Search Results

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....

(b 1845; d 1908).

American interior decorator and founder of the first tapestry factory in the USA. He worked for Herter Brothers (see Herter, Christian) on the decoration of a series of grand houses, notably William H. Vanderbilt’s house on Fifth Avenue, New York, and William Welsh Harrison’s Grey Towers Castle (now part of Arcadia University) in Philadelphia. When the Vanderbilt house was completed in 1882, Christian Herter returned to Germany and Baumgarten took over the company. In 1891 he started his own company, William Baumgarten and Company, Inc., and in 1893 complemented his interior decoration business with a tapestry factory in his Fifth Avenue premises. He recruited weavers and dyers from the Royal Windsor Tapestry Manufactory (which had closed in 1890), including five weavers from the Foussadier family. The factory’s tapestries include one at Grey Towers (1898).

Norwegian architectural and furniture design partnership formed in 1922 by Gudolf Blakstad (b Gjerpen, 19 May 1893; d Oslo, 1986) and Herman Munthe-Kaas (b Christiania [now Oslo], 25 May 1890; d Oslo, 5 March 1970). Blakstad was awarded his diploma as an architect at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim in 1916. He collaborated with Jens Dunker on the New Theatre, Oslo, from 1919 to 1929. After a preliminary training in Christiania, Munthe-Kaas finished his education at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1919.

From the beginning of their careers Blakstad and Munthe-Kaas played a leading role in Norwegian architecture. After studying in Italy in the early 1920s, they advocated Neo-classicism in architectural projects, furniture designs and writings. In 1922 they won the competition for the new Town Hall in Haugesund (1924–31), a major work of 20th-century Norwegian Neo-classicism. Above a powerfully rusticated basement, the long office wing with its regular fenestration contrasts with the higher City Council Hall, accentuated by pairs of monumental, free-standing columns. In general the effect is of robust strength and an exciting interplay of horizontals and verticals....

Monumental, marble paschal Candlestick of the late 12th to early 13th century with reliefs signed by Nicolaus de Angelo and Vassallettus now in S Paolo fuori le Mura, Rome. The imposing column (h. 5.6 m), adorned with six registers of reliefs and surmounted by a fluted candle holder, rests upon a base of sculpted lions, sphinxes, rams and female figures. The upper and lower reliefs bear vegetal and ornamental patterns while the three central registers portray Christ before Caiaphas, the Mocking of Christ, Christ before Pilate, Pilate Washing his Hands, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Ascension. The culminating Easter scenes reflect the paschal candle’s function during the Easter season as a symbol of Christ resurrected, as evoked in an inscription on the base. A second fragmentary inscription refers to the unidentifiable patron’s desire for commemoration. A third inscription identifies Nicolaus de Angelo as the master sculptor and Petrus Vassallettus as playing a secondary role. Both were active in the second half of the 12th to the early 13th century and came from leading families of Roman sculptors: the Vassalletti and Cosmati (Nicolaus’s family). The candlestick is the only work signed by and securely attributed to Nicolaus and the scope of his contribution remains uncertain. A plausible theory attributes the base and first register to Petrus, based upon similarities to works signed by him and ascribed to his family, such as the cloister of S Giovanni in Laterano in Rome and the narthex of S Lorenzo fuori le Mura in Rome. Nicolaus probably executed the Christological scenes, distinguishable for their more dynamic, expressive figures and decorative chisel work, and appropriate for the master sculptor because of their centrality and significance. Early Christian sarcophagi and Carolingian ivories may have provided models for the figural types. This form of paschal candlestick was probably inspired by Roman columnar monuments carved with triumphal scenes....

Places in the choir of a church set aside for the daily use of the clergy. They are usually made of wood and are found only in churches of the Western tradition. Choir-stalls were essentially places for standing, the clergy being required to do so during most of the services. Each stall consists of a folding seat, turning on hinges or pivots, with a Misericord under it, a standard on each side with elbow rest, a wainscot backing and, sometimes, a canopy above. Some form of book desk was provided in front.

The daily task of the members of a cathedral chapter was the recitation of the Psalter, particular psalms being allocated to the different prebends. At Lincoln Cathedral the initial Latin verses allocated to each canon, over-painted in modern times, are still to be found on the stall backs. An absentee canon was expected to have a deputy, called a ‘vicar choral’, who was paid ‘stall wages’. The seating in the choir-stalls of a great church mirrored the hierarchy of the organization. It was stipulated in the manuals of customs, such as the Sarum Consuetudinary, written in the early 13th century. In medieval England the principal place of honour in a secular ...

Closet-like piece of furniture used in the Roman Catholic Church and some other liturgically ‘high’ denominations for auricular confession. Confessionals are always made out of wood, since it was thought inappropriate to use more costly materials for non-liturgical church furnishings. Several types of confessional were in existence during the Middle Ages. In the 12th century the priest was seated while the penitent knelt in front of him. From the 14th century in Sweden, where men lived alongside women in double monasteries, grilles were inserted in special recesses in the choir walls to prevent the priest from coming into contact with the sisters. The first confessional rooms, with a grille opening into the church, appeared in Portugal in the early 15th century (e.g. at Guarda Cathedral); a century later (1517–20), at S Maria, Belém, in Lisbon, the confessional room was extended to a double alcove, one for the priest and another for the penitent, connected by a grille. In the 16th century in northern Europe confessional grilles were inserted in the choir aisle windows so that confession could be made from outside the church. During the Reformation, after a number of disputes over the objectivity of confession, regulations for the sacrament were drawn up at the Council of Milan (...

