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Decorating the Lord’s Table

On the Dynamics between Image and Altar in the Middle Ages

As the locus of the Christian ritual, the altar has often been the object of artistic attention. Decorating the Lord’s Table treats the profusion of sumptuously ornate altars produced in various media during the European Middle Ages. Many of the altars display images of Christ, the saints, and Biblical personages, often in conjunction with narrative cycles depicting the lives of Christ and various saints. Investigating interrelationships between image and altar in the light of important recent methodological developments in the field of art history, the essays in this book treat themes such as the human body, materiality, pictorial narrative, and liturgy, and focus on evidence from Italian, German, and Scandinavian contexts.

170 pages | © 2006

Religion: Christianity


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Table of Contents

Introduction
      Erik Thunø and Søren Kaspersen

’Domus Sanctae Dei Genetricis Mariae’—Art and Liturgy in the Oratory of Pope John VII
      Ann van Dijk
Cross Altar and Crucifix in Ottonian Cologne—Past Narrative, Present Ritual, Future Resurrection
      Annika Elisabeth Fisher
The Golden Altar of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan—Image and Materiality
      Erik Thunø
Narrative ’Modes’ in the Danish Golden Frontals
      Søren Kaspersen
Body and Space in the Ølst Frontal
      Lena Liepe
The Stadil Altar Frontal—A Johannine Interpretation of the Nativity of Christ and the Advent of Ecclesia
      Harriet M. Sonne de Torrens

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