What happens when the colossal figures of myth and legend stride into the heart of the medieval cityscape? Assaf Pinkus’s Giants in the Medieval City offers a comprehensive and visually impressive exploration of the prominent role of giant figures in the art and imagination of the late medieval period north of the Alps. The book’s incisive analysis focuses on the intriguing phenomenon of giant representations, asserting that these figures, far from mere monstrous anomalies, played a crucial role in shaping cultural perceptions, political metaphors, and the very concept of the sublime in early modern visual culture.
Moving beyond traditional iconographic studies, Pinkus, in collaboration with Noeit Williger, Orly Amit, and Michal Ozeri, delves into the “Colossus imagination” (9)—the network of cultural associations evoked by representations of giants in both sacred and secular context, encompassing a range of cultural associations and expectations linked to the material, medium, and subject of these figures. Rather than simply illustrating specific textual characters, the book argues that these artistic depictions embodied a broader contemporary understanding—often ambiguous, mutable, and associated with foreign, liminal realms and supernatural attributes, ultimately bridging mythological, biblical, and contemporary narratives to generate novel political meanings and embodying the paradoxical medieval sublime—simultaneously abject and magnificent.
Organized into six chapters, the book explores a specific phenomenon related to the visualization and experience of giants. Chapter 1 establishes the ontological foundations, examining the moral and geographic liminality of giants and their initial association with evil, using the frescoes in the Church of St. Jacob in Kastelatz (c. 1215) as an early example where even “modest in their actual size” giants were imbued with the notional and ontological category of the gigantic (25). The chapter presents a wealth of research on giants, organized under several subheadings that address gender and violence as well as religion and salvation. Since the main analysis focuses on the frescoes in St. Jacob, the author looks not only at the spatial but also the temporal status of the giants. He provides an important link between material culture and literature. In fact, his analysis of these frescoes, with his solid background in religion and literature, constitutes a significant and welcome addition to the scholarly discourse. The reproductions of the frescoes in this book are exquisite. Chapter 2 then explores the “phenomenological aspect of viewing giants,” focusing on the “late medieval scaling turn”—the manipulation of relational sizing and its impact on the viewer’s bodily perception, using the elaborate visual narrative at Schloss Runkelstein as a key example of giants depicted in both colossal and scaled imagery. Pinkus’s analysis here focuses on the “visual configuration of the giants and their properties,” ultimately connecting the images and materiality of the castle to the very real change in societal strata in the fifteenth century (72). Woven into this analysis is the contrast between the giants’ differing portrayals as wild monsters and chivalric representatives. His idea of the “late medieval scaling turn” connects the symbolic representation of the giant with architecture (on a grand scale) down to miniatures, drawing inspiration from Susan Stewart (96).
The following chapters investigate specific manifestations of the “Colossus imagination.” Chapter 3 analyzes the renowned Roland statue in Bremen, illustrating its function as a protective urban symbol that bridges the gap between its name and identity as an epochal giant. The revival of ancient giant sculpture and the interwoven associations with classical Mediterranean and Nordic giants, Pinkus suggests, fostered a notion of culturally embedded gigantism in the medieval viewer, transforming the sculpture into an “imagined living and protective presence” (26-27). In the minds of its citizens, the Roland statues serve as spiritual and magical protection for the city. Here, Pinkus draws on animism and mythology to provide a framework for the meaning of these statues. Chapter 4, a collaboration with Noeit Williger, examines the numerous Roland figures in the German-speaking realm, demonstrating how their accompanying visual elements alluded to a broader legendary world, including dwarfs, apotropaic symbols, and even pagan heroes and monsters. In this context, the authors delineate the presence of giants and dwarfs as a dualistic fundamental tension that helped medieval society frame violence, chaos, and matters of identity in a symbolic and mythological framework.
