In the first half of the twelfth century, all Benedictine monks, penned defences of Christian art. This chapter discusses the three functions, namely didactic, affective, anagogic, were those most frequently evoked by medieval theologians. Yet these approaches barely begin to describe the manifold uses to which images were put. The chapter offers the role of images in high-medieval Christianity. It also provides such traditional art-historical considerations as patronage and commission, style and iconography, and shows how people viewed and used the images around them. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, sculptures and paintings seemed to absorb the holy powers traditionally attributed to relics, inspiring quite new kinds of image-based venerations. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were the heyday of the religious image. Image-based devotions had always had a strong tactile element, and in the later Middle Ages art more than ever facilitated the physical expression of religious feeling.

This chapter summarizes the characteristics of classic Achaemenian art as they are revealed in the principal monuments. The proudest monument of Persian art, Persepolis, whose ancient name was Parsa, owed its existence to Darius, a scion of a secondary line of Achaemenians. The combination of truly floral and geometrical motifs in these richly ornamented columns of Persepolis is in contrast to the strictly architectural development which eastern Mediterranean elements like scrolls and hanging sepals have taken in Ionian structures. The Apadana at Persepolis consisted of an immense columnar hall, as well as the furniture store-rooms which were accommodated at the back. The text of the Elamite inscription contained detailed references to the sources of building materials employed in the structure, as well as to craftsmen of different nationalities. In order to view the reliefs and sculptures in the round found at Persepolis and Susa in a stylistic sequence, the earlier works of Darius at Blsutun and Pasargadae must be mentioned.