East-West Relations in a Global Middle Ages

After 1453, the year Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, the Duke of Burgundy remained the last Western leader proposing a new crusade in the East. But the narrative of the defense of Christian faith and religious war was simply the most visible element of numerous exchanges between the Burgundian Low Countries and the East reaching back to the early fifteenth century and to France. What did the ducal court and its entourage read and acquire for its famous private libraries dealing with East-West relations? What was the court’s cultural and artistic output within the perspective of the global Middle Ages?

Introduction

Anne D. Hedeman (The Kress Foundation Department of Art History, University of Kansas)
“Translating the East in Early Fifteenth-Century France”

Hanno Wijsman (History, Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes, IRHT-CNRS, Paris)
“The Library as a Window. The Grand Duke of the West and the Fascination of the East”

Rosalind Brown Grant (School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds)
“Visualizing East-West Love Relations in Late Medieval Prose Romance: The Case of Saladin”

Elizabeth Morrison (Department of Manuscripts, J. Paul Getty Museum) and Zrinka Stahuljak (French & Francophone Studies / Comparative Literature, UCLA)
“Inside/Out: The Worlds of the Romance of Gillion de Trazegnies”

Discussion with Dr. Marina Belozerskaya, Independent Scholar and Author of Rethinking the Renaissance: Burgundian Arts across Europe (2012).

Organized in conjunction with the exhibition Traversing the Globe through Illuminated Manuscripts (January 26–June 26, 2016) and the publication of The Adventures of Gillion de Trazegnies: Chivalry and Romance in the Medieval East (J. Paul Getty Museum, 2015).

Advance registration not required. No fee. Limited seating.