Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages: Exploring a Connected World (Cornell University Press, 2022) is the first textbook to dismantle the religious, political, and geographical walls that have separated medieval art and architecture into three distinct categories. It treats not only western Europe, the focus of most surveys; it also considers the Byzantine Empire and nine hundred years of art in the Islamicate world, beginning with the emergence of the new faith in the seventh century. These three categories—Islamic, Byzantine, and western European—are not treated as separate entities, without connections or contemporaneity; they are interwoven in a single chronological framework. The book also addresses religious and ethnic groups who rarely appear in introductory texts. This expanded view establishes the wide scope of visual, artistic, and architectural experiences in the Middle Ages among disparate makers, users, and viewers.
The website complements the book rather than duplicating it; it features galleries of medieval objects, buildings, and cities, selected for their relevance to contemporary interests and events, such as recent discoveries or interpretations. Each work is discussed and tagged in ways that will support classroom projects and student research, while also fostering interest in the field. Some features focus on pedagogy (plans, maps, timelines, glossary, translated primary sources), and others illuminate connections between medieval art and real-world professional practitioners (the podcast series Medieval Art Matters).
The website is updated regularly.