Orly Amit’s Chapter 5 analyzes the naming and identity of London’s giants within the context of civic narratives constructed through royal processions, highlighting their symbolic role in representing civic and juridical authority, similar to the Roland statues. They function as a narrative link between the city of London and its monarch. Amit investigates the meaning of the Agincourt giants via the backdrop of “cultural, mythical, and biblical” contexts (194). Chapter 6, by Michal Ozeri, conceptualizes giants as fundamental to the world’s cosmogenesis in various cultural traditions, from their role in establishing biblical order to their portrayal as primordial matter in Norse and Asian myths, and examines the St. Christopher paintings along Alpine pilgrimage routes as protectors of travelers. Ozeri turns to the sublime as a means of analysis. With depictions of St. Christopher changing from a cynocephalus to a giant, he focuses on the relationship between God’s authority, salvation, and the sublime. Although not quite a giant in the city, the images accompanying this chapter position St. Christopher in the sublimity of the Alpine landscape and on the edges of Tyrolean towns. Ozeri finds that St. Christopher, as a Christian giant, “stands tall in the ancestral wilderness of the giants as the ultimate expression of the sublime” (234).
Pinkus emphasizes the book’s interdisciplinary approach, aiming to integrate broad theoretical perspectives with detailed analyses of individual works to illuminate the late medieval imaginary of legendary beings. While contributing unique insights, each chapter seamlessly flows into the book’s main scope and informs the others. The richness of the information on all things gigantic, combined with the visual evidence and its geographical and temporal situatedness, makes this book stand out.
The epilogue, “More Good Than Evil,” synthesizes the book’s findings, proposing that giants were objects of both fascination and admiration in late medieval Europe, particularly in the German-speaking area. While associated with “bestiality, pagan magic and the foreign races” at the fringes of the medieval world, they also occupied central spaces, acting as a “mediating link” between various dichotomies: human and monstrous, scaled and out of scale, savage and virtuous, past and present, paganism and Christianity, and nature and the divine (246). Pinkus suggests that as liminal creatures, giants served as surrogates for the rising civic class and lower aristocracy, embodying their struggle for recognition, and he comments that the initial need to conquer giants to establish a new social order was eventually inverted, with the upwardly mobile classes becoming the “Giants,” challenging the old structures. The subsequent miniaturization or expulsion of giant figures during the Renaissance reflects the evolving social and intellectual landscape of the time.
Demonstrating a logical progression of ideas, Pinkus’s analysis is well-supported by the cited textual passages and the visual evidence within the book. He provides a compelling theoretical framework for understanding the multifaceted cultural impact of these representations. Pinkus argues for the significance of these images and statues, showing how they moved beyond mere art to become potent political metaphors and embodiments of complex theological and philosophical ideas. The evident enthusiasm of the author and co-writers for their subject, combined with the detailed background history and research, strengthens the book’s overall impact. Its ambitious scope, nuanced analysis of the gigantic as a cultural construct, and interdisciplinary approach, integrating theoretical perspectives with specific visual examples, are notable strengths.
While the book examines giants in cities, it also considers their presence in castles and mountains. Pinkus presents a compelling argument about the evolution of the giant from a natural and malevolent presence in early mythology and intellectual thought to a benevolent and protective figure later and to their eventual return to the landscape. Therefore, the book’s title might not be as fully justified as the author suggests. However, despite the slight discrepancy in the title, the book seamlessly integrates itself into past and current scholarship and adds perspective. Visual culture, especially when examining mythological and monstrous beings, is essential to a comprehensive understanding of how early modern society conceptualized and utilized these creatures. Pinkus and his co-writers’ analyses of murals, statues, and other artistic depictions contribute to the existing scholarship by combining material culture with literary expressions. Giants in the Medieval City offers a rich and insightful exploration of an aspect of late medieval visual culture, illustrating the complex and evolving import of giant figures and revealing their capacity to embody a wide range of cultural anxieties, aspirations, and imaginings. The book’s strength lies in its compelling analysis, interdisciplinary approach, and stunning visual documentation; its high-quality color illustrations are essential for appreciating the visual arguments presented. The volume will, therefore, resonate strongly with scholars of medieval art, history, literature, and cultural studies, as well as anyone intrigued by the enduring power of the gigantic in the human imagination.