Jean Fouquet’s Grandes chroniques de France Maile S. Hutterer Folio 183r of Jean Fouquet’s Grandes chroniques de France illustrates two ­pivotal moments from the life of King Louis VI (Figure 1.1).1 On the left is ­Louis’s ­coronation of 1108 at Orléans. The kneeling king receives the crown from the archbishop of Sens in the company of suffragan bishops and courtiers.2 On the right, Henry I of England welcomes Louis’s envoys at Neaufles-Saint-Martin, where the kings will negotiate an uneasy and temporary truce over England’s strongholds in Normandy. While these figural scenes illustrate the historical events described in the text, Fouquet’s architectural setting dominates the image. His buildings tower over the diminutive figures. The dramatically foreshortened city walls add excitement to the staid formal ceremonies at left and right. Fouquet presents the buildings on folio 183r naturalistically within an illusionistic three-dimensional space. This realism suggests the accurate representation of the scenes’ architectural setting. But this perceived verism is itself an illusion. Louis VI was not crowned in a private chapel but in the Romanesque cathedral of Orléans. By Fouquet’s lifetime, a Gothic building had replaced the earlier church. In placing Louis VI’s coronation in a chapel, Fouquet rejected both the historically accurate Romanesque setting and the Gothic cathedral’s topographical accuracy in 15th-century Orléans.3 While discarding the 1 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France [hereafter BnF], MS fr. 6465. On Jean Fouquet, see (among others) Erik Inglis, Jean Fouquet and the Invention of France: Art and Nation after the Hundred Years War (New Haven, 2011); François Avril and Nicole Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France: 1440–1520 (Paris, 1993); Claude Schaefer, Jean Fouquet: An der Schwelle zur Renaissance (Dresden, 1994); Nicole Reynaud, Jean Fouquet (Paris, 1981). For a facsimile with commentary, see François Avril, Marie-Thérèse Gousset, and Bernard Guenée, eds., Les grandes chroniques de France: Reproduction intégrale en facsimilé des miniatures de Fouquet; Manuscrit français 6465 de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris ([Paris], 1987). 2 Richard Cusimano and John Moorhead, The Deeds of Louis the Fat (Washington, D.C., 1992), p. 63. For the text of this event in the Grandes chroniques, see Jules Viard, Les grandes c­ hroniques de France, 10 vols (Paris, 1920–53), 5:146–48. 3 On architectural imagery and anachronism in Fouquet’s Grandes chroniques, see Inglis, Jean Fouquet, pp. 178–80. Inglis notes that Fouquet avoided anachronisms except where they make an event more vivid, establish continuity, or anchor the action in France (p. 180). © Maile S. Hutterer, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_004 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 1.1 Coronation of Louis VI at Orléans Cathedral. Paris, BnF, Département des ­manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 183r source: BnF

­ onumentality of a cathedral, his imagined venue as a chapel preserves m the sacrality of the ceremonial space. Moreover, the chapel’s architecture— which draws on predominantly 13th-century constructions—simultaneously maintains the temporal distance of the event through its application of a

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historicizing architectural style.4 However, while the chapel places the episcopal ceremony in the past, the historical moment is anachronistic to the architectural history of the event’s physical setting. In other words, the miniature flattens time, bringing an early 12th-century moment and a 15th-century building into a 13th-century fantasy. As an invented fiction, this miniature, and Fouquet’s other three, closely related illuminations, offer evocative testimony about 15th-century attitudes toward High Gothic buildings. First, these images demonstrate the artist’s expectation of the viewer’s sophisticated architectural literacy—one attuned to subtle differences among closely related typologies, in this case, between episcopal and seignorial chapels. Second, they suggest a chronological consciousness that distinguished between the present and multiple distinct historical moments—notably the recent past of the preeminent Capetian kings and Antiquity, linked to an identifiable High Gothic or classicizing architectural syntax, respectively. Finally, it demonstrates the ability of Fouquet and his audience to apply historical styles abstractly, as a mental concept, inventing new structures beyond the previously constructed landscape. The evidence from Fouquet’s illuminations is especially compelling given the haphazard evidence from textual sources. Extant texts preserve an incomplete record of architectural reception. Students of medieval architecture are intimately familiar with the often frustrating nature of medieval architectural writing. Most surviving texts that explicitly address architecture are moralizing, with only coincidental connection to real architecture, or juridical, with a focus on property rights.5 These might describe the boundaries or administration of property, as in a 1224 charter resolving a dispute between the canons and dean of Chartres Cathedral. This document states, The stalls of the mercers that used to be [on the porch; in capitellis], shall be located in the cloisters, on the southern side, between the stair of the church and the greater tower. We decree this in such a way that all rights

4 Fouquet thus demonstrates a chronological consciousness that understands the past as distinct from the present. On the imaginative reconstruction of the past and the rise of history as a discipline, see, for example, Anthony Grafton, What Was History?: The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (New York, 2012). 5 Lindy Grant, “Naming of Parts: Describing Architecture in the High Middle Ages,” in Architecture and Language: Constructing Identity in European Architecture, c.1000–c.1650, ed. Georgia Clarke and Paul Crossley (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 47–48.

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of justice over the stalls and the houses in which they are located and the mercers themselves shall belong to the chapter.6 The goal here is not to describe the architecture, even if it provides some information about spatial arrangements, but to delineate the canonical jurisdiction within the cathedral precinct. Additional information comes from fabric accounts and other texts ­produced as part of building construction and maintenance.7 These texts primarily comprise accounting records of construction works or structural assessments made by expert panels. As with the juridical accounts, the text limits architectural descriptions to what is necessary to convey critical information. For example, the well-known 1316 expertise concerning the condition of ­Chartres Cathedral makes reports like, “There are two piers shouldering the towers which require work.”8 While all of these various texts offer vital information that enriches our understanding of medieval life and building construction, they provide little interpretation of architectural style or typology. Moreover, many modern scholars have noted that descriptions tend to focus more on architectural sculpture, stained glass, and liturgical furnishing than on architecture itself, perhaps partly due to the specialized vocabulary necessary for accurate accounts of buildings and architectural elements.9 Suger’s celebrated account of the construction of Saint-Denis, with its focus on ­windows and ­treasury objects, is one well-known example of this tendency.10 Subtle and evocative descriptions like those by Gervase of Canterbury and Jean de Jandun

6

7 8 9

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E. de Buchère de Lépinois and Lucien Merlet, eds., Cartulaire de Notre-Dame de ­Chartres, 3 vols (Chartres, 1861–65), 2:103. Translation from “Three Disputes Involving the ­Cathedral Chapter of Notre-Dame of Chartres, 1215–1224,” trans. Richard Barton, Internet Medieval Source Book (Fordham University, 1998), http://origin.web.fordham.edu/Halsall /source/1224chartres.asp. I have modified Barton’s translation by replacing “among the columns” with “on the porch,” following Eugène Lefèvre-Pontalis, “Les architectes et la construction des cathédrales de Chartres,” Mémoires de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France 64 (1905): 113. For example, Stephen Murray, Building Troyes Cathedral: The Late Gothic Campaigns (Bloomington, 1987), appendix A. “Expertise of 1316 Concerning the Condition of the Cathedral of Chartres,” in Teresa G. Frisch, ed., Gothic Art, 1140–c. 1450: Sources and Documents (Toronto, 1987), p. 60. Grant, “Naming of Parts,” p. 51; Achim Timmermann, “Architectural Vision in Albrecht von Scharfenberg’s Jüngerer titurel,” in Architecture and Language (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 58–71; Michael T. Davis, “Cathedral, Palace, Hôtel: Architectural Emblems of an Ideal Society,” in Arts of the Medieval Cathedrals: Studies on Architecture, Stained Glass and Sculpture in Honor of Anne Prache, ed. Kathleen Nolan and Dany Sandron (Burlington, 2015), pp. 43–44. Erwin Panofsky and Gerda Panofsky-Soergel, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures, 2nd ed. (Princeton, 1979). - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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are extraordinary in their attention to architectural detail.11 Their exceptionalism makes it challenging to extrapolate a consistent and comprehensive ­history of architectural reception in the Middle Ages from written records alone. In contrast to the irregular survivals of prosaic textual sources, ­architectural representations abound in extant visual material. Images also transcend the fragmented literacy of late medieval society—they are records that were accessible to viewers regardless of their language training. In this way, images potentially provide insight into the expected knowledge of larger portions of the population than what survives in written form. Buildings and cities regularly appear in stained glass, tapestry, ivory, microarchitecture, and manuscripts. Sometimes these images depict actual structures. At other times they portray fantastical edifices. In either case, this representational architecture highlights the characteristics most critical to communicate with the audience as part of a visual message. Paul Lampl and others argue that artists emphasize the features they considered to be most important for a building’s identification, whether representing a specific structure or general typology, rather than stressing naturalistic accuracy.12 As Lampl demonstrates for early medieval art, this might include the distortion of scale, the projection or suppression of select building parts, and the rearrangement of architectural elements. For example, Lampl notes how the artist of the Utrecht Psalter moved the apse of a basilica in the illustration for the hymn “Te Deum” (fol. 88r) so that it would be visible to the viewer. While altering the physical relationship between building parts, this rearrangement facilitated the structure’s identification as a basilican church. Studies of 15th-century architectural representation similarly underscore the ease with which artists moved between mimetic reproduction and ­creative modification.13 The well-known miniature of the building of the temple of ­Jerusalem (1465–75) exemplifies this fluidity between reality and fantasy (­Figure 1.2).14 While the artist, a close associate of Fouquet, closely modeled the Jewish temple on the west façade of Saint-Gatien Cathedral in Tours, the image 11 12 13

14

Robert Willis, The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral (London, 1845), pp. 32–62; Erik Inglis, “Gothic Architecture and a Scholastic: Jean de Jandun’s ‘Tractatus de laudibus Parisius’ (1323),” Gesta 42, no. 1 (2003): 63–85. Paul Lampl, “Schemes of Architectural Representation in Early Medieval Art,” Marsyas: Studies in the History of Art 9 (1961): 10. The quasi-mimetic character of architectural representation was equally true for much of the Middle Ages. For studies on architectural imagery of the intervening periods, see, for example, Emanuel S. Klinkenberg, Compressed Meanings: The Donor’s Model in Medieval Art to around 1300 (Turnhout, 2009); Elizabeth Carson Pastan, “Building Stories: The Representation of Architecture in the Bayeux Embroidery,” Anglo-Norman Studies 33 (2011): 151–85. Jean-Marie Guillouët, Flamboyant Architecture and Medieval Technicality: The Rise of Artistic Consciousness at the End of the Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2019), pp. 4–7; Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (New York, 2010), pp. 149–51. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 1.2 Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 247, fol 213v source: BnF

deviates significantly from its prototype. For example, the illuminated building has three identical portals—each modeled on Saint-Gatien’s central portal, which is larger and differently decorated than the cathedral’s north and south

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entrances. The illuminator selectively reproduced the architectural details of the model as it suited his needs. In both of these temporally distinct examples, it was the mental concept of the building rather than the correct organization of its physical forms that guided the artist’s representational choices. In Fouquet’s Grandes chroniques, buildings like his chapel from the coronation of Louis VI reveal the common language critical for identifying the sacred space of this event. Fouquet is not signaling an individual building in his imagined chapel but rather an identifiable building type—the concept of a universal building category. These generic chapels present audiences with a consistent and specific set of features that permit an exact ­typological ­identification appropriate to the narrative. The typological identification goes beyond ‘chapel’ to differentiate between closely related architectural categories. I propose that Fouquet’s imaginary churches reveal what he considered essential about these categories for effective communication with his audience. These representations maintain a consistent basic form drawn from 13th-century architectural patterns, with occasional stylistic updates. Rather than focusing on the impressive scale of monumental cathedrals, Fouquet instead pictures these events within what I identify as an episcopal chapel’s intimate space. In this way, his illuminations maintain a sense of Church authority and religious sanctity while placing that authority in a nonspecific moment of the recent past. Fouquet’s sensitivity to architectural details suggests that while he may not have understood much about construction, he was carefully attuned to typological signifiers between building plans and design changes that we would today label as stylistic shifts. Moreover, his attention to represented architectural form suggests that he expected similar sophistication on the part of the manuscript’s audience, evidence of a much more widely dispersed architectural literacy than would be otherwise directly indicated in extant texts. 1

Architectural Representation in the Grandes chroniques

The Grandes chroniques de France is an official history of France written in the vernacular. The earliest version was translated and compiled by the 13th-­ century historian and author Primat, a monk from Saint-Denis.15 The text’s 15

For a summary of the historiography on Primat, see Gabrielle M. Spiegel, The ­Chronicle Tradition of Saint-Denis: A Survey (Brookline, 1978). See also Bernard Guenée, “Les Grandes Chroniques de France: Le roman aux rois (1274–1518),” in La nation, vol. 1, pt. 2, Les lieux de la mémoire, ed. Pierre Nora (Chicago, 1986), pp. 189–214; idem, “Paris, le roi de France et la

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dynastic framework suggests an increasing concern with royal succession and continuity, ultimately creating shared mythology that glorified an uninterrupted Frankish rule.16 The version of the text in the copy illustrated by Fouquet expands the chronicle up to 1380.17 It was copied in two distinct phases, as demonstrated by François Avril.18 The earlier part (up to folio 240) was completed around 1410–30. The second part followed in the 1450s. Fouquet produced illustrations for the entire manuscript contemporaneously with the production of the second part of the text. Although the manuscript lacks ­obvious signs of ownership, it seems likely that Fouquet was working for a member of the French court, probably Charles VII.19 This hypothesis is based partly on the pictorial emphasis given to the king’s grandfather Charles V, combined with the grandson’s bibliophile tendencies. The manuscript’s text and images display a decided loyalty to the monarch, as might be expected of any work intended for a French courtly audience. In particular, it emphasizes ­public ceremony as an expression of kingship.20 Fouquet produced 51 miniatures spread over 457 folios. All but five contain architecture. At least ten of the illuminations incorporate buildings that are individualized through the representation of their distinctive features. These include the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, the Sainte-Chapelle (Figure 1.3), the cathedral of Reims, and the Palais de la Cité. Paris’s Temple, the abbey church of Saint-Denis, Saint-Martin in Tours, and Old St. Peter’s in Rome also appear within the manuscript (Figure 1.4). These easily identifiable buildings can be understood as architectural portraits. As demonstrated by Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood, architectural portraiture gained prominence in

16 17 18 19

20

boue: Comment Primat a écrit l’histoire à Saint-Denis au XIIIe siècle,” in Écrire l’histoire à Metz au Moyen Âge: Actes du colloque organisé par l’Université Paul Verlaine de Metz, ed. Mireille Chazan and Gérard Nauroy (Bern, 2011), pp. 359–71. Anne D. Hedeman, The Royal Image: Illustrations of the Grandes Chroniques de France, 1274–1422 (Berkeley, 1991), pp. 22–25. On creation of “national” mythology, see Inglis, Jean Fouquet, p. 70. On the later history of the Grandes Chroniques, see Spiegel, The Chronicle Tradition of Saint-Denis, pp. 117–26. François Avril, “Jean Fouquet, illustrateur de Grandes Chroniques de France,” in Avril, Gousset, and Guenée, Les grandes chroniques de France, pp. 33–34, 41–42. On Charles VII as patron for BnF, MS fr. 6465, see ibid., pp. 15–19; Erik Inglis, “Image and Illustration in Jean Fouquet’s Grandes Chroniques de France,” French Historical Studies 26, no. 2 (2003): 193; Schaefer, Jean Fouquet, p. 172; Avril and Reynaud, Les manuscrits à ­peintures en France, p. 139; Reynaud, Jean Fouquet, p. 60. Hedeman, The Royal Image, p. 180.

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Figure 1.3 Coronation of Louis X at the Sainte-Chapelle. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 326r source: BnF

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Figure 1.4 Coronation of Charlemagne in Old Saint Peter’s. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 89v source: BnF

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15th-century French and Netherlandish painting.21 In his architectural portraits, Fouquet identifies buildings by representing the key features of these structures, thus rendering visual likenesses of specific, familiar monuments. For example, he shows Paris Cathedral with its distinctive flat-topped twin towers. Similarly, Old St. Peter’s has its trabeated nave arcade and flat wooden ceiling (Figure 1.4). The crossing’s triumphal arch and the huge apse beyond it are visible behind the assembled crowd. Studies of architectural portraiture generally emphasize the relationship between the physical building and its image. Such investigations reveal how artists understood their subjects’ spatial and structural realities by identifying components where the artists either pursued or abandoned verisimilitude. Nowhere is this trend more evident than in the scholarly analysis of an earlier set of architectural drawings, the 13th-century portfolio of Villard de ­Honnecourt. Comparisons of Villard’s drawings of Reims Cathedral to its model expose several structural impossibilities in the representation. For example, as William W. Clark notes, the height of the passages that run through the buttress uprights undermine their structural integrity.22 Similar impossibilities appear in Fouquet’s images. For example, in the miniature of Louis X’s coronation in the Sainte-Chapelle, glazed tracery appears in the spandrels above the rose. In reality, these upper spandrels could never be glazed because they occupy the part of the wall that fronts the vault (compare Figures 1.3 and 1.5). Such nuances of architectural construction were either opaque or inconsequential to Fouquet and potentially to nonspecialists more generally. People outside the building industry likely cared little about the constructional and structural realities of 21

22

Nagel and Wood argue that the architectural portrait first appeared around 1400 in the Très riches heures of the Duke of Berry (Anachronic Renaissance, 147, citing Millard Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries [New York, 1974], pp. 202–06). However, this hinges on a definition of portraiture that necessitates a certain (yet undefined) degree of likeness within the conventions of realism as defined by classical and Renaissance art. The work of Lampl and Klinkenberg and the sketches of Villard discussed below all point to the architectural representation of specific buildings before 1400. Meiss himself traces precedents back to 13th-century municipal seals (p. 206). William W. Clark, “Reims Cathedral in the Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt,” in V ­ illard’s Legacy: Studies in Medieval Technology, Science, and Art in Memory of Jean Gimpel, ed. Marie-Thérèse Zenner (Burlington, 2004), pp. 28–29. Clark’s analysis suggests that ­Villard’s buttressing scheme should not be read as either an “improvement” or earlier design but rather as a record of the artist’s impressions. See also Carl F. Barnes, The Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr 19093): A New Critical Edition and Color Facsimile (Farnham, UK, 2009), pp. 209–10. Barnes summarizes much of the scholarship on this drawing, concluding with Robert Branner’s statement that it “would be considered nothing short of irresponsible on the part of any master mason” (ibid.).

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Figure 1.5 Sainte-Chapelle, Paris source: Art Resource

architectural practice as long as the building remained stable. For them, architecture held other meanings.23 23

On images as bearers of meaning beyond their relationship to text, see Inglis, “Image and Illustration,” p. 109; Laura Slater, Art and Political Thought in Medieval England, c. 1150–1350 (Woodbridge, 2018), pp. 58–59.

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In Erik Inglis’s 2011 study of Fouquet’s work, he convincingly argues for Fouquet’s conscious identification of a distinctively French architectural style. Many of the architectural portraits in Fouquet’s Grandes chroniques have close associations with the monarchy, either as part of a royal residence—e.g. the Palais de la Cité—or as a site of royal ceremony—e.g. Reims Cathedral as the site of the coronation.24 Inglis further notes that Fouquet emphasized the exoticism of foreign buildings, such as in the bulbous domes in the image of Tunis and the flat wooden ceiling of Old St. Peter’s (Figure 1.4). In Inglis’s analysis, architectural form carries meaning due to its regional associations. He uses Fouquet’s architectural portraits to demonstrate the ability of images to convey an ideology that is not present in texts. In particular, Inglis notes that Fouquet presents a limited number of buildings—e.g. the Palais de la Cité, Notre-Dame in Paris, and Saint-Denis Abbey—multiple times, essentially creating an identifiable canon for French architecture that is contrasted with ‘foreign’ buildings, be they Tunisian or Italian.25 In addition to presenting a geographically defined style, Fouquet’s miniatures convey a chronological focus on architectural patterns some 200 years old. His architectural portraits predominantly represent historic buildings, most frequently under construction, either in whole or in part, during the 13th century. Old St. Peter’s is the primary exception to this rule, potentially explained by its presence as an exoticism. Although the other architectural portraits represent ­buildings that range in date, they all experienced significant construction or rebuilding in the second and third quarters of the 13th century. Fouquet’s imagined chapels similarly reflect a 13th-century pattern, as I explore below. Consequently, Fouquet’s architectural style foregrounds a precise temporal moment. The concentrated emphasis on 13th-century structures suggests a conscious choice to present a collection of buildings that amplified the manuscript’s royalist message through the evocation of a past moment marked by the increased power of the French crown. This pictorial echo of the High Gothic matches a similar nostalgia for the recent past in several major, late medieval architectural projects. 2

Fouquet’s Chapels and Architectural Typology

Fouquet’s imagined chapel appears in several variations in the Grandes chroniques. Three of them appear in images of coronations: of Louis IV, of Louis VI, 24 25

Camille Serchuk, “Images of Paris in the Middle Ages: Patronage and Politics” (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1997), pp. 212–38. Inglis, Jean Fouquet, pp. 202–03.

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and of Louis IX. In all three cases, the chapel replaces the historically accurate setting of a cathedral—Orléans for Louis VI, Laon for Louis IV, and Reims for Louis IX (Figures 1.1, 1.6–1.7). A fourth version appears in Fouquet’s illustration of the deposition of Archbishop Arnoul in 991 at a Council of Reims, standing in for the destroyed monastery church of Saint-Basle in Verzy (Figure 1.8). These seemingly disparate events (coronation and deposition) are united by their performance of episcopal authority, a vital element of the chapel’s signification. Importantly, Fouquet’s fantastic chapel appears just as often as any one of his architectural portraits. As for comparisons, the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris appears twice (fols. 57r and 104v), as does the basilica of Saint-Martin in Tours (fols. 169v and 223r). The Temple in Paris appears three times (fols. 236r, 417r, and 444r). This parallel frequency suggests a similar correspondence of significance between the chapel and the individual architectural portraits within the manuscript’s broader visual program. Fouquet’s four imagined chapels have several physical characteristics in common, though they differ in their details. In other words, they present a shared typology in keeping with the contemporaneous approach to architectural representation.26 Their plans display an acute simplicity devoid of architectural flourishes. Each is a small one-aisle structure. Their façades uniformly exhibit a single arched portal under a steep gable. The gable itself is decorated with sculpture and modest rose windows. The quantity of decoration increases with the chapel’s size, potentially reflecting the practicalities of painting on a small scale. Where the lateral façades are visible, projecting buttress piers topped with crocketed pinnacles punctuate the exterior sidewalls. Beyond the single portal, chapels extend to their terminus in a rounded apse. The differences between the chapels introduce limited variation to an otherwise consistent paradigm. For example, the entrance arch takes various shapes— round-headed, ogee, or multilobed. In addition, there is some variance in the elevation of each chapel. Half of the chapels have a two-story elevation with a blank dado supporting tall lancet windows. The other two chapels omit these windows. However, since the chapels without fenestration are the smallest of the four, it is possible that their small scale may have prevented Fouquet from including this additional detail. Instead, ribs descend from the ceiling and disappear behind the assembled crowd. Despite these minor variations, the basic form of the chapel remains consistent. The regular pattern of a simple single-aisle chapel supported with pinnacled buttresses suggests that Fouquet’s imaginings are not mere fantasies.27 26 27

Nagel and Wood, Anachronic Renaissance, p. 159. Pastan, “Building Stories,” p. 171.

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Figure 1.6 Coronation of Louis IV at Laon Cathedral. Paris, BnF, Département des ­manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 159v source: BnF

Instead, he seems to have drawn upon known ecclesiastical spaces for these ceremonies—ultimately placing them within buildings that he deemed appropriate to their performance and larger message. Fouquet drew on the physical

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Figure 1.7 Coronation of Louis IX at Reims Cathedral. Paris, BnF, Département des ­manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 251v source: BnF

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Figure 1.8 Deposition of Archbishop Arnoul at Saint Basle Monastery in Verzy. Paris, BnF, Département des manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 165v source: BnF

structures familiar to him in imagining architectural elements that conveyed sacrality, power, and French—perhaps specifically Capetian—royalty. In so doing, he carefully selected the most appropriate architectural type for the manuscript’s message of royal authority and dynastic continuity. Importantly,

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however, these are not “portraits” of identifiable buildings but instead visualizations of a known historicizing taxonomy. They show that Fouquet’s familiarity with 13th-century architecture extended beyond copying individual buildings to the creation of mental categories from which he could imagine new structures that would fit within that group. Moreover, these typological categories were specific and nuanced, reflecting their particular social functions and associations. The straightforward plan of Fouquet’s imagined chapels indicates that he was not working from an idealized mental image of a cathedral. His representations of cathedrals within the Grandes chroniques differ markedly from his chapels, exemplified by his two representations of Reims (fols. 163r and 247v) (Figure 1.9). First, the soaring height of both illuminations presents a scale almost antithetical to the intimacy of the chapels. In addition, the coronation scenes of Lothar and Louis VIII allude to the cathedral’s three-story elevation and aisled plan, presenting an intricate spatial organization. In both, the representation of compound piers, either in the hemicycle or nave arcade, indicates an ambulatory or aisle beyond. Fouquet’s imagined chapels show neither this sense of monumentality nor do they feature equivalently elaborate elevations or ground plans. After cathedrals have been discarded as models for Fouquet’s imagined chapels, palace chapels present as another possible source—specifically the Sainte-Chapelle, which Fouquet represents several times in the Grandes ­chroniques and his contemporaneous work, the Hours of Étienne Chevalier. Built by Louis IX to house the Crown of Thorns and other major relics, the Sainte-­Chapelle was a famous and celebrated chapel associated with the French Crown. The artist’s demonstrated familiarity with this building might suggest its prominent role in his architectural imaginings. Indeed, the Sainte-Chapelle shares several formal similarities with Fouquet’s chapels. The four fantastical chapels have a two-story elevation, pinnacled spur buttresses, and a single ­portal topped by a gable, all of which find parallels in the ­celebrated royal monument. Moreover, the Sainte-Chapelle also operates as the coronation site on folio 326r of the Grandes chroniques, replacing Reims Cathedral. Inglis argues that this substitution emphasizes the new king’s monarchal authority over the locus sacrer of Reims while simultaneously substituting an intimate chapel for a monumental cathedral.28 Ultimately, Fouquet’s apparent first-hand knowledge of the Sainte-Chapelle cannot be overlooked as a contributing source for his concept of a chapel more generally. 28

Inglis, Jean Fouquet, p. 179.

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Figure 1.9 Coronation of Lothar in Reims Cathedral. Paris, BnF, Département des ­manuscrits, MS fr. 6465, fol. 163r source: BnF

However, the imagined chapels are not portraits of the Sainte-Chapelle. They differ significantly from the palace chapel’s representations in the Grandes chroniques and Hours of Étienne Chevalier. Instead, the imagined chapels represent nonspecific but identifiable typologies, as we see from their respective details. When representing the Sainte-Chapelle, Fouquet faithfully replicates

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several aspects of its design, providing the royal chapel with ­sufficient detail to make it identifiable as a specific structure. Fouquet’s faithful replication of salient features persists even as he took artistic license in reducing the building to a single story. For example, on folio 326r, the chapel’s façade features the inscribed rose window topped by a gable with a central oculus and three inscribed quatrefoils (Figure 1.3). And on folio 292r, statues of the apostles decorate the bay divisions of the royal chapel, just as in the physical structure. In contrast, no details in the four imagined chapels explicitly link them to the royal monument or to any other specific building familiar to this author. If the Sainte-Chapelle was not the ultimate model for the imagined ­chapels, is it possible that Fouquet was drawing on the model of palatine chapels more generally? Perhaps he constructed a mental composite from—for example— the royal chapels of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Vincennes and the Sainte-­ Chapelle in Dijon. While possible, the intricacy of these examples sets them apart from the chapels in the Grandes chroniques. The tracery is more ­delicate, the façades more ornate, and the interiors more hierarchical with their incorporation of princely niches. Elaborate stained glass and liturgical furnishing would have further contributed to the luxurious nature of these spaces. The comparative simplicity of Fouquet’s chapels distinguishes them from the ­pattern of palatine chapels. In my assessment, the closely related typology of episcopal chapels more likely served as conceptual inspiration for Fouquet’s imagined ones. Potentially a typological predecessor to seignorial chapels like the Sainte-Chapelle, bishop’s chapels were typically attached either to the cathedral or the bishop’s palace.29 They provided a restricted space for private prayer and intimate ­ceremony separate from the cathedral’s more public ritual space. The well-­ preserved archiepiscopal chapel at Reims exemplifies the type (­Figure 1.10).30 Built concurrently with the 13th-century cathedral, the two-story chapel extends off the archiepiscopal palace, parallel to the cathedral’s chevet on its south side. It features a single-aisle, longitudinal plan typical of episcopal chapels. 29

30

Inge Hacker-Sück, “La Sainte-Chapelle de Paris et les chapelles palatines du Moyen Âge en France,” Cahiers archéologiques 13 (1962): 218–57. Modern scholars have long noted the affinities between these chapel types, such as Alain Erlande-Brandenburg, The Cathedral: The Social and Architectural Dynamics of Construction (New York, 1994), p. 302. On the archiepiscopal chapel at Reims, see Emile Amé, “La chapelle de l’archevêché de Reims,” Annales archéologiques 15 (1855): 213–23; Thierry Crépin-Leblond, “Recherches sur les palais épiscopaux en France au Moyen Âge, XIIe–XIIIe siècles, d’après divers ­exemples des provinces ecclésiastiques de Reims et de Sens” (thesis, École nationale des Chartes, 1987); idem, “Reims,” in Palais médiévaux (France-Belgique): 25 ans d’archéologie, ed. Annie Renoux (Le Mans, 1994), p. 168.

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Figure 1.10 Archiepiscopal Chapel, Reims, France, ca. 1211–20 source M. Hutterer

Its simple elegance is also characteristic. The slender architectural proportions manifest the solemnity of the chapel’s ritual space and project the fineness of its design and execution. The upper chapel’s two-story elevation, its unembellished lancet windows, and the chapel’s projecting spur buttresses all find parallels with the imagined chapels from Fouquet’s illustrations. The most significant deviations from this archetypal example in Fouquet’s imagined chapels are in the shape of the arches, which Fouquet has updated to reflect 15th-century stylistic preferences for round-headed, elliptical, and ogee forms. However, the chapels’ general simplicity and their fundamental pattern echo episcopal chapels as the most likely potential prototype. The distinction that I am drawing between episcopal and palatine chapels is subtle. Episcopal chapels exhibit several formal similarities to the Sainte-­ Chapelle—similarities that may derive from the latter’s dependence upon the former as a model.31 In particular, the episcopal chapel in Paris, constructed as part of Bishop Maurice de Sully’s 12th-century rebuilding of the episcopal palace to the south of the cathedral, could have served as a proximate and 31

Hacker-Sück, “La Sainte-Chapelle de Paris,” pp. 230–43.

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symbolically powerful inspiration for Louis IX and his builder.32 Maurice’s chapel is an early example of the more general type popular in the 13th century, exemplified by Reims and later repeated at the Palais de la Cité: a two-story aisleless building terminating in an apse. While remaining cognizant of the close relationship between seignorial and episcopal chapels, I argue that they constitute two different architectural categories. One meaningful difference is their physical size. Seignorial chapels, and especially royal chapels, tend to be larger with naves of more bays than is typical for episcopal chapels, although there are exceptions. The grander size of seignorial chapels potentially speaks to their use by a larger court. It might also respond to the differing needs of seignorial and episcopal palaces since bishops had access to the cathedral for grand ceremonies. The primary distinction between these two closely related typologies lies in their level of ornamentation. Bishop’s chapels tend toward austerity, whereas seignorial chapels more frequently display greater complexity in their architectural design and embellishment. Even in its own time, the Sainte-Chapelle was celebrated for the richness of its decoration and, most especially, for the abundant radiance of its glazing. A well-known 1244 bull issued by Innocent IV describes the extraordinarily fine workmanship of the partly completed building (opera superante materiam).33 The 14th-century scholastic Jean de Jandun wrote of how the chapel transports one to heaven with “the most select colors of the pictures, the precious gilding of the images, [and] the beautiful transparency of the windows on all sides.”34 Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the Sainte-Chapelle, and the other closely related palatine chapels (e.g. Vincennes and Bourges) share this opulence of sculpture, tracery, and stained glass that departs from the episcopal tradition and its representation by Fouquet. In contrast, the archiepiscopal chapel at Reims is less ostentatious than the Parisian royal chapel, especially in its quantity of figural sculpture. The 19th-­ century historian Émile Amé described its exterior as of “noble simplicity” and noted the lower chapel’s particular austerity with its unadorned keystones.35 The restrained use of sculpture is also apparent in the chapel’s comparison 32 33

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Meredith Cohen, The Sainte-Chapelle and the Construction of Sacral Monarchy: Royal Architecture in Thirteenth-Century Paris (New York, 2015), pp. 137–38. For an overview of the episcopal chapel at Paris, see Erlande-Brandenburg, The Cathedral, pp. 303–05. The text of this bull is quoted in Sauveur-Jérôme Morand, Histoire de la Sainte-Chapelle Royale du palais: Enrichie de planches (Paris, 1790), “Pièces justificives,” pp. 2–3. Many scholars have noted that the phrase used by Innocent IV was most typically applied to reliquaries and other precious metal objects. Inglis, “Gothic Architecture and a Scholastic,” p. 67. Amé, “La chapelle de l’archevêché de Reims,” pp. 218, 221.

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to the adjacent and stylistically similar cathedral. Whereas the cathedral incorporates many figural sculptures, from the life-size statues of the façade and retro-façade to the small corbel heads, the chapel is largely devoid of this type of representational carving, except the relief of the Coronation of the Virgin in the tympanum above the entrance portal. Similarly, Fouquet’s imagined chapels read as much smaller than his images of the Sainte-­Chapelle, with less ornamentation and light. Notably, only two of the imagined chapels incorporate any figural sculpture and then only as a single standing figure above the entrance portal. These qualitative distinctions suggest that Fouquet drew on a typology different from that explicitly associated with the royal monument’s opulence, with the most natural fit being the episcopal chapel. Fouquet’s conceptual model of episcopal chapels also resonates with the events that the chapels house and with descriptions of those events in the text. For each of the three coronations and the deposition of Archbishop Arnoul, the text notes the correct location of the ceremony, but it is silent about the architectural settings. Instead, it stresses the solemnity of the ritual and the active participation of the Church hierarchy. For example, the accounts of the coronation of Louis IX describe how the bishop of Soissons traveled to Reims with a great retinue of prelates and clergy to anoint and consecrate the boy king. The focus here is the size and status of the ceremony’s participants rather than the lavishness of its architectural setting, even though Reims was among the most ornate of France’s cathedrals. Fouquet also stresses the ceremony’s participants, carefully showing the newly anointed king surrounded by a group of ecclesiastics and nobles (the peers) just before their collective gesture of homage.36 As noted by Meredith Cohen, bishop’s chapels were redundant to the ­cathedral.37 Rather than providing an essential function as a liturgical space, episcopal chapels amplified the bishop’s or archbishop’s authority through their exclusivity. Representation of this type by Fouquet thus signals not only the consecrated space of the church—a requirement for ceremonies like the coronation—but also emphasizes the authority of the episcopal office in that 36

37

Robert W. Scheller, “Ensigns of Authority: French Royal Symbolism in the Age of Louis XII,” Simiolus 13, no. 2 (1983): 120; Philippe Contamine, “Les pairs de France au sacre des rois (XVe siécle): Nature et portée d’un programme iconographique,” Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France (1988): 321–48. Contamine only attributes this ­iconographical moment to the coronations of Lothar, Philip Augustus, Louis VIII, and Charles IV. However, the combination of archbishops, bishops, and secular nobles in the coronation scenes of Louis IV, Louis VI, and Louis IX suggests that Fouquet has depicted the same moments here. Cohen, The Sainte-Chapelle, p. 135.

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event. Thus, the imagined chapels are a particularly sophisticated form of ­synecdoche, one that points simultaneously toward a more elaborate architectural structure and the ecclesiastical authority that animates it. In drawing on episcopal chapels, Fouquet was also referencing an ­antiquated architecture. Most episcopal chapels were constructed contemporaneously to major reconstructions of the adjacent cathedral, typically in the later 12th or 13th century. For example, such was the case for Reims, which probably used artisans and designers already employed for the cathedral works. The crocketed triangular gables of the chapel façades reflect this architectural historicism, reminiscent of those on the western façade of Amiens Cathedral or the transept arms of Paris Cathedral. Fouquet’s imagined chapels thus draw on models contemporaneous to the buildings represented as architectural portraits, placing the action in the same chronological moment of the recent past. Fouquet’s representation of 13th-century architecture reflects a similar trend toward a historical quotation in architectural practice. Several 15th-­century buildings draw on High Gothic structures for inspiration, including the basilica of Notre-Dame de l’Épine and the parish church of Saint-Maclou in Rouen. In both cases, the newer building closely follows the model of a nearby cathedral (Notre-Dame in Reims and Notre-Dame in Rouen, ­respectively) of a significantly earlier date.38 The nostalgic architectural quotations can be understood as an intentional harkening back to the golden age of ­prosperity—a symbolic reference to a period of political and economic affluence. In the case of Saint-Maclou, in particular, Linda Neagely has suggested that the church’s parishioners sought to affirm the French traditions of the past in the context of the English occupation of their city.39 In other words, the use of the nearby cathedral as a model should be read as an overt rejection of the English Perpendicular style, which had influenced more recent Rouennais structures. While this rejection of Englishness is particularly striking in the study of Rouen, the economic and political turbulence of much of the 15th century contextualizes the aspirational use of historicizing citations from later 12th- and 13th-century 38

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Luc Benoist, Notre-Dame de l’É pine (Paris, 1933), pp. 30, 61; Linda Elaine Neagley, “The Flamboyant Architecture of St.-Maclou, Rouen, and the Development of a Style,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 47, no. 4 (1988): 374–96. Notre-Dame de l’Épine follows not only Reims Cathedral, but 13th-century champenois architecture more ­generally, with correspondences to Notre-Dame-en-Vaux in Châlons and Saint-Nicaise in Reims, among others. See Alain Villes, “Le programme de construction et la chronologie de Notre-Dame de l’Épine,” Notre-Dame de l’Epine, 1406–2006: Actes du colloque international, L’Epine-Châlons-en-Champagne, 13–14 septembre 2006, ed. Christine Abelé and Jean-Pierre Ravaux (Châlons-en-Champagne, 2007), p. 203. Neagley, “The Flamboyant Architecture of St.-Maclou,” pp. 395–96.

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buildings, which were a product of the earlier period’s economic growth.40 In this way, 15th-century buildings could project associations of wealth and stability. The church of Saint-Eustache is a similar, if later, example that employs multiple historicisms, looking to the Gothic, Romanesque, and classical pasts (Figure 0.11). Begun in 1532 as part of Francis I’s reconsecration of Paris as the monarchy’s official residence, Saint-Eustache was the largest church planned in Paris since the 12th-century reconstruction of the city’s cathedral.41 As demonstrated by Anne-Marie Sankovitch, the Romanesque influences are primarily formal, with Cluny III providing a model for pier design and the application of classical vocabulary to a monumental basilican church.42 In contrast, the deliberate evocation of Paris Cathedral in Saint-Eustache’s plan and transepts—copied with extraordinary fidelity—operates symbolically. In replicating the preeminent monument of Paris, Francis links his new building, and, by association, himself, with Philip Augustus, his illustrious predecessor who first established Paris as the capital of royal power.43 Saint-Eustache’s classicism then transforms this 12th-century Paris into a nigh mythological and eternal state.44 Like Notre-Dame de l’Épine and Saint-Maclou, the architect of Saint-Eustache uses references to 13th-century architecture to conjure a period of economic and political prestige. The historicizing symbolism of physical structures was equally present in Fouquet’s architectural representations. His incorporation of illustrious monuments of the proximate past is unsurprising in itself, especially given the high regard that buildings like Paris Cathedral and the Sainte-Chapelle

40

41 42 43 44

Georges Duby, The Age of the Cathedrals: Art and Society, 980–1420, trans. Eleanor Levieux and Barbara Thompson (Chicago, 1981), pp. 93–96. For a brief introduction on the stability and growth of the French Crown from Philip Augustus to Louis IX, see William Chester Jordan, Europe in the High Middle Ages (New York, 2001), pp. 226–33. Anne-Marie Sankovitch, The Church of Saint-Eustache in the Early French Renaissance (Turnhout, 2015), p. 35. Ibid., p. 203. Ibid., pp. 27–42. On Philip Augustus and the creation of a royal city, see also Cohen, The Sainte-Chapelle, pp. 14–65. I have previously argued that the adaptation of classicizing forms at the church of Sainte-Madeleine at Montargis crafted a fictitious Antiquity for the distinctly medieval form of the flying buttress. Maile Hutterer, “Architectural Design as an Expression of Religious Tolerance: The Case of Sainte-Madeleine at Montargis,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 76, no. 3 (2017): 281–301. Nagel and Wood argue that the use of round-headed arches represent a sense of timelessness in architectural imagery, which they distinguish from physical structures (Anachronic Renaissance, p. 155).

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continued to hold throughout the Middle Ages.45 More significant is the comparative absence of contemporaneous construction projects. Many such projects could have served as direct models or as more general inspiration for Fouquet’s architectural settings. For example, during the reign of Charles VI (r. 1380–1422), construction projects included civic buildings and chapels, both as independent structures and as additions to existing churches.46 Building efforts redoubled following the 1429 siege of Paris, which left many of Paris’s buildings in a state of disrepair. The restoration of the city catalyzed numerous construction campaigns over the course of the 15th and 16th centuries. Early examples of projects associated with the monarchy that predated or occurred contemporaneously to Fouquet’s work include the convents of the Augustinians and the Carthusians, both of which took place in the mid-14th to mid-15th centuries.47 The church of Saint-Séverin, in particular, was an active worksite around 1400 and again in the 1450s and 1460s, contemporaneous to Fouquet’s illuminations.48 This site would have provided a proximate model for contemporaneous architectural style as part of the current Parisian landscape. Given Fouquet’s apparent attention to architecture, one might easily imagine him taking an interest in the concentration of rebuilding efforts that began around midcentury. On the contrary, the Grandes chroniques makes little to no reference to contemporaneous construction enterprises or the buildings that benefited from them. Fouquet’s architectural imagery consequently emphasizes the urban landscape as it was shaped in the mid-13th century. Fouquet’s invented buildings similarly draw on 13th-century architectural patterns—the glory days of the Capetian line. Fouquet’s buildings, both real 45 46

47

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For example, Jean de Jandun describes Paris Cathedral as “that most terrible church of the most glorious Virgin Mary,” which “deservedly shines out, like the sun among stars.” Quoted in Inglis, “Gothic Architecture and a Scholastic,” p. 67. Isabelle Taveau, “L’architecture civile et religieuse à Paris sous le règne de Charles VI” (Ph.D. dissertation, Université Paris IV Sorbonne, 1987); eadem, “Raymond du Temple, maître d’œuvre des rois de France et des princes,” in Du projet au chantier: Maîtres d’œuvrage et maîtres d’oeuvre aux XIVe–XVIe siècles: Colloque scientifique organisé les 1er, 2 et 3 octobre 1998 à Vincennes avec le concours de l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales, la Ville de Vincennes, la Société des amis de Vincennes, ed. Odette Chapelot (Paris, 2001), pp. 323–38. Agnès Bos, Les églises flamboyantes de Paris, XVe–XVIe siècles (Paris, 2003), pp. 301–02, 304. Bos provides a helpful chart that visualizes the chronology of ecclesiastical construction projects (p. 44, figure 5). Construction of the Augustinian convent occurred between a 1368 gift from Charles V and its dedication in 1453. Construction of the ­Carthusian ­convent, founded by Louis IX, stretched from the 13th to the 15th centuries, with the reconstruction of the bell tower occurring around 1445. Bos, Les églises flamboyantes, pp. 259–67; Dany Sandron, Denis Hayot, and Philippe ­Plagnieux, Paris gothique (Paris, 2020), pp. 272–79.

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and imagined, thus emphasize a recognizable moment in the kingdom’s collective memory that stresses royal authority and the strength of the French Crown. Simultaneously, Fouquet’s architectural imagery suppresses or erases the recent past—purging the more recent realities of the Hundred Years War and conflicts over succession following Charles IV’s death in 1328. Fouquet’s use of anachronistic, historicizing architecture places the events within an identifiable but mythologized historical moment. In the context of coronation— the event most frequently associated with his imagined chapels—Fouquet’s architectural imagery further amplifies his message of dynastic continuity and stability through its temporal distance and associations with a moment of increasing growth, prosperity, and remarkable artistic achievements. Whereas Fouquet’s architectural portraits suggest a conscious use of an identifiable style, his imagined chapels point toward another absent ­narrative—a typological iconography at the intersection of a novel historical consciousness and nostalgic political symbolism.49 In particular, I suggest that Fouquet creatively engineered a setting that centered royal authority, even as it depended on episcopal acknowledgment. In this context, the setting’s inventive nature neutralized any specific associations to identifiable places or the locus of a bishop’s or archbishop’s seat. As no architectural treatise survives from medieval France, the visual record provides the most substantial information about architectural expectations. As with architectural portraiture, the artist can reduce a building type to a few salient characteristics to communicate that building’s meaning to its audience. Artists can combine similarly recognizable idealizations of architectural elements, so the fanciful paintings retain an echo of reciprocal communication, pointing simultaneously to how the audience expected architectural elements to look and showing how the artist could engage with those expectations to convey meaning. Fouquet’s imagined chapel adopts archaic typology that places the narrative within a generic building that is nevertheless invested with episcopal authority and the collective memory of shared history. His decision to move the event to settings both anachronous and geographically inaccurate suggests the deliberateness of his choice as a means of enhancing the larger message of his images.

49

On the medieval identification of building typologies, see Robert Bork, “Holy Toledo: Art-Historical Taxonomy and the Morphology of Toledo Cathedral,” AVISTA Forum ­Journal 10, no. 2 (1998): 31–36. See also Inglis, Jean Fouquet, pp. 179–81. Inglis identifies this as a “national style” in the creation of a French identity.

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Conclusion

This analysis of Fouquet’s imagined chapels indicates that he was sensitive to temporal and typological distinctions within ecclesiastical architecture. Unlike architectural portraits, the imagined chapels are contrivances that leverage architectural styles and taxonomies to construct fictitious yet plausible settings for the narrative. They demonstrate Fouquet’s ability to work with mental concepts of general building types and a historical consciousness about 13th-century architectural styles more generally. These imagined chapels work in conjunction with the manuscript’s architectural portraits to represent an image of Paris that is simultaneously determined by its 13th-­century buildings and timeless by incorporating classicizing stylistic features like round-headed arches. These visual strategies run parallel to similar combinations of High Gothic and classicizing design in contemporaneous architectural projects, demonstrating a keen nostalgia for a French past as a moment of perfected— nigh legendary—monarchal authority. In addition to suggesting that both artist and audience were attuned to categories of architectural form, Fouquet’s imagined chapels imply artist and viewer associated these forms with distinct periods and meanings, just as they did with identifiable buildings. The substitution of Fouquet’s imagined chapel for a monumental cathedral is not a generic depiction of “church” but specifically a particular type of church that was similarly connected to the episcopal office and distinct from the palatine chapels of secular authority. Moreover, the representation of divine authority, manifest through the Church in the bishop’s seat, communicates important theological concepts to the viewer. It reveals a baseline for the medieval viewer’s expectations and understanding about what made the events important. These images relate that understanding in a way that textual sources could not. In the context of medieval France, the complexities of literacy limited the audiences for specialized texts. A visual message held greater power. Fouquet’s imagined chapels show how he understood the architectural landscape, and they ­integrate symbolic building ­elements to convey theological, political, and iconographic meanings.

Acknowledgments

I presented an early version of this paper at the 73rd Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians in 2020. I would like to thank all the ­members of the audience who offered their thoughts on this paper, especially Robert Bork and Peggy Brown. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Chapter 2

Reading Late Gothic Architecture

The Balustrades at Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux Abby McGehee In his 2008 essay “Architectural Wit: Playfulness and Deconstruction in the Gothic of the Sixteenth Century,” Ethan Matt Kavaler describes the inventiveness of Gothic builders in the first decades of the 1500s, even as he marks it “a mode under siege, compromised by a rival system.”1 That rival system was, of course, the classical, which became increasingly popular as the century progressed. Kavaler suggests that its introduction into the French architectural lexicon shifted what he refers to as the “signifying potential” of the Gothic from a coherent system to one that questioned its own articulation. Late Gothic had introduced these tendencies already in the 15th century, but Kavaler examined instances of deliberate architectural ‘mistakes’ that suggest both a fresh ­examination of the Gothic and an internal collapse. Henri Zerner, in more general terms, describes the beginning of the 16th century as one in which “the sense of rupture with the recent past was more vivid than any sense of a return to distant history.”2 Jean Guillaume and Anne-Marie Sankovitch similarly emphasize a forward-thinking aspect to the period after 1500. They suggest that the narrative of 16th-century French architecture should not be viewed simply as one style taking over another but as an era of productive innovation that married late Gothic design methods with radical formal variation.3 These perspectives lay out the possibilities for experimentation but also the perils of destabilizing a system that had ruled French architecture since the 12th century. The years after 1500 presented a startling array of choices for both 1 Ethan Matt Kavaler, “Architectural Wit: Playfulness and Deconstruction in the Gothic of the Sixteenth Century,” in Reading Gothic Architecture, ed. Matthew M. Reeve (Turnhout, 2008), p. 139. See also idem, Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540 (New Haven, 2012). 2 Henri Zerner, Renaissance Art in France: The Invention of Classicism (Paris, 1996), p. 11. 3 Anne-Marie Sankovitch, “A Reconsideration of French Renaissance Church Architecture,” in L’église dans l’architecture de la Renaissance, ed. Jean Guillaume (Paris, 1995), p. 173; Jean ­Guillaume, “Les temps des expériences: La réception des formes ‘à l’antique’ dans les premières années de la Renaissance française,” in L’invention de la Renaissance, ed. Jean ­Guillaume (Paris, 1994), pp. 143–76. © Abby McGehee, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_005 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 2.1 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, 15th–16th centuries source: A. McGehee

patrons and builders, who were uncertain what constituted moving forward when the most recent forms were antique. This study examines an example of unusual late Gothic ornamentation at the parish church of Caudebec-­enCaux—the textural balustrade that rings the building’s roofline—and considers how its limited reception may have been influenced by the complicated relationship late Gothic had both to the emerging Renaissance forms and to its own traditions (Figure 2.1). In addition to this consideration of the potentially perceived ‘lateness’ of the decoration at Caudebec, this study offers some possible interpretations of how this balustrade might have been understood by its contemporary audiences. Matthew Reeve’s collection Reading Gothic Architecture addresses the ways in which the Gothic was ‘read’ by medieval and early modern viewers.4 Reading architecture, in this case, refers to a range of interpretive methods, including the physical examination of buildings, the process of viewing architecture, the siting of buildings in their urban contexts, the relationship of structure and ornament, and the reception of the Gothic as an architectural language with specific political and theological meanings. I will bring some of these strategies to bear on the example of Caudebec. And, I will add another, quite literal,

4 Matthew M. Reeve, ed., Reading Gothic Architecture (Turnhout, 2008).

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level of reading to those listed above by investigating how the building’s balustrade might have mediated the viewer’s experience. 1

The Town and the Parish Church

The town of Caudebec lies on the right bank of the Seine not far from the provincial capital of Rouen in Normandy. Framed by a scrim of hills, the town developed in the fan carved by the river. Documents first mention Caudebec in the 9th century, and by 1135, it had become a market center. In the 14th ­century, the town became the administrative and judicial center for the region, a ­distinction it held until the French Revolution. Caudebec was a comparatively wealthy port town for its size, replete with walled fortifications. Despite these defenses, the town fell to the English in 1419 during the Hundred Years War and was occupied until 1449. In the 16th century, Caudebec and the rest of the region were buffeted by the Wars of Religion, torn between the forces of the Catholic League and the Protestants.5 Henry IV retook the town in 1592, ­declaring the church to be “the most beautiful chapel of my kingdom.”6 The parish church of Caudebec-en-Caux occupies a prime location along the town’s main east-west axis, known in the period as the Grande rue, and the central market square. A small parvis in front of the church accommodated liturgical activities, like the assembly of the congregation before the façade on the feast of the Ascension and Palm Sunday, but it also provided a clear 5 For the history of Caudebec, see Yves Bottineau-Fuchs, Haute-Normandie gothique: Architecture religieuse (Paris, 2001), pp. 113–20; William Steinke, “The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux: A Neglected Masterpiece of French Medieval Architecture” (Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1982); Edmond Spalikowski, Caudebec (Grenoble, 1946); Maurice Dragon, L’église de Caudebec-en-Caux (Luneray, 1997); M. R. de Maulde, Histoire de Caudebec-en-Caux (Paris, 1988); Yves Bottineau-Fuchs, “Caudebec-en-Caux, église NotreDame,” in Haute-Normandie Gothique: Architecture religieuse (Paris, 2001), pp. 133–20; Florian Meunier, “Caudebec-en-Caux: Église Notre-Dame,” Congrès archéologique de France: Rouen et Pays de Caux (2003): 41–48. These modern authors have relied on and expanded the work of 19th-­century historians. Some of the better known of these include Cochet, “Notice sur l’église Notre-Dame de Caudebec,” Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, 2nd ser., 9 (1851): 1–36; A. Jordain, Quleques notes sur l’église de Caudebec-en-Caux (Caudebec-enCaux, 1911); Eugène Sauvage, Description historique et archéologique de l’église Notre-Dame de Caudebec-­en-Caux (Caudebec, 1875); and two handwritten manuscripts by Maurice, Caudebec-en-Caux: Histoire monumentale, vieux coins, vieilles maisons, vieilles familles and Caudebec-en-Caux; Histoire religieuse, l’église Notre-Dame, ses bienfaiteurs, ses administrateurs, son clergé, ses confréries, ses sépultures, ses reliques, Rouen, Archives de la Seine-Maritime, Rouen, I F 28. 6 This line is attributed to Henry IV by Somménil, Campaigne de Henri IV au pays de Caux (Rouen, 1863), quoted in Steinke, “The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 244.

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view of the splendid western portal.7 As we see in the example of Caudebec, late Gothic parish churches exhibited tremendous architectural sophistication and decorative programs of real complexity. In large cities like Rouen and Paris, parish and mendicant churches became the focus of middle-class patronage since the cathedrals, visited far less frequently, discouraged lay participation by reserving Masses and burials largely for the aristocracy and the clergy. For ambitious and well-to-do civil servants and merchants, parish churches ­provided the venue for the establishment of memorials; ownership of ­private chapels; and the donation of windows, sculpture, and liturgical instruments.8 In smaller towns like Caudebec, the town had only one parish, and the c­ ommunal identification with the church was absolute. Typical of late Gothic parish churches in general, Caudebec borrows the architectural language of the cathedral. Although it does not have a transept, it has a capacious nave with side aisles flanked by private chapels; in the chevet, radiating chapels terminate in a polygonal chapel dedicated to the Virgin, crowned by an audacious pendant vault. The nave elevation contains a richly articulated triforium, another quotation of great church architecture typical in Normandy.9 On the exterior, the bell tower is topped by an elaborate spire and a wooden flèche. The three-portal façade boasts a rose window and is ­populated by a multitude of music-making angels, apostles, and prophets. In the central door, the Coronation of the Virgin logically takes pride of place; the flanking tympana are glazed in another nod to cathedral formulas, particularly that of Reims. On the south side of the building, a covered portal may have depicted the Virgin and Child Enthroned receiving the portal’s patron, the English captain Foulques Eyton.10

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Descriptions of processions in 17th-century parish deliberations and a 19th-century usage from Caudebec give a sense of the routes taken by processions on various feast days. Because the town is relatively small and its geography has altered little, these descriptions were likely a close approximation of the 15th- and 16th-century processions. Usage particulier de l’église de Caudebec, 1852, Rouen, Archives de la Seine-Maritime, 2J 57/244, and Caudebec Déliberations, 1674, Rouen, Archives de la Seine-Maritime, 2J 57/16. See Agnès Bos, Les églises flamboyantes de Paris, XVe–XVIe siècles (Paris, 2003); Linda Elaine Neagley, Disciplined Exuberance: The Parish Church of Saint-Maclou and Late Gothic Architecture in Rouen (University Park, 1998); Abby McGehee, “The Parish Church of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais: Parisian Late Gothic in Paris in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1997). See, for example, Roland Sanfaçon, L’Architecture flamboyante en France (Québec, 1971), pp. 28–30. Steinke, “The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” pp. 144–47. Eyton was the patron of a window in bay 17 depicting Saint George, Saint Catherine, Saint Michael,

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Historians have debated how many previous edifices stood on the site of the present church.11 In any event, reconstruction began in 1382, when land to the south was purchased for expansion to replace an edifice that the parishioners found to be “very dark with inadequate space and lacking the proper contemplative environment.”12 The nave and chapels along the south flank were built between 1426 and 1446, a period of relative peace and prosperity under the regency of the Duke of Bedford.13 A plaque above the door leading to the tower relates this history in vernacular, rhyming verse.14 Between 1450 and 1484, Master Guillaume Le Tellier finished the nave and built most of the choir and apsidal chapels, information contained in his ­epitaph.15 In the late 15th or early 16th century, the westernmost chapels on the south side were enlarged, and a treasury was added, abutting the bell ­tower.16 The nave was also extended by two bays. The architect in charge of at least part of this campaign was Thomas Therould.17 The present west façade was begun perhaps as early as 1510 and was certainly finished by 1540, when the organ ­tribune was completed.18 The church was vandalized in 1562 by marauding Protestants, an event recorded in an inscription embedded in the church’s flank.19 Paintings, manuscripts, and liturgical furnishings were burned, and many of the windows and sculptures were broken. In 1793, revolutionaries stripped the central portal of its tympanum sculpture depicting the Coronation of the Virgin as well as the ensemble above the south door next to the tower. In 1940 and 1944, the town was decimated by bombing and the fires

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and the Virgin and Child. See Véronique Chaussé, Caudebec-en-Caux: Église paroissiale Notre-Dame; Les verrières (Rouen, 1994), p. 10. For the most recent construction chronology, see Meunier, “Caudebec-en-Caux,” pp. 41–48. “La dite église qui estoit moult obscure et orle et de peu d’espace.” Cochet, “Notice sur l’église Notre-Dame de Caudebec,” p. 4, quoted in Steinke, “The Flamboyant Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 228. See Steinke, “The Flamboyant Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 14. The plaque reads: L’an mil cccc xxvi fu[t] ceste nef cy com[m]encié. Sa[n]té Dieu d[o]int et bon[n] vie a[ux] bi[e]nffaiteurs et pa[ra]dis. Meunier, “Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 45. Steinke dates the western extension between 1510 and 1540 (“The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 23). Meunier dates the western extension to between 1490 and 1520 (“Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 45). Meunier, “Caudebec-en-Caux,” pp. 45–47. See also Florian Meunier, “Le portail de ­Caudebec-en-Caux et la sculpture en Normandie à la fin de la guerre de Cent Ans,” Revue de l’Art 168 (2010): 23–29. Steinke, “The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 23. The inscription reads: La desola[ti]on de ceste eglise fu[t] le 12 jo[u]r de may 1562. See Eugène Sauvage, “L’église Notre-Dame de Caudebec-en-Caux,” 58.

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that ensued.20 Although much of the city was rebuilt after the war, the urban context of the church, in terms of space and sight lines, is not so different from the medieval one.21 2

A Gilded Balustrade

Since the 19th century, antiquarians have drawn attention to the church’s most notable features: its richly decorated façade, the remarkable pendant vault in the axial chapel, the epitaph of the master mason Le Tellier (surviving in a 19th-century replica), and the textual balustrade that rings the building.22 Sculpted in monumental Gothic script (approximately 54 centimeters high), it is a Latin hymn to the Virgin, to whom the church is dedicated. According to the historians of Caudebec, the text was originally gilt: hence its name, the gallerie aux lettres dorées.23 While William Steinke thought that parts of the balustrade dated to the late 15th century, Abbot Cochet thought the chapel balustrades dated to the 16th century.24 Without archival evidence, we must suppose that the ­balustrades were erected contiguously with the upper parts of the building, dating their creation from approximately 1490 to 1520. Writing about the church in the 1980s, Steinke reported that the only original portion of the balustrade was the first bay on the northwest.25 As evidenced by the photographs of the ­southern flank, most of the balustrades must have been replaced in the 20th century when repairs were made to the church after World War II (Figure 2.2). Although there is not a direct mention of the balustrades in the restoration documents Steinke cites, the roofs of the north and south aisles as well as the

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Steinke, “The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” pp. 174–87. I base this observation based on comparisons with 19th-century photographs and the contemporary context. For a list of the major antiquarian sources, see n. 5. Cochet, “Notice sur l’église Notre-Dame de Caudebec,” p. 8. See also Steinke, “The ­Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” pp. 187–91. Steinke dates the southern balustrade to about 1495 (“The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 73). See also Cochet, “Notice sur l’église Notre-Dame de ­Caudebec,” pp. 7–8. Steinke, “The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 187. This is, perhaps contradicted by a document that the author cites from 1838, referring to a restoration of the balustrades. (p. 239). Cochet notes the replacement of the entire balustrade in the 19th century (“de nos jours”) (“Notice sur l’église Notre-Dame de Caudebec,” p. 8).

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Figure 2.2 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, detail of balustrade, south side, ca. 1490–1520 source: A. McGehee

apsidal chapels burned in a 1940 bombardment. Surely the balustrades were damaged as well.26 The text carved on the balustrade is frequently misidentified as the Magnificat in popular resources on the church, but it draws from several liturgical and devotional sources, like the Officium Beate Marie Virginis (Little Hours of the Virgin).27 Beginning on the west façade, the text continues along the southern flank of the church, wraps around the east end, and then terminates on the north. Because the church was extended by two bays after 1500, the flow of the text is interrupted. Additional antiphons were appended, out of order, to the new construction and the new façade. The antiphon for Lauds and None from the Hours of the Virgin (pulchra es et decora) begins on the façade then skips to the third bay of the nave, which before the extension would have been the first bay. Given the ubiquity of this antiphon in both personal and ­liturgical devotion, 26 27

Steinke, “The Flamboyant Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” pp. 241–42. Pulchra es et decora / filia jerusalem/ terribilis ut castrorum/ave regina caelorum/ave domina domina angelorum / salve radix sancta/ex qua mundo lux / est orta ave gloriosa / super omnes speciosa / vale valde decora / Gloriosa dicta sunt / de te civitas dei / quoniam elevata es / magnificentia tua / super caelos maria / quasi cedrus exultata / ave regina caelorum. In bays 1 and 2 of the nave: tota pulchra es amica mea et macula non/o mater dei memento mei ave cujus cor. For full transcriptions of the text, see Steinke, “The ­Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” pp. 73–74.

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Figure 2.3 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, detail of balustrade, east end, ca. 1490–1520 source: A. McGehee

one must assume that either the previous façade bore the same phrase or that the 16th-century façade construction honored what had been planned in the late 15th century. The rest of the southern side and apse contain the entire antiphon of the “Regina caelorum,” editing where necessary to fit the spaces allotted and to keep the focus on the Virgin as subject (Figure 2.3). On the north side, excerpts from Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes that formed parts of the Hours appear, beginning with Gloriosa dicta sunt. On the southern side in the first and second bays, the antiphon for the feast of the Immaculate Conception (tota pulchra) is paired on the north with a plea to the Virgin (O mater dei memento mei). Throughout, there is a reciprocity between the building and its patron, nowhere more so than the text of the façade that extols both (Figure 2.4). The text, drawn from a number of liturgical hymns dedicated to the Virgin, has its roots in the Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, the lyrical and erotic biblical book that follows the Psalms, as well as excisions from several Old Testament books, including Isaiah, Ecclesiastes (especially 24:15–17), Psalms, and Proverbs. Describing the longing and rapture of love, the Song of Songs was understood by the early Christian audience as an allegory of the love of the individual soul for God. But by the 12th century, the language was explicitly associated with the Virgin Mary as the embodiment of

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Figure 2.4  Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, detail of balustrade, west façade, ca. 1490–1520 source: A. McGehee

the Church.28 The love described was understood both as maternal and as the love of the Church for Christ, her mystical bridegroom. The beauty and perfection extolled here indexed Mary’s role as the Virgin Mother, as well as her own immaculate conception, a belief widely held in this period although it was not formally accepted as dogma until the 19th century.29 Studies of Caudebec, most notably those by Abbots Sauvage and Maurice, William Steinke, and Maurice Dragon, all mention the balustrade and identify its sources, but few have offered an extended analysis. Steinke goes the furthest, noting that in its original gilded state, the carved text would have reminded viewers both of contemporary metalwork and the silver and gold inscriptions found upon liturgical robes, representations of which are found in

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E. Ann Matter, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity (Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 151–77. The Virgin’s immaculate conception was framed as a “pious doctrine” by the Council of Basel in 1439 and by papal constitutions on the Virgin in 1477 and 1483. It did not become confirmed doctrine until the 19th century. See Edward Dennis O’Connor, The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception: History and Significance (Notre-Dame, 1958), and Jaroslav Pelikan, “The Great Exception, Immaculately Conceived,” in Mary through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (New Haven, 1996), pp. 189–200.

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northern Renaissance paintings.30 The visual reciprocity between metalwork, microarchitecture, and late Gothic ornamentation has been well documented by scholars writing about late Gothic architecture.31 For the 16th-century audience, the gilded balustrade might have been understood as transforming the church into a monumental shrine as well as an embodied set of prayers. A closely related iconographic type, known as the Virgin of the Litanies, could be found in contemporary examples of manuscript illumination, stained glass, and sculpture, beginning in the late 15th century. In these examples, the Virgin is shown as a young girl surrounded by images that define her purity: a mirror without stain, an enclosed garden, and the gate of Heaven. Like the ­inscription, many of the tropes in the Virgin of the Litanies were drawn from the language in the Song of Songs, although both also drew on other biblical sources. Despite the ubiquity of this language and imagery, Caudebec’s conjunction of text and architecture was unusual.32 Should this inscription be considered a variant of the Virgin of the Litanies, as French scholar Jacques Baudoin has argued?33 In the painted and sculpted examples, each of the accompanying symbols bear explanatory text; reading and looking are accorded equal weight. Would a contemporary viewer, familiar with this type of image, understand the church at Caudebec as a monumental version? Because the language of the balustrade only overlaps with that of the Virgin of the Litanies in a limited way (macula non), I believe it cannot be considered as an unusual variant of this genre. Yet it functions in a parallel fashion to the Virgin of the Litanies in its embodiment of Mary’s aspects, expressed in text. But now it is the architecture

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Steinke, “The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 73. This observation is supported more generally in Kavaler’s discussion of Gossert’s Malvagna Triptych and the metaphoric relationship between Gothic goldwork and Heaven (Renaissance Gothic, pp. 68–72, 109–13). See, for example, François Bucher, “Micro-architecture as the Idea of Gothic Theory and Style,” Gesta 15 (1978): 71–89. These ideas have been revisited more recently by Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic, pp. 165–97; Jean-Marie Guillouët, “Microarchitecture and Represented Space,” in Flamboyant Architecture and Medieval Technicality: The Rise of Artistic Consciousness at the End of the Middle Ages (c. 1400–c. 1530) (Turnhout, 2019), pp. 81–113, and Robert Bork, Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception (­Turnhout, 2018). I have addressed a similar inspiration and strategy in the Virgin Chapel at Saint-Gervais in Paris. See Abby McGehee, “The Virgin Chapel at Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais: Embellishment and Devotion in Late Gothic Paris,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67, no. 3 (September 2008): 362–87. Jacques Baudoin, La sculpture flamboyante en Normandie et Île-de-France (Créer, 1989), pp. 120–23.

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and sculpture that are illuminated by that text, emphasizing the church as the ­personification of the Virgin. The placement of the text on the upper reaches of the wall, rather than ­further down where it might be perceived more easily, draws the eye up, emphasizing Mary’s elevation, her supremacy. Where else to place a text that in its language urges the human gaze upward? Medieval viewers would have already been well acquainted with the metaphor of the church as the Heavenly Jerusalem and the city of God, and the images on the west and south portals would have made those associations plain.34 This was the court in which the Virgin was crowned as the Queen of Heaven by her son, and this is where a patron of the church (but by extension all parishioners) was ushered into the company of the Virgin and Child. The emphasis on the church as the Heavenly Jerusalem was explicitly represented by the miniature city that survives beneath the tympanum of the central portal (Figure 2.5). Images of the Virgin in the trumeau, just below this miniature city, and in the tympanum above, surrounded by angels and prophets, reinforce the conception of the church as the place where the earthly and celestial meet and the Virgin as the portal through which God came to earth and as the intercessor who would receive the parishioners in Heaven. The inscription marked the threshold of the church as the liminal and magical place between these worlds.35 These were not new metaphors but rather a new way of representing them.36 34

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This association of the church with the Heavenly Jerusalem was detailed in Durandus’s Rationale divinorum officiorum. See also Laurence Hull Stookey, “The Gothic Cathedral as the Heavenly Jerusalem: Liturgical and Theological Sources,” Gesta 8, no. 1 (1969): 35–41. For a review of the literature linking microarchitecture to the Heavenly Jerusalem, see Guillouët, Flamboyant Architecture and Medieval Technicality, pp. 91–93. For the ways in which the Virgin was understood as the door of Heaven, see Jean Fournée, Iconographie de l’Immaculée Conception au Moyen-Âge et la Renaissance: La place de la Normandie dans le développement de la doctrine et dans son expression (Paris, 1952); and Mirella Levi ­d’Ancona, The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance (New York, 1954). This symbolism of the threshold existed in northern Renaissance painting from the ­mid-15th century. See, for example, The Annunciation by Petrus Christus in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in which an inscription marks the doorway of a church that separates the angel Gabriel from the Virgin. Hamon mentions a similar gallery with the text of the “Ave Maria” running along the top of the jubé in the 19th century. Such an arrangement would have emphasized the relationship between the interior and exterior as well as the way that text marked the transition of sacred space. See André Jean Marie Hamon, Notre-Dame de France: Histoire du culte de la Sainte Vierge en France (Paris, 1865), p. 56. However, Steinke reports that the original jubé was removed in the 1790s (“The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 149).

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Figure 2.5 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, detail of tympanum, 15th–16th centuries source: A. McGehee

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Visibility and Legibility

The text on the façade and the southern flank possesses the two vantages from which townsfolk and visitors would have most often viewed the church. The small parvis in front of the church allowed a clear line of sight of the façade, and the text there could both function autonomously or invite further ­exploration. The market square permitted an expansive view of the southern balustrade. In many parish churches of the period, lateral doors were the ones most ­frequently used for routine activities, and the conjunction of the tower and the treasury at this location symbolized two important communal functions of the church: time and record keeping (Figure 2.6). These relations between the town and church—economic, pastoral, and historical—were emphasized by the ensemble. Life in the late medieval town was dominated by the tolling of the bells calling the faithful to Mass and marking the progression of the day. In addition to liturgical objects and vestments, parish treasuries also contained records of births and deaths, foundations, construction documents, and registers of the wardens’ deliberations. Parish treasuries were frequently located in the lower stories of church towers or appended to them. The presence of the treasury within the tower complex was further highlighted by concentrated decoration on both the interior and exterior and, frequently,

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Figure 2.6 Parish church of Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, south door, tower and ­treasury, late 15th–early 16th centuries source: A. McGehee

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the inclusion of a dedication plaque. The fusion of tower and treasury in so many churches of the period suggests that they were understood as both the repository and representation of parish identity. These relationships are given additional prominence at Caudebec by the presence of the text just above and behind the tower/treasury/south door complex and the plaque above the interior door that marks the beginning of the construction of the nave in 1426. In 19th-century photographs of the town, we can see how the main road leading into the square from the south framed the ensemble, emphasizing the important functions embodied by these structures.37 On the north side, the Grande rue provided a limited perspective, but the crucial portion of this text, in which the Virgin is asked to remember the ­petitioner, is located closest to the façade where the street opens out into the parvis, allowing a better viewing angle. The text of the long sides emphasize the church’s associations—through Mary—with the city of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, placed at the heart of the material and secular center of Caudebec. Those of the west and east ends, necessarily brief, speak of beauty and splendor. It is the Virgin’s beauty and splendor, of course, but these are epithets easily applied to the architecture as well. As Linda Neagley shows in her discussion of visuality in the late Gothic urban setting, patrons and builders were increasingly sensitive to the ways in which their buildings were perceived and strove to enhance the visual impact of their architecture, considering sight lines and framing.38 There are several indications that the patrons of Caudebec were concerned with how their church was seen. In 1480, the church acquired a strip of land from the abbey of St. Wandrille specifically to free views of the church from the south.39 In 1523, Jehan Neveu and Catherine Duhamel gave a plot of land to enlarge the church, including the façade, stipulating that it not be obscured by houses.40 The balustrade’s existence reflects these concerns of the patrons: it is visible from all sides. I stress visibility here over legibility. Although literacy was growing in this period, many viewers would not have been able to read the text; fewer still could 37 38 39 40

Steinke has made the same observation (“The Flamboyant Gothic Church of ­ audebec-en-Caux,” p. 19). C Linda Elaine Neagley, “Late Gothic Architecture and Vision: Re-presentation, Scenography and Illusionism,” in Reading Gothic Architecture, ed. Matthew M. Reeve (Turnout, 2008), pp. 37–55. See Maurice, Caudebec-en-Caux: Histoire monumentale, p. 17. “Jean Neveu et Catherine Duhamel … ont done ung grande place tant pour agrandir cette eglise au bout du portail que pour n’etre icelle offusquee.” Untitled inventory, Rouen, Archives Seine-Maritime, 2J 57/8, p. 10.

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have read it in Latin. And the text with its many abbreviations runs together in places; in others it is interrupted by the supports of the balustrade and the uprights of the buttresses. But this text, referencing material so widely known, was designed to serve as a visual prompt to an internalized text, chanted aloud in procession or silently rehearsed by the passing viewer. Addressing the issue of illegible inscriptions in Byzantine buildings, Liz James concludes that, in some cases, inscriptions that were effectively illegible due to placement, lighting, or materials could still convey meaning. They were markers of hierarchy and authority that could also operate, in some cases, as eternal prayers, magical speech acts.41 Amy Papalexandrou analyzes the possible functions of monumental inscriptions as prompting active responses and group participation informed by social and ritual acts. She suggests that such inscriptions in ­Byzantine buildings might be intended to manipulate the ­physical movement of the viewer as they engage with the text.42 I think these are useful lenses through which to view the balustrade at ­Caudebec. The text functions as the sign of prayer, if not the voice of the ­celebrant, a reference to the liturgical experience for the literate and ­illiterate worshiper alike. Even if unread, the text transmits the importance of the church as the place where the magical exchange between the divine and the human was enacted through the speaking or reading of prayers. From surviving liturgical manuscripts of the period, we know that processions were a standard and important aspect of parish ritual. At Caudebec, these practices are suggested by fragments of parish deliberations from the 17th century that mention the routes of processions through the town and around the church, presumably reflecting earlier practices.43 A window in the western façade from 1530, donated by the confraternity of the Saint-Sacrement, represents the procession of the holy Eucharist through the streets of a contemporary town.44 James also parses the notion of text as ornament, citing Ernst Gombrich’s definitions of ornament as a frame for the object, a filler of gaps, and a way of linking different elements together.45 Clearly the text works as both a frame for 41 42 43

44 45

Liz James, “‘And Shall These Mute Stones Speak?”: Text as Art,” in Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, ed. Liz James (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 189–206. Amy Papalexandrou, “Echoes of Orality in the Monumental Inscriptions of Byzantium,” in James, Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, pp. 161–87. See, for example, Caudebec Déliberations, 1674, Rouen, Archives Seine-Maritime, 2J 57/16 (“21 juin 1689, recue la procession de mssr des prestres”) and Usage particulier de l’église Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en- Caux, 1852, 2J 57/249, on the usage in 1852 for processions for Rogations, the Ascension, Holy Sacrament, the Assumption, and the Litany of the Virgin. Chaussé, Caudebec-en-Caux, p. 4. James, “‘And Shall These Mute Stones Speak?,’” p. 201.

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the building and a filler of gaps, embellishing the transition between the walls and the roof and drawing the eye upward for a sustained visual interaction with the building. While I have considered some of the ways the balustrade operated visually and metaphorically, I would also like to attend to the textual context and the question of whose voice is represented. The church was alive with inscribed voices: of clergy, of patrons, of petitioners, of wardens, and of the builders commemorated by the plethora of epitaphs, plaques, and verses. Can we consider the balustrade at Caudebec as belonging to this class of inscription, however remarkable its form may have been? In previous considerations of the church, I framed the “voice” of the balustrade’s prayers as the voice of the clergy, a celebrant’s prayer permanently transmitted to the surrounding town, claiming authority over the precinct.46 But given that the parishioners were the likely original patrons, I have altered my perspective. This is not the voice of the Church or God speaking to the community of worshippers but rather the community itself offering eternal supplication to the Virgin Mary. As a boundary marker, the balustrade delineated the heavenly and earthly realms which the Church—and by extension, the Virgin—mediated. This textual balustrade was large and legible—or, at least, highly visible. As David Cowling points out in his study of architecture as metaphor in this period, inscriptions marked sacred places, public places, and places of power. The text at Caudebec moves seamlessly from the realm of the sacred to the profane and back again.47 This was text that, although in Latin, pervaded the religious practice and visual culture of the period. The reflexivity of the text praising the Virgin’s beauty also demonstrated the patrons’ pride in what they had built. 4

Textual Ornamentation in Late Gothic Architecture

As noted, texts were everywhere in medieval buildings. Epitaphs, foundations, and building dedications vied with verses describing biblical scenes in ­windows and tapestries. As literacy increased in the 16th century, texts, particularly in the vernacular, proliferated in all types of media, including devotional inscriptions carved or painted on walls and vaults. The year 1500 did not mark 46 47

These were my earlier suppositions in two papers given at the 2010 and 2012 Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference. Thanks to Amy Papalexandrou and Linda Neagley for those opportunities. David Cowling, Building the Text: Architecture as Metaphor in Late Medieval and Early Modern France (Oxford, 1998), pp. 216, 221–22, 252–53.

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a decline of text in buildings. Why then, did sculpted text as architectural decoration not continue as a popular motif in the first half of the 16th century? First, I would suggest that the balustrade at Caudebec belongs to a fairly specific subset of text as architectural sculpture. There are other examples, like the mottos carved into the molding of the choir at Brou and the tower at the house of Jacques Cœur in Bourges, but the format was not common. I draw a distinction between text painted on a wall or carved into a plaque and the use of text as part of the structure of the building. The closest geographic and conceptual examples exist at Notre-Dame-des-Marais in La Ferté-Bernard, of a slightly later date, and Saint-Laurent in Rouen, whose text is drawn from the book of Job rather than Marian hymns.48 Exterior flushwork inscriptions and ciphers were a popular solution in some East Anglian parish churches in the 15th and 16th centuries, but their ­appearance and mode of execution would seem to rule out any kind of direct influence. They offer instead a shared symbolic and devotional strategy: to beseech the prayers of their patron saints; to declare the parish’s allegiance to their protector; to provide a devotional focus on the exterior of the church; and to act as apotropaic signs, particularly at places like portals where the sacred and profane meet.49 Julian Luxford completes his analysis of East Anglian flushwork as the abstract and symbolic equivalent of sculpted or painted images of the Virgin and Child.50 Clearly all these functions could be applied to the balustrade at Caudebec as well. In his study of Notre-Dame-des-Marais in La Ferté-Bernard, Maarten ­Delbeke identifies a group of 15th- and 16th-century buildings dedicated to the Virgin that utilize similar phrasing and textual placement. The earliest of these—the west façade of the cathedral of Burgos, executed by Juan de Colonia in the last decades of the 15th century—employed the same phrase that appears on the west façade of Caudebec (pulchra es et decora), perhaps to celebrate of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, recognized by the Church in the 15th ­century. Others include related Marian phrases drawn from antiphons at Notre-Dame of Niort and the chapel of the château of Moulin.51 Delbeke 48 49 50 51

The text at Saint-Laurent on the north portal reads: post tenebras spero lucem. While there is an extensive bibliography on English flushwork, I refer the reader to Julian M. Luxford, “Symbolism in East Anglian Flushwork,” in Signs and Symbols: Proceedings of the 2006 Harlaxton Symposium (Donington, 2009), pp. 199–32. Luxford, “Symbolism in East Anglian Flushwork,” p. 132. Many thanks to Prof. Delbeke for sharing these precedents and correcting my timeline. Maarten Delbeke, “Building with Words: The Notre-Dame-des-Marais in La Ferté-Bernard and Related Applications of the Letter-shaped Balustrade in Sixteenth-Century France,” in The Aura of the Word in the Early Age of Print, ed. Samuel Mareel and Jessica Buskirk

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suggests that the cathedral at Burgos may have provided the inspiration for the balustrade at Caudebec, which, in turn, provided a model for La Ferté-Bernard.52 From this brief synopsis of the text and its operation within the devotional and urban context, we can see that it was a sophisticated solution very much of a piece with contemporary concerns. Why then was it a solution so rarely followed? The first reason that springs to mind is cost. As Agnès Bos, Linda Neagley, and others have shown, late Gothic parish churches were built by well-to-do merchants and artisans who kept a steady eye on the bottom line.53 But they were also competitive and conscious of status and recognized that their parish church was an important venue for the display of communal values. Expensive embellishment was reserved for the most significant parts of the building: porches, facades, axial chapels, and treasuries. Although Caudebec enjoyed a healthy economy in the late 15th and 16th centuries, it remained a small town of limited resources and, as Steinke notes, “thrift was a byword of the western enlargement.”54 This thrift is reflected in the extensive reuse of stone in the expansion of the nave and in the repurposing of voussoirs from the previous façade.55 However, this material thrift was offset by the ambition of the façade design, an ambition Steinke attributes to the patronage of Robert Nagerel, curé of the church from 1513 to 1553. Nagerel was related to the powerful Amboise family, a canon of the cathedral in Rouen, and possessed a large fortune.56 Although curés were frequently generous donors to the parishes in which they held office, their gifts were usually more modest: a window, liturgical objects, or manuscripts. Nagerel’s remarkable wealth and connections provided him with opportunities and an interest in taste making, not available to many clerics. Nagerel’s participation has implications for the way in which we read the façade and its textual decoration. As a canon of the cathedral, he would have been familiar with its architecture—past and present—as well as contemporary workshops in Rouen and the Vexin normand, of which he was the archdeacon. He would also have been conversant with new trends being expressed

52 53 54 55 56

(Milton Park, 2016), pp. 66–88. See also Maarten Delbeke, “A Book Accessible to All,” AA Files 69 (2014): 188–22. Delbeke, “Building with Words,” p. 77. Bos, Les églises flamboyantes de Paris, pp. 51–64, and Neagley, Disciplined Exuberance, pp. 57–71, 110–11. See also Alfred Crosby, The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250–1600 (Cambridge, 1997). Steinke, “The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 70. For the reuse of the voussoirs, see Meunier, “Le portail de Caudebec-en-Caux.” Eugène Sauvage, L’ancien jubé de Caudebec-en-Caux (Rouen, n.d.), p. 5, and Steinke, “The ­Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 22. Meunier demonstrates that the decision to rebuild the nave and west façade had already been made in 1490 and dates some of this construction to 1510–20 (“Caudebec-en-Caux, Église Notre-Dame,” 45). - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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in the Bureau des Finances in Rouen and at the Château de Gaillon built by Georges I d’Amboise, archbishop of Rouen.57 Georges I’s nephew, Georges II, archbishop of Rouen beginning in 1511, was a familiar of Nagerel’s, placing him in the center of cultural and artistic circles of the era. Scholars have long noted the formal relationships between the west façade of Caudebec and Rouen Cathedral, as well as Saint-Maclou in Rouen and the parish church of Notre-Dame in Alençon.58 The renovation of the cathedral façade dating from 1370 to 1406 included a projection of the central portal, a design feature quoted at Caudebec.59 And, like Saint-Maclou and Alençon, the design of Caudebec treats the façade as a triangular composition of interlocking panels. But the architect at Caudebec integrated the flanking doors into the body of the façade rather than the projected pyramidal porches of the other structures. In addition, the forms at Caudebec are more muscular and less prismatic, visible in elements like the hipped gables over the doors. These shifts reflect the most current trends not only in Normandy but elsewhere in northern France in the 1520s and 1530s. The caryatids and other motifs above the central portal appear in response to the arrival of Italianate forms as does the decorative scheme of the organ loft. The façade thus marries a late Gothic design scheme with classical decoration, the kind of innovation ­delineated by Sankovitch at Saint-Eustache in Paris.60 The inclusion of the Gothic script on the façade marks a willingness to complete an earlier decorative scheme, a level of comfort with the coexistence of two decorative languages, as well as perhaps a more direct allusion to the cathedral of ­Burgos than has been previously discussed. Nagerel’s participation in these parts of the campaign suggest the possibility for a more intentional, international ­quotation. But while Nagerel’s patronage may help illuminate the artistic thinking in Normandy in the first half of the 16th century, one would also think it would provide a model to be emulated. But perhaps, his involvement simply underscores the inability of other parish communities to follow suit. I would like to formulate one last hypothesis: that the balustrade, produced during the last phase of the Gothic, came too late to serve as a productive 57

58 59 60

For the Château de Gaillon, see Elisabeth Chirol, Un premier foyer de Renaissance en France: Le château de Gaillon (Rouen, 1952); Flaminia Bardati, Monique Chatenet, and ­Étienne Thourey, “Le Château de Gaillon,” in L’architecture de la Renaissance en ­Normandie, ed. Bernard Beck et al. (Caen, 2003), pp. 13–33. For the patronage of Georges d’Amboise, see Flaminia Bardati, Hommes du roi et princes de l’église romaine: Les cardinaux français et l’art italien (1490–1560) (Rome, 2015), pp. 187–95. See Sanfaçon, L’architecture flamboyante en France, pp. 173–74; Neagley, Disciplined ­Exuberance, pp. 37–38, 45–46; Steinke, “The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux,” p. 71. For the most recent history of the cathedral of Rouen, see Yves Lescroart, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen (Paris, 2019). Sankovitch, “A Reconsideration of French Renaissance Church Architecture,” pp. 161–80. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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model. As we have seen, Italianate forms were already attracting the attention of builders and patrons at Caudebec and elsewhere. But it is not enough to say that the balustrade at Caudebec was too Gothic. As Sankovitch, and Kavaler, among others, demonstrate, experimentation was widely embraced, and the Gothic retained much of its potency both in formal and technical terms well into the 16th century. Can we therefore determine the ways in which text as decoration was deemed retardataire even in this aesthetically diverse moment? As mentioned at the outset, Steinke and Baudoin understand the balustrade as a manifestation of the ongoing reciprocal relationship between Gothic architecture and the decorative arts. While the balustrade partakes of the same literary sources as the Virgin of the Litanies, there is no visual reciprocity; the sculpted and engraved versions did not beget the form of the balustrade. Microarchitecture, in the form of tabernacles and reliquaries, had long been a source for Gothic architects, but there are few contemporary examples of shrines with text as decoration rather than explication. More intriguing is the parallel Steinke makes with the examples of text in northern Renaissance painting. In addition to the Portinari Altarpiece, text appears in the hem of garments worn by several holy figures in the work of Jan van Eyck, for example, in the hem of the Virgin’s robe in the Rolin Madonna. Similar examples can be found in manuscripts and stained glass from the second half of the 15th century. If painted inscriptions were the source of inspiration, this link points not only to the balustrade as an adornment for a holy figure but one that visually and linguistically exalts its bearer. And there are other reasons to think that late Gothic builders were mining the visual play evident in mid-15th century painting. In an essay on the royal chapel at Rue, Claire LaBrecque makes a compelling case for the way in which Rogier van der Weyden’s multifigured doorways were adopted by the chapel’s builders to frame and mediate pilgrims’ views of the chapel and the Volto Santo enshrined in the adjacent treasury. She notes that the 60-year delay between Van der Weyden’s paintings and the chapel’s adoption of multifigured voussoirs might be explained by the financial hardships of the mid-15th century. By the late 15th and early 16th centuries, a ­construction boom was in full swing across northern France. Builders could now emulate the visual drama of Van der Weyden’s fictive architecture, and the viewing public would have fully digested the relationship of a narrative frame to a ­symbolic center.61 Zerner describes late Gothic architecture as favoring disparity and incoherence with ornamentation that disintegrates boundaries in that, materially and 61

Claire LaBrecque, “A Case Study of the Relationship between Painting and Flamboyant Architecture: The St. Esprit Chapel at Rue in Picardy,” in Art and Architecture of Late ­Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, ed. Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe (Leiden, 2005), pp. 77–95. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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aesthetically, there is no line between architecture and sculpture. Forms would split, divide, and dissolve—like moldings that seemed to penetrate the body of the pier—thus undermining the integrity of the elements. Italian Renaissance architecture, on the other hand, adhered to a series of rules in which ornamentation was rigorously controlled; it was additive not integrated.62 We can see this distinction played out in the work of Jan Gossaert, a Flemish painter whose career spanned the period under discussion and who pioneered Renaissance themes in Flemish painting.63 In his Malvagna Triptych of 1513–15, the Madonna and Child are enthroned under an elaborate Gothic tabernacle while angels cavort around them (Figure 2.7). Gilt text in Gothic script, identified by Maryan Wynn Ainsworth as the painter’s signature, runs along the border of the platform, partially obscured by the Virgin’s robe, and by the feet of the angels.64

Figure 2.7 Jan Gossart, Malvagna Triptych, oil on panel, 17 7/8 by 13 3/4 inches, ca. 1513–15, Palermo, Galleria Regionale della Sicilia source: Art Resource

62 63

64

Zerner, Renaissance Art in France, pp. 27–32, 36–42. For recent scholarship on Gossaert, see Maryan Wynn Ainsworth, ed., Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart’s Renaissance (New York, 2010). For a detailed discussion of the architectural motifs in the Malvagna Triptych, see Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic, pp. 68–72, and idem, “Gossart as Architect,” in Ainsworth, Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures, pp. 31–43. Ainsworth, Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures, p. 131. While the authors identify the text “… INNI / … GO” on the steps of the Virgin’s throne as parts of the signature, there is clearly more obscured text that provides its own riddle. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Some 15 years later, Gossaert rendered the same subject in a more sober style. In the Virgin and Child from 1527, the pair are now seated in a simple niche covered with a rounded arch, and if the architectural elements are not fully classical; they are definitely no longer Gothic (Figure 2.8). Text appears here as well, but it is written in Roman script and is entirely visible in the molding of the arch.65 Although it is gilt, there is a clear distinction between the material of the arch and the text within. These examples articulate the differences cited by Zerner and suggest a shift in the larger artistic aesthetic of the 16th century:

Figure 2.8 Jan Gossart, Virgin and Child, oil on panel, 12 by 9 1/2 inches, 1527, Vienna, K ­ unsthistorisches Museum source: Art Resource 65

The text reads, “Jesus, the seed of the woman, has bruised the head of the serpent.” Susan Frances Jones, Van Eyck to Gossaert: Towards a Northern Renaissance (London, 2011), p. 118.

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one that privileged clarity, a strict separation of ornament and structure, and a rejection of complication. The balustrade at Caudebec, with its complex symbolic and visual associations, looked back to the interdisciplinary play of the 15th century, thus finding a dwindling audience in the 16th. The coexistence of the Gothic script of the balustrade with classical motifs in the upper portions of the façade at Caudebec speak to a comfort with hybridity, a characteristic of French architecture in the first half of the 16th century.66 While elite patrons like Georges d’Amboise and Robert Nagerel might favor classical motifs, the structure and aesthetic of Caudebec remained true to a Gothic sensibility. The visual, metaphoric, and aesthetic success of the balustrade has been parsed here, along with some suggestions for why it was not a more common decorative formula. In the end, this study suggests the outlines of an exquisite self-consciousness, not only in architectural quotations and experiments but in the geographic, temporal, and stylistic trends of the period. Acknowledgments I would like to thank the editors for their patience, their excellent assistance from editing to bibliographic suggestions, and for including me in this project. Maarten Delbeke was generous in sharing his work on Notre-Dame in La Ferté-Bernard, which contributed greatly to this article. I would also like to thank William Diebold for his help. Bibliography of Cited Sources

Primary Sources

Caudebec Déliberations. 1674. Rouen, Archives de la Seine-Maritime, 2J 57/16. Maurice. Caudebec-en-Caux: Histoire monumentale, vieux coins, vieilles maisons, vieilles familles. Rouen, Archives de la Seine-Maritime, 1 F 28. Maurice. Caudebec-en-Caux; Histoire religieuse, l’église Notre-Dame, ses bienfaiteurs, ses administrateurs, son clergé, ses confréries, ses sépultures, ses reliques. Rouen, Archives de la Seine-Maritime, I F 28. Usage particulier de l’église de Caudebec. 1852. Rouen, Archives de la Seine-Maritime, 2J 57/244.

66

For an excellent delineation of these developments, see Bork, Late Gothic Architecture, pp. 229–46, 328–40.

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Secondary Sources

Ainsworth, Maryan Wynn, ed. Man, Myth and Sensual Pleasures: The Renaissance of Jan Gossart. New York, 2010. Bardati, Flaminia, Monique Chatenet, and Étienne Thourey. “Le Château de Gaillon.” In L’architecture de la Renaissance en Normandie, edited by Bernard Beck, P. Bouet, C. Étienne, and I. Letteron, pp. 13–33. Caen, 2004. Bardati, Flaminia. Hommes du roi et princes de l’église romaine: Les cardinaux français et l’art italien (1495–1560). Rome, 2015. Baudoin, Jacques. La sculpture flamboyante en Normandie et Île-de-France. Nonette, 1989. Bork, Robert. Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction and Reception. ­Turnhout, 2018. Bos, Agnès. Les églises flamboyantes de Paris, XVe–XVIe siècles. Paris, 2003. Bottineau-Fuchs, Yves. Haute-Normandie gothique: Architecture religieuse. Paris, 2001. Bucher, François. “Micro-architecture as the Idea of Gothic Theory and Style,” Gesta 15 (1978): 71–89. Chaussé, Véronique. Caudebec-en-Caux: Église paroissiale Notre-Dame; Les verrières. Rouen, 1994. Chirol, Elisabeth. Un premier foyer de Renaissance en France: Le château de Gaillon. Rouen, 1952. Cochet. “Notices sur l’église Notre-Dame de Caudebec,” Mémoires de la Société des ­Antiquaires de Normandie, 2nd ser., 9 (1851): 1–36. Cowling, David, Building the Text: Architecture as Metaphor in Late Medieval and Early Modern France. Oxford, 1998. Crosby, Alfred. The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250–1600. Cambridge, 1997. Delbeke, Maarten. “A Book Accessible to All.” AA Files 69 (2014): 188–22. Delbeke, Maarten. “Building with Words: The Notre-Dame-des-Marais in La Ferté-­ Bernard and Related Applications of the Letter-shaped Balustrade in Sixteenth-­ Century France.” In The Aura of the Word in the Early Age of Print, edited by Samuel Mareel and Jessica Buskirk, pp. 66–88. Milton Park, 2016. Dragon, Maurice. L’église de Caudebec-en-Caux. Luneray: Editions Bertout, 1997. Fournée, Jean. Iconographie de l’Immaculée Conception au Moyen-Âge et la Renaissance: La place de la Normandie dans le développement de la doctrine et dans son expression. Paris, 1952. Guillaume, Jean. “Les temps des expériences: La réception des formes ‘à l’antique’ dans les premières années de la Renaissance.” In L’invention de la Renaissance, edited by Jean Guillaume, pp. 143–76. Paris, 1994. Guillouët, Jean-Marie. Flamboyant Architecture and Medieval Technicality (c.1460–c.1530): A Micro-History of the Rise of Artistic Consciousness at the End of the Middle Ages. Translated by Jane MacAvock. Turnhout, 2019.

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Hamon, André Jean Marie. Notre-Dame de France: Histoire du culte de la Sainte Vierge en France. Vol. 5. Paris, 1865. James, Liz. “‘And Shall These Mute Stones Speak?’: Text as Art.” In Art and Text in ­Byzantine Culture, edited by Liz James, pp. 188–206. Cambridge, 2007. Jones, Susan Frances. Van Eyck to Gossaert: Towards a Northern Renaissance. New Haven, 2011. Jordain, A. Quelques notes sur l’église Notre-Dame de Caudebec-en-Caux. Caudebec-enCaux, 1911. Kavaler, Ethan Matt. “Architectural Wit: Playfulness and Deconstruction in the Gothic of the Sixteenth Century.” In Reading Gothic Architecture, edited by Matthew M. Reeve, pp. 139–50. Turnhout, 2008. Kavaler, Ethan Matt. “Gossart as Architect.” In Ainsworth, Man, Myth, and Sensual ­Pleasures, pp. 31–43. Kavaler, Ethan Matt. Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540. New Haven, 2012. LaBrecque, Claire. “A Case Study of the Relationship between Painting and Flamboyant Architecture: The St. Esprit Chapel at Rue in Picardy.” In Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, edited by Sarah Blick and Rita Tekippe, pp. 77–95. Leiden, 2005. Lescroart, Yves. Cathédrale Notre-Dame, Rouen, 2019. Levi d’Ancona, Mirella. The Iconography of the Immaculate Conception in the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance. New York, 1954. Luxford, Julian M. “Symbolism in East Anglian Flushwork.” In Signs and Symbols: ­Proceedings of the 2006 Harlaxton Symposium, pp. 199–32. Donington, 2009. Matter, E. Ann. The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity. Philadelphia, 1990. Maulde, M. R. de. Histoire de Caudebec-en-Caux. Paris, 1988. McGehee, Abby. “The Parish Church of Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais: Parisian Late Gothic in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1997. McGehee, Abby. “The Virgin Chapel at Saint-Gervais-Saint-Protais: Embellishment and Devotion in Late Gothic Paris.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67, no. 3 (2008): 362–87. Meunier, Florian. “Caudebec-en-Caux. Église Notre-Dame.” Congrès archéologique de France: Rouen et Pays de Caux (2003): 41–48. Meunier, Florian. “Le portail de Caudebec-en-Caux et la sculpture en Normandie à la fin de la guerre de Cent Ans.” Revue de l’Art 168 (2010–12): 23–29. Neagley, Linda Elaine. Disciplined Exuberance: The Parish Church of Saint-Maclou and Late Gothic Architecture in Rouen. University Park, 1998.

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Neagley, Linda Elaine. “Late Gothic Architecture and Vision: Re-presentation, Scenography and Illusionism.” In Reading Gothic Architecture, edited by Matthew M. Reeve, pp. 37–55. Turnhout, 2008. O’Conner, Edward Dennis. The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception: History and ­Significance. Notre-Dame, 1958. Papalexandrou, Amy. “Echoes of Orality in the Monumental Inscriptions of ­Byzantium.” In James, Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, pp. 161–87. Pelikan, Jaroslav. Mary through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture. New Haven, 1996. Sanfaçon, Roland. L’architecture flamboyante en France. Québec, 1971. Sankovitch, Anne-Marie, “A Reconsideration of French Renaissance Church Architecture.” In L’église dans l’architecture de la Renaissance, edited by Jean Guillaume, pp. 161–80. Paris, 1994. Sauvage, Eugène. L’ancien jubé de Caudebec-en-Caux. Rouen, n.d. Sauvage, Eugène. Description historique et archéologique de l’église Notre-Dame de Caudebec-en-Caux. Caudebec, 1875. Spalikowski, Edmond. Caudebec. Grenoble, 1946. Steinke, William. “The Flamboyant Gothic Church of Caudebec-en-Caux: A Neglected Masterpiece of French Medieval Architecture.” Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1982. Stookey, Laurence Hull. “The Gothic Cathedral as the Heavenly Jerusalem: Liturgical and Theological Sources.” Gesta 8, no. 1 (1969): 35–41. Zerner, Henri. Renaissance Art in France: The Invention of Classicism. Paris, 1996.

