The central question of this thematic issue is whether and how objects are present, perceptible, and conceivable not only within, but also beyond the senses. This question addresses – in medieval experiences and representations – the imperfections of human perception, and the ordinary struggle to make sense of the realities of the world. Medieval women and men, it can be argued, developed a specific virtuosity in experiencing and shaping a world defined by the limits of the perceptible. Art history, it must be added, also deals with such limits in its endeavor to make sense of the realities of the past.

Introduction

Philippe Cordez & Ivan Foletti — A Convivium with Herbert L. Kessler. Sharing Objects, Sensory Experiences, and Medieval Art History

Articles

Vincent Debiais & Elina Gertsman — Au-delà des sens, l’abstraction

Nathan Dennis — Optical Games and Spiritual Frames. A Reassessment of Imitation-Marble Mosaics in Late Antique North Africa

Francesca Dell’Acqua — Beyond Human Grasp. The Funeral of the Virgin on the “Wirksworth Stone” (Derbyshire)

Philippe Cordez — Golgotha im Kopf. Karl der Kahle und die karolingischen Elfenbeinkämme

Iva Adámková — The Sense of Sight in the Prologues of Theophilus Presbyter’s De diversis artibus

Marc Sureda i Jubany — Faithful Crosses. On the Survival of an Early Type of Goldsmith’s Cross in Late Medieval Catalonia

Panayota Volti — Saints émaciés, reliques et images au Moyen Âge tardif. Dynamiques visuelles et perspective du salut

Bissera V. Pentcheva — Divine Anamorphosis. The Phenomenality of Gold and Chant in a Fourteenth-Century Antiphonary from Santa Maria sopra Porta

About Herbert L. Kessler

Anne-Orange Poilpré — L’Antiquité et les origines de la narrativité chrétienne en images dans l’oeuvre d’Herbert L. Kessler. Un parcours intellectuel

Adrien Palladino — Herbert L. Kessler. A Visionary Interpreter of Medieval Visual Culture

List of Publications. Collected by Adrien Palladino