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Carolyn Whitson
Dec 29, 20248 min read
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
In my previous two posts , I discussed medieval symbolic animals which derived from real-life creatures, and then the Monstrous Races,...
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Carolyn Whitson
Feb 7, 202411 min read
Welcome to the Working Week...Demons and their Jobs in Medieval Art
In my last post, I began the Herculean task of trying to give a general overview of demons in medieval art. I came away from writing...
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Carolyn Whitson
Feb 3, 20245 min read
Devil's Gonna Get You!
13th c. capital of a sinner being devoured, Saint Pierre, Chauvigny, France A nasty case of Covid pretty much bankrupted my energy for...
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Carolyn Whitson
Aug 10, 20239 min read
What Becomes a Martyr Most? Part 3 of the di Balduccio Monument of Milan
di Balduccio monument for Saint Peter of Verona, 1339 After having examined the larger sculptures at the base of this monument, we arrive...
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Carolyn Whitson
Nov 6, 20222 min read
Origins of Sirens
On October 25th, 2022, I gave a lecture at Metropolitan State University on the Origins of Sirens. In the presentation, I trace how...
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Carolyn Whitson
Aug 16, 20225 min read
Time Travel through the French Monuments Museum in Paris
I love when a museum makes learning fun. The French Monuments Museum (FMM, for brevity here) in Paris gives a presentation that is...
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Carolyn Whitson
Jul 10, 20214 min read
The Lion King, Part 2
The use of lions in medieval religious and political art hews closely to the traditions inherited from around the Mediterranean. Lions...
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Carolyn Whitson
May 19, 20219 min read
Chasing a Ghost Along the Pilgrimage Trail
When I began to study medieval art in graduate school, I found myself often puzzling over murky, low-contrast images in black-and-white,...
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Carolyn Whitson
Apr 22, 20215 min read
What Lies Beneath, Part 2
For such a small patch of excavated floor, the mosaic pavement in the abbey at Bobbio (under the current basilica) has a number of...
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Carolyn Whitson
Apr 16, 20216 min read
What Lies Beneath, Part 1
The lovely town of Bobbio has always been small and out of the way, but in the early 600s, this was exactly what the Irish abbot St....
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Carolyn Whitson
Apr 9, 20217 min read
Fabulous Fakes
Many's the time I've gotten excited by the prospect of visiting a medieval church, only to find that "medieval" mostly referred to the...
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Carolyn Whitson
Feb 18, 20215 min read
Pre-Romanesque Churches in Asturias
Few 9th century churches survive anywhere in Europe, but in Northern Spain are a few precious remaining examples. Santa Cristina de Lena...
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Carolyn Whitson
Feb 15, 20218 min read
Early Christian Churches in Rome, Part 2
Here, I continue to point out some features of church architecture, generally before 1100. Please see Part 1 post for more on this...
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Carolyn Whitson
Feb 14, 20215 min read
Early Christian Churches in Rome, Part 1
What follows here are some features of churches from roughly 350-1100 in Rome. Most of my photo studies are of Romanesque and Gothic,...
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Carolyn Whitson
Jan 22, 20214 min read
San Juan de La Pena, Service and Miracles
Up in the remote hills in northern Spain, the monastery of San Juan de la Pena contains the ruins of a tiny cloister, with magnificent...
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Carolyn Whitson
Jan 22, 20213 min read
Chartres Cathedral--another temple to Mary the Queen
Chartres isn't very far from Paris, by modern standards, and its veneration of Mary is an occasion for comparisons to Notre Dame de Paris....
1,007 views3 comments
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