Article
Bazaar
Mohammad Gharipour
Bazaar, which is rooted in Middle Persian wāzār and Armenian vačaṟ, has acquired three different meanings: the market as a whole, a market day, and the marketplace. The bazaar as a place is an assemblage of workshops and stores where various goods and services are offered.
Primitive forms of shops and trade centres existed in early civilizations in the Near East, such as Sialk, Tepe in Kashan, Çatal Hüyük, Jerico, and Susa. After the 4th millennium BC, the population grew and villages gradually joined together to shape new cities, resulting in trade even with the remote areas as well as the acceleration of the population in towns. The advancement of trade and accumulation of wealth necessitated the creation of trade centres. Trade, and consequently marketplaces, worked as the main driving force in connecting separate civilizations, while fostering a division of labour, the diffusion of technological innovations, methods of intercultural communication, political and economic management, and techniques of farming and industrial production....
Article
Bizen
Richard L. Wilson
Japanese centre of ceramics production. High-fired ceramic wares were manufactured from the end of the 12th century in and around the village of Inbe, Bizen Province (now Okayama Prefect.). This region had been a centre for manufacturing Sue-style stonewares and Haji-style earthenwares from the 6th century
Article
Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland
Colum P. Hourihane
(CRSBI)
International organization dedicated to the recording and documentation of all known examples of Romanesque sculpture in Britain and Ireland. The organization was the brainchild of George Zarnecki, scholar of Romanesque art and former Deputy Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art. His aim was to develop a photographic and scholarly archive in which every known example of Romanesque sculpture in Britain and Ireland would be recorded for posterity. In 1988 Zarencki and Neil Stratford (Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities, British Museum) submitted a proposal for funding and support to the British Academy which was successful and the project has been under the remit of that organization since.
Under the guidance of scholars, a team of volunteers track down examples of Romanesque sculpture and measure, describe, and photograph the works before they are eventually made available on the internet with a full bibliography. The project has been directed by Peter Lasko...
Article
Corpus Vitrearum
Colum P. Hourihane
International scholarly organization dedicated to the study of medieval Stained glass. Although it is claimed that the organization was founded in 1949, it was not formally established until 1952 when a group of interested scholars met at the International Congress for the History of Art in Amsterdam under the guidance of Hans R. Hahnloser and where guidelines for the recording and cataloguing of stained glass were then structured. Hahnloser had already discussed the possibility of founding such an organization three years earlier at the 16th International Congress for the History of Art in Lisbon when an outline and draft were proposed.
This international project now has branches in 12 countries (Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, and the US) with related committees in Portugal and Russia. Its aims are to record all medieval stained or painted glass, although some committees have also ventured into later periods. Each country has its own national committee that is financially dependent on securing its own funding. Most national committees are run by volunteers. These committees determine the research priorities and usually work in tandem with other organizations. The independent nature of these various committees and their dependency on securing their own finance has meant that the project does not have a uniform level of publication or activity....
Article
Eiheiji
Dennis Lishka
Japanese Zen Buddhist monastery of the Sōtō sect, in Fukui Prefecture. Eiheiji’s significance derives largely from the place in the history of Japanese Buddhism of its founder, Dōgen (1199–1253), and to his interpretation of Sōtō Zen monastic practice. After 1217 Dōgen joined the dominant Tendai school of Buddhism, but he grew disillusioned with Japanese Buddhism as a feasible human soteriology, although he was much attracted to the practice of Zen meditation. In 1223 he left for China, then under the rule of the Song dynasty (
Article
Master of the Kings' Heads
French, 13th century, male.
Active in Chartres at the beginning of the 13th century.
Sculptor.
This sculptor carved a series of four large heads of kings for the right porch of the north transept of Chartres Cathedral. The realism of these heads, which are difficult to identify, is highly expressive and they harmonise with the rest of the decoration of the north porch....