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Chapter 3

The Plague, the Parish, and the Perpendicular Style Theories of Change in Late Medieval English Architecture from John Aubrey to John Harvey Zachary Stewart The emergence of the English Perpendicular style has long been celebrated as an architectural achievement with few parallels in the history of European Gothic.1 Yet the circumstances that contributed to its rapid popularization remain widely debated. This essay traces the range of ways in which various writers, from the antiquary John Aubrey (1626–97) to the architectural historian John Harvey (1911–97), sought to interpret the relatively abrupt transition between what are now known as the Decorated style and the Perpendicular style during the mid-1300s.2 I devote special attention to how the plague and the parish—along with war, race, and religion—were mobilized as means of explaining historical, artistic, and architectural changes alternatingly coded as ‘medieval’ (hence late) or ‘modern’ (hence early). Such an exercise, accompanied by a brief excursus on the career of a single English master mason who achieved regional significance in the generation after the Black Death, raises important questions regarding the place of temporal paradigms in contemporary architectural historiography. As is widely known, the stylistic labels commonly applied to buildings erected in England between the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Henrician Reformation of 1534 to 1547 were coined by the architect Thomas Rickman (1776–1841) in his Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture (1817), a pioneering study that divided the medieval kingdom’s architecture into four periods: Norman (late 11th to late 12th centuries), Early English (late 12th to late 13th 1 See, for instance, the awestruck response of no less an authority than Paul Frankl to the early Perpendicular work at Gloucester Abbey (now Gloucester Cathedral): “To characterize the unique miracles of geometrical fantasy at Gloucester—the word unique, so often misused, is here justified—one may choose to refer to Islamic buildings, but the details of the English cathedral are not at all Arabic: they are extremely English, and this is true of the Rectilinear [i.e. Perpendicular] as a whole” (Gothic Architecture, trans. Dieter Pevsner [Baltimore, 1962], p. 154). 2 See, for an indispensable overview of the development of architectural historiography in Britain to 1945, David Watkin, The Rise of Architectural History (London, 1980), chaps. 3 and 4. © Zachary Stewart, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_006 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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centuries), Decorated (late 13th to late 14th centuries), and ­Perpendicular (late 14th to early 16th centuries).3 Rickman distinguished between these final two periods, the Decorated and the Perpendicular, in the following way: Flowing lines g[ave] way to perpendicular and horizontal ones, the use of which continued to increase, till the arches were almost lost in a continued series of pannels, which, at length, in one building—the chapel of Henry the VII [at Westminster Abbey]—covered completely both the outside and the inside (Figures 3.1–3.2).4 His forensic analysis of the two modes proceeded, as it did for all four periods, by examining a series of architectural elements: doors, windows, arches, piers, buttresses, moldings, niches, ornaments, steeples, battlements, roofs, west fronts, and porches. Some passages, such as those on steeples, emphasize similarities.5 Other passages, such as those on west fronts, emphasize differences.6 But, in both cases, Rickman’s acute visual analysis imposed a new kind of coherence upon a heterogenous architectural corpus. Modern scholars, who continue to employ Rickman’s stylistic taxonomy, have assigned the birth of the Perpendicular style to two structures of the 1330s: the preserved south transept arm of Gloucester Abbey (now Gloucester Cathedral) of ca.1331–36 (Figure 3.3) and the destroyed chapter house of Old St. Paul’s Cathedral in London of ca.1332 (Figure 3.4).7 (The relationship between these two buildings and earlier prototypes, particularly St. Stephen’s Chapel in the Palace of Westminster, is a matter of ongoing debate that cannot be unpacked here.8) Major 14th-century examples include the choir at ­Gloucester (begun 3 Thomas Rickman, An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture, from the ­Conquest to the Reformation; Preceded by a Sketch of the Grecian and Roman Orders, with Notices of Nearly Five Hundred English Buildings, 2nd ed. (London, 1817). The first (non-­stand -alone) edition had been published in James Smith, The Panorama of Science and Arts, 2 vols (Liverpool, 1815), 1:125–81. 4 Rickman, Attempt, p. 5. 5 Ibid., pp. 82–84, 99–100. 6 Ibid., pp. 85–87, 105–06. 7 See, for the best recent overview, Christopher Wilson, “‘Excellent, New and Uniforme’: Perpendicular Architecture c.1400–1547,” in Gothic: Art for England 1400–1547, ed. Richard Marks and Paul Williamson (London, 2003), pp. 98–119. The importance of the south transept at Gloucester was first recognized by Robert Willis in a lecture summarized in “Proceedings at the Meetings of the Archaeological Institute: Annual Meeting, 1860, Held at Gloucester, July 17 to 24,” Archaeological Journal 17 (1860): 335–42. The importance of the chapter house at Old St. Paul’s was first recognized by W. R. Lethaby in Westminster Abbey and the King’s Craftsmen: A Study of Mediaeval Building (London, 1906), pp. 220–21. 8 See Maurice Hastings, St. Stephen’s Chapel and Its Place in the Development of the Perpendicular Style in England (Cambridge, UK, 1955); John Harvey, “The Origin of the Perpendicular - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 3.1 Westminster Abbey, Lady Chapel of Henry VII, exterior view looking west, ca. 1510 source: Wikimedia Commons

Style,” in Studies in Building History: Essays in Recognition of the Work of B. H. St. J. O’Neil, ed. E. M. Jope (London, 1961), pp. 134–65; Christopher Wilson, The Gothic Cathedral: The Architecture of the Great Church, 1130–1530 (London, 1990), pp. 192–96, 204–07. A recent research project at the University of York, “St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster: Visual & Political ­Culture, 1292–1941,” has resulted in several new studies: https://www.virtualststephens.org.uk - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 3.2 Westminster Abbey, Lady Chapel of Henry VII, interior view looking east, ca. 1510 source: Alamy /publications. Among these is Tim Ayers, ed., The Fabric Accounts of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, 1292–1396, trans. Maureen Jurkowski, 2 vols (Woodbridge, 2020).

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Figure 3.3 Gloucester Abbey (now cathedral), south transept arm, view looking east, 1331–36 source: The Courtauld

ca.1337), the nave at Winchester Cathedral (begun ca.1370), and the nave at Canterbury Cathedral (begun ca.1378). Major 15th-century examples include the Divinity School at Oxford (begun ca.1420), King’s College Chapel at Cambridge (begun 1448), and St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle (begun 1475). And perhaps the most famous 16th-century example, noted by Rickman, is Henry VII’s Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey (1503–09)—although it should

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Figure 3.4 Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, cloister and chapter house, view looking north, ca. 1332 source: William Dugdale, The History of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. From Its ­F oundation until These Times (London, 1658), plate between pp. 130–31.

be noted that the style continued to be employed well into the early modern period in ‘Gothic Survival’ structures, such as the library at St. John’s College in Cambridge (1623–28) and the stair hall at Christ Church College in Oxford (ca.1640). Innumerable other churches, chapels, colleges, castles, and municipal structures were built during the two-plus-century duration of the Perpendicular style. Among these were thousands of parish churches—a handful of which, such as Bristol St. Mary Redcliffe (ca.1320–1400), Nottingham St. Mary (ca.1400), and Norwich St. Peter Mancroft (ca.1440–65), were essentially cathedrals in miniature.9 Fashions for ornament waxed and waned over the period, but the emphasis on regularity, exercised via extensive grid-like paneling on walls and in windows, defines the earliest and the latest essays in the style.

9 The innovative nature of the parish church is examined in Zachary Stewart, “Models, ­Copies, and Mendicants: The Origins of the Late-Medieval English Parish Church in ­Historiographical Perspective,” in Towards an Art History of the Parish Church, 1200–1399, ed. Meg ­Bernstein (London, 2021), https://courtauld.ac.uk/research/research-resources/publications/courtauld -books-online/parish-church/.

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The Perpendicular style’s extensive historiography would seem to be the product of several factors. Two of these, namely its longevity and its ubiquity, are clear enough. A third, and perhaps more interesting, factor is the style’s exceptional ‘look.’ Indeed, as has often been remarked, neither the earlier English Decorated style nor contemporary French Flamboyant or German Spätgotik provide a parallel for the Perpendicular style’s paneled walls, paneled windows, and fan vaults (elements that were inspired by earlier French Rayonnant designs). It was this combination of conditions that drew the interest of architectural writers from a relatively early date—though their approaches varied considerably. At one end of the early historiographical spectrum was the antiquary John Aubrey—a figure who, as the architectural historian Howard Colvin observes, was “the first to think historically about medieval English architecture.”10 Aubrey’s contribution takes the form of a relatively short handwritten and hand-illustrated treatise, “Chronologia Architectonica,” which he compiled in conjunction with a much larger unpublished work, “Monumenta Britannica,” between 1656 and 1686.11 Unlike his contemporaries, Aubrey does not attempt to identify a discrete number of historical styles, and, as such, he has little, if anything, to say about the Perpendicular per se. But his method is significant insofar as his comparative analysis of datable examples of medieval window designs, many of which he observed firsthand, allows him to construct a sequence of architectural development from the mid-12th century to the mid-16th century. Underlying his meticulous approach—which, it has been argued, was inspired by the empirical theories of Francis Bacon (1561–1626) and ­Robert Hooke (1635–1703), the historical work of Meric Casaubon (1599–1671), and the archaeological work of Olof Rudbeck (1630–1702)—is the ­understanding that material objects, and hence buildings, are historical sources that bear the unique imprint of the cultures in which they were made.12 Although his account of English medieval architecture remained unpublished for almost a century (only to appear in an abridged form as an appendix to an obscure numismatic study), Aubrey’s work is significant because it illustrates the rise of a new 10 11 12

Howard A. Colvin, “Aubrey’s Chronologia Architectonica,” in Concerning Architecture: Essays on Architectural Writers and Writing, Presented to Nikolaus Pevsner, ed. John ­Summerson (London, 1968), p. 11. John Aubrey, “Monumenta Britannica,” Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Top. Gen. c. 25, vol. 2, fols. 152r–170r. See Olivia Horsfall Turner, “‘The Windows of This Church Are of Several Fashions’: ­Architectural Form and Historical Method in John Aubrey’s ‘Chronologia Architectonica,’” Architectural History 54 (2011): 171–93.

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mode of historical inquiry that prioritized the indexicality of architectural form, a simple yet powerful idea that was to enjoy a rich afterlife in subsequent studies of medieval buildings. At the other end of the early historiographical spectrum was the antiquary, connoisseur, and collector Horace Walpole (1717–1797)—a figure who, as the art historian Kenneth Clark observes, “deserves his place as the central figure in every account of 18th-century medievalism.”13 Walpole’s contribution takes the form of a sprawling four-volume work, Anecdotes of Painting in England (1762–80), which he compiled from the copious notes of another antiquary, George Vertue (1684–1756), the official engraver to the Society of Antiquaries of London.14 In a short chapter bridging larger sections on late medieval and early modern painting, titled “On the State of Architecture to the Reign of Henry VIII,” Walpole defines Gothic buildings as embodying a perfect blend of the aesthetic categories of the sublime and the beautiful, noting that they are “magnificent, yet genteel” and “vast, yet light.”15 Moreover, he draws special attention to the power of great churches to inspire “sensations of romantic devotion” and feelings of “religion” and “superstition,” which he attributes partially to their architects and their artisans and partially to their commissioning clerics.16 Walpole exhibits little interest in issues of architectural morphology, but he does go so far as to claim that Gothic architectural ornament reached a state of “perfection” around the time of King Henry IV (r. 1399–1413)—a conclusion that leads him to recommend that those wishing to “borrow ornaments in that stile” look to Perpendicular works such as the cloister of Gloucester Abbey, the chantry tombs of Canterbury Cathedral, and the chantry tombs of Winchester Cathedral.17 That he meant what he wrote is evinced by the fact that the interiors of his own immersive exercise in medieval building, the neoGothic villa of Strawberry Hill in Twickenham outside London (ca.1747–77), are replete with Perpendicular-inspired architectural details (though of an idiosyncratic rococo character).18 13 14

15 16 17 18

Kenneth Clark, The Gothic Revival: An Essay in the History of Taste, 3rd ed. (London, 1962), p. 41. Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England; With Some Account of the Principal ­Artists and Incidental Notes on Other Arts; Collected by the Late Mr. George Vertue; And Now Digested and Published from his Original MSS. by Mr. Horace Walpole, 4 vols (Twickenham, 1762–71). Ibid., 1:107. Ibid., 1:107–08. Ibid., 1:113. See Matthew M. Reeve, “Gothic Architecture, Sexuality, and License at Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill,” The Art Bulletin 95, no. 3 (2013): 411–39.

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During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, writers on English medieval architecture tended to blend Aubrey’s interest in objective documentation and Walpole’s interest in subjective description, and several proposed classificatory systems that, though well-observed, were to prove less popular than the schema outlined by Rickman. Exemplary is the work of the antiquary James Dallaway (1763–1834), who, in his Observations on English Architecture (1806), argues for a sexpartite taxonomy of styles: “Anglo-Norman” (1100–70), “Semi or Mixed Norman” (1170–1220), “Lancet Arch Gothick” (1220–1300), “Pure Gothick” (1300–1400), “Ornamented Gothick” (1400–60), and “Florid Gothick” (1460–1547).19 Dallaway’s study, in keeping with evolving antiquarian standards, is largely dispassionate in tone, but occasional aesthetic judgments, such as the claim that King’s College Chapel represents the apex of “sublimity,” can still be found within the narrative.20 It was only with the prolific architect, artist, and social critic Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–1852) and the publication of his Contrasts (1836) that a new approach emerged.21 This short polemic advocates, both textually and visually, for the superiority of medieval architecture (specifically that “immediately preceding the change of religion” of the mid-16th century) and the inferiority of modern architecture (specifically that of “the present day” of the mid-19th century). Pugin considers churches of the Perpendicular period, such as St. George’s Chapel at Windsor, Henry VII’s Chapel at Westminster, and King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, to represent “an extraordinary degree of excellence” and “a high state of perfection.”22 But, in an unprecedentedly direct way, he interprets them as products of “climate, customs, and religion” and emblems of “the faith, the zeal, and, above all, the unity, of our ancestors.”23 This broad-strokes conflation of the spatial and the social, tinged with nationalist feeling, bears little semblance to the largely classificatory efforts of late 18th- and early 19th-century English antiquarians like Dallaway.24 But the 19

20 21 22 23 24

James Dallaway, Observations on English Architecture, Military, Ecclesiastical, and Civil, Compared with Similar Buildings on the Continent: Including a Critical Itinerary of Oxford and Cambridge; Also Historical Notices of Stained Glass, Ornamental Gardening, &c. (­London, 1806). Ibid., p. 84. A. Welby Pugin, Contrasts; Or, a Parallel Between the Noble Edifices of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, and Similar Buildings of the Present Day; Shewing the Present Decay of Taste (London, 1836). Ibid., pp. 4, 5. Ibid., pp. 1, 3. Pugin’s debts to earlier antiquarian historiography (especially the work of William ­Dugdale), as well as more contemporary forms of romanticism and millenarianism, are traced in Rosemary Hill, “Reformation to Millennium: Pugin’s Contrasts in the History of English Thought,”

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gesture was to recur in the efforts of future writers—even those who did not share Pugin’s philosophical, political, or religious sympathies. Two good cases in point are the architectural historians Edward ­Augustus Freeman (1823–1892) and James Fergusson (1808–1886). Freeman’s History of Architecture (1849) and Fergusson’s History of Architecture (1865–67) rank among the earliest attempts to write global histories of architecture in English.25 Both books are notable for the ways in which they situate the Perpendicular style within a much broader spatiotemporal context. And both, like Pugin’s earlier work, are pioneering to the extent that they call attention to the growing importance of parish church architecture during the later medieval period. The two authors, however, reach entirely different conclusions regarding the Perpendicular style. Freeman sees it in terms of continuity and growth. Fergusson sees it in terms of change and decay. Critically, though, both men base their interpretations on protean racial theories of the day. Freeman, who holds that “an unfathomable law of Divine Providence … divided the offspring of our common parents into widely distinguished races,” perceives a break between the Gothic and the Renaissance, with the Gothic representing everything Christian and “Teutonic” and the Renaissance representing everything pagan and “Italian.”26 Fergusson, who holds that ethnology was “neither the least beautiful nor the least attractive of the fair sisterhood of sciences,” perceives a break between the Decorated and the Perpendicular, with the Decorated representing “a marvellous perfection” of “Celtic hierarchy and noblesse” tempered by Saxon “subjection” and Norman “domination” and the Perpendicular representing “an expiring style” of Saxon technicality lacking Celtic spirit or Norman sobriety.27 For Freeman, the watershed between the Gothic and the Renaissance is the Reformation, an event seen as decimating the clergy. For Fergusson, the watershed between the Decorated and the Perpendicular is the Hundred Years War and the War of the Roses, events interpreted as causing the fall of the nobility and the rise of the peasantry. Thus, both authors introduce new modes of explanation for architectural change into the discourse, and they do so in racialized ways that were to have far-reaching consequences.28

25 26 27 28

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 1 (1999): 26–41. Hill concludes that, despite these influences, Contrasts should be seen as an “original” work (p. 40). Edward A. Freeman, A History of Architecture (London, 1849); James Fergusson, A History of Architecture in All Countries, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, 3 vols (London, 1865–67). Freeman, History, pp. 11, 424. Fergusson, History, 1:6–7, 42. See, on the development of racialized thinking in 19th-century architectural historiography, Irene Cheng, “Structural Racialism in Modern Architectural Theory,” in Race and

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In the late 19th century, writers continued to debate the merits of the ­ erpendicular style, drawing on the work of not only Pugin, Freeman, and P Fergusson but also the art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) and the art activist William Morris (1834–1896). The architect John Dando Sedding (1838–1891), in an essay titled “The Architecture of the Perpendicular Style” (1880), views the shift from Decorated to Perpendicular in terms of continuity and progress; he emphasizes the role of sculptors and architects and frames the Perpendicular as a product of “the English mind” and “our national insularity.”29 The architect George Gilbert Scott II (1839–1897), in his book An Essay on the History of English Church Architecture (1881), sees the shift from Decorated to Perpendicular in terms of change and reaction; he emphasizes the role of glaziers and architects and frames the Perpendicular as “the most original and able thing that the English have achieved in art.”30 Somewhat more restrained than these two are the father-son architectural duo Banister Fletcher (1833–1899) and Sir Banister F. Fletcher (1866–1953) in their History of Architecture … a Comparative View (1896)—a work that would become a canonical text for the teaching of architectural history throughout the anglophone world.31 (The most recent, and radically revamped, edition has just been issued by Bloomsbury.)32 The Fletchers are keen, from their first edition onward, to explore what might be termed the embeddedness of architectural styles around the world. Their chapter “English Architecture (Romanesque and Gothic)” contains summaries of geographical, geological, and climatic conditions, as well as social, political, and historical events.33 Those highlighted in the late medieval period range from the Black Death (and the resulting “rise of the peasantry”), the career of the priest and author John Wycliffe (ca.1330–1384), and the career of the poet and author Geoffrey Chaucer (ca.1342–1400) to the Hundred Years War (1337–1453), the Wars of the Roses (1455–85), and Henry VIII’s famous Cloth

29 30 31 32

33

Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present, ed. Irene Cheng, Charles L. Davis, and Mabel O. Wilson (Pittsburgh, 2020), pp. 134–52. J. D. Sedding, “The Architecture of the Perpendicular Period,” in Transactions of the St. Paul’s Ecclesiological Society (London, 1881), 1:34. George Gilbert Scott, An Essay on the History of English Church Architecture prior to the Separation of England from the Roman Obedience (London, 1881), p. 186. Banister Fletcher and Banister F. Fletcher, A History of Architecture for the Student, Craftsman, and Amateur: Being a Comparative View of the Historical Styles from the Earliest Period (London, 1896). Murray Fraser, ed., Sir Banister Fletcher’s Global History of Architecture, 2 vols (London, 2020). See, on the compilation, revision, and legacy of the work, Catherine Gregg, “Sir Banister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture: The Father, the Son, His Wife, and Their Book,” in Fraser, Fletcher’s Global History, 1:xxx–xxxv. Fletcher and Fletcher, History, pp. 131–63.

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of Gold (1520). The Fletchers’ actual explanation of the Perpendicular style, which is rich in technical detail, makes no effort to explain what impact, if any, these events had on the built environment. But the impressionistic way in which they linked architecture and culture was developed by several of their contemporaries. Emblematic of this emergent approach was the work of the architect Edward Schroeder Prior (1852–1932)—a prolific writer whose ideas were first extensively articulated in A History of Gothic Art in England (1900).34 Prior, a leading proponent of the Arts and Crafts movement, argues that the success of the ­Perpendicular style was a product of two events of the 1340s: the Black Death and the beginning of the Hundred Years War.35 The Black Death is seen as decimating the first estate (the clergy). The Hundred Years War is seen as decimating the second estate (the nobility). Into the resulting gap, Prior argues, flooded a new class of merchants and artisans, drawn from the third estate, who seized control of architectural production. Particularly disconcerting for Prior is the professionalization of the building trades during this period since he equates it with the decline of “common or secular art” and the rise of “commercial or individual art.”36 And nowhere is the trend more blatant, in Prior’s mind, than in the construction of large parish churches: Perpendicular is the art of the most completely local individuality, yet of the widest democracy … now the craftsman was the master in his own house [i.e. the parish church] … No longer was it priest and knight that commanded, but the mason worked his fancies for the public opinion of traders and guildsmen.37 Thus, anticipating the views of the great Dutch historian Johan Huizinga (1872– 1945), Prior views the rise of the Perpendicular style as a period of autumnal decline: “an Indian summer … with brilliant hues that were of the falling leaf, not of the budding flower of Gothic.”38 Prior’s penchant for nostalgia, or what the architectural historian David ­Watkin dubs “Englishry,” resonates in the slightly later works of the ­architectural historians Francis Bond (1852–1918) and William Lethaby (1857–1931). Both 34 35 36 37 38

Edward S. Prior, A History of Gothic Art in England (London, 1900). Ibid., p. 424. Ibid., p. 429. Ibid., pp. 446–47. Ibid., p. 448. Huizinga’s classic study Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen (Autumntide of the Middle Ages) was published in Dutch in 1919 and in English in 1924.

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men see the Black Death as a pivotal moment in the history of a distinctively English art and architecture. But their assessments of its effects differ. Bond, in his Gothic Architecture in England (1905), is more optimistic; he notes that building activity simply shifted from the cathedral and the abbey church to the college and the parish church.39 Lethaby, in his Architecture: An Introduction to the History and Theory of the Art of Building (1912), is more pessimistic; he believes that the “sweetness and elasticity of style” that had characterized earlier Gothic modes was irretrievably lost.40 This brings us, finally, to the architectural historian John Harvey—a ­pivotal figure who published widely on English Gothic between the 1940s and the 1980s.41 Harvey’s book, The Perpendicular Style (1978), remains to this day the only monographic treatment of the subject.42 Written toward the end of his long career, it displays an unprecedented knowledge of both archival and architectural sources, outlining a diachronic account to which most scholars still largely subscribe. However, Harvey focuses almost exclusively on issues of formal development, framing architects as the protagonists of his narrative. There are occasional flirtations with historical explanations for stylistic change. He suggests, for instance, that a concomitant decrease in supply and increase in demand for architectural labor after the Black Death may have accelerated the formal simplification that defines the Perpendicular style.43 The assumption that really animates Harvey’s approach, however, is his faith in national genius.44 Indeed, what strikes the contemporary reader—what certainly struck me as an American graduate student perusing the book for the 39 40 41 42

43 44

Francis Bond, Gothic Architecture in England: An Analysis of the Origin and D ­ evelopment of English Church Architecture from the Norman Conquest to the Dissolution of the M ­ onasteries (London, 1906), pp. 134, 136. W. R. Lethaby, Architecture: An Introduction to the History and Theory of the Art of Building (London, 1912), p. 215. Harvey’s official register of publications numbers over 575. See John H. Harvey, “Published Writings by John Hooper Harvey (1911–97) on Garden History and Related Topics,” Garden History 26, no. 1 (1998): 102. John Harvey, The Perpendicular Style, 1330–1485 (London, 1978). Other major works include Henry Yevele, c. 1320 to 1400: The Life of an English Architect (London, 1944); Gothic England: A Survey of National Culture, 1300–1500 (London, 1947); The Gothic World, 1100– 1600: A Survey of Architecture and Art (London, 1950). Also see John Harvey and Arthur Oswald, English Medieval Architects: A Biographical Dictionary down to 1550 (London, 1954; Gloucester, 1984). Harvey, Perpendicular Style, p. 17. For an insightful comparative analysis of Harvey’s approach and those of his two ­contemporaries Nikolaus Pevsner (1902–83) and John Betjeman (1906–84), see Paul Crossley, “Anglia Perdita: English Medieval Architecture and Neo Romanticism,” in T ­ ributes to J. G. Alexander: The Making and Meaning of Illuminated Medieval and ­Renaissance

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first time—are the recurrent, and often gratuitous, references not only to the English mind or the English spirit but also to English blood. No doubt much of this fixation on ancestry can be seen as a product of Harvey’s involvement with two far-right organizations during the 1930s, the Imperial Fascist League and the Nordic League.45 But, as I have outlined above, the roots of such a ­chauvinistic approach are, in fact, appreciably deeper, harkening back to the works of Freeman and Fergusson, who celebrate and denigrate the Perpendicular style in patently racialized terms. This problematic tradition is relevant, I would argue, because it provides a useful context for understanding why late 20th- and early 21st-century writers have avoided writing larger histories of the Perpendicular style—the dearth of which stands in contradistinction to the steady stream of monographs that have appeared on the Norman, Early English, and Decorated styles.46 Simply put, it has proved surprisingly difficult to account for the Perpendicular style’s remarkable ubiquity and uniformity in the absence of discredited notions of national style. This is not to say that nonessentializing explanations do not exist. One might point, inter alia, to standardization in architectural production or stabilization in patrons’ tastes or masons’ tactics. But such ­dynamics are difficult to investigate within the discursive spaces of art history and ­architectural history given those disciplines’ deep-seated tendencies to prize originality and invention over mimicry and iteration. Consequently, while there has been no shortage of invaluable studies of individual sites, patrons, or masons over the past several decades, many larger questions remain unasked and/or unanswered. For instance, one of the ­enduring puzzles of the Perpendicular style is the unique ‘look’ that distinguishes it from other architectural modes, both ‘at home’ and ‘abroad.’ How should its regularity, rectilinearity, and spase appearance be understood? As a form of simplicity? As a form of severity? If simplicity, as a product of a plague-induced decrease in architectural supply or a parish-induced increase in architectural demand? If severity, as a product of a plague-induced conservatism among architectural clients or a parish-induced radicalism among architectural designers?

45 46

­ anuscripts, Art, and Architecture, ed. Susan L’Engle and Gerald B. Guest (London, 2006), M pp. 471–85. Graham Macklin, “The Two Lives of John Hooper Harvey,” Patterns of Prejudice 42 (2008): 167–90. Harvey’s politics go unremarked in Crossley, “Anglia Perdita.” See, for instance, Eric Fernie, The Architecture of Norman England (Oxford, 2000); Peter Draper, The Formation of English Gothic: Architecture and Identity (London, 2006); Paul Binski, Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice and the Decorated Style (London, 2014).

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In the early 2000s, Phillip Lindley posed many of these questions in a searching essay that draws productive parallels between two bodies of scholarly ­literature, one on Italy and one on England, regarding the effects of the Black Death on artistic production in 14th-century Europe.47 The Italian literature, on the one hand, is characterized by a narrower focus on a single medium: painting.48 At its heart is a now-classic study, Millard Meiss’s Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death (1951; revised 1964), which argues that social disruption led to the emergence of a nouveau riche class of artistic patrons who preferred the hieratic, and hence more “spiritual,” style of earlier trecento masters over the veristic, and hence more “humanistic,” style of Giotto. The English literature, on the other hand, is characterized by a wider focus on multiple media: from architecture, sculpture, and stained glass to manuscript painting, monumental brasses, and episcopal seals.49 At its heart are various studies, including those of Prior and Bond (one could also include Lethaby), which argue that social disruption led to the emergence of a new class of craftspeople who worked in simpler formal modes because they lacked the expertise necessary to execute works comparable to those of the first half of the 14th century. After unpacking these two historiographical traditions, Lindley proceeds to analyze their reception in the later 20th century, delineating the emergence of parallel “revisionist” trends that sought to minimize the role of the Black Death.50 In both cases, this reaction was based on the redating of various works that had been key to the arguments of earlier scholars, scrambling established notions of what constituted pre- and post-pandemic styles. But Lindley concludes his essay by suggesting that this corrective impulse, though necessary, has gone too far—that it is counterintuitive to assume that a catastrophe that resulted in the death of between one-third and one-half of the population would have had no effect on the material culture of the period. Thus, in the case of English architecture, he points to the extinction of a generation of leading masons (including the Ramsey family of Norwich, whose members had been instrumental to the creation of both the Decorated and the Perpendicular styles), an alleged deceleration of larger-scale construction, and an alleged acceleration of smaller-scale construction as evidence of the

47 48 49 50

Phillip Lindley, “The Black Death and English Art: A Debate and Some Assumptions,” in The Black Death in England, ed. W. M. Ormrod and P. G. Lindley (Donington, 2003), pp. 125–46. Ibid., pp. 125–28. Ibid., pp. 128–31. Ibid., pp. 131–36.

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ways in which the plague transformed building culture during the second half of the 14th century.51 Yet, as Lindley himself notes, the impact of the Black Death must have varied from region to region in ways that disrupt tidy rise-and-fall models of artistic progress. A striking case in point is the career of the later 14th-­century master mason Robert Wodehirst (fl. 1351–1401), a contemporary of the ­better-known master masons Henry Yevele (fl. 1353–1400) and William ­Wynford (fl. 1360– 1405), who ran a vibrant workshop based in the eastern city of ­Norwich.52 Wodehirst received his training in the stone yards of Westminster during the immediate postplague period—initially as a “mason” in unspecified work between 1351 and 1355 and subsequently as a “carver” in the palace chapel in 1357 and in the abbey cloister in 1358. He next appears in the sparse documentary record as the “master of the work” at Norwich Cathedral, where he ­oversaw the ­completion of the north cloister walk between 1382 and 1395.53 There he introduced two distinctive tracery patterns, a subarcuated design and a supermullioned design, which modern scholars have used as reference points to adduce his larger oeuvre (Figure 3.5). Among the various works that have been attributed to him are the towering clerestory of the cathedral’s east arm (rebuilt following the collapse of the crossing spire in 1361 or 1362),54 the nave of Ingham Priory (ca.1361),55 the nave of the parish church of Swanton Morley All Saints (ca.1379),56 the chancel of the Norwich Great Hospital (ca.1380–84),57 and the nave and the chancel of the parish church of Norwich St. Gregory (­completed in 1401).58 A trademark of many of these works is the deliberate juxtaposition of Decorated and Perpendicular motifs, the most notable 51 52 53

54 55 56 57 58

Ibid., pp. 136–46. The outlines of Wodehirst’s career are traced in Harvey and Oswald, English Medieval Architects, pp. 342–43. See, on the chronology of the north cloister walk, Eric Fernie and A. B. Whittingham, The Early Communar and Pitancer Rolls of Norwich Cathedral Priory with an Account of the Building of the Cloister (Norwich, 1972), pp. 38–41; Eric Fernie, An Architectural History of Norwich Cathedral (Oxford, 1993), pp. 172–73; Francis Woodman, “The Gothic Campaigns,” in Norwich Cathedral: Church, City, and Diocese, 1096–1996, ed. Ian Atherton, Eric Fernie, Christopher Harper-Bill, and Hassell Smith (London, 1996), pp. 170–72, 175–76. Harvey, Perpendicular Style, pp. 105, 107; Woodman, “Gothic Campaigns,” p. 182. A more cautious view is Fernie, Norwich Cathedral, p. 186. Harvey, Perpendicular Style, p. 105. Ibid., p. 105. Ibid., pp. 105, 107, 142. A. B. Whittingham, “St Gregory’s Church, Charing Cross,” Archaeological Journal 106 (1949): 95–96.

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instance being the alternating chancel windows at the Norwich Great Hospital (Figure 3.6), which disrupts teleological notions of stylistic development. For Wodehirst, it seems, there was simply no hard line between the ‘old’ curvilinear mode that had flourished in East Anglia before the Black Death and the

Figure 3.5 Norwich Cathedral, cloister, north walk, 1382–95 source: Z. Stewart

Figure 3.6 Norwich Great Hospital, chancel, north wall, ca. 1380–84 source: Z. Stewart

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‘new’ rectilinear mode that was being popularized by London-based masons after the Black Death. Moreover, his rise in Norwich would appear to have been a direct result of the unique opportunities created by the plague’s devastation, though this circumstance has gone unrecognized in the literature. Work had begun on the cathedral’s north cloister walk wall in 1355–56, apparently under the direction of the master mason John Attegrene the Younger of Ely, who is mentioned in the building accounts of 1357–58. Attegrene’s subsequent disappearance from the documentary record suggests that he may have died during the recurrence of the Black Death in England between 1360 and 1363. It was probably around this time that Wodehirst, who had been working on the cloister at Westminster Abbey, was recruited to continue the project. But the collapse of the crossing spire forced cathedral authorities to divert their attention from the cloister to the church. Under normal circumstances, it seems unlikely that a mason of Wodehirst’s limited experience would have been selected to carry out such a complex project, which involved demolishing old clerestories and erecting new clerestories without disturbing the surviving fabric below. But lingering labor shortages, attested by the Crown’s efforts to impress craftsmen during the 1350s and the 1360s, may have left few viable alternatives.59 In any event, Wodehirst was clearly up to the task, and his dazzling clerestory heralded the beginning of an extensive professional career—one whose portfolio of both higher-status and lower-status commissions suggests that the architectural ‘market’ recovered quickly in eastern England within a decade or so of the Black Death. Wodehirst’s example demonstrates, if only anecdotally, the difficulty of drawing direct correlations between the plague, the parish, and stylistic change in 14th-century England. The timing of his work contradicts the idea that the Black Death eviscerated architectural supply or architectural demand. The breadth of his work contradicts the idea that changing social circumstances caused an inversely proportional waning of construction at greater churches and waxing of construction at lesser churches. And, perhaps most significant, his recurrent side by side use of Decorated and Perpendicular forms suggests that neither he nor his contemporaries viewed these two architectural modes in mutually exclusive terms of ‘old’ and ‘new’ (with all their attendant pre- and post-pandemic connotations). If anything, at least in Wodehirst’s talented hands, it seems that curvilinear elements and rectilinear elements were employed as two equally valid means of creating a sense of variety, richness, and splendor—a tactic that flies in the face of the theories of many of the 59

See, on the use of impressment in the king’s works, R. A. Brown, H. M. Colvin, and A. J. Taylor, The History of the King’s Works: The Middle Ages, 2 vols (London, 1963), 1:180–85.

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writers examined here, who sought to interpret individual architectural styles as either the fulfillment or the debasement of some sort of Gothic ideal. In our own pluralistic age, this kind of architectural bricolage may not raise eyebrows, but the way in which it undermines long-held historiographical assumptions points, I would argue, to a larger principle. Temporal labels, such as ‘antiquity’ and ‘modernity’ or ‘earliness’ and ‘lateness,’ carry myriad assumptions—not only about style but also about society. This is not to say that they should, or even could, be abandoned. But it is important to approach them carefully and critically in order to ensure that the architectural cultures they attempt to describe can be studied on their own terms. Bibliography of Cited Sources

Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

Aubrey, John. “Monumenta Britannica.” Vol. 2. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Top. Gen. c. 25.

Ayers, Tim, ed. The Fabric Accounts of St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, 1292–1396. Translated by Maureen Jurkowski. 2 vols. Woodbridge, 2020. Binski, Paul. Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice and the Decorated Style. London, 2014. Bond, Francis. Gothic Architecture in England: An Analysis of the Origin and Development of English Church Architecture from the Norman Conquest to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. London, 1906. Brown, R. A., H. M. Colvin, and A. J. Taylor. The History of the King’s Works: The Middle Ages. 2 vols. London, 1963. Cheng, Irene. “Structural Racialism in Modern Architectural Theory.” In Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present, edited by Irene Cheng, Charles L. Davis, and Mabel O. Wilson, pp. 134–52. Pittsburgh, 2020. Clark, Kenneth. The Gothic Revival: An Essay in the History of Taste. 3rd ed. London, 1962. Colvin, Howard A. “Aubrey’s Chronologia Architectonica.” In Concerning Architecture: Essays on Architectural Writers and Writing, Presented to Nikolaus Pevsner, edited by John Summerson, pp. 1–12. London, 1968. Crossley, Paul. “Anglia Perdita: English Medieval Architecture and Neo Romanticism.” In Tributes to J.G. Alexander: The Making and Meaning of Illuminated Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, Art, and Architecture, edited by Susan L’Engle and Gerald B. Guest, pp. 471–85. London, 2006.

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Dallaway, James. Observations on English Architecture, Military, Ecclesiastical, and Civil, Compared with Similar Buildings on the Continent: Including a Critical Itinerary of Oxford and Cambridge; Also Historical Notices of Stained Glass, Ornamental Gardening, &c. London, 1806. Draper, Peter. The Formation of English Gothic: Architecture and Identity. London, 2006. Fergusson, James. A History of Architecture in All Countries, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. 3 vols. London, 1865–67. Fernie, Eric, and A.B. Whittingham. The Early Communar and Pitancer Rolls of Norwich Cathedral Priory with an Account of the Building of the Cloister. Norwich, 1972. Fernie, Eric. An Architectural History of Norwich Cathedral. Oxford, 1993. Fernie, Eric. The Architecture of Norman England. Oxford, 2000. Fletcher, Banister, and Banister F. Fletcher. A History of Architecture for the Student, Craftsman, and Amateur: Being a Comparative View of the Historical Styles from the Earliest Period. London, 1896. Frankl, Paul. Gothic Architecture. Translated by Dieter Pevsner. Baltimore, 1962. Fraser, Murray, ed. Sir Banister Fletcher’s Global History of Architecture. 2 vols. London, 2020. Freeman, Edward A. A History of Architecture. London, 1849. Gregg, Catherine. “Sir Banister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture: The Father, the Son, His Wife, and Their Book.” In Sir Banister Fletcher’s Global History of Architecture, edited by Murray Fraser, 1:xxx–xxxv. London, 2020. Harvey, John. Henry Yevele, c. 1320 to 1400: The Life of an English Architect. London, 1944. Harvey, John. Gothic England: A Survey of National Culture, 1300–1500. London, 1947. Harvey, John. The Gothic World, 1100–1600: A Survey of Architecture and Art. London, 1950. Harvey, John. “The Origin of the Perpendicular Style.” In Studies in Building History: Essays in Recognition of the Work of B. H. St. J. O’Neil, edited by E.M. Jope, pp. 134–65. London, 1961. Harvey, John. The Perpendicular Style, 1330–1485. London, 1978. Harvey, John, and Arthur Oswald. English Medieval Architects: A Biographical Dictionary down to 1550. 2nd ed. Gloucester, 1984. Harvey, John. “Published Writings by John Hooper Harvey (1911–97) on Garden History and Related Topics.” Garden History 26, no. 1 (1998): 102–05. Hastings, Maurice. St. Stephen’s Chapel and Its Place in the Development of the ­Perpendicular Style in England. Cambridge, UK, 1955. Hill, Rosemary. “Reformation to Millennium: Pugin’s Contrasts in the History of English Thought.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 1 (1999): 26–41. Lethaby, W.R. Westminster Abbey and the King’s Craftsmen: A Study of Mediaeval ­Building. London, 1906.

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Lethaby, W.R. Architecture: An Introduction to the History and Theory of the Art of ­Building. London, 1912. Lindley, Phillip. “The Black Death and English Art: A Debate and Some Assumptions.” In The Black Death in England, edited by W.M. Ormrod and P.G. Lindley, pp. 125–46. Donington, 2003. Macklin, Graham. “The Two Lives of John Hooper Harvey.” Patterns of Prejudice 42 (2008): 167–90. Prior, Edward S. A History of Gothic Art in England. London, 1900. “Proceedings at the Meetings of the Archaeological Institute: Annual Meeting, 1860, Held at Gloucester, July 17 to 24.” Archaeological Journal 17 (1860): 320–55. Pugin, A. Welby. Contrasts; Or, a Parallel Between the Noble Edifices of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, and Similar Buildings of the Present Day; Shewing the Present Decay of Taste. London, 1836. Reeve, Matthew M. “Gothic Architecture, Sexuality, and License at Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill.” The Art Bulletin 95, no. 3 (2013): 411–39. Rickman, Thomas. An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture, from the Conquest to the Reformation; Preceded by a Sketch of the Grecian and Roman Orders, with Notices of Nearly Five Hundred English Buildings. 2nd ed. ­London, 1817. Scott, George Gilbert, An Essay on the History of English Church Architecture prior to the Separation of England from the Roman Obedience. London, 1881. Sedding, J.D. “The Architecture of the Perpendicular Period.” In Transactions of the St. Paul’s Ecclesiological Society, 1:31–44. London, 1881. Smith, James. The Panorama of Science and Arts. 2 vols. Liverpool, 1815. Stewart, Zachary. “Models, Copies, and Mendicants: The Origins of the Late-Medieval English Parish Church in Historiographical Perspective.” In Towards an Art History of the Parish Church, 1200–1399, edited by Meg Bernstein, pp. 67–91. London, 2021. https://courtauld.ac.uk/research/research-resources/publications /courtauld-books-online/parish-church/. Turner, Olivia Horsfall. “‘The Windows of This Church Are of Several Fashions’: ­Architectural Form and Historical Method in John Aubrey’s ‘Chronologia ­Architectonica.’” Architectural History 54 (2011): 171–93. Walpole, Horace. Anecdotes of Painting in England; With Some Account of the Principal Artists and Incidental Notes on Other Arts; Collected by the Late Mr. George Vertue; And Now Digested and Published from his Original MSS. by Mr. Horace Walpole. 4 vols. Twickenham, 1762–71. Watkin, David. The Rise of Architectural History. London, 1980. Whittingham, A.B. “St. Gregory’s Church, Charing Cross.” Archaeological Journal 106 (1949): 95–96.

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Wilson, Christopher. The Gothic Cathedral: The Architecture of the Great Church, 1130–1530. London, 1990. Wilson, Christopher. “‘Excellent, New and Uniforme’: Perpendicular Architecture c.1400–1547.” In Gothic: Art for England 1400–1547, edited by Richard Marks and Paul Williamson, pp. 98–119. London, 2003. Woodman, Francis. “The Gothic Campaigns.” In Norwich Cathedral: Church, City, and Diocese, 1096–1996, edited by Ian Atherton, Eric Fernie, Christopher Harper-Bill, and Hassell Smith, pp. 158–96. London, 1996.

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Chapter 4

“Toutefois moderne, sans tenir de l’antique”

Critical Views on Gothic and Renaissance Interaction in Early Modern French Architecture between the 16th and 18th Centuries Flaminia Bardati “Toutefois moderne, sans tenir de l’antique”: in other words, Gothic, without taking the canons of classical architecture into consideration.1 The comment was made by the French designer Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau to describe the Château de Gaillon in 1576, but such an observation could also refer to almost all the buildings constructed in France between the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries (Figure 4.1). As is widely known, the Renaissance in France took place more than a century later than in Italy. Well beyond the 16th century, religious architecture was above all characterized by the persistence of layout and structural schemes inherited from the recent past,2 while residential buildings constructed between 1490 and 1520/30 were influenced by both the last manifestations of the Gothic Flamboyant style and the first forms of stylistic features inspired by the varied decorative repertoire of the Italian 15th century, which in French historiography came to be known as the Première Renaissance. Generally speaking, in the substantial debate on the relationships between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance—or between the Gothic and classicism3—the association between the Flamboyant and the Première Renaissance 1 “Nonetheless in a modern manner, without considering the ancient canons.” Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau, Le premier volume des plus excellents bastiments de France, auquel sont designez les plans de quinze bastiments, & de leur contenu: Ensemble les elevations & singula­ ritez d’un chascun (Paris, 1576), fol. 3v. On the use of the words ‘modern’ and ‘ancient’ at the beginning of the 16th century, see Pierre-Yves Le Pogam, “Le paysage artistique vers 1500: Les mots et les choses,” in France 1500: Entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance (Paris, 2010), pp. 31–37. 2 The church of Saint-Eustache in Paris, begun around 1530, is the earliest example of the hybridization of the Flamboyant and Renaissance styles in French religious architecture, but it remained an isolated case in the first half of the 16th century; see Anne-Marie Sankovitch, The Church of Saint-Eustache in the Early French Renaissance (Turnout, 2015); Agnès Bos, Les églises flamboyantes de Paris: XVe–XVIe siècles (Paris, 2003). 3 See the essential works of Eugenio Garin, Medioevo e Rinascimento (Bari, 1966), Rudolf ­Wittkower, Gothic Versus Classic: Architectural Projects in Seventeenth Century Italy (London, 1974); and Marvin Trachtenberg, “Gothic/Italian ‘Gothic’: Toward a Redefinition,” Journal of © Flaminia Bardati, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_007 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 4.1 Nativity, fresco, detail with view of the Grant’ Maison of Gaillon, Castle of ­Gaglianico, Biella, Italy, ca. 1510 source: F. Bardati

evokes contrasts: tradition versus renewal, modern versus ancient, and ­especially between national versus foreign in the 19th and the 20th century.4 the Society of Architectural Historians 50 (1991): 22–37). For France, see Henri Zerner, L’art de la Renaissance en France: L’invention du classicisme (Paris, 1996), pp. 13–53; Jean Guillaume, “Styles and Manners: Reflections on the ‘Longue Durée’ in the History of Architecture,” in Time and Place: The Geohistory of Art, ed. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann and Elizabeth Pilliod (Aldershot, 2005), pp. 37–58; idem, “Conclusion: Moyen Âge et Renaissance, le piège des mots,” in Du gothique à la Renaissance: Architecture et décor en France, 1470–1550, ed. Yves Esquieu (Aix-en-Provence, 2003), pp. 313–15. Ethan Matt Kavaler coined the expression ‘Renaissance Gothic’ that happily describes European architecture between the 15th and the 16th centuries, with the exception of Italy; see Ethan Matt Kavaler, “Renaissance Gothic in the Netherlands: The Uses of Ornaments,” The Art Bulletin 82 (2000): 226–51; idem, “Renaissance Gothic: Pictures of Geometry and Narratives of Ornament,” Art History 29 (2006): 1–46; idem, Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1530 (New Haven, 2012); see also Monique Chatenet, Krista De Jonge, Ethan Matt Kavaler, Norbert ­Nussbaum, eds., Le Gothique de la Renaissance (Paris, 2011). 4 For an overview of the issues specifically related to architecture, see Flaminia Bardati, “­Anticiviltà del Rinascimento: Riflessioni su metodi e posizioni della storiografia francese di fine Ottocento,” in L’idea di stile nella storiografia artistica, ed. Sabine Frommel and Antonio Brucculeri (Rome, 2012), pp. 299–312. Of course, the rigid division into periods has also been criticized: Jean Adhémar, for example, insisted on the permanence of ancient stylistic features in the French Middle Ages, in Influences antiques dans l’art du Moyen Âge français: Recherches sur les sources et les thèmes d’inspiration (London, 1939).

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For this reason, at various times in the history of architectural criticism, the Château de Gaillon; the royal châteaux of Amboise, Blois, and Chambord; and the dozens of châteaux built between 1490 and 1530, which were all characterized by a mixture of Gothic and Renaissance forms, have constituted a dilemma. They are considered too Flamboyant by the classicists and overly Renaissance by the Gothic partisans and are therefore difficult to classify. In one camp are those who follow Vasari’s belief that Brunelleschi was granted heavenly authority to give new form to architecture and usher in a rebirth of the arts after a long period of obscurity.5 In the other camp are those who see the Renaissance as an invasion of a foreign art, bringing about the end of a glorious, age-old constructive and functionalist French tradition.6 The aim of this essay is to show, on the contrary, that, in the short period under consideration, the Flamboyant and Première Renaissance manners coexisted, that artists and craftsmen of different training and origins conversed and interacted on the building sites, and that, even in the eyes of Italian observers of the early 16th century, the results of this stylistic mixture were judged in positive terms. Thanks to the abundance of preserved documentary sources, the Château de Gaillon is an ideal case study to demonstrate these intentions. Moreover, the descriptions of Italian, French, and English visitors to the end of the 18th century at this site allow us to witness the gradual change in taste, wherein the stylistic coexistence of the Flamboyant and Première Renaissance styles, initially considered favorably, began to be seen from a negative standpoint. Before going into the specifics of this case study, I will consider the ways in which the two stylistic manners interacted. As we shall see, such styles should have been irreconcilable according to critical positions that were already developing in the 16th century. 1 Flamboyant and Première Renaissance: The Reasons for a Possible Dialogue The interaction between two objectively different architectural languages— namely the last declination of French Gothic constituted by the Flamboyant 5 “Donato dal cielo per dar nuova forma all’architettura, già per centinaia d’anni smarrita” Giorgio Vasari, Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori (1550 e 1568), ed. Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi (Florence, 1966–87), Giuntina edition (1568), p. 226. 6 Michela Passini, “L’Italia come problema: La storia dell’arte francese e la questione del ­Rinascimento,” Annali di critica d’arte 4 (2008): 193–231.

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and the first experiments in recovering the language of Antiquity used in various parts of Italy during the 15th century—was made possible by the change taking place in French residential architecture between 1480 and 1500. Such buildings welcomed the ornamental exuberance that had previously been the prerogative of ecclesiastical architecture, focusing it on specific elements of the buildings: the stairwells, the doors, the travée (the continuous vertical bays formed by the sequence of windows and parapets), and the very high slate roofs, opened up by the high dormer windows and rendered jagged with soaring sculpted chimneys. Alongside the emergence of these ornate elements, the façades were structured in a new way: the vertical predilection of the Gothic style was combined with horizontal lines of force, accentuated by perforated parapets located at the imposts of the roof pitches or by the continuous stringcourses, creating a geometric orthogonal grid that punctuated the rhythm of the elevations.7 Geometry and orthogonality are emphasized by pinnacles, cusps, spires, and canopies, often borrowed from the religious sphere and accentuated by the presence of sculptures. The vertical elements terminate with pointed pyramids, contrasting with the pierced parapets, and the windows are crowned by molded cornices and laden with sculptures (Figure 4.2). In this orthogonal scheme, the ornamental apparatus deploys different types depending on the form, function, and location of the area to be filled. Geometric and curvilinear motifs as well as zoomorphic and plant elements, all stylized and tapered, literally invade the decorative fields with a startling fantasy that freely associates the imagery of medieval bestiaries with the lucid geometry of the elevations. The repertoire inspired by Antiquity that spread from 1495 onward with the arrival of the first group of Italian artists in Amboise, called to the court of Charles VIII,8 exploited this varied and dynamic context, intrinsically capable of absorbing racemes, spirals, putti, weapons, and mythological monsters: Flamboyant and antique motifs cohabited with and contaminated each other, generating new formal solutions (Figure 4.3).9 It is precisely this geometric-ornamental compatibility that allows a dialectical coexistence, a permeability between the two styles, which modify each other reciprocally to become synthesized in the Première Renaissance.

7 The façade did not affect the location of the windows, which was determined by the interior arrangement of the furniture; see Monique Chatenet and Christian Cussonneau, “Le devis du château de Jarzé: La place du lit,” Bulletin monumental 155, no. 2 (1997): 103–26. 8 Anatole de Montaiglon, “État des gages des ouvriers italiens employés par Charles VIII,” Archives de l’Art français 1 (1851–52): 94–132. 9 Jean Guillaume, “Le temps des expériences,” in L’invention de la Renaissance: La réception des formes “à l’antique” au début de la Renaissance (Paris, 2003), pp. 143–76.

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Figure 4.2 Château de Meillant, Charles II de Chaumont’s wing, before 1511 source: F. Bardati

This merging was destined to be successful in all geographical areas where the Gothic still predominated during the 15th century, but its structural and dynamic solutions flourished with particular precociousness in France.10 Thus the characteristic orthogonal grid of the residential architecture from 1480 to 1500 adapts to the insertion of moldings, friezes, and pilasters. These features that allude to the ancient architectural orders were primarily known through the microarchitectures of 15th-century Italian tabernacles and funerary monuments. However, instead of proportioning the façades according to the canons taken from Vitruvius’s treatise, these pseudo-orders flank doors and windows like late Gothic pilasters, emphasizing the verticality of the travées. At the same time, stringcourses, made up of freely associated hybrid moldings, allude to the trabeation and run uninterruptedly along the façades. This placement gives them a pronounced horizontality, sometimes even continuing on the 10

Anne-Marie Sankovitch, “Structure/Ornament and the Modern Figuration of Architecture,” The Art Bulletin 80 (1998): 687–717.

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Figure 4.3 Château de Gaillon, grande cour, Flamboyant pillar with decorations inspired by antiquity, stone of Vernon, 1508 source: F. Bardati

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mighty circular towers that highlight the corners of the châteaux, creating an effect of great volumetric unity. Stereotomy and a predilection for the dynamism, lightness, and sinuosity of Flamboyant forms were at the root of the targeted choice of antique models, filtered through the Italian quattrocento, to be embraced in this process of ­internal renewal: sculptors from Fiesole and Lombardy were included in the French ateliers, bearers of a Renaissance adorned with candelabras, ­grotesques, and pilasters, i.e. motifs adaptable to elongated geometric compartments and easily transferred from marble to local stone. This process of interaction and fusion was represented perfectly in the ­Château de Gaillon, the domain of the archbishopric of Rouen. On the ruins of the medieval fortress destroyed in 1424 by the English, an initial reconstruction campaign was begun in 1459 at the behest of Archbishop Guillaume d’Estouteville. Most of the building, gardens, and park were created during the episcopate of Georges d’Amboise (1494–1510).11 Over the next three centuries, the château, and in particular the gardens and park, were further enlarged and modified by almost all the archbishops of Rouen. The French Revolution instigated its numerous demolitions and the dispersal of most of the decorative apparatus, and the subsequent transformation into a departmental prison led to the definitive loss of entire parts of the building. Nevertheless, a reflection on the state of the Château de Gaillon at the beginning of the 16th century is possible thanks to the preservation of a large part of the construction accounts, many iconographic sources, and numerous descriptions that, in themselves, testify to the notable reputation of the château in the 16th century.12 2 A Multilingual Building Site, a Work of Synthesis: The Château de Gaillon at the Dawn of the 16th Century During the episcopate of Georges d’Amboise, the Gaillon building site was a striking example of the dialogue in the early 16th century between the Flamboyant style and the language derived from Antiquity, which came from 15th-century Italy, regarding both the synthesis of the decorative repertoire 11

12

On the chronology of the building site during the episcopate of Georges d’Amboise, see Évelyne Thomas, “Gaillon: La chronologie de la construction,” in L’architecture de la Renaissance en Normandie, ed. Bernard Beck, Pierre Bouet, Claire Étienne, and Isabelle Lettéron (Caen, 2003), 1:153–62. For an overview of the château in the 16th century, including the interventions of the second half of the century and the descriptions of it, see Flaminia Bardati, “Il bel palatio in forma di castello”: Gaillon tra Flamboyant e Rinascimento (Rome, 2009).

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and the collaboration between craftsmen from different geographical and cultural backgrounds. In 1498, Georges d’Amboise was elevated to the positions of both cardinal and Lieutenant de Normandie, and he was the first counsellor of King Louis XII, in effect a sort of prime minister ante literam.13 The cardinal’s great wealth, political prestige, and ambition made it possible to devote huge sums of money to the site and to bring together master masons, artists, and craftsmen, as well as sculptures and other produced works from Normandy, the Loire Valley, Paris, Flanders, Lombardy, and Tuscany.14 These masters and their teams clearly had different backgrounds, linked to the specific nature of the places in which they worked, and expressed themselves with different nuances, covering the range of forms and solutions typical of the Flamboyant style and more purely ornamental forms of 15th-century architecture in the Lombardy and Tuscan areas. On the French side, from Blois came the craftsmen who were busy with the renovation of the royal castles of Amboise and Blois.15 From Rouen came the master masons and carpenters already employed by the cardinal for the expansion of the archbishop’s palace (1494–1506). This was another large building site, characterized by the coexistence of buildings fully embodying the spirit of Flamboyant civil architecture and decorations inspired by Antiquity. The latter were concentrated in the palace garden, where marble bases, capitals, moldings, and bas-reliefs commissioned by the cardinal from the atelier of Pace Gagini and Antonio della Porta in Genoa were inserted.16 In Gaillon, construction work proceeded at a separate pace for single vertical sectors of the buildings surrounding the quadrangular main courtyard (grande cour), the fortified entrance (châtelet), and other minor constructions arranged around the basse cour, the irregular space determined by the shape of the hill on which the castle stands (Figure 4.4). The cardinal’s apartment was 13

14

15 16

On Georges d’Amboise, patron of the arts and central figure for the politics of Louis XII’s reign, see Jean-Pierre Chaline, ed., Au seuil de la Renaissance: Le cardinal Georges d’Amboise (1460–1510) (Rouen, 2012); Jonathan Dumont and Laure Fagnart, eds., Georges Ier d’Amboise (1460–1510): Une figure plurielle de la Renaissance (Rennes, 2013); Xavier ­Bonnier, Gérard Milhe Poutingon, and Sandra Provini, eds., La Renaissance à Rouen: L’essor artistique et culturel dans la Normandie des décennies 1480–1530 (Rouen, 2019). On the variety of 15th-century Italian styles present on the building sites of Georges d’Amboise’s residences, see Flaminia Bardati, “Les artistes italiens au service de Georges d’Amboise et la Renaissance rouennaise: Renaissances italiennes à Rouen et à Gaillon; Typologies, sources, fortune,” in Bonnier, Poutingon, and Provini, La Renaissance à Rouen, pp. 123–44. Elisabeth Chirol, Un premier foyer de la Renaissance: Le château de Gaillon (Rouen, 1952). Flaminia Bardati, “Georges d’Amboise à Rouen: Le palais de l’archevêché et sa galerie de marbre,” Congrès archéologique de France, Rouen et Pays de Caux (2005): 199–213.

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Figure 4.4 Château de Gaillon around 1510, first floor plan. A: main stair. B: upper chapel. C: cardinal’s bedroom source: F. Bardati

located on the main floor of the Grand’ Maison, the most majestic building in the grande cour, which faced the valley of the Seine. The two chapels, one set upon the other, formed the east end of the Grand’ Maison block. The vertical connections were provided by spiral staircases, located off the main building at the corners of the grande cour; the one serving the cardinal’s apartment and the upper chapel was larger than the others and entirely sculpted. In line with French preferences, each building had a high, volumetrically independent roof. Materials and construction techniques, entrusted to teams of master masons and carpenters mainly from Normandy and the Loire Valley, reflected the traditional characteristics of northern France: the masonry was made of structural stone, brought in from the quarries of Vernon and Saint-Leu, and the soaring roofs were covered with slate slabs. The timber for the carpentry came mainly from the forests of Clères and Saint-Wandrille, located near Rouen.17 The artists and craftsmen responsible for the lavish finishing touches—­sculpture, painting, carpentry, upholstery—also recruited from Paris and Flanders, were joined by a number of Italians, some already working in France, such as 17

Bardati, “Il bel palatio,” pp. 109–24.

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Guido Mazzoni, Antonio Giusti, Girolamo Pacherot, Pacello da ­Mercogliano, and ­others from Lombardy, such as the painters Andrea Solario and Girolamo ­Torniello or the carpenter Riccardo da Carpi. The French presence in Milan and Genoa had also favored the arrival of statues in Gaillon, such as that of Louis XII by Lorenzo da Mugiano,18 but above all marble slabs depicting profiles of Roman emperors19 or sculpted with grotesques and candelabras, which were immediately assimilated by the local maître maçon (master mason) and set within the rectangular and elongated decorative fields of pillars, buttresses, and spires. Moreover, the presence of Mazzoni, Giusti, and Pacherot on the building site furthered the transmission not only of ornamental motifs but also of working techniques. One of the consequences of this coexistence and transmission of skills was that in a short time many artists were able to express themselves at ease in both decorative styles, whether of French or Italian origin: Pacherot sculpted delicate candelabras within the rectangular decorative fields of the mighty pillars of the Grand’ Maison on the side towards the grande cour (Figure 4.3), while the bas-reliefs he had created for the altar of the upper chapel were repurposed with a few variations by the team of Pierre Fain, adapting them to the Flamboyant moldings of the monumental portal leading into the main courtyard, known as the porte de Gênes (Figure 4.5).20 The cabinetmaker Nicolas (or Colin) Castille, who had carried out numerous works in Gaillon, took over from Carpi in the execution of the delicate carvings that decorated the wooden paneling in the cardinal’s room21 and probably in the creation of the jubé and the stalls in the upper chapel, characterized by cusps and Gothic columns softened by racemes and patterned capitals (Figure 4.6).22 At the end of the summer of 1507, when he devoted himself to the sculpted decoration of the wooden pavilion in the center of the upper garden, Castille was specifically 18 19 20 21 22

The work is now in the Louvre Museum. Of the triptych (depicting Louis XII, Georges d’Amboise, Charles de Chaumont, the cardinal’s nephew) described by almost all sources, the only one that has survived is that of the king. Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, “Les médaillons de marbre provenant du château de Gaillon, début du XVIe siècle,” Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France (2009): 160–78. Achille Deville, Comptes des dépenses de la construction du château de Gaillon (Paris, 1850), p. 431. Deville, Comptes, 261. Agnès Bos and Jacques Dubois, “Les boiseries de la chapelle du château de Gaillon,” in L’art des frères d’Amboise: Les chapelles de l’hôtel de Cluny et du château de Gaillon (Paris, 2007), pp. 83–97; Mariaelena Bugini, “ ‘Lo choro … ultra misura bello’ e le altre boiseries della cappella superiore di Georges d’Amboise a Gaillon,” in Manuela Rossi, Alla corte del re di Francia: Alberto Pio e gli artisti di Carpi nei cantieri del Rinascimento francese (Carpi, 2017), pp. 15–33. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 4.5 On the left: Girolamo Pacherot, detail of the altarpiece of the high chapel of Gaillon, now in the Musée du Louvre, marble, 1508–09. On the right: Pierre Fain and collaborators, pilaster of the porte de Gênes, stone of Vernon, 1508–09 source: F. Bardati

described in the construction accounts as a tailleur d’antique, namely a carver of antique motifs.23 Similarly, the maître maçon Pierre Delorme, who also 23

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Figure 4.6 Château de Gaillon, fragments of the upper chapel wooden screen, now in the Musée de la Renaissance, Écouen, 1508–09 source: F. Bardati

worked for the cardinal on the archbishop’s palace in Rouen, carved elements in the “antique and French fashion” in Gaillon,24 combining and hybridizing the two genres in the same work. The heterogeneous group of artists and craftsmen present in Gaillon, far from working in isolation or opposition, were able to collaborate and interact, 24

“À l’antique et à la mode françoise.” Deville, Comptes, p. 405.

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giving rise to a fertile mixture of decorative themes and allowing the most versatile to acquire new construction and sculptural techniques, reworking them in a personal language. The fruits of this artistic koine would be seen in the following decades, not only in the fervent architectural activity that characterized Rouen and Normandy in the first half of the 16th century but also, with a backward turn, in the Loire Valley and the Île-de-France. Even in England, according to Helen Dow, where, after a spell on the site of the tower of Bourges Cathedral, Jean Chersalle, Pacherot’s coworker in Gaillon, moved with John Hudde to work on Henry VII’s funeral monument.25 3  “Il più magnifico et superbo a pena se potria retrovare”: Gaillon in the Eyes of Contemporaries Georges d’Amboise died in May 1510 when work on the château was still incomplete, but by September 1508, it was advanced enough to accommodate Louis XII and his court for a short stay. Between 1507 and 1518, a number of Italian visitors, clearly impressed by the monumentality and richness of ­Gaillon’s ­decoration, left written accounts of the state of the building, which are valuable not only because they help to restore what was lost after 1789 but also because they report on the personal impressions the visitors had of the château.26 They are travel diaries and letters, hence texts intended largely for a private audience, allowing the authors to express their opinions quite freely.27 25 26

27

Helen J. Dow, “John Hudde and the English Renaissance,” Renaissance News 18 (1965): 289–94. However, these are always external observers, whose viewpoints may highlight aspects that are missing, voluntarily or involuntarily, from official descriptions. See Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communica­ tion (Cambridge, UK, 1987). Regarding 16th-century descriptions, the concise letters of Alberto Pio (1507) and Bonaventura Mosti (1508) give general information on the building as a whole, which was still under construction, praising its lavishness and highlighting a few but symptomatic elements: the bas-relief with the conquest of Genoa by Antonio Giusti, the court fountain made in Genoa by Pace Gagini and Antonio della Porta, the columns and other ornaments believed to be of Italian origin, the number of apartments with their rich gilded and coffered ceilings, the breadth and care to detail of the garden and park with their outbuildings. Jacopo Probo d’Atri’s letter (1510) is the only text whose aim is to give as complete a description as possible of the castle and its adjacent lots, intended for the enthusiast collector and lover of the arts Isabella d’Este. The author knows that his letter was likely to be read by a wider audience than just Isabella and adopts a narrative tone full of metaphors and rhetorical figures, always giving superlative judgments on the building and describing all its components with a wealth of detail. The travel diaries of the first half

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These descriptions enable us not only to see the perfect compatibility between the Flamboyant and Première Renaissance styles in the first 20 years of the 16th century but also to perceive the gradual construction of a classicist mentality, whereby, as the years passed, the late Gothic components were steadily to take on negative values. Indeed, at the beginning of the century, the mixture of styles, materials, techniques, and personal manners of so many different artists and craftsmen in the same work did not appear a negative factor in the eyes of contemporaries. The late Gothic and Renaissance elements were not perceived as antithetical nor as one being superior to the other. This is not to say that there was no awareness of the diversity of architectural-decorative languages: in 1507, Alberto Pio da Carpi clearly distinguished things made “in the manner of the king,” i.e. Louis XII and therefore Flamboyant, from things made “in the manner of Italy,” but both were deemed beautiful and expressions of the excellent magnanimity of the commissioner.28 A year later, Bonaventura Mosti, writing to the Duke of Ferrara, described Gaillon as “the most beautiful and splendid place in all of France” and revealed that Alberto Pio himself was having a drawing made of it to send to the Este court.29 The news of a drawing commissioned by a patron such as Pio, together with the two frescoes depicting Gaillon painted before 1510 and conserved in the chapel of the castle of Gaglia­ nico (Biella, Lombardy) (Figure 4.1), as well as the sixteenth-century drawing belonging to the Cronstedt collection (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), give a measure of what André Chastel had not by chance called “the international

28

29

of the century are more spontaneous and present the personal opinions of the writers: Antonio de Beatis, secretary to the Cardinal of Aragon (1517), attentive to the social rather than artistic peculiarities of the countries he traveled through, devotes much room to the gardens and their annexed parts while less extensively describing the castle complex, of which he gives an overall picture, noting some details of the decoration. The anonymous Milanese merchant (1518) tends to quantify everything he sees, assessing the size and cost of each element, always seeking to provide Lombard comparisons. For the full texts of the following citations, see Bardati, “Il bel palatio,” pp. 183–202. “Gaglione … cum barco, giardino facto al modo di quel del re, castello cum allogiamenti dorati, facti al modo de Itallia, cum fontana di marmore ne la corte, et ogni altra gentileza. Ancora qua in Rhoano sua signoria ha facto giardino e hedificii bellissimi, che ben ­dimostra in tute le cose ch’el fa la sua excellente magnanimità.” Alberto Pio da Carpi to Francesco Gonzaga, Rouen, 19 December 1507; published in Alberto Sabattini, Alberto III Pio: Politica, diplomazia e guerra del conte di Carpi; Corrispondenza con la corte di Man­ tova, 1506–1511 (Carpi, 1994), pp. 165–66. “Il piú bello et superbo luoco sia in tuta la Franza.” Bonaventura Mosti to the Duke of ­Ferrara, Louviers, 24 September 1508; published in Marc H. Smith, “Rouen-Gaillon: ­Témoignages italiens sur la Normandie de Georges d’Amboise,” in Beck et al., L­ ’architecture de la Renaissance, 1:41–58.

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success of Gaillon” in the very years of its construction.30 It is understandable then that Jacopo Probo d’Atri, on a mission to the north of France, visited the castle even in the absence of Cardinal Georges d’Amboise and gave a very detailed and elegant description of it to Isabella d’Este.31 In that famous letter of Probo to Isabella d’Este, the delicate Flamboyant sculptures that accentuated the stairways, parapets, and chapel are compared to goldsmith’s work due to the subtle and refined aspect of their carving but perhaps also because of the difficulty of finding an architectural equivalent to offer as an example to Isabella.32 In Probo’s eyes, the coexistence of this type of solution with the portraits of Roman emperors (Figure 4.7); with the bas-reliefs inspired by Mantegna’s Triumphs; and with the statues of the king, the cardinal, and Charles de Chaumont that adorned the grande cour33 did not engender any contradiction. The bell tower “of new style with subtle and excellent work, covered in lead and gilded” is considered “the most beautiful yet to be seen,” as well as the roofs “covered for the most part in gilded lead with blazons, pinnacles and other ornaments,” an expression of Flamboyant decorative exuberance, “looking at them from afar they are beautiful to behold.”34 Probo issues no negative verdict for the ‘modern’ manner, for the hybridization of styles, or for the irregularity of the plan. As he enthuses, a work “more ­magnificent and superb would be difficult to find elsewhere.”35

30 31 32 33

34

35

André Chastel and Marco Rosci, “Un ‘portrait’ de Gaillon à Gaglianico,” Art de France 3 (1963): 3:103–13; Per Bjurtström, French Drawings: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, trans. Patrick Hort (Stockholm, 1976), no. 82. Roberto Weiss, “The Castle of Gaillon in 1509–1510,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953): 1–12. “Con lavorari tanti subtili et zentili che non se faria meglio d’argento o oro, che a vederli pare cosa stupenda.” Jacopo Probo d’Atri to Isabella d’Este, published in Weiss, “The Castle of Gaillon,” p. 7. “Et in ogni lato d’esso cortile son messe teste de imperatori romani pur di marmoro ben lavorate ... In el quadro de la prima porta gli è sculpito tutto il triumpho de Iulio Cesare, ne la forma ch’el famoso Mantinia lo depinse, de non troppo grande figura ma ben et con bona gratia intagliato.” Jacopo Probo d’Atri to Isabella d’Este, published in Weiss, “The Castle of Gaillon,” p. 7. “Il campanile de una nuova fogia con lavori subtili et excellenti, coperto de piombo et dorato, che il più bello non se vide già may … Tutti li colmi dil palatio, tanto sopra il turrione quanto sopra le scale et sopra le porte et altri luochi eminenti, sonno coperti per la magior parte de piombo dorato con arme, pinelli et altri ornamenti, che ad guardarli da longe fa bello vedere.” Jacopo Probo d’Atri to Isabelle d’Este, published in Weiss, “The Castle of Gaillon,” pp. 8–9. “Il più magnifico et superbo a pena se potria retrovare.” Jacopo Probo d’Atri to Isabella d’Este, published in Weiss, “The Castle of Gaillon,” p. 6.

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Figure 4.7 Château de Gaillon, grande cour, vestiges of the façade of the Grant’ Maison, with the coexistence of Flamboyant pillars, Renaissance decoration, and tondi originally with the emperors’ profiles, before 1510 source: K.G. Sweeney

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At the end of the following decade, when the mature Renaissance, inaugurated with Bramante’s Roman works and supported in its theoretical approach by the first illustrated edition of Vitruvius’s treatise, was fully developing in Italy, the appraisal of Italian visitors began to change. While an anonymous merchant from Lombardy was fascinated above all by the extent and costly decoration of the complex, as noted in his 1518 travel diary,36 Antonio de Beatis (1517) was still enthusiastic about the rich ornamentation and the soaring roofs. Nonetheless, he could not avoid pointing out the lack of symmetry and geometric regularity of the layout: Although the aforementioned palace is beautiful, above all because of the sculpted stone decorations, the brass ornaments and the shape of the roofs, like something never seen before ... one cannot deny, however, that it has been poorly conceived as regards both the interiors and the facades facing the courtyard.37 Thus de Beatis, while appreciating the decorative aspect, underlines the lack of symmetry as a negative factor: this is the first sign of the emergence of opposition between two ways of conceiving architecture. It would be found again half a century later in the comments of Du Cerceau, representative of the new generation of French architects who had by then metabolized the language of the orders; the treatises of Vitruvius, Alberti, and Sebastiano Serlio (translated into French by Jean Martin); and given life to a mature French Renaissance.38 36 37

38

Luigi Monga, Un mercante di Milano in Europa: Diario di un viaggio del primo Cinquecento (Milan, 1985), pp. 64–65. “El prefato palazzo ancora che sia bellissimo et cussì vagho maxime for via de intaglie de pietre, d’ornamenti de octono et ordine de tecti, come cosa habia visto mai ... non si può però denegare, che si de stantie come de le facciate che respondeno al cortile, non sia stato male inteso.” Ludwig von Pastor, Die Reise des Kardinals Luigi d’Aragona durch Deutschland, die Niederlande, Frankreich und Oberitalien, 1517–1518, beschrieben von Anto­ nio de Beatis (Fribourg im Breisgau, 1905), pp. 128–30; see also John Rigby Hale and J. M. A. Lindon, eds., The Travel Journal of Antonio de Beatis: Germany, Switzerland, the Low Countries, France and Italy, 1517–1518 (London, 1979). Between 1545 and 1553, Jean Martin, secretary to Cardinal Robert de Lenoncourt, translated the following works, contributing greatly to the spread of the mature Renaissance in France: Sebastiano Serlio, Il primo libro d’architettura di Sebastiano Serlio ... (Paris, 1545); Sebastiano Serlio, Il secondo libro d’architettura di Sebastiano Serlio ... (Paris, 1545); Sebastiano Serlio, Des temples: Quinto libro d’architettura di Sebastiano Serlio ... (Paris, 1547); Francesco Colonna, Discours du songe de Poliphile (Paris, 1546); Marco Pollione Vitruvio, Architecture ou art de bien bastir de Marc Vitruve Pollion autheur romain antique (Paris, 1547); Leon Battista Alberti, L’architecture et art de bien bastir du seigneur Léon ­Baptiste Alberti (Paris, 1553). Further, in the 1560s, Philibert de l’Orme published Nouvelles

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However, the position of Du Cerceau is different from that of de Beatis: rather than criticizing the irregular layout, he disapproved of the modern—namely Gothic—decoration, not hesitating to lament that the castle “is very well built, in a solid fashion and with rich artifice, nonetheless in a modern manner, ­without considering the ancient canons, except in a few details that were added later.”39 Du Cerceau wrote taking account of the extension work commissioned by Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, which involved the upper garden with new enclosure galleries, a gallery linking it to the existing building, a new garden below the slopes of the château, and the Maison Blanche, a pavilion in the park.40 All these interventions were by now expressions of the mature Renaissance “of fairly good composition, in accordance with ancient canons,”41 as Du Cerceau points out: the architectural orders proportioned and punctuated the facades with regularity; bases, capitals, and entablatures followed the Vitruvian canons; the rectangular surfaces of the pilasters sculpted with candelabras had given way to the fluted shafts of columns and half-columns; and rustication was one of the main elements of the decoration, following the specifically French fashion of the second half of the 16th century. But these were additions to the existing building, not replacements of what had been built under Georges d’Amboise. Therefore, three different styles—Flamboyant, Première Renaissance, and Seconde Renaissance—coexisted in the building that Charles de Bourbon left to the archbishopric of Rouen at the end of the 16th century. 4 A Gradual Change in Taste: Descriptions of Gaillon in the 17th and 18th Centuries The descriptions made in the following two centuries take account of this new complexity, making the appraisal of individual elements and the perception of the coexistence of such different manners in the building even more interesting. The irregularity of the layout and the Flamboyant decoration are still the

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i­nventions pour bien bastir et à petits fraiz (Paris, 1561) and Le premier tome de l’architec­ ture (Paris, 1567), which marked the assimilation and triumphing of Roman Renaissance architecture from a French perspective. “Est fort bien basty, de bonne maniere, & d’un riche artifice, toutefois moderne, sans tenir de l’anticque, sinon en quelques particulatitez, qui depuis y ont esté faites.” Du Cerceau, Premier volume, fol. 3v. For an overview of the work carried out by Charles de Bourbon in the second half of the 16th century, see Bardati, “Il bel palatio,” pp. 149–67. “D’assez bonne ordonnance selon l’antique.” Du Cerceau, Premier volume, fol. 4r.

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two most critical factors noted by observers, although the overall judgment on the castle is generally positive, showing how, as time passed, Gothic and classic modes increasingly appear as contrasting categories, the former being substantially improper, regardless of the how well materially executed. Bernardo Bizoni traveled in Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani’s entourage and visited the castle in 1610.42 Describing the courtyard, he notes the presence of lovely oval niches with heads of beautiful statues, all the windows with pinnacles, and other works of well-carved stone.43 Regarding the Grand Maison, in addition to the lavishness of the furnishings, he writes, a beautiful chapel full of sculptures in the round and in bas-relief: in ­particular, a large sculpted image on the altar, of carved marble, with a Saint George on horseback killing a dragon, although the dragon was considered by the Marquis too large and disproportionate, and it was said that the marble figure must have been made in Italy, and came from there at that time.44 The assessment of the pinnacles adorning the windows of the court and of the sculpted decoration as a whole was positive (con disegno), as was the judgment of the chapel and its decorations, notwithstanding that the altarpiece, which was, in fact, made by Michel Colombe and not of Italian production as Giustiniani believed, was criticized for the disproportionate nature of the dragon. The inspection carried out by the members of the Académie Royale in 1678 aimed at studying the national architectural heritage, with particular attention to the stone materials used. The academics’ opinion on Gaillon is of great interest because their visit was made in the thick of the dispute between the ancients and the moderns, where the latter now meant contemporaries and no longer the artists of the Middle Ages. They note that “the castle building 42

43

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On Giustiniani—banker, art expert, and author of numerous works—see Simona Feci, Luca Bortolotti, and Franco Bruni, “Giustiniani, Vincenzo,” in Dizionario Biogra­ fico degli Italiani 57 (2001), https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/vincenzo-giustiniani _%28Dizionario-Biografico%29. “S’entra in un bel cortile … Intorno per tutto in alto nicchi belli, ovati, pieni di teste di statue belle come quelle di Nonsicci, e le finestre tutte con piramidi ed altri lavori di pietra intagliata con disegno.” Bernardo Bizoni, Diario di viaggio di Vincenzo Giustiniani, ed. ­Barbara Agosti (Porretta Terme, 1995), pp. 93–95. “Una bellissima cappella piena di figure di rilievo e mezzo rilievo: in specie un quadro grande all’altare, di marmo intagliato, un San Giorgio a cavallo che uccide un dragone, se bene il drago fu tenuto dal marchese troppo grande e sproporzionato, e si disse che il detto quadro fosse stato fatto in Italia, e di là venuto in quel tempo.” Bizoni, Diario di viaggio, p. 95.

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is composed of four buildings of the same height, which form a square but not regular courtyard ... all the architecture is enriched with sculptures and ornaments, called modern, perfectly carved and well-preserved.”45 In this case, the adjective ‘modern’ evidently still refers to the ornamentation in use at the beginning of the 16th century, without making any distinction between the Flamboyant and the Renaissance parts but giving a positive overall evaluation on the quality of the work.46 The same applies to the wood carved by the team of Carpi and Castille: “All the rest of the wooden works in the chapel and also the doors, windows, fireplaces and paneling of each of the apartments in the chateau are crafted with considerable art and much precision.”47 From these two 17th-century descriptions, therefore, a judgment of merit on the Flamboyant or Première Renaissance still does not emerge but the respective specific characteristics seem to have been lost, except for the altarpiece—considered Italian as a whole although only the architectural frame was made by Pacherot. Almost a century later, Andrew C. Ducarel included a detailed description of Gaillon in his study on Anglo-Norman architecture.48 The part of the building built by Georges d’Amboise and the extension by Charles de Bourbon are identified respectively as the older and modern courts, this time using the adjective ‘modern’ in its more recent sense: The castle consists of two courts: the first, which is the oldest, is adorned with marble busts of the twelve CAESAR, of Louis XII, King of France, 45

46

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“Tous (sic) le corps du chasteau est composé de quatre corps de logis de hauteur égale, qui forment une cour quarrée mais non régulière ... Toute l’architecture est enrichie de sculptures et d’ornemens appelez modernes, parfaitement bien taillez et bien conservez.” Henri Lemonnier, ed., Procès-verbaux de l’Académie Royale d’Architecture, 1671–1793 (Paris, 1911), 1:221–23. According to André Félibien, who was part of the group of academics that visited ­Gaillon, the adjective moderne was used by the masons to indicate the delicate sculpted ­ornaments, characteristic of the beginning of the 16th century, as he asserts when describing the decoration of the Louis XII wing of the castle of Blois: “Et tous ces morceaux de sculpture que les ouvriers appellant Modernes sont travaillez avec beaucoup de soin et de delicatesse” (Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des maisons royalles et bastiments de France, 1681, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 3860, fol. 7r). Indeed, on describing the castle of Blois, Félibien took the opportunity to sketch a brief history of French architecture, tracing the development from the manière Gottique to the bonne architecture (fol. 6v). “Tout le reste de la menuiserie de la chapelle, comme aussy toutes les portes, fenestres, cheminées et lambris de tous les appartemens du chasteau sont travailléz avec beaucoup d’art et de soin.” Lemonnier, Procès-verbaux de l’Académie Royale, 1:223. Robin Myers, “Dr Andrew Ducarel, Pioneer of Anglo-Norman Studies,” in Antiquaries, Book Collectors and the Circles of Learning, ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris (New ­Castle, 1996), pp. 45–70. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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and also of the two cardinals D’Amboise, uncle and nephew; the former of whom expended a very large sum of money in repairing and improving this palace. A fine colonnade of marble pillars, flutes and ornamented with fleurs de lys, takes up one whole side: and over it is a long basso ri­lievo in marble, done in Italy. It represents a triumph, and alludes to some part of the life of cardinal Georges (sic) d’Amboise, with which I am unacquainted. ... From this court a handsome marble stair-case leads to the chapel, dedicated to St. George; where in, over the high altar, is another fine marble figure of the saint, who is well represented; but I thought his dragon but indifferently performed. The altar is one piece of Italian marble finely veined, eight feet by five; and the windows are decorated with good painted glass ... This chapel is a Gothic stone building, and has on the out-side a greater quantity of ornaments that I ever yet saw, but so judiciously disposed, that they do not seem crowded ... The second court is a modern building.49 The decorations inspired by Antiquity, the beautiful main staircase, the chapel—for the first time openly labeled as ‘Gothic’—and the enormous quantity of ornaments “so judiciously disposed” coexist without difficulty. Ducarel’s judgment is therefore still free of partisanship toward Gothic or Renaissance, although he uses the historiographic categories that were to characterize 19th-century criticism in an increasingly clear-cut manner. In 1777, just a decade later, an anonymous French traveler used similar categories, but there was a clear preference for classicism and a covertly harsh judgment toward the Gothic: One then enters the great castle built by Cardinal d’Amboise, Prime Minister of Louis XII. It forms an almost regular square, surrounded by tall buildings, full of sculptures, delicate in their execution and not very proper in form, as is usual in Gothic monuments.50 The refinement of the carving is acknowledged, but the ornamental repertoire is now perceived in negative terms, as is generally the case with all Gothic art. The same viewpoint marks the evaluation of the chapel, which is poorly lit due 49 50

Andrew C. Ducarel, Anglo-Norman Antiquities, Considered in a Tour through Part of ­Normandy (London, 1767), 44–45. “On entre ensuite dans le grand château bâti par le Cardinal d’Amboise, premier ministre de Louis XII. Il forme un carré presque régulier entouré de bâtiments élevés, fort chargés de sculptures délicates dans leurs exécution et peu correctes de dessein, comme c’est l’ordinaire dans les monuments gothiques.” Nottes et remarques sur toutes les villes de la Haute -Normandie, 1777 (Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale, fonds Montbret, MS Y 19), fols. 226–227. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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to the stained-glass windows and too overloaded with ornaments.51 Only the statues of the Apostles sculpted by Giusti are saved; although their authorship was not known to the visitor, he nevertheless perceives “la rinascita delle arti” in their forms, especially in relation to the Gothic context of the chapel.52 In the grande cour, he selects as objects worthy of remembering the bas-relief depicting the Triumphs (but he does not identify Mantegna’s Triumphs as their iconographic source), the medallions with profiles of the emperors, and the statues of the king, the cardinal, and Charles de Chaumont, but he neglects to mention the entire Flamboyant framework on which these elements are based, since it was deemed of no interest. 5 Conclusion In 1507, Alberto Pio distinguished between the different manners of the ­Château de Gaillon, defining them according to geographical and cultural predilections and characteristics (in the manner of the king, in the style of Italy), and ten years later, de Beatis complained only of the lack of symmetry in the plan. In 1777, in the eyes of an anonymous traveler whose education and social rank are unfortunately unknown, the specificities of Flamboyant civil architecture (compared to the Gothic developed in previous centuries) and of the ornamentation characteristic of the Première Renaissance (compared to full classicism) are no longer perceived as different but compatible at the same time. For the traveler, everything that lies between Antiquity and the mature Renaissance goes generically under the name of Gothic and is not worthy of special attention, except for a few rare episodes recognized as the beginning of the renaissance of the arts, a prelude to classicism. As is known, over the course of the next century in France and the rest of Europe, these positions were maintained and accentuated by the supporters of classicism to the point of downgrading the medieval experience to barbarism. However, at the same time, especially in France, an entirely opposite tendency advocated for the superiority of Gothic over Renaissance architecture, the ­latter perceived as an annoying foreign intrusion, a fashion from Italy that progressively corrupted the purity of the national manner. The words that Léon

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“Mais la chapelle de ce château est ce qu’il y a de plus remarquable. Elle est d’une belle élevation, grande, mais obscure à cause de la peinture de ses vitrages, et d’ailleurs trop surchargée d’ornemens en pierres découpées.” Nottes et remarques, fol. 227. “Ces figures sont d’un caractère de dessein qui se sent de la renaissance des arts.” Nottes et remarques, fol. 228. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Palustre, author of the first great histories on the French Renaissance, dedicated to the spread of architectural orders in France, are enlightening in this sense: The ancient orders, gaining increasing importance, soon came, without any respect for national traditions, to take the main role in the constructions. The grace, flexibility, verve, refinement, lightness that make the productions of our Middle Ages and the first half-century of the Renaissance so captivating, despite their frequent imperfections, are considered negligible qualities or mistakes to be avoided ... During the second half of the 16th century there was a genuine abuse of ancient orders.53 André Chastel has shown that even these contentious positions towards classicism have their roots in the 16th century. Bernard du Haillan, in his Discours sur l’extrême cherté qui est aujourd’hui et sur les moyens d’y remédier of 1574, not only criticizes the improper use of a specific vocabulary that was foreign to national building traditions (and therefore often used inappropriately)54 but also, above all, the unbridled adherence to the new architectural fashion, which he deemed arrogant and excessive: It has only been 30 or 40 years since that excessive and arrogant manner of building came to France ... one did not know what it meant to make so many friezes, cornices, frontispieces, bases, pedestals, capitals, architraves, plinths, mouldings and columns.55 53

54

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“Les ordres antiques, prenant de jour en jour plus d’importance, arrivèrent bientôt, sans respect pour les traditions nationales, à jouer dans les constructions le rôle principal. Avec eux on a la prétention de suffire à tout [...] La grâce, la souplesse, la verve, la finesse, la légèreté qui rendent si attachantes, malgré leurs fréquentes imperfections, les productions de notre moyen âge et du premier demi-siècle de la Renaissance, sont considérées comme des qualités dont on peut se passer ou comme des défauts à éviter … Durant la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle, il y a eu véritable abus des ordres antiques.” Léon Palustre, L’architecture de la Renaissance (Paris, 1892), pp. 158–59. An example of this misuse is the phonetic transcription in French of the Italian word ‘architrave’ into ‘art qui trave’ (art that beams), which is entirely devoid of meaning; this example appears in a contract for the building of one of the pavilions in the grotto of Meudon, indicative of the difficulty with which, even in 1559, those in the trade were still handling classicist construction terminology (Marché de maçonnerie pour la con­ struction d’un pavillon de la grotte de Meudon, signé par les maçons Louis et François Ler­ ambert, Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier central, LXXIII, 53, published in Guy-Michel Le­proux, “Claude Foucques, architecte du cardinal de Lorraine, de Diane de Poitiers et de Charles IX,” Documents d’Histoire Parisienne 5 (2005): 22–24. “Il n’y a que trente ou quarante ans que celle excessive et superbe façon de bastir est venue en France on ne scavait que c’estoit de faire tant de frises, de corniches, de frontespices, de bases, de piedestals, de chapiteaux, d’architraves, de soubassements, de moulures et - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Even Michel de Montaigne, in his Essais (1580), expressed a certain disappointment at the uncontrolled spread of words such as ‘pilasters,’ ‘architraves,’ ‘cornices,’ ‘Doric works,’ and Corinthian works’ in the vocabulary of French builders, patrons, and commentators.56 In the second half of the 16th century in France, the language of architecture changed radically, subjecting the proportions and composition of façades to the syntax of architectural orders, abandoning Gothic formal solutions and relegating the structuralist approach to the development of stereotomy. Haillan and Montaigne thus testify to, but do not share, the path of no return that French architecture would take until the development of the neo-Gothic in the 19th century, supported by the writings of Viollet-le-Duc, a path along which the Gothic and classicism are forcibly opposed, regardless of preference for one or the other. On the contrary, the entire period between 1480 and 1520/30, be it in terms of works or the activities of the craftsmen involved in the building site, is characterized by the dialogue between the Flamboyant and Première Renaissance styles, both expressions of architectural research free from preconceptions and open to the hybridization of forms and experimentation, which yielded innovative solutions. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Alice I. Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney for their suggestion that I undertake this essay in which I reconsider issues I have addressed from different viewpoints in the past. I would also like to thank Stephen Conway for the translation. Bibliography of Cited Sources

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de colonnes.” Bernard du Haillan, Discours sur l’extrême cherté qui est aujourd’hui et sur les moyens d’y remédier (Paris, 1574), quoted in Christiane Riboulleau, Villers-Cotterêts: Un château royal en forêt de Retz, (Amiens, 1991), p. 13. “Ma io non posso evitare, quando sento i nostri architetti gonfiarsi di quelle grosse parole di pilastri, architravi, cornici, di ordine corinzio e dorico, e simili del loro gergo, che il mio pensiero corra subito al palazzo di Apollidone.” Michel de Montaigne, Essais, I.LI, quoted in André Chastel, “Il palazzo di Apollidone,” in Architettura e cultura nella Francia del cinquecento, trans. Giancarlo Coccioli (Torino, 1991), p. 67. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Smith, Marc H. “Rouen-Gaillon: Témoignages italiens sur la Normandie de Georges d’Amboise.” In L’architecture de la Renaissance en Normandie, edited by Bernard Beck, Pierre Bouet, Claire Étienne, and Isabelle Lettéron, 1:41–58. Caen, 2003. Thomas, Évelyne. “Gaillon: La chronologie de la construction.” In Beck et al., L’architec­ ture de la Renaissance, 1:153–62. Trachtenberg, Marvin. “Gothic/Italian ‘Gothic’: Toward a Redefinition.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 50 (1991): 22–37. Weiss, Roberto. “The Castle of Gaillon in 1509–1510.” Journal of the Warburg and ­Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953): 1–12. Wittkower, Rudolf. Gothic Versus Classic: Architectural Projects in Seventeenth Century Italy. London, 1974. Zerner, Henri. L’art de la Renaissance en France: L’invention du classicisme. Paris, 1996; translated as Renaissance Art in France: The Invention of Classicism. Paris, 2003.

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PART 2 Experimentation and Innovation in Central Europe

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Chapter 5

The Development of Western and Central European Gothic Architecture around 1300 and Its Modern Historiography Jakub Adamski In modern historiography, two periods in the history of Gothic architecture in Europe have received particularly insightful and multidimensional analysis. The first concerns the beginnings and dynamic development of the style in France until the end of the reign of St. Louis (1226–70). Distinguished 20th-­ century historians of medieval art, including Hans Jantzen, Robert ­Branner, Jean Bony, Dieter Kimpel, and Robert Suckale, have devoted a number of monographs to this period.1 The present century saw vibrant study of the late Gothic, a period roughly spanning the turn of the third and fourth quarters of the 14th century until the mid-16th century.2 The period from 1270 to 1350 has not aroused much interest from researchers, at least not until the end of the 20th century, despite having introduced profound and formative changes to architectural styles in Europe. Standard assessments of the vitality of construction activities and the artistic quality of the structures built at that time have mostly been negative. This is surprising, given that Werner Gross had already introduced the neutral notion of ‘architecture circa 1300’ into scholarship in a monograph published in 1948, which framed this fascinating period of Gothic development in a positive light, showing the highly original nature of changes in European architecture from ca.1270.3 1 See Hans Jantzen, Kunst der Gotik: Klassische Kathedralen Frankreichs; Chartres, Reims, Amiens (Hamburg, 1957); Robert Branner, Burgundian Gothic Architecture (London, 1960); Robert Branner, St Louis and the Court Style in Gothic Architecture (London, 1965); Jean Bony, French Gothic Architecture of the 12th and 13th Centuries (Berkeley, 1983); Dieter Kimpel and Robert Suckale, Die gotische Architektur in Frankreich, 1130–1270 (Munich, 1985). 2 More recent monographs include Ethan Matt Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540 (New Haven, 2012); Stefan Bürger, Fremdsprache Spätgotik: Anleitungen zum Lesen von Architektur (Kromsdorf, 2017); Robert Bork, Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception (Turnhout, 2018); Stéphanie Diane Daussy, ed., L’architecture flamboyante en France: Autour de Roland Sanfaçon (Villeneuve d’Ascq, 2020). 3 Werner Gross, Die Abendländische Architektur um 1300 (Stuttgart, 1948). © Jakub Adamski, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_008 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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The papers presented by Peter Kurmann and Dobroslav Líbal in 1983 at the 25th International Congress of History of Art (CIHA) in Vienna, devoted to European art around 1300, proved groundbreaking for further research on this topic.4 Both researchers pointed to numerous, surprisingly advanced “proto-late Gothic” stylistic solutions in buildings from that time, solutions that entered the standard repertoire of architectural forms between the late 14th and 16th centuries: the sculpturally treated mass of the wall, the abandonment of capitals in piers, vaulting shafts and portals, curvilinear tracery with mouchettes and soufflets, sharp and expressive moldings, and the smooth interpenetration or intersection of architectural forms. Research on this period intensified in the beginning of the 21st century.5 Scholars primarily focused on the leading artistic center of the discussed changes: the Upper and Middle Rhineland, particularly Alsace and Swabia. The building lodge of Strasbourg Cathedral formed a true “laboratory” of advanced architectural forms. Under the supervision of master Erwin von Steinbach from 1277, the lodge was responsible for erecting the impressive western façade of the church. At the same time, exceptionally original religious buildings were constructed in almost all southern regions of the Holy Roman Empire, including Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia. Their innovative general forms and design details often adapted select compositional and decorative motifs from the Strasbourg façade in creative reinterpretations adjusted to varying architectural modi.6 It should be emphasized that from about 1270, new architectural solutions that clearly foreshadowed late Gothic forms began to appear also in French buildings, primarily in Champagne, Burgundy, and Languedoc,7 as well 4 Peter Kurmann, “Spätgotischen Tendenzen in der europäischen Architektur um 1300,” in Europäische Kunst um 1300: Akten des XXV. Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, Wien, 4.–10. September 1983, vol. 6, ed. Hermann Fillitz and Martina Pippal (Vienna, 1986), pp. 11–18; Dobroslav Líbal, “Die schöpferischen Initiativen der mitteleuropäischen gotischen Architektur um 1300,” in Fillitz and Pippal, Europäische Kunst um 1300, pp. 19–24. 5 See especially Alexandra Gajewski and Zoë Opačić, eds., The Year 1300 and the Creation of a New European Architecture (Turnhout, 2007). 6 For a general survey of this subject, see Ulrich Knapp, Salem: Die Gebäude der ehemaligen Zisterzienserabtei und ihre Ausstattung (Stuttgart, 2004), pp. 209–52; Bruno Klein, “Von der Adaptation zur Transformation: Architektur zwischen 1220 und 1350,” in Geschichte der bildenden Kunst in Deutschland, vol. 3, Gotik, ed. Bruno Klein (Munich, 2007), pp. 246–54; Marc Carel Schurr, Gotische Architektur im mittleren Europa, 1220–1340: Von Metz bis Wien (Munich and Berlin, 2007); Christoph Brachmann, Um 1300: Vorparlerische Architektur im Elsaß, in Lothringen und Südwestdeutschland (Korb, 2008). 7 Michael T. Davis, “On the Threshold of the Flamboyant: The Second Campaign of Construction of Saint-Urbain, Troyes,” Speculum 59, no. 4 (1984): 847–84; Yves Gallet, “French Gothic 1250–1350 and the Paradigm of the Motet,” in Gajewski and Opačić, The Year 1300, pp. 29–38;

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as to the east of the empire, in the southern regions of Poland, including Silesia and Lesser Poland.8 Although contemporary scholars have already recognized the formative significance of many French, German, Austrian, Bohemian, and Polish edifices built at the turn of the 14th century as the main source of inspiration for Peter Parler and other late Gothic “first generation” architects, the phenomenon of architecture “circa 1300” still requires in-depth research. To this end, I look at two areas in this chapter. The existing literature has not given sufficient consideration to the stylistic terms and labels in use from the beginning of the 20th century to refer to the buildings of the period discussed here. This is important because classifications were often of evaluative in nature, based on the assessment of the quality and significance of the architectural works. Therefore, the first aim of this essay is to review critically the style terminology used in relation to European buildings at the turn of the 14th century. This investigation is also important because the question of style as a normative category for periodization remains one of the most discussed current problems in the history of art.9 In recent scholarship on architecture from around 1300, emphasis is most frequently placed on the features resulting from creative modifications of individual elements of the Gothic architectural system, such as piers and vaulting shafts; their socles, bases, and capitals; and the shape of moldings, tracery, ­portals, or vaults. Given the predilection of designers from the period to introduce previously unknown solutions and inventive architectural forms, present-day art historians frequently refer to the architecture of the late 13th and early 14th centuries as ‘modern’ or ‘avant-garde,’ even dubbing the period ‘modernism around 1300.’ The second part of my essay considers the methodological validity of the use of such anachronistic terms. Should ‘modernity’ in this context be understood only as a category referring to a contemporary researcher’s comparisons of earlier and later constructions in case studies? I also address whether the patrons and builders of Gothic architecture from around 1300 consciously and purposefully sought out original forms because they appreciated the aspect of novelty in the works they created.

idem, “Le style rayonnant en France,” in L’art du moyen âge en France, ed. Philippe Plagnieux (Paris, 2010), pp. 321–80. 8 Jakub Adamski, “Über den Anteil Schlesiens und Kleinpolens an der Entwicklung und ­Verbreitung der architektonischen ‘Moderne’ um 1300: Wege und Akteure des Kunsttransfers in der mitteleuropäischen Gotik,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 83, no. 2 (2020): 139–72. 9 See n. 33 below.

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1 Evaluations of the European Architecture of ca.1300 in 20th-Century Scholarship The observations of the prominent German art historian Georg Dehio, advanced in his 1901 survey on Gothic church architecture, have long influenced scholarly assessments of the quality and importance of the buildings in continental Europe from 1270 to 1350.10 For later historiography, Dehio’s analysis of French architecture of the late Middle Ages was especially ­crucial. Already at the beginning of the chapter titled “Die doktrinäre Spätgotik,” ­dedicated to the buildings created at the time of Louis IX’s successors, Dehio professes that, after about a 100 years of spectacular development of the Gothic between 1140 and 1250, the subsequent two and a half centuries were the “time of epigones” (Epigonenzeit).11 In his opinion, despite the fact that the builders of this period did not possess inferior knowledge and technical skills compared to their predecessors from the classical phase of the Gothic, they lacked an equivalent “originality of feeling and freshness of inspiration.”12 As Dehio claims, “They knew everything and they could do everything, but they had no enthusiasm,” adding “They could shine and delight, but they could not inflame.”13 Dehio argues several factors contributed to such a turn in the development of the style: the political and economic problems plaguing Western Europe around the end of the 13th century, decreasing demands for religious buildings following the construction boom in the preceding decades, and, finally, the “disastrous routine and doctrinalism” of master masons at that time. For these reasons, Dehio proposes the terms “doctrinal Gothic” (doktrinäre Gotik) and “epigone Gothic” (Epigonengotik) as the most apt descriptors of architecture after 1270.14 At the same time, regarding the lands of the empire, he surprisingly states that “late Gothic in Germany did not reach the same level as in France, England, or Spain; it suffered enormously due to mediocrity and triviality.”15 However, he notices that the Cistercian church at Salem on Lake Constance, built at the turn of the 14th century, surprisingly early on adopted design solutions typical of the late Gothic, notable in numerous “abnormal” details of the piers, arcades, and vault responds (Figure 5.1).16 This example 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Georg Dehio and Gustav von Bezold, Die kirchliche Baukunst des Abendlandes, vol. 2, Der gotische Stil (Stuttgart, 1901). Dehio was the actual author of this volume. Ibid., p. 179. Ibid. Ibid. p. 185. Ibid., pp. 179–190. Ibid., p. 315. Ibid., p. 332.

