Sam Barber
@barber-samj.bsky.social
Smith College/UMass Amherst | Art, architecture, material culture | Late Antiquity & the Early Middle Ages
Ultimately, it asks: what would it mean to place a statue of a Black sportsman on Monument Avenue - alongside monuments to the leaders of the Confederacy? Alternatively, what would it mean to place it elsewhere - would that be truer to his message, or another exclusion?
October 21, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Ultimately, it asks: what would it mean to place a statue of a Black sportsman on Monument Avenue - alongside monuments to the leaders of the Confederacy? Alternatively, what would it mean to place it elsewhere - would that be truer to his message, or another exclusion?
what does this mean
September 29, 2025 at 1:11 PM
what does this mean
Following her argument, this object might conceivably liken its wearer to a legendary hero, a hunter of beasts (ever the prime aristocratic pastime), while also echoing images of imperial triumph -- perhaps even that of Christ himself, though here trampling both lion and serpent in one! 9/
![Christ trampling on a lion and a serpent (see e.g. Psalm 91 [90]:13). Early 6th century CE. Cappella archivescovile, Ravenna.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:blzute7a55gxpbeqpqhcuzzt/bafkreics7l5ucd4ew73bbgo4ukm6hptvajdvktmgengwgmfhw3in2yez3m@jpeg)
March 26, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Following her argument, this object might conceivably liken its wearer to a legendary hero, a hunter of beasts (ever the prime aristocratic pastime), while also echoing images of imperial triumph -- perhaps even that of Christ himself, though here trampling both lion and serpent in one! 9/
I quite like Janet Huskinson's discussion of the image of Bellerophon at the palace of Theoderic in Ravenna (early 6th c. CE): that his defeat of the chimera is not just a heroic deed, but a cosmic combat - the victory of (moral, ethical, political) good over evil, order over chaos. 7/
March 26, 2025 at 10:42 PM
I quite like Janet Huskinson's discussion of the image of Bellerophon at the palace of Theoderic in Ravenna (early 6th c. CE): that his defeat of the chimera is not just a heroic deed, but a cosmic combat - the victory of (moral, ethical, political) good over evil, order over chaos. 7/
If we set the chimera to one side for a moment, we could easily interpret the central figure in a broader context of images of mounted combat - including both imperial triumphal imagery and images of the hunt that adorned spaces of aristocratic sociability. 4/
March 26, 2025 at 10:42 PM
If we set the chimera to one side for a moment, we could easily interpret the central figure in a broader context of images of mounted combat - including both imperial triumphal imagery and images of the hunt that adorned spaces of aristocratic sociability. 4/
Undoubtedly, the composition references a well-established type for Bellerophon's battle with the chimera: from the vertical stacking of the figures, to Pegasus' trampling hooves, to the downward thrust of Bellerophon's spear into the beast's mouth. Some examples here - details in the alt-text 2/
![Mosaic pavement from a Roman villa near Boxford (UK) showing Bellerophon slaying the Chimera. 4th century CE. (See Anthony Beeson, Matt Nichol, and Richard Massey, "The Triumph of Pelops and Bellerophon," Britannia 53 [2022]: 185-225)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:blzute7a55gxpbeqpqhcuzzt/bafkreifinhps2njzesacmji63nqwsvde3ezxglcjqlvxsgtkdk76wxro5e@jpeg)
March 26, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Undoubtedly, the composition references a well-established type for Bellerophon's battle with the chimera: from the vertical stacking of the figures, to Pegasus' trampling hooves, to the downward thrust of Bellerophon's spear into the beast's mouth. Some examples here - details in the alt-text 2/
More specifically, I take a renewed look at the wonderful (if rather neglected) Santa Sofia in Benevento, founded in the eighth century by the dux (later, princeps) of the southern Langobard duchy, Arechis II.
February 19, 2025 at 2:15 PM
More specifically, I take a renewed look at the wonderful (if rather neglected) Santa Sofia in Benevento, founded in the eighth century by the dux (later, princeps) of the southern Langobard duchy, Arechis II.
Students in my Art, Nature, and Ecology in the Medieval World course had a go at recreating Kosmas Indikopleustes' diagram of the cosmos on the basis of the text alone. They did a great job!
February 15, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Students in my Art, Nature, and Ecology in the Medieval World course had a go at recreating Kosmas Indikopleustes' diagram of the cosmos on the basis of the text alone. They did a great job!
I've not had a lot of bandwidth for much reading the past few weeks, but this has a lovely antidote.
Virginia Burrus, Earthquakes and Gardens: Saint Hilarion's Cyprus
Virginia Burrus, Earthquakes and Gardens: Saint Hilarion's Cyprus
February 11, 2025 at 12:24 AM
I've not had a lot of bandwidth for much reading the past few weeks, but this has a lovely antidote.
Virginia Burrus, Earthquakes and Gardens: Saint Hilarion's Cyprus
Virginia Burrus, Earthquakes and Gardens: Saint Hilarion's Cyprus