Issue/s in progress
CREATING AN IMPRINT, CREATING AN IMAGE. WAX SEALS AND REPRESENTATION OF GONZALO DE AGUILAR, ARCHBISHOP OF TOLEDO (ca. 1300-1353)
- María Dolores Teijeira Pablos
In the last 50 years, the History of Art has undergone a deep renewal that has entailed the expansion of both the typologies under study and the ways of approaching its scientific research, mainly based on the prominence given to the image and visual culture.
This article analyzes a type of artifact that has not usually been studied from the perspective of art history, but that has much to contribute to our current knowledge of the construction and reproduction of the figurative image in the Middle Ages: the wax seal. In this case, two imprints belonging to Gonzalo Pérez de Aguilar (ca. 1300-1353), bishop of Cuenca and Sigüenza and archbishop of Santiago de Compostela and Toledo, are studied; they combine the traditional figure of authority linked to the wax seal as an instrument of documentary validation, with innovations produced during the process of configuring individual identity, and its representation, in the Middle Ages.