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Out of Bounds
Exploring the Limits of Medieval Art

Edited by Pamela A. Patton and Maria Alessia Rossi

 Out of Bounds

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 Papers of the
Index of Medieval Art

signa
at Princeton University

Signa: Papers of the Index of Medieval Art at

Princeton University explores questions of image
and meaning in the context of current scholarship
on medieval visual culture. It aims to provide a
forum for fresh scholarly perspectives on the ways in
which visual images addressed the concerns of both
makers and viewers within a diverse and mutable
medieval world.

series editor: Pamela A. Patton

Director, The Index of Medieval Art

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 Out of Bounds
Exploring the Limits of Medieval Art

Edited by Pamela A. Patton and Maria Alessia Rossi

The Pennsylvania State University Press

University Park, Pennsylvania

00i-252 Patton 6p.indb 3 5/1/23 4:10 PM

 Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Copyright © 2023 The Index of Medieval Art at Princeton
University
Names: Patton, Pamela A., 1964– editor. | Rossi, Maria All rights reserved
Alessia, editor. | Princeton University. Department of Printed in Korea
Art and Archaeology. Index of Medieval Art. Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
Title: Out of bounds : exploring the limits of medieval art / University Park, PA 16802–1003
edited by Pamela A. Patton and Maria Alessia Rossi.
Other titles: Out of bounds (Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of
Press) | Signa (Princeton University. Department of Art the Association of University Presses.
and Archaeology. Index of Medieval Art)
Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press
The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2023] | to use acid-​free paper. Publications on uncoated stock
Series: Signa : papers of the Index of Medieval Art satisfy the minimum requirements of American National
at Princeton University | “The essays in this volume Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
were first presented on 17 November 2018 at the one-​ for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992.
day conference ‘Out of Bounds: Exploring the Limits
of Medieval Art,’ hosted at the Index of Medieval
Art at Princeton University”—Preface. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Summary: “A collection of essays offering critical
perspectives on the study of medieval art,
challenging chronological, geographical, and cultural
boundaries”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023005045 | ISBN 9780271094977
(cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Art, Medieval—Congresses. | LCGFT:
Conference papers and proceedings. | Essays.
Classification: LCC N5961 .O98 2023 | DDC 709.02—dc23/
eng/20230223
LC record available at https://​lccn​.loc​.gov​/2023005045

00i-252 Patton 6p.indb 4 5/1/23 4:10 PM

 Contents

List of Illustrations | vii

Preface | ix

1 Shifting Boundaries: Medieval Art History for Now | 1

Thelma K. Thomas and Alicia Walker

2 On Account of the Rotundity of the Earth: Steps Toward an Inclusive Medieval Art | 21
Jill Caskey

3 Medieval Masks? Meditations on Method Out of Bounds | 53

Sarah M. Guérin

4 Along the Art-​Historical Margins of the Medieval Mediterranean | 79

Michele Bacci

5 Looking at the “Center” from the “Border”: An Exchange of Franco-​Ottoman Gifts and
the Perception of Art Around 1400 | 113
Michele Tomasi

6 Alexander the Great’s Encounters with the Sacred in Medieval History Writing: From
the Shahnameh to the Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César | 133
Suzanne Conklin Akbari

7 Fashioning the Gendered, Classed, and White Self: A Sephardi Cultural Project | 157
Eva Frojmovic

8 Beyond Traditional Boundaries: Medieval Art and Architecture in Eastern Europe | 185
Alice Isabella Sullivan

9 “The Summit of the Earth”: What Armenian Texts Can Do for the History of Medieval
Art and Beyond | 211
Christina Maranci

Contributors | 235
Index | 239

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00i-252 Patton 6p.indb 6 5/1/23 4:10 PM
 Illustrations

2.1. Painted chamber, Afrāsiāb, ca. 660 ce | 26 3.5. Turdus merula mauritanicus, photographed
2.2. West wall, painted chamber, Afrāsiāb, 27 March 2016, at the Souss Massa near
ca. 660 ce | 27 Agadir | 62

2.3. Varkhuman and envoys, detail of west wall, 3.6. Kònò power association mask, Kayes region,
painted chamber, Afrāsiāb, ca. 660 ce | 28 Mali, before 1910 | 63

2.4. South wall, painted chamber, Afrāsiāb, 3.7. Kònò tunic and mask, held in a kònò power
ca. 660 ce | 29 association sanctuary in Kéméni, Mali,
until 1931 | 64
2.5. North wall, painted chamber, Afrāsiāb,
ca. 660 ce | 30 3.8. Photograph of Marcel Griaule and Michel
Leiris in Kéméni (Sikasso region), Mali,
2.6. Wand, Dorset, ca. 1200–1300 | 34 6 September 1931 | 65
2.7. Mask, late Dorset, ca. 500–1200 ce | 35 4.1. Mural painting of Saint Francis of Assisi,
2.8. “Insula hyspana.” From Christopher Kotor, church of Santa Maria Collegiata,
Columbus’s Epistola de insulis nuper inventis ca. 1300–20 | 89
(Basel, 1494) | 37 4.2. Mural painting of Saint Augustine, Kotor,
2.9. Shaman deploying the Alex Heiberg carving, cathedral of Saint Tryphon, ca. 1331 | 90
animation still by Brad Goodspeed from 4.3. Mihailo, mural painting of Saint Catherine
The Nature of Things (2015) | 40 of Alexandria, Stoliv, church of Sveti
2.10. Palermo in mourning. From Peter of Eboli, Bazilije, 1451 | 91
Liber ad honorem Augustalis, 1194–96 | 42 4.4. Mihailo, mural painting of Saint Sebastian,
2.11. Throne, San Nicola, Bari, ca. 1170 | 43 Stoliv, church of Sveti Bazilije, 1451 | 91
2.12. The fool and his accomplice. From the 4.5. Mihailo mural painting of Saints Nicholas
prayer book of Bonne of Luxembourg, and Francis of Assisi, Stoliv, church of Sveti
before 1349 | 44 Bazilije, 1451 | 92
3.1. Ciwara kun, an antelope mask from the 4.6. Mihailo, mural painting of Saint Tryphon,
ciwara power association, Mali, nineteenth Stoliv, church of Sveti Bazilije, 1451 | 93
century (?) | 55 4.7. Virgin Galaktotrophousa icon, Venice or Crete,
3.2. Mask possibly representing Ife ruler ca. 1350 | 97
Obalufon II, Ife, thirteenth or fourteenth 4.8. Virgin Galaktotrophousa tripartite icon, with
century (thermoluminescence dating of clay scenes of the Annunciation, Crucifixion, and
core: 1221–1369) | 56 saints, Crete (?), ca. 1360–70 | 98
3.3. Androgynous Statue from the Pre-​Dogon 4.9. Virgin and Child Galaktotrophousa icon, Crete
(Tellem), Mali, central plateau region (?), ca. 1360–70 | 99
(Bandiagara escarpment), tenth–eleventh
century (carbon dating: 1050–95) | 57 4.10. Virgin and Child Galaktotrophousa icon, Crete
(?), ca. 1360–70 | 100
3.4. Map of West Africa | 59

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 4.11. Saint George on Horseback icon, Crete (?), 6.12. Map of the Maghrib. From Abū Isḥāq
ca. 1360–70. | 101 al-Iṣṭaḵ hrī, abridgment of Kitāb al-Masālik
4.12. Fragmentary triptych icon with scenes of the wa l-mamālik, eastern Mediterranean,
Annunciation, Crucifixion, Akra Tapeinosis, and ah 589 / 1193 ce | 152
saints, ca. 1360–70 | 102 7.1. The Seder table. From the Sarajevo
5.1. Payment of the ransom to Bayezid I. From Haggadah, ca. 1350 | 159
Jean Colombe and collaborators, Passages 7.2. Jews stabbing a eucharistic wafer; Jews
oultre mer de Sébastien Mamerot, Bourges, impaling a eucharistic wafer. From Master
ca. 1474–75 | 115 of Vallbona de les Monges (Guillem Seguer
5.2. Story of Alexander the Great, Tournai (?), [?]), Altarpiece of the Corpus Christi (detail),
ca. 1460 | 120 ca. 1335–45 | 169

5.3. Entry of Isabella of Bavaria in Paris. From 7.3. A Jewish man boiling a eucharistic wafer;
Jean Froissart, Chroniques, book IV, Bruges, a Christian woman salvaging the eucharistic
ca. 1470–72 | 122 wafer from the cauldron. From Master of
Vallbona de les Monges (Guillem Seguer
5.4. The Burghley Nef, Paris, 1527–28 | 124 [?]), Altarpiece of the Corpus Christi (detail),
6.1. Iskandar (Alexander) at the Ka’aba. ca. 1335–45 | 170
From Abul-​Qâsem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, 7.4. Last Supper and Host desecration scenes.
Shiraz, 1441 | 136 From Jaume Serra, Altarpiece of the Virgin
6.2. Iskandar (Alexander) at the Ka’aba. (detail), ca. 1367–81 | 172
From Abul-​Qâsem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, 7.5. Christian woman taking the Eucharist;
Shiraz, 1330 | 138 Christian woman swapping the eucharistic
6.3. Iskandar (Alexander) at the Ka’aba. wafer against a robe in a Jew’s household;
From Abul-​Qâsem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, Jewish man stabbing the eucharistic wafer in
Shiraz, 1435 | 139 the presence of four women. From Retable of
the Eucharist (detail), ca. 1380–90 | 174
6.4. Iskandar (Alexander) at the Ka’aba.
From Abul-​Qâsem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, 7.6. Jewish man attacking the eucharistic wafer
Shiraz, 1450 | 140 with a hammer, a sword, and by boiling in
a cauldron, in the presence of other Jewish
6.5. The Mi’raj of Muhammad. From Sa’di, Bustan,
men and women. From Retable of the Eucharist
Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, probably
(detail), ca. 1380–90 | 175
Bukhara or Herat, ca. 1525–35 | 141
8.1. Map of Europe showing the Iron Curtain | 186
6.6. The Mi’raj of Muhammad. From Jami, Yusuf wa
Zulaikha, Shiraz, ca. 1585–90 | 142 8.2. Map of the Romanian Principalities
and Eastern Hungary between 1457
6.7. Alexander at the gates of Jerusalem. From
and 1504 | 188
Wauchier de Denain, Histoire ancienne jusqu’à
César, Acre, 1260s | 145 8.3. Church of the Holy Cross, view from the
southwest, Pătrăuţi Monastery, Moldavia,
6.8. Alexander at the gates of Jerusalem. From
modern-​day Romania, 1487 | 189
Wauchier de Denain, Histoire ancienne jusqu’à
César, Acre, 1280s | 146 8.4. Elevation and layout, Church of the Holy
Cross, Pătrăuţi Monastery, Moldavia, modern-​
6.9. Temple of Janus. From Wauchier
day Romania, 1487 | 190
de Denain, Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César,
Acre, 1260s | 149 8.5. Interior of naos with murals, view toward
the west, Church of the Holy Cross, Pătrăuți
6.10. Temple of Janus. From Wauchier
Monastery, Moldavia, modern-​day
de Denain, Histoire ancienne jusqu’à César,
Romania, 1487 | 191
Acre, 1280s | 150
8.6. Burial cover of Maria Asanina Palaiologina of
6.11. Jerusalem city map, Voormezeele, second half
Mangup, ca. 1477 | 193
of the twelfth century | 151

viii Illustrations

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 8.7. Opening pages of the Gospel of Saint 9.4. Headpiece, detail. From Lectionary of King
Mark. From Tetraevangelion, Humor Het‘um II, 1286 | 219
Monastery, 1473 | 195 9.5. Surb Step’anos, Darashamb, East Azarbaijan
8.8. Censer, 1470 | 196 Province, modern-​day Iran, later seventeenth
8.9. Church of the Annunciation, view from the century | 221
southeast, Moldoviţa Monastery, Moldavia, 9.6. Carvings on drum of Surb Step‘anos,
modern-​day Romania, 1532–37 | 198 Darashamb, East Azarbaijan Province,
8.10. Church of the Annunciation, view from the modern-​day Iran, later seventeenth
southwest, Moldoviţa Monastery, Moldavia, century | 222
modern-​day Romania, 1532–37. | 198 9.7. The Resurrection, Kütahya tile, eighteenth
8.11. Church of Saint Nicetas in Banjane, view from century | 225
the northwest, ca. 1300, renovated 1484 | 200 9.8. Mock-​up of four Kütahya tiles from the
8.12. Cathedral of the Dormition, Kremlin, Moscow, Armenian cathedral of Saint James,
view from the southeast, 1474–79 | 203 Jerusalem, eighteenth century | 226

