Jacopo Gnisci
I am a Lecturer in the Art and Visual Cultures of the Global South at UCL and a Visiting Academic at the British Museum. I am the co-PI of the AHRC-DFG project "Demarginalizing Medieval Africa: Images, Texts, and Identity in Early Solomonic Ethiopia (1270-1527) " <grant no. AHRC: AH/V002910/1 DFG: 448410109>. I formerly directed or co-diretected other projects, including the Material Migrations (Gerda Henkel).
I serve on the boards of several journals (Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies; Gesta; the Rassegna di Studi Etiopici) and societies (Associate of the International Center of Medieval Art).
I have previously worked: as a Project Curator for the EMKP programme at the British Museum; at the University of Oxford (as Exhibition Assistant, Getty/ACLS Fellow, and Research Associate for the Monumental Art of the Christian and Early Islamic East ERC Project;) as a Teaching Assistant for African art at SOAS; as Fellow at the Dallas Museum of Art and UT Dallas, the Vatican Library, and the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies at Hamburg University.
The aim of my work is to reassess the material culture of Christian Ethiopia and Eritrea within a Eurasian framework that defies conventional academic boundaries and Eurocentric approaches to the arts of Africa. I have been the first author to have an article on Ethiopia accepted for publication in the Art Bulletin, the flagship journal for art history, since its foundation in 1913. My main book project, supported by a Getty/ACLS Fellowship, will shed light on the arts of Ethiopia and Eritrea and their interconnections with their near and more distant neighbours during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
I have a record of collaboration with several institutions including the Dallas Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Vatican Apostolic Library, the Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale," the Metropoltan Museum, and the Bodleian Libraries. I contribute, or have contributed, to several exhibitions and projects on medieval or African art in various roles, including the Visual Commentary on Scripture (King’s College London); Beta maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea (University of Hamburg); and CaNaMEI (University of Naples, "L'Orientale"); Material Migrations: Mamluk Metalwork Across Afro-Eurasia. I moreover have had the fortune and pleasure to collaborate with a number of institutions or colleagues based in Ethiopia, Europe and North America.
I serve on the boards of several journals (Aethiopica: International Journal of Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies; Gesta; the Rassegna di Studi Etiopici) and societies (Associate of the International Center of Medieval Art).
I have previously worked: as a Project Curator for the EMKP programme at the British Museum; at the University of Oxford (as Exhibition Assistant, Getty/ACLS Fellow, and Research Associate for the Monumental Art of the Christian and Early Islamic East ERC Project;) as a Teaching Assistant for African art at SOAS; as Fellow at the Dallas Museum of Art and UT Dallas, the Vatican Library, and the Hiob Ludolf Centre for Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies at Hamburg University.
The aim of my work is to reassess the material culture of Christian Ethiopia and Eritrea within a Eurasian framework that defies conventional academic boundaries and Eurocentric approaches to the arts of Africa. I have been the first author to have an article on Ethiopia accepted for publication in the Art Bulletin, the flagship journal for art history, since its foundation in 1913. My main book project, supported by a Getty/ACLS Fellowship, will shed light on the arts of Ethiopia and Eritrea and their interconnections with their near and more distant neighbours during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
I have a record of collaboration with several institutions including the Dallas Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Vatican Apostolic Library, the Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale," the Metropoltan Museum, and the Bodleian Libraries. I contribute, or have contributed, to several exhibitions and projects on medieval or African art in various roles, including the Visual Commentary on Scripture (King’s College London); Beta maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea (University of Hamburg); and CaNaMEI (University of Naples, "L'Orientale"); Material Migrations: Mamluk Metalwork Across Afro-Eurasia. I moreover have had the fortune and pleasure to collaborate with a number of institutions or colleagues based in Ethiopia, Europe and North America.
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Articles, Book Chapters, and Research Notes by Jacopo Gnisci
was ruled by a Christian sovereign. Terms such as medieval and Middle Ages have been used and continue to appear in historical writing about Ethiopia’s past, but it is important to bear in mind that such terms were used by early modern historiography to establish a time frame for studying European history. Their relevance to non-European contexts is questionable, but they may have value as a means to help situate the study of Ethiopia within the broader field of global history. There are no universally accepted criteria or terms for the periodization of Ethiopian history. However, most works focusing on the centuries between c. 500 and 1500 CE, dates that do not neatly align with major turning points in Ethiopian history, have adopted periodizations that are based on episodes of dynastic succession.
Edited by: Joseph Salvatore Ackley and Shannon L. Wearing.