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Figure 5.1 Salem on Lake Constance, Cistercian Church, interior elevation of the nave, ca. 1285–1300 source: J. Adamski

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demonstrates that Dehio was aware of the changes to the Gothic design that occurred at the turn of the 14th century, but his general view on the activity of the masters masons was negative. Dehio’s vivid and suggestive writing style, his authoritative statements, and the abundance of keen observations and examples of specific buildings ensured that his views were enduring and influential. In 20th-century research following Dehio, it is hardly possible to find a publication on late medieval architecture that does not use the term ‘doctrinal Gothic.’17 However, this does not mean that Dehio’s negative assessment of architecture after the ‘era of classical cathedrals’ was accepted uncritically. In 1934, Lisa Schürenberg published the only systematic monograph of French architecture from 1270 to 1380.18 She argues that Dehio’s conclusions only partially correspond to the reality of the time evidenced in the preserved constructions and that his use of the term “doctrinal” clearly has a judgmental, pejorative character. A few decades later, Paul Frankl makes a similar observation in his groundbreaking survey.19 It is interesting that Schürenberg states unnecessary stylistic labels should be avoided with regard to late 13th- and 14th-century architecture. In her opinion, stylistic labels originating in the French architectural tradition and referring to tracery forms, such as Rayonnant and Flamboyant, do not reflect the more complex nature of aesthetic changes in Gothic architecture.20 In turn, hybrid classifications emerging from ‘biological’ conceptions of the cyclical development, such as ‘late High Gothic’ (späte Hochgotik) or ‘early late Gothic’ (frühe Spätgotik), do not adequately reflect the ingenuity that architects from the period brought to the development of European architecture.21 Frankl similarly emphasizes that the period around 1300 brought about not a doctrinal ‘ossification’ of Gothic architecture but rather various attempts to achieve an aesthetic ‘ideal’ (as seen, for example, in the systematic perfection of the design of Cologne Cathedral), as well as the creative development of the style’s rules and norms and the search for inventive decorative forms. This can be observed in the pursuit of the regularity and clarity of the structure, in the noticeable sharpening of moldings, in the abandonment of capitals, and in the introduction of new design solutions, such as curvilinear tracery (Figure 5.2), triradial vaults, and ogee arches.22

17 18 19 20 21 22

See Gallet, “French Gothic,” p. 33. Lisa Schürenberg, Die kirchliche Baukunst in Frankreich zwischen 1270 und 1380 (Berlin, 1934). Paul Frankl, Gothic Architecture, rev. Paul Crossley (New Haven, 2000), pp. 169–71. See Bony, French Gothic, p. 246; Frankl, Gothic Architecture, p. 319. Schürenberg, Die kirchliche Baukunst, p. 15. Frankl, Gothic Architecture, pp. 161–81. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 5.2 Constance, Cathedral, tracery windows in the east wing of the cloister, ca. 1300–17 source: J. Adamski

In this context, Gross’s reflections from his pioneering study of 1948 form a symptomatic example of standard problems arising from the classification of architectural styles from this period. In Die Abendländische Architektur um 1300, Gross repeatedly uses the term ‘doctrinal Gothic,’ although he was aware of its negative connotations.23 He states, for example, that the La Trinité Abbey at Vendôme and Cologne Cathedral were buildings that adopted a ready-made architectural language of the Rayonnant style; however, the style itself was “not enhanced, but systematized and purified in a doctrinal way.”24 Elsewhere, Gross expresses his appreciation for the architecture of the southern French cathedrals of Limoges, Narbonne, Rodez, and Clermont-Ferrand for being “not purely doctrinal” but characterized by “previously unknown nobleness of form and delicacy of shaping.”25 Gross’s merit consists in his highlighting of the stylistic significance of European buildings from the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. Since his publication, these buildings have increasingly begun to be considered as highly valuable and fully original artistic creations—not merely as constructions “overshadowed” by the masterpieces of the classical and late Gothic phases but as key intermediary links in the evolution of the style on the Continent. The tendency toward evaluation and ordering classifications prevalent in scholarship from the first half of the 20th century is nevertheless expressed in Gross’s general conclusion (difficult to translate into a research method), which was, at the same time, not free from contradictions; he argues that Gothic architecture witnessed not one but two classical phases. The first phase, dating from about 1200 to 1250, resulted from the “classicism of 23 24 25

See Gross, Die abendländische Architektur, pp. 14, 21, 36, 38, 127, 146. Ibid., p. 21. Ibid., p. 127. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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the Gothic architectural system,” while the second, dating from about 1300 to 1380, was characterized by the “classicism of Gothic forms” and deserved, quite paradoxically, to be termed “the second Gothic.”26 This method of argumentation, characterized by hyperbolic language and sweeping judgmental statements, typical of the syntheses and surveys in the tradition of Allgemeine Kunstgeschichte, slowly became outmoded after the mid-20th century. The above-quoted views of Gross, undoubtedly debatable, did not find wider resonance in later literature. However, the concept of ‘reductive Gothic’ (Reduktionsgotik)—promoted by Gross, who saw it as a stylish “counterbalance” to ‘cathedral Gothic’ and ‘doctrinal Gothic’—became extremely popular.27 This term, most often associated with Cistercian and mendicant architecture and the brick buildings of Northern and Southern Europe, finds its source in Dehio’s book of 1901. In this text, he analyzed numerous “reductions” of spatial arrangements and forms of buildings from the 13th to the 15th centuries, especially in Germany.28 Gross emphasizes that this stylistic label does not convey the originality of formal experiments that might be included in this trend. However, the vague boundaries and semantic capacity of the term ‘reduction’ secured a permanent place in the historiography of medieval architecture for the notion of Reduktionsgotik.29 It should be noted, however, that this concept unfortunately remains an invented term of contemporary art history, which, due to the ambiguity and discretionary nature of its interpretation and applications, serves little use in the study of European architecture around 1300. After all, the period was characterized by an unparalleled stylistic pluralism, an array of regional varieties, conventions, and artistic modi that depended on such varied factors as the function of the building, the position and ambition of its patrons and/or users, the background (i.e. local artistic tradition) of the region in which it was erected, and, finally, the workshop practices and training of its designers and master masons. It was Paul Crossley who made an interesting attempt to get out of this ­terminological impasse in his analysis of the stylistic sources at play in the cathedral in Cracow (1320–64), one of the most important ecclesiastical buildings in Central Europe from the first half of the 14th century. He states that, in this case, “the monumentality and vigor of the High Gothic has gone: instead, we have an elegant linear style that clearly belongs to the so-called 26 27 28 29

Ibid., pp. 146–47 (emphasis added). Ibid., pp. 38–47. See Dehio and von Bezold, Die kirchliche Baukunst, pp. 35, 283, 295, 299, 362, 375, 432. See, for instance, Zoë Opačić, “Bohemia after 1300: Reduktionsgotik, the Hall Church, and the Creation of a New Style,” in Gajewski and Opačić, The Year 1300 , pp. 163–75.

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‘post-classical’ phase of European Gothic around the year 1300.”30 According to Crossley, this ­designation embraces the two main stylistic trends in the 14th-century architecture: “The more austere buildings of the mendicant orders neatly described by the German term Reduktionsgotik, and … the delicate, more elaborate architecture … known to French scholars as Rayonnant and to Germans as Doktrinäregotik.”31 Indeed, the concept of post-classical Gothic popularized by Crossley (especially among Central European researchers) is open enough to include various trends of 13th- and 14th-century architecture. It should be noted, however, that it is of little use in research practice since, literally understood, it refers to all phenomena in Gothic architecture after the classical phase, i.e. from around 1230. This, in turn, may lead to misunderstandings and unnecessary complications resulting from the arbitrariness and generality of such classification. An example is the incomprehensible statement made by Szczęsny Skibiński, the author of a monograph on Polish Gothic ­cathedrals, who says that in the case of the Cracow choir, an “abandonment of post-­classical and reductive style in favor of rayonnant forms” took place.32 The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a peak in criticism against the concept of historical styles, which had been the main tool of traditional art-historical analysis.33 Among medievalists, Suckale advanced the most categorical objections to ‘style’ in the archaeological definition of the concept popularized in the 19th century. He compares the struggle of modern Kunstwissenschaft with these “contentless labels” to Don Quixote’s fight against windmills and recommends the complete abandonment of the existing tools of periodization, contrary to art-historical tradition to date.34 His demand, formulated in such a strident 30 31

32 33

34

Paul Crossley, Gothic Architecture in the Reign of Kasimir the Great: Church Architecture in Lesser Poland, 1320–1380 (Cracow, 1985), p. 57. Ibid., p. 58. Before Crossley, the term ‘post-classical Gothic’ was applied, above all, by Václav Mencl in his research on the architecture of Central Europe: Česká architektura doby lucemburské (Prague, 1948); and “Poklasická gotika jižní Francie a Švábska a její vztah ke gotice české,” Umění 19, no. 3 (1971): 217–54. Szczęsny Skibiński, Polskie katedry gotyckie (Poznań, 1996), p. 67. See Günter Brucher, Zum Problem des Stilpluralismus: Ein Beitrag zur kunstgeschichtlichen Methodik (Vienna, 1985); Friedrich Möbius and Helga Sciurie, eds., Stil und Epoche: ­Periodisierungsfragen (Dresden, 1989); Franz-Josef Sladeczek, “Was ist spat an der Spätgotik? Von der Problematik der kunstgeschichtlichen Stilbegriffe,” Unsere Kunstdenkmäler: Mitteilungsblatt für die Mitglieder der Gesellschaft für Schweizerische Kunstgeschichte 42, no. 1 (1991): 3–23; Jaś Elsner, “Style,” in Critical Terms for Art History, ed. Robert S. ­Nelson and Richard Shiff (Chicago, 2003), pp. 98–109; Bruno Klein and Bruno Boerner, eds., ­Stilfragen zur Kunst des Mittelalters: Eine Einführung (Berlin, 2006). See Robert Suckale, “Die Unbrauchbarkeit der gängigen Stilbegriffe und Entwicklungsvorstellungen: Am Beispiel der französischen gotischen Architektur des 12. und 13. ­Jahrhunderts,” in Möbius and Sciurie, Stil und Epoche, pp. 231–50.

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way, was, in fact, inapplicable, contrary to Günter Brucher’s and Franz-Josef Sladeczek’s recommendations to focus on shorter periods of time than entire epochs, especially in the analysis of differentiated stylistic modi and the parallelism of diverse artistic trends.35 Already in the mid-1970s, Louis Grodecki made an attempt to capture the nonlinear development and stylistic pluralism of architecture constructed at the turn of the 14th century.36 In his opinion, the edifices of that time, “to varying degrees, conflicted with the dominant formal principles of what is called the Classical age of Gothic art,” in which “resistance to rayonnant art” and “orienting Gothic toward a kind of mannerism” can be seen. Although the architectural works of this period are characterized by various stylistic properties, whose level of lavishness and ornamentation was appropriate to a building’s function (varying, for example, between cathedrals and collegiate or monastic churches), they share a common interest in formal inquiries that “ended up destroying the internal logic of Gothic space.” For this reason, the architecture of the 14th century, especially that outside of France, “no longer fits into the framework of Classical Rayonnant Gothic” and should instead be referred to as “the second Rayonnant style,”37 a statement aligned, in a way, with Gross’s conclusions. Grodecki’s observations certainly figure an important step in highlighting the originality and long-term significance of the buildings from around 1300 within the dynamic developments of late medieval architecture. Still, his analyses feature some far-reaching generalizations, best exemplified by his ­proposal of a new stylistic term, which was, however, based on existing traditional terminology. Either way, this label was not widely adopted; the notion of le second rayonnant appeared only years later in the research of Marc Carel Schurr. He applies it to the choir of the cathedral at Clermont-Ferrand (begun in 1248) and to the west façade of Strasbourg Cathedral (under construction from 1277). In these elements, the refinement and slimmed down appearance of architectural forms, especially of tracery bars and mullions, as well as the sharpening of moldings, contrast with smooth sections of masonry that ­usually frame ­openwork segments of external and internal elevations.38

35 36 37 38

See Brucher, Zum Problem, pp. 70–81; Sladeczek, “Was ist spät,” pp. 14–18. Louis Grodecki, Gothic Architecture: Contributions by Anne Prache and Roland Recht (­London, 1986). Ibid., p. 94; see also pp. 92–93, 198–200. See Schurr, Gotische Architektur, pp. 211–14; see also Alexandra Gajewski, “Saint-Germain d’Auxerre: Une abbatiale rayonnante,” in “L’architecture gothique à Auxerre et dans sa région (XIIe–XIXe siècles): Naissance, transformations et pérennité,” ed. Arnaud Timbert,

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Meanwhile, Bony’s monograph on French architecture of the 12th and 13th centuries, published in 1983, introduced a more invigorating research perspective. Discussing the new stylistic trends emerging after 1250, he distinguishes two main tendencies. The first, “a brittle linear style,” is characterized by decorativeness and technical virtuosity in constructing light skeletal structures. This tendency builds upon the experience of the mid-13th century northern French Rayonnant style but further enriches it with original design ideas considered noncanonical in relation to the tradition of “classical” Gothic. ­Spectacular examples of this trend are, according to Bony, the collegiate church of Saint-­ Urbain at Troyes (begun in 1262) and, modeled on this construction, the choir of the church of Saint-Thibault-en-Auxois (begun around 1290), as well as the choir of Sées Cathedral in Normandy (about 1270–80) and the west façade of Strasbourg Cathedral.39 The second stylistic approach, “a simplified severe style,” is radically different from the first. In its predilection to expose the bare surface of the wall and to use simplified but ingeniously designed architectural forms (piers, tracery, and moldings), it may seem to be a conscious opposition and contestation of the former style. Although this tendency was strongly related to the architectural activity of the mendicant and reformatory orders (especially the Cistercians, Premonstratensians, and canons regular), it was more widespread at the turn of the 14th century. It is evidenced, for example, in the parish churches in Agnetz (around 1245) and Chambly (begun around 1260) and especially the collegiate church of Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens in Mussy-sur-Seine (around 1300), characterized by a rich spatial arrangement and, at the same time, radically simplified, synthetic architectural forms.40 An analysis of European architecture built at the turn of the 14th century that focuses on short-time intervals, carefully separating chronologically parallel styles, seems most conducive to present-day methodological approaches. Obviously, such analysis should be combined with a scrupulous investigation of the historical context of a given building, especially to evidence the reasons motivating the selection of specific spatial programs and the stylistic approach applied.41 The term “architecture around 1300” introduced by Gross remains useful as a ‘notion-signal’ to refer to the multivalent development of the Gothic after the mid-13th century. It denotes the range of diverse, often aesthetically

39 40 41

Bulletin de la Société des Fouilles Archéologiques et des Monuments Historiques de l’Yonne 26/27 (2009–10): p. 59. Bony, French Gothic, pp. 423–29. Ibid., pp. 429–45. A perfect example of this methodological approach is offered by Gajewski, “Saint-­ Germain d’Auxerre.”

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contrasting artistic phenomena in the architecture of the European continent at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. Searching for new terms or promoting the previously proposed stylistic labels in order to define collectively all the buildings of that time seems pointless today.42 2 Various Stylistic Currents in the French Architecture of ca.1250–1350 In 2010, Yves Gallet presented a synthetic discussion on artistic trends in French architecture after the mid-13th century, one that may be upheld as a model example of a contemporary research approach due to its excellent understanding of the architecture and historical context of the buildings he discussed.43 Going beyond Bony, he singles out three stylistic directions in this period’s architectural development. The first direction is the ‘academic’ trend witnessed in buildings of the greatest scale and prestige. It is characterized by a strict adherence to the norms of the Rayonnant style: a three-story internal elevation with a glazed triforium and huge windows (which developed during the reconstruction of the abbey church of Saint-Denis and the choir of Troyes Cathedral), as well as classical principles of architectural composition, the maintaining of bases and capitals in the piers, and the inclusion of vaulting shafts and tracery. The best examples of this trend are the monastic churches of La Trinité at Vendôme (construction started at 1271), Saint-Louis at Poissy (1297–1331), and Saint-Ouen at Rouen (eastern part, 1318–39). The latter is especially striking for its monumental scale, the harmony of its interior arrangement, and its masterful execution but also, upon closer inspection, for some of its ‘discreet’ innovations: the extraordinary width of the bays, the ingenious layout of the ambulatory chapels, and the incongruity of the tracery design of the front and back layer of the glazed triforium.44 Gallet’s second direction, similar to Bony’s classification, features “the path of moderation and austerity,”45 which consists in foregrounding the aesthetic 42 43 44

45

See Gallet, “Le style rayonnant,” p. 357. Ibid., pp. 357–61. See also Yves Gallet, “Rouen, Abbatiale Saint-Ouen: Le chevet et l’architecture rayonnante au XIVe siècle,” Congrès archéologique de France 161 (2005), 227–38; idem, “French Gothic”; Linda Elaine Neagley, “Maestre Carlín and ‘Proto’ Flamboyant Architecture of Rouen (c. 1380–1430),” in La Piedra Postrera: Simposio Internacional sobre la catedral de Sevilla en el contexto del gótico final, ed. Alfonso Martín Jiménez (Seville, 2007), pp. 50–56. Gallet, “Le style rayonnant,” p. 358.

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qualities of a smooth wall. The sources of this trend can be traced to ­mendicant and Cistercian architecture, but it was also used, perhaps as a deliberate reference to these precedents, in prestigious secular commissions, such as, for example, the collegiate churches founded by Philip IV the Fair’s courtiers at Mussy-­surSeine (endowed by Guillaume de Mussy) and at Écouis (an initiative by Enguerrand de Marigny, 1311–13). This style was particularly well-­established in the south of France, in Auvergne, Languedoc, and Provence, where it influenced the design of local cathedrals. It can be seen, for example, in Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, Narbonne, Toulouse, Rodez, and Bordeaux, where the glazed triforia and windows that filled the entire width of the bay were abandoned.46 Gallet’s third direction is marked by “the search for mannerism,”47 which, importantly, could also form an element of the building style of both of the above trends. The famous collegiate church of Saint-Urbain at Troyes stands as the most important and influential structure in this category due to its innovative and surprising design ideas. In its eastern part, erected between 1262 and 1266, we can observe not only the extreme “thinning” of all architectural elements (especially moldings, tracery bars, and flying buttresses) and the illusionistic splitting of the wall layers outside and inside the choir apse but also the abandonment of the capitals of some supports (in the piers of the transept porches and miniature vaulting shafts inside the piscina in the choir), as well as the introduction of ogee arches in portal jambs. This tendency toward architectural license is also evident in the newer parts of the building, where the western bays of the nave, erected around 1280, are characterized by a complete abandonment of capitals, as well as in the smooth, sculptural treatment of structural components, such as the piers organized along a wavy layout and the mismatched moldings of the arcade’s archivolts, coming from their shafts (Figure 5.3).48 Pendant bosses in buildings dating from the end of the 13th century and skeletal ribs disconnected from solid vaulting cells, which were already gaining popularity in the 14th century, are a symptomatic examples of architectural ‘mannerisms’ in designs of the time. The oldest examples of this trend include the vaults in the sacristy of Saint-Urbain (around 1280–90) and in the Tonsur (the bathing pavilion) of the Magdeburg Cathedral cloister (around 1300).49 46 47 48 49

See Christian Freigang, Imitare ecclesias nobiles: Die Kathedralen von Narbonne, Toulouse und Rodez und die nordfranzösische Rayonnantgotik im Languedoc (Worms, 1992). Gallet, “Le style rayonnant,” p. 359. See Davis, “On the Threshold.” See Yves Gallet, “Une voûte à clef pendante du XIIIe siècle à Saint-Urbain de Troyes,” Bulletin monumental 171, no. 1 (2013): 11–21; Schurr, Gotische Architektur, p. 241; Jakub Adamski,

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Figure 5.3 Troyes, Collegiate Church of Saint-Urbain, south-western pier of the nave, ca. 1280–90 source: J. Adamski

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3 “Modernity” and “Avant-Garde” in the European Architecture at the Turn of the 14th Century In his studies of the architecture produced at the turn of the 14th century, Gallet repeatedly writes about its “modernity,” “modernism,” and “avant-garde features.”50 Similarly, Kurmann describes the nave of the collegiate church at Niederhaslach in Alsace (begun before 1316) as “nec plus ultra du modernisme autour de 1300,”51 while Schurr probably contributed most to the popularization of the term “architectural avant-garde around 1300.”52 The above overview of stylistic trends at the turn of the 14th century shows quite clearly that the search for new forms of expression, especially through design experiments involving the modification of traditional compositional formulas and architectural details, as well as the creation of completely new solutions, were the most significant achievements of building masters around 1300 (Figure 5.4). To what extent, however, is it acceptable for medievalists to use the terms that commonly refer to cultural and artistic phenomena of the 19th and 20th centuries to refer to medieval architectural innovations? First, it should be emphasized that the terms ‘modernity’ and ‘modern’ must be perceived in isolation from the modern historical era and should instead be understood literally. ‘Modern’ means “characteristic of present and recent time; contemporary,” “rejecting traditionally accepted or sanctioned forms and emphasizing individual experimentation and sensibility.”53 The question arises as to what extent this literal meaning was also shared by the people of the late Middle Ages. As Beryl Smalley demonstrates, the Latin word novus maintained negative connotations until the turn of the 12th century. What was new was seen as

50 51 52

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“The von der Heyde Chapel at Legnica in Silesia and the Early Phase of Style Flamboyant,” Gesta 58, no. 2 (2019): 183–205. See Gallet, “Le style rayonnant,” pp. 332–80. See Peter Kurmann, “Niederhaslach, la nef de l’église Saint-Florent, nec plus ultra du modernisme autour de 1300,” Congrès Archéologique de France 162 (2006): 79–89. See Schurr, Gotische Architektur; Schurr, “Die Zisterzienserbauten im mittleren Europa und ihr Beitrag zur Ausprägung des spätgotischen Maßwerkrepertoires,” in Regnum Bohemiae et Sacrum Romanum Imperium: Sborník k poctě Jiřího Kuthana, ed. Jan Royt, Michaela Ottová, and Aleš Mudra (České Budějovice, 2005), pp. 233–246; idem, “Die Klosterkirche von Sedletz und die Avantgarde der Architektur um 1300,” in Sedlec: Historie, architektura a umělecká tvorba sedleckého kláštera ve středoevropském kontextu kolem roku 1300 a 1700, ed. Radka Lomičková (Prague, 2009), pp. 297–313. Dictionary.com, s.v. “modern,” accessed 16 July 2021.

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Figure 5.4 Niederhaslach, Collegiate Church of Saint Florentius, interior of the nave, ca. 1300–before 1330 source: J. Adamski

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antagonistic to existing customs and traditions—and was therefore wrong.54 In ancient and early medieval literature, novus and novitas, as qualities, phenomena, or situations that replace the existing order of things, also meant something negatively surprising or threatening, that made one helpless.55 In the 12th century, however, this understanding began to change. By the mid13th century, at the latest, the acceptance of the new not only ceased to be a problem, but many novitates began to be perceived as improvements or refinements to existing realities. This does not mean, however, that tradition was no longer respected. It merely meant that clergymen, theologians, and other intellectuals commenting on the contemporary order of things ceased to perceive innovation as endangering Christian experience.56 The word novus became fashionable in scholarly circles in the 13th century, as evidenced by the titles of many treatises from that period, such as Poetria nova by Galfredus de Vino Salvo (around 1210) and Rhetorica novissima by Boncompagno da Signa (1236).57 The term was applied to specific contemporary objects and situations, since the words modernitas and modernus had been synonymous with the present since Carolingian times and understood in opposition to the past, expressed with the adjectives antiquus and vetus.58 More important, from the mid-13th century onward, technical achievements, discoveries, and inventions began to be noted and described with increasing attention, especially around 1300. It is related that the social prestige and recognition for inventores (inventors) at this time,59 including architects and designers, also increased.60 In his Lenten sermon delivered in February 1305 at the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, the Dominican friar Giordano da Pisa stated that each day brought the discovery of some new art (arte novella) and that such discoveries would never cease in the future.61 54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61

Beryl Smalley, “Ecclesiastical Attitudes to Novelty, c. 1100–1250,” Church Society and ­Politics 12 (1975), 113–131. Walter Freund, Modernus und andere Zeitbegriffe des Mittelalters (Cologne, 1957), pp. 107–08. Smalley, “Ecclesiastical Attitudes,” 128–29; see also Hans-Joachim Schmidt, “Einleitung: Ist das Neue das Bessere? Überlegungen zu Denkfiguren und Denkblockaden im Mittelalter,” in Tradition, Innovation, Invention: Fortschrittsverweigerung und Fortschrittsbewusstsein im Mittelalter, ed. Hans-Joachim Schmidt (Berlin, 2005), p. 11. Smalley, “Ecclesiastical Attitudes,” p. 126. Freund, Modernus, pp. 41–114. Gerhard Dohrn-van Rossum, “Novitates – Inventores. Die Erfindung der Erfinder im ­Spätmittelalter,” in Schmidt, Tradition, Innovation, Invention, pp. 29–34. See Dieter Kimpel, “Die Soziogenese des modernen Architektenberufs,” in Möbius and Sciurie, Stil und Epoche, pp. 106–43. Giordano da Pisa, Quaresimale fiorentino, 1305–1306, ed. Carlo Delcorno (Florence, 1974), p. 75: “E non sono trovate tutte: di trovare arti non si verrebbe a fine mai, ognendì se ne

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To this end, the testimony of Henri de Mondeville, court physician of Louis X and Philip IV, is also valuable. In his treatise “La chirurgie,” begun in 1306, he compares the representatives of his profession to master masons, who walk the streets of Paris from one construction site to another, every day, even on Sundays, to survey the newly erected structures and learn from an analysis of their designs.62 Moreover, according to Mondeville, his contemporary architects did not regard their predecessors as great authorities. As he writes, even if the creators of temples and palaces from the times of the great physician Galen (around 129/130–200/216 A.D.) rose from their graves, they would not have been equal to the modern builders, who were tearing down old churches and residences in order to create new and better constructions in their place.63 Two famous and frequently cited accounts of the construction of new churches—Auxerre Cathedral in Burgundy and the Knights’ Abbey at Wimpfen im Tal in Swabia—are equally unambiguous in their message. As reported in the Gesta pontificum autissiodorensium, the bishop Guillaume de Seignelay initiated the construction of a new cathedral in Auxerre before 1217 for purely prestigious and aesthetic reasons. Not only was the old building cramped and inconveniently laid out, but it was also becoming increasingly evident that churches of extraordinary beauty were being built everywhere else. Notably,

62

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potrebbe trovare una de l’arti” (And not all have been already discovered: discovering arts would never come to an end, and each day could witness discovery of a new art). Translation here and below by author unless otherwise stipulated. Henri de Mondeville, “La chirurgie,” in Die Chirurgie des Heinrich von Mondeville (­Hermondaville) nach Berliner, Erfurter und Pariser Codices, ed. Julius L. Pagel (Berlin, 1892), p. 70: “Sunt autem similiter in artibus mecanicis tales retractores indagantes et retractantes parietes, domicilia et similia noviter jam constructa, qui multum proficiunt in eis construendis, qui diebus festalibus discurrunt per vicos et plateas civitatis intuentes opera, quae sunt nova. Et isti Parisiis vocantur operatores dominici et festivi et multotiens proficiunt edificatoribus per hunc modum.” (In the arts there are, likewise, such professionals who study and investigate walls, houses and similar newly erected edifices, who benefit much from exploring their construction. Even during public holidays they run through the streets and alleys of the city [of Paris] to examine works that are new. And those who are called “operators” by the Parisians often achieve a lot doing similar research, even during Sundays and holidays, exactly as builders.). Ibid., p. 508: “sed videmus in artibus mechanicis ut in lathomia, quodsi ille, qui fuit excellentissimus tempore Galeni in ecclesiis et palatiis fabricandis resurgeret a mortuis his diebus non esset dignus moderno sufficienti deservire lathomo, et quod plus est, videmus, quod antiqua palatia et ecclesiae destruuntur ut in melius reformentur.” (But we see in the field of arts and architecture that even if the builders of temples and palaces from the times of the most excellent Galen would have resurrected from the dead, they would not be worthy to serve modern master masons. What is more, we see that the latter demolish old palaces and churches to reconstruct them in a more advanced, better manner.).

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the hierarch destroyed the existing building in order to reject the “lethargy of antiquity” and “rejuvenate it in a more refined sense of novelty.”64 A similar message was given by Burkhard of Hall, who wrote in his chronicle from around 1300 of the Wimpfen Monastery that the initiation of works on the new church was one of the greatest achievements of Richard von Deidesheim, its prior from 1268 to 1278 (Figure 5.5). He made it clear that the French way of construction could be attributed to the master who had just (noviter) arrived from Paris.65 The contemporaneity of the project, and hence its modernity, was therefore of great importance to the patrons and users of the building. Similar sources that emphasize the splendor of various construction initiatives from the period as resulting from the appreciation of their novelty may be counted by the dozen.66

64

65

66

Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorensium, in Bibliothèque historique de l’Yonne ou collection de légendes, chroniques et documents divers pour servir à l’histoire des différentes contrées qui forment aujourd’hui ce département, ed. Louis-Maximilien Duru (Auxerre, 1850), 1:474: “Eodem tempore, circa novas ecclesiarum structuras passim fervebat de novo populorum. Videns itaque episcopus ecclesiam suam Autissiodorensum structure antique minusque composite squalor ac senio laborare, aliis circunquaque capita sua extollentibus mira specie venustatis, eam disposuit nova structura et studioso peritorum in arce cementaria artificio decorare, ne ceteris specie studiove penitus impar esset; eamque fecit a posteriori parte funditus demoliri, ut, deposito antiquitatis veterno, in elegantiorem juvenesceret speciem novitatis.” (In that time, the people became excited about constructing new churches. Therefore, the bishop [of Auxerre], seeing his old church suffering from bad disposition of its parts, squalor and age, and comparing it to other shrines, which were raising their heads [i.e. chevets] of wonderful beauty, commissioned a reconstruction of the cathedral. He ordered most skilled masons to build it decoratively in such a way that others could not compare to it. Hence, he decided to demolish the church starting from the rear side, so that after throwing off its previous ancientness, it could rejuvenate more elegantly in its novel appearance.). Marc Carel Schurr, “L’opus francigenum de Wimpfen im Tal. Transfert technologique ou artistique?” in Les transferts artistiques dans l’Europe Gothique: Repenser la circulation des artistes, des œuvres, des thèmes et des savoir-faire (XIIe–XVIe siècle), ed. Jacques Dubois, Jean-Marie Guillouët, and Benoît Van den Bossche (Paris, 2014), p. 45: “Accitoque peritissimo in architectoria arte latomo, qui tunc noviter de villa Parisiensi e partibus venerat Francie, opere Francigeno basilicam ex sectis lapidibus construi iubet.” (Having summoned the master mason most skilled in architecture, who had then recently come from the city of Paris in the land of France, he ordered the church to be built of ashlar stone in the French manner.); Teresa G. Frisch, Gothic Art 1140–c. 1450: Sources and Documents (Toronto, 1987), p. 56. See also Peter Kurmann, “Erwin de Steinbach au service d’une réforme ecclésiastique? La collégiale Saint-Pierre de Wimpfen, ses antécédents lorrains et ses rapports avec la cathédrale de Strasbourg,” Bulletin de la Cathédrale de Strasbourg 30 (2012), pp. 45–55. See Freund, Modernus, pp. 96–97; Dohrn-van Rossum, “Novitates,” pp. 44–46.

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Figure 5.5 Wimpfen im Tal, Abbey-Church of the Knights of Saint John, eastern part, 1269–ca. 1280 source: J. Adamski

It must be remembered that the admiration for new stylistic forms and technological innovations sound very clearly already in the famous descriptions of the abbey churches in Saint-Denis and Canterbury by Abbot Suger and Gervase. Yet, the above reports demonstrate that an unequivocally positive climate for what was new and previously unknown in artes mechanicae flourished in Europe especially since the mid-13th century.67 In the architecture of that period, inventions and experiments contra usum and per ingenium were not only accepted but also brought fame to their creators. It was not without reason that Pierre de Montreuil, who died in 1267, was named vivens doctor lathomorum on his tombstone.68 However, this should not be particularly surprising because the entire history of Gothic architecture in northern France from the mid-12th century is characterized as a time of constant innovation, technological improvements, and successful formal and structural experiments. The first 67 68

Cf. Dohrn-van Rossum, “Novitates,” pp. 27–49. Paul Binski, “Working by Words Alone: The Architect, Scholasticism and Rhetoric in ­Thirteenth-Century France,” in Rhetoric Beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed. Mary Carruthers (Cambridge, UK, 2010), p. 31.

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apogee of this continuous process of improvement occurred around 1200 with the construction of the cathedrals at Chartres, Soissons, and Bourges.69 Many view the 13th century as a culmination of architectural excellence, producing several chronologically parallel artistic trends across buildings of various ranks and functions by the end of the century, as described above. Hence, I find that in the case of constructions whose forms result from original stylistic explorations, in particular those that ‘play’ with tradition, and from modifications to the accepted repertoire of solutions codified in ‘classical’ Gothic buildings, the use of the adjectives ‘modern’ or ‘avant-garde’ is permissible—provided, of course, that we are aware of the far-reaching imprecision and frequent ahistoricity of the language of our contemporary analyses. After all, the word ‘avantgarde’ literally means introducing something new and unconventional in some field, and thus, this adjective aptly describes the architecture produced around 1300 although it was unknown to people of the late Middle Ages. 4 Conclusion: Understanding Advancement of the Architecture around 1300 The observation expressed in this study that the majority of late medieval builders and patrons were open to stylistic novelties and new technological solutions can be confirmed by charting the constant formal changes and development of Gothic architecture from the mid-12th to the mid-16th century. However, like any generalizing statement, this is not always the case. The nonartistic motivations of late medieval and early modern building investors were so varied that scholars are no longer surprised by deliberate returns to earlier stylistic conventions (i.e. ideologically motivated archaisms), long-term adherence to adopted architectural models (for example, regional modi and types of buildings), complete renouncement of all decorativeness and splendor in line with “gestures of modesty” (Bescheidenheistgesten), or attempts to flaunt the patron’s social rank by creating edifices that reveal a high level of architectural ambition. Regarding studies on architecture circa 1300, it is certainly necessary to conduct a nuanced analysis of style that goes beyond the formalist archaeology of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Several decades ago, abundant research on architectural iconography led modern medievalists to realize that reflections on style and its reception only make sense if they are based on a detailed 69

See Marvin Trachtenberg, “Suger’s Miracles, Branner’s Bourges: Reflections on ‘Gothic Architecture’ as Medieval Modernism,” Gesta 39, no. 2 (2000): 183–205.

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examination of the historical circumstances of any given artistic production.70 It is also necessary to situate works of architecture in broader regional and interregional contexts, by assessing the vitality of construction programs and existing artistic traditions in a specific area. This is particularly important in the case of countries that could not compete with France, England, or the western regions of the Empire in terms of social and cultural development. The church of the Poor Clares in Stary Sącz in Lesser Poland, 90 kilometers southeast of Cracow, is a stylish and innovative building located on what was then the eastern outskirts of Latin Europe. It serves as a remarkable final example of the complex nature of architecture of the turn of the 14th century. The building was erected between 1320 and 1332, likely as a foundation of the Polish royal couple, Władysław Łokietek and Jadwiga of Kalisz.71 The shape of this single-nave church derives from the architectural tradition of female religious convents, while the ascetic style characteristic of mendicant buildings is reflected in the original ceiling covering of the nave interior, as well as in the abandonment of the wall articulation. Until the beginning of the 14th century, church architecture in Lesser Poland was rather modest in terms of artistic advancement. This conservatism suggests that worshippers could have understood the new monastery church in Stary Sącz, characterized by smooth walls without articulation, as compatible with the region’s architectural tradition and local landscape. In turn, the large four-light tracery embedded in the opening between the nave of the church and the nuns’ choir on the gallery, occupying the upper story of the western part of the building, has an advanced composition with three intersecting spherical triangles inscribed in the upper oculus (­Figure 5.6). This type of ‘modern’ tracery is derived from designs widespread in the Upper Rhineland from around 1300, especially in the cathedrals of Strasbourg and Constance (Figure 5.2). At first glance, the austerity and simplicity of the interior of the chapter house below the gallery is also striking, and it was probably perceived as such by the Poor Clares who gathered there (Figure 5.7). The fact is, however, that we are faced with a first-class architectural creation, characterized by flawless workmanship and designed in an ‘avant-garde’ style 70

71

See Paul Crossley, “Medieval Architecture and Meaning: The Limits of Iconography,” ­ urlington Magazine 130, no. 1019 (1988): 116–21; Jakub Adamski, “Between Form and B Meaning: Research on Gothic Architecture as a Carrier of Ideological Content in Polish Historiography of the Last Five Decades,” Folia Historiae Artium, n.s., 18 (2020): 5–15. See Adamski, “Über den Anteil,” pp. 158–60; Jakub Adamski and Piotr Pajor, “The Architecture of Poor Clares’ Nunnery in Stary Sącz: Early Fourteenth-century Artistic Relations between Lesser Poland and the Upper Rhineland,” Convivium: Supplementum 1 (2022): 23–36.

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Figure 5.6 Stary Sącz, Church of Poor Clares, tracery in the nuns’ choir, ca. 1320–32 source: J. Adamski

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Figure 5.7 Stary Sącz, Church of Poor Clares, interior of the former chapter house, ca. 1320–32 source: J. Adamski

with regard to the abstract simplification of stereometric forms that no longer have anything to do with the tradition of the classical Gothic. This part of the church also proves that a well-educated architect from the Upper Rhineland was brought to Lesser Poland since the chapter house in Stary Sącz shares its closest stylistic analogies with the crypt under the choir of St. Verena’s Church in Bad Zurzach on the Rhine River and the vestibule of the St. Conrad’s Chapel at the Constance Cathedral, both built at the turn of the 14th century. It is likely that if this building had been built not on the border of Poland and Hungary but rather on Lake Constance or the Rhine, the modernity of its style would have been evident not only to a present-day researcher but also to the patrons and architects of the time, who were keenly interested in the contemporary achievements of their fellow professionals. Bibliography of Cited Sources

Primary Sources

Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorensium. In Bibliothèque historique de l’Yonne ou collection de légendes, chroniques et documents divers pour servir à l’histoire des différentes contrées qui forment aujourd’hui ce département, edited by Louis-Maximilien Duru, 1:309–509. Auxerre, 1850.

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Giordano da Pisa. Quaresimale fiorentino, 1305–1306. Edited by Carlo Delcorno. ­Florence, 1974. Henri de Mondeville. “La chirurgie.” In Die Chirurgie des Heinrich von Mondeville (­Hermondaville) nach Berliner, Erfurter und Pariser Codices, edited by Julius L. Pagel. Berlin, 1892.



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Adamski, Jakub. “The von der Heyde Chapel at Legnica in Silesia and the Early Phase of Style Flamboyant.” Gesta 58, no. 2 (2019): 183–205. Adamski, Jakub. “Between Form and Meaning: Research on Gothic Architecture as a Carrier of Ideological Content in Polish Historiography of the Last Five Decades.” Folia Historiae Artium, n.s., 18 (2020): 5–15. Adamski, Jakub. “Über den Anteil Schlesiens und Kleinpolens an der Entwicklung und Verbreitung der architektonischen ‘Moderne’ um 1300: Wege und Akteure des ­Kunsttransfers in der mitteleuropäischen Gotik.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 83, no. 2 (2020): 139–72. Adamski, Jakub, and Piotr Pajor. “The Architecture of Poor Clares’ Nunnery in Stary Sącz: Early Fourteenth-century Artistic Relations between Lesser Poland and the Upper Rhineland.” Convivium: Supplementum 1 (2022): 23–36. Binski, Paul. “Working by Words Alone: The Architect, Scholasticism and Rhetoric in Thirteenth-century France.” In Rhetoric Beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, edited by Mary Carruthers, pp. 14–51. Cambridge, UK, 2010. Bony, Jean. French Gothic Architecture of the 12th and 13th Centuries. Berkeley, 1983. Bork, Robert. Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception. ­Turnhout, 2018. Brachmann, Christoph. Um 1300: Vorparlerische Architektur im Elsaß, in Lothringen und Südwestdeutschland. Korb, 2008. Branner, Robert. Burgundian Gothic Architecture. London, 1960. Branner, Robert. St Louis and the Court Style in Gothic Architecture. London, 1965. Brucher, Günter. Zum Problem des Stilpluralismus: Ein Beitrag zur kunstgeschichtlichen Methodik. Vienna, 1985. Bürger, Stefan. Fremdsprache Spätgotik: Anleitungen zum Lesen von Architektur. ­Kromsdorf, 2017. Crossley, Paul. Gothic Architecture in the Reign of Kasimir the Great: Church Architecture in Lesser Poland, 1320–1380. Cracow, 1985. Crossley, Paul. “Medieval Architecture and Meaning: The Limits of Iconography.” ­Burlington Magazine 130, no. 1019 (1988): 116–21. Daussy, Stéphanie Diane, ed. L’architecture flamboyante en France: Autour de Roland Sanfaçon. Villeneuve d’Ascq, 2020.

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Davis, Michael T. “On the Threshold of the Flamboyant: The Second Campaign of ­Construction of Saint-Urbain, Troyes.” Speculum 59, no. 4 (1984): 847–84. Dehio, Georg, and Gustav von Bezold. Die kirchliche Baukunst des Abendlandes, vol. 2, Der gotische Stil. Stuttgart, 1901. Dohrn-van Rossum, Gerhard. “Novitates—Inventores: Die Erfindung der Erfinder im Spätmittelalter.” In Tradition, Innovation, Invention: Fortschrittsverweigerung und Fortschrittsbewusstsein im Mittelalter, edited by Hans-Joachim Schmidt, pp. 27–49. Berlin, 2005. Elsner, Jaś. “Style.” In Critical Terms for Art History, edited by Robert S. Nelson and ­Richard Shiff, pp. 98–109. Chicago, 2003. Frankl, Paul. Gothic Architecture. Revised by Paul Crossley. New Haven, 2000. Freigang, Christian. Imitare ecclesias nobiles: Die Kathedralen von Narbonne, Toulouse und Rodez und die nordfranzösische Rayonnantgotik im Languedoc. Worms, 1992. Freund, Walter. Modernus und andere Zeitbegriffe des Mittelalters. Cologne, 1957. Frisch, Teresa G. Gothic Art, 1140–c. 1450: Sources and Documents. Toronto, 1987. Gajewski, Alexandra. “The Choir of Auxerre Cathedral and the Question of a ­Burgundian Gothic Architecture.” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 171 (2018): 34–60. Gajewski, Alexandra. “Saint-Germain d’Auxerre: Une abbatiale rayonnante.” In “­L’architecture gothique à Auxerre et dans sa région (XIIe–XIXe siècles): Naissance, transformations et pérennité,” edited by Arnaud Timbert. Bulletin de la Société des Fouilles Archéologiques et des Monuments Historiques de l’Yonne 26/27 (2009–10): 42–65. Gajewski, Alexandra, and Zoë Opačić, eds. The Year 1300 and the Creation of a New European Architecture. Turnhout, 2007. Gallet, Yves. “French Gothic 1250–1350 and the Paradigm of the Motet.” In Gajewski and Opačić, The Year 1300, pp. 29–38. Gallet, Yves. “Rouen, Abbatiale Saint-Ouen: Le chevet et l’architecture rayonnante au XIVe siècle.” Congrès archéologique de France 161 (2005): 227–38. Gallet, Yves. “Le style rayonnant en France.” In L’art du moyen âge en France, edited by Philippe Plagnieux, pp. 321–80. Paris, 2010. Gallet, Yves. “Une voûte à clef pendante du XIIIe siècle à Saint-Urbain de Troyes.” ­Bulletin monumental 171, no. 1 (2013): 11–21. Grodecki, Louis. Gothic Architecture: Contributions by Anne Prache and Roland Recht. London, 1986. Gross, Werner. Die Abendländische Architektur um 1300. Stuttgart, 1948. Jantzen, Hans. Kunst der Gotik: Klassische Kathedralen Frankreichs; Chartres, Reims, Amiens. Hamburg, 1957. Kavaler, Ethan Matt. Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540. New Haven, 2012.

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Kimpel, Dieter. “Die Soziogenese des modernen Architektenberufs.” In Möbius and Sciurie, Stil und Epoche, pp. 106–43. Kimpel, Dieter, and Robert Suckale, Die gotische Architektur in Frankreich, 1130–1270. Munich, 1985. Klein, Bruno. “Von der Adaptation zur Transformation: Architektur zwischen 1220 und 1350.” In Geschichte der bildenden Kunst in Deutschland, vol. 3, Gotik, edited by Bruno Klein, pp. 246–54. Munich, 2007. Klein, Bruno, and Bruno Boerner, ed. Stilfragen zur Kunst des Mittelalters: Eine ­Einführung. Berlin, 2006. Knapp, Ulrich. Salem: Die Gebäude der ehemaligen Zisterzienserabtei und ihre Ausstattung. Stuttgart, 2004. Kurmann, Peter. “Spätgotischen Tendenzen in der europäischen Architektur um 1300.” In Europäische Kunst um 1300: Akten des XXV. Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, Wien, 4.–10. September 1983, vol. 6, edited by Hermann Fillitz and ­Martina Pippal, pp. 11–18. Vienna, 1986. Kurmann, Peter. “Niederhaslach, la nef de l’église Saint-Florent, nec plus ultra du ­modernisme autour de 1300.” Congrès archéologique de France 162 (2006): 79–89. Kurmann, Peter. “Erwin de Steinbach au service d’une réforme ecclésiastique? La collégiale Saint-Pierre de Wimpfen, ses antécédents lorrains et ses rapports avec la cathédrale de Strasbourg.” Bulletin de la Cathédrale de Strasbourg 30 (2012): 41–60. Líbal, Dobroslav. “Die schöpferischen Initiativen der mitteleuropäischen gotischen Architektur um 1300.” In Fillitz and Pippal, Europäische Kunst um 1300, 6:19–24. Mencl, Václav. Česká architektura doby lucemburské. Prague, 1948. Mencl, Václav. “Poklasická gotika jižní Francie a Švábska a její vztah ke gotice české.” Umění 19, no. 3 (1971): 217–54. Möbius, Friedrich, and Helga Sciurie, ed. Stil und Epoche: Periodisierungsfragen. ­Dresden, 1989. Neagley, Linda Elaine. “Maestre Carlín and ‘Proto’ Flamboyant Architecture of Rouen (c. 1380–1430).” In La Piedra Postrera: Simposio Internacional sobre la catedral de Sevilla en el contexto del gótico final, edited by Alfonso Martín Jiménez, pp. 47–60. Seville, 2007. Opačić, Zoë. “Bohemia after 1300: Reduktionsgotik, the Hall Church, and the Creation of a New Style.” In Gajewski and Opačić, The Year 1300, pp. 163–175. Schmidt, Hans-Joachim. “Einleitung: Ist das Neue das Bessere? Überlegungen zu Den­kfiguren und Denkblockaden im Mittelalter.” In Schmidt, Tradition, Innovation, Invention, pp. 7–24. Schürenberg, Lisa. Die kirchliche Baukunst in Frankreich zwischen 1270 und 1380. Berlin, 1934. Schurr, Marc Carel. “Die Zisterzienserbauten im mittleren Europa und ihr Beitrag zur Ausprägung des spätgotischen Maßwerkrepertoires.” In Regnum Bohemiae et

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Sacrum Romanum Imperium: Sborník k poctě Jiřího Kuthana, edited by Jan Royt, Michaela Ottová, and Aleš Mudra, pp. 233–46. České Budějovice, 2005. Schurr, Marc Carel. Gotische Architektur im mittleren Europa, 1220–1340: Von Metz bis Wien. Munich, 2007. Schurr, Marc Carel. “Die Klosterkirche von Sedletz und die Avantgarde der Architektur um 1300.” In Sedlec: Historie, architektura a umělecká tvorba sedleckého kláštera ve středoevropském kontextu kolem roku 1300 a 1700, edited by Radka Lomičková, pp. 297–313. Prague, 2009. Schurr, Marc Carel. “L’opus francigenum de Wimpfen im Tal: Transfert technologique ou artistique?” In Les transferts artistiques dans l’Europe gothique: Repenser la circulation des artistes, des œuvres, des thèmes et des savoir-faire (XIIe–XVIe siècle), edited by Jacques Dubois, Jean-Marie Guillouët, and Benoît Van den Bossche, pp. 45–55. Paris, 2014. Skibiński, Szczęsny. Polskie katedry gotyckie. Poznań, 1996. Sladeczek, Franz-Josef. “Was ist spat an der Spätgotik? Von der Problematik der ­kunstgeschichtlichen Stilbegriffe.” Unsere Kunstdenkmäler: Mitteilungsblatt für die Mitglieder der Gesellschaft für Schweizerische Kunstgeschichte 42, no. 1 (1991): 3–23. Smalley, Beryl. “Ecclesiastical Attitudes to Novelty, c. 1100–1250.” Church Society and Politics 12 (1975): 113–31. Suckale, Robert. “Die Unbrauchbarkeit der gängigen Stilbegriffe und Entwicklungsvorstellungen: Am Beispiel der französischen gotischen Architektur des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts.” In Möbius and Sciurie, Stil und Epoche, pp. 231–50. Trachtenberg, Marvin. “Suger’s Miracles, Branner’s Bourges: Reflections on ‘Gothic Architecture’ as Medieval Modernism.” Gesta 39, no. 2 (2000): 183–205.

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Chapter 6

Did Jan Długosz Read Vitruvius?

On the Reception of the Myth about the Natural Origins of Architecture in Central Europe in the Late Middle Ages Marek Walczak After a period of vigorous development in the 14th century, the architecture of the Polish Kingdom in the next century lacked impetus and inventiveness, and buildings erected on the initiative of Jan Długosz (1415–80) were no ­exception.1 Długosz was a protagonist of humanism, the teacher of the sons of King ­Casimir IV Jagiellonian and the author of a number of eminent historical studies, including the monumental Annales incliti regni Poloniae (Annals of the Polish Kingdom). As secretary to the first Polish cardinal, the Cracow bishop Zbigniew Oleśnicki (1389–1455), Długosz had been on a number of diplomatic missions, including to Bohemia, Hungary, and Rome. The churches and houses he founded are all built of brick in plain block forms, with vaults of the simplest figuration or just flat wooden ceilings. Their external elevations are not articulated and merely decorated with diaper-work patterns formed of vitrified brick. There are only a few recurring decorative details: foundation plaques depicting the founder or his coat of arms, doorways in stepped surrounds, window surrounds, and heraldic friezes made of stone. Similarities seen in most of the buildings result from the fact that the same craftsmen—the builder Marcin Proszko (1456–76) and the master bricklayer Jan (1476–80)—were involved in their execution.2 The doorways in the parish church at Raciborowice, a small village near the kingdom’s capital of Cracow, dated before 1476 (Figure 6.1), and in the law students’ hall of residence of the Jagiellonian University (Figure 6.2) in Cracow, dated to ca. 1474–79, are identical. The doorways are set within stepped surrounds with a few orders of moldings that are superimposed with stone carvings of a rope, held in place at both ends by naturalistically 1 Christofer Herrmann and Dethard von Winterfeld, “Kleinpolen,” in Mittelalterliche Architektur in Polen: Romanische und gotische Baukunst zwischen Oder und Weichsel, ed. Christofer Herrmann and Dethard von Winterfeld (Petersberg, 2015), pp. 346–448. 2 Józefina Smoleńska, “Działalność budowlana Jan Długosza,” Kwartalnik Architektury i Urbanistyki: Teoria i historia 14 (1969): 161–81; Anna Buczek, “Mecenat artystyczny Jana Długosza w dziedzinie architektury,” in Dlugossiana: Studia historyczne w pięćsetlecie śmierci Jana ­Długosza (Cracow, 1980), pp. 108–40. © Marek Walczak, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_009 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 6.1 South doorway, Raciborowice, parish church, before 1476 source: M. Walczak

Figure 6.2 Doorway from the Jagiellonian University law students’ hall of residence, ­Cracow, Collegium Maius, Jagiellonian University, ca. 1474–79 source: M. Walczak

r­ endered chain links. A town house belonging to the Cracow cathedral chapter, located at 5 Kanonicza Street, dates from a slightly earlier period (Figure 6.3). It was built at the bequest of Cardinal Oleśnicki. The death of the testator - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 6.3 Wall piers between windows in a town house of the cathedral chapter, Cracow, No. 5 Kanonicza street, 3rd quarter of the 15th century source: D. Podosek

(1455) sets a terminus post quem for the beginning of its construction, while a note from ca.1470 by Długosz about a “domus duodecima ab acie, in parte sinistra … murata … pecuniis Sbignei sanctae memoriae cardinalis et episcopi ­Cracoviensi per Johannem Dlugosch seniorem, canonicum Cracoviensem, sui testamentis executorem”3 (twelfth house, counting from the corner, on the left 3 Jan Długosz, Liber beneficiorum dioecesis Cracoviensis nunc primum e codice autographo editus, vol. 1, Ecclesia cathedralis cracoviensis: ecclesiae collegiatarum, ed. Alexander Przezdziecki - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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… masonry built … from the funds of the late Zbigniew of holy memory, a cardinal and bishop of Cracow, by Jan Długosz the Elder, a Cracow canon and executor of his [i.e. the former’s] last will and testament) represents a terminus ante quem. There used to be three rectangular windows (only the middle one of which survives) in the rear pile of this house, separated by posts topped with block capitals. The northern one was framed by a thick rope, and the southern one by a plait made of two interlaced ropes (Figure 6.3).4 The present study will discuss the origin and alleged meaning of architectural decoration in the form of a rope, appearing in conspicuous places on the buildings. This decorative motif was not common, but a careful analysis of ­evidence gathered from various parts of Europe demonstrates that it was of considerable importance and carried a variety of meanings since it was applied in a number of different places. What was the role of these architectural details in Długosz’s projects within the development of late Gothic architecture, mainly in Central Europe? I venture an answer by means of a broad survey that puts together a number of examples scattered throughout many countries. 1

Architecture and Illusion

Stepped surrounds decorated with crisscrossing moldings appeared in Poland around 1400, possibly under Parlerian influence, first in the south aisle of the Augustinian church of Sts. Catherine and Margaret and in the cloister of the same Augustinian friary in Kazimierz (Cracow’s satellite town).5 The motif of the rope, in turn, is unusual and is an example of the breaching of the border between the abstract language of architecture and representational art. The imitation of various objects or devices related to the craft of building appearing in the very structure or in the decoration of buildings is a widespread phenomenon that assumes a form of sophisticated interplay with the viewer. Examples include a group of churches in southern Bohemia from between 1500 and 1525 (Svatý Tomáš, Rožmberk nad Vltavou, and Zátoň)6 and in the southern part of (Cracow, 1863), p. 188. 4 Andrzej Swaryczewski, “Gotyckie i gotycko-renesansowe filary międzyokienne odkryte w ostatnich latach w domach krakowskich,” Teka Komisji Urbanistyki i Architektury 18 (1984): 40–41, Figs. 8–11. 5 Jakub Adamski, “Zum chronologisch-formalen Verhältnis der Portale der Katharinenkirche in Krakau-Kasimir und der Elisabethkirche in Kaschau: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der ­mitteleuropäischen Architektur um 1400,” Ars 52 (2019): 63–88. 6 Roman Lavička, Pozdně gotické kostely na rožmberském panství (České Budějovice, 2013), pp. 111–12, Figs. 162–64.

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the Holy Roman Empire near Salzburg (the church of the Assumption of the Virgin at Nonnberg of 1493–1506) and in the parish church at Wimpfen am Berg from before 1516,7 in which intricately figured stone ribs seem to have been fastened by means of naturalistically rendered rivets, carved of stone (Figure 4). Another similar motif features architectural members wrapped with realistically rendered chains, as in the Vélez Chapel in the cathedral of Murcia (1490–1507) in Spain. There, the chain, rendered on a gigantic scale, possibly alludes to the liberation of Christian slaves from Muslim captivity by the founder of the chapel, Pedro Fajardo, Marquis of Vélez.8 Also, a wellhead in the Camaldolensian monastery in Ravenna, which is carved to appear as if squeezed by a chain (ca.1500), serves as further excellent example of a similar motif.9 Such artistic devices should be considered above all as references to the rhetorical category of aemulatio, since imitation of various artistic techniques and materials was one of the most characteristic features of 15th-­ century art on either side of the Alps. When adhering to the right proportions, rope-­decorated doorways could be compared to the naturalistically rendered cast-bronze net (1469–73) that Andrea del Verrocchio executed for the tomb of Giovanni and Pietro de’ Medici in San Lorenzo in Florence.10 A realistically rendered rope or cable decorating a building elevation or forming part of some architectural elements is rare, and only a few instances can be cited. One adorns the façade of Maison de la Cordelière at Tours, a townhouse built in 1495 for one of the local merchants, Pierre de Puy, whose forms reveal evident influence of Netherlandish architecture (as attested by the exposed surface of the brick walls and a tall stepped gable).11 In the plinth area, there are two parallel lengths of rope carved of stone, one with its ends turned inside and one with its ends tied in knots. A thin rope arranged along a wavy line, terminating in loops at both ends, also appears in the head of the doorway. A thick rope wrapped around a door surround can be seen in Palermo, on the façade of the residence of Francesco Abatellis, the port master of the Kingdom of Sicily, a fine example of Catalan Gothic architecture built 7 8 9 10 11

Ethan Matt Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540 (New Haven, 2012), pp. 233–40, Figs. 239–40. Robert Odell Bork, Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception (­Turnhout, 2018), pp. 300–01, 303, Fig. 6.77. Ravenna: Museo Nazionale, Vera da pozzo proveniente dal Monastero Camaldolese di Classe, https://cmc.byzart.eu/items/show/7689. Peta Motture, The Culture of Bronze: Making and Meaning in Italian Renaissance Sculpture (London, 2019), p. 91, Fig. 3.24. Hôtel dit Maison de Tristan L’Hermite, Maison de la Cordelière, ou Hôtel de Pierre du Puy, https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/merimee/IA00071253.

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at the end of the 15th century by Matteo Carnilivari, Domenico Ramundi, and Bernardo de Fossato.12 This rope, however, has a rather amorphous form, and its association with the real thing is not straightforward. Similar artistic solutions appeared in Renaissance art, as for example in a wellhead in the Chiostro del Bramante at the church of Santa Maria della Quercia in Viterbo (1507–08), which sports a thick rope around its girth.13 Ropelike motifs can be also found in a much later periods, such as in the capitals in the basilica of San Pancrazio fuori le mura in Rome (rebuilt after 1607 at the behest of its cardinal-priest Ludovico de Torres, after designs by Carlo Maderno), in which short cord loops are suspended from prominent volutes.14 2

Between Abstraction and Figuration

Much more frequent are examples of carved ropes imitating a constructional function, that is, shown as if they were fastening or binding architectural members. These appear in various origins and with various meanings and may be divided into three groups. The first group consists of artworks in which accurately rendered, abstract architectural elements, such as ribs, surrounds, or moldings, appear to be tied up with rope, cord, or string. Among the earliest such examples are windows in the cloisters of Utrecht Cathedral and in the basilica of Saint Servatius in Maastricht (ca.1440–60), whose tracery bars are bound with rope (Figure 6.4).15 Ethan Matt Kavaler interprets this device as a kind of playful interaction with viewers and an attempt at misleading them, since the motif gives the impression that without the rope, the tracery would fall apart. Stephan Hoppe considers the motif to be ‘ironic.’16 The second group is made up of works in which architectural elements rendered as vegetal forms—usually tree trunks or branches with knots—appear to be tied up with ropes. This group, however, lacks the tension between the abstract and the realistic, a characteristic feature of the aforementioned examples, replaced here by an anecdote or narrative account. Artworks of this kind 12 13 14 15 16

Evelina De Castro, From Gothic to Renaissance: The Seasons of Art (Palermo, 2015), pp. 56–57. Angelo Massi, Guida al Santuario Madonna della Quercia (Viterbo, 2008), p. 57. Margherita Maria Trinci Cecchelli, S. Pancrazio (Rome, 1971), pp. 12, 28, 91. Heiko Weiß, Die Baumsäule in Architekturtheorie und -praxis von Alberti bis Hans Hollein (Petersberg, 2015), p. 134, Fig. 84. Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic, 232, Fig. 236; Stephan Hoppe, “Drei Paradigmen ­architektonischer Raumaneignung,” in Geschichte der bildenden Kunst in Deutschland, vol. 4, Spätgotik und Renaissance, ed. Katharina Krause (Munich, 2007), p. 240, Fig. 4.

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Figure 6.4 Tracery, Maastricht, Church of Saint Servatius, cloister, ca. 1440–60 source: M. Walczak

‘narrate,’ usually verbatim, about how they were made and what their origins were. Among the earliest instances of the phenomenon in question is a doorway from Strasbourg, dating from around 1500, currently in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin (Figure 6.5). Its multiplanar architectural structure is reiterated by a wooden frame that is carved to appear as if it is growing up from a wooden bucket and a jug. In order to increase the illusion, a paternoster and a writing tablet hang on the knots protruding from the tree’s branches. Similar burdens appear in the branch-like window surround of the apartment of Anne of Brittany on the ground floor of Charles VIII’s castle at Amboise; attributes of wealth, a moneybag and a leather pouch, hang from the carved branch.17 Door frames in the form of huge tied-up logs appear in the doorway of the Duke of Braganza’s palace in Vila Viçosa, whose construction was started by Jaime I in 1501, and in the doorway to the Cistercian monastery complex at Alcobaça (after 1500).18 Similarly conceived, though not as impressive, is the western doorway of the cathedral in Tarnów, near Cracow, made up of two thick tree

17 18

Lucie Gaugain, Amboise: Un château dans la ville (Rennes, 2014), p. 158, Fig. 137. Weiß, Die Baumsäule in Architekturtheorie, pp. 138–39, Fig. 90.

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Figure 6.5 Doorway from Strasbourg, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, ca. 1500 source: M. Walczak

trunks tied up at the top to form a slightly pointed arch, from which an escutcheon with the Leliwa coat of arms is suspended on leather straps or iron rings.19 19

Jerzy Szablowski, ed., Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, vol. 1, Województwo krakowskie, pt. 13, Powiat tarnowski, compiled by Józef Edward Dutkiewicz (Warsaw, 1953), p. 14.

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Vaults were also carved to appear as if tied up, seen, for example, in the oriel of the town hall at Bardejov (executed by Master John of Prešov in 1509) in the Šariš region, in present-day Slovakia, where ribs, carved to imitate thin tree branches, are arranged to form a net with knots tied at the crossings.20 The springing points of the ribs were cut obliquely to imitate sections of branches that have been freshly cut from a tree trunk, and nail heads can be seen above them, giving the impression that the entire construction is nailed to the wall. In the parish church at Svatý Tomáš (before 1505) in south Bohemia, the springing points of ribs are arranged in complex figures to look like thick tree trunks tied up with ropes.21 Such formal solutions derive from ‘branchwork’ arbors, popular at the end of the 15th century, in which branches, laid flat or superimposed on one another on multiple planes and tied up, form three-­ dimensional structures. Examples include the frame made of branches around the stone sculpture of the Resurrection of Christ from the no-longer-extant cloister of Worms Cathedral, commissioned by Johannes von Winstein in 1488, and an arch on the tomb slab of 1515 of the couple Haug and Anna Zeller in the ­Carmelite church in Straubing.22 One of the most interesting late instances of the phenomenon in question is the tomb slab of the parish priest Maciej Tenczel (d. 1542) in Sts. Peter and Paul’s church at Sveraz in southern Bohemia, featuring an arch constructed of branches bound by ropes and tied up with a leather strap (Figure 6.6).23 A three-dimensional version of tied branches also serves as a construction basis for a sacrament house in the church of Saint Dionysius at Esslingen, made by Lorenz Lächler in 1486.24 Employing a feature characteristic of late medieval art in the German-speaking countries, the branches were superimposed on a fantastical architectural structure with which they intertwine, resulting in a paradoxical form of ‘hybrid unity.’ Thick branches bound with ropes, ­representing a forest as a home for various living forms, can be seen, in turn, in the openwork canopy over the north porch of the Virgin Mary Cathedral from the beginning of the 16th century in the Saxon city of Zwickau.25

20 21 22 23 24 25

Karol Kahoun, Neskorogotická architektúra na Slovensku a stavitelia východného okruhu (Bratislava, 1973) p. 48 n. 173. Lavička, Pozdně gotické kostely, pp. 106, 294–97, Fig. 158. Hubertus Günther, “Das Astwerk und die Theorie der Renaissance von der Entstehung der Architektur,” in Théorie des arts et création artistique dans l’Europe du Nord du XVIe au début du XVIIIe siècle, ed. Michèle-Caroline Heck (Lille, 2002), pp. 13–32. Lavička, Pozdně gotické kostely, p. 106, Fig. 159. Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic, pp. 55–56, 181, Figs. 181–83. Ibid., pp. 210, 212.

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Figure 6.6 Tomb slab of Maciej Tenczel (d. 1542), Sveraz, Church of Saints Peter and Paul source: M. Walczak

The third group encompasses architectural elements that look as if they were tightly bound with rope—as if a bunch of moldings was constricted with a rope or as if branches were twined with a rope. A characteristic feature of this group is the apparent flouting of the laws of physics, as seen in Hans ­Witten’s famous Tulpenkanzel (tulip pulpit) (ca.1510) in Freiberg Cathedral. The pulpit is carved to depict an architect who, having constricted the stems of a fantastic plant in two places with a rope, sits in the fork of a neighboring tree, to which he has tied one end of the constricting rope.26 The impression of using rope to break the laws of nature is further emphasized by figures of angels, who press against the stems and spare no effort while helping to shape the artwork. The vault of the first chapel from the west, adjacent to the south aisle of Saint Mary’s Church at Ingolstadt (1515–17) is carved to appear as the result of bending a thick plant stem that is decorated at equal intervals with foliate bands and tied with cord.27 A similar arrangement can be seen in the cloister windows in the Colegio de San Gregorio in Valladolid (1488–96), where thick, twined, winding stems, tied up with ropes at equal intervals, imitate the tracery.28 Additionally, 26 27 28

Ibid., pp. 201–02, Fig. 205. Ibid., 217, Figs. 222, 223; Weiß, Die Baumsäule in Architekturtheorie, p. 138, Fig. 89. Diana Olivares Martínez, “New Functions, New Typologies: ‘Inventio’ in Valladolid’s ­College of San Gregorio,” in Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation, ed. Tom Nickson and Nicola Jennings (London, 2020), p. 149, Figs. 7.15, 7.20. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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the decoration of the east elevation of Bardejov town hall includes carvings that resemble tightly packed bunches of leaves.29 3

Emblematic Architecture

A completely different phenomenon, found mostly in Portugal and France, is the use of rope or cord as emblematic elements. Widespread in Portugal’s ­Manueline architecture are ropes of unequivocally naval origin, which bind various constructional elements. They were meant—as was also the function of the armillary sphere among heraldic emblems of King Manuel I (1469– 1521)—to remind viewers of the maritime origins of Portugal’s economic and political dominance.30 In the Hieronymites Monastery at Belém, constructed by Master Leonardo Vaz in 1517–18, two parallel ropes run around the refectory walls, with corbels supporting vaulting shafts growing out from the upper rope. In other parts of this monastic complex, thick or thin ropes tie up the ribs at their springing points or thread through openings in the corbels. In the nearby Torre de Belém, ropes, additionally strengthened with large knots, gird a tourelle on the tower’s corner and follow the curves of the barrel vault. A culmination of this tendency can be seen in the monstrously thick ropes and exaggerated knots on the façade of the Cristo Monastery at Tomar.31 In 15th- and 16th-century France, emblematic motifs were more varied and widely used to decorate buildings as a sort of ‘speaking’ ornament (meaning they carried symbolic connotations identifying the owner or founder of the building). A cord with knots appeared in heraldic devices of the Dukes of ­Brittany possibly since the time of Francis I and surely since the reign of Francis II; this cord testified to the dukes’ fascination with Franciscan spirituality.32 Anne, the last independent Duchess of Brittany, used cord in her official representation rather sparingly. This changed in 1498, when she founded an 29 30 31

32

Kahoun, Neskorogotická architektúra, p. 48 n. 173, Fig. 114. Bork, Late Gothic Architecture, pp. 292, 295; see also the essays in Isabel Cruz Almeida and Maria João Neto, eds., Sphera Mundi: Arte e cultura no tempo dos descobrimentos (Lisbon, 2015). Fernando Jorge Grilo, “Escultura e escultores do Tardo Gótico e do Renascimento em ­Portugal: Hibridismo e decorativismo escultórico em Santa Maria de Belém e no ­Convento de Cristo em Tomar,” in Arquitectura tardogótica en la corona de Castilla: Trayectorias e intercambios, ed. Begoña Alonso Ruiz and Fernando Villaseñor Sebastián (Seville, 2014), pp. 233–50. Laurent Hablot, “Pour en finir, ou pour commencer, avec l’ordre de la Cordelière,” in Pour en finir avec Anne de Bretagne?: Actes de la journée d’étude organisée aux Archives ­départementales de la Loire-Atlantique le 25 mai 2002, ed. Dominique Le Page (Nantes, 2004), pp. 47–70. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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order for well-born ladies, the Ordre de la Cordelière (Order of the ladies of the cord) or Ordre des Dames chevalières de la Cordelière.33 The walls of the chapel in her castle at Loch (after 1499) are entirely covered with emblems, including a stylized ermine’s tail (heraldic ermine tincture) and twisted cord.34 A cord is also carved curving in loops around the wall niches, wrapping around a branch forming a decorative canopy over a wall recess, and even serving as an architectural member of an altar table. Cord was used as the main decoration in the tomb of the children of Anne and King Charles VIII in Tours Cathedral (attributed to Girolamo Paciarotto, called Jérôme Pacherot).35 The chapel of Saint James in Saint Mary’s Church at Cléry-Saint-André, founded around 1515 by the dean of the local chapter, Gilles de Pontbriant and his brother François, has a boss suspended from the ceiling and wrapped around by a rope with a few knots, which surrounds coats of arms and frames a recess with a figure of the patron, while emblems of Anne of Brittany appear superimposed on the vaulting.36 Similar spectacular arrangements are also associated with Anne of Brittany, as in the south aisle vaults of the abbey church of Saint-­Riquier (15th/16th centuries) in Picardy, where a knotted cord is superimposed on intricately figured ribs.37 4

To the Sources of the Art of Building

Obviously, the motifs presented above of ropes or cords superimposed on various architectural elements of buildings or carved to appear as if tying up some architectural members cannot be treated collectively. As already noted at the beginning of this study, they exemplify a widespread phenomenon of illusionism in art, boldly transgressing boundaries between the various arts, artistic techniques, and materials. Crucial to most of the examples are the primary associations between architecture and nature. These associations stem from a passage in the second book of Vitruvius’s treatise: 33 34 35 36 37

Laurent Hablot, Manuel de héraldique emblématique médiévale (Tours, 2019), pp. 8–9. Jean Guillaume, “Le logis royal de Loches,” Congrès archéologique de France: Société Française d’Archéologie 155 (2003): 239–54, esp. 244–45, Figs. 14, 15. Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot, “Jérôme Pacherot,” in Tours 1500: Capitale des arts; ­Catalogue de l’exposition du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours, 17 mars au 17 juin 2012, ed. Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot and Pascale Charron (Paris, 2012), pp. 195–96. Étienne Hamon, “Le naturalisme dans l’architecture française autour de 1500,” in Le gothique de la Renaissance: Actes des IVe rencontres d’architecture européenne organisées par le Centre André Chastel et l’INHA, à Paris, INHA, 12–16 juin 2007 (Paris, 2011), p. 333. Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic, p. 236, Fig. 242.

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The men of old were born like the wild beasts in woods, caves, and groves and they lived on savage fare. … They [eventually] began to construct shelters. Some made them of green boughs, others dug caves on mountain sides, and some, in imitation of the nests of swallows and the way they built them, made places of refuge out of mud and twigs [de … virgulis facere].38 The popularity of branched motifs comes, in turn, from the next passage: At first, they only set up forked stakes connected by woven twigs [furcis erectis et virgulis interpositis ... parietes texerunt] and they covered these walls with mud. … Four erect, vertically standing, tree-trunks form the walls, and these enclose the space for the dwelling. … They cover the hut with leaves and mud, and thus construct the roofs of their towers in a rude form of the ‘tortoise’ style [more testudinata].39 Almost contemporaneous with Vitruvius were Ovid’s comments in his Metamorphoses on the silver age of humankind, expressed in more or less the same spirit, even though in poetic form. He speaks of shacks constructed of twigs joined with bark (densi frutices et vinctae cortice virgae) built by primitive men in prehistoric times.40 The above tradition was widely alluded to in late Gothic architecture, especially after the manuscript of Tacitus’s Germania, discovered in 1455, became widely known. It appeared in print in Nuremberg as early as 1473 and again in Vienna in 1500, and by the beginning of the 16th century, it had gone through several editions brought out by various publishers in different countries.41 The work describes the sylvan life of the early Germans, who did not build temples but venerated their gods in woods and groves, their altars located on glades cleared in the middle of the thickest parts of forests, with neither walls nor any other barriers.42

38 39 40 41 42

Vitruvius, On Architecture, ed. Frank Granger, Loeb Classical Library 251 (London, 1962), pp. 77–80 (English and Latin). Ibid., pp. 81–85 (English and Latin). Paul Binski, Gothic Sculpture (New Haven, 2019), p. 208. Donald R. Kelley, “Tacitus noster: The Germania in the Renaissance and Reformation,” in Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, ed. Torrey James Luce and Anthony John Woodman (Princeton, 1993), pp. 152–67, 185–200. Paul Crossley, “The Return to the Forest: Natural Architecture and the German Past in the Age of Dürer,” in Künstlerischer Austausch: Akten des XXVIII. Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, 15.–20. Juli 1992, ed. Thomas W. Gaehtgens (Berlin, 1993), p. 74.

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As John F. Moffitt demonstrates, Vitruvius’s passages are referred to very early in the arts: ‘Adam’s hut’ in the Garden of Eden, for example, is depicted in Carolingian miniatures illustrating the story of Adam and Eve in the ­Moutier-Grandval Bible (Tours, 834–843).43 Particularly impressive testimonies of this process are found on both sides of the Alps. To the south, the Sala delle Asse in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan (after 1498) features the famous knots of Leonardo da Vinci intertwined with branches in a thicket of greenery (Figure 7.4). To the north, the royal oratory in Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague, a work of Hans Spiess and Benedikt Ried (after 1500 or even perhaps ca.1510–20), is rendered in the form of an arbor made of dry tree branches (Figure 7.1).44 Although most elements of this construction are fastened against one another, a cord also appears that binds the branches together. This oratory was built for King Ladislaus II Jagiellonian, the son of the Polish king Casimir IV, brought up and educated by Długosz at the royal castle in Cracow. Paul Binski observes that the portal of the Colegio de San Gregorio in Valladolid by Gil de Siloé (ca.1500), also constructed of spiraling twisted and knotted branches set against a background of what looks like wickerwork walls, with figures of wild men in the jambs, derives from the same tradition.45 Fences built of stakes connected by thin intertwining twigs running in the portal’s plinth area seem to literally illustrate Vitruvius’s sentence: “furcis erectis et virgulis interpositis … parietes texerunt.” These virgulae interpositae were widespread in late Gothic architecture in various parts of Europe, always appearing as the starting point of a given construction, as, for example, in the branch-like ribs in the porch vault of the south entrance in Zwickau Cathedral.46 This passage is also the very source from which pleated columns, as in the unfinished east chapel in the convent church at Batalha or perhaps even the baskets supporting huge piers in the so-called chapel of Saint Jerome (Cappella dei Pianeti, ca.1449–55) on the south side of the Tempio Malatestiano at Rimini (ca.1450–1466), are derived.47 Around 1490, Leonardo da Vinci designed a lattice consisting of 43 44

45 46 47

John F. Moffitt, “Vitruvius in a Carolingian Eden: The Genesis Cycle from the ‘­Moûtier-Grandval Bible’”, Source: Notes in the History of Art 12, no. 1 (Fall 1992): 7–12. Alessia Alberti, “Dai giardini dipinti alle sale alberate: precedenti figurativi e letterari per la Sala delle Asse,” in Leonardo da Vinci: La Sala delle Asse del Castello Sforzesco; All’ombra del Moro, ed. Claudio Salsi and Alessia Alberti (Milan, 2019), pp. 108–31, esp. 119; Jiří Kuthan, Královské dílo za Jiřího z Poděbrad a dynastie Jagellonců, vol. 1, Král a šlechta (Prague, 2010), pp. 106–10 . Binski, Gothic Sculpture, p. 205, Figs. 99, 100. Michael Kirsten, Der Dom St. Marien zu Zwickau (Regensburg, 1998), pp. 20–21. Angelo Turchini, Il Tempio Malatestiano, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta e Leon Battista Alberti (Cesena, 2000).

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Figure 6.7 North doorway of the Black Church, Braşov, 15th century or after 1698 source: M. Walczak

two types of intertwining elements: narrow elongated leaves and wicker twigs (Codex Atlanticus, Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, fol. 988i v).48 The bird nests built of interwoven twigs in the royal oratory of Prague Cathedral or in the north doorway of the Black Church at Brașov in Transylvania (Figure 6.7) may, in turn, be considered as a sort of rebus alluding to the swallows’ nests mentioned by Vitruvius. According to the ancient architect, these were emulated by the first builders who constructed their primitive huts of mud and twigs.49 The Brașov church, further discussed by Alice Sullivan in chapter 9, is an example of “early modern Gothic” (Nachgotik) since the original structure burned in 1689 and the church was then rebuilt in its historic form (Figures 9.5–9.7).50 A work of key importance to understanding how the beginnings of architecture were conceived of in the 15th century is a tapestry set executed in Basel in 1468 on the occasion of the wedding of Hans von Flachslanden (mayor of the

48 49 50

Weiß, Die Baumsäule in Architekturtheorie, p. 37, Fig. 16. Kuthan, Královské dílo, Fig. 119; Ágnes Ziegler, A brassói Fekete templom: Reformáció és renováció; Felekezeti, városi, rendi csoportidentitás kifejeződése egy újjászülető épületben (Brassó–Budapest, 2018), pp. 24, 212, Fig. 18, cat. no. 28 . Ziegler, A brassói Fekete templom. p. 24, 212, Fig. 18, cat. 28.

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city from 1454 to 1463) to Barbara von Breitenlandenberg.51 Tapestries presenting the life of couples of wild men depict their primitive hut built of tied-up tree branches covered in oak leaves. The figures are shown preparing the building materials: a man cuts branches with a knife and fashions tree trunks to be used in construction, while a woman is holding a piece of timber with lengths of coiled rope attached to it, apparently to prepare for the connection of the structure’s parts. A number of tapestries executed in the same city during this same period depict huts of primitive people built of tied-up twigs covered with oak leaves.52 This short survey of artworks featuring the rope/cable motif demonstrates that the doorways in buildings founded by Długosz, dating from the third quarter of the 15th century, are among the earliest instances in late medieval architecture. It seems that the later emulative examples in 15th- and early 16th-century architecture, presented here, were meant neither to entertain the viewer nor to make him uneasy. It would be equally hard to call them ironic. Rather, in spite of significant differences, I argue that all the examples were meant to allude to the beginnings of the human craft of building, as described by Vitruvius. In the doorways of buildings founded by Długosz, the rope was fixed using chain links deeply embedded in the moldings of the jambs, as if the latter were made of soft wood instead of stone. But since the rope is interlaced with sharp, triangularly sectioned moldings, the beholder is prevented from succumbing to the illusion, and, through the rhetorical device of paradox, another step in an intellectual ‘interplay with the viewer’ is created. As has been already noted, the motif was particularly meaningful in the areas of Eastern Europe, which was, at the time, covered with thick forests, where numerous buildings were still built of timber, and the carpenter’s skills were developed and perfected.53 At the end of the Middle Ages, masonry structures constituted as few as 2 to 5 percent of all buildings in Lesser Poland . On the other hand, as many as 514 wooden parish churches were listed in the Book of Benefice (Liber beneficiorum) of the diocese of Cracow, drawn up by Długosz.54 The same architectural solutions appeared both in masonry buildings and in constructions made of timber. 51 52 53 54

Basel, Historisches Museum, inv. no. 1981.88; Anna Rapp Buri and Monica Stucky-Schürer, Zahm und wild: Basler und Straßburger Bildteppiche des 15. Jahrhunderts (Mainz, 1990), pp. 159–161, cat. no. 19. Ibid., pp. 157–58, 161–66, cat. nos. 18, 20, 21. On the dichotomy between stone and wood, which frequently goes unnoticed in research on medieval art, see Binski, Gothic Sculpture, pp. 198–214. Ryszard Brykowski, Drewniana architektura kościelna w Małopolsce XV wieku (Wrocław, 1981), pp. 66–68.

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5

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Stone and Timber

The 15th-century wooden churches, surviving to this day mostly in the ­mountainous southern and southeastern regions of Lesser Poland, feature ­decorative details modeled on their counterparts in structures built of stone and brick. In two of them, at Harklowa (second half of the 15th ­century) and Racławice Olkuskie (1511), there survive portals decorated with cable molding.55 The masonry parish church at Szadek (consecrated in 1333) has a 16th-century timber summer beam supporting the choir loft, with prominently chamfered edges and decorated with a carved chain (Figure 6.8).56 The chain appears to be secured at either end by means of short pieces of rope fastened to semicircular carved bases and tightened, so that one has the impression of the rope visibly straining and the chain playing the key role in the choir loft’s construction. A similar architectural device was used in the coffered ceiling in a town house on the corner of No. 7, Poselska Street, and Nos. 2–4, Senacka Street, in Cracow. The ends of the middle joist have pentagonal projections to which a tightened rope carved along the beam appears to be attached. In the middle of the beam, a length of the rope is replaced by a carved figure of a man with outstretched arms, as if he were subjected to the same forces that strain the rope and as if he were replacing it in the geometric center of the ceiling (Figure 6.9). The sides of the beam are decorated with painted chains made up of large, horizontally arranged figure-eight-shaped links, which are represented, alternating, as lying flat and as if seen from above. Since Antiquity, ceilings divided into coffers, as well as coffered domes, have been understood as images of heaven, and various decorations, often with cosmic associations, were displayed in them.57 The figure of the man carved on the beam invites compelling associations with a similar shape stretched out in the middle bay of the choir screen in Mainz Cathedral, a work of the Naumburg Master from ca.1239. The figure has been variously described, and it cannot be unequivocally identified. The most convincing explanation was advanced by Wolfgang Stammler and Herbert von Einem, who believed the figure to be a ‘cosmic man,’ inspired directly by a passage from the Wisdom of Solomon (11:20): “Thou hast ordered all things 55 56 57

Ibid., p. 163, nn. 190, 167, 171, Figs. 153, 155. Wojciech Kalinowski, Czesław Krassowski, and Jerzy Miłobędzki, “Z problematyki budownictwa drewnianego epoki odrodzenia,” Biuletyn Historii Sztuki 15 (1953): 46, Fig. 19. Claudia Conforti, Maria Grazia D’Amelio, Francesca Funis, and Lorenzo Grieco, eds., I cieli in una stanza: Soffitti lignei a Firenze e a Roma nel Rinascimento (Florence, 2019), esp. 59–63.

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Figure 6.8 Wooden summer-beam decorated with the chain motif, Szadek, parish church, early 16th century source: P. Romanowicz

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Figure 6.9 Coffered ceiling, Cracow, the Hebda house, No. 7 Poselska street, early 16th century source: J. Wójcik

in measure and number and weight.”58 This unusual depiction had stirred the imaginations of architects and their patrons as late as 200 years after its ­creation, as attested by figures of nearly nude men stretched out on the crossing of ribs in the parish church of Saint Emmeram in Mainz, dating from the mid-14th century (currently partly destroyed and housed in the Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum Mainz), and in the porch of the west doorway in the Ritterkapelle at Haßfurt in the Middle Rhine (ca.1406–38).59 The patron of 58 59

Wolfgang Stammler, “Allegorische Studien,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 17 (1939): 1–25; Herbert von Einem, Der Mainzer Kopf mit der Binde (Cologne, 1955). Ute Engel, “Virtuosentum. Hängemaßwerk, Luftrippen und Tugendmänner als Import-/ Exportgut der Gotik in Mainz und am Mittelrhein im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert,” in

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the Cracow ceiling or its maker may have known of Vitruvius’s belief that proportions in architecture should correspond to those of the human body, which, in turn, reflect the perfection of the universe. 6

Conclusion

In conclusion, I will discuss two further artworks, almost unknown in the ­literature. They attest to the presence of references to the natural origins of architecture in the Cracow artistic milieu at the end of the Middle Ages. The first example is the house for the vicars of the collegiate church of Wiślica, built on the initiative of Długosz in 1460. The wall paintings, whose remnants survive in one of the ground-floor rooms, once showed religious scenes interspersed with stretches of thick foliate ornament also featuring wild men. A fence made up of upright twigs combined with highly stylized foliate scrolls runs along the walls’ lower register.60 The beam ceiling is decorated with an interlace pattern composed of narrow leaves with a shield bearing the Długosz coat of arms (Figure 6.10). The program of this painted decoration alludes to the primeval natural world, into which harmony and order were introduced through the Incarnation of Christ. The fence made up of upright twigs running along the lower part of walls most likely refers to the manner of building early homes described by Vitruvius. A similar and more prominent allusion is the interlace on the ceiling, which figuratively roofs the interior. A second example is in a house in the Main Market Square in Cracow (No. 17), where a timber ceiling, probably from the third quarter of the 15th century, survives with a beam featuring a carved figure of a wild man pulling a crowned lady on a rope.61 Długosz may indeed have read Vitruvius because copies of the ancient treatise, discovered in 1414 in the Monte Cassino Monastery, had reached Poland during the chronicler’s lifetime, as attested by an example written by

60 61

­ unsttransfer und Formgenese in der Kunst am Mittelrhein, 1400–1500, ed. Martin Büchsel, K Hilja Droste, and Berit Wagner (Berlin, 2019), pp. 105–12, Fig. 9; Diana Ecker, “Gewölbfigur (Tugendmann) aus der Pfarrkirche St. Emmeram,” in Von Bonifatius zum Naumburger Meister, ed. Winfried Wilhelmy (Regensburg, 2020), pp. 271–75. Edyta Klinger, “Gotycka polichromia domu Długosza w Wiślicy,” Roczniki Humanistyczne 53 (2005): 67–96; Helena Małkiewiczówna, “Wiślica,” in Malarstwo gotyckie w Polsce, ed. Adam Stanisław Labuda et al., vol. 2, Katalog zabytków (Warsaw, 2004), p. 107. Andrzej Swaryczewski, “Nowo odkryte drewniane stropy gotyckie w Krakowie,” Teka Komisji Urbanistyki i Architektury 15 (1981): 41–48.

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Figure 6.10 Beam ceiling, Wiślica, house of the collegiate church vicars, ca. 1460 source: D. Podosek

Jan Kropidło, a canon regular from Trzemeszno, in 1465.62 Yet, in order to get acquainted with the theory of the ‘natural’ origins of architecture, the Polish historian did not necessarily have to read Vitruvius since, at his time, the theory was widespread, and patrons and architects in the Holy Roman Empire recognized Vitruvius as a nourishment for their mythology of the origins of architecture.63 It was the key source for the popularity of the branchwork motifs in the art and architecture of the late Middle Ages. The belief that the Gothic style originated in the woods was sanctioned by Raphael Santi and ­Baldassare Castiglione in their famous letter to Pope Leo X from ca.1519, in which they describe the origin of the pointed arch.64 They allege that the arch was widely employed north of the Alps because Germans made structures using branches still attached to trees, which they simply tied up overhead. 62 63

64

Biblioteka Kórnicka Polskiej Akademii Nauk, BK00630, https://www.wbc.poznan.pl /dlibra/show-content/publication/edition/89319?id=89319 Crossley, “The Return to the Forest,” p. 74; Hanns Hubach, “Johann von Dalberg und das naturalistische Astwerk in der zeitgenössischen Skulptur in Worms, Heidelberg und Laden­ burg,” in Der Wormser Bischof Johann von Dalberg (1482–1503) und seine Zeit, ed. Gerold Bönnen and Burkhard Keilmann (Mainz, 2005), pp. 207–32, esp. 225–30 (with literature). Francesco Paolo Di Teodoro, “La ‘Lettera a Leone X’ di Raffaello e Baldassar Castiglione: Un nuovo manoscritto,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa: Classe di Lettere e Filosofia 5 (2015): 119–68, esp. 147.

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The churches and houses built on Długosz’s initiative and their decorative stonework executed at the beginning of the third quarter of the 15th century are among the earliest examples of the rope/cable motif in late Gothic architecture. It was used there in a highly sophisticated manner: the rope does not tie or link anything, but it is ostentatiously displayed, and when it appears in doorways, the chain links to which it is attached enhance the illusion of actual rope. Cable motifs must have played an important role in the representation of Długosz’s public image. This is attested by the prominence given to the rope in portals, which traditionally serve as sites of memory, with all kinds of historic memorabilia located directly in them or in their immediate proximity. Above the portal in Raciborowice, a Wieniawa coat of arms of Długosz is accompanied by a bone of an extinct prehistoric animal attached with a chain to the wall. Such relics of the past were often hung in publicly accessible ­places—a fairly numerous set (originally held inside the church, close to its west door) survives at the west entrance to Cracow Cathedral.65 Długosz was one of the most eminent historians of the 15th century, and his output is impressive on a European scale. In the Annals of the Polish Kingdom, he searches for the sources of Polish national identity and writes, among other things, that Poles were descended from ancient Sarmatians and that, during the civil wars between Marius and Sulla and later between Julius Caesar and Pompey, some Romans escaped and “hid in the wilderness,” thus starting the Lithuanian nation. ­Lithuanians, along with Poles, belonged at that time to a single state. The rope motif appears only on one doorway in the Jagiellonian ­University law students’ hall of residence, mentioned earlier in this study, located on the façade immediately under a foundation plaque depicting an extravagantly stylized Długosz coat of arms (accompanied by alb-dressed angels supporting a triangular shield topped with a helm with crest and mantling). Its inscription features the phrase me fecit, which is highly unusual across all of Długosz’s foundations.66 The rope and plait carved on the piers between the windows in the town house of the cathedral chapter in No. 5, Kanonicza Street, accompany the coat of arms of its actual founder and Długosz’s patron, Cardinal Oleśnicki. 65 66

Krzysztof J. Czyżewski, “Der Krakauer Dom um 1600 im Lichte zeitgenössischer ­Quellen,” in Martin Gruneweg (1562–nach 1615): Ein europäischer Lebensweg, ed. Almut Bues (­Wiesbaden, 2009), p. 371. Andrzej Włodarek, Architektura średniowiecznych kolegiów i burs Uniwersytetu Krakow­ skiego (Cracow, 2000), Figs. 55, 56, 58–61. The same phrase appeared again only once, on the foundation plaque of the Mansionaries’ House at Sandomierz; other cases use fabricavit or the impersonal expression fabricata est; idem, “Jan Długosz—fundator, menedżer czy aferzysta?,” in Artifex doctus: Studia ofiarowane profesorowi Jerzemu Gadomskiemu w siedemdziesiątą rocznicę urodzin, ed. Wojciech Bałus et al. (Cracow, 2007): 1:274–75.

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The faces of both piers are incised, slightly below their block capitals, both at the same level, with a large mason’s mark in the form of an arrow pointing upwards, its shaft intersected by a horizontal bar. These incisions are undoubtedly signatures and may be unequivocally associated with Marcin Proszko, who used identical marks to sign the west doorway in the parish church at Raciborowice. The evidence presented above and its interpretation result in a conclusion that exceeds the scope of a mere survey of late medieval sculptural stone decoration. A conviction that architecture had its beginnings in the forest or, more broadly, that human activities were dependent on nature had been widespread long before the late 15th and early 16th century and had a much broader reach than has hitherto been assumed in the literature. In order to correctly outline the historical processes and phenomena, it is important to collect a wide spectrum of examples from the greatest possible geographical and chronological range. Works from peripheral areas must also be included in this research to the greatest possible extent (and not only in regard to Gothic architecture). Important and interesting examples, especially from the perspective of investigating long-lived phenomena, are often located far away from established artistic centers, to which the interest of specialist researchers is usually limited. Only an objective analysis of the broadest possible sets of historical evidence can reveal artistic phenomena in their full complexity and intricacy. A paradigm of referring exclusively to masterworks, which persists in the practice of many scholars, and a stubborn attachment to well-known and well-researched artworks results in a flawed and narrow understanding of historical development. Bibliography of Cited Sources

Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

Długosz, Jan. Liber beneficiorum dioecesis Cracoviensis nunc primum e codice autographo editus, vol. 1, Ecclesia cathedralis cracoviensis: ecclesiae collegiatarum, edited by Alexander Przezdziecki. Cracow, 1863. Vitruvius. On Architecture, edited by Frank Granger. London, 1962.

Adamski, Jakub. “Zum chronologisch-formalen Verhältnis der Portale der Katharinenkirche in Krakau-Kasimir und der Elisabethkirche in Kaschau. Ein Beitrag zur ­Geschichte der mitteleuropäischen Architektur um 1400.” Ars 52 (2019): 63–88. Alberti, Alessia. “Dai giardini dipinti alle sale alberate: precedenti figurativi e letterari per la Sala delle Asse.” In Leonardo da Vinci. La Sala delle Asse del Castello Sforzesco;

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All’ombra del Moro, edited by Claudio Salsi and Alessia Alberti, pp. 108–31. Milan, 2019. Binski, Paul. Gothic Sculpture. New Haven, 2019. Bork, Robert Odell. Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception. Turnhout, 2018. Brykowski, Ryszard. Drewniana architektura kościelna w Małopolsce XV wieku. Wrocław, 1981. Buczek, Anna. “Mecenat artystyczny Jana Długosza w dziedzinie architektury.” In ­Dlugossiana: Studia historyczne w pięćsetlecie śmierci Jana Długosza, pp. 108–40. Cracow, 1980. Buri, Anna Rapp, and Monica Stucky-Schürer. Zahm und wild: Basler und Straßburger Bildteppiche des 15. Jahrhunderts. Mainz, 1990. De Castro, Evelina. From Gothic to Renaissance. The Seasons of Art. Palermo, 2015. Di Teodoro, Francesco Paolo. “La ‘Lettera a Leone X’ di Raffaello e Baldassar Castiglione: Un nuovo manoscritto.” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa: Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, 5 (2015): 119–68. Cecchelli, Margherita Maria Trinci. S. Pancrazio. Rome, 1971. Chancel-Bardelot, Béatrice de. “Jérôme Pacherot.” In Tours 1500: Capitale des arts; Catalogue de l’exposition du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Tours, 17 mars au 17 juin 2012, edited by Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot and Pascale Charron, pp. 195–96. Paris, 2012. Conforti, Claudia, Maria Grazia D’Amelio, Francesca Funis, and Lorenzo Grieco, eds. I cieli in una stanza: Soffitti lignei a Firenze e a Roma nel Rinascimento. Florence, 2019. Crossley, Paul. “The Return to the Forest: Natural Architecture and the German Past in the Age of Dürer.” In Künstlerischer Austausch: Akten des XXVIII Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, 15.–20. Juli 1992, edited by Thomas W. ­Gaehtgens, pp. 71–80. Berlin, 1993. Cruz Almeida, Isabel, and Maria João Neto, eds. Sphera Mundi: Arte e cultura no tempo dos descobrimentos. Lisbon, 2015. Czyżewski, Krzysztof J. “Der Krakauer Dom um 1600 im Lichte zeitgenössischer ­Quellen.” In Martin Gruneweg (1562–nach 1615): Ein europäischer Lebenweg, edited by Almut Bues, pp. 361–72. Wiesbaden, 2009. Ecker, Diana. “Gewölbfigur (Tugendmann) aus der Pfarrkirche St. Emmeran.” In Von Bonifatius zum Naumburger Meister, edited by Winifred Wilhelmy, pp. 271–75. Regensburg, 2020. Einem, Herbert von. Der Mainzer Kopf mit der Binde. Cologne, 1955. Engel, Ute. “Virtuosentum. Hängemaßwerk, Luftrippen und Tugendmänner als Import-/Exportgut der Gotik in Mainz und am Mittelrhein im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert.” In Kunsttransfer und Formgenese in der Kunst am Mittelrhein, 1400–1500, edited by Martin Büchsel, Hilja Droste, and Berit Wagner, pp. 105–12. Berlin, 2019. Gaugain, Lucie. Amboise: Un Château dans la ville. Rennes, 2014.

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Grilo, Fernando Jorge. “Escultura e escultores do Tardo Gótico e do Renascimento em Portugal: Hibridismo e decorativismo escultórico em Santa Maria de Belém e no Convento de Cristo em Tomar.” In Arquitectura tardogótica en la corona de Castilla: Trayectorias e intercambios, edited by Begoña Alonso Ruiz and Fernando Villaseñor Sebastián, pp. 233–50. Seville, 2014. Günther, Hubertus. “Das Astwerk und die Theorie der Renaissance von der Entstehung der Architektur.” In Théorie des arts et création artistique dans l’Europe du Nord du XVIe au début du XVIIIe siècle, edited by Michèle-Caroline Heck, pp. 13–32. Lille, 2002. Guillaume, Jean. “Le ‘logis royal’ de Loches.” Congrès archéologique de France: Société Française d’Archéologie 155 (2003): 239–54. Hablot, Laurent. “Pour en finir, ou pour commencer, avec l’ordre de la Cordelière.” In Pour en finir avec Anne de Bretagne?: Actes de la journée d’étude organisée aux Archives départementales de la Loire-Atlantique le 25 mai 2002, edited by Dominique Le Page, pp. 47–70. Nantes, 2004. Hablot, Laurent. Manuel de héraldique emblématique médiévale. Tours, 2019. Hamon, Étienne. “Le naturalisme dans l’architecture française autour de 1500.” In Le gothique de la Renaissance: Actes des IVe rencontres d’architecture européenne organi­ sées par le Centre André Chastel et l’INHA, à Paris, INHA, 12–16 juin 2007, pp. 329–43. Paris, 2011. Herrmann, Christofer, and Dethard von Winterfeld. “Kleinpolen.” In Mittelalterliche Architektur in Polen: Romanische und gotische Baukunst zwischen Oder und Weichsel, edited by Christofer Herrmann and Dethard von Winterfeld, pp. 378–481. ­Petersberg, 2015. Hoppe, Stephan. “Drei Paradigmen architektonischer Raumaneignung.” In Geschichte der bildenden Kunst in Deutschland, vol. 4, Spätgotik und Renaissance, edited by Katharina Krause, pp. 236–43. Munich, 2007. Hubach, Hanns. “Johann von Dalberg und das naturalistische Astwerk in der ­zeitgenössischen Skulptur in Worms, Heidelberg und Ladenburg.” In Der Wormser Bischof Johann von Dalberg (1482–1503) und seine Zeit, edited by Gerold Bönnen and Burkhard Keilmann, pp. 207–32. Mainz, 2005. Kahoun, Karol. Neskorogotická architektúra na Slovensku a stavitelia východného okruhu. Bratislava, 1973. Kalinowski, Wojciech, Czesław Krassowski, and Jerzy Miłobędzki. “Z problematyki budownictwa drewnianego epoki odrodzenia.” Biuletyn Historii Sztuki 15 (1953): 34–55. Kavaler, Ethan Matt. Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540. New Haven, 2012. Kelley, Donald R. “Tacitus noster: The Germania in the Renaissance and Reformation.” In Tacitus and the Tacitean Tradition, edited by Torrey James Luce and Anthony John Woodman, pp. 152–67. Princeton, 1993.

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Kirsten, Michael. Der Dom St. Marien zu Zwickau. Regensburg, 1998. Klinger, Edyta. “Gotycka polichromia domu Długosza w Wiślicy.” Roczniki Humanistyczne 53 (2005): 67–96. Kuthan, Jiří. Královské dílo za Jiřího z Poděbrad a dynastie Jagellonců, vol. 1, Král a šlechta. Prague, 2010. Lavička, Roman. Pozdně gotické kostely na rožmberském panství. Ceske Budejovice, 2013. Małkiewiczówna, Helena. “Wiślica.” In Malarstwo gotyckie w Polsce, edited by Adam Stanisław Labuda et al., vol. 2, Katalog zabytków, p. 107. Warsaw, 2004. Massi, Angelo. Guida al Santuario Madonna della Quercia. Viterbo, 2008. Moffitt, John F. “Vitruvius in a Carolingian Eden: The Genesis Cycle from the ‘­Moûtier-Grandval Bible.’” Source: Notes in the History of Art 12, no. 1 (Fall 1992): 7–12. Motture, Peta. The Culture of Bronze: Making and Meaning in Italian Renaissance ­Sculpture. London, 2019. Olivares Martínez, Diana. “New Functions, New Typologies: ‘Inventio’ in Valladolid’s College of San Gregorio.” In Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation, edited by Tom Nickson and Nicola Jennings, pp. 137–55. London, 2020. Smoleńska, Józefina. “Działalność budowlana Jan Długosza.” Kwartalnik Architektury i Urbanistyki: Teoria i historia 14 (1969): 161–81. Stammler, Wolfgang. “Allegorische Studien.” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 17 (1939): 1–25. Swaryczewski, Andrzej. “Nowo odkryte drewniane stropy gotyckie w Krakowie.” Teka Komisji Urbanistyki i Architektury 15 (1981): 41–48. Swaryczewski, Andrzej. “Gotyckie i gotycko-renesansowe filary międzyokienne odkryte w ostatnich latach w domach krakowskich.” Teka Komisji Urbanistyki i Architektury 18 (1984): 37–45. Szablowski, Jerzy, ed. Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, vol. 1, Województwo krakowskie, pt. 13, Powiat Tarnowski, compiled by Józef Edward Dutkiewicz. Warsaw, 1953. Turchini, Angelo. Il Tempio Malatestiano, Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta e Leon ­Battista Alberti. Cesena, 2000. Weiß, Heiko. Die Baumsäule in Architekturtheorie und -praxis von Alberti bis Hans ­Hollein. Petersberg, 2015. Włodarek, Andrzej. Architektura średniowiecznych kolegiów i burs Uniwersytetu ­Krakowskiego. Cracow, 2000. Włodarek, Andrzej. “Jan Długosz—fundator, menedżer czy aferzysta?” In Artifex doctus: Studia ofiarowane profesorowi Jerzemu Gadomskiemu w siedemdziesiątą rocznicę urodzin, edited by Wojciech Bałus et al., 1:274–75. Cracow, 2007. Ziegler, Ágnes. A brassói Fekete templom: Reformáció és renováció; Felekezeti, városi, rendi csoportidentitás kifejeződése egy újjászülető épületben. Brassó–Budapest, 2018.

