Bonanno di Pisa is, next to Barisano di Trani and Oderisius of Benevento, amongst the most renowned mediaeval Italian bronze casters. Bonanno is responsible for the biggest mediaeval metal door, the almost 8 m high main door of the Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily, built in 1185/1186, and the San Ranieri door of the Cathedral of Pisa, … More New paper on Bonanno’s doors out!

Judith Utz published her chapter “Travelling Doors. Medieval Bronze Doors in the Mediterranean” in the monograph “Travelling Matters across the Mediterranean“, ed. by Beatrice Falcucci, Emanuele Giusti, and Davide Trentacoste (Turnhout: Brepols, 2024), 73–101. The publication is Open Access; you can start reading the introduction here: Medieval Byzantine bronze doors in Italy (second half of … More New paper out!

We have recently completed the documentation of the last two doors: those of Pietro and Umberto di Piacenza in the Lateran Basilica in Rome. We were also allowed to analyse and photograph the “singing” doors of the fifth century in the battistero, which is said to be mentioned by Dante in his Divina Commedia (IX … More last doors documented

The bronze doors of the Basilica of San Zeno in Verona, Italy, are a special case in art history research. They were made by several workshops during the twelfth century: stylistically, two to three workshops were assumed to produce the metal parts of the door. However, it is still unclear when exactly and if this … More Fourth paper: the doors from San Zeno, Verona

So we finally did it! We have published our third project paper on the Byzantine doors of Novgorod. Unfortunately, we were not able to see and document them in person, so we had to rely on published sources. You can read the paper here!

Our international and interdisciplinary project workshop took place right next to the famous bronze (and brass!) doors of San Zeno, Verona, Italy. Valuable contributions from researchers in various fields – from art history, archaeology and conservation to materials science – enriched our knowledge of how and by what means the various doors were made, and … More Project workshop in Verona, 25-26 September

Our next paper was published in July 2023 in Plos One and is all about the two byzantine Bronze doors of San Marco, Venice. You can find it following by clicking here. Two 11th- and 12th-century entrance doors from the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, made of different copper alloys and woods, were non-invasively … More Second paper published

We participated this year at the annual International Medieval Congress in Leeds, UK. At our session, entitled “Linking medieval bronze doors: making, sensing, documentation”, we had three very interesting papers discussing different aspects of medieval doors: Heike Schlie talked about “The Iconology of Technique and Material in Medieval Bronze Doors”, while Martin Fera focused on … More The International Medieval Congress in Leeds, July 2023

In May we were finally able to go to Poland to document the bronze doors of Gniezno depicting the life and death of St Adalbert (Wojciech). I would like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Tomasz Węcławowicz: without him we would never have made it. The doors are stunning, both from an iconographic and … More May and June 2023: busy times

Our first paper (peer reviewed and Open Access) was just published: Makhortykh, S., Mödlinger, M., Utz, J. (2023). The 12th century Magdeburg bronze doors in Novgorod: an overview of Russian research. In: Kunstgeschichte. Open Peer Reviewed Journal, 2023: 605. (urn:nbn:de:bvb:355-kuge-605-0). Due to obvious reasons we could not document the bronze doors in Novgorod so instead we focused on the … More First paper published: Novgorod