Pilgrims, Portals and the Promise of Salvation
Vibeke Olson, Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, will speak about the ways in which Gothic portals were used by those who lived with them and visited them. The Cathedral was central to medieval urban living: plays were performed before them, markets were held in their squares, and those who lived and worked in the cities passes by them many times a day. These portals served as an information clearing house and may have been used to instruct those who gathered before them. Professor Olson will describe some of the ways that these elaborate iconographic programs would have been seen, read and interpreted by those who lived in the city and pilgrims as well as others who would have been passing through.