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Chapter 7

Entwined Meanings and Organic Form at the Prague Cathedral Royal Oratory Alice Klima Bohemian architecture of the 15th and 16th centuries is known for its ­extravagant vaults and fantastic sculptural details. The Prague Royal Oratory, which was inserted into a southeast bay of Saint Vitus Cathedral during the ­Jagiellonian era (1471–1526) in Bohemia, transformed a 14th-century chapel into a pergola-like space with an upper story balcony (Figure 7.1).1 With remarkable detail, the stone vault ribs are shaped like branches with knots, holes, peeling bark, and saw marks. Twisting and intersecting twigs spring from the ribs onto the vault webs.2 Instead of keystones, the vault “branches” are either propped together or tied with fictive rope fashioned from masonry (­Figure 7.2).3 The balcony displays coats of arms on a balustrade of tightly woven sculpted branches. The result is one of the most spectacular and expertly executed Bohemian examples of branchwork, or astwerk. Around 1500, vegetal forms appeared in Central European devotional and secular works, from simple woodcuts to elaborate sculptural and painted altarpieces. Organically inspired architectural features even permeated churches, palatial residences, and the urban environment in general. Branchwork-­ embellished portals, pulpits, and baptismal fonts were sometimes combined with other late Gothic tracery designs. Far from simple ornament, branchwork provided fertile ground for a variety of symbolic implications. Biblical 1 For basic Czech literature on the oratory and Bohemian late medieval Gothic architecture in general, see Václav Mencl, “Architektura” [Architecture], in Pozdně gotické umění v čechách: 1471–1526 [Late Gothic art in Czechia] (Prague, 1978), pp. 76–166’ Jiřina Hořejší, “Pozdně gotická architektura” [Late Gothic architecture], in Dějiny českého výtvarného umění [History of Czech fine arts], vol. 1, Od počátku do konce středověku [From the beginning to the end of the Middle Ages], part 2 (Prague, 1984), pp. 498–534; Klára Benešovská et al., Architektura gotická [Gothic architecture], Deset století architektury [Ten centuries of architecture] (Prague, 2001), vol. 2; Klára Benešovská, Petr Kratochvíl, et al., Velké dějiny zemí koruny české: Tematická řada/Architektura [The great history of the Czech crown lands: Thematic series/ architecture] (Prague, 2009), vol. 1. 2 The webs could have included additional paint. To my knowledge color analysis on the oratory has not been completed. 3 The use of this motif is discussed at length by Marek Walczak in chapter 6. © Alice Klima, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_010 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 7.1 Royal Oratory, Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, attributed to ­Benedikt Ried and Hans Spiess, ca. 1500 source: A. Klima

Figure 7.2 Royal Oratory, detail, Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, attributed to Benedikt Ried and Hans Spiess, ca. 1500 source: A. Klima

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references are most obvious and plentiful: twisted dried branches can easily be read as a reference to the Crown of Thorns, flowers as symbolic of the Virgin, and verdant vegetation as indicative of the Garden of Eden. Interpretations could be more complex, however, as Ethan Matt Kavaler argues: the meaning of late Gothic chapel vault designs in Ingolstadt could be derived as much from the juxtaposition of the organic and geometric patterns as from individual iconographic readings. He surmises that the organic forms give a “new authority” for communicating the power of the divine that parallels the complex geometries of the medieval mason’s craft.4 During this innovative time, the Kingdom of Bohemia was still recovering from war, conflict, and religious division stemming from proto-Reformation conflicts in the first half of the 15th century. The early modern period presented new visual associations connected to ancient writers like Vitruvius and theories on the origins of architecture—ideas that were disseminated through intellectual centers in Buda, Innsbruck, and Milan. This essay suggests that the Prague Oratory includes organic forms and heraldic display to represent Bohemian royal authority and political status within the Central European context through early modern architectural theory, while at the same time recognizing the unique Bohemian political and religious context by including a symbol of Jan Hus, the Czech reformer, in this sacred space of the kingdom. 1

Royal Display

Prague Cathedral is part of a larger Hradschin (Hradčany) castle complex that includes a monastery and residential buildings.5 The castle residence and Hradschin fortifications were the main focus of rebuilding during the reign of the Bohemian king Vladislav (Władysław) II (1471–1516).6 Perhaps the bestknown parts of the castle today are Vladislav Hall, named after the king, and the equestrian stairs, both designed and built between 1493 and 1502 with distinctive curved and cut-rib vault patterns. However, the castle’s north wing, nearest the cathedral, was rebuilt first, including an anteroom, “Vladislav’s 4 Ethan Matt Kavaler, “Nature and the Chapel Vaults at Ingolstadt: Structuralist and Other ­Perspectives,” The Art Bulletin 87, no. 2 (June 2005): 230–47; and, more generally, Ethan Matt Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic: The Authority of Ornament, 1470–1540 (New Haven, 2012). 5 Hradschin was an incorporated town, separate from Prague Old Town and New Town. 6 The Catholic Jagiellonian dynasty ruled over Poland and Lithuania from the 14th to the 16th centuries. The Jagiellonian Vladislav II was elected King of Bohemia by the Bohemian Diet in 1471 to succeed the Ultraquist (Hussite) King George of Poděbrady.

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bedroom,” and a “green chamber.”7 The so-called bedroom, dated ca.1485, was most likely an audience hall since the coats of arms of the kingdom and royal insignia decorate both the wall and the net-vault keystones. In the late 15th century, the cathedral included only the east end and part of the transept, with a south tower and portal entrance, due to interrupted construction during the early 15th-century Hussite wars (1419–34).8 Although construction of the nave foundation was resumed after the wars, progress was slow and eventually discontinued.9 The oratory, which replaced an earlier 14th-century wooden structure, was the only completed addition to Saint Vitus Cathedral during the Jagiellonian era.10 The bridge connecting the cathedral to the castle’s north wing was also replaced at this time, maintaining direct access from the newly reconstructed north-wing chambers to the cathedral oratory.11 Although the royal mason Hans Spiess has received credit for the rebuilding of the castle’s north wing, scholars are unsure whether he or Benedikt Ried (Rejt) designed the new oratory.12 Ried had definitively taken over the royal workshop from Spiess beginning in 1493 when he designed Vladislav Hall. The expert craftsmanship of the oratory design and later documentation, which includes testimony from Ried’s grandson who recalled that his grandfather was

7

8

9 10 11 12

Pavel Kalina, Benedikt Ried: A počátky záalpské renesance [Benedict Ried; The beginning of northern Renaissance] (Prague, 2009). Castle “green rooms” have been a focus of recent study in the Czech Republic; see Jan Diensbier, Zelené světnice a malba v profánních prostorech na konci středověku [Green rooms and painting in secular spaces at the end of the ­Middle Ages] (Ph.D. disssertation, Charles University, 2018), p. 32. Prague Castle’s “green room” is not well documented or preserved. The Hussites were one of the early successful reform movements specific to Bohemia that were inspired by the teachings of Jan Hus. Hussites can be further divided into subgroups such as the Ultraquists and Taborites. For recent literature on Jan Hus and the effects of the Hussite movement on art in England, see Pavel Soukup, Jan Hus: The Life and Death of a Preacher (West Lafayette, 2020); Jan Royt, “The Hussite Revolution and Sacred Art,” in Prague the Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437, ed. Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiří Fajt (New York, 2005), pp. 113–19. Kalina, Benedikt Ried, p. 134. The cathedral piers were built by 1509. A massive fire in 1541 destroyed all the built sections. Two later restorations partially altered the look of the oratory, the first by Josef Mocker in 1878 and the second in 1967; Hořejší, “Pozdně gotická architektura,” p. 533, n19. The castle’s north wing connects to the highly prestigious and symbolic south transept entrance and St. Václav Chapel, as discussed by Jana Gajdošová in chapter 8. Literature on Benedikt Ried includes: Götz Fehr, Benedikt Ried: Ein deutscher Baumeister zwischen Gotik und Renaissance in Böhmen (Munich, 1961), Kalina, Benedikt, and Mencl, “Architektura,” pp. 80–85.

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rewarded handsomely for his work on the oratory and knighted by the king, suggests that Ried was responsible for the project.13 Despite some uncertainty about the mason, the construction of the new Prague Oratory was executed by the royal workshop and is generally understood as a representation of the king within the kingdom’s most prominent religious structure. The king, or any noble, could showcase royal power within the cathedral’s sacred space by their presence on the oratory’s upper balcony. The oratory itself effectively projected royal power, even in the king’s absence. The coats of arms along the oratory balustrade both underscore kingly dynastic authority and display of territorial dominion.14 From the 14th century, public coats of arms became a standard way to showcase dynastic power and political alliances. Earlier examples in Bohemia include the Old Town Tower of the Charles Bridge in Prague and the gate of Točník Castle. On the Prague Royal Oratory balustrade, the two shields of the kingdom, the Bohemian two-tailed lion and the Hungarian cross, are displayed on the central polygonal bay that protrudes into the cathedral aisle (Figure 7.1). Additional coats of arms along the balustrade divide the upper balcony into a Bohemian side and a Hungarian one. Most likely the symbols on the left of the Hungarian cross depict the three golden-leopard heads of Dalmatia; a battlement wall, possibly representing Upper Lusatian;15 a sword arm that may stand for Bosnia; and the Polish eagle symbolizing the Jagiellonian dynasty. To the right of the Bohemian lion are the Moravian red-and-white checkered eagle, the Luxembourg red lion, the Silesian black eagle, and finally the red ox of Lower Lusatia. In the year 1490, King Vladislav16 was chosen to succeed the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus 13

14 15

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Jan Royt and Jiří Kuthan, Katedrála sv. Víta, Václava a Vojtěcha: Svatyně českých patronů a králů [Cathedral of Saints Vitus, Wenceslaus and Adalbert: The Sanctuary of Czech patrons and kings] (Prague, 2011), pp. 385–89. See also, in English, Jan Royt and Jiří Kuthan, The Cathedral of St. Vitus at Prague Castle (Prague, 2017). A secular comparison that may turn out relevant is the Goldenes Dachl (Golden roof) in Innsbruck, sponsored ca.1500 by the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian I (r. 1508–19). Upper Lusatia did not belong to the Hungarian crown, and this coat of arms is most likely a mistake introduced during 19th-century restorations. This shield was probably ­originally the checkered red and white of Croatia. See Géza Pálffy, “Heraldische Repräsentation der Jagiellonen und der Habsburger: Die Wappen des Königlichen Oratoriums im Prager Veitsdom im mitteleuropäischen Kontext / Heraldic Representation of the Jagiellonian and Habsburg Dynasties: Coats of Arms on the Royal Oratory in Prague’s Saint Vitus Cathedral in the Central European Context,” Historie—Otázky—Problémy 7, no. 2 (December 2015): 176–90. Vladislav II was the first Jagiellonian King of Bohemia (r. 1471–1516) and King of Hungary and Croatia (r. 1490–1516). He was succeeded by his son Louis, King of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia (r. 1516–1526). Louis’s untimely death in 1526 at the battle of Mohacs ended the Jagiellonian rule of Bohemia and Hungary.

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(r. 1458–90), and Vladislav moved his permanent residence to Buda. The balustrade demonstrates the gains the king achieved by this territorial expansion. Traditionally, the oratory is dated between 1490 and 1493, based on the centrally placed Hungarian coat of arms, as it clearly suggests the date of the king’s rise to power.17 The Hungarian territories were a significant gain for Vladislav for several reasons.18 Bohemia remained a divided land following the Hussite Wars, with strong Catholic and Hussite factions; due to its opposition to the Pope, it had suffered territorial loss. By contrast, Hungary was indisputably Catholic, and Corvinus had fostered a connection to Italy throughout his reign by inviting artists, architects, and scholars to his court.19 Buda was one of the earliest centers of Renaissance humanism in Eastern and Central Europe. Corvinus’s cultural and political alliance with the Pope had been motivated in part by the need to keep the encroaching Ottoman Empire at bay but also by his desire to be the next Holy Roman Emperor.20 With this aim, Corvinus acquired Habsburg lands and Moravia, which had traditionally belonged to the Bohemian Kingdom. The moment Vladislav took control of Hungary, he gained territory that suddenly advanced his position and prestige within Central Europe, creating the opportunity for the leadership of the Holy Roman Empire. The territorial expansion is clearly identified with the Bohemian sovereign on the oratory, despite the king’s absence from Prague. The kingdom’s coats of arms and the king’s emblem form the central axis on the oratory, projecting royal authority. Two suspended pendants, directly below the centrally placed Bohemian and Hungarian coats of arms, include a golden W, which the king used as his monogram throughout his reign (Figures 7.1, 7.3). Examples appear in many monuments, including at the church of St. Barbara in Kutná Hora and in the Tábor city emblem (Figure 7.4). The lower pendant hangs into the ­viewer’s space, and two additional shields on the back side include the ­Bohemian lion and the Silesian eagle to form a pyramid shape unified at the top with a golden crown that emphasizes royal presence (Figure 7.3).

17 18 19

20

Benešovská, Architektura gotická, p. 63, and Mencl, “Architektura,” pp. 80–85. Bohemia and Hungary continued to have a great deal of autonomy after 1490 but were unified through the king. Pavel Kalina, “European Diplomacy, Family Strategies, and the Origins of Renaissance Architecture in Central and Eastern Europe,” Artibus et Historiae 30, no. 60 (2009): pp. 175–78, and Robert Bork, “Ars sine historia nihil est? How the ‘Story Deficit’ Doomed Gothic Architecture,” in Architecture, Liturgy and Identity Liber Amicorum Paul Crossley, ed. Zoë Opačić and Achim Timmermann (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 323–34. Frederick III was the Holy Roman Emperor until 1493.

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Figure 7.3 Royal Oratory, detail, Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, attributed to Benedikt Ried and Hans Spiess, ca. 1500 source: A. Klima

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Figure 7.4 Tábor City Coat of Arms, attributed to Wendel Roskopf, 1515–16 source: Roman Lavička

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The unification of Hungary and Bohemia shifted other Central European alliances, and these dynastic affiliations are reflected on the balustrade as well. Hungary had ruled over several Habsburg territories, including Bosnia. In 1490, when Bohemia gained the Hungarian lands, they were forced to negotiate and return lands to the Habsburgs. Already in 1507, just one year after the birth of Vladislav’s son Louis, a preliminary marriage agreement between the Habsburg emperor Maximilian I’s grandchildren and Vladislav II’s children reinforced the negotiations. A double marriage was finalized in 1515 and documented in Albrecht Dürer’s monumental print Triumphal Arch from the same year.21 It would seem that the oratory balustrade not only overtly emphasizes the Bohemian and Hungarian connections but also includes the more subtle message of an alliance with the Habsburgs through the absence of territorial authority over the Habsburg family lands. Géza Pálffy’s reexamination of the oratory coats of arms has resulted in interesting observations that further expand interpretation of the territorial connections and dating of the oratory. Although some coats of arms were well established by the end of the 15th century, such as the Bohemian two-tailed lion, others were still evolving. Typically, two golden crowns represented Bosnia in Hungary after Corvinus claimed the territory in 1464.22 However, an arm with a sword represented the Bosnian coat of arms at the Habsburg court in Innsbruck.23 The Prague Royal Oratory is the first use of the arm with sword at the Jagiellonian court to represent Bosnia, and it aligns its symbolism with the Austrian family; furthermore, as Pálffy proposes, it indicates a later dating for the oratory.24 A curious large-scale woodcut—most often referred to as the Klaudyán map because it includes the first map of Bohemia—provides a comparable territorial declaration of the Jagiellonians (Figures 7.5–7.6). The document of 1516 is attributed to a physician named Klaudyán and was printed in Nuremberg in 1518. The full document consists of a large section with territorial coats of arms, an illustration of the kingdom’s laws, coats of arms of Bohemian nobles, an enigmatic carriage scene in the center, and the map itself.25 At the top, an enthroned King Louis II, who inherited the Bohemian 21 22 23 24 25

A later date also makes sense in terms of style since the most extensive branchwork in Central Europe dates to 1500 and later. Pálffy, “Heraldische Repräsentation.” pp. 176–90. Ibid., p. 184. The first occurrence of this motif dates to 1499, and it was used thereafter by the Habsburg family. The oratory could be dated after 1500, most likely in the 1510s or even the 1520s, in order to reflect the Habsburg sympathies and the use of the Habsburg coats of arms. The map is based on Romweg Etzlaub map and was printed by Jerome Holtz. The original measures 160 by 64 centimeters.

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Figure 7.5 Klaudyán’s Map of Bohemia, 137 × 64 cm, print on paper, printed in Nuremberg, 1518 source: Biskupství Litoměřické bishopric archive, inventory number 5094

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Figure 7.6 Detail, lower half, Klaudyán’s Map of Bohemia, 137 × 64 cm, print on paper, printed in Nuremberg, 1518 source: Biskupství Litoměřické bishopric archive, inventory number 5094

and Hungarian thrones after his father’s death in the same year the map was commissioned, presides over the realm. He is flanked by labeled coats of arms of the kingdoms of ­Bohemia, Hungary, Dalmatia, and Croatia. Additional duchies of Silesia, ­Moravia, Luxembourg, and Lusatia are also included.26 Despite some confusion representing the Balkan heralds (the labels and images of Dalmatia and Croatia are switched, with Dalmatia represented by the Bosnian arm and sword),27 overall the heraldic display around the figure of the king presents a similar visualization of central authority as the oratory.

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At the premature death of King Louis in 1526 at the battle of Mohacs, Louis’s brother-inlaw Ferdinand I of the Habsburg family inherited the kingdoms of Bohemia, Hungary, and Croatia. This mistake could have, as Pálffy suggests, occurred in Nuremberg, where the southeastern European coats of arms would have been less familiar (“Heraldische Repräsentation der Jagiellonen und der Habsburger,” p. 184).

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King Louis was born in Hungary and lived in Buda his entire lifetime. The king’s presence above the kingdom’s laws and nobility’s coats of arms give the impression that this document is a kind of agreement between King Louis and the Bohemian nobles, which both demonstrates the king’s authority over ­Bohemia and legitimizes the nobles and the territory of the kingdom. ­Monumental prints, after all, were famously employed by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I instead of more traditional public monuments and building programs.28 The advantage of prints was not only monetary; the new media was also portable and offered the opportunity to disseminate images to numerous locations. The map itself records the natural geography and topography of the ­Bohemian Kingdom, including towns, roads, mountains, and rivers (Figure 7.6). On the map, the Kingdom of Bohemia is hence defined through a verdant ring of forests and mountains that reflects the natural geography and acknowledges a king who resides elsewhere. The oratory, set in Saint Vitus Cathedral and ­connected through a bridge to the royal castle’s representational chambers, signifies the king and the kingdom through symbolic representation in the most sacred space of the kingdom. While the Klaudyán map records the natural ­landscape, the oratory also displays its symbols on a background of vegetal forms or sculpted stylized branchwork. This combination of natural forms and dynastic or territorial coats of arms is found in other locations, such as the northern castle’s “green chambers” and a unique example at the Sforza Castle in Milan. 2

Green Chambers and Primitive Huts

Leonardo da Vinci’s Sala delle Asse, painted in 1498 for Duke Ludovico il Moro at the Sforza Castle in Milan, displays a surprising number of similarities to the Prague Royal Oratory, including the use of vegetal forms, branches joined with rope, and the display of coats of arms (Figures 7.2, 7.7). At the Sala, Leonardo transformed an entire room, from floor to ceiling, into an illusionistic mulberry tree canopy. Branches are artfully intertwined yet retain their natural look, with leaves and berries. Decorative ribbons form patterns and knots, 28

Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I used large-scale prints, such as the abovementioned Triumphal Arch, ca.1515, by Albrecht Dürer, and the Triumphal Procession, ca.1512, by ­multiple artists, instead of imperial building projects, to glorify himself for posterity. This solution was much cheaper than public monuments and buildings.

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Figure 7.7 Sala delle Asse, Sforza Castle, Milan, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, fresco, 1498 source: Comune di Milano/ Ranzani 2019 - All rights reserved

and perhaps most astonishingly, at the base of the wall, gnarled tree roots twist around what appears to be ashlar masonry.29 Like the Prague Royal Oratory, the Sala includes coats of arms within this vegetal display. In the canopy’s apex appear the coats of arms of Duke Ludovico and his wife, Beatrice d’Este, who died the previous year. Additionally, four plaques commemorate events that signal a realignment of alliances with the Habsburgs and away from the recently defeated French, including the Sforza claim of Milan, Ludovico’s victory over French forces in Fornovo, and the marriage of Ludovico’s niece Bianca Maria Sforza to the Habsburg Maximilian I.30 Recent research has indicated that additional miniature landscapes were part of the original Sala wall decor, which Jill Penderson has interpreted as a locus amoenus and a space that

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The Sforza family emblem is a tree with prominent roots. Martin Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci: the Marvellous Works of Nature and Man (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), p. 186. Ibid., pp. 181–89. Maximilian and Bianca were married from 1494 until her death in 1510. During the marriage, Maximilian became Holy Roman Emperor in 1508.

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brings visitors from the wilds of the gardens into the cultivated and intellectual interior.31 The combination of vegetal forms and dynastic rule was, after all, nothing new. In 1409, the Duke of Burgundy, John the Fearless, had rebuilt a tower in his Paris residence. The central pillar of the interior turret vault sprouts sculpted tree branches that twist and turn to spread into a canopy of foliage over the vaulted space. The oak, hawthorn, and hop leaves depicted on the vault are more than lush specimens: the sculptural vegetation is symbolic of the king’s family emblems.32 The choice to animate the heraldic symbols can have several connotations: on the one hand, the branches symbolically interweave at the keystone perhaps in a show of family unity; on the other, the general tree motif alludes to a family tree. Using a tree to visualize family lineage is an old concept. The biblical Tree of Jesse, for example, visually links Christ to his Old Testament ancestors all the way back to Jesse, who is represented as the root.33 A medieval family tree might also attempt to trace their family history all the way back to the foundations of humanity with Adam and Eve.34 Family coats of arms had been part of fireplace mantels, doorways, staircases, or walls in prominent castle chambers throughout the medieval period. Likewise, these coats of arms could also be presented in a tree form to demonstrate the family genealogy. Toward the end of the 15th century, “green chambers,” so named after their vegetal decor and green hue, were popular additions to Central European castles. Although not explicit family trees, the botanical decoration included painted heraldic displays that provided a sophisticated setting to promote 31

32

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Jill Penderson, “The Sala delle Asse as Locus Amoenus: Revisiting Leonardo da Vinci’s Arboreal Imagery in Milan’s Castello Sforzesco,” in Green Worlds in Early Modern Italy: Art and the Verdant Earth, ed. Karen Hope Goodchild, April Oettinger, and Leopoldine van Hogendorp Prosperetti, Visual and Material Culture, 1300–1700 11 (Amsterdam, 2019), pp. 89–108, and Jill Penderson, “‘Under the Shade of the Mulberry Tree’: Reconstructing Nature in Leonardo’s Sala delle Asse,” in Leonardo da Vinci: Nature and Architecture, ed. Constance J. Moffatt and Sara Taglialagamba, Leonardo Studies 2 (Leiden, 2019), pp. 168–89. Duke John the Fearless used different heraldic designs throughout his reign. The tree leaves revive older family symbolism and hence harken back to family genealogy. ­Stephen N. Fliegel, Sophie Jugie, and Virginie Barthélémy, Art from the Court of Burgundy: The Patronage of Philip the Bold and John the Fearless, 1364–1419 (Dijon, 2004), pp. 158–59, 135– 36, fig. 32, and cat. no. 64. Arthur Watson, The Early Iconography of the Tree of Jesse (London, 1934), and Jean Anne Hayes Williams, “The Earliest Dated Tree of Jesse Image: Thematically Reconsidered,” Athanor 18 (2000): 17–23. See, for example, the genealogy of King of England Edward VI, London, British Library, Kings MS 395.

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the family’s pedigree. Prague Castle included such a space in the north wing directly next to the Vladislav bedroom and near the connector to the ­oratory.35 Other Bohemian examples survive in Blatná and Žirovnice castles, where dynastic coats of arms are placed on a backdrop of ornate and stylized vegetal forms reminiscent of late Gothic manuscript decorations.36 A variety of additional subjects, including secular themes, such as hunting, were sometimes included in these mural programs. In the 14th-century Papal Palace in Avignon, entire walls were turned into hunting-themed murals, perhaps to emulate tapestries.37 It now seems probable that at least some landscape and secular motifs were also present at the Milan Sala.38 Perhaps even the Bohemian chamber from the early 16th-century Šternberk (Sternberg) family residence in Bechyně, aptly known as the Tree Chamber, is a spectacular variation on the green chamber (Figure 7.8).39 At Bechyně, the four bays of the centrally planned chamber are supported on a tree-shaped pillar. Instead of the typical Gothic four-part pointed-arch vaults, these features are transformed into a large tree with dried branches. The pillar is a massive painted sandstone rendition of an aged trunk, trimmed of most of its limbs but preserving some bark, knots, cracks, and imperfections. Instead of traditional late Gothic profiles, the tree trunk sprouts branches that do not meet in the crown of the vault but curve away from each other. The tree limbs connect to the wall, and new limbs emerge at the corbel-like springers. The details of the carvings are not unlike the Prague Royal Oratory. The empty whitewashed vault webs tempt us to imagine murals with vegetation, coats of arms, or additional small branches. Even without these surviving details or green color, the Bechyně Tree Room can be understood as a monumental space that would have showcased a noble family in a similar way as the green chambers and the Milan Sala. A prominent and unique visual parallel between the Sala and the Prague Royal Oratory is the overall pergola design with branches tied with rope, a feature that in the oratory has been explained as a pictorial joke that alludes

35 36 37 38 39

Prague Castle’s “green room” originated in the 14th century and was most likely used as a courtroom. Diensbier, “Zelené světnice,” and Josef Krása, “Nástěnné malby Ž iŕ ovnické zelené světnice” [Wall paintings at the Ž iŕ ovnice green room], Umění 12 (1964): 282–300. Kalina, Benedikt Ried, pp. 110–11. Penderson, “‘Under the Shade of the Mulberry Tree,” pp. 168–89. Ladislav of Šternberk played a prominent role at the royal court. He was instrumental in the double marriage negotiations of Vladislav children Louis and Anne with the ­Habsburgs and became the Highest Chancellor (1510–21) in the king’s absence.

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Figure 7.8 Tree Chamber, Bechyně castle, attributed to Wendel Roskopf, ca. 1515 source: Roman Lavička

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to structural instability.40 Just as Leonardo interweaves the branches with rope patterns and knots, the Royal Oratory’s sculpted rope binds the carved branches in three spots (Figure 7.2).41 Just as Leonardo’s trees originally transformed from contorted roots on the lower wall into elegant trunks and a manicured canopy with coat of arms in the ceiling, the lower vault branches of the oratory are rough and wild, but the organic forms are tamed and conform to a regular pattern to display the coats of arms in the upper balustrade. In reference to the Sala, several scholars have pointed out Leonardo’s probable reference to the theory on the origins of architecture, referred to as the “primitive hut” or “primordial architecture,” a concept that goes back to ­Vitruvius and would have been familiar to the dukes of Milan.42 It is likely, given the visual affinity and political connection between Milan and Prague via the Habsburg court, that similar ideas were at play in Prague as well. In the Ten Books on Architecture, Vitruvius explains that men constructed the first dwellings “of green boughs, others dug caves on mountain sides, and some, in imitation of the nests of swallows and the way they built, made places of refuge out of mud and twigs.”43 From these Vitruvian origins, a discourse on primordial architecture branched out through the writings of Alberti and Filarete.44 John F. Moffitt argues that Leonardo’s Sala is a “pictorial” ekphrasis of the Vitruvian text, possibly following Filarete, who illustrated his treatise with a primitive hut.45 The transformation of the castle’s groin-vaulted room into an visual reflection on the origins of architecture would seem a fitting subject for Leonardo. By 1521, the 40 41 42

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Ethan Matt Kavaler, “Architectural Wit: Playfulness and Deconstruction in the Gothic of the Sixteenth Century,” in Reading Gothic Architecture, ed. Matthew M. Reeve (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 139–50. See also chapter 6 by Marek Walczak. The Sala’s patterned chord had additional symbolic meaning. It was a motif called fantasia dei vinci, or golden ‘knots,’ which were associated with the duke’s wife, Beatrice d’Este. See Kemp, Leonardo da Vinci, pp. 186–87. This notion was first discussed by Joseph Rykwert, On Adam’s House in Paradise: The Idea of the Primitive Hut in Architectural History, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), and specifically related to the Milan Sala by John F. Moffitt, “Leonardo’s ‘Sala delle Asse’ and the Primordial Origins of Architecture,” Arte Lombarda, n.s., 92/93, nos. 1–2 (1990): 82–90. Vitruvius, De architectura I.1, trans. Frank Stephen Granger, Vitruvius on Architecture, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA, 1962). It seems likely that Bramante and Leonardo would have discussed this topic, and Raphael wrote on the matter in a letter to Pope Leo X. See Paul Crossley, “The Return to the Forest: Natural Architecture and the German Past in the Age of Dürer,” in K ­ ünstlerischer Austausch: Artistic Exchange; Akten des XXVIII, Internationalen Kongresses für ­Kunstgeschichte, ed. Thomas W. Gaehtgens (Berlin, 1993), p. 71. Moffitt, “Leonardo’s ‘Sala delle Asse,’” pp. 76–90. Filarete’s Trattato di architettura (1461–64) is now lost but was originally dedicated to Francesco Sforza (ibid., p. 83, n29). ­Leonardo’s Vitruvian figure was probably from 1490.

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primordial shack was illustrated in Cesariano’s translation of Vitruvius through the now-familiar image of rough-cut branches that were tied together with rope, ensuring the motif’s distribution to a broader audience.46 The implications of such an image for the Sforza family were numerous, but in a general sense, a family’s coats of arms within an arboreal setting highlighted the sophistication of the patron. At the same time, discussions on the primordial had specific relevance for the Sforza family.47 Such a connection is also likely at the Royal Oratory, where this visual reference in the context of the royal display demonstrates complexity and understanding acknowledged at other contemporary intellectual centers, such as Buda and Innsbruck. As Alexander Nagel and Christopher Wood discuss, the inclusion of such “primitive architecture” within 15th-century Christian visual culture ­creates “a principle of anti-architecture.”48 According to Nagel and Wood, “anti-­ architecture” not only regenerates or reverses time to return to an original form but also “leads away from false permanence altogether, offering an improbable bridge to an eternal, immaterial architecture.”49 This profound disruption that encourages a reexamination of origins would have been particularly relevant in Prague during this time when the Hussite reforms were questioning ­Christian doctrine. Vitruvius, in fact, states that such primitive structures were built, not just in the ancient past or even in an ethereal time, but during his lifetime by the “­foreign tribes” of “Gaul, Spain, Portugal, and Aquitaine.”50 Renaissance ­scholars and artists, as revealed in Raphael’s letter to Pope Leo X, for instance, were quick to draw the conclusion that German (tedesco) architecture— in other words, Gothic architecture—originated in the northern forests by builders who tied together branches with rope.51 In addition to Vitruvius, the Roman writer Tacitus was also a known source that characterized Germans as forest dwellers, and the northern Europe forest was specifically understood as a place of mythical heritage and a source of divinity. Together, Vitruvius and Tacitus offered the North an opportunity to explore its local origins, a desire that was also present at this time in Italy.52 Paul Crossley concludes, “German 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

Ibid., pp. 76–90. See summary in ibid. Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, “Anti-Architecture,” in Anachronic ­Renaissance (New York, 2010), pp. 301–12. Ibid., p. 305. Vitruvius, De architectura I.1. Crossley, “The Return to the Forest” pp. 71–80. Crossley already pointed out that the Milan court would have been an “ideal center for an encounter with German ideas” (p. 75). Ibid., pp. 74–75.

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humanists would have appreciated, just as clearly as their Italian mentors, the value of expressing historical myth in the medium of architecture.”53 A clear example of an individual who engaged in the new discourse is Wilhelm of Reichenau, the bishop of Eichstätt. As Crossley details, Wilhelm was intrigued by Italian architectural theorists and Vitruvius, and he not only sponsored a church-­organ loft at Eichstatt Cathedral in 1471, which was dedicated to Saint Willibald and capped with one of the earliest examples of branchwork in the North, but was also responsible for the northern riposte to the Italian theorists by Mathes Roriczer, builder of Regensburg Cathedral.54 Branchwork designs in northern Europe and at the Prague Royal Oratory ­specifically reinforce the reassessment of the past in order to strengthen the present.55 Instead of understanding this architectural form as new and “­modern,” Stephan Hoppe concludes that “rather, it was considered ­representative of an era far more removed in time, indeed as a rustic representative of the art of classical antiquity with a similar harkening to the past.”56 For example, at the Benedictine Gothic abbey church in Chemnitz, 1525–26, the massive branchwork portal is shaped with Romanesque round arches, thus referencing the architecture of the past. Like the Sala, the Prague Royal Oratory was also inserted into the earlier 14th-century Gothic cathedral and literally grows out of the preexisting architecture. The suspended pendant echoes the earlier umbrella vault of Peter Parler’s south transept porch, a few steps away (Figure 8.2). As Jana Gajdošová discusses in chapter 8, the meaning of this space was closely associated with the revered reign of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (r. 1355–1378) as well as the famed Peter Parler. The Prague primordial hut emerges out of this golden era. The regeneration offered is in the form of the new Jagiellonians who promise to revive this lost past, which was disrupted by social and religious unrest. While the Prague Oratory is overtly aligned with the Habsburgs through a royal display of coats of arms, the overall oratory branchwork design may have been encouraged by ideas woven together by Leonardo and transferred from Milan to Innsbruck and Prague via the courts. At the same time, the green chamber concept—an architectural space that demonstrates the ideals of a 53 54 55

56

Ibid., p. 75. Ibid. Stephan Hoppe, “Northern Gothic, Italian Renaissance and Beyond: Toward a Thick Description of Style,” in Le gothique de la Renaissance: Actes des quatrième Rencontres d’Architecture Européenne, Paris, 12–16 juin 2007, ed. Monique Chatenet (Paris, 2011), pp. 47–64. Ibid., p. 52.

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family through organic form, family emblems, and additional themes tailored to reflect the patron’s interests—could have initially introduced Leonardo and Duke Ludovico via their connections to the north. Either way, the oratory vegetal decor and heraldic display would have alluded to noble dynastic representation. The carved representations of branches and rope would further refer to discussions about the primordial origins of architecture, whether at local, historical, or ethereal levels, not only to address the sophistication of the patron but also to reexamine and bolster the reformed present. Just as a ­family tree might show a connection between past and present generations—and possibly even trace a connection to the origin of humanity itself with Adam and Eve—the territorial coats of arms and the king’s monogram on the oratory legitimize the kingdom through the primitive hut, which suggests the origin of the dwelling place, be it Romulus’s house in Rome or Adam’s house in the Christian context.57 The Prague Royal Oratory, in fact, reveals the specific religious and political context of the Bohemian Kingdom even more concretely. 3

A Divided Land Entwined

In the central upper portion of the Klaudyán document, an enigmatic carriage, which bears similarity to Maximilian I’s Triumphal Procession prints, is pulled in two directions (Figure 7.5). It is often interpreted as a symbolic reference to the religiously divided land. The specific religious and political division of the kingdom is recorded in the map below (Figure 7.6). Towns and major routes are noted along with their political and religious affiliations: a chalice for Hussites, the keys of St. Peter for Catholics, a crown for royal towns, and a horse for noble residences. Given this iconographic context, it is not surprising that we should find a similar recognition of the Hussite reformers on the Royal Oratory. The southern Bohemian town of Tábor (literally meaning “camp” or “encampment,” referring to the biblical Mount Tabor) was the main center for a radical faction of Hussites during the wars (1419–34). Yet, after the hostilities ended, the town was deradicalized and supported by royal authority. King ­Vladislav continued to back the remaining Hussite population, and the building of the town hall and fortifications were under way during the first part of the 16th century. The monumental Tábor coat of arms, today displayed in the town hall, is attributed to Wendel Roskopf, who had worked with the royal masons Ried and Spiess at Prague Castle (Figures 7.4, 7.9). The relief includes 57

See Rykwert, On Adam’s House in Paradise.

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Figure 7.9 Tábor City Coat of Arms, detail of frame with Hus at the stake, attributed to Wendel Roskopf, 1515–16 source: Roman Lavička

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the original coat of arms, the sculpted town gates of 1515–16, and the royal eagle and a two-tailed lion above. Vladislav’s stamp of approval is presented with a frame of woven dried branches that display the king’s W front and center. Compared to Bechyně and the Royal Oratory (Figures 7.1, 7.8), the branches are stylized, with repeating patterns. Additional figures appear within the frame, including Adam and Eve, several persons relevant to the Hussite reforms, and one of the earliest sculpted renditions of Jan Hus, about to be burnt at the stake. He is shown tied to a stake with sticks bundled with rope below, ready to be consumed by flames (Figure 7.9).58 It is likely that the branches of the Prague Royal Oratory, within the sacred space of Saint Vitus Cathedral, indicate a distinct nod to Hus. On the central axis, below the kingdom’s coats of arms, are the kingly monograms set on pendants (Figures 7.1, 7.3). While the upper monogram is inverted, perhaps oriented for God’s eyes,59 the lower W is suspended into the viewer’s space. Directly above the crown, capped with a circle of dried branches, is a stake that is firmly planted in a pile of sticks (Figure 7.3). While it is sometimes described as a bird’s nest, this stake has an uncanny resemblance to the depiction of Jan Hus in Tábor. For an informed audience, the visual connection must have seemed just as overt as the Vitruvian primitive hut. By the end of the 15th century, depictions of Hus burning at the stake were widely known and circulated in Hussite manuscripts. In Prague, the Royal Oratory represented the king but also inserted the Hussite agenda into the most prominent sacred space of the kingdom. To the general audience, the message of unity is clear yet abstract, manifest only by the entwined branches and figures, perhaps conforming to the Hussite emphasis on the word. To a select audience, this symbolism would have referenced the new discussions on the origins of architecture that were circulating in other Central European intellectual circles and prominently inserted the kingdom into the larger Central European political context. At a deeper level, the Prague Royal Oratory could have implied the primordial beginnings of the northern forests and the rebirth of the Bohemian lands as fit for people of two faiths during the new Jagiellonian era. The Vitruvian primitive hut symbolically tied together the royal vegetal display and the profound religious reform of Jan Hus under divine authority. 58 59

Jan Hus would have originally been on the interior of the frame. The most prominent example of backward text addressed to God is from the Annunciation scene on the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck, 1432. For a discussion, see Penny Howell Jolly, “Jan van Eyck’s Italian Pilgrimage: A Miraculous Florentine Annunciation and the Ghent,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 61, no. 3 (1998): 374. I am indebted to ­Shelley Zuraw for observing this vital detail.

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Acknowledgments My sincere thanks to Kyle Sweeney and Alice Isabella Sullivan for including this essay and for their thoughtful comments and suggestions on the topic. I have benefited greatly from many others including Elizabeth J. Petcu, Carol Krinsky, Robert Bork, Sheila Bonde, Shelley Zuraw, and Roman Lavička. I am grateful to all for contributing their insight, reading versions of this text, ­sharing photos, and hence enriching this essay. Bibliography of Cited Sources

Primary Sources



Secondary Sources

Vitruvius Pollio. Vitruvius on Architecture. Translated by Frank Stephen Granger. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA, 1962.

Benešovská, Klára, et al. Architektura gotická [Gothic Architecture]. 1st ed. Deset století architektury [Ten centuries of architecture]. Vol. 2. Prague, 2001. Benešovská, Klára, Petr Kratochvíl, et al. Velké dějiny zemí koruny České: Tematická řada/Architektura [The great history of the Czech crown lands: Thematic series/ Architecture]. Vol. 1. Prague, 2009. Bork, Robert. “Ars sine historia nihil est? How the ‘Story Deficit’ Doomed Gothic ­Architecture.” In Architecture, Liturgy and Identity Liber Amicorum Paul Crossley, edited by Zoë Opačić and Achim Timmermann, pp. 323–34. Turnhout, 2011. Bork, Robert. Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception. ­Architectura Medii Aevi 10. Turnhout, 2018. Crossley, Paul. “The Return to the Forest: Natural Architecture and the German Past in the Age of Dürer.” In Künstlerischer Austausch: Artistic Exchange; Akten des XXVIII, Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, edited by Thomas W. Gaehtgens, pp. 71–80. Berlin, 1993. Diensbier, Jan. “Zelené světnice a malba v profánních prostorech na konci středověku” [Green rooms and painting in secular spaces at the end of the Middle Ages]. Ph.D. dissertation, Charles University, 2018. Fehr, Götz. Benedikt Ried: Ein deutscher Baumeister zwischen Gotik und Renaissance in Böhmen. Munich, 1961. Fliegel, Stephen N., Sophie Jugie, and Virginie Barthélémy. Art from the Court of ­Burgundy: The Patronage of Philip the Bold and John the Fearless, 1364–1419. Dijon, 2004. Homolka, Jaromír. “Sochařství” [Sculpture]. In Pozdně gotické umění v čechách: 1471– 1526 [Late Gothic art in Czechia], 1st ed., pp. 167–254. Prague, 1978.

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Homolka, Jaromír. “Pozdně gotické sochařství” [Late Gothic sculpture]. In Dějiny českého výtvarného umění [History of Czech fine arts], vol. 1, Od počátku do konce středověku [From the beginning to the end of the Middle Ages], part 2, pp. 535–66. Prague, 1984. Hoppe, Stephan. “Northern Gothic, Italian Renaissance and Beyond: Toward a Thick Description of Style.” In Le gothique de la Renaissance: Actes des quatrième ­Rencontres d’Architecture Européenne, Paris, 12–16 juin 2007, edited by Monique Chatenet, pp. 47–64. Paris, 2011. Hořejší, Jiřina. “Pozdně gotická architektura” [Late Gothic architecture]. In Dějiny českého výtvarného umění [History of Czech fine arts], vol. 1, Od počátku do konce středověku [From the beginning to the end of the Middle Ages], part 2, pp. 498–534. Prague, 1984. Jolly, Penny Howell. “Jan van Eyck’s Italian Pilgrimage: A Miraculous Florentine ­Annunciation and the Ghent.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 61, no. 3 (1998): 369–94. Kalina, Pavel. Benedikt Ried: A počátky záalpské renesance [Benedict Ried: The ­beginning of the northern Renaissance]. Prague, 2009. Kalina, Pavel. “European Diplomacy, Family Strategies, and the Origins of Renaissance Architecture in Central and Eastern Europe.” Artibus et Historiae 30, no. 60 (2009): 175–78. Kavaler, Ethan Matt. “Nature and the Chapel Vaults at Ingolstadt: Structuralist and Other Perspectives.” The Art Bulletin 87, no. 2 (June 2005): 230–47. Kavaler, Ethan Matt. “Architectural Wit: Playfulness and Deconstruction in the Gothic of the Sixteenth Century.” In Reading Gothic Architecture, edited by Matthew M. Reeve, pp. 139–50. Turnhout, 2008. Kavaler, Ethan Matt. Renaissance Gothic: The Authority of Ornament, 1470–1540. New Haven, 2012. Kemp, Martin. Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981. Krása, Josef, “Nástěnné malby Ž iŕ ovnické zelené světnice” [Wall paintings at the Ž iŕ ovnice green room]. Umění 12 (1964): 282–300. Nagel, Alexander, and Christopher S. Wood. “Anti-Architecture.” In Anachronic Renaissance, pp. 301–12. New York, 2010. Macek, Josef. Jagellonský věk v českých zemích, 1471–1526 [Jagiellonian era in the Czech lands, 1471–1526], vol. 2, Š lechta [Nobility]. Prague, 1994. Mencl, Václav. “Architektura” [Architecture]. In Pozdně gotické umění v čechách: 1471–1526 [Late Gothic art in Czechia: 1471–1526], pp. 76–166. Prague, 1978. Moffitt, John F. “Leonardo’s ‘Sala delle Asse’ and the Primordial Origins of Architecture.” Arte Lombarda, n.s., 92/93, nos. 1–2 (1990): 76–90. Penderson, Jill. “The Sala delle Asse as Locus Amoenus: Revisiting Leonardo da Vinci’s Arboreal Imagery in Milan’s Castello Sforzesco.” In Green Worlds in Early Modern

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Italy: Art and the Verdant Earth, ed. Karen Hope Goodchild, April Oettinger, and Leopoldine van Hogendorp Prosperetti, Visual and Material Culture, 1300–1700 11, pp. 89–108. Amsterdam, 2019. Penderson, Jill. “‘Under the Shade of the Mulberry Tree’: Reconstructing Nature in ­Leonardo’s Sala delle Asse.” In Leonardo da Vinci: Nature and Architecture, ed. ­Constance J. Moffatt and Sara Taglialagamba, Leonardo Studies 2, pp. 168–89. Leiden, 2019. Pálffy, Géza. “Heraldische Repräsentation der Jagiellonen und der Habsburger: Die Wappen des Königlichen Oratoriums im Prager Veitsdom im mitteleuropäischen Kontext / Heraldic Representation of the Jagiellonian and Habsburg Dynasties: Coats of Arms on the Royal Oratory in Prague’s Saint Vitus Cathedral in the Central European Context.” Historie—Otázky—Problémy 7, no. 2 (December 2015): 176–90. Royt, Jan. “The Hussite Revolution and Sacred Art.” In Prague: the Crown of Bohemia, 1347–1437, ed. Barbara Drake Boehm and Jiří Fajt, pp. 113–19. New York, 2005. Royt, Jan, and Jiři Kuthan. Katedrála sv. Víta, Václava a Vojtěcha: Svatyně českých patronů a králů [Cathedral of Saints Vitus, Wenceslaus and Adalbert: Sanctuary of Czech patrons and kings]. Prague, 2011. Royt, Jan, and Jiři Kuthan. The Cathedral of St. Vitus at Prague Castle. Prague, 2017. Rykwert, Joseph. On Adam’s House in Paradise: The Idea of the Primitive Hut in Architectural History. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass., 1981. Soukup, Pavel. Jan Hus: The Life and Death of a Preacher. West Lafayette, 2020. Watson, Arthur. The Early Iconography of the Tree of Jesse. London, 1934. Williams, Jean Anne Hayes. “The Earliest Dated Tree of Jesse Image: Thematically Reconsidered.” Athanor 18 (2000): 17–23.

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Chapter 8

Conflicting Views

Designing the South Transept of Prague Cathedral Jana Gajdošová Peter Parler’s inventive designs in Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague (also known as Prague Cathedral) mark a new chapter in the history of Gothic architecture in Europe. Often described as unrestrained, intuitive, and dynamic, scholars regard the production of his workshop as inspirational for generations of builders over the subsequent century.1 And yet at the center of all Parler’s activity in Prague is also the cathedral’s assertive patron, Emperor Charles IV (r. 1346–78), whose direct contribution to the buildings that he funded is indisputable. As Paul Crossley eloquently notes, “There can be little doubt that it was Charles, more than any other single agent, who imposed on Peter Parler’s Prague lodge the idiosyncratic and disruptive demands of all truly creative patrons.”2 While it is impossible to determine how these two men would have negotiated each other’s intense presences, key parts of the building reveal a disruption in the project’s progression and the tensions that may have existed between them. The most obvious case study is almost certainly the south transept, where the emperor’s monumental mosaic clashes with a structure that includes 1 Klára Benešovská, “The Legacy of the Last Phase of the Prague Cathedral Workshop,” in Kunst als Herrschaftsinstrument: Böhmen und das Heilige Römische Reich unter den Luxemburgern im europäischen Kontext, ed. Jiří Fajt and Andreas Langer (Munich, 2009), pp. 157–58; on Prague Cathedral, see also Klára Benešovská and Anežka Merhautová, Katedrála sv. Víta v Praze: k 650. výročí založení (Prague, 1994); Klára Benešovská and Ivo Hlobil, Peter Parler and St Vitus’s Cathedral, 1356–1399 (Prague, 1999); Marc Carel Schurr, Die Baukunst Peter Parlers: Der Prager Veitsdom, das Heiligkreuzmünster in Schwäbisch Gmünd und die Bartholomäuskirche in Kolin im Spannungsfeld von Kunst und Geschichte (Ostfildern, 2003); Norbert Nussbaum, German Gothic Church Architecture, trans. Scott Kleager (New Haven, 2000), pp. 121–36; Václav Mencl, Č eské středověké klenby (Prague, 1974); Anton Legner, ed. Die Parler und der Schöne Stil: 1350– 1400; Europäische Kunst unter den Luxemburgern, (Cologne, 1978); Jiří Kuthan and Jan Royt, Katedrála Sv. Víta, Václava a Vojtěcha: Svatyně česky̌ ch patronů a králů (Prague, 2011); Paul Crossley, “The Politics of Presentation: The Architecture of Charles IV of Bohemia,” in Courts and Regions in Medieval Europe, ed. Sarah Rees Jones, Richard Marks, and A. J. Minnis (York, 2000), pp. 99–172. 2 Paul Crossley, “Bohemia Sacra: Liturgy and History in Prague Cathedral,” in Pierre, Lumière, Couleur: É tudes d’histoire de l’art du Moyen  ge en l’honneur d’Anne Prache, ed. Fabienne Joubert and Dany Sandron (Paris, 1999), p. 345. © Jana Gajdošová, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_011 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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some of Parler’s most avant-garde architectural designs (Figure 8.1). The unrestrained style of the south transept façade has been called the culmination of Parler’s “emphasis on freedom of design,” commemorating his ingenuity and ­long-hailed status as one of the most forward-looking architects of

Figure 8.1 South Transept of Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, 1367–1410 source: J. Gajdošová

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his time.3 Parler’s designs for the porch, including the triradial vault with flying ribs, the openwork spiral staircase, and the blind tracery decorating the ­window’s crested frame, make clear that he pushed the traditional sculpted programs of Gothic façades to the background of his decorative schema. Instead, he invited the architectural ornament to dominate as these three ­elements enliven the façade by dissolving the heavy walls of the structure. The monumental mosaic that sits in the center of this ensemble, however, has the opposite effect. Its two-dimensional nature is inherent to the medium, consisting of glistening cubes of glass and stone. Unique to the Bohemian milieu, the mosaic would have brought with it an impression of Antiquity and exoticism, prompting the chronicler Beneš Krabice of Weitmile to call it an “image made in the Greek manner.”4 Mosaics were still popular south of the Alps because they had something of a tradition there—reappearing throughout the Middle Ages as a result of close mercantile links with Byzantium but also remaining extant in numerous early Christian foundations. North of the Alps, however, this art form would have been relatively foreign (with some notable exceptions), and thus it would have taken a very determined patron to integrate a monumental image of this type into an architect’s progressive architectural program in order to publicly demonstrate his authority, piety, and worldly wisdom. 1

The Patron

One of the most culturally inspired rulers of the Middle Ages, Charles IV was born in 1316 in Prague. His mother was Elizabeth of Přemyslid, sister to Wenceslas III and the last in line of a dynasty that had ruled Bohemia for over four centuries; his father was John of Luxembourg, the son of Emperor Henry VII and a ruler dubbed the ‘foreign king’ by the Bohemian nobility. Charles did not spend much time with his parents as a youth because at just three years old, he was taken away to be raised by one of his aunts, and by seven, he was sent to live at the court of his uncle, Charles IV of France, in Paris. Perhaps it was this youthful instability that motivated him to a lifelong pursuit of a secure identity for himself and his dynasty. When Charles returned to Prague in 1333, 3 Nussbaum, German Gothic Church Architecture (New Haven, 2000), p. 133. 4 “Eodem etiam tempore fecit ipse Pragensis de opere vitreo more greco, de opere pulchro et multum sumtuoso.” As translated by Zuzana Všetečková, “The Iconography of the Last Judgment Mosaic and Its Medieval Context,” in Conservation of the Last Judgment Mosaic St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, ed. Francesca Piqué and Dušan C. Stulik (Singapore, 2004), p. 21.

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he lamented: “We found the kingdom so forsaken that there was not one castle which was free … even the castle in Prague was desolate, in ruins, and reduced from the times of King Ottokar so that it has crumbled almost to the ground.”5 Charles’s gloomy observations about the city were probably heightened by the fact that he was accustomed to life in the French capital, a city that was characterized by public spectacle and artistic splendor. Paris was a city that was defined by its royal residence, “in those days with hardly an equal in Europe.”6 Charles immediately began a series of projects in Prague that had palpable connections with the kind of royal patronage with which he would have been familiar in Paris.7 Genealogical cycles were fundamental to such projects as they communicated the continuity of an unbroken line of rulers and manipulated the memory of the past. Among these were the painted genealogical cycles in Karlštejn Castle, the genealogy in Prague Castle, and the genealogy in Charles’s castle in Tangermünde.8 Over the next four decades, Charles vowed to strengthen the image of the Luxembourg dynasty and to transform Prague into a thriving architectural center. Prague Cathedral became a passion ­project because it held an incredible amount of meaning for Charles—its ancient links with the Bohemian past and its function as a royal mausoleum, a coronation church, and a sanctuary to Saint Wenceslas meant that Charles could exert a particular amount of pressure to create a vision here that communicated properly his place in the history of time. And this pressure would have almost certainly fallen heavily on his master mason—Peter Parler. 5 “Quod regnum invenimus ita desolatum, quod nec unum castrum invenimus liberum, quod non esset obligatum cum omnibus bonis regalibus, ita quod non habebamus ubi manere, nisi in domibus civitatum sicut alter civis. Castrum vero Pragense ita desolatum, destructam ac comminutum, quod a tempore Ottokari regis totum prostratum fuit usque ad terram.” In Charles IV, Karoli IV Imperatoris Romanorum vita ab eo ipso conscripta: Et, hystoria nova de Sancto Wenceslao martyre/ Autobiography of Emperor Charles IV and His Legend of St. Wenceslas, ed. Nagy Balázs and Frank Schaer (Budapest, 2001), pp. 68–71. 6 Ferdinand Seibt, introduction to Karoli IV Imperatoris Romanorum vita, by Charles IV, p. xv. 7 Crossley, “Politics of Presentation,” p. 99. 8 See Jana Gajdošová, “Restaging Remnants of the Past: Royal Sculpture in Charles IV’s Prague,” Gesta 61, no. 2 (2022): 223–243. Although none of these painted cycles survive, some information has been documented about them. See Jaromír Homolka, “The Pictorial Decoration of the Palace and Lesser Tower of Karlštejn Castle,” in Magister Theodoricus, Court Painter to Emperor Charles IV: The Pictorial Decoration of the Shrines at Karlstejn Castle, ed. Jiří Fajt (Prague, 1998), pp. 45–105; Karel Stejskal, “Matouš Ornys a jeho ‘rod císaře Karla IV. : (k otázce českého historizujícího manýrismu),” Umění 24 (1976): 21–22; Andrew Martindale, Heroes, Ancestors, Relatives and the Birth of the Portrait (Maarssen, 1988), p. 5; Marie Bláhová, “Panovnické genealogie a jejich politická funkce ve středověku,” Sborník archivních práci 48 (1998): 35–36; Joan A. Holladay, Genealogy and the Politics of Representation in the High and Late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 83–98.

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Peter Parler

Born in 1333, Peter Parler first began working alongside his father, Henry Parler, at the church of the Holy Cross in Schwäbisch Gmünd in 1351.9 It is believed that Peter was initially trained in the Cologne Cathedral lodge, where his father was a master mason and where he may have met his first wife, Gertrude, the daughter of another stonemason from Cologne. The Parler family of masons also had close links with other highly influential building lodges in Central Europe, namely Strasbourg Cathedral, Ulm Minster, and Freiburg Minster.10 Moreover, the second half of the 14th century was an extremely fertile time to be a master mason in Central Europe. The social circumstances in the empire allowed masons to exert an enormous amount of authority over their projects, and their heightened status in society meant that their opinion mattered. Intimate knowledge of these major projects must have contributed greatly to Peter’s imaginative architectural designs in Prague. His possible familiarity with the Decorated style in England may have been another factor.11 Charles IV must have seen something extraordinary in the young mason to bring him to Bohemia in 1356 and to grant him the title of master mason. The weekly accounts from Prague make clear that apart from the clerk of works, who managed the finances for the cathedral chapter, Peter Parler held the roles of architect, foreman, mason, and sculptor.12 Parler’s import in Prague culminated in his burial in the choir of the cathedral and in the inclusion of his image in the triforium, where the emperor and his close family were also sculpted. Above his bust is a late medieval inscription that states: Peter [son of] Henry Parler of Poland (Cologne), master mason from Gmünd in Swabia, the second master of this lodge, whom Emperor Charles IV brought from the aforesaid town and made him the master mason of this church and at that time he was 23 and he began overseeing 9 10 11

12

Pavel Vlček, Encyklopedie architektů, stavitelů, zedníků a kameníků v čechách (Prague, 2004), p. 478; Benešovská and Hlobil, Peter Parler and St Vitus’s Cathedral, p. 16. Schurr, Die Baukunst Peter Parlers, pp. 121–36; Marc Carel Schurr, Gotische Architektur im ­mittleren Europa, 1220–1340 (Munich, 2007). His use of quirky architectural elements, such as the zig-zag triforium, the net vault, and the use of skeletal vaults of Saint Vitus Cathedral has been compared to English architecture of the time. See Paul Crossley, “Peter Parler and England: A Problem Revisited,” Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch 64 (2003): 53–82; Christopher Wilson, “Why Did Peter Parler Come to England?,” in Architecture, Liturgy and Identity: Liber Amicorum Paul Crossley, ed. Zoë Opačić and Achim Timmermann (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 89–110. Benešovská and Hlobil, Peter Parler and St Vitus’s Cathedral, p. 11.

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[the works] in the year 1356, and finished the choir in the year of Our Lord 1386, in which year he began [the work on] the choir stalls of that choir and at the above mentioned time also began and completed the choir of All Saints and directed [the construction of] the Vltava bridge and began from the foundations the choir of Kolín on the Elbe.13 All these accomplishments spoke of a master mason who contributed greatly to the city and whose status in society suggested that he was directly in conversation with the emperor. The weekly accounts of Prague Cathedral also reveal something about his status as the master mason or magister operis. The currency used in the accounts is the Prague groschen/parvi (ratio of 1:12) as well as sexagena, which constituted 60 groschen.14 As Marek Suchý notes, Peter Parler’s “wage of 56 groschen per week was never withheld due to any current shortage of work. It may not be a coincidence that 56 groschen corresponded to the so-called ‘king’s marca.’ [The amount of allowances that Parler received for clothing was equal to the] amount that Henry of Derby, a cousin to the King of England, paid for new clothes in Prague in autumn 1392.”15 Parler also received bonuses, such as that for his work on the tomb of Přemysl Ottokar I, which raised his annual salary from around 58 sexagena and 32 groschen to 74 sexagena and 28 groschen.16 This particular bonus equaled the annual income of a regular stonecutter who worked on the cathedral.17 At the end of 13

14 15 16 17

“Elbe Petrus henrici (p)arleri de polonia (Colonia) magistri de Gemunden in suevia secundus magister hujus fabrice, quem imperator Karolus IIII. adduxit de dicta civitate et fecit eum magistrum hujus ecclesie et c(um) t(empore) fuerat annorum XXIII et incepit regere anno domini MCCCLVI et perfecit chorum istum anno domini MCCCLXXXVI, quo anno incepit sedilia chori illius, et infra tempus prescriptum eciam incepit et perfecit chorum omnium sanctorum et rexit pontem multaviae et incepit a fundo chorum in Colonya circa albiam.” Vlček, Encyklopedie architektů, stavitelů, zedníků a kameníků v Č echách, p. 478. It should also be noted here that Milena Bartlová has argued that the inscriptions above the busts in the triforium were only composed in the form that we see them today in the 18th century. This is due to the many mistakes relating to dates and places found in these inscriptions. She does agree, however, that there were 14th-century inscriptions above the busts, and thus it is difficult to say how much may have been added later, if at all, and how many of the errors are simply due to bad restorations over the centuries. See Milena Bartlová, “The Choir Triforium of Prague Cathedral Revisited,” in Prague and Bohemia, ed. Zoe Opačić (Leeds, 2009), pp. 81–100. Marek Suchý, “St. Vitus Building Accounts, 1372–1378: The Economic Aspects of Building the Cathedral,” in Money and Finance in Central Europe during the Later Middle Ages (New York, 2016), p. 223. Ibid., p. 226. Ibid., p. 227. Ibid.

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his life, Parler was a wealthy man, and his status was further elevated by being an elected city official, and by being buried in the cathedral. 3

The South Transept Façade

Parler took over work on Prague Cathedral four years after its first mason, ­Matthias of Arras, died. At this point, the radiating chapels, the lower arcade, and the ambulatory of the choir were almost completed, and Parler continued the building works with the triforium and the chapels around the transepts. Even before building on the south transept began, it was clear that the monumental portal of this structure was to face the newly built royal palace and serve as the entrance for the emperor. The close relationships between buildings in Prague and the ‘axes of meaning’ that existed between them received close consideration because they were central to Charles IV’s vision of a city that was staged for performance and ritual.18 According to Beneš, for example, as early as 1368, the emperor is known to have presided at court proceedings at the front gate of Prague Castle during Holy Week.19 The south transept was also to be intimately linked with the chapel of Saint Wenceslas, which was built simultaneously behind it and occupied the sacred space where the canonized duke was originally laid to rest. A doorway in the chapel gave access to a spiral staircase that led to the so-called crown chamber, which housed the reliquary bust of the saint bearing the Bohemian crown, and also to a terrace above it.20 According to Viktor Kotrba, this terrace may have been planned as a platform to display relics and royal insignia to the crowds below during important ceremonies.21 These ceremonial references were not at all coincidental. As Lucy Ormrod argues, the spatial disposition of the south transept was also intimately linked with the newly composed coronation ordinal, which suggests a specific progression through the palace and the cathedral beginning with the south transept.22 18 19 20 21 22

Zoë Opačić, “The Sacred Topography of Medieval Prague,” in Sacred Sites and Holy Places: Exploring the Sacralization of Landscape through Space and Time, ed. Saebjørg Walaker Nordeide (Turnhout, 2012), pp. 253–81. Josef Emler, Fontes Rerum Bohemicarum IV (Prague, 1884), p. 543. See also Zuzana Všetečková, “The Iconography of the Last Judgment Mosaic,” p. 29. Benešovská and Hlobil, Peter Parler and St Vitus’s Cathedral, p. 62. Viktor Kotrba, “Architektura,” in České umění gotické, 1350–1420 (Prague, 1970), pp. 56–58; Všetečková, “The Iconography of the Last Judgment Mosaic,” p. 25. Lucy Ormrod, “The Wenceslas Chapel in St Vitus’ Cathedral, Prague: The Marriage of Imperial Iconography and Bohemian Kingship” (Ph.D. dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1997), pp. 316–37. See also Crossley, “Bohemia Sacra,” p. 357.

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Figure 8.2 Porch of the South Transept of Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech ­Republic, 1367 source: J. Gajdošová

And so the south transept, built between 1367 and 1410, needed a design that would communicate the importance of this part of the building. Starting at the ground level, Parler created a wide portal that welcomed its visitors through three pointed arches on its exterior.23 The inner side walls of the porch, however, taper inward to a large semicircular arch in order to cope with the tight entry that was dictated by the location of the Wenceslas Chapel immediately behind (Figure 8.2). The compact porch is vaulted with an innovative construction consisting of triradials and flying ribs, which are supported by the trumeau and which would have almost certainly been crowning a statue of the Virgin Mary below a baldachin. The vault’s flying ribs recall Parler’s pendant boss in the sacristy, where it is thought that his architectural journey at the cathedral began, while its triradial composition prefigures the net vault in the choir and the Old Town Tower of the Charles Bridge.24 The porch suffered in the fire of 23 24

For a chronology of this part of the cathedral, see Petr Chotěbor, “Der große Turm des St. Veitsdoms: Erkentnisse, die bei den Instandsetzungsarbeiten im Jahr 2000 gewonnen wurden,” Umění 49 (2001): 262–70. For discussion on the sacristy, see Klára Benešovská, “Das frühe Werk von Peter Parler in der Kathedrale zu Prag,” Umení 47 (1999): 351–63. For the vault, see Jana Gajdošová, “Vaulting Small Spaces: The Innovative Design of Prague’s Bridge Tower Vault,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 169 (2016): 39–58.

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1541, which led to it being walled up until 1888 when a major ­restoration project saw it finally revealed and restored. The flying ribs of the porch have been reconstructed by Kamil Hilbert during that restoration campaign but their faithfulness to the original design by Parler has not been disputed.25 Located above the porch is the crown chamber that acted as a sacristy for the Wenceslas Chapel and almost certainly also as a treasury for the Bohemian crown and the bust of Saint Wenceslas upon which it rested.26 Entrance to the crown chamber is granted by a spiral staircase accessed only via the ­Wenceslas Chapel, which links up with the south-east buttress pillar of the transept above it. The buttress, which sits on the eastern side of the ­terrace above the crown chamber, is actually Parler’s celebrated open-spiral staircase, which references the ceremonial nature of this structure and which is often hailed as one of the most innovative designs of Parler’s era.27 Rather than being concealed within a buttress, the staircase is presented here as an elegant showpiece because its casing is made up of freestanding tracery elements. The coats of arms that decorate the staircase represent lands under the Bohemian crown, clearly spelling out the representative function of the structure. We know that the coats of arms were polychromed by Master Osvald in 1372, which serves as evidence of the completion of the staircase by this date.28 Within the staircase, the direction of movement changes at each narrowing step of the buttress, once again flaunting Parler’s ingenuity and expertise. A more difficult date to discern is that of the daring tracery that decorates the crest of the south transept window, dated between 1397 and 1410 (­Figure 8.1).29 Arguably more so than the staircase, the tracery pushes the boundaries of Rayonnant architecture as its organic designs seem to break the rules that govern Gothic buildings. While the glazed tracery in the colossal window was inserted in 1907, the dating of the tracery crest around it is placed at the very end of Parler’s life. Scholars agree, however, that this crest was completed by his son Johannes.30 The design of the crest is composed of two arches that are inverted on each other, the top one further intersected by the tip of an ogee arch. This cresting is credited in literature as being the prime example of the ‘Weicher Stil’ (soft style) in 25 26 27 28 29 30

Petr Chotĕbor and Milena Bravermanová, The Crown of the Kingdom: Charles IV and the Cathedral of Saint Vitus (Prague, 2016), p. 32. Ibid., p.34. Nussbaum, German Gothic Church Architecture, p. 133. Benešovská, Katedrála sv. Víta v Praze. On dating, see Benešovská, “The Legacy of the Last Phase of the Prague Cathedral ­Workshop,” pp. 51–53; Chotěbor, “Der große Turm des St. Veitsdoms,” pp. 262–65. Benešovská, “The Legacy of the Last Phase of the Prague Cathedral Workshop,” pp. 51–53; Chotěbor, “Der große Turm des St. Veitsdoms,” pp. 262–65.

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Central European architecture, in which architectural forms became ‘painterly’ and ‘antitectonic’.31 A highly influential form in Central European late Gothic, such intersecting arches became a kind of signature of the von Ensingen family of architects, who designed the towers of Ulm ­Minster, Strasbourg Cathedral, and Basel Cathedral.32 The first time that this design appears seems to be the so-called Ulm Sketch A, which is attributed to Ulrich von Ensingen and has been dated to after 1392, the year when Ulrich arrived at Ulm and started work on the tower.33 However, the design as a whole owes much to the innovations in Prague Cathedral, and some authors have raised issues with it, suggesting that it may have been completed much later and therefore after the Prague Cathedral transept.34 The design’s debt to Prague is further substantiated by the fact Henry II Parler, Michael Parler, and Henry III Parler worked on Ulm Minster just before Ulrich von Ensingen’s arrival, as well as by the sheer number of similarities between the Sketch A and Prague Cathedral.35 Whether the design for Sketch A was completed shortly after 1392 or not, these two designs are still considered contemporaries, establishing a starting point for the celebrated tracery. Furthermore, the arches might also owe something to Parler’s knowledge of buildings in the English West Country, where the similarly dramatic scissor arches of Wells Cathedral may have served as an inspiration. Beyond these monumental intersecting arches, the wall surfaces covering the crest consist of an eccentric assembly of tracery forms. They are prefigured in the drawing of the ground-floor window of the south tower; the large leaflike composition with overlapping trefoils and quatrefoils above the apex of the south transept window is reminiscent of the foliate tracery in the two lancets of Parler’s drawing, while the tracery in the spandrels of the south transept ­window is almost identical to the tracery below the rosette of Parler’s drawing (­Figure 8.3). Though seemingly original, the elements that make up these designs are further prefigured in numerous Central European churches, including the church of the Holy Cross in Schwäbisch Gmünd (ca.1340), the Pfarrkirche at Friedberg (1310–20), the Klosterkirche in Königsfelden 31 32

33 34 35

Benešovská, “The Legacy of the Last Phase of the Prague Cathedral Workshop,” p. 51. Robert Bork, The Geometry of Creation: Architectural Drawing and the Dynamics of Gothic Design (London, 2011) p. 287; Jaroslav Bureš, “Der Regensburger Doppelturmplan,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 49 (1986): 16–28; Nussbaum, German Gothic Church ­Architecture, p. 143, 142n457. Bork, Geometry of Creation, p. 287; Nussbaum, German Gothic Church Architecture, p. 142n457. Johann Böker, Architektur der Gotik: Rheinlande (Salzburg, 2011), pp. 38–56 ; Bureš, “Der Regensburger Doppelturmplan,” pp. 16–28. Nussbaum, German Gothic Church Architecture, pp. 146–47.

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Figure 8.3 Drawing for the south tower of Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech ­Republic, ca. 1365 source: Kupferstichkabinett der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna

(1310–30), Freiburg Minster (1280–1340), and the Liebfrauenkirche in Oberwesel (1308–31).36 Still, Parler’s inventiveness here pushes these designs further, 36

Peter Kurmann, “Spätgotische Tendenzen in der europäischen Architektur um 1300,” in Europäische Kunst um 1300, ed. Gerhard Schmidt (Vienna, 1986), pp. 11–18; Paul Crossley, “Salem and the Ogee Arch,” in Architektur und Monumentalskulptur des 12.–14. Jahrhunderts: Produktion und Rezeption; Festschrift für Peter Kurmann zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Stephan Gasser, Christian Freigang, and Bruno Boerner (Bern, 2006), pp. 321–42; Christoph Brachmann, Um 1300: Vorparlerische Architektur im Elsass, in Lothringen und Südwestdeutschland (Korb, 2008).

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Figure 8.4 Last Judgment, mosaic on the south transept of Saint Vitus Cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic, 1370–71 source: J. Gajdošová

establishing a new way of thinking about buildings as dynamic, ever-changing structures. 4

The Mosaic

Despite these inventive architectural elements, which allow us to trace the speed at which the Gothic style was changing at this time, the south transept is dominated by a monumental mosaic, which intrudes into the architect’s revolutionary design and brings with it an ambience from a much more distant past (Figure 8.4).37 The mosaic is located above the three arches of the outer portal and directly in front of the crown chamber. Two small windows pierce the composition on either side, providing light to the chamber behind it. Recalling the sculpted portals in Gothic Germany and France, at the center of the mosaic is an enthroned figure of Christ in a mandorla, supported on both sides by angels holding instruments of the passion. A Vera Icon, referring to the copy that Charles brought to Prague from Italy, decorates a band 37

Crossley, “Bohemia Sacra,” p. 341.

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just above the figure of Christ. Figures of the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist kneel in prayer on either side of Christ, who is further flanked by the Twelve Apostles holding their attributes. Below this register on the left side, people climb out of sarcophagi as angels pull them up into heaven. On the right side, a group of people bound by ropes are being pulled into hell by demons. Just below the figure of Christ is a group of six figures who represent the patron saints of Bohemia (left to right): Saint Procopius, Saint Sigismund, Saint Vitus, Saint Wenceslas, Saint Ludmila, and Saint Adalbert. They are identified by their attributes but also by inscriptions on a band just below. In the spandrels above the central arch are two further kneeling figures representing Charles IV and his wife, ­Elizabeth of Pomerania, wearing imperial crowns, their hands clasped in prayer. Archaeological and documentary evidence demonstrates that this part of the façade was changed two years after its completion to include the Last ­Judgment mosaic. While the dating of the tracery crest above the window is later, we know that the crown chamber and the portal below were completed by 1368. As chronicler and Prague canon Beneš wrote, in December 1367, that a magnificent sculpted portal was completed near the Wenceslas Chapel and above it a new sacristy.38 In 1368, Beneš also notes that the archbishop had consecrated the portal, making no mention of a mosaic.39 In 1370, after Charles returned from his third trip to Italy, he decided to make a change to the façade. As Beneš once again recalls, “At that time, the emperor had a glass image made in the Greek manner and set in the façade above the porch of the Prague Cathedral, a splendid and very costly work.”40 Scientific evidence supports this late change to the façade because a third small window was discovered in 1890 when the mosaic was removed for restoration; this window must have been walled up after Charles returned to Prague.41 The window was located above the central arch of the outer portal, in the place where the figure of Christ is currently depicted. A more recent thermographic analysis conducted by the Getty Institute also reveals the

38 39 40 41

Kroniky doby Karla IV., ed. Marie Bláhová (Prague, 1987), p. 239. See also Beneš, Chronicle, pp. 459–548. Kroniky doby Karla IV., p. 239; Beneš, Chronicle, pp. 459–548. “Eodem etiam tempore fecit ipse Pragensis de opere vitreo more greco, de opere pulchro et multum sumtuoso.” Translated in Všetečková, “The Iconography of the Last Judgment Mosaic,” p. 21. Marie Kostlíková, “The Last Judgment Mosaic: The Historical Record, 1370–1910,” in Piqué and Stulik, Conservation of the Last Judgment Mosaic St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, p. 8n2.

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walled-up window behind the mosaic.42 There is no indication that any other architectural elements were present on this surface, which is also reflected in the architectural drawing of the lower part of the south tower, where a small portion of this façade is depicted. As Klára Benešovská argues, however, the architect may have ignored certain completed parts of the transept façade in the drawing because those elements did not directly refer to or influence the building of the tower.43 What we do know is that the crown chamber behind the mosaic acted as a treasury chamber as well as a sacristy, and so it was probably meant to have small windows, which would have left a large area of surface wall exposed here. We have to wonder what Parler’s original design for this part of the façade would have been, especially as he had so much surface area to contend with. A likely possibility would be blind tracery, which covers most of the surfaces of his other thick-walled structures, such as the buttresses around the choir or the façade of the Old Town Bridge Tower. The change in design meant that the surface area in front of the chamber was now covered in a mosaic, which imparted a radical stylistic shift to the structure. Charles must have been inspired to have the mosaic made after his three visits to Italy: the first, in the 1330s when he was just a teenager; the ­second, for his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor; and the third, in the 1360s for the imperial coronation of his wife. He would have therefore been familiar with similarly monumental examples of mosaics, such as those on the façade of San Frediano Cathedral in Lucca and Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Maria in Trastevere, and Old St. Peter’s in Rome. What’s more, the Vera Icon at the top of the mosaic was also linked to Charles IV’s travels in Italy because he acquired a painted copy of the miraculous image on his second trip to Rome.44 The medium gained new momentum in Italy in the 13th century, when popes commissioned mosaics as a sign of their authority and as a sign of the antiquity of their office. One example is the mosaic that was commissioned in the 14th century for the exterior of Santa Maria Maggiore by Cardinal Colonna, the nephew of Pope Martin V, whose election as pope is often credited with ending the Western Schism.45 42 43 44 45

Milena Nečásková and Francesca Piqué, “Documentation of the Last Judgment Mosaic,” in Piqué and Stulik, Conservation of the Last Judgment Mosaic St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, p. 198. Benešovská, “The Legacy of the Last Phase of the Prague Cathedral Workshop,” p. 163. Zděnka Hledíková, “Charles IV’s Italian Travels: An Inspiration for the Mosaic?,” in Piqué and Stulik, Conservation of the Last Judgment Mosaic St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, p. 17. Carlo Bertelli, “The Last Judgment Mosaic: Bohemian Originality and the Italian ­Example,” in Piqué and Stulik, Conservation of the Last Judgment Mosaic St. Vitus ­Cathedral, Prague, p. 33.

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Mosaics were a rare sight north of the Alps, and Beneš acknowledges its foreign nature in his chronicle by noting that it was made in the Greek manner. But who was responsible for this work? Carlo Bertelli argues that the frequently acknowledged Venetian attribution should be reevaluated in favor of an attribution to a workshop that consisted of both local craftsmen and central Italian artists—especially those who had close knowledge of a very similar mosaic on the façade of Orvieto Cathedral.46 Beneš also mentions specifically the way that the mosaic shimmered in the sun and that this feature was desired by the emperor. This desire may have again been connected with what Charles saw in Italy, since both Orvieto Cathedral and Siena Cathedral were positioned atop acropolises so that their façades glittered from a distance.47 The mosaic drew further links with other well-known ancient imperial works, namely the buildings commissioned by Charlemagne that were also decorated with mosaics. Although very little is known about the iconography of the mosaic in the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, documentary evidence suggests that it would have included an image of Christ in Majesty. Its style is even more difficult to hypothesize but we can imagine that it may have looked something like the only surviving Carolingian mosaic, which is in the oratory of Theodulf of Orleans in Germigny-des-Prés and depicts two large angels and the Ark of the Covenant.48 Another example with which Charles would have been familiar is the mosaic at the abbey church of Saint-Denis in Paris, which decorated the left portal of the west façade. The mosaic was commissioned in the first half of the 12th century by Abbot Suger, who recognized its irreconcilability with the new Gothic building by noting, “We set up [old doors] on the left beneath the mosaic which, though contrary to modern custom, we ordered to be executed there and to be affixed to the tympanum of the portal.”49 Suger’s ability to recognize the retrospection of the new mosaic says something about the way that he built Saint-Denis, deliberately fusing the old with the new, as he himself declared that “the recollection of the past is the promise of the future.”50 Facing the imperial palace, the mosaic at Prague Cathedral made a distinct statement about the status of the city and about the new Luxembourg dynasty in Bohemia, linking its modernity with an ancient past. This was a 46 47 48 49 50

Ibid., pp. 33–36. Ibid., p. 33. Ann Freeman and Paul Meyvaert, “The Meaning of Theodulf’s Apse Mosaic at ­Germigny-des-Pres,” Gesta 40, no. 2 (2001): 125–39. Abbot Suger, On the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis and Its Art Treasures, trans. Erwin ­Panofsky, (Princeton, 1946), p. 47. Ibid., p. 53.

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pattern that was also established in other monuments in Prague. The years that followed Charles’s arrival in Prague after his first trip to Italy were filled with acts that proclaimed his rightful place among his illustrious predecessors, both royal and imperial. In the cathedral, there was an emphasis on ­historicizing ­elements, such as the restaging of Charles’s Přemyslid ancestors, who were translated to the radiating chapels of the new cathedral with their remains made visible with new tomb monuments, or the homage paid to Saint ­Wenceslas, whose memory was honored with a new shrine and chapel (though particular care was taken that the chapel remain in the original position where Wenceslas was first buried) (Figure 7). The historical sensitivity evident in symbolic buildings and locations afforded the monuments a sense of permanence, which not only preserved the memory of the past but reconfigured that memory to illustrate a continuous narrative of historical time. The modernity of the new cathedral was contrasted by the antiquity of these carefully staged elements, which reaffirmed the ideologies of the emperor. 5

The Compromise

Nevertheless, the mosaic on the south transept created a diversion from Parler’s Gothic design. This discrepancy raises questions of how well patrons understood the complexities of late Gothic architecture and how much freedom master masons had at the time. Although it is unclear what the design of this façade would have looked like without the emperor’s interference, his obvious input has opened up a fascinating glimpse into the different agendas involved in late Gothic building projects. Charles’s substantial contributions to the building works at the cathedral are reflected not only by indirect references, such as the placement of his image throughout the cathedral, but also by the fact that he chose both its architects, Matthias of Arras and Peter Parler, and by his financial support outlined in the cathedral’s building accounts. These accounts also demonstrate that Charles intervened on numerous occasions. For instance, in 1376 he ordered all work on the fabric to stop so that the workshop could focus on the tomb monuments of the Přemyslid rulers.51 Charles also kept a close watch on the project even when he was away from Prague. As Suchý points out, one example of the “intense communications between the chapter building office and the emperor are confirmed by expenses for 51

Die Wochenrechnungen und der Betrieb des Prager Dombaues in den Jahren 1372–1378, ed. Josef Neuwirth (Prague, 1890), p. 264; Albert Kutal, Č eské gotické sochařství, 1350–1450 (Prague, 1962), pp. 42–45.

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a messenger, who was to meet him in Mühlberg super certis negotiis fabrice in December 1372.”52 And while most of these detailed discussions reveal the degree of control that Charles wanted on the project, others may reflect the anxieties he had about his mason’s daring designs. It is worthwhile to repeat here that apart from the clerk of works managing the finances, it was Parler who was the decision maker on the cathedral project. While Parler’s status in Prague was unique, it was not completely out of the norm when we trace the developing status of architects in late medieval Europe. The rising prestige of the medieval architect may have been driven by the increased use of architectural drawing and the ability it gave the mason to communicate his envisioned design to others, allowing him to work on several projects simultaneously.53 This change in status seems to have occurred gradually and inconsistently, starting in the second half of the 13th century; however, even as early as Gervase’s account of the rebuilding of Canterbury Cathedral in the second half of the 12th century, we find evidence for the enormous amount of control that medieval masons ultimately had over the “appearance of ‘their’ buildings.”54 Paul Binski points out that by about 1250, a new way of thinking arose about “architects as authors and professionals.”55 This is demonstrated in a distinctio attributed to Nicolas de Biard (Paris, BnF, MS 16489, fol. 30) and written in the third quarter of the 13th century in Paris, which reads: “Some work by words alone … in these large buildings there is wont to be one chief master who orders matters only by word, seldom or never putting his hand to the task but who nevertheless receives higher wages than the others.”56 Parler’s wages and bonuses in Prague reflect this sentiment exactly. His English contemporary Henry Yevele, who was the king’s chief architect from about 1360, is another prime example; his wealth and status in society is evidenced by numerous ­surviving documents that give us a picture of the prestige of premier architects in late 14th-century Europe. These documents outline that Henry owned a “substantial block of property” in London that previously belonged 52 53 54 55 56

Suchý, “St Vitus Building Accounts,” p. 242. Michael T. Davis, “On the Drawing Board: Plans of the Clermont Cathedral Terrace,” in Ad Quadratum: The Practical Application of Geometry in Medieval Architecture, ed. Nancy Y. Wu (New York, 2016), p. 187. Christopher Wilson, “Calling the Tune? The Involvement of King Henry III in the Design of the Abbey Church at Westminster,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 161 (2008): 83. Paul Binski, “’Working by Words Slone’: The Architect, Scholasticism and Rhetoric in ­Thirteenth-century France,” in Rhetoric beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2010), p. 14. Nicolas de Biard, quoted in ibid., p. 23.

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to the mayor and that was one of the first houses to be seen by anyone coming into London as it was at the south end of Bridge Street.57 His status was also demonstrated in 1392, when he was chosen as one of the 24 most important citizens of London to accompany the mayor to plead the city’s case with King Richard II during a dispute. He was also able to finance the building of the chapel of Saint Thomas of Canterbury on the Old London Bridge.58 Probably the most notable contemporary of Peter Parler, however, is Ulrich von Ensingen, who worked alongside the Parlers in Ulm Minster when he took over work on the tower in 1392. Prior to this, he probably also visited Prague, as his work clearly reveals that he knew the cathedral’s designs intimately. In 1394, Ulrich accepted an invitation to work on Milan Cathedral but he did not remain on site for long because he was bold enough to disagree with the proposed designs and refused to execute the building in that way.59 He also had no qualms with requesting a substantial wage and a five-year contract, which was also the case with his work in Ulm.60 While this may have been unusual in Italy, German architects were accustomed to having much more authority over their projects; and this is the context that Parler belonged to. Even among the notable examples of masons mentioned above, Parler’s status and enterprises in Prague were unique. While the weekly accounts from Prague Cathedral offer an incomplete picture of Parler and his workshop practices because they survive only for the years 1372 to 1378, the visual evidence leaves an impression of a mason who was extremely confident and unrestricted. Despite Charles’s fixation on historicism, he chose and trusted an architect who was forward thinking, someone who pushed boundaries and took risks, because this was the type of mason who would carry out even the most bizarre concepts in his buildings. However, the occasionally conflicting vision of these two men is reflected in the dynamic between the two styles that clash on the south transept façade. While Parler probably did not favor this location for the mosaic, he accepted the emperor’s challenge and created something that provokes us to imagine the discussions between these two men. As Christopher Wilson notes in relation to the creative dynamic between King Henry III of England and Master Henry, however, an “attempt to 57 58 59 60

Christopher Wilson, “L’architecte bienfaiteur de la ville: Henry Yevele et la chapelle du London Bridge,” Revue de l’Art 166 (2009): 43–45. Ibid., pp. 43–45. James S. Ackerman, ‘“Ars sine scientia nihil est: Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan,” The Art Bulletin 31, no. 2 (1949): 96. Marc Carel Schurr, “Ulrich von Ensingen, der neubau des Ulmer Münsters und die ‘­Medialität des Stils,’” in Werkmeister der Spätgotik: Personen, Amt und Image, ed. Stefan Bürger and Bruno Klein (Darmstadt, 2010), p. 106.

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eavesdrop on long-lost exchanges which were never meant to be overheard, let alone recorded, is inevitably a risky undertaking for, like all eavesdropping, it can reveal parts of the conversation accurately enough while getting the overall tenor of the discussion quite wrong.”61 Bibliography of Cited Sources

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Abbot Suger. On the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis and Its Art Treasures. Translated by Erwin Panofsky. Princeton, 1946. Beneš Krabice. Chronicle. In Fontes Rerum Bohemicarum IV, edited by Josef Emler. Prague, 1884. Kroniky doby Karla IV. Edited by Marie Bláhová. Prague, 1987. Charles IV. Karoli IV Imperatoris Romanorum vita ab eo ipso conscripta: Et, Hystoria nova de Sancto Wenceslao martyre / Autobiography of Emperor Charles IV and His Legend of St. Wenceslas. Edited by Nagy Balázs and Frank Schaer. Budapest, 2001. Die Wochenrechnungen und der Betrieb des Prager Dombaues in den Jahren 1372–1378. Edited by Josef Neuwirth. Prague, 1890.

Ackerman, James S. “‘Ars sine scientia nihil est’: Gothic Theory of Architecture at the Cathedral of Milan.” The Art Bulletin 31, no. 2 (1949): 84–111. Bartlová, Milena. “The Choir Triforium of Prague Cathedral Revisited.” In Prague and Bohemia, edited by Zoe Opačić, pp. 81–100. Leeds, 2009. Benešovská, Klára. “Das frühe Werk von Peter Parler in der Kathedrale zu Prag.” In Umení 47 (1999): 351–63. Benešovská, Klára. “The Legacy of the Last Phase of the Prague Cathedral Workshop.” In Kunst als Herrschaftsinstrument: Böhmen und das Heilige Römische Reich unter den Luxemburgern im europäischen Kontext, edited by Jiří Fajt and Andreas Langer, pp. 43–58. Munich, 2009. Benešovská, Klára, and Anežka Merhautová. Katedrála sv. Víta v Praze: k 650; Výročí založení. Prague, 1994. Benešovská, Klára, and Ivo Hlobil. Peter Parler and St Vitus’s Cathedral, 1356–1399. Prague, 1999. Bertelli, Carlo. “The Last Judgment Mosaic: Bohemian Originality and the Italian Example.” In Conservation of the Last Judgment Mosaic St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, edited by Francesca Piqué and Dušan C. Stulik, pp. 33–38. Singapore, 2004. 61

Wilson, “Calling the Tune,” p. 81.

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Binski, Paul. “‘Working by Words Alone’: The Architect, Scholasticism and Rhetoric in Thirteenth-century France.” In Rhetoric Beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, edited by Mary Carruthers, pp. 14–51. Cambridge, 2010. Bláhová, Marie. “Panovnické genealogie a jejich politická funkce ve středověku.” Sborník archivních práci 47 (1998): 35–36. Böker, Johann. Architektur der Gotik: Rheinlande. Salzburg, 2011. Bork, Robert. The Geometry of Creation: Architectural Drawing and the Dynamics of Gothic Design. London, 2011. Brachmann, Christoph. Um 1300: Vorparlerische Architektur im Elsass, in Lothringen und Südwestdeutschland. Korb, 2008. Bureš, Jaroslav. “Der Regensburger Doppelturmplan.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 49 (1986): 16–28. Chotěbor, Petr. “Der große Turm des St. Veitsdoms. Erkentnisse, die bei den Instandsetzungsarbeiten im Jahr 2000 gewonnen wurden.” Umění 49 (2001): 262–70. Chotěbor, Petr, and Milena Bravermanová. The Crown of the Kingdom: Charles IV and the Cathedral of Saint Vitus. Prague, 2016. Crossley, Paul. “Bohemia Sacra: Liturgy and History in Prague Cathedral.” In Pierre, Lumière, Couleur: É tudes d’histoire de l’art du Moyen  ge en L’honneur d’Anne Prache, edited by Fabienne Joubert and Dany Sandron, pp. 341–65. Paris, 1999. Crossley, Paul. “The Politics of Presentation: The Architecture of Charles IV of Bohemia.” In Courts and Regions in Medieval Europe, edited by Sarah Rees Jones, Richard Marks, and A. J. Minnis, pp. 99–172. York, 2000. Crossley, Paul. “Peter Parler and England: A Problem Revisited.” Wallraf-Richartz ­Jahrbuch 64 (2003): 53–82. Crossley, Paul. “Salem and the Ogee Arch.” In Architektur und Monumentalskulptur des 12.–14. Jahrhunderts: Produktion und Rezeption; Festschrift für Peter Kurmann zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by Stephan Gasser, Christian Freigang, and Bruno Boerner, pp. 321–42. Bern, 2006. Davis, Michael T. “On the Drawing Board: Plans of the Clermont Cathedral Terrace.” In Ad Quadratum: The Practical Application of Geometry in Medieval Architecture, edited by Nancy Y. Wu, pp. 167–81. New York, 2016. Freeman, Ann, and Paul Meyvaert. “The Meaning of Theodulf’s Apse Mosaic at ­Germigny-des-Pres.” Gesta 40, no. 2 (2001): 125–39. Gajdošová, Jana. “Vaulting Small Spaces: The Innovative Design of Prague’s Bridge Tower Vault.” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 169 (2016): 39–58. Gajdošová, Jana. “Restaging Remnants of the Past: Royal Sculpture in Charles iv’s Prague.” Gesta 61, no. 2 (2022): 223–243. Hledíková, Zděnka. “Charles IV’s Italian Travels: An Inspiration for the Mosaic?” In Piqué and Stulik, Conservation of the Last Judgment Mosaic St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, pp. 11–20.

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Holladay, Joan A. Genealogy and the Politics of Representation in the High and Late ­Middle Ages. Cambridge, 2019. Homolka, Jaromír. “The Pictorial Decoration of the Palace and Lesser Tower of Karlštejn Castle.” In Magister Theodoricus, Court Painter to Emperor Charles IV: The Pictorial Decoration of the Shrines at Karlstejn Castle, ed. Jiří Fajt, 45–105. Prague, 1998. Kostlíková, Marie. “The Last Judgment Mosaic: The Historical Record, 1370–1910.” In Piqué and Stulik, Conservation of the Last Judgment Mosaic St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, pp. 3–10. Kotrba, Viktor. “Architektura.” In Kutal, České umění gotické, 56–111. Kurmann, Peter. “Spätgotische Tendenzen in der europäischen Architektur um 1300.” In Europäische Kunst um 1300, edited by Gerhard Schmidt, pp. 11–18. Vienna, 1986. Kutal, Albert, ed. Č eské gotické sochařství, 1350–1450. Prague, 1962. Kuthan, Jiří, and Jan Royt. Katedrála Sv. Víta, Václava a Vojtěcha: Svatyně česky̌ ch ­patronů a králů. Prague, 2011. Legner, Anton, ed. Die Parler und der Schöne Stil: 1350–1400; Europäische Kunst unter den Luxemburgern. Cologne, 1978. Martindale, Andrew. Heroes, Ancestors, Relatives and the Birth of the Portrait. Maarssen, 1988. Mencl, Václav. Č eské středověké klenby. Prague, 1974. Nečásková, Milena, and Francesca Piqué. “Documentation of the Last Judgment Mosaic.” In Piqué and Stulik, Conservation of the Last Judgment Mosaic St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, 191–210. Nussbaum, Norbert. German Gothic Church Architecture. Translated by Scott Kleager. New Haven, 2000. Ormrod, Lucy. “The Wenceslas Chapel in St Vitus’ Cathedral, Prague: The Marriage of Imperial Iconography and Bohemian Kingship.” Ph.D. dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1997. Opačić, Zoë. “The Sacred Topography of Medieval Prague.” In Sacred Sites and Holy Places: Exploring the Sacralization of Landscape through Space and Time, edited by Saebjørg Walaker Nordeide, pp. 253–81. Turnhout, 2012. Schurr, Marc Carel. Die Baukunst Peter Parlers: Der Prager Veitsdom, das Heiligkreuzmünster in Schwäbisch Gmünd und die Bartholomäuskirche in Kolin im Spannungsfeld von Kunst und Geschichte. Ostfildern, 2003. Schurr, Marc Carel. Gotische Architektur im mittleren Europa, 1220–1340. Munich, 2007. Schurr, Marc Carel. “Ulrich von Ensingen, der neubau des Ulmer Münsters und die ‘­Medialität des Stils.’” In Werkmeister der Spätgotik: Personen, Amt und Image, edited by Stefan Bürger and Bruno Klein, pp. 106–21. Darmstadt, 2010. Seibt, Ferdinand. Introduction to Karoli IV imperatoris romanorum vita ab eo ipso conscripta: Et, hystoria nova de sancto Wenceslao Martyre/ Autobiography of Emperor

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Charles IV and His Legend of St. Wenceslas, edited by Nagy Balázs and Frank Schaer. Budapest, 2001. Stejskal, Karel. “Matouš Ornys a jeho ‘rod císaře Karla IV. (k otázce českého historizujícího manýrismu).” Umění 24 (1976): 21–22. Suchý, Marek. “St. Vitus Building Accounts, 1372–1378: The Economic Aspects of ­Building the Cathedral.” In Money and Finance in Central Europe during the Later Middle Ages, pp. 222–46. New York, 2016. Vlček, Pavel. Encyklopedie architektů, stavitelů, zedníků a kameníků v čechách. Prague, 2004. Všetečková, Zuzana. “The Iconography of the Last Judgment Mosaic and Its Medieval Context.” In Piqué and Stulik, Conservation of the Last Judgment Mosaic St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, pp. 21–32. Wilson, Christopher. “Calling the Tune? The Involvement of King Henry III in the Design of the Abbey Church at Westminster.” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 161 (2008): 59–93. Wilson, Christopher. “L’architecte bienfaiteur de la ville: Henry Yevele et la chapelle du London Bridge.” Revue de l’Art 166 (2009): 43–45. Wilson, Christopher. “Why Did Peter Parler Come to England?” In Architecture, ­Liturgy and Identity: Liber Amicorum Paul Crossley, edited by Zoë Opačić and Achim ­Timmermann, pp. 89–110. Turnhout, 2011.

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PART 3 Global Gothics on the Margins of Europe and Beyond

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Chapter 9

The Currency of the Gothic in the Carpathian Mountain Regions Alice Isabella Sullivan The regions of the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe emerged at the ­crossroads of competing traditions for much of the late ­Middle Ages.1 The religious architecture in the principalities of Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia (the medieval territories that extend over most of modern Romania) aptly reveals the kinds of cultural negotiations between East and West that unfolded in local contexts (Figure 9.1). Whereas most communities in Moldavia and Wallachia were Orthodox in religious affiliation and thus built places of worship that primarily followed Byzantine and Slavic church building and decorating traditions, those in Transylvania were more diverse and looked both to the Greek and Latin cultural spheres for inspiration.2 As the easternmost largely Catholic land in Europe—which extended within the giant western cleft of the Carpathians and was part of the ­Hungarian Kingdom—Transylvania was in more direct contact with Western European traditions than the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which stretched to the east and south of the Carpathians and declared their independence from Hungary during the second half of the 14th century.3 Gothic models in the Carpathian Mountain regions appeared as early as the 12th century, yet they were deployed differently in the three Romanian principalities, with select features carrying diverse meanings and functions in local contexts. 1 See the introductions and select chapters in the following volumes: Maria Alessia Rossi and Alice Isabella Sullivan, eds., Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages (Leiden, 2020); eadem, eds., Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions (Berlin, 2022); Alina Payne, ed., The Land between Two Seas: Art on the Move in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, 1300–1700 (Leiden, 2022). 2 See Dragoș Gh. Năstăsoiu, “Byzantine Forms and Catholic Patrons in Late Medieval ­Transylvania,” in Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions, ed. Maria Alessia Rossi and Alice Isabella Sullivan (Berlin, 2022), pp. 77–102; Dragoș Gh. Năstăsoiu, “Byzantine and Gothic Side-by-Side: Stylistic ­Diversity under a Single Roof in the Churches of Late-Medieval Transylvania,” presentation at Museikon International Workshop, 27 November 2020. 3 The date of independence was 1330 for Wallachia and 1359 for Moldavia. For an accessible and general overview, see Keith Hitchins, A Concise History of Romania (Cambridge, 2015). © Alice Isabella Sullivan, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_012 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 9.1 Map of Eastern Europe ca. 1550 source: Andrei Nacu

Transylvania preserves the largest number of Gothic structures and the most varied use of Gothic ­building practices and designs in religious and - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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secular architecture. In the Moldavian and Wallachian cultural contexts, in contrast, select Gothic features are incorporated in buildings and complexes that derive their main building and decorative forms from Eastern Christian architecture. The workshop practices established in the Transylvanian cultural milieux ­contributed to the transfer of Gothic ideas to other regions of the Carpathians, yet how these models were adopted locally varied. Other factors also contributed to the distinct features of local architectural projects, including the desires of the patrons and the availability of resources and materials, among others. The architectural choices evident in key monuments point to the currency of Gothic designs and building practices in the development of local architectural styles to the west, east, and south of the Carpathian Mountains especially in the period between the 14th and 16th centuries. This essay examines select buildings from each Romanian principality that reveal aspects of the practices, designs, and knowledge transfer of Gothic models in Eastern Europe, their adaptations in local contexts, and the signifying potential of the Gothic aesthetic. Certain workshops and stonecutters contributed their building know-how across the Carpathian regions. The essay also considers the possible meanings of Gothic forms in regions of Eastern Europe and especially how the Gothic was deployed in monuments designed for ­Eastern Orthodox use in Moldavia and Wallachia. In some instances, Gothic models persisted unchanged for more than a century, suggesting that these designs were adopted for their formal functions and symbolic meanings. 1

Transylvania

From political, religious, and cultural standpoints, Transylvania was connected to the Catholic spheres of Germany, Italy, and Hungary, while a relatively large group of the local population continued to follow the Eastern Christian faith.4 The beginnings of Gothic architecture in Transylvania correspond with the arrival of German-speaking ‘guests’ from Flanders, Saxony, and Bavaria (‘Saxons’), and the establishment of various monastic orders.5 The Germans came to the region beginning in the 12th century, settling first in the Sibiu area and then in Sighișoara and in Mediaș, perhaps in an effort to increase the economic value of the eastern borderlands of the Hungarian Kingdom. The earliest stone churches in the Saxon territories of Transylvania date to the first decades of 4 Orthodox groups in Transylvania were tolerated until the middle of the 15th century. 5 Ioan-Cosmin Ignat, “Romanesque Saxon churches in medieval Transylvania,” Carnival 13 (2011): 74–86; Maria Crîngaci Țiplic, “Oaspeții germani” în sudul Transilvaniei: Istorie, arheologie și arhitectură (secolele XII–XIII) (Bucharest, 2011). - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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the 13th century and display markedly Gothic features. A noteworthy example is the fortified church in Prejmer, near Brașov, completed between 1211 and 1240.6 Begun as a Roman Catholic church by Teutonic Knights from Germany who settled in the area with assistance from the Hungarian king Andrew II (r. 1205–35), the church was completed under the Cistercians.7 Its most distinctive Gothic features are the tiered buttresses that support the structure, its simple windows with pointed-arch profiles and quatrefoil rosettes in the upper registers, as well as a polygonal apse with a simple rib vault and central boss. In addition to ecclesiastical establishments, the Saxons contributed to the fortification of the areas they inhabited, especially after the Mongol invasion of Hungary in 1241.8 Fortified locales helped defend the local communities from subsequent attacks.9 Important examples of such fortifications have been preserved in Bistrița, Sibiu, Cluj-Napoca, Brașov, Mediaș, and Sighișoara.10 For these territories of Eastern Europe that developed at the crossroads of competing worldviews, defensive architecture became an important means of protection. The various monastic orders that settled in the regions of the Carpathians also contributed to the dissemination of Romanesque and then Gothic building practices. In the predominantly Catholic spheres of neighboring Poland and Hungary, the Benedictines and Cistercians, the canon orders (particularly the Augustinians, Premonstratensians, and Carmelites), and later the Franciscans and Dominicans informed the development of monastic architecture, which drew on Romanesque and Gothic examples. These monastic groups were active throughout Europe, and the pastoral and missionary work of many of the orders, particularly the Franciscans and Dominicans, allowed them to reach more distant corners of the medieval world.11 These orders’ abbey 6 7 8 9 10 11

Mihaela Sanda Salontai, et al, Biserica fortificată din Prejmer (Bucharest, 2006). After the Reformation, the church became Lutheran. The Mongols defeated the Hungarians at the battle of Mohi in April 1241. See Zoltán ­Kosztolnyik, Hungary in the Thirteenth Century (New York, 1996). Hermann Fabini, Atlas der siebenbürgisch-sächsischen Kirchenburgen und Dorfkirchen, 3 vols. (Sibiu/Heidelberg, 1998–2002); Hermann Fabini and Gudrun Liane Ittu, Universul cetăților bisericești din Transilvania (Sibiu, 2009). City walls and the first stone fortifications were erected after the Mongol invasion. See Adrian Andrei Rusu, Castelarea carpatică: Fortificații și cetăți din Transilvania și teritoriile învecinate (sec. XIII–XIV) (Cluj-Napoca, 2005). Western monasticism arrived in regions of East-Central Europe in the early 10th century. See Gábor Klaniczay, “The Mendicant Orders in East-Central Europe and the Integration of Cultures,” in Hybride Kulturen im mittelalterlichen Europa. Vorträge und Workshops einer internationalen Frühlingsschule, ed. Michael Borgolte and Bernd Schneidmüller

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churches generally featured a three-aisle basilica with a prominent westwork. By the 13th century, Poland was peppered with over three hundred monasteries that helped spread Catholicism and Western traditions, including Gothic building practices and designs. The mendicants also moved to Hungary in the early 13th century, erecting initially monasteries akin to those found in Dalmatia and Italy.12 The parish church in Ják (Vas County, Hungary), begun in 1256 and originally part of a Benedictine abbey, is the most complete medieval church in Hungary.13 Dedicated to Saint George, the church follows a basilican layout with a tripartite apse and a monumental westwork, bringing together Romanesque and Gothic features adorned with sculptural works, both inside and outside. Its richly carved entryway and quadripartite rib vaults in the interior are some of the distinct features derived from Gothic examples. The Porta Coeli (Heaven’s Gate) Convent in Tišnov (near Brno, Czech Republic), the foundation of Queen Constance of Hungary, the wife of the Bohemian king Ottokar I (r. 1198–1230), displays Gothic elements akin to monasteries in northern France and Austria. These examples demonstrate the interconnectedness of the different cultural centers of Europe throughout the Middle Ages, which facilitated the movements of people, objects, and ideas. In Transylvania, all the Western monastic orders established houses. The ­Cistercians had prominent abbeys in Cârța (near Sibiu) and Igriș (near Arad), for example. The basilican church at Cârța reveals two phases of ­construction—the first derived from Romanesque models preceding the Mongol invasion of 1241, while the second, postdating this event, followed Gothic building practices and designs (Figure 9.2).14 A project supported by royal funds that likely employed the best masons, stone carvers, and artists, the church at Cârța is one of the earliest extant Gothic buildings in Transylvania.15 The church displays a transept that terminates in square chapels, a polygonal choir at the east end, and sexpartite and quadripartite rib vaults over the nave and aisles, respectively. As evident also in the Balkan Peninsula and

12 13 14 15

(Berlin, 2010), pp. 245–60; Christopher Norton and David Park, eds., Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles (Cambridge, 1986), esp. the chapter by Christopher Wilson, “The Cistercians as ‘missionaries of Gothic’ in Northern England,” pp. 86–116. Béla Zsolt Szakács, “Early Mendicant Architecture in Medieval Hungary,” in Monastic Architecture and the City, ed. Catarina Almeida Marado (Coimbra, 2014), pp. 23–34. Ernő Márosi, A román kor muvészete (Budapest, 1972). Ernő Márosi and Renate Messing, Die Anfänge der Gotik in Ungarn: Esztergom in der Kunst des 12.-13. Jahrhunderts (Budapest, 1984), p. 126. Entz Géza, “Le chantier cistercien de Kerc (Cîrța),” Acta Historiae Artium Academiae ­Scientiarum Hungaricae 9 (1963): 3–38.

