In my previous two posts , I discussed medieval symbolic animals which derived from real-life creatures, and then the Monstrous Races,...

13th c. capital of a sinner being devoured, Saint Pierre, Chauvigny, France A nasty case of Covid pretty much bankrupted my energy for...

I thought I'd finish out our year with something light-hearted and ravishingly beautiful. The West Window of Worcester Cathedral was...

One of the bittersweet realities for lovers of Romanesque art is that the majority of it exists in a state of decay and dislocation. ...

A statue has been haunting me. I saw it inside the Duomo of Milan. In retrospect, I think it's the only thing I really saw in the Duomo,...

Capturing the back of the sarcophagus of Saint Peter Martyr is much trickier than photographing the front. The apse is quite close by,...

As much as I love medieval art that strikes me as bizarre, I really love it when I come across works which are marvels of symbolic...

12th century mosaic, Bobbio, depicting the month of March, emphasizing wind (I think) By the time March arrives, the January 1st...

On October 25th, 2022, I gave a lecture at Metropolitan State University on the Origins of Sirens. In the presentation, I trace how...

Few 9th century churches survive anywhere in Europe, but in Northern Spain are a few precious remaining examples. Santa Cristina de Lena...

Here, I continue to point out some features of church architecture, generally before 1100. Please see Part 1 post for more on this...

What follows here are some features of churches from roughly 350-1100 in Rome. Most of my photo studies are of Romanesque and Gothic,...

To tell the story of Mary through a medieval church's lens, one must have at least one space to tell the story of Eve. At Chartres...

This image features the fate of the damned--stretching from their judgment by Saint Michael (upper-left), across to punishments for...

Up in the remote hills in northern Spain, the monastery of San Juan de la Pena contains the ruins of a tiny cloister, with magnificent...

Notre Dame de Paris was engulfed in a terrible fire in 2019. Here, I include some of my photos of the interior, taken in 2018. I don't...

This entry continues an analysis of the thirteenth century choir screen of Notre Dame de Paris, with photos taken in 2018, before the...

One thing that revolutionized looking at medieval stained glass for me was using a serious zoom lens, and then spending time in...

Chartres isn't very far from Paris, by modern standards, and its veneration of Mary is an occasion for comparisons to Notre Dame de Paris....