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- Convenor:
-
Paulo Catarino Lopes
(FCSH/NOVA-FCT)
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- Location:
- Bloco 1, Sala 1.12
- Start time:
- 14 July, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel intends to answer fundamental questions related to the way of conceiving the ocean and the practices associated with it during the Middle Ages, particularly in the centuries that preceded and inaugurated the movement of Iberian discovery and expansion (12th to 15th centuries).
Long Abstract:
How was the ocean conceptualized in the Middle Ages? More specifically, how was this element conceived in the beginnings of Portuguese medieval history when, in the 12th century, the new peninsular kingdom affirmed itself as the most western of the frontiers of rural Christianity against urban and mercantile Islam? And how did this vision evolve in the Iberian panorama until the time of the great oceanic voyages that marked the broad movement of the Iberian discoveries and expansion? What practices and motivations defined the relation of the contemporaneous man of these centuries to the oceanic element? What is its nature, constancy, distinctive features and forms of material expression?
The 12th and 13th centuries witness the affirmation of a non-exclusive Portuguese effort to Christianize the sea and its consequent integration into the Christian orb - safe and orderly. This effort has been felt throughout Christendom, in parallel with the resumption of urban life and the consolidation of European territorial expansion towards the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Thus, while Christianity was transposing its shade of continental and rural civilization, surrounded by antagonistic maritime peoples who disputed and cut off access to the sea, and defined itself as a space open to the great maritime and mercantile routes, about to recover part of its old urban profile, it gains an increasingly irreversible weight the modern look on the oceanic vastness.
From cartography to trade, the most diverse areas of late medieval human life gradually alter its vision and relation with the ocean.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paulo Catarino Lopes (FCSH/NOVA-FCT)
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on two fundamental questions: how did the late medieval Christian conceive the ocean; and what is the weight of this "worldliness" in the direct and daily contact with the oceanic element, especially on the southwest coast of Christendom.
Paper long abstract:
During medieval times two conceptions of the ocean prevailed - successively - in Portuguese territory (and also on the Mediterranean coast of Europe). The first is directly inherited from medieval writers, in particular from St. Isidore of Seville, and in accordance with the more continental and rural view of medieval Europe. It is a coherent conception of the world and of society, which tends to eliminate - or reduce to the maximum - the aquatic element, in which predominates the identification of the zone of Europe with that of Christianity, of the East with the Mythical origins and Africa with that of the enemies of the Church.
The second, tendentially urban and mercantile, became preponderant especially in southern Christendom - and therefore appears as closer to the classical and Muslim heritage. This second conception accompanied the European recovery of the urban world and the general reconquest to the Muslim power of the coastal regions and their maritime areas, both in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic.
In Portugal, when came the turning centuries of the Middle Ages to the Modern era, the second conception, more positive and open, prevailed. However, always penetrated by elements of the continental and more adverse to the sea view (examples are mermaids, sea monsters and the notion of abyss). It is not, therefore, a watertight conception. Instead, we are faced with a symbiosis of perspectives, which made the positive view of the ocean gradually undergo a structuring transformation...
Paula Vermeersch (São Paulo State University)
Paper short abstract:
One steel engraving by the Italian painter Andrea Mantegna, probably made in 1480, show us a battle between characters of Neptune kingdom. This communication is about the models of this engraving- like some Roman reliefs and coins, and its political interpretations.
Paper long abstract:
One steel engraving by the Italian painter Andrea Mantegna (c.1431-1506), probably made in 1480, today well know for its artistic relevance, show us a battle between characters of Neptune kingdom. This communication is about the models of this engraving- like some Roman reliefs and coins. It is possible to relate Mantegna's work to the interpretations of Antiquity In Quattrocento. Some of these interpretations are meaningful for the maritime European expansion. If we consider the Sea Gods as political forces- like the European countries fighting for the control of the Oceans- the Mantegna´s engraving can be a very interesting point of reflexion. Sergio Buarque de Holanda, a Brazilian historian, wrote in 1952 a book called "Visão do Paraíso" ("Paradise Vision") that claims a crucial role for Visual Arts in the construction of a ideology for European expansion. This paper proposal is about a interpretation for Mantegna's engraving based on Sergio Buarque de Holanda's book.