Naples and Beyond: World-Wide Cultural Networks
Sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art at the 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 9 – 14, 2022
The city and the kingdom of Naples in the late medieval period have attracted much exciting scholarly attention in the last two decades. No longer swayed by Vasari’s bitter commentary on Naples, recent research has been applying new methods and new digital technology to understand the city and its environs. This double session on Naples seeks to build on this recent scholarship by considering Naples as a world city and center of cultural production whose art, artists, and architecture were not only distinct but also influential beyond the boundaries of the kingdom of Naples to the wider Mediterranean, Europe, and other continents between c.1250 and c.1435.
Session 1: Within Naples: The City and the Regno c. 1250-1435
The only monarchy in Italy, Naples had a unique position in contrast to the many city-states of northern Italy. A powerful fiefdom of the papacy with a firm military and political grip over the entire peninsula during the fourteenth century, how did that powerful position manifest itself in art, architecture, and material culture? If Naples should be considered not on the periphery of mainstream Italian art but a center of it, then what aspects allow us to consider it as such?
Please submit proposals that consider, but are not limited to, the following questions:
- Representations of kingship/queenship and themes of personal and dynastic glorification
- Patronage of religious orders
- Medieval topography of Naples, including digital mapping or reconstruction/ maps as palimpsests
- Local saints and pilgrimage; nuns, religious leaders/preachers in Angevin Naples
- Importation of artists (painters, architects, goldsmiths, sculptors, scribes and illuminators) – materials and materiality
Session 2: Beyond Naples: Angevin Naples and its Reach beyond the Regno c. 1250-1435
A port city, Naples was a complex site of artistic mobility and exchange during the medieval period. What impact did the art and artists of late medieval Naples have on the global stage? And equally, what impact did the wider connected world have on Naples?
Please submit proposals that consider, but are not limited to, the following questions:
- The movement of art, other objects of material culture, and artistic materials between Naples and the wider Mediterranean and beyond
- Trade, especially maritime trade, as a trigger of cultural and artistic innovation
- Royal, diplomatic, cultural, commercial, and artistic relationships between Naples and other Italian city states, the wider Mediterranean, Europe, Africa, and Asia
Since the International Congress on Medieval Studies will be run virtually in 2022, the ICMA (via a Samuel H. Kress Foundation grant) will cover the conference fees of those participating in the ICMA-sponsored session(s). Participants will be required to be members of the ICMA at the time of the conference (May 2022).
Please submit abstracts no later than 15 September through the ICMS Confex site at https://icms.confex.com/icms/2022am/cfp.cgi. We will send out notifications in the latter half of September. Please direct all questions or concerns to janis.elliott@ttu.edu and dgallant@udel.edu
The ICMA Student Committee is also organizing a session on Naples, New Approaches to the Art and Architecture of Angevin and Aragonese Naples (1265-1458). To promote stronger networks between ICMA student and senior scholars, Janis Elliott and Denva Gallant will moderate the Student Committee session.
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New Approaches to the Art and Architecture of Angevin and Aragonese Naples (1265-1458)
Sponsored by the Student Committee of the International Center of Medieval Art at the 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 9 – 14, 2022
The city and kingdom of Naples occupied a central place in late-medieval Mediterranean life: it was a powerful kingdom with deep connections to the French throne; it controlled vast territories throughout Italy in service to the papacy; and its many ports welcomed goods arriving from the Levant, north Africa, and western Europe. Despite this importance during the medieval period the city has been, generally, overshadowed by other cities such as Rome, Florence, and Venice in academic discourse. Nevertheless, the city has been interrogated in recent decades by many prominent European and American art historians who have expanded our understanding of Neapolitan art patronage and devotional images during the trecento and quattrocento, including Francesco Aceto, Nicolas Bock, Caroline Bruzelius, Bianca de Divitiis, Stefano D’Ovidio, Janis Elliott, Cathleen Fleck, Adrian Hoch, Pierluigi Leone de Castris, Vinni Lucherini, Tanja Michalsky, Alessandra Perriccioli Saggese, Elisabetta Scirocco, Paola Vitolo, Cordelia Warr, and Sarah Wilkins, to name a few.
This panel invites submissions from students that will build on recent scholarship and examine the relationship between the art, artists, and architecture of late-medieval Naples and the wider connected world. Topics of interest include but are not limited to: the movement of material and visual culture between Naples, the wider Mediterranean, and beyond; the movement of people, including patrons, artists, and craftsmen, between Naples and the wider connected world; the impact of trade to or from Naples; diplomatic, political, commercial, artistic, and cultural exchanges and interactions and their effects within and beyond Naples; the role of women as patrons, rulers, nuns, and powerbrokers in Naples; dress and comportment; the textile arts; portolan atlases; trade between Naples and other cities, including, but not limited to, Florence, London, Paris, Rome, Tunis, or Jerusalem.
Please submit papers through the ICMS Confex site at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call no later than 15 September. The ICMA Student Committee will send out notifications in the latter half of September. Please direct all questions or concerns to gilbert.jones@gmail.com and elb7cn@virginia.edu .
A good abstract will state the topic and argument and will inform specialists in the field of what is new about the research. Generalities known to everyone, or research that a scholar intends to do but has not yet begun, are not appropriate. Please keep in mind that, if selected, your abstract will be used, as is, for the online program and conference app.
Since the International Congress on Medieval Studies will be run virtually in 2022, the ICMA (via a Samuel H. Kress Foundation grant) will cover the conference fees of those participating in the ICMA-sponsored session(s). Participants will be required to be members of the ICMA at the time of the conference (May 2022).
Janis Elliott and Denva Gallant are organizing two sessions on Naples sponsored by the ICMA, Naples and Beyond: World-Wide Cultural Networks. To promote stronger networks between ICMA student and senior scholars, they will also moderate the Student Committee session.
