Anastasia Egorova
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
The paper is dedicated to the visual diagrams of the Latin Middle Ages at a time of prosperity in the 13th century, which is a very distinctive type of book miniature. In particular, this work covers the collection of diagrams known as the ‘Mirror of Theology’, acknowledged to be the most prominent visual representation of Catholic didactics of the time.
Our focus is on a miniature with a schematic drawing of a cherub. It is not only an image, but at the same time is also a table, where the main points of the ‘Six-winged Cherub’ tract by Alan of Lille (De sex alis) are written in. The emergence and development of this iconography can be traced through several manuscripts. By the detailed analysis of each of the miniatures, we sought to understand and trace how exactly the coexistence and interrelation of word and image is expressed in these pieces. Furthermore, we attempted to compare this iconography to other didactic visual diagrams belonging to Speculum Theologiae and present it as a part of the set of miniatures rather than a separate illustration.
In order for this paper to be accomplished, for the first time in the Russian language bibliography, the tables of the above-mentioned manuscript were read and translated. The way in which the illustrations were composed was analysed, including how exactly the images and texts correspond with each other, and how they take their, at times, interchangeable and, at times, irreducible places.
Visual diagrams raise a wide plethora of questions and issues in the scientific community. Unfortunately, there are no fundamental works that would cover and analyse all issues related to the diagrams of ‘Mirror of Theology’ in Russian or in international historiography. This is what determines the high relevancy of the chosen topic.