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John Richardson’s Wacousta exemplifies both the cultural transfer of gothicisms into Upper Canada and the transmission of romance as a genre from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when in this very case it adopts the form of colonial romance. It shows the two manners in which the Middle Ages existed in the Enlightenment, which apparently continued in Romanticism, at least in Canada. The choice of 1763 as a temporal setting entails the presence of indigenous peopl...

Jan Assmann, in un celebre studio sulla memoria culturale, ha elaborato il concetto di «storia fondante», di storia che struttura memoria e identità, all’interno della quale i miti fondatori rivestono un ruolo centrale, poiché sono la principale espressione del bisogno insopprimibile di ogni organizzazione umana di fondare – appunto – la propria identità e perpetuarla, legittimandola attraverso il riferimento a un passato, naturalmente mitico e glorioso. I miti di fondazione dell’universitas studiorum riflettono, ugualmente, tale insopprimibile bisogno identitario, nello specifico dell’istituzione intellettuale e scientifica che, sviluppatasi nell’Occidente medievale, è divenuta uno dei luoghi elettivi dell’irradiazione nel mondo dei saperi e delle conoscenze umane. Partendo dall’analisi del IX Centenario dell’Università di Bologna, il saggio si propone di analizzare quanto tale mito fondatore, che affonda le sue radici nell’XI e XII secolo, dunque nel pieno Medioevo europeo, grazie all’elaborazione della Magna Charta e della Bologna Declaration continui a influire sull’European Higher Education Area e, dunque, sull’Europa della conoscenza e della scienza, attraverso una riflessione sul Middle Ages in the Modern World che non si esaurisce nella dimensione mitico-leggendaria di un Medioevo atemporale e, alle volte, superficiale ma che si avvalga della sua asincronia per connettere in modo profondo passato e presente. Jan Assmann, in a celebrated study of cultural memory, developed the concept of “founding history,” a concept of history structuring memory and identity in which founding myths play a central role as the main expression of the irrepressible need of every human organization to found – precisely – its own identity and to perpetuate it, legitimizing it through reference to a naturally mythical and glorious past. Founding myths of the universitas studiorum also reflect this irrepressible need for identity, specifically of the intellectual and scientific institution that, having developed in the medieval West, became one of the elective places of the irradiation of human knowledge in the world. Starting from an analysis of the ninth centenary of the University of Bologna, this essay aims to analyse the extent to which this founding myth - which has its roots in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and therefore squarely in the European Middle Ages - continues to influence the European higher educational area, thanks to the elaboration of the Magna Charta and the Bologna Declaration and, through it, the Europe of knowledge and science. This essay thus reflects on a Middle Ages in the modern world that does not end in the mythical-legendary dimension of a timeless and sometimes superficial Middle Ages but which takes advantage of its asynchrony to deeply connect the past and the present. Jan Assmann, dans une célèbre étude sur la mémoire culturelle, a élaboré le concept d’« histoire fondatrice », d’histoire qui structure la mémoire et l’identité, au sein de laquelle les mythes fondateurs jouent un rôle central, car ils sont l’expression principale du besoin irrépressible de toute organisation humaine de fonder, précisément, sa propre identité et de la perpétuer, en la légitimant par la référence à un passé, naturellement mythique et glorieux. Les mythes fondateurs de l’universitas studiorum reflètent ce besoin identitaire irrépressible ; en particulier, celui de l’institution intellectuelle et scientifique qui s’est développée dans l’Occident médiéval pour devenir l’un des principaux lieux de rayonnement dans le monde du savoir et du savoir humain. À partir de l’analyse du IXe Centenaire de l’Université de Bologne, l’essai vise à analyser à quel point ce mythe fondateur, qui plonge ses racines aux XIe et XIIe siècles, donc au Moyen Âge européen, grâce à l’élaboration de la Magna Charta et de la déclaration de Bologne, continue d’influencer l’espace européen de l’enseignement supérieur et, par conséquent, l’Europe de la connaissance et de la science, à travers une réflexion sur le Moyen Âge dans le monde moderne qui ne s’arrête pas à la dimension mythique et légendaire d’un Moyen Âge intemporel et parfois, superficiel mais qui utilise son asynchronie pour se connecter de manière profonde entre passé et présent.

