Posts Tagged ‘Knights Templar’
“When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule”*…
Anne Wallentine considers an exhibition that depicts how people have reimagined the medieval period in the centuries since, and how they have revealed their own interests and ideals with each new interpretation…
To explain why I am standing outside the dinner theater juggernaut Medieval Times in the name of journalism, I would have to go back to the beginning: specifically, to 500 CE, the generally agreed upon start of the Middle Ages, which is a contemporary term for a 1,000-year period (500–1500) in world history. This term is now preferred to the “Dark Ages,” which derived from the assumption that the enlightened learning of Greco-Roman antiquity was extinguished with the collapse of the Roman empire. The retroactive valorizing of past eras — reflected in our names for them — is as constant as our passage into new ones. The Getty Center’s latest exhibition, The Fantasy of the Middle Ages, explores this historical habit by depicting how people have reimagined the medieval period in the centuries since, and how they have revealed their own interests and ideals with each new interpretation…
The fantastical imagery that many of us consider “medieval” today has been invented, at least in part, in the centuries since. While some legends are rooted in the period, like the stories of King Arthur and Camelot, many others were embroidered onto an imagined, “medieval-ish” past through fantasy stories, films, and other forms of popular culture, especially from the 19th century on. Modern medieval tales have become populated with knights, dragons, witches, and fairies — though, as the show explains, only the first two were frequently depicted in the period, and anything magical or mysterious was understood through the lens of religion. The exhibition pairs medieval and later imagery to explore these shifting depictions and the powerful legacy they have left…
Read on: “What Our Fantasies About the European ‘Middle Ages‘ Say About Us,” from @awallintime in @hyperallergic.
* Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
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As we ponder the past, we might recall that it was on this date in 1264, in the midst of the War of Saint Sabas (a Crusades-related conflict between Venice/Knights Templar and Genoa/Knights Hospitaller over land in the Kingdom of Jerusalem), that the Genoese tricked the Venetians into sailing east to the Levant, and captured an entire Venetian trade fleet in what’s known as the Battle of Saseno.
Still, the war continued until 1270, when the Peace of Cremona ended the hostilities. In 1288, Genoa finally received their land back.
Eating like it’s your last meal…
A pair of scholarly siblings compared 52 artists’ renditions of “The Last Supper,” and found that the size of the meal painted had grown through the years. Over the last millennium they found that entrees had increased by 70%, bread by 23%, and plate size by 65.6%. Their findings were published in the International Journal of Obesity.
The apostles depicted during the Middle Ages appear to be the ascetics they are said to have been. But by 1498, when Leonardo da Vinci completed his masterpiece, the party was more lavishly fed. Almost a century later, the Mannerist painter Jacobo Tintoretto piled the food on the apostles’ plates still higher.
Read the LA Times story here. (Via Slashdot)
As we think twice about “super-sizing that,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1309 that Pope Clement V (best remembered perhaps for suppressing the Knights Templar, executing many of its members, and thus, securing the career of Dan Brown) excommunicated the City of Venice– all of it, every last resident. Indeed, he decreed that Venetian citizens captured abroad could be sold into slavery “like non-Christians.” He was a pawn of French King Philip IV; still…
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