Introduction / Amy S. Landau -- Public works and public lives: biographical sources for patrons, writers, and artists in the premodern Islamicate world / Paul Losensky -- What do inscriptions on objects do? Beyond calligraphy and textual history / Avinoam Shalem -- Transcultural trends, personal desires, and collective agendas / Sussan Babaie -- Great ladies and noble daughters: ivories and women in the Umayyad Court at Córdoba / Glaire D. Anderson, Mariam Rosser-Owen -- Administering art, history, and science in the Mongol Empire: Rashid al-Din and Bolad Chengxiang / Persis Berlekamp, Vivienne Lo, Wang Yidan -- Al-Nasir Muhammad and the formation of the Qalawunid State / Willem Flinterman, Jo Van Steenbergen -- Art and literature in Timurid Herat, 1469-1506: the life and times of Sultan 'Ali Mashhadi / David J. Roxburgh -- Reimagining the "Idol Temple of Hindustan": textual and visual translation of Sanskrit texts in Mughal India / Qamar Adamjee, Audrey Truschke -- Man, mode, and myth: Muhammad Zaman ibn Haji Yusuf / Amy S. Landau -- Armed and splendorous: the jeweled gun of Sultan Mahmud I / Bora Keskiner, Ünver Rüstem, Tim Stanley.

"Pearls on a String presents the arts of historical Islamic cultures by focusing on specific people and relationships among cultural tastemakers, especially painters, calligraphers, poets, and their patrons. Through a series of chapters, the book spotlights certain historical moments from across the Islamic world. Each chapter pivots around patrons and their social networks. These independent sections allow different voices and perspectives to emerge, enabling the reader to see that Islamic societies are not monolithic but made up of a tapestry of individuals with distinct and varying views. Pearls on a String pays particular attention to individuals from different sectors of society, giving voice to anonymous artists and translators, merchants, and women of the harem. Islamic historical sources reinforce the book's themes of writing in Islamic societies, artistic patronage, biographical traditions, and human"--Publisher.

Another copy Gleeson Library.

Treasures of heaven : saints, relics, and devotion in medieval Europe / edited by Martina Bagnoli [and others].

Issued in connection with an exhibition held Oct. 17, 2010-Jan. 17, 2011, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Feb. 13-May 15, 2011, the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, and June 23-Oct. 9, 2011, the British Museum, London.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 238-246) and index.

From tomb to altar -- Gathering the saints -- Ritual and performance -- Matter of faith -- Beyond the Middle Ages.

Drawing together an array of treasured objects from collections throughout Europe and the United States, this beautifully illustrated volume examines the medieval cult of relics- the physical remains of holy men and women, and things associated with them. Relics connected Christian faithful with sacred places and people who died as martyrs of their faith. Believed to contain the same power that had animated saints during their lifetime, relics bridged the gap between heaven and earth. To signal their sacred nature, medieval artists fashioned special containers for relics in precious materials and encrusted them with gems. Enshrined in alters of churches and used in the liturgy as well as in public rituals, relics functioned as objects of public and private devotion, carried home from pilgrimages to the Holy Land and sites throughout Europe or worn on the body as protective amulets enclosed in rings or pendants. In essays and catalogue entries, an international group of scholars traces the making of reliquaries from the earliest days of Christianity to the apogee of the practice in the sixteenth century, exploring how medieval artists invented new ways to express the power of sacred remains and the role that relics played in the development of the visual arts in both Eastern Christianity (Byzantium) and Western Christendom. This book also tracks the fate of relics and reliquaries in the wake of the Reformation, anti-clerical movements, and the French Revolution. This book sheds fascinating new light on some 140 extraordinary and rare reliquaries and related objects, including precious metalwork, paintings, sculptures, and illuminated manuscripts, from sources ranging from the Lateran Palace in Rome to European cathedral treasuries and small parish churches. -- from Book Jacket.