Description
Book SynopsisMoving with the Magdalen is the first art-historical book dedicated to the cult of Mary Magdalen in the late medieval Alps. Its seven case study chapters focus on the artworks commissioned for key churches that belonged to both parish and pilgrimage networks in order to explore the role of artistic workshops, commissioning patrons and diverse devotees in the development and transfer of the saint's iconography across the mountain range. Together they underscore how the Magdalen's cult and contingent imagery interacted with the environmental conditions and landscape of the Alps along late medieval routes.
Trade ReviewAnderson has moved beyond a conventional art historical analysis to widen the boundaries of the study of religious art into the realms of visual culture, material culture, gender studies, and rural devotions … She has widened the study of Mary Magdalen into new geographic and iconographic territories. * Reading Religion *
Moving with the Magdalen is a welcome addition to the scholarly study of the visual culture inspired by devotion to St. Mary Magdalen in the later Middle Ages. Its salutary innovation is to train our sights on relatively unknown terrain: the mountainous territories of the Maritime and Swiss Alps and the South Tyrol. Through a close examination of the visual material produced for what seems at first glance to be a group of unrelated religious sanctuaries in this landscape, Joanne W. Anderson convincingly demonstrates how the many pilgrimage, patronage, and artistic networks that criss-crossed these European mountain ranges served to connect vibrant local devotion to the flourishing universal cult of St. Mary Magdalen in the later medieval period. The book also showcases a wealth of unfamiliar visual evidence produced to honor the saint that no doubt will inspire a new generation of pilgrims—both scholarly and spiritual—to lace up their hiking books, strap on their backpacks, and make the physical ascent to see these marvelous images and artifacts in situ. * Dr. Katherine Ludwig Jansen, Professor of History, Catholic University of America, USA *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction The Late Medieval Magdalen Image, Faith and Place – Mary Magdalen in the Alps Researching Mary Magdalen Book Structure
Chapter One: Pilgrimage Politics and Late Medieval Art A Toll of Devotion – Mary Magdalen in the Aosta Valley Pilgrims’ Progress and Experiential Objects Art in an Age of Magdalen Fermentation Scaling up the Map
Chapter Two: Regulating the Mountain Parish Saint Sankt Magdalen in Dusch and its Paintings A Habit of Choice Art and the Premonstratensian Order Imaging Mary Magdalen in a Mountain Parish Last Things Art and the Sacralising of the Mountains
Chapter Three: Networks of Devotion in Bozen Sankt Magdalena in Prazöll - Renewing the Parish Saint International Networks and the Pairing of Pilgrimage Saints Mary Magdalen and the Regional Pilgrimage Context Family Patronage and Networks – the von Brandis Devotional Networks and Strategic Patronage Up the Mountain with the Magdalen
Chapter Four: Framing Pilgrimage Practice in Tyrol Framing Local History The Universal Local Saint The Imagery of Redemption
Chapter Five: Mining Devotion in the Mountains Mining the Iconography of Mary Magdalen ‘bonum argentum de Sneberch’ - Working and Praying at the Coalface Mary Magdalen and the Miners
Chapter Six: Alpine Workshops and Artistic Transmission Santa Maria Maddalena, Cusiano - History and Decoration The Magdalen Fresco Cycle Art and Artistic Enterprise Patrons and the Commission Pathways of Transmission Stock Types and Topicality
Chapter Seven: Devotion and Resurrection in the Alps Mother of the Parish Picturing a New Patron Saint Reconstructing the Life of Mary Magdalen Generating Faith Cradle to Grave Care Informing and Reforming the Parishes
Coda: The Alps as Kunstlandschaft Bibliography
