Riemenschneider in Rothenburg: Sacred Space and Civic Identity in the Late Medieval City

FAIN: FT-254930-17

Katherine M. Boivin
Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-9800)

Preparation of a chapter for a book on medieval art and civic identity in the German city of Rothenburg and the sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider.

My current book, "The Medieval Urban Complex and the Politics of Pilgrimage," investigates the dynamic interactions among artworks created in a variety of media across the space of the late medieval city. Through an integrated study of administrative structures, urban planning, and visual culture, I examine the spatiality of artistic programming and its role in processes of civic-identity construction. While recent scholarship has begun to look at resonances among works created in different media within the space of a single church, the originality of my project lies in its exploration of the deliberate, though aggregated, programming of art spread throughout the late medieval city. An NEH Summer Stipends Award would allow me to complete "Chapter 5: Geographies of the Altarpiece," which proposes a new approach for studying the work of early modern artists by considering the landscape of pieces by Tilman Riemenschneider that once formed a network across the city of Rothenburg, Germany.

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Riemenschneider in Rothenburg: Sacred Space and Civic Identity in the Late Medieval City (Book)
Title: Riemenschneider in Rothenburg: Sacred Space and Civic Identity in the Late Medieval City
Author: Katherine M. Boivin
Abstract: The concept of the medieval city is fixed in the modern imagination, conjuring visions of fortified walls, towering churches, and winding streets. In Riemenschneider in Rothenburg, Katherine M. Boivin investigates how medieval urban planning and artistic programming worked together to form dynamic environments, demonstrating the agency of objects, styles, and spaces in mapping the late medieval city. Using altarpieces by the famed medieval artist Tilman Riemenschneider as touchstones for her argument, Boivin explores how artwork in Germany’s preeminent medieval city, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, deliberately propagated civic ideals. She argues that the numerous artistic pieces commissioned by the city’s elected council over the course of two centuries built upon one another, creating a cohesive structural network that attracted religious pilgrims and furthered the theological ideals of the parish church. By contextualizing some of Rothenburg’s most significant architectural and artistic works, such as St. James’s Church and Riemenschneider’s Altarpiece of the Holy Blood, Boivin shows how the city government employed these works to establish a local aesthetic that awed visitors, raising Rothenburg’s profile and putting it on the pilgrimage map of Europe. Carefully documented and convincingly argued, this book sheds important new light on the history of one of Germany’s major tourist destinations. It will be of considerable interest to medieval art historians and scholars working in the fields of cultural and urban history.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-08778-8.html
Secondary URL: https://bardcollege.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1191238481
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-0-271-0877
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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