Book of the day: "Suffer the Middle Ages" - whimsical drawings of ancient manuscripts with commentaries of historians

"Suffer the Middle Ages" - a real phenomenon in the modern book publishing. Firstly, the publishing house "AST" itself invited the authors to make it, which is rare. Most often the other way around: writers pester, urging to release their work. Secondly, even before the book was published the number of pre-orders exceeded 5000. The first black-and-white copies were printed at the beginning of 2018 and instantly shattered. In January 2019 it was released a deluxe edition with color illustrations and a new cover.

"Suffer the Middle Ages" was born as a small Public for historians students who fasted drawings of medieval books, providing them with amusing captions. Yuri Saprykin, one of the group's founders, describes her So:

The essence of what we do - to catch and show the link between the medieval fun and a sketch what is happening in the life of modern people. Or by simply using the signature to make this scene absurd and comical.

The relevance of the raised and on what not similar sense of humor began to attract a wide variety of subscribers. Now Public has them about half a million. They are the main distributors of jokes about knights and their caring moms, dragons, most destructive

intimate momentsAnd strange medieval beasts.

Nevertheless, to the compilation of the book Public founders approached seriously and attracted historians Sergey Zotov and Michael Mayzulsa and Dilshat Harman - a specialist in Western European art.

The result was a unique encyclopedia of Christian iconography with lots of illustrations and comments to it. The authors included not only historical reference but modern discoveries in this area. Middle Ages in their version appears to the reader from an unexpected quarter: it turns out, not only the monks prayed and suffered for days. Sense of humor they were not alien. Even in the most sacred books, you can stumble upon the ambiguous figures: for example, the image of a centaur with a person instead of the buttocks or the woman in bed with polureptiliey-polubyk.

What modern readers it may seem strange, ugly and just disrespectful to the Christian shrines, while stockpiled in the archives and cherished.

Strange body in the most unexpected places, enlarged to ridiculous sizes of the genitals and trees with fruits in the form of a penis - it is only a small part of what awaits the reader on the pages of this book.

It has three thematic sections. In the first, "animal", shows a strange animal-like monsters and people with animals attributes such as horns and tails. Second, the "human", dedicated to Jesus, his family and his various guises: Jesus the carpenter, doctor Jesus, Jesus, man. The last section, "The Divine", predictably introduces the religious side art: Hell, heaven, hell, the saints and the Apocalypse.

The authors pay special attention to detail and symbolism. For example, explain why the fields near a painting depicting a Roman warrior who chops off the head of St. Paul, an unnamed monk painted the same warrior, but now his victim advocates hare. In the explanation to the picture indicates that these animals are associated with cowardice and the duality of nature - creation, without hardness in thoughts and actions. In another picture growing on tree phalluses that collect nuns, refer to the sinful fruit that Eve tasted.

Given that today's books on medieval art is not very much, it is a historical and cultural event, past which can not pass. It expected that in 2018 the book won the prestigious award "enlightener"In the" humanities. "

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