Disembodied Heads in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

Catrien Santing (1958), Ph.D. in History, is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Groningen. She has published widely on late medieval and early modern cultural and medical history, including Blood-Symbol-Liquid, together with Jetze Touber, Louvain 2011.Barbara Baert (1967), Ph.D. in Art History, is Professor of Medieval Art at the University of Leuven. Her research is mainly interdisciplinary, regarding sacred topography, visual anthropology, relics, and female biblical figures such as Mary Magdalene and the woman with the bloodflow. Recently she published Caput Joannis in Disco. {Essay on a Man’s Head}, (Visualising the Middle Age 8), Brill-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, Deklamation, Dialog (Stuttgart 2012) being her most recent book publication.

• AcknowledgementsNotes on the EditorsNotes on the ContributorsList of IllustrationsIntroductionCATRIEN SANTING AND BARBARA BAERTAdam’s SkullMARINA MONTESANO Talking Heads, or, A Tale of Two ClericsROBERT MILLSThe Meaning of the Head in High Medieval CultureESTHER COHENSecuring the Sacred Head: Cephalophory and Relic ClaimsSCOTT B. MONTGOMERYThe Johannesschüssel as Andachtsbild: The Gaze, The Medium and the SensesBARBARA BAERT Chasing the Caput. Head Images of John the Baptist in a Political ConflictMATEUSZ KAPUSTKA The Self-Portrait ‘En Décapité’: interpreting artistic Self-InsertionARJAN R. DE KOOMENCapita Selecta in Historia Sacra. Head Relics in Counter Reformation Rome (1570CA.-1630CA.)JETZE TOUBERFraming the Face. Patterns of Presentation and Representation in Early Modern Dress and PortraitureBERT WATTEEUWAnd I bear your beautiful Face painted on my chest. The Longevity of the Heart as the primal Organ in the RenaissanceCATRIEN SANTING Index Nominum

‘’Disembodied Heads is a valuable addition to the recent chorus of voices raised in unison about the significance of the head in medieval and early modern culture, its implications for understanding the nature of humanity, and the essence of the human spirit.’’ Larissa Tracy, Longwood University. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 3, Fall 2014, p. 1060.