Alberto Virdis, Colors in Medieval Art: Theories, Matter, and Light from Suger to Crosseteste (1100–1250). Convivia, III. Rome: Vielle, and Brno: Masaryk University Press, 2023, 397 pp., numerous colored ill.

Medieval Studies are progressing today because we are increasingly embracing interdisciplinary approaches and also accepting the notion that we need to pursue, as much as that is possible, global perspectives. As far as interdisciplinarity is concerned, we can clearly observe how new insights result when we consider the contexts of literary texts, of stained glass windows, mystical accounts, or chronicles. No sources from that time period (or from beyond) exist within a vacuum, so it proves to be truly exciting when scholars offer new understandings of the material dimensions of medieval art, literature, music, religion, and architecture, for instance. For quite some time, the aspect of color has intrigued many different scholars (see the 2-vols. collection of articles edited by Ingrid Bennewitz and Andrea Schindler,