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Figure 9.2 Cistercian Monastery, Cârța, Transylvania, modern Romania, view from southeast, 12th century source: Otto Schemmel / Wikimedia Commons

along the Adriatic coast, it was common for such monuments to combine different church-building traditions.16 Whereas the Benedictine and mendicant monasteries helped spread building practices and designs rooted primarily in Romanesque ­traditions, the ­Cistercians began introducing Gothic elements in monastic architecture, as evident in long churches with rib-vaulted transepts, pointed arches in door and window framings, as well as geometric and curvilinear tracery designs. The most pronounced Gothic building practices and features in the ­Transylvanian cultural context are found in local parish churches begun in the 14th century, especially those in the larger cities of Sibiu, Cluj-Napoca, Sebeș, Brașov, Sighișoara, and Mediaș. These projects were mostly funded by local communities, and they also demonstrate the local workshop practices that were more established by this point. The buildings emulate the hall-church tradition the mendicants advanced in the German cultural context from the 13th century onward.17 A key example of a Transylvanian Gothic structure of this type is the church of Saint Michael in Cluj-Napoca (Figure 9.3).18 Measuring 50 meters in length, 24 meters in width, and 80 meters in height at the tower, 16 17 18

Dragoș Gh. Năstăsoiu, Gothic Art in Romania (Bucharest, 2011), pp. 30–35 and 50–68. Norbert Nussbaum, German Gothic Church Architecture (New Haven, 2000), pp. 70–85. Saint Michael was originally Catholic and then converted to Lutheran.

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Figure 9.3 (a) Church of Saint Michael, Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, modern Romania, view from southeast, 1316–90 (b) Plan source: (a) Robert Puțeanu / Wikimedia Commons (b) Richard Thomson / rt-imagery.com

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the church was built in two phases of construction on the site of a smaller chapel dedicated to Saint James. The initial phase took place between 1316 and 1390, when the altar was also finished, while the second campaign unfolded between 1410 and 1487. The later periods correspond to the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg (r. 1433–37), who ruled ­Hungary and Croatia beginning in 1387, Germany beginning in 1411, and Bohemia from 1419 onward. Interestingly, the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Kingdom of Bohemia appear in the polylobed tympanum of the main entrance to the church directly below a sculpture of the Archangel Michael.19 Curvilinear tracery also adorns the windows of the church. These vary in size and consist of two, three, or four lancets with varied tracery designs in the upper portions. Moreover, tall and slender tiered buttresses surround the edifice. The single northwestern tower dates to the first half of the 16th century, between 1511 and 1543.20 The church displays a long nave with five bays and lateral aisles of the same height as the nave. In essence, the structure was conceived as a hall church. In the interior, the church features Gothic stellar vaults in the nave and side aisles (Figure 9.4). Such vault designs arguably first appeared in the ­Cistercian Abbey at Pelpin, Poland, founded in 1276 as a daughter house of Doberan Abbey in Germany. From there, the projects of the Cistercians introduced such designs across other regions of Eastern Europe, including in Transylvania in the following century. In this regard, the thriving and connected town of Košice in east of modern Slovakia may have served as a site of mediation of architectural knowledge into Transylvania. Košice’s principal church, the cathedral of Saint Elizabeth, was designed and erected beginning in 1378 with some support from the Prague Parler workshop.21 Subsequent phases of construction were carried out by various master masons, including, for example, a certain Master Nicholas who was active in Vienna in the 1420s. Ernő Marosi’s important studies in the 1960s and 1970s draw connections between these networked Gothic workshops across Europe. In particular, Marosi proposes that 19

20 21

A similar visual scheme but centered on the figure of the Virgin Mary is found at the entrance to the pilgrimage church Mariä Krönung (Coronation of Mary) in Lautenbach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The church was built between 1471 and 1488 under the guidance of master mason Hans Hertwig from Strasbourg. Saint Michael was destroyed in 1697 by a fire and rebuilt in 1744; after further damage, it was renovated in 1860 to the form it has today. Its church tower is the tallest in the region of Transylvania. Tim Juckes, The Parish and Pilgrimage Church of St. Elizabeth in Košice: Town, Court, and Architecture in Late Medieval Hungary (Turnhout, 2011). The church was first discussed in Imre Henszlmann, Kassa városának ő német stylű templomai (Pest, 1846).

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Figure 9.4 Interior vault, Church of Saint Michael, Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, modern Romania source: Daniel Tellman / Wikimedia Commons

the workshops in Košice and Cluj-Napoca were responsible for the design and erection of Saint Michael.22 Indeed, certain features of Saint Michael, such as the tall pinnacled buttresses and the window designs and their tracery configurations, find parallels in the church of Saint Elizabeth. More recently, Tim Juckes similarly underscores the importance of the Košice workshops, which collaborated with local masons in other Hungarian and Transylvanian centers, including Cluj-Napoca, Brașov, and Baia-Mare. This demonstrates the connection and transfer of architectural knowledge among masons across Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries, which also informed building practices in the Carpathian Mountain regions. Although stylistically related to the church of Saint Michael in Cluj-Napoca, the so-called Black Church in Brașov marks a later and more developed stage of Gothic construction in Transylvania (Figure 9.5).23 Erected between 1383 and 1476 in various stages (with an intense period of construction ca.1450 during the reign of Matthias Corvinus [r. 1458–90]), the edifice is the largest and easternmost extant Gothic church in Europe. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, this

22 23

Ernő Marosi, “Die zentralle Rolle der Bauhütte von Kaschau. Studien zur Baugeschichte der Pfarrkirche St. Elisabeth um 1400,” Acta historiae artium Academiae Scientiarum ­Hungaricae 15 (1969): 25–75. The church was originally Catholic and became Lutheran during the Reformation.

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Figure 9.5 (a) Black Church, Brașov, Transylvania, modern Romania, view from the northwest, 1383–1476 (b) Plan source: (a) Daniel Pandelea / Wikimedia Commons (b) Richard Thomson / rt-imagery.com

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Figure 9.6 Black Church, Brașov, Transylvania, modern Romania, view from the southeast, 1383–1476 source: Damian Entwistle / Flickr

church was designed as a three-aisle hall structure with a large polygonal apse.24 The building measures 89 meters in length, 38 meters in width, and 21 meters in height. The west façade was originally planned with two large towers (a westwork), but it was not completed. Several of its features advance the Gothic forms and designs encountered at Saint Michael. For example, the ­stellar vaults at the church in Cluj-Napoca once also covered the main nave and aisles of the Black Church. However, the fire of 1689 that greatly damaged the structure also ruined the nave and choir.25 The interior was rebuilt, and additional restoration projects were carried out between the 18th and 20th centuries.26 Other Gothic features of the Black Church can be appreciated on the exterior of the edifice. The tall lancet windows of the apse with trefoil cusps below a quatrefoil oculus, as well as the tall thin buttresses surmounted by pinnacles, 24 25 26

Agnes Bálint, “Biserica Neagră din Brașov: noi propuneri privind cronologia și contextul construcției,” Ars Transsilvaniae 19 (2009): 5–18. Supposedly the church received the name “Black Church” due to its appearance after the fire that scorched the interior and blackened the stone. Ágnes Ziegler, “The Restoration of the Black Church in Brașov Throughout the 20th ­Century,” Brukenthal. Acta Musei 13, no. 2 (2018): 227–45.

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Figure 9.7  West entrance, Black Church, Brașov, Transylvania, modern Romania, 1383–1476 source: Wikimedia Commons

recall those around the sanctuary at Saint Michael (Figure 9.6). At the Black Church, the features are rendered on a larger scale. Gothic designs also appear around the portals. The western gate features a variant of the receding Schulterbogenportal (shoulder-arch portal) framed by a polylobed arch surmounted by sculpted foliate motifs (Figure 9.7). Tracery designs and sinuous pinnacles accentuate the central features of the portal, bringing into a visual dialogue the geometric and the curvilinear, the abstract and the natural. The main portal at the Black Church draws on the designs of the west entrance to the church of Saint Elizabeth in Košice, indicating another, in this case later, connection between the local workshop and those further afield, with Cluj-Napoca and its local monument and lodge serving in a mediating role.27 27

The west entrance of the Black Church is also remarkably similar to that at Saint Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, which may underscore the connections with English Gothic developments. See Jakub Adamski, “The Influence of Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century English Architecture in the Southern Baltic Region and Poland,” in Decorated Revisited: English Architectural Style in Context, 1250–1400, ed. John Munns (Turnhout, 2017), pp. 143–72. I thank the anonymous reviewer for this insightful comment. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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2

Moldavia and Wallachia

In the Moldavian and Wallachian cultural contexts, Gothic building practices and designs were primarily facilitated through workshops connected with Transylvania. To date, little information survives about the masons who worked on the Moldavian and Wallachian churches. It is only known that certain stonecutters were trained in workshops that generally followed Gothic building practices and designs. In the first half of the 15th century, for example, Polish-Lithuanian masons worked in Moldavia, particularly at the restoration of the fortress at Cetatea Albă in 1421.28 We even know the names of some of the craftspeople from the first half of the 16th century, although only a few. One figure, a certain Master Battista, worked for Stephen III (r. 1457–1504).29 Another individual, Ioan Zidarul (John the Mason) from Bistrița in Transylvania, was active at the court of Peter Rareș (r. 1527–38 and 1541–46).30 One of his ecclesiastical projects included the erection of the church of Saint Demetrios in Suceava, begun in 1534. The church emulates Peter’s princely mausoleum at Probota Monastery, which was begun just a few years earlier.31 It is possible that Ioan worked on that project as well. Eastern Christian churches dominate the architectural landscapes of ­Moldavia and Wallachia, yet Gothic features are also incorporated in the projects but mostly in decorative elements and areas of the structures that do not compromise the unfolding of Orthodox rituals. However, there was also a Latin presence in the region, in the context of which monuments of a Gothic type were erected. Such buildings existed also in Moldavia, such as in the cities of 28

29

30

31

Mihai Costăchescu, Documente moldovenești înainte de Ștefan cel Mare (Iași, 1931–32.), II, 616; Corina Nicolescu, “Arta în epoca lui Ștefan cel Mare: Antecedentele și etapele de ­dezvoltare ale artei moldovenești din epoca lui Ștefan cel Mare,” in Cultura moldovene­ască în timpul lui Ștefan cel Mare, ed. Mihai Berza (Bucharest, 1964), p. 281. His gravestone, now preserved in the National History Museum in Bucharest (inv. no. 72543), hails from Suceava and carries a Latin inscription around its perimeter: “Dominus Battista Vessentino magister artibus 1512.” Civilizația epocii lui Ștefan cel Mare 1457–1504, exhibition catalog (Bucharest, 2004), p. 157. On the figure of Ioan Zidarul (John the Mason), see Alexandru Lăpedatu, “Ioan Zidarul lui Petru-Vodă Rareș,” Buletinul Comisiunii Monumentelor Istorice 5 (1912): 83–86; Vasile Ilovan, “Casa ‘Ioan Zidarul’ din Bistrița,” File de Istorie 3 (1974): 190–96; Ana Maria Orășanu, “Une maison patricienne de Bistriza au XVIe siècle ‘La maison de Ion Zidaru’,” Revue ­Roumaine d’Histoire 15, no. 1 (1976): 57–69. Alice Isabella Sullivan, “The Reach of the Gothic: Monastic Architecture and the Intersection of Traditions in Eastern Europe,” in The Worlds of Villard de Honnecourt: The Portfolio, Medieval Technology, and Gothic Monuments, ed. George Brooks and Maile S. Hutterer (Leiden, 2023), pp. 543–82. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Rădăuți, Baia, Chilia, and Siret. In 1370, for example, a Roman episcopate was established in the city of Siret.32 During the 14th century, the village of Baia was home to two Catholic buildings with basilican layouts; the remains of one Latinate cathedral built sometime in the 13th century and partially rebuilt in 1410 under prince Alexander I (r. 1400–32) still stand today.33 The cathedral in Baia was the largest Catholic building in Moldavia at the time. Alexander’s wife, Margareta, was a Catholic of Polish descent, and perhaps she contributed to the cathedral’s rebuilding campaign. Baia was also home to a Franciscan church and a Dominican church built sometime in the 13th century and mentioned in a document from 1337.34 In Chilia, a Franciscan convent was constructed between 1334 and 1390.35 These buildings informed the design and construction methods of the first masonry structures in the two Romanian principalities that extended to the east and south of the Carpathian Mountains. In the Wallachian cultural context, one of the earliest masonry churches is known solely from its foundations, discovered in the fortress at Drobeta-Turnu Severin.36 It is a longitudinal stone structure with a tripartite apse that has been associated with the Dominican presence in Wallachia around 1238. In the early 15th century, the building was transformed into an Eastern Christian church by the new local community. Its core interior was then divided into a naos and pronaos. Another church in the fortress consists of a long single nave that terminates in a five-sided polygonal apse with Gothic buttresses on the exterior and a rib-vault design with a central boss on the inside. Scholars have connected the church with the Franciscan friars that arrived in Severin around 1335. The fortress marked a key site of defense on the Danube River and was thus strongly fortified and richly endowed. To underscore the importance of this locale, the Second Metropolitan Church of Wallachia established its headquarters there in 1370. Further inland and closer to the mountains, Câmpulung preserves the remains of another early Gothic church of the Western Christian rite. The 32 33 34 35 36

Carol Auner, “Episcopia de Siret (1371–1388),” Revista catolică (1913): 226–45. Nicolae Grigoraș and Ioan Caproșu, Biserici și mănăstiri vechi din Moldova: până la mijlocul secolului al XV-lea (Bucharest, 1971), pp. 58–62. See Claudia Florentina Dobre, Mendicants in Moldavia: Mission in an Orthodox Land: ­Thirteenth to Fifteenth Century (Daun, 2009); Klaniczay, “The Mendicant Orders in East-Central Europe and the Integration of Cultures,” pp. 245–60. Constantin I. Andreescu, “Așezări franciscane la Dunăre și Marea Neagră ȋn sec. XIII–XIV,” Cercetări istorice 8–9, no. 2 (1932–33): 154–61. Răzvan Theodorescu, and Marius Porumb, eds., Arta din România: din preistorie în contemporaneitate Vol. 2 (Bucharest, 2018), pp. 130–31; Mișu Davidescu, Monumente medievale din Turnu Severin (Bucharest, 1969).

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church dedicated to Saint James the Great, now known as Bărăția,37 was erected in the late 14th or early 15th century on the remains of a 13th-century hall church with a five-sided apse and supporting two-tier buttresses.38 The narrow and elongated pointed-arch windows in the apse display a mullion and an oculus but no evidence of detailed tracery. The interior also preserves a console with a late Gothic incised design. The church was likely built by ­Franciscan friars from Transylvania who settled in the region in the 14th ­century. ­Câmpulung was also home to a Catholic monastery, initially Dominican and then Franciscan, which was demolished after 1646.39 Although the evidence is scarce and most monuments no longer exist to enable detailed study, it seems that Gothic architectural designs and features were mediated into Wallachia through Transylvania especially in the monastic milieux. In the Moldavian cultural context, the evidence is more pronounced. The earliest extant masonry structure that displays Gothic elements is the church of Saint Nicholas at Bogdana Monastery in Rădăuți (Figure 9.8).40 This church dates to ca.1360, to a period when Moldavia was gradually affirming its ­religious independence from Hungary and Poland, although it continued to maintain political, economic, and cultural ties with these kingdoms and their sprawling lands for centuries to come.41 In addition to the mode of construction, the large two-tier buttresses against the exterior walls, as well as the window and door framings and tracery, are some of the key features inspired from Gothic models. Whereas the main monastic church (katholikon) in Rădăuți displays some affinities with Gothic architecture, the interior space is modeled on that of Byzantine churches. The interior is divided into a closed exonarthex,42 a pronaos, a naos, and a semicircular apse. The church, thus, presents 37 38 39 40

41 42

The name Baratie is given to Catholic monasteries in the towns to the south and east of the Carpathian Mountains. It derives from the Hungarian word barát, which means “brother” or “monk.” Theodorescu and Porumb, eds., Arta din România, p. 133, figs. 204–05. The church was restored by the architect Ștefan Balș in 1965. See Ștefan Balș, “Restaurarea Bărăției din Câmpulung Muscel,” Monumente Istorice: Studii și lucrări de restaurare 3 (1969): 7–26. The first archaeological investigations were pursued by Virgil Drăghiceanu în 1924; Ion Barnea and Emil Lăzărescu led further research in 1957. Alice Isabella Sullivan, “The Painted Fortified Monastic Churches of Moldavia: Bastions of Orthodoxy in a Post-Byzantine World,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 2017), pp. 653–54; Lia Bătrâna and Adrian Bătrâna, Biserica “Sfântul Nicolae” din Rădăuți: ­Cercetări arheologice și interpretări istorice asupra ȋnceputurilor Țării Moldovei (Piatra Neamț, 2012). See Alice Isabella Sullivan, The Eclectic Visual Culture of Medieval Moldavia (Leiden, 2023). The exonarthex was added only in 1559 by prince Alexander Lăpușneanu (r. 1552–61 and 1564–68).

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Figure 9.8 (a) Church of Saint Nicholas, Bogdana Monastery, Rădăuți, Moldavia, modern Romania, view from northwest, ca. 1360 (b) Plan source: (a) A. I. Sullivan (b) Richard Thomson / rt-imagery.com

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a surprising combination of a Byzantine church interior with various Gothic architectural and aesthetic elements. In essence, Saint Nicholas in Rădăuți looks like a Christian church that would have an open and continuous interior space, yet this interior space is structured to the needs and requirements of the Orthodox rite, presenting, for instance, a thick transversal wall in between the naos and pronaos, and an interior that is dimly lit and richly painted.43 Thus, from the very beginning of Moldavia’s independent existence in the second half of the 15th century, there is evidence of local negotiations among distinct church-building and decorating traditions. Church architecture in Moldavia further developed during the reign of Stephen III, offering local adaptations of different Gothic, Byzantine, and Slavic models,44 and again during the first half of the 16th century, under the patronage of Peter Rareș. Several key features of the later Moldavian churches present unmistakable links to Byzantine and Slavic architectural traditions, while others follow Gothic models evident in church architecture in parts of Transylvania and in other East-Central European centers.45 These include, most notably, the ­distinctive roofs, the buttresses, the window and door framings, and the tracery configurations. I take as a case study the church of the Annunciation at Moldovița Monastery, erected and decorated between 1532 and 1537, which is representative of the Moldavian corpus of monuments in the later stages of development (Figure 9.9).46 In its layout, mural decoration, furnishing, and ritual functions, the katholikon at Moldovița is an Eastern Christian church that consists of a triconch naos elongated toward the west by the addition of a rectangular burial chamber, a pronaos, and an open exonarthex. The interior and exterior of the church features a vast and intricate program of mural cycles that follow primarily a Byzantine style and iconography. However, Western Christian motifs also appear in the iconographic scheme and Gothic features are present in the architectural repertoire. 43 44 45

46

Bătrâna and Bătrâna, Biserica “Sfântul Nicolae” din Rădăuți, pp. 309–55 (for an overview of the interior iconographic program). Nicolescu, “Arta în epoca lui Ștefan cel Mare,” p. 285; Vasile Drăguț, “Introducere. I: ­Arhitectura religioasă, pictură murală,” in Monumente istorice bisericești din Mitropolia Moldovei și Sucevei, ed. Vasile Drăguț and Corina Nicolescu (Iași, 1974), p. 12. On the topic, see Gheorghe Balș, “Influence de l’art gothique sur l’architecture roumaine,” Bulletin de la section historique de l’Académie Roumaine 15 (1929): pp. 9–13; Hermann Fabini, “Le chiese-castello della Transilvania ed i monasteri fortificati Ortodossi della ­Moldavia in Romania,” Castellum: Revista dell’Istituto italiano dei castelli 46 (2004): pp. 7–22. Alice Isabella Sullivan, “Moldavian Art and Architecture between Byzantium and the West,” in Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Maria Alessia Rossi and Alice Isabella Sullivan (Leiden, 2020), pp. 200–31.

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Figure 9.9 (a) Church of the Annunciation, Moldovița Monastery, Moldavia, modern Romania, view from southwest, 1532–37 (b) Plan source: (a) A. I. Sullivan. (b) Richard Thomson / rt-imagery.com

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First, the subdivided roofs display steep slopes and large smooth eaves echoing the undulating line of the apses, designed in this way to protect the exterior decoration of the churches. Such roof designs find a visual parallel in the Gothic churches of Transylvania that carry partitioned roofs with individual sections covering the chancel and the nave separately. The church of Saint Michael in Cluj-Napoca and the Black Church in Brașov offer apt comparisons. Although the Moldavian church roofs were reconstructed toward the end of the 19th century, their original materiality has been lost.47 The few Romanian scholars who have considered the original form and appearance of the Moldavian church roofs of the 15th and 16th centuries reveal that these were covered with shingles, lead, or perhaps colored ceramics.48 The archaeological evidence has concluded that the majority of the Moldavian roofs from this period were finished with colored tiles.49 This would have given these buildings a very distinct appearance that complemented the colorful exteriors of the buildings. These polychrome tiled roofs were, in fact, characteristic of Central European churches, as evident at the church of Our Lady (also known Matthias Church) in Buda, rebuilt in the second half of the 14th century (and substantially rebuilt in the 19th century).50 The roof of this building was covered with richly colored and ornately patterned glazed roof tiles, as was the now-reconstructed roof of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna and that of Saint Elizabeth in Košice. Like the partitioned roofs, the three-tier buttresses on the exterior of the Moldavian churches find visual parallels in Gothic buildings, most notably in nearby Transylvania and Hungary. The church of Saint Michael in Sopron, Hungary (ca.1280), and the Black Church in Brașov offer apt comparisons. In most Moldavian churches of the early 16th century, such as Moldovița, the buttresses rise about two-thirds of the way up the building to either side of the lateral apses of the naos and at the corners of the exonarthex. Given the thickness of the walls of these Moldavian churches, however, the buttresses need 47 48

49

50

The architectural models represented in the votive murals in the interior of the churches have been used as visual models during these reconstructions. See I. Popescu Cilieni, Învelișurile vechilor noastre biserici (Craiova, 1945); Gheorghe Balș, Bisericile lui Ștefan cel Mare (Bucharest, 1926), pp. 191–94; Batariuc, “Acoperișul bisericilor din secolele XV–XVI din Moldova,” Ars Transilvaniae 14–15 (2004–05): pp. 35–50, esp. 40–43. Paraschiva-Victoria Batariuc, “Acoperișul bisericilor din secolele XV–XVI din Moldova,” pp. 35–50, esp. 42. The digs that took place at the church of Saint Elijah in Suceava between 1997 and 1999 uncovered remnants of ceramic tiles that likely covered the original roof of the building. Batariuc, “Cercetarea arheologică, condiție a restaurării, Studiu de caz: Biserica Sfântu Ilie, Suceava,” in Monumentul – Tradiție și viitor, 1st edition, ed. ­Silviu Văcaru and Aurica Ichim (Iași, 2000), p. 140. See Péter Farbaky, Matthias Church: The Church of Our Lady in Buda Castle Through the Centuries (1246–2013) (Budapest, 2015).

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Figure 9.10 Portal, originally in the interior at the threshold between pronaos and naos, now outside of the church, Church of Saint John the Baptist, Piatra Neamț, Moldavia, modern Romania, second half of the 15th century source: A. I. Sullivan

not to be as tall and as thick as they are, suggesting that the function of these features extended beyond the structural into the symbolic, especially in the 16th-century buildings. The most distinctive Gothic features of the Moldavian churches are the door and window framings and the window tracery. Variants of the Spitzbogenportal (pointed-arch portal) and the Schulterbogenportal rise at the thresholds,

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framing the directional east-west axis of the church and the transition from one space to the next (Figure 9.10). The larger windows of the pronaos and exonarthex, as evident at Moldovița, for example, display two lancets with various tracery configurations, in this case two trefoil cusps with a quatrefoil oculus above.51 The west portal leading into the pronaos of the church is adorned with concentric and receding pointed arches that provide a sense of guidance and direction for the faithful into the pronaos of the church. This entrance arch is additionally contained within a richly profiled rectangular frame. These types of Gothic portal frames with uninterrupted profiles and a tympanum above the main entrance were predominant in Gothic buildings found throughout Central and Western Europe. An elevation drawing of a portal of this type from southern Germany, dating to 1446, is preserved in the Graphic Collection of the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna and provides a point of comparison with the Moldavian renditions.52 Such architectural drawings and ideas derived from Gothic models would have regularly circulated in medieval lodges of stonemasons and architects, informing practices of building construction across Eastern Europe. The architectural workshop of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, led by the architects Hanns Puchsbaum and Lorenz Spenning, served as the leading lodge for the area throughout much of the 15th century.53 In the church interiors, the thresholds between the different spaces are marked by narrow portals characteristic in shape of the Kragsturzbogenportal (corbel-arch portal) yet framed by interlocking rectilinear elements (­particularly visible in the upper corners) that render the entryways more akin to the famous Gothic Schulterbogenportal. This type of doorway framing was common during the 15th century, with more rounded forms replacing the rectilinear shapes and pointed arches in later monuments, as evident in the interior of Probota Monastery (Figure 5). These kinds of portals once again find close parallels in the Transylvanian cultural context, such as the famous Black Church in Brașov (especially the south portal) and the west portal of

51

52 53

See Balș, “Influence de l’art gothique sur l’architecture roumaine,” p. 10. The Graphic ­ ollection of the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna preserves comparable C examples. See Johann Josef Böker, Architektur der Gotik: Bestandskatalog der weltgröβten ­Sammlung an gotischen Baurissen (Legat Franz Jäger) im Kupferstichkabinett der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Vienna, 2005), esp. pp. 307, 316, 325, 337. Böker, Architektur der Gotik, p. 307 (fig. 16.996). Lorenz Spenning, for example, was among the professional architects present at the 1459 Regensburg Congress (Regensburger Bauhüttentagung) that was intended to regulate practices and rules governing building construction among all affiliated lodges.

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Figure 9.11 Portals, Church of the Virgin Mary, Biertan (Birthälm), Transylvania, modern Romania, 1486–1524 source: Horia Varlan / Wikimedia Commons

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The Currency of the Gothic in the Carpathian Mountain Regions 309

the church of the Virgin at Biertan (Birthälm) (Figure 9.11).54 Similar Gothic portals are found at the churches at Dârlos, Mălâncrav, and the Franciscan cloister in Cluj–Napoca in Transylvanian, for example. The Schulterbogenportal was favored for main entrances in the Transylvanian and other East-Central European churches, whereas in Moldavian monuments, they are always found at the thresholds between the various spaces inside the buildings. Given the strong economic contacts that Moldavia’s princes fostered with the communities in Transylvania, Hungary, and Poland, masons trained in workshops that generally followed Gothic building practices and designs were regularly active in the eastern regions of the Carpathians.55 The extant Moldavian corpus of ecclesiastical monuments also demonstrates that the distinctive Gothic features incorporated in the design and decoration of the churches changed little over the course of several centuries. Certain local workshop practices may explain these peculiar design choices in features of the buildings that only seem to have supplemented visually the Eastern Christian layout and decorative program of the churches. It is also ­possible that the Gothic elements of the Moldavian churches carried a ­symbolic meaning, tied to certain desires of the patron and his council, as well as the community at large. Indeed, the symbolic value and adaptability of certain architectural designs and forms to different contexts certainly made them appealing to patrons. These Gothic elements signaled Moldavia’s connection with the Western Christian sphere on the other side of the Carpathians, for which the Gothic served as its primary and innovative mode of expression. 3

Conclusion

In the regions of the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe, Gothic building practices and designs were utilized to define and accentuate sacred spaces at least from the 12th century onward, prompted by the arrival of 54 55

Hermann Fabini, “Restaurarea bisericii Negre din Brașov,” Revista Monumentelor Istorice 59, no. 2 (1990): 75–80; idem, “L’église de Biertan en Transylvanie,” Monuments historiques 169 (1990): 80–83. Stephen III fostered economic relations with the city of Brașov and other nearby Transylvanian centers during his long reign, and he even built two churches in the towns of Vad and Feleac that draw from Byzantine and Gothic church-building traditions. His heirs continued relations with Moldavia’s western neighbors. See Marius Porumb, Ștefan cel Mare și Transilvania: Legături culturale și artistice moldo-transilvanene în sec. XV–XVI (Cluj-Napoca, 2004), esp. pp. 18–25.

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German groups and various monastic orders in Transylvania. The most pronounced use of Gothic appears throughout Transylvania in both secular and religious structures, with the parish churches and monastic houses offering the best-preserved examples. These edifices that helped structure and define local communities emerged out of the interaction between local workshops, masons, and stonecutters with those in other regions of the Hungarian and Polish kingdoms, as well as further afield in Vienna and Italy. Ideas traveled through individuals summoned to work on specific projects, as well as through architectural drawings that could easily be brought from one place to another. The Gothic architecture of Transylvania informed the development of local buildings for much of the period between the 14th and 16th centuries, and it also impacted architectural projects in the other two Romanian principalities, which fostered economic and political connections with Transylvania. The ­evidence from Wallachia is limited, but the Moldavian churches reveal specific adaptations of Gothic elements for Eastern Christian churches without compromising the prescribed layout and visual articulation of the spaces designed specifically for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and other related rituals. Workshop practices and the activities of masons and artists in Eastern Europe remain a rich topic of study, which has the potential to reveal avenues of cultural contact and exchange, as well as key agents, objects, and locales responsible for the transfer of architectural and artistic knowledge. In turn, the material remains of the extant buildings can illuminate aspects of the social interactions that enabled their creation and the cultural negotiations that unfolded in local contexts in regions that developed at the crossroads of traditions in the late Middle Ages, like the Romanian principalities. Bibliography of Cited Sources Adamski, Jakub. “The Influence of Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century English ­Architecture in the Southern Baltic Region and Poland.” In Decorated Revisited: English Architectural Style in Context, 1250–1400, edited by John Munns, pp. 143–72. Turnhout, 2017. Andreescu, Constantin I. “Așezări franciscane la Dunăre și Marea Neagră ȋn sec. XIII–XIV.” Cercetări istorice 8–9, no. 2 (1932–33): 151–63. Auner, Carol. “Episcopia de Siret (1371–1388).” Revista catolică (1913): 226–45. Bálint, Agnes. “Biserica Neagră din Brașov: noi propuneri privind cronologia și ­contextul construcției.” Ars Transsilvaniae 19 (2009): 5–18. Balș, Gheorghe. Bisericile lui Ștefan cel Mare. Bucharest, 1926.

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Grigoraș, Nicolae, and Ioan Caproșu. Biserici și mănăstiri vechi din Moldova: până la mijlocul secolului al XV-lea. Second edition. Bucharest, 1971. Henszlmann, Imre. Kassa városának ő német stylű templomai. Pest, 1846. Hitchins, Keith. A Concise History of Romania. Cambridge, 2015. Ignat, Ioan-Cosmin. “Romanesque Saxon churches in medieval Transylvania.” Carnival 13 (2011): 74–86. Ilovan, Vasile. “Casa ‘Ioan Zidarul’ din Bistrița.” File de Istorie 3 (1974): 190–96. Juckes, Tim. The Parish and Pilgrimage Church of St. Elizabeth in Košice: Town, Court, and Architecture in Late Medieval Hungary. Turnhout, 2011. Klaniczay, Gábor. “The Mendicant Orders in East-Central Europe and the Integration of Cultures.” In Hybride Kulturen im mittelalterlichen Europa. Vorträge und Workshops einer internationalen Frühlingsschule, edited by Michael Borgolte and Bernd Schneidmüller, pp. 245–60. Berlin, 2010. Kosztolnyik, Zoltán. Hungary in the Thirteenth Century. New York, 1996. Lăpedatu, Alexandru. “Ioan Zidarul lui Petru-Vodă Rareș.” Buletinul Comisiunii ­Monumentelor Istorice 5 (1912): 83–86. Márosi, Ernő. “Die zentralle Rolle der Bauhütte von Kaschau. Studien zur ­Baugeschichte der Pfarrkirche St. Elisabeth um 1400.” Acta historiae artium Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 15 (1969): 25–75. Márosi, Ernő. A román kor muvészete. Budapest, 1972. Márosi, Ernő, and Renate Messing. Die Anfänge der Gotik in Ungarn: Esztergom in der Kunst des 12.-13. Jahrhunderts. Budapest, 1984. Năstăsoiu, Dragoș Gh. Gothic Art in Romania. Bucharest, 2011. Năstăsoiu, Dragoș Gh. “Byzantine and Gothic Side-by-Side: Stylistic Diversity under a Single Roof in the Churches of Late-Medieval Transylvania.” Museikon ­International Workshop presentation, 26–27 November 2020. Năstăsoiu, Dragoș Gh. “Byzantine Forms and Catholic Patrons in Late Medieval ­Transylvania.” In Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions, edited by Maria Alessia Rossi and Alice Isabella Sullivan, pp. 77–102. Berlin, 2022. Nicolescu, Corina. “Arta în epoca lui Ștefan cel Mare: Antecedentele și etapele de ­dezvoltare ale artei moldovenești din epoca lui Ștefan cel Mare.” In Cultura ­moldovenească în timpul lui Ștefan cel Mare, edited by Mihai Berza, pp. 259–362. Bucharest, 1964. Norton, Christopher, and David Park, eds. Cistercian Art and Architecture in the British Isles. Cambridge, 1986. Nussbaum, Norbert. German Gothic Church Architecture. New Haven, 2000. Orășanu, Ana Maria. “Une maison patricienne de Bistriza au XVIe siècle ‘La maison de Ion Zidaru’.” Revue Roumaine d’Histoire 15, no. 1 (1976): 57–69.

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The Currency of the Gothic in the Carpathian Mountain Regions 313 Payne, Alina, ed. The Land between Two Seas: Art on the Move in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, 1300–1700. Leiden, 2022. Popescu-Cilieni, Ioan. Învelișurile vechilor noastre biserici. Craiova, 1945. Porumb, Marius. Ștefan cel Mare și Transilvania: Legături culturale și artistice ­moldo-transilvanene în sec. XV–XVI. Cluj-Napoca, 2004. Rossi, Maria Alessia, and Alice Isabella Sullivan, eds. Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages. Leiden, 2020. Rossi, Maria Alessia, and Alice Isabella Sullivan, eds. Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions. Berlin, 2022. Rusu, Adrian Andrei. Castelarea carpatică: Fortificații și cetăți din Transilvania și ­teritoriile învecinate (sec. XIII–XIV). Cluj-Napoca, 2005. Salontai, Mihaela Sanda, et al. Biserica fortificată din Prejmer. Bucharest, 2006. Sullivan, Alice Isabella. “The Painted Fortified Monastic Churches of Moldavia: Bastions of Orthodoxy in a Post-Byzantine World.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 2017. Sullivan, Alice Isabella. “Moldavian Art and Architecture between Byzantium and the West.” In Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages, edited by Maria Alessia Rossi and Alice Isabella Sullivan, pp. 200–31. Leiden, 2020. Sullivan, Alice Isabella. “The Reach of the Gothic: Monastic Architecture and the Intersection of Traditions in Eastern Europe,” in The Worlds of Villard de Honnecourt: The Portfolio, Medieval Technology, and Gothic Monuments, edited by George Brooks and Maile S. Hutterer, pp. 543–82. Leiden, 2023. Sullivan, Alice Isabella. The Eclectic Visual Culture of Medieval Moldavia. Leiden, 2023. Szakács, Béla Zsolt. “Early Mendicant Architecture in Medieval Hungary.” In Monastic Architecture and the City, edited by Catarina Almeida Marado, pp. 23–34. Coimbra, 2014. Theodorescu, Răzvan, and Marius Porumb, eds. Arta din România: din preistorie în ­contemporaneitate Vol. 2. Bucharest, 2018. Ziegler, Ágnes. “The Restoration of the Black Church in Brașov Throughout the 20th Century.” Brukenthal. Acta Musei 13, no. 2 (2018): 227–45.

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Chapter 10

When Venus Met Godfrey

The Evocation of Gothic Antiquity in the Architecture of Venetian Cyprus Michalis Olympios 1 Staging Classical Antiquity as the Visualization of Dominion: Venus and Venice in Famagusta’s Early Modern Townscape In the mid-16th century, the Venetian patrician Zuan Matteo Bembo, capitano of Famagusta (r. 1547–49), resolved to embellish and dignify the main civic space of the second most important urban center on the island of Cyprus by refurbishing it in a manner that bestowed on it an aura of venerable ­antiquity— in other words, in true Renaissance fashion (Figure 10.1). During his tenure, ­architectural, sculptural, and other stone fragments were excavated in the neighboring ancient site of Salamis and transferred to Famagusta to be set up in the market square, which was bordered by the Latin cathedral of St. ­Nicholas the Confessor (the present-day Lala Mustafa Paşa Mosque) on its eastern side and the palazzo (the local seat of government, known today as the Palazzo del Provveditore) at the opposite end. The most sensational archaeological discovery of the time, the exquisitely carved Roman marble sarcophagus identified as the tomb of the goddess Venus, assumed pride of place between two freestanding granite columns as the centerpiece of the new installation, while Roman stone was reused to pave the square around it. Recycled marble fragments of friezes decorated with lush acanthus foliage and running animals amid vegetal scrollwork were converted into benches placed at the foot of the rectangular building lining the eastern end of the square’s south side, which is now known as the ‘Bembo Loggia’ on account of the coats of arms branding its north front. This edifice might have been the ridotto (space of recreation) for the local government officials, which Zuan Matteo wished to adorn with ancient marbles (Figures 10.2–10.3).1 1 On Zuan Matteo Bembo, his antiquarian activity in Cyprus, and his refurbishment of the Famagusta main square, see Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna, Delle inscrizioni veneziane, 6 vols (Venice, 1824–53), 3:319–23; Camille Enlart, L’art gothique et la Renaissance en Chypre, 2 vols (Paris, 1899), 2:635–37; Camille Enlart, Gothic Art and the Renaissance in Cyprus, trans. and ed.

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Figure 10.1 Plan of Famagusta’s main square in the 1550s–60s source: Guido Petras and Max Ritter

Figure 10.2 ‘Bembo Loggia,’ general view of the north wall, Famagusta, main square source: M. Olympios

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Figure 10.3 ‘Bembo Loggia,’ detail of decorative friezes and Bembo arms on the building’s eastern half, Famagusta, main square source: M. Olympios

David Hunt (London, 1987), pp. 461–62; George Jeffery, A Description of the Historic ­Monuments of Cyprus: Studies in the Archaeology and Architecture of the Island (Nicosia, 1918), pp. 125–27, 158; Sandra Secchi, “Bembo, Giovanni Matteo,” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 100 vols (Rome, 1960–2020), 8:124–25; Patricia Fortini Brown, Private Lives in Renaissance Venice: Art, Architecture, and the Family (New Haven, 2004), pp. 94–95, 190–95, 200; Nasa Patapiou, “Νέες ειδήσεις για τον πύργο Κιτίου,” Επετηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερευνών 32 (2006): 151–79, at pp. 171–72; Lorenzo Calvelli, Cipro e la memoria dell’antico fra medioevo e rinascimento: La percezione del passato romano dell’isola nel mondo occidentale (Venice, 2009), pp. 140–52; Allan Langdale, “At the Edge of Empire: Venetian Architecture in Famagusta, Cyprus,” Viator 45, no. 1 (2010): 155–98, at pp. 169–73, 176–78; Tassos Papacostas, “Echoes of the Renaissance in the Eastern Confines of the Stato da Mar: Architectural ­Evidence from Venetian Cyprus,” Acta Byzantina Fennica 3 (2010): 136–72, at p. 164; Vincenzo Lucchese, “Famagusta from a Latin Perspective: Venetian Heraldic Shields and Other Fragmentary Remains,” in Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta: Studies in Architecture, Art and History, ed. Michael J. K. Walsh, Peter W. Edbury, and Nicholas S. H. Coureas (Farnham, 2012), pp. 167–86, at 170–76; Lorenzo Calvelli, “Archaeology in the Service of the Dominante: Giovanni Matteo Bembo and the Antiquities of Cyprus,” in Cyprus and the Renaissance (1450–1650), ed. Benjamin Arbel, Evelien Chayes, and Harald Hendrix (Turnhout, 2012), pp. 19–66; Lorenzo Calvelli, “Spolia ruggenti e miracolosi: I leoni antichi di Salamina e Famagosta,” in La Serenissima a Cipro: Incontri di culture nel Cinquecento, ed. Evangelia Skoufari (Rome, 2013), pp. 109–30, at 122, 124; Patricia Fortini Brown, “Becoming a Man of Empire: The Construction of Patrician Identity in

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Apart from staging a dazzling display of recently recovered antiquities, ­ embo’s ambitious program for the recalibration of Famagusta’s urban topogB raphy was contrived to vividly recall the form and functions of the ­principal ­public spaces at the heart of his birthplace, Venice, the city of the doges. ­Evidently, the twin columns flanking Venus’s sarcophagus, which once carried statues long since displaced (perhaps one of the lion of Saint Mark and the other of Saint Nicholas, the cathedral’s patron), were meant to evoke their larger and more imposing counterparts in the Piazzetta in Venice, even down to their role as loci for the public dispensation of justice. Furthermore, the Bembo Loggia at the southern end of the square, long thought to have been an ancillary structure belonging to the cathedral, may well have served a series of more public functions (Figure 10.4). The broad archways opening opposite each other in the center of its north and south walls allowed passage to and from the square through the building’s ground story, the central rib vault of which exhibited on its keystone a relief of the lion of Saint Mark in moleca. Telling parallels have been drawn between the monumentalized passage linking Famagusta’s main square with the town’s southern sector and the Torre dell’Orologio along the northern edge of the Piazza San Marco in Venice, the central passage of which gave access to the major commercial thoroughfare of the Merceria and, through it, the Rialto (Figure 10.5). Indeed, the resemblance between the two edifices might originally have been even closer, if the destroyed upper story of the Bembo Loggia, once accessible from a flight of steps at its southeast angle, had accommodated, on its face overlooking the square, the clock mentioned in documentary evidence of the late 1550s. Viewed in this light, the slight projection of the middle part of the building’s north front may not only have been a Republic of Equals,” in Architecture, Art and Identity in Venice and Its Territories, 1450–1750, ed. Nebahat Avcıoğlu and Emma Jones (Farnham, 2013), pp. 231–49; Allan Langdale, “Pillars and Punishment: Spolia and Colonial Authority in Venetian Famagusta,” in The Harbour of All This Sea and Realm: Crusader to Venetian Famagusta, ed. Michael J. K. Walsh, Tamás Kiss, and Nicholas S. H. Coureas (Budapest, 2014), pp. 159–67; Panos ­Leventis, “Dressing the Port, Re-Dressing the Square: Signs and Signifiers in the Urban Landscape of Famagusta, Cyprus, 1291–1571,” Montreal Architectural Review 1 (2014): 67–87, at pp. 71–77; Patricia Fortini Brown, “The Venetian Loggia: Representation, Exchange, and Identity in ­Venice’s Colonial Empire,” in Viewing Greece: Cultural and Political Agency in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean, ed. Sharon E. J. Gerstel (Turnhout, 2016), pp. 207–33, at 223–26; Gilles Grivaud, “Martiale et marcienne, Famagouste entre 1474 et 1571,” in Famagusta, Volume II: History and Society, ed. Gilles Grivaud, Angel Nicolaou-Konnari, and Chris Schabel (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 365–473, at 396–98; Patricia Fortini Brown, The Venetian Bride: Bloodlines and Blood Feuds in Venice and Its Empire (Oxford, 2021), pp. 172, 174–75. The text relating Bembo’s intention to improve the Famagusta ridotto may be found in Marco Guazzo, Cronica (Venice, 1553), fol. 413v.

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Figure 10.4 ‘Bembo Loggia,’ detail of north portal, Famagusta, main square source: M. Olympios

conceived to accommodate the thickness of its grand stepped portal; it may also offer a clue as to an arrangement not unlike that at the Torre, where the lower story of the clock tower is visually set apart from the lateral wings, if ever so subtly, by the stronger protrusion of its framing pilasters.2 Such explicit references to the monumental and ritual space of the Dominante at Famagusta’s old administrative and religious hub, established under the Lusignan dynasty (1192–1474/89), certainly aimed at visualizing and consolidating Venetian rule over Cyprus (1474/89–1571) via the implementation 2 On the Torre dell’Orologio, dated 1496–1506 (including its lateral wings, added shortly after the tower’s completion), see Loredana Olivato and Lionello Puppi, Mauro Codussi, 4th ed. (Milan, 2007), pp. 208–14; John McAndrew, Venetian Architecture of the Early Renaissance (Cambridge, MA, 1980), pp. 378–97; Richard Goy, Venice: The City and Its Architecture (­London, 1997), pp. 130–31; Deborah Howard, The Architectural History of Venice (New Haven, 2002), pp. 146–48; Ennio Concina, Tempo novo: Venezia e il Quattrocento (Venice, 2006), pp. 172, 334–35; Richard J. Goy, Building Renaissance Venice: Patrons, Architects and Builders, c. 1430–1500 (New Haven, 2006), pp. 233–45. For the moleca-type lion of Saint Mark, see Alberto Rizzi, I leoni di San Marco: Il simbolo della Repubblica Veneta nella scultura e nella pittura, 3 vols (Verona, 2012), 1:46–52 (note that the example from Famagusta’s Bembo Loggia appears neither in the catalogue in vol. 2 nor in the supplement in vol. 3). On the issues discussed in this paragraph, consult also the literature in the previous note. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 10.5 Venice, Piazza San Marco, Torre dell’Orologio source: M. Olympios

of integrative political, religious, social, and artistic strategies already at work elsewhere in the Stato da Mar, the Most Serene Republic’s maritime empire.3 3 Patricia Fortini Brown, “Ritual Geographies in Venice’s Mediterranean Empire,” in Rituals of Politics and Culture in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honour of Edward Muir, ed. Mark - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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The systematic 16th-century exploitation of the ruins of Salamis, tellingly also known at the time as ‘Famagosta Vecchia,’ to provide building materials for construction and repairs in Famagusta was here commandeered to proclaim the paramount symbolic significance of Venus and, by implication, Cyprus for the careful staging of the multifaceted but staunchly imperialist ‘Myth of Venice,’ which was occurring almost simultaneously, in both public and more intimate settings, at the very center of the metropolis itself.4 Bembo’s initiative begot a further series of public works focused on the town square that aspired to pair beauty with utility, such as the addition of an expansive new porch to the front of the palazzo and the placement of an octagonal fountain near the sarcophagus and its adjoining columns, completed respectively under the capitani Zuan Renier (r. 1553–55) and Piero Navagero (r. 1557–59).5 In these J­ urdjevic and Rolf Strøm-Olsen (Toronto, 2016), pp. 43–89. For the modeling of the main square of Candia (modern-day Heraklion, Crete) on the Piazza San Marco and for other pertinent examples, see Maria Georgopoulou, Venice’s Mediterranean Colonies: Architecture and Urbanism (Cambridge, UK, 2001), pp. 79–103, 262. 4 On Salamis as ‘Famagosta Vecchia,’ see generally Calvelli, Cipro e la memoria, index entry on p. 399. For the quarrying of ancient marble and ‘porphyry’ columns, as well as other materials, at Salamis in the decades before and after Bembo’s Famagustan works, see Gilles Grivaud, “Le vénitien Leonardo Donà, témoin de découvertes archéologiques à Chypre en 1557,” Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes 6 (1986): 19–25, at p. 23; Dom Loupvent: Récit d’un voyageur lorrain en Terre sainte au XVIe siècle, ed. Jean Lanher and Philippe Martin (Nancy, 2007), pp. 159–60; Calvelli, Cipro e la memoria, p. 125. On the symbolism of Venus for Venice, consult the succinct recent account in Peter Humfrey, “Venus, Venice and Cyprus,” in The Venus Paradox, ed. Loukia Loizou Hadjigavriel, Myrto Hatzaki, and Demetra Theodotou Anagnostopoulou (Nicosia, 2017), pp. 37–42. For the ‘Myth of Venice’ more generally, see Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice (Princeton, 1981), pp. 13–61, 103–34, 302; Patricia Fortini Brown, “The Self-Definition of the Venetian Republic,” in City States in Classical Antiquity and Medieval Italy, ed. Anthony Molho, Kurt Raaflaub, and Julia Emlen (Stuttgart, 1991), pp. 511–48; Iain Fenlon, The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice (New Haven, 2007), pp. ix–xi, 85–127; Sandra Toffolo, Describing the City, Describing the State: Representations of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in the Renaissance (Leiden, 2020), esp. pp. 3–10, 296, 298–302. 5 Enlart, L’art gothique, 2:646–47; Enlart, Gothic Art, p. 468; Jeffery, A Description of the Historic Monuments, p. 158; Benjamin Arbel, “Supplying Water to Famagusta: New Evidence from the Venetian Period,” in Πρακτικὰ τοῦ Τρίτου Διεθνοῦς Κυπρολογικοῦ Συνεδρίου, ed. Georgios K. Ioannides, Stelios A. Hadjistyllis, Athanasios Papageorghiou, and Ioannis Theocharides, 3 vols (Nicosia, 2000–01), 2:651–56; repr. with emendations in Benjamin Arbel, Studies on Venetian Cyprus (Nicosia, 2017), pp. 215–21; Langdale, “At the Edge of Empire,” pp. 170, 173–75; Papacostas, “Echoes of the Renaissance,” pp. 151, 159–64; Calvelli, “Archaeology in the ­Service of the Dominante,” pp. 40–47, 51; Langdale, “Pillars and Punishment,” pp. 162–63; Brown, “The Venetian Loggia,” pp. 223–25; Max Ritter, “Famagusta and Its Environs in the Venetian Period: The Foundation of the Monastery of Agia Napa and the Origin of Its Fountain,” in The

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projects, the reuse of genuine antiquities, such as granite columns, went hand in hand with the adoption of a frugal, unadulterated all’antica style for the new architecture and sculpture, which amplified the sense of an illustrious ancient past emanating from the spolia set up by Bembo in an urban landscape that, like Venice itself, had not been blessed with prominent material vestiges of a long and distinguished history.6 2 Fusing Classical and Gothic into a Visual Paean of the Lusignan Past: The Design of the Bembo Loggia Amid this celebration of the formal vocabulary of Roman Antiquity, however, the one building in Famagusta’s main square still bearing tangible evidence of Bembo patronage stands out for its remarkable, if somewhat disconcerting, stylistic makeup.7 A closer look at the remains of the Bembo Loggia reveals that its designer ingeniously fused select Italianate classicizing motifs with time-honored local forms to create a unique blend unparalleled elsewhere in the town. The interior of the ground story presents an unmitigated Gothic Art and Archaeology of Lusignan and Venetian Cyprus (1192–1571): Recent Research and New ­Discoveries, ed. Michalis Olympios and Maria Parani (Turnhout, 2019), pp. 125–44, at 134–43; Grivaud, “Martiale et marcienne,” pp. 388, 391, 397–98, 429. 6 On the nebulous pre-Lusignan history of Famagusta, see Tassos Papacostas, “Byzantine ­Famagusta: An Oxymoron?,” in Famagusta, Volume I: Art and Architecture, ed. ­Annemarie Weyl Carr (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 25–61. For Venice’s construction of its own antiquity, see Patricia Fortini Brown, Venice and Antiquity: The Venetian Sense of the Past (New Haven, 1996). 7 Five coats of arms of the Bembo family are still visible on the north front of the lower story of the edifice named after them: two are carved on marble slabs built into the upper end of the wall on either side of the protruding central portion; another two occupy the sides of the impost crowning the middle capital on the eastern jamb of the central portal; and yet another was fashioned on the narrow eastern face of the marble bench attached to the base of the façade, immediately to the west of the portal. Note that the Bembo arms wrought in relief on the impost of the middle capital on the portal’s western jamb are the product of modern restoration; the portal’s colonettes and capitals (including the capital imposts in its western jamb), which had disappeared by the late 19th century, were replaced by entirely new creations cast in white cement between 1950 and 1952: A. H. S. Megaw, Annual Report of the Director of Antiquities for the Year 1950 (Nicosia, 1951), p. 11; A. H. S. Megaw, Annual Report of the Director of Antiquities for the Year 1951 (Nicosia, 1952), p. 12; A. H. S. Megaw, Annual Report of the Director of Antiquities for the Year 1952 (Nicosia, 1953), p. 10; Monuments médiévaux de Chypre: Photographies de la mission de Camille Enlart en 1896, ed. Jean-Bernard de Vaivre and Philippe Plagnieux (Paris, 2012), pp. 190–91.

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aspect on account of its three ponderous rib vaults; the vault’s ribs and transverse arches spring, without the mediation of capitals, from single- or triple-shaft responds of the same profile (Figure 10.6). The manner in which the moldings of the ribs ‘die’ into the respond dosseret at the springing is, moreover, reminiscent of the similar disposition in the ground-story hall of the

Figure 10.6 ‘Bembo Loggia,’ ground story interior, western half looking southwest, ­Famagusta, main square source: M. Olympios

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north wing at the Famagusta citadel, erected in the early 14th century.8 The exterior aspect of the building’s south wall is relatively unremarkable, with its utterly plain central archway (above which a balcony once rose on a series of all’antica corbels) and the staircase leading to the upper story set against its eastern half. By comparison, the north front, looking across the square, received a much more sophisticated treatment, as its central portal and large lateral oculi were designed to reflect, to some extent, the tripartite division of the structure’s interior space. Moreover, this side of the Bembo Loggia was evidently furnished with a more diverse array of decorative sculpture, including two friezes marking the division between the lower and the upper stories. The edifice’s undeniable sculptural showpiece was obviously meant to be its central round-arched portal, which, as mentioned above, is set apart from the rest of the façade by its moderately projecting rectangular frame (Figure 10.4). The general impression imparted by this doorway, undoubtedly enhanced by the two relief roundels in the spandrels between portal arch and frame edge, is that of kinship with all’antica designs executed by Italian masons in the context of fortification and other public works launched since the beginning of Venetian rule, most conspicuously the Sea Gate of Famagusta’s town walls (ca.1495–96).9 Nevertheless, the size, structure, and elaboration of the portal itself represents a definite callback to ambitious Gothic church projects of earlier centuries (minus the decorated lintel and tympanum). More detailed scrutiny of the sculpture on the north front of the Bembo Loggia brings to the fore an even more complex stylistic interplay between classicizing and Gothic forms, which are sometimes merely juxtaposed and, at other times, appear intertwined almost down to the molecular level. The 8 On the Famagusta citadel, see James Petre, Crusader Castles of Cyprus: The Fortifications of Cyprus under the Lusignans: 1191–1489 (Nicosia, 2012), pp. 152–64, esp. 157–59, and 187–89, with earlier literature. 9 For the Sea Gate and later classicizing works, consult Langdale, “At the Edge of Empire,” pp. 165–66; Papacostas, “Echoes of the Renaissance,” pp. 144–64; Mia Gaia Trentin, “Latin Commemorative Epigraphs in Venetian Cyprus: Preliminary Considerations,” in Cypriot Material Culture Studies from Picrolite Carving to Proskynitaria Analysis, ed. Ariane Jacobs and Peter Cosyns (Brussels, 2015), pp. 287–306, at 299, 304; Dragoş Cosmescu, “Sea Defenses in the Renaissance: Famagusta in Comparative Venetian Perspective,” in Famagusta Maritima: Mariners, Merchants, Pilgrims and Mercenaries, ed. Michael J. K. Walsh (Leiden, 2019), pp. 184–99, at 193–95; Michalis Olympios, “‘Fino al tempo delli Re di Cipro’: Retro-Gothic and Nostalgic Identities in Venetian Cyprus,” in Ἐν Σοφίᾳ μαθητεύσαντες: Essays in Byzantine Material ­Culture and Society in Honour of Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, ed. Charikleia Diamanti and Anastasia ­Vassiliou, with Smaragdi Arvaniti (Oxford, 2019), pp. 48–63, at 54–55; Thomas ­Kaffenberger, Tradition and Identity: The Architecture of Greek Churches in Cyprus (14th to 16th Centuries), 2 vols. (Wiesbaden, 2020), 1:244–52.

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upper of the two friezes crowning the wall is fluted, recalling a common motif of the early (or Lombard) Renaissance in Venice (ca.1460–1530), most fruitfully exploited in late 15th-century work by Pietro Lombardo or in related styles (Figure 10.3); it had been introduced in Cyprus by the early 16th century, when it graced the frieze crowning the magnificent new north front of the Greek cathedral of the Panagia Hodegetria, Nicosia. On the contrary, the lower frieze, carved with pairs of serrated leaves leaning in opposite directions, was modeled after its early 14th-century counterpart running between the lower and middle stories of the Latin cathedral’s adjacent west front (Figure 10.7). More confusing, perhaps, the rope moldings lining the outer rim of the façade’s lateral oculi and the spiral shafts lodged in the angles of the projecting central section were both ubiquitous motifs in the Venetian Gothic style, enlivening the exteriors of ecclesiastical and secular buildings alike in the Serenissima. Although rope molding might have put in a few appearances during the late Lusignan period, the earliest concretely dated Cypriot example may be found on the low scarp built against the foot of the chevet of Nicosia’s Latin cathedral as part of the repairs occasioned by the devastating earthquake of 1491. Despite going out of fashion in Venice around 1500, rope moldings and spiral shafts evolved into true mainstays of Cypriot stone and woodcarving, featuring prominently on Greek iconostases to the end of the Venetian period and beyond.10 10

For Venetian late Gothic and early Renaissance architectural sculpture in general and for fluting and rope moldings and spiral shafts in particular, see Edoardo Arslan, Venezia gotica: L’architettura civile, 2nd ed. (Milan, 1996), esp. pp. 251–96; Edoardo Arslan, Gothic Architecture in Venice, trans. Anne Engel (London, 1971), esp. pp. 329–92; McAndrew, ­Venetian Architecture; Herbert Dellwing, Die Kirchenbaukunst des späten Mittelalters in Venetien (Worms, 1990), pp. 132–33; Norbert Huse and Wolfgang Wolters, Venedig: Die Kunst der Renaissance. Architektur, Skulptur, Malerei, 1460–1590, 2nd ed. (Munich, 1996), pp. 31, 84–101, 123–25; Wolfgang Wolters, Architektur und Ornament: Venezianischer ­Bauschmuck der Renaissance (Munich, 2000), esp. pp. 98–123; Howard, The Architectural History of Venice, pp. 72–159, esp. 123, 130–32, 141–42; Concina, Tempo novo, esp. pp. 207–44, 293–316, 357–63; Goy, Building Renaissance Venice, pp. 151–65, 190–215 passim; Jan-­Christoph Rössler, I palazzi veneziani: Storia, architettura, restauri. Il Trecento e il Quattrocento (Trent, 2010), pp. 145–46. On the ornament of iconostases and its later fortunes in the Venetian period, see Marina A. Kyriakidou, Ξυλόγλυπτα τέμπλα της Κύπρου της περιόδου της Τουρκοκρατίας (1571–1878): Τα χρονολογημένα και τα κατά προσέγγιση χρονολογούμενα έργα (Σειρά διδακτορικών διατριβών 11) (Nicosia, 2011), esp. pp. 72, 75–90, 346–57, 363; for the 16th-century examples, see Iosif Hadjikyriakos, “Venetian Elements in the iconostasis of Cyprus,” in Cyprus: An Island Culture. Society and Social Relations from the Bronze Age to the Venetian Period, ed. Artemis Georgiou (Oxford, 2012), pp. 268–83. On Famagusta’s Latin cathedral, see most recently Michalis Olympios, Building the Sacred in a Crusader Kingdom: Gothic Church Architecture in Lusignan Cyprus, c. 1209–c. 1373 (Turnhout, 2018),

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Figure 10.7 Lala Mustafa Paşa Mosque (former Latin cathedral of Saint Nicholas the Confessor), lower and middle stories of west front, Famagusta, main square source: M. Olympios

In its ornamental detailing, the central portal of the north front of the Bembo Loggia mixes the Gothic and the classical in bold and novel ways (­Figures 10.4 and 10.8). The outermost and innermost archivolts of the portal’s arch are carried on pilasters, the facets of which are carved with raised molded frames forming roundels at about mid-height; in a spirit of visual continuity, the outer archivolt also received the same molded frame and three roundels at the top and the middle of its sides. Pilasters of this type are quintessential elements of the early Renaissance style in Venice, where the roundels often held discs of colored stone intensifying the polychromatic effect produced pp. 190–205. The post-1491 repairs to the Nicosia Cathedral chevet are also discussed in ibid., p. 359. The north front of the Hodegetria has been the object of a detailed study undertaken as part of a University of Cyprus research project funded by the A. G. Leventis Foundation (2017–19); the results of this endeavor will be published in book form, but in the meantime, see Thomas Kaffenberger, “Portale als künstlerische Schaustücke und Orte sozialer Inszenierung: Die griechische Kathedrale der Panagia Hodegetria in ­Nicosia, Zypern,” in Das Kirchenportal im Mittelalter, ed. Stephan Albrecht, Stefan ­Breitling, and Rainer Drewello (Petersberg, 2019), pp. 190–201; Olympios, “‘Fino al tempo delli Re di Cipro.’”

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Figure 10.8 ‘Bembo Loggia,’ north portal, detail of western jamb, Famagusta, main square source: M. Olympios

by this highly ornate architecture. Conversely, the Famagustan pilaster and arch roundels were seemingly not conceived as slots for such discs, though the colorful appearance of their Venetian models was frequently reproduced in 16th-century painting.11 That the raised frames of the facets of the 11

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pilasters below the inner archivolt of the Bembo Loggia portal also enclose cusped arches in the form of blind tracery can be seen as a nod to the short ­pinnacle-like ­pilaster-buttresses between the portals of the Latin cathedral’s west front, which were formally congruent, mutatis mutandis, with the Italianate pilasters that served as the mid-16th-century designer’s primary model. The inner archivolt itself was adorned with chevron moldings and rosettes, which, like the dogtooth deployed on the remaining archivolts and the portal jambs, were popular motifs in the architecture of Famagusta already in the

vivid color appear during the Venetian period in the interior of several Greek churches throughout the island, such as the Panagia Apsinthiotissa; Christ Antiphonitis, Kalograia; the so-called Latin Chapel, Kalopanagiotis; Agia Napa, Kantou; St. George, Kapouti; ­Archangel Michael, Kokkinotrimithia; St. Mamas, Morphou; Holy Cross of Agiasmati, Platanistasa; St. Anastasia, Polemidia; the Panagia Nerophorousa, Pyrgos Lemesou; the katholikon of the Enkleistra of St. Neophytos, Tala; and others. See Andreas Stylianou and Judith Stylianou, “Ἡ βυζαντινὴ τέχνη κατὰ τὴν περίοδο τῆς Φραγκοκρατίας (1191–1570),” in Ἱστορία τῆς Κύπρου, τόμος Ε’: Μεσαιωνικὸν βασίλειον—Ἑνετοκρατία, μέρος Β’, ed. Theodoros Papadopoullos (Nicosia, 1996), pp. 1229–1407, at 1333–37, 1341–47; Andreas Stylianou and Judith A. Stylianou, The Painted Churches of Cyprus: Treasures of Byzantine Art, 2nd ed. (Nicosia, 1997), pp. 186–218, 312–20, 369–81, 469–85, esp. 476–85; Stella Frigerio-Zeniou, L’art “italo-byzantin” à Chypre au XVIe siècle, trois témoins de la peinture religieuse: Panagia Podithou, la Chapelle latine et Panagia Iamatikê (Venice, 1998), pp. 99–203; Efthalia Constantinides, “Monumental Painting in Cyprus during the Venetian Period, 1489–1570,” in Medieval Cyprus: Studies in Art, Architecture, and History in Memory of Doula Mouriki, ed. Nancy Patterson Ševčenko and Christopher Moss (Princeton, 1999), pp. 263-300, esp. 266–67, 272–84; Giorgos Philotheou, “Ἡ μνημειακὴ ζωγραφικὴ στὴν περιοχὴ τῆς μητροπολιτικῆς περιφέρειας Μόρφου,” in Ἱερὰ Μητρόπολις Μόρφου: 2000 χρόνια τέχνης καὶ ἁγιότητος (­Nicosia, 2000), pp. 109-26, esp. 121–23; Christos Argyrou and Diomedes Myrianthefs, The Church of the Holy Cross of Ayiasmati, trans. Deborah Whitehouse (Guides to the Byzantine Monuments of Cyprus) (Nicosia, 2006), pp. 14–44, esp. 19; Ioannis A. Eliades, “Η κυπροαναγεννησιακή ζωγραφική: Το Λατινικό Παρεκκλήσιο της Μονής του Αγίου Ιωάννου του Λαμπαδιστού στον Καλοπαναγιώτη και τα παρεμφερή μνημεία,” 2 vols (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cyprus, 2008), 1:172, 224–25, 234–35, 250–53, 258–60, 263, 275, 306, 308–12; Athanasios Papageorgiou, The Monastery of Saint John Lampadistis in Kalopanayiotis, trans. Richard Gill (Nicosia, 2008), pp. 43–52; Christodoulos A. Hadjichristodoulou, Ὁ καθεδρικὸς ναὸς τοῦ Ἁγίου Μάμαντος στὴ Μόρφου (Nicosia, 2010), pp. 42–45; Athanasios Papageorghiou, Christian Art in the Turkish-Occupied Part of Cyprus (Nicosia, 2010), pp. 71–95, 302–9, 283–88, 395–405; the entries by Athanasios Papageorghiou in Μεγάλη Κυπριακή Εγκυκλοπαίδεια, 2η έκδοση, ed. Andros Pavlides, 20 vols (Nicosia, 2011–12), 2:237–38, 313–16; 3:254–56; 4:326; 13:349–50, 392–400; 14:380–81. Similar pilasters to those at the Bembo Loggia, with some of their marble-disc inserts intact, can be seen in the fountain constructed in Candia under Zuan Matteo Bembo, capitano from 1552 to 1554; see Petroula Varthalitou, “Η κρήνη Bembo στον Χάνδακα,” in Γλυπτική και λιθοξοϊκή στη Λατινική Ανατολή 13ος–17ος αιώνας, ed. Olga Gratziou (Heraklion, 2007), pp. 152–63, esp. 153–57; Petroula Varthalitou, “Περίτεχνες κρήνες με γλυπτό διάκοσμο,” in Η γλυπτική στη βενετική Κρήτη (1211–1669), ed. Maria Vakondiou and Olga Gratziou, 2 vols (Heraklion, 2021), 1:105–41, esp. 109–13. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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14th and 15th centuries.12 Finally, the relief human and beast figures at the springing of the archivolts and the hoodmold crawling with undulating foliage obviously derived their inspiration, once again, from the portals of the Latin cathedral’s majestic façade.13 The commanding and elegant west façade of Famagusta’s Rayonnant Gothic cathedral was by far the most eye-catching piece of monumental architecture visible from within the main square, especially prior to the erection of the palazzo’s resolutely all’antica porch in the 1550s (Figure 10.7). Although the perceived magnificence of such a work would surely present a potent incentive for the quotation of select passages of its prestigious design in as ­ambitious a building as the Bembo Loggia—the north front of which stood in direct contact and could be seen as contiguous with the cathedral façade’s southwest angle— there may be further reasons behind this striking phenomenon, perhaps going beyond the purely aesthetic. Given both the sophisticated melding of Gothic and classicizing styles at the Bembo Loggia and the firm references in its formal attributes to more than two centuries of Famagustan architecture, it would be safe to assume that formal homogeneity across all the structures fronting the square was not the intention here. What the designer of the Bembo Loggia seems to have been striving for is the creation of a visual tribute to the built environment of the Lusignan kingdom’s ‘queen city,’ updated for 16th-­century sensibilities. Such a clear historicist statement should be read in the context of contemporary textual evidence, which reveals Cypriot ­admiration for the Latin religious institutions founded during the island’s glory days, ‘the time of the kings,’ and for Famagusta’s 14th-century heyday, which saw the construction of virtually all its prestigious architectural landmarks. The valorization of a glorified Lusignan past paved the way for the well-­documented, costly, largescale restoration campaigns of crumbling 14th-century church architecture 12

13

Michalis Olympios, “The Shifting Mantle of Jerusalem: Ecclesiastical Architecture in Lusignan Famagusta,” in Famagusta, Volume I: Art and Architecture, ed. Annemarie Weyl Carr (Turnhout, 2014), pp. 75–142, at 101–5 and passim; Thomas Kaffenberger, “Evoking a Distant Past? The Chevron Motif as an Emblematic Relic of Crusader Architecture in Late Medieval Cyprus,” in Symbols and Models in the Mediterranean: Perceiving through Cultures, ed. Aneilya Barnes and Mariarosaria Salerno (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2017), pp. 160–88; Olympios, Building the Sacred, pp. 269–71, 318–19; Nasso Chrysochou, Ορθόδοξη εκκλησιαστική αρχιτεκτονική στην Κύπρο κατά την περίοδο της Ενετοκρατίας (Μελέται και Υπομνήματα 8) (Nicosia, 2018), pp. 73, 81–83; Kaffenberger, Tradition and Identity, 1:151–53, 158, 183–86, 230–31, 262 and passim throughout. In addition to the literature on the cathedral cited above, see Allan Langdale, “Notes on the Marginal Sculpture of the Cathedral of St Nicholas,” in Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta: Studies in Architecture, Art and History, ed. Michael J. K. Walsh, Peter W. Edbury, and Nicholas S. H. Coureas (Farnham, 2012), pp. 93–113.

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underway in Famagusta throughout the ­Venetian period. In ­Nicosia, the Latin cathedral (under heavy restoration between the 1490s and the latter half of the 1500s) and other conspicuous vestiges of the Lusignan era inspired a retrospective Gothic architectural style largely championed in the first half of the 16th century by the aristocracy, who were eager to flaunt in their lavish patronage the antiquity and legitimacy of their lineage, privileges, and social status.14 The reverently old-fashioned aspect of Famagusta’s Bembo Loggia may well be the outcome of a similar desire for a visual throwback to a golden age long past yet in no way forgotten. 3 Anchoring the Memory of the Crusades in Gothic Grandeur: Godfrey of Bouillon, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Famagusta’s Latin Cathedral Taking a closer look at late 15th- and 16th-century perceptions of the ­patronage of the Latin cathedral of St. Nicholas, which, as shown above, was the primary model for the sculptural ornament of the Bembo Loggia, will help further nuance and refine our view of how earlier medieval history and its ­physical remnants shaped architectural production under Venetian rule. Cypriot narrative sources of the 16th century, written by members of some of the island’s most prominent houses, relate brief accounts of the financial troubles incurred due to episcopal mismanagement during the church’s construction in the 1300s; what is more, the contemporary composition of an inscription for the funerary monument of Bishop Baldwin Lambert (r. ca.1309–26), who had been actively involved in the building’s completion from 1311 onward, shows an awareness among the cathedral clergy themselves of (at the very least) the epigraphic testimony linking this prelate to the sumptuous present structure.15 Although the 14 15

For these issues regarding the Gothic in the Venetian period, including a discussion of the pertinent documentary evidence, see Olympios, “‘Fino al tempo delli Re di Cipro.’” Sigmund Feyerabend, Reyssbuch dess heyligen Lands, das ist ein grundtliche Beschreibung aller und jeder Meer und Bilgerfahrten zum heyligen Lande (Frankfurt am Main, 1584), fol. 377r; Florio Bustron, Chronique de l’île de Chypre, ed. René de Mas Latrie (Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France—Mélanges historiques 5) (Paris, 1886), repr. as Florio Bustron, Historia overo commentarii de Cipro (Κυπριολογική Βιβλιοθήκη 8) (­Nicosia, 1998), p. 172; Chroniques d’Amadi et de Strambaldi. Première partie: Chronique d’Amadi, ed. René de Mas Latrie (Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France) (Paris, 1891), repr. as Francesco Amadi, Cronaca di Cipro (Κυπριολογική Βιβλιοθήκη 9) (­Nicosia, 1999), p. 291; Gilles Grivaud, Entrelacs chiprois: Essai sur les lettres et la vie intellectuelle dans le royaume de Chypre, 1191–1570 (Nicosia, 2009), pp. 252–69; The Chronicle

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documentary dossier assembled by historians and the architectural analyses of the building itself have confirmed a construction date in the first quarter of the 14th century, evidence culled from pilgrim travelogues tells a rather different story.16 Dom Nicolas Loupvent, a monk from the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Michel at Saint-Mihiel (Meuse) who was on pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1531, asserted that Famagusta’s stunningly beautiful cathedral church had been built by order of the ‘high and mighty prince’ Godfrey of Bouillon, king of Jerusalem at the time of the Lord’s Passion, and that its bells had sounded the alarm when Jesus Christ was being led to the cross.17 What is more, the German theologian Wilhelm Tzewers, who traveled to the East from 1477 to 1478, attributed to Godfrey’s patronage the ‘ancient church’ dedicated in honor of Saint Lazarus at Salines (modern-day Larnaca), in which a king of Cyprus lay buried; since no sovereign was ever laid to rest at St. Lazarus and no Cypriot church apart from Famagusta’s Latin cathedral was apparently ever associated with Godfrey of Bouillon, in all probability, Tzewers’s confused passage also concerned the latter edifice, which housed the splendid tomb set up for King James II of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Armenia (r. 1460–73) only a few short years before the author’s visit.18

16

17

18

of Amadi Translated from the Italian, trans. Nicholas Coureas and Peter Edbury (Nicosia, 2015), pp. xiv–xix; Olympios, “‘Fino al tempo delli Re di Cipro,’” p. 48. Olympios, Building the Sacred, pp. 190–205; Chris Schabel, “The Ecclesiastical History of Lusignan and Genoese Famagusta,” in Famagusta, Volume II: History and Society, ed. Gilles Grivaud, Angel Nicolaou-Konnari, and Chris Schabel (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 297–362, at 309, 357–58. Jean-Paul Bonnin, “Récit de voyage: Le pèlerinage à Jérusalem de Dom Loupvent. Manuscrit de 1531” (M.A. thesis, 2 vols, Université de Tours, 1976), 1:164: “Le sabmedy XXX jour de septembre, bien matin, fimes dire messe en lesglise des frères Mineurs, lesquelz nous firent tout plain dhumanité, puis après retournames veoir et visiter la grande esglise cathédrale, queste belle et puissante a mervelle, érigée en lhonneur monseigneur sainct Nicolas. Et la fict faire, hault et puissant prince Godeffroy de Billon, roy de Jhérusalem durant le temps de la passion Notre Seigneur, laquelle sonna pour le toxain quant on menoit Jésuscrist crucifier.” See also Dom Loupvent, p. 160. Wilhelm Tzewers, Itinerarius terre sancte: Einleitung, Edition, Kommentar und Übersetzung, ed. and trans. Gritje Hartmann (Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 33) (Wiesbaden, 2004), p. 116: “Unum tantum ibi [i.e., in Salines] est hospicium et antiqua ecclesia, constructa in honorem sancti Lazari per Gotfridum de Bulion, in qua est sepultus unius regis [sic] Cipri.” For King James’s tomb in the choir of Famagusta Cathedral, which was often seen and discussed by European pilgrims, see Lorenzo Calvelli, “Un ‘sarcofago imperiale’ per l’ultimo re di Cipro,” in Caterina Cornaro: Last Queen of Cyprus and Daughter of Venice / Ultima regina di Cipro e figlia di Venezia, ed. Candida Syndikus and Sabine Rogge (Münster, 2013), pp. 311–55, esp. 311–15 and n19. The inscription accompanying James’s tomb bore his full title: Lacrimae Cypriae / Le larmes de Chypre, ou recueil des inscriptions lapidaires pour la plupart funéraires de la période franque et vénitienne de l’île

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Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lotharingia (r. 1087–99) and one of the leaders of the First Crusade, rose to prominence during the events leading up to the Frankish conquest of Jerusalem to briefly serve as the Holy City’s first Latin ruler (r. 1099–1100). By a process of sustained literary aggrandizement, set in motion almost immediately after his death in the early 12th century, Godfrey was cast in the mold of the pious warrior and chivalrous hero par excellence, distinguished by his example-setting legendary prowess in the war against the infidel and, above all, by his pivotal part in the Christian capture of Jerusalem. By the end of the 13th century, he had evolved into an iconic figure of crusading history, while in the 14th he joined the august ranks of the chivalric pantheon of the Nine Worthies, thus solidifying a place for himself in late medieval and early modern Western culture and paving the way for his starring role in Torquato Tasso’s epic La Gerusalemme liberata (1575/81).19 ­Godfrey’s glorious posthumous reputation was kept alive in the East by the Franciscans of the Custody of the Holy Land, who were tasked since the 14th century with the practicalities of receiving, hosting, and caring for European pilgrims, offering them guided tours, and structuring their devotional experiences. Throughout the late Middle Ages and early modernity, the friars’ tremendous contribution to shaping Latin perceptions of the Holy Land and its storied past relied not only on their own oral testimony and writings but also on allowing visitors the use of the library at their convent on Mount Zion, which was well stocked with earlier texts pertaining to the region’s geography,

19

de Chypre, ed. Brunehilde Imhaus, 2 vols (Nicosia, 2004), 1:396. Ludwig Tschudi saw in 1519, in an unspecified Famagustan church, the tomb of a Lusignan king whom he named ‘Henry’ and who could be none other than James (Reyß und Bilgerfahrt zum heyligen Grab [Rorschach am Bodensee, 1606], p. 96). For the latest comprehensive biography of Godfrey of Bouillon, see Simon John, Godfrey of Bouillon: Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, c. 1060–1100 (London, 2018). On Godfrey’s progressive ‘mythification’ from the 12th century onwards, see also, among others, Gerhart Waeger, Gottfried von Bouillon in der Historiographie (Geist und Werk der Zeiten 18) (Zurich, 1969); Horst Schroeder, Der Topos der Nine Worthies in Literatur und bildender Kunst (Göttingen, 1971), p. 41 and passim; Georges Despy, “Godefroid de Bouillon: Mythes et réalités,” Bulletins de l’Académie Royale de Belgique 71 (1985): 249–75, esp. pp. 263–75; Alphonse Dupront, Le mythe de Croisade, 2nd ed., 4 vols (Paris, 1999), 2:990–97; Friedrich Wolfzettel, “Gottfried von Bouillon: Führer des ersten Kreuzzugs und König von Jerusalem,” in Mythen Europas: Schlüsselfiguren der Imagination, ed. Michael Neumann et al., 7 vols (Regensburg, 2004–09), 2:127–42; Jérôme Devard, “La ‘légendarisation’ de Godefroy de Bouillon: Étude d’un processus de mythification (XIIe–XIIIe siècle),” in Autour des “Assises de Jérusalem,” ed. Jérôme Devard and Bernard Ribémont (Paris, 2018), pp. 31–44; Anne Latowsky, “Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Louis IX of France,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the Crusades, ed. Anthony Bale (Cambridge, UK, 2019), pp. 200–14, at 200–05, 211.

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demographics, and history. Franciscan literary production on the Holy Land wove a fairly consistent and durable narrative of Christian loss and nostalgia, foregrounding a longing for the period of the crusades and Latin rule over Palestine (1099–1291), as well as for its main protagonists, primarily Godfrey of Bouillon, whose illustrious career was expected to inspire the promoters of future crusade projects (occasionally pursued by the brothers themselves). Given the pilgrims’ intense exposure to Franciscan ministry and texts during their journey to the loca sancta, it comes as no surprise that echoes of the friars’ worldview can often be discerned in travelogues.20 In Cyprus, too, Franciscan activity may have further embroidered Godfrey of Bouillon’s late medieval legend. Around the middle of the 16th century, the Blessed John of Montfort (d. 1248), whose body was venerated by both Latins and Greeks in the church of Nicosia’s Franciscan Observant convent, was retroactively admitted into the knightly Order of the Holy Sepulcher, claimed in a contemporary forged document to have been founded by Godfrey in 1100.21 Nevertheless, the friars’ mediation would not have been necessary for 20

21

Nicole Chareyron, Pilgrims to Jerusalem in the Middle Ages, trans. W. Donald Wilson (New York, 2005), pp. 82–85; Marianne P. Ritsema van Eck, The Holy Land in Observant Franciscan Texts (c. 1480–1650): Theology, Travel, and Territoriality (Leiden, 2019), esp. pp. 2–9, 17–19, 132–34, 140–60; Michele Campopiano, Writing the Holy Land: The Franciscans of Mount Zion and the Construction of a Cultural Memory, 1300–1550 (Cham, 2020), esp. pp. 155–63, 167–75, 182–83, 203–10, 223–80, 339–47, 349–53. Michalis Olympios, “Between St Bernard and St Francis: A Reassessment of the Excavated Church of Beaulieu Abbey, Nicosia,” Architectural History 55 (2012): 25–55, at pp. 41–43; Michalis Olympios, “Shared Devotions: Non-Latin Responses to Latin Sainthood in Late Medieval Cyprus,” Journal of Medieval History 39, no. 3 (2013): 321–41, at pp. 335–41; ­Friedrich Rhenanus, “Martin Ketzels von Augsburg Reise nach dem gelobten Lande im Jahr 1476, von ihm selbst beschrieben,” Altes und Neues für Geschichte und Dichtkunst 1 (1832): 28–103, at p. 45. Note, however, that a travelogue from 1482–83 (i.e., from before the establishment of the Franciscans at the convent in the early 16th century) asserted that John of Montfort lay at the site “from the time that Godfrey of Bouillon conquered the Promised Land”: Excerpta Cypria Nova I: Voyageurs occidentaux à Chypre au XVème siècle, ed. Gilles Grivaud (Sources et Études de l’Histoire de Chypre 15) (Nicosia, 1990), p. 119. Franciscans were apparently established at St. Lazarus, Salines by the early 1530s, but we do not know if this was also true in the 1470s, when Tzewers assigned the church’s construction to Godfrey—after all, in 1519, Latin pilgrims heard Mass there from a Dominican friar: Antonio de Aranda, Verdadera informacion de la tierra santa segun la disposicion en que eneste anno de M.D.XXX: El auctor la vio y passeo (Toledo, 1537), fol. 113r; Heimfahrt von Jerusalem Hans Stockar’s von Schaffhausen Pilgers zum heiligen Grabe im Jahr des Heils 1519 und Tagebuch von 1520 bis 1529…, ed. Johann Heinrich Maurer-Constant (Schaffhausen, 1839), p. 31; Olympios, “Shared Devotions,” p. 327; Denys Pringle, “The Protestant Tombs in the Orthodox Churchyard of St Lazarus in Larnaca and Environs, 1673–1849,” Επετηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερευνών 39 (2016–18): 257–312, at pp. 258–61.

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the ­perpetuation of the myth of Jerusalem’s first Latin ruler. Since the 1260s, ­Godfrey of Bouillon had been billed as the lawgiver of the Kingdom of Jerusalem by John of Ibelin, whose Assises of Jerusalem became the official legal code of the Cypriot kingdom about a century later and were thus translated into Italian for administrative purposes in the 1530s by order of the Venetian doge.22 The alleged origins of the Assises in Godfrey’s reign and their continued validity in Lusignan and Venetian Cyprus were explicitly stated in Francesco Attar’s treatise of ca.1520 and Stephen of Lusignan’s account of the First Crusade and the capture of Jerusalem from the later 16th century, meaning that the association of the celebrated memory of the first Latin ruler in the Levant with the island’s past retained its relevance to the end of Latin rule.23 Although the extant evidence is too exiguous to allow us to gauge, in each case, whether the initiative for linking Cypriot monuments to the figure of Godfrey of Bouillon was due to the influence of Franciscan networks or local agents (or both), there can be little doubt that pilgrims often learned of such associations in situ. On the return journey from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1487, the French Carmelite Nicole Le Huen saw in the ‘church of St. Mamas’ (probably Nicosia’s Latin cathedral) a greatly admired stone sarcophagus, which he identified as the tomb of Godfrey of Bouillon; since he immediately corrected himself by emphasizing that the latter had actually been buried at the church of the Holy Sepulcher, the author appears to be relaying two conflicting views about Godfrey’s final resting place, one given in Bernhard von Breydenbach’s Latin travelogue (of which Le Huen’s account was a free French adaptation with additions) and probably familiar from his own visit to Jerusalem and another that he must have learned from a guide or some other source in Cyprus.24 22 23

24

John of Ibelin, Le livre des Assises, ed. Peter W. Edbury (The Medieval Mediterranean 50) (Leiden, 2003), pp. 1–2, 34, 51–55, 629; L’alta corte: Le assise, et bone usanze, del reame de Hyerusalem (Venice, 1535), fol. 1r–v; Grivaud, Entrelacs chiprois, pp. 122–28, 140–41, 240–45. Steffano Lusignano, Chorograffia e breve historia universale dell’isola de Cipro principiando al tempo di Noè per in sino al 1572 (Bologna, 1573; repr. Famagusta, 1973; repr. Nicosia, 2004), fols 40v–42r; Estienne de Lusignan, Description de toute l’isle de Cypre (Paris, 1580; repr. Famagusta, 1968; repr. Nicosia, 2004), fol. 109r–v; Louis de Mas Latrie, Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan, 3 vols (Paris, 1852–61), 3:530; Grivaud, Entrelacs chiprois, pp. 235–39. Other 16th-century accounts of the events of the First Crusade and Godfrey’s short reign in Jerusalem, such as that in the Amadi Chronicle, which was partly based on the 13th-century French translation and a continuation of the work of William of Tyre, as well as other known and unknown sources, establish no direct link with subsequent Cypriot history: Chronique d’Amadi, pp. 16–26; Grivaud, Entrelacs chiprois, p. 255; The Chronicle of Amadi, pp. xx–xxi, xxv–xxvi, 487–88. Nicole Le Huen, Des sainctes pérégrinations de Iherusalem et des avirons et des lieux prochains, du mont de Synay et la glorieuse Katherine (Lyon, 1488), n.p. (entry for August 31,

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Assuming the patronage of important historical and/or mythical figures for impressive old buildings and other monuments was common practice among late medieval and early modern audiences.25 As was often the case, the Latin cathedral of Famagusta, which had accommodated the coronations of Cypriot sovereigns as kings of Jerusalem in the 14th century (prior to the town’s capture by the Genoese in 1373) and contained the funerary monument of the last monarch of Jerusalem, Cyprus, and Armenia, was considered deserving of the most distinguished of origins, harking all the way back to the time of the heroic first Latin ‘king’ of Jerusalem, Godfrey of Bouillon.26 That Godfrey was supposed to have built the church at the time of Christ’s Passion (according to Dom Loupvent’s testimony, at the very least) introduces an even more radical temporal collapse serving to further enhance the 14th-century edifice’s aura of hallowed antiquity.27 However this tradition of Famagusta Cathedral’s legendary Godefridian patronage might have come about, it certainly coexisted in the late 15th and 16th centuries with more concrete knowledge of the building’s construction occurring in the early 14th century, as already discussed above. At a time when ancient origins were immeasurably prized as markers of prestige and yet when closely dating architecture by means of formal or technical criteria (in the manner of contemporary architectural historians) was virtually impossible, distinguishing between the present building and a

25 26

27

1487); Bernhard von Breydenbach, “Peregrinationes”: Un viaggiatore del Quattrocento a Gerusalemme e in Egitto. Ristampa anastatica dell’incunabolo, ed. and trans. Gabriella Bartolini and Giulio Caporali (Rome, 1999), n.p. (entry for July 13, 1483); Béatrice Dansette, “Le voyage d’outre-mer à la fin du XVe siècle: Essai de définition de l’identité pèlerine occidentale à travers le récit de Nicole Le Huen,” in Chemins d’outre-mer: Études d’histoire sur la Méditerranée médiévale offertes à Michel Balard, ed. Damien Coulon, Catherine Otten-Froux, Paule Pagès, and Dominique Valérian (Paris, 2004), pp. 171–82; Calvelli, “Un ‘sarcofago imperiale’,” p. 321. On medieval tour guides, see now Conrad Rudolph, “The Tour Guide in the Middle Ages: Guide Culture and the Mediation of Public Art,” The Art Bulletin 100, no. 1 (2018): 36–67. Erik Inglis and Elise Christmon, “‘The Worthless Stories of Pilgrims’? The Art Historical Imagination of Fifteenth-Century Travelers to Jerusalem,” Viator 44, no. 3 (2013): 257–328. On royal coronations in Famagusta, apart from the literature on the cathedral cited above, see Philippe Trélat, “Nicosia and Famagusta in the Frankish Period (1192–1474): Two ­Capitals for a Kingdom?,” in The Harbour of All This Sea and Realm: Crusader to Venetian Famagusta, ed. Michael J. K. Walsh, Tamás Kiss, and Nicholas S. H. Coureas (Budapest, 2014), pp. 21–39, at 25–28. For the typological parallelism evoked by monastic authors of the High Middle Ages between the participants in the First Crusade and the apostles/founders of the early Church, see Katherine Allen Smith, “Monastic Memories of the Early Crusading Movement,” in Remembering the Crusades and Crusading, ed. Megan Cassidy-Welch (London, 2017), pp. 131–44, at 133–34.

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fictive predecessor, allegedly dating back to the glorious beginnings of Latin Christian rule in the East, would have been both impracticable and undesirable. Recent research on late medieval and early modern perceptions of the past has shown that, in their quest to bestow a veneer of glittering Antiquity on local institutions, lineages, and even entire polities and nations without the evidentiary support of conspicuous classical physical remains, antiquarians often ‘backdated’ earlier medieval buildings and other artworks—the actual dates of which were sometimes known or could easily be learned from textual or epigraphic sources—to suggest a much loftier pedigree. The locus classicus of this tendency to exaggerate the age of old edifices is the Romanesque Florentine Baptistery, which was claimed to have been, or to occupy the site of, a Roman temple of Mars, though scholars have identified analogous phenomena throughout Europe.28 4 Erudite Perceptions of Local History and the Gothic as Antique in the Architecture of Venetian Cyprus In resuscitating the formal vocabulary of St. Nicholas’s evocative west front, in all likelihood, the designer of the Bembo Loggia did not solely intend to craft an impressive piece of architecture in harmony with its immediate monumental surroundings; he also appears to have aimed at harnessing his model’s vivid associations with the heady days of Lusignan Famagusta and its role in ­safeguarding the memory of the crusader Levant. In his work, retrospective Gothic was paired with, and transformed by, knowledge of Italianate all’antica architecture, in a variation on a trend dubbed ‘Renaissance Gothic’ and encountered across Latin Christendom in the late 15th and 16th centuries.29 28

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Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, “What Counted as an ‘Antiquity’ in the Renaissance?,” in Renaissance Medievalisms, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler (Toronto, 2009), pp. 53–74; Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (New York, 2010); Christopher S. Wood, “The Credulity Problem,” in Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500–1800, ed. Peter N. Miller and François Louis (Ann Arbor, 2012), pp. 149–79; Karl A. E. Enenkel and Konrad A. Ottenheym, Ambitious Antiquities, Famous Forebears: Construction of a Glorious Past in the Early Modern Netherlands and in Europe, trans. Alexander C. Thomson (Leiden, 2019), pp. 94–148. On the Florence Baptistery, see most recently Eliana Carrara and Emanuela Ferretti, “Il Battistero di Firenze nella storiografia medicea tra Cosimo I e Francesco I,” in Romanesque Renaissance: Carolingian, Byzantine and Romanesque Buildings (800–1200) as a Source for New “All’Antica” Architecture in Early Modern Europe (1400–1700), ed. Konrad Ottenheym (Leiden, 2021), pp. 243–62. Hubertus Günther, “Die ersten Schritte in die Neuzeit: Gedanken zum Beginn der Renaissance nördlich der Alpen,” in Wege zur Renaissance: Beobachtungen zu den Anfängen

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The juxtaposition of this eloquently melded style with the uncompromised classicism of the spoliated marbles, granite columns, and Venus’s sarcophagus in the adjacent square helped better define it as the visual manifestation of an ‘alternative’ local antiquity on par with the island’s greatly esteemed Greco-­ Roman past.30 This conceptualization of Cypriot history, which looked back to both classical times and the Lusignan kingdom—with its venerable Gothic monuments—as ‘golden ages’ (almost completely sidelining Byzantium), was shared by local 16th-century authors, such as Florio Bustron, Stephen of Lusignan, and (presumably) Ettore Podocataro, quite possibly reflecting a broader Weltanschauung among the island’s upper classes.31 It does not require an inordinate leap of the imagination to speculate that the capitano Zuan Matteo Bembo, an antiquarian by inclination, could have been informed about the history of Famagusta and Cyprus through local contacts belonging to these higher social circles. One may further hypothesize that he would have been amenable to the concept of the fruitful synergy of both a classical and a Gothic visualization of Antiquity, for, as an educated Venetian, he would have perceived the image of the past as a composite made up of disparate fragments of diverse dates and provenances.32 Ultimately, on Bembo’s erudite initiative, Famagusta’s main square came to represent not only a powerful symbol of Venetian dominion, as highlighted in recent scholarship, but also a summation of the highs of local history, in which Venus and Godfrey of Bouillon could be commemorated side by side under the watchful gaze of Saint Mark.

30

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neuzeitlicher Kunstauffassung im Rheinland und den Nachbargebieten um 1500, ed. Norbert Nußbaum, Claudia Euskirchen, and Stephan Hoppe (Cologne, 2003), pp. 30–87; Hubertus Günther, “Visions de l’architecture en Italie et dans l’Europe du Nord au début de la Renaissance,” in L’invention de la Renaissance: La réception des formes “à l’antique” au début de la Renaissance, ed. Jean Guillaume (Paris, 2003), pp. 9–26; Le gothique de la Renaissance, ed. Monique Chatenet, Krista de Jonge, Ethan Matt Kavaler, and Norbert Nussbaum (Paris, 2011); Ethan Matt Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540 (New Haven, 2012); Robert Bork, Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception (Turnhout, 2018). Kathleen Christian and Bianca de Divitiis, introduction to Local Antiquities, Local Identities: Art, Literature and Antiquarianism in Europe, c. 1400–1700, ed. Kathleen Christian and Bianca de Divitiis (Manchester, 2018), pp. 1–12; Karl Enenkel and Konrad Ottenheym, “Introduction: The Quest for an Appropriate Past: The Creation of National Identities in Early Modern Literature, Scholarship, Architecture, and Art,” in The Quest for an ­Appropriate Past in Literature, Art and Architecture, ed. Karl A. E. Enenkel and Konrad A. Ottenheym (Leiden, 2018), pp. 1–11; Enenkel and Ottenheym, Ambitious Antiquities, pp. 11–148. Gilles Grivaud, “Éveil de la nation chyproise (XIIe–XVe siècles),” Sources travaux h­ istoriques 43–44 (1995): 105–16, at pp. 114–15; Chrysovalantis Kyriacou, Orthodox Cyprus under the Latins, 1191–1571: Society, Spirituality, and Identities (London, 2018), p. 189. Brown, Venice and Antiquity, pp. 285–86.

