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Algarve  

Kirk Ambrose

Southern-most region of mainland Portugal. Its name is derived from ‘the West’ in Arabic. This region has relatively few medieval buildings: devastating earthquakes in 1722 and 1755 contributed to these losses, though many buildings were deliberately destroyed during the Middle Ages. For example, in the 12th century the Almoravids likely razed a pilgrimage church, described in Arabic sources, at the tip of the cape of S Vicente. Mosques at Faro, Silves and Tavira, among others, appear to have been levelled to make room for church construction after the Reconquest of the region, completed in 1249. Further excavations could shed much light on this history.

Highlights in the Algarve include remains at Milreu of a villa with elaborate mosaics that rank among the most substantial Roman sites in the region. The site further preserves foundations of a basilica, likely constructed in the 5th century, and traces of what may be a baptistery, perhaps added during the period of Byzantine occupation in the 6th and 7th centuries. The period of Islamic rule, from the 8th century through to the 13th, witnessed the construction of many fortifications, including examples at Aljezur, Loulé and Salir, which were mostly levelled by earthquakes. Silves, a city with origins in the Bronze Age, preserves a substantial concentration of relatively well-preserved Islamic monuments. These include a bridge, carved inscriptions, a castle, cistern and fortified walls, along which numerous ceramics have been excavated. Most extant medieval churches in Algarve date to the period after the Reconquest. These tend to be modest in design and small in scale, such as the 13th-century Vera Cruz de Marmelar, built over Visigothic or Mozarabic foundations. The relatively large cathedrals at Silves and at Faro preserve substantial portions dating to the 13th century, as well as fabric from subsequent medieval campaigns. Renaissance and Baroque churches and ecclesiastical furnishings can be found throughout Algarve....

Article

Astrology in medieval art  

Sophie Page

Astrology is the art of predicting events on earth as well as human character and disposition from the movements of the planets and fixed stars. Medieval astrology encompassed both general concepts of celestial influence, and the technical art of making predictions with horoscopes, symbolic maps of the heavens at particular moments and places constructed from astronomical information. The scientific foundations of the art were developed in ancient Greece, largely lost in early medieval Europe and recovered by the Latin West from Arabic sources in the 12th and 13th centuries. Late medieval astrological images were successfully Christianized and were adapted to particular contexts, acquired local meanings and changed over time.

Astrology developed into a scientific branch of learning in ancient Greece, but because of the opposition of the Church Fathers it was transmitted to early medieval Europe in only fragmentary form in technically unsophisticated textbooks and popular divinatory genres. Literary and scientific texts provided more general ideas about the nature and attributes of the planets which were influential on later iconography. The first significant astrological images appear in 11th-century illustrated astronomical texts (e.g. London, BL, Cotton MS. Tiberius BV), which were acquired and produced by monasteries to aid with time-keeping and the construction of the Christian calendar....

Article

Heiligenkreuz Abbey  

Mario Schwarz

Cistercian abbey in the Vienna Woods, Lower Austria. Heiligenkreuz, the oldest Cistercian abbey in the region once ruled by the house of Babenberg, was founded in 1135 by Margrave Leopold III of Austria (reg 1096–1136). It was settled with monks from Morimond Abbey in France, and a temporary building was consecrated in 1136. From the time of Leopold IV (reg 1136–41) Heiligenkreuz was the preferred burial place of the Babenbergs.

The nave of the church, begun before 1147 and consecrated in 1187, is an ashlar building, which at first had a flat ceiling. Excavations have shown that the original east end consisted of three apses without a transept. In 1147 Henry II (reg 1141–77) donated the village of Münchendorf and its revenues to the abbey, making it possible to vault the church, and a further endowment in 1156 enabled the monastic buildings to be rebuilt in stone. The five-bay aisled nave, the proportions of which are based on a module derived from the crossing square, has alternating supports. The aisles are groin-vaulted, but the main vessel has domical vaults with ribs of a plain, rectangular profile, the transverse arches resting on short pilasters corbelled above the arcade (...

