London Bridge Renaissance Faire
PHOTOS:
Raphael’s
“Portrait of a Lady With a Unicorn” in San Francisco
The exhibition “Sublime Beauty,” which
opened to the public Saturday, Jan. 9, at the Legion of Honor, comprises a
single painting, grandly presented in its own ample room. Seen through a
doorway at the end of a procession of museum galleries, barely more than 2 feet
in height, “Portrait of a Lady With a Unicorn” (ca. 1505-06) commands attention
from 100 yards off. It glows as if lighted from within: a golden-haired pyramid
of sensuality, anchored on pillowed sleeves of ruby, cast in a clear, nearly
shadowless light and set against a glowing horizon of blue….
She is lovely, certainly, but the
perfection of her skin and the classic balance of her features heighten the
soundless, surreal moment: It is the tiny animal in her arms that has seen
more, and that knowledge shows in its expressive face. The unnatural slope of
her shoulders, a fiction often maintained by Renaissance artists, softens her
steely posture, just as the unicorn’s feline paws — not hooves — confirm that
it is capable of being tamed....
Complete article and image: http://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/A-fresh-look-at-Raphael-s-Portrait-of-a-Lady-6746977.php
Getting under the skin of a medieval mystery
A simple PVC eraser has helped an
international team of scientists led by bioarchaeologists at the University of
York to resolve the mystery surrounding the tissue-thin parchment used by
medieval scribes to produce the first pocket Bibles.
Thousands of the Bibles were made in
the 13th century, principally in France but also in England, Italy and Spain.
But the origin of the parchment -- often called 'uterine vellum' -- has been a
source of longstanding controversy.
Use of the Latin term abortivum in
many sources has led some scholars to suggest that the skin of fetal calves was
used to produce the vellum. Others have discounted that theory, arguing that it
would not have been possible to sustain livestock herds if so much vellum was
produced from fetal skins. Older scholarship even argued that unexpected
alternatives such as rabbit or squirrel may have been used, while some medieval
sources suggest that hides must have been split by hand through use of a lost
technology.
A multi-disciplinary team of
researchers developed a simple and objective technique using standard
conservation treatments to identify the animal origin of parchment They analyzed
72 pocket Bibles originating in France, England and Italy, and 293 further
parchment samples from the 13th century. The parchment samples ranged in
thickness from 0.03 - 0.28mm.
Dr Fiddyment said: "We found no
evidence for the use of unexpected animals; however, we did identify the use of
more than one mammal species in a single manuscript, consistent with the local
availability of hides.
"Our results suggest that
ultrafine vellum does not necessarily derive from the use of abortive or
newborn animals with ultra-thin skin, but could equally reflect a production
process that allowed the skins of maturing animals of several species to be
rendered into vellum of equal quality and fineness."
Alexander Devine, of the Schoenberg
Institute for Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said:
"The bibles produced on a vast scale throughout the 13th century
established the contents and appearance of the Christian Bible familiar to us
today. Their importance and influence stem directly from their format as
portable one-volume books, made possible by the innovative combination of
strategies of miniaturization and compression achieved through the use of
extremely thin parchment. The discoveries of this innovative research therefore
enhance our understanding of how these bibles were produced enormously, and by
extension, illuminate our knowledge of one of the most significant text
technologies in the histories of the Bible and of Western Christianity."
No comments:
Post a Comment