Architecture of Disjuncture: Mediterranean Trade and Cathedral Building in a New Diocese (11th-13th Centuries) (Architectura Medii Aevi, 13) 9782503581088, 2503581080

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Architecture of Disjuncture

Architectura Medii Aevi Vol. XIII

Series Editor Prof. Thomas Coomans (University of Leuven, Department of Architecture)

Advisory Board Prof. em. Caroline Bruzelius (Duke University, Durham, North Carolina) Prof. Christian Freigang (Freie Universität Berlin, Kunsthistorisches Institut) Dr Zoë Opačić (University of London, Birkbeck College, Department of History of Art) Prof. Dany Sandron (Université de Paris Sorbonne – Paris IV)

Honorary Prof. em. Paul Crossley (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London)

Architecture of Disjuncture Mediterranean Trade and Cathedral Building in a New Diocese (11th - 13th Centuries)

Joseph C. Williams

H F

Cover image: Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of north flank. Photo: author. © 2020, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN 978-2-503-58108-8 E-ISBN 978-2-503-58109-5 DOI 10.1484/M.AMA.EB.5.115880 ISSN 2031-4817 E-ISSN 2565-9227 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper. D/2020/0095/35

This book is dedicated to the memory and legacy of Professor Pina Belli D’Elia.

CONTENTS

List of Charts

ix

List of Illustrations

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Acknowledgementsxv Introduction: Studying Architecture at the Joints 1. A Disjointed Program: Form, Function, and Finances Slow Funding and a Hybrid Typology External Funding and the Fragmentation of the Program 2. The Joints of Process: Design Change Through Constructional Episodes Progression by False Starts: The Incremental Completion of the Crypt and Transept Surgical Revision: Transition to the Three-Dome Plan Totalizing for Efficiency: Completion of the Nave 3. The Joints of Expertise: Design Choice Across the Division of Labor

1 21 22 31 43 48 58 61 67

Pier Design 69 Planning71 Dome Structure 78 4. The Joints of Geography: Geology, Travel Pathways, and Knowledge Cabotage87 Local Material Professional Travel Conclusion: A Mediterranean Building Strategy The Versatile Architecture of Molfetta Cathedral The Role of the Mediterranean Further Study of the Problem Disjuncture in Current Design Education

89 93 103 103 105 106 110

Appendix 1 Construction Chronology of Molfetta Cathedral (c. 1100-1300)115 Timeline115 Analysis of the Fabric 116

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Bibliography

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List of Charts

Chart 1. Timeline of events relevant to the construction of S. Corrado in Molfetta. Chart 2. Hypothetical phases of construction at S. Corrado in Molfetta: a) Phase 1 (hall crypt); b) Phase 2 (beginnings of transept basilica); c) Phase 3 (introduction of axial-domes plan); d) Phase 4 (continuation of axial-domes plan with squinch domes); and e) Phase 5 (completion of middle and west domes, using cuffia squinches). Chart 3. Churches featuring squinch domes with pseudo-pendentives (filled circle) and horizontally coursed squinches (double circle).

Chart 4. Churches featuring rotated-square transept plan, some with east facade and blind arcade (filled circle). Chart 5. Churches with domes, quadrant vaults, and axial square bays with 2:1 nave-to-aisle: three longitudinal bays (filled circle), multiple domes (double circle).

List of Illustrations

Figure 1. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Axonometric point cloud of interior walls (generated using photogrammetry). Figure 2. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Numbered plan of S. Corrado in Molfetta. Image after Luigi Mongiello, from Chiese di Puglia, p. 294 (annotations by author).

Figure 14. Giovinazzo Cathedral. East facade. Figure 15. Cuti (Valenzano), SS. Ognissanti. General view of interior toward east. Figure 16. Trani, S. Francesco (originally SS. Trinità).

Figure 3. Molfetta, S. Corrado. General view from north.

Figure 17. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of east facade with interlaced arches.

Figure 4. Molfetta, S. Corrado. East facade.

Figure 18. Molfetta, S. Corrado. West facade massing. The restored fabric at center was erected in place of the large arch communicating between the west end of the church and the chapel of San Corrado, which stood here until the mid-20th century.

Figure 5. Molfetta, S. Corrado. General view of interior toward northeast. Figure 6. Molfetta, S. Corrado. General view of interior toward southeast. Figure 7. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Dome over east bay. Figure 8. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Dome over middle bay. Figure 9. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Dome over west bay. Figure 10. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capitals of Pier 2PN (west and south). Figure 11. Molfetta, S. Corrado. East face of chapel of S. Giuliano. Figure 12. Bari, S. Nicola. East facade. Figure 13. Bari, S. Nicola. Crypt.

Figure 19. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Orthophotograph of north elevation, showing principal medieval masonry breaks and numbered phases (generated using photogrammetry). Figure 20. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Orthophotograph of south elevation, showing principal medieval masonry breaks and numbered phases (generated using photogrammetry). Figure 21. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Orthophotograph of central aisle toward south, showing principal medieval masonry breaks and numbered phases (generated using photogrammetry). Figure 22. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Masonry break in south side aisle.

Figure 23. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Crypt arches on ­north wall of transept.

Figure 36. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Pier 1PN (west and south).

Figure 24. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated springer of crypt groin vault in southeast corner of the transept.

Figure 37. Lama Volara (Siponto), S. Leonardo. Detail of pier.

Figure 25. Giovinazzo, Cathedral. Plan of crypt. Image after Ezio de Cillis, from ‘La cattedrale di Giovinazzo’, p. 365.

Figure 38. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plan of ‘Phase 2’, showing the rotated square method of determining the proportions of the transept and the 2:1 relationship of the nave to the side aisles.

Figure 26. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Orthophotograph of transept arches toward east (generated using photogrammetry). Figure 27. Trani, S. Francesco (originally SS. Trinità). View of north side aisle to the east. Note the relative heights of the capitals facing across side aisles and the longitudinal-facing capital, as well as the low ­springing of the wall arch, below the capital of the adjacent respond. Both traits correspond to the south side aisle at Molfetta but not the north. Figure 28. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated wall arch from nave crypt, on supporting masonry of Respond 2RN (west face). Figure 29. Conversano, Cathedral. Plan. Image after Soprintendenza di Bari, fig. 3 (De Vita), with alterations by Kai Kappel, from S. Nicola, fig. 241. Figure 30. Trani Cathedral. Plan of crypt. Image after Restauri in Puglia 1971-1983, ed. by Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, II, p. 250, fig. 34.4. With alterations by Kai Kappel, from S. Nicola, fig. 342. Figure 31. Trani, Cathedral. Pilaster in nave crypt, with masonry breaks showing the truncation of earlier nave supports and insertion of new wall. Figure 32. Cuti (Valenzano), SS. Ognissanti. Remains of west porch. Figure 33. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and bases of Pier 1PN. Figure 34. Bari Cathedral. Squinch in crossing dome. Figure 35. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Pier 2PS (west).

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Figure 39. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Arch assembly guide on exterior south wall, with radiating lines to indicate the alignment of voussoirs. Figure 40. Cuti (Valenzano), SS. Ognissanti. Dome with stereotomic pendentives. Figure 41. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Orthophotograph of middle dome toward northeast (generated using photogrammetry; inward-curving dome base is result of distortion). Figure 42. Bari, S. Nicola. Orthophotograph of squinch in incomplete crossing dome (generated using photogrammetry). Figure 43. Teramo Cathedral. Orthophotograph of squinch in crossing dome (generated using photogrammetry). Figure 44. Molfetta, S. Corrado. East facade window. Figure 45. Portonovo (near Ancona), S. Maria. Dome. Figure 46. Lama Volara (Siponto), S. Leonardo. Plan. Image after Archivio Zodiaque, St. Lèger-Vauban. From Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, fig. 40. Figure 47. Garde-Adhémar, S. Michel. Plan. Image after Jean-Maurice Rouquette, from Provence Romane, p. 62. Figure 48. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Tombstone of Bishop Risandus. Figure 49. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Exterior view of south aisle masonry break. Figure 50. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Masonry break in north side aisle.

Figure 51. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Exterior view of north aisle masonry break. Figure 52. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Exterior view from north of roofline discrepancies between Bays 2 and 3. Figure 53. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Exterior view from north of interlaced blind arcades. Note filled window, which is overlapped on the interior by a blind arch. Figure 54. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Window in north wall of the transept, obscured by interior blind arch. Figure 55. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated masonry on south wall of the transept, indicating crypt arches and vaults. Figure 56. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated masonry in southwest corner of the transept, indicating crypt arches and vaults. Figure 57. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of lacerated masonry in southwest corner of the transept, implying that the vertical plane of the arch was cut back when the superposed masonry was added. Figure 58. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Fragmentary palimpsest of crypt arch on the east face of Pier 2PS, interrupted by the supporting masonry of the pier’s east-facing shaft. Figure 59. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Fragmentary palimpsest of crypt arch on the north wall of transept, interrupted by the spur wall at the northwest corner. Figure 60. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated masonry on east face of the spur wall at the northwest corner of the transept, indicating a crypt vault. Figure 61. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated masonry on west and south faces of the spur wall at the northwest corner of the transept and north wall of the nave, indicating crypt vaults under the original nave and transept. Figure 62. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated masonry on south wall of the nave, possibly indicating crypt vaults under the original nave.

Figure 63. Molfetta, S. Corrado. View from north of right portal of the north flank’s two-portal ensemble, which originally connected the church to the outside and not to the current chapel of S. Giuliano. Figure 64. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of interlaced blind arches on east facade: arch intersection to the left of the main window. Figure 65. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of interlaced blind arches on east facade: arch intersection to the right of the main window. Figure 66. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 0RS. Figure 67. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 0RN. Figure 68. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and bases of Pier 1PS. Figure 69. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 2RS. Figure 70. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and bases of Pier 2PS. Figure 71. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and bases of Pier 2PN. Figure 72. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 2RN. Figure 73. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 3RS. Figure 74. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 3RN. Figure 75. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 0RS. Figure 76. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 0RN. Figure 77. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capitals of Pier 1PS (north and west). Figure 78. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 1PS (east).

Li st of Illust r at ions

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Figure 79. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 1PS (south). Figure 80. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 1PN (west). Figure 81. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 1PN (north). Figure 82. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capitals of Pier 1PN (south and east). Figure 83. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 2RS. Figure 84. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capitals of Pier 2PS (north and west). Figure 85. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 2PS (east). Figure 86. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 2PS (south). Figure 87. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 2PN (west). Figure 88. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 2PN (north). Figure 89. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capitals of Pier 2PN (south and east). Figure 90. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 2RN. Figure 91. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 3RS. Figure 92. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 3RN.

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Figure 93. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Corbel 1CS. Figure 94. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Corbel 1CN. Figure 95. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on east facade, first from left. Figure 96. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on east facade, second from left. Figure 97. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on east facade, center. Figure 98. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on east facade, second from right. Figure 99. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on east facade, first from right. Figure 100. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on north flank, first from left. Figure 101. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on north flank, second from left. Figure 102. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on north flank, third from left. Figure 103. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of corbel table in east dome. Figure 104. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Damaged, anonymous seated figure surmounting east facade window. Figure 105. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Mosaic pavement fragment. In situ west of Pier 2PS. Figure 106. Molfetta, S. Corrado. Mosaic pavement fragment. Removed to chapel of S. Antonio da Padova.

Acknowledgements

I have accumulated many debts of gratitude while researching and writing this book. A profound debt is due to Caroline Bruzelius, who helped me find my core methods and questions, while also instilling in me an understanding of scholarship as a system of values. I also owe a profound thanks to Glaire Anderson, Annabel Wharton, Sara Galletti, and John Martin for their contributions to the formation of this project. Pina Belli D’Elia and Luisa Derosa were my mentors as I familiarized myself with Apulian Romanesque architecture and the rich scholarly tradition of that region. I am deeply grateful for their care and attention. I would also like to thank Angelo Ambrosi and Luc Tamborero, whose conversations with me about Apulian construction techniques have proved essential. Historians Amedeo Feniello, Jean-Marie Martin, Vera von Falkenhausen, and Stefano Riccioni helped me ask the right questions about the social history of medieval Apulia. I thank Lila Yawn for drawing my attention to affinities between patterns of production in medieval architecture and those of other art forms in medieval southeast Italy, as well as Peter Rockwell for walking me through the carving of a limestone block and for his invaluable observations about medieval stonecutting. Edward Triplett, Yasmin Vobis, and Jonathan Scelsa helped me learn 3-D photogrammetry and related digital modeling applications, while also providing insights about how to use these tools responsibly and critically. Adan Ramos and Kelly Haley, research assistants at the University of Maryland, advised me in using these technologies and assisted in drafting

graphic representations of the complex architecture of Molfetta Cathedral. I would also like to thank Angelica Federici for critical discussions about the Digital Humanities. I am grateful to many other scholars for discussing thematic questions and reading drafts, including Christine Bachman, Kimberly Bowes, Lindsay Harris, John Landsdowne, Jessica Marglin, Rob Clines, Francesco Gangemi, Matthew Woodworth, Alexandra Dodson, Maria Rosaria Rinaldi, Arianna Carannante, Bissera Pentcheva, Anna Majeski, John Ochsendorf, Michelle Berenfeld, Brandon Clifford, Raymond Carlson, Michele Lamprakos, and Juan Burke. A major debt of gratitude is due to the clergy and laity responsible for the care and custodianship of the Duomo vecchio in Molfetta. Don Vito Bufi was exceptionally generous in meeting with me and granting me access to the church after visiting hours. I also thank the rest of the staff for their graciousness, encouragement, and assistance while I conducted fieldwork inside the church. This book would not have been possible without the support of a Phyllis W. G. Gordan/Lily Auchincloss/Samuel H. Kress Foundation pre-doctoral Rome Prize, a Graduate Student Travel Grant from the International Center of Medieval Art, and a summer research grant from the Gene L. and Alice Stroude Winegardner endowment at Duke University. I extend my deepest thanks for these opportunities to conduct focused research on site and to engage with scholars in Italy.

Introduction: Studying Architecture at the Joints

Figure 1.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Axonometric point cloud of interior walls (generated using photogrammetry).

The Problem: Multiplicity and Change in Molfetta Cathedral Some buildings succeed without the help of a unified program, a predetermined plan, a chief designer, or a stylistic consensus. The 12th- and 13th-century cathedral of Molfetta, located in the middle of the Apulian coast of southeast Italy, is an exemplary case.1 The conditions that Molfetta faced as a new, small diocese during the Mediterranean trade boom rewarded a peculiar approach to large-scale design and construction: to build toward versatility, and away from the comforting resolve of a master plan.2 Molfetta Cathedral rises from the northeast shore of the old town, presenting an unmistakable profile (Fig.  3).3 The church is a three-aisled basilica with three domes over the central aisle, slightly projecting transept arms, and a towered east facade (Fig. 2). Bright limestone ashlars illuminate the unusual massing. Beneath the outsized towers, which once loomed in the direction of the marketplace, an interlaced blind arcade enwraps the east facade and transept, delineating the entire east end as one volume distinct from the nave (Fig. 4). The nave is joined to the transept like a puzzle piece, as the domes and aisle roofs of the former oddly cut across the latter (Fig. 1). This Braque-like shell contains a surprisingly harmonious interior, which masks its anomalies with a language of curves and spheres (Figs. 1, 5-6). All three domes are supported by sphere-based structures: pendentives in the east dome and cuffia squinches in the middle and west domes (Figs  7-9). The side aisles are covered by quadrant vaults that elegantly cup the high vault and reflect light from the domes. Similar to a hall church, the nave and aisles communicate through tall, broad arches, further accomodating the flow of light. The arches are perched on compound piers and capitals with meandering vegetal motifs (Fig. 10). The pervasive curving surfaces catch the light diffusely and do not draw attention to contours. There is no denying the grace of the overall design. It was not, however, born as a fully-formed concept, but resulted from a long struggle to reconcile diverse uses, meanings, and constructional knowledge. Signs of multiplicity and contradiction are everywhere. In the first place, the space caters to diverse functions. The two ideas of a transept with

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an east facade and a nave with axial domes were separate Apulian types; aside from Molfetta Cathedral, they were never combined.4 Their bizarre fusion at Molfetta, which causes the transept arms to be invaded by low quadrant vaults, suggests that the administration was intent on including both types of liturgical spaces regardless of the consequences for form. Additional contradictions in the program are numerous and seem to have continued after the completion of the main church, culminating in the varied private chapels that crowd around the nave, muddying its functionality. Two chapels inhabit truncated towers in the west end, and the Cappella S. Giuliano obstructs one of the twin entrance portals in the north flank (Fig. 11). The program was not the only source of fragmentation. A closer look reveals a discontinuous construction process. Often observed are the matching constructional breaks in both lateral walls of the middle bay of the nave, indicating a hiatus after the completion of the east end and before the construction of the westerly parts (Fig. 22).5 As we shall see, this interruption had dramatic consequences for the interior ornament. Anomalies in the east end reveal another, more extreme change. Here traces of arches and destroyed groin vaults appear to have once belonged to a transept crypt, which was ultimately suppressed (Figs 23-24). These are only two examples of a consistent pattern of revision, as gross misalignments in the floorplan intimate (Fig.  2). I  will p­ ropose a sequence of at least five major phases, each occasioning significant design change (see Appendix 1). The intent of one building phase was never conveyed wholesale to the next; revision was the rule. The cathedral was subject to still other forces of multiplicity. One was the division of labor among technicians, whose solutions to different kinds of structural, constructional, and visual problems shaped the overall form. Molfetta Cathedral was a site of extensive specialization, as can be inferred from the fact that its various comparanda break down into groups based on separate technical tasks. Some churches share Molfetta’s pier design, others its planning geometry, and still others its dome structure. As I will argue, the goal of creating a design language was shared among these areas of expertise and was not simply the province of one master mason or supervisor.

Figure 2.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Numbered plan of S. Corrado in Molfetta. Image after Luigi Mongiello, from Chiese di Puglia, p. 294 (annotations by author).

Finally, the builders of Molfetta introduced further complexity by drawing on a broad geographical range of forms and techniques. While most of Molfetta’s vocabulary is best compared to the local context, several elements have longer-range patterns of use. For example, certain techniques of planning geometry and dome structure emerged simultaneously in Apulia and in Abruzzo and Le Marche. Molfetta’s combination of nave domes and

quadrant vaults in a particular geometric relationship compares with a lonely cluster of Provençal examples. Forms such as the cuffia domes and interlaced arches can also be found sporadically around the Mediterranean, tracing trajectories between Le Marche, Sicily, Tunisia, and Albania. These various concepts, each with their own patterns of circulation, intersected at Molfetta and became integrated in a style that defies localization.

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Figure 3.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. General view from north.

This first impression challenges idealistic criteria such as ‘No part can be added or taken away without damaging the whole’. Fragmentation was the norm at Molfetta Cathedral, working through the program of functions, construction process, division of labor, and geography of practice. This was not simple error or capriciousness. There were key advantages to embracing multiplicity and change. By allowing various spatial types to clash, the church could serve a mix of symbolic and liturgical functions. Allowing design

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change while the construction process was underway enabled adjustments without high costs. Opening up the design to various specialists produced a larger menu of combined solutions. By bending the architectural language to accommodate practices from a range of contexts, the builders harnessed still more dynamism. Disjointedness functioned as a logical system. Molfetta Cathedral is like a stubborn interview. If we approach the evidence with a traditional question, such as ‘what was the original plan and why was it forsaken?’

Figure 4.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. East facade.

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Figure 5.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. General view of interior toward northeast.

the building answers at right angles. It wants to respond to a different question: what are the advantages of building toward versatility? The fraught economic and institutional history of Molfetta between the late 11th century and the end of the 13th created a perfect need for versatile architecture. It is this story that the church yearns to tell: how and why buildings of its kind became nimble. The Context: A New Diocese in Commercializing South Italy The diocese of Molfetta, founded before 1071 as one of the suffragan sees of the archdiocese of Bari, was probably promoted in response to the town’s growing

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status as a commercial port.6 When looking at the beginnings of the bishopric, it is at first tempting to be optimistic. The Commercial Revolution was in full swing. Maritime republics such as Amalfi, Venice, and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) had invented new trade incentives, encouraging long-distance commerce and turning modest port towns into international hubs.7 Southern Italy, situated at the convergence of the trade routes of the western and eastern Mediterranean basins, was particularly affected. Powerful merchant families and monasteries targeted the Mezzogiorno, laying down their networks among the coastal new towns and competing over revenue sources of longdistance commercial viability: for example, central Apulia specialized in olive oil, which could be sold

Figure 6.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. General view of interior toward southeast.

to Venice and Ragusa then exported to Alexandria and the Levant.8 Increasingly sophisticated systems of landholding, money-changing, and credit made such resources fungible, giving the nobles and prelates who held them access to Mediterranean coinage such as the Fatimid dinar, the Amalfitan tari, and the Sicilian tari.9 In this way the trade boom drove monumental architecture, providing church-building administrations with the cash needed to pay construction wages. Supported by new commerce and coinage, the Apulian coast underwent a startling building boom between the 11th and 13th centuries. Pre-Romanesque architecture in the region offered no precedent. Little other than ruins remained of major Early Christian foundations, with some exceptions such as the domed basilica cathedral of Canosa. After the economic decline of the early Middle Ages, rupestrian churches predominated in South Italy. Subtracted from the walls of caves, these buildings were mainly small in

their overall dimensions, with tight bay divisions and low ceilings. Aside from the occasional column to enhance the interior divisions, they contained no additive elements. Architectural production revolved around the relatively homogeneous act of excavating a continuous form from the living rock. The division of labor would therefore not have been very complex. The floorplans of these churches are irregular in their geometry, following the natural contours of the rock. Although the design of rupestrian churches was certainly sophisticated, the labor required and the economies of scale were modest. Early medieval examples of freestanding churches in Apulia, such as the 8th- or 9th-century ‘chiesetta’ of Seppannibale, were similarly irregular in plan and manufacture, in spite of the fact that they were built of masonry and not out of the living rock. These buildings were generally no larger than rupestrian churches and were constructed of large blocks cut

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Figure 7.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Dome over east bay.

to unrefined ashlar, with frequent interruptions in the coursing. Domes and vaults were composed of smaller, rough-hewn stones. While these buildings evidence the extraction of limestone and a degree of off-site prefabrication, the scale of operations was still relatively small. By contrast, the construction of large basilicas such as Bari Cathedral (reconstructed from the fragmentary Early Christian edifice in the 11th century, prior to its razing and reconstruction in the second half of the 12th century), S. Nicola in Bari, and the cathedral of Trani (both begun at the end of the 11th century), required precisely-cut limestone ashlars in large quantities. This entailed a robust regional industry of quarriers, masons, sculptors, and carpenters, these last to erect scaffolds and centering and to build woodentruss roofs. A hierarchy of labor tasks, including manual laborers as well as supervisors, was needed to ensure standardization of techniques. Construction

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techniques circulated quickly to support the demand for large-scale buildings in every major town. A visitor to the region is struck by the ubiquity of certain peculiar architectural features: towered east facades, exterior micro-galleries along the side aisles, archi lunati (arches that bulge at their apex), and limestone shingles. These are signs of a vibrant, streamlined, and interconnected regional production. The expanded scale of operations driven by large cathedrals enabled smaller buildings to be constructed of the same rich vocabulary of techniques and forms. Cities such as Bari and Trani contain dozens of small churches and synagogues built of ashlar and featuring elegant structural detailing, as well as finely sculpted portals and windows. At the same time, old local building typologies, such as those with domed ceilings rather than wooden-truss roofs, were now being executed at this finer grade of production and to a larger scale. For example, the combination of quadrant

Figure 8.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Dome over middle bay.

vaults and multiple domes on axis inaugurated in the rudimentary ‘chiesetta’ of Seppannibale was monumentalized in churches such as SS. Ognissanti in Cuti (Valenzano) and Molfetta Cathedral. The Romanesque architecture of Apulia easily takes its place among the finest, most monumental, and identifiable Mediterranean building traditions of the central Middle Ages. In stark contrast to the region’s production before the 11th century, this was expensive, prestige architecture displaying the highest caliber of skill and a complex organization of labor. The spike in commerce, the flow of coinage, and the resultant ability to pay wages in cash would have been fundamental to this shift in the building industry. There was only one problem: the money did not always pour into the coffers of cathedrals. Many southern Italian bishoprics emerging during this period were rather poor, thanks in large part to the secular authorities of the time. The Normans, who had

begun making inroads into south Italy by the first half of the 11th century, had conquered nearly the entire Mezzogiorno by 1071, when Duke Robert Guiscard seized Bari from the Byzantine Empire.10 Under these independent-minded counts, it was rare for bishoprics to control true feudal lordships and exact general tithes, to which Canon Law should have entitled them.11 Sees such as Bari, which Robert Guiscard and his son Roger Borsa gave seigneurial authority over a few nearby towns, were exceptions.12 The dioceses of south Italy mostly compiled their rights through private gifts from lords and nobles, and controlled only sporadic interests. Meanwhile, a large portion of potential diocesan wealth went to great monastic estates such as Montecassino (in Lazio) and Cava (in Campania). These monasteries, whose properties were free from episcopal jurisdiction, profited greatly from Mediterranean commerce and naturally targeted coastal regions such as Apulia. Here they

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Figure 9.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Dome over west bay.

enjoyed greater lay beneficence than the cathedrals and reached deep into the region’s commercial industries. In Molfetta, it was not the cathedral but the two Cava dependencies of S. Martino and nearby SS. Trinità in Trani that dominated the town’s lucrative olive oil. While the monks of S. Martino held a large endowment of olive trees and steadily built upon it, the episcopacy accumulated its assets in a slow, piecemeal fashion.13 What was the effect on architecture? Because Molfetta was selected as a suffragan under the expanding episcopal hierarchy of the Latin Church, its challenge was not simply deficient funds, but also its need of a building fit for a major bishopric. In other words, Molfetta faced the timeless historical problem of an institution whose means are not commensurate with its status. Had Molfetta simply been poor, the bishop might have built an appropriately modest cathedral. Instead, the discrepancy between

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resources and position called for a radical building strategy, a mode of architectural production of aspiring beyond one’s means. In 1979 Martin Warnke broached the question of how church architecture adapted to the rapidly changing economy of the central Middle Ages. He noticed that in the 11th century, European cathedrals and abbeys began receiving more of their building funds from beyond their endowed assets, often as gifts from the laity.14 Warnke argued that the need for compromise between the main patron and external donors spawned a communal architecture, in which personal gain was sacrificed for the benefit of the group.15 As in Warnke’s examples, the bishop of Molfetta forged institutional relationships beyond the natural endowment of the diocese, accepting lay donations and eventually engaging other churches in legal battles. In this case, however, the dependence on outside funding had an effect opposite to what

Figure 10.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capitals of Pier 2PN (west and south).

