Talks by Elisa Pallottini
Présent/absent, visible/invisible. Les inscriptions face aux reliques au Moyen Age Occidental.
This paper has been presented to the congress « ÉCRITURES RÉSERVÉES » in Madrid, Casa de Velásque... more This paper has been presented to the congress « ÉCRITURES RÉSERVÉES » in Madrid, Casa de Velásquez (17-18 MARS 2016), in the occasion of the third meeting of the research programme EPIMED. I gave me the opportunity to further elaborate on the theme of the invisibility and/or illegibility of the many forms of inscriptions that can be found often on reliquaries especially from the Romanesque period.
Names and (instead of?) relics: the material evidence.
This paper explores the topic of the name of the saint and its relations with sacred spaces and s... more This paper explores the topic of the name of the saint and its relations with sacred spaces and sacred objects, within the framework of the international Workshop 'Names in sacred spaces: an introduction' (Utrecht University, programme Van Gogh). In this paper, I take as my primary focus the material evidence associated with the ways in which the relationship between saints and relics could have been established by writing, and namely by the inscription of the name of the saint in the medieval church and on devotional objects. The complex meaning that both relics and writing had in Christian religious culture is the starting point to consider to what extent, and how, the written names of the saint participated in the manifestation of a sacred content in the sensory dimension.
Bodies of letters. New approaches to the Oviedo 'arca santa'
The paper explores how Romanesque reliquaries used inscriptions in order to emphasize the presenc... more The paper explores how Romanesque reliquaries used inscriptions in order to emphasize the presence and effect of relics in medieval churches. Throughout the example of the 'arca santa' of Oviedo Cathedral, a Spanish reliquary dated around 1075, this paper attempts to understand how inscriptions - by their form, content, and interaction with the object - were able to stage into precious materials the body, actions and power of saints.
Many inscriptions were' placed on reliquaries or altars in order to identify the relics inside the objects, to authenticate them, or to preserve the memory of the ceremony during which they had been moved into the reliquary. These inscriptions have usually been read in this very 'pragmatic' approach. They must actually be studied 'newly' as devices able to make the saint’s sacred power present and to translate it into something 'legible' (whenever the they could be read or not), as a way to strengthen the saint's virtus, as a rhetoric tool to reinforce the prayer made in front of the reliquary. Epigraphic writing, embodied into the
material, is a visual link between the relic, the saint's 'body' hidden in the artifact, and the faithful’s body. Very close in its form to a portable altar, the 'arca santa' of Oviedo shows a long epigraphic program giving the list of the relics contained in the wooden ark and reading the iconographic program in an original way. The images on the silver plates showing a Crucifixion and 'Majestas Domini' create a dialogue between the suffering body of Passion, the incarnated body of the holy bread placed upon the altar, and the sublimate body of the heavenly theophany. Located at the transition between these visual elements and linking them with the content of the ark, the inscriptions allow the gathering of all the bodily dimensions evoked by the object.
Participant: Elisa Pallottini, Utrecht University
Congress: 50th Medieval Congress on Medieval Studies of Kalamazoo, Western Michigan University
Date: 14-17 May 2015
Papers by Elisa Pallottini
Monumentalisation et mise en scène des saints dans le lieu de culte. Les listes épigraphiques de reliques dans l’Occident médiéval (VIIIe-XIIe siècles)
As part of the ANR Project 'POLIMA' (Pouvoir des Listes au Moyen Age), this paper explores the ro... more As part of the ANR Project 'POLIMA' (Pouvoir des Listes au Moyen Age), this paper explores the role and functions of epigraphic lists of relics in the construction of sacred spaces and sacred objects in Western medieval Christianity.
Conference Presentations by Elisa Pallottini
Auf dem Workshop geht es um die Konstitution und Etablierung von sakralen Schrifträumen im Mittel... more Auf dem Workshop geht es um die Konstitution und Etablierung von sakralen Schrifträumen im Mittelalter. Insbesondere die Rolle von Inschriften und Reliquien sowie ihre Präsenz im sakralen Raum sollen diskutiert werden.
Mit Beiträgen von Michele Luigi Vescovi (Lincoln),
Matthias Th. Kloft (Frankfurt a. M.), Kirsten Wallenwein
(Heidelberg), Elisa Pallottini (Utrecht) und
Marcello Angheben (Poitiers).
Der Workshop wird von Tobias Frese, Wilfried E. Keil und Kristina Krüger geleitet.
