Michele Bacci

Full Professor of Medieval Art, Photo © Lisa Attard, Valletta

photo

 michele.bacci@unifr.ch
 +41 26 300 7946
 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1251-6832

Medieval Art

The Materiality of the Holy and Its Perception in Space and Image

Artistic interactions in the Mediterranean

Professor
Department of Art History and Archeology

MIS 02 bu. 2023
Av. de l'Europe 20
1700 Fribourg
MIS 02, 2023
+41 26 300 7946

Biography

Michele Bacci (Ph.D., Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, 1999), is Professor of Medieval Art History in the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He was previously research maker in the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa (1999-2002) and associate professor of Iconography and Iconology in the University of Siena (2002-2011). He has been visiting scholar in the University of Tokyo, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, the Kunsthistorisches Institut-Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Florence, the Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum in Rome and the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich. Since 2002 he is editor of the journal Iconographica and, since 2010, he is a member of the international team dealing with the restoration of the Nativity church in Bethlehem. He is honorary member of the Christian Archaeological Society (Athens) and ordinary member of the Academia Europaea. In 2017 he was awarded the Hanno and Ilse Hahn price in the Bibliotheca Hertziana-Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Rome.

Research and publications

  • Michele Bacci: Publications
    814 publications

    I volti di Cristo. Immagini della santità tra Oriente e Occidente: Immagini della santità tra Oriente e Occidente
    Bacci, Michele (Roma: Carocci editore, 2025), ISBN: 9788829023189 | Book

    The Milk Grotto: Historical, Archaeological, and Anthropological Perspectives
    Michele Bacci, Carmelo Pappalardo, Annette Hoffmann (Terra Santa Edizioni, 2025) | Book

    Medieval Svaneti: Objects, Images, and Bodies in Dialogue with Built and Natural Spaces
    Michele Bacci, Martin Rohde, Manuela Studer-Karlen, Natalia Chitishvili, ed. by Studer-Karlen, Manuela and Bacci, Michele and Chitishvili, Natalia (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), ISBN: 9788028003821 | Book

    Staging the Ruler's Body in Medieval Cultures: A Comparative Perspective
    Michele Bacci, Manuela Studer-Karlen, Gohar Grigoryan, ed. by Bacci, Michele and Grigoryan, Gohar and Studer-Karlen, Manuela (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023), ISBN: 9781915487087 | Book

    Approaches to Sacred Space(s) in Medieval Subcaucasian Cultures
    Michele Bacci, Natalia Chitishvili, Gohar Grigoryan, Thomas Kaffenberger, Manuela Studer-Karlen, Vesna Scepanovic (Rome: Viella, 2023) | Book

    Staging the ruler's body in medieval cultures: a comparative perspective
    Michele Bacci, Gohar Grigoryan, Manuela Studer-Karlen (Turnhout, Belgium: Harvey Miller Publishers ; Brepols, 2023) | Book

    Parerga: Pour Victor I. Stoichita
    Michele Bacci, Fabio Spadini, Thomas Kaffenberger, Manuela Studer-Karlen, Jérémie Koering, Dominic-Alain Boariu, Thomas Hunkeler, Jean-François Corpataux, ed. by Corpataux, Jean-François (Droz, 2022), ISBN: 9782600063241 | Book

    Giunta Pisano e la tecnica pittorica del Duecento
    Bacci, Michele and Bay, Caterina (Editioni Firenze, 2021), ISBN: 9788892800373 | Book

    Le vie del Mediterraneo. Icone tra Venezia e Bisanzio
    Bacci, Michele (La Casa di Matriona,, 2021), ISBN: 9788897455479 | Book

    Βενετο-βυζαντινές αλληλεπιδράσεις στη ζωγραφική εικόνων (1280-1450)
    Michele Bacci (Ακαδημία Αθηνών, 2021) | Book

    Cultural Interactions in Medieval Georgia (Scrinium Friburgense 41)
    Michele Bacci, Thomas Kaffenberger, Manuela Studer-Karlen, Studer-Karlen Manuela, Kaffenberger Thomas, ed. by Bacci, Michele and Thomas, Kaffenberger and Manuela, Studer-Karlen (Reichert Verlag, 2018), ISBN: 9783954903382 | Book

    Lo spazio dell'anima: vita di una chiesa medievale
    Bacci, Michele (Gius. Laterza & Figli Spa, 2018) | Book

    The Mystic Cave: A History of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem
    Bacci, Michele (Masaryk University, 2017), ISBN: 978-88-6728-819-9 | Book