Warnke observed. Here was a fragmented architecture dominated by specific interests. Because the episcopacy of Molfetta was smaller than the institutions discussed by Warnke, it received its gifts, tributes, and settlements sporadically over a long period of time, rather than simultaneously as part of a cohesive campaign. As a result, the various pressures that acted on Molfetta Cathedral did not induce compromise, but pushed the project in multiple directions. Molfetta Cathedral therefore poses an economic problem different from the one discussed by Warnke and his followers. Here, as a result of the fragmented wealth of commercializing south Italy, a poor diocese of high status undertook a long construction campaign and submitted to diverse external prerogatives. Warnke’s pioneering research into architectural economics nonetheless provides the present work with an underlying impulse: to understand the choices of construction and design at Molfetta Cathedral as part of a cohesive strategy to address an economic and institutional predicament. The strategy, I will argue, was to leverage unstable conditions of production as instruments of versatility. In other words, the builders deliberately embraced disjuncture: the hinging and fracture between functions, phases, agents, and stylistic knowledge in the construction effort.

A Method: Toward the Study of Architecture at the Joints The Oxford English Dictionary defines disjuncture as a ‘separation, breach [or] condition of affairs involving disunion; a perplexed or disjointed state of things’.16 The term comes from the medieval Latin disjunctūra, and in its earliest uses it signified physical or metaphorical discontinuity. When I refer to disjuncture in architecture, I mean a pattern of design choice that embraces, rather than suppresses, the natural discontinuities of the building enterprise: discontinuities of function, process, agency, and style. At Molfetta, the diverse and changing brief of functions created a need for maneuverability in the formal program. In response, the builders used phase breaks as opportunities for revision, allocated design tasks across the division of labor to expand the array of possible solutions, and borrowed ideas from a wideranging network of practice. By privileging versatility, the builders steered around the difficulties that arose during construction. The resulting design is charged with the energy of expansions, upgrades, and competitive one-upmanship. The opposite of Molfetta’s approach would be the calm, sure architecture of controlling principles.

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Figure 11.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. East face of chapel of S. Giuliano.

According to this ideal, design choices fall in line under a single vision conceived outside the task of construction.17 The formal whole directs and controls its parts, abstracts and simplifies function, militates against design change during the construction process, places the contractors under the creative direction of one designer, and favors techniques that, far from influencing the main design, are easily subdued and incorporated into it. Studying a single, unified design may be appropriate for buildings such as Bramante’s Tempietto in Rome or, for an extreme example, the Empire State Building, which surged with torrid certainty between

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January 22 and September 19, 1930 and was described by Rem Koolhaas as ‘automatic architecture’.18 While many modern architects hold fast to controlling principles, some resist, such as adherents of the Slow Architecture Movement.19 But tapping into historic examples like Molfetta Cathedral may offer a mature formula that was in operation for centuries. How are we to study an architecture that embraced disjuncture as opposed to principles of unity? A method may be pieced together from various discourses. In particular, I shall borrow insights and approaches from political and sociological theorists,

historians of construction and architectural production, and Mediterraneanists. My dichotomy between a strategy of controlling principles and one of disjuncture finds a preliminary model in the opposition between the ‘root’ and ‘branch’ methods of policy-making, which Charles Lindblom described in his classic 1959 article ‘The Science of “Muddling Through”’.20 What Lindblom described as the ‘root’ method, or the rational-comprehensive method, is the creation of a policy intended to encompass a set of predetermined values.21 In contrast, the ‘branch’ method of successive limited comparisons considers a small set of realistic potential responses to a problem and simply chooses among them. In the ‘branch’ method, a solution succeeds not by fulfilling ideal outcomes, but simply by being realized, which means it has passed muster as a compromise among affected parties.22 Most important, the ‘branch’ method builds on its success by proceeding incrementally, one small adjustment at a time.23 Lindblom formalized and defended the method of successive limited comparisons because he saw that it was commonplace in practice but lacked a justification in theoretical writing. Earlier authors had instead favored rational-comprehensive approaches, which paradoxically proved irrational in practice, crumbling before the unpredictable yet inevitable challenges of implementation. Lindblom’s insights might be translated from the world of policy to that of architectural practice. Since the 15th century –  which saw Poggio Bracciolini’s rediscovery of Vitruvius’s De Architectura, Fra Giovanni Sulpitius’s publication of this text, and the publication of Alberti’s De Re Aedificatoria – architectural treatises and curricula have followed what might be called rational-comprehensive, or ‘root’, processes of design. Under these regimes, a good building is expected to fulfill many ideal principles on paper before it is executed. The main principles emphasized by Renaissance architects were formal geometric rigor and structural integrity. Today, buildings have a longer checklist of core values, including items such as affordability, social equitability, minimal use of energy in construction, and efficiency in heating, cooling, and ventilation. There is no denying the importance of these interests. They nevertheless confront the project with a daunting balance of expectations. The architect must furthermore show how the building will address these universal challenges

at the development stage of the design; otherwise, construction will not be approved. As in the rationalcomprehensive method of policy-making, the product is scrutinized prior to implementation and with a view to ideal outcomes. It lives or dies by its proof of concept. In contrast, architectural practice before the Renaissance appears relatively unburdened by such a process. In this time before the explosion of treatises and codified architectural theory, design was largely practice-based and empirical. Builders did not aspire to universal values of Architecture in the same lofty terms. Instead, the builder’s challenge was constituted by the patron’s private brief, the availability of resources, and the needs of other affected individuals and institutions, which he was asked to negotiate in relation to his own technical knowledge and aesthetic dispositions. Because a building enterprise was faced with project-specific requirements rather than universal ideals, it did not pass through the same approval process. The builder did not prepare detailed plans proving the project’s attention to core values. Instead, success was identified with the actual realization of the project, which a builder achieved by applying his resources and abilities to the needs of his brief. Because many different institutional pressures weighed on large medieval buildings such as cathedrals, sometimes the items of the brief were in conflict with one another. In other instances, the brief changed over time, such that it was necessary for the design to adjust between constructional episodes, or even while building was underway. This approach is analogous to policy-making by successive limited comparisons, that is, ‘by branch’: through incremental changes, checks, and adjustments. The idea of acting according to a sequence of incremental compromises instead of root principles applies not only policy-making and architectural design but also to the basic problem of living in the world. In his Outline of a Theory of Practice (1972), Pierre Bourdieu critiqued the scholarly notion that human actions are predetermined and ruled by a model:24 It is […] practice, in its most specific aspect, which is annihilated when the scheme is identified with the model: retrospective necessity becomes prospective necessity, the product a project; and things which have happened, and can no longer not happen, become the irresistible future of the acts which made them happen.

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In this passage, Bourdieu exposes the fallacy whereby a series of improvised actions, viewed in retrospect, appears inevitable and mechanical. By overlooking the factor of time, with its intervals of choice, we risk blinding ourselves to the generative strategies of action: as Bourdieu warned, ‘To abolish the interval is also to abolish strategy’.25 The sociologist’s commitment to a strategic and improvisational, rather than rule-based, explanation of practice is fundamental to his famous theorization of the habitus: a principle of action made up of embodied parameters that a subject internalizes over time through social interaction, allowing him or her to navigate the large range of situations possible in a particular social context.26 In the present work, disjuncture stands for a collective habitus of architectural design by ‘branch’. It was a strategy by which administrators and builders broke up the challenge of design into increments, finding natural opportunities for subdivision in the process of construction and division of labor. The habitus was reinforced – or reproduced, to use Bourdieu’s language – by the social and economic conditions affecting Molfetta as a new diocese emerging during Apulia’s sudden engagement with long-distance Mediterranean trade. These conditions rewarded versatile building efforts and punished the opposite: design by ‘root’, the flattening of unknowns in the pursuit of an ideal, rigid vision. To apply the insights of Lindblom and Bourdieu to the study of buildings, that is, to see the practice of architecture as a chain of strategic choices rather than a predetermined agenda, means engaging with the problems of construction, and not merely form. A purely formal analysis would proceed from the ultimate appearance of the building and reconstruct the rules governing the relations of the whole to its parts. But the final form is deceptive, seducing with a twofold illusion. First, the eye privileges coherent patterns over inconsistencies. Second, akin to the fallacy of rule-governed action critiqued by Bourdieu, any cohesiveness in the end product seems pre-planned.27 The formal gestalt of the building covers up its tracks more than it reveals them. Historians focusing on construction and architectural production have used textual and archaeological evidence to push past the formal whole and penetrate the complex history of choices underlying it. The present work combines several of these approaches to illuminate what might be called the ‘joints’ of

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production: turning points in the construction effort in which the builders attempted to reconcile irreducible differences in design. I refer to these turning points as ‘joints’ because they are manifest as physical links in the fabric; one can run his or her hand over them. But they also indicate ruptures, seams between parts of the building designed for different functions, at different times, by different experts, or according to different stylistic conventions. The ‘joints’ were the keys to the versatility of Molfetta’s design. They functioned like hinges, transforming the main lines of the project into freely swinging vectors. The joints of production may be revealed through four main areas of inquiry: iconography and liturgy, construction chronology, architectural work cycles, and the circulation of architectural knowledge in geography. Each is the subject of a different chapter of this book: ‘A Disjointed Program’, ‘The Joints of Process’, ‘The Joints of Labor’, and ‘The Joints of Geography’. It is senseless to try creating approaches to these themes from scratch, as a rich discourse exists for each. Nevertheless, adapting previous methods to the study of disjuncture at Molfetta Cathedral will require a reappraisal of assumptions. Although architectural historians have often gone beyond the formal gestalt, they have sometimes replaced it with other unifying forces, such as the iconographic model, the original project, the master mason, and the syncretic whole. These concepts are not so rigid that they assume a building’s perfect adherence to the rule; however, they sometimes focus on the elements that follow the rule and overlook ‘anomalies’. It is therefore necessary to subject each of the four areas of inquiry mentioned above to a common operation. First, I shall identify and adopt the fundamental elements of analysis that each one depends upon: iconographic references, constructional episodes, building techniques, and the distribution patterns of architectural knowledge. Second, I shall rejigger each method to target not how those elements responded to a controlling principle, but how they could have functioned as ‘joints’ in Molfetta’s versatile design strategy. Iconography and Liturgy A fundamental source of complexity in the design of Molfetta Cathedral was its program, the ensemble of iconographical meanings and liturgical uses. The elements of analysis for architectural iconography are

the visual elements that stand out in a visitor’s experience of the building, including the general organization of space and features such as windows, portals, domes, towers, and architectonic sculpture. The historian of iconography considers how these elements are combined to create meaningful typologies. The first chapter of this book will relate the conspicuous formal elements of Molfetta Cathedral to known regional typologies, and thereby tap into the uses and meanings that made up its program. The early pioneers of the study of architectural iconography, however, went a step farther. Richard Krautheimer, in his influential 1942 article ‘Introduction to An “Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture”’, argued that medieval buildings regularly used iconography to refer to earlier, model buildings.28 They did this, he proposed, by selecting salient, memorable formal elements from the model and reshuffling them.29 As a result of Krautheimer’s compelling arguments about sites such as the Anastasis Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and its imitators, scholars of architectural iconography often fixate on identifying buildings with their models. The iconographic model becomes the unifying principle at the heart of a building’s design. In the case of Molfetta Cathedral, I will identify some iconographical references of the kind discussed by Krautheimer. But such references were not necessarily central principles guiding the entire work. Rather, I will regard them as components of a multilayered program. Different references may have addressed different audiences. A reference, moreover, could have signified a set of buildings, such as coastal cathedrals in the archdiocese of Bari, rather than a single monument. In addition, the sharing of forms between buildings often served a purpose beyond pure reference, namely the service of specific liturgies. In short, my modified iconographic analysis will attend to the multiplicity of Molfetta’s program, which stood to satisfy a brief of various ritual and symbolic needs.30 I will otherwise use the traditional tools of the iconographer: comparative visual analysis, which can help identify a consistent relationship between form and function across several buildings, and close study of the written record, which not only supplies possible meanings and liturgies, but also reports on financial history. As we shall see, the multiplicity of the program of Molfetta Cathedral was closely linked to the rhythm and structure of its finances.

Construction Chronology Medieval archaeologists have long studied the construction sequences of buildings by closely observing extant original fabric. Their methods, which involve careful measurement and the detection of constructional anomalies, are central to the present effort. But my aim is not only to discover building phases, but also to interpret them. How did breaks in the construction campaign affect the overall design? According to some, the design discourse lies entirely outside problems of execution. Scholars of medieval architectural iconography such as Günter Bandmann have credited the notion – supported by medieval prelates and their biographers – that bishops, abbots, and patrons were the architects of the Middle Ages, despite having little to do with guiding construction.31 Bandmann wrote, ‘Since the Bauherr is responsible for the selection of the building’s type, his responsibility includes the shaping of the building’.32 While Bandmann is certainly correct that medieval prelates conceptualized architectural authorship in this way, the concept of the patron as architect focuses on the work in the abstract, ignoring the effect of the construction effort on the ultimate design. Any design change is taken as either negligible or a deterioration of the original plan; it is seen as a matter of archaeology, not of the history of architectural design. A more recent thread, highlighted by the works of Robert Ousterhout, Caroline Bruzelius, and Marvin Trachtenberg, has identified regular patterns of design change during the process of construction.33 As these scholars have shown, medieval design was defined not by Albertian pure forms existing outside the problems of execution, but by strategic responses to such problems. The constructional episodes were not stepping stones toward an ideal design predetermined by the patron, but were events in the formation of the design. I shall suggest that Molfetta Cathedral used its constructional episodes as opportunities for revision, exploiting each episode for maximum versatility. The goal of the second chapter of this book is to identify and interpret the constructional episodes of Molfetta. On the basis of a close analysis of constructional continuity and variance using the proportions and alignments of a photogrammetric model of the interior (Fig. 1), I will propose hypothetical reconstructions

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of five episodes between the early-to-mid 12th century and the end of the 13th (see Appendix 1). I will also interpret each episode as a strategic revision to the overall design of the building, updating pre-existing fabric and ideas to the most recent vision while simultaneously shaping future development. In this way, the work in progress was repeatedly readjusted to the shifting needs of the program as well as the changing abilities of the work force. Work Cycles The study of labor in medieval architecture, like the study of construction chronology, has long been the province of archaeologists. The methods are similar: continuity and variance in the details of construction can indicate how the work cycle was divided into fields of technical expertise. Attempts to interpret building techniques, however, have often stumbled over an old dichotomy: the vision of the architect vs. the technical abilities of the contractors. It is tempting to imagine that the original plan of a medieval building was worked out in great detail by the master mason, who then passed the plan onto the various teams of masons and carpenters of the lodge. Groundbreaking forays into architectural work cycles by scholars such as Dieter Kimpel have partly confirmed this hierarchical model for lavish and expensive buildings like Amiens Cathedral.34 More recently, however, Vibeke Olson has shown that in the less costly buildings of the late Romanesque and early Gothic, regional architectural production operated in a less centralized way. Instead, carving workshops created versatile elements, such as en-delit shafts, which lent themselves to a range of uses.35 In particular buildings, sophisticated ensembles and elevations were designed around the physical qualities of these standardized elements. In this way, the design unfolded from the ground up and not simply the top down. The rich tradition of architectural archaeology in Apulia has generated similar conclusions.36 This evidence seems to fit David Turnbull’s helpful metaphor of cathedrals as laboratories, in which the ultimate design resulted from the collective experimentation of various specialists, and not merely from the mind of a chief ‘architect’.37 Relatedly, David Summers, in his important article on artistic intention, argued that techniques enable forms, and do not merely ‘solve’

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preconceived visual ideas.38 This book proceeds from a similar premise, interpreting the formal elements at Molfetta Cathedral as creative products of diverse technical discourses. In Chapter 3, I will argue that at Molfetta Cathedral, major design decisions were allocated across the work cycle in the service of versatility. The builders worked according to a lateral rather than a hierarchical model, helping them address the problems of a complex program and fluid building process. Different technical experts, such as quarrymen, planners, and dome engineers, produced flexible solutions amenable to ranges of applications. When the versatile solutions of the different fields of expertise were combined in the cathedral, they produced an array of collective solutions capable of addressing any idiosyncrasies. Just as the design hinged around episodic breaks, so it could around the division of labor. Circulation of Knowledge The traditional study of the geography of architectural knowledge obeys a model of regional styles, or schools. The elements of analysis are those recognizable to the connoisseur: detailed formal or technical traits that can be associated with particular locales. The 19th-century scholars Heinrich Wilhelm Schulz and Demetrio Salazaro established such a tradition in the history of southern Italian architecture, categorizing various forms under regional headings. While the method of using detailed comparison to chart the geography of architectural knowledge is most valuable, the central assumption of a pattern of regional variations is flawed. Regional classification of architectural styles implicitly relates the architectural similarity among a group of sites to the fact that they are located within the same general zone. Although it is true that patterns of similarity often group together in clusters, they also often range beyond their clusters. In other words, the clusters are not to be confused with bounded zones. Scholars who use the regional model imply boundaries of style, often arbitrarily using the borders of modern regions. In the architectural history of South Italy, the grouping of architectural practices between such boundaries originally served a nationalist narrative; for Salazaro, the stylistic unity

of each region was key to the idea of an Italian patrimony rooted in territorial traditions.39 The regional model tacitly informs more recent discourse, including arguments about the ‘cross-cultural exchange’ of art and architecture. The phrase implies bounded zones of style which normally contained artistic knowledge, by force of social or cultural difference, but were overcome in exceptional cases. A syncretic model, in which one artistic culture combines multiple other cultures, likewise implies that bounded, monolithic traditions are the norm and that their combination is extraordinary: the result of unusual effort on the part of the syncretizing culture.40 In some examples, such as the Islamic architecture of Norman Sicily, this model works well. But in Apulia, was architetural knowledge really flowing across ‘cultural boundaries’, or was it simply flowing? Scholars such as Gülru Necipoğlu, Finbarr Barry Flood, Heather Grossman, and Sara Galletti have developed theories that take networks of transmission rather than bounded locales as the norm for the geography of architectural practice.41 As Flood proposes, artistic practices formed not at their roots, or their locale of origin, but through their routes, their trajectories among various contexts and their combination with other practices.42 This approach is perfectly suited to the Mediterranean, where the sea and its continuity of coastlines constituted a medium for constant travel and knowledge transmission. The fourth chapter of this book will use comparative analysis to consider the circulation of the specialized forms and techniques observed at Molfetta Cathedral. Using maps produced with a GIS (Geographic Information System), I will attempt to move beyond a regional contextualization, and instead relate the transmission of architectural practice to actual mechanisms of production, a goal of the late Pina Belli D’Elia.43 I will consider two factors of production. One is local material: the hard, luminous Apulian limestone, which was ideal for both finecarving and construction.44 To what extent did the properties of local limestone determine and limit the geographical trajectories of the architectural practices that employed it? A second factor is professional travel. In the Adriatic cities of the 12th and 13th centuries, master builders and sculptors traveled over long distances and across the sea with some regularity.45 I will argue that their patterns of movement followed

the emergence of civic laws encouraging foreign merchants and other professionals to relocate between cities.46 My findings suggest that the geological and legal contexts did not function as constraints, but both opened Molfetta’s visual arsenal to techniques and forms beyond the local. In addition to drawing upon the insights of social theorists and the methods of construction historians, this book is indebted to the recent explosion of architectural history focused on the Mediterranean. Alongside the works of Necipoğlu, Grossman, Galletti, and Belli D’Elia, the pioneering studies of Jill Caskey and William Tronzo have turned to the sea, rather than the nation or region, as a key context of architectural development.47 This move, closely related to the current ‘global turn’ in art and architectural history, does more than shift our classification schema from smaller geographical categories to a larger one. It advances a new interpretive position that accounts for the role of communications, travel, and exchange in the formation of architectural ideas. Until now, however, Mediterranean architectural historians have focused primarily on patronage, and much less on architectural production. As Grossman pointed out, ‘re-inscribing the masons’ is a pressing need in the study of Mediterranean architectural exchange.48 The old cathedral of Molfetta, one of Apulia’s most cherished and debated churches, is ripe for consideration of its production: its functions and finances, construction process, division of labor, and circulation of architectural knowledge. This thematic focus entails a lack of comprehensiveness. To be sure, Molfetta Cathedral deserves its own conference or multi-author monograph in order to contextualize its sculptural iconography, distinguish between the hands of stone-carvers, and lay other questions to rest. What I offer presently, however, is a monograph focused on practice, a case study of the impact of constructional events on the overall design of a building. Studying Molfetta Cathedral in this way bears three results. First, it reveals a consistent pattern of choice: a building strategy of disjuncture. Second, it suggests a relationship between this strategy and a particular context, that of emerging Mediterranean dioceses of the central Middle Ages. Third, it tests a method for interpreting such buildings, to seek their design choices not at their roots but at their ‘joints’.