Habermas’ identification of a ‘public sphere’ as a democratic, open, and fundamentally participatory space is often identified as the emergence of a kind of modern political consciousness. Given its identification within the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it thus emerges as a modern invention to be contrasted against the implied feudalism of the Middle Ages. However, at the same time, there is a growing recognition that such a public sphere belonging to the prosperous middle-classes is “less a signifier of democracy than a shift in power toward an educated, property-owning middle class ”. The translation of a Habermasian public sphere to the equally ‘democratic’ Web 2.0 environment has prompted renewed celebrations of its apparently participatory online sphere, even if in the context of the above critique the parallels with a less demotic shift of power are abundantly clear. In this chapter, I analyse the use of the hashtag ‘#medieval’ across Instagram and Twitter in particular to explore the ways in which those same dominant voices have collocated and constructed the new Middle Ages through a so-called participatory culture. I will show how the medieval has come to be created, in the context of a narrower participatory culture than is usually imagined, as a specifically western, class-based phenomenon which both controls and constricts our abilities to connect with it. L’identificazione di Habermas di una “sfera pubblica” come uno spazio democratico, aperto e fondamentalmente partecipativo, è spesso ritenuta corrispondente all’emergere di una consapevolezza politica di tipo moderno. Dato che la sua identificazione è avvenuta tra i secoli XVII e XVIII, essa sarebbe come un’invenzione moderna emersa per contrastare il sottinteso feudalesimo medievale. Tuttavia, allo stesso tempo, il riconoscimento crescente del fatto che questa sfera pubblica appartiene alle prospere classi medie, è «meno significativo di democrazia che dello spostamento di potere verso una classe media istruita e proprietaria». Il trasferimento del concetto di sfera pubblica habermasiana nell'ambiente altrettanto “democratico” del Web 2.0 ha suscitato rinnovate celebrazioni della sfera online, apparentemente partecipativa, anche se, nel contesto della critica appena espressa, appaiono ben chiari i parallelismi con una riduzione del potere popolare del potere. In questo capitolo, analizzo l’uso dell'hashtag “#medieval” su Instagram e Twitter in particolare per esplorare i modi in cui quelle stesse voci dominanti hanno collocato e costruito il nuovo medioevo attraverso una cultura cosiddetta partecipativa. Mostrerò come il medioevo è arrivato a essere creato, nel contesto di una cultura partecipativa più ristretta di quanto si immagini di solito, come un fenomeno specificamente occidentale, basato sulla classe, che insieme controlla e restringe le nostre capacità di connetterci con esso. L’identification par Habermas d’une « sphère publique » en tant qu’espace démocratique, ouvert et fondamentalement participatif est souvent identifiée comme le moment de l’apparition d’une sorte de conscience politique moderne . Compte tenu de son identification aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, il apparaît ainsi comme une invention moderne, qu’il convient d’opposer à la féodalité implicite du Moyen Âge . Cependant, dans le même temps, on observe la reconnaissance croissante qu’une telle sphère publique appartenant aux classes moyennes prospères est « moins un signifiant de la démocratie qu'un déplacement du pouvoir vers une classe moyenne éduquée et propriétaire » . La traduction d’une sphère publique habermasienne en un environnement Web 2.0 tout aussi « démocratique » a suscité de nouvelles célébrations de la sphère en ligne apparemment participative, même si, dans le contexte de la critique que l’on vient d’énoncer, les parallèles avec un changement de pouvoir moins démocratique sont évidents. Dans ce chapitre, j'analyse l’utilisation du hashtag «#medieval» sur Instagram et Twitter en particulier pour explorer les façons dont ces mêmes voix dominantes ont localisé et construit le nouveau Moyen Âge à travers une culture dite participative. Je montrerai comment le médiéval en est venu à se créer, dans le contexte d'une culture participative plus étroite qu'on ne l'imagine habituellement, comme un phénomène de classe spécifiquement occidental qui contrôle et restreint à tout la fois nos capacités de s’y connecter.

In Italia la creazione di una consapevolezza di un’identità culturale regionale – oggi molto viva – viaggia di pari passo con gli interventi – di scoperta e valorizzazione – eseguiti tra la fine dell’800 e l’inizio del ‘900 sul patrimonio architettonico europeo. Pertanto, i restauri architettonici compiuti su opere medievali sono solo un esempio della ricaduta di quella che si potrebbe definire “invenzione del medioevo”. Questi interventi sono il frutto di un determinato atteggiamento cultura...

Academic involvement with medievalism can be found in many different fields, such as history, literature, and media studies, but surprisingly there are hardly any works on linguistic issues. This frequent oversight is strikingly illustrated, for example, in the recent Cambridge Companion to Medievalism (d’Arcens 2016a), which has no contribution on language. However, a significant number of compositions in, as well as translations into, Old English and Middle English is available, in the form...

In 2017-18 I adopted a new approach to teaching medieval history courses, engaging students in discussions of the role played by nostalgia, fantasy, and politics in shaping modern views of the Middle Ages. A confluence of nearly simultaneous factors in the summer and fall of 2017 underpinned this decision. These included: “alt-right” visions of a white, Christian Middle Ages and their defense by some medievalists; the rise of “free speech” debates at Canadian universities; and the roundtable ...

