Exploring Medieval Art with the Index

Have you ever wondered what representations of cats or dragons looked like in thirteenth-century England? What kinds of images might one see in a Hebrew illuminated manuscript? Or what stories are told in images on late antique tombs from Rome or the walls of Byzantine monuments? For the past century, the Index of Medieval Art, a research center in the Department of Art & Archaeology, has been developing a thematic archive and database aimed at answering these questions. This workshop will show participants not just what types of art historical data can be found in the database, but how to locate and interpret the Index’s records to learn more about the Middle Ages. It offers the opportunity to learn about visual traditions and to think creatively about medieval themes and topics, all while building new research skills and discovering a resource on the Princeton campus that they might have never heard of.

https://ima.princeton.edu

What to expect:
The workshop will include an introduction to the index database and on overview of the best ways to search for topics of interest. Participants will have the opportunity to put their newly learned search strategies into practice and ask questions and comments.

Meet the facilitators:
Maria Alessia Rossi is an Art History Specialist in Byzantine and Slavic artist production at the Index of Medieval Art. She is the co-editor of Late Byzantium Reconsidered: The Arts of the Palaiologan Era in the Mediterranean (2019) and Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages (2020) and is the cofounder of the initiative North of Byzantium (https://www.northofbyzantium.org).

Jessica Savage is an Art History Specialist in Gothic art at the Index of Medieval Art. She is the author of “Before the Parliament of Heaven: Visualizing the Reconciled Virtues of Psalm 84.11” in Tributes to Adelaide Bennett Hagens: Manuscripts, Iconography, and the Late Medieval Viewer (2017) and has presented her work on late medieval manuscripts at several national and international conferences, including the Renaissance Society of America and the International Medieval Congress at Leeds.

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