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NOTES Today the site is referred to as the church of S. Corrado or the ‘Duomo Vecchio’ (‘old cathedral’). It is not to be confused with the current cathedral of Molfetta. The former held episcopal status, with a dedication to S. Maria Assunta, until 1785, when it surrendered this rank to the latter, originally a Jesuit church. Ignazio Pansini, ‘Il Duomo di Molfetta: alla ricerca di un palinsesto’, Luce & Vita: Documentazione (2005/1), pp. 223-67 (p. 223). 2  Robert Lopez, The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950-1350 (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971; repr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), coined the ‘Commercial Revolution’ to refer to the boom in long-distance Mediterranean trade between the 10th and 14th centuries. 3  Key studies of Molfetta Cathedral include Heinrich Wilhelm Schulz, Denkmaeler der Kunst des Mittelalters in Unteritalien, ed. by Ferdinand von Quast, 5 vols (Dresden: the author, 1860), I, 64-71; Demetrio Salazaro, Mezziogiorno medievale (Monumenti, artisti, personaggi), ed. by Antonio Ventura (Naples, 1871-75 as Studi sui Monumenti dell’Italia meridionale dal IV al XIII secolo; repr. Lecce: Capone, 2003), p.  191; Émile Bertaux, L’Art dans l’Italie Méridionale (Paris: Fontemoing, 1904; repr. Paris: De Boccard 1968), pp. 382-84; Gaetano Valente, La chiesa vecchia, antico duomo di Molfetta: quel che fu, quel che è, quel che dovrebb’essere (Bari: Avellino, 1909); Grigore Ionescu, Le chiese pugliesi a tre cupole, Ephemeris dacoromana, VI (Rome: Libreria di scienze e di lettere, 1935); Aldo Fontana, La chiesa vecchia di Molfetta e la sua cripta (Molfetta: Istituto Provinciale Apicella, 1936); Francesco Samarelli, Il vecchio duomo di Molfetta (Molfetta: Mezzina, 1962); Roberto Pane, ‘Melphicta parva sed elegans: I-II’, Napoli nobilissima, 6 (1967), 81-88, 153-69; Arnaldo Venditti, ‘Architettura a cupola in Puglia: III’, Napoli nobilissima, 7 (1968), 94-115; Vincenzo Maria Valente, Il Duomo di Molfetta. Esame storicostilistico (Molfetta: Mezzina, 1978); Pina Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica (Milan: Jaca Book, 2003), pp. 199-211; Kai Kappel, S. Nicola in Bari und seine architektonische Nachfolge: Ein Bautypus des 11.-17. Jahrhunderts in Unteritalien und Dalmatien (Worms am Rhein: Wernersche, 1996), pp.  266-75; Enrica Leonardis, Architettura romanica pugliese: Il progetto e la costruzione in pietra portante dell’edificio per il culto (Rome: Gangemi, 2013), pp. 22-23; and Girolamo A. G. Panunzio, Il Duomo di Molfetta: una chiesa fra Oriente ed Occidente (Bari: Mario Adda, 2012). 4  See further discussion in Chapter 1. 5  See Chapter 2 and Appendix 1 for full discussion of the medieval construction chronology. 6  See discussion in Chapter 1. 7  Lopez, pp. 70-79, describes several of the innovations. On pacts between the eastern and western Adriatic coastlines, Nicola Cilento, ‘I rapporti del “Comune Pugliese” con le città delle due sponde adriatiche negli studi di Francesco Carabellese’, Archivio storico pugliese, 34 (1981), 41-53. 8  Pierre Toubert, ‘Paysages ruraux et techniques de production’, in Potere, società e popolo nell’età dei due Guglielmi, Atti delle quarte giornate normanno-sveve, Bari – Gioia del Colle, 8-10 ottobre 1979 (Bari: Dedalo, 1981), pp.  201-30; André Guillou, ‘Production and Profits in the Byzantine Province of Italy (Tenth to Eleventh Centuries): An Expanding Society’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 28 1 

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(1974), 89-109; Raffaele Iorio, ‘Olivi e olio in Terra di Bari in età normanno-sveva’, in Olivi e olio nel medioevo italiano, ed. by Andrea Brugnoli and Gian Maria Varanini (Bologna: CLUEB, 2005), pp. 291-314. 9  Graham A. Loud, ‘Coinage, Wealth and Plunder in the Age of Robert Guiscard’, The English Historical Review, 114, no. 458 (1999), pp. 815-43. 10  On the Norman conquest of South Italy, Ferdinand Chalandon, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile (Paris: Librairie A. Picard et fils, 1907; repr. New York: Burt Franklin, 1969). 11  On patterns of seigneurial holdings in Apulian dioceses during the Norman era, Jean-Marie Martin, La Pouille du VIe au XIIe siècle (Rome: École française de Rome, 1993), pp. 280, 599-600; Jean-Marie Martin, ‘Les seigneuries monastiques’, in Nascita di un regno: poteri signorili, istituzioni feudali e strutture sociali nel Mezzogiorno normanno (1130-1194), Atti delle diciasettesime giornate normanno-sveve, Bari, 10-13 ottobre 2006, ed. by Raffaele Licinio and Francesco Violante (Bari: Mario Adda, 2008), pp. 188-91. 12  Martin, Pouille, pp. 600-01. 13  See Chapter 1 for further discussion of the finances of the cathedral and of competing churches in medieval Molfetta. 14  Martin Warnke, Bau und Überbau (Frankfurt am Main: Syndikat, 1976; repr. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984). 15  Warnke, pp. 29-60, especially p. 29: ‘Die starke Aufmerksamkeit, die die mittelalterlichen Quellen dem Wechselspiel zwischen Eigen- und Fremdmitteln widmen, gilt einer Entwicklung, in der sich ein ausgeweitetes Gesamtinteresse gegen ein partikular eingeengtes Interesse durchzusetzen sucht’. 16  ‘dis’juncture, n’, OED Online (Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2019). http://www.oed.com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/view/Entry/54662 17  Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Bulding in Ten Books, trans. by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavenor, 10 vols (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), I. See Marvin Trachtenberg, ‘Building outside time in Alberti’s De re aedificatoria’, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 48 (2005), 123-34 (p. 124), for discussion of the novelty of Alberti’s conception of design as a detailed guide for the entire work. 18  Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978; repr. New York: Monacelli Press, 1994), pp. 139-41: ‘The Empire State Building is a form of automatic architecture, a sensuous surrender by its collective makers – from the accountant to the plumber – to the process of building. […] Workers on site are described as passive, almost ornamental presences. “It was, as Shreve the architect said, like an assembly line placing the same materials in the same relationship over and over… So perfect was the planning, so exact the fulfillment of schedule that workmen scarcely had to reach out for what they next required. As if by magic, their supplies appeared at their elbows…”’. 19  See, for example, the works of Wang Shu (b. 1963). 20  Charles E. Lindblom, ‘The Science of “Muddling Through”’, Public Administration Review, 19/2 (1959), 79-88. 21  Lindblom, pp. 79-81. 22  ‘Suppose that each value neglected by one policy-making agency were a major concern of at least one other agency. In that

case, a helpful division of labor would be achieved […] the virtue of such a hypothetical division of labor is that every important interest or value has its watchdog’. Lindblom, p. 85. 23  Lindblom, p. 84. 24  Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. by Richard Nice (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1972, as Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique, précédé de trois études d’ethnologie kabyle; repr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 8-9. 25  Bourdieu, p. 6. 26  Bourdieu, p. 18. 27  David Turnbull, ‘The Ad Hoc Collective Work of Building Gothic Cathedrals with Templates, String, and Geometry’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 18/3 (1993), 315-40 (p.  319) critiques this ‘design argument’. 28  Richard Krautheimer, ‘Introduction to an “Iconography of Mediaeval Architecture”’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 5 (1942), 1-33; Günter Bandmann, Early Medieval Architecture as Bearer of Meaning, trans. by Kendall Wallis (Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag, 1951, as Mittelalterliche Architektur als Bedeutungsträger; repr. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). 29  Krautheimer, pp. 13-14. 30  Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention. On the Historical Explanation of Pictures (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 42-48, distinguishes between the artist’s charge (the general task of his profession) and his brief (defined by the multiple external conditions informing the particular work, including artistic precedents and technical matters). 31  Bandmann; Hans-Joachim Kunst, ‘Freiheit und Zitat in der Architektur des 13. Jh.: die Kathedrale von Reims’, in Bauwerk und Bildwerk in Hochmittelalter: Anschauliche Beiträge zur Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte, ed. by Karl Clausberg, Dieter Kimpel, and Hans-Joachim Kunst (Geißen: Anabas-Verlag, 1981), pp. 87-102. 32  Bandmann, pp. 48-49. 33  Robert Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999; repr. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), pp.  86-127; Caroline Bruzelius, ‘Project and Process in Medieval Construction’, in Ex Quadris Lapidibus: La pierre et sa mise en oeuvre dans l’art médiéval. Mélanges d’Histoire de l’art offerts à Éliane Vergnolle, ed. by Yves Gallet (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2011), pp. 11323; and Marvin Trachtenberg, Building-in-Time: from Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). 34  Dieter Kimpel, ‘Ökonomie, Technik und Form in der hochgotischen Architekture’, in Bauwerk und Bildwerk in Hochmittelalter: Anschauliche Beiträge zur Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte, ed. by Karl Clausberg, Dieter Kimpel, and Hans-Joachim Kunst (Geißen: Anabas-Verlag, 1981), pp. 103-25 (p. 106). 35  Vibeke Olson, ‘The Whole is the Sum of its Parts: Standardizing Medieval Stone Production’, in Working with Limestone: The Science, Technology and Art of Medieval Limestone Monuments, ed. by Vibeke Olson (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp.  189-207 (pp. 193-95). 36  Exemplary studies on construction, geometry, and material in Romanesque Apulia include Angelo Ambrosi, Visualità dello

spazio architettonico medioevale (Bari: Dedalo, 1979); Angelo Ambrosi and Enrico Degano, ‘Les marques de tailleurs de pierre au Moyen-Âge dans les Pouilles’, in Actas del Coloquio Internacional de Gliptografia de Pontevedra, julio, 1986 (Pontevedra: Diputacion provincial de Pontevedra, 1988), II, pp.  497-507; Angelo Ambrosi, ‘Testimonianze sul tracciamento degli archi medievali in Terra di Bari e Capitanata’, in Modo di costruire, Atti del primo seminario internazionale, Roma, 6-8 giugno 1988, ed. by Maristella Casciato, Stefania Mornati, and C. Paola Scavizzi (Rome: Edilstampa, 1990), pp. 79-96; Angelo Ambrosi, Enrico Degano, and C.  A. Zaccaria, eds, Architettura in pietra a secco: Atti del primo seminario internazionale ‘Architettura in pietra a secco’, Noci-Alberobello, 27-30 Settembre 1987 (Fasano: Schena, 1990); Rossella de Cadilhac, ed., L’arte della costruzione in pietra: chiese di Puglia con cupole in asse dal secolo XI al XVI (Rome: Gangemi, 2008); and Leonardis. 37  ‘Laboratories are the spaces in which the local, the tacit, and the messy knowledge and practices of groups of practitioners are transformed through collective work into a coherent tradition’. Turnbull, pp. 321-22. 38  ‘The fact that you paint on canvas enables you to paint a painting at all. Such conditions […] are restricting rather than enabling only if we imagine that we are somehow always inventing paintings or achieving some absolute painting when we paint, or that we ought to be doing that’. David Summers, ‘Intentions in the History of Art’, New Literary History, 17, no. 2 (1986), pp. 305-21 (p. 314). 39  Salazaro, p. 16. 40  For an example of the syncretic interpretation, Wolfgang Krönig, The Cathedral of Monreale and Norman Architecture in Sicily, trans. by David Henry Wilson (Palermo: Flaccovio, 1966). 41  Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘Connectivity, Mobility, and Mediterranean “Portable Archaeology”: Pashas from the Dalmatian Hinterland as Cultural Mediators’, in Dalmatia and the Mediterranean: Portable Archaeology and the Poetics of Influence, ed. by Alina Alexandra Payne (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 313-81; Finbarr B. Flood, Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval ‘Hindu-Muslim’ Encounter (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); Heather Grossman, Architecture and Interaction in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean: Building Identity in the Medieval Morea (Routledge: London, 2017); Heather E. Grossman, ‘On Memory, Transmission and the Practice of Building in the Crusader Mediterranean’, in Mechanisms of Exchange: Transmission in Medieval Art and Architecture of the Mediterranean, ca.  1000-1500, ed. by Heather E. Grossman and Alicia Walker (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 183-219; and S. Galletti, ‘Stereotomy and the Mediterranean: Notes Toward an Architectural History’, Mediterranea. International journal for the transfer of knowledge, 2 (2017), 73-120. 42  Flood, Objects of Translation, p. 8. 43  Pina Belli D’Elia, ‘Presenze pugliesi nel cantiere della cattedrale di Traù. Problemi e proposte’, Vetera Christianorum, 28 (1991), 387-421. 44  On constructional limestone in Apulia, Bruno Radina, ‘La Pietra di Trani’, Geotecnica, 5 (1956); Fulvio Zezza, ‘Pietre da costruzione e ornamentali della Puglia caratteristiche sedimentologico-petrografiche, proprietà fisico-meccaniche e problemi geologico-tecnici relativi all’attività estrattiva’, Rassegna tecnica

In t roduct ion : Study i n g Arch i t ectur e at t h e Joi nts

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pugliese, 8, no. 3-4 (1974), pp. 3-51; and Anita Guarnieri, ‘Materiali lapidei’, in L’arte della costruzione in pietra, pp. 93-115. 45  On professional travel in the Adriatic, Belli D’Elia, ‘Presenze pugliesi’; Maria Stella Calò Mariani, ‘Scultura pugliese del XII secolo. Protomagistri tranesi nei cantieri di Barletta, Trani, Bari e Ragusa’, in Studi di storia dell’arte in memoria di Mario Rotili (Naples: Banca Sannitica, 1984), pp. 177-91; and Cvito Fisković, ‘Sui contatti della Dalmazia con l’Italia gotica’, in Le plaisir de l’art du Moyen Âge: commande, production et reception de l’oeuvre

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d’art; mélanges en homage à Xavier Barral i Altet (Paris: Piscard, 2012), pp. 258-64. 46  On intercity trade agreements during this period, Cilento. 47  William Tronzo, The Cultures of His Kingdom: Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); Jill Caskey, Art and Patronage in the Medieval Mediterranean: Merchant Culture in the Region of Amalfi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 48  Grossman, ‘Memory, Transmission’, p. 483.

1. A Disjointed Program: Form, Function, and Finances

The complexity of Molfetta Cathedral stemmed in the first place from its program, the ensemble of ritual and iconographic functions that shaped its space. The program of Molfetta was deeply plural, a pastiche of competing volumes, axes, and focal points. I will argue that these contradictions resulted from clashes between diverse meanings and uses, which in turn responded to various relationships between the episcopacy, donors, and rival churches. The proliferation of functions at Molfetta, along with its need for formal multiplicity, can be related to the finances of the bishopric between the late 11th and the early 14th centuries. Because the medieval episcopal archive was burned during a war with the French in 1529, it is impossible to fully reconstruct the finances of the cathedral.1 Nevertheless, various published archival sources offer a glimpse of church finances in the region. Historians such as Jules Gay, Jean-Marie Martin, and Vera Von Falkenhausen have drawn upon these documents to explicate the general history of episcopal wealth in Apulia.2 Meanwhile, Francesco Carabellese and Luigi Michele de Palma have published records from various archives that illuminate the finances of medieval Molfetta.3 Using an approach espoused by André Guillou, I will cross-compare the available documents to reveal the economic patterns of the building project.4 These include patterns in the form of donations, in the pace and rhythm of funding, and in the various relationships forged with individuals and institutions beyond the episcopacy. The finances of Molfetta stood to affect its iconographical meanings and liturgical form. Kai Kappel

and Pina Belli D’Elia have interpreted the iconography and liturgy of Apulian architecture, relating conspicuous formal choices at sites such as S. Nicola in Bari to particular institutional relationships.5 Inspired by iconographers such as Krautheimer and Bandmann, Kappel’s monograph S. Nicola in Bari und seine architektonische Nachfolge (1996) has considered the formal system of S. Nicola in Bari and traced the selective re-appropriation of its elements among numerous churches in Apulia and beyond, including the cathedral of Molfetta. I will support Kappel’s interpretation that the builders of Molfetta Cathedral consciously partook of the formal system of S. Nicola by echoing its transept-cum-east facade. Belli D’Elia has accounted for the potential of liturgical programs to shift over time in response to changes in the administration: she argued that Eustasius, Abbot of S. Nicola in the first half of the 12th century, transformed the interior and furnishings of the basilica to evoke Roman models and express his allegiance to the Pope.6 I am likewise interested in the referential capacity of particular forms and spaces, as well as the ability of administrative upheaval to introduce new references. Unlike S. Nicola in Bari, however, Molfetta Cathedral does not offer evidence about the direct intentions of any one patron. Instead, the documents reveal long-term financial patterns. Patrons and clergy shaped the work indirectly rather than imposing explicit goals. As the cathedral accumulated its funds through various institutional relationships – serving as a suffragan to the archbishopric of Bari, drawing revenue from liturgical functions appropriated from

other churches, and accepting donations that placed contingencies on how and when they should be spent – the builders steered among an increasing number of constraints and opportunities. They brought form to the cathedral by balancing these different and often competing requirements.7 Consistent with the thinking of Robert Venturi, this church succeeded by becoming attuned to its diverse uses and expressing this multiplicity visually.8 As I shall argue, the peculiar dynamics of funding and institutional support at Molfetta Cathedral bred two kinds of multiplicity in its program. One was hybridization, whereby multiple known program typologies coexisted in the main space of the church and even shared constitutive elements with each other. I will suggest that the hybridization of Molfetta resulted from its long duration of funding and its many generations of administrative turnover. Because Molfetta was a small, newly-founded diocese in late 11thcentury Apulia, and thus received neither the great wealth of an old patrimony nor a new endowment, it was forced to choose between speed and monumentality. Instead of building on a small scale and quickly, the administration opted to retain the monumentality expected of an important cathedral and to extend the project over time. Funds were not disbursed regularly according to a predetermined schedule, but paid out in sporadic and unexpected infusions. Because the cathedral took many generations to build, it was destined for personnel change. I will argue that the dramatic revision of the interior partway through construction – from a transept basilica to an axialdomes layout – suggests a change in liturgical preferences as a result of turnover in the cathedral staff. A second major quality of the program was fragmentation, the tendency to progressively add new spaces and features whose internal purposes overruled the needs of an integrated whole. I will relate this trend to the cathedral’s reliance on external revenue sources, which the episcopacy either received as donations or demanded through litigation. This external tethering increasingly dominated the cathedral’s finances in the later stages of its creation, transforming the work in progress into an arena for different institutions and individuals to compete over status. The financial circumstances of Molfetta Cathedral lay beneath the functions it was expected to serve, and thus guided its basic form. The development

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of Molfetta’s program mirrored that of its assets; a hybrid and fragmented building rose from discontinuous revenue streams. The shaping of the program by the administration and patrons was a critical step, but only the first toward finding the ultimate design. Once the causes of hybridity and fragmentation in the program are grasped, the following chapters will be able to unravel the strategic response of the building team, who came to an adequate design by seizing opportunities in the process of construction, division of labor, and circulation of knowledge. Slow Funding and a Hybrid Typology Many unusual circumstances combined to delay the episcopal promotion of Molfetta and other emerging commercial towns of the Apulian coast. Like its neighbors, when Molfetta was finally promoted, its fledgling patrimony was not commensurate with the size of the city or its role in the Latin Church hierarchy. This initial discrepancy between status and resources committed the administration to a slow, ambitious program, rather than a fast and modest one, setting the cathedral on a course for generations of institutional change. I will argue that the mixed typology of the overall form, a transept basilica and an axial-domes church, betrays a layering of its functions and perceived role as a result of administrative turnover. Molfetta’s predicament was rooted in the peculiar history of episcopal power in medieval Apulia, where political instability in a highly urbanized region retarded the promotion of important towns to bishoprics. Molfetta, first documented in 925 as a civitas (but not yet a bishopric), was likely one of the new towns fortified by the Byzantine Empire following its conquest of Apulia’s middle coast in 871.9 The new towns joined newly refortified ancient cities, such as Bari and Giovinazzo, to form a dense chain.10 Although these perfectly situated ports would eventually form a robust Latin diocesan hierarchy, there was not yet a shadow of a strong episcopal network. The Early Christian network, which had comprised fifteen Apulian bishoprics, had been shattered: by the mid9th century, only six remained.11 This decline has been related to factors such as the shrinking Late Antique economy, the supremacy of extra-regional monasteries during the Lombard rule (between the 6th and

9th centuries), and the establishment of the Arab emirate of Bari between 847 and 871: this last caused extra-regional monasteries to alienate their Apulian possessions, leaving a vacuum of ecclesiastical power.12 The Byzantine Empire partly rejuvenated the Latin episcopal network but also held it under tight control. As Von Falkenhausen has shown, the Empire subjected its Latin bishops to special policies to ensure their loyalty to the Emperor and not to the Lombard princes of nearby Benevento.13 The Emperor meddled in episcopal elections, gave his loyal bishops authority over several sees at once, and created autocephalous archbishoprics to counterbalance enemy sees, when, for example, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I promoted the archbishopric of Benevento in 969.14 The proliferation of archbishoprics led to what Martin has characterized as an amoebic growth of episcopal authority up to the middle of the 11th century. This chaotic landscape of ecclesiastical authority, rife with lay interference, may explain why the papacy waited so long to confirm the new Latin archbishoprics of Apulia as metropolitans, a status that gave bishops the authority to enlist other bishoprics as suffragans. Only in 1025, almost 75 years after Bari had seated an archbishop, did Pope John XIX confirm its metropolitan status: he invited Archbishop Bisantius to appoint twelve suffragan bishoprics from several eligible settlements, Molfetta among them.15 It was a while still before many of the suffragans were selected: only in 1071 do we first learn of a Bishop of Molfetta, when he was present at the famous consecration ceremony of Desiderius’s Abbey of Montecassino.16 The papal reforms that had begun in the middle of the 11th century had finally provided both the will and the means to restore a united episcopal network in Apulia. The popes, perhaps concerned about the Byzantine Empire’s tradition of meddling in episcopal elections, used the developing instruments of papal authority to reinforce the subjugation of the Apulian bishops to Rome while promoting them. One instrument was the pallium, bestowed on Bisantius of Bari in 1025 and Bisantius of Trani in 1064.17 This was a symbol of papal confirmation without which a metropolitan could not exercise his rights; furthermore, archbishops were required to travel to Rome and receive the pallium from the Pope in person. The new archbishops of Bari and Trani each received the honor under a strict understanding of a bond of political loyalty. In a 1035 missive, Pope John  XIX

praised Bisantius of Bari for his reputation of being terribilis et sine metu contra omnes Grecos (“terrifying to, and fearless of, all Greeks”).18 In 1064, while Bisantius of Trani was staying in Rome to receive the pallium from Pope Alexander  II, he witnessed the unseating of his predecessor, a Greco-file bishop who had taken the side of the Patriarch of Constantinople in the debates of the Great Schism of 1054.19 A second mode of papal control was to preside at councils in Apulia and its environs. Between 1050 and 1127, popes traveled south for dozens of councils in Bari, Melfi, Siponto, and Troia, usually concerning doctrinal debates with the East.20 The frequent presence of the Pope in the area, combined with the pressure he applied to bishops to meet with him in Rome, ensured that the Latin sees of Apulia were bound together under personal promises of allegiance to him. But because the expansion of the Latin episcopal network in the region occurred so late – because, in the words of Martin, church reform in central Apulia amounted to the creation, rather than the renewal, of a diocesan network – it proved difficult to carve out ecclesiastical revenue streams in these cities, notwithstanding the fact that many of them were prospering from Mediterranean trade.21 Old sees had lost almost all of their seigneurial rights over time, while new ones were born without them. Although the Normans, who overtook the Byzantine catapan in Robert Guiscard’s 1071 siege of Bari, created new sources of taxable revenue, the tithes given to churches were patchy and selective. Certain sees received large seigneurial rights, such as Bari.22 But there are clear indications that most other bishoprics, including Molfetta, had only a few, scattered entitlements, a common situation in comital southern Italy during the 11th and 12th centuries.23 The early properties and rights of the episcopacy of Molfetta are known from a few surviving documents. Agricultural plots, especially olive orchards, make frequent appearances in the records, suggesting that they made up a major portion of income.24 The church may have held these plots prior to its promotion or secured them through later donations. The size of these holdings increased over time, with several private gifts made between 1184 and 1252, and a fraction of the donations flowed to construction and maintenance purposes, in keeping with canonical laws requiring subdivision of episcopal assets for spiritual purposes.25