In 1888, the young Danish painter Agnes Slott-Møller (1862-1937) travelled to Italy to see for herself the medieval artworks she had only known from lectures in art history. Her experience of Italian medieval art was a revelation that set her course as an artist. In her autobiography she writes: “Without at that time having ever heard of the modern English school of painters who in their partiality for pre-Raphaelite Italian art called themselves ‘Pre-Raphaelites,’ I became directly and immed...

In this paper I examine how the Bourbon dynasty used the Middle Ages to legitimize its rule after the restoration of the monarchy in France in 1814. When King Louis XVIII came to France in 1814 his position was not undisputed. Napoleon’s return and the Hundred Days further destabilized the French monarchy. The king and his supporters had to use multiple means to strengthen their position, and history was one significant source of legitimization. Besides the events of the Revolution, the royal...

The unfinished literary saga A Song of Ice and Fire, as well as its HBO adaptation Game of Thrones, mainly deals with the various representations and moral implications of the human quest for power. Whereas some characters favour a tyrannical or religious approach in order to seize the throne and keep it through violence and manipulation, a more lasting approach seems to reside in the control of a social power, as experienced involuntarily by Tyrion Lannister. He remains one of the characters...

The late medieval shift in the English word trothe from something like fidelity or integrity to something closer to the modern “truth” has been well documented, most comprehensively by Richard Firth Green in his 1999 book A Crisis of Truth. My paper will trace how the long history of truth can help illuminate its varying uses in the political discourse of twenty-first century U.S. politics. I focus on two main ways the idea of truth has been central to our politics: the idea of “truthiness” t...

What can Architrenius by Johannes of Hauvilla, an obscure poem in Latin hexameters from 1184 Northern France, classified by modern editors as a “satyrical allegory,” have in common with one of the most famous and characteristic prose works of the Italian nineteenth-century poet Giacomo Leopardi, his Dialogue of Nature with an Icelander? The latter is considered the main expression of Leopardi’s original anti-providentialistic, anti-anthropocentric, anti-Christian—if not plainly materialistic ...

Historical re-enactments were a central part of the historical imaginary of totalitarian regimes during the 1930s and 1940s. Drawing upon a Romantic medievalist culture—which inspired events such as the medieval pageant of Munich in 1835 and the Eglinton Tournament in 1839, as well as the revival of traditional urban feasts and games in nineteenth-century Italy—these regimes elevated historical re-enactments to unprecedent levels of detail and grandiosity. From the reinvention of the Palio di...

The picture of the Viking Ragnar Lodbrok singing his death song in an English snake pit has been immortalized for centuries, most recently in History’s TV series Vikings (2013–). Many adaptations are based on Old Norse manuscripts, in which the dying Ragnar recounts his exploits and portrays himself as a warrior and a skald simultaneously. The song combines warrior traits with the art of storytelling and was one of the first pieces of Old Norse literature translated into English. It is also a...

À H. Binet de Boisgiroult de Sainte Preuve Saint, Louis est et demeure roi et chevalier : exactement « prud’homme » (Louette 1970, p. 30). Nous questionnions initialement l’image scolaire de Louis IX (1214-1270). Nous avons lors du MAMO présenté ces recherches parfois inédites (Buisson 1990, Ménès 2001). Nous abandonnons ici les éléments liés au parcours « Romantisme » dans lequel nous avions été affecté pour ne retenir que les éléments d’histoire publique liés à l’actualité laïque de Louis I...

In the cultural formation now known as post-punk gothic, the medieval plays a markedly ambiguous, and so aesthetically generative, role. At once decidedly “modern” in juxtaposition to the “classic” rock that defined a previous generation, post-punk gothic, as evinced through a number of initially disparate yet subsequently related musical acts, engages the non-modern within the very contemporary moment these artistic forms occupy and index. As we see in early reviews of Joy Division, Siouxsie...

“Where do you draw the line between fact and fiction?” “How do you balance authenticity with the need for a good story?” “How historically accurate is your work?” “Is it based on real events?” “How much research do you have to do?” These are some of the most common questions asked of historical novelists. We often feel compelled to justify and explain our work in terms of its historical underpinnings and our preparatory research. In contrast to writers in other genres, we are often expected t...

La mia riflessione si basa su una domanda: possono la Disney e la computer grafica influenzare, più di quanto non sia già stato fatto, la nostra percezione del medioevo? Ad oggi, nel pieno fervore dell’innovazione tecnologica, sembra che sia così. Il rapporto tra la Disney Company ed il medioevo affonda le radici in un tempo lontano, quando l’impero cinematografico americano doveva ancora essere sognato. Walter Elias Disney, classe 1901, disegnatore e animatore, si innamorò dell’età di mezzo ...

