"Trabajo, descanso y refrigerio estival: un topos griego en el calendario medieval hispano"

Abstract

In the earliest Greek calendar -Hesiod's Works and Days-, the author puts particular emphasis on the fatigue and thirst of the peasant labouring in canicular heat. In the Ancient calendars, whether illuminated with miniatures or mosaics, this literary motif became a figurative topos in the nude and seminuede personifications of Summer and August resting, fanning themselves or taking refreshment. The sam subjet survived as a representation of August in Byzantine art and literature. At the end of the 12th century it was incorporated into Italian and Spanish calendars as a consequence of the expansion of Byzantine models that characterized the art of the period, and which resulted in a wide range of themes related to the Greek tradition appearing in the calendar cycles of this period.