9.1. Zvart‘nots‘ Cathedral, Vagharshapat, 9.9. Map of places visited by Bishop Martiros
Armenia, view of ruins. | 214 of Eznka (Erznka, mod. Erzincan),
ca. 1489–96 | 228
9.2. Plan of Zvart‘nots‘ Cathedral, ca. 1913 | 215
9.3. Headpiece. From Lectionary of King
Het‘um II, 1286 | 217

Illustrations ix

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00i-252 Patton 6p.indb 10 5/1/23 4:10 PM
 Preface

The essays in this volume were first presented on 17 November 2018 at the one-​day
conference “Out of Bounds: Exploring the Limits of Medieval Art,” hosted at the Index
of Medieval Art at Princeton University. There, eight speakers and two respondents
addressed the following questions: What are the boundaries of medieval culture?
What geographical, cultural, or chronological parameters now direct our study of
the Middle Ages? How do these limits reshape scholarly assumptions about medieval
communities, identities, traditions, and interrelationships?
The theme of the conference was inspired by the wide-​ranging fields of research
pursued by students in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton, and it
reflected the desire of Index staff to encourage and support their ambitions. In collab-
oration with Art and Archaeology faculty Charles Barber and Beatrice Kitzinger,
we canvassed the students for speaker nominations in their respective research areas
and developed a roster of visiting scholars whom we invited to join the department a
day in advance so that they could meet with the students as a group to discuss their
projects, goals, obstacles, and successes. This event, which included student presen-
tations and a thought-​provoking exchange with the scholars (itself a kind of boundary
crossing), laid an excellent foundation for the public conference on the next day, draw-
ing out themes and questions that re-​emerged in many of the speakers’ papers and
shaped their discussion in very fruitful ways. On behalf of the Index, we wish to thank
graduate students John Lansdowne, Erene Morcos, Meseret Oldjira, Erin Piñón, Fran-
cesca Pistone, Nomi Schneck, and Justin Willson, as well as Professors Barber and
Kitzinger, for their willing and thoughtful participation in both of these events. We owe
thanks also to the department of Art and Archaeology and the Princeton Institute for
International and Regional Studies for their support of the conference.
We are gratified that all of the speakers who participated in the original confer-
ence were willing to develop their conference papers into the essays collected in the
present volume. All have drawn profitably on the ideas exchanged at the Princeton
conference to articulate the myriad ways in which going “out of bounds” can change
both the questions scholars ask about medieval art and the answers that these may
reveal, many of which are highlighted in the co-​authored introduction to the volume
by conference respondents Thelma K. Thomas and Alicia Walker. Their essay offers

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 not just a meaningful frame for the contributions but a bracing commentary on the
methodological, disciplinary, and professional challenges that still face our field when
we attempt, as they might put it, to move the goalposts of our work.

—Pamela A. Patton and Maria Alessia Rossi

Index of Medieval Art, October 2021

xii Preface

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 1
Shifting Boundaries
Medieval Art History for Now

Thelma K. Thomas and Alicia Walker

The phrase “out of bounds” evokes not only the existence of parameters but also the
rules that govern how we operate in relation to them. In soccer, basketball, and tennis,
for instance, a player stops after the ball crosses the sideline—or if she continues to
play, it does not “count.” Boundaries become a focus of attention for referees, coaches,
and spectators. One can accidentally cross out-​of-​bounds, one can be forced over the
line, or one might exit the field strategically in order to reset the game and create
new possibilities for play. In the arena of medieval art history, it sometimes feels that
similar rules and structures of surveillance apply. When an investigation moves beyond
the extent of one’s formal training (in languages, history, cultural contexts, or artis-
tic techniques) or presses at the limits of conventional definitions of the “medieval”
(chronologically, geographically, or thematically), will someone call “foul”? It can feel
risky to keep playing after exceeding the designated parameters, and many schol-
ars are uneasy about venturing outside their turf. Yet, in art history—unlike soccer,
basketball, or tennis—it is only by exceeding boundaries that we might redraw the
parameters of the field and rewrite the rules of the game. Risks pay off when others
are persuaded that the new way is an improvement on the old and when they, too,
move into an expanded field and start playing differently.
In this introduction, we focus on questions surrounding the production of knowl-
edge and how scholarly investigation beyond the conventional geographic, cultural,
chronological, and thematic boundaries of medieval art history are changing the game.

00i-252 Patton 6p.indb 1 5/1/23 4:10 PM

 We also probe how medieval art history might address the ethics of scholarship today
by posing the global turn as a response to growing demands for the field to actively
pursue socially responsible and impactful work. We explore the essays gathered here
as a “medieval art history for now,” in the sense of both an urgent reply to the partic-
ular needs of the present moment—“for NOW”—and a provisional effort to address
concerns that are “only for now,” that, over time, will inevitably shift, evolve, and be
replaced by new calls and responses.
Without doubt, as the organizers of “Out of Bounds: Exploring the Limits of Medi-
eval Art” at Princeton University noted in their description of the 2018 symposium,
“scholarly awareness of the global dimensions of the medieval world has provoked
new ways of considering traditional questions,” reshaping not only the geographic
and cultural range of our inquiry but also our mindfulness of the multiple timelines in
which medieval cultures and societies operated.1 In recent years, the growing number
of individual scholars issuing challenges to traditional Eurocentric and Eurasian
views of the cultural geography of medieval art—as well as the prevalence of exhibi-
tions, conference sessions, symposia, and volumes documenting their efforts—clearly
signals that a global approach is now mainstream.2 Institutions, too, are redrawing
the geocultural boundaries of medieval art as found, for example, in the redrafting
of the mission statement of the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA), notably
during the presidency of Byzantinist and Armenologist Helen C. Evans, to include the
“visual and material cultures . . . in every corner of the medieval world.”3 The deliberately
fuzzy localization of that world’s “every corner” anticipates exploration of continually
expanding cultural geographies.4 In these and other ways, medieval art history has
made a definitive “global turn,” necessitating a transformation of our disciplinary
practices—that is, of the ways we go about our work, of how we play the game.5
Misgivings remain, however, even as a global approach to medieval art history
pervades the field. In particular, a globally networked world has long been associated
with the modern and contemporary eras, commencing with the Age of Exploration/
Exploitation in the late fifteenth century and sometimes claimed to be without prec-
edent in earlier centuries.6 The fact that the Middle Ages did not experience the same
extent of global interconnectedness as the modern world has led some to cast it as an
interloper in histories of the global or, at most, as protoglobal.7 Furthermore, modern
theoretical conceptions and applications of globalism often emerged from, and privi-
leged, capitalist models for economic and communication systems, which have been
judged less relevant to the primary bodies of evidence and scholarly questions of
medieval art history.8 Medievalists have responded to these concerns in varied ways,
arguing, for instance, that the emphases on movement, fluidity, and connectedness
inherent in global approaches are productive even when systems of interconnectedness
are less extensive than those of the modern era.9 Some scholars have foregrounded
the intensity and diversity of far-​reaching, interregional connectedness in the Middle
Ages as an alternative measure of global conditions.10 Indeed the density of trade

2 Out of Bounds

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 across Afro-​Eurasia in the medieval—and even ancient—world is astounding, and
those commercial pathways served the flow of not only goods but also ideas, people,
and material culture.11
Much of the scholarship that mounts a global approach to medieval art history is
aligned implicitly with a postcolonial view of cosmopolitanism, which invests positive
value in questioning Eurocentric assumptions about the centers of cultural authority
and strives to restructure the disciplinary narrative from other, often marginalized,
cultural and geographic points of view.12 Indeed it is a commonplace to acknowledge
that Eurocentrism in medieval studies has long privileged not only the geography of
Europe and its pathways but also chronologies based on European events and inter-
ests.13 In the wake of the global turn, a Eurocentric “center-​periphery” structure of
analysis has increasingly given way to a “more flexible, decentered understanding
of the medieval world and its visual culture.”14
Adding new dimensions to this line of argument, Julia McClure has recently drawn
attention to how scholars of modernity have critiqued global frameworks that fail to
provincialize European historical authority. They call for the definition of “multiple
modernities,” generated from distinct local geographic, cultural, and temporal expe-
riences.15 McClure warns that, similarly, the globalization of medieval history must
decenter Western European hegemony over the interpretation of the past so as to avoid
reinscribing asymmetrical structures of power and authority.16 She emphasizes the
need for alternative conceptions of premodernity that work in concert and in contrast
with alternative global modernities. We might call these “multiple medievalities”—
and we would add that they must be viewed in relation to the “multiple antiquities”
preceding them. McClure sees a pressing need for such efforts in order to respond
effectively to the proliferation of “multiple medievalisms,” especially those mounted
by contemporary fundamentalist groups whose efforts to create alternative moder-
nities are inspired and authorized by their ideologically driven formulations of the
medieval past.17 Multiple medievalities are an essential part of an effective response
to the current proliferation of dangerous, alternative medievalisms.18 Indeed, studies of
the past decade demonstrating the role of the medieval in imagining possibilities for
racial and ethnic liberation and equality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
provide important counterweights to contemporary nationalist and fundamentalist
projections of a medieval world mobilized to bolster ideologies promoting racial,
ethnic, and religious oppression.19
Still, the modern historiographic origins of global theories and methods raise legit-
imate questions about their appropriateness to the study of medieval art. Is the global
approach a form of presentism that distorts the medieval world in order to mirror our
own historical moment, our experiences and values? Medievalists are surely united in
resisting “presentism” in the sense of “the shift of general historical interest toward
the contemporary period and away from the more distant past.”20 But we no doubt
differ in our inclination to reject or endorse presentism in its wider semantic range.

Shifting Boundaries 3

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 Basic definitions assert that it is “an attitude toward the past dominated by present-​
day attitudes and experiences” or “a bias towards the present or present-​day attitudes,
esp. in the interpretation of history.”21 Surely most medievalists would denounce a
heedless imposition of anachronistic values and motivations on the interpretation
of history, and yet, following a line of thought that reaches back to late antiquity and
before, we cannot but view the past from our present situations.22
Accepting that historians do not disinterestedly reveal past truths but instead
sustain a heightened engagement with the persistence of the past in the present,
David Armitage offers a compelling defense of presentism as an ontological premise
and epistemological tool to be embraced.23 In a critical overview across the disci-
plines of history, psychology, the history of science, and philosophy, Armitage outlines
more than a dozen species of presentism, anatomizing the shortcomings of some,
while proposing that others can be rehabilitated as legitimate, even crucial tools
for the historian.24 He advocates for two specific forms of presentism: (1) “critical”
or “strategic” presentism and (2) “motivational” presentism. Critical (or strategic)
presentism “deploys the historian’s apprehension of the complexity and contingency
of the past to dethrone the pretensions of the present.”25 In this way, “history serves
its purpose when it engages the public in discussion about why particular claims
rest on misplaced certainty or misunderstood history, and counters that history with
more nuanced and complicated alternatives.”26 Armitage argues that motivational
presentism self-​consciously engages our current positionality to take responsibility
for how our subjecthood affords particular vantage points onto the past: “Motivational
presentism encourages the healthy tendency to scrutinize one’s own choices and to
be frank, with oneself and with one’s readers, about the various internal and external
pressures that shape our historical work.”27 It can be harnessed to propel investigations
into the past that yield new perspective on current questions and quandaries (that is,
it can prompt critical/strategic presentism).
The value of a globalist, presentist approach is especially high for the study of medi-
eval art given how deeply our discipline was imbricated in nationalist movements and
interests of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. Conventional medieval art history
(with its geographic focus on Western Europe and cultural typologies based loosely on
modern nation states) was itself the product of then-​presentist perspectives.28 From
the foundation of art history as a discipline, the proofs of essentialized cultural and
national character were discerned in formal features and charted in stylistic devel-
opments and “schools,” which cut great divides between the arts of Europe, Asia, and
Africa.29 As Jill Caskey observes in this volume, such formalist paradigms still linger
in textbooks, creating an intellectual disconnect between scholarly and pedagogic
standards within medieval art history. In her essay, Alice Sullivan notes that both
communist-​era and postindependence scholarship on Eastern European medieval
architecture often adheres to nationalist principles, which promote claims of excep-
tionalism and independence for local traditions in defiance of a perceived reliance