A D i s joi n t ed P rogr a m : For m , Fun ct ion , an d Fi nan ce s | Ch ap t er 1

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In addition to its piecemeal agricultural patrimony, the bishopric was entitled to small annual tributes from its parish churches. Starting in 1136, every year on the Feast of St Martin, the Church of S. Martino, a dependency of the monastery of Cava, was to deliver a pound of olive incense and a pound of wax to the cathedral.26 Similar tributes were expected from other parish churches in Molfetta, such as S. Margherita, a dependency of S. Maria de Gualdo since 1214, and S. Giacomo, a dependency of Monte Sacro.27 In some cases, the administration requested the gifts in cash form to support construction.28 While there is no way of knowing exactly how much agricultural property the episcopacy of Molfetta controlled, its increasing number of olive orchards is a sign of growing wealth, as the value of the olive would have been appreciating during this time. Through technical innovations begun in the 1000s, the Apulian olive industry was being modified and marketed to an expanding overseas clientele.29 Molfetta was at the northern edge of a large area where wild olive trees grew, and they were cultivated using cutting-edge methods of selection, trimming, and grafting.30 Olive properties and trees had precisely known market value, and were thus easily exchanged for gold coinage, and even accepted as credit by wealthy non-local institutions such as merchant families and monasteries from the Amalfi Coast.31 The fungibility of olive assets was fundamental to supporting construction, for without proceeds in coinage, the builders could not be paid.32 But while the cathedral derived some benefit from the uptick in the value of their agricultural properties, there were clear limits to the fiscal powers of the episcopacy. For one, the bishop competed with powerful extraregional monasteries such as Cava, in Campania, which was buying up extensive agricultural properties throughout Apulia.33 In 1136, when Bishop John of Molfetta confirmed a comital donation of the church of S. Martino to Cava, he effectively loosed S. Martino from espiscopal jurisdiction; this would later undermine the episcopacy’s attempt to exact tithes from S. Martino.34 Furthermore, the episcopacy does not seem to have profited directly from Molfetta’s booming trade. In Apulia, commercial activities were subject to public taxes due to the lay lord: including taxes on commercial transactions, docking or anchoring in the harbor, and use of the market square (the Norman

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counts inherited some of these types of taxes from Lombard and Byzantine times).35 While the Normans gave some urban episcopacies the rights over public tithes,36 it is apparent that Molfetta’s public taxes were still largely at the disposal of the lord in the middle of the 12th century, when Count Robert of Conversano exempted Ragusan merchants from market duties in a mutual pact with the Dalmatian hub.37 Although this important document attests to the vitality of the city’s export market, it is implies a limited episcopal fisc. All told, the finances of the diocese of Molfetta early in its existence were not in proportion to the significance of the town. The city had become a thriving port, and this may have been the reason for its selection as one of Bari’s suffragan dioceses. Meanwhile the belated promotion of the see and its weak control over resources, relative to the laity and autonomous monasteries, significantly hampered its means. How did this discrepancy between status and resources affect the funding of the cathedral itself ? Several references to the institution of the fabricis episcopis (‘cathedral works’), a dedicated construction fund probably managed by part of the cathedral’s chapter, provide some insight.38 This fund existed, along with funds for the clergy and the poor, as part of the canonical subdivision of episcopal revenues.39 In the Apulian context, the institution of the fabrica existed at least by the early 1100s.40 By 1184, donations to Molfetta Cathedral assigning a portion of funds ‘pro fabricis’ were standard practice, and by 1286, whole olive plots were associated specifically with the fabrica.41 Theoretically, the cathedral would have been able to gradually accumulate olive properties and their cash revenues, then disburse this income for a construction campaign when the amount was sufficient; indeed, the discussions of the next chapter suggest a sequence of construction in bursts. But apparently Molfetta required many such infusions to complete the entire edifice. After references to the existence of a bishop in 1071, and of a cathedral in 1136, an 1184 donation stated that the church still needed to be ‘completed’.42 Still in 1257, donors anticipated further construction, and in 1285 the administration again mentioned the need for building funds.43 These references do not merely imply a shortage of funds, they also hint at a pattern of choice. The episcopacy of Molfetta, lacking the comital and ducal support of its wealthier neighbors such as Bari, and thus forced

to decide between building an altogether less magnificent church or committing to a long, ambitious campaign, chose the latter path.44 The sacrifice of speed for scale can help explain one of the main historiographical questions surrounding this cathedral: that of its combination of two distinct formal typologies. A basilica with a transept and a flat-ended east facade containing towers and passageways was one common local typology.45 The vaulting scheme of three domes on axis with quadrant vaults over the side aisles was another.46 As Émile Bertaux pointed out, Molfetta Cathedral is the only building in Apulia to combine the two systems.47 While this combination is usually discussed as a harmonious, syncretic design, my investigations strongly suggest that the two systems were introduced in different constructional episodes, and were not both part of the original conception (see Appendix 1).48 Rather, I support a suggestion by Pina Belli D’Elia that the ceiling with axial domes and quadrant vaults was inserted into the envelope of a partially built transept basilica.49 This about face was fundamentally a result of the long and slow funding rhythm, which encouraged the layering of multiple design schemes. To be more precise, it is useful to consider this church as a hybrid typology, a single work supporting multiple formal systems that would ordinarily govern the whole on their own. Theories of hybridity in Literature, Linguistic Studies, Cultural Studies, and Architecture name a few essential properties of a ‘hybrid construction’.50 Most important, the two systems that make up a hybrid construction share many of the same constitutive elements, such as particular words of a hybrid sentence, giving those elements contradictory meanings.51 Because of the sustained overlap of the two systems, a dividing line cannot be drawn between them. At the same time, the two systems function autonomously. The first of Molfetta’s two main typologies is the transept basilica with a rectilinear east facade. Several large churches of the middle Apulian coast feature a transept, which sometimes includes a crypt, terminated by a flat east end with passageways. Aside from Molfetta Cathedral, all of these examples employ wooden-truss roofs. While almost all are cathedrals (Bari, Bitonto, Giovinazzo, etc.), the watershed example is the abbey of S. Nicola in Bari, constructed between the end of 11th century and the beginning of the 12th (Fig. 12). Here the typology is fitted to a

particular set of liturgical uses. Constructed for the express purpose of housing the prestigious relics of St Nicholas (stolen from Myra by Bariot merchants in 1087), the basilica features a large hall crypt of four longitudinal bays and nine transverse bays supported by ancient spolia columns (Fig. 13). The spacious crypt was designed to accommodate the circulation of throngs of pilgrims. Meanwhile, the east facade with a prominent central window connecting with a staired passage leading to the crypt may have functioned to somehow connect urban crowds to the sacred; it is tempting to imagine clergy delivering addresses or even relic ostentations from this window. The dimensions of the crypt allow for a grand transept and a broad nave: this synthesis between an important pilgrimage shrine and ample congregational church was common in Early Christian and Romanesque architecture. Indeed, with its great size, transept plan, spolia columns, and other details, S. Nicola seems to evoke the great pilgrimage basilicas of Rome, such as S. Peter and S. Paul Outside the Walls.52 In addition to its liturgical function, certain symbolic associations appear to have accompanied this typology. In the first place, the type was effectively transformed into a sign of episcopal status when numerous cathedrals in Apulia’s middle coast (Bari, Bitonto, Conversano, Giovinazzo, Biscéglie, and Molfetta) adopted it (Fig.  14). When used in these churches, the typology may have also continued to carry associations with the abbey of S. Nicola, as Kai Kappel has argued in an exhaustive study of the group.53 Indeed, these cathedrals outline the pilgrim’s approach to the shrine along Roman roads, and several of them possess notable relics themselves: for example, the relics of St Sabinus held by Bari Cathedral. The repetition of a definite typology between proximate cathedrals may have constructed the sense of apostolic authority over the pilgrimage route to S. Nicola. After all, the presence of the relics of St Nicholas in the realms of Latin Christendom held profound meaning for the Church of Rome. In 1089, when Pope Urban II awarded Abbot Elias of S. Nicola the pallium to serve as Archbishop of Bari, he waived the ordinary requirement to travel to Rome, citing the circumstance of Elias’s heroism in rescuing the holy relics from the East.54 At the beginning of Molfetta’s construction (probably in the first half of the 12th century), the administration may have chosen to employ the same liturgical

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Figure 12.  Bari, S. Nicola. East facade.

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Figure 13.  Bari, S. Nicola. Crypt.

space and iconographical typology as the other cathedrals in the region in order to enlist the new church as part of a conceptual Latin ‘front’ defined by the pilgrimage route to Bari. Relatedly, Molfetta is one of the cathedrals in the group that featured a crypt in the absence of prestigious relics (the relics of St Conrad would not be obtained until the first quarter of the 14th century). Perhaps the Bishop hoped that the construction of a crypt would prompt a donation of relics, or even a furta sacra (‘sacred theft’) similar to what the Bariots had accomplished. The message would become mixed. For at Molfetta, the transept basilica typology was combined with a roofing system not of wooden trusses, but of three domes over the central axis and quadrant vaults over the side aisles. This typology, probably introduced partway through construction, radically changed the spatial form of the interior.55 In contrast to the T-shaped basilica arrangement, the new ceiling plan created the sense of a continuous nave and side aisles three bays long, almost obliterating the sense of a perpendicular relationship between the transept and nave (Fig.  5). The low, longitudinal quadrant vaults of the side aisles sweep across the transept, violating its transverse axis. The east dome, instead of surging prominently like a true crossing dome (such as that of Bari Cathedral),

sits low, just above the quadrant vaults. Spur walls at the threshold of the east bay mask the slight projection of the transept arms, such that the existence of a transept is almost unnoticeable inside the church. The introduction of the axial-domes scheme appears to have coincided with the elimination of the crypt, creating an even floor level throughout the church. Lacking a crypt or a proper transept, the new plan unified a space that had been marked by separate axes, floor levels, and subdivisions. Contributing to this oppenness are the high longitudinal arcades dividing the side aisles and the nave, which equal the height of the main transverse arches. While the new plan accommodated certain key elements of the old typology such as the east towers and facade, and incorporated the shell of the old transept by allowing the quadrantvaulted northeast and southeast bays to double-function as aisle bays and transept arms, it also superceded what came before. The needs of the new axial-domes layout were consistently prioritized over those of the transept basilica. The overall plan was a hybrid of old and new, but it gave pride of place to the new. The three-axial-domes layout finds its own distinct set of comparanda, specifically the Benedictine churches of SS. Ognissanti in Cuti (near present-day Valenzano) (Fig. 15), S. Benedetto in Conversano, and

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Figure 14.  Giovinazzo Cathedral. East facade.

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Figure 15.  Cuti (Valenzano), SS. Ognissanti. General view of interior toward east.

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Figure 16.  Trani, S. Francesco (originally SS. Trinità).

SS. Trinità (currently S. Francesco) in Trani (Fig. 16). With its open interior and no strong subdivisions, the typology would have offered certain liturgical opportunities. Unfortunately, very little is known about the liturgies of the buildings in this group, so the basic question of why Molfetta Cathedral features this typology remains unanswered. Some have suggested that the typology served specifically Benedictine functions, making Molfetta Cathedral something of an aberration.56 The typology, however, was not anomalous for cathedrals in the region: in addition to Molfetta Cathedral, the ruined cathedral of Montecorvino has the same basic ground plan as SS. Ognissanti in Cuti, S. Benedetto in Conversano, and SS. Trinitá in Trani: three square axial bays flanked by side-aisles of half the width of the main aisle.57 To add, the cathedral of Canosa, which predated the Romanesque period and long served as the Latin archbishopric in the Terra di Bari, was an important precedent for an aisled basilica with axial domes.58 Furthermore, in Apulia the liturgical spaces of different orders of the Church – monastic and secular clergy – were not mutually exclusive. It was relatively common for formal types to be shared between monasteries and cathedrals, as exemplified by the close similarities between S. Nicola in Bari and the cathedrals

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of Bari and Bitonto. This probably resulted in part from the fluidity between secular and monastic clergy in medieval Apulia, where abbeys and cathedrals competed over the administering of sacraments and pastoral services. In Apulian cities, monks encroached on baptism, communion, confession, blessings, and funerals.59 The bishops and canons that staffed cathedrals were thus regularly recruited from local monasteries, exemplified by the promotion of Abbot Elias of S. Nicola to Archbishop of Bari as well as the wellknown intertwining of personnel between this abbey and cathedral.60 Although the Apulian cathedrals formed part of an apostolic hierarchy governed by Rome, and their bishops were closely monitored by the papacy, the rest of the clergy and canons tended to be local recruits and may have imposed their own preferred practices. Apparently local monastic communities even had some influence over the cathedral staff of Molfetta: in 1165, the Archdeacon groomed his nephew for acceptance into the local monastery of S. Martino, a dependency of the monastery of Cava.61 If we consider the considerable exchange between monastic and secular clergy in medieval Apulia, the decision of Molfetta’s clergy to adopt the liturgical form of three axial domes becomes less surprising. At a pivotal moment in the history of construction, the

cathedral may have admitted new local canons accustomed to communal monastic prayer in a church with this open layout. For example, the Cava dependency of SS. Trinità in Trani, with its three domes on axis, sideaisle quadrant vaults, and high middle dome, compares most closely to Molfetta Cathedral (Fig. 16). SS. Trinità would have been underway around the same time as the cathedral (c.  1184) and was also deeply entrenched in the economy of Molfetta, controlling many of Cava’s holdings in the city. An exchange of clergy between Molfetta Cathedral and this Cava dependency would not have been out of the ordinary, as the aforementioned episode of the Archdeacon’s nephew illustrates. On the other hand, we should also consider other possible causes for the adoption of axial domes at Molfetta Cathedral. For example, this roofing system required virtually no timber; even the roofs of the aisles and domes were built of limestone shingles. In limestone-rich and timber-poor Apulia, this solution was probably less expensive and difficult to supply than the large wooden-truss roofs of churches like S. Nicola in Bari. Whatever the reason for the adoption of the axialdomes typology at Molfetta, the very fact of its use raises the question of what liturgical functions made this typology suitable to monasteries and cathedrals alike. Although the functions of the three-axialdomes typology are difficult to reconstruct, clues can be found in earlier comparanda for the type. The oldest Apulian example of a church combining axial domes flanked by quadrant vaults is the small church of Seppannibale (c. late 8th - 9th century), where the open plan allowed the congregation to contemplate a sophisticated fresco program in the domes.62 The iconography of the frescoes was drawn from Revelation. One scene depicts a seven-headed dragon threatening a winged woman (Revelation 12).63 The woman is pregnant, and the dragon waits for the moment of birth to devour her child. When the child is born, however, he will be immediately admitted into heaven and the woman will fly to a safe place reserved for her by God. Francesca dell’Acqua has detected the thought of Ambrosius Autpertus, 8th-century Abbot of Benevento, in the frescoes.64 Possibly inspired by Byzantine spirituality through his connections to Rome, Ambrosius attached Mariological significance to the story of the woman and the dragon as part of a larger agenda to promote Mary as a model of salvation for clergy and laity alike.65 Indeed, at Seppannibale, the

scene is adjacent to a niche fresco portraying the same woman in a typical ‘Virgin and Child’ composition. In employing Ambrosius’s interpretation of the story, the clergy of Seppannibale seem to have accepted his concept of Mary as universal salfivic model, a message that could have been intended for an audience of parishioners as well as monks. Put simply, it was an iconography of communal prayer, matching the common space created by this open plan type. The communal contemplation implied by the frescoes in the early church of Seppannibale may have translated to the needs of the later axial-domes churches. All of these abbeys and cathedrals would have had an interest in engaging with the local community, administering sacraments and pastoral care. The axial-domes typology was perfectly suited to communal outreach. In addition to containing north and south entrances, which were typically reserved for the clergy, several of these sites (Seppannibale, Cuti, and possibly Molfetta) included west porches, possibly serving as entrances for larger congregations.66 In addition, the basilical arrangement would have accommodated monks’ or canons’ choirs in addition to congregational spaces of worship. Over many generations, two basic plans came to coexist in Molfetta Cathedral. At the root of this hybrid typology lay the slow and incremental pace of funding, which prolonged the construction effort over numerous administrations. Institutional needs, and thus s­ patial types, accumulated over time. On one hand, new visions could supercede the old: the threedomes-on-axis plan completely subverted the existence of a transept on the interior. On the other hand, old functions could remain important as new ones became layered on top. For example, Molfetta remained a cathedral and a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Bari, and thus retained its towered facade when the axialdomes scheme was introduced. When it came to the general form of the church, the only solution fit for Molfetta’s mixed uses was two solutions in one. External Funding and the Fragmentation of the Program The building administration of Molfetta Cathedral was challenged not only by the slow pace of funding, but also by the diversity of funding sources. A first important source was lay donations, which often

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came in the form of wills. Lay donations arrived sporadically between the late 12th century and the middle of the 13th, and they differed in terms of what was given, how much, how the gift was structured, and what contingencies the donor imposed on use. A second source was income derived from tributes, tithes, fines, and rights over money-producing pastoral services. These kinds of revenues increased as the episcopacy became more enfranchised and litigious in the second half of the 13th century and the turn of the 14th. The clergy of Molfetta had more control over these types of funds than they did over the lay donations, and they appear to have accumulated and disbursed them according to a strategic timeline. But because these revenue streams were gathered from outside the original patrimony, they were sometimes attended by implicit contingencies of their own. For example, the bishop’s declaration of a monopoly over the right of intra-urban burial in the early 14th century may have necessitated the eventual construction of private chapels. Analogously, after finally taking possession of the holy relics of St Conrad, an important source of prestige and potential income, the cathedral needed a space to house the relics, and the setting they created retained qualities of the previous church that had held them. The diversity of external and expropriated revenue streams created a pattern of fragmentation in the architecture. Fragmentation, like hybridity, refers to a multiplication of functions expressed in form. But whereas hybridity implies a combination of separate but overlapping systems in one work, fragmentation is a breaking up of the whole into smaller parts, with little overlap. While we observed the process of hybridization at the level of the overall program, we can find fragmentation at work in the constituent spaces and details. The finances of Molfetta Cathedral underwent a major shift around 1270, the year of the first documented tithes for Molfetta.67 While it is possible that these tithes had been established earlier, it is likely that they were introduced by the new Angevin rulers. Before about 1270, the fabrica had probably depended for the most part on lay donations. Now the project began to also receive significant proceeds from tithes, lawsuits, and newly commandeered liturgical functions. The long-standing lay donations and more recent episcopal claims contributed to the fragmentation of the program in different ways.

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Four documents between 1184 and 1256 survive to inform the subject of lay donations. The documents elucidate the private motives that attended lay gifts, especially economic security, spiritual health, and civic status. In 1184, Griso di Sifando, a iudex (‘judge’) of Molfetta, made a will alienating various properties and rights to the episcopacy of Molfetta alongside other beneficiaries (the monasteries of Cava and Monte Sacro and a few churches in and around Molfetta) in exchange for daily prayers at the altar for the perpetual health of his soul.68 Among the donated assets, half of one of Griso’s olive plots, along with several other heritable olive plots owned by his family members, were to be given in name to the cathedral, and eventually pass fully into the hands of the bishop when they could no longer be claimed by a legitimate heir. These plots were specifically dedicated to the cathedral works ‘in order to complete the [cathedral]’. The second donation, dated 1236, was made by an inhabitant of Terlizzi named Gaydelgrima, daughter of one Luca from Molfetta.69 As before, this donation gave several olive plots to the cathedral of Molfetta and other beneficiaries. The plots were again to be tapped for the benefit of the cathedral works. In 1252, a judge of Molfetta named Grifo made a will bequeathing certain properties (including a large number of olive trees pertaining to the church of S. Lucia in Bitonto) to the cathedral of Molfetta and to the monastery of Monte Sacro, though they were to be held as heritable property by Grifo’s descendants in a sharecropping agreement like Griso’s in 1184.70 In addition, Gifo alienated an ounce of gold to the bishop of Molfetta and half an ounce to the episcopal works. Finally, in 1256, a noble named Curileone gave half an ounce of gold to the bishop and clergy of Molfetta and half an ounce to the construction of the church cum in ea laborabitur (‘when underway’), with an eighth of an ounce supporting imponenda campana magna (‘the purchase/mounting of the great bell’).71 Meanwhile, Curileone also alienated revenues to other beneficiaries in Molfetta and other towns, specifically the Dominicans of Trani and the Franciscans of Biscéglie. Taken together, the donations reveal certain meaningful patterns. In the first place, they show a recurring need on the donor’s part for economic security, fulfilled through a particular financial relationship

with the Bishop. The donor relinquished ownership over revenue-producing land to the Bishop but retained rights of use until in default of an heir; in the meantime, the Bishop could expect periodic tributes. Such an arrangement was common in medieval Europe and allowed donors and their heirs to continue to profit from their properties while protecting them with the legal apparatus of the Latin Church. A second pattern was the tendency of the donors to specify how the episcopacy should spend their gifts, ensuring that they ultimately served the donors’ spiritual rectitude. The donations in question included several liturgical instruments or furnishings needed for service, exemplified by the chalice and censer financed by Griso in 1184 and the bell promised in Curileone’s 1256 donation. In addition to these tributary gifts, several donors assigned profits from agricultural revenue to the cathedral with the stipulation that the proceeds be used for building purposes. As the evidence of Molfetta shows, contingencies brought meaning to medieval ecclesiastical donations, elevating them from infusions of money to something more specific. This specificity is what made them true gifts. Marc Bloch explained the special value of the medieval gift as a seemly alternative to pure cash:72 When it was a question of a gift […] or of a genuine sale, the agreement […] was obtained by means of payments in kind, more often than not valued in terms of money […] An object, even a modest one, could be more easily presented and accepted, in the same way that nowadays a person who would not accept a tip does not refuse a small present.

