Africa, Africa!

One of my major gripes is that many people tend to think of the Byzantine empire as only being Greece, Egypt, and part of Asia Minor. I find that the most interesting artwork, however, comes from the fringes, and is a unique combination of regional and traditional Byzantine style. The further away from Constantinople you go, the more regional the art gets. In my opinion, The Sudan (Nubia) and Ethiopia belong to those ignored areas of Byzantine art. Although they, like Russia, were never part of the Empire, they both were christianized by the Byzantines (Nubia in the mid 6th century and Ethiopia in the mid 4th) and, as a result, their cultures and artwork were very much influenced by this. Here are two examples of Nubian frescos, these two both come from Faras.


The first one depicts Queen Martha, protected by the Virgin Mary and a martyred soldier, and dates from the 11th century. Martha's dress is a beautiful mix of traditional style and Byzantine ceremonial garb.


The second image shows a Nubian princess being protected by the Virgin Mary, and dates from the 12th century.

Both are in the National Museum at Khartoum.















The next image comes from an Ethiopian illumination, dating before 1350. It is a depiction of the angels leading Mary to Temple. It comes from the Cloister Estifanos at
Lake Hayq.

In this illumination, you can really see the mix of Byzantine themes and style, with very Ethiopian elements. What is especially typical of the region are the noseless, mouthless faces and the oversized eyes. What I love about it is the beauty that lies in its simplicity.

It is now located in the National Library at Addis Ababa, Inventory number A.5










Source: Volbach, W.F., J. Lafontaine-Dosogne. "Propyläen Kunst Geschichte, Band 3: Byzanz". Propyläen Verlag, Berlin.

I want my mummy

Well, the plan was to write a small article on the use of mummies in medieval medicine, but I found a bunch of stuff on the net already. Here are links to two of the best articles I found. Some of it is post period, but all of it is fascinating!

http://www.sarahbakewell.com/Other%20Writing.html#Cookingwithmummy
http://www.pharmj.com/pdf/xmas2004/pj_20041218_bodyparts.pdf

"Squashed Tit, Tit like a bun"...

And it's the moment you've all been waiting for...dirty poetry hour! I bring to you three of my favorites:

Blazon of the Ugly Tit
by Clement Marot (1535)
"Tit that is nothing but skin,
Scrawny flag limply flapping
Big tit, long tit
Squashed tit, tit like a bun
Tit with a pointy nipple
Like the sharp end of a funnel,
You jounce about at every move
Without any need for a shake...
Tit, we might say that he who fondles you
Knows he has a finger in the pie.
Toasted tit, hanging tit
Wrinkled tit, tit that gives
Mud instead of milk,
The devil wants you in his
Infernal family, to nurse his daughter.
Tit to be thrown over one shoulder
Like those broad shawls of olden times
If you are spotted, lots of men feel like
Grasping you with gloves on
So as not to soil themselves, and to use
you,
Tit to slap the big ugly nose of she
Wo has you dangle below the armpit."

The Black Scrotum
Anonymous (12th-13th century)
"My Lord, in your presence
I want to say before everyone here
the reason why I have come to court.
I've been married for seven years now
with a peasant, whom I never fully knew,
until last night, when for the first time
I discovered
the reason why I can no longer stay with him,
nor remain in his company.
You'll find what I say is true:
my husband has a prick blacker
than iron, and a scrotum blacker
than any monk's or priest's cassock;
and it's hairy like the skin of a bear,
and furthermore no old moneylender's purse
was ever so swollen as his scrotum.
I've told you the truth;
I don't know how to tell it any better."

Source: Eco, Umberto (ed.). "On Ugliness". Rizzoli International Publications Inc. New York, 2007. pp. 136, 166. (If you don't already have a copy, you need to get one!)

and finally, a song

Ain Graserin
by Oswald von Wolkenstein (late 14th to early 15th c.)

"A peasant maid came walking through the cool dew,
Her pretty little white feet quite naked:
what a happy encounter, there amid the green
meadows which her trusty sickle knew so well!
There it was that I helped her to open the gate
and hold it ajar, to swing it around a little
hinge and then to close it firmly so that the
maid would never again have cause to weep
for the flight of her pretty little duckling.

When I saw the beauty coming, as quick as a
flash I hastened to help her slip the 'unruly'
one snugly into that exquisite slot: I had
carefully sharpened my hoe in view of my
work with her; moist and impatient it could
hardly wait; so I helped her to rake the grass.
'Why are you struggling so, my precious?'
'But no, what are you saying my little duckling?'

And when I had thoroughly scythed the pussy
clover and filled all the holes thereabouts, not
content, she begged me to linger a little longer
in that garden of hers down there: she wanted
to find some roses to make me a garland.
'Tease and comb my flax just a little more,
caress it if you want it to grow tall
and strong'. My heart, my darling duck, you
have the most magnificent beak!"

Source: CD liner: "Speculum Amoris, Lyrique de l'Amour Medieval du mysticisme a l'erotisme", La Reverdie.

I tried to find a recording online, but this is the best I can do. If you want to hear part of the song in the original, go here http://www.mufin.com/en/search/artist?search_keyword=Ain+Graserin&search_type=song



It's a shame the Victorians ruined our cultural sense of humor, isn't it?

And there was much embarrassment

A 14th century wall painting in the narthex of the 12th century church Our Lady of Asinou, on Cyprus. The depiction is of the Gnashing of Teeth, which was one of the group torments in Hades.

They look more sheepish than tormented, though, if you ask my humble opinion, kind of like their bosses just caught them in the sauna, when they were all supposed to be at the weekly board meeting.

