In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviews 277 Parergon 20.1 (2003) Short Notices Bartlett, Robert, ed., Medieval Panorama, London, Thames & Hudson, 2001; cloth; pp. 336; c. 800 illustrations (612 colour); RRP AU$99.00; ISBN 0500237867. The most obvious legacy of the medieval era is a visual one. Throughout Western Europe, countless cathedrals, churches, castles and civic buildings stand as a reminder of the period in which they were built. Slightly less obvious, but even more numerous, are the surviving works of art: jewellery and other precious objects, sculptures, paintings, and – above all – illuminated manuscripts. This visual legacy, in its beauty, variety and strangeness, has been the subject of many books intended for the general reader rather than the scholar or student, which fall somewhere between a coffee-table book and a textbook. Medieval Panorama is a recent, and very good, example of this type of work. The text of the book, contributed by Robert Bartlett of the University of St Andrews, occupies less than fifty pages – including a relatively lengthy and masterly survey of the history of the idea of ‘the Middle Ages’. The majority of the book’s content is the collection of more than 800 images, mostly reproduced in colour. The basic arrangement is thematic, covering such topics as ‘the salvation of the soul’, ‘earthly powers’, ‘the life of the mind’, and ‘relations with non-Christians’. Within this, there is a reasonable balance between treating the period as a whole and reflecting the extent of change over a thousand years. The images are a good mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar, mainly taken from illuminated manuscripts in libraries throughout Western Europe. All this is accompanied by a range of reference materials, including a biographical dictionary, timelines, an up-to-date English bibliography, and a list of Web sites. It is interesting to compare this book with another, somewhat similar title from the same publisher ––The Flowering of the Middle Ages, edited by Joan Evans, which first appeared in 1966 and is still in print. It has a similar number of illustrations, though in a much larger format, arranged in similar thematic groupings. But the significant difference is that the Evans volume contains much more text, with a range of distinguished scholars contributing substantial essays on each topic. The images illustrate the text, whereas in Bartlett’s book the text 278 Short Notices Parergon 20.1 (2003) merely introduces the images. Nevertheless, Medieval Panorama is a marvellous collection of well-chosen images within the space of a single volume. Toby Burrows Scholars’ Centre The University of Western Australia Stahl, Alan M., ed., The Documents of Angelo de Cartura and Donato Fontanella: Venetian Notaries in Fourteenth-Century Crete, Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2000; paper; pp. xxi, 294; RRP not known. This book contains two notarial protocols by Cretan notaries in the Notarial Archives of the Archivio di Stato in Venice. They belonged to Latin notaries from the town of Candia, present-day Iraklio, in the Venetian possession of Crete in the early fourteenth century. The first was erroneously attributed to Nicolo Pizolo by earlier scholars, but turns out to be the work of Angelo de Cartura. All papers belong to the years 1305-1306. Most of the papers in his protocol belong to the colleganza contracts, a Venetian version of the commenda. This is illustrated by document 103: In June of 1305, Hemanuel Vergizi invests 20 hyperpera in the commercial venture of Bartholomeus de Sirigo, which Bartholomeus can use in trade as he sees fit for up to eight months. Within two weeks of his return to Candia, Bartholomeus must repay the capital, or whatever of it remains, to Hemanuel or his agents, along with two-thirds of profit; he keeps the other third for himself. The risk of loss of the investment at sea or to pirates is to be borne by the investor. The distribution of profits must be done in Candia, and the funds of Hemanuel will bear the same proportion of profits and expenses as those of any other investor (p. xi). The next largest number of documents (99) is related to the sale of slaves. Altogether these papers deal with 52 female and 35...

pdf

Share