Gustaf Sobin 
Ladder of Shadows 
Reflecting on Medieval Vestige in Provence and Languedoc

Bits of late Roman coinage, the mutilated torso of a marble Venus, blue debris from an early medieval glassworks, and the powder rasped from the reputed tomb of Mary Magdalene—these tantalizing mementos of human history found scattered throughout the landscape of southeastern France are the points of departure for Gustaf Sobin’s lyrical narrative. A companion volume to his acclaimed
Luminous Debris, Ladder of Shadows picks up where the former left off: with late antiquity, covering a period from roughly the third to the thirteenth century. Here Sobin offers brilliant readings of late Roman and early Christian ruins in his adopted region of Provence, sifting through iconographic, architectural, and sacramental vestiges to shed light on nothing less than the existential itself.

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Foreword, by Michael Ignatieff

Introduction


Apt: Reading an Antique City as Palimpsest


Desolate Treasure


Crypto-Christianity: The Sarcophagi of Arles, I


Terra Sigillata


Relics: Membra Martyrum as Living Current


Venus Disfigured


The Blossoming of Numbers: The Baptistery at Riez


The Deletion of Shadow: The Sarcophagi of Arles, II


City of God


Laying the Dragon Low


The Dark Ages: A History of Omissions


The Blue Tears of Sainte-Marthe


The Blind Arcade: Reflections on a Carolingian Sarcophagus


Celestial Paradigms


Vaulting the Nave


The Dome: Architecture as Antecedent


Classical Roots, Evangelical Branches


Vanished Scaffolds and the Structures Thereof


Incastellamento: Perching the Village, I


Incastellamento: Perching the Village, II

(The Circulades of Languedoc)


Faja Oscura


Psalmodi


The Fifth Element: From Manna to Exaction


Mary Magdalene the Odoriferous


The Death of Genesis


Notes

Index

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Gustaf Sobin (1935-2005) was a poet, novelist, and essayist. His books include the novel The Fly-Truffler and Luminous Debris: Reflecting on Vestige in Provence and Languedoc (UC Press).