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Ahmad Ibn Umar al Dhaki  

Syrian, 13th century, male.

Metal worker.

Ahmad ibn Umar al Dhaki is thought to have come from Mosul, and had a famous workshop and numerous apprentices. Three leather objects, one in Cleveland Museum, one at the Louvre and one in a private collection in Switzerland, are signed by him and dated between ...

Article

Alchemy  

Laurinda Dixon

Ancient science from which modern chemistry evolved. Based on the concept of transmutation—the changing of substances at the elemental level—it was both a mechanical art and an exalted philosophy. Practitioners attempted to combine substances containing the four elements (fire, water, earth, and air) in perfect balance, ultimately perfecting them into a fifth, the quintessence (also known as the philosopher’s stone) via the chemical process of distillation. The ultimate result was a substance, the ‘philosopher’s stone’, or ‘elixir of life’, believed capable of perfecting, or healing, all material things. Chemists imitated the Christian life cycle in their operations, allegorically marrying their ingredients, multiplying them, and destroying them so that they could then be cleansed and ‘resurrected’. They viewed their work as a means of attaining salvation and as a solemn Christian duty. As such, spiritual alchemy was sanctioned, legitimized, and patronized by the Church. Its mundane laboratory procedures were also supported by secular rulers for material gain. Metallurgists employed chemical apparatus in their attempts to transmute base metals into gold, whereas physicians and apothecaries sought ultimately to distill a cure-all elixir of life. The manifold possibilities inherent in such an outcome caused Papal and secular authorities to limit and control the practice of alchemy by requiring licences and punishing those who worked without authorization....

Article

Aquamanile  

John N. Lupia

Type of ewer, usually of metal, used for the washing of hands in a liturgical or domestic context. It is often zoomorphic in form and usually has two openings, one for filling with water and the other for pouring. In their original usage aquamanilia expressed the symbolic significance of the lavabo, the ritual washing of the hands by the priest before vesting, before the consecration of the Eucharist and after mass. The earliest production of aquamanilia is associated with Mosan art of the Meuse Valley in northern France, and with Lower Saxony in north-east Germany. The majority of surviving examples are made of a variety of bronze that resembles gold when polished, while nearly all those made of precious metals are known only from church inventories.

Church documents refer to aquamanilia as early as the 5th century, when canon regulations stipulated that on ordination the subdeacon should receive such a vessel. Various documents from the 5th century to the beginning of the 11th sometimes use the term to denote both the ewer and its basin. Sometime after the beginning of the 11th century the term became transferred to a type of vessel, usually in the shape of an animal (e.g. lion, stag, horse; ...

Article

Brasses, monumental  

Malcolm W. Norris

A term used to describe any inscription, figure, shield of arms, or other device engraved for a commemorative purpose in flat sheet brass. It is found as early as 1486 in the will of William Norreys of Ash-next-Sandwich, Kent. Such memorials became established in 13th-century Europe as a very satisfactory form of inlay for a grave slab. They recorded the death and status of the deceased and, particularly important, attracted prayers for the soul in Purgatory. Monumental brasses are therefore usually found in churches.

Brasses were manufactured almost exclusively in north-western and central Europe, although they were exported as far south as Madeira. This form of monument was, as with tomb effigies, initially patronized by the higher clergy, although very occasionally royalty chose to be so represented. Examples are the brasses of Philip and John (destr.), sons of Louis VIII of France, formerly at Notre-Dame, Poissy, of Queen Margaret (...

Article

Hugo d’Oignies  

A. M. Koldeweij

[de Walcourt]

(b Walcourt, before 1187; d Oignies, c. 1240).

South Netherlandish metalworker. According to the chronicle of Oignies (Mons, Archvs Etat), which gives the details of his birth, he had three brothers who, led by the eldest, Egidius or Gilles de Walcourt, founded the Priory of St Nicolas at Oignies on the banks of the River Sambre, in the diocese of Liège. Hugo worked in precious metals in the Meuse region and the surrounding area until c. 1230, when he retired to the priory, became a lay brother and continued his work in its service. It is presumed that he learnt his craft in the coin foundry at Walcourt, and the tradition that he was apprenticed to Nicholas of Verdun may be based on truth. Classicizing elements in Hugo’s work give way to Gothic, however, and the influence of sculpture at Reims Cathedral can be clearly distinguished; there are also connections with the drawings of Villard de Honnecourt.

Hugo d’Oignies’s three surviving signed pieces of precious metalwork (a book cover, chalice and reliquary; all Namur, Trésor Hugo d’Oignies) were produced for ...

