The Early Architectural History of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926. Folio (12 1/2 inches tall), original half cloth with gilt spine, gray paper boards. Gentle bumping to lower corners, slight marginal crease to corner of folding plan. A nearly-fine copy. Item #1740
"AND THIS CHURCH, FROM THE TIME IT WAS BEGUN UNTIL THE PRESENT DAY, HAS FLOURISHED IN GLORY OF THE MIRACLES OF BLESSED JAMES"
First edition of this history of Santiago de Compostela—Kenneth John Conant's first book—based on his Harvard doctoral dissertation supervised by Arthur Kingsley Porter. Published by Harvard University Press and illustrated with a frontispiece photograph ("West Front of the Cathedral") and an appendix of captioned plates. This copy includes the large folding plan—"Measured and Drawn by Kenneth John Conant 1924"—printed in red-black-and-yellow.
"Regarded by World War II as the leading medieval archaeologist in North America...Conant' s name will always be linked with his lifelong work and publications on Cluny in Burgundy in eastern France, the center of the greatest monastic movement of the Middle Ages. His interest began before the completion of his doctoral dissertation on Santiago de Compostela, published in 1926. At the suggestion of his thesis advisor, the charismatic Arthur Kingsley Porter, Conant appraised the site of the largely destroyed abbey and grasped its potential for archaeological investigation. Work began in 1927, funded through the newly founded Medieval Academy of America, and preoccupied Conant for the next fifty years, culminating only in 1968 with the publication of his monograph on the monastery" (Peter Fergusson).
'Based on his dissertation, Conant earlier work captures something of the devotional culture compelling the medieval pilgrims to journey to Compostela. "With that flowering of art in the last third of the eleventh century which gave the world the great churches of the Pilgrimage Roads, came the splendid basilica of the Apostle himself." I. The Beginnings of the Church and Pilgrimage, II. The Great Romanesque Cathedral, III. The Modification, Extension, and Disguise of the Romanesque Cathedral, IV. Description of the Cathedral from the Twelfth-Century Pilgrims Guide. With Conant's short Preface: "And this church, from the time it was begun until the present day, has flourished in glory of the Miracles of Blessed James." With an Index. Peter Fergusson. Medieval Architectural Scholarship in America, 1900-1940: Ralph Adams Cram and Kenneth John Conant. (Studies in the History of Art, vol. 35, 1990).
Price: $250.00