Rosemary Power

‘The great Book of Columcille, the chief relic of the western world’

The Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript of the late eighth century

Fimmtudaginn 19. september 2024 kl. 16.30 / Thursday, September 19, 2024, at 16.30
Edda 218

The Book of Kells was apparently conceived in the late eighth century in honour of the bi-centenary of the death of Iona’s founding saint, Columcille, latinised Columba. It is a Gospel book with preliminary material and numerous illuminations consisting of ‘portraits’, full-page text images and minor passage-markers. They use an extensive palette, and refer to both the text and to each other through intricate yet visibly delightful concepts. The paper considers briefly the life of Columcille as known through an early Vita and other writings; his journey from Ireland to the Hebridean island of Iona, now part of Scotland; the influences that persisted in the monastic community he founded there and on its daughter-houses throughout the Gaelic-speaking world and beyond; and the reasons the book was taken to Kells in Ireland and later to Dublin. Battered and incomplete, it remains a remarkable work with evidence of widespread influences, both geographical and intellectual, which scholars have only recently began to interpret again.

The talk will focus on a small number of the images, demonstrating the multiple uses of colour; interpreting the intentions in terms of the very positive theology found in this Gospel book and in relation to some of the interpretations of the time; and the visual links between images.

Rosemary Power gained her doctorate on the Fornaldarsögur Norðurlanda and their Irish material. She has published academically on Norse-Gaelic literary links, Hebridean history in the Norse period, and folk tradition. She has also published some ten books for the general reader, including Image and vision: reflecting with the Book of Kells (Veritas, Dublin, 2022). Now retired, she works on the medieval pilgrimage routes between Donegal in Ireland and Iona; and is completing academic articles and a book on Vatnsdalur in the 1970s, a time when she lived there. She is an Associate Researcher of the University of Galway, Ireland.

Fyrirlesturinn verður haldinn á ensku og er öllum opinn. / The talk will be delivered in English and is open to all.

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