Ab Umbra Ad Umbram: Shadows in Late Medieval Secular Manuscripts

Type Thesis

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Summary

Shadows are an understudied element of medieval art, having been virtually ignored for generations of art history and medieval studies. Current, and scant, scholarship on shadows in the medieval period focuses primarily on their development in the creation of perspective and dimension in early Italian Renaissance art. Although depictions of cast shadows are not standard in paintings from the Middle Ages, they are incorporated as formal and symbolic elements in several sources. In studying how shadows were used in medieval literature in conjunction with the appearance of shadows in illuminated manuscripts, I explore possible interpretations of shadows that encompass religious matters as well as the literary, scientific, and mythological themes with which they were combined in the Middle Ages. Examining the image cycles of three late medieval secular manuscripts—a Confessio Amantis ca. 1470 (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.126), a Roman de la Rose ca. 1420 (Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod 2568), and a L’Istoire de Merlin, ca. 1480-85 (Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, MS. fr. 91)—reveals that shadows were intentionally added to images in order to communicate visually and intellectually to the viewer. Shadows were widely present in medieval culture and communicated to the reader a variety of scientific, theological, and metaphorical meanings related to themes of knowledge, power, images, and the supernatural.