Article

Elias of Dereham  

Francis Woodman

(fl 1188; d 1245).

English cleric, sculptor, and possibly metalworker. A native of West Dereham in Norfolk, he has sometimes been identified with Master Elias, steward to Gilbert de Glanville, Bishop of Rochester. He served in the household of Hubert Walter, Bishop of Salisbury and later Archbishop of Canterbury (1193–1205), and he was employed by other bishops in an executive capacity; he also arranged the distribution of the copies of Magna Carta (1215). With Walter of Colchester (d 1248) he organized the translation of the remains of St Thomas Becket to the new shrine at Canterbury Cathedral in 1220, apparently making and setting up the shrine itself. He was ‘director of the new fabric’ of Salisbury Cathedral (of which he was a canon) from its foundation in 1220 until his death. He built a house for himself in the Close at Salisbury (Leadenhall; destr. 1915). In 1233...

Article

Andrea di Jacopo d’Ognabene  

(fl c. 1286–1317).

Italian goldsmith. His earliest documented work dates from 1286, when together with his brother Tallino he made a chalice, identified by Gai (1988) with the chalice of S Atto (Pistoia, Mus. Dioc.), for the Opera di S Jacopo; he was paid 48 lire for this work on 29 April 1286. The following year the Opera di S Jacopo commissioned a silver retable, decorated with high reliefs of the Virgin and Child Enthroned and the Twelve Apostles, for the altar of S Jacopo in Pistoia Cathedral. This retable was restored in March–April 1293 and again in 1314. In 1316 it was enlarged, and the added silver antependium was signed andrea di jacopo d’ognabene, although it is unclear whether Andrea was the author of both the antependium and the earlier retable. Most scholars consider the two parts to be stylistically distinct and thus by two different artists. Ragghianti, however, gave the authorship of both parts to another goldsmith, whom he identified as the ...

Article

Guccio di Mannaia  

[Malnaia; Malnaggia; Manaie; Mannaie]

(fl 1288–1318).

Italian goldsmith. One of the most important goldsmiths of the period, he is first documented on 5 July 1292 in a payment for a seal, in which he is referred to as ‘Guccio Mannaie aurifici’. A further three payments for seals are recorded on 1 January 1294, 4 September 1298, and 7 July 1318. In 1311 he enrolled in the Sienese goldsmiths’ guild. His only signed work is the chalice (silver gilt and translucent enamel; h. 220 mm; Assisi, Tesoro Mus. Basilica S Francesco) made in 1288–92 for Pope Nicholas IV and donated to S Francesco, Assisi. The stem is inscribed guccius manaie de senis fecit and niccho[l]aus papa quartus. The chalice is first described in an inventory of 1370 and is mentioned in successive inventories: that of 1430 refers to a paten (lost) decorated with an enamel of the Last Supper. The chalice is the earliest dated example of ...

Article

Elizabeth of Hungary  

Cordelia Warr

(b ?Sárospatak, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, 1207; d Marburg, Nov 17, 1231; can May 27, 1235; fd 17 Nov).

Hungarian saint and patron. She was the daughter of the Árpád King Andrew II of Hungary (reg 1205–35) and Gertrude of Andechs-Meran (1185–1213) and married Ludwig IV, Landgrave of Thuringia (reg 1217–27) in 1221. After Ludwig’s death (11 September 1227) whilst on crusade, Elizabeth made vows of obedience and chastity in the Franciscan church in Eisenach and later moved to Marburg where she founded a hospital. She died on 17 November 1231 and was canonized on 27 May 1235. Her relics were preserved in the Marburg, Elisabethkirche (begun 1235, dedicated 1283) having been translated there on 1 May 1236 in the presence of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.

Elizabeth’s cult was promoted through a number of royal houses with connections to the saint, including those of Naples and Castile, and she was also strongly supported by the Franciscan Order. An early 14th-century fresco cycle in the Clarissan church of S Maria Donna Regina in Naples, was commissioned by Mary of Hungary, Queen of Naples (...

