Conference paper

Marchesin, Isabelle:

The bronze of Bernward's Door as iconic material

This lecture will focus on the implication of bronze in the iconographic meaning of Bernward's door. It will show how the Bishop of Hildesheim used it as a technical and symbolic material leading the viewer to an understanding of both time and the substantial states of the world.


Isabelle Marchesin, Scientific Supervisor for Medieval Art, Institut National d’histoire de l’art, Paris (from September 2014).
Associate Professor and Privat Dozent, Département d’histoire de l’Université de Poitiers,
Scientific Supervisor of the ANR Program Musiconis, Universités de Poitiers et Paris-Sorbonne.

Education: Master D. in Medieval History at the Université Toulouse-Le-Mirail; Master D. in Art at the Ecole du Louvre (Paris), PhD in Historical Anthropology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). Alumni from the Collegium Budapest-Institute for Advanced Study, Max Planck Institut für Geschichte (Göttingen) and Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte (Paris).

Research fields: Christian Iconography and Exegesis; Musical Iconography; History of Sciences and Visual Cognition.

Some books and papers:
L’Arbre et la colonne. Sémiotique du discours visuel de la porte de bronze de Hildesheim, Editions Picard-Paris (version française), forthcoming 2016.
L’image organum. La représentation de la musique dans les psautiers médiévaux, 800-1200, Turnhout, Brepols, 2000.
Curator of the exhibition d’exposition and writing of the catalogue Moyen Age : entre ordre et désordre, Paris, Musée national de la musique, 26 mars-27 juin 2004, Paris, RMN, 2004.
«Verbum Christi: Musical Iconography in the St Albans Psalter», Der Albani-Psalter. Stand und Perspektiven der Forschung / The St Albans Psalter. Current Research and Perspektives, ed. Jocher Bepler, Hildesheim, Olms-Verl., 2012 (Hildesheimer Forschungen, 3), p. 135-158.
«Ontologie et fonction du visible et de l’audible dans les premières images de l’Apocalypse de Trêves (Stadtbibliotek, Cod. 31) », L’Apocalisse nel Medioevo, Atti del convegno Internazionale dell’Università degli Studi di Milano e della Società Internazionale per lo studio del Medioevo Latino, Gargnano, 18-20 maggio 2009, ed. Rossana Guglielmetti, Firenze, SISMEL-Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2011, p. 181-205