The Heavenly Jerusalem in Medieval Imagery and Imagination, 16:00–17:30 (Stockholm time), 7 May 2024.

In the fourth webinar of the At the End of the World research program’s series, Kristin B. Aavitsland and Lena Liepe will examine the various forms that the idea of the Heavenly Jerusalem took in medieval thought, with particular focus on medieval church art. The earthly Jerusalem was the principal locus of divine intervention in human history, while the future reality of the Heavenly Jerusalem, where the saved would rejoice eternally after the end of time, reached into the present of this world and was sacramentally actualized every celebration of Mass. A vital repertoire of the Last Judgement and the Heavenly Jerusalem; Aavitsland will present the concept of the Jerusalem Code, recently explored in a large research project of the same name: Liepe will outline the medieval idea of the physical church building as an image of the Heavenly Jerusalem.

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Kristin Bliksrud Aavitsland is Professor of Art history and Director at the Norwegian Institute in Rome, University of Oslo 

Lena Liepe is professor of art history and visual studies at the Linneaus University, Växjö. She specializes in the study of Nordic medieval art and architecture. She has published extensively on a wide range of topics, most recently on relics and relic use, and on museum displays of medieval ecclestastical art. Her research in the At the End of the World program focuses on the imagery of the Last Judgment and the afterlife as it unfolded in the churches of the North.