‘Ad Honorem et Reverentiam Sanctissimi Patris’: Manno Bandini's statue of Boniface VIII
Abstract In 1975, Carlo Ragghianti published a passionate essay on Manno Bandini's statue of Boniface VIII in Bologna (figure 1).1 Ragghianti's article was spurred by the exhibition of the statue at the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan and the accompanying essay written by Enrico Castelnuovo.2 In the lengthy brochure, Castelnuovo highlighted the propagandistic value of this Trecento statue and its political significance. Ragghianti rejected outright the discussion of the statue in terms of its political meaning and instead stressed its value as a work of art. The author's barely veiled criticism focused on those like Toesca and Venturi who had previously disparaged the statue as ugly and rude.3 Ragghianti, instead, argued that its archaism was in line with contemporary Roman achievements and in particular with the neo-Egyptian style that had entered the art of Rome with the Cosmati and had been given new life by Arnolfo di Cambio. The author mentioned Arnolfo's Florentine portrait of Boniface as an example (figure 2). By way of conclusions, Ragghianti drew attention to Boniface VIII's ears and argued that such an abstract and fanciful construction could not find its raison-d'être in the statue's political significance but rather in its aesthetic essence. The aesthetic essence was, he concluded, meaningful in and for itself.
The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages
This book presents the first full-length study in English of monumental bronzes in the Middle Ages. Taking as its point of departure the common medieval reception of bronze sculpture as living or animated, the study closely analyzes the practice of lost-wax casting (cire perdue) in western Europe and explores the cultural responses to large-scale bronzes in the Middle Ages. Beginning with mining, smelting, and the production of alloys, and ending with automata, water clocks, and fountains, the book uncovers networks of meaning around which bronze sculptures were produced and consumed. The book is a path-breaking contribution to the study of metalwork in the Middle Ages, and to the reevaluation of medieval art more broadly, presenting an understudied body of work to reconsider what the materials and techniques embodied in public monuments meant to the medieval spectator.
Investigation of scatter radiation of non-circular X-ray scan trajectories
Modern interventional X-ray devices are highly maneuverable and allow complex 3D imaging trajectories. New scan trajectories enable not only optimized object sampling but also introduce new approaches for dynamic 3D imaging. In this paper, we investigated the scatter radiation of two different scan trajectories. The scatter radiation was sampled by a rail setup with dosimeters at defined positions. After data analysis, contour maps were generated which show for four exemplary heights the scatter radiation distribution. The alternative scan trajectory showed smaller dose exposures at heights correlated to upper torso and head areas of a model physician. Keywords—Image acquisition, alternative scan trajectory, circular tomosynthesis, scatter radiation distribution