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 on external traditions, whether Western European, Byzantine, Slavic, or Ottoman.
While combatting one presentism (nationalism) with another (globalism) is not a total
solution, a global approach does highlight previously overlooked evidence that points
to new possibilities for organizing and understanding the medieval past in ways that
elaborate rather than reduce its complexity.
A global vantage levels the playing field among medieval actors by encompass-
ing the roles and perspectives of all who were present on the earth in that slice of
time conventionally designated as “medieval.” In particular it accords attention to
geographic locales, cultural groups, and temporalities that have been judged marginal
to the Eurocentric geographic imagination undergirding the early formation of
medieval art history. Articles in this volume that center on regions long perceived as
peripheral—by Christina Maranci on Armenia, Alice Sullivan on the principality of
Moldavia, and Sarah Guérin on the empire of Mali in West Africa—work to establish
a pluritopic geography for the medieval world. For example, Maranci posits that close
scrutiny of medieval Armenian written sources counters expectation by broadening—
rather than narrowing—our view onto Armenian society in the Middle Ages. She shows
how Armenian texts and inscriptions reveal investment in many of the characteristics
foregrounded in a global approach to medieval art, including the mobility of people
and things, far-​reaching commercial connectedness, curiosity about and a desire to
understand other cultures and their art, receptivity to incorporating non-​Armenian
artistic forms in the expression of Armenian social values and cultural ideas, and an
effort to recount Armenia’s prominent place in a dynamic, densely networked medieval
world. Together these essays show how attention to previously overlooked commu-
nities recasts the privileged centers of medieval art history and the master narratives
generated around them. As the medieval globe is remapped, power and authority
are redistributed, both in the Middle Ages and in the academic fields that study it
today.30 This volume contributes to the ongoing and essential project of expanding the
geocultural scope of medieval art, pushing in new directions the primary bodies of
evidence and methods of analysis that have transformed radically since the founding
of our field.
The authors offer strategies not only for remapping space but also for recalibrating
time in the Middle Ages. Sullivan narrates the transcendence of conventional notions of
medieval territory and periodization in the history of Moldavia, which does not observe
the usual boundaries marking the end of the Western European Middle Ages and the
onset of the Italian Renaissance. She notes, as well, the modern political alignment of
medieval Moldavian history with the Iron Curtain, which came belatedly to be seen
to divide (medieval) Eastern Europe from “real Europe.” Taking cues from medieval
texts, Maranci, Guérin, and Caskey imagine medieval temporality outside the period
boundaries of classical antiquity and the Renaissance. In discussing an object affili-
ated with Indigenous people of the North American eastern Arctic, the Tuniit, Caskey
observes that our conception of some medieval cultures and their temporality has been

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 shaped by the collecting of colonizers, and she questions the possibility of recovering
an accurate, ethical understanding of such objects given the limits of the “evidence”
that “settler research” privileges and the violent destruction that the interpretive acts
of “Western” scholars are perceived to inflict on the cultural autonomy and author-
ity of Indigenous communities. Her point resonates with other essays. Guérin, for
example, notes that masks were not only popular items for colonial collectors and seen
as quintessentially African, but they also, because of their “primitiveness,” qualified
African culture for the derogatory characterization of “medieval.” Yet given the absence
of archaeological evidence for medieval African masks, art historians have turned to
modern ethnography as a source, risking the further collapse of the historical past into
the present but with the potential gain of opening up possibilities for amplifying and
refining the limited disclosures found in the medieval African textual record.31
In order to gain perspective on current museological approaches to the charac-
terization and organization of medieval Armenian art, culture, and history, Maranci
imagines a seventh-​century Armenian polymath, Anania Shirakats‘i, as a time traveler
in a modern-​day exhibition and speculates on his reactions to the presentation of ​his
world. We might also imagine medieval objects as time travelers offering commentary
on the present they now inhabit. Many of these strategies cut through the Eurocentric
knot at the core of the predominant gradations of “medieval time,” addressing the
pertinent question: if not the “Middle Ages,” between classical and modern eras of
(Western European) civilization, then what is medieval? McClure would insist that the
only way to decolonize medieval temporality is to allow for the emergence of multiple
timelines, coeval but not strictly coinciding, each attuned to the particular needs of
geographically and culturally localized “medievalities,” with none allowed to dominate
the field as a whole.32
A global perspective brings into focus real and perceived frontiers of language,
geography, religion, and culture, while challenging us to seek around these boundaries
the spaces of encounter in which similarities and differences were negotiated.33 In this
volume, Michele Tomasi traces objects and spaces of encounter between French and
Ottoman political players, from the battlefield to the state reception room. He posits
that diplomatic gifts manifested the navigation of cultural similarities and differences,
alongside cross-​cultural ignorance and knowledge, in order to communicate carefully
calculated messages: refined textiles evoked a shared identity for French and Ottoman
courtiers as sophisticated connoisseurs of luxury exotica. State-​of-​the-​art northern
European tapestries depicting scenes from the life of Alexander the Great ingratiated
the French with the Ottoman sultan by recognizing his claim to descendance from the
Greek military conqueror, but they did so in a uniquely French artistic medium that
was rare and much coveted in the Ottoman sphere.34 Tomasi strongly advocates for
exploring the interplay between cultural centers and margins, demonstrating how
the objects and social groups moving across these spaces are more clearly understood
through their interactions with the Other.

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 Michele Bacci and Alice Sullivan address spaces of encounter that emerged
intraregionally, within “mixed” or “eclectic” artistic traditions of the late medieval
world. Sullivan frames the principality of Moldavia in the fourteenth to eighteenth
centuries as a crossroads of Latin (Gothic), Greek (Byzantine), Eastern European
(Slavic), and Islamic (Ottoman) traditions. These diverse artistic languages were
preserved and reinvigorated to generate “eclectic” works of art and architecture that
articulated a distinctly local idiom and identity—but one that was simultaneously
networked across the spaces and temporalities (past, present, and future) of the great
polities of late medieval Eurasia. Reflecting on the heterogeneous stylistic character
of devotional panel and monumental painting in the fourteenth- to fifteenth-​century
Venetian sphere, Bacci draws attention to our problematic descriptive terminologies
(including the synonyms for “mixed,” “bastard,” “mélange,” “hybrid”) and challenges us
to disconnect terms that are descriptive of culture from their historiographic baggage.
He proposes accomplishing this, in part, by warning against the default assignation of
cultural identity to styles (and schools). He demonstrates examples of stylistic combi-
nations as expressive choice as well as those that are best understood as fortuitous.
He emphasizes the need to consider individual works contextually and with a full
awareness of the diverse circumstances and motivations—as well as simple coinci-
dences—behind stylistically heterogenous works, which were marginalized in earlier
nationalist traditions of art history but are now the focus of more globally oriented
scholarship.
In contrast, Suzanne Conklin Akbari stages an analytical space of encounter by
juxtaposing different cultural perspectives on a single place and event: the visit to the
Ka’ba by the wide-​ranging Alexander the Great, who was, since antiquity, claimed by
cultures throughout North Africa, Europe, what we now call the Middle East, and Asia.
Akbari considers “what is at stake in representations of the sacred” and questions
the regional limits of comparative work, while shining a light on the enduring and
dynamic legacy of premedieval globalism in the later medieval world and its adaptive
translation. Caskey explores how both Sogdian and Tuniit artists recorded experiences
of encounter with cultural others, whether these were defining aspects of a collective
experience of constant, dense cultural connectivity (in the case of seventh-​century
Sogdian wall paintings) or exceptional moments of “first contact” (in the case of an
early thirteenth- to early fifteenth-​century, possibly shamanistic stick that is thought
to portray the meeting of a Tuniit and a Norseman). These essays speak to how we
might treat moments of encounter not as peripheral tales of exceptional eruptions
into a normative, culturally stable medieval world but instead as alternative accounts
of a thicker, more complex story, localized in interconnected plotlines and adapted
across constantly modified cultural formations.
Contributions to this volume implicitly warn of the potential for the expanding
field of medieval art history to become conceptually unwieldy, and several authors
have outlined strategies to rein in investigations and interpretations that strain

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 against their moorings. There is a need to develop new categories and critical terms,
which can structure a common conversation. Bacci’s typology of intercultural artistic
phenomena demonstrates how studies on diverse bodies of material might be tethered
together and placed into dialogue by means of a shared (albeit provisional) lexicon
for analyzing artistic interconnections. His focus on late medieval Mediterranean
painting implicitly highlights how terms and concepts attuned to circumstances of
intercultural movement and interaction might be transposed effectively across not
only medieval geographical and cultural contexts but also beyond the Middle Ages,
in the scholarly analysis of works dating to other art-​historical periods.
Conversely, in a move that can be productively positioned in relation to meth-
odological concerns voiced by Caskey and Guérin regarding the use of modern
anthropological approaches, Eva Frojmovic employs the concepts of ethnography and
autoethnography to deconstruct the ideological framing of illustrations in medieval
Haggadot. She argues that, rather than objective records of medieval Jewish domestic
life and ritual practices, these manuscript illuminations should instead be read as self-​
conscious contestations of derogatory images—including libelous accusations of Host
desecration—promulgated against Jews and circulating in contemporary Christian
doctrine and art. Seeing Haggadot illustrations as an effort to recuperate social status
for their owners/viewers, she posits that the dark-​skinned servant situated across the
Seder table in the famous Sarajevo Haggadah functions to buttress an aspirational
image of fourteenth-​century Aragonese and Provençal “Jewishness” as affluent, digni-
fied, and white.35
Although the art-​historical habit is to seek connections, they sometimes remain
elusive or even nonexistent. As medieval art history strives to encompass the globe,
how do we write a coherent narrative about cultural subjects that are often only loosely
linked or perhaps not connected at all? Reflecting on her contributions to a collabora-
tively written textbook of global medieval art, Caskey effectively negotiates the thin
documentation of medieval connections through a comparative framework structured
around a set of key themes including, for example, “access to the sacred.” While opening
up the temporal scope to encompass the second through the fifteenth centuries (so as
to include the early beginnings of the medieval eras of some cultures and the later
endings of others), she resisted the pull of limitless expansion by grounding discussion
in the close examination of select objects that illustrate through case studies the diverse
worlds existing simultaneously across the medieval globe.36 Caskey’s comparison of
Central Asian (Sogdian) and North American (Tuniit) works of art acknowledges medi-
eval awareness of the larger world in the familiar transcontinental trade of the Silk
Routes but also in connections between Europe and North America that now surprise
us. The current influx of this kind of information helps to deconstruct medieval stereo-
types and prompts new ways to discern global interconnections and comparisons. For
instance, “the sacred” might be construed as newspeak for the religiosity expected to
pervade the medieval world. The expanding horizons of a global field license us to draw

