Professor Paul Crossley was an eminent British historian of medieval art and architecture. On account of a long and fruitful career in that field, he had the honour of being elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (1987), the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (Polska Akademia Umiejętności,1999) and the British Academy (2016).

Born in East Grinstead, Sussex, Paul Crossley graduated in 1967 from Trinity College, University of Cambridge with a degree in the history of art. He subsequently went on to write a doctoral thesis on fourteenth-century Polish Gothic architecture, under the supervision of Peter Kidson (Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London) and Lech Kalinowski (Jagiellonian University, Krakow). This thesis, undertaken during the Cold War, when research fieldwork in Eastern Europe by foreign scholars was severely curtailed by the Soviet imposition of the Iron Curtain, was successfully defended in 1973, paving the way for the gradual reintegration of Poland’s medieval architectural heritage within the canon of European art history.

Paul Crossley taught medieval art and architecture at the University of Manchester as Lecturer (from 1971) and Senior Lecturer (from 1981). In 1990, he took up a Senior Lectureship at the Courtauld Institute, where he later attained the rank of Professor (from 2002). Upon his retirement in 2011, he accepted a highly prestigious appointment as Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge (2011–12).

Prof. Crossley’s numerous publications concern various aspects of the study of medieval art and architecture, as much in Central and Eastern Europe (the German lands, Poland, Bohemia) as in the West (England and France). He wrote extensively on issues of ‘sacred topography’ and the ways in which the interplay of the liturgy, ritual and different artistic media (architecture, sculpture, stained glass, painting) conditioned medieval viewers’ experience of Gothic churches. Furthermore, he broached broader historiographical questions, such as the fortunes of Richard Krautheimer’s concept of the ‘iconography’ of medieval architecture. His best-known work, in which he combined detailed knowledge of medieval buildings and their literature on a Europe-wide scale with an insightful foray into the field’s historiography, was his substantial revision and annotation of Paul Frankl’s 1962 Pelican History of Art volume on Gothic Architecture (New Haven – London: Yale University Press, 2000). In his later career, he served as editor of the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (2000–11) and on the editorial and advisory boards of several book series and academic periodicals.

The rich collection of more than 1500 books that Prof. Crossley and his family bequeathed to the Stelios Ioannou Learning Resource Centre and Library of the University of Cyprus reflects his evolving research interests in the art of the European Middle Ages throughout his professional life, as well as his personal intellectual and artistic proclivities. As one would expect, the vast majority of these volumes represent texts on medieval architecture, art and history in a variety of languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Czech, Polish, and even Greek), yet one may also find select works on philosophy and music, two of Prof. Crossley’s abiding passions. Thus, the Crossley Collection may be regarded not only as an immensely generous gift to the fledgling library of the leading educational institution in a small country with an astounding Gothic architectural heritage, but also as a perennial testament to its donor’s wide-ranging erudition, philosophical bent and aesthetic culture.

For more information, consult the following appreciations of Prof. Crossley’s life, work and contribution to scholarship, offered by his colleagues and former students:

  • Liber Amicorum Paul Crossley: Architecture, Liturgy and Identity and Image, Memory and Devotion, eds Zoë Opačić and Achim Timmermann, 2 vols, Studies in Gothic Art 1–2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011).
  • Lesley Milner, ‘In Memoriam: Paul Crossley, 1945–2019’, International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) News, Summer 2020, no. 2, 12–14.
  • Tom Nickson, ‘Professor Paul Crossley (19 July 1945 – 12 December 2019)’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 173/1 (2020), 218–20.
  • Christopher Wilson, ‘Obituaries: Paul Crossley (1945–2019)’, The Burlington Magazine 162/1405 (April 2020), 365–66.