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International audience; In recent years, we have seen a significant increase in interest in the effects of irradiation used for analytical purposes on art, archaeological, palaeontological and palaeoenvironmental samples and objects. Among the main trends regarding ionising radiations used in X-ray, UV and ion beam experiments, we have observed a greater consistency in the description of the effects of irradiation, a number of quantitative studies, while several works studied in depth the corresponding chemical mechanisms and kinetics. We have also observed the development of analytical strategies and dedicated instruments to better detect and limit the effects of irradiation in real experiments on ancient samples and objects. Emerging trends include detailed mechanistic studies on specific systems, the development of statistical methods to reduce the doses required to study samples, and the development of early warning systems capable of feeding back into the experiment while an acquisition is in progress.

The relocation of the Papal Court from Italy to France at the beginning of the 14th century and its installation in Avignon for several decades from 1309 gives the opportunity to reflect on the practices of consumption of Italian paintings outside the peninsula. We are first dealing with the construction of an artistic labor market based on the mobility of artists, and then with the construction of a market for works of art, very gradually established, thanks to the new mobility of paintings. Avignon thus played the role of a laboratory for the diffusion of Italian painting in late medieval Europe, both from an aesthetic and economic point of view.

Qu’est devenu aujourd’hui le « métier d’historien » dont parlait Marc Bloch ? En suivant le fil d’une expérience individuelle, ce livre s’interroge sur le travail de l’histoire, entendu dans un double sens. C’est d’abord le travail sur l’histoire, comme matériau de recherche, qui pose des questions intellectuelles mais aussi pratiques. Comment devient-on chercheur en histoire ? Que signifie lire, écrire, éditer des textes quand on est historien ? Quels sont les enjeux de l’enseignement de l’histoire ? Pourquoi participer à l’évaluation ou à l’administration au sein des institutions universitaires ? Qu’implique le fait d’intervenir dans la sphère publique ? Ces questions font le quotidien de l’historien autant, voire plus, que la fréquentation des archives et des bibliothèques. Mais, en filigrane, le travail de l’histoire désigne aussi, dans un sens qui mêle les dimensions personnelle et professionnelle, l’histoire au travail. Non seulement l’histoire comme flux temporel, qui transforme les êtres et les choses, mais aussi comme discipline, qui produit des effets sur celui qui la pratique et qui est, en retour, travaillé par cette histoire.

International audience; ConspectusThe chemical study of materials from natural history and cultural heritage, which provide information for art history, archeology, or paleontology, presents a series of specific challenges. The complexity of these ancient and historical materials, which are chemically heterogeneous, the product of alteration processes, and inherently not reproducible, is a major obstacle to a thorough understanding of their making and long-term behavior (e.g., fossilization). These challenges required the development of methodologies and instruments coupling imaging and data processing approaches that are optimized for the specific properties of the materials. This Account discusses how these characteristics not only constrain their study but also open up specific innovative avenues for providing key historical information. Synchrotron methods have extensively been used since the late 1990s to study heritage objects, in particular for their potential to provide speciation information from excitation spectroscopies and to image complex heritage objects and samples in two and three dimensions at high resolution. We examine in practice how the identification of key intrinsic chemical specificities has offered fertile ground for the development of novel synchrotron approaches allowing a better stochastic description of the properties of ancient and historical materials. These developments encompass three main aspects: (1) The multiscale heterogeneity of these materials can provide an essential source of information in the development of probes targeting their multiple scales of homogeneity. (2) Chemical alteration can be described in many ways, e.g., by segmenting datasets in a semiquantitative way to jointly inform morphological and chemical transformation pathways. (3) The intrinsic individuality of chemical signatures in artifacts triggers the development of specific strategies, such as those focusing on weak signal detection. We propose a rereading of the advent of these new methodologies for analysis and characterization and examine how they have led to innovative strategies combining materials science, instrument development, history, and data science. In particular, we show that spectral imaging and the search for correlations in image datasets have provided a powerful way to address what archeologists have called the uncertainty and ambiguity of the material record. This approach has implications beyond synchrotron techniques and extends in particular to a series of rapidly developing approaches that couple spectral and spatial information, as in hyperspectral imaging and spatially resolved mass spectrometry. The preeminence of correlations holds promise for the future development of machine learning methods for processing data on historical objects. Beyond heritage, these developments are an original source of inspiration for the study of materials in many related fields, such as environmental, geochemical, or life sciences, which deal with systems whose alteration and heterogeneity cannot be neglected.