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 bolder comparisons and explore other axes of human experience made manifest in
medieval artistic expressions—for example, as Caskey suggests, reactions to global
climate shifts in the Middle Ages.
As the “big tent” of medieval art history continues to grow and fill, we need to
direct our core conversation to the methodological (that is, to how we “do” medieval
art history). Within subfields, of course, the interpretation of content will remain
essential, but as we break down the synonymity between “Western European medieval
art history” and “medieval art history,” the term “medieval” is increasingly exposed
as a catch-​all in need of qualifiers (European, Mediterranean, Islamic, Arctic, and so
on). A persuasive case can be made for jettisoning expectations that the same core
stylistic or aesthetic criteria might be applied to all medieval art. More than ever,
there exists an urgent need to explore art-​historical traditions beyond the exclusive
and exclusionary narratives of earlier generations that defined medieval and modern,
for example, such that only certain cultures and nations belong fully, and the rest are
relegated to precursors, influences, or intermediaries.37 We might forge common
ground and shared interest in models and strategies for problem-​solving, in methods
that all medievalists can debate and test against the challenges that a global approach
raises.
Several authors foreground how our own scholarly boundaries are tested when
we seek to treat with equal thoroughness two or more players in complex historical
contexts. Caskey, Guérin, and Akbari all speak of the uncertainty that a global approach
raises for them and discuss explicitly how they overcome—or endure—this discom-
fort, both psychologically and methodologically. Certainly, a global approach requires
greater scope to deal responsibly with multiple linguistic, geographic, and cultural
groups and their histories, literatures, and cultures. These demands necessitate new
ways to pool academic resources and knowledge, as well as a shift in attitude away from
a goal of expertise and total control to one of intellectual humility and collaboration.
No one scholar—or volume—can accomplish it all. Much more remains to be
done, individually and collectively. For instance, in a volume aligned with the global
endeavor, this collection focuses predominantly on studies of European art and archi-
tecture or on studies of non-​European material written by medievalists with primary
expertise in Western Europe. This is essential work that contributes in fundamental
ways to the goal of a more global medieval studies. At the same time, the volume
inherently—although no doubt unintentionally—risks perpetuating a hegemonic
position for Western Europe in defining what global medieval methods, themes, and
content will be, even as it acknowledges the inadequacy of simply examining the rest
of the medieval globe from the vantage point of medieval Europe and the scholars
who study it. Increasing representation of the scholars whose primary expertise lies
in Africa, the Near and Middle East, and Asia, if not also the Americas and Australia,
is equally essential. It is both an intellectual and an ethical imperative that more be
done to include scholars who not only study these regions but live in and produce

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 scholarship from these locales today and who hold perspectives shaped by different
academic traditions and presentist perspectives than those that dominate the North
American and Western European spheres represented in this and many other volumes.
To expand further on the ethical imperatives of medieval art history today, a global
approach not only prompts the inclusion of more diverse, representative art-​historical
voices and not only responds to the early formation of our field in nationalist discourses
of the past, but it also speaks directly to misuses of medieval visual culture today.38
The abuse of medieval traditions by a plethora of fundamentalist religious, social, and
political groups across the globe is often motivated by current nationalist ambitions
that share many features with their eighteenth- to twentieth-​century forerunners.39
There has been an explosion of mainstream media, para-​academic, and academic
publications addressing the prevalence of medieval history and visual culture in the
ideologies and self-​presentation of far-right groups across Europe as well as alt-​right
and other extremist groups in the United States. In the latter case, many discussions
emerged in response to the Unite the Right rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, on 11
and 12 August 2017. Such commentaries tend to focus on Western European medieval
traditions co-​opted to support racist, nationalist, white-​supremacist, and misogynist
platforms.40 Less often noted is that, among the groups marching in the Unite the
Right rally, several align themselves with medieval Orthodox Christian traditions of
Eastern Europe and the Middle East and cultivate ally groups internationally, with, for
instance, Christian nationalist movements in Serbia, Albania, and Russia that promote
white-​supremacist agendas and anti-​immigrant platforms.41 Some fundamentalist
Islamic groups, like ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, engage in similar strategies of misrepresenting
the medieval past as a time of cultural and religious purity to which contemporary
society must return.42
At issue with these fundamentalist movements and their medievalities/medie-
valisms is not only the content of their messages but also the methods they employ to
make meaning of the past. Their modes of historical interpretation align with what
Armitage defines as “ideological” presentism used by an adherent “to suit not just
present needs but to justify, even to glorify, those she or her party finds most immedi-
ately admirable.”43 Such efforts sometimes merge into “analytical” presentism, which
employs “current categories or imperatives not only to determine historical topics but
then to interpret them in terms distant from, or unrecognizable to, the past itself.”44
A key feature of these types of presentism is a lack of rigor in the identification and
assessment of data; these arguments are typically teleological, looking for shortcuts to
the past that support and affirm current positions with “historical” validity but ignoring
evidence that undermines their interpretations or points to alternative (usually more
complex) narratives and paradigms.45
Scholars of medieval studies have assumed a variety of positions in response to the
current politicization of the medieval and the question of medievalists’ ethical obliga-
tions to respond. In one widely publicized commentary in the wake of Charlottesville,

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 Dorothy Kim, a scholar of medieval European literature, asked, “How are you signaling
in your classroom that you are not upholding white supremacy when you are teaching
the subject loved by white supremacists?”46 Kim is not alone in exhorting medieval-
ists to recognize how we are implicated in the production of racist, misogynist, and
nationalist ideologies and to be proactive in responding—to pick a side. Certainly it
is not enough to inscribe “I am not a racist” at the top of one’s syllabi.47 Nor is it every
scholar’s calling to engage hate groups and terrorists on their own turf, confronting
head on the distorted products of corrupt presentism. Indeed, doing so can quickly
devolve into a reductive battle between different presentist ideologies; in other words,
it risks becoming an argument too much about the present and not about the inter-
pretation of the past.48
An alternative response is to strengthen our commitment to the very investments
that spurred most of us to follow the academic vocation in the first place: our “belief
in inquiry, revision, and tenacity to come closer to enduring solutions.”49 That is to
say, to fight the slapdash logic and selective engagement with historical evidence that
characterizes fundamentalist exploitations of the medieval era with the careful, diffi-
cult, measured, and firmly grounded arguments derived from as full an assessment
of the available data as possible. In this way, we might practice critical (or strategic)
presentism to deploy “the historian’s apprehension of the complexity and contingency
of the past to dethrone the pretensions of the present.”50
A global approach to the Middle Ages can be one route toward this goal. Much of the
yield from a global method responds powerfully to those who seek to mobilize the medi-
eval world in support of nationalist, racist, and xenophobic platforms. The myopic and
contorted perspectives promoted by these groups are effectively countered by a global
vantage point and can project in our classrooms, symposia, journals, and books a very
different image of the medieval world, one that promotes a greater sense of cultural
interaction—in some instances, coexistence; in other instances, conflict—without
glossing over the complexities of the Middle Ages and our uncertainties about how to
interpret them. This is a message that we can and should broadcast to a wider public,
but it is also one that is equally valuable as an internal discussion to be shared among
our medievalist students and colleagues, to define our field of study for ourselves in
ways that combat gross misuse and abuse of the past; that is to say, that combat bad
art history. Good art history can—some might argue, must—be critically, strategically,
motivationally presentist.
Advocating for a more inclusive, complex vision of the medieval past inevitably
raises analogous questions for our field today, specifically, the thorny question of diver-
sity among medievalists ourselves. There is no denying that medieval studies remains
largely white and privileged in its sociocultural makeup. This is a demographic fact
that the field must continue to query. The organization Medievalists of Color—a group
with which we both affiliate—has mounted a range of initiatives in support of greater
professional and intellectual inclusivity, but this is a task that cannot be our burden

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 alone.51 Creation of an Inclusivity and Diversity Committee for the Medieval Academy
of America (with a purview that includes mentorship, professional development, and
input on the organization and content of annual meetings) and funding opportunities,
like the newly established Belle Da Costa Greene Award (which benefits medievalists
of color) represent much-needed institutional responses to these challenges.52 Still,
these moves are only a start. How do we engineer a pipeline of diverse undergraduates
to enter our programs in medieval studies, and how do we better support all emerg-
ing scholars through the precipitous learning curve that mastery of the medievalist
toolbox imposes? How might we better allow for “multiple medievalities” to coexist
and interact in our classrooms, conferences, and publications? How can we ensure
that medieval studies nurtures not only scholars speaking to and about a more diverse
and global perspective on the Middle Ages but also scholars speaking from a diversity
of presentist positions? How can we, as a field, support inclusivity-​driven intellectual
and ethical risk-​taking in our scholarship and professional practices? And how can
we affirm these good-faith efforts both when they hit and when they fall short of the
mark?
One of the ways in which medievalists have been testing the boundaries of our
field in recent years is by bringing presentist discussions—like the post-​Charlottesville
debate or questions of racial, ethnic, and gender equity in the profession of medieval
studies—to the fore of academic discourse. The mechanisms that endorse or reject,
reward or dismiss such efforts were evident in the dispute surrounding the initial
refusal of five out of the six panels proposed by the Medievalists of Color at the 2019
International Congress of Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, which spurred a controversy
so intense that it made the pages of the New York Times.53 The commitment to broach
these topics has not waned, however, as indicated by the numerous sessions and panels
relating to professional diversity/inclusion and multiple medievalities in the program
for the 2020 annual meeting of the Medieval Academy of America.54 Similarly, the Inter-
national Center of Medieval Art’s sponsored event at the 2020 College Art Association
annual meeting featured the roundtable “ICMA and Expanding the Medieval World,”
which sought to explore “the multiplicities found within and outside the traditional
boundaries of medieval art and culture, and their connections to the greater world.”55
Such scholarship and activism, mounted by individuals, organizations, and institu-
tions, are some of the ways that the field of medieval art history might move toward
a more ethically engaged practice.
The global approach joins a larger movement for critical, motivational presentism
that mobilizes current values and modes of inquiry to illuminate, as Armitage demands,
“why particular claims rest on misplaced certainty or misunderstood history, and
counter that history with more nuanced and complicated alternatives.”56 It is crucial
to add voices to the call raised by Paul B. Sturtevant, who rallied medievalists—both
professional and lay—to combat white-​nationalist distortions of the medieval past by
expanding our own comprehension of the rich diversity of the Middle Ages:

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 Find ways of expanding your, and your group’s, repertoire and purview. Look
beyond medieval England, and beyond medieval Europe. Do not accept it if
your compatriots push back; their sources and interpretations are undoubt-
edly incomplete, ridiculously out-​of-​date, or just bunk. They may call our
Middle Ages “presentist,” or “revisionist history.” It is only “presentist” in that
it is up-​to-​date. It is only “revisionist” because it is cutting-​edge. Accept the
smears with a smile. . . .
Take this more-​inclusive, more-​accurate vision of the Middle Ages into
your heart as well. Read the stories of people who you might not before have
read—read A Thousand and One Nights, read the story of Ser Morien, pick up a
biography of Maimonides or Mansa Musa. Imagine yourself, empathetically,
in their story. Realize that their history is your history too, that you do not
need to have the same skin color as them to see their past as yours.57

It is this goal—the creation of an expanded, inclusive medieval art history—toward

which “Out of Bounds” pushes. The papers gathered here show how pressing at our
own scholarly boundaries might shift the ground of scholarship and teaching. Moving
to unfamiliar and unsteady territory, beyond the edges of our own comfort zones,
produces uncertainty. Yet this discomfort has the potential to generate exciting, inno-
vative perspectives and interpretations. From these new vantage points, we are able
to see more clearly the conventional centers from once-​peripheral regions, to teleport
across temporalities in ways that expand our interpretive scope, and to reshape master
narratives of medieval art history—at least for now.

Postscript

We completed this essay in February 2020. In the present moment of August 2021,
it appears to us as a time capsule. We have resisted the urge to revise and update it,
to tamper with its timing.
That moment was fleeting. Within a month, COVID-19 had developed from a
distant threat to a virulent pandemic, locking everything down. Through the following
months, we watched a particularly American-​style racism erupt in mounting numbers
of videos recording the murders of Black people, to be followed by a flurry of often
hollow institutional statements of support. We saw civil strife grow, along with insid-
ious variants of the coronavirus and seemingly endless variations of racial violence.
We have witnessed the once-obscure field of Critical Race Theory enter the headlines
to be feared as a threat to the status quo—even in elementary schools. We antici-
pated and endured elections, resistance, and uprisings of unprecedented dimensions.
We have experienced the threat of ecological catastrophe—referenced only passingly
in the footnotes of this essay—catapult alarmingly to the foreground of global reality.

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 As we write this brief coda, we are still in the thick of this new now. We do not yet enjoy
the clarifying benefits of hindsight.
In choosing not to shift the perspectives of this essay from February 2020 to August
2021, we do not mean to suggest our outlooks have not changed or that the shutdown
of 2020 placed us in a state of paralysis. Rather we see value in preserving the vantage
point of the past—even a past so recent—in remembering where we were to better
situate where we are.
Alongside many others, we continue to strengthen our commitment to shaping
more ethical visions and practices for our fields and our worlds. Now is the time.

