Disembodied Heads in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

332 Pages·2013·22.499 MB·English

by  Catrien Santing, Barbara Baert, Anita Traninger

Disembodied Heads in
Medieval and Early Modern Culture
Intersections
Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture
General Editor
Karl A.E. Enenkel
Chair of Medieval and Neo-Latin Literature
Westfälische Wilhelmsuniversität Münster
e-mail: kenen_01@uni_muenster.de
Editorial Board
W. van Anrooij (University of Leiden)
W. de Boer (Miami University)
K.A.E. Enenkel (University of Münster)
J.L. de Jong (University of Groningen)
W.S. Melion (Emory University)
K. Murphy (University of Oxford)
W. Neuber (NYU Abu Dhabi)
P.J. Smith (University of Leiden)
A. Traninger (Freie Universität Berlin)
C. Zittel (Freie Universität Berlin)
VOLUME 28 – 2013
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/inte
Intersections Disembodied Heads in
Medieval and Early Modern
Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture
Culture
General Editor
Karl A.E. Enenkel
Chair of Medieval and Neo-Latin Literature
Westfälische Wilhelmsuniversität Münster
Edited by
e-mail: kenen_01@uni_muenster.de
Catrien Santing, Barbara Baert &
Editorial Board Anita Traninger
W. van Anrooij (University of Leiden)
W. de Boer (Miami University)

