This book uses Pseudo-Dionysius and his mystic theology to explore attitudes and beliefs about images in the early medieval West and Byzantium. Composed in the early sixth century, the Corpus Dionysiacum, the collection of texts transmitted under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, developed a number of themes which have a predominantly visual and spatial dimension. Pseudo-Dionysius contribution to the development of Christian visual culture, visual thinking and figural art-making are examined in this book to systematically investigate his long-lasting legacy and influence. The contributors embrace religious studies, philosophy, theology, art, and architectural history, to consider the depth of the interaction between the Corpus Dionysiacum and various aspects of contemporary Byzantine and western cultures, including ecclesiastical and lay power, politics, religion, and art.
Chapter One Introduction, Francesca DellAcqua and Ernesto Sergio
Mainoldi.
Chapter Two Reassessing the HistoricoDoctrinal Background of
Pseudo-Dionysius Image Theory, Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi.
Chapter Three
Eikon and Symbolon in the Corpus Dionysiacum: Scriptures and Sacraments as
Aesthetic Categories, Angelo Tavolaro.
Chapter Four Pseudo-Dionysius and
the Importance of Sensible Things, Filip Ivanovi.
Chapter Five The
Relation of Monks to Clergy in the Dionysian Hierarchy and its Byzantine
Reception, Monk Evgenios Iverites.
Chapter Six Images of Holy Men in Late
Antiquity in Light of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: Framing Spiritual
Ascent and Visualising Spiritual Hierarchy, Katherine Marsengill.
Chapter
Seven Pseudo-Dionysius and the Staging of Divine Order in Sixth-Century
Architecture, Vladimir Ivanovici.
Chapter Eight Visual Thinking and the
Influence of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the Homilies and Hymns of
Andrew of Crete,Mary B. Cunningham.
Chapter Nine Pseudo-Dionysius and the
Dormition of the Virgin Platytéra (Wider than Heaven), Francesca
DellAcqua.
Chapter Ten Pseudo-Dionysius and the Post-Iconoclastic Mosaic
Programme of Hagia Sophia, Natalia Teteriatnikov.
Francesca DellAcqua is Assistant Professor of the History of Medieval Art at the University of Salerno, Italy, and holds the Habilitation to Associate Professorship in the History of Medieval Art (ASN 2012).
Ernesto Sergio Mainoldi is Senior Research Associate of the History of Philosophy at the University of Salerno, Italy, and holds the Habilitation to Associate Professorship in the History of Medieval Philosophy and Medieval Latin Literature and Philology (ASN 2018).
