ACMRS
Holy Vikings; saints' lives in the old Icelandic kings' sagas.
Phelpstead (English literature, Cardiff U., Wales) disagrees with scholars not so much for declaring the biographies of royal saints in the Old Icelandic King's Sagas to be secular texts and not proper Saints Lives, but for making the distinction in the first place. He draws on the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin to show how the narratives can be read as both Saints' Lives and as sagas. He footnotes translations of the Norse and Latin originals. The study is substantially updated from his 1998 doctoral dissertation for Oxford University. Published by the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Leon Battista Alberti's Delineation of the city of Rome (Descriptio urbis Romę).
Around 1450 the Italian artist and architect Leon Battista Alberti wrote a guide to the city of Rome. The difference in this guide is that readers must create their own maps. In the days before printing, Alberti felt that maps copied too often by hand became inaccurate. Therefore he instructs the reader to make a circle, divide it into forty-eight degrees and then follow his directions as to where on this grid the important sites are placed. A team of five scholars has come together to produce a complete critical edition: Latin original, English translation, two essays on Alberti and his work plus a list of other translations, manuscripts and an index. This would be of interest to students of the Renaissance, geographers, mathematicians and anyone intrigued by geometric puzzles. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Mehmed II the Conqueror and the fall of the Franco-Byzantine Levant to the Ottoman Turks; some western views and testimonies.
There are historians who state firmly that Rome did not fall until the last emperor was killed in battle with the Ottoman Turks under their leader, Mehmed, who conquered Constantinople in 1453. Philippides (Classics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst) provides a fine edition of primary sources that give the reaction of writers of the fifteenth century to this seminal event. The Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies has wisely allowed Philippides to give facing-page translations, with the original, in Latin or Italian, on one side and the translation with extensive footnotes, on the other. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Spanish medieval art; recent studies.
Stemming from a conference held in 2006 at the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University (the Index co- published this volume), the 8 essays of this volume present iconographic studies of painting and sculpture at several medieval Spanish monuments, including the cloister at Silos, the romanesque palaces of Estella and Huesca, the abbey of Las Helgas, and the cathedral of Toledo. Written by an international group of art historians, the essays are illustrated with b&w plates, accompanied by copious notes, and filled with information of the larger political, religious, and artistic milieu in which the works were created. The volume is not indexed. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