In exploring contemporary arts practices and medieval culture, this panel took inspiration from William Kentridge’s Triumphs and laments, on the banks of the Tiber. Five artists—Neil Jeffries, Sharon Morris, Jayne Parker, Liz Rideal, and Jo Volley, from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London—considered the relationship between the medieval and the contemporary arts, using their own work as a focus. The panel illustrated how medieval materials and artefacts resource contempora...

This paper examines the reception of Late Antique, Byzantine, and early modern Ottoman architecture in Istanbul, Turkey, in both the later nineteenth and twenty-first centuries as examples of the use of the past in nation building. In the later years of the Ottoman Empire and also now in contemporary Turkey, the architecture of past imperial states was and is invoked by the ruling political group to bolster the image of the contemporary government and to provide legitimizing foundations upon ...

Some historians pretend that there was no middle-class consciousness in Prerevolutionary France. Sarah Maza relies on the paucity of historical discourses glorifying the bourgeoisie to argue that their existence as a social class during the ancien régime is a myth. She notes that historical accounts of the period focus on the debates between the “Germanists” and the “Romanists” who argue over the role of the nobility. Certainly, Mably and abbé Duclos denounce feudalism and comment on the emer...

It can be argued that scientists and journalists are to the modern world what grail-knights, mendicants, and pilgrims were to the medieval: standard-bearers and dogged seekers of meaning and truth. But during the last decades of the twentieth century (and continuing even today), two modern investigative teams headed by the unlikeliest of protagonists ventured on “pilgrimage” around the world in search, of all things, of the blood of Christ. This October marks the fortieth anniversary of the S...

In The Autumn of the Middle Ages (1919), Johan Huizinga identified medieval Europe as not only a time and a place, but also as a distinct emotional regime. According to his narrative, life during the Middle Ages consisted of intense contrasts—between sickness and health, violence and mercy—that were unknowable to Huizinga’s modern audience. This framework of difference, however, did not originate with the Dutch historian. He contributed to a broader conversation among European scholars and pu...

In order to analyze the perspective with which Marga­rethe von Trotta represented the figure of Hildegard von Bingen (Ber­mersheim vor der Höhe, 1098 - Bingen am Rhein, 17 September 1179) in her film Vision - Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen (2009), it is appropriate to look at the work of the German director in light of contemporary sources for the necessary historical-chronological, philosophical, and above all theological monastic contextualization. The film, presented in competition...

I trattati di scherma, o Fechtbuchen, godono di una fama decisamente singolare tra le opere di ascendenza medievale: mentre l’attenzione degli accademici è minima e gli studi scientifici sono rari, la prospettiva risulta completamente ribaltata nell’ambito della rievocazione e della pratica della scherma storica. Proprio in questo ambito, in Italia come all’estero, si sono sviluppati interessanti percorsi di ricerca che hanno condotto allo studio sistematico di questa particolare tipologia di...

Medieval and Renaissance people danced—as their ancestors and their descendants did and do. Then as now, dancing was a combination of vigorous exercise, social interaction, and class identity: dance is never uncomplicated. For much medieval dancing, we must rely on images and the occasional, not detailed description. However, starting in the fifeenth century, we find dance choreographies written down; manuscripts exist from France, Italy, England, and Spain, which give more or less detailed i...

