Lecture: Considering Withdrawal in Images of the Vitae patrum (Lives of the Desert Fathers), Denva Gallant, at Harvard University, 13 Oct. 2025 5:30-7:00PM

Houghton-Medieval Studies Lecture on Early Book History

Considering Withdrawal in Images of the Vitae patrum (Lives of the Desert Fathers)

Denva Gallant (Rice University)

Edison & Newman Room, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

October 13, 2025, 5:30- 7:00PM ET

Co-sponsored by Houghton Library and the Standing Committee on Medieval Studies.

The Desert Fathers and Mothers defined their lives through acts of withdrawal. Anthony the Abbot’s withdrawal from the fringes of his village to the desert inspired a generation of ascetics and gave rise to an entire genre of hagiography, the vita. Through a close analysis of the lives of Onuphrius and Marina the Virgin, this talk by Denva Gallant explores how Morgan Library MS. M.626 teaches the fourteenth-century viewer to cultivate a rich inner life. Produced at a moment when lay Christians, like Giordano’s audience on the first Sunday of Lent, were being invited to withdraw to private “deserts” in their own homes, the illuminations in this manuscript promote the virtue of total reliance on God—a posture that is essential if withdrawal is to lead to salvation. 

For more information, visit https://medieval.fas.harvard.edu/event/houghton-medieval-studies-lecture-early-book-history-12