[By Anne D. Hedeman, Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of Kansas, chercheuse invitée en résidence ERC AGRELITA]
Have you ever wondered why medieval manuscripts were illustrated? Or speculated about the ways in which illuminations played a role in introducing new texts and shaping their reception?
Frontispieces in manuscripts played an important role in guiding readers to understand the texts that follow. This is most notable in the visual cycles that decorate the Grandes chroniques de France, the French national history translated ca. 1274 from the Latin texts that had been written and preserved throughout the Middle Ages by the monastic historiographers at the Abbey of Saint-Denis. While the Latin chronicles compiled at Saint-Denis were unilluminated, their French translations were illustrated, because they were made for a new secular audience centered in Paris at the French court rather than for a monastic audience. And that new audience was interested in the history of the French kings, but also in romans d’antiquité, the mid-twelfth century stories of Thebes, Aeneas, Brut, and Troy that were often richly illuminated. How might the Greek destruction of Troy, a story popular in many of these texts, frame the history of the French kings?
Continuer la lecture de How the Greek’s Destruction of Troy inflected French History Illumination
Anne D. Hedeman est professeur émérite d’histoire de l’art à l’Université du Kansas. Elle a publié de nombreux livres et articles sur les relations entre texte et image dans les manuscrits français vernaculaires de la fin du Moyen Âge, en particulier les Grandes chroniques de France. Elle a co-organisé une exposition au Getty Museum et co-écrit son catalogue, Imagining the Past in France, 1250-1500. Ses recherches récentes accordent une attention particulière à la manière dont les illustrations de textes historiques, classiques ou contemporains originaires de cultures non françaises de cultures utilisent les enluminures pour communiquer efficacement avec les lecteurs français de la fin du Moyen Âge. Son livre récent, Visual Translation and the First French Humanists, analyse cette dynamique dans les œuvres possédées ou produites par trois humanistes français du début du XVe siècle.
