Virtually explore The Met Cloisters with Smarthistory as your guide
Some background
videos + essays
Link to The Met Cloisters' website
Depicting Judaism in a medieval Christian ivory
With two figures representing the Church and the Synagogue, this work demonstrates how Carolingians were negotiating the relationship between Christianity and Judaism
How to recognize the Four Evangelists
How to identify the Christian figures of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John by their iconography, or symbols, in art
Bifolium from the Pink Qur’an
Pages dyed pink, script from the Maghreb, and gold medallions make this Qu'ran especially spectacular.
From Medieval Spain to the Ottoman Empire, a Hebrew Bible
This is one of three known Hebrew Bibles that survive from the Crown of Castile in the 14th century
The Sopetrán Lamentation in wood
A theatre box in wood, the Sopetrán Lamentation is a stunning 15th-century sculpture from Spain.
Mysticism and queer readings of Christ’s Side Wound in the Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg
Images of the side wound and the mystical tradition from which they emerge have provided fertile material for scholars engaged in “queering” the Middle Ages.
A Renaissance Saint James as pilgrim
A Netherlandish artist, a Middle Eastern apostle, a Spanish queen, and a New York museum.
Woman with Scroll
An Early Byzantine sculpture of a woman with a scroll at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
St. Michael defeats the devil in Renaissance Spain
Roll over Bellini, and tell Tintoretto the news. The Renaissance in Spain.
The conservator’s eye: a stained glass Adoration of the Magi
Flashed or stained? Discover the historical techniques required to produce—and restore—this vibrant glass painting.
The Unicorn Tapestries
This is a creature so pure it can’t be caught—maybe that’s why the meaning of the tapestry eludes us.
