The Nazareth capitals and the Crusader Shrine of the Annunciation
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The Nazareth capitals and the Crusader Shrine of the Annunciation
(Monographs on the fine arts, 42)
Published for the College Art Association of America by the Pennsylvania State University Press, 1986
Available at 4 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
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  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. [87]-94
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The Nazareth capitals are the most important and finest figural sculptures to have survived from the Crusader States between 1099 and 1291. Excavated in 1908, these capitals have long been known, but never fully discussed in terms of function, form, and meaning. This book aims to restudy systematically the five famous capitals so as to explain their intended function, their iconographic program, and the character of their remarkable style; to examine the historical and archaeological aspects of the holy site of the Annunciation and the cult of the Virgin Mary at this unique place; and to understand the capitals as masterpieces of late twelfth-century Crusader art in terms of their special regional characteristics between East and West-that is, between the medieval Latin West and the Byzantine East-and as major examples of twelfth-century medieval stone sculptures.
Using archaeological and historical evidence, Dr. Folda argues that the capitals were planned and completely carved, but never put in place in the Church of the Annunciation. He then evaluates the pilgrims' accounts of the site far which the capitals were apparently carved, the Shrine Monument of the Annunciation, and scrutinizes the archaeological and historical evidence about this site. Dr. Folda speculates on the basic features of the Crusader Shrine-Monument of the Annunciation which was apparently never built. He examines textual material ranging from early Christian times to the fifteenth-century story of the Holy House of Loreto to help explain the enigmatic scenes of the five capitals. And he concludes with a re-examination of the extraordinary stylistic character of the capitals and the problems involved in their dating.
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