Article

Female monasticism  

Danielle B. Joyner

From the time John Cassian established the first female foundation in Marseille in ad 410, monastic women lived in varying states of enclosure and were surrounded by diverse images and objects that contributed to their devotion, education and livelihood. The first rule for women, written in 512 by St Caesarius of Arles, emphasized their strict separation from men and the world, as did the Periculoso, a directive issued by Pope Boniface VIII (reg 1294–1303) in 1298. Various architectural solutions developed throughout the Middle Ages to reconcile the necessities of enclosure with the access required by male clerics to celebrate Mass and provide pastoral care. Nuns’ choirs, where the women would gather for their daily prayers, were often constructed as discreet spaces in the church, which allowed women to hear or see the Mass without interacting with the cleric, as in the 10th-century choir in the eastern transept gallery at St Cyriakus in Gernrode, Germany. In some Cistercian examples, the nuns’ choir appeared at the west end of the nave. Dominican and Franciscan architecture was largely varied. Double monasteries, which housed men and women, also required careful construction. A 7th-century text describing the church of St Brigida in ...

Article

Memmo di Filippuccio  

Cristina De Benedictis

(fl 1288–1324).

Italian painter and illuminator. He was the son of the goldsmith Filippuccio (fl 1273–93). In 1948 Longhi attributed a fresco of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with SS James and John the Evangelist in the church of S Jacopo, San Gimignano, and others in the tower of the Palazzo del Popolo there to Memmo, who is documented as having lived and worked in the town from 1303 to 1317. A document of 1303 also records him as having worked in the upper church of S Francesco, Assisi, and Longhi suggested this might have been on the frescoes of the St Francis cycle, which would account for the Giottesque influence he had noted in the frescoes in San Gimignano. Previtali (1962) further attributed to Memmo the frescoes of Carlo d’Angio Administering Justice (1292; San Gimignano, Pal. Pop., Sala dell’Udienza), an altarpiece of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Saints...

Article

Golden altars in Denmark  

Søren Kaspersen

Gilded copper altar frontals found in seven parish churches in Jutland (Lisbjerg, Odder, Tamdrup, Sindbjerg, Ølst, Sahl, and Stadil), one in Schleswig, Germany (Quern), and one in southern Sweden (Broddetorp), as a general rule they date from c. 1135–1225 and were most likely made in different workshops in Jutland. An altar frontal in Lyngsjö Church in Scania (now Skåne, Sweden) is stylistically close to the gilded copper altar frontal (c. 1120–30) in Gross-Komburg Abbey in southern Germany and may have been imported. Fragments, such as cast figures, gilded copper pieces, together with documentary sources indicate the possible existence of 41 golden altars in Scandinavia in the high medieval period, with at least 32 of these coming from medieval Denmark.

Each altar may have consisted of both a frontal and a low retable surmounted by an ‘arch of heaven’ and a crucifix (e.g. Lisbjerg altar, 1135–40; Copenhagen, Nmus.), and was made of copper plates attached to a skeleton or oak frame. The thin copper sheets are embossed, engraved, stamped, and fire gilded, with contrast provided by brown varnish (‘vernis brun’) on the oldest altarpieces. They were also decorated with rock crystals mounted in settings, as on the Stadil frontal where 41 of the original 50 crystals still survive....

Article

Hugo (Friar)  

Walloon School, 13th century, male.

Born in Walcourt; died after 1240.

Worker in precious metals, miniaturist. Religious furnishings.

Friar Hugo went to live with four brother priests at Oignies, in Hainaut, where they founded a religious community. Before long, they had set up a goldsmith's workshop. Hugo made many pieces for the Treasury. His work included religious objects such as reliquaries, phylacteries, a gospel-book, a manuscript, an engraved chalice and a cross. In ...

Article

Guillaume Julien  

Barbara Drake Boehm

(fl Paris, 1298; d ?Paris, c. 1316).

French goldsmith. He is documented principally in the royal accounts of Philip IV, but no authenticated work by him survives. His atelier was on the Grand Pont in Paris, and his sons may also have been active there because they became proprietors after his death. In 1298 he was paid for a reliquary of St Louis (destr. after 1392) for the Sainte-Chapelle, Paris. Payments for the head reliquary of St Louis (destr. 1791) began the following year. The frontispiece engraving to Du Cange’s edition of Jean de Joinville’s Histoire de S Louys IX (1688), the only visual record of a work by Guillaume Julien to survive, shows the crowned and jewelled bust of repoussé gold only to the shoulders. Inventory descriptions show, however, that it was supported by four silver-gilt angels, holding attributes and standing on a base decorated with rosettes framing images of the 32 kings of France from Clovis to Philip IV. Champlevé inscriptions recorded their names at the top and ...