(b Belgern, nr Leipzig, 1741; d c. 1806).

German cabinetmaker. By 1770 he was established as a master cabinetmaker in Leipzig. An important early patron was the art dealer Karl Christian Heinrich Rost (1742–98), who commissioned furniture closely based on French and English models. In 1788 Hoffman obtained a loan to extend his business in Leipzig and a subsidiary workshop at Eilenburg; his total workforce was 16 tradesmen. In 1789, after a dispute with the local guild of cabinetmakers, he published his first pattern book, Abbildungen der vornehmsten Tischlerarbeiten, welche verfertiget und zu haben sind bey Friedrich Gottlob Hoffmann, wohnhaft auf dem alten Neumarkt in Leipzig, an anthology of designs for household furniture, mostly inspired by the Louis XVI Neo-classical style. In 1795 he produced a second catalogue, Neues Verzeichnis und Muster-Charte des Meubles-Magazin, in which English design types are dominant. A number of pieces corresponding to plates in these two pattern books have been identified (e.g. sofa, ...

(b Christiania [now Oslo], Aug 14, 1900; d Cuzco, Peru, Aug 29, 1968).

Norwegian architect and designer. He graduated as an architect from the Norwegian Polytechnic in Trondheim in 1926. He worked as an assistant to architects in Oslo and in 1928 travelled extensively in Europe before starting his own practice in Oslo with Sverre Aasland (b 1899) in 1929. Together they designed the Frøen housing development (1929–30), the block of flats at Pavels Gate 6 (1930), Oslo, the Havna housing development, Oslo, including Villa Dammann (1930–32), and a grain silo in Kristiansand (1933–6).

Korsmo was a major exponent of the Modern Movement in Norway during the 1930s, and continued to expound its tenets after World War II. His first important work, the Villa Dammann, is a good illustration of his sensitive and original approach. It is reminiscent of the work of Erich Mendelsohn and W. M. Dudok: the exterior walls are concrete, interrupted in places by brick. A large, semi-cylindrical projection on the south side accommodates the living-room, and it is broken only by a horizontal strip of windows, set high so as to give a large wall area for the display of a painting collection inside....

[Lat. misericordia: ‘act of mercy’]

Hinged choir-stall seat, which, when tipped up, gives support to the clergy, who according to the Rules of St Benedict (6th century) were required to stand during the Divine Offices, consisting of the seven Canonical Hours. The term is first mentioned in the 11th-century Constitutiones of Hirsau Abbey, Germany (chapter 29), when they were confined to the upper rows of the stalls and used by the old and weak monks only, who had previously been allowed crutches. The use of misericords is restricted to western Europe. Their undersides are usually carved, and the earliest surviving examples date from the 13th century (e.g. Exeter Cathedral, c. 1230–60).

In contrast to other church art, the subject-matter of misericords is predominantly secular, illustrating the humorous side of life, proverbs, games, fables, professions, and a vast repertory of grotesques, animals, and plants. Scenes based on the scriptures are few (e.g. Amiens Cathedral, 1508–19...

Term used to designate certain kinds of seating, particularly fixed wooden benches in churches. The provision of permanent seating for the congregation became common only in the later Middle Ages, and it may have been a speciality of England, where most examples survive. Earlier, bench-tables along the walls or encircling the nave piers had provided seating for the old and infirm, but most of the congregation stood, as is still the tradition in the Eastern churches. The earliest surviving examples of fixed wooden pews date from the late 13th century, at St Mary and All Saints, Dunsfold (Surrey), St Mark’s, Mark (Somerset), and St Luke’s, Gaddesby (Leics). Seats for parishioners are recorded at the synod of Exeter in 1287, when the practice of claiming a specific place was condemned, and enclosed ‘pues’ for wives and widows are mentioned in the Visions of Piers Plowman C, vi, 144 (c. 1377–87...

(bapt Vienna, Jan 29, 1690; d Gelchsheim, Lower Franconia, March 7, 1758).

Austrian stuccoist and architect, active in Germany. He trained as a stuccoist (1710–14) under Alberto Camesina (traceable to 1725) in Vienna. By 1715 Roth was active as a stuccoist on the Hohenlohebau and the Lorenzkapelle of Schloss Kapfenburg in Lauchheim (Baden-Württemberg). He went to Ellingen in 1718 to work with the architect to the Teutonic Order Franz Keller (d 1725) in rebuilding the Order’s residence. There, in the castle church and in many other rooms, he first produced decorations in the elegant interlacing style of the Régence. Other stucco works followed, in the Josephssaal (1724) of the Cistercian monastery of Bronnbach/Tauber (Baden-Württemberg), and in the chapel (1725) of Schloss Absberg (Middle Franconia). After Keller’s death, Roth succeeded him at the works in Ellingen. He changed Keller’s plans for the residence, which drew on French and Austrian sources, to a typically Franconian style. He subsequently produced the parish church (...