Notes

1. “Out of Bounds: Exploring the Limits of Georgetown University and the University of Penn-
Medieval Art,” Princeton University, 2018, https://​ sylvania. On teaching from a global perspective, see
humanities​.princeton​.edu​/event​/out​-of​-bounds​ Heng, “Global Middle Ages.” For recent exhibitions
-exploring​-the​-limits​-of​-medieval​-art. mounting an explicitly global approach, see Keene,
2. On the global turn in historical studies, see Toward a Global Middle Ages. The acceptance of a global
Moore, “Global Middle Ages?,” and Holmes and Stan- model for the Middle Ages is further evident in the
den, “Global Middle Ages”; in literary studies, see recently launched publication project edited by
Heng and Ramey, “Global Middle Ages”; in art history, Messer and Sullivan, Encyclopedia of the Global Middle
see Walker, “Globalism,” and Normore, “Re-​Assessing Ages.
the Global Turn”; in archaeology, see Jervis, “Assem- 6. Holmes and Standen, “Introduction,” 6–8,
bling the Archaeology.” On the global approach and McClure, “Emperor’s New Clothes?,” 1–3. For a
for non-​Western medieval art history, see Cheng, nuanced exploration of the potential for dialogue
“Camel’s Pace.” For precursors to the global turn in between premodern and modern/contemporary
medieval art history that focus on issues of exchange, explorations of the global, see Flood et al., “Round-
encounter, and cross/intercultural interaction in table.”
the medieval world, see Ousterhout and Ruggles, 7. Pennock and Power, “Globalizing Cosmolo-
“Encounters with Islam”; Hourihane, Interactions; gies.”
Canepa, “Theorizing Cross-​Cultural Interaction”; 8. For an exploration of the possibilities
Grossman and Walker, “Mechanisms of Exchange.” and pitfalls of a global approach to premodern
3. International Center of Medieval Art, commercial networks, see Purcell, “Unnecessary
“Mission Statement.” Dependences.” Regarding economic factors relevant
4. Specifically, it revises the tight geographic to the study of medieval art and its circulation, see
framing of the previous iteration of the mission Georgopoulou, “Fine Commodities,” and Thomas,
statement, which specified “visual arts of the Middle “ ‘Ornaments of Excellence.”
Ages produced in Europe, the Mediterranean region, 9. Walker, “Globalism,” 183–85, and Holmes and
and the Slavic world.” International Center of Medie- Standen, “Introduction,” 8–11.
val Art, “Mission Statement,” https://​web​.archive​.org​ 10. Moore, “Global Middle Ages?,” esp. 87–91, and
/web​/20080209111200​/http://​www​.medievalart​.org​ Holmes and Standen, “Introduction,” 36–41. Regard-
/htm​/about​.html, Wayback Machine for 9 February ing the intensity of multilateral trade, see Berzock,
2008 (accessed 26 January 2020). Caravans of Gold; Lagamma, Sahel; “Incredibly
5. Evidence of the institutionalization of the Detailed Map”; “Mapping Past Societies”; “The Silk
global turn is also found in periodicals, degree-​ Road.”
granting programs, courses, academic positions, 11. Frankopan, Silk Roads; Hansen, Silk Road;
and museum exhibitions. For instance, the journal Hildebrandt, Silk; Harris, Incipient Globalization?;
The Medieval Globe was first published in 2014. Symes, Pitts and Versluys, Globalisation and the Roman World;
“Introducing The Medieval Globe.” The University of Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New
Edinburgh now offers an MSc in “Art in the Global York University, “Measuring and Mapping Space.”
Middle Ages,” and several universities offer degrees 12. On the postcolonial formulation of cosmo-
and certificates in global medieval studies, including politanism, see Breckenridge et al., Cosmopolitanism;

14 Out of Bounds

00i-252 Patton 6p.indb 14 5/1/23 4:10 PM

 Walker, “Globalism,” 185–86; Holmes and Standon, Initiative, convened by conservator Jim Coddington,
“Introduction,” 18–19; and notes 15 and 16 below. “Presentism,” 5 November 2011, https://​ifa​.nyu​.edu​
13. Dagenais and Greer, “Decolonizing the /research​/mellon​/mellon​-presentism​.htm; Olivier,
Middle Ages”; Reuters, “Medieval”; Kaldellis, Byzan- “Future of Archaeology.”
tium Unbound, ch. 4. 25. Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” 17,
14. “Out of Bounds,” https://​humanities​ commenting on Loison, “Forms of Presentism,”
.princeton​.edu​/event​/out​-of​-bounds​-exploring​-the​ 34–36.
-limits​-of​-medieval​-art. Regarding an increasingly 26. Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” 17,
decentered approach to the study of the medieval citing the definition of “new presentism” articulated
world, see Hoffman, “Pathways of Portability,” and by Dale, “Spelunking,” 318–19.
Eastmond, “Art and the Periphery.” In a radical 27. Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” 18,
break from the assumption that cultures inherently drawing from Oreskes, “Why I Am a Presentist,” 603.
perceive themselves as the earthly omphalos, Kath- 28. Alexander, “Medieval Art and Modern Nation-
ryn J. Franklin notes the primacy placed on borders alism”; Symes, “Middle Ages Between Nationalism
in medieval Armenian notions of place and world- and Colonialism”; Geary and Klaniczay, Manufactur-
view (“Making Worlds”). ing Middle Ages; Cheng, “Camel’s Pace”; Eastmond,
15. McClure, “New Politics”; see also Dirlik, “Limits of Byzantine Art”; Maranci, Medieval Arme-
“Global Modernity?”; Chakrabarty, “Provincializing nian Architecture.
Europe”; Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities.” 29. Morey, “Sources of Medieval Style”; Strzy-
16. McClure, “New Politics,” 610–13; see also Davis gowski, Die Baukunst der Armenien und Europa;
and Altschul, Medievalisms in the Postcolonial World. Strzygowski, Orient oder Rom?; Elsner, “Birth of Late
17. McClure speaks specifically to ISIS/ISIL/ Antiquity”; Marchand, German Orientalism.
Daesh (“New Politics,” 613–15). 30. Antecedents in this effort include: Nelson,
18. Ibid., 616. “Living on the Byzantine Borders”; Nelson, “Map of
19. Hsy, “Antiracist Medievalisms”; Vernon, Black Art History”; Hoffman, “Remapping the Art of the
Middle Ages; Whitaker, “Middle Ages in the Harlem Mediterranean.”
Renaissance.” 31. On the question of how to interpret archival
20. Hunt, “Against Presentism”; see also Smail, and textual silences surrounding medieval African
“History and the Telescoping of Time.” art, see Achi and Chaganti, “ ‘Semper Novi Quid Ex
21. Merriam-​Webster Dictionary Online, s.v. Africa.’ ”
“presentism,” accessed 7 January 2020, https://​www​ 32. McClure, “New Politics.”
.merriam​-webster​.com​/dictionary​/presentism, and 33. Mathisen and Sivan, Shifting Frontiers in Late
Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “presentism,” Antiquity; Berend, “Medievalists”; Berend and Abula-
accessed 7 January 2020, https://​www​.oed​.com​/view​ fia, Medieval Frontiers; Curta, Borders, Barriers and
/Entry​/266885. Ethnogenesis. On the importance of “sites of cultural
22. David Armitage notes Augustine, in book 11 encounter” in the fundamental flux of cultural
of his Confessions, argues that in our considerations formation, see the foundational study by Clifford,
of the past, we look “on its image in present time,” “Traveling Cultures,” esp. 100; Flood, Objects of Trans-
and our only access to the past—or, for that matter, lation; Carr, “Correlative Spaces,” esp. 68; Eastmond,
the future—is through the present: “There are three Tamta’s World.
times, but that they are past present, present pres- 34. Grabar, “Shared Culture of Objects,” and Hils-
ent, and future present” (“In Defense of Presentism,” dale, “Gift.”
19). Augustine offers a welcome reminder that the 35. On the challenges of interpreting race in
medieval era can provide useful models for historical medieval art, see Patton, “Blackness, Whiteness.”
temporality. On the formation of race—especially Blackness—
23. Ibid., 4–5. in Western European medieval literature and society,
24. Explorations of the role of presentism in the see Whitaker, Black Metaphors; for earlier centuries,
history of art and cognate disciplines of archaeol- see Lopez-​Jantzen, “Between Empires.”
ogy and art conservation include: Nagel, Medieval 36. The strategy of avoiding cultural periodiza-
Modern; Nagel and Wood, Anachronic Renaissance; tion altogether is promoted by the multidisciplinary
the symposium collaboration by the Getty Research field of millennium studies, which includes in its
Institute and the Clark Art Institute, “Art History purview all cultures and geographies of the first
and the Present,” 1–2 February 2008, https://​www​ millennium ce without reference to defining or
.getty​.edu​/research​/exhibitions​_events​/events​ shared features. See the journal Millennium-​Studien /
/clark2008​_schedule​.html; Shalem, “Histories of Millennium Studies based in Germany and the First
Belonging”; Babaie, “Voices of Authority”; the sympo- Millennium Network based in the United States,
sium at the Institute of Fine Arts, a Mellon Research which has just begun publication ventures.

Shifting Boundaries 15

00i-252 Patton 6p.indb 15 5/1/23 4:10 PM

 37. On the imbrications of medieval and Afri- Academy of America and more than two dozen
can art in conceptions of the “primitive” and the professional organizations for medieval stud-
“modern,” see Majeed, “Against Primitivism.” ies: Medieval Academy of America, “Medievalists
38. To the acute urgency of addressing the Respond to Charlottesville.”
growing adoption of motifs of crusading holy wars 48. Many scholars have, however, accomplished
and the promotion of essentializing, transhistorical this in ways that gracefully avoid a reductive clashing
ethnic and racial traits should be added the mount- of swords; see, for example, Paul, “Modern Intoler-
ing threat of the erosion of cultural heritage and the ance and the Medieval Crusades.”
dread of ecological destruction. 49. We quote here from Marcia Chatelain’s
39. On this point, see Diebold, “Nazi Middle perceptive assessment of the necessity for “moral
Ages.” accounting” in the classroom post-​Charlottesville
40. Albin et al., Whose Middle Ages?, and Stur- (“How Universities Embolden White Nationalists”).
tevant, “Race, Racism, and the Middle Ages.” 50. Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” 17.
41. Kelaidis, “White Supremacy and Orthodox 51. For information about the mission of this
Christianity”; Hawk, “Why Far-​Right National- organization and its activities, see Medievalists of
ists Like Steve Bannon Have Embraced a Russian Color, https://​medievalistsofcolor​.com.
Ideologue”; Goldwyn, “Byzantine Workings of the 52. Medieval Academy of America, “Inclusivity
Manosphere.” and Diversity Committee,” and “The Belle Da Costa
42. McClure, “New Politics,” 610–19. Note, too, Greene Award.”
that the abuse of history reverberates across reli- 53. Schuessler, “Medieval Scholars Joust with
gious and ethnic groups. Although on a dramatically White Nationalists.”
smaller scale, fringe extremist sects of the Black 54. Medieval Academy of America, “95th Annual
Hebrew Israelites in the United States draw from Meetings of the Medieval Academy of America,
biblical, ancient, and medieval history to support University of California, Berkeley, March 26–28,
Black supremacist and anti-​Semitic dogmas. Anti-​ 2020: Program,” accessed 31 January 2020, https://​
Defamation League, “Black Hebrew Israelites.” cdn​.ymaws​.com​/www​.medievalacademy​.org​
43. Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” 6. /resource​/resmgr​/pdfs​/maa2020program​.pdf.
44. Ibid., 7–8. 55. International Center of Medieval Art, “ICMA
45. The recycling of half-​truths and distortions of and Expanding the Medieval World, 13 February
“facts” about the Middle Ages among blogs and inter- 2020,” accessed 4 February 2020, https://​www​
net chat groups—what Andrew B. R. Elliot terms .medievalart​.org​/icma​-news​/2020​/1​/21​/icma​-and​
“banal medievalisms”—has been especially powerful -expanding​-the​-medieval​-world​-13​-february​-2020​
in disseminating and authorizing these ideas. See -at​-the​-arts​-club​-of​-chicago.
Elliott, “Internet Medievalism.” 56. Armitage, “In Defense of Presentism,” 17,
46. Kim, “Teaching Medieval Studies.” citing Dale, “Spelunking,” 318–19.
47. Although such gestures are also an important 57. Sturtevant, “Leaving ‘Medieval’ Charlottes-
part of the process, as seen in the public denounce- ville.”
ment of events at Charlottesville by the Medieval

