“Saint Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai and Its Hidden Manuscript Treasures”
Claudia Rapp of the University of Vienna
October 1, 2015, at 5:30 p.m. in the Dumbarton Oaks Music Room
Saint Catherine’s Monastery, located on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula and fortified with walls under Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, is the oldest Christian monastery in continuous operation. Despite its remoteness, it has attracted monks and pilgrims from all regions of Christendom. Its art collection and library are home to unique treasures that have been preserved through the ages. Some of the manuscript evidence there has only recently been unlocked with the help of digital technology and the efforts of the Sinai Palimpsests Project, which uses spectral imaging to make legible and identify erased ancient texts.
This lecture will present the current results of the project and explain how they contribute to our understanding of the monastery as a cultural magnet in the Middle Ages.
Please click here to learn more and to RSVP.
“The Monster in the Garden: Early Modern Landscape Design and the Grotesque”
Luke Morgan of Monash University
October 15, 2015, at 5:30 p.m. in the Oak Room, 1700 Wisconsin Avenue NW
Monstrous and grotesque figures appear in many sixteenth-century Italian gardens, notably the Sacro Bosco in Bomarzo. In the past, these figures have been interpreted as expressions of artistic license (fantasia), inventiveness and variety of nature, and allusions to classical sources such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Monsters feature in early modern discourses ranging from art, literature, and mythology, to natural history and medicine. This lecture proposes that the “period eye” of the early modern garden visitor would have been informed and influenced by ideas of this kind.
Please click here to learn more and to RSVP.