Resources for Medieval Art & Architecture

Europeana Collections

Jacobus van Bronckhorst van Batenburg, n.d. Dedication by Jacobus van Bronckhorst van Batenburg in his Album amicorum, including a portrait. (s.l.): [Douai]

Europeana Collections is conceived to meet the needs of the research community worldwide through a unified portal offers quick and easy access to the cultural heritage collections of libraries, archives, and museums throughout Europe.

The Museum of the Middle Ages, Musée national du Moyen Âge, is housed in two exceptional Parisian monuments: the Gallo-Roman thermes (1st-3rd centuries) and the Cluny Abbey hotel (late 15th century). It was founded in 1843 with the collections of an art amateur fascinated by the Middle Ages, Alexandre Du Sommerard who lived in the Hôtel de Cluny. The collections have grown over the years and today they offer a unique view of the art and history of man in Roman Gaul at the beginning of the 16th century, fifteen centuries of European art and history one location.

Search for articles, dissertations, conference proceedings, essays, and chapters in multi-author publications:

Bibliography of the History of Art: BHA
Covers European and American art from late antiquity to the present. The Bibliography of the History of Art: BHA includes article citations from more than 1,200 scholarly journals. Also included are citations to art-related book content, conference proceedings, dissertations, and exhibition catalogs. Provides the most comprehensive coverage of American and international scholarly journals in the disciplines of art and architectural history. Current coverage is 1990-2009 (partial).

 International Bibliography of the History of Art: IBA
Covers European and American art from late antiquity to the present. International Bibliography of Art includes article citations from more than 1,200 scholarly journals. Also included are citations to art-related book content, conference proceedings, dissertations, and exhibition catalogs. Provides the most comprehensive coverage of American and international scholarly journals in the disciplines of art and architectural history. Entries cover 2008 to the present. This resource is the successor to the Bibliography of the history of art. Materials indexed from 1975 through 2007 must be searched in this other resource, freely available at http://library.getty.edu/bha.

Search for background, context, and general bibliography:

Oxford Art Online
Oxford Art Online is the access point for Grove Art Online, a comprehensive ans scholarly resource covering the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, architecture, works on paper, decorative arts, and photography from prehistory to the present. Global coverage includes the arts of Asia, Africa, the Americas, the Pacific, and Europe. In addition, influences on the production of art such as trade, geography, history and politics are fully addressed, helping to place art in context and further a broad understanding of the history of artistic endeavor. It also includes the Benezit Dictionary of Artists, Oxford Companion to Western Art, the Concise Oxford Dictionary or Art Terms, and the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, which can all be searched together.

Dictionary of the Middle Ages
Edited by Joseph R. Strayer. New York, Scribner, 1982-1989. 13 volumes Fine Arts Library, Reference Collection, RFA 79.55.5 and other locations.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages
The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages is an essential new reference work covering all key aspects of European history, society, and culture from 500 to 1500 A.D., as well as the Byzantine Empire, Islamic dynasties, and Asiatic peoples of the era. It is designed both for medievalists, who need a detailed and reliable reference tool, and for students and general readers seeking an accessible guide to the period. Over 800 scholars have assembled thousands of comprehensive entries, lavishly supplemented by hundreds of illustrations and dozens of maps. The Dictionary provides balanced coverage of both the whole geographical extent of the European Middle Ages (including Germany and Austria, Spain and Portugal, the Low Countries, and Central and Eastern Europe, amongst many others), and of numerous major topics, from art and architecture, medicine, and law, to archaeology, ecclesiastical history, and languages and literature.

Search for images:

Artstor on JSTOR
Artstor – available through JSTOR - is a growing nonprofit digital library of over 2 million rights-cleared images representing the arts, architecture, humanities, and social sciences. The digital images are discoverable alongside journals, books, and other primary sources in JSTOR, which features an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research. For Harvard users, JSTOR also provides access to many images from the Fine Arts Library's Digital Images and Slides Collection in the "Harvard University Study Collection of Digital Images."

HOLLIS Images
HOLLIS Images is the Harvard Library's dedicated image catalog. It includes content from archives, museums, libraries, and other collections throughout Harvard University documenting the arts, material culture, and social history. HOLLIS Images contains descriptive records and images representing paintings, sculpture, photography, drawings, prints, architecture, decorative arts, trade cards, rubbings, theater designs, maps and plans. High resolution images may be downloaded.