Introduction

Abstract

The attitude of medieval men of letters towards plastic arts, architecture and applied art has so far been studied from a primarily aesthetic point of view. The cause of this may be found, I offer no opinion on it, in the conceptions of the authors who have been publishing on this during the last seventy-five years or in the fact that most medieval texts that until recently were available in editions, were for the greater part works of a theological, mystical or encyclopaedic-theoretical kind.¹ Anyhow, it is an established fact that these studies were brought to bear on the texts of a limited number of well-known medieval writers, such as: Augustine, Isidore of Sevilla, Strabo, Scotus Erigena, Alcuin, Hugh and Richard of S. Victor, Honore of Autun, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas and Vincent of Beauvais. The writings of these authors had been published in large series such as Migne’s Patrologia Latina, the Monumenta Germaniae Historiae and in separate editions. These writings contain relatively few actual evaluations of monuments of art.