The exhibition Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination was on display at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Cloisters from 10 May to 8 October 2018. Some 200 garments and ornaments dating from the nineteenth through the twenty-first century were shown, as were some 40 (from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries) from the Vatican. The material from the Vatican was installed apart in the Met’s Anna Wintour Costume Center. The other items were displayed in the Medieval galleries in the Met and in the Cloisters, many in close proximity to medieval works of art. In this paper I discuss the rationales the curators and administrators of the Met and the Vatican proposed for mounting the exhibition and their descriptions of the purposes it aimed to serve, particularly important given the exhibit’s timing, a moment of grave crisis in the Church, which had commenced long before the show opened but accelerated sharply while it was on view. I then discuss the range of reactions to the exhibit and Gala. Finally, I comment on two broader themes. First, the place of wealth and display in the Catholic Church and particularly the Church’s adoption of material tokens of secular power and magnificence. Second, the relationship between the fashions exhibited in New York, papal and secular, on the one hand, and, on the other, a hypothetical Catholic imagination (or imaginations), as well as the varied motivations that may lead designers and artists to appropriate religious symbols, images, and stories for their own secular purposes. La mostra Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination è stata aperta dal 10 maggio all’8 ottobre 2018 al Metropolitan Museum e ai Cloisters di New York. Sono stati esposti circa 200 indumenti e ornamenti datati dal XIX al XXI secolo, dei quali circa 40 (del XIX e XX secolo) provenienti dal Vaticano. Il materiale del Vaticano è stato installato separatamente nello Anna Wintour Costume Center del Metropolitan, mentre gli altri oggetti sono stati messi in mostra nelle Medieval galleries del Metropolitan e presso i Cloisters, spesso vicini a opere d’arte medievali. In questo contributo illustro i fondamenti logici che i curatori e gli amministratori del Metropolitan e del Vaticano hanno proposto per allestire la mostra e le loro descrizioni degli scopi a cui mirava, in un momento particolarmente importante data la sua tempistica: un momento di grave crisi nella Chiesa, iniziato molto prima dell'apertura ma che ha subito una forte accelerazione durante l’esposizione. Successivamente, prendo in esame la gamma delle reazioni alla mostra e al Gala. Infine, commento due temi più ampi. In primo luogo, il posto della ricchezza e dell’ostentazione nella Chiesa cattolica e in particolare l'adozione da parte di essa di segni materiali di potere secolare e magnificenza. In secondo luogo, il rapporto tra le mode esposte a New York, papale e laica, da un lato, e, dall'altro, un'ipotetica immaginazione cattolica (o immaginazioni), nonché le varie motivazioni che possono indurre designer e artisti ad appropriarsi di immagini, storie e simboli religiosi per i loro scopi secolari. L’exposition Heavenly Bodies : Fashion and the Catholic Imagination a été présentée au Metropolitan Museum de New York et aux Cloisters du 10 mai au 8 octobre 2018. Quelque 200 vêtements et ornements datant du XIXe au XXIe siècle ont été présentés, dont une quarantaine (des XIXe et XXe siècles) provenant du Vatican. Le matériel du Vatican a été installé séparément dans le Centre de costumes Anna Wintour du Met. Les autres objets ont été exposés dans les galeries médiévales du Met et dans les Cloisters, beaucoup à proximité d'œuvres d'art médiévales. Dans cet article, je discute des justifications proposées par les conservateurs et administrateurs du Met et du Vatican pour monter l'exposition et de leurs descriptions des objectifs qu'elle visait, particulièrement importants compte tenu du moment de l'exposition, un moment de grave crise dans l'Église, qui avait commencé bien avant l'ouverture du salon, mais s'était fortement accélérée pendant qu'il était à l'affiche. Je discute ensuite de l'éventail des réactions à l'exposition et au Gala. Enfin, je commente deux thèmes plus vastes : la place de la richesse et de la magnificence dans l’Église catholique et en particulier l’adoption par l’Église de gages matériels de puissance et de magnificence laïques ; et la relation entre les modes exposées à New York – papale et laïque – et une hypothétique imagination catholique (ou des imaginations, peut-être), ainsi que les motivations variées qui peuvent conduire les designers et les artistes à s'approprier symboles religieux, images et histoires pour leurs propres fins séculières.

This paper argues that, although questions of historicity and ahistoricity are central to medievalism, some medieval living history cultures and scene-adjacent media are better understood as primarily spatial practices. I draw on Bernd Mahr’s model theory and spatial hermeneutics to reimagine medievalism as a set of modelling processes. In this case, field research in the German medieval re-enactment and living history scene is combined with a case study of the Norwegian metal band Wardruna a...

L’intervento prenderà in esame alcuni casi di reimpiego e ricontestualizzazione di sculture del XII, XIII, e XIV secolo legate alla storia di Milano e dei Visconti. Si analizzeranno in particolare alcuni esempi di sculture reimpiegate nel cantiere del nuovo Duomo, fondato nel 1386, e provenienti dalle precedenti cattedrali di Santa Tecla e di Santa Maria Maggiore; il recupero e il restauro negli anni di Federico Borromeo, quando a Milano fiorì una precoce sensibilità per le memorie storiche e...

