The Eye of the Mind - Vision, Memory, and Meditation in Seventeenth-Century Ukrainian Preaching

In The Eye of the Mind, Maria Grazia Bartolini investigates how early modern Ukrainian preachers prompted their listeners to see and remember sermons by calling upon vision, memory, and mental imagery. With memorization recognized in Ukraine as a cognitive skill vital to the internalization of texts, these preachers, like their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, designed their sermons to enable listeners to see the subject matter as mental images and situate them in imaginary locations for easy recall.

Based on analysis of little-known printed and manuscript sources from the second half of the seventeenth century, Bartolini masterfully demonstrates how verbal and visual images within the sermon functioned as mnemonic devices that helped Ukrainian preachers construct and deliver sermons and evoked intellectual and emotional associations in the minds of the audience. The effect of this rhetorical practice, Bartolini argues, was to create a theatrum meditationis--a memory theater--in which the audience was encouraged to take part as spectators. By fully integrating intellectual history, visual studies, and rhetorical analysis, The Eye of the Mind provides a unique perspective on seventeenth-century religious orators and their audiences in Ukraine and beyond.

About the author

Maria Grazia Bartolini is Associate Professor of medieval Slavic culture and Slavic linguistics at the University of Milan. She was awarded the 2019 Ivan Franko International Prize for her book, Piznai samoho sebe.

Product details

• Authors: Maria Grazia Bartolini
• Publisher: University Presses
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 11.08.2026
• EAN: 9780674305847
• ISBN: 978-0-674-30584-7
• No. of pages: 260
• Series: Harvard Ukrainian Studies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Middle Ages; Ukraine, Europe, Eastern Europe, European History, RELIGION / Christian Ministry / Preaching, HISTORY / Europe / Eastern, Christianity, Medieval History, European history: medieval period, middle ages, HISTORY / Europe / Medieval, Religious social and pastoral thought and activity, Christian social thought & activity, HISTORY / Europe / Ukraine, Ukrainian Church; Preaching; Visual Memory; Sermons; Ukraine