Ikonographie und Kult der hl. Katharina von Alexandrien im Mittelalter Fakultät für Geschichts- und Kunstwissenschaften - Digitale Hochschulschriften der LMU

This interdisciplinary study focusses on the narrative representations of the legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria during the Middle Ages, the scope reaching from the earliest known images in the 8th century until ca. 1500.
Based on a collection of 176 pictorial cycles of the Vita Sanctae Catharinae, as well as 163 isolated scenes and 52 early representations of the saint as a standing figure, the development of the iconography is being retraced in relation to contemporary texts of the saint's legend and locations of special veneration for Saint Catherine. In-depth analyses cover:
a) the emergence of the saint's legend and its dissemination until the appearance of the first pictorial representations,
b) the development of the legend until 1500,
c) the various types of iconographic formulations of specific scenes and the question of an "archetype cycle"
d) the new aspects introduced to the legend by the mystic marriage (the so called "sposalizio mistico") of Saint Catherine and the development of the iconography of this pictorial theme,
e) the pictorial representations of Saint Catherine's childhood in the 15th century,
f)late medieval characteristics of Catherine pictures such as mass-production and images in books of hours.
A main benefit of this study lies in the second, the catalogue volume, where all the picture cycles, isolated images and images of the standing saint are described in detail. Documented are also almost 750 textual records and evidence of liturgical and public devotion to Saint Catherine such as church or altar dedications and relics.