La réflexion sur la construction d’un imaginaire contemporain de la nation médiévale a caractérisé dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle aussi bien l’historiographie dominée par les historiens contemporains concernant la formation des nations modernes aux XIXe et XXe siècles que l’historiographie dominée par les médiévistes concernant l’étude des constructions politiques médiévales. Il s’agissait dans un cas de comprendre comment un « imaginaire de l’histoire de la nation » s’était peu à peu créé, dans l’autre de déconstruire une vision trop simpliste de la « protohistoire médiévale » des identités nationales, héritée du XIXe siècle. Au XXIe siècle, la résurgence spectaculaire du « médiévalisme nationaliste » dans l’Est (mouvements conservateurs mettant en avant une identité nationale censée remonter au Moyen Âge) comme dans l’Ouest de l’Europe (ascension des nationalismes régionaux) pose la question du traitement à donner à ce « médiévalisme politique » par les historiens. Une réflexion comparée suggère qu’il est trop simple d’opposer une manipulation non-scientifique de l’histoire médiévale à une histoire scientifique. Les historiographies nationales sont souvent contaminées à des degrés très divers par les schèmes du « médiévisme nationaliste », parce qu’elles tendent presque toutes inconsciemment à établir des schémas continuistes. Des exemples pris en Europe orientale, centrale et occidentale montrent l’utilité d’une relecture comparatiste de ces phénomènes. Reflection on the construction of a contemporary imaginary of the medieval nation characterized, in the second half of the twentieth century, a historiographic field dominated by contemporary historians concerned with the formation of modern nations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It also dominated another historiographic field, that of medievalists concerned with the study of medieval political constructions. In one case, it was a question of understanding how an “imaginary of the history of the nation” had gradually been created, in the other of deconstructing an overly simplistic vision of the “medieval protohistory” of national identities inherited from the nineteenth century. In the twenty-first century, the spectacular resurgence of “nationalist medievalism” in the East (conservative movements putting forward a national identity supposedly dating back to the Middle Ages), as in Western Europe (the rise of regional nationalisms), raises the question of what sort of treatment should be given to this "political medievalism" by historians. Comparative reflection suggests that it is too simple to pit an unscholarly manipulation of medieval history against scholarly history. National historiographies are often contaminated to highly varying degrees by patterns of "nationalist medievalism" because almost all of them unconsciously tend to establish continuist patterns. Examples taken from Eastern, Central, and Western Europe show the usefulness of a comparative reinterpretation of these phenomena. Durante la seconda metà del XX secolo la riflessione sulla costruzione di un immaginario contemporaneo della nazione medievale ha caratterizzato tanto la storiografia dominata dagli storici contemporaneisti, concernente la formazione delle nazioni moderne nel XIX e XX secolo, quanto la storiografia dominata dai medievisti, concernente lo studio delle costruzioni politiche medievali. Si trattava, in un caso, di comprendere come un «immaginario della storia della nazione» si fosse venuto a creare a poco a poco, dall’altro, di decostruire una visione troppo semplicitica della «protostoria medievale delle identità nazionali» ereditata dall’Ottocento. Nel XXI secolo, lo spettacolare risorgere del «medievalismo nazionalista» tanto nell’Est (movimenti conservatori che ostentano un’identità nazionale che fanno risalire al medioevo) quanto nell’Ovest dell’Europa (ascesa dei nazionalismi regionali), pone la questione di come gli storici debbano trattare questo «medievalismo politico». Una riflessione comparata suggerisce che è troppo semplice opporre una manipolazione non scientifica della storia medievale a una storia scientifica. Le storiografie nazionali sono spesso contaminate, con gradazioni variabili, dagli schemi interpretativi della «medievistica nazionalista», poiché quasi tutte tendono inconsciamente a stabilire degli schemi continuisti. Alcuni esempi tratti dall’Europa orientale, centrale e occidentale mostrano l’utilità di una rilettura di questi fenomeni in chiave comparativa.

Dans la culture populaire, les Vikings sont régulièrement mobilisés. À la fin des années 1980, a émergé en Scandinavie une scène métal communément appelée « viking metal ». Les groupes affiliés à ce sous-genre de Hard Rock véhiculent, à travers les visuels et les textes, des représentations du Viking et des mythes nordiques. En France, la presse métal participe à la médiation et à la réception de ce phénomène culturel. À partir de l’analyse des discours contenus dans les interviews et les chr...

This volume contains the acts of the international conference “The Middle Ages in the Modern World,” held in Rome November 21-24, 2018. Following the previous iterations of MAMO – as the founders and attendees of this biennial event call it – organized in Scotland (St. Andrews, 2013) and England (Lincoln, 2015; Manchester, 2017), the conference left Great Britain and the anglophone world for Italy and a large, multilingual gathering whose cultural and linguistic diversity is preserved in the ...

On 18 June 2015, the Vatican website released Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato si’: On Care for our Common Home. Uploaded in English, Arabic, and six European languages also spoken in Africa and Latin America, it was instantly and globally available. Addressing his message to “every person living on this planet,” Francis, the first Latin American pope, ameliorates the Eurocentrism of the encyclical’s origin by emphasising the Church’s presence in former colonial societies and the economic g...

Il contributo esamina tre casi genovesi di reimpiego di sculture trecentesche diversi per scopi e modalità. Il primo caso è quello dei rilievi campionesi della prima metà del XIV secolo disposti intorno al 1522 con pura funzione decorativa all’esterno delle parti alte del presbiterio della Cattedrale di San Lorenzo. Il secondo è quello dei resti della tomba monumentale del cardinale Luca Fieschi, eseguita per lo spazio presbiteriale interno prospiciente la cappella “civica” di San Giovanni Ba...