The extra value of the gift had importance for the benefactor as well as the beneficiary, as the rich anthropological discourse on gifts explains. Marcel Mauss argued that in some societies, the gift acts on behalf of its giver, holding an ineluctable power over the actions of the recipient.73 Later theorists located the effects of the gift not in the thing itself but in socially constructed systems of reciprocity (Claude Lévi-Strauss) or strategies of action built around the timing of the gift and counter-gift (Pierre Bourdieu).74 In the case of Molfetta Cathedral, the contingencies attached to donations often entailed commemorating the gift in the liturgy and form of the building. Some donors received prayers pro anima (‘on behalf

of the soul’): Griso, for example, required that the clergy pray daily at the high altar on behalf of his soul and those of his family.75 In addition, the performance of daily masses created an audience for the perpetuation of Griso’s gift, reflecting the perpetual nature of his endowment. His contribution was thus conspicuous. Had the church actually been finished on the back of Griso’s donation, as he explicitly wished, the pro anima masses would have carried triumphant overtones. Donors repeatedly offered items that featured conspicuously in church services. These objects engaged multiple senses. The censer given by Griso would have had an olfactory as well as a visual presence, while the bell financed by Curileone marked the cathedral offices sonically, placing the noble’s personal stamp on the functions of urban pastoral care. In addition, because Curileone’s contribution was locked by the double contingency that it be spent on a bell and ‘when construction was underway’, he implicitly connected his donation with the completion of the architectural setting that housed the bells, the south tower of the facade. The impressive tower was now an extension not only of the bell’s liturgical functions, but also of Curileone’s charity. Along with presenting financial and spiritual benefits, the donor’s engagement in church patronage would have enhanced civic status. Two of the four donors, Griso and Grifo, held the important urban title of iudex. In 12th-century Apulia, iudices were normally nobles, and they collaborated with the episcopal courts to settle various legal conflicts in the city, usually concerning property rights.76 Church patronage would have cemented the place of the iudex in the matrix of ecclesiastical and lay juridical authority, and thus would have heped him compete in the arena of urban government. Urban elites, especially those seeking governmental office, enhanced their moral standing by alienating possessions to the cathedral, where it was to be subdivided between charity and the fabrica. This preserved the image of the donor as an upstanding civil servant and made it possible for future family members to attain high posts. This conspicuous charity was especially important given the unsavory image of elite merchants and their commercial wealth. The fact that the families supporting Molfetta also donated to churches in nearby towns such as Terlizzi, Bitonto, Biscéglie, and Trani suggests that they needed to atone for increasingly inter-urban

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commercial exploits. Indeed, many leading families had spread their potentially usurious operations, including moneylending and cash exchange services, across multiple cities, exemplified by Gaydelgrima, who lived in Terlizzi but had family ties in Molfetta. Using church patronage to right wrongs and enhance civic status was a trend in the coastal cities of southeast Italy, where urban government was becoming increasingly autonomous. For example, Bari Cathedral received numerous lay gifts over a twenty-year period at the end of the 12th century.77 Each contribution stood to stimulate further gifts from competing nobles, exemplifying the ‘demonstration effect’ observed by Richard Goldthwaite in his interpretation of lay patronage of religious art in the late Middle Ages.78 By placing contingencies on their gifts to the cathedral, nobles ensured that their contributions would outshine earlier ones. After Molfetta began receiving proper tithes in the second half of the 13th century, it began seeking various other new sources of revenue. Documents from this period attest to a swelling of Molfetta’s authority and a pattern of bishops asserting their rights for fundraising purposes, sometimes explicitly invoking the need for construction funds. First, Bishop Angelus (1280-87) of the prestigious Saracenus family – famous for producing multiple papal legates and an Archbishop of Bari – began enforcing tributes owed by monastic houses in Molfetta.79 In 1282, Angelus reminded a priest of S. Martino, the dependency of Cava, of dues in wax and incense that he owed.80 In 1285, the Bishop collected a tribute due from S. Margherita, requesting that it be tendered in gold because the assets in question were shared properties and thus physically indivisible.81 The money, moreover, was urgently needed pro construenda frabica [sic] nostre maioris ecclesie melfictensis (‘for the construction of the cathedral of Molfetta’). In 1286, Angelus aimed for a larger settlement, demanding 150 ounces of gold from the Abbey of Monte Sacro over the failure of its Molfetta-based dependency S. Giacomo to pay its tribute.82 In all, the tenure of this Bishop is marked by a pattern of cash fundraising, which the construction effort seems to have deparately needed. Later bishops sought further tributes and settlements from Molfetta’s subordinate churches. Bishop Paulus (1294-1307) was particularly aggressive.83 In 1297, he unsuccessfully claimed 100 ounces of gold from the Teutonic Knights in punishment for

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establishing a site in Molfettese territory and not paying the customary tribute, while also demanding payment of a fourth of all private donations received by the knights.84 In the same year, Paulus requested payment from S. Martino for a fourth of its Molfettabased holdings, but was reprimanded by Rao of Ariano, an Apostolic Bishop, for forgetting that this Cava dependency was exempt from episcopal jurisdiction.85 There were other ways to use episcopal authority to seize revenues. According to a 1304 missive from the Franciscans of Molfetta to Pope Benedict  XI, Bishop Paulus had declared an episcopal monopoly over urban burials.86 The friars would doubtless have been taken aback that Paulus, himself a former member of the Franciscan convent, had now denied them a liturgical function upon which they depended. The service of intra-urban burial was a potentially significant source of funds, attracting testamentary donations and often prompting the construction of private family tombs, subsidiary altars, and ancillary chapels – a form that particularly characterized mendicant churches.87 It might be speculated that the arrival of the Franciscans and Dominicans to the Terra di Bari in the 13th century had encroached on lay wills benefitting cathedrals, and that Bishop Paulus, inspired by his own experience as a friar, sought to restore the cathedral’s advantage in this arena. By the early 15th century, the cathedral had imported the entire system, sprouting private chapels for lay donors around the exterior (see discussion below). The episcopacy’s newfound authority spurred yet another form of targeted disenfranchisement. Through an unclear sequence of events, the cathedral obtained the relics of St Conrad, a hermit saint associated with pilgrimage to the Holy Land, from the Cistercian church of S. Maria ad Gryptam in Modugno, which had held the relics until it was suppressed by King Robert of Anjou around 1313.88 Although the Angevins were not necessarily involved in securing these relics for Molfetta, it is not surprising to see the episcopacy benefitting from the royal reorganization of the ecclesiastical landscape during this period, for Molfetta and the royal court were clearly on good terms. The royal justiciar in Bari had allied with the Bishop of Molfetta to quell Ghibelline Rebellions, and in 1308, when Molfetta had faced one such revolt, Charles II of Anjou’s forces had helped suppress it.89 Acquiring the remains of St Conrad

Figure 17.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of east facade with interlaced arches.

would have enhanced the status of the cathedral as a waypoint on the coastal pilgrimage route between the more important shrines of St Nicholas in Bari and St Michael the Archangel in Monte Sant’Angelo. In addition to new funds raised from pilgrimage, the heightened status of the church stood to attract contributions from major prelates and donors. Between the middle of the 13th century and the early 14th, the rhythm and structure of funding had changed dramatically. Not only had the sporadic early donations now accumulated into a significant permanent endowment, the episcopacy, explicitly concerned with completing the church, had claimed various new revenues. The old, sputtering stream of private gifts was now joined by a steady flow of centralized funds supporting a major push. Although the change in the rhythm of finances seems to have called for a major adjustment to the construction process (see discussion in Chapter 2), the basic architectural program maintained a strong pattern of fragmentation. In the period dominated by lay donations, fragmentation resulted from the plurality of donors and the competitive nature of their

gifts. In the period of new revenues expropriated from other institutions, fragmentation was caused by other kinds of baggage that attended these funds. Sites such as S. Maria ad Gryptam near Modugno and S. Francesco in Molfetta, stripped of their holy relics and their rights to lay burial respectively, were relinquishing not only revenues to the cathedral, but also the functions of private prayer and enshrinement that produced those revenues. These functions required specific forms and spatial environments. Molfetta’s new funding sources were thus packaged with specific iconographic and liturgical needs. In all, both the old lay donations and the new episcopal funds distended the architectural program in multiple directions. For one, the architecture of the cathedral is marked by a frequent augmentation of details.90 Decoration and structural improvements were often added to features already underway. For example, the exterior blind arches in the east end were transformed into interlaced arches by the insertion of intermediate corbels (Fig. 17). Two corbels in the east end support fragmentary half-shafts that normally would have reached to the base of the arcade (as in Giovinazzo

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Cathedral), betraying that they were an afterthought at Molfetta. Adding interlaced arches would have resonated with the use of the same form in the east end of Giovinazzo, and it is possible that a donor wished to express homage to the major family of lords that had long promoted the Giovinazzo see: none other than the Norman house of Hauteville, rulers of the Kingdom of Sicily until the final years of the 12th century.91 Similarly, the squinches supporting the middle and west domes appear to have been revised partway through construction, transformed into cuffie (semicircular niches supporting the corners of the dome) (Figs  8-9).92 Occurring late in the construction of the cathedral, this augmentation shows a continued pattern of spontaneous adjustments even when the episcopacy was anxious to complete the work. Consistent with the structure of lay donations, small but conspicuous upgrades competed with each other, but they may also have competed with the larger goal of completing the whole. Another spontaneous upgrade seems to have attended the acquisition of the relics of St Conrad from the abbey of S. Maria ad Gryptam in Modugno around 1313. Archaeological evidence suggests that by this time, Molfetta Cathedral had long since renounced the original plan of a hall crypt for the preservation of relics in favor of a more unified interior (see Appendix 1); in fact, elsewhere in Europe, crypts were increasingly rejected in favor of consolidated, open liturgical settings.93 Furthermore, the initial failure to secure relics may have dashed the idea of a relic crypt similar to S. Nicola in Bari, Bari Cathedral, or Trani Cathedral. Consequently, when the body of St Conrad was finally obtained, a new shrine was needed. A 17th-century description may shed light on the 14th-century arrangement (notwithstanding important renovations in the choir during the 15th century): it reports that the remains of St Conrad were placed in a small chamber behind the altar.94 Archaeological investigations at the cave church of S. Maria ad Gryptam have shown that the earlier display of the relics was consistent with that of Molfetta: they lay in a crevice receding from the altar area.95 Retaining the character of the original relic environment was important for satisfying the expectations of pilgrims accustomed to the earlier shrine. The cathedral thus annexed a basic spatial concept developed beyond its walls.

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The same dynamic can be observed in the ancillary chapels that were constructed around the perimeter of the cathedral starting in the early 15th century (Fig. 2).96 The existence of the chapels shows that the cathedral administration ultimately prevailed over rival churches, such as S. Francesco, in its attempt to claim the right of urban burial. The ancillary chapel was a function-fitting space especially prevalent in the churches of the mendicant orders, such as the Franciscan and Dominican friars. In Molfetta, each chapel featured a subsidiary dedication and altar and could be used for private prayers on behalf of the donors, who may also have been interred at the cathedral. The chapels followed their own independent architectural programs that clashed with the formal logic of the cathedral. The three-dome liturgical layout, with its short nave, was not suited to ancillary chapels. As a consequence, it accommodated them at the disruption of important liturgical zones and thresholds. The chapel of S. Giuliano (1418) swallowed one portal of the twin entrances on the north flank of the church and confronted this path of ingress with its own ornate facade (Fig.  11). Meanwhile, the massing in the west facade was probably modified from a large entrance porch to incorporate the chapels of S. Antonio (before 1505), S. Maria della Carità (before 1529), and the now-destroyed chapel of S. Corrado (before 1608) (Fig.  18). The important income that the episcopacy would have gained by controlling lay burial in the early 14th century may have once helped complete the cathedral, but it had also created a legacy of fragmentation that continued long after the main space had been enclosed. Although hybridization and fragmentation steered the program of Molfetta Cathedral toward unexpected outcomes, they were ultimately positive values. These qualities addressed the complex finances and institutional relationships of the bishopric and eventually made it possible to complete the church. The administration clearly had the will to embrace architectural multiplicity in order to secure funding. But this left the builders with the challenge of using finite technical knowledge to keep up with changes in program and unprecedented formal combinations. As the following chapters argue, the construction effort provided natural pivot points, or ‘joints’, in which to improve maneuverability: breaks in the building process, divisions in the organization of labor,

Figure 18.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. West facade massing. The restored fabric at center was erected in place of the large arch communicating between the west end of the church and the chapel of San Corrado, which stood here until the mid-20th century.

and discrepancies between the geographic contexts of builders’ repertoires. Each presented a chance to incorporate the heterogeneity that was so central to the program of Molfetta Cathedral. NOTES See discussion in Appendix 1. Jules Gay, L’Italie méridionale et l’empire byzantin depuis l’avènement de Basile Ier jusqu’à la prise de Bari par les Normands ‘(867-1071)’ (New York: Burt Franklin, 1960); Jean-Marie Martin, La Pouille du VIe au XIIe siècle (Rome: École française de Rome, 1993); Vera von Falkenhausen, La dominazione b­ izantina nell’Italia meridionale dal IX all’XI secolo (Bari: Ecumenica editrice, 1978). 3  Codice diplomatico Barese VII: Le Carte di Molfetta (1076-1309), ed. by Francesco Carabellese (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1912); Luigi Michele de Palma, La sede episcopale di Molfetta nei secc. XI-XIII (Molfetta: Mezzina, 1983). 4  André Guillou, ‘L’Art des “Moines Basiliens” dans les Pays Grecs et Latins de l’Italie Méridionale’, in L’Art dans l’Italie Méridionale: Aggiornamento dell’opera di Émile Bertaux sotto la direzione di Adriano Prandi, ed. by Adriano Prandi (Rome: École française de Rome, 1978), IV, pp. 293-301. 5  Pina Belli D’Elia, ‘Liturgie del potere: i segni visivo-oggettuali’, in Nascita di un regno: poteri signorili, istituzioni feudali 1 

2 

e strutture sociali nel Mezzogiorno normanno (1130-1194), Atti delle diciasettesime giornate normanno-sveve, Bari, 10-13 ottobre 2006, ed. by Raffaele Licinio and Francesco Violante (Bari, Mario Adda: 2008), pp. 367-94; Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica. Kai Kappel, S. Nicola in Bari und seine architektonische Nachfolge: Ein Bautypus des 11.-17. Jahrhunderts in Unteritalien und Dalmatien (Worms am Rhein: Wernersche, 1996), p. 94. 6  Belli D’Elia, ‘Liturgie del potere’, pp. 378-80. 7  Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention. On the Historical Explanation of Pictures (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 42-48. 8  Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1966; repr. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1977). 9  The document is an agreement among landholders in the civitas of Melfi and neighboring towns, and is transcribed in Codex diplomaticus Cavensis I: Italia meridionale 792-960, ed. by Mauro Schiani, Michaele Morcaldi, Sylvano de Stefano, et. al (Naples: Piazzi, 1873), doc. 143, pp. 182-83. Francesco Carabellese, La città di Molfetta, dai primi anni del secolo X ai primi del XIV (Trani: V. Vecchi, 1899), p. 5, argues that the usage ‘Melfi’ refers to Molfetta rather than the city of Melfi in Basilicata, given that the reference is found alongside mentions of other properties in Bari and Giovinazzo, towns close to Molfetta. There is no strong written or material evidence to suggest the existence of an ancient town in Molfetta. Carabellese, Città, p. 3, rejects earlier hypotheses identifying Molfetta with sites such as ‘Respa’ mentioned in ancient travel itineraries. Alternatively, Roberto Pane, ‘Melphicta

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parva sed elegans: I-II’, Napoli nobilissima, 6 (1967), 81-88, 153-69 (p. 82), suggests that a small Roman settlement could have occupied the peninsula where the old town of Molfetta now stands. For the Byzantine new towns, Jean-Marie Martin and Ghislaine Noyé, ‘Les façades maritimes de l’Italie du Sud: défense et mise en valeur (IVe-XIIIe siècle)’, in Zones côtières littorales dans le monde méditerranéen au Moyen Âge; mise en valeur: actes du colloque international organisé par l’École française de Rome [and others], Rome, 23-26 octobre 1996 (Rome: École française de Rome, 2001), pp. 467-512 (pp. 491-92). 10  Martin, Pouille, p. 261. 11  Martin, Pouille, p. 247. 12  On the emirate of Bari, Giosuè Musca, L’emirato di Bari (Bari: Dedalo, 1967); and Lorenzo M. Bondioli, ‘Islamic Bari between the Aghlabids and the Two Empires’, in The Aghlabids and their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa, ed. by Glaire D. Anderson, Corisande Fenwick, and Mariam Rosser-Owen (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 470-90. On the alienation of monastic tributaries in the late 9th century, Martin, Pouille, pp. 597-98. 13  Von Falkenhausen, pp. 166-72. 14  Von Falkenhausen, p. 168 for imperial interference in the election of the bishop of Bari, and p. 167 for bishops heading multiple sees and the promotion of archbishoprics to counter Otto I. 15  Transcribed in Codice diplomatico Barese  I: Le pergamene del Duomo di Bari (952-1264), ed. by Francesco Nitti di Vitto and G. B. Nitto de Rossi (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1897), doc.  13, pp.  21-23. Subsequent confirmations of the same privileges, sometimes listing different suffragans, were made in 1063, 1089, 1151, 1172, and occasionally thereafter. See Codice diplomatico Barese  I, doc.  25, pp.  42-44; doc. 33, pp. 61-63; doc. 49, pp. 94-95; and doc. 52, pp. 99-101. 16  In his 1071 chronicle Leo of Ostia listed an unnamed Bishop Melfittensis among the prelates in attendance at the consecration of Desiderius’s new abbey church of Montecassino. Transcribed in Die Chronik von Montecassino, ed. by Hartmut Hoffman, Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores, XXXIV (Hannover: Hahn, 1980), 398-99. The city name, alternately transcribed as Melfittensis and Melphiatensis, almost certainly refers to Molfetta and not Melfi, given that a bishop of the latter appears previously on the list and that the bishop of Molfetta is listed between those of neighboring cities Vigiliensis (‘Biscéglie’) and Juvinazensis (‘Giovinazzo’). De Palma, Sede episcopale, p. 22, corrects the scholarly confusion that led to the proposed names of ‘Balduinus’ and ‘Iohannes’ for this Bishop. 17  Claudia Alraum, ‘Pallienprivilegien für Apulien zwischen 1063 und 1122’, in Päpstlich geprägte Integrationsprozesse in Ost- und Westeuropa (11.-13. Jh.). Universale Einheit oder vereinheitliche Vielfalt? Internationale Tagung, Pécs, 6. Dezember 2010 (Pécs: University of Pécs, 2011), pp. 11-32 (p. 15). 18  Hans-Walter Klewitz and Gerd Tellenbach, Ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Kirchen- und Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters (Aaelen: Scientia, 1971), p. 372. 19  Alraum, pp.  11-12. See also p.  23 for the confirmation of the Archbishop of Trani in 1089, when Pope Urban II emphasized the papacy’s special connection to the Apostle Peter and its special right to confirm all bonds of the Church. 20  Martin, Pouille, pp. 583-84.

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Martin, Pouille, p. 599. The Normans also made seigneurial donations to Brindisi, Melfi, Troia, and a few other cities. Martin, Pouille, pp. 600-01. 23  See Graham A. Loud, The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 391-92 for the bishopric of Aquino (in Lazio), an example of a small bishopric with piecemeal holdings. 24  References throughout Codice diplomatico Barese VII. 25  Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 70, pp. 89-92; Codice diplomatico Barese  III: Le pergamene della Cattedrale di Terlizzi (971-1300), ed. by Francesco Carabellese (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1899), doc. 233, pp. 253ff.; Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 101, pp. 129-32; Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 109, pp. 140-41. See further discussion in next section of this chapter. 26  Archivio della Badia di Cava, Arm. G. 19, A and Arm. G. 20, transcribed by Carlo Alberti Garufi, ‘I diplomi purpurei della cancelleria normanna ed Elvira prima moglie di Re Ruggero (117? - 6 Febbraio 1135)’, Atti della Reale Accademia di Scienze Lettere e Arti di Palermo, ser. 3, 7 (1904), 1-31 (pp. 26-28). 27  For S. Margherita, Codice diplomatico Barese  VII, doc.  82, pp. 106-08. For S. Giacomo, Codice diplomatico Barlettano I, ed. by Salvatore Santeramo (Barletta: Dellisanti, 1924), pp. 125-29. 28  See Bishop Angelus’s collection of tribute from S. Margherita in 1285. Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 144, pp. 184-86. 29  Raffaele Iorio, ‘Olivi e olio in Terra di Bari in età normannosveva’, in Olivi e olio nel medioevo italiano, ed. by Andrea Brugnoli and Gian Maria Varanini (Bologna: CLUEB, 2005), pp. 291-314 (p. 303). 30  Jean-Marie Martin and Ghislaine Noyé, ‘Les Campagnes de l’Italie Méridionale Byzantine’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen âge, 101 (1989), 559-96 (p. 578). 31  Pierre Toubert, ‘Paysages ruraux et techniques de production’, in Potere, società e popolo nell’età dei due Guglielmi, Atti delle quarte giornate normanno-sveve, Bari – Gioia del Colle, 8-10 ottobre 1979 (Bari: Dedalo, 1981), pp.  201-30 (p.  215) discusses the development of Apulia’s olive industry toward international trade, and the viability of olive assets for sale and credit. Graham A. Loud, ‘Coinage, Wealth and Plunder in the Age of Robert Guiscard’, The English Historical Review, 114, no.  458 (1999), pp.  815-43 (pp. 836, 839) discusses the cash holdings of major monasteries and lay families. 32  On the monetization of south Italy’s economy, and on the importance of cash for building purposes, see Loud, ‘Coinage, Wealth’, p. 829. 33  References throughout Codice diplomatico Barese VII. 34  Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 167, p. 219. See discussion in next section of this chapter. 35  Martin, Pouille, p. 429. 36  Martin, Pouille, pp. 606-07. 37  For this 1148 document, Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae  II, ed. by Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski (Zagreb: Albrecht, 1874), doc. 63, p. 62. 38  In 1245, for example, Angelus de Cicorea was referred to as the prior fabrice barensis matris ecclesie (prior of works at Bari Cathedral). Kappel, p. 70. On the general practice of canons managing the fabrica in medieval cathedrals, Giovanni Coppola, L’edilizia nel Medioevo (Rome: Carocci, 2015), pp. 31-34. 21 