Article
Morgan Library Picture Book
Daniel H. Weiss
Extensively illustrated Old Testament manuscript (390×300 mm; New York, Morgan Lib., MS. M.638) produced in France. Containing more than 340 narrative episodes distributed across the recto and verso sides of 46 parchment leaves, the Old Testament cycle begins with the first chapters of Genesis and concludes with scenes from the life of King David from 2 Samuel. No longer in its original binding, three leaves are now separated from the Morgan volume; two being in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (Ms. nouv. acq. lat. 2294, fols 2, 3) and a single leaf in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles (83. MA.55). Distinctive for the quality of its illustrations, the richness of its narrative cycle and the fact that the original codex probably contained no text, the Morgan manuscript was produced around the middle of the 13th century, most likely in Paris for King Louis IX (reg 1226–70) or a close associate. The ascription of the manuscript to a royal context is based primarily on thematic similarities to other works associated with the King, including especially the ...
Article
Nobuzane
Japanese, 13th century, male.
Born before 1185; died after 1265.
Painter.
Nobuzane was son of the painter Takanobu. Like his father he was a middle-ranking courtier and a poet and he continued in the Realist style used by his father. He had a great reputation as a portrait painter, depicting people either living or dead, singly or in groups. His art is denoted by the term ...
Article
Pomposa
Charles B. McClendon
Italian former Benedictine abbey near the mouth of the Po River and 45 km north of Ravenna in the province of Emilia Romagna. Although first documented in
The proportions of the wooden-roofed basilican church, along with the polygonal outline of its main apse, reflect influence from nearby Ravenna and Classe and suggest a date in the 8th or 9th century. An elaborate pavement of mosaic and cut stone (opus sectile...
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 (...
Article
San Clemente a Casauria
Elizabeth B. Smith
Italian Benedictine abbey in the Abruzzo region. Founded in the 9th century by Emperor Louis the Pious (reg 814–40) and dedicated to St Clement I, whose relics it claimed, the abbey flourished under Abbot Leonate (reg 1155–82), a member of the papal curia. Leonate began an ambitious rebuilding project starting with a new façade, complete with rose window, and a portico for the church, both of which were decorated with monumental stone sculpture carved by masters who were probably not local but rather of French or north Italian origin, perhaps on their way to or from the Holy Land. An elaborately carved pulpit and paschal candelabrum also date to the time of Leonate, as does the Chronicon Casauriense (Paris, Bib. N., MS. lat. 5411), a compilation of documents pertinent to the abbey combined with a history of its existence up to the time of Leonate’s death. Although Leonate died before completing his rebuilding programme, his successor Joel installed the bronze doors still on the central portal of the façade. Construction continued on the church in the early 13th century....
Article
Seto
Richard L. Wilson
Centre of ceramics production in Japan, near Nagoya (Aichi Prefect.). The area occupies an important place in Japanese ceramic history, because, together with neighbouring Mino, it was the only ceramics centre to produce glazed ware before the Momoyama period (1568–1600). Its importance as a producer of utilitarian wares in the early modern period is reflected in the word setomono (‘things from Seto’), which is synonymous with ceramics in eastern Japan (see Japan §IX 3., (i), (c)).
Evidence from more than 500 kiln sites dating back to the Kamakura (1185–1333) and Muromachi (1333–1568) periods demonstrates that, under the influence of Sanage, a major kiln centre in the south-west, Seto began to show distinction as a ceramics centre in the 12th century. This development was made possible by the rise of eastern Japan as a political centre; newly empowered warrior élites, lacking the access to Chinese imports that the residents of older urban centres enjoyed, commissioned the Seto kilns to produce ash-glazed ceramics in the style of Song period (...
Article
Shigaraki
Richard L. Wilson
Japanese centre of ceramics production, in the foothills flanking the Daido River valley in south-west Ōmi Province (now Shiga Prefect.). Together with Seto, Echizen, Tanba, Bizen and Tokoname, Shigaraki is one of Japan’s oldest continuously functioning traditional pottery centres (see Japan §IX 3., (i), (d)). Sue stonewares and green-glazed earthenwares were produced in various locations in the Shigaraki region between the 6th century