Article

Jutland  

Harriet Sonne de Torrens

Mainland peninsula of modern-day Denmark and one of the three provinces (Jutland, Zealand and Skåne, southern Sweden) that constituted medieval Denmark. The conversion of the Danes to Christianity initiated a reorganization of the economic, social and legal structures of Denmark that would change the shape of Jutland dramatically between the 11th and 14th centuries. Under Knut the Great, King of Denmark and England (reg 1019–35), Jutland acquired a stable diocesan system (1060) that enabled a systematic collection of tithes and the growth of religious institutions between 1050 and 1250. During this period, agricultural practices changed as manor houses and landed estates were established, producing wealth for the ruling families. Under Valdemar I (reg 1157–82) and Knut VI (reg 1182–1202), Jutland witnessed a great building activity; on Jutland more than 700 stone churches were constructed, some replacing earlier wooden churches, each needing liturgical furnishings. Workshops, such as that of the renowned sculptor Horder and many others, were actively engaged in carving stone baptismal fonts (e.g. Malt, Skodborg, Ut, Stenild), capitals, reliefs (Vestervig, Aalborg) and tympana (Gjøl, Ørsted, Stjaer, Skibet), wooden cult figures, Jutland’s golden altars (Lisbjerg, Sahl, Stadil, Tamdrup) and wall paintings. Evidence of the earliest wall paintings in Jutland, ...

Article

Matthew Paris  

British, 13th century, male.

Born c. 1200, in St Albans; died 1259, in St Albans.

Painter, miniaturist, goldsmith, sculptor.

A Benedictine monk in the monastery of St Albans, he worked there and in London. He spent 1248 and 1249 in Norway. He is considered one of the best English miniaturists of the 13th century....

Article

Muhammad Ibn Al-Zayn  

13th – 14th century, male.

Active at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century.

Metal worker.

Muhammad ibn al-Zayn is known for the famous Baptistère de St Louis (Paris, Louvre), a tin basin encrusted with gold and silver dating from between 1290...

Article

Muldenfaltenstil  

Paul Binski

[Ger.: ‘troughfold style’]

Term used to describe a convention of drapery representation in the figurative arts in north-western Europe between c. 1180 and c. 1240. It was typical of metalwork, sculpture, and painting executed in the region between the River Meuse and the Ile-de-France and is one of the most distinctive features of art of the so-called Transitional period between Romanesque and Gothic (see Transitional style). In this style cloth hangs around figures in deep looped troughs, clinging to limbs but also partially concealing them. The emergence of the style coincided with a renewed interest in antique forms, displacing the more abstract linear conventions of the Byzantine ‘dampfold’ styles of the mid-12th century (see Romanesque, §IV, 2). Although this new tendency towards rounder, more sculptural forms was widespread in north-western Europe towards and around 1200, the occurrence of true Muldenfaltenstil work was geographically more restricted. It appears not to have occurred in England, for example....

Article

Nicholas of Verdun  

P. Cornelius Claussen

(b ?Verdun; fl 1181–1205).

French goldsmith. His known works indicate that he was one of the leading metalworkers of his day and an early exponent of the classicizing styles around 1200 that formed a transition between Romanesque and Gothic. In his two dated signatures, nicolaus virdunensis (1181) on the enamel decoration of the former pulpit in Klosterneuburg Abbey, Austria (see fig.), and magister nicholaus de verdum (1205) on the Shrine of the Virgin in Tournai Cathedral, the artist gave as his place of origin Verdun, in Lorraine, an area that in the 12th century had close economic and cultural links with the Rhineland, Champagne, the Ile-de-France and the metalworking centres of the Meuse. A more ambiguous signature, nicolaus de verda, was on the pedestal of one of a lost pair of enthroned, silver-gilt statuettes in Worms Cathedral representing St Peter and the founder Queen Constance, the wife either of Emperor Henry VI (m. ...

Article

Ravello  

Antonio Milone

Italian cathedral city in the province of Salerno, Campania. Ravello has been documented as an urban centre since the 10th century and as a bishopric since 1087. The centre, near the Toro quarter, is high up between the two rivers that separate the city from Scala and Minori. The city’s fortifications were damaged and the city itself was sacked by a Pisan assault in 1135 and in 1137. At the end of the 14th century, its inhabitants also clashed with the neighbouring city of Scala. In the 13th century a mercantile oligarchy with power throughout all of Sicily and close relations to the Crown took control of the city, celebrated in Boccaccio’s Decameron (II.4), and enriched it with numerous monuments and artworks.

The cathedral, dedicated to S Pantaleone, dates to 1087 but was extensively altered in the late 18th century. The cathedral has three naves and the façade has three portals—the central one has a bronze door (...