Pierre Salmon served as royal secretary to Charles VI of France at a time when papal schism plagued the church, civil war divided the country, and the king suffered from an intermittent but incapacitating psychosis. In an effort to find a cure for the king's illness, stabilize the turbulent political situation, and secure his own future, Salmon supervised the production of two distinct versions of the beautifully illuminated guidebooks to good kingship known as his Dialogues. Where much previous scholarship has relied on an abridged edition of the Dialogues, Anne D. Hedeman returns to the complete, original manuscripts to present a fresh view of Salmon's purposes. She suggests that whereas the first version (1409) held out hope for the king's eventual complete recovery and accordingly counseled him on ruling wisely, the second version (1412-15) reflected a changed political situation: the French civil war had erupted, the compromise pope had died, and efforts to find a cure for the king had failed. In this second version, Hedeman argues, Salmon shifted his attention to include the future governors of France, especially the heir, Louis of Guyenne, who took on an increased role in the government of the realm during his father's attacks of madness. Hedeman shows how Salmon manipulated artistic style and iconography to construct a visual narrative that often was quite independent of its text. She also suggests how changes to the images in François de Rochechouart's copy of the manuscript (ca. 1500) signal efforts to appropriate Salmon's stature as a trusted royal advisor for later political purposes. Richly illustrated with plates from the original manuscripts, Of Counselors and Kings is a treat to the eye as well as to the intellect.

Of Counselors and Kings: The Three Versions of Pierre Salmon's Dialogues (Illinois Medieval Studies)

Arts & Photography

Hedeman, Anne D.

History & Criticism

University of Illinois Press

Visual Translation breaks new ground in the study of French manuscripts, contributing to the fields of French humanism, textual translation, and the reception of the classical tradition in the first half of the fifteenth century. 
While the prominence and quality of illustrations in French manuscripts have attracted attention, their images have rarely been studied systematically as components of humanist translation. Anne D. Hedeman fills this gap by studying the humanist book production closely supervised by Laurent de Premierfait and Jean Lebègue for courtly Parisian audiences in the early fifteenth century. 
Hedeman explores how visual translation works in a series of unusually densely illuminated manuscripts associated with Laurent and Lebègue circa 1404–45. These manuscripts cover both Latin texts, such as Statius’s Thebiad and Achilleid, Terence’s Comedies, and Sallust’s Conspiracy of Cataline and Jurguthine War, and French translations, including Cicero’s De senectute, Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium and Decameron, and Bruni’s De bello Punico primo. Illuminations constitute a significant part of these manuscripts’s textual apparatus, which helped shape access to and interpretation of the texts for a French audience. Hedeman considers them as a group and reveals Laurent’s and Lebègue’s growing understanding of visual rhetoric and its ability to visually translate texts originating in a culture removed in time or geography for medieval readers who sought to understand them. The book discusses what happens when the visual cycles so carefully devised in collaboration with libraries and artists by Laurent and Lebègue escaped their control in a process of normalization. With over 180 color images, this major reference book will appeal to students and scholars of French, comparative literature, art history, history of the book, and translation studies.

Visual Translation: Illuminated Manuscripts and the First French Humanists (Conway Lectures in Medieval Studies)

University of Notre Dame Press

The Grandes Chroniques de France is a vernacular, frequently illustrated history of the medieval French monarchs. Originally describing the lives of the kings from their origins in Troy in 1274 to the reign of Philip Augustus, it was updated in several stages to the life of Charles VI. Copied and amended for a variety of royal and courtly patrons, approximately 130 of these manuscripts exist today. Anne Hedeman provides the first critical and comprehensive study of the chronicle's illustrations.Hedeman concentrates on the illustrations in twenty manuscripts, analyzing their artistic and cultural significance and offering new methods for studying illustrated manuscripts. She discusses the chronicle in relation to the political ideology of Louis IX, vernacular history, and the Latin chronicle tradition at Saint-Denis. Looking at the manuscripts of various periods, the author compares their representations of historical events, kingship, and individuals in and around the royal court. She also contrasts the styles of several authors and illustrators of the chronicle.The Royal Image includes a catalogue of over seventy-five illustrated manuscripts, and an appendix listing the artists. An additional appendix lists surviving manuscripts.

The Royal Image: Illustrations of the Grandes Chroniques de France, 1274–1422 (California Studies in the History of Art)

University of California Press

From around 1250 to the close of the fifteenth century, the most important and original work being done in secular illumination was unquestionably in French vernacular history manuscripts. This volume celebrates the vivid historical imagery produced during these years by bringing together some of the finest masterpieces of illumination created in the Middle Ages. It is the first major publication to focus on exploring the ways in which text and illumination worked together to help show medieval readers the role and purpose of history. The images enabled the past to come alive before the eyes of medieval readers by relating the adventures of epic figures such as Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, and even the Virgin Mary.
Presented here are approximately fifty-five manuscripts from over twenty-five libraries and museums across the United States and Europe, supplemented by medieval objects ranging from tapestries to ivory boxes. Together they show how historical narratives came to play a decisive role at the French court and in the process inspired some of the most original and splendid artworks of the time. Additional contributors to this volume include Élisabeth Antoine, R. Howard Bloch, Keith Busby, Joyce Coleman, Erin K. Donovan, and Gabrielle M. Spiegel.

Imagining the Past in France: History in Manuscript Painting, 1250-1500

MORRISON, Elizabeth

J.paul Getty Museum

From around 1250 to the close of the fifteenth century, the most important and original work being done in secular illumination was unquestionably in French vernacular history manuscripts. This volume celebrates the vivid historical imagery produced during these years by bringing together some of the finest masterpieces of illumination created in the Middle Ages. It is the first major publication to focus on exploring the ways in which text and illumination worked together to help show medieval readers the role and purpose of history. The images enabled the past to come alive before the eyes of medieval readers by relating the adventures of epic figures such as Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, and even the Virgin Mary.
Presented here are approximately fifty-five manuscripts from over twenty-five libraries and museums across the United States and Europe, supplemented by medieval objects ranging from tapestries to ivory boxes. Together they show how historical narratives came to play a decisive role at the French court and in the process inspired some of the most original and splendid artworks of the time. Additional contributors to this volume include Élisabeth Antoine, R. Howard Bloch, Keith Busby, Joyce Coleman, Erin K. Donovan, and Gabrielle M. Spiegel.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hedeman, Anne D.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hedeman, Anne D.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hedeman, Anne D.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Of Counselors and Kings: The Three Versions of Pierre Salmon's Dialogues (Illinois Medieval Studies)

Visual Translation: Illuminated Manuscripts and the First French Humanists (Conway Lectures in Medieval Studies)

The Royal Image: Illustrations of the Grandes Chroniques de France, 1274–1422 (California Studies in the History of Art)

Imagining the Past in France: History in Manuscript Painting, 1250-1500

Imagining the Past in France: History in Manuscript Painting, 1250-1500