Source: "The Church of Our Lady of Asinou". Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation and the Holy Bishopric of Morphou in Collaboration with the Department of Antiquities. Nicosia, 2002.

Artifice, the first.

Things really never change...fake gems, disappearing-reappearing ink, painting roses red, it has all been done before. Since this is a topic I love, and because there is so much information out there, I'm going to do this in parts. Today I'm going to focus on the Bolognese Manuscript, a 15th century book on dyeing, ink making, painting techniques, gilding, among other things. There are also many many recipes for making fake jewels. Here is a selection. I have to say, I haven't tried any of these recipes yet, but am planning to! So if anyone succesfully makes any of these, I'd love to hear your tips!

"To make pearls just like natural pearls.--Take pearls and pound them fine, and then put them into the before-mentioned water [2lbs of sal-ammoniac distilled]; then place the vessel containing the water with the pearls dissolved in it on the hot ashes to dry; and when the water is nearly evaporated, and the pearls remain at the botom of the vase, take it out, and add to it white of egg well beaten as if for vermilion, and knead up the pearls with white of egg like smooth paste. then take moulds and make the paste into pearls, and let them dry; pierce them, and let them boil in linseed oil. Then take out and rub them in bran, and afterwards on linen cloth. And if, instead of pearls, you put mother-of-pearl, it is good, and will make good pearls, &c." p. 553-4

"To imitate precious stones with crystal.--Take roche alum, alum zucarino, Roman vitriol, and "salis copertum", of each equal quantities, and put these ingredients into clear and strained ley, and dissolve them, and you may colour the crystal. For a sapphire, add azure; for an emerald, add verdigris; for a ruby, add vermilion; for a balas ruby, add verzino or "stupio"; for hyacinth, sky-blue and a little azure; for amethyst, some oricella; and so you may imitate all stones by adding different colours. Remember, however, that the crystal and the colours must be dissolved like colours and coagulated. Then boil them till they become like stones." p. 518

"To make sapphire, and to refine and colour it.--Take a crystal, or a transparent stone, and whichever you take heat it strongly and then quench it several times in cold water; then pound it, and take an equal quantity of sal alkali, and melt them together. Aftrwards put them into a furnace, and add a little zaffirro. And if you wish to have the colour green, add a little minium, and note, that some say that "callamita femina" makes a transparent red. Note also, that these stones are found upon Mount St. Bernard, and are good and perfect crystals, as if they were really mineral." p.524

To make amber (beads).--Take the whites of hen's eggs, and whip them with a sponge till they cease to froth; dd a little roche alum, colophony well powdered, and some cherry gum. Strain the mixture through a cloth, and put it into a flask well closed and luted, and set the flask in a jar full of water.; boil it for an hour, and then put it to cool in the open air, and dry it, and afterwards wrap it up in a linen cloth and bury it in dung for 3 days, and it will then be liquid, so that you may work it in your hands, and make beads and whatever you please. While you are modelling them, anoint your hands with common oil, pierce the beads, and let them dry, and they will be done." pp.515-6

"To Make a stucco for making imitation corals.--Take the white horn of a cow, break it, and soak it in strong ley for the space of a fortnight; then make it boil over the fire until it becomes soft like glue, and so that you can strain it through a cloth or a strainer; and when it is strained, take vermilion in the finest powder, and mix it up with the strained liquid, so as to be like dough, and make paternosters of it in moulds like pearls as before; then boil them in linseed oil, and let them dry. And if you scrape the horn with a glass, and then soak it in the manner above mentioned, it will soften so that you may strain it more easily, and do with it as before, and you will have fine and beautiful imitation corals" p. 544

"To make a window of goat-skin parchment which will appear to be real glass.--Take the skin of a id or a sheep or a goat, macerate it, remove the hair without lime, and scrape it very fine; then take a drachm of clean and clarified honey, mix it with 8 or 10 whites of eggs well beaten together with the honey in the same way as white of egg is beaten up for vermilion. Put the skin to soak in the white of egg and honey, squeeze it with your hand while in composition, and let it remain in soak for 2 or 3 hours at the most; Then take it out and stretch it well on a frame, and let it dry. Then paint upon it what you please, and let the colours dry well. Afterwards varnish it on one side, that is, on the side which the colours are, and dry it in moderate sunshine, and it will appear like glass" p. 492



Source: Merrifield, Mary P. "Medieval and Renaissance Treatises on the Arts of Painting: Original Texts with English Translations". Dover Publications, Inc: New York. 1967. ISBN: 0-486-40440-4

Waiting for the Sun

Today's featured items are three types of 16th century portable sundials, more specifically, the chalice dial, polyhedral dial, and ring dial. The first were, obviously, in the shape of chalices and could be used to tell the time of day, by rotating it until the pin matched the correct month. I seriously want one! Images can be found here:

http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=97084
and
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=81297

Polyhedral dials are essentially table-top sundials, and could be elaborately painted and decorated:
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=29766
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=22319
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=20011
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=54651
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=73212

Ring dials were really practical, the first one even had charts for telling the age of the moon, and the latitudes of different cities.
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=89914
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=84484

And finally, my personal favorite, a sundial-spoon!
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/epact/catalogue.php?ENumber=14779

"The Woman Said my Horse was Small"...

Here's a link to one of the most interesting articles I've read in a while. It's title?

"Penile Puns: Personal Names and Phallic Symbols in Skaldic Poetry", written by Kari Ellen Gade


http://www.illinoismedieval.org/EMS/VOL6/gade.html

enjoy!