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Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 542 JIPPENDICE - SERATA I 5 linea, o almeno sulla angusta
zòna, i massi che gli èrano venuti man mano cadendo sul dòsso, e
clie esso venne portando giii man mano fino alla fronte. Intanto una
morèna di questa mòle diventava un ostàcolo quasi insormontàbile al
ghiacciaio stesso che l'ha edificata. Prima conseguènza di cosi
immane accumulamento di materiali sulla bocca del ghiacciajo
doveva èssere questa appunto . che il torrènte, creato dal continuo
disgèlo, non potesse, come d'ordinàrio negli altri ghiacciai, uscir
libero dalla pòrta^ ossia da quella galleria di ghiaccio che talora
védesi spaziosissima aprirsi appunto sulla fronte del ghiacciajo. Tu
vedi bensì una piccola pòrta dove il ghiacciajo fu messo a nudo dalla
rotta del 1868, e di là uscir lil)era la più gròssa delle sorgènti
dell'Anza. Ma il rèsto dell'acqua, che esigerebbe più larga foce per
ricaricarsi, è costretta a filtrare attravèrso la morèna; ed è quella che
noi vediamo schizzar di costi, sotto forma di sorgènti o zampilli
piccoli o gròssi. S' intènde anche benissimo perché la principale
sorgènte deirAnza da quella parte discende tórbida e fangosa,
mentre queste minori sorgènti, filtrate attravèrso la massa morenica,
escono fuòri limpidissime. — » — Va bène! — diceva l'amico; ed io,
solleticato dalla sua approvazione, man mano che si guadagnava
l'erta faticosa del Belvedere, mi sentivo sèmpre pili in vena, come
diciamo noi Lombardi, di dar l'acqua al molino. 11. » — Guarda, —
gli dicevo, additandogli gli abeti, per cui la morèna del Belvedere è
tutta una forèsta: — guarda come son vècchie queste piante. Io
credo che a questa selva si debbano assegnare 500 anni almeno. »
— Mi pare un pò' tròppo, — rispondeva l'amico il quale di piante si
intènde almeno quanto altri. » — Cinquecènto anni ti pàjono tròppi?
Ebbène, ècco qua parecchi tronchi appena segati. Contiamone i giri
legnosi. Questo è pili tarchiato.... uno, due, tre... — Contai cosi alla
gròssa fino a 250. Duecentocinquanta giri fanno 250 anni; lo sanno
anche i bambini. Ma pòi notai che si incontravano qua 0 là dei ceppi
d'abeti ancora radicati nel suòlo, avanzi di piante assai pili gròsse e
testimòni di tagli molto piil antichi. Si vedeva chiaro che la scure si
esercitava già da lungo tèmpo sulla vècchia chiòma di quella
vecchissima morèna. Infine, aggiungi 0 lèva, mi parve di poter
insistere sulla cifra di cinquecènto anni, assegnata all'età di quella
forèsta. » — Riflètti dunque, — continuai parlando all'amico, — che
pinquecèut'auni fa questa morèna èra già bèll'e fatta, grande
 r*i,i!Nn chilometri, o giù di li. Il sasso, dunque, venuto per il
|.rinio sulla linea dove sorge il Belvedere, e che fu Ja prima piètra
dell'edificio della morèna frontale, dovette impiegare un sècolo ad
arrivarvi. E cosi dopo di lui tutti gli altri, fin tanto che, l'uno in collo
all'altro, si levassero a formare una bèlla montagn,-»» Ita 300 mètri.
È vero che molti massi si trovano sèmpre a far la strada insième: ma
andate a vedere quanti un ghiacciajo ne scarichi dal groppone in un
anno. Per fab(■ricare il Belvedere ce ne volle de" sècoli, credetemi.
 544 APPENDICE - SERATA che confina propriamente col
ghiacciaio, è ancora tutta nuda, formata da un cumulo di massi e di
detriti affatto incoerènti. Al suo piede, vèrso l'intèrno della valle,
comincia il ghiacciaio che si può attraversare dalla dèstra alla
sinistra, o percórrere pel lungo, salendo vèrso i campi di néve che'
gli danno perènne nutrimento Prima però di discéndere sul
ghiacciajo, sostammo a guardare dall'alto della morèna l-a valle
dell'Anza, che di là vedovasi discéndere serpeggiando vèrso levante.
Raccogliendo in séguito pili vicino lo sguardo, ci sentimmo
deliziosamente attratti dallo spettàcolo tutto nuòvo che ci presentava
la vegetazione, come la si può osservare ai 21 di settèmbre
trovandosi a 2000 mètri sul livèllo del mare. A quell'altezza,
l'autunno e l'inverno sono naturalmente altrettanto precòci, quanto
sono tarde la primavèra e Testate. Quante vòlte, anche assai più
basso, nella regione delle colline e dei laghi, quando le prime brume,
forière delFinvèrno, dipìngono di cosi vari colori il morènte fogliame,
quante vòlte, dico, vi sarete domandato se, alTocchio del paesista, la
tavolòzza della natura sia pili bèlla e pili ricca di primavèra che
d'autunno? Qui, a duemila mètri d'altezza, sfido io chi pòssa
rispóndere ad una simile domanda. Il pittore che si fosse accinto a
riprodurre sulla tela il Belvedere, quale lo vedevo dall'alto il 21
settèmbre 1876, avrebbe indubbiamente esaurite tutte le risorse
della sua tavolòzza prima di poter dire: ci sono riuscito! Dove trovare
tutte quello gradazioni di verde, di giallo, di rosso, stemperati a
larghe chiazze, a spruzzi, a sfumature, su quel tappeto ch'è tutto un
intreccio di cespugli, di ròse, delle Alpi, di mirtilli^^\ a cui si
associavano chi sa quanti arbusti e piante erbàcee, che farebbero, a
nominarli tutti, un dizionàrio di nomi greci e latini? 13. » — Guarda,
— dicevo al mio compagno, che ammirava in silènzio. — La mia
fantasia non mi suggerisce che una còsa sola, a cui si pòssa
paragonare una si strana veduta. — » — Ed è ? — » — Il Vesuvio. —
» — Sèmpre matto ne* tuoi fantàstici paragoni! — e già mi voltava il
dòrso canticchiando alla lombarda: Chi nasce matto non guarisce
mai: Tu che sèi matto più non guarirai (2) ». (1) La ròsa delle Alpi A
11 Rhododendron ferrìiqinertm dei botànici, e il mirtillo^ «I chiama
da loro Vaccinìuvi mirtilluc, mentre i Lombardi cùìamanlo. secondo i
divèrsi siti, Gieuden, Canestrei, Lndrion. La cima del Belvedere si
potrebbe più che altro chiamare nn campo di mirtilli. ^^2) Canzone
popolare in Lombardia.
 IL BELVEDERE E IL VESUVIO 545 « Non fò per dire, »
interruppe la Pierina; « ma anch'io non capisco che ci abbia a vedere
una morèna col Vesuvio ». « Eppure 10 mi ricòrdo.... già è un
pèzzo.... che conversando lua sera con voi, mentre vi descrivevo il
Vesuvio quale io rhò cólto in una fase di splèndide sublimazioni
cristalline, mi venne fatto di paragonarlo a un còlle erboso e fiorito
^^\ Ma m còlle erboso e fiorito a mòdo del Vesuvio, dove i colori
non ;ono sparsi a màcchie distinte, ma stemprati a sfumature; • iove
sul verde domina il giallo, che si fonde colParanciato e col rosso, con
tutte le gradazioni possibili, dalla tinta più sbialita e fredda alla più
calda e vivace; un còlle siffatto io non i'avevo ancora trovato. Ora mi
pare d'averla fatta questa pre..iosa scopèrta. Già bisognerebbe aver
visti il Vesuvio e il .belvedere, come li vidi io. 14. » Eravamo già sul
méttere il piede sullo spigolo suprèmo •li quel mùcchio di sassi che
ancora ci toglieva la vista del ghiacciajo sottostante,» già il monte
Ròsa, che contemplavamo da un pèzzo, ci si presentava tutto intero,
come un vasto an-4teatro di neve, fino alla base donde il ghiacciajo
si spicca; quando il silènzio di quella solitùdine sublime è rotto d' un
'ratto da un rombo cupo e lontano. Credetti un momento che 'ària,
pur sì tranquilla, ci recasse da lungi il muggito del orrènte, a cui
avevamo già da lungo tèmpo vòlto il ùórso, sicché più non se ne
avvertiva il rumore. Ma — la valanga!' ;a valanga! ^2) — grida la
voce stentòrea della nòstra guida: i noi là, fra il rumore sèmpre
crescènte, coir òcchio intènto,' ìercando tra l'uniforme bagliore di
quell'immane anfiteatro un lualche còsa che rispondesse a ciò che
l'orécchio Gentiva, ed esprimeva con si chiara parola la guida. » Una
nube, un glòbo di bianco fumo, s'èra dipartito da uno lei punti più
elevati deìVHòchste iSpitze (la maggior cima del Ròsa) che giù per
l'erta nevosa discendeva, sèmpre crescèndo di volume, e
allungandosi in una sèrie di glòbi ondeggianti, i:"umcre5giando con
una batterìf. contìnua di colpi gravi e sordi, oome di cannoni o di
tuòni lontani. Si sarebbe detto che un 'Convòglio di ferrovia si fosse
lasciato andar giù all'impazzata (1) Vedi la Serata XXVII, pag. 465.
(2) Alcuni vorrebbero che si dicesse voluta: io dico invece valanga,
1.° perché Ga. pare Burgener, nostra guida, grido veramente : — la
valanga" ! — 2.° perché non vorrei •-he taluno mi pigliasse il monte
Rósa per un edificio d'ordine j«nico; 3." perché il Manfani non mi dà
né valanga, né voluta nel sènso che mi abbisogna; i.° perché....
•lerche insomma credo che non bisogna andare a prèndere il
linguaggio dei fenomeni Jpini dove le morène, per esémpio, si
pescano in mare, arrischiando di lasciar morire un linguaggio
schietto, che ha tutta la sua tinta locale, per pigliare a prèstito un
pottiniccio di paróle nate per significare tutt' altro. A. Stoppani. Il Bel
Paese. ^- ' 35
 54(3 APPENDICE - SERATA I per la china, in guisa che se
ne sentisse il rumore, ma altro non si vedesse, come non si vede le
tante vòlte, che l'immènso stràscico di fumo che diètro si trascina
furiosamente correndo. La valanga cosi percorse tutta l'erta del
monte Ròsa né arrestòssi che quando fu arrivata al piede della
montagna, dove veniva a pèrdersi con mille altre, cadute dalle
etèrne cime ad alimentare l'etèrno nevajo, da cui riceve il gh-iacciajo
etèrno alimento. Lo spettàcolo durò da cinque a sèi minuti e fu
pròprio un bèllo spettàcolo, tanto più gradito quanto meno
aspettato. Il muggito della valanga l'avevo udito più vòlte,
viaggiando 0 dormendo al piede del monte Bianco. Avevo anche
assistito allo spettàcolo delle cosi dette valanghe del Grindelwald
(Oberland Bernese). Da un ghiacciajo che strapiomba minaccioso
alla verticale parete della Jungfrau in faccia alla Grindelwald, si
staccano, anche pili volte all'ora, gròssi pèzzi di ghiaccio,
precipitando centinaia di mètri nel vuòto, finché bàttono sul fondo
della sottoposta valle. Un colpo di tuòno rimbomba solènne ripetuto
dalla voce ròca dei mille èchi della montagna. La valle è tutta
riempita come di una nube d'argènto. Ma quelle, propriamente
parlando, non sono valanghe. Il vero ideale d' una valanga, una
valanga, quale l'ammetterebbe anche il Fanfani se l'avesse veduta
una vòlta, io non l'avevo veduta mai^ e vederla .... dal vèrtice Di
lunga erta montana, Abbandonata all'impeto Di rumorosa frana Per
lo scheggiato calle, Precipitando a valle, seguirne le mòsse dal
principio alla fine, èra uno spettàcolo inebbriante; e già cominciavo a
consolarmi di aver perduto la levata del sole, la còrda metàllica e la
cioènda. 15. » Ci rimaneva ancora da vedere il ghiacciajo.... il
celebre ghiacciajo di Macugnaga. Eccoci pròprio sull'ultima crésta
