Reviewed by:

• The Mineral and the Visual: Precious Stones in Medieval Secular Culture by Brigitte Buettner
• Judith Collard

The appearance of precious stones in medieval art has long been a subject waiting to be explored. Medieval writing has been filled with references to the impact of jewellery and precious stones. Abbot Suger, for example, wrote of how, through contemplation of the precious stones found in the cross of Saint Eloy and other works, his mind was transported from the slime of the earth to higher matters in an anagogical fashion. This is in a text, familiar to many medievalists, written to explain and describe the work he commissioned at Saint-Denis near Paris in the twelfth century. In it he outlined how the various stones acted as an aid to this transportation. While Suger does not appear in this book, familiarity with such medieval texts reminds us of the significant social, political, and aesthetic impact minerals and gemstones had on a medieval audience, making this study long overdue. [End Page 244]

Brigitte Buettner’s focus is on precious stones in medieval secular culture, which means that she does not discuss reliquaries or other forms of religious visual culture. She divides the book into three sections: the first is on royalty and crowns, the second on lapidaries, which here join bestiaries and herbals as something art historians should become more familiar with, and in the final section, there is a more general discussion of the medieval geographic imagination, trade, and travel writing. In this last section she evokes Prester John, John Mandeville, and Marco Polo, as well as other figures both fictional and real.

Most medieval crowns have been destroyed. In her discussion Buettner focuses on three gem-encrusted crowns that have survived from the medieval period—one from the Holy Roman Empire, now in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum (in the Schatzkammer); one from the kingdom of Castile, now in Toledo Cathedral; and one from the kingdom of Bohemia, now in St Vitus Cathedral in Prague. They date from the late tenth to twelfth centuries in the Vienna example, about 1256–75 for that in Toledo, and 1344–47 (reworked in the 1370s) for that in Prague. All are gem-encrusted and each quite distinct in style. The crown in Vienna is topped by an ornate arch from front to back, with a bejewelled cross surmounting the heavily decorated front panel; the Toledo crown is eight-sided, topped by miniaturised castles, with jewels and cameos on each side; while the Prague crown is circular in shape with fleur-de-lis finials overarched by a gold strip and decorated with pearls, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and aquamarines. It also has embroidered cloth inset into it.

While the crown, a potent symbol of monarchy, is the subject of the first three chapters, tracing its origins in the West from the time of Constantine, Buettner shifts direction in the rest of the book. In Part 2 she examines lapidaries and the pursuit of knowledge and mastery over such stones, including colour and the sense of sight both vision-enhancing and reality-distorting. In addition, in Chapter 6 Buettner looks at the art of sigils, which include intaglios and cameos, as well as such naturally occurring stones as veined marbles, agates, and fossils. These ‘figurative’ stones were greatly admired but also enigmatic, potentially either legitimate or demonic. These areas of research provide rich material that deserves further exploration, given that lapidaries are deserving of as much attention as bestiaries have thus far received.

Invoking Prester John and Marco Polo, in the final three chapters Buettner explores the illustrated travel book. Other important works discussed include Friar Odoric of Pordenone’s Itinerarium and The Book of John de Mandeville. Another work that is also mentioned at length is the fifteenth-century compilation, Livre des merveilles (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fr. 2810), made for John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, but given to Jean, duc de...

审阅者：

• 矿物与视觉：中世纪世俗文化中的宝石作者：Brigitte Buettner
• 朱迪思·科拉德

宝石在中世纪艺术中的出现一直是一个有待探索的课题。中世纪的著作充满了对珠宝和宝石影响的提及。例如，苏格修道院院长（Abbot Suger）写道，通过沉思圣埃洛伊十字架和其他作品中发现的宝石，他的思想如何以一种神秘的方式从地球的粘液转移到更高的事物。这是许多中世纪学者所熟悉的文本，是为了解释和描述他在十二世纪委托在巴黎附近的圣但尼进行的工作而写的。在其中，他概述了各种石头如何帮助这种运输。虽然苏格没有出现在本书中，但对这些中世纪文本的熟悉让我们想起了重要的社会、政治、[完第244页]

Brigitte Buettner 的重点是中世纪世俗文化中的宝石，这意味着她不讨论圣物盒或其他形式的宗教视觉文化。她将这本书分为三个部分：第一部分是关于皇室和王冠，第二部分是关于宝石，这里与动物寓言和草药一起成为艺术史学家应该更加熟悉的东西，在最后一部分中，有一个更一般的讨论中世纪的地理想象、贸易和旅行写作。在最后一部分中，她唤起了祭司长约翰、约翰·曼德维尔和马可·波罗，以及其他虚构和真实的人物。

大多数中世纪王冠已被毁坏。在她的讨论中，比特纳重点关注了中世纪时期幸存下来的三顶镶有宝石的王冠——一顶来自神圣罗马帝国，现藏于维也纳艺术史博物馆（位于 Schatzkammer）；另一顶来自神圣罗马帝国，现藏于维也纳艺术史博物馆（Schatzkammer）；另一顶来自神圣罗马帝国，现藏于维也纳艺术史博物馆（Schatzkammer）；另一顶来自神圣罗马帝国，现藏于维也纳艺术史博物馆（Schatzkammer）。一件来自卡斯蒂利亚王国，现藏于托莱多大教堂；一件来自波西米亚王国，现藏于布拉格圣维特大教堂。维也纳的例子可以追溯到 10 世纪末到 12 世纪，托莱多的例子可以追溯到 1256-75 年，布拉格的例子可以追溯到 1344-47 年（在 1370 年代重新设计）。所有宝石均镶嵌宝石，且风格各异。维也纳的王冠顶部从前到后有一个华丽的拱门，装饰华丽的前面板上方有一个镶有宝石的十字架；托莱多王冠是八边形的，顶部是微型城堡，每面都有珠宝和浮雕；布拉格王冠呈圆形，百合花尖顶由金条覆盖，饰有珍珠、蓝宝石、红宝石、祖母绿和海蓝宝石。它还嵌入了绣花布。

虽然王冠是君主制的有力象征，是前三章的主题，其起源可追溯至君士坦丁时代的西方，但比特纳在本书的其余部分中改变了方向。在第二部分中，她探讨了宝石学以及对此类宝石的知识和掌握的追求，包括颜色和既增强视觉又扭曲现实的视觉感。此外，比特纳在第六章中探讨了印记艺术，其中包括凹雕和浮雕，以及天然形成的石头，如纹理大理石、玛瑙和化石。这些“象征性”的石头受到极大的赞赏，但也很神秘，可能是合法的，也可能是邪恶的。这些研究领域提供了值得进一步探索的丰富材料，因为宝石学值得像迄今为止的动物寓言一样受到关注。

比特纳在最后三章中引用了祭司长约翰和马可波罗的作品，探索了这本带插图的旅行书。讨论的其他重要著作包括波代诺内的奥多里克修士的行程和约翰·德·曼德维尔的书。还详细提及的另一部作品是十五世纪的汇编《Livre des merveilles》（巴黎，法国国家图书馆，MS fr. 2810），为勃艮第公爵无畏约翰创作，但送给了让公爵。 ..