Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages. By Anne Winston-Allen. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997. xiv + 210 pp. $28.50 cloth.

1998 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 364-365
Author(s):  
John R. Sommerfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
State University ◽  
Pennsylvania State University ◽  
The Rose ◽  
The Middle Ages

Richard K. Emmerson, Apocalypse Illuminated: The Visual Exegesis of Revelation in Medieval Illustrated Manuscripts. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018, 269 pp., 100 illus.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 311-311
Author(s):  
Thomas Farmer
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Illuminated Manuscripts ◽  
State University ◽  
Pennsylvania State University ◽  
Illustrated Manuscripts ◽  
Book Of Revelation ◽  
Visual Exegesis ◽  
End Times ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Book of Revelation continues to fascinate and frighten Christians in equal measure. In 2017, a self-proclaimed “Christian numerologist” using the pen name “David Meade” claimed that a rogue planet would collide with Earth on September 23, 2017, thereby inaugurating the End Times; he based his claims, in part, on his reading of Revelation 12 (when the cataclysm failed to occur, he revised his prediction to October 15 and then October 21). The Middle Ages also saw a sustained interest in Revelation, one measure of this being the large number (over 130) of surviving illuminated manuscripts of Revelation. In Apocalypse Illuminated, Richard Emmerson argues that these manuscript miniatures provided their own exegesis of the text, separate from (but related to) any accompanying commentary.

Picatrix: A Medieval Treatise on Astral Magic. Trans. with an intro. by Dan Attrell and David Porreca. Based on the Latin edition by David Pingree. The Magic in History Series. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019, xii, 372 pp.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 530-532
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Modern Time ◽  
State University ◽  
Pennsylvania State University ◽  
Medieval Studies ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Early Modern Time ◽  
The Middle Ages

Ordinary readers would welcome this new translation as one of many publications rendering a medieval Latin into modern English. All those efforts are certainly most welcome and necessary to maintain the scholarly and pragmatic-didactic approach to Medieval Studies. However, the Picatrix represents a unique magical treatise which every European pre-modern magician consulted and which enjoyed greatest respect for its universal relevance. Many contributors to the edited volume Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time, ed. by Albrecht Classen (2018) refer to the Picatrix, acknowledging it as a most important source for magic throughout the entire pre-modern world.

Allegra Iafrate, The Long Life of Magical Objects: A Study in the Solomonic Tradition. The Magic in History Series. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019, xi, 235 pp., 19 b/w images, 2 tables.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-254
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Modern World ◽  
State University ◽  
Eastern Culture ◽  
Historical Objects ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Objects ◽  
The Middle Ages

Throughout times, magic and magicians have exerted a tremendous influence, and this even in our (post)modern world (see now the contributions to Magic and Magicians in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2017; here not mentioned). Allegra Iafrate here presents a fourth monograph dedicated to magical objects, primarily those associated with the biblical King Solomon, especially the ring, the bottle which holds a demon, knots, and the flying carpet. She is especially interested in the reception history of those symbolic objects, both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, both in western and in eastern culture, that is, above all, in the Arabic world, and also pursues the afterlife of those objects in the early modern age. Iafrate pursues not only the actual history of King Solomon and those religious objects associated with him, but the metaphorical objects as they made their presence felt throughout time, and this especially in literary texts and in art-historical objects.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document