della morèna. Oh disillusione!.... Si sarebbe detto che un capriccioso
gènio avesse d'un tratto sostituito al ghiacciajo 11 lètto sassoso di
un gran torrènte asciutto, profondamente infossato tra due àrgini
ugualmente sassosi. Io lèssi sul volto dell'amico il sènso di spiacévole
sorpresa che quella vista gli cagionava. Egli non aveva mai veduto
un ghiacciajo, e quel primo èra pròprio una burla a paragone di
quanto aveva letto, udito, immaginato di bèllo, di grande, di
spettacoloso, riguardo a questi notènti ministri della natura. I
 6HIACCIAJ0 SOTTO COPERTA 547 I » — La è finita! — diss'
io, interrompendo un silènzio pili eloquènte della paròla. — D'ora
innanzi non bisognerà più parlare di un ghiacciajo di Macugnaga; o
bisognerà almeno ^H ^B^^^^^^^^^bS^ a.. "^ii^EII ma
guardarsi dal proporne la visita a quelli che non hanno mai visto
ghiacciai. Non m' aspettavo davvero che le còse fossero progredite
tant'oltre in sèi anni — ». 16. « Che èra dunque avvenuto? »
domandò la Ròsa.
 548 APPEN'PICn - SERATA I « Appunto quello che volevi
sapere da principio, e ti pareva cosi strano. Il gliiacciajo di
Macugnaga si èra molto ritirato; cioè dimagrato, impoverito, che
faceva pietà a vederlo. Èra ciò che m' aspettavo. Non vi dicevo
appunto che i ghiacciai sono in fuga, cioè diminuiscono da un pèzzo
su tutti i versanti delle Alpi? Questo periodo di regrèsso data su per
giù dal 1860, e probabilmente da un'epoca ancora pili lontana ^^\ 1
cdlori eccezionali, e più la diminuzione delle nevi, avvertita in quest'
ùltimo quindicènnio, ne danno una ragione più che sufficiènte.
L'esaurimento di molte sorgènti, ritenute perènni, nella regióne
montuosa; l'abbassamento del livello dei pozzi e quello dei fontanili
nelP alto Milanese, si sono uniti air arretramento dei ghiacciai, per
far fede della diminuita concentrazione dei vapori destinati ad
alimentare i ghiacciai del pari che le acque circolanti sotterra. 17. »
In mèzzo a questa generale ritirata dei ghiacciai alpini, quello di
Macugnaga non voleva certamente far tòrto ai suoi compagni
d'arme. Pare anzi, o per mèglio dire è certo, che il periodo di
regrèsso del ghiacciaio di Macugnaga sia cominciato da 50 anni e
più. A memòria d'uòmini (mi diceva il signor Obèrti, valènte alpinista
e conduttore dell' albèrgo del Monte Mòro a Macugnaga), quel
ghiacciajo si avanzava almeno da 300 a 400 mètri sulla' sinistra più
vèrso il paese. Lo dimostrano del rèsto il liscio e le striature assai
fresche che potei osservare io stesso sulle rupi che fiancheggiano da
quella parte la valle d'Anza, dove il ghiacciajo doveva avanzarsi, e
dove mostra ancora per l'appunto l'estrèma sua fronte. Venticinque
anni fa, diceva lo stesso signor Obèrti, il ghiacciajo presentava
ancora un enorme sviluppo. L'Anza sbucava da un magnifico tunnel
di ghiaccio, e quando si èra toccata la cima della morèna frontale,
ossia del Belvedere, c'èra ancora da salire il ghiacciajo, che si levava
in alto quasi altrettanto, con pendio ripidissimo, irto di crepacci e
d'aguglie, sicché in luògo di discéndere dalla morèna sul ghiacciajo,
come si fa òggi, si saliva da quella su questo, e bisognava incidere
dei buòni gradini colla scure, per portàrglisi sul dt)rso a percórrerlo.
In 25 anni dunque il ghiacciajo di Macugnaga avrebbe perduto
alcune centinaja di mètri di grossezza. Ma via; che serve? Leggete la
bèlla descrizione che del ghiacciajo di Macugnaga ci ha lasciato
l'Amoretti nel suo Viaggio ai tre laghi pubblicato 82 anni fa, cioè nel
1784. Esso si vedeva da Macu(1) Vedi il mio Corso di geologia, voi. I,
pag. 235.
 tlSPATTA Ì)èl GHIACCIAI Ì)EL MONTE ROSA 54Ò gnaga,
anzi, come dice l'Amoretti, sembrava vicino. Ora, altro che vederlo!
Se non lo si vede nemmeno quando si è arrivati alla cima del
Belvedere! Ora sta giù in una fòssa, vi dico. Calcolando cosi a
braccia, io credo, che per rèndersi appena visibile a Macugnaga,
bisognerebbe che il ghiacciajo si rigonfiasse fino ad un' altezza di
150 a 200 mètri sopra il suo attuale livèllo. Non discorriamo pòi di
quelle altissime onde come se si fosse agghiacciato HI mare al
momento cV una procèlla, né delle larghe fenditure entro le quali si
sente e si vede l'acqua scórrere precipitosa. Sono còse che dice
l'Amoretti, e convengono per 1' appunto ai grandi mari di ghiaccio
che si incontrano ancora, benché molto scemati, in seno alle Alpi, e
ci danno una grande idèa di ciò ch'era il ghiacciajo di Macugnaga
sulla fine dello scorso sècolo. Ma ora farebbero ridere chi lo vedesse
nella sua miseràbile realtà. E quelle grandi difficoltà nell'
attraversarlo incontrate dall'Amoretti? Insomma non c'è più altro che
un prosàstico lètto sassoso, che può valicarsi benissimo a pie zòppo.
Tutto il gruppo del monte Ròsa presenta del rèsto le tracce di questa
universale disfatta. Basta ripètere ciò che mi diceva il sullodato
alpinista, che cioè la gran vedretta, la quale qualche anno fa
difendeva il passo del monte Mòro, vèrso Macugnaga, è interamente
scomparsa, e non restava pili che un resìduo insignificante nel 1875
di quella dell' opposto passo del Ticrlo, che mette nella valle della
Sèsia. Avvenne lo stesso sui versanti di questa, come me ne
assicurava il distinto alpinista prof. D. Giuseppe Farinetti, che èbbi il
piacere d'incontrare quest'anno stesso ad Alagna. Tutti i ghiacciai del
monte Ròsa da quella parte si sono ritirati centinaia di mètri,
lasciandosi addiètro le rispettive morène e vaste superflci di ròcce,
lisciate e striate; sicché èra voce lassù che tra pòchi anni i ghiacciai
sarebbero scomparsi. » Che i futuri geologi, osservando le morène
abbandonato e le ròcce a cavalloni striate e scanalate da quegli
stessi ghiacciai da noi visti, a cui abbiamo premuto il dòrso coi nostri
piedi, dovessero pòi dire, come diciam noi di quell'altra grand' època
di cui scopriamo uguali monumenti, che la jòstra fu un'epoca
glaciale? Època glaciale la nòstra!... Acqua de belegott! Che pasta
fròlla! sciamerebbe quella buon'anima del Gròssi W. Spero, nel caso.
(1) Grossi, La Prinèide.
 550 APPENDICE - SKÈAtA t che i pòsteri non vorranno mica
allùdere ai nòstri cervelli. Pèggio pòi di gran lunga se dovessero dire
che la nòstra fu un'epoca di regresso. Questa idèa mi spaventa,
mentre mi ricòrdo come recentemente un uòmo illustre, che ha
abbandonato il campo delle sciènze naturali per combàttere in quello
della politica, ci avrebbe scopèrto un altro fenòmeno di regrèsso
tutto italiano, quello della pubblica " moralità. E cosi fossero finite
queste dolorose scopèrte, che non dovessimo lamentare il regrèsso
della filosofia, della letteratura, dell'arte e soprattutto quello del buon
senso che in tanti cervelli fa pròprio la figura delle vedrette! Ma via,
non ci spaventiamo di tròppo, lo ho invece molta confidènza nel
progrèsso. Vi sono neir órdine morale come nell'ordine fisico cèrti
cicli, le cui leggi ci sono ignòte; cèrte òrbite ellittiche, i cui elementi
sono ancora un mistèro alla sciènza, per cui ci torna vicino ciò che n'
èra ito lontano Intanto.... è pòca còsa davvero.... ma per ciò che
riguarda il ritorno dei ghiacciai, posso quasi farmene mallevadore. »
Prescindendo dalle èpoche geològiche, che sono come le stagioni
dell' anno, direi etèrne, che il glòbo, fin dal Iprimo giorno della
creazione, va compiendo colla sua rivoluzione negli spazi infiniti; vi
sono delle stagioni secolari, il cui giro non oltrepassa nemmeno i
limiti della stòria, segnate, direi cosi, dall'andata e dal ritorno di cèrti
fenòmeni astronòmici, geològici e meteorològici. Non c'è che dire:
come differisce giorno da giorno, stagione da stagione, anno da
anno, cosi differisce un sècolo dall' altro. Di questo passo tutto si
cambierèbbe, se la natura non conoscesse le vie del ritorno, se anzi
non si reggesse sulla legge imprescrittibile del circolo, simbolo
dell'eternità, che governa il creato. Quanto ai ghiacci, alpini 0 marini
che siano, la stòria ha già registrato divèrse date di regrèsso o di
avanzamento, sicché è un fatto stabilito quello delle loro secolari
oscillazioni. 18. » Ma lasciamo i sogni, per tornare al nòstro
ghiacciajo di Macugnaga, dove l'amico ci aspetta da lungo tèmpo.
Quando lo visitai nel 1870, esso ghiacciajo èra già dimagrato in
modo da suscitare sèria apprensione circa la sua esistènza. Esso mi
aveva presentato infatti un abbassamento di forse 30 mètri sotto la
cresta delle morène laterali, ed aveva perduto forse 40 mètri di
larghezza per ciascun lato. Questo fenòmeno però non èra cosi
sensibile se non nella sua porzione superiore prèsso l'Alpe di
Pedriòlo, dove quasi già si fonde coi nevai che lo alimentano.
 Regresso del òhiacctajo Dt MAci'a>'AGA 551 » Nel tronco
inferiore del ghiacci ajo, precisamente dove termina col Belvedere, il
ghiaccio arrivava nel 1870 quasi all'altezza della morèna laterale e si
poteva dire ancora un bòi ghiacciajo. Io non mi aspettavo di trovarlo
ora, dopo soli sèi anni, tantum mutatus ab illo^ di vederlo cioè cosi
profondamente incassato tra le due morène, come un mòrto nel
catalètto, e per giunta cosi sfigurato dai massi che lo ricoprivano,
che nessuno, vedendolo altrove, vi avrebbe ravvisato un ghiacciajo.
» — Questa è dunque, — diceva Famico, calpestando e facendo
franare coi piedi quello sfasciume indigesto di massi gròssi e piccoli
di sàbbia e di fango, sul quale ce ne stavamo ritti, guardando con
viso soddisfatto quella spècie di torre ntaccio asciutto, che aveva la
pretesa di èssere un ghiacciajo, — questa è dunque la morèna
dèstra, abbandonata dal ghiacciajo nel suo regrèsso, dopo il 1870. —
» — Appunto: anzi, se mi ajuti, vogliamo misurare Tabbassamentc
del ghiacciajo avvenuto in questi ultimi sèi anni. — 19. » In
mancanza di mèglio, prendemmo per misura i nòstri alpenslock che,
misurata l'altezza della morèna sopra la superficie del ghiacciajo, ci
diedero in quel punto un abbassamento di circa 12 mètri. Dalla parte
opposta, cioè dal piede della morèna sinistra, lo trovammo pili tardi
di 15 mètri. Chi sa quale l'avremmo trovato nel tronco superiore del
ghiacciajo cioè vèrso le sue orìgini al piede del monte Ròsa, a
giudicarne da quanto avevo osservato nel 1860? Ma lassù non ci
andammo, premendoci di godere il rèsto della giornata per altre
osservazioni. Invece ci facemmo a percórrere il ghiacciajo nei punti
più vicini, quindi ad attraversarlo. Èra, come dissi, tutto un sasseto ».
« Il ghiaccio èra dunque scomparso? » domandò la Pierina. « Punto
», risposi; « ma èra tutto copèrto di fango, di sàbbia, di massi d'ogni