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Acknowledgments I would like to thank Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney for kindly inviting me to present my research at the session that they co-organized at the 108th CAA Annual Conference in Chicago (2020) and to contribute an essay to the present volume. Both engagements spurred me to refine my thinking on retrospective 16th-century Cypriot Gothic and its raisons d’être, for which I am duly grateful. I also wish to thank Michele Bacci, Estelle Ingrand-Varenne, Anne Latowsky, and Friedrich Wolfzettel for sharing their work and hard-toaccess literature, Tassos Papacostas for his incisive comments on an earlier draft of the text, and Max Ritter for providing the plan of the Famagusta main square reproduced here as Figure 10.1. Bibliography of Cited Sources

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Huse, Norbert, and Wolfgang Wolters. Venedig: Die Kunst der Renaissance; Architektur, Skulptur, Malerei, 1460–1590. 2nd ed. Munich, 1996. Inglis, Erik, and Elise Christmon. “‘The Worthless Stories of Pilgrims’? The Art Historical Imagination of Fifteenth-Century Travelers to Jerusalem.” Viator 44, no. 3 (2013): 257–328. Jeffery, George. A Description of the Historic Monuments of Cyprus: Studies in the Archaeology and Architecture of the Island. Nicosia, 1918. John, Simon. Godfrey of Bouillon: Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Ruler of Latin Jerusalem, c. 1060–1100. London, 2018. Kaffenberger, Thomas. “Evoking a Distant Past? The Chevron Motif as an Emblematic Relic of Crusader Architecture in Late Medieval Cyprus.” In Symbols and Models in the Mediterranean: Perceiving through Cultures, edited by Aneilya Barnes and ­Mariarosaria Salerno, pp. 160–88. Newcastle upon Tyne, 2017. Kaffenberger, Thomas. “Portale als künstlerische Schaustücke und Orte sozialer Inszenierung: Die griechische Kathedrale der Panagia Hodegetria in Nicosia, Zypern.” In Das Kirchenportal im Mittelalter, edited by Stephan Albrecht, Stefan Breitling, and Rainer Drewello, pp. 190–201. Petersberg, 2019. Kaffenberger, Thomas. Tradition and Identity: The Architecture of Greek Churches in Cyprus (14th to 16th Centuries), 2 vols. Wiesbaden, 2020. Kavaler, Ethan Matt. Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540. New Haven, 2012. Kyriacou, Chrysovalantis. Orthodox Cyprus under the Latins, 1191–1571: Society, Spirituality, and Identities. London, 2018. Kyriakidou, Marina A. Ξυλόγλυπτα τέμπλα της Κύπρου της περιόδου της Τουρκοκρατίας (1571– 1878): Τα χρονολογημένα και τα κατά προσέγγιση χρονολογούμενα έργα. Σειρά διδακτορικών διατριβών 11. Nicosia, 2011. Langdale, Allan. “At the Edge of Empire: Venetian Architecture in Famagusta, Cyprus.” Viator 45, no. 1 (2010): 155–98. Langdale, Allan. “Notes on the Marginal Sculpture of the Cathedral of St Nicholas.” In Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta: Studies in Architecture, Art and History, edited by Michael J.K. Walsh, Peter W. Edbury, and Nicholas S.H. Coureas, pp. 93–113. Farnham, 2012. Langdale, Allan. “Pillars and Punishment: Spolia and Colonial Authority in Venetian Famagusta.” In The Harbour of All This Sea and Realm: Crusader to Venetian Famagusta, edited by Michael J.K. Walsh, Tamás Kiss, and Nicholas S.H. Coureas, pp. 159–67. Budapest, 2014. Latowsky, Anne. “Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Louis IX of France.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the Crusades, edited by Anthony Bale, pp. 200–14. Cambridge, UK, 2019. Le gothique de la Renaissance, edited by Monique Chatenet, Krista de Jonge, Ethan Matt Kavaler, and Norbert Nussbaum. Paris, 2011. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Leventis, Panos. “Dressing the Port, Re-Dressing the Square: Signs and Signifiers in the Urban Landscape of Famagusta, Cyprus, 1291–1571.” Montreal Architectural Review 1 (2014): 67–87. Lucchese, Vincenzo. “Famagusta from a Latin Perspective: Venetian Heraldic Shields and Other Fragmentary Remains.” In Medieval and Renaissance Famagusta: Studies in Architecture, Art and History, edited by Michael J.K. Walsh, Peter W. Edbury, and Nicholas S.H. Coureas, pp. 167–86. Farnham, 2012. Mas Latrie, Louis de. Histoire de l’île de Chypre sous le règne des princes de la maison de Lusignan. 3 vols. Paris, 1852–61. McAndrew, John. Venetian Architecture of the Early Renaissance. Cambridge, MA, 1980. Μεγάλη Κυπριακή Εγκυκλοπαίδεια, 2η έκδοση, edited by Andros Pavlides. 20 vols. ­Nicosia, 2011–12. Megaw, A.H.S., Annual Report of the Director of Antiquities for the Year 1950. Nicosia, 1951. Megaw, A.H.S., Annual Report of the Director of Antiquities for the Year 1951. Nicosia, 1952. Megaw, A.H.S., Annual Report of the Director of Antiquities for the Year 1952. Nicosia, 1953. Monuments médiévaux de Chypre: Photographies de la mission de Camille Enlart en 1896, edited by Jean-Bernard de Vaivre and Philippe Plagnieux. Paris, 2012. Muir, Edward. Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice. Princeton, 1981. Nagel, Alexander, and Christopher S. Wood. “What Counted as an ‘Antiquity’ in the Renaissance?.” In Renaissance Medievalisms, edited by Konrad Eisenbichler, pp. 53–74. Toronto, 2009. Nagel, Alexander, and Christopher S. Wood. Anachronic Renaissance. New York, 2010. Olivato, Loredana, and Lionello Puppi. Mauro Codussi. 4th ed. Milan, 2007. Olympios, Michalis. “Between St Bernard and St Francis: A Reassessment of the Excavated Church of Beaulieu Abbey, Nicosia.” Architectural History 55 (2012): 25–55. Olympios, Michalis. “Shared Devotions: Non-Latin Responses to Latin Sainthood in Late Medieval Cyprus.” Journal of Medieval History 39, no. 3 (2013): 321–41. Olympios, Michalis. “The Shifting Mantle of Jerusalem: Ecclesiastical Architecture in Lusignan Famagusta.” In Famagusta, Volume I: Art and Architecture, edited by Annemarie Weyl Carr, pp. 75–142. Turnhout, 2014. Olympios, Michalis. Building the Sacred in a Crusader Kingdom: Gothic Church Architecture in Lusignan Cyprus, c. 1209–c. 1373. Turnhout, 2018. Olympios, Michalis. “‘Fino al tempo delli Re di Cipro’: Retro-Gothic and Nostalgic Identities in Venetian Cyprus.” In Ἐν Σοφίᾳ μαθητεύσαντες: Essays in Byzantine Material Culture and Society in Honour of Sophia Kalopissi-Verti, edited by Charikleia Diamanti and Anastasia Vassiliou with Smaragdi Arvaniti, pp. 48–63. Oxford, 2019. Papacostas, Tassos. “Byzantine Famagusta: An Oxymoron?.” In Famagusta, Volume I: Art and Architecture, edited by Annemarie Weyl Carr, pp. 25–61. Turnhout, 2014. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Papacostas, Tassos. “Echoes of the Renaissance in the Eastern Confines of the Stato da Mar: Architectural Evidence from Venetian Cyprus.” Acta Byzantina Fennica 3 (2010): 136–72. Papageorghiou, Athanasios. Christian Art in the Turkish-Occupied Part of Cyprus. ­Nicosia, 2010. Papageorgiou, Athanasios. The Monastery of Saint John Lampadistis in Kalopanayiotis, translated by Richard Gill. Nicosia, 2008. Patapiou, Nasa. “Νέες ειδήσεις για τον πύργο Κιτίου.” Επετηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερευνών 32 (2006): 151–79. Petre, James. Crusader Castles of Cyprus: The Fortifications of Cyprus under the Lusignans: 1191–1489. Nicosia, 2012. Philotheou, Giorgos. “Ἡ μνημειακὴ ζωγραφικὴ στὴν περιοχὴ τῆς μητροπολιτικῆς περιφέρειας Μόρφου.” In Ἱερὰ Μητρόπολις Μόρφου: 2000 χρόνια τέχνης καὶ ἁγιότητος, pp. 109–26. Nicosia, 2000. Pringle, Denys. “The Protestant Tombs in the Orthodox Churchyard of St Lazarus in Larnaca and Environs, 1673–1849.” Επετηρίδα του Κέντρου Επιστημονικών Ερευνών 39 (2016–18): 257–312. Ritsema van Eck, Marianne P. The Holy Land in Observant Franciscan Texts (c. 1480– 1650): Theology, Travel, and Territoriality. Leiden, 2019. Ritter, Max. “Famagusta and Its Environs in the Venetian Period: The Foundation of the Monastery of Agia Napa and the Origin of Its Fountain.” In The Art and Archaeology of Lusignan and Venetian Cyprus (1192–1571): Recent Research and New Discoveries, edited by Michalis Olympios and Maria Parani, pp. 125–44. Turnhout, 2019. Rizzi, Alberto. I leoni di San Marco: Il simbolo della Repubblica Veneta nella scultura e nella pittura. 3 vols. Verona, 2012. Rössler, Jan-Christoph. I palazzi veneziani: Storia, architettura, restauri. Il Trecento e il Quattrocento. Trent, 2010. Rudolph, Conrad. “The Tour Guide in the Middle Ages: Guide Culture and the Mediation of Public Art.” The Art Bulletin 100, no. 1 (2018): 36–67. Schabel, Chris. “The Ecclesiastical History of Lusignan and Genoese Famagusta.” In Famagusta, Volume II: History and Society, edited by Gilles Grivaud, Angel ­Nicolaou-Konnari, and Chris Schabel, pp. 297–362. Turnhout, 2020. Schroeder, Horst. Der Topos der Nine Worthies in Literatur und bildender Kunst. ­Göttingen, 1971. Secchi, Sandra. “Bembo, Giovanni Matteo.” In Dizionario biografico degli Italiani. 100 vols. Rome, 1960–2020. Smith, Katherine Allen. “Monastic Memories of the Early Crusading Movement.” In Remembering the Crusades and Crusading, edited by Megan Cassidy-Welch, pp. 131–44. London, 2017.

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Stylianou, Andreas, and Judith A. Stylianou. “Ἡ βυζαντινὴ τέχνη κατὰ τὴν περίοδο τῆς Φραγκοκρατίας (1191–1570).” In Ἱστορία τῆς Κύπρου, τόμος Ε’: Μεσαιωνικὸν βασίλειον – Ἑνετοκρατία, μέρος Β’, edited by Theodoros Papadopoullos, pp. 1229–1407. Nicosia, 1996. Stylianou, Andreas, and Judith A. Stylianou. The Painted Churches of Cyprus: Treasures of Byzantine Art. 2nd ed. Nicosia, 1997. Toffolo, Sandra. Describing the City, Describing the State: Representations of Venice and the Venetian Terraferma in the Renaissance. Leiden, 2020. Trélat, Philippe. “Nicosia and Famagusta in the Frankish Period (1192–1474): Two Capitals for a Kingdom?” In The Harbour of All This Sea and Realm: Crusader to Venetian Famagusta, edited by Michael J.K. Walsh, Tamás Kiss, and Nicholas S.H. Coureas, pp. 21–39. Budapest, 2014. Trentin, Mia Gaia. “Latin Commemorative Epigraphs in Venetian Cyprus: Preliminary Considerations.” In Cypriot Material Culture Studies from Picrolite Carving to Proskynitaria Analysis, edited by Ariane Jacobs and Peter Cosyns, pp. 287–306. Brussels, 2015. Varthalitou, Petroula. “Η κρήνη Bembo στον Χάνδακα.” In Γλυπτική και λιθοξοϊκή στη Λατινική Ανατολή 13ος–17ος αιώνας, edited by Olga Gratziou, pp. 152–63. Heraklion, 2007. Varthalitou, Petroula. “Περίτεχνες κρήνες με γλυπτό διάκοσμο.” In Η γλυπτική στη βενετική Κρήτη (1211-1669), edited by Maria Vakondiou and Olga Gratziou. 2 vols. Heraklion, 2021. 1:105–41. Waeger, Gerhart. Gottfried von Bouillon in der Historiographie. Geist und Werk der Zeiten 18. Zurich, 1969. Wolfzettel, Friedrich. “Gottfried von Bouillon: Führer des ersten Kreuzzugs und König von Jerusalem.” In Mythen Europas: Schlüsselfiguren der Imagination, edited by Michael Neumann et al. 7 vols. Regensburg, 2004–09. 2:127–42. Wolters, Wolfgang. Architektur und Ornament: Venezianischer Bauschmuck der Renaissance. Munich, 2000. Wood, Christopher S. “The Credulity Problem.” In Antiquarianism and Intellectual Life in Europe and China, 1500–1800, edited by Peter N. Miller and François Louis, pp. 149–79. Ann Arbor, 2012.

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Chapter 11

Memory, Modernity, and Anachronism at the Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo Costanza Beltrami What time is it at San Juan de los Reyes (Figures 11.1–11.2)? Scholarship ­considers this Toledan convent, established by the Catholic Monarchs Isabella I of ­Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1477, as a highpoint in the architectural renovation that swept 15th-century Castile. Following a first wave of French ‘pioneers,’ around midcentury, Burgundian and German artists settled in the kingdom, obtaining leading positions in important cathedral lodges where they trained second-generation migrants like Juan Guas (active 1453–96). Guas is credited with the design of San Juan de los Reyes (hereafter San Juan), especially its church, the main focus of this chapter. He has become ‘synonymous’ with inventive and highly decorated buildings that influenced architectural developments after his death.1 Thus, international exchange gave a new lease of life to the Gothic, which continued to flourish in the 16th century, alongside hybrid Plateresque and Italianate Renaissance designs.2 In a frequently reprinted art-history manual, Víctor Nieto argues that late Gothic architecture from the end of the 15th century constituted an “alternative expression of modernity,” different from the Italian Renaissance but recognized as equally innovative.3 This positive view of the late Gothic has much to recommend it, yet it is also striking. What makes this Gothic new? How is it that a highly decorated building like San Juan has enjoyed almost constant praise, despite the 1 Beatrice Gilman Proske, Castilian Sculpture, Gothic to Renaissance (New York, 1951), p. 135. 2 This summary is based on Begoña Alonso Ruiz, “Los tiempos y los nombres del tardogótico castellano,” in La arquitectura tardogótica castellana entre Europa y América, ed. Begoña Alonso Ruiz (Madrid, 2011), pp. 30–50. 3 Víctor Nieto, “Renovación e indefinición estilística, 1488–1526,” in Arquitectura del Renacimiento en España, 1488–1599, ed. Víctor Nieto, Alfredo J. Morales, and Fernando Checa, 6th ed. (1989; repr., Madrid: Cátedra, 2010), p. 14. For an evaluation of this series of manuals, see Gonzalo Borrás Gualis, “La Historia del Arte, hoy,” Artigrama 2 (1985): 219; Gonzalo Borrás Gualis, “Art History in Spain: A Generational History,” in Art History and Visual Studies in Europe: Transnational Discourses and National Frameworks, ed. Matthew Rampley, Thierry Lenain, Hubert Locher, Andrea Pinotti, Charlotte Schoell-Glass, and C. J. M. Zijlmans (Leiden, 2012), p. 479. © Costanza Beltrami, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_014 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 11.1 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, view of the crossing and east end, begun 1477 and mostly complete by 1495 source: Selbymay / Wikimedia Commons

Figure 11.2 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, exterior view from N, begun 1477 and completed after 1492 (portal 1605) source: José Luis Filpo Cabana / Wikimedia Commons

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negative assessment traditionally meted out to ‘over-decorated’ and ‘decadent’ late Gothic buildings elsewhere in Europe?4 Traditionally understood as a time of national unification, triumphant Christianity, and Atlantic discovery, the reign of the Catholic Monarchs and the year 1492 (when Nasrid Granada was conquered, the Jews expelled from Castile, and Christopher Columbus departed for the ‘Indies’) have long been celebrated as both the apogee of Spanish history and the seed of the modern state.5 Henry Kamen characterizes this phenomenon as the “myth of the Catholic Monarchs.”6 Here I turn to the related myth of artistic modernity. This idea is alive and well: for example, an art-historical publication of 2014 sets out to investigate “modernity and artistic culture in the time of the Catholic Monarchs.”7 Modernity, the Monarchs, and the events of 1492 are indissolubly linked by an historiographical tradition that has interpreted San Juan as a monument to the Spanish national spirit, one where Iberia’s multiculturalism is present yet subsumed in the formation of a unified Christian state.8 4 Late Gothic architecture has long been disparaged as a form of decline. See Jan Białostocki, “Late Gothic: Disagreements About the Concept,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 29, no. 1 (1966): 76–81; and the chapter by Robert Bork in this volume. 5 As discussed below, the Francoist regime was particularly enthusiastic in embracing this view of history. Yet 1492 remains a foundational myth in democratic Spain, as manifested by the many events celebrating the quincentenary in 1992. In particular, the universal exposition in Seville grounded the ‘new Spanish identity’ in an ‘Age of Discovery,’ synonymous with modernity, global exchange, and integration. Richard Maddox, The Best of All Possible Islands: Seville’s Universal Exposition, the New Spain, and the New Europe (Albany, 2004), pp. 3–6; Giulia Quaggio, “1992: La modernidad del pasado; El PSOE en busca de una idea regenerada de España,” Historia y política: Ideas, procesos y movimientos sociales 35 (2016): 111–16. Bibliography on the Catholic Monarchs is vast. An introduction is John Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, 1474–1520 (Oxford, 2000); for a short guide to the events of 1492, see David Abulafia, Spain and 1492: Unity and Uniformity under Ferdinand and Isabella (Bangor, 1992). 6 Henry Kamen, Imagining Spain: Historical Myth and National Identity (New Haven, 2008), p. 44. 7 Martín García, Juan Manuel, ed., Modernidad y cultura artística en tiempos de los Reyes Católicos (Granada, 2014). For an inspiring critique of 1492 as a chronological marker, Barbara Fuchs, “1492 and the Cleaving of Hispanism,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 37, no. 3 (2007): 493–510. 8 Beyond the tradition discussed here, the definition (and even the existence) of ‘­Spanish modernity’ has been subject to debate. See Beatriz Helena Domingues, “Tradition and Modernity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Iberia and the Iberian American Colonies,” Mediterranean Studies 8 (1999): 197, and Andrew Ginger, “Spanish Modernity Revisited: Revisions of the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 13, nos. 2–3 (2007): 121–32. The keywords I use evoke a lecture series by Enrique Dussel, 1492: El encubrimiento del Otro; Hacia el origen del “mito de la Modernidad,” (La Paz, 1994). Dussel focuses on the conquest and colonization of the Americas as instrumental for the definition of European modernity, a concept whose ‘myth,’ in turn, concealed and misrepresented the non-European. While my discussion here is limited to Castile, the chapter in this volume by Paul Niell analyzes modernity and lateness from the perspective of colonial encounters in Santo Domingo. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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As I will discuss, this tradition has connected such elements as the building’s decorative richness, inscriptions, and especially the ornament of its east-end capitals to the artistic traditions of al-Andalus (the Muslim-controlled regions of the Iberian peninsula) and to their survival and adoption in ­Christian ­contexts, a phenomenon that is often described with the controversial term mudéjar.9 The most influential proponent of this view is the scholar José María de Azcárate (1919–2001), who promoted the label of ‘Hispano-Flemish’ to describe San Juan and related buildings.10 According to this scholar, Guas’s adoption of mudéjar elements at the behest of his royal patrons (particularly Isabella) 9

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The nature of the ornament on the east-end capitals is a problem I will consider below. A helpful analysis of the limited advantages, problems, and historiography of the mudéjar is offered in Jerrilynn D. Dodds, María Rosa Menocal, and Abigail Krasner Balbale, The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture (New Haven, 2008), pp. 323–33; a more recent overview is Francine Giese, “Where Does ­Mudéjar Architecture Belong?,” in Mudejarismo and Moorish Revival in Europe: Cultural Negotiations and Artistic Translations in the Middle Ages and 19th-Century Historicism (Leiden, 2021); an extensive discussion in Rafael López Guzmán, Arquitectura mudéjar: Del sincretismo medieval a las alternativas hispanoamericanas (Madrid, 2016), pp. 23–62. Etymologically, mudéjar refers to mudajjan, Muslims living and working under Christian rule. It therefore suggests that Muslim craftsmen introduced Andalusi elements in Christian buildings. While Muslim craftsmen are well-documented in Christian Iberia, such elements had a wider diffusion across—and regardless of—religious boundaries. The concept of mudéjar also implies that such elements are ‘borrowings’ across faith lines, thus reifying the existence of separate Islamic and Christian cultures, despite the evidence of continuous exchange and long-standing contact, which arguably created a single culture (Dodds, Menocal, and Balbale, Arts of Intimacy, pp. 4–6; Giese, “Where Does Mudéjar Architecture Belong?,” p. 17). Attempts to understand the architecture of medieval Castile in its plurality, rather than disassembling it into constituent ‘styles,’ are indebted to Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, notably his essays “Castilla y Al-­Andalus: Arquitecturas aljamiadas y otros grados de asimilación,” Anuario del Departamento de H ­ istoria y Teoria del Arte 16 (2004): 17–43, and, with a focus on the 15th and 16th centuries, Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, “Castilla y la libertad de las artes en el siglo XV: La aceptación de la herencia de Al-Andalus; De la realidad material a los fundamentos teóricos,” Anales de Historia del Arte 22 (2012): 123– 61; María Judith Feliciano and Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, “Al-Andalus and Castile: Art and Identity in the Iberian Peninsula,” in Renaissance and Baroque Architecture, ed. Babette Bohn and James M. Saslow (Oxford, 2017). My definitions of al-Andalus and mudajjan are based on Jonathan M. Bloom, Architecture of the Islamic West: North Africa and the Iberian ­Peninsula, 700–1800 (New Haven, 2020), pp. 7, 281. For an overview of Azcárate’s career and publications, Ignacio Peiró Martín and ­Gonzalo Pasamar Alzuria, “Azcárate y Ristori, José Maria,” in Diccionario Akal de Historiadores españoles contemporáneos (Madrid, 2002), pp. 95–96. The term ‘Hispano-Flemish’ was coined at the turn of the 20th century and is used beyond architecture. For short ­critical summaries of the historiography of this term, see Ronda Kasl, “The Making of ­Hispano-Flemish Style: Art, Commerce, and Politics in Fifteenth-Century Castile,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 2012), pp. 236–38 (for ­architecture and sculpture), and Delphine Cool, “La peinture ‘hispano-flamande’: Approche historique - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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was transformative. Writing during the Francoist regime, Azcárate argued that Guas’s designs overcame the historical “dualism” of the Spanish, caught between “Oriental influence” and “European contributions,” revealing a “constant yearning for integration” and creating a “strictly national … synthesis or syncretism” of different forms.11 Azcárate’s formulation is problematic on every level, from the use of ‘Oriental’ to describe the architecture of the Islamic West to the obsessive search of unique national features. Yet, as noted by Roberto González Ramos, it has become “official historiography,” rarely challenged other than by González himself.12 What is most relevant here is that Azcárate evaluated the Hispano-Flemish style and San Juan as crucial artistic developments that overcame the multiplicity of Iberian culture by incorporating and unifying its Islamic heritage into a special form of Christian Gothic. Paradoxically, the fusion of northern European ‘innovations’ with local ‘traditions’ created a product that was not less innovative but rather more in line with the cultural uniformity expected and projected by the Spain of Azcárate’s time. San Juan’s presentation of its own ideologically charged time opposes these historiographical narratives: it is decorated with an unprecedented program of heraldry and inscriptions that evoke specific historical events. Yet its construction history remains substantially unclear, even if the building is relatively well

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et analyse du concept,” Annales d’histoire de l’art et archéologie de l’Université de Bruxelles 20 (1998): 83–94 (for painting). “Ciñéndonos a nuestro pasado medieval, pueden percibirse claramente tres notas ­distintivas que nos caracterizan: La influencia oriental, las aportaciones europeas y la constante integradora … Este dualismo cultural [of Oriental and European], no obstante, tendría en sí mismo un carácter negativo si no existiera a todo lo largo de la Edad Media un proceso de integración y de asimilación que constituye la nota más distintiva de nuestra cultura nacional.” José María de Azcárate, “Sentido y significación de la arquitectura hispano-flamenca en la corte de Isabel la Católica,” Boletín del seminario de estudios de arte y arqueología 37 (1971): 203. In an earlier study, Azcárate writes: “Aquí radica uno de los factores de la importancia de la obra de Guas, en la síntesis o sincretismo de las formas diversas, creando un estilo estrictamente nacional” (La arquitectura gótica toledana en el siglo XV [Madrid, 1958], p. 26). Roberto González Ramos, “Los hispano-islamismos de Juan Guas: Construcción y revisión de un tópico historiográfico,” in La arquitectura tardogótica castellana entre Europa y América, ed. Begoña Alonso Ruiz (Madrid, 2011), p. 330. González mentions a few other scholars who have indirectly challenged Azcárate’s framework. Additionally, a detailed analysis of possible Islamicate elements in Guas’s secular projects is offered in Federico Iborra Bernad, “Vinculaciones mediterráneas y orientalismos en la arquitectura profana de Juan de Guas,” in La multiculturalidad en las artes y en la arquitectura, ed. María de los Ángeles Delisau Jorge, Marta Rodríguez Padilla, Francisco Javier Pueyo Abril, and María de los Reyes Hernández Socorro, vol. 1 (Las Palmas, 2006).

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documented.13 In the first section of this chapter, I explain how the ‘iconography’ of time inscribed in the building’s decoration was expanded and defined over many years, engaging with memory and futurity in ways that cast doubt on the reliability of the chronological markers often employed by art historians. The second section explores how San Juan has been placed in time in historiography, drawing out the iterations and implications of topoi of architectural modernity. I conclude by focusing on the three core aspects of the San Juan myth: the building’s patronage, its authorship, and especially its decoration. As I will reveal, these elements undermine the paradigm of modernity that straitjackets art-historical analyses of the building. At San Juan, iconographical and historiographical time cannot be divorced from political and ideological programs. Challenging wider narratives of architectural continuity or change, I reveal this building as an anachronism. 1

Telling the Hour

Once upon a time (in 1862), the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen ­visited San Juan: Through the damp city gate near the Martin Bridge we again entered the town; roads and paths crossing each other in all directions, led up, over heaps of rubbish and the remains of buildings, to the church San Juan de los Reges [sic]; its red walls are hung with heavy iron chains: from these Christian prisoners were released when the Moors were driven forth. Within the church there are many old reminiscences: high up under the vault, supported by pillars of masonry, is the pew in which Isabella and Ferdinand attended mass...14

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The classic analysis of the construction process is María Teresa Pérez Higuera, “En torno al proceso constructivo de San Juan de los Reyes en Toledo,” Anales de historia del arte 7 (1997): 11–24. A recent intervention appears in José Miguel Merino de Cáceres, “Sobre la iglesia del convento de San Juan de los Reyes,” Academia 118 (2016): 75–90. Essential documents have been published in Filemón Arribas Arranz, “Noticias sobre San Juan de los Reyes,” Boletín del seminario de estudios de arte y arqueología 29 (1963): 43–72; Antolín Abad Pérez, “San Juan de los Reyes en la historia, la literatura y el arte,” Anales toledanos 11 (1976): 111–206; José María de Azcárate, Datos histórico-artísticos de fines del siglo XV y principios del XVI (Madrid, 1982). Hans Christian Andersen, In Spain & A Visit to Portugal (1863; repr., Boston, 1881), pp. 204–5.

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Andersen reimagined San Juan as the place of unfocused memories. He extended such characterization to the whole country, still relatively unknown to outsiders: “At Perpignan, where the railway stopped, I was also to enter upon the old-fashioned mode of travelling; I was again to take my place in the poetical conveyance of the old poetic times.”15 Andersen was right in interpreting the building as a place of memory. Yet, this memorial is at once more specific and more complex than he imagined. Like Andersen, we can begin telling the time from the austere exterior of the conventual church. Iron chains hang on the east end, paired with ­sculptures of heralds whose tabards feature Ferdinand and Isabella’s coat of arms. Given their role in warfare and court ceremonies, these heralds announce the ­building’s royal and military associations.16 Heavily restored in the twentieth century, the sculptures are at once medieval and modern.17 Yet their message seems precisely placed in time: their heraldic dress contains the pomegranate added to the Monarchs’ coat of arms after the conquest of Granada (2 January 1492). A contemporary chronicler, Hernando del Pulgar, records that chains were sent to the convent from the battlefield at Marbella (1485), one of the first Castilian successes in the Granada War.18 The indications of specific time are multiplied in the interior. The church features a single nave with nonprojecting transepts and side chapels. At the west end is an elevated choir tribune for the convent’s Franciscan Observant community (Figure 11.3). Throughout the 16th century, a temporary catafalque commemorating Isabella was installed in the convent’s spacious crossing.19 This confirms that the space was initially conceived as a royal pantheon, a function relocated to Granada Cathedral in the early 16th century.20 No pomegranate appears on the numerous coats of arms carved in 15 16 17

18 19 20

Ibid., p. 2; Christopher Baker, introduction to The Discovery of Spain: British Artists and Collectors, Goya to Picasso, ed. David Howarth (Edinburgh, 2009), p. 9. Rafael Domínguez Casas, “San Juan de los Reyes: Espacio funerario y aposento regio,” Boletín del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueología 56 (1990): 366; Martín de Riquer, Heráldica castellana en tiempo de los Reyes Católicos (Barcelona, 1986), p. 48. They were recarved by the Talleres Béjar after 1953. Daniel Ortiz Pradas, San Juan de los Reyes de Toledo: Historia, construcción y restauración de un monumento medieval (Madrid, 2015), pp. 196–98. A drawing by Cecilio Pizarro y Librado (1843) now in the Museo ­Nacional del Prado (inv. no. D006404/041-01) confirms their prerestoration appearance. Hernando del Pulgar, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, ed. Juan de Mata Carriazo, 2 vols (Madrid, 1943), 2:188. Domínguez Casas, “Espacio funerario y aposento regio,” pp. 373–74; Azcárate, Datos, p. 262, doc. 479. It was there from at least 1523 to 1594. On the relationship between the two sites, see Carmen María Labra González, “De la chartreuse de Miraflores à la chapelle royale de Grenade,” e-Spania: Revue ­interdisciplinaire d’études hispaniques médiévales et modernes 3 (2007), https://doi.org/10.4000 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 11.3 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, view of the nave and west end, begun 1477 and completed in the early 16th century source: C. Beltrami

relief on the church’s walls. Rather, here we see the older design created in 1475, when Ferdinand and Isabella established the rules of power sharing and ceremonial governing their joint reign.21 The coat of arms was a novel fusion of the ­Castilian-Leonese heraldry in the dominant quarters (top left and bottom right) and the A ­ ragonese-Sicilian in the remaining two (Figure 11.4). The significance of the royal heraldry is underscored by the inscription along the nave walls: This convent and church were made by the illustrious princes and lords Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Castile, of León, of Aragon, of Sicily, who by virtue of their blessed matrimony joined the said

21

/e-spania.171, paragraphs 43–48; David Nogales Rincón, “La Capilla Real de Granada: Fundamentos ideológicos de una impresa artística a fines de la edad media,” in Pasado, presente y porvenir de las humanidades y las artes, ed. Diana Arauz Mercado (Zacatecas, 2014), 5:197–216. For the rules, see Diego Iosef Dormer, “Concordia entre los señores Reyes Catolicos D. ­Fernando, y Doña Isabel, in Discursos varios de historia con muchas escrituras reales ­antiguas (Zaragoza, 1683), p. 297. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 11.4 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, south transept frieze, before 1492 source: Selbymay / Wikimedia Commons

k­ ingdoms, him being the legitimate king and ruler (señor rey y señor natural) of the kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily, and her the legitimate queen and ruler (señora reyna y señora natural) of the kingdoms of Castile and León. [This convent] they established for the glory of our Lord God and his Blessed Mother the Virgin Mary, motivated by their special devotion.22 This inscription evokes three essential ingredients in the myth of the Catholic Monarchs as the architects of the modern Spanish nation: Isabella’s accession to the throne, the union of Aragon and Castile, and the Monarchs’ religiosity.23 Presenting the queen as Castile’s señora natural, the inscription actively engages in mythmaking. As understood in the medieval period, the 22

23

“Este monesterio e iglia mandaron haser los muy esclarecidos príncipes e senores don Hernando e dona Isabel, rey e reyna de Castilla, de León, de Aragón, de Cecilia, los quales senores por bien e aventurado matrimonio se iuntaron los dichos reynos seyendo el dicho senor rey y senor natural de los reynos de Aragón y Cecilia y seyendo la dicha senora reyna y senora natural de los reynos de Castilla y de León. El qual fundaran a gloria de nuestro Senor Dios y de la Bienaventurada Madre suya Nuestra Senora la Virgen María y por especial devoción que tuvieron.” Balbina Martínez Caviró, El monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes (Cuadernos de restauración de Iberdrola 6) (Madrid, 2006), pp. 27–28. See, for example, the discussion of the ‘beginning of the modern Spanish state’ in Juan Manuel Martín García, “El arte en la época de los Reyes Católicos: Estado Moderno y

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term refers to a ruler of superior personal qualities, whose dominion is just and undisputed.24 While Isabella’s virtue was celebrated by contemporaries, she only secured the throne through a difficult war of succession against the heir presumptive, her half-niece Juana, who was allied with the Portuguese.25 Similarly, the union of Ferdinand’s and Isabella’s kingdoms through their marriage in 1469 did not create a single unified government; rather, the Monarchs negotiated precise terms to maintain control of their own territory, where the consort accepted a subordinate role.26 Moreover, each region was a confederation of heterogeneous political and cultural entities.27 Nevertheless, at San Juan, marital union is emphasized by the letters F and Y, which decorate the ­balconies overlooking the church’s crossing (Andersen’s “pillars of masonry,” in the foreground of Figure 11.1), and by the Monarchs’ personal emblems, a bundle of arrows and a yoke. In addition to their political and humanistic ­resonances, these emblems played a courtly game: in the medieval Castilian language, arrows were flechas, with the F of Ferdinand, and the yoke was yugo, with the Y of Ysabel (the contemporary spelling of the queen’s name).28 These features emphasize the Catholic Monarchs’ political success. Indeed, the chronicler Pulgar describes the foundation as a thanksgiving for the victory at Toro (1 March 1476), a turning point in the war of successions and an

24 25

26

27 28

Renacimiento,” in Modernidad y cultura artística en tiempos de los Reyes Católicos, ed. Juan Manuel Martín García (Granada, 2014), pp. 15–21. Robert S. Chamberlain, “The Concept of the Señor Natural as Revealed by Castilian Law and Administrative Documents,” Hispanic American Historical Review 19, no. 2 (1939): 130. Agatha Ortega Cera, “La figura de Isabel I a través de las obras históricas y literarias ­coetáneas del reinado: una aproximación historiográfica,” Chronica nova 30 (2003): 557–93. More broadly, see Álvaro Fernández de Córdova Miralles, La corte de Isabel I: Ritos y ceremonias de una reina (1474–1504) (Madrid, 2002), pp. 66–89; Edwards, Catholic ­Monarchs, 1–37. Edwards, Catholic Monarchs, p. 39; Henry Kamen, Spain, 1469–1714: A Society of Conflict, 4th ed. (1983; repr., London, 2014), p. 10. See also Theresa Earenflight, “Two Bodies, One Spirit: Isabel and Fernando’s Construction of Monarchical Partnership,” in Queen Isabel I of Castile: Power, Patronage, Persona, ed. Barbara F. Weissberger (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 3–18. Kamen, Imagining Spain, 14. This practice is well attested in contemporary literature: Sagrario López Poza, “Empresas o divisas de Isabel de Castilla y Fernando de Aragón (los Reyes Católicos),” Janus 1 (2012): 1–38. For an analysis of the emblems within a discourse on modernity, see Rafael Domínguez Casas, “The Artistic Patronage of Isabel the Catholic: Medieval or Modern?, in Weissberger, Queen Isabel I of Castile, pp. 127–31. The balconies’ function (and whether they were used by the Monarchs, as Andersen suggests) is unclear. Singers or organs may have been located there: Domínguez Casas, “Espacio funerario y aposento regio,” p. 367.

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essential event in the Monarchs’ self-mythologizing.29 The battle was undecided on the field, but Ferdinand’s troops captured the enemy herald and ­banner. Celebrations were immediately mandated in several towns. One year later, after Toro’s definitive capture, the Monarchs entered Toledo to lay the banner at the tomb of Isabella’s 14th-century ancestor Juan I, buried in the cathedral. According to Alonso de Palma, who related the celebrations, Toro was a “divine retribution” for Juan I’s defeat by the Portuguese at Aljubarrota in 1385.30 While no contemporary sources state this link explicitly, San Juan has been interpreted as a response to the Portuguese monastery of Batalha, established by the ­Portuguese at Aljubarrota (Figure 0.10).31 This is an oft-repeated foundation story, but one that is nowhere directly referenced in the surviving decoration of San Juan. Indeed, while the coats of arms in the interior of the church refer to the earlier years of the Monarchs’ reign, the emphasis changes in the crossing and cloister. A Latin inscription in the former mentions the conquest of Granada and the expulsion of the Jews, and it refers to Ferdinand and Isabella as ‘Catholic Monarchs’ (an official title from 1496).32 They are also called ‘monarchs of Jerusalem,’ with this last word prominently placed at the apse’s entrance. Ferdinand officially received this title from Pope Julius II in 1510, although the Aragonese Crown 29

30

31 32

Pulgar, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, 1:289. On the centrality of Toro to interpretations of San Juan, see this article written by a Nationalist general shortly after Franco’s death: Antonio Macía Serrano, “San Juan de los Reyes y la Batalla de Toro,” Toletum 9 (1979): 55–70. Alonso de Palma, Divina retribucion sobre la caida de España en tiempo del noble Rey Don Juan el Primero (1479; repr., Madrid, 1879), p. 63. For an analysis of these events and their resonances, see Ana Isabel Carrasco Manchado, “Discurso político y propaganda en la Corte de los Reyes Católicos (1474–1482)” (Ph.D. dissertation, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2003), pp. 419–26; see also Ana Isabel Carrasco Manchado, Isabel I de Castilla: La sombra de la ilegitimidad (Madrid, 2006). Joaquín Yarza Luaces, Los Reyes Católicos: Paisaje artístico de una monarquía (Madrid, 1993), p. 43. The inscription reads, “Cristianíssimi pricipes atque peclare celsitudynys Ferdinandus et Elisabeth ynmortalis memorie hispaniarum ut utriusque Ceciliae et Jerusalem Reges construerunt [?] et devictis et espulsis ómnibus infidelibus judaicae atque agrenicae prof­anae sectae, cum triumphali victoria regni granatae [?] [a maioris dei gratiae]” (Martínez Caviró, El monasterio, p. 27). Additions in square brackets are my own; question marks signal illegible sections. The title of Catholic Monarchs was bestowed by Pope Alexander VI: Álvaro Fernández de Córdova Miralles, “Imagen de los Reyes Católicos en la Roma Pontificia,” En la España medieval 28 (2005): 314–17. On the Monarchs’ official titles, see Ana Belén Sánchez Prieto, “La intitulación diplomática de los Reyes Católicos: Un programa político y una lección de historia,” in III Jornadas científicas sobre documentación en época de los Reyes Católicos, ed. Susana Cabezas Fontanilla and María del Mar Royo Martínez (Madrid, 2004), pp. 273–302.

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had a preexisting claim to the kingdom.33 Ferdinand and Jerusalem were also connected in messianic narratives: for example, a prophecy that circulated during the Granada War interpreted the city’s imminent conquest as a sign of the forthcoming destruction of Islam in Africa and the Middle East.34 In this context, it is impossible to establish if the inscription dates to the 16th century or if it is an earlier manifestation of widespread crusading fervor. The inscription in the lower cloister repeats the celebration of conquest and expulsion, also mentioning the ‘Indias’ and Isabella’s death in November 1504.35 Heraldry and inscriptions have been essential in attempts to unravel the church’s construction history. Accordingly, the building’s message changed by necessity, in response to its drawn-out completion once the Monarchs focused their attention on the Royal Chapel in Granada.36 Yet the building’s resonances may also have been intentionally manipulated.37 According to Marvin Trachtenberg, medieval structures were built “in time,” namely “accepting time as positive and in any case inevitable fact.”38 San Juan exemplifies this temporal acceptance since its designers and patrons folded the passing of time into the building’s decorative program. By 1587, the Franciscan historian Francesco Gonzaga no longer knew the reason for the foundation: was it a celebration of

33

34

35 36 37 38

Chad Leahy and Ken Tully, “The Idea of Crusade in 17th-century Spain,” in Jerusalem Afflicted: Quaresmius, Spain, and the Idea of a 17th-Century Crusade, ed. and trans. Chad Leahy and Ken Tully (Abingdon-on-Thames, 2019), pp. 19–20; Edwards, Catholic ­Monarchs, pp. 255, 260. Henry Kamen, Fernando el Católico, 1451–1516: Vida y mitos de uno de los fundadores de la España moderna, trans. José C. Vales (Madrid, 2015), pp. 369–75. At the turn of the 16th century, apocalyptic prophecies circulated widely across the Mediterranean in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim contexts; and according to Orthodox tradition, the year 1492 would mark the end of the world. See Cornell H. Fleischer, “A Mediterranean Apocalypse: Prophecies of Empire in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 61, nos. 1–2 (2018): 28. Felipe Fernández-Armesto takes millenarian beliefs as the starting point for an exploration of global history in that year (1492: The Year Our World Began [London, 2010]). For the text of this inscription, see Abad Pérez, “La historia, la literatura y el arte,” p. 123. The cloister was built after most of the church had been constructed. Felipe II said this explicitly when commissioning the convent’s portal in 1553: “quedó por labrar a causa de que dichos reyes fundaron la Capilla Real de Granada.” Abad Pérez, “La historia, la literatura y el arte,” p. 190, doc. 11. A similar idea appears in Tarsicio de Azcona, “San Juan de los Reyes, de templo votivo bélico a templo del reinado global de Isabel la Católica,” in “Tarsicio de Azcona. ­Miscelánea inedita,” special issue, Príncipe de Viana 78, no. 267 (2017): 79–126. Marvin Trachtenberg, Building-in-Time: From Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion (New Haven, 2010), p. 69.

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the victory at Toro or at Granada? Having observed the building, he settled for the latter.39 In fact, the building’s time clues are much less stable than they may at first appear. The inscription may have been added at any point in time.40 Notably, while the choir tribune features heraldry without the pomegranate, a 1653 history states that the main chapel, nave, and vaults were completed by 1492 but not the choir or its stalls.41 Other factors might have been at play. Some heraldic ‘stones’ (models, perhaps) were carved in 1491, and expediency may have determined their continued use in the following years, even after 1492.42 Indeed, the pomegranate was not used everywhere immediately: its first, securely dated appearance (on a seal) is on August 30, eight months after the conquest, and it was only incorporated in coins in 1497.43 Heraldry was also a weapon. At San Antonio el Real in Segovia, Isabella substituted the arms of Enrique IV with her own, posing as the convent’s founder and patron in a move that was reversed by Ferdinand after her death.44 The convent’s crossing is also decorated with religious sculptures.45 They evoke the convent’s Observant Franciscan community. As the 17th-century ­historian Pedro de Salazar details in his discussion of San Juan, these friars’ commitment to poverty meant that they did not own buildings but only resided in them as guardians, with the sole aim of promoting charitable deeds.46 While the Monarchs favored the Observants in their dispute with the 39 40

41 42 43 44

45 46

Francesco Gonzaga, De origine seraphicae religionis franciscanae (Rome, 1587), p. 607. Javier Ibáñez Fernández and Begoña Alonso Ruiz, “El cimborrio en la arquitectura española de la Edad Media a la Edad Moderna: Diseño y construcción,” Artigrama 31 (2016): 139. At least one inscription is documented before 1491; see Arribas Arranz, “­Noticias,” pp. 46–47, doc. 1. Pedro de Quintanilla y Mendoza, Archetypo de virtudes, espejo de Prelados, el venerable padre, y siervo de Dios: F. Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros (Palermo, 1653), p. 12. This text emphasizes the incomplete state of the conventual buildings in particular. These stones were sent from Toledo to the castle of Medina del Campo, where they were carved. Arribas Arranz, “Noticias,” pp. 64–67, doc. 1. Faustino Menéndez Pidal, El escudo de España (Madrid, 2004), p. 203. María López Díez, Los Trastámara en Segovia: Juan Guas, maestro de obras reales (Segovia, 2006), p. 186. As recently argued by Ángel Fuentes Ortiz, San Juan Isabel appropriated a relief portraying Enrique III to reinforce her religious and dynastic credentials (“Retrato real y devoción franciscana en tiempos de la dinastía Trastámara: Enrique III y el Crucificado con donantes en San Juan de los Reyes,” Hispanic Research Journal 21, no. 5 [2020]: 488). The iconography is explored in Nuria Torres Ballesteros, “El Convento de San Juan de los Reyes de Toledo como ejemplo de iconografía franciscana medieval,” in Monjes y ­Monasterios Españoles (San Lorenzo del Escorial, 1995). Pedro de Salazar, Coronica y historia de la fundacion y progresso de la prouincia de C ­ astilla, de la orden del bienauenturado padre san Francisco (Madrid, 1612), pp. 142–43; Salazar

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Conventuals, the older and less ascetic branch of the order, the Observant vow of poverty created tensions.47 Indeed, in 1480, Queen Isabella had asked the Pope to ensure that San Juan’s friars would be punished should they attempt to sell the liturgical objects she had donated.48 Salazar interpreted the convent’s splendor as a reflection of the Catholic ­Monarchs’ magnificentia.49 Another 16th-century writer, Gonzalo de Illescas, went further: in his pontifical history, a section entitled “Laudation (Loores) of the Catholic Monarchs” is directly followed by a discussion of ­architectural patronage, thus implicitly linking political, religious, and artistic achievements.50 2

Weaving Histories

Contemporaries regarded the time of the Catholic Monarchs as a new Golden Age, as expressed by the court humanist Luca de’ Marini: “Give way, all previous ages from the beginning of the human race, give way before our times! Fall silent, foreign nations, let all extol with praises only our princes Ferdinand and Isabella.”51 This evaluation was reflected in the official histories, which the Monarchs commissioned and controlled, and in the laudatory texts they donated to San Juan’s library.52 By the end of the 18th century, a bleak view of Spanish history had developed, contrasting the happy reign of the Catholic Monarchs with the

47 48 49 50 51

52

quotes from a papal bull of 1514; see Luke Wadding, Annales minorum seu Trium Ordinum a S. Francisco institutorum (Rome, 1736), pp. 663–64. José García Oro, “Reforma y reformas en la familia franciscana del Renacimiento,” in El franciscanismo en la Península Ibérica: Balance y perspectivas, ed. María del Mar Graña Cid and Agustín Boadas Llavat (Almería-Barcelona, 2005), p. 238. Abad Pérez, “La historia, la literatura y el arte,” p. 181, doc. 7. For the wider discourse on magnificentia, see Rosario Díez del Corral, “Arquitectura y magnificencia en la España de los Reyes Católicos,” in Reyes y mecenas: Los Reyes Católicos, Maximiliano I y los inicios de la casa de Austria (Madrid, 1992). Gonzalo de Illescas, Segvnda parte de la Historia pontifical y católica (1566; repr., ­Barcelona, 1622), p. 101v. Lucius Marineus Siculus, De Hispaniae laudibus (1493), quoted in Jeremy Lawrance, “Fabulosa illa aurea secula: The Idea of the Golden Age at the Court of Isabel,” in The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs, ed. David Hook (Bristol, 2008), p. 10. More broadly, see the classic discussion of humanism and perceptions of modernity in José Antonio Maravall, Antig­uos y modernos: La idea de progreso en el desarrollo inicial de una sociedad (Madrid, 1966), pp. 239–74. Richard L. Kagan, Clio and the Crown: The Politics of History in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Baltimore, 2010), pp. 47–50; Nogales Rincón, “Capilla Real de Granada,” 5:200.

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country’s alleged decline under the Habsburgs and Bourbons.53 Negative views of Spaniards and their culture also developed abroad.54 The Encyclopédie méthodique published in Paris in 1782 asked polemically: “What do we owe to Spain? After two centuries, after four, after ten, what has she done for Europe?”55 The point-by-point response penned by Juan de Velasco in 1792 celebrated political and religious reform during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, noting the global benefices that derived from conquest and conversion in the Americas.56 A desire to mark local achievements similarly underpinned the writings of late 18th- and early 19th-century scholars Eugenio de Llaguno y Amírola, Antonio Ponz, and Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez, among the first to demonstrate an academic interest for medieval architecture. As members of the Academia of San Fernando, these writers promoted the adoption of neoclassicism. Surprisingly, this did not prevent them from praising San Juan’s ornamented Gothic.57 In Llaguno’s words, “Of all the reigns following that of Saint Ferdinand [King Ferdinand III], that of the Catholic Monarchs brought well-known advantages ... They built … San Juan de los Reyes, on whose exterior walls they hung, like a trophy, in 1485 the countless chains of the Christians they had liberated from slavery through their conquests: triumphal monument, much more noble than those paraded by Roman pride.”58 These writers were the last to know San Juan before the destruction inflicted by the Peninsular War (1808) and the exclaustration and 53 54 55 56 57

58

Kamen, Imagining Spain, p. 176. J. N. Hillgarth, The Mirror of Spain, 1500–1700: The Formation of a Myth (Ann Arbor, 2000). Nicolas Masson de Morvilliers, “Espagne,” in Enlightenment Spain and the “Encyclopédie Méthodique,” ed. and trans. Clorinda Donato and Ricardo López (Oxford, 2015), p. 77. See also Kamen, Imagining Spain, p. 179. Juan de Velasco, “España,” in Donato and López, Enlightenment Spain and the “­Encyclopédie Méthodique,” pp. 107–13. Matilde Mateo, “Medievalism and Social Reform at the Academy of San Fernando in Spain (1759–1808),” in Medievalism and the Academy, ed. Leslie J. Workman, Kathleen Verduin, and David D. Metzger, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1999), 1:126. See Antonio Ponz, Viage de España, 18 vols (Madrid, 1772–94), 1:16, 152; Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez, Diccionario histórico de los mas ilustres profesores de las bellas artes en España, 6 vols (Madrid, 1800), 1:XLI; Eugenio Llaguno y Amírola, Noticias de los arquitectos y arquitectura de España desde su restauración, 4 vols (Madrid, 1829), 1:111–13. “Pero á todos los reinados anteriores desde S. Fernando llevó conocidas ventajas el de los Reyes católicos … Ellos mismos edificaron … S. Juan de los Reyes de Toledo, en cuyas paredes exteriores hicieron colgar como por trofeo año de 1485 las infinitas cadenas de los cristianos que habían libertado de la esclavitud en sus conquistas: monumento triunfal, mucho mas noble que cuantos ostentó el orgullo romano.” Llaguno y Amirola, Noticias de los arquitectos, 1:111–13.

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expropriation decrees of minister Juan Álvarez Mendizábal, when the convent was secularized and its patrimony sold.59 The resulting ruin was portrayed by travelers and illustrators like Andersen and Cecilio Pizarro y Librado (1818–1886) (Figure 11.5). Leading to the proclamation of the first constitution, the French occupation was a defining moment in the self-­ construction of the Spanish nation.60 The exaltation of “Spanishness” is evident in the work of Nicolás Magán, which celebrates San Juan’s Gothic ornamentation as a focus of national pride.61 Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer went further in 1858, describing the building’s Gothic features as perfect yet “very close to death,” not because of a natural decline but due to the invasion of foreign Renaissance forms: “Nothing was respected: the most whimsical ideas of our own architecture were profaned, and it was dubbed barbarous.”62 Ten years earlier, José Caveda y Nava had employed the idea of foreignness very differently. Like ­Bécquer, he acknowledged the renovation brought by the Catholic Monarchs, the superior ‘brilliance’ of their art, and the sumptuousness of San Juan. Yet he found a “seed of corruption and a marked decadence” in the work of the foreign artists fashionable at the time.63 The binary of nationality and foreignness held the attention of architectural historians until the late 20th century, shaping the body of literature on which all current research is based. In the 1850s, a discovery transformed the historiography on San Juan. In 1853, José María Quadrado noticed, in the parish church of San Justo y Pastor, an inscription that revealed the name of San Juan’s designer: “This chapel was commissioned by the honored Juan Guas, … master mason of the works of 59 60 61 62

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Ortiz Pradas, Historia, construcción y restauración, pp. 57–83. Kamen, Imagining Spain, p. 1. Nicolás Magán, “España pintoresca: San Juan de los Reyes, de Toledo,” Semanario pintoresco Español, 16 June 1839, p. 187. “[El artista] de la detenida observación de este mismo edificio puede concluir, que la perfección a que ya alcanzaba al trazarlo, precedia muy de cerca a su muerte. … Nada se respetó: profanáronse los más caprichosos pensamientos de nuestra arquitectura propia, a la que apellidaron bárbara.” Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Historia de los templos de España: Toledo (Ávila, 1858), p. 104. Bécquer’s writing reveals the evocative power of San Juan’s ruinous state, also explored by other Romantic writers; see Silvia García Alcázar, “Gótico y ­romanticismo: El monasterio toledano de San Juan de los Reyes a través de la literatura romántica,” Espacio Tiempo y Forma, ser. 7, Historia del Arte 9 (2021): 515–34. “Fué este [the time of the Catholic Monarchs], sin duda, el mas brillante del arte … pero en medio de tanta popa y atavió, … desde luego se echa ver … un gérmen de corrupcion y una marcada decadencia … introdujeron estos arquitectos extranjeros, justamente acreditados en su profesion, los gérmenes de la decadencia del arte.” José Caveda y Nava, Ensayo histórico sobre los diversos géneros de arquitectura empleados en España desde la dominación romana hasta nuestro días (Madrid, 1848), pp. 313–19.

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Figure 11.5 Cecilio Pizarro y Librado, Ruinas de San Juan de los Reyes de Toledo (Ruins of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo), 1846, oil on canvas, 80 x 65.7 cm, Museo del Romanticismo, Madrid, CE1570 source: Pablo Linés Viñuales

the King Don Ferdinand and the Queen Doña Isabella, he who made San Juan de los Reyes.”64 A coat of arms and a donor portrait found in the chapel were 64

“Esta capilla mando hazer el honrrado Juan Guas maestro mayor de la santa yglesia de Toledo y maestro mayor de las obras del Rey don Fernando y de la Reyna doña Ysabel el qual hizo a san Juan de los Reyes. Esta capilla hizo Marina Albarez su mujer acabose en año de mill y quatroçientos y nobenta y siete.” Azcárate, Datos, pp. 170–71, doc. 224. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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connected to Guas and his family.65 This well-publicized discovery turned Guas into a celebrity and revealed an artist who sought to be remembered.66 While Guas’s origin was not mentioned in the inscription, documents from Toledo Cathedral list him working on the north portal of the cathedral (known as the Puerta de los Leones), with northern European stonecutters, particularly Hanequín de Bruselas (from Brussels) and his brother Egas Coeman, who would continue to collaborate with Guas at other sites.67 In 1915, the publication of the master’s will confirmed that his parents were “from Leon in the kingdom of France.”68 On this basis, Guas has generally been regarded as a migrant. However, since he completed his apprenticeship in Toledo and lived there until 1496, it seems likely that he arrived in Spain at a young age, if he was not born there. Among the first to publish Guas’s likeness was José Amador de los Ríos in 1877.69 A few years earlier, in 1859, this scholar had influentially categorized as mudéjar the architectural work of Muslims living under Christian rule, “a fusion of Arabic and Christian art [that produces] a truly marvelous whole.”70 Rather 65

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The portrait was uncovered a few years after the inscription. Ortiz Pradas, Historia, con­strucción y restauración, pp. 31–40. Who is represented in the portrait is, in fact, uncertain. Costanza Beltrami, “Buried but Not Forgotten: Juan Guas’ Funerary Chapel in San Justo y Pastor, Toledo,” Quintana 18 (2019): 130–31. José María Quadrado and Javier Pacerisa, Recuerdos y bellezas de España. Castilla la Nueva, 2 vols (Madrid, 1853), 6:400. For example, steps were taken to include Guas’s portrait in a gallery of eminent Spaniards. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, “La colección de pinturas,” in Tesoros de la Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid, 2001), p. 90. This was already mentioned in Ceán Bermúdez, Diccionario histórico, 2:237. Important documents were published in 1914 and 1916: Elías Tormo y Monzó ed., Notas del archivo de la catedral de Toledo, redactadas sistemáticamente, en el siglo XVIII, por el canónigo-obrero don Francisco Pérez Sedano (Datos documentales inéditos para la historia del arte español 1) (Madrid, 1914); Manuel R. Zarco del Valle, ed., Documentos de la catedral de Toledo, coleccionados por Don Manuel R. Zarco del Valle (Datos documentales inéditos para la historia del arte español 2), 2 vols (Madrid, 1916). “hijo que soy de pedro guas e de brigida madama tastes vezinos y naturales de la çibdad de leon en el reino de francia.” Emilio Cotarelo Mori, “Refranes glosados de Sebastián de Horozco,” Boletín de la Real Academia Española 2, no. 10 (1915): 673. The entire document is reproduced in Azcárate, Datos, pp. 164–66, doc. 222. There are several French cities whose names resembles ‘Leon,’ notably Lyon (the initial interpretation) and Saint-Pol-deLeón (most common today, see below). José Amador de los Ríos and Manuel de Assas y Ereño, Monumentos arquitectonicos de España: El monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes (Madrid, 1877), pp. 16–20. José Amador de los Ríos, “El estilo mudéjar en arquitectura,” in Discursos leidos ante la Real Academia de Nobles Artes de San Fernando en la recepción pública de don José Amador de los Ríos (Madrid, 1859), p. 24. The political context in which the term was created and its entanglements with nationalism and ‘Hispanidad’ are charted in María Judith Feliciano, “The Invention of Mudéjar Art and the Viceregal Aesthetic Paradox: Notes on the - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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than interpreting such fusion as an example of multiculturalism and peaceful coexistence (Convivencia), Amador characterized the style as a positive outcome of the ‘reconquest’ of Spain, which had reached its apogee with the Catholic Monarchs. Charting its popularity in the late 15th century, he evoked the “variety, daring and capriciousness” of San Juan’s Gothic decoration, a categorization that implicitly aligns the building with the ornamental splendor of contemporary mudéjar palaces.71 From this point onward, scholars would often describe the period in general and San Juan in particular as containing substantial Islamicate borrowings, identified either as singular decorative and structural elements or, more broadly and vaguely, as general notions of spatiality and ornamental density.72 What is typical—and a demonstration of the difficulty of tracing direct lines of exchange—is a lack of precision on the origin of such borrowings. A representative sample of historians includes Vicente Lampérez (1909, see below), who notes “significant Mahommedan elements” in San Juan de los Reyes; Émile Bertaux (1911, also discussed below), who considers this a “fusion of Orient and Occident” based on the “Muslim art” preserved by mudéjares and Jews; and August Mayer (1922), for whom “Moorish and mudéjar art” had charmed the northern artists active in the country.73 These scholars evidently understood the Islamic

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Reception of Iberian Ornament in New Spain,” in Histories of Ornament from Global to Local, ed. Alina Payne and Gülru Necipoğlu (Princeton, 2016), pp. 72–73. Amador de los Ríos, “Estilo mudéjar,” p. 31. Nevertheless, Amador de los Ríos made no mention of possible mudéjar elements in his later monograph on San Juan de los Reyes: Amador de los Ríos and de Assas y Ereño, Monumentos arquitectonicos de España. Here I use the term ‘Islamicate’ since, as explained below, the historiography is often unspecific on what is being borrowed, from whom, and how. ‘Islamicate’ was coined by Marshall Hodgson to describe cultural forms historically associated with the religion of Islam yet distinct from it (The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, 3 vols [Chicago, 1974], 1:59). For a brief assessment of the term’s advantages and problems, see Fitzroy Morrissey, “The Venture of the Islamicate: The History of a Key Concept in Islamic Intellectual History,” Center for Intellectual History, 29 July 2021, https://intellectualhistory .web.ox.ac.uk/article/venture-islamicate-history-key-concept-islamic-intellectual -history#/ (accessed 23 April 2021). I use ‘Islamicate’ loosely to describe former historians’ perception of a kinship between San Juan and Islamic art and to emphasize the difficulty of finding precise referents for the elements under discussion. See Iborra and González, who offer brief point-by-point analyses of allegedly Islamicate elements, generally refuting any filiation: Iborra, “Vinculaciones mediterráneas y orientalismos”; González Ramos, “Hispano-islamismos.” Overall, I find their analyses very convincing; the only elements that seems to warrant further discussion are the ‘muqarnas’ in the church’s east end, which I will discuss in the next section. González details the development of the Islamicate topos in historiography, and therefore here I only focus on the most significant highlights, specifically in the connection between this interpretation and ideas of modernity. Vicente Lampérez y Romea, Historia de la a­ rquitectura cristiana española en la Edad Media según el estudio de los elementos y los monumentos, 3 vols, 2nd ed. (1907–08; repr., Madrid,

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legacy of al-Andalus as a stable category handed down across time from Muslims living in al-Andalus to their mudéjar descendants.74 In the final section of this chapter, I will argue that we can only understand San Juan’s Islamicate elements if we divorce them from their supposed origins to contextualize them in the work of Guas and late 15th-century Toledo. As discussed in section one, it is impossible to determine if these elements were carved before or after 1492. Yet, over and over, historiography has emphasized the end of the 15th century as a time when religious unification and other factors marked a break with the Middle Ages. From the late 19th century onward, discussions of San Juan’s supposed Islamicate features are therefore inseparable from the ‘myth of modernity.’ A key example of such intertwining is San Juan’s first modern restoration in 1881, when Arturo Mélida y Alinari was entrusted with the reconstruction of the cloister. Heavily influenced by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Mél­ida aimed to return the building to its original state through wholesale substitution and the fashioning of new elements in line with his understanding of the building.75 He decorated one of the cloister windows with the coat of arms discovered in Guas’s funerary chapel, ‘signing’ the convent on the older architect’s behalf. In the upper cloister, he created an intricate artesonado ceiling, a technique rooted in the Islamic architecture of North Africa and Spain.76 Yet his inventions emphasized late medieval changes as much as tradition. At the four corners of the cloister, Mélida constructed strainer arches whose heraldic decoration includes the arms of Navarre, a separate kingdom until 1515.77 Moreover, he proposed to decorate the cloister with scenes from the life of the Catholic Monarchs—including the surrender of Granada—in painted ceramic tiles of the Talavera type (Figure 11.6).78 Stylistically, the reference for

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1930), 2:417; Émile Bertaux, “La Renaissance en Espagne et Portugal,” in Histoire de l’Art: Depuis les premiers temps chrétiens jusqu’à nos jours, ed. André Michel, 8 vols (Paris, 1911), 4, part 2: 822, 850; August L. Mayer, Mittelalterliche Plastik in Spanien (Munich, 1922), p. 16. I draw on Cynthia Robinson, “Towers, Birds and Divine Light: The Contested Territory of Nasrid and ‘Mudéjar’ Ornament,” Medieval Encounters 17, no. 1 (2011): 31. The essential study is Ortiz Pradas, Historia, construcción y restauración, pp. 99–125. Artesonados are a type of wooden ceiling where supplementary laths are used to ­create ­geometric patterns. Deriving from horizontal coffered ceilings first documented in 10th-century al-Andalus, artesonados were popular in Islamic, Christian, and Jewish ­contexts from the 13th to the 15th centuries and beyond; see Grove Art Online, s.v. “­Artesonado,” by Basilio Pavón Maldonaldo, 2003, https://doi.org/10.1093 /gao/9781884446054.article.T004363. Enough survived before Mélida’s reconstruction to reveal that the original structure featured strainer arches. Mélida modeled the design on other strainer arches in buildings by Guas. Ortiz Pradas, Historia, construcción y restauración, p. 130. Ibid., p. 130.

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Figure 11.6 Arturo Mélida, sketch of a representation of the surrender of Granada for the decoration of the cloister of San Juan de los Reyes, Proyecto de restauración de San Juan de los Reyes. Presupuesto ­adicional, 1889, Archivo General de la Administración, Fondo ­Ministerio de la Educación, IDD (05)014.002, Caja 31/08220, s/n source: AGA

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these designs was the retable commissioned by the Catholic Monarchs from Francisco Niculoso Pisano and installed in a private oratory in the Alcázar Palace in Seville in 1504.79 Made by an Italian artist, the retable draws on a decorative repertoire inspired by classical Antiquity. Innovative in format and technique, it has traditionally been interpreted as a foundational influence on the development of Talavera pottery.80 Designing both Islamicate and Renaissance elements, Mélida added complexity to the convent’s multiple temporalities by multiplying its ties to both tradition and innovation. In sum, he transformed San Juan into the monument imagined by turn-of-the-century art-historical discourse. Beyond San Juan, in his work as architect, he drew on the architecture of the Catholic Monarchs, which he saw as a national form of Gothic.81 The idea of the late Gothic as a novel mode firmly planted in Spain’s history and therefore reflective of a national spirit gained strength in the 20th century. This interpretation was partly a reaction against a foreign—and especially ­British—view of the country as a mere receiver of artistic influence from abroad. Notably, a popular survey book by James Fergusson describes Spanish architecture as a series of “borrowed” styles and the Spanish as lacking all “inventive faculty” despite their ‘love’ of art.82 At home, such ideas were echoed by Vicente Lampérez, who considers Spain the “finis-terrae” where all foreign influences converged, “nipping in the bud” the development of a national alternative.83 Lampérez also identifies the late Gothic as a period of decline. Following Viollet-le-Duc, he emphasizes that there is no

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Ibid., p. 144. For an introduction to the work of Pisano and the Sevillan retable, see Alfonso Pleguezuelo Hernández, “Niculoso Francisco Pisano y el Real Alcázar de Sevilla,” Apuntes del Alcázar de Sevilla 13 (2012): 138–61. For a critical reassessment of Pisano’s influence on Talavera pottery, see Alfonso Pleguezuelo Hernández, “Sevilla y Talavera: Entre la colaboración y la competencia,” Laboratorio de Arte 5, no. 1 (1992): 275–93. Daniel Ortiz Pradas, “En busca de una arquitectura nacional: Mélida y San Juan de los Reyes de Toledo,” Anales de Historia del Arte Extra 2 (2010): 257–72. James Fergusson, A History of Architecture in All Countries, From the Earliest Times to the Present Day, 3 vols (1865–67), 2:119–20; Matilde Mateo, “La Frontera del Gótico: James Fergusson y la arquitectura española,” Quintana 13 (2014): 79–99. “Colocada España en el finis-terrae, parece destinada por la Providencia a servir de final o pozo donde vengan a converger y sumarse todas las razas y todas las influencias. … por ley fatal de la historia española, sucedió siempre que, cuando … comenzaba a con­stituirse en forma de arte propio, un nuevo aluvión de extranjerismo venía a arrastrarlo hacia otro cauce, matando en flor el estilo nacional,” Lampérez y Romea, Historia de la arquitectura, 1:20.

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necessary ­correlation between artistic and sociopolitical progress.84 Yet even Lampérez was not unaffected by the myth of the Catholic Monarchs’ modernity. He describes them as effecting a revolution in Spanish life, only fully realized by Charles V in the 16th century. Exceptionally, this sociopolitical revolution did in fact correspond to an artistic one, as the beginning of the new century heralded the revolutionary introduction of the Italian Renaissance.85 Beyond art history, a group advocating Isabella’s beatification had formed around 1904, just a few years before the publication of Lampérez’s Historia de la arquitectura cristiana española de la Edad Media (History of Christian medieval Spanish architecture, 1907–08).86 Other voices categorically denied any decline. For Émile Bertaux, the Spain of the Catholic Monarchs had recovered an “epic youth.”87 Vivified by the favorable atmosphere, the foreign artists who settled in the country freely adapted the local Islamicate traditions. Thus, they created a “living and fruitful” art, a different form of Gothic that Bertaux names the Isabelline style in honor of the sovereign whom he credited with enlightened patronage and a personal taste for the new style.88 Adopting Bertaux’s terminology, in 1945 Élie Lambert suggested that the late 15th century constituted a “first Spanish Renaissance.”89

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Ibid., 3:583. Ibid. Kamen, Imagining Spain, p. 45; John Edwards, “The Sanctity of Isabel La Católica, 1451– 2004,” in The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs: Papers for the Quincentenary Conference, ed. David Hook (Bristol, 2004), pp. 49–50. The year 1904 marked the quadricentenary of Isabella’s death. This initial attempt gathered relatively little traction but was relaunched in the 1920 and 1930s, continuing with growing intensity until the quincentenary anniversary of 1992. A 2005 exhibition catalog contains two chapters on the subject: Braulio Rodríguez Plaza, “Isabel la Católica: Estado de su proceso de beatificación,” pp. 106–108, and Vidal González Sánchez, “Isabel la Católica: Un modo de proceder que revela la alta calidad de su espíritu,” pp. 679–83 in Ysabel, la reina católica: Una mirada desde la Catedral Primada (Toledo, 2005). Recent news articles demonstrate continuing interest on the part of Catholic organizations and magazines, such as “¿Por qué es santa Isabel la Católica?,” Infovaticana, 4 July 2021, https://infovaticana.com/2021/07/04/por-que-es-santa-isabel-la -catolica/ (accessed 24 April 2021). “une jeunesse épique.” Bertaux, “La Renaissance en Espagne et Portugal,” p. 824. “une forme d’art, vivante et féconde, comme l’a été le style Isabelle.” Ibid., pp. 850–52; ­Joaquín Yarza Luaces, “Isabel la Católica coleccionista: ¿Sensibilidad estética o ­devoción?,” in Arte y cultura en la época de Isabel la Católica, ed. Julio Valdeón Baruque (Valladolid, 2003), p. 220. Élie Lambert, L’art en Espagne et au Portugal (Art, Styles et Techniques) (Paris, 1945), p. 53.

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From the 1950s onward, Azcárate proposed the term “Hispano-Flemish style” as an alternative to Isabelline.90 The term is well established in the literature, yet it is paradoxical when applied to architecture.91 Azcárate clearly intended “Flemish” as a stand-in for “Flamboyant.” Guas, the artist whom Azcárate recognized as the author of a new way of building, was of French descent rather than Flemish; while he collaborated with Brabantine masters, the Low Countries offer no obvious precedent for the designs developed in Spain.92 Azcárate never confronted this lack, despite having identified the Breton city of Saint-Pol-de-León as Guas’s birthplace in an early article.93 In contrast, he attempted to detail the process of artistic contact. In publications 90 91

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Both terms are used in José María de Azcárate, “La fachada del Infantado y el estilo de Juan Guas,” Archivo Español de Arte 24, no. 96 (1951): 307; the argument for ‘Hispano-­ Flemish’ over ‘Isabelline’ is made in Azcárate, “Sentido y significación,” 206. Among others, the limitations of the term when applied to architecture are discussed in Krista De Jonge, “Flandes y Castilla: La arquitectura en la época de los Reyes Católicos,” in El arte de la Corte de los Reyes Católicos: Rutas artísticas a principios de la Edad Mod­erna, ed. Fernando Checa Cremades and Bernardo García (Madrid, 2005), p. 168; Begoña Alonso Ruiz, Arquitectura tardogótica en Castilla: Los Rasines (Santander, 2003), p. 23; Dorothee Heim, “Tardogótico ‘internacional’ o hispano-flamenco: Las corrientes artísticas del Alto Rhin en el foco Toledano,” in El arte foráneo en España: Presencia e influencia, ed. Miguel Cabañas Bravo (Madrid, 2005), p. 37–38; more broadly, Joaquín Yarza Luaces, “El arte de los Países Bajos en la España de los Reyes Católicos,” in Reyes y mecenas: Los Reyes Católicos, Maximiliano I y los inicios de la casa de Austria (Madrid, 1992), p. 134. De Jonge, “Flandes y Castilla,” p. 168. For a possible connection, see Dorothee Heim and Amalia María Yuste Galán, “La torre de la catedral de Toledo y la dinastía de los Cueman: De Bruselas a Castilla,” Boletín del seminario de estudios de arte y arqueología 64 (1998): 229–53. Hanequín de Bruselas and Egas Coeman were not the only foreign stonemasons to achieve positions of importance. An earlier generation active in Barcelona, Seville, and also Toledo in the first half of the 15th century had strong links with Normandy and Picardy. Javier Ibáñez Fernández, “Con el correr del sol: Isambart, Pedro Jalopa y la renovación del gótico final en la Península Ibérica durante la primera mitad del siglo XV,” B ­ iblioteca: Estudio e investigación 26 (2011); Linda Elaine Neagley, “Maestre Carlín and ‘Proto’ Flamboyant Architecture of Rouen (c. 1380–1430),” in La Piedra postrera (Simposium internacional sobre la catedral de Sevilla en el contexto del gótico final), ed. Alfonso Jiménez Martín, 2 vols (Seville, 2007); Víctor Daniel López Lorente, “La guerra y el ­maestro Ysambart (doc. 1399–1434): Reflexiones en torno a la formación y transmisión de conocimientos técnicos en los artesanos de la construcción del tardogótico hispano,” Revista Roda da Fortuna 3, no. 1-1 (2014): 410–50. José María de Azcárate, “Sobre el origen de Juan Guas,” Archivo español de arte 23 (1950): 255–56. Azcárate’s interpretation is not fully convincing, but it is difficult to pinpoint a more specific location in France due to the destruction caused by the Hundred Years’ War and preexisting exchange between France and Castile. For some alternative options, see Costanza Beltrami, “Juan Guas and Gothic Architecture in Late Medieval Spain: Collaborations, Networks and Geographies” (Ph.D. dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2020), pp. 79–110.

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based on his doctoral thesis of 1947, he praises Guas’s ability to reproduce in stone mudéjar designs in plaster, stucco, brick, and wood “without copying, but rather interpreting [them].”94 Moreover, he explains how the artist’s familiarity with such techniques may have derived from his study of the buildings of Toledo, where he spent a significant part of his life.95 In the context of its time, Azcárate’s argument may be read as a balancing act between an interest for foreign exchange and the strong emphasis on Catholic ‘Spanishness,’ which characterized ­Francoist Spain in the 1940s.96 Azcárate expresses this middle position most clearly in a later publication, where he argues that the Hispano-Flemish style constitutes a novel and homogeneous “synthesis” between “Flemish and mudéjar forms,” as epitomized in San Juan, the “masterpiece” of the style.97 This conclusion emphasizes the radical novelty of late Gothic architecture, whilst making such modernity equal to a sublimation of Spain’s medieval history and multiculturalism into a new whole. In this theorization, we can find an echo of historian Américo Castro’s famous—and once extremely controversial—argument that Spanish culture derived from the interaction of Christians, Muslims, and Jews.98 Yet the Hispano-Flemish was understood in staunchly nationalistic terms: according to Azcárate’s contemporary Fernando Chueca Goitia, San Juan solidified “the tension of a century of national synthesis. In one word, it is the new Spanish nationality looking for itself in the depth of its indispensable being.”99 This 94

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“La genialidad, o al menos la maestría de Guas, estriba en incorporar a las formas flamígeras del maestro Hanequin no pocos temas decorativos e incluso organizaciones estructurales del mudéjar local, es decir, toledano, pero sin copiar, sino interpretando, buscando y hallando un mismo efecto decorativo por otro camino con una técnica dif­erente. Pasa a la piedra lo que los maestros mudéjares hacen en yeso, estuco, ladrillo o madera.” Azcárate, “La fachada del Infantado,” p. 307. Azcárate, La arquitectura gótica toledana en el siglo XV, p. 18. Autarkic, isolated, and viewed with suspicion for its earlier alliance with the Axis, Spain did not start rebuilding international connections until the 1950s and was only admitted to the United Nations in 1955. Carolyn P. Boyd, “History, Politics, and Culture, 1936–1975,” in The Cambridge Companion to Modern Spanish Culture, ed. David T. Gies (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 98–99; Tatjana Pavlovic, Despotic Bodies and Transgressive Bodies: Spanish Culture from Francisco Franco to Jesus Franco (Albany, 2003), p. 12. Azcárate, “Sentido y significación,” 210. Américo Castro, España en su historia: Cristianos, moros y judíos (Buenos Aires, 1948), p. 471. Alex Novikoff, “Between Tolerance and Intolerance in Medieval Spain: An Historiographic Enigma,” Medieval Encounters 11 (2005): 20. “Es, en una palabra, la nueva nacionalidad española buscándose a sí misma en lo profundo de su ser irrenunciable.” Fernando Chueca Goitia, “Invariantes castizos de la arquitectura Española,” in Invariantes castizos de la arquitectura española; Invariantes en la arquitectura hispanoamericana; Manifiesto de la Alhambra (1947; repr., Madrid, 1971).

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was the time when the emblems of the Catholic Monarchs were incorporated in Spain’s flag and when Isabella was presented as a model for both national politics and private life.100 By 1989, the emphatic nationalism of Azcárate and Chueca had disappeared from the language of art history, yet some related ideas persisted. In that year, both Víctor Nieto and Fernando Marías published important surveys of 16th-century architecture.101 Albeit with different emphases, both texts celebrate the heterogeneity and ‘bilingualism’ of the late 15th century, when Gothic and Islamicate architecture coexisted with the first Italianate designs. Nieto is particularly forceful in arguing that the political renovation and propaganda of the Catholic Monarchs’ reign promoted the development of a modernized form of Gothic, one that communicated the “idea of modernity” as effectively as Renaissance designs.102 This positive view of the late Gothic remains dominant, and the number of studies dedicated to the subject continues to grow.103 Recent publications tend to focus on specific questions and problems, notably the critical reassessments of Guas’s use of Islamicate elements by González Ramos and Federico Iborra

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On this book, see Matilde Mateo, “The Form of Race: Architecture, Epistemology, and National Identity in Fernando Chueca Goitia’s Invariantes Castizos de La Arquitectura Española (1947),” in Envisioning Others: Race, Color, and the Visual in Iberia and Latin America, ed. Pamela A. Patton (Leiden, 2016), pp. 266–302. Daniel Ortiz Pradas, “‘Tanto monta’: Apropiación de los símbolos e imagen de los Reyes Católicos durante el franquismo,” in El franquismo y la apropiación del pasado, ed. ­Francisco José Moreno Martín (Madrid, 2017), pp. 253–269; Franco mentioned the Catholic Monarchs in the majority of his speeches between 1937 and 1945. Nevertheless, he emphasized that the appropriation of their symbols visualized the essential historical continuity of an ‘Eternal Spain.’ Marie-Aline Barrachina, Propagande et culture dans ­l’Espagne franquiste, 1936–1945 (Grenoble, 1998), pp. 143–47. In the same period, Francoist architecture avoided specific historical references (such as neo-Gothic), pursuing instead a more diffuse ‘traditionalism’ or a ‘timeless anti-modernism.’ Daniel Domenech, “The National Revolution Architecture: Rooted Modernism in the Spanish New State (1939– 1959),” Fascism 7, no. 2 (2018): 213–40. For a contemporary assessment, see John Bury, review of El largo siglo XVI: Los usos artísticos del Renacimiento español, by Fernando Marías; Arquitectura del Renacimiento en España 1488–1599, by Víctor Nieto, Alfredo J. Morales, and Fernando Checa, Burlington Magazine 132, no. 1050 (1990): 640. Nieto, “Renovación e indefinición estilística, 1488–1526,” p. 16. See, for example, the wide-ranging edited volume: Begoña Alonso Ruiz and Juan ­Clemente Rodríguez Estévez, eds., 1514: Arquitectos tardogóticos en la encrucijada (Seville, 2016), and, more recently, Tom Nickson and Nicola Jennings, eds., Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation (London, 2020). This edited collection considers questions of invitation and imitation in Spanish medieval architecture, concepts closely related to modernity and lateness.

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Bernad. At first sight, these studies eschew wider theorizations of modernity and lateness. Yet even arguing that Guas was not influenced by the complex environment of medieval Iberia is a statement about modernity and lateness, since innovation within the Gothic is privileged over traditions of cultural encounter. More broadly, ideas of continuity and change are still implicated in discussions of the character of patronage and the status of the architect. Already in 1965, Chueca identified the late 15th century with the appearance of maecenatism and the emergence of artistic individuality, features that marked a transition from the Middle Ages to modernity.104 One may therefore ask whether Isabella’s involvement in construction made her a new kind of patron and if Guas’s visibility meant he was a new kind of artist. To do so, I return to San Juan. 3

Unstitching the Tapestry of Time

To what extent does the modern perception of San Juan’s modernity correspond to a contemporary understanding of the building? The only detailed 15th-century description appears in the travel diary written by the Nuremberg doctor Hieronymus Münzer, who visited Toledo in 1495. Münzer placed San Juan within an unfolding historical process: “After conquering Granada and putting all of Spain in good order, the King and the Queen are paying much attention to religion.” San Juan was one of many new foundations: “Presently, in the city of Ávila [the Monarchs] are building a monastery superior to the others, called Santa Cruz. It is of the Order of Saint Dominic … In Valladolid as well, they are building another of the Order of the Preachers with an attached school for the students of the Order of Saint Dominic.”105 Part of Münzer’s information derived from an encounter with the (unnamed) ‘architect’ of the site, so this list should be taken seriously.106 Münzer’s words are tantalizing because they stretch our current definition of royal patronage to include buildings such as the Colegio de San Gregorio in Valladolid, sponsored by the Monarchs’ collaborator Alonso de Burgos rather than by the king and queen directly.107 Reference to this building suggests that 104 105 106 107

Fernando Chueca Goitia, Historia de la arquitectura española: Edad antigua y edad media (Madrid, 1965), p. 546. James Firth, ed., Doctor Hieronymus Münzer’s Itinerary (1494 and 1495) and Discovery of Guinea (London, 2014), p. 120. “architector fabrici.” Ludwig Pfandl, ed., “Itinerarium Hispanicum Hieronymi Monetarii, 1494–1495,” Revue hispanique 48, no. 113 (1920): 120. For Alonso de Burgos’s patronage and connections to the Monarchs, see Diana Olivares Martínez, El Colegio de San Gregorio de Valladolid (Madrid, 2020), pp. 36–65.

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Münzer understood patronage as primarily economic and institutional. The patron’s aesthetic involvement in design, so central to definitions of the Isabelline style, recedes further if we consider the other two foundations mentioned by Münzer. While there is no monastery of Santa Cruz in Ávila, a Dominican convent dedicated to Santo Tomás was begun there in 1479 and seems to be the first foundation mentioned here; Santa Cruz was itself a Dominican convent that the Monarchs were erecting in Segovia. Like San Juan, both convents feature single naves with nonprojecting transept and side chapels, a relatively simple and practical design, yet neither is as splendidly or finely decorated as San Juan.108 Nevertheless, there are also several instances of direct royal involvement in architectural design. For example, in 1498, Ferdinand approved the “design of the church and convent” of San Pietro in Montorio in Rome, whose reconstruction was funded by the Monarchs.109 Perhaps the project he reviewed was a spectacular presentation drawing, like the interior view of San Juan now at the Prado Museum.110 With its emphasis on the crossing space and its enveloping perspective, this drawing seems conceived to help the Monarchs visualize the project for their funerary chapel, although there is no certainty as to the drawing’s date or precise function. Other drawings circulated at court. For example, in 1491, Mendo de Jahen, the administrator of San Juan, received a design for a “retable to be made in Flanders.” It seems that the work was never completed, 108

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Eduardo Carrero Santamaría, “La iglesia del monasterio de Santa Cruz la Real de Segovia a fines del siglo XV: Una confluencia de modelos de la arquitectura tardogótica castellana,” Anuario de la Universidad Internacional SEK 5 (1999): 82–83. San Tomás’s decoration is simpler than San Juan’s, and the building is not generally attributed to Guas, although some see him (with no documental basis) as the designer of an initial project. Guas is documented only once at Santa Cruz la Real, although the building’s detailing and design suggest a close connection to the master mason and his many collaborators. General studies of these buildings are Beatriz I. Campderá Gutiérrez, Santo Tomás de Ávila: Historia de un proceso crono-constructivo (Ávila, 2006); Eduardo Carrero Santamaría and Francisco Engaña Casariego, El convento de Santa Cruz la Real y su Santa Cueva (Segovia, 2008). “fazemos vos saber que … hauemos visto la traça de la yglesia y monesterio … lo qual todo nos ha mucho plazido.” Antonio de la Torre y del Cerro, ed., Documentos sobre relaciones internacionales de los Reyes Católicos, 6 vols (Barcelona, 1966), 6:117, doc. 1498/179; cf. ­Flavia Cantatore, San Pietro in Montorio: La chiesa dei Re Cattolici a Roma (Rome, 2007), pp. 45, 71. Juan Guas, The Main Chapel of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Museo del Prado, inv. D005526, https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-main-chapel-of -san-juan-de-los-reyes-toledo/67ed9983-b75f-4448-9cac-102e38571d10. The most recent analysis (with further bibliography) is Javier Ibáñez Fernández and Begoña Alonso Ruiz, “Cat. 28,” in Trazas, muestras y modelos de tradición gótica en la Península Ibérica entre los siglos XIII y XVI, ed. Javier Ibáñez Fernández (Madrid, 2019), pp. 151–58.

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yet the drawing was still in the possession of Isabella’s closest court officials in 1499.111 Overall, this suggests that while Ferdinand and especially Isabella may have been directly involved in the design of the convent, patronage was also a broader concept, especially within a closely intertwined court culture, where drawings and ideas circulated among patrons and their administrators.112 A similar picture of collaboration emerges when we focus on Guas. The craftsman discussed design matters with the queen at court on at least two occasions.113 Together with his role as a royal master mason, this suggests some degree of personal contact with the Monarchs. Yet, he was also part of a hierarchy of court advisors and administrators, and he belonged to a codified seigneurial network where good work was repaid with favor and protection.114 Moreover, despite the inscription in his funerary chapel, Guas was not the only one who ‘made’ San Juan. Early documents relating to the convent’s construction suggest that it had initially been entrusted to a committee, with parts overseen by Guas and his long-time collaborator Egas Coeman, and parts managed by Mendo de Jahen.115 Such a system ended in the 1490s, with Guas’s emergence as sole contractor.116 Yet he did not complete the building in isolation. Notably, after Guas’s death in 1496, the Monarchs commissioned an alternative crossing-vault design from Simón de Colonia.117 Collaboration intensified when Egas Coeman’s sons and Guas’s sons-in-law took the reins of the project after Guas’s death.118 Created sometime during the initial phase of collaboration, the drawing of San Juan now at the Prado Museum contains a range of media, from the altarpiece to the stained glass, giving a vivid impression of the master mason’s role as manager.119 Late 15th-century master masons were 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119

Arribas Arranz, “Noticias,” pp. 64–67, doc. 1; Rafael Domínguez Casas, Arte y etiqueta de los Reyes Católicos. Artistas, residencias, jardines y bosques (Madrid, 1993), p. 37. Yarza Luaces, Los Reyes Católicos, pp. 109–13; Beltrami, “Juan Guas and Gothic Architecture,” pp. 215–23. In 1472 and 1483; María Ángeles Benito Pradillo, Historia crono-constructiva de la catedral de Ávila, p. 241; Arturo Hernández, “Juan Guas: maestro de obras de la catedral de Segovia (1472–1491),” Boletín del seminario de estudios de arte y arqueología 13 (1946): 67–68. This is discussed, in a different context connected to Castile by artistic migration, in Sherry C. M. Lindquist, “Accounting for the Status of Artists at the Chartreuse de ­Champmol,” Gesta 41, no. 1 (2002): 15–20. Azcárate, Datos, pp. 258–60, docs. 468–69; Arribas Arranz, “Noticias,” pp. 49–51, doc. 3. From 1494, Guas had a contract to build the church, chapel, and two-level cloister. Arribas Arranz, “Noticias,” pp. 47–48, doc. 2. Arribas Arranz, “Noticias,” pp. 53–57, doc. 6. See also Ibáñez Fernández and Alonso Ruiz, “El cimborrio en la arquitectura española,” pp. 143–44. Arribas Arranz, “Noticias,” pp. 53–57, doc. 6. Sergio Sanabria, “A Late Gothic Drawing of San Juan de Los Reyes in Toledo at the Prado Museum in Madrid,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 51, no. 2 (1992): 161–73.

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not only skilled draftsmen, whose status was rising rapidly, but also the expert managers of large enterprises.120 Thus, the patrons and architects of San Juan emerge from this analysis as transitional figures. A final element of the myth of the building’s modernity are its so-called mudéjar features. As discussed above, Chueca, Azcárate, and others studied the Islamic elements of Spanish late Gothic architecture at a time of extreme nationalism and support for the Catholic Church. As a result, their discussions lack a careful analysis of concrete examples of transmission. González Ramos has argued that, generally speaking, the idea of Guas’s ‘hispano-islamismo’ (i.e. the adoption of mudéjar elements into a national style) should be discarded together with the nationalistic ideals that underpin it.121 Yet the decoration of San Juan’s crossing piers—just above the second inscription I discussed above—is visually similar to muqarnas (Figure 11.7).122 Widespread ­throughout the Islamic world from the 11th century on, muqarnas are a three-dimensional decorative device that recurs in stucco, brick, wood, and stone on the inner surfaces of vaults or other concave architectural planes. Composed of repeated tiers of projecting alveolar elements, muqarnas create an impression of infinite repetition and unsupported projection, as in the Sala de las Dos Hermanas at the Alhambra (1354–69) and at the palace commissioned by Pedro I of Castile at the Alcázar in Seville (1364–66).123 Muqarnas also appear on the capitals in several rooms at the Alhambra Palace in Granada, notably the Cuarto Dorado, built for Muhammad V (1338–1391) and redecorated by the Catholic Monarchs after the conquest of 1492 (Figure 11.8).124 These examples are all carved in plaster and therefore present significant differences in both material and form 120 121 122

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For a more extensive study, see Begoña Alonso Ruiz, “El maestro de obras catedralicio en Castilla a finales del siglo XV,” Anales de Historia del Arte 22 (2012): 225–46. González Ramos, “Hispano-islamismos,” p. 333. Finding the appropriate terminology to describe these elements is not easy. In English, they are called ‘stalactite cornices’ in Bernard Bevan, History of Spanish Architecture (­London, 1938), p. 136; ‘stalactite bands’ in Proske, Castilian Sculpture, 141; ‘Arabic stalactites’ in Paul Frankl, Gothic Architecture, ed. Paul Crossley (New Haven, 2000), p. 240. More recent scholarship has embraced the term muqarnas, for example, Ethan Matt Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic: Architecture and the Arts in Northern Europe, 1470–1540 (New Haven, 2012), p. 84; Robert Bork, Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception (Turnhout, 2018), p. 207. I adopt the same term here. The definition is modeled on Yasser Tabbaa, “Muqarnas,” in The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, edited by Sheila Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom (Oxford, 2009). For a more extensive discussion of muqarnas in an Iberian context, see Alicia ­Carrillo ­Calderero, Compendio de los muqarnas: Génesis y evolución (siglos XI–XV) (­Cordoba, 2009). López Guzmán, Arquitectura mudéjar, p. 407.

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Figure 11.7 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, east end, detail of a capital with heads and Muqarnas, after 1492 source: Michel wal / Wikimedia Commons

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Figure 11.8 Capital and impost, Cuarto Dorado, Alhambra, Granada, 14th century. ­Photographed in 1924. source: ©2022 Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic - im. 05685001, foto Mas C-42400 / 1924

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from those carved in stone at San Juan.125 Yet muqarnas are a varied and flexible device with wide geographical and chronological distribution.126 Would a contemporary viewer have made the connection? And if so, are San Juan’s muqarnas to be seen as a triumphalist gesture: a statement of the new Christian order imposed by the Catholic Monarchs and perhaps even a subversion of the Alhambra examples? Muqarnas were too widespread in Toledo and in late medieval buildings in Christian areas to be assigned a precise meaning. In fact, a change in perspective is required when studying medieval Toledo. In the 15th century, the city’s urban environment was even more strongly marked by its Islamic past than it is today. The disposition of streets and urban areas had not changed radically since the 11th century, when the city was captured by the Castilians. It contained cheap houses constructed of brick, rubble, and plaster, as well as preconquest buildings that were altered for Christian use (e.g. the mosque of Bab al Mardum, dated to 999), and more recent constructions decorated with intricate plasterwork (i.e. the synagogue of El Tránsito, 1357–60).127 In contrast, San Juan and the cathedral were the only buildings entirely constructed in ashlar stone. In this context, the ‘foreignness’ of northern European Gothic would have been apparent, while brick buildings decorated with plasterwork and artesonados (coffered ceilings) were common and remained popular long after the conquest of Granada.128 In Toledo, muqarnas are found particularly in funerary contexts. Examples are the tomb of Fernán Gudiel (d. 1278) in the cathedral and a tomb in the parish church of San Andrés (early 15th century?), where the geometrical design is paired with human faces, an iconography that may have been common elsewhere (Figure 11.9).129 The muqarnas at San Juan are also located just below human heads. Altogether, the decoration may 125 126

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This is noted by González Ramos, “Hispano-islamismos,” p. 332. In an attempt at systematization, the Timurid mathematician Ghiyath al-Din al-Kashi (d. 1429, in Samarkand) described four different geometrical designs, and an even larger variety can be identified in actual examples. See Yvonne Dold-Samplonius and Silvia L. Harmsen, “The Muqarnas Plate Found at Takht-I Sulayman: A New Interpretation,” Muqa­rnas 22 (2005): 85–86. Julio Porres Martín-Cleto, “La ciudad de Toledo a mediados del siglo XV,” in Tolède et l’expansion urbaine en Espagne, 1450–1650 (Madrid, 1991), pp. 8–11. Ruiz Souza aptly describes how “the modern period has witnessed something of an aesthetic reversal, in which the familiar has been rendered ‘other,’ and the foreign familiar.” Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, “Architectural Languages, Functions, and Spaces: The Crown of Castile and Al-Andalus,” Medieval Encounters 12, no. 3 (2006): 365. Tom Nickson, Toledo Cathedral: Building Histories in Medieval Castile (University Park, 2015), pp. 118; Francisco Codera, “Sepulcro mudéjar e inscripción árabe descubiertos en Toledo,” Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 62 (1913): 338. See also the plaster panel now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, María Ángeles Jordano Barbudo,

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Figure 11.9 Unidentified tomb, Church of San Andrés, Toledo, Spain, early 15th century (?) source: C. Beltrami

evoke a funerary procession or victory ceremony.130 It is, however, impossible to ­confirm this hypothesis.

130

“Tres placas de yeserías Mudéjares en museos Europeos,” Archivo Español de Arte 85, no. 340 (2012): 351–62. Torres Ballesteros, “Iconografía,” p. 1018.

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While San Juan’s collaborative design and complex construction makes secure attributions difficult, it seems more productive to follow Azcárate’s suggestion and interpret the muqarnas within Guas’s artistic biography. Indeed, no mudéjar names are connected to San Juan’s construction in surviving documents, although this record is admittedly limited.131 Documents first published in the 1990s (and never discussed by Azcárate) demonstrate that in 1490, he served as alarife, a municipal official nominated by the Crown to guard the safety of public spaces and structures.132 Considering the decoration of San Juan as a whole, it is notable that experiments with the repetition of miniature Gothic arches reappear in various locations, particularly in the parapet of the church’s elevated choir and in the corbels just above (Figure 11.10). In the Prado drawing, the muqarnas are replaced by simple ogees. Thus, the muqarnas can also be seen within a dynamic of Gothic formal exploration either as an experiment that casually approximated Islamicate design or indeed as the result of an intentional attempt to reproduce that widespread architectural element in a different material. This happened elsewhere. Gothic and Islamicate elements are inextricable in the doorways of the Sala de los Reyes Católicos at the Aljafería in Zaragoza (completed 1492) (Figure 11.11).133 Here multifoil plaster arches can be seen as responding both to the preexisting Islamic palace and to late Gothic experimentation with reverse-compass work. While San Juan’s inscriptions argue for the arrival of a new age, the building’s decoration visualizes enduring artistic exchanges, before and after 1492. 4 Conclusion Ideas of lateness and modernity imply delay or acceleration with respect to directional chronologies. On this basis, the architecture of late 15th-century Castile may be attacked as decadent for its recourse to a Gothic idiom that had already lost favor in Italy. As I have demonstrated, this strategy has not 131

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Only royal payments to Guas, Coeman, and Mendo de Jaén survive. However, after ­ oeman’s and Guas’s deaths, their sons and sons-in-law took over the project. A range of C craftsmen acted as guarantors in the relevant contract, perhaps offering some indication as to the workmen involved in the construction. Arribas Arranz, “Noticias,” pp. 53–57, doc. 6; Beltrami, “Juan Guas and Gothic Architecture,” pp. 240–43. Ricardo Izquierdo Benito, Un espacio desordenado: Toledo a fines de la Edad Media (Toledo, 1996), p. 190, doc. 44. Carmen Gómez Urdáñez, “Descripción artística,” in La Aljafería, ed. Antonio Beltrán Martínez, Gonzalo Borrás Gualis, Guillermo Fatás Cabeza, and Manuel Antonio Martín Bueno, 2 vols (Zaragoza, 1998), 1:273–75.

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Figure 11.10 Church of San Juan de los Reyes, Convent of San Juan de los Reyes, Toledo, Spain, detail of the west end and choir tribune, after 1492? source: C. Beltrami

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Figure 11.11 Doorway with plasterwork decoration, Sala de los Reyes Católicos, Aljafería, Zaragoza, Spain, before 1493 source: C. Beltrami

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been common in the historiography of San Juan. Over time, the association between the building and the Catholic Monarchs has encouraged positive assessments buttressed by a powerful myth of modernity. In describing such interpretations, I have questioned this myth. First, I have read the building’s time to suggest that it is additive and entangled. Second, I have challenged the idea of independent patrons and artists, a strong component in Vasarian conceptions of the Renaissance. If Guas and the Catholic Monarchs behaved differently from previous artists and patrons, they did so relationally, as managers and collaborators. Lastly, I have suggested that in 15th-century Toledo, Gothic and Islamicate designs should be seen as part of the same process of creative invention rather than as indicative of different moments in time. These considerations have the potential to inflect our understanding of periodization.134 If Azcárate’s interpretation presented San Juan as a radical ‘transubstantiation’ of Castile’s Islamic legacy, more recent attempts to detach the building from the nationalistic language surrounding cultural contact with al-Andalus may be classified as even more radical in their suspicion against a long-standing and well-established tradition of exchange within a shared ­culture. In its decoration, San Juan amplifies the memory of the Catholic ­Monarchs by commemorating the achievements of their reign. Architecturally, it also engages with the past through decoration steeped in local techniques. The paradox we perceive between these two positions only derives from the enduring architectural topoi that shape our approach to the building. The challenge intensifies when the building’s architectural details are recognized at the cathedral of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean, as discussed by Paul Niell in the next chapter. Yet San Juan fundamentally disrupts our understanding of how buildings are placed in history. My analysis has suggested that ‘traditional’ and ‘foreign’ elements, heraldry, and inscriptions were carefully employed as elements in an iconography of time, unrelated to the actual date and duration of San Juan’s construction. Ultimately, this site emerges as an ‘anachronic’ building, one that intentionally “creates [its] own time” and thus “disturbs and disrupts” the chronologies woven around it.135

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As revealed by recent studies, the late medieval period and late Gothic architecture in themselves pose an important challenge to traditional periodization. In addition to the publications by Kavaler, Bork, and Trachtenberg mentioned above, insightful studies are Robert Bork, “Pros and Cons of Stratigraphic Models in Art History,” RES: Journal of ­Aesthetics and Anthropology 40 (2001): 177–87, and the groundbreaking publication by Alexander Nagel and Christopher S. Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (New York, 2010). Here I invoke Keith Moxey, Visual Time: The Image in History (Durham, 2013), p. 174.

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Acknowledgements My thanks to the editors and to Emily Burns, Bert Carlstrom, Tom Nickson, and Edward Payne for their insightful suggestions. Bibliography of Cited Sources

Secondary Sources

Abad Pérez, Antolín. “San Juan de los Reyes en la historia, la literatura y el arte.” Anales toledanos 11 (1976): 111–206. Abulafia, David. Spain and 1492: Unity and Uniformity under Ferdinand and Isabella. Bangor, 1992. Alonso Ruiz, Begoña. Arquitectura tardogótica en Castilla: Los Rasines. Santander, 2003. Alonso Ruiz, Begoña. “Los tiempos y los nombres del tardogótico castellano.” In La arquitectura tardogótica castellana entre Europa y América, edited by Begoña Alonso Ruiz, pp. 43–80. Madrid, 2011. Alonso Ruiz, Begoña. “El maestro de obras catedralicio en Castilla a finales del siglo XV.” Anales de Historia del Arte 22 (2012): 225–43. Alonso Ruiz, Begoña, and Juan Clemente Rodríguez Estévez, eds. 1514: Arquitectos tardogóticos en la encrucijada. Seville, 2016. Amador de los Ríos, José. “El estilo mudéjar en arquitectura.” In Discursos leidos ante la Real Academia de Nobles Artes de San Fernando en la recepción pública de don José Amador de los Ríos, pp. 1–40. Madrid, 1859. Amador de los Ríos, José, and Manuel de Assas y Ereño. Monumentos arquitectonicos de España: El monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes. Madrid, 1877. Andersen, Hans Christian. In Spain & A Visit to Portugal. 1863; reprint, Cambridge, 1881. Arribas Arranz, Filemón. “Noticias sobre San Juan de los Reyes.” Boletín del seminario de estudios de arte y arqueología 29 (1963): 43–72. Azcárate, José María de. “Sobre el origen de Juan Guas.” Archivo español de arte 23 (1950): 255–56. Azcárate, José María de. “La fachada del Infantado y el estilo de Juan Guas.” Archivo español de arte 24, no. 96 (1951): 307–19. Azcárate, José María de. La arquitectura gótica toledana en el siglo XV. Madrid, 1958. Azcárate, José María de. “Sentido y significación de la arquitectura hispano-flamenca en la corte de Isabel la Católica.” Boletín del seminario de estudios de arte y arqueología 37 (1971): 201–23. Azcona, Tarsicio de. Datos histórico-artísticos de fines del siglo XV y principios del XVI. Madrid, 1982.

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Quintanilla y Mendoza, Pedro de. Archetypo de virtudes, espejo de prelados, el venerable padre, y siervo de Dios: F. Francisco Ximenez de Cisneros. Palermo, 1653. Riquer, Martín de. Heráldica castellana en tiempo de los Reyes Católicos. Barcelona, 1986. Robinson, Cynthia. “Towers, Birds and Divine Light: The Contested Territory of Nasrid and ‘Mudéjar’ Ornament.” Medieval Encounters 17, no. 1 (January 2011): 27–79. Rodríguez Plaza, Braulio. “Isabel la Católica. Estado de su proceso de beatificación.” In Ysabel, la reina católica, pp. 106–108. Ruiz Souza, Juan Carlos. “Castilla y al-Andalus: Arquitecturas aljamiadas y otros grados de asimilación.” Anuario del Departamento de Historia y Teoria del Arte 16 (2004): 17–43. Ruiz Souza, Juan Carlos. “Architectural Languages, Functions, and Spaces: The Crown of Castile and Al-Andalus.” Medieval Encounters 12, no. 3 (2006): 360–87. Ruiz Souza, Juan Carlos. “Castilla y la libertad de las artes en el siglo XV: La aceptación de la herencia de Al-Andalus; De la realidad material a los fundamentos teóricos.” Anales de Historia del Arte 22 (2012): 123–61. Salazar, Pedro de. Coronica y historia de la fundacion y progresso de la prouincia de ­Castilla, de la orden del bienauenturado padre san Francisco. Madrid, 1612. Sanabria, Sergio. “A Late Gothic Drawing of San Juan de Los Reyes in Toledo at the Prado Museum in Madrid.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 51, no. 2 (1992): 161–73. Sánchez Prieto, Ana Belén. “La intitulación diplomática de los Reyes Católicos: Un programa político y una lección de historia.” In III Jornadas científicas sobre documentación en época de los Reyes Católicos, edited by Susana Cabezas Fontanilla and María del Mar Royo Martínez, pp. 273–302. Madrid, 2004. Tabbaa, Yasser. “Muqarnas.” In The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture, edited by Sheila Blair and Jonathan M. Bloom. Oxford, 2009. Tormo y Monzó, Elías, ed. Notas del archivo de la catedral de Toledo, redactadas sistemáticamente, en el siglo XVIII, por el canónigo-obrero don Francisco Pérez Sedano. Datos documentales inéditos para la historia del arte español 1. Madrid, 1914. Torre y del Cerro, Antonio de la, ed. Documentos sobre relaciones internacionales de los Reyes Católicos. Vol. 6. Barcelona, 1966. Torres Ballesteros, Nuria. “El Convento de San Juan de los Reyes de Toledo como ­ejemplo de iconografía franciscana medieval.” In Monjes y Monasterios Españoles, pp. 993–1026. San Lorenzo del Escorial, 1995. Trachtenberg, Marvin. Building-in-Time: From Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion. New Haven, 2010. Velasco, Juan de. “España.” In Donato and López, Enlightenment Spain and the “­Encyclopédie Méthodique,” pp. 96–255. Velasco González, Alberto, and Francesc Fité i Llevot. “Introduction: Late Gothic Painting in the Crown of Aragon and the Hispanic Kingdoms.” In Late Gothic Painting in

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the Crown of Aragon and the Hispanic Kingdoms, edited by Alberto Velasco González and Francesc Fité i Llevot, pp. 1–29. Leiden, 2018. Wadding, Luke. Annales minorum seu Trium Ordinum a S. Francisco institutorum. Rome, 1736. Yarza Luaces, Joaquín. “El arte de los Países Bajos en la España de los Reyes Católicos.” In Reyes y mecenas: Los Reyes Católicos, Maximiliano I y los inicios de la casa de Austria. Madrid, 1992. Yarza Luaces, Joaquín. Los Reyes Católicos: Paisaje artístico de una monarquía. Madrid, 1993. Yarza Luaces, Joaquín. “Isabel la Católica coleccionista: ¿Sensibilidad estética o ­devoción?” In Arte y cultura en la época de Isabel la Católica, edited by Julio Valdeón Baruque, pp. 219–48. Valladolid, 2003. Yarza Luaces, Joaquín. Isabel la Católica: Promotora artística. León, 2006. Zarco del Valle, Manuel R., ed. Documentos de la catedral de Toledo, coleccionados por Don Manuel R. Zarco del Valle. 2 vols. Madrid, 1916.

