Lecture by Jeffrey Hamburger, Harvard University
In an age of mechanical — and now virtual — reproduction, we have lost sight of the basic visual unit that structures our experience of the medieval book: the opening. In contrast to the scrolls used in antiquity, the confrontation of the verso and recto provided the visual field within which scribes and illuminators had to operate, also making possible the visible elaboration of the word with figurated initials, frames and full-page miniatures. Jeffrey Hamburger will explore the complex semantics and literally revelatory possibilities of this new medium as it developed over the medieval millennium.
Jeffrey Hamburger is a Kuno Francke Professor of German Art and Culture at the Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University.A lecture by Jeffrey Hamburger, a prominent medieval art historian from Harvard University
Co-sponsored by the Humanities Center Fellows Research Workshop "Multidisciplinary Approaches to Medieval and Early Modern Studies"