Article

Kenilworth Castle  

Gordon Campbell

English castle in Warwickshire. In 1265 the medieval castle at Kenilworth was granted by Henry III to his second son, Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, and for the next three centuries it was passed back and forth between the crown and various noble families. In 1563 the castle was granted by Queen Elizabeth to her favourite, Dudley, Robert, 1st Earl of Leicester, Earl of Leicester, who decided to convert the castle into a great house fit to receive occasional visits from the Queen. He retained the banqueting hall that had been built in 1392, and redesigned the Norman keep (built 1120), inserting mullioned and transomed windows on the first floor and renovating the accommodation within the building. He also demolished part of the curtain wall to construct the magnificent guest house that has been known since the 17th century as Leicester’s Building.

Dudley also built a gatehouse, beside which a large garden was laid out. The design shows indirect French influence, mediated through the English royal palace gardens. Like the gardens at ...

Article

Mappa mundi  

Michael Curschmann

The medieval term mappa mundi (also forma mundi, historia/istoire) covers a broad array of maps of the world of which roughly 1100 survive. These have resisted systematic classification, but the clearly dominant type is one that aims at comprehensively symbolistic representation. Its early, schematic form is a disc composed of three continents surrounded and separated from one another by water (“T-O Map”) and associated with the three sons of Noah: Asia (Shem) occupies all of the upper half, Europe (Japhet) to the left and Africa (Ham) to the right share the lower half. Quadripartite cartographic schemes included the antipodes as a fourth continent, but the tripartite model was adopted by the large majority of the more developed world maps in use from the 11th century on and—with important variations—well into the Renaissance. While details were added as available space permitted, the Mediterranean continued to serve as the vertical axis and, with diminishing clarity, the rivers Don and Nile as the horizontal one. The map also continues to be ‘oriented’ towards Asia, where paradise sits at the very top. A circular ocean forms the perimeter and not infrequently the city of Jerusalem constitutes its centre....

Article

Orsini family  

Jacqueline Colliss Harvey

Italian family of patrons. One of the greatest Roman dynasties, the Orsini are documented from the 11th century and rose to prominence under the pontificate of Pope Celestine III (reg 1191–8). The founder proper of the Orsini dynasty was Matteo Rosso Orsini (d after 1254). In 1241 they defended Rome from the assault of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, and as a consequence began their traditional enmity with the Colonna family. By the 13th century they had had two popes: Celestine III and Nicholas III. The latter’s emblem, also that of the family, was a standing bear (It. orso). At the close of the 13th century the Orsini began to divide into numerous branches, the principal ones being those of Monterotondo, the Conti di Nola and Pitigliano and the Duce di Bracciano and Gravina. So extensive was the family that it is not possible to reconstruct a comprehensive genealogy. The French family of Jouvenel des Ursins claimed kinship with them, and they were connected by marriage to the Medici and Farnese families....

Article

S Maria Maggiore  

Massimiliano David

(Rome)

Massimiliano David

Situated at the end of the Esquiline Hill and formerly known as S Maria ad Praesepem, S Maria Maggiore was traditionally founded by Pope Liberius (reg 352–66) and financed by Johannes, a rich citizen, after a miraculous summer snowfall. It is more likely, however, that it was founded in the early 5th century by Sixtus III, whose name appears in the mosaics of the triumphal arch in front of the apse. The church had a nave and aisles, the nave more than twice as wide as the aisles, and there was a single apse. Monolithic Ionic columns supporting a continuous entablature divided the nave from the aisles; above these, clerestory windows corresponded to the intercolumniations below. The windows were flanked by Corinthian pilasters aligned over the Ionic columns of the colonnade, and these were inset with a double tier of stucco colonnettes with fluting that spiralled right and left. Beneath each window was an aedicule encasing a mosaic panel....

Article

Strzelno Abbey  

Zygmunt Świechowski

Premonstratensian convent, dedicated to the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary, in the eastern outskirts of Strzelno, province of Poznań, Poland.

The church was begun before the town was established in 1231. Nuns are documented there c. 1175, and Pope Celestine III’s Bull of 1193 confirming the Abbey’s possessions under the leadership of ‘Magistra Beatrix’ probably marks the start of building. Work on the interior was probably finished by 1216 when it was consecrated by Bishop Barton in the presence of Krystyn, son of Piotr. This man, probably Piotr Wszeborowicz, is depicted in the dedicatory tympanum with St Anne (the initial patron saint) and is also referred to in anagrams carved in the adjacent St Procopius Rotunda. The church was built from east to west on a new site, and there was a short break between the completion of the transept and work on the nave. The west façade, erected on separate foundations, was the last part to be built, work continuing into the 13th century....