22 

Giles Constable, Monastic Tithes: from their origins to the twelfth century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964; repr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 20-21. 40  For example, the cathedral of Brindisi was supported by revenue ‘pro fabricis’ in rights described by Pope Gelasius II (served 1118-19). See Kappel, p. 63; citing Fritz Jacobs, Die Kathedrale S. Maria Icona Vetere in Foggia: Studien zur Architektur und Plastik des 11.-13. Jahrhunderts in Süditalien, 2 vols (Ph.D. Dissertation, Hamburg, 1968), I, pp. 266ff. 41  For the 1184 document, Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 70, pp. 89-92. For the control of property by the fabrica, Codice diplomatico Barese  VII, doc.  154, pp.  204-05: ‘iuxta olivas fabrice episcopii’. 42  See the Chart 2 for timeline. Codice diplomatico Barese  VII, doc. 70, pp. 89-92. 43  For the 1257 document, Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 109, pp. 140-41. For the 1285 document, Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 144, pp. 184-86. 44  See discussion by Marvin Trachtenberg, Building-in-Time: from Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), p.  113: ‘The choice was open – either a smaller building sooner or the great edifice eventually – and the choice was often made not to compromise the scale of the project but to defer its completion and possession to the distant future, even well beyond the lifetime of those present at the founding’. 45  On this typology, see especially Kappel. 46  On this typology, see especially Grigore Ionescu, Le chiese pugliesi a tre cupole, Ephemeris dacoromana, VI (Rome: Libreria di scienze e di lettere, 1935). 47  Émile Bertaux, L’Art dans l’Italie Méridionale (Paris: Fontemoing, 1904; repr. Paris: De Boccard 1968), pp. 382-83. 48  See discussion in Appendix 1. 49  Pina Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica (Milan: Jaca Book, 2003), p. 208. 50  For representative studies of this theme, Mikhail Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel (1935)’, trans. by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed. by Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004), pp. 259-422; Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994); and Peter Burke, Hybrid Renaissance: Culture, Language, Architecture (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2016). 51  ‘What we are calling a hybrid construction is an utterance that belongs […] to a single speaker, but that actually contains mixed within it two utterances, two speech manners, two styles, two “languages”, two semantic and axiological belief systems […] There is no formal – compositional and syntactic – boundary between these utterances, styles, languages, belief systems; the division of voices and languages takes place within the limits of a single syntactic whole, often within the limits of a simple sentence. It frequently happens that even one and the same word will belong simultaneously to two languages, two belief systems that intersect in a hybrid construction – and, consequently, the word has two contradictory meanings, two accents’. Bakhtin, pp. 304-05. 52  For a comparison to S. John the Lateran, Belli D’Elia, ‘Liturgie del potere’. S. John did not feature a transept until the late 13th century, but Belli D’Elia argues that the fastigium at the east end 39 

of the nave may have inspired the three-arch structure beneath the triumphal arch of S. Nicola in Bari. 53  Kappel, p. 94. 54  Alraum, p. 23. 55  See discussion in Chapter 2 and Appendix 1. 56  For example, Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, pp. 201-02. 57  Jean-Marie Martin and Ghislaine Noyé, ‘La cité de Montecorvino en Capitanate et sa cathédrale’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, 94 (1982), 513-49. 58  Annabel Wharton Epstein, ‘The Date and Significance of the Cathedral of Canosa in Apulia, South Italy’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 37 (1983), pp. 79-90. 59  See Giovanni Lunardi, ‘L’ideale monastico e l’organizzazione interna dei monasteri’, in L’esperienza monastica benedettina e la Puglia, Atti del convegno di studio organizzato in occasione del XV centenario della nascita di San Benedetto, Bari, Noci, Lecce, Picciano, 6-10 ottobre 1980, ed. by Cosimo Damiano Fonseca, 2 vols (Galatina: Congedo, 1983-1984), I, pp. 137-68 (p. 150). 60  Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, pp. 127-28. In 1205, Archbishop Doferius of Bari prohibited clergy from serving as cathedral canons and as monks of S. Nicola simultaneously, excepting one Iohannes de Agralisto. Codice diplomatico Barese I, doc. 73, pp. 141-43; discussed by De Palma, Sede episcopale, p. 35. 61  Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 38, p. 53. 62  These dates are proposed by Gioia Bertelli and others, Puglia preromanica dal V secolo agli inizi del’XI (Milan: Jaca Book, 2004), p.  137, on the grounds that the church relates closely to architectural typologies and building techniques found in Lombard Benevento during this era. 63  Bertelli, p. 125. 64  Francesca dell’Acqua, ‘Ambrogio Autperto e la Cripta di Epifanio nella storia dell’arte medievale’, in La Cripta dell’Abate Epifanio a San Vincenzo al Volturno: un secolo di studi (1896-2007), ed. by Federico Marazzi (Cerro al Volturno: Volturnia Edizioni, 2013), pp. 27-47 (p. 29). 65  ‘Le opere di Autperto rivelano infatti l’intenzione di trasmettere, attraverso l’esempio di Maria, un insegnamento morale utile sia per i laici, sia per i monaci, improntato a un’incessante ricerca della perfezione spirituale’. Dell’Acqua, p. 32. 66  Constable, p. 235. 67  The episcopacy of Molfetta received tithes on customs, legal proceeds, and bajulation, in addition to 6 tari for Easter wax in 1269-70; then again in 1279-84. Norbert Kamp, Kirche und Monarchie im staufischen Königreich Sizilien, 4 vols (Munich: Fink, 1973-82), p. 643n; and Kristjan Toomaspoeg, ed., Decimae: il sostegno economico dei sovrani alla Chiesa del Mezzogiorno nel XIII secolo: dai lasciti di Eduard Sthamer e Norbert Kamp (Rome: Viella, 2009), pp. 157-58. 68  Ordino etiam ut epitropi mei ex predictis duodecim unciis auri emant unum calicem argenteum et unum turribulum argenteum pro tribus unciis auri et ipsum calicem et turribulum dent nostro episcopio ut ex ipsis cotidie serviatur altare pro salute anime mee […] Et si ipsa sine descendentibus obierit vel cum descendentibus et ipsi descendentes sine legitimis descendentibus decesserint et sic usque ad infinitum medietas ipsarum olivarum deveniat in potestate et dominio Monasterii Cavarum. Altera vero medietas detineatur et refrudietur ad beneficium fabrice episcopii nostri. Quo episcopio expleto ipsam medietatem olivarum teneant et

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refrudientur tres presbiteri ipsius episcopii pro remedio anime mee et parentum meorum usque in sempiternum. Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 70, pp. 89-92. According to the will, three ounces of gold – in the form of Sicilian tari – were to be used for the purchase of a silver chalice and a turribulum (‘censer’), while a fourth ounce was to be disbursed by a subdeacon toward the cathedral clergy and the poor. These documents divulge that in Apulia, the value of coinage was assessed by weight. 69  Lego etiam episcopo ecclesie melfictensis unam vineam meam olivarum et aliam vineam olivarum et aliam vineam olivarum inritam ei, relinquo fabrice ipsius ecclesie […] Volo etiam quod epitropi mei qui subter nominavero dent eidem capitulo ecclesie melfictensis mediam unciam auri, iudico etiam et dispono ut dominus Risandus episcopus predictus teneat et refrudiet predictas olivas, quas iudicavi ecclesie melfictensi et fabrice omnibus diebus vite sue, et post mortem eius deveniat predictis episcopio et fabrice. Codice diplomatico Barese III, doc. 233, pp. 253-54. 70  In primus itaque instituo mihi heredes episcopium civitatis Melficte et venerabile monasterium Montis sacri. Petro filio Drobicze liberto atque nutrito meo pro remedio anime mee relinque unam terram in pertinenziis Sancte Lucie cum omnibus arboribus olivarum […] fabrice episcopii melfictensis mediam unciam auri pro anima mea relinquo […] Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 101, pp. 129-32. 71  Dimitto quoque pro anima mea uncias de auro quinque sic distribuendas […] mediam unciam auri clericis et episcopo Melficte et mediam unciam auri frabice ipsius episcopii cum in ea laborabitur. Item mediam quartam uncie auri pro imponenda campana magna nostri episcopii […] Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 109, pp. 140-41. 72  Marc Bloch, ‘Natural economy or money economy: a pseudodilemma’, in Marc Bloch, Land and Work in medieval Europe, Selected Papers, trans. by J. E. Anderson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 230-45 (p. 237). 73  Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, trans. by Ian Cunnison (originally published as ‘Essai sur le Don in Sociologie et Anthropologie’, L’Année sociologique, 1 (1950), 30-186; repr. London: Routledge 1966). 74  Claude Lévi-Strauss, ‘Introduction à l’oeuvre de Marcel Mauss’, in Marcel Mauss, Sociologie et anthropologie, ed. by Claude LéviStrauss (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950); and Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. by Richard Nice (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1972, as Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique, précédé de trois études d’ethnologie kabyle; repr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), pp. 4-8, especially pp. 4-5 for a critical discussion of the interpretations by Mauss and LéviStrauss. 75  On donatio pro anima, Eliana Magnani, ‘Almsgiving, Donatio Pro Anima and Eucharistic Offering in the Early Middle Ages of Western Europe (4th-9th century)’, in Charity and Giving in Monotheistic Religions, ed. by Miriam Frenkel and Yaacov Lev (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), pp. 111-21. 76  Paul Oldfield, Urban Society and Communal Independence in Twelfth-Century Southern Italy (Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Leeds, 2006), pp. 114-20.

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Kappel, pp.  158-59. Donations in 1180: Codice diplomatico Barese  V: Le pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari (1075-1194), ed. by Francesco Nitti di Vitto (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1902), doc. 144, p. 248; 1187: Codice diplomatico Barese I, doc. 94, p. 164; 1188: tomb inscription – see Codice diplomatico Barese  I, p. xxxix; 1190: Codice diplomatico Barese I, doc. 155, p. 264; and 1191: Codice diplomatico Barese V, doc. 158, p. 270. 78  Richard A. Goldthwaite, Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy 1300-1600 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1993; repr. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1995), pp. 134-35. 79  See discussion by De Palma, Sede episcopale, pp. 55-57. 80  Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 140, pp. 180-81. 81  Cumque expediret nobis magis habere nobis pecuniam pro construenda frabica nostre maioris ecclesie melfictensis quam decimam partem in rebus predictis, maxime quia non curat fieri comoda divisio decime partis predictarum rerum et habere res in comuni non expediebat nobis nec nostre ecclesie quia consuevit necligi quod comuniter possedetur et dum se nichil habere cum totum non habeat arbitretur et partem suam perire patitur dum invidet aliene. Idcirco ex causa conventionis habite et trattate inter nos ex una parte et dopnum Stephanum monachum monasterii predicte ecclesie sancte Margarite monasterii sancte Marie de Gualdo ex altera, idem frater Stephanus dedit et assignavit nobis pro iure decime partis predictarum rerum competentis nobis in ipsis rebus secundum conventionem quondam predicti domini Risandi melfictensis episcopi uncias auri tres, quas statim dedimus et solvimus ad opus predicte frabice nostre ecclesie melfictensis. Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 144, pp. 184-86. 82  Codice diplomatico Barlettano I, pp. 125-29. 83  See De Palma, Sede episcopale, pp. 62-63 for discussion of the following. 84  Codice diplomatico Barese VII, docs. 165 and 166, pp. 215-18. 85  Codice diplomatico Barese VII, doc. 167, p. 219. 86  Le Registre de Benoit  XI: Recueil des bulles de ce Pape, ed. by Charles Grandjean (Paris: Fontemoing, 1905), pp.  587-88. See discussion by De Palma, Sede episcopale, p. 63. 87  See Caroline Bruzelius, ‘The Dead Come to Town: Preaching, Burying, and Building in the Mendicant Orders’, in The Year 1300 and the Creation of a New European Architecture, ed. by Alexandra Gajewski and Zoë Opačić (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2007), pp. 203-24; and Caroline Bruzelius, Preaching, Building, and Burying: Friars in the Medieval City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014). 88  See De Palma, Sede episcopale, p. 63. 89  Carabellese, Città, p. 37. 90  See chronological discussion in Chapter 2 and Appendix 1. 91  Kappel, pp. 252-53, for a timeline of donations and privileges to Giovinazzo Cathedral, including several from the Hauteville family: in 1113 (from Constance, wife of Prince Bohemond), 1134 (from King Roger  II); 1172 (from King William  II); and 1190 (from King Tancred). 92  See chronological discussion in Chapter 2 and Appendix 1. 93  See chronological discussion in Chapter 2 and Appendix 1. The creation of retrochoirs in English churches exemplifies the broader 77 

rejection of crypts for unified layouts. Peter Draper, ‘The Retrochoir of Winchester Cathedral’, Architectural History, 21 (1978), 1-17, 97-103. 94  Luigi Michele de Palma, San Corrado il Guelfo: indagine storico-agiografica (Molfetta: Mezzina, 1996), p.  129, citing the 1668 visitation report of Monsignor Francesco Marini in the Archivio diocesano di Molfetta, Curia Vescovile, Visite Pastorali e Sinodi Diocesani.

A low crevice receding behind the altar formed a chamber for San Corrado’s relics. De Palma, San Corrado, p. 127n. 96  The chapels, with their dates of construction, are S. Maria ‘ad Nives’ (1401), Santa Caterina (1405), S. Giuliano (1418), S.  Antonio (before 1505), and S. Corrado (before 1608; originally located in the area of the central portal of the west facade, but now destroyed). Kappel, p. 266; citing Francesco Samarelli, Il vecchio duomo di Molfetta (Molfetta: Mezzina, 1962), pp. 25-41. 95 

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2. The Joints of Process: Design Change Through Constructional Episodes

One key to the versatile design of Molfetta Cathedral was the episodic pattern of construction. The interruptions and hiatuses that occurred over the course of building provided natural opportunities for adjustment. By strategically using the breaks in construction as hinges in the design, the lodge kept up with the rapidly evolving program demanded by the administration. Primary documents and the archaeological record both testify to the episodic construction history of this church, and a number of scholars have investigated the problem. Appendix 1 of this book offers my own interpretation, based on the surviving documents as well as a photogrammetric model of the interior, a stratigraphic analysis of the walls, the study of constructional variations, and comparisons to other examples in medieval Apulia (Figs 1, 19-21). To summarize, I propose that the main volumes of the church were completed over no fewer than five distinct building campaigns: Phase 1: original construction of the hall crypt; Phase 2: original construction of the transept and the beginning of the nave, modifying the crypt; Phase 3: insertion of a dome and quadrant vaults in the east end and elimination of the crypt; Phase 4: completion of the middle and western bays of the nave and their domes up to the bases of the squinches; Phase 5: completion of the middle and western domes with cuffie.

There is nothing unusual about Molfetta’s episodic construction per se. More significant is the question of whether the constructional episodes occasioned fundamental design changes or merely carried out a preconceived plan, step by step. A building may in theory be built over a series of episodes without ever undergoing major revisions. But the present analysis suggests that the design of Molfetta Cathedral was repeatedly adjusted in major ways, from its decorative details to its overall form. Whether Molfetta Cathedral was planned in one fell swoop or resulted from a series of design changes has long been a point of contention. The evidence for a non-linear design history began accumulating between the end of the 19th century and the middle of the 20th, when historians, archivists, and architects researched the cathedral in support of restorations. These campaigns repeatedly struggled to reconcile complex findings with the search for a unified and expressive edifice. In 1884, the eminent restorer Giuseppe Fiorelli helmed an investigation into the original fabric of the church, then in a precarious state of disrepair.1 In the tradition of Viollet-le-Duc, Fiorelli championed preparatory research whereby restorers might learn the techniques of the medieval masons. He ordered the removal of a few sections of modern plaster from the interior walls to reveal Molfetta’s original stone material without harming it. Instead of finding the expected neat courses of ashlar limestone, the investigators uncovered a mix of other local stones, rubble, stucco, and cement – the outcome of centuries of cosmetic updates.

Figure 19.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Orthophotograph of north elevation, showing principal medieval masonry breaks and numbered phases (generated using photogrammetry).

Figure 20.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Orthophotograph of south elevation, showing principal medieval masonry breaks and numbered phases (generated using photogrammetry).

During the 20th century, the restoration effort continued to be pestered by a discrepancy between inconclusive preparatory research and the desire for a cohesive original building. Ideal reconstructions, such as that offered by Gaetano Valente in his 1909 monograph La Chiesa Vecchia, antico duomo di Molfetta: quel che fu, quel che è, quel che dovrebb’essere

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or the beautiful illustration in Vincenzo Maria Valente’s later monograph, tidied the inconclusive findings of archivists and archaeologists, including Fiorelli’s aforementioned revelation, Francesco Carabellese’s discovery of construction donations with long gaps between them, and soundings and measurements in the east end carried out by Aldo

Figure 21.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Orthophotograph of central aisle toward south, showing principal medieval masonry breaks and numbered phases (generated using photogrammetry).

Fontana.2 The findings of Fontana were particularly troubling: they indicated that the floor level of the transept had shifted, possibly multiple times, complicating the idea that the cathedral had included a crypt throughout the medieval period. Subsequent authors initially responded to this research by ignoring it; for example, Francesco Samarelli placed the destruction of the crypt outside the medieval period on wishful circumstantial grounds.3 The definitive restoration of 1941-45, led by Bishop Achille Salvucci in consultation with restorer Alfredo Barbacci, removed the interior plaster and replaced problematic sections with new ashlar through the process of stonacamento.4 Meanwhile, Salvucci and his team excavated door thresholds in the west end, interpreting them, probably overenthusiastically, as proof of an original west facade with an arrangement of three portals.5 This justified their demolition of the Chapel of S. Corrado, which had previously

adjoined the center portal. Meanwhile, in response to Fontana’s controversial conclusions about the crypt, new basement stairs were added in the east end for the purpose of continued research on the problem. The cathedral in its current state thus embodies a zealous search for historical truth but also a marked resistance to its complexity. Since these restorations, architectural historians have noted further complications involving the history of the crypt, the adaptation of the church to its site, and the timing of the decision to adopt axial domes and quadrant vaults. The traditional narrative stated that the original plan called for the combination of axial domes and a transept. The fact that the domes and quadrant vaults were established in the eastern part of the church and then resumed in the west, beyond the main constructional break in the nave, seemed to prove a oneness of vision that transcended hiccups in the building process (Fig.  22).

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Figure 22.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Masonry break in south side aisle.

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Nevertheless, a few dissenting voices have pointed out constructional breaks occurring entirely within the east end, calling the existence of an initial, allencompassing design into question.6 Taken together, these problems indicate a pattern of change over time that demands interpretation. Pane and Venditti, whose discussions appeared alongside each other as serial articles in Napoli nobilissima, took a nuanced stance.7 They admitted to a sequence of adjustments at Molfetta Cathedral, but still maintained the existence of an original plan of sorts, one that tolerated changefulness. They argued that the builders of Molfetta, conforming to general medieval praxis, approached geometry with artisanal laxity and left room for experimentation at the level of details. For Pane, the inconsistent elements did nothing to trouble the ‘immediacy of vision’ of the cathedral, but rather made it more authentic.8 Meanwhile, Venditti suggested that the variability of alignments at Molfetta was the product of a southern Italian Weltanschauung, which favored craft intuition over the rational geometry of northerners.9 This explanation is simply a contrast of stereotypes. More convincing, Leonardis has argued that plans such as the three-domes scheme at Molfetta were based on mental models: ideal geometric schemes that could be adjusted in a controlled way during the process of construction.10 The method of Leonardis proves especially helpful in the discussion of technical practice in the third chapter of this book. It is certainly important to emphasize flexibility in medieval architectural praxis. But by focusing on the ‘original plan’, however broadly defined, scholars such as Pane and Venditti have flattened a complex sequence of revisions into a predetermined oneness. By the logic employed, revisions to the design, no matter how significant, paradoxically stem from the initial project. As Marvin Trachtenberg has argued, medieval architectural historians have long overextended the explanatory power of the ‘original plan’, too often wishing to credit the initiators of the building with its final form.11 Trachtenberg offered a set of opposing explanations based on strategies of revision, such as myopic progression (the progression from a vague plan to a precise one as construction unfolds) and retrosynthesis (the subordination of earlier fabric to a new scheme introduced by the most recent episode).12 Robert Ousterhout observed that the designs of some Byzantine churches, such as the Pantokrator

Monastery in Constantinople, changed while construction was active.13 Caroline Bruzelius has interpreted separate constructional episodes for their own practical, aesthetic, symbolic, and political goals. Particularly relevant is the strategy of ‘programmed phases of incompletion’, which sometimes served as a rhetorical aid to solicit donations, allowing buildings to expand indefinitely.14 What these interpretations have in common is that they reveal the specific, time-sensitive strategies of each episode of construction, as opposed to focusing on how all the episodes served an ‘original plan’. My present goal, likewise, is to identify and interpret the episodic strategies of Molfetta Cathedral. Abandoning the premise of a totalizing initial plan does not mean ignoring the effects of earlier episodes on later ones. Earlier ideas and material were important factors when planning a new phase. However, by focusing on the episode rather than the whole, I acknowledge the capacity of each episode to introduce an entirely new overall design concept, even when retaining old fabric. The five constructional phases I have identified at Molfetta Cathedral group into three different strategies, each responding to the rhetorical and economic needs of different moments in the overall project: beginning the work, correcting it midway, and completing it. Phases 1 and 2 both represented the strategy of ‘progression by false starts’. This approach prioritized the establishment of liturgical spaces in order of their urgency; meanwhile, the unfinished volumes promised future construction on a large scale. The strategy of Phase 3 embodied ‘surgical revision’: a major transformation to the overall design with minimal waste of old fabric. This strategy answered the administration’s wish for a completely new liturgical space, the axial-domes scheme, without losing significant time in the overall completion of the building. Phases 4 and 5 represented a strategy of ‘totalizing for efficiency’. The builders of these phases set their sights on completing the entire church as quickly as possible, notwithstanding an ongoing pattern of localized embellishments. The evolving strategies of construction process at Molfetta Cathedral addressed the ever-increasing hybridity and fragmentation of the program. By adapting without backtracking, the builders validated an architecture of constant revision. It is worth emphasizing that the builders engaged with these strategies of revision deliberately, not by

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accident. The constructional imperatives to which they responded were the manifestation of great institutional pressures. These included, in turn, the need for the Latin Church to establish a strong episcopal presence in Molfetta before resources existed to complete the cathedral, the requirement to transform the ordonnance of liturgical space, and, finally, the pressure to complete a half-built edifice as quickly as possible while still accommodating last-minute improvements. Repeatedly cornered by conflicting pressures, the builders took refuge in the visual rhetoric of the building underway. Each building phase, by gesturing toward volumes yet to be completed, could play on the expectations of the patrons and the community. There was room to maneuver in the discrepancy between the work as envisioned and the work as built. The builders could establish a volume then tear it down, project toward future volumes then renege, or punt the resolution of an impasse. By carefully considering each strategy of revision for its rhetorical effects, we may better understand how Molfetta’s building team used the evocativeness of the work in progress to stir and manipulate the imagination of the audience, and thus how they resolved discrepancies between means and expectations. Progression by False Starts: The Incremental Completion of the Crypt and Transept According to my analysis, the two earliest episodes of construction pursued a design concept different from what was ultimately employed (see Appendix 1). These episodes established the beginnings of a typical Apulian wooden-roof transept basilica as opposed to the current system of axial domes and quadrant vaults. By the end of Phase 2, however, the transept basilica scheme was only fragmentary, consisting of an incomplete transept, a hall crypt which had already been adjusted once, and the bare beginnings of a nave. The solution adopted in Phases 1 and 2 addressed the particular circumstances that confronted the project in its early stages. The administration faced the problem of establishing a proper cathedral, with a monumentality equal to its neighbors in the Terra di Bari, without the resources necessary to complete the building all at once. The builders’ response to this problem obeyed a pattern. Each of the first two

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episodes focused on one important liturgical space within the church while also gesturing in a general way toward future volumes. Phase 1 accomplished the construction of a hall crypt with a flat exterior east end and the basements of twin towers, prefiguring a superstructure of a transept with a towered facade. Phase 2, in turn, focused its energies on the transept and began establishing the general outline of the nave. But in each case, the builders gave more attention to the problem at hand than they did to the challenges of future construction. The builders of Phase 1 did not anticipate how their crypt would fit the scale of the rest of the church; consequently, the builders of Phase 2 needed to shorten the western extents of the crypt and transept to make room for a nave of proper proportions. Likewise, the transept and nave would undergo revisions in Phase 3, when it came time to decide upon the roofing system (see next section). The shared strategy of Phases 1 and 2 might be called a progression of false starts. The builders of both phases were so focused on one component of the program that the resulting fabric needed to be adjusted when construction moved onto other areas. These episodes nonetheless both promised future construction on the rest of the church. This promise could be vague or even deliberately misleading. The builders of Phases 1 and 2 projected future grandeur beyond their immediate means and punted any problems down the road. This strategy proved well-suited to the immediate needs of the administration, who wished to immediately establish a strong episcopal presence in Molfetta. It also afforded room to maneuver in the future, when unforeseen revisions would be introduced. The builders and administration confronted an uncertain future as a person exploring a dark room, by carefully placing one foot in front of the other. The construction of a hall crypt in Phase 1, which I have tentatively dated to the first half of the 12th century, was a modest step, but it hinted at an ambitious vision for the entire church.15 Traces of the vaulted hall crypt survive in the lower interior walls of the current transept, including palimpsests of the wall arches and vaults (Figs 23-24). A number of h ­ ypotheses have been offered about the form of the crypt, the chronology of its execution, and its ultimate fate. Scholars have suggested that the crypt was built as part of the medieval edifice, then destroyed later,16 that it was planned and begun but never completed,17 or that it was constructed and reconfigured on a smaller scale

Figure 23.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Crypt arches on north wall of transept.

before its ultimate suppression.18 Complications may have been introduced by a change in the overall plan that made the crypt obsolete,19 or by more practical circumstances, such as encounters with uneven bedrock,20 and/or earlier structures on the site.21 My analysis favors a scenario that accords with a combination of particular suggestions by Kai Kappel, Fritz Jacobs, Pina Belli D’Elia, and Arnaldo Venditti: the crypt was originally completed as a standalone entity, then was modified and destroyed in successive phases of the medieval building effort. According to my interpretation, at the end of Phase 1, the crypt would have stood complete at five bays wide (north-to-south) and probably three bays deep, with an additional longitudinal bay for square tower basements and a semicircular apse (Chart 2a). These volumes would have been enclosed by a rectangular wall, establishing the foundations and lower parts of the current east end. The interior of the crypt

was covered by groin vaults, and probably divided by small columns. The existing Romanesque crypt of Giovinazzo Cathedral provides a strikingly close comparison: a 3 × 5-bay vaulted hall crypt terminated by an apse, tower basements, and a flat exterior east end (Fig. 25). Like the crypt of Molfetta, it was built with square bays, exterior pilasters, and unusual windows with their upper extents defined by the wall arches (Fig. 23).22 The hall crypt completed in Phase 1 would have offered short-term as well as long-term benefits. In the short term, it could have provided a space for services prior to the completion of the main church. There is regional precedent for the crypt of a major church functioning as a standalone entity before the completion of the upper church. The crypt of S. Nicola in Bari was consecrated in 1089, five years before Abbot Elias vowed to resume construction on the rest of the basilica.23 The example of S. Nicola underlines

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Figure 24.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated springer of crypt groin vault in southeast corner of the transept.