    Italian Ex-Votos and "Pro-Anima" Images in the Late Middle Ages
    (2016) | Book

    The Many Faces of Christ: Portraying the Holy in the East and West, 300 to 1300
    Bacci, Michele (Reaktion Books, 2014), ISBN: 9781780232683 | Book

    The Holy Portolano/Le Portulan Sacré: The Sacred Geography of Navigation in the Middle Ages. Fribourg Colloquium 2013/La Géographie Religieuse de la Navigation Au Moyen ̂Age. Colloque Fribourgeois 2013
    Bacci, Michele and Rohde, Martin (Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2014) | Book

    The Many Faces of Christ: Portraying the Holy in the East and West, 300 to 1300
    Bacci, Michele (Reaktion Books, 2014) | Book

    The Many Faces of Christ. Portraying the Holy in the East and the West from 300 to 1300
    Michele Bacci (London, Reaktion Books, 2014) | Book

    Gesù: il corpo, il volto nell'arte
    Verdon, Timothy and Bacci, Michele and Ghisotti, Silvia and Reale, Consorzio La Venaria and Gianni, Andrea and Veritatis, Associazione Sant’Anselmo-Imago and Longhi, Milano Andrea and Scaraffia, Lucetta and Zanardo, Donatella and Venegoni, Massimo and others (Silvana Editoriale, 2010) | Book

    La pietra e il leone: San Pietro e San Marco nell'Oriente cristiano: icone dalla collezione Intesa Sanpaolo:[Mostra, Vicenza, Gallerie di Palazzo Leoni Montanari, 5 giugno-10 ottobre 2010]
    Bacci, Michele and Montanari, Gallerie di Palazzo Leoni (Intesa Sanpaolo; Terra Ferma, 2010) | Book

    San Nicola: il grande taumaturgo
    Bacci, Michele (Laterza, 2009) | Book

    San Nicola. Il grande Taumaturgo
    Michele Bacci (Bari-Roma: Laterza, 2009, 2009) | Book

    L'artista a Bisanzio e nel mondo cristiano-orientale
    Bacci, Michele (Scuola Normale Superiore, 2007) | Book

    Lo spazio dell’anima. Vita di una chiesa medievale
    Michele Bacci (Bari-Roma: Laterza, 2005, 2005) | Book

    Investimenti per l'aldilà: arte e raccomandazione dell'anima nel Medioevo
    Bacci, Michele (Laterza, 2003) | Book

    Investimenti per l’aldilà. Arte e raccomandazione dell’anima nel Medioevo
    Michele Bacci (Bari-Roma: Laterza, 2003, 2003) | Book

    Santa Croce e Santo Volto. Contributi allo Studio dell'origine e della fortuna del culto del Salvatore (secoli IX--XV)
    Bacci, Michele and Rossetti, Gabriella (Gisem, Pisa, 2002) | Book

    Pro remedio animae: immagini sacre e pratiche devozionali in Italia centrale (secoli XIII e XIV)
    Bacci, Michele (Gisem-Edizioni ETS, 2000) | Book

    Il volto di Cristo
    Morello, Giovanni and Wolf, Gerhard and Meja, Jorge M and Belting, Hans and Bacci, Michele and Romano, Serena and Andaloro, Maria and Angelelli, Walter and Parlato, Enrico and Kessler, Herbert L and others (Electa, 2000) | Book

    "Pro remedio animae". Immagini sacre e pratiche devozionali in Italia centrale (secoli XIII e XIV)
    Michele Bacci (Pisa: Gisem-ETS, 2000 (‘Piccola Biblioteca Gisem’ 15), 2000) | Book

    Il pennello dell'Evangelista: storia delle immagini sacre attribuite a san Luca
    Bacci, Michele (ETS, 1998) | Book

    Il pennello dell’evangelista. Storia delle immagini sacre attribuite a san Luca
    Michele Bacci (Gisem-Ets, Pisa: Gisem-ETS, 1998 (‘Piccola Biblioteca Gisem’ 14), 1998) | Book

  • Research projects

    The Milk Grotto. Historical, Archaeological, and Anthropological Perspectives
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.09.2025
    End 28.02.2026
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    The Milk Grotto of Bethlehem has been venerated for centuries by the local population, both Christian and Muslim, and has been regularly visited by international pilgrims, despite the fact that its legendary attributes have undergone continual transformation. Beyond its commemorative significance, the focal point of devotion lies in the powder derived from the grotto’s limestone walls, which, when dissolved in water, has traditionally been believed to restore or enhance the milk supply of young mothers. This volume reconstructs the centuries-long vicissitudes of this holy site—its origins and its transformations from the Byzantine era to the present day—through a multidisciplinary lens encompassing historical, anthropological, and archaeological perspectives.

