The Architecture of the Christian Holy Land: Reception from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance

In the absence of the bodies of Christ and Mary, architecture took on a special representational role during the Christian Middle Ages, marking out sites associated with the bodily presence of the dominant figures of the religion. Throughout this period, buildings were reinterpreted in relation to the mediating role of textual and pictorial representations that shaped the pilgrimage experience across expansive geographies. In this study, Kathryn Blair Moore challenges fundamental ideas within architectural history regarding the origins and significance of European recreations of buildings in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth. From these conceptual foundations, she traces and re-interprets the significance of the architecture of the Holy Land within changing religious and political contexts, from the First Crusade and the emergence of the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land to the anti-Islamic crusade movements of the Renaissance, as well as the Reformation.

About the Author

Kathryn Blair Moore teaches medieval and Renaissance art history at Texas State University, San Marcos. She received her art historical training at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Fellowships and grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Academy in Rome, and the University of Hong Kong (where she previously taught) have supported extensive research throughout Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa. Her scholarly work explores the intersection of architectural, pictorial, and textual cultures, with a particular emphasis upon larger religious and political contexts, from pilgrimage to religious wars, that shaped the experience of buildings across Europe and the Mediterranean world.