The Tree: Symbol, Allegory, and Mnemonic Device in Medieval Art and Thought

Description

With its vital character - growing, flowering, extending its roots into the ground, and its branches and leaves to the sky - the tree is a polyvalent metaphor, a suggestive symbol, and an allegorical subject. During the Middle Ages, a number of iconographic schemata were based on the image and structure of the tree, including the Tree of Jesse and the Tree of Virtues and Vices. From the late eleventh century onwards such formulae were increasingly used as devices for organizing knowledge and representing theoretical concepts. Despite the abstraction inherent in these schemata, however, the semantic qualities of trees persist in their usage. The analysis of different manifestations of trees in the Middle Ages is highly instructive for visual, intellectual, and cultural history. Essays in this volume concentrate on the formative period for arboreal imagery in the medieval West, that is, the eleventh to fifteenth centuries. Using a range of methodological strategies and examining material from different media, ranging from illuminated manuscripts to wall painting, stained glass windows, and monumental sculpture, the articles in this volume show how different arboreal structures were conceived, employed, and appropriated by their specific contexts, how they functioned in their original framework, and how they were perceived by their audience. Front Matter ("Editorial Board", "Title Page", "Copyright Page", "Table of Contents", "Illustrations"), p. i Free Access Colour Plates, p. xiii Preface, p. xvii Free Access Introduction, p. 1 Pippa Salonius, Andrea Worm https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.1.102019 Stirps Jesse in capite ecclesiae: Iconographic and Liturgical Readings of the Tree of Jesse in Stained-Glass Windows, p. 13 Marie-Pierre Gelin https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.1.102020 Arbor autem humanum genus significat: Trees of Genealogy and Sacred History in the Twelfth Century, p. 35 Andrea Worm https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.1.102021 Arbor genealogiae: Manifestations of the Tree in French Royal Genealogies, p. 69 Marigold Anne Norbye https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.1.102022 The Medieval Tree of Porphyry: An Organic Structure of Logic, p. 95 Annemieke R. Verboon https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.1.102023 Visualizing Salvation: The Role of Arboreal Imagery in the Speculum humanae salvationis (Kremsmünster, Library of the Convent, Cod. 243), p. 117 Susanne Wittekind https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.1.102024 Two Trees in Paradise? A Case Study on the Iconography of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life in Italian Romanesque Sculpture, p. 143 Ute Dercks https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.1.102025 The Tree as Narrative, Formal, and Allegorical Index in Representations of the Noli me tangere, p. 159 Barbara Baert, Liesbet Kusters https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.1.102026 Quasi lignum vitae: The Tree of Life as an Image of Mendicant Identity, p. 187 Ulrike Ilg https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.1.102027 Arbor Jesse – Lignum vitae: The Tree of Jesse, the Tree of Life, and the Mendicants in Late Medieval Orvieto, p. 213 Pippa Salonius https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.1.102028 Back Matter ("Select Bibliography", "Titles in Series"), p. 243