envisioning the eucharist: transcending the literal in medieval and

E NVI SI ONING THE EU CH AR I ST : TR ANSC END ING
T HE L ITE R AL IN MEDIEVA L AND B YZ ANTINE AR T
A S Y M P O S I U M O F T H E A S S O C I A T I O N O F S C H O L A R S O F
C H R I S T I A N I T Y I N T H E H I S T O R Y O F A R T F E B R U A R Y 1 1 T H , 2 0 1 4
10:45AM—4:45PM
P R I C E A U D I T O R I U M , T H E A R T I N S T I T U T E O F C H I C A G O
Specific objects: Eucharistic literality in the Middle Ages
Aden Kumler
The western medieval Eucharist poses a real challenge to received notions of the literal and the transcendental.
Understood for much of the period, to make Christ “really” present in the Mass, the Eucharistic host and wine
were, at the same time, persistently apparent, seemingly empirical realia handled, gazed upon, and consumed by
medieval Christians. What, then, might constitute the “literal ground” of the Eucharist in the Middle Ages? Attending to the materials and processes by which the medieval Eucharist was made, consecrated, and consumed,
and to how medieval works of art and artifice collaborated in the production and mediation of the sacrament, this
talk explores the role that artful forms of making and unmaking played in the creation of the medieval Eucharist
as a specific object and its negotiation of the limits of literal and the transcendental it entailed.
Aden Kumler is an Associate Professor of Art History and the College at the University of Chicago. She earned her
BA from the University of Chicago in 1996 and subsequently received the MA from Centre for Medieval Studies at
the University of Toronto (2000), the PhD in the History of Art & Architecture from Harvard University (2007) and the
Licentiate in Mediaeval Studies from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (2012). Her first book, Translating
Truth: Ambitious Images and Religious Knowledge in Late Medieval France and England was published in 2011
by Yale University Press. With Christopher Lakey, she co-edited a special issue of the journal Gesta in 2012 exploring
the import of Friedrich Ohly’s conception of Dingbedeutung for art historical re-interrogations of materialist forms
of meaning-making and hermeneutics in the Middle Ages. She is currently working on a book, tentatively entitled, The
Multiplication of the Species: Medieval Economies of Form, Substance, and Accident that takes the triangulation,
both formal and metaphoric, of coins, seals and the Eucharist in the Middle Ages as an opportunity to explore the how
artifice, processes of making, habits of valuation and exchange, and—not least—the play of metaphor shaped the appearance of things and their import in the Middle Ages and, by extension, in the practice of art history.
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Hoc est Corpus Meum: Paint and the Eucharist in 11th-c. Evangeliaries from Echternach
Nancy Thebaut
Paint is put to a variety of ends in gospel books from eleventh-century Echternach: some pages are covered by
a monochrome field of pigment, others are replete with an ornamental motif, and many feature the evangelists
or scenes from the life of Christ. Within a single codex, these paintings elicit different modes of viewing; some
paintings are fully conscious of their paint-ness, others subsume their materials to referents, while in other
images, painting emulates another material altogether. I hope to argue from a close study of three paintings
in London BL MS Egerton 608 that the Echternach artists were attentive to the different modes of beholding
prompted by their paintings, indicating a strong investment in what happens to a material and the relationship
with its viewer across the manuscript’s pages in the context of the liturgy. I propose that these artists’ pictorial
investment in how the material mediator of paint can signify multiply in painting participates in heated theological debate in the eleventh century about what the ultimate material mediator, or the Eucharist, can become
whether in sign or actuality upon its consecration at Mass. It is in this vein that the Eucharist offers an important paradigm for the exploration of painting as ontology, action, and representation in these codices.
Nancy Thebaut is currently a third year doctoral student in the History of Art at the University of Chicago, focusing
on western medieval art with a growing interest in the intersection of art and theology in the 11th and 12th centuries.
Prior to starting her PhD, she attended the Ecole du Louvre, the Courtauld Institute of Art, Agnes Scott College, and
briefly worked for artist Judy Chicago.
