UC Irvine

During the overlapping periods of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, a number of political and cultural shifts occurred across Europe, the Mediterranean, and Western Asia. These changes led to the development of new kingdoms across the European subcontinent, and new forms of expressing power and authority through art and architecture. This project explores the meanings of these new artistic forms and the ways in which they were created across political, geographic, and cultural borders. By focusing on one geo-political entity, the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo, this dissertation connects the art and architecture of Visigothic royal power to wider scholarly conversations around the nature of cross-cultural or transcultural exchange, the use of visual media in the propagation of political agendas, and the uses of the historical past in late antique and early medieval art.