    Holy Networks: Locating, Shaping, and Experiencing Palestinian Loca Sancta (1187-1852)
    Status: Ongoing

    Start 01.04.2024
    End 31.03.2029
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    The following question lays at the core of the present project: how could the distinctive status of holiness attributed in pre-Modern societies to the Palestinian loca sancta be materially evoked and conveyed to worshippers? To what extent was the latter’s experience orientated by the site’s interaction with the natural or built environment, the specific setting of the cult-object in space, or its visual enhancement? In the eyes of pilgrims and believers, both indigenous and foreign, from the post-Crusader period, the holy spots that dotted Jerusalem and the whole of Palestine were (and still are) worthy of veneration on account of their memorial associations. Differently from most cult-places that attracted visitors in other areas of the world, they were not perceived as precious shrines for some hallowed objects (such as saints’ bodies, collections of relics, or miraculous images), but rather as material indicators of events narrated in the Scriptures. As such, they basically consisted of portions of ground, caves, stones, mountain peaks, wells, springs, or even river fords, trees, and other elements of landscape whose topographic location, shape, and materiality were described as evocative of, and conducive to, sacred narratives. Inasmuch as they could assist believers in mentally reconstructing, and physically experiencing, the scenarios of foundational events of their religious tradition in a meditational, and simultaneously “kinetic”, exercise, they could be accepted, and in some cases even shared, by the multiple Jewish, Christian, and Islamic denominations which described Palestine as a holy land, albeit on different grounds. In the aim to properly honour these sites that bore witness to the truth of their faiths, each group fostered their devotion by locating and defining the narratives they were intended to carry, by including them within architectural frames, by emphasizing their distinctive status by means of ornaments and performative rituals, and by connecting them to other similar holy spots within a wider topographical network shaped by pilgrimage routes. In this sense, the project aims to investigate the spatial, visual, narrative, and performative strategies by which the Palestinian holy sites' status of exceptionality, their site-specific and site-bound sanctity, came to be materially evoked, conveyed to, physically experienced, and invested with multiple meanings by their worshippers. A team of researchers will investigate a corpus of ca. 400 sites which, on different grounds, came to be regarded as invested with exceptional qualities. The latter includes the sites mentioned in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic pilgrim accounts and descriptions of the Promised Land, in Greek proskynetaria, in the lists of indulgences diffused since the 14th century by the Franciscan custody of the Holy Land, and in Islamic fada’il literature. It offers the unique chance to analyse a highly differentiated spectrum of material evocations of site-bound sanctity, shifting from sumptuously constructed and decorated buildings to simple stones or other natural objects located in open spaces. For each of the selected sites, information will be gathered about their specific location, interaction with the surrounding environment, legendary physiognomy, architectural monumentalization, cultic foci, and the latter’s accessibility and specific mise-en-scène through framing, enshrining, veiling, and lighting devices, as well as performative and multi-sensorial effects. The reconstruction of how holy sites functioned and were experienced in spatial, i.e. relational and kinetic, terms will be enhanced by the use of up-to-date digital technologies applied to cultural heritage.

    Approaches to Sacred Space(s) in Medieval Subcaucasian Cultures
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.10.2023
    End 31.03.2024
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    This volume is the outcome of a three-years research work developed in the frame of the Lead Agency project 100011L_197295 "Cultural Interactions in the Medieval Subcaucasian Region: Historiographical and Art-Historical Perspectives", co-financed by the Swiss National Research Foundation (SNSF) and the Czech Science Foundation. It offers a comparative analysis of the different strategies whereby the various human groups settled in the South Caucasian region between Late Antiquity and the later Middle Ages gave shape to their relationship with the divine sphere in spatial terms. Furthermore, it points out the interrelatedness of both congregational and locative ways of experiencing the sacred and investigates the dynamics whereby both site- and space-bound cult-phenomena were constructed and promoted throughout the area in the Medieval period and beyond. The book will be published as the second tome of a two-volume work ("Cultural Convergences in the Medieval Subcaucasian Region: Historiographical and Art Historical Perspectives") gathering the research outcomes of the Brno and Fribourg teams.