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Chapter 12

Colonial Gothic and the Negotiation of Worlds in 16th-Century Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Paul Niell The German art historian Erwin Walter Palm (1910–88), one of several authors who wrote on the architectural history of Santo Domingo, fled Nazi Germany in 1932 with his spouse, Hilde Löwenstein, and arrived in the Dominican Republic in 1940. He spent fourteen years working as a university lecturer in the city of Santo Domingo with Löwenstein contributing as his architectural photographer. During this time, Palm became deeply engaged with the built environment of the city’s early Spanish colonial period. He would publish extensively on Santo Domingo, examining the complex art and architecture of the first European city in the American hemisphere, founded by Christopher Columbus’s brother Bartolomé in 1496 on the east bank of what the Spanish would call the Ozama River.1 In his prolific work, Palm focused on a European stylistic genealogy, applying formal analysis and demonstrating a broad knowledge of related works in Spain and the American mainland, an acumen that recalls the publications of his contemporary George Kubler (1912–96). His method would become characteristic of 20th-century approaches to the city in that it paid attention to the stylistic features of Santo Domingo delineated according to 1 Erwin Walter Palm’s many publications on Santo Domingo include Santo Domingo, arte y arquitectura colonial, ed. Miguel D. Mena vols. 1–2, (Santo Domingo, 2013); “Plateresque and Renaissance Monuments of the Island of Hispaniola,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 5 (1945–46): 1–14; and “A Vault with Cosmotheological Representations at the ‘Imperial Monastery’ of the Dominicans on the Island of Hispaniola,” The Art Bulletin, 32, no. 3 (September 1950), 219–25. Other important studies include Diego Angulo Íñiguez and Erwin Walter Palm, El gótico y el Renacimiento en las Antillas: Arquitectura, escultura, pintura, azulejos, orfebrería (Seville, 1947); Eugenio Pérez Montás, Casas coloniales de Santo Domingo / Colonial Houses of Santo Domingo (Santo Domingo, 1980); George Kubler and Martin Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and Their American Dominion: 1500–1800 (London, 1959); Paul Niell, “‘No town of its class in Spain’: Civic Architecture and Colonial Social Formation in Sixteenth-Century Santo Domingo, Hispaniola,” Hemisphere: Visual Cultures of the Americas 1 (Spring 2008): 6–26; Paul Niell, “Late Gothic in the Sixteenth-Century Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic,” in “Architecture of Colonizers / Architecture of Immigrants,” ed. Richard A. Sundt and Paul B. Niell, postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies 6, no. 3 (Fall 2015): 258–71. © Paul Niell, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_015 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Eurocentric taxonomies, such as Gothic, Renaissance, and Plateresque, which were found in early 16th-century Spain. Late Gothic forms would persist into the 18th century in the city, as pointed arches and ribbed vaulting appear in the rebuilding of the church and convent of Regina Angelorum by the Dominicans in 1722 and in the vestry of the city’s cathedral around 1750. Scholarship has placed much emphasis on Santo Domingo’s architecture evoking the theme of Spanish antiquity. This focus has served quite ­perceptibly to advance a particular form of Dominican national identity in the mid-20th century. The long-reigning dictator Rafael Trujillo (in office 1934–61) glorified the Hispanidad (Spanish-ness) of the nation and the racial whiteness that it implied.2 For Trujillo, early Spanish monuments could serve to distance the Dominican Republic from the taint of Atlantic Blackness and the Haitian people who shared the island and whom he saw as inferior to Dominicans and as an encroaching menace. This Eurocentrism in its various forms has profoundly shaped the art and architectural history on Santo Domingo. Primarily highstyle and presumably “Spanish” colonial architecture has received the most attention as the city is cast as la ciudad primada (the first city) in Spain’s effort to bring Christian salvation and Spanish civilization to the Americas, thus opening the road for modernity. Features of European stylistic excellence were elevated over other forms of the island’s historic architecture. The Taíno and West African subjects who provided the bulk of the labor to build the 16th-­ century city are marginalized by this approach, and their stories remain largely untold. Finally, the myriad functions of the built environment in the constitution of colonial power relations are, for the most part, silenced. What is amplified is a narrative of Santo Domingo’s 16th-century architecture that hails the stylistic modernity unfolding in 15th- and 16th-century Europe. Hidden from view by this rhetoric of Spanish modernity and its attendant silences is the role of Santo Domingo’s 16th-century architecture (designed, built, and lived) in the ideological formation of the early city of diverse subjects and the development of an urban enterprise focused on colonial extraction.3 In this chapter, I consider how we might distance ourselves from the political 2 For in-depth discussion of the Trujillo regime’s ideological production through cultural forms, see Lauren Derby, The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo (Durham, 2009). For a comparable study on Cuba’s Gerardo Machado (1869–1939) and his use of architecture in the constitution of a dictatorial state, see Joseph R. ­Hartman, Dictator’s Dreamscape: How Architecture and Vision Built Machado’s Cuba and Invented Modern Havana (Pittsburgh, 2019). 3 The role of architecture in carrying the ideology of conquest, colonization, and Christianization has been addressed by Valerie Fraser, The Architecture of Conquest: Building in the ­Viceroyalty of Peru, 1535–1635 (Cambridge, 2009), and Samuel Y. Edgerton, Theaters of

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and ideological formation of this prior architectural scholarship and rethink the same features of the late Gothic and Renaissance styles that have always received the most attention in the literature. We can do so, in part, by including and seriously considering Taíno, West African, and subalternized subjects and their positions as makers, users, and viewers of the colonial urban landscape. My primary focus is on a series of religious, civil, and private structures and their forms and functions. In this effort, there is some utility in identifying the specific styles, such as the Gothic, in order to grapple with the connectivity between people and places that becomes apparent through an analysis of stylistic consistency and plurality. I draw from decolonial theory’s historiographical reframing of modernity as a process beginning in 1492 with European expansion across the Atlantic Ocean and its coupled rhetoric of promises (salvation, redemption, civilization, domestication, etc.) that operates to conceal a logic of coloniality and the structure of management that emerges with early modern racism, genderism, and slavery.4 Hence, I advocate for using coloniality as a perspective through which to rethink the framing of this architecture as one of importance and to consider issues of lateness and modernity in medieval architecture generally. Through this chapter, I aim to elucidate something of the interrelationships between processes of remembrance, oblivion, labor exploitation, and exclusionary domestication in Santo Domingo that contributed to the constitution of an early colonial urban landscape in the Caribbean. 1 Memory Human memory and conceptions of time in the early modern Americas and the Atlantic world cannot be viewed as part of an unaltered continuum from Europe. The colonial space brought together multiple worlds from Europe, Africa, and the Indigenous Americas and would soon become a world of its own. Some degree of access to the native Taíno memory of Ayiti or Quisqueya (Arawak names for the island that the Spanish would call La Española, anglicized as Hispaniola) can be found in the post-1492 accounts of Spanish ­ onversion: Religious Architecture and Indian Artisans in Colonial Mexico (Albuquerque, C 2001), among others. 4 For some of decolonial theory’s established concepts, see Walter D. Mignolo, Local Histories / Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking (Princeton, 2000); Walter D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options (Durham, 2011); Aníbal Quijano and Michael Ennis, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America,” Nepantla: Views from South 1, no. 3 (2000): 533–80; and Aníbal Quijano, “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality,” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2 (2007): 168–78.

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historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés—Historia natural de las Indias (1526) and Historia general de las Indias (1535)—and in the wide range of Indigenous forms in architecture, sculpture, painting, food ways, spatial practices, and other types of material culture that predate and continued into the colonial period.5 Oviedo wrote that Taíno buhios (dwellings) came in two types, the first circular and known as caney, consisting of posts driven into the ground at a distance of four or five steps between each post, with beams placed above and branches on top of the beams with their ends converging to support palm or banana leaves as thatching (Figure 12.1). He compares these structures to a pavilion or tent, like “those brought by the armies and royalty of Spain and Italy,” because the dwelling is fixed to a mast. The second style of dwelling Oviedo describes as “more pleasing to the eye and roomier, built for princely men and caciques; they are long and made with pitched roofs, like those of the Christians, and likewise made with posts and walls of cane and wood.” These buildings employed tall and thick canes cut to measure the height of the walls and converging in the middle to support posts. He describes them as possessing portals that served as entryways “covered in straw in the manner that I have seen in Flanders roofing the houses of the villages and towns.”6 This early 16th-century history provides a glimpse of a process of remembering, appropriating, displacing, and subalternizing at work in the built environment that would inform the combination of architectural ideas from the Indigenous Americas, Africa, and Europe that we consider the colonial bohío today, marking the beginning of a material trajectory that is still playing out in parts of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. When Christopher Columbus founded the first Spanish settlement of La Isabella on the north coast of ­Hispaniola in 1494, according to archaeologists, roofing likely consisted of a mixture of tile and thatch, assimilating Taíno building technologies and employing Taíno makers.7 In its composition of plant materials, the colonial bohío would have coexisted in early Santo Domingo with buildings of mortar, tile, and stone. Oviedo writes that, during the hurricane of 3 August 1508, “a lot 5 These works were consolidated as in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Historia General y Natural de las Yndias, Yslas y Tierra Firme del Mar y Océano (Editorial Guaranía, Asunción del Paraguay, 1944). 6 “las que se traen en los exercitos de España o Ytalia … y mejores en la vista y de mas aposentos y para hombres mas principales y Caciques: hechas a dos aguas y luengas como las de los Christianos: y assi de postes: y las paredes de madera y cañas … y cubiertas de paja de la manera que yo he visto en Flandes cubiertas las casas de los villajes o aldeas.” Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, La historia general de las Indias (Seville, 1547), vol. 1, bk. 6, ch. 1 7 Kathleen Deagan and José María Cruxent, Columbus’s Outpost among the Taíno: Spain and America at La Isabela, 1493–1498 (New Haven, 2002).

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Figure 12.1 Drawings of caney and bohío, from Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Historia general y natural de las Indias, 1535, Book VI. source: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University

of wind and water suddenly came together and so excessively that in this city of Santo Domingo all of the bohíos or straw houses fell to the earth, and even some with mortared or rammed earth walls were affected and destroyed.”8 This passage alludes to the coexistence of architectural forms and material assemblages in the city, a reality that would have conditioned the relational reception of forms. As such, the architecture of Europeans in the city emerged in relation to, and in convergence with, that of the island’s original inhabitants. European pacification of the island by this time was by no means complete, and Ayiti or Quisqueya and emerging Hispaniola contained many more structures composed of Indigenous technologies beyond the city limits. The governorship of Nicolás de Ovando, a member of the Spanish nobility and knight of Alcántara, inaugurated a more expansive city of stone architecture in Santo Domingo after the municipality was moved in 1502 to the west 8 “un vieto y agua muy grádissimo lo uno y lo otro: y en la misma sazon en muchos puenlos de esta y sazon en muchos pueblos de esta Ysla o lo mismo: y sucedieron daños en los campos: y quedaron destruydas las eredades. Y en esta ciudad de Santo Domingo derribo paz el suelo todos los buhios o casas de paja.” Oviedo y Valdés, La historia general de las Indias, vol. 1, bk. 6, ch. 3.

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bank of the Ozama River. The architectural forms that would arise drew from a variety of Spanish idioms in use before and after the 1492 conquest of the last remaining Islamic polity in Spain by Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452–1516) and Isabella I of Castile (1451–1504), the so-called Catholic Monarchs, and the ascendancy to the Spanish throne by the Austrian Habsburg dynasty in 1516. While the regime of the Habsburg emperor Charles V began moving more in the direction of a classicizing imagery, the Gothic or Isabelline style persisted, favored as it was by the Catholic Monarchs, in the use of pointed and trefoil arches, tracery, filigree, and ribbed vaulting. Queen Isabella appropriated the Gothic in the context of a power struggle with the 15th-century Spanish nobility, who used the idiom to express their own wealth and lineage. Examples resulting from such historical processes can be found in works like the chapel of Alvaro de Luna in the Toledo Cathedral and the Capilla del Condestable in Burgos Cathedral, the latter by Simón de Colonia. The patronage of Isabella through various projects has been seen by scholars as co-opting the visuality of these earlier aristocratic works in an effort to assert royal hegemony over the nobility, to reinforce dynastic legitimacy, and to offer the monarchy as a steadfast defender of the Christian faith.9 Examples of the queen’s patronage that employed a Spanish Gothic style include the tomb of Juan II and Isabella of Portugal in the church of the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores, near Burgos, by Gil de Siloé; the convent church of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, designed by Juan Guas (and examined by Costanza Beltrami in chapter 11 of the present volume); and the royal chapel at Granada (1506–19), credited to Enrique Egas (Figures 11.1–11.5). Beltrami stresses the importance of anachronism in assessing the relationship between memory and modernity in San Juan de los Reyes, arguing for a contextual understanding rather than the ideologically charged reading of an abrupt and total displacement of past styles. Close examination of the work itself reveals the coexistence of Gothic and Ibero-Islamic idioms within a context where the Monarchs “did not create a single unified government [but rather] negotiated precise terms to maintain control of their own territory.”10 Instead of emphasizing rupture to undergird a politically unified and clean succession that apparently did not exist, Beltrami argues that at San Juan “designers and patrons folded the passing of time into the building’s 9

10

Jonathan Brown, “Spain in the Age of Exploration: Crossroads of Artistic Cultures,” in Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration, ed. Jay Levenson (Washington, D.C., 1991), pp. 41–43; Richard Kagan, “The Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella,” in Levenson, Circa 1492, pp. 55–61. Costanza Beltrami, “Memory, Modernity, and Anachronism at San Juan de los Reyes,” pp. 346–94 of the current volume.

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decorative program.”11 These concerns for context, coexistence, temporal complexity, and, at times, indeterminacy of meaning carry forward into the Atlantic world, where historical temporality would be challenged by many factors. Europeans radically disrupted the unfolding of Indigenous American and African histories, as they perceived themselves to be the discoverers of a “New World,” which called older temporalities in Europe into question. Thus, we cannot afford to overdetermine the meaning of Gothic appropriations in colonial Santo Domingo by ascribing them to an unified political agenda centered in a different urban landscape on a disparate continent, but we must continually bear in mind the European effort to compose dominance over subalternized Indigenous American, African, and racially mixed people. Considering lateness and modernity in this context means opening an approach to interpretation that accounts for how Hispano-Flemish Gothic in architecture, favored by the Spanish queen, operated in an urban landscape of human and historical complexity in which the Christian “other” became the Taíno and West African laborers and subjects. The European conquest of the five district chiefdoms of the Taíno on the island of Ayiti or Quisqueya began in the late 15th century. The conquerors proceeded ruthlessly, enslaving Native people in the encomienda system, which granted land and “Indians” to use as enslaved or tributary laborers to those who contributed to the conquest or to privileged settlers entering thereafter.12 Hispaniola was not the site of large-scale conversion efforts such as those found on the American mainland. Genocide, European diseases, and exploitation decimated the Taíno population. By the 1520s, a substantial number of enslaved Africans had been brought to Hispaniola, some of which were forced to work in a nascent urban society framed by colonial architecture and late 15th-­century European elements. West Africans, Taíno, Spaniards, and those considered racially mixed in Santo Domingo (including mestizas/os of Spanish-Indian descent and mulattas/os of Spanish-African descent) found themselves in a world in which the newcomers would attempt to use art and architecture hegemonically to construct identities, signify exclusionary privileges, and sustain power relations in day-to-day life.13 The governorship of Nicolás de Ovando 11 12

13

Ibid., p. 357. Eventually, the Spanish Crown would issue a decree proclaiming the Indians to be vassals rather than slaves after protests from the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas. For an older source on the Taíno, see Irving Rouse, The Taíno: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus (New Haven, 1992). Lynne Guitar, “Boiling It Down: Slavery on the First Commercial Sugarcane Ingenios in the Americas (Hispaniola, 1530–45),” in Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America, ed. J. Landers and B. Robinson (Albuquerque, 2006), pp. 39–82.

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Figure 12.2 Exterior view: façade, detail of arrabá, The House of Ovando, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1502 source: P. Niell

brought another wave of violence upon the Taíno ­population of the island as it attempted to quell factionalism among the European settlers.14 Ovando arrived with an entourage of some 2,500 settlers and a number of builders, masons, and stonecutters to create a stone city. Architectural elements of the Ibero-­ Islamic landscape in Spain can be found in Santo Domingo from this period in such elements as the arrabá (moldings consisting of an inverted T-shaped panel surmounting a flat-lintel doorway) and the alfiz (moldings consisting of a rectangular panel enclosing an arch). The arrabá appears on the gubernatorial residence occupied by Ovando and built at the dawn of the 16th century. It was an element also used in his home province of Extremadura, from which many early settlers emigrated to the Americas (Figure 12.2). Other houses in the city still possess similar arrabá frameworks over their central doorways. 14

Deagan and Cruxent, Columbus’s Outpost among the Taíno.

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This architectural element thus established a sense of visual connection and consistency among the stone houses in what would become a central core of the city: the place dominated by the wealthy, in contrast to the comparatively poor barrio (neighborhood) of Santa Bárbara on the northeast side near the river. Yet, the main entryway of the governor’s residence contains a depressed ogee arch above the portal with blind tracery, crockets, and foliage, which may have set it apart from many of its architectural peers in the city and thereby elevated the governor’s status. Visual and experiential consistencies between these formal elements in private architecture established a material means for the expression of visual similarity tied to socio-economic identity in the city, perhaps firming up local alliances in relation to the issue of land distribution, over which the governor presided.15 2 Labor By the early 1540s in Santo Domingo, multiple generations of designers and craftspeople had labored in building the cathedral of Santa María la Menor,16 the first such religious building in the Spanish Indies (Figure 12.3). A papal bull of 8 August 1511, recognized the city’s cathedral and formulated its administrative structure to be overseen by its first bishop, García de Padilla (r. 1512–15). George Kubler and Martin Soria suggest the building’s timeline spans 1512 to 1541, but Luis E. Alemar claims the actual construction process in stone and mampostería (plaster, rubble, and brick) did not begin until 1523, during the tenure of Bishop Alejandro Geraldini (r. 1516–24). These scholars generally concur that by 1537 designers and workers had completed the vaulting of the nave and that the west façade was not realized until the early 1540s, under Bishop Alonso de Fuenmayor (r. 1533–38).17 The resulting structure was one that

15 16

17

For this kind of social negotiation, see Ida Altman, Emigrants and Society: Extremadura and Spanish America in the Sixteenth Century (Los Angeles, 1989). At present, it is unclear if the dedication of the cathedral, Santa María la Menor, is a reference to the Byzantine St. Mary the Younger or to the status of the cathedral as a “lesser basilica.” Portions of the following section have been taken from my article, “Late Gothic in the Sixteenth-Century Cathedral of Santa María la Menor,” with the permission of Springer Publishing Company. Other bishops that served during the cathedral’s construction include Fray Luis de Figueroa (during 1524) and Sebastián Ramírez de Fuenleal (1528–31). See L. Alemar, La catedral de Santo Domingo: Descripción histórico-artístico arqueológica de este portentoso templo, primada de las indias (Barcelona, 1933), p. 95; Kubler and Soria, Art and ­Architecture in Spain and Portugal, p. 64. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 12.3 Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, main (west) entryway and façade, 1512 or 1528–41 source: P. Niell

scholars have long viewed as a synthesis of Spanish late Gothic, ­Plateresque, and Renaissance styles.18 The cathedral’s plurality of visual styles mirrored something of the visual complexity of Spain during this era. Palm, who conducted an analysis of the main entrance on the west façade, called it a “Renaissance frontispiece imposed on a Gothic cathedral.”19 The stylistic juxtaposition identified by Palm at Santo Domingo reflects a tendency in Spain noted earlier by Bernard Bevan in his 1939 survey of Spanish architectural history. For the period of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Bevan offers the coexisting stylistic categories of 18

19

Alemar, Catedral de Santo Domingo, 1933; Palm, “Plateresque and Renaissance ­ onuments”; Palm, Los monumentos arquitectónicos; Palm, Arquitectura y arte colonial; M Kubler and Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal; Angulo Íñiguez, Historia del arte hispanoamericano. Palm, “Plateresque and Renaissance Monuments,” p. 8.

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“Mudéjar, Gothic, Isabelline, Gothic Plateresque, Renaissance Plateresque, and High Renaissance.”20 Dramatizing the unpredictable nature of Spanish architectural styles in this period, he writes, “The Golden Age of Spain is stylistically a period of anarchy.”21 This perspective on the loss of stylistic cohesion appears romanticized and oversimplified in light of all that has been addressed in the literature about the complexity of artistic forms in multicultural Spain.22 The eight-centuries long coexistence of communities practicing Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in various polities under the reign of both Christian and Islamic rulers produced complex and negotiated types of visuality that continued into the early modern era and coexisted with forms selected by the nobility and the Catholic Monarchs, for example, in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, as Beltrami addresses in her chapter. The mix of forms that crossed the Atlantic for Santo Domingo, to whatever degree they were perceived as coherent ‘styles,’ representational repertoires, or organized vehicles for meaning making, register degrees of similitude with the prevailing visual modes of this early 16th-century moment in Iberia, with the depth of stylistic development and complexity on the Iberian Peninsula, and with various aspects of colonial adaptation and transformation. Questions over the significance of particular choices made in Santo Domingo in terms of façade treatments, vaulting patterns, interior adornments, and the composition of stylistic ensembles marks an important horizon for scholarly work. Studying the specific nature of colonial emigration offers something substantial to our understanding of colonial architecture in Santo Domingo. A decade after Ovando’s arrival in 1502, two waves of craftsmen contracted in Seville sailed for the colonial city, reaching it in 1510 and 1512.23 Two designers of the city’s cathedral are known by name: Luis de Moya, who oversaw the closing of the vaults in 1537, and Rodrigo Gil (Rosillo) de Liendo from Santander, who took over the position of maestro mayor (master builder) from de Moya in 1538 or 1539. Hence, the cathedral of Santo Domingo had at least two master builders during its period of construction who received some training in Spain, possibly in the orbit of such accomplished designers as Enrique Egas, Juan 20 21 22

23

Bernard Bevan, History of Spanish Architecture (New York, 1939). See ibid., p. 135; Alemar, Catedral de Santo Domingo, 135. For literature on artistic style in multicultural Spain, see Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain (University Park, 1990); María Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (New York, 2003); and Jerrilynn D. Dodds, María Rosa Menocal, and Abigail Krasner Balbale, The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture (New Haven, 2009). Kubler and Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal, p. 64.

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Guas, Gil de Hontañon, or Alonso Rodríguez.24 The rib vaulting of the interior is carried by piers and lateral buttresses that create a nave and two aisles with the central vessel terminating in a polygonal apse (Figure 12.4). Two rows of seven rounded piers carry a patterned rib vault; both of these characteristics are part of the late Gothic style known throughout Europe and Spain. The nave vaulting consists of a pointed barrel vault with likewise pointed but smaller lateral vaulting, which is unusual in the European idiom. The late 12th- and early 13th-century church at Airvault, France, employs such a vaulting system.25 As suggested by the plan of Santo Domingo Cathedral, the aisle vaults mutually reinforce the nave vaults with the outer side of the aisle vaulting supported by the building’s sidewalls (Figure 12.5). These walls correspond to the lines of lateral thrust making it possible to insert chapels between them without compromising the structure. The vaulting supports a building 54 meters (177 feet) long and 23 meters (75 feet) wide with a height from floor to vaults at 16 meters (52 feet). Of importance to the question of architectural knowledge and the mobilization of labor is the hall church typology that we see in the cathedral of Santo Domingo that had become current in the late 15th century over much of Europe. The hall church, or Hallenkirche as it came to be known in Germany in the 13th century, became quite prevalent from the 14th century onward in Iberia and other parts of the Mediterranean.26 It is defined as a vaulted church structure in which the nave and aisles are roughly the same height. These types of buildings eliminated the need for flying buttresses; however, their high aisles prevented the use of clerestory windows. The resulting interior is illuminated by light from windows in the walls of the aisles and apse, making it relatively dark. Furthermore, such structures usually did not possess a transept or distinct chancel.27 As a hall elevation type, Santo Domingo cathedral resembles such churches in Spain as the Colegiata de Berlanga de Duero in Soria 24 25

26 27

Alemar, Catedral de Santo Domingo, p. 39; Kubler and Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal, pp. 64–65; Erwin Walter Palm, Rodrigo de Liendo: Arquitecto en La Española (Ciudad Trujillo, 1944), pp. 8–22. In addition to the nave proper, only three side chapels, the apse, and the sacristy were complete by the 1540s. The author would like to thank Richard A. Sundt who generously shared his thoughts on the vaulting in the Santo Domingo cathedral, drawing from his expertise on European Gothic architecture. For German Gothic church architecture, see Norbert Nussbaum, German Gothic Church Architecture (New Haven, 2000). Notable examples include the chapel of St. Bartholomew in Paderborn, Germany, as well as structures at Nördlingen (1427–1505) and Dinkelsbühl (1444–92). John Fleming, Hugh Honour, and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, 5th ed. (London, 1998), p. 249; James Curl, A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 2006), p. 343. - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 12.4 Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Dominican Republic, nave vaulting, ca. 1511–37 source: K. G. Sweeney

Figure 12.5 Plan, Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic source: George Kubler and Martin Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and Their American Dominions, 1500 to 1800. Baltimore, Maryland: Penguin Books, 1959, p. 64

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Figure 12.6 Cathedral of Las Palmas, Canary Islands, nave vaulting, begun 1497–1500 source: Uwe Barghaan / Wikimedia Commons

(1526–30) by Juan de Rasines, the cathedral of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands (1500–70), and the Church of the Hieronymite Monastery at Belém, Portugal (1502–1601).28 The vaulting at Las Palmas is of particular significance for Santo Domingo as the Canary Islands served as an important layover for ships in the transatlantic voyage from Spain to the Caribbean and back from the 16th ­century onward (Figure 12.6). Speaking to the choice of the hall church elevation at Santo Domingo, George Kubler and Martin Soria offered the following, “The purpose is evidently utilitarian: to simplify the problems of construction for transient labourers of unequal training.”29 Indeed, the lack of flying buttresses saved time, materials, and expense. Yet, while it would make sense that designers and craftspeople in the early Spanish Colonial Americas would employ a simpler method of construction, these hall church elevations were sought after in Europe with examples in Burgos, Las Palmas, and Belém attesting to its use in the Iberian world. Therefore, we need to think not only of the relative convenience of this architectural form in a colonial territory, which lacked the same materials and 28 29

Palm, “Plateresque and Renaissance Monuments.” Kubler and Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal, p. 63.

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established tradition of craftsmanship as in Europe, but also the familiarity of the hall church and its connection to other centers, particularly Las Palmas. The question of memory is tied to that of labor at the cathedral of Santo Domingo, if we consider the building from the vantage point of coloniality. The debates over stylistic appropriation have silenced the fact that Taíno and West African laborers were involved in its construction. Indeed, George Kubler wrote, “More than any city in America, Santo Domingo … was an extension of Peninsular [Spanish] architectural style.”30 While the direct flow of ­European peoples and ideas from Spain to the colonial city in the early 16th century would logically inform a certain degree of likeness between metropolis and colony in this period, this extension narrative offered by Kubler forecloses colonial complexity and contributions made by Taíno and West African laborers and subjects to the city’s architecture. Raquel Flecha Vega has undertaken the first sustained effort to recover the voices of Taíno and West Africans in the construction of the Santo Domingo Cathedral, identifying moments of ­subaltern agency and negotiation encased in stone.31 Flecha Vega considers “sacred-­aesthetics” in the formal and emotive sculptural aspects of these laborers’ work, as well as the relationships to their respective visual traditions in America and Africa. In this way, she takes the local-global stylistic comparison in a different direction than Palm, Kubler, and Angulo Íñiguez, by studying the correlations between motifs on the Santo Domingo Cathedral’s western façade and such non-Western forms, such as Taíno Cemí sculptures, Yoruba divination trays, an Aroye terracotta vessel, and a Taíno duho (a ceremonial seat used by caciques or chiefs). Her interpretation extends to the decorative beading, what Palm called “pearl adornments,” which she views as communicating within a complex colonial visual culture shaped by European, Indigenous American, and African decorative forms. This kind of approach is vitally important and much needed, as it seeks to recover subaltern voices and negotiations of world forms (the use of “world” in the inclusionary sense of Indigenous American, African, and European ideas). It thereby suggests that the Santo Domingo Cathedral lends itself to similar interpretive problems as the mainland missions of New Spain, where scholars have identified cultural hybridity in the painting and sculpting of atrial crosses, posa chapels, porterías, and cloisters produced by Indigenous artists under the direction of Christian friars. Santo

30 31

Ibid., p. 62. Raquel Flecha Vega, “A Decolonial Analysis of La Catedral de Santo Domingo Primada de América” (m.a. thesis, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2015).

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Domingo broadens our perspective on the architecture of the nascent modern/colonial world and the negotiated and contested process from which it arises. More archival research could help us understand the diversity of laborers at work on the cathedral. A revisionary formal analysis of the façade could render a more finely grained sense of similarity and difference to European trends with the aim of generating a nuanced understanding of the creation process. Taíno, West African, mestiza/o, and mulatta/o subjects may indeed have received and understood architectural structure and ornamentation in ways that priests did not anticipate and dominant ideologies did not intend, even as the point of their labor in making art objects for the glorification of Christianity was the salvation of their souls.32 Though early receptions of this sort are challenging if not impossible to recover from the archive, Flecha Vega underscores the importance of the imagery itself as a record to be seriously contemplated. More research on the role of the various religious establishments in converting these laborers and subjects to Christianity and otherwise assimilating them into such organizations as cofradías (confraternities) or, as seen in Cuba, Afro-Atlantic cabildos de naciones, could hold insights to their evolving colonial identities.33 If the voices of Taíno and West Africans and their descendants are to be found in the stones of the Santo Domingo Cathedral’s western facade in a formal, emotive, and/or figural sense, evoking a relationship to the larger realm of sacred aesthetics in both Africa and Ayiti or Quisqueya, those elements ­comingled with conventions of late medieval cathedrals in Europe, which expressed the collaboration of church and state through imagery that often participated in the actual coronations of kings. The façade is organized into an upper and lower register contained within an implied square geometry that is divided by a strong molding above the twin doors and below the twin coffered barrel vaults. Flanking this central square configuration are two trefoil windows with tracery framed by colonettes and pearl ornamentation. A reconstructed Habsburg coat of arms rests on a central axis, articulated by fluted Corinthian columns below. It communicates with two additional emblems of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy placed symmetrically on either side. These consist of a sign of the Order of the Golden Fleece, which was absorbed by 32 33

Tom Cummins, “The Madonna and the Horse: Becoming Colonial in New Spain and Peru,” in Native Artists and Patrons in Colonial Latin America, ed. Emily Umberger and Tom Cummins, Phoebus: A Journal of Art History (1995): 52–83. Matt Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle Against Atlantic Slavery (Chapel Hill, 2006), pp. 95–199.

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the Habsburgs, and another sculpted sign consisting of two crowned columns united by a banner reading “Plus ultra,” evoking not only the church and state as twin pillars of empire but also the Pillars of Hercules, the landforms mythologized in Antiquity that flank the straight that opens the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and came to symbolize imperial expansion after the 1492 acquisition of the Americas. The Habsburg emperor’s supposed obliteration of the western boundaries posed to Europe by the Atlantic Ocean informed this royal motif. On the west façade of the Santo Domingo Cathedral, the triangles, squares, and rotated squares that undergird the design motifs and which scholars have associated with 15th- and 16th-century European humanism had a long history in Gothic design theory. If the cathedral’s façade contains elements of what Flecha Vega calls Taíno and West African sacred aesthetics among the saints, griffins, grotesques, and seahorses populating the frieze, niches, or recessed square panels, the architectural framework draws all of these diverse forms into juxtaposition. A portion of the work, particularly in the running frieze, evokes the sculptural style of Diego de Siloé at the Puerto del Perdón of Granada Cathedral (finished in 1537), the Escalera Dorada in Burgos Cathedral (1519–23), and the work at the Casa consistorial (city hall) of Seville, a building begun under the direction of Diego de Riaño in 1527 (Figure 12.7). In the Santo Domingo façade, a bundle of arrows occupies one of the recessed squares, known to signify the union between Castile and Aragon nominally achieved by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. In Santo Domingo, this motif may connotate the subordination of Indigenous people within the Christian celestial and temporal hierarchy. The façade’s claim to universality, that all urban residents would abide by its messages and embrace the official power structures as inevitable and divinely ordained, may have been met with diverse receptions in actuality, given the Indigenous American and West African subjects in the early city, some of whom apparently sculpted this façade. Though we cannot speak to individual receptions due to lacking evidence, the visual complexities of the cathedral’s façade suggest cross-cultural interpretations were at work. More research is needed on the social and commercial networks established by Spain’s enterprise in the Americas and their implications for Santo Domingo in terms of the interplay between formal, social, and spatial ideas. An interpretive framework that considers the relation between the local and the global must account for the complex intersection of subaltern agency and awareness in the city’s labor force, the immediate architectural agendas of those in power, and the collision of worlds that established the visual relationships evident in the buildings of Spain, the Canary Islands, Santo Domingo, and the American mainland. Such an approach would have to consider the multidirectional and transoceanic flow of people, ideas, and things in the early

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Figure 12.7 Diego de Riaño and others, Casa consistorial, Seville, Spain, 1527–40 source: Gzzz / Wikimedia Commons

16th century as much as it would the evolving social situation in the colonial space. Santo Domingo Cathedral is a compelling monument through which to consider these negotiations of worlds in artistic form since it involves the entanglement of memory, labor, and the formation of new expressive strategies to address a colonial population. 3 Domestication While the plurality of the cathedral’s audience is beyond doubt, the building exhibits what would have been familiar Gothic linear forms for incoming Europeans, depending on their home regions of origin. These elements include the use of pointed arches as a motif and structural device, geometric patterning within tracery, the use of filigree, and the hall-church elevation. The visual effect of the linearity achieved through a system of rib vaulting must have had the familiar effect of pushing the eye upward to follow vertical piers and ribs. The star vault of the apse evoked the geometric complexity of Islamic Spain and may have been familiar from its use in a number of Spanish Gothic cathedrals. Four trefoil windows in the apse flank a centralized window with a keyhole shape and tracery, which resembles the form of a round horseshoe arch known at San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo and in Visigothic and Islamic architecture in Spain (Figures 11.1–11.5). The classical revival features on the cathedral’s west façade, however, courted the recognition of a cosmopolitan

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audience, alluding to the traffic of Sevillians and suggesting the development of visual codes in early colonial Santo Domingo devised to impress and to operate somewhat above the visual literacy of the lower social ranks. Indeed, all travels to the Indies departed from Seville in this period. Other such elements within the building’s interior taken from a wide range of sources in Iberia and the Mediterranean include the spiral columns of the main chapel. Palm relates these to the late 15th-century Isabelline period in Spain and such works as the Lonja de la Seda at Valencia (the silk merchant’s exchange) and the earlier Lonja del Mar at Palma de Mallorca.34 Similar treatments appear at the Colegio de San Gregorio at Valladolid and at the Loggia de la Capilla Real in Granada. The deployment of such forms in colonial Santo Domingo martialed them in the service of constituting social order as well as royal presence and legitimacy in relation to a larger urban and insular landscape of West African and Taíno bohíos. A European motif that crosses sacred, civic, and private domains in Santo Domingo—and that was frequently associated by scholars with the visual repertoire of the Catholic Monarchs—is the protruding spherical ornaments that mark liminal spaces throughout the interior and exterior of the cathedral, on the gubernatorial palace of Don Diego Colón (Columbus), and on at least two additional palaces in the city (Figure 12.8). The motif ornaments the neck of columns at both the Santo Domingo Cathedral and that of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, establishing another visual connection between the two buildings. These pearl-like ornamentations, to use Palm’s comparison, have been suggested as translations into stone of the iron or bronze nail heads in the so-called mudéjar adornment of wooden doors in Iberia. They, furthermore, may have been visual devices for communicating the unity of the Christian faithful in addition to royal presence.35 In the cathedral, the spherical ornaments proliferate, framing windows inside and out, spanning door surrounds, ringing the necks of nave columns, adorning the capitals of colonettes on the west façade, and crowning interior cornices. They can also be found in the door surrounds of private residences in Santo Domingo, such as the Casa de Tostado and the Casa del Cordón, both ca.1502. The Tostado House occupies a street corner in Santo Domingo and contains a Gothic window on vertical axis with 34 35

Palm, “Plateresque and Renaissance Monuments.” Similar motifs articulate the entire facades of elite residences, such as that found at the Casa de las Conchas in Salamanca. These surface treatments in Iberia and their relation to expressions of aristocratic power could also be equated with the square stones found in various palazzi dei diamante in Italy or at the Palacio del Infantado in Guadalajara of 1483, designed by Juan Guas, in Spain. See Palm, “Renaissance and Plateresque Monuments,” pp. 2–3.

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Figure 12.8 Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, spherical ornaments, west façade, 1540s source: P. Niell

the central doorway below and a two-bay tower above (Figure 12.9). It consists of two tracery arches that flank a central column that divides the window into two panes. Within the corresponding interior space of this residence on the second floor, a space taking after Spain’s medieval pattern of cuarto esquinero (corner room), a dual window seat is built into the wall serving as a perch for occupants of the room to sit and gaze at the street below. This Gothic window is one of the city’s most striking examples of architecture’s late medieval performativity and speaks to subtle material processes of identity construction in early Santo Domingo and the constitution of a dominant and entitled civic selfhood, likely at the expense of subalternized laborers.

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Figure 12.9 Casa de Tostado, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1502 source: K. G. Sweeney

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Martin Heidegger famously argued that we as human beings build because we are dwellers, hence constructed spaces come of “our being-in-the-world [in the collective and universal Western sense].”36 However, the conditions of early modern European expansion and colonialism complicate the Heideggerian sense of collective being, dwelling, and building, the latter of which became a transcultural arena of knowledge and being for the Taínos, West Africans, people of mixed race, and Europeans who coproduced the colonial milieu within its harshly asymmetrical power relations. Indeed, as Nelson ­Maldonado-Torres has persuasively argued, a decolonial view must contend with a “coloniality of being” in the modern/colonial sphere that emerged in the late 15th century. He considers the notion of being itself as the product of colonial relations in modernity and contends that certain beings have been partialized, marginalized, and subalternized for the nourishment and existential growth of those in dominant positions.37 If architecture shapes our being-in-the-world in a ­phenomenological sense, then we could say that colonial architecture has contributed to the composition of a partial being for some and a fuller being for others along the evolving lines of early modern race and gender. Systems of colonial governance and law in early Santo Domingo enacted through textuality, performance, and physical space joined a process of socialization and domestication that contributed to developing a dominant society. These are difficult material connections to make, but they are vital to consider as we try to understand how precisely the colonial city operated to reproduce power relations through architecture and space. On the frontier of the known world for Europeans, the earliest settlements of Española, including La ­Isabella, were populated largely by European men, who would have taken Native ­American women as wives and concubines. Informed by ideas in ­Iberia, the dream of a “New World” Christian city would comprise a populace led by an upper social echelon of Spanish blood. While the notion of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood) carried religious ideology in Iberia as a reference to a family without Jewish or Muslim traces, Atlantic racism and genderism in the ­Americas would reshape this Spanish ideal. Purity of blood began to suggest a Spanish Christian family without Indigenous American, African, and/or racially mixed members and ancestors. Urban society in early Santo Domingo was at first composed of Europeans, Taínos, West Africans, and the mixed progeny from rape as well as consensual and coercive unions. However, the arrival 36 37

Martin Heidegger, “Building, Dwelling, Thinking,” in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, ed. Neil Leach (London, 1997), pp. 94–120. Nelson Maldonado-Torres, “On the Coloniality of Being: Contributions to the ­Development of a Concept,” Cultural Studies 21, nos. 2–3 (2007): 240–70.

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of the Doña María de Toledo in 1509, a noblewoman from a Spanish aristocratic family, with her husband, Diego Columbus, led to a relatively large number of Spanish women coming to Santo Domingo to marry into the local contingent of Spanish men in an effort to create proper Spanish households. Diego, the eldest son of Christopher Columbus, gained prestige through his marriage to María and was able thereby to restore something of his father’s disgraced legacy in the Indies by being named governor of Española and the successor to Ovando. Calle Fortaleza (Fortress Street), which connected the principal buildings for defense and governance in the early city, was one of the earliest streets composed by Europeans in the Americas. It was renamed sometime after 1509 as Calle de Las Damas (Street of the Ladies). This move would seem to have been an expression of the relationship between architecture and domestication as embodied by the presence of Spanish women. As Castillo de Bobadilla would write in Spain at century’s end in his formidable text on the ideal qualities of town magistrates, the 16th-century private house was conceived in the urban space of the Spanish world as a microcosm of the republic or polity in which it resided and the key element for social reproduction.38 The completion of Diego’s palace circa 1510 brought a new image to the city, one of classical revival arcades that resembled the style of Mediterranean ­villas (Figure 12.10). After his arrival, Diego Columbus was conferred a substantial number of Taínos as tributary servants.39 His palace, positioned near the river and what would become an important city gate and set apart from the house of Ovando on the Calle La Fortaleza, includes a double arcade of five arches on both sides of the building, which is flanked symmetrically by two rectangular masses. Spherical adornments comparable to those found in the cathedral and on private houses line and accentuate the division between the upper and lower arcades. In proximity to this palace was the chapel of María de Toledo, to which she and her entourage would have likely made processions for prayer and Mass. Such performances of domestication operated to affirm Spanish Christian supremacy in urban spaces and to model a public identity for women as pious and charitable in complement to their private roles in the home as bearers of Spanish children. The seemingly benign sights of women strolling the Calle de Las Damas functioned to reproduce the dominant social relations

38 39

Jerónimo Castillo de Bobadilla, Política para Corregidores y Señores de Vasallos (­Barcelona, 1597; repr. 1624), p. 13. José R. Oliver, Caciques and Cemí Idols: The Web Spun by Taíno Rulers Between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico (Tuscaloosa, 2009).

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Figure 12.10 Palace of Diego Columbus, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, east façade overlooking the Ozama River, 1509–10 source: P. Niell

within an extraction system in Española over which Santo Domingo held sway as the bastion of the ruling elite of the island and the principal point of export.40 Focusing on Santo Domingo’s late Gothic medieval forms in architecture allows us to ascertain transatlantic linkages between Europe and the Canary Islands while considering the complexity of the early colonial city and its place within an evolving Atlantic world. Attention must simultaneously be given to local dimensions, such as Taíno, West African, and subaltern ­contributions to, negotiations with, and receptions of the urban landscape in Santo Domingo. Despite the difficulties posed by this kind of historical 40

This perspective on the co-constitution of mental, physical, and social spaces has been informed by Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Maiden, 1974; repr. 1991). The effort to see colonial cities, missions, and built environments as spatially interrelated has been advanced in the context of the Andes by Joanne Rappaport and Tom Cummins, Beyond the Lettered City: Indigenous Literacies in the Andes (Durham, 2011). Caribbean spaces require their own theorization given the physical nature of islands and maritime networks, the systems of extraction that focused on gold harvesting and eventually agriculture, and the presence of different kinds of people, including people of African descent, Indigenous populations, and a variety of Europeans.

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question, it is vital that we look for the voices of these subalternized populations as important viewers, users, and makers of this landscape in order to better understand the roles played by late medieval forms in composing or interacting with the asymmetrical power relations of the city. Early elites in Santo Domingo drew from the rich and complex lexicon of Spanish architecture, including elements of the Ibero-Islamic landscape in Spain, to valorize their identities and to express perceived entitlements to property and status as well as allegiance to royal and ecclesiastical power. The study of stylistic shifts and the use of late Gothic and other styles in negotiations of converging worlds within a colonial matrix of power requires an accounting of local actions, situations, and knowledge in the development of the early city. Late Gothic forms in Santo Domingo might at once express political allegiance, Catholic unity, and social hierarchy, while certain architectural typologies, like the hall church, provided a solution to the urgent need for vaulted space in churches that saved time, materials, and expense. The extant 16th-century architecture of Santo Domingo, some of which has been substantially reconstructed, suggests that European styles were deployed in the early city through processes of selection in the service of projecting power and self-fashioning identity by the new elites in the Spanish Indies. Indeed, the entire problem of the colonial must be more rigorously brought to bear in the study of Caribbean Gothic architecture and other forms that we describe with taxonomic terms originating in European styles. These terms are still useful, perhaps, if we can reframe them in an approach to writing these histories that considers lateness and modernity in medieval architecture from a perspective that remains engaged with the roles they played in constituting early coloniality. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the co-editors, Alice Sullivan and Kyle Sweeney, for their fine work on this volume and for a rich dialogue that has expanded and improved this essay. Bibliography of Cited Sources

Primary Sources

Castillo de Bobadilla, Jerónimo. Política para Corregidores y Señores de Vasallos. ­Barcelona, 1597; reprint, 1624.

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Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo Fernández de. Historia General y Natural de las Yndias, Yslas y Tierra Firme del Mar y Océano. Editorial Guaranía, Asunción del Paraguay, 1944. Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo Fernández de. La historia general de las Indias. Seville, 1547.



Secondary Sources

Alemar, Luis E. La catedral de Santo Domingo: Descripción histórico-artístico arqueológica de este portentoso templo, primada de las indias. Barcelona, 1933. Altman, Ida. Emigrants and Society: Extremadura and Spanish America in the Sixteenth Century. Los Angeles, 1989. Angulo Íñiguez, Diego. Historia del arte hispanoamericano. Barcelona, 1945. Angulo Íñiguez, Diego, and Erwin Walter Palm. El gótico y el Renacimiento en las ­Antillas: Arquitectura, escultura, pintura, azulejos, orfebrería. Seville, 1947. Bevan, Bernard. History of Spanish Architecture. New York, 1939. Brown, Jonathan. “Spain in the Age of Exploration: Crossroads of Artistic Cultures.” In Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Exploration, edited by Jay Levenson, pp. 41–43. ­Washington, D.C., 1991. Childs, Matt. The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle Against Atlantic S­ lavery. Chapel Hill, 2006. Cummins, Tom. “The Madonna and the Horse: Becoming Colonial in New Spain and Peru.” In “Native Artists and Patrons in Colonial Latin America,” edited by Emily Umberger and Tom Cummins, Phoebus: A Journal of Art History (1995): 52–83. Curl, James. A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. 2nd ed. Oxford, 2006. Deagan, Kathleen, and José María Cruxent. Columbus’s Outpost among the Taíno: Spain and America at La Isabela, 1493–1498. New Haven, 2002. Derby, Lauren. The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo. Durham, 2009. Dodds, Jerrilynn D. Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain. University Park, 1990. Dodds, Jerrilynn D., María Rosa Menocal, and Abigail Krasner Balbale. The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture. New Haven, 2009. Edgerton, Samuel. Theaters of Conversion: Religious Architecture and Indian Artisans in Colonial Mexico. Albuquerque, 2001. Flecha Vega, Raquel. “A Decolonial Analysis of La Catedral de Santo Domingo Primada de América.” Master’s thesis, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2015. Fleming, John, Hugh Honour, and Nikolaus Pevsner. The Penguin Dictionary of ­Architecture and Landscape Architecture. 5th ed. London, 1998. Frasier, Valerie. The Architecture of Conquest: Building in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1535–1635. Cambridge, 2009.

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Guitar, L. “Boiling It Down: Slavery on the First Commercial Sugarcane Ingenios in the Americas (Hispaniola, 1530–45).” In Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America, edited by J. Landers and B. Robinson, pp. 39–82. Albuquerque, 2006. Heidegger, Martin. “Building, Dwelling, Thinking.” In Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, edited by Neil Leach, pp. 94–120. London, 1997. Kagan, Richard. “The Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella.” in Levenson, Circa 1492, pp. 55–61. Kubler, George, and Martin Soria. Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and Their American Dominion: 1500–1800. London, 1959. Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Maiden, 1974; reprint, 1991. Maldonado-Torres, Nelson. “On the Coloniality of Being: Contributions to the ­Development of a Concept.” Cultural Studies 21, nos. 2–3 (2007): 240–70. Menocal, María Rosa. The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain. New York, 2003. Mignolo, Walter D. Local Histories / Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges and Border Thinking. Princeton, 2000. Mignolo, Walter D. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham, 2011. Niell, Paul. “‘No town of its class in Spain’: Civic Architecture and Colonial Social ­Formation in Sixteenth-Century Santo Domingo, Hispaniola.” Hemisphere: Visual Cultures of the Americas 1 (Spring 2008): 6–26. Niell, Paul. “Late Gothic in the Sixteenth-Century Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.” In “Architecture of Colonizers / Architecture of Immigrants,” edited by Richard A. Sundt and Paul B. Niell, postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies 6, no. 3 (Fall 2015): 258–71. Nussbaum, Norbert. German Gothic Church Architecture. New Haven, 2000. Oliver, José R. Caciques and Cemí Idols: The Web Spun by Taíno Rulers Between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. Tuscaloosa, 2009. Palm, Erwin Walter. Rodrigo de Liendo: Arquitecto en La Española. Ciudad Trujillo, 1944. Palm, Erwin Walter. “Plateresque and Renaissance Monuments of the Island of ­Hispaniola.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 5 (1945–46): 1–14. Palm, Erwin Walter. “A Vault with Cosmotheological Representations at the ‘Imperial Monastery’ of the Dominicans on the Island of Hispaniola.” The Art Bulletin 32, no. 3 (September 1950): 219–25. Palm, Erwin Walter. Arquitectura y arte colonial en Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo, 1974. Palm, Erwin Walter. Santo Domingo, arte y arquitectura colonial. 2 vols. Santo Domingo, 2013.

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Pérez Montás, Eugenio. Casas coloniales de Santo Domingo / Colonial Houses of Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo, 1980. Quijano, Aníbal. “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality.” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2 (2007): 168–78. Quijano, Aníbal, and Michael Ennis, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America.” Nepantla: Views from South 1, no. 3 (2000): 533–80. Rappaport, Joanne, and Tom Cummins. Beyond the Lettered City: Indigenous Literacies in the Andes. Durham, 2011. Rouse, Irving. The Taíno: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus. New Haven, 1992.

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Afterword: Unruly Gothic Jacqueline E. Jung No one knows the name of the Naumburg Master—the mid-13th-century ­creator of the unique ensemble of architecture and sculpture in the west choir of the eponymous Saxon cathedral (Figure 13.1)—but for some early 20th-­century German art historians, three things were certain: he was German, he was a genius, and he was old. Hermann Beenken, writing in 1939, observed that it was “only in their old age that the great artists of our race recognized the deepest secret of form—the fact that the most essential and intimate aspects must be sought in utter simplicity. The aged Master of Naumburg recognized this secret every bit as much as, four hundred years later, the aged Rembrandt would do.”1 Wilhelm Pinder, an ardent nationalist, agreed: the ponderous life-sized donor figures in the choir, no less than the intense characters on the choir screen, were the work of a world-weary elder with the “stone-heavy [steinschwere] style of Michelangelo.”2 For such men, “laughter was foreign,” and “despite all the differences in time and people one senses again and again, in the sculptural atmosphere at Naumburg, a secret kinship with the great Florentine.”3 In Pinder’s eyes, the Master displayed an even stronger kinship with another humorless artist who flourished in his maturity, Beethoven: “What the symphony was for Beethoven, the figural choir [Gestaltenchor] was to the medieval image-maker.” The Naumburg Gestaltenchor, Pinder concludes, was “the sculptural Eroica of the Staufer age.”4 Composed in 1803–04 in honor of Napoleon (though that dedication changed after the general’s self-coronation), Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 1 Hermann Beenken, Der Meister von Naumburg (Berlin, 1939), p. 106: “Jenes tiefste Geheimnis der Form, daß das Eigentlichste und Innerlichste im ganz Schlichten gesucht werden muß, pflegt sich den großen Künstlern unserer Rasse in ihrem Alter erst kundzutun. Der altgewordene Meister von Naumburg hat um dies Geheimnis genauso gewußt, wie vierhundert Jahre nach ihm der altgewordene Rembrandt.” 2 Wilhelm Pinder, Der Naumburger Dom und der Meister seiner Bildwerke, photos by Walter Hege (Berlin, 1939), p. 23: “der steinschwere Art des Michelangelo.” 3 Ibid., p. 29: “Auch Michelangelo war das Lachen fremd, und immer wieder kann man bei allen Unterschieden von Zeit und Volk eine geheime Verwandtschaft des großen Florentiners mit der bildhauerischen Atmosphäre von Naumburg spüren.” 4 Ibid., p. 44: “Dieser Mann war der Beethoven seiner Zeit. ... Beethoven und der Naumburger Meister haben eine Verwandtschaft, die man sich gerne also solche des Blutes vorstellen möchte. ... Was für Beethoven die Symphonie, das war für den mittelalterlichen Bildner der Gestaltenchor.” The essay ends at p. 54 with reference to “den Naumburger Gestaltenchor, die plastische Eroika der Stauferzeit.” © Jacqueline E. Jung, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004538467_016 - 978-90-04-53846-7 Downloaded from Brill.com05/16/2023 03:15:35PM via KU Leuven Libraries

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Figure 13.1 Naumburg Cathedral, west choir, ca. 1242–50. View of choir, with sculpted donor figures, from atop the west choir screen source: J. E. Jung

in E-Flat Major (Op. 55) is typically regarded not as the swan song of the ­composer’s own life story but that of the classical period in music; in its controlled bombast and gravity, which commentators have consistently likened to architecture (some, specifically, to Gothic architecture!), this symphony had a heavy funereal aspect while ushering in the vital and passionate age of Romanticism.5 For Pinder and other nationalist art historians, the Naumburg Master’s late style, with its emphasis on weight and mass over intricate linearity, marked an end, an end not just of an imagined life but of a whole era. The death of the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II in December 1250 and that of his son and successor, Conrad, in 1254 led to a long, chaotic interregnum in the empire.6 The Saxon west choir, with its sculptures of proud noblemen 5 See the fascinating study by Nicholas Mathew, “History Under Erasure: ‘Wellingtons Sieg,’ the Congress of Vienna, and the Ruination of Beethoven’s Heroic Style,” Music Quarterly 89 (Spring 2006): 17–61. The French scholar Romain Rolland, writing in France in 1937, described the symphony as an “ars nova, as involved, as condensed, at once vertiginous and sure, as a Gothic vault”; quoted in Mathew, “History Under Erasure,” p. 18. 6 The most direct connection between the Naumburg west choir (and other German ­monuments) and Staufen politics was drawn by Wilhelm Pinder, Vom Wesen und Werden von deutschen Formen, vol. 1, Die Kunst der deutschen Kaiserzeit bis zum Ende der staufischen Klassik (Leipzig, 1935).

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and -women wrapped in sumptuous winter finery, embodied the “transposition of reality into representation, as art caught in its mirror the last shimmer of the fading chivalric age.” The Naumburg Master was the “herald of decline” (Künder des Unterganges).7 Now there are all sorts of observations to be made about these strange writings of the 1930s; wild anachronisms and willful projections abound, making them easy to dismiss even if they were not serving a repugnant nationalist ideology.8 But I think they are interesting for the view of stylistic lateness they offer, one that is quite distinct from the many perspectives on lateness and modernity the authors of this volume take up. Seen as the stage of an individual life, lateness transcends time and place: it can connect a 13th-century stone carver in Germany with a 16th-century Italian sculptor-painter-poet, a 17th-century Dutch portraitist, and a 19th-century composer, men who had (as the mythic narratives held) mastered their skills precociously, grown frustrated by the limits of contemporary tastes and patronage practices, and then shattered conventional modes of art making by developing deeply expressive personal styles. Lateness could also refer to a Zeitgeist, sometimes recognized at the time and sometimes only in retrospect. A famous anecdote tells of ­Beethoven ripping up the first page of the Eroica, then called the Bonaparte, when he learned that Napoleon had crowned himself emperor in 1804; here, the artist’s wish was to disassociate his work from the rise of empire, not to claim it.9 Working in a relatively provincial cathedral in central Germany, the Naumburg Master probably knew little about the goings-on of the imperial family at their home base in Sicily.10 But the ponderousness of the figures’ drapery constructions, the gravity of the faces, and the agitation of some of their movements lent themselves well to being associated with a moment of impending doom, the end of an age.

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8 9 10

In keeping with the “end of an era” represented by the fall of Frederick II, Pinder writes, “Es geht aus der Wirklichkeit in das Bildhafte über, die Kunst fängt den letzten Schimmer der scheidenden Ritterzeit im Spiegel auf”; the Naumburger Meister was “Künder des Unterganges” (Der Naumburger Dom, p. 38). Beenken and Pinder were both affiliated with the Nazi party. But their romanticized view of the Meister was shared by less politically committed German art historians such as Georg Dehio. Mathew, “History Under Erasure,” p. 19. For the surprising lack of visibility of Frederick in Germany, see Willibald Sauerländer, “Two Glances from the North: The Presence and Absence of Frederick II in the Art of the Empire; The Court Art of Frederick II and the opus francigenum,” in Intellectual Life at the Court of Frederick II Hohenstaufen, ed. William Tronzo, Studies in the History of Art 44 (Washington, D.C., 1994), pp. 189–209.

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Now the idea of art in the 1240s and ’50s representing a decline and fall— not in quality but in mood or spirit—is specific to the story of art in the Holy Roman Empire, and it shines a light on how contingent and relative the idea of ‘lateness’ is. The collapse of the Staufen era in German-speaking lands came at the height of Louis IX’s power in France; one would be hard-pressed to imagine that the age of the Sainte-Chapelle was one of decline. (It is important to recall, though, that a sense of lateness, senility, and decay was pervasive in some medieval writers’ reflections on their own time, and not only during what we recognize as a late period. C. Stephen Jaeger has shown that many of the star representatives of what we’ve been accustomed to call “the 12th-­ century Renaissance” were in fact quite glum about the standing of their own time vis-à-vis antiquity and even the recent past.)11 In art history, lateness is as much a spatial construct as it is a temporal one. The case of the Naumburg west choir remains instructive here; whereas earlier scholars (not only during the Nazi period) focusing on its local, central-­German aspects tended to define it as spätstaufisch (late Staufen-era), spätromanisch (late Romanesque), or frühgotisch (specifically, the Saxon version of early Gothic), the present generation has positioned the building firmly within the canon of Gothic (read: High Gothic) art and transformed the Naumburg ­Master from a grouchy elder German into an energetic, broad-minded E­ uropean, if not specifically French, artist.12 11 12

See C. Stephen Jaeger, “Pessimism in the Twelfth-Century ‘Renaissance’,” Speculum 78, no. 4 (2003): 1151–83. The case of the Naumburg west choir is admittedly tricky; although the architecture and sculpture seem to have different periodizations, with the architecture looking “early” and the sculpture looking “High” Gothic, the structure rose as an integrated unit within a single decade. (The nave to which it was attached is unambiguously early in style and chronology.) For problems of region-specific terminology, see Martin Gosebruch, “Von der Verschiedenheit der Vorbilder in der sächsichen Kunst der Frühgotik,” Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 16 (1977): 9–26; Willibald Sauerländer, “Spätstaufische Skulpturen in Sachsen und Thüringen: Überlegungen zum Stand der Forschung,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 41 (1978): 181–216; Ernst Schubert, “Zur Architektur und Skulptur der Frühgotik in Mitteldeutschland: Erwägungen über dem Begriff mitteldeutsche Frühgotik,” in Regionale, nationale und internationale Kunstprozesse: IV. Jahrestagung des Jenaer Arbeitskreises für Ikonographie und Ikonologie, ed. Friedrich Möbius (Jena, 1983), pp. 82–95. In 1977, the Naumburg donor figures (as plaster casts) were featured in the blockbuster exhibition Die Zeit der Staufer: Geschichte, Kunst, Kultur held at the Württembergisches Landesmuseum (and commemorated in a five-volume eponymous catalogue edited by Reiner Haussherr). In 2011, they were the center of another huge exhibition held in Naumburg titled Der Naumburger Meister: Bildhauer und Architekt im Europa der Kathedrale; the two-volume catalogue, edited by Hartmut Krohm and Holger Kunde (Petersberg, 2011), positioned these works alongside all the greatest hits of French

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Already in 1966, Jan Białostocki’s seminal study on the concept of late Gothic, whose lessons reverberate through the present book, made clear how labile this designation has been in its uses since the 19th century and how far beyond simple chronology its implications reached.13 The late Gothic (or its broader cultural umbrella, the late medieval) still lacks the kind of cohesiveness that late antiquity, as a period characterized by diversity and change, has assumed in the wake of Peter Brown’s great contributions.14 ‘Lateness’ in the literature on medieval architecture might signal decline, decay, and senility on the one hand; frivolity, decadence, and exuberance on the other. Both strands could converge in the idea of hysteria or shrillness—visual excess and extravagant displays of virtuosity as symptoms of cultural decline, a last desperate gasp at vitality before collapse. (Scholars of Hellenistic art will see much that is familiar here.) Late Gothic could signal a push into bold experimentation or a retreat into repetition, an alignment with the Renaissance or with the Baroque.15 These contrasts and ambivalences in the term’s associations with regard to architecture apply to sculpture as well: ‘late Gothic’ in this domain encompasses the explosion of little figures that came to populate the intricate multicompartmented carved retables made in the Netherlands as well as the bombastic, larger-than-life figures that loomed over the celebrant in German and Central European altarpieces.16 It is an art of extremes, where the cute and the grisly, the fluttering and the ponderous, the garishly colored and the coolly ­monotone

13 14 15 16

Gothic architecture and sculpture. The popular press was quick to announce: “Der große deutsche Meister ist Franzose” (Stuttgarter Zeitung, 8 June 2011, https://www.stuttgarter -zeitung.de/inhalt.ausstellung-zum-naumburger-dom-der-grosse-deutsche-meister-ist -ein-franzose.97d91691-a763-450a-9b75-325d61b97655.html). But among scholars there is still no agreement on how many masters were involved in the design and execution, let alone who they were; see Marc Carel Schurr, “Zu wievielt war der ‘Naumburger Meister’? Überlegungen zu Stil und Medialität des Naumburger Westchors,” in Krohm and Kunde (eds), Der Naumburger Meister, vol. 3 (conference proceedings, 2013), pp. 474–87. Jan Białostocki, “Late Gothic: Disagreements about the Concept,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 29 (1966): 76–105. See Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity: From Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad (CE 150–750) (London, 1989). For an effort to render late Gothic more legible on its own terms, see the important book by Stefan Bürger, Fremdsprache Spätgotik: Anleitungen zum Lesen von Architektur (­Weimar, 2017). See Brigitte d’Hainaut-Zveny, ed., Miroirs du sacré: Les retables sculptés à Bruxelles XV e– XVIe siècles; Production, formes et usages (Brussels, 2005); Rainer Kahsnitz, Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria, and South Tirol (Los Angeles, 2006); Katherine M. Boivin, Riemenschneider in Rothenburg: Sacred Space and Civic ­Identity in the Late Medieval City (University Park, 2021).

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coexist and often compete.17 We find similar contrasts in the relatively new media of panel painting and prints, accompanied by the same scholarly ambivalence over whether to give pride of place to the more t­ radition-bound or more progressive aspects of these arts, as evident in the 2021 exhibition at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin called Spätgotik: Aufbruch in die Neuzeit (Late Gothic: The Birth of Modernity).18 The push and pull in scholarly discourse that the present volume both reflects on and enacts, while making clear that there is no onesize-fits-all model for understanding the ­artfully shaped products and environments of the fecund 14th through 16th centuries, may lead us to conclude that this oscillation itself is, in fact, a hallmark of the period. In their weird fusions and juxtapositions; their ­promiscuous borrowings, ­adaptations, and innovations; their winking play with mediums and embrace of diverse historical referents, the buildings explored in the present volume seem to have leapfrogged across the modern—so well heralded by the clean lines, visual coherence, and ready theorizability of Renaissance ­classicism19—into postmodern terrain. (As readers of this volume will know, this leap I am projecting here is complicated by what Marvin Trachtenberg has shown to be the modernist tendencies inherent to Gothic design – the self-aware break with the past, the brash display of structural dynamics, and so forth.20 It seems that Gothic twists away whenever we try to pin it down into categories.) ‘Lateness’ (like ‘post-’) is, in any case, a relational term. When applied strictly to chronology, it makes sense; a church built with pointed arches and rib vaults in the 16th century rose under very different technical and social conditions than one made in the 12th, and it should not be expected to look just the same. When applied to style, the term stands on shakier ground. This is not just because the old biological model of artistic and cultural development as a kind of individual life-cycle, in which style follows a predictable path from youth to maturity to senescence, has long fallen by the wayside. It is also because medieval European architecture itself—particularly the pointed arch, rib vaulted, modular style that emerged in the mid-12th century, to which we have given 17 18 19

20

These contrasts are prominent in the book by Gregory Bryda, The Trees of the Cross: Wood as Subject and Medium in the Art of Late Medieval Germany (New Haven, 2023). See Julien Chapuis, ed., Late Gothic: The Birth of Modernity (Ostfildern, 2021). Robert Bork makes a powerful case for classical (and classicizing) architecture’s ability to be circumscribed and theorized in language as a means of its ultimate success vis-à-vis Gothic’s more ad hoc nature, as a mode developed through conversation and workshop know-how: Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception (Turnhout, 2018). Marvin Trachtenberg, “Suger’s Miracles, Branner’s Bourges: Reflections on ‘Gothic ­Architecture’ as Medieval Modernism,” Gesta 39, no. 2 (2000): pp. 183–205.

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the already anachronistic name ‘Gothic’—refuses to obey such categorical demands. Even within the broadly defined High Gothic terrain, from which ‘late Gothic’ is imagined to have grown, there are internal categories: the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, and Amiens, whose experimental designs, rooted in an orderly geometry and system of proportions, display a ‘Platonic clarity and beauty,’21 formed a kind of classical moment in the first half of the 13th century. Its basic elements expanded and crystallized to form the more complex, brittle, and regimented constructions of the Rayonnant style in the middle decades, which in turn morphed into exuberant variants at the end of the century as the style was adopted in different regions: the Flamboyant in France, Decorated style in England, Hochgotik in German-speaking lands.22 The paradigmatic ‘classic’ buildings drew on the experiments with pointed arches, new vaulting systems, and enlarged windows in the chevet and western block of Saint-Denis and the cathedrals of Laon, Senlis, Soissons, and others, which in turn have been designated early Gothic.23 Of course, already in this highly simplified list we see spillovers – the chevet and western end of Saint-Denis are early and the middle is Rayonnant (thus, in-between High and late); the western block of 21 22

23

As per Stephen Murray on the lucid geometrical underpinnings of Amiens Cathedral, in the video The Amiens Cathedral Trilogy, Part II: Revelation (1996), https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=Q4e6tGKyeus (last accessed 29 July 2022). This is obviously a highly simplified overview. For the ‘classic’ as standard-setting, see Hans Jantzen, High Gothic: The Classic Cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, and Amiens (first translated edition published in 1962; Princeton, 1984). These buildings were central to the influential analyses by Erwin Panofsky, Hans Sedlmayr, and Otto von Simson. The complexity of classification, and particularly the brevity of the ‘classical’ moment, becomes eminently clear in Paul Frankl, Gothic Architecture, revised by Paul Crossley (New Haven, 2000), which takes a very liberal view of High Gothic (1194–1300) and is unusual for continuing into the later centuries and including buildings beyond France; see also Christopher Wilson, The Gothic Cathedral: The Architecture of the Great Church, 2nd ed. (London, 2005), which contrasts the brief, experimental phase of classic Gothic with the longer-lived Rayonnant. For the challenges of defining the transition from High to Late Gothic, see The Year 1300 and the Creation of a New European Architecture, ed. Zoë Opačić and Alexandra Gajewski (Turnhout, 2008). See Jean Bony, French Gothic Architecture of the 12th and 13th Centuries (Berkeley, 1983); and Dieter Kimpel and Robert Suckale, Die gotische Architektur in Frankreich, 1130–1270 (Munich, 1985), which stops with the death of Louis IX. When I began studying Gothic I was perplexed by how so many survey books focused almost exclusively on France, but recognize now that it’s not just because of the interest in origins but also because the contemporary works made in England, Germany, Spain, and Italy don’t fit into the same developmental narrative. Compare Paul Binski, Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England, 1170–1300 (New Haven, 2004), and idem, Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice, and the Decorated Style, 1290–1350 (New Haven, 2014); and Norbert Nussbaum, German Gothic Church Architecture (New Haven, 2000).

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Chartres, salvaged from the mid-12th-century edifice, is early, though its north spire is very late. Moreover, even if the buildings’ strictly architectural components— the spatial envelopes that yielded such brilliant analyses from Jean Bony, Henri Focillon, Hans Jantzen, Erwin Panofsky, Hans Sedlmayr, and Otto von ­Simson24—fell smoothly into one or another subgroup, it is crucial to remember that, in most cases, their designers and workers, clergy and noble patrons, and pilgrims and curious townsfolk would never have seen them in a finished, fully accessible, visually cohesive form. Scaffolding would have been a constant presence inside and outside the buildings, and with it, at least during daylight hours, the clatter and thump of manual labor.25 The more or less obtrusive electric lighting in these spaces today, with hanging lamps often positioned evenly throughout the main spaces, radically changes the visual experience of the buildings. To be sure, they enable us to notice aspects of the architectural detailing that might otherwise fall into shadows, but by creating abrupt points of harsh light within the diffuse interiors they prevent our eyes from adapting naturally to the dimness and perceiving the building’s self-generated focal points.26 Without the staccato impingement of evenly distributed artificial lights, people could attend more readily to the flow of architectural forms and to the shifting light effects of the stained glass, as colors become more or less pronounced over the course of the day (or season); it would have been easier, too, to mark the shifts in the building’s devotional and liturgical life, as the glow of candles and oil lamps attested to the undulating importance of particular altars, shrines, and tombs throughout the year.27 Along with such 24 Bony, French Gothic Architecture; Henri Focillon, The Art of the West in the Middle Ages, ed. Jean Bony (London, 1969); Jantzen, High Gothic; Erwin Panofsky, Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (New York, 1957); Hans Sedlmayr, Die Entstehung der Kathedrale (Zurich, 1950); Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the ­Medieval Concept of Order (Princeton, 1988). 25 The messy process is acknowledged by Bürger, Fremdsprache Spätgotik; Nicola ­Coldstream, Medieval Architecture (Oxford, 2002). 26 I thank Rob Bork for helping me better articulate this perennial pet peeve. For lighting practices through time, see D. R. Dendy, The Use of Lights in Christian Worship (London, 1959). 27 For changing colors in stained glass, see Madeline H. Caviness, “Stained Glass Windows in Gothic Chapels and the Feasts of the Saints,” in Kunst und Liturgie im Mittelalter. Akten des internationalen Kongresses der Biblioteca Hertziana und des Nederlands Instituut te Rome, 28.–30. September 1997, ed. Nicolas Bock, Sible de Blaauw, Christoph Luitpold Frommel, and Herbert Kessler (Munich, 2000), pp. 135–148. Some fascinating experiments with reconstructing stained-glass light effects digitally have been presented by Niranjan Thanikachalam et al., “VITRAIL: Acquisition, Modelling, and Rendering of Stained Glass,” IEEE Transactions on Image Processing (2016): 1–14.

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ethereal conditions that created shifting forms of fragmentation and unity within the Gothic interior we must also consider material ones: the presence of the choir screen (jubé) that marked the choir as an especially sacred precinct, focalizing the high altar through the frame of its door(s) for people outside; multiple altars, with their sundry accoutrements that formed devotional zones in the aisles, nave, and chapels; textiles suspended against walls, around altars, or across piers to provide insulation, decoration, and acoustic containment, along with marking thresholds; and tombs and other signs of the continued presence of the dead.28 Let us remember how quickly the ‘classic’ cathedrals were physically altered to make such ephemeral fragmentation and multiplication of spaces permanent, such as when the exterior spaces between the lower buttresses were screened with traceried windows and thus folded into the body of the church interior as discrete chapels lining the side aisles.29 How flexible Gothic design was in its modularity and repetition, its fluid spatial arrangements! Think of how graciously the chevets of Notre-Dame in Paris, Amiens, and Chartres accommodate the lateral enclosures (clôtures) that came to frame their choirs in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, respectively, and how attuned those later designers were to the existing structures and the patterns of movement and devotional practice that animated them (Figure 13.2).30 As 28

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Paul Crossley, “Ductus and memoria: Chartres Cathedral and the Workings of Rhetoric,” in Rhetoric Beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, ed. Mary Carruthers (Cambridge, UK, 2010), pp. 214–49; Jacqueline E. Jung, The Gothic Screen: Space, Sculpture, and Community in the Cathedrals of France and Germany, ca.1200–1400 (Cambridge, UK, 2013); Justin Kroesen, Seitenaltäre in mittelalterlichen Kirchen: Standort, Raum, Liturgie (Regensburg, 2010); and, for a later but instructive case, Gerhard Weilandt, Die Sebalduskirche in Nürnberg: Bild und Gesellschaft im Zeitalter der Gotik und Renaissance (Petersberg, 2007). For the temporalities of late medieval buildings in Italy, see Marvin Trachtenberg, Building-in-Time from Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion (New Haven, 2010). For an overview of such features, see my “Liturgical Furnishings and Material Splendor in the Gothic Church,” in The Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity, 2 vols., ed. Richard Etlin (Cambridge and New York, 2022), vol. 1, pp. 420–33. See Michael T. Davis, “Splendor and Peril: The Cathedral of Paris, 1290–1350,” The Art Bulletin 80 (1998): 34–66; Mailan S. Doquang, “The Lateral Chapels of Notre-Dame in Context,” Gesta 50, no. 2 (2011): pp. 137–61; Maile S. Hutterer, Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture (University Park, 2020); Stephen Murray, Notre-Dame, Cathedral of Amiens: The Power of Change in Gothic (Cambridge, UK, 1996). See Davis, “Splendor and Peril”; Jung, Gothic Screen, pp. 112–16; Detlef Knipping, Die Chorschranke der Kathedrale von Amiens: Funktion und Krise eines mittelalterlichen Aus­ stattungstypus (Munich, 2001). New studies of the recently restored enclosures at Chartres are being led by Dr. Irène Jourd’heuil.

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Figure 13.2 Amiens Cathedral, south aisle of chevet, choir enclosure with Life of Saint Firmin, 1489–1532 source: J. E. Jung

we linger in the ambulatory at Notre-Dame to marvel with Thomas and Mary Magdalene at the presence of the resurrected Christ, or discover at Amiens the cathedral’s ­towers popping up behind the pagan judge who interrogates Saint Firmin (­Figure 13.3), or observe that the microarchitectural canopies framing the narratives of Christ’s life on the Chartres screen present variations on the new north tower erected there (Figures 13.4–13.5),31 do we still feel ourselves to be standing in the ‘classic’ cathedral—the harmonious edifice that visually expresses the logic of Scholastic dialogue (as per Panofsky), models the platonic harmony of the spheres (as per Von Simson), and brings to earth the glory of the Heavenly Jerusalem (as per Sedlmayr)? Or have we entered in the fragmented, unruly, endlessly surprising space of late Gothic? Interestingly, it might be our most familiar voice of the early Gothic who keys us into understanding this art writ large: recall that Abbot Suger described his experience of transcendence with his “many-colored stones” as an ascent not into a 31

For this point I am grateful to Robert Bork, who pointed out the affinities with Jean de Beauce’s spire during our visit to the cathedral in June. For the play of motifs between the Amiens screen reliefs and the 13th-century building, see Stephen Murray, Notre-Dame of Amiens: Life of a Cathedral (New York, 2021).

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Figure 13.3 Amiens Cathedral, south choir enclosure, detail of scene of the Arrest of Saint Firmin, with background painting showing the cathedral’s west façade source: J. E. Jung

lofty zone of pure transcendence but into a “region of the universe that exists ­neither entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of heaven”— one that is “strange” or foreign (extranea).32 From our vantage point today, it is clear that the paradigm of a harmonious, balanced, and cohesive classic Gothic architecture, epitomized by a handful of 13th-century buildings in northern France, is what no less an authority than Willibald Sauerländer called a scholarly Wunschbild (roughly: wishful thinking)—the creation of a generation of brilliant European art historians, many displaced from their home countries, who sought in the medieval past a vision of order, rationality, and transcendence that two World Wars had so catastrophically shattered.33 This is not to deny the order and clarity that does objectively undergird the designs of these buildings: the lucid geometry of the Amiens ground plan, the elegant alignment of chapels around the chord of the apse at Saint-Denis, and the comforting repetition of bays at Chartres and Reims are foundational to their aesthetic and impact, as are the awesome 32 33

Erwin Panofsky, ed., Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures, 2nd ed., ed. Gerda Panofsky-Soergel (Princeton, 1979), pp. 62–65. Willibald Sauerländer, “Gothic: The Dream of an Un-Classical Style,” in Gothic: Art and Thought in the Later Medieval Period, ed. Colum Hourihane (University Park, 2011), pp. 7–13.

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Figure 13.4 Chartres Cathedral, south choir enclosure with scene from the Life of the Virgin and view of north clerestory windows. Sculptures by Jean Soulas and microarchitecture by Jean de Beauce, 1519–21. Note the tall openwork spires that canopy the reliefs, which present variations on the theme of the building’s new north spire source: J. E. Jung

Figure 13.5 Chartres Cathedral, view of building from northwest, featuring the northern spire by Jean de Beauce, ca. 1507–13 source: J. E. Jung

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upward-­lifting dynamics of their elevations.34 And they surely stood out as signs of permanence, order, and coherence within the cluttered and labile topography of their urban environments (as they do today). The logic and clarity of their designs, however, may be much easier to ­discern in the ways we modern scholarly observers have learned to see and make sense of them above all through the mediation of photographs—which preferentially show the building interiors devoid of visitors and uncluttered by liturgical or devotional paraphernalia—and, more recently, in digital models or scans.35 Such media allow us to see the buildings in a way that may indeed be true to what the buildings objectively are, as architectural shells laid out and executed in specific ways by master designers, but precisely by offering neat, totalizing views, they mute the thrill of the fragmented spaces, the sudden vistas, the sometimes smooth and sometimes jarring shifts of scale and perspective, the attraction of the many wonderful things in the side aisles and chapels that comprise the experience of walking through the church. It’s easy (for this reader, at least) to laugh at the eccentric descriptions of Notre-Dame in Paris by Jean de Jandun (ca.1285–1328) and Guillebert de Metz (ca.1360– 1449), who gasp at the church’s great height, elegant layout, and number and size of columns but then leap around from one part of the structure to another, pointing our attention to other marvels such as relics, huge statues, and bells.36 But what if we take them seriously as indicators of what might have been a normative mode of viewing (at least outside of the liturgy): one that celebrated the manifold, the partial, the extravagant, and the surprising within the stately 34 35

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See Murray, Notre-Dame, Cathedral of Amiens; Robert Bork, Geometry of Creation: ­ rchitectural Drawing and the Dynamics of Gothic Design (Farnham, 2011). A Many of the now-classic photographs through which midcentury scholars developed their ideas about the logic of Gothic design were made by German photographers during the occupation of France and showed the buildings in a maximally empty state (even, in the case of Chartres, with the stained glass replaced by clear panes); see Jacqueline E. Jung, “The Work of Gothic Sculpture in the Age of Photographic Reproduction,” in The Lives and Afterlives of Medieval Iconography, ed. Pamela A. Patton and Henry D. Schilb (University Park, 2021), pp. 161–99. See Robert W. Berger, ed., In Old Paris (New York, 2002), pp. 7–9, 25–26; Erik Inglis, “Gothic Architecture and a Scholastic: Jean de Jandun’s ‘Tractus de Laudibus Parisius’ (1323),” Gesta 42 (2003): 63–85; Michael T. Davis, “Cathedral, Palace, Hôtel: Architectural Emblems of an Ideal Society,” in Arts of the Medieval Cathedrals: Studies in Architecture, Stained Glass, and Sculpture in Honor of Anne Prache, ed. Kathleen D. Nolan and Dany Sandron (Farnham, 2015), pp. 28–45. These descriptions have much in common with how tourists today engage with Gothic spaces: at Strasbourg Cathedral, for example, visitors crowd the south transept to watch the workings of the 16th-century mechanical clock but completely ignore the Pillar of Angels in the center of the space—a singular fusion of architecture and sculpture from the 13th century.

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regularity of the church’s Gothic body? The manuscript illuminators studied by Maile Hutterer in this book, who took such liberties with existing structures, confirm that medieval beholders knew that these buildings were hardly stable entities; churches were being continually rethought and amended, inside and out—updated to suit new tastes, expanded to serve new devotional needs, upgraded to solve structural problems—throughout their first centuries of existence. Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc’s interventions in the 19th century famously and explicitly sought to freeze Notre-Dame and other buildings in an idealized Gothic state that they had never known.37 The terms ‘lateness’ and ‘modernity’ suggest a contrast with or cleavage from something prior on a straight line of development—on the one hand, an adherence to, but dwindling away of, the standards set by the earlier ideal (the High, particularly the moment thought of as classic) and, on the other hand, a jump forward to something new and different (the modern, specifically embodied, in our cases, by the return to classicizing forms in the Renaissance). But in order for us to see the ‘classic’ cathedrals of the 13th century as such, we need (wittingly or not) to undertake imaginatively what ­Viollet-le-Duc did in practice, by filtering out the many later components and furnishings that those buildings came to embrace, and that gave them new life and continued ­relevance for their communities.38 People in those medieval communities broke the rules by which we define the High or the classic Gothic style all the time; the boundaries between High and late were fluid, if they existed at all.39 Surely no one in Chartres was happy to see the original wooden spire of the cathedral’s north tower collapse when it was struck by lightning in 1506, but when Jean de Beauce added his delicate Flamboyant construction to replace it in the following years, the resulting stylistic disjunction was not a problem (Figure 13.5); if the complex forms of the new spire departed drastically from the simple contours of its companion (and its own predecessor), they would soon be drawn into dialogue with the microarchitectural frame of the 37

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For an interesting analysis of Viollet-le-Duc’s approach, see David Spurr, Architecture and Modern Literature (Ann Arbor, 2012), pp. 142–61, esp. 148. For a vivid demonstration of the continual flux of the Parisian cathedral’s construction, see Dany Sandron and Andrew Tallon, Notre Dame Cathedral: Nine Centuries of History (University Park, Pennsylvania, 2020). Putting these elements back together is what Murray seeks to do in Notre-Dame of Amiens—a practice Willibald Sauerländer called for years ago in his critical review of Jean Bony’s French Gothic Architecture, “Mod Gothic,” New York Review of Books 31, no. 7 (November 1984): 43–45. For the regular blurring of times in the later Middle Ages, see Alexander Nagel and ­Christopher S. Wood, Anachronic Renaissance (New York, 2010).

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choir enclosure. And we cannot forget about cases such as the cathedrals of Rouen and Troyes, where exuberant late Gothic facades came to be appended to 13th-century (High Gothic) edifices. Such later additions could create new kinds of ­cohesion, new forms of order, albeit ones that diverge from 20th-­ century art historians’ yearning for wholeness and consistency. What we see in many Gothic cathedrals is an appreciation of order, logic, and skill but also of richness, diversity, and variety of visual and spatial experience, aspects of medieval aesthetic culture about which Paul Binski, Mary Carruthers, and others have taught us so much.40 A zest for varietas was not a hallmark only of the later Middle Ages. Even on the resplendent west façade of Reims Cathedral, which for architecture historians is a paragon of High Gothic symmetry and integration (Figure 13.6), we find evidence of an embrace of the mismatched. As is well known, the portals are inhabited by sculptures fashioned in several campaigns from the early through the middle of the 13th century but put in place only in the second half of the century.41 Installation marks on the backs of the statues indicate that some key figures were transposed. Specifically, the gracious smiling angel who now greets the annunciate Virgin on the center portal was marked for placement on the left jamb of the north portal, where he would have joined his near-identical twin as a heavenly escort for Saint Nicaise; meanwhile, the svelte angel of the north portal should have stood with Mary on the center portal, forming an at least partly classicizing pendant to the Visitation Group (Figure 13.7).42 In light of the ­difficulty of affixing these enormous figures into their jambs, it is unlikely that this switch, which affected the central point of entrance to the church, was the result of an accident – nor does it have any iconographical consequence. This seems to have been an aesthetic choice on the part of the High Gothic design team, evidence of a wish to avoid the more obvious balance and symmetry that the original plan would have created. Perhaps we should see in the diverse array of artistic styles represented in the most prominent entryway to the great coronation cathedral not just evidence of the multiple workshops active here over several decades (which it certainly was) but also a celebration 40

Paul Binski, “Reflections on the ‘Wonderful Height and Size’ of Gothic Great Churches and the Medieval Sublime,” in Magnificence and the Sublime in Medieval Aesthetics: Art, Architecture, Literature, Music, ed. C. Stephen Jaeger (New York, 2010), 129–56; Mary ­Carruthers, The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 2013). 41 The chronology of the west façade’s construction is still debated; a compelling case for a late date is made by Peter Kurmann, La façade de la cathédrale de Reims: Architecture et sculpture des portails (Lausanne, 1987). For the style and installation of the figures, see also Fabienne Joubert, La sculpture gothique en France, XIIe–XIIIe siècles (Paris, 2008). 42 Joubert, La sculpture gothique, pp. 178–94.

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Figure 13.6 Reims Cathedral, west façade, ca. 1230–80, photographed in June 2022 source: J. E. Jung

of the varied, the surprising, the unruly. These are aspects of Gothic that may be just as ­foundational as order and symmetry—rather like Villard de Honnecourt’s wonderful figural constructions, whose elegant geometrical matrices undergird lively poses of people fighting or animals prancing. The buildings typically characterized as High Gothic represent a small proportion of the churches that were erected in Europe from the 12th century

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Figure 13.7 Reims Cathedral, west façade, sculptures from ca. 1220–40. The upper image shows the right jamb of the center portal with the Annunciation and Visitation; the lower one shows the left jamb of the north (left) portal, with Saint Nicaise flanked by angels. Marks on their backs indicate that the angels at the far left-hand side of each group should be standing in the other’s position, but the installers transposed them source: J. E. Jung

onward; in the standard chronology based on French architecture, early and High Gothic together comprise just about a hundred years, from the west front

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of Saint-Denis (1135) to the completion of Chartres and the foundational work at Reims and Amiens (ca.1235). The ensuing Rayonnant style, with which this volume’s range of studies begins, extended through the end of the 14th century and radiates, like the forms for which it is named, into various parts of Europe, and it is this style, which is at once more exuberant, (in some cases) more a­ cademic, and more prone to regional and institutional variations than the experimental ‘classic’ cases, that was further adapted into the wide array of types that fall under the rubric of ‘late Gothic.’ The late Gothic mode that prevailed in ecclesiastical, civic, and private buildings in Europe and became part of the Christian idiom of conquest in lands across the Atlantic, flourished until the middle of the 16th century; if we include the 14th century (the bulk of the Rayonnant style) under this umbrella, the ‘late’ overwhelms the ‘early’ and ‘High’ periods by far.43 As Paul Niell’s contribution reminds us, the Gothic mode can be seen to live even longer if we look to colonial Latin America, where it was hardly ‘late’ but rather novel, and longer still if we take into account the many instantiations of the Gothic all over the world in modern times.44 Leaving aside the old, often nationalistically inflected notion of this late style as senile, decaying, or degenerate—a characterization impossible to maintain in light of the scholarship in this book, and in contributions by Robert Bork, Nicola Coldstream, Ethan Matt Kavaler, Linda Neagley, Marvin Trachtenberg, and others45—we should recognize the positive qualities these case studies unfold. We see these buildings emerge as playful, flexible, dynamic, and innovative, even when working with established formulas. They are often tricksters, full of surprises, strange juxtapositions, and transmogrifications. Their makers and patrons took up the tool kit of forms and structures their predecessors had developed—the pointed arch, rib vaulting, tall proportions, luminous walls, complex traceries—with enough confidence to play with them, multiplying lines and angles, enhancing or compressing volumes, and adding imported elements (Islamicate, classical) when desired, mutating media (making a written prayer part of the stonework, simulating rope or tree branches in 43 44

For a rich discussion of periodization, see Bork, Late Gothic Architecture. Along with the vast array of buildings covered by Frankl (rev. by Crossley) in Gothic ­Architecture, by Bürger in Fremdsprache Spätgotik, and by the authors of this volume, see the list of papers presented at the international conference on Gothic Modernisms (Amsterdam, 29–30 June 2017), which cover the globe up into the 21st century, detailed in ArtHist.net, 8 February 2017, https://arthist.net/archive/14733 (accessed 18 July 2022). 45 Bork, Late Gothic Architecture; Coldstream, Medieval Architecture; Kavaler, Renaissance Gothic; Linda Elaine Neagley, Disciplined Exuberance: The Parish Church of Saint-Maclou and Late Gothic Architecture in Rouen (University Park, 1998); Trachtenberg, Building-­InTime.

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stone), showing off their technical virtuosity and inventiveness. These buildings exceed any photographer’s totalizing gaze; they revel in partial views and raking angles, making viewers—and the scholars who seek to understand their chronologies—work hard to grasp them. The buildings examined by our authors do not comprise a unified corpus that tells a single story; the Gothic of the 14th through the 16th centuries is so diverse, so inconsistent, so linked to its distinctive settings that it cannot be encompassed in a single master narrative. Late Gothic is plastic, unruly, thrilling, queer.46 Casting a wide gaze, and setting these materials into contrast with their classical forebears and ­Renaissance successors—so regular, so calm, so bound to rules and theory—can’t we say the same of all Gothic architecture? Together and individually, the essays comprising this book have made me think about Gothic style, in general, less as a line moving across time—­ splintering from a concentration in northern France to sites all over Europe and beyond—and more as a spectrum, encompassing a range of formal options that shade into each other with more or less intensity at different points. A more material metaphor (and thus more helpful, to my mind) is a sound engineer’s mixing board, with rows of faders that one manipulates to make certain auditory components louder or softer.47 The Gothic mixing board doesn’t make value judgments, but it allows us to visualize the changing balances of elements—stretching the vaults upward here, thinning the walls there, multiplying the capitals atop the piers or dissolving them to nothing, amping up the Islamicate arch shapes here or the Renaissance pilasters there, or, every so often, just favoring a quiet balance of horizontals and verticals, lines and volumes, throughout the space. Certain clusters of buildings might share a certain look; the faders of Notre-Dame, Chartres, Reims, Amiens, and even Naumburg would hover more around the middle zone of the sliding scale, while those for Westminster Abbey and Prague Cathedral, the parish church of Notre-Dame in Caudebec-en-Caux, and the convent of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, as well as the churches and civic buildings in Poland, the Carpathian mountains, and Venetian Cyprus would rise and fall to very different levels. The Gothic mixing board has room for all.

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For the queerness of Gothic, see Matthew M. Reeve, Gothic Architecture and Sexuality in the Circle of Horace Walpole (University Park, 2020); for plasticity, I have been inspired by Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World (New York, 2020), esp. 10–11, though I use the term plasticity in a very different way to connote mutability in a freeing rather than a constraining sense. I thank Christopher Ranney and Joe Jung for giving me much experience in watching mixing boards in action.

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In the preface to his revised edition of Paul Frankl’s Gothic Architecture, the late and deeply lamented Paul Crossley remarked that “few would agree with Frankl that Late Gothic is more ‘Gothic’ than earlier stages of the style, and even fewer would subscribe to his notion that Late Gothic was a ‘correction’ of High Gothic, implying as this does that there was something missing or wrong with twelfth- or thirteenth-century architecture.”48 But in light of the fact that, as Frankl himself and, later, Białostocki showed, the contours of the terms ‘Gothic’ and ‘late Gothic’ have shifted dramatically throughout the several centuries of their use (and their edges remain slippery today), I think we should reconsider the utility of this distinction. We need not subscribe to a teleology that would make the later buildings a correction or improvement of earlier ones, just as we should not believe that the later ones represented a corruption or decay of the classic types. Gothic has so much room for play. And, as the essays in this volume suggest, Gothic has a vital place in the more expansive, globally interconnected art history toward which our field has moved. It is a style of building that carries old ideas with it, yet is endlessly open to formal adaptations and conceptual transformations when it encounters new makers and users. It lives on in college campuses and in spaces of worship from Hong Kong to Harlem; it yields new insights even in the process of damage and reconstruction, as the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris is teaching us. Even as ‘late’ as the present day, Gothic is hardly dead; it is full of life. May this volume inspire its readers to follow its pointed arches to all the times and places they lead. Acknowledgements For someone most at home in the 13th century and in the realm of figural arts, it’s both exhilarating and daunting to delve into the dizzying world of late medieval architecture with the learned scholars of this book. I am grateful to them for everything they have taught me, and to Alice Sullivan and Kyle Sweeney for inviting me to contribute some reflections from my oblique perspective. Fresh in my mind are the illuminating visits to Gothic sites in France I enjoyed with Robert Bork, Alan Carrillo, and Jennifer Feltman in early June 2022; they will see many echoes of our conversations in the following pages. Rob Bork generously helped me refine and sharpen this essay in crucial ways in its later stages, while Annika Fisher provided welcome copy-editing. Others who have 48 Frankl, Gothic Architecture, p. 18.

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contributed to my thinking here, in ways that might be surprising to them, are Gregory Bryda, David Cambronero Sanchez, Sonja Drimmer, Shirin Fozi, Lynn Jacobs, Ethan Matt Kavaler, Mitchell Merback, and Morgan Ng. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are by the author. Bibliography of Cited Sources Beenken, Hermann. Der Meister von Naumburg. Berlin, 1939. Berger, Robert W., ed. and trans. In Old Paris: An Anthology of Source Descriptions, 1323– 1790. New York, 2002. Białostocki, Jan. “Late Gothic: Disagreements about the Concept.” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 29 (1966): 76–105. Binski, Paul. Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England, 1170–1300. New Haven and London, 2004. Binski, Paul. “Reflections on the ‘Wonderful Height and Size’ of Gothic Great Churches and the Medieval Sublime.” In Magnificence and the Sublime in Medieval Aesthetics: Art, Architecture, Literature, Music, edited by C. Stephen Jaeger. pp. 129–56. New York, 2010. Binski, Paul. Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice, and the Decorated Style, 1290–1350. New Haven and London, 2014. Boivin, Katherine M. Riemenschneider in Rothenburg: Sacred Space and Civic Identity in the Late Medieval City. University Park, 2021. Bony, Jean. French Gothic Architecture of the 12th and 13th Centuries. Berkeley, 1983. Bork, Robert. Geometry of Creation: Architectural Drawing and the Dynamics of Gothic Design. Farnham, 2011. Bork, Robert. Late Gothic Architecture: Its Evolution, Extinction, and Reception. ­Turnhout, 2018. Brown, Peter. The World of Late Antiquity: From Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad (CE 150–750). London, 1989. Bryda, Gregory. The Trees of the Cross: Wood as Subject and Medium in the Art of Late Medieval Germany. New Haven, 2023. Bürger, Stefan. Fremdsprache Spätgotik: Anleitungen zum Lesen von Architektur. ­Weimar, 2017. Carruthers, Mary. The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages. Oxford, 2013. Caviness, Madeline H. “Stained Glass Windows in Gothic Chapels and the Feasts of the Saints.” In Kunst und Liturgie im Mittelalter. Akten des internationalen Kongresses der Biblioteca Hertziana und des Nederlands Instituut te Rome, 28.–30. September 1997, edited by Nicolas Bock, Sible de Blaauw, Christoph Luitpold Frommel, and Herbert Kessler, pp. 135–48. Munich, 2000.

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Chapuis, Julien, ed. Late Gothic: The Birth of Modernity. Ostfildern, 2021. Coldstream, Nicola. Medieval Architecture. Oxford, 2002. Crossley, Paul. “Ductus and memoria: Chartres Cathedral and the Workings of ­Rhetoric.” In Rhetoric Beyond Words: Delight and Persuasion in the Arts of the Middle Ages, edited by Mary Carruthers, pp. 214–49. Cambridge, UK, 2010. Davis, Michael T. “Splendor and Peril: The Cathedral of Paris, 1290–1350.” The Art Bulletin 80 (1998): 34–66. Davis, Michael T. “Cathedral, Palace, Hôtel: Architectural Emblems of an Ideal Society.” In Arts of the Medieval Cathedrals: Studies in Architecture, Stained Glass, and Sculpture in Honor of Anne Prache, edited by Kathleen D. Nolan and Dany Sandron, pp. 28–45. ­Farnham, 2015. Dendy, D.R. The Use of Lights in Christian Worship. London, 1959. D’Hainaut-Zveny, Brigitte, ed. Miroirs du sacré: Les retables sculptés à Bruxelles XVe–XVIe siècles. Production, formes et usages. Brussels, 2005. Doquang, Mailan S. “The Lateral Chapels of Notre-Dame in Context.” Gesta 50, no. 2 (2011): 137–61. Focillon, Henri. The Art of the West in the Middle Ages, edited by Jean Bony. London, 1969. Frankl, Paul. Gothic Architecture. Revised edition by Paul Crossley. New Haven, 2000. Gosebruch, Martin. “Von der Verschiedenheit der Vorbilder in der sächsischen Kunst der Frühgotik.” Niederdeutsche Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte 16 (1977): 9–26. Haussherr, Reiner, ed. Die Zeit der Staufer: Geschichte, Kunst, Kultur. Katalog der ­Ausstellung, Stuttgart. 1977. 5 vols. Stuttgart, 1977. Hutterer, Maile S. Framing the Church: The Social and Artistic Power of Buttresses in French Gothic Architecture. University Park, 2020. Inglis, Erik. “Gothic Architecture and a Scholastic: Jean de Jandun’s ‘Tractus de ­Laudibus Parisius’ (1323).” Gesta 42 (2003): 63–85. Jackson, Zakiyyah Iman. Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World. New York, 2020. Jaeger, C. Stephen. “Pessimism in the Twelfth-Century ‘Renaissance’.” Speculum 78, no. 4 (2003): 1151–83. Jantzen, Hans. High Gothic: The Classic Cathedrals of Chartres, Reims, and Amiens. Translated by James Palmes. Princeton, 1962. Reprint, Princeton, 1984. Joubert, Fabienne. La sculpture gothique en France, XIIe–XIIIe siècles. Paris, 2008. Jung, Jacqueline E. The Gothic Screen: Space, Sculpture, and Community in the ­Cathedrals of France and Germany, ca. 1200–1400. Cambridge, UK, 2013. Jung, Jacqueline E. “The Work of Gothic Sculpture in the Age of Photographic ­Reproduction.” In The Lives and Afterlives of Medieval Iconography, edited by Pamela A. Patton and Henry D. Schilb, pp. 161–99. University Park, 2021.

