Cecily J. Hilsdale, Northwestern University
Cecily J. Hilsdale teaches Medieval Art at Northwestern University. Her ongoing research concerns cultural exchange in the medieval world, in particular the circulation of Byzantine luxury objects as diplomatic gifts. Her recent Art Bulletin article examined an illuminated Greek manuscript in the Vatican and its function as a didactic book for a French bride’s introduction to court life in Constantinople, exploring the status of art objects and their potential for social agency. Her book project questions the relationship between political decline and artistic strength through an analysis of Byzantine diplomatic gifts sent from Constantinople to such distant courts as Paris and Moscow from the thirteenth to fifteenth century. These Byzantine art objects, created in an era most often characterized in terms of economic and political decline, are uniquely poised to capture the tensions between artistic vibrancy and diminishing political and economic leverage. Critically expanding our understanding of cultural exchange, her book questions how the concept of decline re-figures categories of wealth and value, categories which lie at the core of cultural exchange.