Roman road near Clunia

Outline

I am currently working on a new project in collaboration with the photographer, John Batten. It is provisionally entitled ‘Routes from Roman to Romanesque’ and has received some British Academy funding.

Outcomes

It will have two main outcomes:

In detail

The primary purpose of the book is to provide a clear and rich survey of the current state of knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese art and architecture from the Roman conquest to about 1200. It will concentrate on the areas that eventually produced Romanesque art, whilst giving full credit to the importance of the high artistic achievements of al-Andalus. The chronological reach of the project will help to expose the archaeological layers that make up so many of these urban and rural sites.

San Miguel de Escalada

Over the last thirty years Spanish scholars have produced a multitude of specialist regional studies, but few attempts have been made to bring together the findings of these regional studies or to see what effect they have on the overall picture. Moreover most of them are not available in English and thus have not penetrated the wider literature on early medieval art. The book will both present and critique such studies, as well as setting out the author’s position on many of the central questions.

The study will take the Roman roads as a framework. Despite the nationalist associations of the Roman past, this approach has several advantages. The roads provide a practical and historically authentic way of linking the regions without denying their distinctive identities. In addition, an awareness of the full range of major Roman roads and the topography that shaped them puts the so-called pilgrimage roads in a broader context and challenges their privileged position. The roads that connected the north and south, and artistic exchanges between al-Andalus and the northern kingdoms deserve equal consideration. Many roads followed the rivers that brought life to the varied landscapes and skirted the barriers formed by the mountain ranges. Others ran close to the coasts and eased the onward transport of goods and people that arrived by sea. Often based on earlier tracks, these remarkable feats of engineering enabled merchants, rulers and their armies, diplomats and craftsmen to travel widely across the peninsula. Despite the neglect that the roads suffered during certain periods, the routes continued to be the main arteries of communication even in difficult times, and many modern motorways still follow these ancient tracks. The skeleton of roads also provides a set of norms that serve to highlight important diversions from the major established routes. These detours often lead to some of the most innovative and evocative works of art on sacred sites deep in the mountains.

San Pedro de Cardeña

Both of these aspects, the regional studies and the routes, will combine to give a deeply contextualized account of the Roman, Visigothic, Mozarabic, and Medieval art and architecture of Iberia. Together they will conjure a rich sense of place from the choice of site; the use of local, re-used or imported materials – and the taste and expertise of the people who brought these works of art into being.