White’s animal symbolism relies on religious, scientific and ideological analogies in its examination of the human condition. To begin with, an obvious source was the medieval bestiary, one of which White himself translated and edited (White, The Book of Beasts). Each animal has an “added symbolism” of vices, virtues, and character traits, already seen in Christ’s dictum to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). The bestiary is not a mere medieval “zoology book” but a h...

Philosopher Robert Pogue Harrison posits that our species’ particular consciousness of our dead is a primary generative force for the cultures of our living, proposing that “the living housed the dead before they housed themselves.” By the 1804 opening of Paris’s Cimetière du Père Lachaise, Harrison’s halcyon days of the dead were long past. Inhumed in churches and churchyards, they were often forgotten or, worse, exhumed to make way for their successors. The nineteenth-century cemetery refor...

In 1968, a lead token with Hebrew inscriptions was discovered during excavations of Lower Brooks Street, Winchester, England. The artefact was dated to the late twelfth to thirteenth century and is thought to have been a synagogue token used by the medieval Jewish community. The Winchester Jewry was one of the earliest settlements in England. Jews were present in the city from the mid-1100s until their expulsion from the country in 1290. The significance of the token lies in its status as one...

Il frontespizio dell’opera magna di Francesco Milizia, pubblicata nel 1768 come Le Vite de’ più celebri architetti d’ogni nazione e d’ogni tempo precedute da un saggio sopra l’architettura, raffigura l’emblematico manifesto del teorico oritano sui linguaggi architettonici. A sinistra nell’incisione, «Hoc Amet» (ama questo) è il cartiglio giustapposto al mondo classico, rappresentato per sineddoche dalla capanna primitiva laugeriana e dal tempio corinzio. Sulla destra, invece, «Hoc Spernat» (d...

Il quartiere Coppedè, progettato come nuova cellula urbana dall’architetto fiorentino Gino Coppedè a partire dal 1915, costituisce un unicum nell’orizzonte architettonico e decorativo del primo Novecento romano. Il multiforme linguaggio che investe la concezione stessa e la realizzazione materiale dei villini e delle palazzine, alle spalle di piazza Buenos Aires, si esplicita attraverso un eclettismo elegante e spettacolare che è diventato sigillo del luogo e sua qualità indiscussa. Fra gli s...

In 1996, the American author George R. R. Martin published the first volume of the overwhelming saga A Song of Ice and Fire. In this saga, noble families plot and fight against one another to rule the Seven Kingdoms from the Iron Throne, a seat created by melting together the swords of those who have fallen in battle against the king. The Iron Throne is there to remind both the members of court and the citizens that there will always be someone revolting against the king, just as there will a...

Last year was the thirtieth anniversary of the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe. It is interesting to note that some of these cultural itineraries refer to important medieval pilgrimage routes; this is the case for instance, with “St. James’ Way” and the “Via Francigena.” Both itineraries have experienced a growth in the number of tourists in recent years. Their success is due to two main factors: firstly, they are slow-tourism products, different from those for mass tourism; secondly...

Medievalism is not alien to heavy metal music. It is actually a prominent feature of two of its most successful subgenres, power metal and pagan metal, and it recurs in the aesthetics and the lyrics of most classical heavy metal bands. Warriors, knights, sorcerers, minstrels, and the whole cast of contemporary popular medievalising literature and cinema alternate with Germanic mythology, traditional ballads, epic poetry, Crusaders, Vikings, and many other supposedly more historical topics. Th...

The historiography of medieval Anglo-Jewry is generally consistent with opinion on the level of interaction of Jews with their Christian neighbours in the urban space. This typically refers to marked differences in religion and customs and secular aspects of medieval English society that precluded Jews from integrating fully and upon which the construction of their ‘otherness’ is based. Recourse to the European model of community, specifically the requirements for communal buildings, when int...

Pur mostrandosi come un’età fertile per lo sviluppo del medievalismo videoludico, orientato ad esaltare eventi militari o personaggi carismatici del passato, il X secolo non ha goduto di grande fortuna nel panorama della gaming industry, risultando relegato a pochi ma significativi momenti della più recente produzione del settore. Qualche spunto di riflessione sul tema è offerto, comunque, da Assassin’s Creed Revelations e Rise of the Tomb Raider, episodi fortunati di due serie i cui concept ...

À bien des égards, la musique médiévale, inouïe depuis des siècles, est une invention contemporaine. Si les éditions musicologiques fournissent les bases des interprétations historiquement informées, d’autres approches s’ancrent résolument dans la modernité et fleurettent avec la chanson populaire. Dès la fin du XIXe siècle, Yvette Guilbert, célèbre chanteuse de cabaret de La Belle Époque, se tourne vers un répertoire à la fois plus élevé et plus ancien, mettant son talent de diseuse au servi...

