From wonder to sanctity. Saint Christopher and the Cynocephalae (High and Middle Ages)

Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgique) The Cynocephali or Dog Heads are not as common in pre-Romanesque art as other human-animal hybrids coming from Late Antique culture. Nonetheless, they have a significant role there and above all particularly in that they befit generally from a powerful push to humanize them. However disconcerting humans may…

Vision, insignia, relic: the crown of Hildegard of Bingen (Fondation Abegg, Riggisberg)

Philippe Cordez, Centre allemand d’Histoire de l’Art (Paris) Hildegard of Bingen’s crown is a recent discovery. Since the early Middle Ages, nuns were given a crown as part of the blessing ritual that marked their status as virgins. Around 1150, the Rhineland nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a theoretician and important player in the ecclesiastical…

The confusion of the past: the example of Theodoric’s Hunt carved at the entrance of the Saint Zenon Basilica in Verona.

Mathieu Beaud, Institut national d’Histoire de l’Art, Paris. This paper aims to consider in the XIIth century the conception of a past where legends, biblical story and history merge to compose a civic memory. The legend of Theodoric’s hunt, placed at the entrance of the portal of the Basilica of San Zeno in Verona, highlights…

The mythological mirabilia in the ecclesial space

Laurence Terrier, Université de Neuchâtel (Suisse) Themes issued from Greco-Roman mythology were transmitted during the Middle Ages through Roman vestiges and several literary traditions. While numerous studies, as early as the 1930s, have noticed mythological subjects within churches, it is the identification of the represented episode that have retained researchers’ attention. We will try to…