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Biblical Index Note: In this index, the Old Testament books are arranged according to the Septuagint. Old Testament  112, 250

Song of Songs  112, 114

Psalms  112

Wisdom of Solomon 11:20  227, 229

Job  121 Proverbs  112 Ecclesiastes (Qohelet)  112 24:15–17  112

Isaiah  112 Luke 1:26–38 (Annunciation) 258, 437, 439 1:39–56 (Magnificat; Visitation) 437, 439

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Index of Repositories: Archives, Libraries, and Museums Note: This index also registers exhibitions related to libraries and museums. Other exhibitions can be found in the Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia. Alcalá de Henares. Archivo General de la Administración (AGA) Fondo Ministerio de la Educación, IDD (05)014.002, Caja 31/08220, s/n (Mélida, sketch) 366 Auxerre. Bibliothèque Jacques Lacarrière (olim Bibliothèque Municipale) 142 (123) Gesta pontificum autissiodorensium 200 Barcelona. Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic im. 05685001, foto Mas C-42400 / 1924 (Alhambra, Cuarto Dorado) 377 Basel. Historisches Museum inv. 1981.88 (tapestry of 1468) 225–26 Berlin. Gemäldegalerie Jan Gossart, Neptune and Amphitrite 45 Jan van Eyck, Madonna in a Church 39, 41 Berlin. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Doorway from Strasbourg 217–18 Spätgotik Aufbruch in die Neuzeit (2021 exhibition) 24–25, 428 Bucharest. National History Museum inv. 72543 (gravestone of Stephen the Great) 299 Chantilly. Musée Condé Ms. 65 (Très riches heures of the Duke of Berry). Kórnik. Biblioteka Kórnicka Polskiej Akademii Nauk BK00630 (Vitruvius) 231 Litoměřice. Biskupství Litoměřické. Archive inv. 5094 (Klaudyán’s Map) 246–47

London. British Library Add MS 10546 (Moutier-Grandval Bible) 224 Kings MS 395 (Genealogy of Edward VI) 250 London. Victoria and Albert Museum Mudéjar plaster panel 379 Madrid. Museo del Romanticismo CE1570 (Pizarro y Librado, Ruinas de San Juan…) 362 Madrid. Museo Nacional del Prado inv. D005526 (Guas Juan, The Main Chapel of San Juan de los Reyes) 373–74, 380 inv. D006404/041-01 (Pizarro y Librado) 352 Mainz. Bischöfliches Dom- und Diözesanmuseum Figures from St. Emmeram 229 Milan. Biblioteca Ambrosiana Codex Atlanticus 225 New Haven. Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Oviedo y Valdés, Historia general 399 New York. Metropolitan Museum of Art Petrus Christus, The Annunciation 115 Oxford. Bodleian Library MS Top. Gen. c. 25 (Aubrey, Monumenta Britannica) 137 Palermo. Galleria Regionale della Sicilia Jan Gossart, Malvagna Triptych 125 Paris. Archives Nationales Minutier central, LXXIII, 53 (Marché de maçonnerie) 175

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Index of Repositories: Archives, Libraries, and Museums Paris. Bibliothèque nationale de France français 247 78 français 3860 (Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des maisons royalles…, 1681) 172 français 6465 (Grandes chroniques de France) 26, 73–104 français 19093 (Villard de Honnecourt, Livre de portraiture) 83 latin 10094-95 (Livre des Privilèges de l’église de Chartres) 75 latin 16489 (Nicolas de Biard) 278 Paris. Musée du Louvre Altarpiece from Gaillon 163 Jan van Eyck, Rolin Madonna 124 Statue of Louis XII 162 Ravenna. Museo Nazionale well head from the Camaldolensian Monastry in Classe 215 Rouen. Archives de la Seine-Maritime I F 28 (abbé Maurice, Caudebec) 107 2J 57/8 (inventory of Caudebec) 118 2J 57/16 (Caudebec Déliberations, 1674) 108, 119

455

2J 57/244 (Usage particulier de l’église de Caudebec, 1852) 108 2J 57/249 (Usage particulier de l’église Notre-Dame, Caudebec-en-Caux, 1852) 119 Rouen. Bibliothèque municipale fonds Montbret, MS Y 19 (Notes… HauteNormandie) 173–74 Stockholm. Nationalmuseum Cronstedt collection. Drawing of Gaillon 166 Stuttgart. Landesmuseum Württemberg Die Zeit der Staufer (1977 Exhibition) 426 Utrecht. Universiteitsbibliotheek I Nr 32 (Utrecht Psalter) 77 Vienna. Kunsthistorisches Museum Jan Gossart, Virgin and Child 126 Vienna. Kupferstichkabinett der Akademie der bildenden Künste 307 Drawing of St-Vitus Cathedral 272

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Note: In this index, emperors, kings and other rulers, and their wives have been entered under their first names. Proper names have been qualified in English (e.g. apostle, bishop, saint). Church items are included here, yet those that are kept in a repository appear in the Index of Repositories. à l’antique  14 A. G. Leventis Foundation  325 Aachen. Palatine Chapel  276 Abad Pérez, Antolín  351, 357, 359 Abelé, Christine  96 Abulafia, David  348 Ackerman, James S.  13, 279 Adalbert, saint  274 Adam  224, 250, 256, 258 Adamski, Jakub  13, 27, 183–210, 214, 298 Adhémar, Jean  154 Adorno, Theodor W.  8 Adriatic coast  292 Aerts, Willem  42 Africa (African)  29, 357, 397–98, 401, 409, 416, 418 North  365 West  29, 396–97, 401, 409–11, 413, 416, 418 See also slavery Agnetz. Parish church  193 Agosti, Barbara  171 Ainsworth, Maryan Wynn  125 Airvault. Church  406 Alamy(publications  134 Albarez, Marina, wife to Juan Guas  362 Alberti, Alessia  224 Alberti, Leon Battista  38, 49–50, 169, 253 Alberto Pio, prince of Carpi  165–66, 174 Albrecht, Stephan  325 Alcobaça. Cistercian Monastery  217 Alemar, Luis E.  403–6 Alençon. Notre-Dame Parish Church  123 Alexander I, voivode of Moldavia, cel bun  300 Alexander IV, voivode of Moldavia, Lăpușneanu  301 Alexander VI, pope  356 alfiz  402 Aljubarrota – battle (1385)  356

all’antica  321, 323, 328, 335 Almeida, Isabel Cruz  221 Alonso de Burgos, confessor of the Catholic Monarchs  372 Alonso Ruiz, Begoña  1, 42, 60, 221, 346, 350, 358, 369, 371, 373–75 Alsace  184, 197 Altman, Ida  403 Álvarez Mendizábal, Juan  361 Álvaro Zamora, María Isabel  60 Amadi, Francesco, Chronicle  329, 333 Amador de los Ríos, José  363–64 Amboise family  122 Amboise. Royal Château  14, 155–56, 160, 217 Amé, Émile  92, 94 American hemisphere  2, 25–26, 28–29, 60, 360, 395, 397, 401–2, 411 American Indigenous  29, 397–99, 401, 409, 411, 416, 418 Amiens. Cathedral  17–18, 96, 429, 431–33, 440–41 Anagnostopoulou, Demetra Theodotou  320 al-Andalus  349, 365, 383 Andersen, Hans Christian  351–52, 355, 361 Andes  418 Andreescu, Constantin I.  300 Andrew II, king of Hungary  290 angel  108, 115, 125, 220, 232, 273–74, 276, 437, 439 Angulo Íñiguez, Diego  395, 404, 409 Anne, queen of Bohemia and Hungary  251 Anne, duchess of Brittany  217, 221–22 Antiquity passim See also à l’antique; all’antica Antonio Astesano, Epistolae haeroicae  18 Antonio de Aranda  332 Antwerp. Cathedral (Church of Saint Mary)  42–43, 51, 56 apocalyptic prophecies  357 Apollidone Palace  176

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia apostles  92, 108, 174, 274, 334 Aquitaine  254 Arabic  131, 375 Arad (Romania)  291 Aragón  354, 356, 411 Aragonese-Sicilian  353 Arauz Mercado, Diana  353 Arawak language  397, 399 Arbel, Benjamin  316, 320 arch, pointed  14, 25, 36, 218, 231, 269, 292, 307, 396, 412, 428–29, 440, 442 archivolt  195, 325, 327–28 Argyrou, Christos  327 Ark of the Covenant  276 armillary sphere  221 Arnade, Peter  8–9, 56 Arnoul, archbishop of Reims  86 $$– deposition  89, 95 Aroye  409 arrabá  402 Arribas Arranz, Filemón  351, 358, 374, 380 Arslan, Edoardo  324 Art Resource  2, 84, 125–26 artesonado (coffered ceiling)  365, 378 Arts and Crafts Movement  142 Arvaniti, Smaragdi  323 Assas y Ereño, Manuel de  363–64 Assumption Feast  119 Atherton, Ian  146 Atlantic Ocean  1, 348, 397, 401, 405, 411, 418, 440 Attar, Francesco  333 Attegrene, John, the Younger, of Ely  148 Atterbury, Paul  52 Aubrey, John, antiquary  131, 137, 139 Augustinians  290 Auner, Carol  300 Austria  184–85, 291 Auvergne  195 Auxerre. Cathedral  200–1 See also Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorensium Avcıoğlu, Nebahat  317 Ave Maria  115 Avignon. Papal Palace  251 Ávila. Santa Cruz Monastery  372–73 Santo Tomás Church  373 Santo Tomás Dominican Convent  373 Avril, François  73, 80

457

Axis Alliance  370 Ayers, Tim  134 Azcárate, José María de  58, 349–52, 362–63, 369–71, 374–75, 380, 383 Babelon, Jean Pierre  14 Bacci, Michele  337 Bacon, Francis  137 Bad Doberan. Münster  294 Bad Zurzach. St. Verena Church  206 Baden-Württemberg  294 Baia (Suceava)  300 (Suceava). Cathedral  300 Dominican Church  300 Franciscan Church  300 Baia-Mare  295 Baker, Christopher  352 Balázs, Nagy  265 Balbale, Abigail Krasner  349, 405 Baldwin Lambert, bishop of Famagusta  329 Bale, Anthony  331 Balinghem – Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520)  141 Bálint, Agnes  297 Balkan Peninsula  247, 291 Balș, Gheorghe  303, 305, 307 Balș, Ștefan  301 Bałus, Wojciech  232 balustrade  105–30, 237, 241–42, 245, 253 Barbara von Breitenlandenberg  226 Barcelona  369 Bardati, Flaminia  14, 17, 27, 123, 153–80 Bardejov. Town Hall  219, 221 Barghaan, Uwe  408 Barnea, Ion  301 Barnes, Aneilya  328 Barnes, Carl F.  83 Barocchi, Paola  155 Baroque (rococo)  4, 9, 138, 427 Barrachina, Marie-Aline  371 Barthélémy, Virginie  250 Bartlová, Milena  267 Bartolini, Gabriella  334 Bartolomé de las Casas, dominican  401 Barton, Richard  76 Basel  225–26 Cathedral  271 Council (1439)  113 Bass, Marisa  45

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Batalha. Santa Maria da Vitória Abbey  45, 48, 224, 356 Batariuc, Paraschiva-Victoria  305 Bătrâna, Adrian  301, 303 Bătrâna, Lia  301, 303 Battista Vessentino, master in Moldavia  299 Baudoin, Jacques  114, 124 Bauhaus movement  56 Bavaria  289 Beatis, Antonio de  166, 169–70, 174 Beatrice d’Este, duchess of Bari and Milan  249, 253 Beaurepaire, Charles de Robillard de  13 Beauvais. Cathedral  13, 36–37, 42 Bechyně. Zámek (Castle). Tree Chamber  251–52, 258 Beck, Bernard  123, 159, 166 Bécquer, Gustavo Adolfo  361 Beenken, Hermann  423, 425 Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 (Eroica)  423–25 Belém. Jerónimos Monastery  42, 221, 408 Belgium (Belgian)  54–55, 60 Belozerskaya, Marina  50 Beltrami, Costanza  13, 28, 346–94, 400, 405 Beltrán Martínez, Antonio  380 Bembo, Zuan Matteo capitano of Famagusta  314, 327 Benedictines  290–92 Beneš Krabice of Weitmile, chronicler  264, 268, 274, 276 Benešovská, Klára  237, 242, 262, 266, 268–71, 275 Benito Pradillo, María Ángeles  374 Benoist, Luc  96 Berger, Robert W.  435 Berlanga de Duero. Colegiata  406 Berlin – fall of the Wall (1989)  59 Bernardo de Fossato  216 Bernstein, Meg  136 Bertaux, Émile  42, 364–65, 368 Bertelli, Carlo  275–76 Berza, Mihai  299 bestiary  156 Betjeman, John  143 Bettarini, Rosanna  155 Bevan, Bernard  375, 404–5 Bezold, Gustav von  186, 190 Białostocki, Jan  8–9, 36, 54, 58, 348, 427, 442

Bianca Maria Sforza  249 Biella (province)  166 Biertan (Birthälm). Church of the Virgin Mary  308–9 Binski, Paul  4, 17, 24, 37, 59, 144, 202, 223–24, 226, 278, 429, 437 Bistrița, Transylvania  290, 299 Bizoni, Bernardo  171 Bjurtström, Per  167 Black Death (Bubonic Plague)  37, 131–52 Bláhová, Marie  265, 274 Blair, Sheila  375 Blatná. Castle  251 Blick, Sarah  124 Blois. Château Royal  155, 160, 172 Bloom, Jonathan M.  349, 375 Bluet, master in Troyes  18 Boadas Llavat, Agustín  359 Bock, Nicolas  430 Boehm, Barbara Drake  22, 240 Boerner, Bruno  191, 272 Bohemia  8, 27, 184–85, 211, 237, 264–66, 268, 270, 274, 276, 294 Diet  239 Jagiellonian period  237, 239 southern  214, 219 See also Czech Republic bohío (buhio)  398–99, 413 Bohn, Babette  349 Boivin, Katherine M.  11, 427 Böker, Johann Josef  59, 271, 307 Boncompagno da Signa  199 Bond, Francis  53, 142–43, 145 Bonde, Sheila  259 Bönnen, Gerold  231 Bonnier, Xavier  160 Bonnin, Jean-Paul  330 Bony, Jean  37, 57, 59–60, 183, 188, 193–94, 429–30, 436 Bordeaux. Cathedral  195 Borger, Hugo  54 Borgolte, Michael  290 Bork, Robert  5, 9, 13, 17, 19, 22, 25–26, 36–70, 99–100, 114, 127, 183, 215, 221, 242, 259, 271, 336, 348, 375, 383, 428, 430, 432, 435, 440, 442 Borrás Gualis, Gonzalo  380 Bortolotti, Luca  171 Bos, Agnès  59, 98, 108, 122, 153, 162

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Bosnia  241, 245, 247 Bottineau-Fuchs, Yves  107 Bouet, Pierre  159 Bourbon family  360 Bourg-en-Bresse. Brou Monastery  121 Bourges. Cathedral  17–18, 165, 203 House of Jacques Cœur  121 Palatine chapel  94 Boyd, Carolyn P.  370 Brabant  369 Brabantine Florid Style  42, 55, 60 Brachmann, Christoph  184, 272 Braganza family  217 Bramante, Donato  50, 169, 216, 253 branchwork (astwerk; branch)  27, 216–17, 219–20, 222–24, 226, 231, 237, 239, 245, 248, 250–51, 253–56, 258, 398, 440 Brandis, Markus  50 Branner, Robert  57, 83, 183 Brașov  290, 292, 295, 309 Black Church (Virgin Mary Church)  225, 295–98, 305, 307 Bravermanová, Milena  270 Brehm, Anne-Christine  59 Breitling, Stefan  325 Bresc-Bautier, Geneviève  15, 162 Bressani, Martin  52 Breydenbach, Bernhard von, Travelogue  333–34 Bridge, Martin  351 Bristol. St. Mary Redcliffe Church  136, 298 Brittain-Catlin, Timothy  52 Brittany  221, 369 Brooks, George  299 Brown, Jonathan  400 Brown, Patricia Fortini  316–17, 319–21, 336 Brown, Peggy  100 Brown, Peter  427 Brown, R. A.  148 Brucculeri, Antonio  154 Brucher, Günter  191–92 Bruges – Exposition des primitifs flamands (1902)  55 Brunelleschi, Filippo  38, 42, 50, 155 Bruni, Franco  171 Brush, Kathryn  5, 21 Brussels  363 Bryda, Gregory  428 Bucher, François  9, 60, 114

459

Büchsel, Martin  230 Buczek, Anna  211 Buda  239, 242, 248, 254 Budapest. Mátyás-templom (Matthias Church; Church of Our Lady)  54, 305 Vajdahunyad Castle  54 Bues, Almut  232 Bugini, Mariaelena  162 Burckhardt, Jacob  54–55, 61 Bureš, Jaroslav  271 Bürger, Stefan  59, 183, 279, 427, 430, 440 Burgos  400, 408 Santa María Cathedral  121–23 Santa María Cathedral. Capilla del Condestable  400 Santa María Cathedral. Escalera Dorada  411 Burgundy (Burgundian)  55, 184, 200, 346 Buri, Anna Rapp  226 Burioni, Matteo  50 Burke, Peter  13, 61, 165 Burkhard of Hall, chronicler  201 Burns, Emily  384 Bury, John  371 Buskirk, Jessica  121 bust  172, 266–68, 270 Bustron, Florio  329, 336 buttress  25, 36–37, 83, 86, 90, 93, 97, 119, 132, 162, 195, 270, 275, 290, 294–95, 297, 301, 303, 305, 327, 406, 408, 431 Buyle, Marjan  60 Cabañas Bravo, Miguel  369 Cabezas Fontanilla, Susana  356 cabildos de naciones  410 Caen. Saint-Pierre Church  14 Calvelli, Lorenzo  316, 320, 330, 334 Cambridge. King’s College Chapel  135, 139 St. John’s College. Library  136 colleges  51 Campderá Gutiérrez, Beatriz I.  373 Campopiano, Michele  332 Câmpulung Muscel. Saint James the Great Church (Bărăția)  300–1 Canary Islands  408, 411, 413, 418 candelabra  14, 159, 162, 170 caney  398–99 canons regular (orders)  193, 290

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

canopy  156, 219, 222, 248–50, 253, 432–33 Cantatore, Flavia  373 Canterbury Cathedral  135, 138, 278 Trinity Chapel  21 Saint Augustin Abbey Church  202 Capetian Dynasty  75, 89, 98 capital (architecture)  21, 24, 160, 162, 170, 175, 184–85, 188, 194–95, 214, 216, 233, 321–22, 349, 375–77, 413, 441 Caporali, Giulio  334 Caproșu, Ioan  300 Carentan  13 Caribbean (Spanish Indies)  3, 29, 348, 357, 383, 397–98, 403, 408, 413, 417–19 Carlstrom, Bert  384 Carmelites  290 Carnelivari, Matteo  216 Carolingian  199, 224, 276 Carpathian Mountains  15, 28, 287–313, 441 Carpi  162, 172 Carrara, Eliana  335 Carrasco Manchado, Ana Isabel  356 Carrero Santamaría, Eduardo  373 Carriazo, Juan de Mata  352 Carrillo, Alan  442 Carrillo Calderero, Alicia  375 Carruthers, Mary  202, 431, 437 Cârța. Cistercian Monastery  291–92 carthusians  400 caryatid  123 Casaubon, Meric  137 Casimir IV Jagiellon, king of Poland  211, 224 Cassidy-Welch, Megan  334 Castiglione, Baldassare, Letter to Leo X  231 Castile  162, 172, 346, 348–49, 353–54, 369, 374, 380, 383, 411 Castilian language  355 Castille, Nicolas (Colin)  162 Castillo de Bobadilla, Jerónimo  417 Castriota, David  9 Castro, Américo  370 Catalan  215 Catherine, saint  108 Catholic League  107 Catholic Monarchs  1, 356, 359–61, 364–65, 367–68, 371–75, 378, 383, 400, 405, 413

Caudebec-en-Caux $$– Confraternity of the Saint-Sacrement  119 Grande rue  107, 118 Notre-Dame Parish Church  26, 105–30, 441 Parish deliberations (17th century)  119 English capture (1419)  107 Caumont, Arcisse de  3 Caveda y Nava, José  361 Caviness, Madeline H.  5, 430 Ceán Bermúdez, Juan Agustín  360, 363 Celtic  140 Cervantes, Miguel de, Don Quixote  191 Cesariano, Cesare  254 Cetatea Albă. Fortress  299 Chaline, Jean-Pierre  160 Châlons-en-Champagne. Notre-Dame-enVaux  96 Chamberlain, Robert S.  355 Chambiges, Martin, architect  18 Chambly. Parish Church  193 Chambord. Royal Château  155 Champagne  184 champenois Style  96 Chancel-Bardelot, Béatrice de  222 Chapelot, Odette  98 Chapuis, Julien  25, 428 Chareyron, Nicole  332 Charlemagne  276 coronation  82 Charles de Bourbon, Cardinal  170 Charles de Chaumont  167, 174 Charles II de Chaumont  157 Charles IV, emperor  27, 255, 262–66, 268, 273–79 Autobiography  265 Charles IV, king of France  99, 264 coronation  95 Charles V, emperor  368, 400 Charles V, king of France  80, 98 Charles VI, king of France  98 Charles VII, king of France  80 Charles VIII, king of France  13, 156, 217, 222 Charles, duke of Orléans  18 Charron, Pascale  222

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Chartres Notre-Dame Cathedral  13, 17–18, 21, 203, 429–36, 440–41 charter (1224)  75–76 expertise (1316)  76 Livre des Privilèges de l’église de Chartres  75 Chastel, André  166–67, 175–76 Chatenet, Monique  13, 15, 20, 51, 154, 156, 255, 336 Chaucer, Geoffrey  141 Chaussé, Véronique  109, 119 Chayes, Evelien  316 Chazan, Mireille  80 Checa Cremades, Fernando  346, 369, 371 Chemnitz. Benedictine Abbey Church  255 Cheng, Irene  140–41 Chersalle, Jean  165 Chevalier, Étienne, Livre d’heures  90–91 chevet  14, 92, 108, 201, 324–25, 429, 431–32 Chez Checo, José  1 Childs, Matt  410 Chilia. Franciscan Convent  300 Chirol, Elisabeth  123, 160 Chotěbor, Petr  269–70 Chris 73  44 Christian, Kathleen  336 Christmon, Elise  334 Christianity, Early passim Chrysochou, Nasso  328 Chueca Goitia, Fernando  370–72, 375 Cicogna, Emmanuele Antonio  314 Cistercians  190, 193, 195, 290–92, 294 Clark, Kenneth  138 Clark, William W.  9, 21, 83 Clarke, Georgia  75 Clasen, Karl-Heinz  58 Classe. Monastero Camaldolese  215 Clères – forests  161 clerestory  146, 148, 406, 433 Clermont-Ferrand. Cathedral  189, 192, 195 Cléry-Saint-André. Saint Mary Church. Chapel of Saint James  222 Cluj-Napoca  290, 292, 295 Franciscan cloister  309 Saint James Chapel  294 Saint Michael Church  292–95, 297–98, 305

461

Cluny III Style  97 coat of arms  211, 218, 222, 230, 232, 237, 240–42, 244–45, 247–51, 253–58, 270, 294, 314, 321, 352–53, 356, 362, 365, 410 Coccioli, Giancarlo  176 Cochet, Désiré, abbé  107, 109–10 Codera, Francisco  378 Coeman, Egas  363, 369, 374, 380 Coenen, Ulrich  49 cofradías (confraternities)  410 Cohen, Matthew  38 Cohen, Meredith  94–95, 97 Coldstream, Nicola  37, 59, 430, 440 Cologne. Cathedral  54, 188–89, 266 Colombe, Michel  171 colonette  321, 410, 413 colonialism  396, 409, 416 Colonna, Francesco  169 Colonna, Pietro, cardinal  275 Columbus, Bartolomé  395 Columbus, Christopher  348, 395, 398 Columbus, Diego  413, 417 Colvin, H. M.  148 Colvin, Howard A.  137 Concina, Ennio  318, 324 Conforti, Claudia  227 Conrad II, Hohenstaufen, emperor  424 Constance, queen of Hungary  291 Constance. Cathedral  189, 204 St Conrad’s Chapel  206 Constance Lake  206 Constantinides, Efthalia  327 Constantinople (Istanbul). Hagia Sophia  21 fall (1453)  5 Contamine, Philippe  95 Conway, Stephen  176 Cool, Delphine  349 Coomans, Thomas  60 corbel  95, 221, 251, 307, 323, 380 Corinthian  14, 21, 176, 410 Cornélio da Silva, José  60 Cosmescu, Dragoș  323 Costăchescu, Mihai  299 Cosyns, Peter  323 Cotarelo Mori, Emilio  363 Coulon, Damien  334 Courajod, Louis  55

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Coureas, Nicholas S. H.  316–17, 328, 330, 334 Courtauld Institute of Art (The Courtauld)  135 Coutances. Cathedral  19 Saint-Pierre Parish Church  19 Cowling, David  120 Cracow  204, 214, 217, 230 Cathedral  190–91, 232 Hebda house (No. 7 Poselska street)  227, 229 House in the Main Market Square (No. 17)  230 House of the Cathedral Chapter (No. 5, Kanonicza Street)  212–13, 232 Jagiellonian University. Collegium Maius  212 Law Students Residence  211, 232 Royal Castle  224 craftspeople (builders; masons; stonecutters; workshops) passim Crépin-Leblond, Thierry  15, 92 Crete  320 Crîngaci Țiplic, Maria  289 Croatia  241, 247, 294 crocket (architecture)  86, 96, 403 Crosby, Alfred  11, 122 Crosby, Sumner  57 cross-cultural exchange (interdependency; negotiation)  13, 20, 409–11, 418 Crossley, Paul  4, 11, 22, 38, 58, 75, 143–44, 188, 190–91, 204, 223, 231, 253–55, 262, 265–66, 268, 272–73, 375, 429, 431, 440, 442 Crown of Thorns  90, 239 Crusades  28, 329, 331–32, 335, 357 1st  331, 333–34 Cruxent, José María  398, 402 cuarto esquinero (corner room)  414 Cuba  396, 410 Cummins, Tom  410, 418 Curl, James  406 Cusimano, Richard  73 Cussonneau, Christian  156 Cyprus  5 University  325 Venetian period  314–45, 441 Czech Republic  240, 291

Czyżewski, Krzysztof J.  59, 232 D’Amelio, Maria Grazia  227 D’Hainaut-Zveny, Brigitte  427 dado  22, 86 Daimbert, archbishop of Sens  73 Dallaway, James, antiquary  139 Dalmatia  241, 247, 291 Dandelet, Thomas  61 Dansette, Béatrice  334 Danube River  300 Dârlos. Church  309 Daussy-Timbert, Stéphanie-Diane  19, 59, 183 Davidescu, Mișu  300 Davis, Charles L.  141 Davis, Michael T.  76, 184, 195, 278, 431, 435 de Blaauw, Sible  430 De Castro, Evelina  216 de Divitiis, Bianca  336 de Grazia, Margreta  3 De Jonge, Krista  13, 15, 20, 49, 154, 336, 369 De l’Orme, Philibert  169 De Maeyer, Jan  52 Deagan, Kathleen  398, 402 Debevoise, Malcolm  25 Decorated Style  26, 37, 53, 59, 131–32, 137, 140–41, 144–46, 148, 266, 429 Dehio, Georg  186, 188, 190, 425 Delbeke, Maarten  121–22, 127 Delcorno, Carlo  199 Delisau Jorge, María de los Ángeles  350 Della Porta, Antonio  160, 165 Dellwing, Herbert  324 Delorme, Pierre  163 Dendy, D. R.  430 Derby, Lauren  396 Despy, Georges  331 Devard, Jérôme  331 Deville, Achille  162–64 Di Teodoro, Francesco Paolo  231 Diamanti, Charikleia  323 Dias, Pedro  60 Diebold, William  127 Diego de Riaño, master in Seville  411–12 Diego de Siloé, architect  411 Diensbier, Jan  240, 251 Díez del Corral, Rosario  359

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Dijon. Sainte-Chapelle  92 Dinkelsbühl  406 Długosz, Jan  27, 211–36 Annales incliti regni Poloniae  211, 232 Liber beneficiorum (Book of Benefice)  226 Dobre, Claudia Florentina  300 Dodds, Jerrilynn D.  349, 405 dogtooth  327 Dohrn-van Rossum, Gerhard  199, 201–2 Dold-Samplonius, Yvonne  378 Dolhasca See Probota Domenech, Daniel  371 Domingues, Beatriz Helena  348 Domínguez Casas, Rafael  352, 355, 374 Dominican Republic  5, 28, 395 Dominicans (Order of the Preachers)  290, 300–1, 332, 396 Donato, Clorinda  360 Doquang, Mailan S.  431 Dormer, Diego Iosef  353 Dow, Helen J.  165 Drăghiceanu, Virgil  301 Dragon, Maurice  107, 113 Drăguț, Vasile  303 Draper, Peter  5, 21, 144 Drewello, Rainer  325 Drobeta-Turnu Severin. Fortress  300 Droste, Hilja  230 Du Cerceau, Jacques Androuet  153, 169–70 Du Haillan, Bernard de Girard  175–76 Dubois, Jacques  162, 201 Duby, Georges  97 Ducarel, Andrew C.  172–73 Dugdale, William  136, 139 Duhamel, Catherine  118 duho  409 Dumont, Jonathan  160 Dunk, Thomas von der  42 Dupront, Alphonse  331 Durand, Guillaume (Durandus), Rationale divinorum officiorum  115 Dürer, Albrecht, Ehrenpforte (Triumphal Arch)  245, 248 Duru, Louis-Maximilien  201 Dussel, Enrique  348 Dutkiewicz, Józef Edward  218 DXR  22

463

Earenflight, Theresa  355 Early English Style  131, 144 Earp, Lawrence  9 East Anglia  147 Eastern See Orthodox Ecker, Diana  230 eclecticism  3, 26, 28 Écouen. Musée de la Renaissance  164 Écouis. Collegiate church  195 Edbury, Peter W.  316, 328, 330, 333 Eden (garden)  224, 239 Edgerton, Samuel Y.  396 Edward VI, king of England  250 Edwards, John  348, 355, 357, 368 Egas, Enrique  400, 405 Eichstätt. Cathedral  255 Einem, Herbert von  227, 229 Eisenbichler, Konrad  335 Eisenman, Peter  9 Eliades, Ioannis A.  327 Elizabeth of Bohemia  264 Elizabeth of Pomerania, wife to Charles IV  274 Elizabethan Style  51 Elsner, Jaś  191 Emlen, Julia  320 Emler, Josef  268 encomienda  401 Encyclopédie méthodique (1782)  360 Enenkel, Karl A. E.  20, 335–36 Engaña Casariego, Francisco  373 Engel, Anne  324 Engel, Ute  229 England  8, 17, 23, 27, 37, 40, 42, 51, 54, 58–59, 73, 108, 121, 131–52, 155, 159, 165, 172, 186, 204, 240, 266, 271, 278, 298, 429 Norman Conquest (1066)  131, 140 See also East Anglia; Wars of the Roses Enguerrand de Marigny  195 Enlart, Camille  53, 314, 320 Ennis, Michael  397 Ensingen (family)  271 Ensingen, Ulrich von, Ulm Sketch A  271, 279 Entwistle, Damian  297 Entz, Géza  291 Ercole d’Este, duke of Ferrara  166 Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain  92, 94 Erwin von Steinbach, master  53–54, 184

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

escutcheon  218 Esquieu, Yves  154 Esslingen. Saint Dionysius Church  219 Este family  166 Esther, Jan  60 Estienne de Lusignan  336 Chorograffia  333 Estouteville, Guillaume d’, cardinal  159 Étienne, Claire  159 Etlin, Richard  9, 24, 431 Etzlaub, Ehrhard, Romweg-Karte (map)  245 Euskirchen, Claudia  336 Eve  224, 250, 256, 258 Evelyn, John  40 exonarthex  301, 303, 305, 307 Eyton, Foulques, captain  108 Fabini, Hermann  290, 303, 309 Fagnart, Laure  160 Fain, Pierre  162–63 Fajt, Jiří  22, 240, 262, 265 Famagosta Vecchia (Salamis)  314, 320 Famagusta  314–45 Bembo Loggia  28, 314 Citadel  323 Latin cathedral of St. Nicholas the Confessor (now Lala Mustafa Paşa Mosque)  314, 324–25, 327–30, 334–35 Main Square  28, 325, 328 Market Square  314 Palazzo del Provveditore  314, 328 Sea Gate  323 capture by the Genoese (1373)  334 Farbaky, Péter  45, 305 Fatás Cabeza, Guillermo  380 Feci, Simona  171 Fehr, Götz  45, 58, 240 Feininger, Lionel  56–57 Feleacu. Church  309 Félibien, André  172 Feliciano, María Judith  349, 363 Felipe II, king of Spain  357 Feltman, Jennifer  442 Fenlon, Iain  320 Ferdinand I, emperor  247 Ferdinand II, king of Aragon  28, 346, 352–53, 355–59, 362, 373–74, 400, 411 See also Catholic Monarchs

Fergusson, James  140–41, 144, 367 Fernández de Córdova Miralles, Álvaro  355–56 Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo, Historia natural de las Indias  398–99 Fernández-Armesto, Felipe  357 Fernie, Eric  21, 24, 144, 146 Ferretti, Emanuela  335 Feuchtmüller, Rupert  58 Feuer-Tóth, Rózsa  45 Feyerabend, Sigmund, Reyssbuch  329 Fierens-Gevaert, Hippolyte  55 Fiesole  159 Filarete (Antonio di Pietro Averlino)  4, 49, 53, 61, 253 filigree  400, 412 Fillitz, Hermann  184 Filpo Cabana, José Luis  347 Firmin, saint – martyrdom  432–33 Firth, James  372 Fischer, Friedhelm Wilhelm  58 Fisher, Annika  442 Flachslanden, Hans von, mayor of Basel  225–26 Flamboyant Style  14, 18–19, 40, 53, 56–57, 59, 62, 137, 153, 155–56, 158–60, 162, 166–68, 170, 172, 174, 176, 188, 369, 429, 436 Flanders (Flemish)  20, 55, 125, 160–61, 289, 369–70, 373, 398 See also Hispano-Flemish style Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities  78 Flecha Vega, Raquel  29, 409–11 Fleischer, Cornell H.  357 Fleming, John  406 Fletcher, Banister  141–42 Fletcher, Banister F., Sir  141–42 fleur de lys  173 Flickr  297 Fliegel, Stephen N.  250 Florence (Florentine)  4, 38, 49–50 Baptistery  335 Roman temple of Mars  335 San Lorenzo Church  38, 40, 215 Santa Maria Novella Church  199 republic  42 Focillon, Henri  9, 57, 430 foliage (leaves)  21, 220–21, 223, 225–26, 230, 248, 250, 314, 324, 327–28, 398, 403

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Fornovo – battle (1495)  249 Fouquet, Jean, Grandes chroniques de France  26, 73–104 Fournée, Jean  115 Foville, Achille  40 France (french) passim Italian War (1494–1500)  13, 15, 45 northern  123–24, 161, 202, 291, 433, 441 Revolution (1789)  52, 107, 109, 159 southern  189, 195 Francesco Sforza  253 Francis I, king of France  97, 221 Francis II, king of France  221 Franciscans  28, 221, 290, 300–1, 332–33 Franciscans Conventual  359 Franciscans Observant  332, 352, 358–59 Franciscans of the Custody of the Holy Land  331 Franco, Francisco  356, 371 Frankl, Paul  3–4, 14, 36, 40, 49, 51, 53–54, 57–58, 131, 188, 375, 429, 440, 442 Fraser, Murray  141 Fraser, Valerie  396 Frederick II, Hohenstaufen emperor  424–25 Frederick III  242 Freeman, Ann  276 Freeman, Edward A.  140–41, 144 Freiberg. Cathedral  220 Freiburg. Minster  266, 272 Freigang, Christian  195, 272 fresco  154, 166, 249 Freund, Walter  199, 201 Friedberg. Pfarrkirche  271 frieze  157, 175, 211, 314, 316, 323–24, 354, 411 Frigerio-Zeniou, Stella  327 Frisch, Teresa G.  76, 201 Frommel, Christoph Luitpold  430 Frommel, Sabine  154 Fuchs, Barbara  348 Fuenmayor, Alonso de, bishop of Santo Domingo  403 Fuentes Ortiz, Ángel  358 funerary structures and rites (burial; grave, etc.)  22–23, 108–10, 120, 138, 157, 165, 200, 202, 215, 219, 222, 265–68, 274, 277, 299, 303, 314, 317, 320, 329–31, 333–34, 336, 352, 356, 365, 373–74, 378–79, 400, 430–31

465

Funis, Francesca  227 gable  86, 90, 92, 123, 215 Gabriel, archangel  115 Gaehtgens, Thomas W.  223, 253 Gage, John  21, 53 Gagini, Pace  160, 165 Gaglianico. Castle  154, 166 Gaillon. Château  14, 123, 153, 155, 158–62, 164–68, 170–72, 174 Grant’ Maison  154, 168, 171 Maison Blanche  170 Porte de Gênes  162–63 Gajdošová, Jana  27, 240, 255, 262–83 Gajewski, Alexandra  184, 190, 192–93, 429 Galen  200 Gallet, Yves  184–85, 188, 194–95, 197 García, Bernardo  369 García Alcázar, Silvia  361 García de Padilla, Francisco, bishop of Santo Domingo  403 García Oro, José  359 gargoyle  14 Garin, Eugenio  153 Gasser, Stephan  272 Gaugain, Lucie  217 Gaul  254 genderism  397 Genicot, Luc-Francis  60 Genoa (genoese)  160, 162 capture of Famagusta  334 Milanese dominion (1421–1436)  165 genocide  401 Geoffrey of Vinsauf (Galfredus de Vino Salvo), Poetria nova  199 George, saint  108, 171, 173, 291 George of Poděbrady, king of Bohemia  239 Georges I d’Amboise, archbishop of Rouen, Lieutenant de Normandie  123, 127, 159–60, 162, 165, 167, 170, 172–73 Georges II d’Amboise, archbishop of Rouen  123, 173 Georgiou, Artemis  324 Georgopoulou, Maria  320 Geraldini, Alessandro, bishop of Santo Domingo  403 Germann, Georg  40

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Germany (German; Germanic) passim Central  426 Nazi party  425 Nazi period  395, 426 Northern  20 partition after World War II  58 southern  20, 307 See also maniera tedesca Germigny-des-Prés. Oratory of Theodulf of Orleans  276 Gerstel, Sharon E. J.  317 Gerstenberg, Kurt  42, 54 Gervase of Canterbury  4, 76, 202, 278 Gesta pontificum autissiodorensium  200–1 Getty Institute  274 Ghent. St Bavo Cathedral. Altarpiece  258 Gies, David T.  370 Giese, Francine  349 Gil de Hontañon, Rodrigo, architect  406 Gil de Siloé, architect  224, 400 Gill, Richard  327 Gimelfarb, Mike  52 Ginger, Andrew  348 Giordano da Pisa, dominican, Lenten sermon (February 1305)  199 Giotto  145 Giovanni di Cosimo de’ Medici  215 Giusti, Antonio, sculptor  162, 165–66, 174 Giustiniani, Vincenzo, marquis  171 Gloriosa dicta sunt  112 Gloucester. Cathedral (Abbey)  131–32, 135, 138 Godfrey of Bouillon, king of Jerusalem  314, 329–34, 336 Goes, Hugo van der, Portinari Altarpiece  124 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von  53–54 Gombrich, Ernst  119 Gómez Urdáñez, Carmen  380 Gonzaga, Francesco, bishop of Mantua  166 Gonzaga, Francesco, franciscan  357–58 González Ramos, Roberto  42, 350, 364, 371, 375, 378 González Sánchez, Vidal  368 Gonzalo de Illescas, historian  359 Goodchild, Karen Hope  250 Gosebruch, Martin  426 Gossart, Jan, Malvagna Triptych  114, 125 Neptune and Amphitrite  45, 47 Virgin and Child  126

Gothic passim Colonial Gothic  395–422 Deutsche Sondergotik  42 doctrinal Gothic (doktrinäre Gotik)  186, 188–191 early  17–18, 426, 429, 432 early modern Gothic (Nachgotik)  225 early-late (frühe Spätgotik)  188 epigone Gothic (Epigonengotik)  186 Gothic Revival  51–55 high (Hochgotik)  8, 18–19, 25, 75, 85, 96, 100, 190, 426, 429, 436–40, 442 International Gothic  25 late (Spätgotik)  1, 3, 8–13, 15, 17–26, 28, 36–70, 73–130, 137, 157, 166, 183–86, 189, 214, 223–24, 232, 237, 239, 251, 271, 277, 301, 324, 346, 348, 367, 370–71, 375, 380, 383, 396–97, 404, 406, 418–19, 427, 429, 432, 437, 440–42 late-high (späte Hochgotik)  188 neo-Gothic  138, 176, 371 post-classical Gothic  191 post-Gothic  51 reductive Gothic (Reduktionsgotik)  190–91 second Gothic  190 See also Flamboyant Style; Isabelline Style; Manueline Style; Norman Style; Perpendicular Style; Première Renaissance; Rayonnant Style; Seconde Renaissance; Weicher Stil Gothic script  110, 123, 125, 127 Goths  49 Gottique  172 Gottschlich, Ralf  46 Gousset, Marie-Thérèse  73, 80 Goy, Richard J.  318, 324 Grafton, Anthony  49, 75 Graham, Timothy  11, 21 Graña Cid, María del Mar  359 Granada  358, 372 Alhambra  378 Cuarto Dorado  375, 377 Sala de las Dos Hermanas  375 Capilla Real (Royal Chapel)  357, 400, 413 Cathedral  352 Puerto del Perdón  411 Nasrid Period  348 War and conquest (1482–1491)  352, 356–57, 365, 378

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Granger, Frank Stephen  223, 253 granite columns  314, 321, 336 Grant, Lindy  75–76 Gratziou, Olga  327 Greek manner  264, 274, 276 Gregg, Catherine  141 Grieco, Lorenzo  227 griffin  411 Grigoraș, Nicolae  300 Grilo, Fernando Jorge  221 Grivaud, Gilles  317, 320–21, 329–30, 332–33, 336 Grodecki, Louis  192 Gross, Werner  58, 183, 189–90, 192–93 grotesques  159, 162, 411 Guadalajara (Spain). Palacio del Infantado  413 Guas, Juan  346, 349–50, 361–63, 365, 369–74, 380, 383, 400, 405–6, 413 Guazzo, Marco  317 Gudiel, Fernán  378 Guenée, Bernard  73, 79–80 Guest, Gerald B.  144 Guillaume de Mussy  195 Guillaume de Seignelay, bishop of Auxerre  200–1 Guillaume, Jean  15, 105, 154, 156, 222, 336 Guillebert de Metz, miniaturist  435 Guillouët, Jean-Marie  11–12, 77, 114–15, 201 Guitar, Lynne  401 Günther, Hubertus  219, 335–36 Gurlitt, Cornelius  54 Gzzz  412 Hablot, Laurent  221–22 Habsburg family  45, 242, 245, 249, 251, 253, 255, 360, 400, 410–11 Hacker-Sück, Inge  92–93 Hadjichristodoulou, Christodoulos A.  327 Hadjigavriel, Loukia Loizou  320 Hadjikyriakos, Iosif  324 Hadjistyllis, Stelios A.  320 Hale, John Rigby  169 hall church (Hallenkirche)  406, 408 Hallett, Josh  44 Hamon, André Jean Marie  115 Hamon, Étienne  59, 222 Hanequín de Bruselas, master  363, 369–70 Harfleur  13

467

Harklowa. Birth of the Virgin Mary Church  227 Harlem  442 Harper-Bill, Christopher  146 Harris, Michael  172 Hartman, Joseph R.  396 Hartmann, Gritje  330 Harvey, John, historian  58–59, 131–32, 143–44, 146 Haßfurt. Ritterkapelle  229 Hastings, Maurice  132 Hatzaki, Myrto  320 Haussherr, Reiner  426 Hayot, Denis  98 Heck, Michèle-Caroline  219 Hedeman, Anne D.  80 Hege, Walter  423 Heidegger, Martin  416 Heidelberg  49 Heilbronn. St. Kilian Church  19 Heim, Dorothee  369 Hendrix, Harald  316 Henneman, John Bell, Jr  9 Henri de Mondeville  200 Henry I, king of England  73 Henry III, king of Castile and León (Enrique III)  358 Henry III, king of England  279 Henry IV, king of Castile and León (Enrique IV)  358 Henry IV, king of England  107 Henry IV, king of France  138 Henry VII, Emperor  264 funeral monument  165 Henry VIII, king of England  131, 141 Henry of Derby  267 Henszlmann, Imre  294 Heraklion (Candia)  320 Fountain constructed under Bembo  327 heraldry (emblem)  27, 211, 221–22, 239, 242, 247, 249–50, 256, 350, 352–53, 355, 357–58, 365, 371, 383, 410 See also coat of arms Hernández, Arturo  374 Hernández Socorro, María de los Reyes  350 Hernando del Pulgar, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos  352, 355–56 Herrmann, Christofer  211 Hertwig, Hans, master in Lautenbach  294

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Heslop, T. A.  21 Hilbert, Kamil  270 Hill, Rosemary  52, 139–40 Hillgarth, J. N.  360 Hipp, Hermann  51 Hispanic America  408, 396, 440 Hispanidad  396 Hispaniola (Ayiti; La Española, Quisqueya)  28, 397–99, 401, 410, 416–18 Hispano-Flemish Style  349–50, 369–70 Hitchins, Keith  287 Hledíková, Zděnka  275 Hlobil, Ivo  262, 266, 268 Hodgson, Marshall  364 Hogendorp Prosperetti, Leopoldine van  250 Holladay, Joan A.  265 Holtz, Jerome  245 Holy Land  330, 332 Holy Roman Empire  27, 62, 184, 215, 231, 242, 249, 255, 275, 294, 426 Homolka, Jaromiř  265 Hong Kong  442 Honour, Hugh  406 Hook, David  359, 368 Hooke, Robert  137 Hoppe, Stephan  19–20, 49, 216, 255, 336 Horace, Ars poetica  21 Hořejší, Jiřina  237, 240 Hort, Patrick  167 Hourihane, Colum  433 Hours of the Virgin  111 Howard, Deborah  318, 324 Howarth, David  352 Howell, Martha  8–9, 56 Hub, Berthold  49 Hubach, Hanns  231 Hudde, John  165 Hugo, Victor, Notre-Dame de Paris  52–53 Huizinga, Johan  9, 55–58, 60–61, 142 humanism  145, 211, 242, 255, 355, 359, 411 Humfrey, Peter  320 Hundred Years War  99, 107, 140–42, 369 Hungarian language  301 Hungary  206, 241–42, 245, 247–48, 287, 289–91, 294–95, 301, 305, 309–10 Mongol invasion (1241)  290–91 Hunt, David  316 Hurx, Merlijn  60

Hus, Jan  239–40, 257–58 Huse, Norbert  324 Hussite Wars (1419–34)  240, 242, 256 Hussites  240, 242, 254, 256, 258 See also Taborites; Ultraquists Hutterer, Maile S.  19, 26, 73–104, 299, 431, 436 hybridity  13, 62, 127, 153, 157, 164, 167, 176, 188, 219, 346, 409 See also eclecticism Ibáñez Fernández, Javier  60, 358, 369, 373–74 Iberia (Iberian Peninsula)  1, 15, 62, 349, 372, 375, 405–6, 408, 413, 416 Peninsular War (1808)  360 Iborra Bernad, Federico  350, 364, 371–72 Ichim, Aurica  305 iconostasis  324 Ignat, Ioan-Cosmin  289 Igriș. Cistercian abbey  291 Île-de-France  36, 165 Iliff, David  37 Ilovan, Vasile  299 Imhaus, Brunehilde  331 Ingham. Priory  146 Inglis, Erik  17–18, 73, 77, 80, 84–85, 90, 94, 98–99, 334, 435 Ingolstadt  239 Saint Mary’s Church  220 Ingrand-Varenne, Estelle  337 Innocent IV, pope – bull (1244)  94 Innsbruck  239, 245, 254–55 Goldenes Dachl (Golden roof)  241 International Congress of History of Art (CIHA; 25th, Vienna, 1983)  184 intrados  14 Ioan Zidarul (John the Mason)  299 Ioannides, Georgios K.  320 Isabella I, queen of Castile  1, 28, 346, 350, 352–59, 362, 368, 371–72, 374, 400–1, 411 See also Catholic Monarchs; Isabelline Style Isabella of Portugal, queen of Castile and León  400 Isabella d’Este  165, 167 Isabelline Style  40, 42, 54, 60, 368–69, 373, 400, 405, 413

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Islam (Islamic; Islamicate)  131, 349–50, 357, 364–65, 367–68, 371, 375, 378, 380, 383, 400, 402, 405, 412, 419, 440–41 Israëls, Machtelt  17 Italy (Italian; Italianate) passim French-Italian War (1494–1500) 13, 15, 45 Italo-Byzantine  22 Quattrocento  159 Trecento  145 Ittu, Gudrun Liane  290 Iturbe, Elisa  9 Izquierdo Benito, Ricardo  380 Jackson, Zakiyyah Iman  441 Jacobs, Ariane  323 Jacques de Bazoches, bishop of Soissons  95 Jadwiga of Kalisz, queen of Poland  204 Jaeger, C. Stephen  426, 437 Jagiellonian dynasy  255, 258 Ják (Vas County). St George Parish Church (former Benedictine abbey)  291 jamb  195, 224, 226, 321, 326–27, 437, 439 James II, King of Jerusalem, Cyprus and Armenia  330 James, Liz  119 Jamshid al-Kashi (Ghiyath al-Din al-Kashi), mathematician  378 Jan, master bricklayer in Cracow  211 Jantzen, Hans  8, 183, 429–30 Janzen, Svea  25 Jean I, duke of Berry, Très riches heures  83 Jean de Beauce, architect (Jean Texier)  432, 434, 436 Jean de Jandun, scholastic  76, 94, 98, 435 Jeffery, George  316, 320 Jennings, Nicola  4, 60, 220, 371 Jephcott, Edmund  8 Jerusalem  333–34, 356–57 Church of the Holy Sepulcher  333 Mount Zion Convent  331 Temple  77 Capture (1099)  331 Crusader Kingdom  26, 329 Heavenly  115, 118, 432 Jesus Christ  113, 126, 250, 274, 432 Ascension  107, 119 Christ in Majesty  273, 276 Incarnation  230

469

Passion  330 Resurrection  219, 432 See also Crown of Thorns; Last Judgment; Nativity; Vera Icon (Volto Santo) Jews (Judaism)  348, 357, 364–65, 370, 405, 416 Jiménez Martín, Alfonso  11, 13, 194, 369 Johannes von Winstein  219 John II, king of Portugal  400 John III, king of Portugal  45 John of Lancaster, duke of Bedford  109 John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy  250 John of Ibelin, Le livre des Assises  333 John of Luxembourg  264 John of Montfort, blessed  332 John of Prešov, master in Bardejov  219 John the Baptist, saint  274 John, Simon  331 Jolly, Penny Howell  258 Jones, Emma  317 Jones, Sarah Rees  262 Jones, Susan Frances  126 Jope, E. M.  133 Jordain, A.  107 Jordan, William Chester  97 Jordano Barbudo, María Ángeles  378 Jorge, Orlindo  46 Joubert, Fabienne  262, 437 Jourd’heuil, Irène  431 Juan I, king of Castile  356 Juan de Colonia (Johannes von Köln), architect  121 Juan de Rasines, master  406–8 Juan de Velasco  360 Juana la Beltraneja  355 jubé  115, 162, 431 Juckes, Tim  294–95 Jugie, Sophie  250 Julius Caesar  167, 232 Julius II, Pope  356 Jung, Jacqueline E.  423–46 Jung, Joe  441 Jurdjevic, Mark  319–20 Jurkowski, Maureen  134 Kaffenberger, Thomas  323, 325, 328 Kagan, Richard L.  359, 400 Kahoun, Karol  219, 221 Kahsnitz, Rainer  427

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Kain, Evelyn  9 Kalina, Pavel  45, 240, 242, 251 Kalinowski, Wojciech  227 Kalo Chorio Kapouti (Kalkanlı). St. George Church  327 Kalopanagiotis. Latin Chapel  327 Kamen, Henry  348, 355, 357, 360–61, 368 Kantou. Agia Napa Chapel  327 Karlštejn. Castle  265 Kasl, Ronda  349 katholikon (monastic church)  301, 303, 327 Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta  154 Kavaler, Ethan Matt  9, 12–13, 15, 17, 20, 61–62, 105, 114, 124–25, 154, 183, 215–16, 219–20, 222, 239, 253, 336, 375, 383, 440 Kayser, Christian  38 Kazimierz. Augustinian Church of Sts. Catherine and Margaret  214 Augustinian Cloister  214 Keating, Jessica  3 Keilmann, Burkhard  231 Kelley, Donald R.  223 Kemp, Martin  249, 253 Kemperdick, Stephan  25 Kessler, Herbert  430 Kibler, William W.  9 Kimpel, Dieter  183, 199, 429 Kirsten, Michael  224 Kiss, Tamás  317, 334 Klaniczay, Gábor  290, 300 Klaudyán, Mikuláš, physician, Map of Bohemia  245–48, 256 Kleager, Scott  262 Klein, Bruno  59, 184, 191, 279 Klima, Alice  27, 237–61 Klinger, Edyta  230 Klinkenberg, Emanuel S.  77, 83 Knapp, Ulrich  184 Knipping, Detlef  431 Kokkinotrimithia. Archangel Michael Church  327 Kolín. St Barthelemy church  267 Königsfelden. Klosterkirche  271 Košice. Saint Elizabeth Cathedral  294–95, 298, 305 Kostlíková, Marie  274 Kosztolnyik, Zoltán  290 Kotrba, Viktor  268

Kragsturzbogenportal (corbel-arch portal)  307 Krása, Josef  251 Krassowski, Czesław  227 Kratochvíl, Petr  237 Krause, Katharina  216 Krinsky, Carol  259 Kroesen, Justin  431 Krohm, Hartmut  426–27 Kropidło, Jan, canon regular  231 Kubler, George  395, 403–9 Kunde, Holger  426–27 Kurian, Peter K.  40 Kurmann, Peter  184, 197, 201, 272, 437 Kutal, Albert  277 Kuthan, Jiří  224–25, 241, 262 Kutná Hora. St. Barbara Church  242 Kyriacou, Chrysovalantis  336 Kyriakidou, Marina A.  324 L’Engle, Susan  144 L’Épine. Notre-Dame de l’Épine  19, 96–97 La Ferté-Bernard. Notre-Dame-des-Marais  121–22, 127 La Isabella  398, 416 Labra González, Carmen María  352 LaBrecque, Claire  124 Labuda, Stanisław  230 Lächler, Lorenz  219 Ladislav of Šternberk, Highest Chancellor  251 Lambacher, Lothar  25 Lambert, Élie  368 Lampérez y Romea, Vicente  364, 367–68 Lampl, Paul  77, 83 Lampsonius, Dominicus (Dominique Lampsoons), Pictorum effigies  50 Landers, J.  401 Langdale, Allan  316–17, 320, 323, 328 Langendonck, Linda van  42 Langer, Andreas  262 Langlois, Eustace-Hyacinthe, antiquarian  40 Languedoc  184, 195 Lanher, Jean  320 Laon. Cathedral  18, 86–87, 429 Lăpedatu, Alexandru  299 Larnaca (formerly Salines). Saint Lazarus Church  330, 332

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Las Palmas. Cathedral  408–9, 413 Lassay-sur-Croisne. Château du Moulin. Chapel  121 Last Judgment  273–74 Lasteyrie, Robert de  53 Latin language  110, 119–20, 197, 299, 333, 356 Latowsky, Anne  331, 337 Lautenbach. Mariä Krönung Church (Coronation of Mary)  294 Lavička, Roman  214, 219, 244, 252, 257, 259 Lawrance, Jeremy  359 Lăzărescu, Emil  301 Le Goff, Jacques  25 Le Huen, Nicole, carmelite  333 Le Page, Dominique  221 Le Pogam, Pierre-Yves  153 Le Prévost, Auguste  40 Le Roux, Roulland  13 Le Roux de Lincy, Antoine  18 Le Tellier, Guillaume, master  109–10 Leach, Neil  416 Leahy, Chad  357 Lechler, Lorenz  49 Lechler, Moritz  49 Lee, Alexander  38, 50 Lefebvre, Henri  418 Lefèvre-Pontalis, Eugène  76 Legner, Anton  38, 59, 262 Lem, Anton van der  8–9, 56 Lemonnier, Henri  172 Lenain, Thierry  346 Lenoncourt, Robert de, Cardinal  169 Leo X, pope  231, 253–54 bull (8 August 1511)  1, 403 bull (1514)  359 Leonardo da Vinci  224, 248–49, 253, 255–56 Codex Atlanticus  225 Lépinois, Eugène de  76 Leproux, Guy-Michel  175 Lescroart, Yves  123 Lesser Poland (Malopolska)  185, 204, 206, 226–27 Lethaby, William R.  132, 142–43, 145 Lettéron, Isabelle  159 Levenson, Jay  400 Leventis, Panos  317 Levi d’Ancona, Mirella  115 Levieux, Eleanor  97

471

Lewis, Michael J.  51 Líbal, Dobroslav  184 Liendo, Rodrigo de, master in Santo Domingo (Rodrigo Gil Rosillo)  405 Limoges. Cathedral  189, 195 limpieza de sangre (purity of blood)  416 Lindley, Phillip  145–46 Lindon, J. M. A.  169 Lindquist, Sherry C. M.  374 Linés Viñuales, Pablo  362 Lisbon. Torre de Belém  221 Litany of the Virgin  119 Lithuania  232, 239 liturgy and liturgical objects  11, 76, 92, 107–9, 112–13, 116, 119, 121 Llaguno y Amírola, Eugenio de  360 Loch. Castle  222 Locher, Hubert  346 Loire Valley  160–61, 165 Lombardy (Lombard)  159–60, 162, 166 Lomičková, Radka  197 London  138, 148, 278 Bridge Street  279 Old London Bridge. Chapel of Saint Thomas of Canterbury  279 Old St. Paul’s Cathedral  136 Chapterhouse  132 Society of Antiquaries  138 See also Westminster López, Ricardo  360 López Guzmán, Rafael  349, 375 López Lorente, Víctor Daniel  369 López Poza, Sagrario  355 Lorenzo da Mugiano  162 Lothar, king of France – coronation  90–91, 95 Louis II, king of Bohemia and Hungary  245, 247–48, 251 Louis IV, king of France  85–86 coronation  87, 95 Louis VI, king of France  73, 85–86 coronation  74, 79, 95 Louis VIII, king of France  90 coronation  95 Louis IX, king of France, saint  86, 90, 94, 97–98, 183, 186, 426, 429 coronation  88, 95 Louis X, king of France  200 coronation  81, 83

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472

Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Louis XII, king of France  13, 162, 165–66, 172 Louis, king of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia  241, 245 Louis, François  335 Loupvent, Nicolas, monk at Saint-Michel Abbey  330, 334 Louviers. Notre-Dame Parish Church  10, 166 Löwenstein, Hilde  395 Lucca. San Frediano Cathedral  275 Lucchese, Vincenzo  316 Luce, Torrey James  223 Ludmila, saint  274 Ludovico il Moro, duke of Milan  248–49, 256 Luigi d’Aragona, cardinal  166 Luis de Figueroa, hieronymite, bishop of Santo Domingo  403 Luis de Moya, master in Santo Domingo  405 Lüpkes, Vera  45 Lusatia  247 Lower  241 Upper  241 Lusignan dynasty  28, 318, 321, 324, 328–29, 331, 333, 335–36 Lusignan, Stephen of (Lusignano, Steffano) See Estienne de Lusignan Lutheran  290, 292, 295 Luxembourg dynasty  265, 276 Luxembourg, duchy  241, 247 Luxford, Julian M.  121 Lyon  363 Maastricht. Saint Servatius Basilica  216–17 Macdonell, Cameron  52 Machado y Morales, Gerardo, dictator  396 Macía Serrano, Antonio  356 Macklin, Graham  144 Maddox, Richard  348 Maderno, Carlo  216 Madrid. Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando  360 Magán, Nicolás  361 Magdeburg. Cathedral  195 Magnificat  111 Mainz. Cathedral  227 Saint Emmeram Church  229 Mălâncrav. Church  309

Maldonado-Torres, Nelson  416 Małkiewiczówna, Helena  230 Mammitzsch, Ulrich  9 mampostería  403 Mander, Karel van, Schilder-boeck  50, 55, 57 mandorla  273 maniera tedesca (German manner)  4, 50 mannerism  192, 195 Mantegna (Mantinia), Andrea, Trionfi di Cesare (Triumphs)  167, 174 Manuel I, king of Portugal  45, 221 Manueline Style  40, 42, 55, 60, 221 manuscript illumination (miniature)  21, 75, 77, 79–80, 83, 85–86, 88, 100, 114, 124, 145, 224, 251, 436 Marado, Catarina Almeida  291 Maravall, José Antonio  359 Marbella – battle (1485)  352 marble  21, 159–60, 162–63, 171–73, 314, 320–21, 327, 336 Mareel, Samuel  121 Margareta, wife to Alexander I, voivode of Moldavia  300 María de Toledo, wife to Diego Columbus  417 Marías, Fernando  371 Marineo, Luca, humanist (Lucius Marineus Siculus)  359 Marius, Roman general  232 Mark, saint, evangelist  336 lion  317–18 Mark, Robert  37, 60 Markey, Lia  3 Marks, Richard  59, 132, 262 Marosi, Ernő  291, 294–95 Marta, Roberto  60 Martin V, Pope  275 Martin, Jean, secretary to Robert de Lenoncourt  169 Martin, Philippe  320 Martín Bueno, Manuel Antonio  380 Martín García, Juan Manuel  348, 354–55 Martindale, Andrew  265 Martínez Caviró, Balbina  354, 356 Mary, Virgin  42, 108, 110, 112–15, 118, 120–21, 124–25, 239, 269, 274, 294, 354, 437 Annunciation  258, 437, 439 Coronation of the Virgin  95, 108–9, 115 Hodegetria  325

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Mary, Virgin (Cont.) Immaculate Conception  112–13, 121 Life of the Virgin  433–34 Virgin and Child  108–9, 115, 121, 125–26 Virgin of the Litanies  114, 124 Visitation  437, 439 See also Assumption Feast; Ave Maria; Gloriosa dicta sunt; Hours of the Virgin; Litany of the Virgin; Magnificat; Officium Beate Marie Virginis (Little Hours of the Virgin); Pulchra es et decora (antiphon); Regina caelorum (antiphon); Tota pulchra Mary Magdalene, saint  432 Mary the Younger, saint  403 Mas Latrie, Louis de  333 Mas Latrie, René de  329 Massi, Angelo, priest  216 Masson de Morvilliers, Nicolas  360 Mateo, Matilde  360, 367, 371 Mathew, Nicholas  424–25 Mathias Corvinus, king of Hungary  42, 241–42, 245, 295 Matter, E. Ann  113 Matthias of Arras  268, 277 Maulde, M. R. de  107 Maurer-Constant, Johann Heinrich  332 Maurice, abbé  107, 113, 118 Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris  93–94 Maximilian I, emperor  241, 245, 248–49 Triumphzug (Triumphal Procession)  248, 256 Mayer, August L.  364–65 Mazzoni, Guido  162 McAndrew, John  318, 324 McGehee, Abby  26, 105–30 mechanical clock  435 medallion  14, 174 Mediaș  289–90, 292 Medina del Campo. Castle  358 Mediterranean area  3, 25–26, 28–29, 357, 406, 411, 413, 417 Megaw, A. H. S.  321 Meillant. Château  157 Meiss, Millard  83, 145 Meissen. Albrechtsburg  54 Mélida y Alinari, Arturo, Sketch of the surrender of Granada  365–67 Mellion, Walter  50

473

Mena, Miguel D.  395 Mencl, Václav  191, 237, 240, 242, 262 mendicant orders  108, 190–91, 193, 195, 204, 291–92 See also dominicans; franciscans Mendo de Jaén, administrator of San Juan de los Reyes  373–74, 380 Menéndez Pidal, Faustino  358 Menocal, María Rosa  349, 405 Merhautová, Anežka  262 Merino de Cáceres, José Miguel  351 Merlet, Lucien  76 Messing, Renate  291 mestiza/o  401, 410 Metzger, David D.  360 Meudon. Grotto  175 Meunier, Florian  42, 59, 107, 109, 122 Meyvaert, Paul  276 Michael, archangel  108, 294 Michel, André  42, 365 Michel Wal  376 Michelangelo  423 Michelet, Jules  61 Middle Ages (medieval) passim Middle East  357 Mignolo, Walter D.  397 Milan  162, 165, 239, 254–55 Castello Sforzesco (Sforza Castle). Sala delle Asse  224, 248–49, 251, 253, 255 Cathedral  51, 279 Comune di Milano  249 millenarianism  139, 357 Miller, Peter N.  335 Miłobędzki, Jerzy  227 Minnis, A. J.  262 Miraflores. Carthusian Monastery  400 Möbius, Friedrich  191, 199, 426 Mocker, Josef  240 Moffatt, Constance J.  250 Moffitt, John F.  224, 253–54 Mohács – battle (1526)  241, 247 Mohi – battle (1241)  290 Mojon, Luc  58 Moldavia (principality)  16, 28, 287, 289, 299–310 molding  14, 24, 125–26, 132, 156–57, 160, 162, 184–85, 188, 192–93, 195, 211, 214, 216, 220, 226–27, 322, 325–26, 402, 410

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474

Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Moldovița Monastery  305, 307 Annunciation Church  303–4 Molho, Anthony  320 Monga, Luigi  169 Mongols – invasion of Hungary (1241)  290–91 Montaiglon, Anatole de  156 Montaigne, Michel de  176 Montargis. Sainte-Madeleine Church  97 Monte Cassino. Monastery  230 Moorhead, John  73 Morales, Alfredo J.  346, 371 Morand, Sauveur-Jérôme  94 Moravia  184, 241–42, 247 Moreno Martín, Francisco José  371 Morphou. St. Mamas Church  327 Morris, William  141 Morrissey, Fitzroy  364 Mortimer, Richard  42 Moss, Christopher  327 Mosti, Bonaventura  165–66 Motture, Peta  215 Moutier-Grandval Bible  224 Moxey, Keith  383 mudéjar features  349, 363–65, 370, 375, 380, 405, 413 Mudra, Aleš  197 Muhammad V, ruler of Granada  375 Mühlberg/Elbe  278 Muir, Edward  320 mulatta/o  401, 410 mulberry tree  248 Müller, Matthias  49 Müller, Werner  59 Munich. Frauenkirche Cathedral  42, 44, 62 Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall)  54 Munns, John  298 Münzer, Hieronymus  372–73 muqarnas  364, 375–76, 378, 380 Murcia. Cathedral. Vélez Chapel  215 Murray, Stephen  4, 17–18, 37, 42, 60, 76, 429, 431–32, 435–36 Muslims  215, 349, 357, 363, 365, 370, 416 Mussy-sur-Seine. Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens Collegiate Church  193, 195 Myers, Robin  172 Myrianthefs, Diomedes  327 mythological monster  156

Nacu, Andrei  288 Nagel, Alexander  25, 77, 80, 83, 86, 97, 254, 335, 383, 436 Nagerel, Robert, curé  122–23, 127 Napoleon I  423, 425 Narbonne. Cathedral  189, 195 Năstăsoiu, Dragoș Gh.  287, 292 nationalism  9, 17, 54–55, 139, 154, 423–25, 440 See also racism Nativity  154 Naumburg Master  227, 423–26 Naumburg. Cathedral  423–24, 426, 441 Nauroy, Gérard  80 Navagero, Piero capitan  320 Navarre  365 Neagley, Linda Elaine  11, 13, 18–19, 24, 60, 96, 108, 118, 120, 122–23, 194, 369, 440 Neaufles-Saint-Martin  73 Nečásková, Milena  275 Necipoğlu, Gülru  364 Nelson, Robert S.  191 Netherlands (Low Countries; Netherlandish)  38, 40, 83, 215, 369, 425, 427 Neto, Maria João  221 Neumann, Michael  331 Neuwirth, Josef  277 Neveu, Jehan  118 New Spain  409 Nicaise, saint  437, 439 Nicholas, saint  317 Nicholas, master in Vienna  294 Nicholson-Smith, Donald  418 Nickson, Tom  4, 60, 220, 371, 378, 384 Nicolaou-Konnari, Angel  317, 330 Nicolas de Biard, Distinctiones  278 Nicolescu, Corina  299, 303 Nicosia  5 Franciscan Observant convent  332 Latin cathedral  324–25, 329 Panagia Hodegetria Greek cathedral  324 earthquake (1491)  324 Niculoso Pisano, Francisco, master in Seville  367 Niederhaslach. Saint Florentius Collegiate Church  197–98 Niell, Paul B.  1, 28, 348, 383, 395–422, 440 Nieto, Víctor  346, 371

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Nine Worthies  331 Niort. Notre-Dame Church  121 Nogales Rincón, David  353, 359 Nolan, Kathleen D.  76, 435 Nonsuch Palace (nonsicci)  171 Nora, Pierre  79 Nordeide, Saebjørg Walaker  268 Nördlingen  406 Norman Style  144 Normandy  3, 107–8, 123, 160–61, 165, 193, 369 English Invasion  73 See also Vexin normand Norton, Christopher  291 Norwich  145–46, 148 Cathedral  146–47 Great Hospital  146–47 St. Gregory Parish Church  146 St. Peter Mancroft Church  136 Nottingham. St. Mary in the Lace Market Church  136 Novikoff, Alex  370 Nuremberg  223, 245–47 Nussbaum, Norbert  11–13, 15, 20, 23, 49, 59, 154, 262, 264, 270–71, 292, 336, 406, 429 O’Connor, Edward Dennis  113 Oberwesel. Liebfrauenkirche  272 oculus  92, 204, 297, 301, 307, 323–24 Oettinger, April  250 Oettinger, Karl  58 Officium Beate Marie Virginis (Little Hours of the Virgin)  111 ogee  86, 93, 188, 195, 270, 380, 403 oil on panel  38, 41, 47, 125–26 Oleśnicki, Zbigniew, cardinal, bishop of Cracow  211–14, 232 Olivares Martínez, Diana  220, 372 Olivato, Loredana  318 Oliver, José R.  417 Olympios, Michalis  20, 28, 314–45 Opačić, Zoë  22, 38, 184, 190, 242, 266–68, 429 opus Francigenum  4 Orășanu, Ana Maria  299 Order of Alcántara  399 Order of the Golden Fleece  410 Order of the Holy Sepulcher  332

475

Ordre de la Cordelière (Ordre des Dames chevalières de la Cordelière)  222 Orléans. Cathedral  73–74, 86 Ormrod, Lucy  268 Ormrod, W. M.  145 Ortega Cera, Agatha  355 Orthodox (Byzantine; Eastern Christian)  5, 15, 20, 28, 119, 264, 287, 289, 299–301, 303, 309–10, 336, 357 See also Greek manner Ortiz Pradas, Daniel  352, 361, 363, 365, 367, 371 Orvieto. Cathedral  276 Osvald, master in Prague  270 Oswald, Arthur  143, 146 Otten-Froux, Catherine  334 Ottenheym, Konrad Adriaan  20, 335–36 Ottokar I, king of Bohemia  265, 267, 291 Ottoman Empire  242 Ottová, Michaela  197 Ovando, Nicolás de, governor  399, 401–2, 405, 417 Ovid, Metamorphoses  223 Owen-Crocker, Gale R.  11, 21 Oxford. Christ Church College. Stair Hall  136 Divinity School  135 colleges  51 Ozama River  395, 400, 418 Pacello da Mercogliano (Catello Mazzarotta)  162 Pacerisa, Javier  363 Paciarotto, Girolamo (Jérôme Pacherot)  162–63, 165, 172, 222 Paderborn. St. Bartholomew Chapel  406 Pagel, Julius L.  200 Pagès, Paule  334 Pajor, Piotr  204 Palermo. Residence of Francesco Abatellis  215 Palestine  332 Pálffy, Géza  241, 245, 247 Palm, Erwin Walter  395, 404, 406, 408–9, 413 Palm Sunday  107 Palma, Alonso de (Bachiller Palma)  356 Palma de Mallorca. Lonja del Mar  413

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Palmes, James  8 Palustre, Léon  174–75 Panagia Apsinthiotissa Monastery  327 Pandelea, Daniel  296 Pano Polemidia. St. Anastasia Church  327 Panofsky, Erwin  4, 21, 57–58, 76, 276, 429–30, 432–33 Panofsky-Soergel, Gerda  4, 76, 433 Papacostas, Tassos  316, 320–21, 323, 337 Papadopoullos, Theodoros  327 Papageorghiou, Athanasios  320, 327 Papalexandrou, Amy  119–20 Parani, Maria  321 Paris  18, 100, 108, 160–61, 200–1, 250, 264–5, 278 Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture  171 Chartreuse (Carthusian convent)  98 Couvent des Grands-Augustins  98 Notre-Dame  17–18, 21, 80, 83, 85–86, 95–98, 431–32, 435–36, 441–42 Palais de l’Archevêché (Episcopal Palace)  93–94 Palais de la Cité  80, 85, 94 Sainte-Chapelle  80–81, 83–84, 90–95, 97, 426 Saint-Eustache Church  15, 46, 48, 62, 97, 123, 153 Saint-Gervais. Virgin Chapel  114 Saint-Séverin Church  19–20, 98 Temple  80, 86 Exposition des primitifs français (1904)  55 siege (1429)  98 Park, David  291 Parler family / workshop  37, 279, 294 Parler, Gertrude  266 Parler, Henry II  271 Parler, Henry III  271 Parler, Henry, master in Cologne  266 Parler, Johannes  270 Parler, Michael  271 Parler, Peter  22, 27, 185, 214, 255, 262–63, 265–72, 275, 277–79 Pasamar Alzuria, Gonzalo  349 Passini, Michela  155 Pastan, Elizabeth Carson  77, 86 Pastor, Ludwig von  169 Patapiou, Nasa  316

Patella, Francesco (Abatellis), port master of Sicily  215 patronage (patrons) passim Patterson-Ševčenko, Nancy  327 Patton, Pamela A.  371, 435 Pavlides, Andros  327 Pavlovic, Tatjana  370 Pavón Maldonaldo, Basilio  365 Payne, Alina  4, 9, 287, 364 Payne, Edward  384 Payton, Rodney J.  9 Pedro I, king of Castile  375 Pedro Fajardo y Chacón, marquis of Vélez  215 Peiró Martín, Ignacio  349 Pelikan, Jaroslav  113 Pelpin. Cistercian Abbey  294 Penderson, Jill  249–51 Peporte, Pit  38, 50 Pereira, Paulo  42 Pérez Higuera, María Teresa  351 Pérez Montás, Eugenio  1, 395 Pérez Sánchez, Alfonso E.  363 Perpendicular Style  26, 40, 42, 51–52, 58–59, 96, 131–52 Perpignan  352 Petcu, Elizabeth J.  259 Peter Rareș, voivode of Wallachia (Petru)  299, 303 Petras, Guido  315 Petre, James  323 Petrus Christus, The Annunciation  115 Pevsner, Dieter  131 Pevsner, Nikolaus  143, 406 Pfandl, Ludwig  372 Pfister, Peter  42 Philip IV, the Fair, king of France  195, 200 Philip, prince of Burgundy  45 Philip Augustus  97 coronation  95 Philotheou, Giorgos  327 Piatra Neamț. Saint John the Baptist Church  306 Picardy  222, 369 pier  97, 132, 184–86, 193–95, 213, 232–33, 240 Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici  215 Pierre de Montreuil  202 Pierre de Puy, merchant  215 Pietro Lombardo, sculptor  324

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia pilaster  157, 159, 170, 325–27 pilgrim  124, 331–33, 430 See also travelogue pillar  158, 162, 168, 251 Pillars of Hercules  411 Pilliod, Elizabeth  154 Pinder, Wilhelm  423–25 pinnacle  14, 45, 49, 86, 90, 156, 167, 171, 295, 297–98, 327 Pinotti, Andrea  346 Pippal, Martina  184 Piqué, Francesca  264, 274–75 Pizarro y Librado, Cecilio, Ruinas de San Juan de los Reyes  352, 361–62 Plagnieux, Philippe  98, 185, 321 Platanistasa. Holy Cross of Agiasmati Church  327 Plateresque  1, 346, 396, 404–5 Plato (platonism)  429, 432 Pleguezuelo Hernández, Alfonso  367 plinth  175, 215, 224 Podocataro, Ettore  336 Podosek, D.  213, 231 Poissy. Saint-Louis Dominican Church  194 Poland (Polish)  27, 185, 191, 206, 211, 230–31, 239, 241, 266, 290–91, 294, 300–1, 309–10, 441 See also Lesser Poland Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom  299 pomegranate  352, 358 Pompey, Roman general  232 Pontbriant, François de  222 Pontbriant, Gilles de, dean at Cléry-SaintAndré  222 Ponz, Antonio  360 Popescu Cilieni, I.  305 porphyry  320 Porres Martín-Cleto, Julio  378 portal  1–2, 13, 18, 21–22, 78, 86, 90, 95, 108–9, 115, 121, 123, 162, 184–85, 195, 224, 227, 232, 237, 240, 255, 268–69, 273–74, 276, 297–98, 306–9, 318, 321, 323, 325–28, 347, 357, 363, 398, 403, 437, 439 See also Kragsturzbogenportal; Schulterbogenportal; Spitzbogenportal Portugal (Portuguese)  40, 42, 54–55, 60, 221, 254, 355–56, 408 See also Iberian Peninsula; Manueline Style; Peninsular War

477

Porumb, Marius  300–1, 309 Poutingon, Gérard Milhe  160 Prache, Anne  262 Prague  242, 253, 264–68, 273, 277–79, 294 Castle (Hradčany; Hradschin; Imperial palace)  239, 265, 268, 276 All Saints Church  267 Vladislav Hall  45–46, 239–40 Cathedral (Katedrála svatého Víta, Václava a Vojtěcha)  54, 225, 237, 240, 248, 262–83, 441 Saint Wenceslas Chapel (Royal Oratory)  22, 27, 224–25, 237–61, 268–70, 274, 277 Charles Bridge (Vltava bridge)  241, 267, 269–70, 275 New Town  239 Old Town  239 Prejmer. Fortified church  290 Première Renaissance  17, 153, 155–56, 166, 170, 172, 174, 176 Premonstratensians  193, 290 Přemyslid Dynasty  277 Prieto Vicioso, Esteban  1 Primat, monk at Saint-Denis  79 Pringle, Denys  332 Prior, Edward Schroeder  142, 145 Probo d’Atri, Jacopo  165, 167 Probota Monastery. Church of Saint Nicholas  16, 299, 307 Procopius, saint  274 pronaos  16, 300–1, 303, 306–7 prophets  108, 115 Proske, Beatrice Gilman  346, 375 Proszko, Marcin, builder  211, 233 Protestant Reformation  45, 52, 63, 107, 109, 140, 290, 295 Provence  195 Provini, Sandra  160 Przezdziecki, Alexander  213 Puchsbaum, Hanns  307 Pueyo Abril, Francisco Javier  350 Pugin, Augustus Welby  51–52, 139–41 Pulchra es et decora (antiphon)  111, 121 pulpit  11, 220, 237 Puppi, Lionello  318 Puțeanu, Robert  293 putti  14, 156 Pyrgos Lemesou. Panagia Nerophorousa  327

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Quadrado, José María  361, 363 Quaggio, Giulia  348 quatrefoil  92, 271, 290, 297 , 307 Quijano, Aníbal  397 Quintanilla y Mendoza, Pedro de  358 Raaflaub, Kurt  320 raceme  156, 162 Raciborowice. Parish Church  211–12, 232–33 racism (racialized thinking)  140, 144, 397, 416 Racławice Olkuskie. Church  227 Rădăuți. Bogdana Monastery. Saint Nicholas Church  300–3 Raguin, Virginia Chieffo  5, 21 Ramírez de Fuenleal, Sebastián, bishop of Santo Domingo  403 Ramisch, Hans  42 Rampley, Matthew  346 Ramsey family (Norwich)  145 Ramundi, Domenico  216 Ranney, Christopher  441 Ranzani  249 Raphael, Letter to Pope Leo X  231, 253–54 Rappaport, Joanne  418 Rasch, Wolfdietrich  54 Rassem, Mohammed  58 Ravaux, Jean-Pierre  96 Rayonnant Style  137, 188–89, 191–94, 270, 328, 429, 440 Recht, Roland  21 Redol, Pedro  46 Reeve, Matthew M.  5, 11, 23–24, 51, 105–6, 118, 138, 253, 441 Regensburg. Cathedral  255 Bauhüttentagung (1459 Congress)  307 Regina caelorum (antiphon)  112 Reims  95, 433 Notre-Dame Cathedral  17–19, 80, 83, 85–86, 88, 90–92, 95–96, 108, 429, 437–41 Palais du Tau (archiepiscopal palace)  92–94 Saint-Nicaise  96 Saint-Remi Abbey  21 council (991)  86 relic (reliquary)  11, 23, 90, 94, 124, 268, 435 Rembrandt  423 Renaissance  4, 9, 13, 15, 17, 26–27, 36, 38, 42, 45, 47, 49–50, 55–63, 83, 106, 114–15,

124–25, 140, 153–80, 216, 242, 254, 314, 335, 346, 361, 367–68, 371, 383, 396–97, 404–5, 427–28, 436, 441 early (Lombard)  324–26, 426 Renier, Zuan, capitan  320 Renoux, Annie  92 retable  367, 373, 427 Reynaud, Nicole  73, 80 Rhenanus, Friedrich  332 Rhine River  206 Rhineland – Middle  184, 229 Upper  184, 204, 206 rib (architecture)  2, 12, 14, 25, 27, 36, 86, 195, 215–16, 219, 221–22, 224, 229, 237, 264, 269–70, 290–92, 300, 317, 322, 396, 400, 406, 412, 428, 440 Ribémont, Bernard  331 Riboulleau, Christiane  176 Riccardo da Carpi  162 Richard II, king of England  279 Richard von Deidesheim, prior of Wimpfen Monastery  201 Richter, Jan Friedrich  25 Rickman, Thomas  40, 131–32, 135, 139 Ried (Rejt), Benedikt  45, 224, 238, 240–41, 243, 256 Riegl, Alois  9, 54 Riestra, Pablo de la  62–63 Rimini. Tempio Malatestiano. Chapel of Saint Jerome (Cappella dei Pianeti)  224 Riquer, Martín de  352 Ritsema van Eck, Marianne P.  332 Ritter, Max  315, 320, 337 Rizzi, Alberto  318 Robinson, B.  401 Robinson, Cynthia  365 Rodez. Cathedral  189, 195 Rodríguez, Alonso, architect  406 Rodríguez Estévez, Juan Clemente  371 Rodríguez Padilla, Marta  350 Rodríguez Plaza, Braulio  368 Rogations  119 Rogge, Sabine  330 Rolland, Romain  424 Roman emperors  162, 167, 172 Romanesque  5, 17, 19–22, 38, 73, 97, 255, 290–92, 335, 426 Romania  16, 28, 287, 293, 295, 298, 302, 304 Saxons (sași)  289 Romanowicz, P.  228

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia romanticism (romanticized)  138–39, 361, 405, 424–25 Rome  21, 275 Baths of Diocletian  20 Old St. Peter  80, 82–83, 85, 275 Romulus’s house  256 San Pancrazio fuori le mura  216 San Pietro in Montorio  373 Santa Maria in Trastevere  275 Santa Maria Maggiore  275 Sack (410)  49 Roriczer, Mathes  49, 255 Rosci, Marco  167 rosette  271, 290, 327 Roskopf, Wendel  244, 252, 256–57 Rossi, Manuela  162 Rossi, Maria Alessia  287, 303 Rössler, Jan-Christoph  324 Roth, Michael  25 Rouen  96, 107–8, 122, 161, 165–66 Archbishopric  159–60, 164, 170 Bureau des Finances  123 Notre-Dame Cathedral  13, 17, 19, 96, 122–23, 437 Saint-Laurent Church  121 Saint-Maclou Church  19, 96–97, 123 Saint-Ouen Abbey  194 Saint-Vincent church  19 Rouse, Irving  401 Royo Martínez, María del Mar  356 Royt, Jan  197, 240–41, 262 Rožmberk nad Vltavou. Church  214 Rudbeck, Olof  137 Rudolph, Conrad  334 Rue. St. Esprit Royal Chapel  124 Rüegg, Arthur  56 Ruiz Souza, Juan Carlos  349, 378 Ruskin, John  52, 141 Rusu, Adrian Andrei  290 Rykwert, Joseph  253, 256 Sabattini, Alberto  166 Said, Edward  8 Saint-Denis. Abbey church  21, 80, 85, 194, 202, 276, 429, 433, 440 Saint-Germain-en-Laye  94 Château. Sainte Chapelle  92 Saint-Leu  161 Saint-Mihiel (Meuse). Benedictine Abbey  330

479

Saint-Omer. Collegiate Church  20 Saint-Paul, Anthyme de  53 Saint-Pol-de-León  363, 369 Saint-Riquier. Abbey  222 Saint-Thibault-en-Auxois. Church  193 Saint-Wandrille-Rançon. St. Wandrille Abbey  118 forest  161 Salamanca. Casa de las Conchas  413 Cathedral  51 Salazar, Pedro de, Coronica  358–59 Salem on Lake Constance. Cistercian Church  186–87 Salerno, Mariarosaria  328 Salines (Cyprus) See Larnaca Salisbury. Cathedral  23 Salontai, Mihaela Sanda  290 Salsi, Claudio  224 Salzburg. Nonnberg Abbey  12, 215 Samarkand  378 Sanabria, Sergio  374 Sánchez Prieto, Ana Belén  356 Sandomierz. Mansionaries’ House  232 Sandron, Dany  76, 98, 262, 435–36 Sanfaçon, Roland  18–19, 23, 59, 62, 108, 123 Sankovitch, Anne-Marie  15, 17, 25–26, 47, 50, 97, 105, 123–24, 153, 157 Santander  405 Santo Domingo  5, 28, 348, 395–422 Calle de las Damas (Calle Fortaleza)  417 Casa de Tostado  413, 415 Casa del Cordón  413 Chapel of María de Toledo  417 House of Ovando  402, 417 Palace of Diego Columbus  413, 417–18 Regina Angelorum (church and convent)  396 Santa Bárbara (barrio)  403 Santa María la Menor Cathedral  1–3, 5, 29, 383, 396, 403–7, 414 Šariš Region  219 Sarmatians  232 Saslow, James M.  349 Sauerländer, Willibald  15, 21, 23, 425–26, 433, 436 Sauvage, Eugène, abbé  107, 109, 113, 122 Saxony (Saxons)  140, 219, 289–90, 426 Romania (sași)  289 Schabel, Chris  317, 330 Schaefer, Claude  73, 80

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480

Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Schaer, Frank  265 Șcheia (Suceava). Saint Elijah Church (Sf. Ilie)  305 Scheller, Robert W.  95 Schemmel, Otto  292 Schilb, Henry D.  435 Schlegel, Friedrich von  8, 54 Schmidt, Gerhard  272 Schmidt, Hans-Joachim  199 Schmuttermayr, Hans  49 Schneidmüller, Bernd  290 Schnitker, Harry  38, 50 Schoell-Glass, Charlotte  346 Scholastic dialogue  432 Schroeder, Horst  331 Schubert, Ernst  426 Schulterbogenportal (shoulder-arch portal)  15, 298, 306–7, 309 Schunicht-Rawe, Anne  45 Schürenberg, Lisa  188 Schurr, Marc Carel  38, 59, 184, 192, 195, 197, 201, 262, 266, 279, 427 Schwäbisch Gmünd. Holy Cross Church  266, 271 Schweiner, Hans  19 Sciurie, Helga  191, 199 Scott, George Gilbert, II  141 seahorse  411 Sebeș  292 Secchi, Sandra  316 Seconde Renaissance  170 Sedding, John Dando  141 Sedlmayr, Hans  429–30, 432 Sées. Cathedral  193 Segovia. San Antonio el Real Monastery  358 Santa Cruz Dominican Convent  373 Santa Cruz la Real  373 Seibt, Ferdinand  265 Seine River  107 Seine Valley  161 Selbymay  347, 354 Senlis. Cathedral  429 Serchuk, Camille  85 Serlio, Sebastiano  49, 169 Seville (Sevillan)  367, 369, 405, 413 Alcázar Palace  367, 375 Casa consistorial  411–12 Universal Exposition (1992)  348 Seymour, Charles  57

Sforza family  249, 254 Shelby, Lon R.  49, 60 Shiff, Richard  191 Sibiu  289–92 Sicily  215, 425 Siena. Cathedral  276 Sighișoara  289–90, 292 Sigismund of Luxembourg, Emperor  294 Sigismund, king of the Burgundians, saint  274 Silesia  185, 241–42, 247 Silva, Jose Custodio Vieira da  46 Simón de Colonia, architect  374, 400 Simson, Otto von  57, 429–30, 432 Siret. Roman Catholic Diocese  300 Sisa, József  45 Sixtus IV, pope – Marian constitutions (1477 and 1483)  113 Skibiński, Szczęsny  191 Skoufari, Evangelia  316 Sladeczek, Franz-Josef  191–92 Slater, Laura  84 slavery  397, 401 Slavic  15, 28, 287, 303 Slovakia  219, 294 See also Moravia Smalley, Beryl  197, 199 Smith, Hassell  146 Smith, James  132 Smith, Jeffrey Chipps  61 Smith, Katherine Allen  334 Smith, Marc H.  166 Smoleńska, Józefina  211 Snyder, James  61 Sohier, Hector  14–15 Soissons. Cathedral  18, 203, 429 Solario, Andrea  162 Somménil, abbé  107 Sopron. Saint Michael Church  305 Soria, Martin  395, 403–8 soufflet  184 Soukup, Pavel  240 Soulas, Jean  434 Spain (Spanish)  1, 3, 8, 28, 40, 42, 54, 58–60, 186, 215, 254, 360–61, 364–65, 367, 369–72, 395–96, 398–402, 404–6, 409, 411–13, 417, 419, 429 Eternal Spain  371 Expropriation decrees (1834–37)  361 expulsion of the Jews  356

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Spain (Spanish) (Cont.) Francoist regime  348, 350, 370–71 Golden Age  405 Peninsular War (1808–13)  361 See also Iberian Peninsula; Isabeline Style; Peninsular War Spalikowski, Edmond  107 spandrel  83, 271, 274, 323 Spenning, Lorenz  307 Spiegel, Gabrielle M.  79–80 Spiers, R. Phené  367 Spiess, Hans, mason in Prague  224, 238, 240, 243, 256 spire  12, 36, 38–39, 42–43, 51, 108, 146, 148, 156, 162, 430, 432, 434 Spitzbogenportal (pointed-arch portal)  306 Spurr, David  436 stained glass  21, 24, 76–77, 92, 94, 124, 145, 174, 430, 435 staircase  27, 161, 173, 250, 264, 268, 270, 323 Stammler, Wolfgang  227, 229 Stanislaus von Moos  56 Stary Sącz. Church of the Poor Clares  204–6 Stato da Mar  319 Staufen dynasty  424, 426 Steinke, William  107–11, 113–15, 118, 122–24 Stejskal, Karel  265 Stephen III, voivode of Moldavia  299, 303, 309 Stephen of Lusignan See Estienne de Lusignan Šternberk (Sternberg) family  251 Stewart, Zachary  26, 131–52 Stookey, Laurence Hull  115 Strasbourg  217–18 Cathedral  38–39, 51, 53, 184, 192–93, 204, 266, 271, 435 Pillar of Angels  435 Straubing. Carmelite Church  219 Strobel, Richard  38 Strøm-Olsen, Rolf  320 Stucky-Schürer, Monica  226 Stulik, Dušan C.  264, 274–75 Stylianou, Andreas  327 Stylianou, Judith A.  327 Suceava. Church of Saint Demetrios  299 Suchý, Marek  267, 277–78 Suckale, Robert  183, 191, 429 Suger de Saint-Denis, abbé  20–21, 57, 76, 202, 276, 432

481

Sulla, Roman general  232 Sullivan, Alice Isabella  1–35, 176, 225, 259, 287–313, 337, 419, 442 Summerson, John  137 Sundt, Richard A.  395, 406 Svatý Tomáš. Parish Church  214, 219 Sveraz. Sts. Peter and Paul Church  219–20 Swaan, Wim  61–62 Swabia  184, 200 Swanton Morley. All Saints Parish Church  146 Swaryczewski, Andrzej  214, 230 Sweeney, Kyle G.  1–35, 168, 176, 259, 337, 407, 415, 419, 442 Symes, Carol  3 Syndikus, Candida  330 Szablowski, Jerzy  218 Szadek. Parish Church  227–28 Szakács, Béla Zsolt  291 Tabbaa, Yasser  375 tabernacle  124–25, 157 Tábor (city)  242, 244, 256–58 Tabor Mount  256 Taborites  240 Taburet-Delahaye, Elisabeth  15 Tacitus  223, 254 Taglialagamba, Sara  250 Taíno Nation  29, 396–98, 401–2, 409–11, 413, 416–18 Tala. Enkleistra of St. Neophytos  327 Talavera – pottery  365, 367 Tallon, Andrew  436 Tangermünde. Charles’s castle  265 tapestry  77, 120, 225–26, 251 Tarnów. Cathedral  217 Tarsicio de Azcona (Jesús Morrás Santamaría)  357 Tasso, Torquato, La Gerusalemme liberata  331 Tatton-Brown, Tim  42 Taveau, Isabelle  98 Taylor, A. J.  148 Te Deum  77 Tekippe, Rita  124 Tellman, Daniel  295 Tenczel, Maciej, priest  219–20 Teutonic Knights  290 Thanikachalam, Niranjan  430 Theocharides, Ioannis  320

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482

Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Theodorescu, Răzvan  300–1 Theodulf, bishop of Orleans  276 Therould, Thomas  109 Thomas, apostle  432 Thomas, Évelyne  159 Thompson, Barbara  97 Thompson, Benjamin  42 Thomson, Alexander C.  335 Thomson, David  15 Thomson, Richard (rt-imagery.com)  6–7, 296, 302, 304 Tiedemann, Rolf  8 Timbert, Arnaud  192 Timmermann, Achim  11, 38, 60, 76, 242, 266 Tišnov (near Brno). Porta Coeli (Heaven’s Gate) Convent  291 Tisserand, L. M.  18 Točník. Castle  241 Toffolo, Sandra  320 Toledo  356, 358, 363, 365, 369–70, 378, 383 Bab al Mardum Mosque  378 Cathedral  378 Chapel of Alvaro de Luna  400 Puerta de los Leones  363 El Tránsito Synagogue  378 San Andrés Church  378–79 San Juan de los Reyes Convent  1, 28, 346–94, 400, 412, 441 San Justo y Pastor Parish Church  361 Talleres Béjar  352 Tomar. Cristo Monastery  221 Tormo y Monzó, Elías  363 Torniello, Girolamo  162 Toro – battle (1476)  355–56, 358 Torre y del Cerro, Antonio de la  373 Torres, Ludovico III de, cardinal, archbishop of Monreale  216 Torres Ballesteros, Nuria  358, 379 Tota pulchra  112 Toulouse. Cathedral  195 Tours  224 Maison de Tristan L’Hermite (Maison de la Cordelière; Hôtel de Pierre du Puy)  215 Saint-Gatien Cathedral  77–78, 222 Saint-Martin Basilica  80, 86 tracery passim Trachtenberg, Marvin  21, 24–26, 36, 153, 203, 357, 383, 428, 431, 440

transept  20–21, 27, 37, 42, 96–97, 108, 132, 135, 195, 240, 255, 262–83, 291, 352, 354, 373, 406, 435 Transylvania  28, 225, 287, 289–99, 301, 303, 305, 308–10 travée  156–57 travelogue  166, 169, 173, 330, 332–33 Tree of Jesse  250 trefoil  1, 271, 297, 307, 400, 410, 412 Trélat, Philippe  334 Trentin, Mia Gaia  323 Très riches heures of the Duke of Berry  83 triforium  108, 194–95, 266–68 Trinci Cecchelli, Margherita Maria  216 Tronzo, William  425 Troyes. Cathedral  18, 194, 437 Saint-Urbain Collegiate Church  193, 195–96 Trujillo, Rafael, dictator  396 trumeau  115, 269 Trzemeszno  231 Tschudi, Ludwig, Reyß  331 Tudor dynasty  58 Tully, Ken  357 Tunis (Tunisian)  85 Turchini, Angelo  224 Turner, Olivia Horsfall  137 Tuscany  160 Twickenham. Strawberry Hill House  51, 138 tympanum  21, 95, 108–9, 115–16, 276, 294, 307, 323 Tzewers, Wilhelm, Itinerarius  330, 332 Ulm. Minster  54, 266, 271, 279 Ultraquists  239–40 Umberger, Emily  410 United Kingdom (British Isles)  15, 21, 131, 367 Imperial Fascist League  144 Nordic League  144 See also England United Nations  370 United States  57 Utrecht. Cathedral  216 Utrecht Psalter  77 Văcaru, Silviu  305 Vad. Church  309 Vaisse, Pierre  56 Vaivre, Jean-Bernard de  321

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Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia Vakondiou, Maria  327 Valdeón Baruque, Julio  368 Valencia. Lonja de la Seda  413 Valérian, Dominique  334 Vales, José C.  357 Valladolid. Colegio de San Gregorio  220, 224, 372, 413 Iglesia de San Pablo  372 Van den Bossche, Benoît  201 van Eyck, Jan  38, 55–56, 258 Ghent Altarpiece  258 Madonna in a Church  39, 41 Jan, Rolin Madonna  124 Vanwesenbeeck, Birger  8 Varlan, Horia  308 Varnhagen, Francisco Aldolfo  40 Varthalitou, Petroula  327 Vasari, Giorgio  49–50, 61, 63, 155, 383 Vassiliou, Anastasia  323 Vaz, Leonardo, master in Belém  221 vegetal ornament (plants)  62, 156, 216, 220, 237, 248–51, 256, 258, 314 See also branchwork; fleur de lys; foliage (leaves); mulberry tree; pomegranate; quatrefoil; raceme; trefoil Vendôme. La Trinité Abbey  189, 194 Venice (Venetian)  28, 52, 276, 317, 324–25, 328, 333 Merceria  317 Piazza San Marco  317, 319–20 Piazzetta  317 Rialto  317 Torre dell’Orologio  317–19 rule in Cyprus  314–45, 441 Venus, goddess  314, 320, 336 sarcophagus  317, 320, 336 Vera Icon (Volto Santo)  124, 273, 275 Verduin, Kathleen  360 Vernon – stone quarries  158, 161, 163 Verrocchio, Andrea del  215 Vertue, George, antiquary  138 Verzy. Saint-Basle Monastery Church  86, 89 Vexin normand  122 Viard, Jules  73 Vienna  184, 223, 294, 310 Saint Stephen’s Cathedral  305, 307 Vila Viçosa. Ducal Palace  217 Vilain, Ambre  11 Villard de Honnecourt, Livre de portraiture  83, 438

483

Villaseñor Sebastián, Fernando  221 Villes, Alain  96 Vincennes. Château. Sainte Chapelle (Palatine chapel)  92, 94 Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène Emmanuel  15, 53, 176, 365, 367, 436 Visigothic architecture  412 Viterbo. Santa Maria della Quercia. Chiostro del Bramante  216 Vitruvius, De architectura  157, 169–70, 211–36, 239, 253–55, 258 Vitus, saint  274 Vladislaus II, king of Bohemia, Croatia and Hungary (Ladislaus; Władysław Jagiello)  224, 239, 241–42, 245, 256, 258 Vlček, Pavel  266–67 voussoir  122, 124 Všetečková, Zuzana  264, 268, 274 Wadding, Luke  359 Waeger, Gerhart  331 Wagner, Berit  230 Wainwright, Clive  52 Walczak, Marek  27, 59, 211–37, 253 Waldman, Louis Alexander  17 Wallachia – principality  28, 287, 289, 299–310 Walpole, Horace  51, 138–39 Walsh, Michael J. K.  316–17, 323, 328, 334 Wars of Religion  107 Wars of the Roses  140–41 Watkin, David  131, 142 Watson, Arthur  250 Weicher Stil (soft style)  270 Weilandt, Gerhard  431 Weiß, Heiko  216–17, 220, 225 Weiss, Roberto  167 Weissberger, Barbara F.  355 Wells. Cathedral  271 Wenceslas I, patron saint of Bohemia (Václav)  23, 270, 274, 277 Wenceslas III, king of Bohemia (Václav)  264 Western Schism  275 Westminster. Houses of Parliament  52 Houses of Parliament – fire (1834)  51 Westminster Abbey  146, 148, 441 Lady Chapel of Henry VII  42, 44, 51, 132–35, 139

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484

Index of Names, Titles, and Selected Realia

Westminster Palace. St. Stephen’s Chapel  132, 146 Wetter, Evelin  60 Weyden, Rogier van der  124 Weyl Carr, Annemarie  321, 328 Whitehouse, Deborah  327 Whittall, Mary  21 Whittingham, A. B.  146 Wiebenson, Dora  45 Wijsman, Hanno  38 Wikimedia Commons  22, 37, 40–41, 44, 47, 52, 133, 292–93, 295–96, 298, 308, 347, 354, 376, 408, 412 Wilhelm of Reichenau, bishop of Eichstätt  255 Wilhelmy, Winfried  230 William of Tyre  333 Williams, Jean Anne Hayes  250 Williamson, Paul  59, 132 Willibald, saint  255 Willis, Robert  77, 132 Wilson, Christopher  23, 38, 42, 59, 132–33, 266, 278–80, 291, 429 Wilson, Mabel O.  141 Wilson, W. Donald  332 Wimpfen am Berg. Parish Church  215 Wimpfen im Tal. Abbey-Church of the Knights of Saint John  200–2 Winchester. Cathedral  135, 138 Windsor Castle. St. George’s Chapel  135, 139 Winkes, Rolf  54 Winterfeld, Dethard von  211 Wiślica. House for the vicars of the collegiate church  230–31 Witten, Hans, Tulpenkanzel  220 Wittkower, Rudolf  153 Władysław I Łokietek, king of Poland  204 Włodarek, Andrzej  232

Wodehirst, Robert  146–48 Wójcik, J.  229 Wolfthal, Diane  9, 56 Wolfzettel, Friedrich  331, 337 Wolters, Wolfgang  324 Wood, Christopher S.  25, 77, 80, 83, 86, 97, 254, 335, 383, 436 Woodman, Anthony John  223 Woodman, Francis  146 Workman, Leslie J.  360 World War I  433 World War II  57–58, 110, 433 Worms. Cathedral  219 Worsley, Giles  51 Wu, Nancy Y.  278 Wycliffe, John  141 Wynford, William  146 Yarza Luaces, Joaquín  356, 368–69, 374 Yevele, Henry  146, 278–79 York. University  133 Yoruba nation  409 Yuste Galán, Amalia María  369 Zaragoza. Aljafería. Sala de los Reyes Católicos  380, 382 Zarco del Valle, Manuel R.  363 Zátoň. Church  214 Zeller, Haug and Anna  219 Zenner, Marie-Thérèse  83 Zerner, Henri  15, 19, 45, 105, 124–26, 154 Ziegler, Ágnes  225, 297 Zijlmans, C. J. M.  346 Zinn, Grover A.  9 Žirovnice. Castle  251 zoomorphic decoration  156, 314, 438 Zuraw, Shelley  258–59 Zwickau. Virgin Mary Cathedral  219, 224

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30mm

Contributors are: Jakub Adamski, Flaminia Bardati, Costanza Beltrami, Robert Bork, Jana Gajdošová, Maile S. Hutterer, Jacqueline E. Jung, Alice Klima, Abby McGehee, Paul Niell, Michalis Olympios, Zachary Stewart, Alice Isabella Sullivan, Kyle G. Sweeney, and Marek Walczak. Alice Isabella Sullivan, Ph.D., (2017), University of Michigan, is Assistant Professor of Medieval Art and Architecture and Director of Graduate Studies at Tufts University. She specializes in the artistic production of Eastern Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres.

Lateness and Modernity in Medieval Architecture

Drawing on case studies from Cyprus to the Dominican Republic, the book explores historiographical, methodological, and theoretical concerns related to the study of medieval architecture, bringing to the fore the meanings and functions of the Gothic in specific contexts of use and display. The development of local styles relative to competing traditions, and instances of coexistence and hybridization, are considered in relation to workshop practices and design theory, the role of ornament, the circulation of people and knowledge, spatial experiences, as well as notions of old and new.

Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney (Eds.)

How have the concepts of “lateness” and “modernity” inflected the study of medieval and early modern architecture? This volume seeks to (re)situate monuments from the 14th—16th centuries that are indebted to medieval building practices and designs within the more established narratives of art and architectural history.

AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art  |  16

MTSA 16

Kyle G. Sweeney, Ph.D., (2017), Rice University, is Assistant Professor of Art History at Winthrop University and a specialist in the architectural and urban history of late medieval and early modern France.

Lateness and Modernity in Medieval Architecture isbn 978 90 04 53843 6 issn 2634-4750 brill.com/mtsa

Edited by Alice Isabella Sullivan and Kyle G. Sweeney

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