    OA Book "Medieval Svanet'i: Objects, Images, and Bodies in Dialogue with Built and Natural Spaces"
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.09.2023
    End 29.02.2024
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    The present, multi-authored book is the earliest work in English devoted to the extraordinary artistic and cultural heritage of Svaneti, a historical region of the Georgian Great Caucasus. The essays collected in it emphasize its importance as an unparalleled treasury of Medieval arts, describe some of its outstanding monuments, provide interpretations of their political and religious role at the intersection of different cultural traditions, and explore the dynamics whereby they have been constantly invested with new functions and associations throughout their long history.

    Research stay "Constructing the Images of Holy Warriors in Medieval Georgia"
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.09.2023
    End 29.02.2024
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    The present project aims to investigate the ways in which public worship of holy warriors, and more specifically of Saint George, was given shape and constructed through cult practices, texts, and images in Medieval Georgia. Overlooked in the scholarly debate, such materials played an essential role in the creation of saintly figures that made their way into the collective imagination of Medieval cultures, regardless of denominational and even religious distinctions, given the success of the image of holy knights and dragon-slayers not only in Orthodox, non-Chalcedonian, and Latin Christian traditions, but even in Islamic figural arts. The present project will offer the opportunity to establish a deeper collaboration of the Chair of Medieval arts with a prominent expert of Georgian Medieval iconography and set the grounds for an examination of holy warriors from a transcultural and "global" perspective.

    Encountering Other People. Material Religion and Cultural Exchanges in Medieval Eurasia
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.04.2023
    End 30.06.2023
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    During the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, Christian missionaries and merchants travelled from Latin Europe to the Mongol Empire and India. They recorded what they had experienced in letters, treatises, and reports. These travelogues offer an insight on the mobility of both men and objects during the global Middle Ages. The conference deals with this historical conjuncture, focusing on three main aspects. First, it examines the travelers’ attitude towards religious otherness. Western Missionaries and merchants conceptualized the plurality of Eastern religions according to Latin categories (cultus, lex, fides or secta), and they framed them within their cultural patterns and stereotypes, such as those of idolatry and monstrosity. Second, the conference contextualizes the experiences of the travelers within the religious landscape of Medieval Asia. In fact, they witnessed and described religious habits that actually took place in the East: rituals associated with images and relics, bloody sacrifices and self-immolations, as well as shamanic practices. Third, the conference aims to shed light on the consequences that these contacts provoked on the life of both men and objects, focusing on the experiences of Christians that were martyrized in the East (Thane, 1321). Furthermore, a great variety of objects was recorded by the sources: misplaced, re-functionalized, migrated, and misunderstood, they often compensated the communication difficulties between the travelers and the indigenous people, overcoming linguistic and cultural barriers.

    Cultural Interactions in the Medieval Subcaucasian Region: Historiographical and Art-Historical Perspectives
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.01.2021
    End 31.12.2024
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    The main objective of this Lead agency project is to investigate exchanges and interactions between the medieval cultures of present-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, including monuments in Eastern Anatolia, now in Turkey. The project, dealt with in synergy by a Czech and a Swiss team, will focus on a complex understanding of the cultural contacts characterising these geographical spaces from the 5th to the 13th century, within a “global” dialogue, and is expected to have an impact on both the scholarly domain and a wider audience. The main issue with such an endeavour is a series of historiographical layers preventing a confident analysis of the material, visual, and ritual cultures of this area. Indeed, the cultures of the Caucasian and Sub-Caucasian regions (Zekiyan 1996) have had a complex and contested history throughout the period of modern art history’s existence. Its historical situation has led to multiple colonial interests. In the 19th century, for two centuries, the region was divided between the Russian Empire and its Ottoman counterpart. Later, it was torn between the USSR and Turkey. Under the USSR, three formal states appeared – Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia – which became independent nation states only in 1991. This condition had its roots in the medieval period, when the different states somewhat corresponded to the present ones. To make this situation even more complex, Eastern Anatolia was from 1915 to 1921 the setting of an event that is considered by many states, including Switzerland and the Czech Republic, a genocide. Subsequently, medieval monuments were destroyed or heavily damaged in the region, probably by the Turkish army. An art historical problem thus also touches on contemporary history. However, looking at a map where medieval Armenia, Albania, and Georgia are superposed at the moment of their greatest expansion, we are forced to consider that almost half of the described territory was, at a certain point, shared. Moreover, considering the monuments from the period under investigation, many connecting elements appear throughout the region and point out that a constant dialogue occurred throughout the Middle Ages. Real differences of a political, religious, or linguistic nature were thus united by a series of coherences in visual and material culture. The panorama described above determines this project. The two teams involved will be working together on two main lines of study, intrinsically linked. I) A historiographical analysis of art historical writings on the region will be carried out, with a special focus on: a) Russian colonial discourse during the Imperial period, especially after the creation of the overarching unit of the Viceroyalty of the Southern Caucasus; b) the description of artistic monuments and their value by Western travellers during the 19th and early 20th centuries; c) Soviet observations on the art of the region; d) the Ottoman and Turkish outlook on the artistic production of Eastern Anatolia (until c. 1990). II) The second main line of research will investigate the dynamics by which specific sets of forms, object-types, and patterns associated with other cultures were appropriated, transformed, and adapted to local contexts in the Subcaucasian area. The focus will be on both the shared and distinctive elements underlying the making of Medieval liturgical buildings, here interpreted as spatial-relational, experiential, and performative strategies for the mise-en-scène of a community’s interaction with the divine sphere through rite, collective worship, and devotion. A special emphasis will be laid on a) the shifting relation between the inner arrangement of churches and the adoption of liturgies associated with Jerusalemite, Constantinopolitan, or other usages; b) the impact of the liturgical hierarchization of spaces on the shaping of architectural and figurative décors; c) the prominent role played by buildings associated with the Jerusalem holy sites erected during the so-called 7th-century golden age; d) the ways in which the adoption of analogous patterns lead to the shaping of both similar and dissimilar spaces.

