Imago & Mirabilia: The Ways of Wonder in the Medieval Mediterranean, Museu Nacional d’Art de Cataluyna, Barcelona, October 18–20, 2018

The ways of wonder in the middle Ages were shaped by a variety of places, stories and beliefs with ancient sources reworked by the Christian tradition. Activated by the opening of the Mediterranean, religious, commercial and military travels spread Christian worship, accounts and prized objects throughout Christianity. The real and the imaginary adventures confronted their protagonists with fabulous characters and places. The cult of Eastern saints found anchor points in the Western world where they sometimes developed as strongly or even more, proving, therefore, their polycentric nature.

The aim of the Symposium is to bring together scholars from diverse fields of Medieval Studies to discuss the wonder and its images in the middle Ages.

You are welcome to submit your papers about one of the following three areas:

I Geographies
The sacred and the profane trace a topography of the wonder that fills the geography with unique places that are remote or potential scenarios of all kinds of prodigies. Traditional sacred history and heterogeneous hagiography, literature and pseudo-scientific treatises of antiquity, travellers and pilgrims’ chronicles and cartography contribute to regarding these places as lieux de mémoire.

II Objects
Relics and valuable, unusual or exotic objects are eagerly sought, believed to carry prodigious virtues or to be vestiges of creatures both remote and fabulous. Present in royal courts, in church treasuries or in wealthy homes, they are tangible forms of the supernatural. Some objects from the Eastern Christian world will achieve a remarkable legendary dimension.

III Stories
Written and visual stories were fundamental vehicles to consolidate and spread the wonder in the middle Ages. Its various forms find a great means of expression in both profane and hagiographic literature. Chronicles, novels and hagiographic tales report extraordinary events. Miracle, legend and adventure are constant in literature and in figurative arts.