L’atteggiamento verso le crociate è rivelatore dei mutamenti di sensibilità e di valori lungo tutto l’arco della storia europea: dall’epoca in cui le crociate erano una realtà, e nessuno si sognava di chiamarle così, ai lunghi secoli – dal Tre al Cinquecento – che contrariamente a quel che insegnano i nostri manuali non pensavano affatto che le crociate fossero finite, al Seicento che le ha identificate come oggetto di storia ed esaltate come grandi imprese, al Settecento illuminista che se ne è fatto beffe, per arrivare alla riscoperta del concetto di crociata come elemento mobilizzatore e legittimante, nato già nell’Ottocento, ripreso nelle guerre ideologiche del Novecento e non del tutto spento neppure oggi. Attitudes toward the Crusades reveal changes in sensibility and values across the whole of European history: from the time when the Crusades were a reality and no one dreamed of calling them that; to the long centuries – from the fourteenth to the sixteenth – that, contrary to what our manuals teach, did not think the Crusades were over at all; to the seventeenth century, which identified them as an object of history and exalted them as great enterprises; to the Enlightenment eighteenth century, which made fun of them; down to the rediscovery of the concept of crusade as a mobilizing and legitimizing element, born already in the nineteenth century, taken up again in the ideological wars of the twentieth, and even today not completely extinct. L’attitude à l’égard des croisades est révélatrice des changements de sensibilité et de valeurs advenus tout au long de l’histoire européenne : depuis la période où les croisades étaient une réalité et où nul ne pensait à les appeler ainsi jusqu’à la longue époque – du XIVe au XVIe siècle – où, contrairement à ce que nous enseignent nos manuels, on ne pensait pas du tout que les croisades étaient terminées ; puis, jusqu’au XVIIe siècle, qui les a identifiées comme objet d’histoire et exaltées comme de glorieuses entreprises ; au XVIIIe siècle des Lumières, qui se moquait d’elles ; pour arriver à la redécouverte du concept de croisade comme élément mobilisateur et légitimant, déjà né au XIXe siècle, repris dans les guerres idéologiques du XXe siècle et pas tout à fait éteint aujourd'hui encore.

The Middle Ages—both “real” and “imaginary”—have inspired more than a century of ostensibly forward-thinking artistic modernism, a contradiction whose recognition, I contend, might do much to shake up an increasingly tired narrative concerned, principally, with notions of “progress” and the breakup of tradition. For musical strains of modernism, specifically, that sense of the “medieval” leaves its enigmatic trace, redolent of a strange dialogue with traditions whose “sounds” are truly lost t...

Le 7 août 1673, l’évêque de Grenoble Étienne Le Camus (1671-1707), au cours de la première visite pastorale de son diocèse, se rend dans la paroisse d’Uriol, hameau de quelques masures sur le flanc oriental du Vercors. Il expose en son procès-verbal que « le Saint sacrement ne repose pas dans cette eglise, il n’y a pas des fonts baptismaux, il n’y a pas de cemetiere ny de chremier, et il n’y a que huit familles qui font environ trente communians, et cepandant quoyqu’on n’ait laissé aucune mar...

Les expressions « nouveau Moyen Âge », « retour au/du Moyen Âge », et leurs variantes et dérivées – sous des formes verbales telles que « revenir au Moyen Âge » et « renvoyer au Moyen Âge » ou d’unités lexicales légèrement différentes comme « prochain Moyen Âge », « futur Moyen Âge » –, participent à de nombreux discours. Elles sont anciennes. Ainsi, Daunou, dès 1818, s’inquiétant des risques de l’accession à la tête du pays d’un « aventurier » avide de « pouvoir suprême » qui profiterait des...

Laudato si’ has been hailed by progressives for taking the urgency of the environmental crisis seriously, and for its injunction to believe the scientists. Its subtitle declares that we ought to care for “our common home,” the earth. Such lovely words, care and home, denote intimacy and the everyday. The problem of environmental degradation is a domestic one. It hits home, so to speak. And this home is womanly. Francis tells us, “our common home is like our sister with whom we share our life,...

In many of Gawain’s appearances in Arthurian Romances, he has been posed as the ideal: the best lover, the perfect knight from the noblest family, and Arthur’s most loyal follower. A similar identity can be applied to Superman, the “American Crusader,” the first and the perfect superhero. Both characters demonstrate and practise the perfection of masculinity within their own cultural contexts (medieval Europe and contemporary America), which is why I attempt to bring them into conversation. T...