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Figure 25.  Giovinazzo, Cathedral. Plan of crypt. Image after Ezio de Cillis, from ‘La cattedrale di Giovinazzo’, p. 365.

another short-term benefit of beginning with the crypt. Elias would have used the crypt of S.  Nicola to house the prestigious relics of St Nicholas, which the Bariots had wrested from Greek control to much acclaim. We have no way of knowing if the crypt of Molfetta was, like that of S. Nicola, consecrated prior

to the construction of the upper church. And at Molfetta, unlike at S. Nicola, the prospect of obtaining important relics at the start of construction was no more than a lofty aspiration; the cathedral would wait until the early 14th century to acquire the relics of St Conrad.24 In spite of this, Molfetta’s early

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administration may have ordered the construction of a hall crypt to spur future investment in relics or to create a visual association with nearby shrines on the Apulian pilgrimage route, especially S. Nicola in Bari. The hall crypt of Molfetta would have also carried the long-term benefit of projecting a larger future edifice. Conspicuously incomplete with its squat, singlestory elevation and partial colossal-order pilasters, the hall crypt would have seemed to invite a monumental flat-ended transept typical of an Apulian coastal cathedral. In other words, by previewing the large volumes yet to be completed, the crypt conveyed something of their symbolic content. But there was a problem. A full-sized transept basilica built around the original 3 × 5 hall crypt (almost half the length of the current floorplan) would have conflicted with the constraints of the site. The cathedral was bounded to its west by the non-negotiable context of the sea. Before 1925, when a wharf was constructed establishing considerable coastline to the west of the cathedral, the sea was immediately adjacent to the massing of the west end (Chart 2).25 The original building site was probably terminated by a low limestone cliff similar to those seen elsewhere along the middle Apulian coast. With the construction in Phase 1 of a large crypt three bays deep, the cathedral had used up a significant portion of its available real estate. The builders of later phases would have to choose between employing a short nave, as had been done for Bitetto Cathedral, or shortening the western extents of the hall crypt. They ultimately chose the latter. The original, overlarge scale of the crypt is instructive, affording insight into the preoccupations of the building team during Phase 1. The crypt was not simply a waypoint to a larger plan, but a strategic move with a more immediate agenda. There was no pressing need for the builders of the original crypt to solve the problem of the construction of the nave. As far as the goals of Phase 1 were concerned, the nave and the upper transept were a desired future but not an immanent present. Even though the crypt was altered later, and ultimately suppressed, it served its main function of establishing, in fragmentary form, a cathedral as massive and impressive as resources allowed at the moment. In Phase 2, which was probably underway sometime between the middle of the 12th century and 1184, the builders turned their attention from the

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crypt to the transept and the nave, which entailed accounting for the dimensions of the entire church (see Appendix 1). According to my analysis, this phase realized most of the transept walls, the easterly parts of a nave crypt, and part of the north side aisle wall (Chart 2b). I propose that this episode shortened the crypt by a bay to provide space for a properly proportioned nave. This doubling back suggests that a pause had transpired since the original construction of the crypt. The elements associated with Phase 2 are consistently distinguished from those that make up today’s scheme of axial domes and quadrant vaults, supporting the argument of Jacobs and Belli D’Elia that the transept did not originally anticipate the current roofing system.26 The evidence of constructional breaks, discrepancies in proportions and construction techniques, and disparate regional comparisons clearly delineate two distinct systems, one supplanted by the other (Appendix 1). Most striking are the two transverse arches that divide the transept from the side aisles of the nave (Fig. 26). The arch to the north is broad, low, and consistent in its proportions with typical Apulian transept basilicas, whereas the arch to the south sits on taller supports and is squeezed by the strongly projecting respond 2RS: its proportions are similar to those of the aisle arches of Apulian churches with three axial domes and quadrant vaults, such as SS. Trinità in Trani (Fig. 27). The builders of Phase 2 probably envisioned wooden roofs over the transept, nave, and side aisles, and not domes and vaults. There was thus no need for transverse arches in the nave or longitudinal arches in the transept. As a result, the interior conceived in Phase 2 would have included fewer supports, capitals, and other decorative elements than were ultimately used. Like the preceding episode, Phase 2 only vaguely gestured toward the entire work. The priorities of this episode can be inferred from the sequence of execution (revealed by an unplanned interruption of the works partway through the completion of the south wall of the transept). First, a new wall was built setting the western limits of the transept and curtailing the crypt; second, the easterly parts of the nave crypt were constructed; and third, the upper church walls were begun, starting from the easternmost bay of the north side aisle of the nave and proceeding clockwise toward the south transept, with supports being erected as needed. This sequence implies that the

Figure 26.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Orthophotograph of transept arches toward east (generated using photogrammetry).

priorities were twofold: to initiate the nave, as if to assure it had not been forgotten, and to complete the transept. This was a sophisticated approach to the formation of liturgical space. By focusing on the enclosure of the transept, the builders sought to provide the clergy with a proper sanctuary space in which to hold masses or make prayers on behalf of donors: indeed, the language in Griso’s 1184 pro anima donation suggests that such a space existed by this time.27 But by incorporating a planned stage of incompletion for the nave, the builders promised a future space for the lay congregation. In addition, blocking out the general dimensions of the entire work would have conveyed to patrons more clearly than before how construction might unfold with continued investment. The rhetorical value of the incomplete nave would have been lost if the builders of Phase 2 had retained the overlarge dimensions of Phase 1’s transept crypt. Should the transept simply have been placed on top of this crypt, it would have become obvious that there was little room for a nave built to similar proportions. Now was the time to make an adjustment, and the builders were willing to do anything to accomplish it. They set a new western extent for the transept and hall crypt based on a proportional

plan found in other T-shaped basilicas in the region, such as Conversano Cathedral (Fig. 29).28 The adaptation brought unavoidable complications. The first concerned the pilasters on the lateral walls of the transept, which were intended to support a pair of blind arches on each wall. This proved awkward, as the nonparallel alignments of the north and south walls had caused the new west edge of the transept to intersect the walls at different points. This edge cropped the south wall neatly at the end of two crypt bays, such that the new blind arches lined up with the crypt intercolumniation and the exterior blind arches; the interior pilaster on the south wall of the transept could thus be placed directly above a crypt pilaster. By contrast, the north wall was interrupted in the middle of its third crypt bay, as is apparent from the surviving wall arch that disappears behind the spur wall of Respond 2RN (Fig. 23). As a result, the intermediate pilaster in the north transept is awkwardly offset from the bay divisions of the crypt and from the exterior blind arches. This discrepancy created problems later, exemplified by the partial window which is squeezed in against the left blind arch of the north wall in order not to interfere with the misaligned exterior blind arcade (Fig. 19).

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Figure 27.  Trani, S. Francesco (originally SS. Trinità). View of north side aisle to the east. Note the relative heights of the capitals facing across side aisles and the longitudinal-facing capital, as well as the low springing of the wall arch, below the capital of the adjacent respond. Both traits correspond to the south side aisle at Molfetta but not the north.

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Figure 28.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated wall arch from nave crypt, on supporting masonry of Respond 2RN (west face).

Another challenge was linking a new nave crypt to the earlier hall crypt. It is impossible to say whether the builders of Phase 1 had a nave crypt in mind or not, but palimpsests in the masonry suggest that by Phase 2, the builders intended a nave crypt as well as a transept crypt (Fig. 28; see discussion in Appendix 1). Trani Cathedral is a good comparison. The current edifice with crypts in the transept and nave was built between the end of the 11th century and the late 12th in place of an earlier church on the site, a three-aisle basilica with a single apse.29 The builders of Trani inherited the fabric of the earlier church, replaced its apse with a new hall crypt, and later gutted and reconfigured the old nave as a double-story vessel (Figs 30-31). The builders of Molfetta Cathedral did the reverse, inheriting and transforming a pre-existing hall crypt under the transept.30 The building teams of Trani and Molfetta achieved similar results from a reversible construction strategy. In both cases, a wall was inserted to establish a new division between the transept crypt and the nave crypt; meanwhile early features on one side of the wall – the old apse of Trani and the early transept crypt at Molfetta – were cropped out. New fabric was erected adjacent to the dividing wall, generating the same desired height

differential between the floor level of the nave and that of the transept (about 1 m. at both buildings). The trouble to which the builders of Phase 2 at Molfetta went in adapting the crypt of Phase 1 to the newly-proportioned total-church layout shows how concerned they were with establishing a realistic plan for the future. In this way, the works of Phase 2 contrasted with Phase 1’s crypt, which had proceeded with blissful ignorance of the outline of the whole church. On the other hand, there was a similar temporal strategy at work in both phases. Each looked only as far ahead as the next stage of completion: Phase 1 completed the crypt and projected the transept, while Phase 2 concerned itself with the transept and nave. A key facet of this strategy was the very failure of later phases to fulfill the promises of earlier ones. Phase 2 did not simply place the transept atop the original hall crypt; it adjusted the latter’s western extents to permit a properly proportioned transept basilica. This totalizing plan was the next promise, and, as we shall see, it was also amended later. This imaginary transept basilica would be rejected in favor of an entirely vaulted interior, perhaps because of changes to liturgical preferences, because large wooden beams were not forthcoming, or because of

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Figure 29.  Conversano, Cathedral. Plan. Image after Soprintendenza di Bari, fig. 3 (De Vita), with alterations by Kai Kappel, from S. Nicola, fig. 241.

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Figure 30.  Trani Cathedral. Plan of crypt. Image after Restauri in Puglia 1971-1983, ed. by Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, II, p. 250, fig. 34.4. With alterations by Kai Kappel, from S. Nicola, fig. 342.

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Figure 31.  Trani, Cathedral. Pilaster in nave crypt, with masonry breaks showing the truncation of earlier nave supports and insertion of new wall.

a combination of such factors. Because the earliest stages of construction were inherently subject to correction, they were in a sense liberated from concerns of the whole. A disregard for the long-term project created rhetori­cal opportunities in the short term. By presenting a vision for later construction but not committing to it, the builders were able to respond in a versatile way to the unknowns of future construction. At the same time, the false starts of Phases 1 and 2 lent substantial fabric to the episodes that followed them. This strategy did not waste material, but progressed the works toward completion while retaining the value of options. Molfetta Cathedral’s progression by false starts turns a certain romantic notion of medieval cathedrals on its head. It is often said that cathedrals were built slowly but steadily through the collective effort of their communities, with each generation making humble progress then passing the baton to the next. The first two building episodes of Molfetta did not, in the first place, put the needs of the urban community ahead of private interests. Rather, these interventions prioritized institutional needs. The bishop required, urgently, to establish a cathedral equipped

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with symbols of episcopal power, namely the crypt and the towered transept. Focusing on these elements postponed the fulfilment of public needs, such as the construction of the nave for congregational masses. Moreover, the earliest episodes did not serve primarily to assist later ones. It was most important to make an impactful first impression, even if this created obstacles for later campaigns. The builders responsible for the earliest episodes of construction gave more attention to the rhetorical impact of the partly built cathedral than they did to the eventual whole. These interventions were sensational previews of imaginary futures, not humble stepping-stones to a realistic overall vision. As we shall continue to see, Molfetta Cathedral was as much the product of struggle across generations as it was the fruit of cooperation. Surgical Revision: Transition to the Three-Dome Plan The decisive moment in the design of Molfetta Cathedral arrived midway through construction. My analysis suggests that in Phase 3, the building team,

having established the main lines of a transept basilica, pivoted to a radically different interior of three domes on axis and quadrant vaults over the side aisles, and completed this system up to the masonry breaks in the aisles of the middle bay of the church, not including the dome over this bay. Given that Phase 2 was interrupted partway through the south side of the transept, it is distinctly possible that Phase 3 was this interruption and followed immediately on the heels of Phase 2, probably between about the last quarter of the 12th century and the middle of the 13th (see Appendix 1). Phase 3 made the church a true hybrid, retaining important conspicuous qualities of a transept basilica, especially the towered east facade typical of Apulian cathedrals, while introducing the interior spatial logic of an open layout, with axial domes, vaulted side aisles, and no crypt (Chart 2c). The change entailed building new arches, vaults, and a dome in the east bay and updating the side-aisle walls of the middle bay of the nave. The causes of this profound shift are uncertain. In the last chapter, I raised the possibility that turnover in the clergy and their changing tastes impelled the hybridization of Molfetta Cathedral. Perhaps for analogous reasons, some Apulian churches show this kind of transformation in reverse (eg. S. Gregorio in Bari, which appears to have transformed from a three-dome church to a wooden-roof basilica).31 Whatever caused the change in the builders’ brief, the viability of such a change depended on a strategy that could set the cathedral on a new course while wasting a minimum of earlier fabric and preserving some of its functions. The strategy of Phase 3 contrasted with that of Phases 1 and 2. Rather than merely erect new walls, the builders employed a surgical approach, adapting the envelope of Phase 2 and rearranging its internal parts, such as piers and capitals, to prepare the way for a new elevation and roofing system. Wherever possible, the builders took advantage of common ground between the geometric proportions and decorative elements of their scheme and the earlier one, tolerating minor discrepancies. In this way, the new was grafted onto the old. Phase 3 amounted to more of a correction than an addition. It effectively renewed the state of completion that had been reached at the end of Phase 2, now with the transept rejiggered and a new nave projected for the future. Although the forward progress of construction stalled during this episode, it is remarkable that the administration was

able to incorporate such a dramatic transformation without losing ground or starting over. The bulk of the changes in Phase 3 were subtractions, adjustments, and minor additions. According to my analysis, this episode occasioned the demolition of the vaults of the crypt, resulting in the lowering of the floors of the transept and nave to approximately their current position. There was now no longer a significant difference in floor level between the nave and the sanctuary. Phase 3 brought equally important changes to the upper church. Archaeological evidence suggests that the east dome and its flanking quadrant vaults were inserted into earlier walls that did not anticipate them (see discussion in Appendix 1). New shafts needed to be added to the crossing piers and the east wall responds to support new longitudinal arches for the dome. In addition, the builders completed the apse, which matched the height of the longitudinal arches, as well as the blind arches in the north and south walls and corbel tables supporting the quadrant vaults. It is likely that this phase occasioned the upgrading of the exterior blind arches to interlaced arches using corbels and fragmentary half shafts. This episode also appears to have seen the completion of Respond 2RS, left unfinished in Phase 2. In addition, a number of shafts, bases, capitals, and imposts appear to have been reshuffled amongst the piers and responds of the transept to create new height hierarchies befitting the new layout, as the longitudinal arches adjacent to the nave were now to be the same height as the transverse arches. To fill out the new plan, the builders of Phase 3 may have emplaced the plinths for the remaining supports of the nave in accordance with the new overall layout of three axial square bays and a 2:1 ratio between the width of the nave and that of each side aisle. Phase 3 concluded with revisions to the side aisles of the nave, stopping at the strong vertical breaks in both side aisles of the middle bay (Fig. 22). The aisle walls were handled differently in the north and south. As argued above, the builders Phase 2 would have already constituted much of the upper elevation of the north aisle of the nave, including the partial blind arch on the aisle wall and the shaft of respond 2RN, but would not have made it as far as the upper parts of the south aisle. It was not until Phase 3 that the builders completed the transverse arches between the transept and the side aisles as well as the partial blind arch on the south aisle wall. These additions followed the

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new proportions of the axial-dome scheme. Corbel tables and quadrant vaults were placed atop both the north and south side aisles, extending as far as the masonry break in the middle of the bay, whose location was probably determined by the termination of the north-aisle blind arch. This break, which is in the same location in both aisles, marks a planned hiatus bringing the works of this episode to a close. In all, Phase 3’s targeted changes to the pre-existing envelope, such as the use of longitudinal quadrant vaults, the shift to uniform-height arcades, and the consolidation of the floor level, subverted the spatial subdivisions that had characterized the transept basilica concept and replaced them with an open and unified interior. The commitment of the builders to the strategy of retrofitting earlier fabric is evident from the challenges they were willing to undertake. Reusing the fragmentary shell of the transept basilica was attended by great difficulties, as the axial-domes plan with quadrant vaults was suited to different proportions and alignments. The builders took advantage of whatever common ground they could. Because Phase 2 had already produced a square crossing by siting the foundations of Piers 2PN and 2PS further east than originally planned, this bay was the proper shape for first axial dome of the new scheme. The crossing piers and the outer walls of the nave could be left intact, as they already followed the proper 2:1 ratio of nave and side-aisle widths.32 The builders adapted the wide transept arms, which now needed to function as aisle bays, by simply giving them broader quadrant vaults, and the discrepancy is not particularly noticeable on the interior. Other elements were more difficult to reconcile. The outer walls of the nave were not in alignment with each other, nor were they perpendicular to the crossing piers. Whereas such axial discrepancies were perfectly tolerable for a building with wooden roofs (eg. the cathedrals of Bitetto and Ruvo), they were a major problem for Molfetta’s new axial-domes plan, which relied on correct alignments to produce square axial bays. To compensate, the builders skewed the west shaft of Pier 2PN and stretched it toward the west, which would eventually help to create equallength (and thus equal-height) arches on all sides of the middle bay of the nave. But this solution was not wholly satisfactory. The middle bay was far from square, and it would have been impossible to give it a

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pendentive dome like the one now added to the east bay. Indeed, solving this problem would ultimately require squinch domes, introduced in the next phase. Another problem was the old blind arch in the north side aisle, which was the wrong curvature and height for the new plan and elevation; its arc is thus interrupted from above by the corbel table at the base of the quadrant vault. The new blind arch in the south aisle, in contrast, sprang from a lower point and would have been the right size to form one of a pair of arches contained within the first bay of the new layout, echoing the pairs of blind arches in both lateral walls of the transept. But how could the differing blind arcades of the north and south aisle be reconciled? The only answer to the problems of the nave domes and blind arcades was to punt them. When the builders of Phase 3 progressed as far as these impasses, they opted to end gracefully at a stage of incompletion. What stood at the end of this phase would have carried strong visual rhetoric: a hulking cross-section of a church following the new concept of an axial-domes basilica. The symmetrical breaks neatly curtailing the blind arches in the north and south side aisles sold an illusion that these arcades were twins and could both be carried forward in the elevation of the westerly parts of the church, when in reality the north arch was dissimilar from the south arch and could not have been completed according to its old dimensions because of the corbel table above. The siting of plinths for 1PN and 1PS in the nave set out two quadrilateral nave bays that seemed to invite additional domes like the one over the east bay. Only a very perceptive viewer would suspect that the bays were misshapen and ill-equipped for pendentive domes. The total, unified interior promised by Phase 3 was as disingenuous as the oversized crypt of Phase 1. By stalling the completion of the church yet again, the administration and builders prolonged the dream. On the other hand, the strategy of Phase 3 went beyond a progression of false starts. By mixing and matching old and new features and activating doublefunctioning elements, such as the quadrant vaults over the side bays of the transept, which doubled as aisle vaults, the builders fused two plans together, rather than simply supplanting one with another. This strategy was perfectly consistent with Molfetta’s present needs, which had changed from those of

simply getting started. Now the program needed to be redesigned as a hybrid solution. In the meantime, certain aspects of the temporal strategy that had been part of the initial brief, such as a crypt which might attract a donation of relics, had apparently lapsed. Perhaps after many decades, the administration no longer saw the relics as forthcoming. In addition, the crypt’s possible temporary function as a site for masses would have been redundant now that the transept was finished. As often occurs in buildings that grow over time, the administration of Molfetta recognized their chance to purge old spaces and subdivisions that had accrued when the project was beginning. By tearing down the walls of early, additive volumes, they consolidated the spatial order of the cathedral. The switch from a mode of addition to one of integration also affected the rhetorical impact of the work in progress. Whereas the physical differences between the incomplete building produced by Phase  2 and the one standing at the end of Phase  3 were subtle, amounting to a change in floor level and a few adjustments to the composition of the piers, the projected layout of the entire church was dramatically different from what it had been before. The partial transept of the previous episode had stood as one, self-sufficient component of a building composed of many separate liturgical spaces. In contrast, the new fabric stood as approximately one half of a single, integrated space. There was nothing self-sufficient about this fractional building. Rather, the liturgical ordonnance was now distributed throughout the open plan of the unfinished church. As a result, the tension toward completion would have been much greater than before. It is interesting to note how substantially Phase 3 rejected the plans of earlier interventions. Although the new design was so antithetical to those of Phases 1 and 2, it proclaimed a unity of vision that appeared to stem from the origins of the cathedral. This is a powerful illusion, and it has seduced scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries in addition to its ­medieval audience. Totalizing for Efficiency: Completion of the Nave With the interventions of Phase 3, Molfetta Cathedral was decelerating in its progress toward completion. The enhancement of parts already completed had

repeatedly taken priority over the establishment of new spaces. The transept had gained a dome and quadrant vaults, new supports and capitals, and adhoc interlaced arches; meanwhile, the nave stood unfinished. As discussed in the last chapter, Molfetta’s slow finances and its dependency on competing lay donations may have supported this trend of localized upgrades. After Phase 3, this myopia was reversed. The works of Phase 4, probably dating to the second half of the 13th century, when the bishops aggressively raised construction funds, commenced in earnest on the remaining walls of the middle and western bays of the nave, along with its quadrant vaults and domes (Chart 2d; see Appendix 1). The builders proceeded with ruthless efficiency, using sleek, standardized pier parts, minimal ornament, and rudimentary squinches to support the middle and west domes, a solution that conflicted with the existing pendentive dome over the east bay. The swift action of Phase 4 ensured that any future ad-hoc embellishments would become part of the completion of the cathedral rather than delay it. As a result, the additions of Phase 5, which transformed the squinches of the middle and west domes into cuffie, were simply plugged into the work in progress (see below). Continuing the same basic spatial typology set out in Phase 3, Phase 4 established a three-aisle nave, two bays long with domes over the main bays and quadrant vaults over the side aisles. In keeping with other examples of this typology (especially SS. Trinità in Trani, S. Benedetto in Conversano, and SS. Ognissanti in Cuti), entrances were incorporated into the north and south walls of the middle bay: the north wall featuring a double portal with pointed arches and the south wall a single portal, since restored. Following a suggestion by Belli D’Elia, this phase may have bestowed the cathedral with a monumental west porch with three arches, the middle arch higher than the side ones, a format that can be seen partly ruined at SS. Ognissanti in Cuti (Fig. 32).33 The three porch bays of Molfetta may have later been turned into the west chapels that existed until their reconfiguration in the 1940s. Although the builders of Phase 4 seem to have followed the general spatial organization of the previous episode, they pursued a new agenda of completing the church as efficiently as possible. The ornament and structural detailing were greatly reduced. The

