Padua, 30 November 2022

Polo Beato Pellegrino, Aula 11

Second Seminar of the cycle “SenSArt Seminars on Medieval Art, Religion and Culture” Philippe Cordez (DFK Paris) and Gerhard Lutz (The Cleveland Museum of Art), “The Cleveland Fountain (Paris, 1320 ca.) and Multisensory Art History”.

Organized by Valentina Baradel and Zuleika Murat

The hydraulic and musical fountain in the Cleveland Museum of Art offers a perfect opportunity for theoretical reflection and practical experimentation in multisensory art history. It is a unique device of gilt and enamelled silver made in Paris ca. 1320. As exposed in a recent essay, a close comparison with the Fountain of Youth presented in text, image, and music in the Roman de Fauvel – a political satire recorded in a manuscript of 1317 (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. fr. 146) – suggests that the same group of intellectuals and artists was involved with both creations. Indeed, the Cleveland fountain multisensorially evokes the Parisian royal palace as a divine Fountain of Youth rejuvenating the French Kingdom. Collaborative research with the Cleveland Museum of Art, using digital tools, aims at deepening our knowledge of the fountain’s material constitution, historical context, and festive performance. 

Sponsored by the ERC-StG Project “The Sensuous Appeal of the Holy. Sensory Agency of Sacred Art and Somatised Spiritual Experiences in Medieval Europe (12th-15th century) – SenSArt”, P.I. Zuleika Murat. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 950248).