K.A.E. Enenkel (University of Münster)
J.L. de Jong (University of Groningen)
W.S. Melion (Emory University)
K. Murphy (University of Oxford)
W. Neuber (NYU Abu Dhabi)
P.J. Smith (University of Leiden)
A. Traninger (Freie Universität Berlin)
C. Zittel (Freie Universität Berlin)
VOLUME 28 – 2013
LEIDEN • BOSTON
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/inte 2013
Cover illustration: Anonymous (Seville), Heads of Paul, John the Baptist and Jacob, 1660–1670.
Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Disembodied heads in medieval and early modern culture / edited by Catrien Santing, Barbara
Baert & Anita Traninger.
  pages cm — (Intersections ; volume 28)
 Outcome of a two-day conference held at the Academia Belgica and the Royal Dutch Institute
at Rome.
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-25354-4 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-25355-1 (e-book) 
1. Head—Social aspects—Congresses. 2. Human body—Social aspects—Congresses.
I. Baert, Barbara, editor of compilation. II. Traninger, Anita, editor of compilation. III. Santing,
Catrien, editor of compilation.
 GT498.H43D58 2013
 306.4_dc23
2013019689
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 1568-1181
ISBN 978-90-04-25354-4 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-25355-1  (e-book)
Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
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Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements  ........................................................................................ vii
Notes on the Editors  ...................................................................................... ix
Notes on the Contributors  ........................................................................... xi
List of Illustrations  .......................................................................................... xiii
Introduction  ..................................................................................................... 1
Catrien Santing and Barbara Baert
Adam’s Skull  ..................................................................................................... 15
Marina Montesano
Talking Heads, or, A Tale of Two Clerics  ................................................ 31
Robert Mills
The Meaning of the Head in High Medieval Culture  .......................... 59
Esther Cohen
Securing the Sacred Head: Cephalophory and Relic Claims  ............. 77
Scott B. Montgomery
The Johannesschüssel as Andachtsbild: The Gaze, The Medium
and The Senses  ........................................................................................... 117
Barbara Baert
Chasing the Caput. Head Images of John the Baptist in a Political
Conflict  .......................................................................................................... 161
Mateusz Kapustka
The Self-Portrait ‘En Décapité’: Interpreting Artistic
Self-Insertion  ............................................................................................... 191
Arjan R. de Koomen
Capita Selecta in Historia Sacra. Head Relics in Counter
Reformation Rome (ca. 1570–ca. 1630)  ................................................ 223
Jetze Touber
vi contents
Framing the Face. Patterns of Presentation and Representation in
Early Modern Dress and Portraiture  .................................................... 245
Bert Watteeuw
‘And I Bear Your Beautiful Face Painted on My Chest’.
The Longevity of the Heart as the Primal Organ in the
Renaissance  ................................................................................................. 271
Catrien Santing
Index Nominum  .............................................................................................. 307
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is the outcome of a two-day conference held at the Academia
Belgica and the Royal Dutch Institute at Rome. Both institutes deserve
much gratitude for their financial and practical assistance, and especially
their generous hospitality. Without the efforts of Dr. Hans de Valk, Prof.
Bernard Stolte and Prof. Walter Geerts, Disembodied Heads in Medieval
and Early Modern Culture could not have been realised.
Today the organisation of conferences is impossible without the gra-
cious backing of employers. Both the University of Louvain and the Uni-
versity of Groningen therefore deserve great credit for allowing us to travel
to Rome at the beginning of term to spend research time on this project
and for providing most of the financial means. This especially regards the
Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen (FWO) and the Gronin-
gen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (ICOG).
In the final stages, the editors became acutely aware that the publi-
cation of a collection of papers is a serious endeavour. Paul Arblaster
was our tower of strength, patiently helping the non-native speakers to
improve the level of their academic English. Anita Traninger gave us
priceless advice on the content and fortunately was willing to seek out
the correct wording of so many disembodied, separated, severed or even
bodiless heads together with us, a joint venture that much improved the
book as a whole. We very much appreciate her patience with us and her
diligence. Immense gratitude deserves Frank Birkenholz, who undertook
the checking of footnotes and captions and other sometimes extremely
arduous tasks. We would also like to thank Soetkin Vanhauwaert, who
dedicated herself to the illustrations and all the associated difficulties in
this regard.
Collections of articles focused on a single topic require close coopera-
tion, willingness, flexibility and also much staying power from contribu-
tors. During the whole process all of the contributors have been willing
to respond to our queries and requests for amendments and additions.
The positive attitude of our authors was indispensable for bringing this
book to a favourable conclusion without false notes along the way, mak-
ing the whole project a pleasure for us. We would also like to mention
and thank Dominic-Alain Boariu (University of Fribourg) and Jeanette
Kohl (University of California, Riverside), who presented inspiring papers
viii acknowledgements
at the conference, but unfortunately did not have the time to submit an
article to this volume.
Last but not least, our deep appreciation goes to Brill Publishers and
its helpful employees. We are most grateful to the general editor of the
series, Intersections. Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern Culture,
Prof. Karl Enenkel, for giving us the opportunity to publish and the room
to experiment with our strange topic, not to mention his willingness to
offer advice and assistance.
Catrien Santing & Barbara Baert
NOTES ON THE EDITORS
Catrien Santing is Professor of Medieval History at the University of
Groningen. She specializes in Cultural History, History of Science and
Medicine, Body History of the Latin Middle Ages and Early Modern
Period. Her recent publications are: Blood-Symbol-Liquid (Louvain: 2012)
which she co-edited with Jetze Touber, and “Klonen in de Middeleeuwen.
Eigenaardig en actueel” (Inaugural lecture 2011).
Barbara Baert is Professor in Medieval Art at the University of Leuven.
In 2006 she founded the Iconology Research Group, an international and
interdisciplinary platform for the study of the interpretation of images
(www.iconologyresearchgroup.org). Her disciplines concern Sacred
Topography, Visual Anthropology, Relics and Art Theory. Her recent books
are: Interspaces between Word, Gaze and Touch. The Bible and the Visual
Medium in the Middle Ages (Leuven: 2011); New Perspectives in Iconology.
Visual Studies and Anthropology (eds.) (Brussels: 2012) and Caput Joannis
in Disco. {Essay on the History of a Man’s Head}, Visualising the Middle
Ages 8 (Leiden: 2012).
Anita Traninger (1969), Ph.D. in Literary Studies, is Einstein Junior
Fellow at the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Freie
Universität Berlin. Her areas of research include the history of rhetoric and
discourses of knowledge in early modern Europe, with Disputation, Dekla-
mation, Dialog (Stuttgart 2012) being her most recent book publication.