The presence of gold, silver, and other metals is a hallmark of decorated manuscripts, the very characteristic that makes them “illuminated.” Medieval artists often used metal pigment and leaf to depict metal objects both real and imagined, such as chalices, crosses, tableware, and even idols; the luminosity of these representations contrasted pointedly with the surrounding paints, enriching the page and dazzling the viewer. To elucidate this key artistic tradition, this volume represents the first in-depth scholarly assessment of the depiction of precious-metal objects in manuscripts and the media used to conjure them. From Paris to the Abbasid caliphate, and from Ethiopia to Bruges, the case studies gathered here forge novel approaches to the materiality and pictoriality of illumination. In exploring the semiotic, material, iconographic, and technical dimensions of these manuscripts, the authors reveal the canny ways in which painters generated metallic presence on the page. Illuminating Metalwork is a landmark contribution to the study of the medieval book and its visual and embodied reception, and is poised to be a staple of research in art history and manuscript studies, accessible to undergraduates and specialists alike.
was ruled by a Christian sovereign. Terms such as medieval and Middle Ages have been used and continue to appear in historical writing about Ethiopia’s past, but it is important to bear in mind that such terms were used by early modern historiography to establish a time frame for studying European history. Their relevance to non-European contexts is questionable, but they may have value as a means to help situate the study of Ethiopia within the broader field of global history. There are no universally accepted criteria or terms for the periodization of Ethiopian history. However, most works focusing on the centuries between c. 500 and 1500 CE, dates that do not neatly align with major turning points in Ethiopian history, have adopted periodizations that are based on episodes of dynastic succession.
Edited by: Joseph Salvatore Ackley and Shannon L. Wearing.
The presence of gold, silver, and other metals is a hallmark of decorated manuscripts, the very characteristic that makes them “illuminated.” Medieval artists often used metal pigment and leaf to depict metal objects both real and imagined, such as chalices, crosses, tableware, and even idols; the luminosity of these representations contrasted pointedly with the surrounding paints, enriching the page and dazzling the viewer. To elucidate this key artistic tradition, this volume represents the first in-depth scholarly assessment of the depiction of precious-metal objects in manuscripts and the media used to conjure them. From Paris to the Abbasid caliphate, and from Ethiopia to Bruges, the case studies gathered here forge novel approaches to the materiality and pictoriality of illumination. In exploring the semiotic, material, iconographic, and technical dimensions of these manuscripts, the authors reveal the canny ways in which painters generated metallic presence on the page. Illuminating Metalwork is a landmark contribution to the study of the medieval book and its visual and embodied reception, and is poised to be a staple of research in art history and manuscript studies, accessible to undergraduates and specialists alike.
Jacopo Gnisci, University College London, j.gnisci[at]ucl.ac.uk
Umberto Bongianino, University of Oxford, umberto.bongianino[at]orinst.ox.ac.uk
This panel sets out to examine and compare the impact of royal patronage on the visual, material, and textual features of manuscripts produced across Africa, Asia, Mesoamerica and Europe during the ‘Global Middle Ages.’ As polysemic and multi-technological objects, royal manuscripts were produced in different forms and sizes, and from a variety of materials that could vary according to the taste, wealth, ideology, religion, and connections of their patrons and makers. Their visual and textual content could conform or deviate from existing traditions to satisfy the needs and ambitions of those involved in their production and consumption. Finally, pre-existing manuscripts could be appropriated, restored, enhanced, gifted, and even worshipped by ruling elites for reasons connected with legitimacy and self-preservation, becoming powerful instruments of hegemony, or symbols of prestige and piety. Because of this semiotic versatility, written artifacts provide ideal vantage points for understanding the agency of material culture in the creation and perpetuation of political power.
To what extent do the materials, texts, and images of royal manuscripts reflect the integration of pre-modern courts in networks of patronage and exchange? In which ways were these features adapted for different audiences and for female, male, or genderqueer patrons? How did they inform local and transregional notions of power and authority? How did communities that opposed royal authority situate themselves in relation to the political agency of written texts and their illustrations? When and how did such artifacts become imperial relics to be displayed, or symbols of a contentious past to be concealed or destroyed? What can manuscripts tell us about the royal patronage of other artistic media, dynastic rivalries, political alliances, and state-endorsed religious phenomena?
In pursuing similar questions, we are particularly interested in multidisciplinary papers that move beyond a Eurocentric reading of material culture by considering royal manuscripts from pre-modern polities traditionally seen as ‘peripheral.’ We welcome proposals that apply innovative methodologies to the study of handwritten material and its circulation, questioning conventional assumptions about politics, culture, and religion, and privileging comparative approaches and transcultural artistic phenomena.
Call for Papers deadline 1 November 2021. Please submit your paper proposal to the convenors.
to identify what appeared to be a stolen Ethiopian crown kept in an apartment in Rotterdam. How did such a precious object end up in Holland? Where did it come from? What was its original function? What kind of meaning did it have for those who used it? To whom should it be returned? These were some of the questions turning in my mind as I travelled to see the crown. Answering them provides a glimpse into a history of exchanges between the Horn of Africa and Europe in the past and present, sheds light on the ritual and devotional activities of Christians in early-modern Ethiopia, and forces us to confront some of the challenges involved in the repatriation of cultural property at a time when museums and governments are increasingly reconsidering questions of ownership of heritage acquired from Africa and other extra-European contexts during the colonial period.