Dominique Vingtain Le Palais des papes d'Avignon, xviiie-xxe siecle. L'invention d'un monument historique francais Arles, Honore Clair, 2015, 400 p.

RésuméLe peintre Matteo Giovannetti, originaire de Viterbe, s'installe à la cour des papes d'Avignon au début des années 1340. Durant le règne du pape Clément VI (1342-1352), il parvient à organiser autour de lui un atelier curial d'une dimension inédite, dont les archives administratives pontificales ont conservé de nombreuses traces. Cette documentation exceptionnelle permet de reconstituer les phases de développement administratif, financier, matériel et technique de cet atelier, qui correspondent à l'affirmation progressive de la position artistique de Matteo. Ce dernier s'appuie non seulement sur la maîtrise de la nouvelle culture visuelle italienne, mais aussi sur des innovations techniques dans la production de la fresque et des pratiques d'organisation du chantier et d’écriture comptable. L’étude de l'atelier de Matteo éclaire ainsi la figure de l'artiste à la fois artisan, courtisan et entrepreneur, mais aussi la dimension collective et matérielle du travail créateur dans l'Europe du xive siècle.

The artist Matteo Giovannetti, originally from Viterbo, arrived at the papal court of Avignon in the early 1340s. During the reign of pope Clement VI (1342–1352), he succeeded in organizing a court-based workshop of an unprecedented size, which has left numerous traces in the papal administrative archives. This exceptional documentation makes it possible to reconstruct the administrative, financial, material, and technical phases of this workshop’s development, corresponding to the increasing affirmation of Matteo’s artistic position. As well as his mastery of the new Italian visual culture, Matteo drew on innovative techniques in fresco production, project management, and bookkeeping. Studying his workshop thus shines a light on the figure of the artist, at once craftsman, courtier, and entrepreneur. It also reveals the collective and material dimension of creative labor in fourteenth-century Europe.

Within the discipline of history, periodisation has effects that are not always adequately examined. The Middle Ages constitute a paradigmatic example of such an oversight. This period, which was for a long time a disparaging notion, was unknown to medieval people themselves and was developed a posteriori. Yet it solidified over the centuries and came to shape the European political imagination, knowledge frameworks in the social sciences and the institutional organisation of history as an academic discipline. In this interview with Tracés, French medievalist Étienne Anheim revisits the issues and challenges raised by the very notion of the Middle Ages and what it reveals about periodisation and historiography.; Dans le travail scientifique de l’histoire, la périodisation produit des effets qui ne sont pas toujours suffisamment interrogés. Le Moyen Âge en fournit un exemple paradigmatique. Notion longtemps péjorative, inconnue des médiévaux eux-mêmes et formulée a posteriori, cette époque sédimentée au cours des siècles structure l’imaginaire politique européen, les cadres de connaissance des sciences sociales ainsi que l’organisation de la discipline historienne. Dans cet entretien accordé à la revue Tracés, l’historien médiéviste Étienne Anheim revient sur les problèmes et défis que pose la notion de Moyen Âge et, plus généralement, sur ce que celle-ci nous dit des opérations de périodisation et des pratiques historiographiques.

Anna Zayaruznaya The Monstruous New Art: Divided Forms in the Late Medieval Motet Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015, 320 p.

Rosa Maria Dessi Les spectres du Bon Gouvernement d'Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Artistes, cites communales et seigneurs angevins au Trecento Paris, Puf, 2017, 448 p.

International audience

In France, the links between the teaching of history in secondary schools and historical research in universities, higher education institutes, and the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) often seem tenuous. Evocations of these links usually boil down to debates about updating school curricula, invocations—often with ulterior political motives—of the teaching profession’s unity in spite of obvious differences and inequalities, or, on the contrary, denunciations of an objective that is idealistic, if not demagogical and senseless. In such a context, it might seem odd to devote a dossier to this question in an international academic journal. Indeed, this choice provoked vigorous debate within the editorial board of the Annales, especially since the dossier has the peculiarity of drawing on direct experience by giving a voice to secondary-school teachers and teacher trainers rather than specialized academic researchers.