Pindar Press - publishers of art history and archaeology

Medieval Western

Lombard Legacy: Cultural Strategies and The Visual Arts in Early Medieval Italy

by John Mitchell

24 x 17 cm 644 pp. 294 illus.
£150.00
Publication: July 2009
ISBN 1 904597 34 3
Cloth Bound

Using the great south-Italian monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, one of the best preserved monasteries of the earliest Middle Ages, as a case-study and heuristic paradigm, John Mitchell has engaged in a wide-ranging examination of the ways in which visual culture was developed and deployed by ambitious states and institutions in early medieval Europe.

The present volume includes studies on the cultural dynamics of Italy and its contribution to the visual complexion of Europe in the period, as well as essays on many aspects of the artistic culture of San Vincenzo, including a series of papers on the display of script in the physical fabric of the monastery and the prominent role it played in its self-image.

Contents

Introduction
Cultural Agenda and Artistic Paradigms: L’arte nell’Italia longobarda e nell’Europa carolingia
Artistic patronage and cultural strategies in Lombard Italy
The uses of spolia in Longobard Italy
The Lombard origins of Carolingian art and the westwerk at Corvey
Müstair and Italy: the Wall-Paintings in the Monastery-Church of St. Johann in their European Context
The Arts at San Vincenzo al Volturno: San Vincenzo al Volturno
The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy
San Vincenzo al Volturno: The archaeology of the arts and magic at an early medieval monastery
The crypt reappraised
The crypt and its painted decoration
Spatial hierarchy and the uses of ornament in an early medieval monastery
A word on ornament and its uses
Portaits, the cult of relics and the affirmation of hierarchy at an early medieval monastery: San Vincenzo al Volturno
Cult, relics and privileged burial at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the age of Charlemagne: The discovery of the tomb of Abbot Talaricus (817-3 October 823)
The early medieval monastery as a site of commemoration and place of oblivion
Monastic guest-quarters and workshops in the early Middle Ages: the example of San Vincenzo al Volturno
A carved ivory head from San Vincenzo al Volturno; An early medieval enamel
A set of sword-belt mounts or iron inlaid with silver and associated bridle furniture
Script about the cross: The tombstones of San Vincenzo al Volturno
Blackened Epitaphs: The Sack of San Vincenzo, 10th October 881
The San Vincenzo Community in Capua
Index