Secular/Sacred 11th-16th Century

A major contribution to the study of medieval and Renaissance art, "Secular/Sacred 11th-16th Century" studies nearly 100 works from the vast collections of the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in an effort to determine the multiple ways medieval and early modern objects communicated both secular and sacred messages to their viewers.

The book includes essays by noted art historians and literary scholars across a broad range: topics include the role beasts played in illuminated manuscripts, to the sensual Virgin Mary in fifteenth-century Italian art, and the strange conflation of genealogies in a thirty-three-foot-long French manuscript scroll that links the kings of France to Adam and Jesus Christ. Richly illustrated with images from an accompanying spring 2006 exhibition at the McMullen Museum of Art, "Secular/Sacred 11th-16th Century" will be ideal reading for anyone with an interest in the medieval and early modern periods.


Contents:

Director's Preface
"Secular/Sacred uncovering the history of classification" by Nancy Netzer
"Clever Foxes, Fierce Lions: Animals Tell Tales in Medieval Arts and Letters" by Matilda Bruckner
"Scrolling through History: Le Chronique Universelle, Boston Public Library" by Lisa Fagin Davis
"The Two Swords: Secular Magistracy and Sacred Ministry in Medieval and Renaissance Art" by Earle Havens
"The Sacred as Secular in Late Medieval Marian Piety" by Patricia DeLeeuw
"Marking Time in Childhood and Adolescence" by Laurie Shepard
"In Vogue in Fifteenth-century Florence: The Material Culture of Marriage" by Stephanie Leone
"The Nuns of Ronceray d'Angers and their Tapestries of the Eucharist" by Virginia Reinburg
"Book, Body, and Practice: Illustrated Religious Books, c. 1300-1600" by Virginia Reinburg
"Kidnapping the Word of God" by Michael Connolly
"Avarice, Money, and Judgment Day" by Pamela Berger
"Status, Sanctity, and Silk in Late Anglo-Saxon England" by Robin Fleming
"From Secular to Sacred: Islamic Art in Christian Contexts" by Sheila S. Blair & Jonathan M. Bloom

Works in the Exhibition