28 April

Martina Baraldi, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich; 

lecture of 40 minutes followed by q&a plus discussion

The Colour of Majesty: Gems in Rudolf II’s Collection

In 1581, Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612) presented a matrix of raw emeralds to Elector Augustus (1553–1586) during the latter’s visit to Prague. Later incorporated into the statue of the Moor (1725, Dresden, Grünes Gewölbe) by the sculptor Balthasar Permoser and the court jeweller Johann Melchior Dinglinger, the Emerald Cluster offers a striking example of the visual impact and symbolic authority of coloured and brilliant gems in princely collections. More than a precious object, the emeralds embody a courtly conception of gems as a vehicle of brilliance and majesty, deeply embedded in the collecting practices and visual culture of Rudolf II’s Prague, where the careful orchestration of luminous materials transformed natural substances into signs of imperial power.
The focus of this presentation is on how emerging ideas about colour and light informed the perception, display, and arrangement of objects within Rudolf II’s collection. As this paper argues, the new theories of light and non-Aristotelian colour models developed at the Prague court offer another perspective from which to address the choreographed arrangement and juxtaposition of objects within the collection itself. In this sense, the emerald matrix returns not merely as an exemplary object but as a conceptual model: as Agostino del Riccio (1541–1598) observed, the deeply green emerald not only preserves its colour under any light but intensifies it, projecting its hue into the surrounding air; an effect that, within the logic of the collection, translates material brilliance into a visible form of majesty.
By attending to the subtle tonal modulations of selected objects from Rudolf II’s collection, this presentation proposes colour and light as key analytical tools for understanding the collection as a chromatically coherent and perceptually brilliant ordered ensemble.
Martina Baraldi is a PhD candidate at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, with support by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. Her doctoral research examines works of art made from inlaid stone produced in Prague for Emperor Rudolf II, with a particular focus on materials, processes of making, and modes of manufacture. Her focus is grounded in material- and object-based methodologies. Her research and ongoing publications on stones and the technique of commesso di pietre dure combine archival investigation with practical training, gained through research visits to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, the University of Utrecht, and participation in international programmes and conferences exploring art and science in the early modern period.

26 May

30 June

27 October

Franka Horvat, independent scholar, Zadar, Croatia

lecture of 40 minutes followed by q & a plus discussion

Not Set in Stone: A Reinterpretation of Stonework from the Elaphiti Islands
The Elaphiti Islands off the coast of Ragusa (mediaeval Dubrovnik), are well attested in archival documents and are rich in mediaeval material remains. They  preserve fifteen churches dated from the ninth to the thirteenth century, as well as architectural traces of settlements. In previous scholarship these small single-aisle structures were analysed in the context of ethnogenesis and Christianisation, and attributed to wealthy landowners from the mainland. Conversely, I consider the churches from the islanders’ perspective and study them through the changing social conditions and cultural connections of the islands. In this talk I focus on the sculptural program of the Elaphiti churches, which were found in and around all of the churches, as well as scattered around the islands and reused as building material in secular contexts. I examine the collection from the Parish church on Koločep, which houses some of the best-preserved examples of liturgical furniture of the archipelago: the fragments which come from the church of Saint Nicholas on the aforementioned island. The exhibits include pieces of a reconstructed altar screen which contains the only preserved donor inscription in any of the Elaphiti churches, which has been link to Queen Helena of Hungary. I propose a different interpretation of the inscription and a re-evaluation of patronage patterns on the islands.

Franka Horvat is an art historian specialising in medieval art in the Mediterranean, particularly the intersection of art and socio-economic conditions in the periphery of the Byzantine Empire, with a special focus on archipelagos, insularity and small islands. Using an interdisciplinary approach which integrates art, architecture, archaeology, archival records, ethnographic evidence, literary and cartographic sources, she reevaluates the roles that small islands played in medieval Mediterranean networking systems. Her work includes the study of non-elite and marginalised people, village men and women, foreigners, and enslaved people – in short, the “other” ninety five percent who so often fall between the cracks in historical analyses. Franka completed her PhD dissertation “Insular Power: Reconstructing the Social, Economic and Artistic Networks of the Elaphiti Islands, Croatia,” at the Department of Art History at UCLA in June 2022, after which she taught six courses on medieval art at the same institution. She currently conducts research as an independent scholar.