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What is “hoc”?: Deixis According to Some Late-Medieval Eucharistic Theories
Florian Wöller
The deictic quality of images has become a topos in recent art theory. As some scholars have argued, the defining feature of an image consists in its deixis, so that in order to understand the ‘proper logic’ of an image, it is
necessary to dwell on its demonstration. For medieval images of the Eucharist, this approach is not far-fetched,
for these images do not simply refer to something else, neither do they only stand for the sacrament, but they ostentatiously show something or, respectively, themselves. In scholastic theologies of the Eucharist (in its written
forms), deixis plays an important role, when the words of institution are being discussed. More specifically, it is
the deixis of the pronoun in the formula Hoc est corpus meum, about which scholastic authors debate at great
lengths. For them, it is everything but self-evident what hoc is. What does Christ, respectively the priest, point
to, by saying “this”? In my paper I will analyze some interpretations of this deixis according to different eucharistic theories. Can we say that some theories encourage or discourage visuality and visual representations of
the Eucharist? As a preliminary attempt, I will sketch an account of eucharistic deixis, thus putting theories and
images of the Eucharist in a dynamic relation.
Florian Wöller (Ph.D. 2013, Universität Basel), is Wissenschaftlicher Assistent for History of Theology and of the
Church at the University of Basel’s department of theology, since 2010. After receiving his Diplom in theology (M.A.
equivalent) from the University of Göttingen in 2008, he held a research position at the National Center of Competence and Research eikones – Iconic Criticism, Basel, in 2008/09. In 2012 he held a fellowship at the University of
Toronto’s Centre for Medieval Studies. For 2013/14 he was awarded a Mellon fellowship for the Diploma in Manuscript Studies at the Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, Toronto. He has published a small number of papers
on medieval intellectual history, and has co-edited a volume on iconoclastic controversies (Bilderstreite. Schauplätze des Unsichtbaren, 2011). His doctoral thesis on the theory of science and of theology in the fourteenth-century
Franciscan Peter Auriol (Petrus Aureoli über Theologie. Ein Theologieentwurf des frühen 14. Jahrhunderts) is
currently in preparation for publication. Articles in the final stages of preparation concern the realm of his doctoral
thesis, biblical hermeutics in the later Middle Ages, and pastoral as well as sacramental theology in the eighth and
ninth centuries.
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Byzantine Virality: The Mechanics of Eucharistic Representation
Roland Betancourt
Deacons transmutating into angels, reduplicated figures of Christ, and rhipidia sprouting wings are all common features in depictions of the Communion of the Apostles throughout the eleventh to fourteenth centuries.
This paper focuses on such minor details to unpack the manner in which such images index the unspoken
mechanics – rather than the mere theology – of Eucharistic manifestation during the Divine Liturgy. The paper
approaches the problem of the somatic presence of the Eucharist and its optical manifestation through the
angle of scholarly discourses on virality in the digital age, so as to demonstrate how such images structure
actors and objects within the rite as a medium of and for divine manifestation. The presentation supplements
contemporary theoretical texts with the un-translated, eleventh-century liturgical commentary by Nicholas of
Andida and its later rendition in verse. Looking comparatively at the Communion of the Apostles scene and
actual liturgical implements and manuscripts, particularly rhipidia, liturgical scrolls, and lectionaries, I argue
that the process of liturgical manifestation cultivates a medium condition within liturgical implements and
officiates in which the divine code is able to imprint itself and become manifest as an unfolding, viral event
within the body of these prepared objects and actors.
Roland Betancourt is a doctoral candidate in the History of Art Department at Yale University, where he received
his MPhil and MA. He holds two BA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Miami in art
history and anthropology. His dissertation is entitled, “The Proleptic Image: An Investigation of the Medium in Byzantium.” He is also currently working on a translation and analysis of a Middle-Byzantine liturgical commentary,
The Protheoria, by Nicholas and Theodore Andida, he is co-editor of the forthcoming volume, Byzantium/Modernism, and editor of a special issue of the journal postmedieval, entitled, “Imagined Encounters: Historiographies
for a New World.” Betancourt’s research engages both Byzantine/medieval and modern/contemporary art history
and critical theory.
