Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire

Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire
Author :
Publisher : Penn State Press
Total Pages : 282
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0271042885
ISBN-13 : 9780271042886
Rating : 4/5 (85 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire by : Genevra Kornbluth

Download or read book Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire written by Genevra Kornbluth and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Europe offers a pageant of almost incredible richness: King Arthur and his round table, demons and cathedrals, Charlemagne and his paladins. The Carolingian culture of the late eighth to late tenth centuries (in what is now France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and northern Italy) offers more than its fair share of achievements. This heavily illustrated study examines one revealing legacy of Charlemagne's heirs and his people--the Carolingian gems of rock crystal, jet, and agate engraved with complex figural scenes, which have never before been studied as a group. These objects have been largely ignored in the scholarship of medieval art, partly because of the difficulty of access. Genevra Kornbluth assembles for the first time all twenty surviving gems, from small seal matrices to the forty-one-figure "Susanna crystal" in London, along with information about lost works. The unique features of each gem are made visible in over 200 detailed black-and-white photographs, often highly magnified and produced using new techniques developed to record transparent engraving. Kornbluth fully analyzes the techniques of manufacture, style, chronology, iconography, and patronage of each gem and examines their social functions, the organization and status of the artisans who created them, and relations between media. The gems are presented as evidence of the rich diversity of the Carolingian culture, rather than as reflections of an artistic program dictated by the imperial courts; they are also seen to be essentially new creations, drawing on earlier visual traditions but adapting their sources to address contemporary concerns.


Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire Related Books

Engraved Gems of the Carolingian Empire
Language: en
Pages: 282
Authors: Genevra Kornbluth
Categories: Nature
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-11-01 - Publisher: Penn State Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Medieval Europe offers a pageant of almost incredible richness: King Arthur and his round table, demons and cathedrals, Charlemagne and his paladins. The Caroli
A Contrite Heart
Language: en
Pages: 313
Authors: Abigail Firey
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009 - Publisher: BRILL

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Between the middle of the eighth century and the late ninth century in western Europe, the course of legal history was shaped by interaction with religious idea
Speculum Lapidum
Language: en
Pages: 239
Authors: Camillo Leonardi
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2023-08-29 - Publisher: Penn State Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In early modern Europe precious and semiprecious stones were valued not only for their beauty and rarity but also for their medical and magical properties. Lore
Struggle for Empire
Language: en
Pages: 428
Authors: Eric Joseph Goldberg
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2006 - Publisher: Cornell University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Struggle for Empire explores the contest for kingdoms and power among Charlemagne's descendants that shaped the formation of Europe through the reign of Charlem
Alfred the Great
Language: en
Pages: 424
Authors: Timothy Reuter
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-05-15 - Publisher: Routledge

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

1999 marked the eleven-hundredth anniversary of the death of Alfred the Great, and to mark this event, two international conferences were held to re-evaluate an