    Royal Epiphanies. The King's Body as Image and Its Mise-en-scène in the Medieval Mediterranean (centuries 12th-14th)
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.06.2017
    End 31.03.2022
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    If sociology has highlighted how the leader’s body performs a fundamental stabilizing function within the complex political and social order characteristic of the relationship between the group and its head, making the very formation of the group somehow possible, it is easy to understand how for the holder of power managing the visibility of his body within society (its public manifestation) is an element of utmost importance. While at times it may be expressed in a direct form (through real participation in public ceremonies and rituals), at others it can be manifested in an indirect way: namely through a series of symbolic, allegorical and fictitious depictions of the ruler. Royal bodily representation can fit among these perfectly since, from the viewpoint of historical, historical-artistic, anthropological and semiotic investigation, it represents a substitute for the monarch which can mark out space, legitimize power and mediate between sovereign and subjects in order to consolidate the union under the crown. In other words, owing to its intrinsic capacity to indirectly persuade, convince, attract and co-opt, this representation constitutes a fundamental element of power. An animated scientific debate has been sparked in recent years (especially in the German sphere and in terms of historiographical research) in connection with the function that can be attributed to representation of the king within medieval society, in some cases calling into question what had previously been deemed to be indisputably written into the historiography. The project ‘Royal Epiphanies. The King’s Body as Image and Its Mise-en-scène in the Medieval Mediterranean (12th-14th centuries)’ sets out to revive the traditional debate on royal portraiture and its function within Mediterranean society during the mid and late Middle Ages by examining it from an absolutely innovative point of view, namely by analysing it as an integral part of a much wider context of the sovereign’s mise-en-scène of his body. In other words, the aim is to place greater attention on royal bodily representation as a means of communication within a general communication strategy and to study how the public rendering of the royal body and its iconographic representation interact and condition each other. By concentrating on the specific contexts of six kingdoms which cover the whole Mediterranean area from west to east (Aragon, Naples, Sicily, Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenian Cilicia), the objective is to answer the following questions in particular: how much and how did the king show himself to his subjects? In what forms? Where? When? To whom? For what ends and for what reasons? How much was his image influenced and, in turn, did it influence the way in which the sovereign presented himself to the public? For the Middle Ages, can we speak of the artistic image as a surrogate of the king’s body able to mediate his presence? Did it have a more juridical, eulogistic/celebrative, political/propagandistic or religious/devotional function? Through a typically comparative approach and by making a so-to-speak dynamic comparison between the visual and the material and textual sources, the project sets out to connect the artistic product with the overall context of its creation, function and reception. All of this will enable a better understanding of how the royal image was used as a means of symbolically presenting the sovereign’s bodily figure within society, and ascertain how he could have potentially used his iconographic representation as a political tool and means of power. Hence, in these terms, there is no doubt as to the utility and necessity of this type of study by art historians.