Der Workshop wird am Abend vorher durch einen Abendvortrag von Michele Luigi Vescovi eingeleitet:
"Words, Images, Memory. St. Dionyisus in Regensburg"
In the year 1049, the monastic community of St. Emmeram in Regensburg found in its church within the holy body of St Dionysius, better known as St Denis, the patron saint of all of Gallia, buried in the
famous abbey north of Paris.
In his presentation Michele Luigi Vescovi will explore the construction of the institutional memory related to the presence of the holy body of the saint in Regensburg. Particularly, he will focus on the portal built after the inventio. Here, the effigies of St Emmeram (patron saint of the church), Christ and St Dionysius are accompanied by inscriptions. The talk will consider the careful interaction between the conception of the inscriptions as texts and their articulation in the written space, to then explore these inscriptions as intellectual statements, linking them to the manuscripts once held in the library of the abbey.
Seminars / Workshops by Elisa Pallottini
El programa LIMITS desarrollado por la Casa de Velázquez y la Universidad Complutense de Madrid t... more El programa LIMITS desarrollado por la Casa de Velázquez y la Universidad Complutense de Madrid tiene como objetivo aproximarse a los «límites» de la cultura escrita medieval fuera del mundo manuscrito para resaltar la diversidad de las prácticas gráficas en sus formas, funciones, ubicaciones y temporalidades. Este primer encuentro se dedica a cuestiones de datación, a la gestión de una epigrafía de los límites, y su impacto sobre la representatividad de la documentación epigráfica entre la Antigüedad y la Edad Moderna. En un segundo tiempo, trataremos de explicar las elecciones editoriales, no desde la perspectiva de una exégesis de las condiciones de edición de inscripciones, sino en la perspectiva de una heurística de los fenómenos epigráficos de la Edad Media, ya que estas decisiones editoriales dibujan desde hace cincuenta años el paisaje epigráfico medieval dejando de lado grandes sectores de la documentación. ¿De qué manera es una inscripción de 700 «más» medieval que una de 600? ¿Es una inscripción de 1450 diferente de un texto de 1550?
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Talks by Elisa Pallottini
Many inscriptions were' placed on reliquaries or altars in order to identify the relics inside the objects, to authenticate them, or to preserve the memory of the ceremony during which they had been moved into the reliquary. These inscriptions have usually been read in this very 'pragmatic' approach. They must actually be studied 'newly' as devices able to make the saint’s sacred power present and to translate it into something 'legible' (whenever the they could be read or not), as a way to strengthen the saint's virtus, as a rhetoric tool to reinforce the prayer made in front of the reliquary. Epigraphic writing, embodied into the
material, is a visual link between the relic, the saint's 'body' hidden in the artifact, and the faithful’s body. Very close in its form to a portable altar, the 'arca santa' of Oviedo shows a long epigraphic program giving the list of the relics contained in the wooden ark and reading the iconographic program in an original way. The images on the silver plates showing a Crucifixion and 'Majestas Domini' create a dialogue between the suffering body of Passion, the incarnated body of the holy bread placed upon the altar, and the sublimate body of the heavenly theophany. Located at the transition between these visual elements and linking them with the content of the ark, the inscriptions allow the gathering of all the bodily dimensions evoked by the object.
Participant: Elisa Pallottini, Utrecht University
Congress: 50th Medieval Congress on Medieval Studies of Kalamazoo, Western Michigan University
Date: 14-17 May 2015
Papers by Elisa Pallottini
Conference Presentations by Elisa Pallottini
Mit Beiträgen von Michele Luigi Vescovi (Lincoln),
Matthias Th. Kloft (Frankfurt a. M.), Kirsten Wallenwein
(Heidelberg), Elisa Pallottini (Utrecht) und
Marcello Angheben (Poitiers).
Der Workshop wird von Tobias Frese, Wilfried E. Keil und Kristina Krüger geleitet.
Der Workshop wird am Abend vorher durch einen Abendvortrag von Michele Luigi Vescovi eingeleitet:
"Words, Images, Memory. St. Dionyisus in Regensburg"
In the year 1049, the monastic community of St. Emmeram in Regensburg found in its church within the holy body of St Dionysius, better known as St Denis, the patron saint of all of Gallia, buried in the
famous abbey north of Paris.
In his presentation Michele Luigi Vescovi will explore the construction of the institutional memory related to the presence of the holy body of the saint in Regensburg. Particularly, he will focus on the portal built after the inventio. Here, the effigies of St Emmeram (patron saint of the church), Christ and St Dionysius are accompanied by inscriptions. The talk will consider the careful interaction between the conception of the inscriptions as texts and their articulation in the written space, to then explore these inscriptions as intellectual statements, linking them to the manuscripts once held in the library of the abbey.
Seminars / Workshops by Elisa Pallottini