Associated Events

Harvard Graduate School of Design, Druker Design Gallery, 42 Quincy Street

Over the past century, our knowledge about medieval buildings, the purposes to which this knowledge has been applied, and the technologies which we have used to visualize them, have evolved constantly. This exhibition explores the rich tradition of medieval architectural scholarship as exemplified by the career of Kenneth Conant (1894-1984), who received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University and taught architectural history there from 1920 to 1954.

The first section chronicles Conant’s architectural training and scholarly formation. Both of these were shaped by the late nineteenth-century adoption of the new medium of photography, important both for the medievalizing designs of Henry Hobson Richardson and Herbert Langford Warren and for the innovative art historical scholarship of Arthur Kingsley Porter.

In the exhibition’s second chapter, we learn about Conant’s work on the eleventh- and twelfth-century abbey church of Cluny, France (dubbed by Conant “Cluny III”), almost entirely destroyed following the French Revolution. Believing Cluny III to have been one of the most important and beautiful creations of the Middle Ages, Conant sought to recreate its original appearance by imaginatively applying compelling graphics to the information derived from his own meticulous excavation work, the results of which were published with financial support from the recently-established Medieval Academy of America.

Part three centers on eight plaster casts of capitals from Cluny III, which Conant commissioned in 1929 and which were displayed in the Fogg Art Museum until 1936. Plaster casts of famous works of art were the means by which American architects learned the history of their craft and an appreciation for the characteristics of the “best” works, a canon that by the 1920s had expanded to include the pre-Gothic Middle Ages in Germany and France.

The exhibition concludes with recently-created 3D digital models of the Cluny capital casts—high-resolution, photorealistic representations of real-world objects that allow students and scholars to engage with them in new and previously unimagined ways.

Curated by Christine Smith, Robert C. and Marion K. Weinberg Professor of Architectural History at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, with the collaboration of Matthew Cook (Digital Scholarship Programs Manager, Widener Library), Ines Zalduendo (Special Collections Archivist, Frances Loeb Library), and Clayton Scoble (Media Lab Director, Lamont Library).

Harvard Graduate School of Design, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street

January 30, 6:30-8:30 pm

An evening of music to mark the opening of Envisioning Cluny: Kenneth Conant and Representations of Medieval Architecture, 1872–2025, an exhibition celebrating the study of medieval architecture at Harvard University. Following remarks by curator Christine Smith, the Blue Heron vocal ensemble will perform a selection of music that would have been heard in the medieval monastery of Cluny, with commentary by Harvard musicologist Thomas Forrest Kelly. Reception to follow in the Graduate School of Design’s Druker Design Gallery. This event is free and open to the public; please click here to register.

Houghton Museum, Edison & Newman Room

This exhibition, curated by Associate Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts Sara Powell, traces the history of medieval manuscript collecting at Harvard, from a modest late eighteenth-century donation to significant acquisitions made throughout the nineteenth century. These manuscripts offer insights into the societies that created them, and also demonstrate the evolving practice of institutional collecting and the faculty, benefactors, and cultural values that have shaped Houghton’s present-day collections. Free and open to the public.

Houghton Library, Edison & Newman Room
Monday February 10, 5:30 pm

In building Harvard University’s collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, both private collectors and university librarians have played important roles. This lecture by Houghton Library director emeritus William Stoneman reviews some important acquisitions and reflects on changing collection development policies and some missed opportunities. It also is intended to function as an introduction to the exhibition Incipit: A History of Early Manuscripts at Harvard and an extended example of provenance research, which will be the subject of the associated workshops. Free and open to the public; please register here.

Houghton Library, Hofer Classroom
Thursday 13 February, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm and 3:00 to 5:00 pm

These workshops, led by Houghton Library director emeritus William Stoneman, will introduce basic resources and principles of provenance research. It will develop some examples using Harvard manuscripts and early printed books themselves and supporting documentation. Examples from the collections of George Dunn and William King Richardson will be used, as well as manuscripts from less well-known English collectors such as C. S. Ascherson, C. H. St. John Hornby, and American collectors such as Edward Duff Balken, Acton Griscom, and Charles Walker Clark. Space in the workshops is limited; please register here.

