This revised edition incorporates the additions and corrections recorded by Erwin Panofsky until the time of his death in 1968. Gerda Panofsky-Soergel has updated the commentary in the light of new material, and the bibliography that she has prepared reflects the scholarship on St.-Denis in the last three decades. She has obtained some additional and more recent photographs, and the illustrations include a new ground plan and a new section of the chevet of the Abbey Church, both drawn under the supervision of Sumner McKnight Crosby.

Translated with Introduction and Notes by Richard Cusimano and Eric Whitmore Suger, the twelfth century abbot of Saint-Denis, has not received the respect and attention that he deserves. Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable have garnered more attention, and students of medieval history know their names well. In one respect, however, Suger has earned due praise, for his architectural innovations to the church of Saint-Denis made it truly one of the most beautiful churches in Europe. Students of history and architecture know Suger best for his work on Saint-Denis, the burial site of medieval French kings, queens, and nobility. The abbot enlarged, decorated, improved, and redesigned the building so beautifully that it is safe to say that he became the foremost church architect of twelfth-century France. The man, however, was so much more than an architect. He served as a counselor and member of the courts of King Louis VI and VII, who sent him across Europe on diplomatic missions. He represented those kings at the papal curia and imperial diets. He was also a close friends and confidante of King Henry I of England, whom he often visited on behalf of French royal interests. Never shy, Suger seems almost obsessed that his works and deeds not be forgotten. He acquired numerous properties and estates for his abbey, as well as improved the ones it already possessed. He built new buildings, barns, walls for villages, and increased the return of grain from all the abbey’s lands. Readers interested in the medieval agricultural system and way of life will also enjoy these texts. Suger’s texts also provide a wealth of information about the events of his era as well as a large amount of biographical material on his accomplishments. This translation of his writings intends to enhance his reputation and make his name better known by students at all levels and among those interested in medieval topics.

Based on a fresh reading of primary sources, Lindy Grant's comprehensive biography of Abbot Suger (1081-1151) provides a reassessment of a key figure of the twelfth century. Active in secular and religious affairs alike - Suger was Regent of France and also abbot of one of the most important abbeys in Europe during the time of the Gregorian reforms. But he is primarily remembered as a great artistic patron whose commissions included buildings in the new Gothic style. Lindy Grant reviews him in all these roles - and offers a corrective to the current tendency to exaggerate his role as architect of both French royal power and the new gothic form.

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"Suger, abbot of the French abbey of Saint-Denis, lived from 1081 to 1151. This book of essays about his life and achievements grew out of a symposium sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art and by Columbia University ... For the symposium, twenty-three medieval scholars from all parts of the world, representing a wide range of humanistic disciplines, were brought together to discuss the varied nature of Suger's activities. Suger has been best known for his contributions as a patron of art and architecture ... As the essays in this volume devoted to Suger's political activities and historical writings demonstrate, he was, in addition to being a brilliantly innovative patron of architecture, an important architect of the French state. Only by bringing together differing humanistic perspectives on Suger and Saint-Denis has it been possible to achieve, for the first time, a fully rounded appreciation of a man who was, at the same time, a patron of the arts and literature, a politician who adroitly used his ecclesiastical position to enhance the growth and power of the monarchy, and a churchman consistently devoted to the promotion of the cult of Saint-Denis, the patron saint of his abbey and of France"--From publisher's description.

"Three eyewitnesses of Gothic. Villard de Honnecourt: ymagier and interlocutor ; Possessing Villard ; The role of the interlocutor in the Villard enterprise ; Animating the artifact ; Animating the beholder ; Controlling the artifact ; Conclusion: deceit and desire in the Villard enterprise ; Gervase of Canterbury: cronicus and logistics man ; Storytelling ; Mnemonics: remembering the old ; The means of production: controlling the new ; Old and new reconciled ; Apocryphal storytelling: a building that "speaks" ; Conclusion: signs, miracles, and illusionism ; Suger, abbot of S-Denis, and the rhetoric of persuasion: manipulating reality and producing meaning ; Rhetorical structure of de consecratione: manipulated dialectic ; Production of the text: from oral to written ; Making connections ; Production of the new church, production of salvation ; Apocryphal stories ; Conclusion: the abbot who spoke the building -- Staking out the plot. Interlocutor and monument ; Material contexts: the means of production ; How on earth did they do that? ; Economic means ; Reading the signs: construction history ; The production of meaning ; Similitude to nature; local roots ; Similitude to other buildings ; Modernism and reason ; An image of heaven ; Conclusion -- Animating the plot. Picturing the three agents of construction ; The cathedral as object of desire ; Triangulating desire ; The gap between vision and realization ; Compression and expansion: plotting ; My desire ; Conclusion: Gothic plots' synchronic, diachronic, and spatial."