Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier
Lauren Arnold of Mountain View was inspired to write "Princely Gifts and Papal Treasures" while enrolled in a Stanford course in Chinese painting.
Special to the Town Crier
Lauren Arnold of Mountain View is the author of a book illuminating an ancient cultural interchange between East and West. The just-published book, "Princely Gifts and Papal Treasures: The Franciscan Mission to China and its Impact on the Art of the West 1250-1350," sheds new light on gifts the Pope and the Chinese Emperor sent each other, and the way these affected the art history of both empires.
Arnold, 49, is an independent scholar in art history and a research associate with the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at the University of San Francisco. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees from University of Michigan.
Arnold's book had its beginnings seven years ago, when Arnold enrolled in a Stanford course in Chinese painting. "My specialty is medieval Italian art," she said, "and I saw elements in the Chinese paintings that looked Italian to me. I got a hunch - was there a connection?"
Scholars have long known about the "Silk Road" trading that went on between the East and West in the 13th and 14th centuries. But Arnold, researching in the Vatican Library and Archives, discovered that it was Franciscan missionary friars who traveled between Rome and Beijing and bore gifts to and from the monarchs, and is the first to compile documentation of many of these treasures - hence the title of her book.
Arnold found an ancient painting, long thought lost by Western scholars, of one such gift, a magnificent horse the Pope sent to the emperor of China. The emperor was so taken with it that he had artists paint the occasion and compose an ode to the "Heavenly Horse." She documents this and other works of art in her book.
Christ Episcopal Church, 1040 Border Road, will host Arnold's free premiere presentation of her research on two Wednesdays: at 7:30 tonight and on Sept. 29. Copies of her book will be available for purchase on Sept. 29. For more information, call Cornelia Lovette at 941-6058.