It’s a time of personal renaissance as I immerse myself in the Middle Ages using several resources:
C.S. Lewis’s The Discarded Image,
Teofilio Ruiz’s Teaching Company lecture series Medieval Europe: Crisis and Renewal;
Johan Huizinga’s classic, The Autumn of the Middle Ages.
I finished Cantor’s book last week and picked up Autumn last night. It is my habit to become familiar with a new book: by reading the contents and introduction, looking at the layout, glancing at the 40+ plates of artwork, reading random paragraphs, and scanning the notes and index. Huizinga wrote about life, thought and art in the fourteenth and fifteenth century France and Netherlands.
The Passionate Intensity of Life
The Craving for a More Beautiful Life
The Heroic Dream
The Forms of Love
The Vision of Death
The Depiction of the Sacred
The Pious Personality
Religious Excitation and Religious Fantasy
The Decline of Symbolism
The Failure of Imagination
The Forms of Thought and Practice
Art in Life
Image and Word
The Coming of a New Form
A Living Pencil 