Reviews: The Theophilus legend in medieval text and image

Root sees interest in the tale and its vast corpus of illustrations emerging from twelfth-century scholasticism and presents a close reading of text and picture within the framework of Hugh of St Victor's doctrine of exemplarism, drawing in particular on the work of Boyd Taylor Coolman and on t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of ecclesiastical history 2019, Vol.70 (1), p.159-160
Main Author: Stones, Alison
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
Historical text analysis
Illustrations
Imitation
Medieval history
Religious history
Suger of St-Denis (1081-1151)
Writing
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Summary:Root sees interest in the tale and its vast corpus of illustrations emerging from twelfth-century scholasticism and presents a close reading of text and picture within the framework of Hugh of St Victor's doctrine of exemplarism, drawing in particular on the work of Boyd Taylor Coolman and on the many studies of seeing and reading, visions and visionary, likeness and presence, and the creation of man in the image of God and man's active imitation of Christ with the Virgin Mary as both mediatrix and speculatrix. [...]Root presents chapters i and ii as the broad image-based category of dissemblance, where sin transforms the resemblance man has to God (based on Genesis i.26) into a negative dissemblance. The Madrid Cantigas manuscript includes King Alfonso x (fig. 59), and the patrons of Stowe 17 and Fitzwilliam 288 are inserted into Theophilus scenes, while KB 71 A 24 inserts an author portrait of Gautier de Coinci writing, and William de Brailes included his own portrait (fig. 60) between the burning of the contract and the soul of Theophilus borne to heaven.
ISSN:0022-0469
1469-7637
DOI:10.1017/S002204691800177X