    Georgien als Treffpunkt der mittelalterlichen Kunst
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.04.2017
    End 30.06.2017
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    On account of its centuries-old history, Georgia proves to preserve an outstandingly large amount of Medieval buildings and artefacts. Most frequently, the latter display a repertory of forms being associated with different artistic traditions and bearing witness to the country’s multifaceted society, where different religious and linguistic groups were active, and to the wide network of international contacts it was involved in. The present workshop is meant to fill a lacuna in Medieval studies. As an alternative to the traditional view of Georgian arts as either a pretty regional phenomenon or as an offspring of either Byzantine or Armenian traditions, it solicits the most eminent scholars in this field (from both Georgia and Western European countries) to look at Georgian materials as the outcome of cultural interactions in the wider area of Caucasus and the Near East. In particular, emphasis will be laid on the ways in which forms, objects, and object-types associated with other people’s traditions came to be appropriated, worked out, altered and transformed in their new Georgian context.

    The Spectacle of the Flesh. Iconic Living Bodies in Late Antiquity and Beyond
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.05.2016
    End 31.07.2016
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    The Spectacle of the Flesh. Iconic Living Bodies in Late Antiquity and Beyond

    Von Venedig zum Heiligen Land. Ausstattung und Wahrnehmung von Pilgerorten an der Mittelmeerküste (1300-1550)
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.06.2014
    End 31.05.2018
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    Das Projekt „Von Venedig zum Heiligen Land. Ausstattung und Wahrnehmung von Pilgerorten an der Mittelmeerküste (1300-1550)“ erforscht mittelalterliche Pilgerorte, die auf dem Seeweg zwischen Venedig und Jerusalem lagen. Diese Orte wurden im Spätmittelalter Teil eines Netzwerkes von heiligen Stätten, welche die Pilger auf dem Weg nach Palästina per Schiff anfuhren. Die Pilgerorte auf dem Weg nach Jerusalem waren einerseits mit dem Heiligen Land als Ziel der Reise geografisch verbunden. Zum anderen konstituierten sie in der Erfahrung der Reisenden eine spezifische, maritim geprägte Sakraltopografie im östlichen Mittelmeerraum. Das wissenschaftliche Ziel des Projektes ist es, erstmals diese Sakraltopografie mit ihren teilweise kaum bekannten Kultorten als Gesamtheit aufzuarbeiten. Die Durchführung des Projektes "Von Venedig zum Heiligen Land“ beinhaltet fünf eingehende Fallstudien zu exemplarischen Orten auf dem Seeweg nach Palästina (1. Venedig; 2. Porec, Zadar, Dubrovnik und Lesna; 3. Durrës, Vlora und Pllanë; 4. Strofades, Korfu, Kreta; 5. Rhodos). Die einzelnen Orte werden vom Gesichtspunkt ihrer Materialität aus betrachtet, im Hinblick auf die verschiedenen bildlichen und räumlichen Strategien, die jeweils erarbeitet wurden, um die Heiligkeit des Ortes zu verdinglichen. Untersucht werden in den Teilprojekten die Lage in der Landschaft und die Ausstattung der Kultorte, nämlich die architektonischen Strukturen (die Kirchen und deren Binnengliederungen wie Kapellen und Altäre), die Ornamente (wie z.B. Baldachine, Monstranzen, Einrahmungen, Schränke, Lampen, Textilen, Reliquiare, Goldschmiedewerke), die bildlichen Dekorationen (Skulpturen, Wand- und Tafelmalereien), die Beleuchtungsformen, und die als räumliche Anhaltspunkte verwendeten Kultobjekte (Grabmäler, Reliquien, Bilder, Naturstücke) sowohl in ihren spezifischen Eigenschaften (Material, Gestalt, Stil, Funktion, typologische, kompositionelle und ikonografische Besonderheiten) als auch in ihren wechselseitigen Zusammenhängen. Für die Analyse der noch erhaltenen Objekte, Gebäude, Ausstattungsstücke und Bilder, die zur Inszenierung der entlang des Palästina-Seewegs gelegenen Heiligtümer dienten und meist noch heute – trotz der im Laufe der Jahrhunderte stattfindenden Umgestaltungen – zugänglich sind, werden die in den verschiedenen europäischen Sprachen verfassten Pilgerberichte aus dem Spätmittelalter hinzugezogen.

    'Le portulan sacré. La géographie réligieuse de la navigation au Moyen Age / Die heiligen Portulane. Die Sakralgeographie der Seefahrt im Mittelalter“
    Status: Completed

    Start 01.09.2013
    End 30.11.2013
    Funding SNSF  Open project sheet
    The Holy Portulane. The Sacred Geography of Navigation in the Middle Ages

Teaching and courses

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