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Holy Name, Holy Presence
Corinna Gallori
The depiction of “IHS,” the shortened form of the name Jesus, was the simplest visual solution for conveying
somatic presence. Holy Names were thus represented on mass- and host-related works of art up to the present
day. However, the motivations behind the association of IHS and Eucharist have yet to be addressed. In this
paper, I will firstly discuss why and when the Holy Name was connected with the Eucharist. Next I will analyze
its inclusion in some artifacts, such as pyxes and paintings, and address the diverse ways of representing a Eucharistic IHS. Due to its status in-between image and writing, the Holy Name is generally thought of as a very
simple visual component, however, this was not always true. Figurative elements could be included inside the
Name’s letters, and by the end of the fifteenth century the IHS had more creative visualizations. My paper will
thus show how, thanks to such new depictions, it was possible for art to address the relationship between Holy
Name and Eucharist even outside of a liturgical context.
Corinna Tania Gallori graduated from the Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy), and holds a PhD in Art History
(2008) from the same university. From 2009 to 2012 she has been based at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz
– Max-Planck-Institut, firstly as short-time post-doctorate fellow of Prof. Dr. Alessandro Nova’s directorate, and then
as researcher collaborating on Prof. Dr. Gerhard Wolf’s project Globalisierung von Bildern und Dingen in der
Frühen Neuzeit. In Fall 2012 she was a fellow of the Italian Academy, Columbia University. Starting from January
2014, she is a Dame Frances Yates fellow at the Warburg Institute, London. Corinna’s field of research focuses on
Christian imagery and includes studies on the Mass of St. Gregory in Italy, a theme on which she is currently preparing a book, and on the Holy Name of Jesus. Another interest of hers is the cultural exchange between Italy and
Mexico in the sixteenth century, and the role of prints as mediators between these countries.
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Envisioning the Eucharist in Antelami’s Deposition in Parma
Elizabeth C. Parker
The iconography of this unusual visual document reveals important aspects of contemporary Eucharistic performance and devotional practice within the political framework of Pope Alexander III’s triumph over Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa in 1177. The prominent tunic scene showing the soldiers’ choice of the dice over the knife
expresses the resolution of the threat to Church unity by imperial antipopes. Synagoga carries a particular
reference to Victor IV, the challenger to Alexander in 1159. Ecclesia signals the papacy’s supremacy in spiritual
matters opening the way to the heightened centralization of the sacramental authority of the Roman Church.
Based on the Amalarius of Metz’ interpretation of the mass, Antelami’s Deposition depicts the enactment of
the so-called Little Elevation, a liturgical gesture that would be subsumed by the Elevation of the Host in the
thirteenth century. The profoundly moving characterization of the crucified Christ alludes to the doctrine of
Real Presence and anticipates the institutionalization of the dogma of Transubstantiation at the Fourth Lateran
Council of 1215. At the devotional level, the image speaks to the Virgin’s intercessory role in the sacrament of
penance, and the personal Eucharistic experience of the faithful viewer.
Elizabeth Parker (PhD, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) is Professor Emerita of Art History at Fordham
University. She was Editor of Gesta, journal of the International Center of Medieval Art (1984-87), Managing Editor
of Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion (1993-98). She served on the editorial boards of Traditio, TEAMS (Consortium for Teaching the Middle Ages, and Gesta). She is author of The Descent
from the Cross: Its Relation to the Extra-Liturgical ‘Depositio’ Drama, Distinguished Dissertations in the Fine Arts,
3rd series (New York, 1978); and co-author with Charles T. Little of The Cloisters Cross: Its Art and Meaning (New
York, 1994). Studies relating to her talk today: “Modes of Seeing Margaret of Antioch at Fornovo di Taro,” in The
Four Modes of Seeing: Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness, ed. Evelyn
Staudinger Lane, Elizabeth Pastan, Ellen M. Shortell (Williston, VT, 2008); “Antelami’s Deposition at Parma: a liturgical reading,” in Envisioning Christ on The Cross: Ireland and the Early Medieval West, ed. Juliet Mussins, Jenifer
Ní Grádaigh, and Richard Hawtree (Dublin, 2013), 336-51; and “The Politics of the Tunic in Antelami’s Deposition
at Parma,” in preparation.
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