John Osborne, Carleton University
The NIU School of Art and Design’s annual Elizabeth Allen Visiting Scholars in Art History series concludes, Wednesday, March 21 at 5 p.m., with John Osborne, emeritus faculty of Carleton University’s lecture “The Monuments of Ancient Rome in the Medieval Imagination. The presentation will be held in Room 100 of Jack Arends Hall (Art Building) on NIU’s main campus in DeKalb.
The buildings and statues of ancient Rome remained intact long after their origins and purposes had been forgotten, and served to define the urban landscape of the medieval city. Confronted by these vestiges of antiquity on a daily basis, medieval Romans sought to appropriate and reinterpret these structures, incorporating them into a new meta-narrative of the city’s manifest destiny as the seat of Christianity. This lecture will examine medieval appropriations of ancient buildings and statues in Rome, with a particular focus on the Pantheon and the Vatican obelisk.
What: Elizabeth Allen Visiting Scholars in Art History — “The Monuments of Ancient Rome in the Medieval Imagination”
When: Wednesday, March 21, 5 p.m.
Where: Jack Arends Hall (Art Building) Northern Illinois University
Cost: Admission is free of charge
For more information, contact the Art History Division at (815) 753-2923.