Boston College McMullen Museum, 2101 Commonwealth Avenue

Wonders of Creation explores intersections of art and science in Islamic intellectual and visual culture from the seventh century to the present day. The exhibition employs the lens of “wonder” as defined by a celebrated thirteenth-century Islamic scholar Zakariyya al-Qazwini (d. 1283) in his cosmography, The Wonders of Creation and Rarities of Existence. Written in Arabic and Persian, Qazwini’s richly illustrated book catalogues the wondrous qualities of the natural world and its inhabitants. Qazwini’s encyclopedic text serves as the framework accompanying visitors through the orbits of the cosmos from the heavens to the earth. Using wonder as a vehicle, Wonders of Creation illuminates the global impact of science and artistic production from the Islamic world and its diverse geographies and multifaceted visual cultures. Over 170 works, including illustrated manuscripts and paintings, maps, scientific instruments, magic bowls, luster dishes, architectural elements, and contemporary art, evoke wonder through a visual journey.

Organized by the San Diego Museum of Art in collaboration with the McMullen Museum of Art, with the support of the Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, Bank of America, Lani and Joe Curtis, Tatiana and Robert Dotson, Diana and Fred Elghanayan, the Nissan Foundation, Drs. Nasrin Owsia and Behrooz Akbarnia, Gary and Zoraida Payne, Taffin Ray, and A.O. Reed.

Location: Barker Center, Lower Level

In celebration of its 2025 Centennial, the Medieval Academy of America has earmarked funding for a series of Centennial Grants of up to $5,000 each supporting the planning and implementation of local events and projects celebrating and promoting medieval studies in education and the arts in North America. We are very pleased to announce the winners of these Centennial Grants:

Arkansas: The Plays of Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim: Bringing the Medieval to Arkansas, University of Arkansas // Two Headed Repertory
California: Summer Institute for Late Medieval Polyphony, University of California, Berkeley
Georgia: Medieval on my Mind: The Past, Present, and Future of Medieval Manuscripts in the Deep South, University of Georgia
Illinois: Cartooning the Medieval: Comics, Narrative Art, and New Audiences for Medieval Studies, Newberry Library
Illinois: Medievalists Design Games, University of Chicago
Indiana: The Bayeux Tapestry from Scratch, Indiana University
Louisiana: Medievalists of Northern Louisiana, Grambling State University
Massachusetts: Art in an Early Global World at WAM: A Digital Resource, College of the Holy Cross
Michigan: 2025 Mostly Medieval Theatre Festival “Book of Silence” Adaptation Premiere, Western Michigan University
Minnesota: Virtual Medieval Books in the Schools, University of Minnesota
New Jersey: The Middle Ages for Educators Open Access Resource (OAR) Sweet Sixteen Playoffs
New Mexico: The Interconnected Middle Ages, University of New Mexico
New York and Ontario: Medieval Drama in Brooklyn and in Toronto, Brooklyn College/CUNY Graduate Center and York Plays 2025, University of Toronto
North Carolina: Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies 2025, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Duke University
Ohio: Mothers and Sisters of the Veil, Trobár Medieval, Cleveland
Oklahoma: Inaugural Manuscripts Lecture Series, Oklahoma State University
Puerto Rico: Jornadas caribeñas de estudios medievales: dedicadas a la Dra. Isabel Gutierrez del Arroyo (Caribbean Conferences on Medieval Studies: In Memory of Dr. Isabel Guitierrez del Arroyo),University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus
Texas: Space City Medievalism, University of Houston
Virginia: Public Medieval: A Workshop for Graduate Students, ECRs, and Underemployed Medievalists, Virginia Tech.
Washington: Medieval Joy Event and Undergraduate Conference, Seattle University

Visit the poster session at the Barker Center and the MAA website for more information about these projects:
https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/centennialgrantcal

The 71st Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America will take place concurrently with the annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America (SAA) in the Back Bay area of Boston. The Josephine Waters Bennett Lecture at RSA Boston 2025 will be presented by Daniel J. Vitkus, the Rebeca Hickel Chair in Elizabethan Literature at UC San Diego. The program for RSA Boston 2025 can be found here. There is no reciprocal registration for the RSA and MAA meetings; to register for RSA 2025, please click here.