Bits of late Roman coinage, the mutilated torso of a marble Venus, blue debris from an early medieval glassworks, and the powder rasped from the reputed tomb of Mary Magdalene—these tantalizing mementos of human history found scattered throughout the landscape of southeastern France are the points of departure for Gustaf Sobin’s lyrical narrative. A companion volume to his acclaimed
Luminous Debris, Ladder of Shadows picks up where the former left off: with late antiquity, covering a period from roughly the third to the thirteenth century. Here Sobin offers brilliant readings of late Roman and early Christian ruins in his adopted region of Provence, sifting through iconographic, architectural, and sacramental vestiges to shed light on nothing less than the existential itself.
Cuprins
Foreword, by Michael Ignatieff
Introduction
Apt: Reading an Antique City as Palimpsest
Desolate Treasure
Crypto-Christianity: The Sarcophagi of Arles, I
Terra Sigillata
Relics: Membra Martyrum as Living Current
Venus Disfigured
The Blossoming of Numbers: The Baptistery at Riez
The Deletion of Shadow: The Sarcophagi of Arles, II
City of God
Laying the Dragon Low
The Dark Ages: A History of Omissions
The Blue Tears of Sainte-Marthe
The Blind Arcade: Reflections on a Carolingian Sarcophagus
Celestial Paradigms
Vaulting the Nave
The Dome: Architecture as Antecedent
Classical Roots, Evangelical Branches
Vanished Scaffolds and the Structures Thereof
Incastellamento: Perching the Village, I
Incastellamento: Perching the Village, II
(The Circulades of Languedoc)
Faja Oscura
Psalmodi
The Fifth Element: From Manna to Exaction
Mary Magdalene the Odoriferous
The Death of Genesis
Notes
Index
Despre autor
Gustaf Sobin (1935-2005) was a poet, novelist, and essayist. His books include the novel The Fly-Truffler and Luminous Debris: Reflecting on Vestige in Provence and Languedoc (UC Press).
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