“Saints for All Christendom: Naturalizing the Alexandrian Saints Cyrus and John in Seventh- to Thirteenth-Century Rome.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 71 (2017): 337–366

This paper investigates the multiple impulses that contributed to the early medieval interest in Pope Damasus’s inscriptions. In part, Damasus’s verses were read as guides to Rome’s martyrial topography; in part, they served as models of a classicizing Christian style. Above all, the appeal of these verses derived from their association with…[Read more]

This paper investigates the multiple impulses that contributed to the early medieval interest in Pope Damasus’s inscriptions. In part, Damasus’s verses were read as guides to Rome’s martyrial topography; in part, they served as models of a classicizing Christian style. Above all, the appeal of these verses derived from their association with…[Read more]

This article argues that Ferdinand Gregorovius (1821–91) in his popular but much critiqued Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter challenged the ideals of an objective, dispassionate historiography advocated by the leading German historians of his generation. To do so it focuses on Gregorovius’s treatment of the city of Rome and its urban leg…[Read more]

“Hagiography as History and the Enigma of the Quattro Coronati,” Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 93 (2017): 345–409

Overview of the modern myth of a prehistoric great mother goddess

A brief examination of the modern mythology around the faience votive figures from the “Temple Repositories” at Knossos in Crete that were discovered and heavily restored by Arthur Evans and his team at Knossos in the early 20th century

“Why Remember Ratchis? Medieval Monastic Memory and the Lombard Past,” Archivio Storico Italiano 177.1 (2019): 3–57

“Why Remember Ratchis? Medieval Monastic Memory and the Lombard Past,” Archivio Storico Italiano 177.1 (2019): 3–57

The paper deals with the so called griffin lamps. In the group of early Christian bronze lamps, a relatively large number of those with handles in the form of griffin-shaped protome have been preserved. Griffin lamps could be called the prototype of Late Antique production, owing to the manner in which stylistic and iconographic elements of the…[Read more]

Jewish relation to representational art is determined mostly by the Second Commandment: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.” As science has observed, the…[Read more]

Conference report, published in Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters, 43/2015 (2016), pp. 178-80.

The aim of this research, focusing on representations of light and the symbolism of early Christian lamp decorations, has been to examine and summarise the existing knowledge of the symbolism of light in the Mediterranean region and the models by which this symbolism was manifested in the early Christian visual culture. Lamps with Early Christian…[Read more]

Late medieval discourses on chivalry were heavily informed by the competitive structure of homosocial male groups. The discourse on heroism which characterizes large parts of late medieval chivalric writing can be viewed as a consequence of this structural predisposition to contest. Texts as e.g. Geoffroy de Charny’s “Livre de Chevalerie”, Olivier…[Read more]

Review of Christianization and Commonwealth in Early Medieval Europe: A Ritual Interpretation, by Nathan J. Ristuccia. The Medieval Review (TMR 18.11.01), 2018

Ambrósíus saga og Rósamunda is a post-medieval Icelandic romance which belongs to a group of Scandinavian narratives utilizing the pound of flesh motif. It survives in 19 paper manuscripts from the 18th and 19th centuries, and it has never before been edited. The aim of the present edition is of an introductory nature, primarily to make the sa…[Read more]

Line drawing of the Eurymedon Vase (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg)

Heiles, Marco: Abschließbare Bücher des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit, in: Einbandforschung 43 (2018), S. 6–19.

The article describes the phenomenon of lockable books in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern and developes a (German) terminology for their description.

This contribution provides a first characterization of the environmental development for the surroundings of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Göbekli Tepe. We base our analyses on a literature review that covers the environmental components of prevailing bedrock and soils, model- and proxy-based climatic development, and vegetation. The…[Read more]

O presente estudo propõe um roteiro pelas principais instituições religiosas de Évora durante os séculos XIV e XV a partir da perspetiva da sua atividade musical. Embora já tenham sido realizados numerosos estudos de fontes, ainda está em falta um estudo do contexto urbano desta atividade. O presente trabalho pretende contribuir para estudo…[Read more]