forma, d'ogni dimensione ». « Perché? » ripigliò la Pierina. « La còsa
è presto capita. Tu devi aver già inteso da quello che s'è detto altre
vòlte, quando si parlò di morène e di ciòttoli glaciali, che un
ghiacciajo è tutto, dalla superficie fino al fondo, sparso di ciòttoli, di
massi, di sàbbia e di fango franatigli sul dòrso dalle circostanti
montagne, mentre si formava col sovrapporsi, strato sopra strato,
delle successive nevicate per anni e per sècoli. Ma il detrito roccioso,
per quanto abbondi in seno al ghiacciajo, non è mai così fitto che il
ghiacciajo stesso non si presenti come una massa di ghiaccio, ta 
 552 APPENDICE - SERATA I. lora d' una purezza
inappuntàbile. Fate però che la sua superficie si abbassi di decine e
di centinaja di mètri per lo struggimento di una massa di ghiaccio
della stessa potènza; siccome i sassi piccoli o gròssi, le sàbbie, il
fango, non si strùggono, tutto quel detrito, dispèrso o rado entro la-
massa distrutta rimane condensato sulla superfìcie del supèrstite
ghiacciajo, aumentandosi sèmpre più a misura che il ghiacciajo
stesso si squaglia. Verremo ad un punto che tutta la superficie di
quel còrpo dimagrato, atrofizzato, rimanga copèrta e mascherata dal
secolare sfasciume, come è avvenuto qui, dopo si lungo periodo di
regrèsso e di sfacimento. Cosi vediamo i mucchi di neve spalata,
allineati sui màrgini delle vie, presentare l'aspètto di altrettanti
mucchi di sàbbia e di fango, dopo qualche giorno di disgèlo. 11
ghiacciajo inoltre, cosi consunte, accorciato e deprèsso, si troverà
naturalmente incassato nelle morène che ne rivestivano i primitivi
più larghi contorni, precisamente come un ètico, a cui si allargano i
panni addòsso a misura che si consuma. » Veramente questo non è
il mòdo ordinàrio di presentarsi di un ghiacciajo in regrèsso.
Ordinariamente il detrito sepolto nelle viscere del ghiacciajo viene
alla luce e si accumula soltanto sulla sua fronte o in vicinanza di
essa. Perciò si formano, in altrettanti periodi di regrèsso e di sòsta,
una o più morène frontali, le quali sono successivamente
abbandonate dal ghiacciajo in ritirata, sicché d' ordinàrio non può il
detrito accumularsi in grande quantità sulla stessa superficie del
ghiacciajo. Le condizioni speciali che presenta òggi il ghiacciajo di
Macugnaga sotto questo rappòrto, si devono attribuire alla potènza
straordinària della morèna frontale, già da esso formata in altri
tèmpi. Questa morèna rappresentata dal Belvedere è, come vi dissi,
antichissima: adamitica o noetica senza dùbbio. Edificata in un lungo
periodo millenàrio di sòsta, giunse a tanto d'altezza e di mòle, che il
ghiacciajo non potè più rimuòverla anche nei periodi del suo
maggiore incremento. Supponiamo che un ghiacciajo, in mille anni di
sòsta, abbia edificata una morèna irremovibile come il Belvedere,
che è una vera montagna di massi, la quale si elèva per ben 300
mètri. Supponiamo, che, dopo aver inalzata quella morèna, e
creatovi perciò un ostàcolo al suo avanzamento, il ghiacciajo entri in
un periodo d' incremento. Avanzarsi non può: dunque si gònfia,
precisamente come un torrènte a cui si opponesse improvvisamente
un àrgine colossale. Il ghiacciajo dunque si gònfia, si elèva senza
avanzarsi, o non si
 COME SIA CONVERTITO IN SASSETO 553 avanza se non a
condizione di superare l'altezza della morèna, precisamente come
quando un torrènte incontri una rupe salda sul suo passaggio. »
Supponiamo ora che il ghiacciajo di Macugnaga, trovandosi in queste
condizioni, abbia raggiunto un'altezza di 400 o di 500 mètri, senza
potere per ciò superare la morèna frontale, precipitandosi ai basso
per continuare il suo cammino. Non si tratta nemmeno di un
supposto, perché il ghiacciajo di Macugnaga, or fanno 25 anni
soltanto, superava, come abbiàm detto, di uno o pili centinaia di
mètri il Belvedere senza scavalcarlo per questo. Succèda ora un
periodo di regrèsso. Quale regrèsso, se il ghiacciajo non ha mai
potuto avanzarsi? Dunque, come non fece che gonfiarsi, ora non farà
che sgonfiarsi; come non fece che alzarsi, ora si abbasserà,
incassandosi entro le sue morène, precisamente come un lago che si
abbassi entro il recipiènte dei suoi lidi. Quanto alla sua estensione, il
ghiacciajo rimarrà sèmpre stazionàrio, fin a tanto che non sia giunto
al fondo del suo recipiènte, e allora soltanto comincierà davvero a
ritirarsi, abbandonando la morèna frontale, e successivamente una
porzione maggiore o minore dell' àrea occupata dapprima. Ora, è
evidente che, occupando il ghiacciajo sèmpre la stessa àrea,
contento di assottigliarsi in altezza, tutti i massi e l'altro detrito, che
sono abbandonati dal ghiaccio che si strugge, rimangono anch'essi
sull'area occupata dal ghiacciajo, e vengono a pòco a pòco a coprirlo
interamente. Non voglio dire con questo che cèssi ogni movimento
del ghiacciajo da monte a valle; ma questo deve èssere lentissimo, e
tale da non elìdere che per pòco l'effètto del rapido abbassamento.
Mi sono spiegato? » « Così così.... » mormorò la Pierina un pò'
mortificata, mentre gli altri tacevano. « Vediamo », ripigliai, « se mi
posso spiegar mèglio. Un ghiacciajo, che si edifica una morèna
insormontàbile sulla fronte, sbarra egli stesso la valle ove scorre, si
chiude da sé stesso la via a progredire, e così rimane entro la valle
corno entro un bacino, e questo bacino si trasforma in un lago di
ghiaccio.... Nò?... siccome il ghiaccio è fluido come l'acqua, esso si
alza e si abbassa entro il bacino, gonfiandosi o risedendo, come fa V
acqua nei laghi coli' alternare delle piène e delle magre. Il ghiacciajo
di Macugnaga, che èra in pièna quando lo vide l'Amoretti, e per tutta
la prima metà di questo sècolo, ora è in magra da un pèzzo: quindi
basso, incassato nelle sue morène, copèrto di tutta quella ròba
sassosa che e' èra
 554 APPENDICE - SERATA t dentro nel tanto di ghiaccio che
s'è sciòlto. Il rèsto viene da sé. Avete inteso? Chi pòi non la capisse
ancora, vada lassù a vedere ». Pàrvemi che almeno i più grandi
l'avessero capita. Nessuno però fece mòtto; quindi potei continuare.
20. « Quanto avevamo visto finora èra istruttivo per la* sciènza, ma
punto piacévole, almeno per ' chi, venuto collo scopo di vedere un
ghiacciaio, doveva rimuòvere i sassi e puntare coW alpcnstock, se
voleva persuadersi che sotto quella copertura lapidea c'èra del
ghiaccio, pròprio del ghiaccio puro e compatto. Per buòna sòrte un
gruppo di enormi crepacci che si aprivano minacciosi in vicinanza, e
larghi spazi denudati dalle acque, potevano dare all' amico qualche
idèa di ghiacciajo; né mi dimenticai, sollevando adagino adagino i
sassi qua e là, di fargli almeno godere lo spettàcolo delle pulci w ». «
Ah, ah, le pulci del ghiacciajo! » sciamarono i bambini allegri, e
come ridestandosi al nome di cari e vècchi amici d'infànzia. «
C'èrano anche là? » « Oh! non potevano mancare; ma, poverette!
così vispe, cosi scintillanti quando il sole ingèmma iL ghiacciajo,
strette ora in piccoli gruppi entro quei pelaghetti d'acqua diaccia,
pigre, senza brio, sentivano già l'avvicinarsi della sera, e forse già
posavano il capo sul guanciale di gèlido cristallo. 11 buon Burgener
le vedeva anche lui per la prima vòlta, ed èra tutto sorpreso e
mortificato, che un ranòcchio del piano fosse venuto a scoprirgli che
un pòpolo infinito gli fu sèmpre testimònio non visto nelle sue
fortunose peregrinazioni entro i più silenziosi recèssi di quei luòghi
sublimi. » Cosi attraversammo il ghiacciajo e andammo ad assiderci,
sulla morèna sinistra, che si levava come una muraglia diroccata, già
cosi vècchia, che gli arbusti ed alcune pianticelle cominciavano ad
inverdirla. 21. » Èrano circa le tre e mèzzo pomeridiane. Là assisi,
contemplavamo il ghiacciajo, spingendo l'occhio fino alle sue origini,
dove si fonde coi nevai a' piedi del Ròsa, e su su fino • alle vette
biancheggianti della montagna. 11 silènzio èra solènne : solo da
lontano si udiva giii per la valle il cupo mug- • gire dell' Anza. L' ària
èra di una trasparènza perfètta e immòbile cosi, che non avrebbe
oscillato nemmén d' un capello la fiamma di una candela. 11 cielo
azzurro; nemmeno una (1) Vedi la Serata IV. pag. 82. I
 U tORMENTA -^ 555 nuvoletta. Il sole, prèsso a varcare le
cime del Ròsa, pioveva I suoi raggi tranquilli come raggi di luna, su
quel mar di candore. Che spettàcolo divino!... — Ma che cos'è quella
nuvoletta sòffice e bianca, che scorre leggiera come una piuma,
folleggiando su quel campo di neve? Eccone un'altra: un'altra
ancora.... Appàjono, ruzzano, sfumano.... Che razza di nébbia è
codesta? — » — Non sono né nubi, né nébbia, — avverte la guida.
— E la toì^menla ^'^\ — » — Diàcine! la tormenta?., se non c'è un
pelo di brezza.... Eppure, è vero, dev'èssere cosi Guarda, amico mio,
come quelle nubi si fanno e si disfanno rapidamentep Non v'è
dùbbio; là in alto e' è la brezza che soffia nella neve farinosa, e la
sommòve come la pólvere sulle grandi vie della pianura. — 22. »
Intanto il sole si abbassava sempre più vèrso una delle dentature
&Q\YHòc}iste Spitze. L'ombra della morèna, su cui eravamo assisi,
già si stendeva, come bigio lenzuolo, sopra II ghiacciajo. Solo dal
lato opposto, le pareti di alcuni crepacci brillavano ancora, percòsse
dagli ùltimi vivaci riflèssi, come rupi di zaffiro. Tutto d'un tratto le
cime del Ròsa sembrano oscillare: di qua, di là, ora da un dènte, ora
da una sèlla, si staccano tremolando e salendo come nùvole
d'incènso vaporose colonne imbiancate dal sole. Le colonne si
moltiplicano; ormai tutte le cento cime del Ròsa tributano fumo
d'incènso al tabernàcolo di Dio ^^^ che cominciava a nascóndersi
diètro la cresta biancheggiante, sormontata da un'orlatura dorata.
Ormai è tutto un tùrbine di sbuffi, di pennacchi, come di bianco
vapore, spinti tutti invariabilmente da ponènte a levante, che si
agitano convulsi, si tòrcono a spirale, s'intrecciano, s'inséguono,
nuotando per le regioni dell'aria in cùmuli dorati, in cirri filamentosi,
che mutano forma ad ogni tratto e si dileguano, si fóndono
nell'azzurro del cielo. La luna (eravamo al quarto giorno dopo la luna
nuova) sembra lièta di confóndere la sua falce filiforme di pàllido
argènto con quel tramestio di nuvolette dello stesso colore. II
tùrbine ingròssa, (1) Tormenta ò un' altra voce del linguaggio alpino
che non si trova sui dizionari delia lingua parlata, i quali vorrebbero
invece, a quanto pare, che si dicesse fogno o fogna, che è, dice il
Fanfani, una burrasca di monte che talora infierisce sull'Appennino,
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