RIHA Journal
About the Journal
Journal of the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art

The RIHA Journal was launched in 2010 by The International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art (RIHA). It is a peer-reviewed and open access e-journal devoted to the full range of the history of art and visual culture. The RIHA Journal especially welcomes papers on topics relevant from a supra-local perspective, articles that explore artistic interconnections or cultural exchanges, or engage with important theoretical questions that are apt to animate the discipline. As a collective endeavor, the RIHA Journal seeks to share knowledge and materials issued by scholars of all nationalities, and by doing so, to make a significant contribution to dissolving the boundaries between scholarly communities. Languages of publication are English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish.
Current Issue
Vol. 17 No. 2 (2026): RIHA Journal
Special Issue
Mendicants, Humanists and the Aesthetics of the 'civitas'.
Rhetoric, Political Debates and Cultural Identity in 14th and 15th Century Italy and their Impact on Art, Architecture, and Urban Space
Guest-edited by Claudia Jentzsch and Katharine Stahlbuhk
This special issue examines the role of mendicant orders in the formation of humanist culture and urban identity. Based on a 2021 conference at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, it brings together six case studies on Italian Dominicans, Franciscans, and Carmelites. The contributions explore how friars engaged with civic values through preaching, texts, architecture, and artistic patronage. By focusing on the concept of civitas, the volume highlights the close interaction between convents, urban communities, and humanist thought.
Table of Contents
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Contents
Introduction to Special Issue
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Preface
Articles
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"Arma praedicatorum sunt auctoritates sumptae de libris" Visual Expressions of the Mendicant-Humanist Dialectic among the Friars Preachers
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Humanistic Rhetoric and the Aesthetics of Cities in the Chapter Preaching of Mendicant Orders (Italy, Late 14th–15th Centuries)
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Una reggia nel convento: gli appartamenti papali di Santa Maria Novella nel Quattrocento
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Giovanni Caroli and the New Humanist Aesthetics
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"L'Aquila, magnifica citade": Fashioning a Center of Franciscan Observance in the Abruzzo Region
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Humanismus light? Karmeliterpredigten und -reden des 15. Jahrhunderts und ihr Einfluss auf die "civitas"