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Figure 32.  Cuti (Valenzano), SS. Ognissanti. Remains of west porch.

problematic partial blind arches on the outer walls of the side aisles were both left incomplete so that the construction of the side aisle walls could carry on unencumbered. The choice to use half shafts of standard dimensions throughout the cross-shaped piers 1PN and 1PS and the two responds in the west wall 0RN and 0RS conflicts with comparanda such as SS. Trinità in Trani, where the shaft circumferences obey a consistent hierarchy: the shafts supporting the arches of the main aisle have a larger circumference than those over the side aisles. The standardization of the shafts at Molfetta would have reduced effort and thus labor cost (see discussion in Chapter 3). At the same time their attenuated dimensions may reflect stylistic preferences of the late 13th century. Interestingly, the builders adopted this smaller shaft template in spite of the large plinths, which were probably inherited from earlier phases. Using a flexible approach to the base moldings, the stone-cutters were able to adapt the large plinths to the small circumferences of the new shafts, which had probably been prefabricated off site (Fig.  33). Curiously, the builders of Phase 4 did not create plinths or shafts for supports 1CN and 1CS. Instead corbels were used to support the transverse arches over the side aisles, cutting costs once again. Finally, the pseudo-pendentive squinches that

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were used for the nave domes (before the insertion of semicircular cuffie in Phase 5) would have appeared spartan and utilitarian. Probably similar to their comparanda at Bari Cathedral, the squinches would have featured no more architectonic sculpture than small corbels at the sides (still visible in the domes of Molfetta) (Fig. 34). The reduced decoration of these domes contrasts with the richness of the sculpted corbel table in the dome over the east bay (Fig. 7). The construction team introduced further efficiency by taking full advantage of the division of labor, building walls and supports at different times. The responds at 0RN and 0RS and the corbels at 1CN and 1CS are not laboriously coursed with the wall, as in the eastern parts of the church, but were either constructed prior to the wall, in the case of the responds, or inserted into it, in the case of the corbels. Similarly, piers 1PN and 1PS are coursed independent of the two half-diaphragm arches connected to them. As discussed by Dieter Kimpel, separating the construction of supports from that of the walls was a major expedient.34 Phase 4 initiated a trend of approaching the remaining work in a totalizing way, rather than zoneby-zone as in previous episodes. This strategy carried over to Phase 5, as can be seen in the approach of both episodes to the problem of the domes over the middle

Figure 33.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and bases of Pier 1PN.

and west bays. The domes were not executed one bay at time, but as a pair in both phases. Phase 4 instantiated a first construction system for both domes, and Phase 5 augmented it. In the first system, the builders added pseudo-pendentives to the spandrels between the nave arches. The Phase 5 system built upon the first. Squinches with semi-circular bases, known as cuffie, were inserted into the pre-existing shell of pseudo-pendentives, creating a need for new masonry transitioning from the rounded corners of the old squinches to the semi-circular bases of the new ones (Chart 2e; Fig. 41). The southeast squinch of the middle bay appears to have marked the transition between the two systems; it is the only squinch built entirely with the second system.35 Like the first system, the second was applied to both domes, endowing them with eight cuffie in all and two tall oval domes. The differences between the proportions of the middle and west domes do not imply a different building team, but the choice of a spatial hierarchy accenting the middle dome, as well as the more technical matter of solving the two different bay shapes (see Chapter 3). The transition from Phase 4 to Phase 5 married the new strategy of sleek efficiency with the old pattern of localized upgrades. The choice to insert cuffie into the

envelope of the squinch domes suggests that the cathedral was subject to localized tampering even during its major push to completion. But whereas the impulse to embellish had hampered the progress of the cathedral in the past, now it was folded into the goal of finishing. The final episodes of construction during the medieval period of Molfetta Cathedral embodied enormous tension, as these interventions attempted to reconcile the idealistic visions of past episodes with a concrete final product. The builders made great formal concessions. Particularly grating are the incomplete blind arches of the middle bays of the side aisles. Nevertheless, it is helpful to think of such elements as part of a formal language built up of positive choices. For example, the builders of Phases 4 and 5 may have consciously made a pattern of preserving traces of Molfetta’s complex history. The incomplete blind arches inherited from Phase 3 echoed the crypt arch palimpsests that had been established in an even earlier episode. Relatedly, the workshop responsible for completing the middle and west domes during Phase 5 incorporated the corbels from the squinches of Phase 4 as spolia. When it became impossible to conceal the cathedral’s ongoing patterns of revision and self-cannibalization, these traits were embraced as part of its style.

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Figure 34.  Bari Cathedral. Squinch in crossing dome.

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If revision of the design was a constant throughout the construction of Molfetta, why did the builders avoid drawing attention to this process until so late in the building effort? The reasons for this are easy to understand if we consider, once again, the rhetorical meanings of the work in progress. Early in the construction process, there was no advantage to exposing the discontinuities of the design. As the building relied on periodic investment that was not guaranteed, commencing the project in a way that expressed uncertainty would have been counterproductive. Rather, as we have seen, the early campaigns proceeded with disingenuous certainty, projecting fantastic visions of the cathedral that would never come to be. In contrast, Phases 4 and 5 – the completion phases – stood on the other side of these misadventures. By the end of the 13th century, it was pointless to deny that the cathedral had taken a long time to complete and had undergone much administrative turnover since its foundation. In fact, these hurdles made for a compelling story of overcoming obstacles. It would have been inspiring to see the cathedral, so long the victim of vicissitudes and neglect, at last brought to fruition. The tumult of the first and second acts would have enhanced the denouement of the third. In all, the three strategies of process at Molfetta Cathedral, progression by false starts, surgical revision, and totalizing for efficiency, allowed the design not only to respond to the vicissitudes of the program, but also to gain rhetorical value from each revision. Every episode had a certain autonomy from the other episodes. First, each phase was liberated from earlier concepts. The transept of Phase 2 rejected the proportions that the crypt of Phase 1 had left for it, the three-dome plan of Phase 3 commandeered a physical envelope originally geared toward a completely different roofing system, and the nave and aisles completed in Phases 4 and 5 rejected the earlier decorative scheme of interior blind arches. Each episode was also partly free from future planning. As seen in the strategies of false starts and surgical revision, the builders did not always act in the interest of the final whole, but were free to project a fantasy of what the final product might be. This ability to respond to present opportunities, sometimes at the expense of a long-term vision, proved critical to versatile design. The builders of Molfetta proceeded by ‘branch’ rather than by ‘root’, incrementally incorporating solutions to the

problems that arose until the cathedral was a mixture perfectly adapted to its unique context.36 But process was not the only key to dynamic design. Another was the division of labor. The specialization of Apulian builders allowed them to devise standard but versatile solutions, which could fulfill the complex brief of a site like Molfetta without bucking the conventions of a mature regional building industry.

NOTES 1  Archivio di Stato di Bari, Sezione Monumenti e Scavi di Antichità, b.  7, Molfetta 19.03.1884, f.  168; transcribed by Anita Guarnieri, Pietre di Puglia: il restauro del patrimonio architettonico in terra di Bari tra Ottocento e Novecento (Rome: Gangemi, 2007), p. 185. 2  Gaetano Valente, La chiesa vecchia, antico duomo di Molfetta: quel che fu, quel che è, quel che dovrebb’essere (Bari: Avellino, 1909); Vincenzo Maria Valente, Il Duomo di Molfetta. Esame storicostilistico (Molfetta: Mezzina, 1978); Francesco Carabellese, ‘Le cattedrali di Molfetta e di Troia’, L’Arte, 8 (1905), I, pp.  43-46; and Aldo Fontana, La chiesa vecchia di Molfetta e la sua cripta (Molfetta: Istituto Provinciale Apicella, 1936). 3  Francesco Samarelli, Il vecchio duomo di Molfetta (Molfetta: Mezzina, 1962), pp.  17-18, argued that the crypt could have been destroyed in 1386, a year in which the chapter reported an expansion to twenty-four members; he suggested that this event encouraged the rebuilding of the choir in the 15th century. While the connection of the enlarged clergy to the renovation of the choir makes sense, Samarelli does not engage with the possibility, raised by Fontana, that the crypt had already been rejected during the medieval campaign. 4  Archivio parrocchia S. Corrado Molfetta, cart. 3, fasc. 2, Notiziario circa i lavori di restauro alla Chiesa Vecchia, f.  7-8; transcribed by Ignazio Pansini, ‘Il Duomo di Molfetta: alla ricerca di un palinsesto’, Luce & Vita: Documentazione (2005/1), pp. 223-67, (pp. 256-57). 5  Pansini, p.  256 notes that the excavated thresholds and jambs may have been added along the chapels, and did not necessarily precede them in date. See Chapter 2 of the present volume for discussion of the possibility of a monumental porch. 6  For example, Fritz Jacobs, Die Kathedrale S. Maria Icona Vetere in Foggia: Studien zur Architektur und Plastik des 11.-13. Jahrhunderts in Süditalien, 2 vols (Ph.D. Dissertation, Hamburg, 1968), I, pp. 266ff; and Pina Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica (Milan: Jaca Book, 2003), p. 208. See further discussion below. 7  Roberto Pane, ‘Melphicta parva sed elegans: I-II’, Napoli nobilissima, 6 (1967), 81-88, 153-69; Arnaldo Venditti, ‘Architettura a cupola in Puglia: III’, Napoli nobilissima, 7 (1968), 94-115. 8  ‘Tuttavia l’unità della chiesa di Molfetta è raggiunta attraverso perplessità e variazioni particulari che però non tolgono nulla al valore espressivo dell’opera, anzi lo esaltano, attribuendogli un accento avventuroso e patetico che lo accuma a quello delle maggiori composizioni dell’età romanica’. Pane, p. 161.

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‘In sostanza, per quanto la lentezza dell’esecuzione non può essere del tutto esclusa, va d’altro canto posto l’accento sulla ­Waltanschauung medievale del Mezzogiorno d’Italia, così lontana dal rigore strutturale nordico, bensì pregna di pittoresca manualità artigiana, determinata da un impulso intuitivo inconciliabile con la pura geometria’. Venditti, p. 94. 10  Enrica Leonardis, Architettura romanica pugliese: Il progetto e la costruzione in pietra portante dell’edificio per il culto (Rome: Gangemi, 2013), pp. 35-36. 11  Marvin Trachtenberg, Building-in-Time: from Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 21. 12  For Trachtenberg’s ‘paradigms and principles of practice’, see Building-in-Time, pp. 130-43. 13  Robert Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999; repr. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), p. 107. 14  Caroline Bruzelius, ‘Project and Process in Medieval Construction’, in Ex Quadris Lapidibus: La pierre et sa mise en oeuvre dans l’art médiéval. Mélanges d’Histoire de l’art offerts à Éliane Vergnolle, ed. by Yves Gallet (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2011), pp. 113-23 (p. 115). 15  See Appendix 1. 16  See Émile Bertaux, L’Art dans l’Italie Méridionale (Paris: Fontemoing, 1904; repr. Paris: De Boccard 1968), p.  384; Valente, Chiesa vecchia, pp. 47-49; and Samarelli, pp. 17-18. 17  Fontana, p. 24; Pane, pp. 164-65; Venditti, pp. 99-100; Michael Ludes, Die romanischen Kuppelkirchen Apuliens (Ph.D. Dissertation, Munich, 1985); Leonardis, p. 23. 18  Kai Kappel, S. Nicola in Bari und seine architektonische Nachfolge: Ein Bautypus des 11.-17. Jahrhunderts in Unteritalien und Dalmatien (Worms am Rhein: Wernersche, 1996), pp. 268-69. 19  Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, p. 208. 20  Kappel, p. 268. 21  Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, p. 208. 9 

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See Appendix 1. Kappel, pp. 101-02. 24  See discussion in Chapter 1. 25  Kappel, p. 267. 26  Jacobs, pp.  266ff. argued that the transept of S. Corrado did not originally call for interior blind arches, on the basis of the masonry break between the crypt arch on the west face of Pier 2PS and the projecting foundation for the easterly support. Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, p.  208, agreed that the blind arches and their pilasters were added to assist the transformation from a wooden-roof concept to quadrant vaults and domes. See the opposite interpretation by Kappel, p.  269, who rightly pointed out that the pilasters are bonded with the adjacent wall. The pilasters and arches could have been planned along with the original transept basilica concept, and then modified to accommodate the low springing of the quadrant vaults. 27  See discussion in Chapter 1. 28  See discussion in Chapter 3. 29  Kappel, pp. 302-04, 307. 30  Belli D’Elia’s suggestion that the transept crypt may have originally been grafted onto an earlier, lost church also deserves consideration. Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, p. 208. 31  Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, p. 283, for construction chronology of S. Gregorio in Bari. 32  See further discussion of planning proportions in Chapter 3. 33  Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, p. 204. 34  Dieter Kimpel, ‘Ökonomie, Technik und Form in der hochgotischen Architekture’, in Bauwerk und Bildwerk in Hochmittelalter: Anschauliche Beiträge zur Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte, ed. by Karl Clausberg, Dieter Kimpel, and Hans-Joachim Kunst (Geißen: Anabas-Verlag, 1981), pp. 103-25 (pp. 107-08). 35  See discussion in Chapter 3. 36  For this metaphor, Charles E. Lindblom, ‘The Science of “Muddling Through”’, Public Administration Review, 19/2 (1959), 79-88. See discussion in the Introduction of this book. 22  23 

3. The Joints of Expertise: Design Choice Across the Division of Labor

The last chapter considered how strategies of building process met the challenge of a disjointed and evolving program. These strategies allowed the builders to change the design over a succession of building events, and thereby adjust to a shifting balance of priorities. Subdividing the design on the axis of time made it more versatile, and thus better adapted to the economic and institutional vicissitudes of the diocese. The builders of Molfetta Cathedral gained further versatility by subdividing the design on the axis of labor, as various technical specialists handled significant aspects of form. The division of labor in historic architecture is often understood according to the modern separation of design and execution. Alberti famously articulated this ideal, in which a chief architect orchestrates a team of constructional experts to realize his vision.1 The Albertian architect prepares detailed drawings and selects skilled masons to ensure that the end product approximates his mental image as closely as possible. It is by no means clear, however, that architectural design was so centralized before the Renaissance. As David Turnbull pointed out, master masons typically communicated formal specifics not from the top down, through plans, but laterally, through templates, which coordinated the technical conventions of different workshops and tied their ideas together with a structural and aesthetic grammar.2 In this mode, the technical specialists, far from being given forms and told to solve their execution, generated them by engaging with problems of material, structure, and geometry.

In the Middle Ages, the term ‘architect’ was usually reserved for the patron or head prelate.3 But this figure usually deliberated on general features and iconography rather than dimensions, proportions, or structural effects. As scholars of architectural iconography admit, the patrons largely selected forms that were already part of the builders’ repertoire.4 The physical evidence of Molfetta Cathedral reveals the existence of several discreet areas of technical specialization that were also fundamentally design tasks: the proportions of the plan, the articulation of the supports, and the structure of the vaults. Each task involved specialized knowledge of geometry, structure, material, or a combination thereof, and was probably fulfilled by a differently trained expert. While these specialists may have been directed to some extent by figures such as a primicerius or prior fabrice (‘supervisor’ or ‘accountant’), and probably a protomagister (‘master mason’), it appears that they also supplied their own expressive formal concepts. At individual sites, each specialist coordinated his or her solutions with those of the other specialists, producing myriad combinations from finite knowledge. In this way, the builders responded to the unique programmatic needs of the cathedral and the anomalies resulting from the construction process. Exploring the division of technical labor at Molfetta Cathedral entails considering various kinds of evidence. Unfortunately, primary texts on the different duties of medieval builders in Apulia are scarce. A few documents for the professional titles of medieval and post-medieval workmen provide

some reference. Although the Apulian sources tend not to describe the duties of different professionals, the Latin title of an individual often implies something of his or her role. In other cases, sources from the broader European orbit can contextualize the Apulian evidence. The physical evidence is much more robust, as a significant portion of Molfetta’s medieval fabric still survives and is exposed to view (though much was restored in the 20th century – see discussion in Chapter 2). Molfetta’s construction techniques can be defined through comparison to those observed at contemporary sites in Apulia and its surroundings. Here it is necessary to move beyond traditional comparisons based on the church as a whole and distinguish between types of techniques within separate areas of expertise. Comparative analysis can help to identify types of constructional choices that match each other or coincide with other choices across numerous buildings, constituting separate typologies of pier design, planning, and dome structure. This approach departs from the totalizing typological systems advocated by scholars such as Raymond Rey, whose work on architecture in Romanesque Aquitaine had a strong influence on Apulian scholarship.5 As we shall see, the comparanda for Molfetta Cathedral are different for each technical specialization, implying divergent professional practices. While the forms of a building hint at their underlying techniques, techniques are not to be reduced to rote forms. The techniques in question were generative schemes, each of which followed certain geometric parameters and enabled a range of forms. To infer shared technique in buildings with only surface affinities, or to dismiss technical comparisons on the grounds of insufficient visual resemblance, is to forget about the creative and improvisational abilities of the builders. A given technical concept could adapt flexibly to a mix of variable conditions, including preexisting fabric, the features desired by the patron base and the administration, and the forms generated by the other areas of expertise. By coming to grips with the technical schemes in each area of expertise at Molfetta Cathedral and contemporary sites, we learn that the builders did not develop their solutions for individual buildings, but attempted to solve the problems of numerous sites at once, thus building up a set of conventions for the larger local ‘industry’. Scholars such as Dieter Kimpel

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and Vibeke Olson have pioneered the study of economics and industry in medieval architecture, using the evidence of construction to infer how architectural tasks were divided among the work force.6 Both authors have recognized the existence of production lines. By standardizing the dimensions of stone at the quarry, separating the fashioning of components that were structurally independent from each other, and passing each component through an assembly line of carvers, ateliers moved away from customized production to a more efficient model resembling ‘mass production’. While Kimpel stipulated the existence of a strong hierarchy of labor as a precondition for his model, Olson observed a more horizontal process in which different kinds of experts worked with some autonomy from one another. For example, en-delit shafts could be serialized in pre-production at the quarry and then used in versatile ways at building sites.7 This system would have required different experts to match their product to adjacent stages of the work cycle, but it also permitted the different specialists to develop their own conventions. With this quasiautonomous status, technical specialists created solutions that could be used across many different buildings, gaining more utility for their effort. The builders of Molfetta Cathedral used the division of labor to balance two needs in the larger ‘industry’ of Apulian church building. The first was standardization, the need to restrict arbitrary variation. The other was versatility, the need to provide solutions that met the variability of demand. Put simply, each expert needed to find a small number of concepts with wide applicability. Four main approaches to this problem emerged, and the separate areas of expertise used them in different combinations. One approach was the single standard: a technique resulting in a specific form with inherent versatility. A second strategy was multiple standards: the use of two or three variations of a technique to produce a more nuanced vocabulary of forms. A third strategy was the standard component, a module or unit that could be multiplied or composited into a range of overall types. Finally, some experts used a flexible standard: a technique applying parametric geometry to create forms that could be stretched and warped while retaining their aesthetic and structural integrity. These strategies of versatility proved essential as the builders attempted to tailor their solutions

toward the types of problems that Apulian buildings tended to pose. This naturally put the different areas of expertise into a reciprocal relationship. Like a conductorless orchestra, or Leibniz’s self-coordinating clocks, the pier designers, planning experts, and vault specialists geared their formal solutions toward mutual compatibility.8 The form of each building was ultimately found through a three-way negotiation between these fields of expertise, and held upright by the tensions between them. How could a strategy based on a regularization of practice and self-coordination of various experts answer the diverse needs of the churches of 11thto-13th-century Apulia, not to mention the practically infinite range of problems caused by anomalies of the site and evolving plans? As we shall see, this mode of production was capable of great versatility. It was not necessary to devise entirely custom buildings for each particular case. Rather, with each area of expertise presenting a small number of versatile solutions, it was possible to multiply these repertoires together for countless possible permutations. This also allowed builders to address problems they had never encountered before, as occurred repeatedly at Molfetta. Pier Design The piers of Molfetta Cathedral conform to a common type, a cross-shaped plan with a shaft and backing dosseret projecting in each of the four cardinal directions. They also feature a distinctive pattern of coursed-in drums interspersed with tall, half-cylindrical blocks. After about the 1170s, this half-shaft composition became ubiquitous among Romanesque churches in the Terra di Bari.9 It crossed between buildings of different typologies, including transept basilicas and churches with multiple domes.10 The consistency of pier design in spite of other kinds of variations (such as plans and vaults) suggests that it stood apart as its own area of specialization. Innovations in pier composition occurred at the quarry, where stonecutters roughed out different types of specialized blocks, including the aforementioned half-cylinders: judging from their size, these blocks were almost certainly reduced to their basic shape before transport to the site. Although medieval documents for extraction at the quarry are scarce,

early modern texts suggest that in Apulia, the labor was divided into two main roles: cavamonti, who were strictly involved with extraction, and petraruli, who organized the quarried stones into groups and roughed them out for later use at building sites.11 The on-site builders were probably responsible for smoothing the blocks to ashlar; then they would emplace them.12 Within this division of labor, the quarrymen would have responded to visual and structural needs prescribed by masons at the building site. At the same time, they would have participated in the design by shaping the supports according to the structural affordances of the material, while also accounting for the formal needs of multiple buildings at once. Indeed, Molfetta’s pier design had formal as well as structural purpose. The choice to insert tall halfcylinders between coursed drums was a visual more than a structural one, doing little to alter the great compressive strength of the pier. The large, continuous surfaces of the half-cylinders make a strong aesthetic impression. The intention may have been to approximate the materiality of monolithic spolia columns, known from major Apulian churches such as the cathedrals of Trani and Bari and the abbey of S. Nicola in Bari. These churches employ spolia columns in the nave alongside compound piers in the crossing, such that the shafts of the crossing piers communicate with the columns. In the same spirit, the cathedral of Otranto employs a nave colonnade of spolia columns and crossing piers with engaged spolia half-columns.13 The pier design of Molfetta developed over time from a strategy of multiple standards to a single standard. The earlier strategy can be observed in Piers 2PN and 2PS as well as responds 2RN, 2RS, 3RN, and 3RS (Phases 2 and 3). This type of pier, also found in numerous contemporary sites, uses coursed-in drums and half cylinders of variable height and diameter (Fig. 35).14 Churches that use this pier type sometimes employ variable dimensions to express the formal hierarchies of the church: in SS. Trinità in Trani, for example, the shafts supporting the arches adjacent to the center bays have a larger diameter than the shafts facing across the side aisles. Unfortunately, the grammar of shaft dimensions at Molfetta Cathedral has been confused by the construction process, specifically the conversion from a transept plan to an axial-domes plan, which required the displacement of some shafts to new positions. It is clear, however,

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Figure 35.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Pier 2PS (west).

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that three standard shaft templates were used, probably two in Phase 2 and an additional one for the new supports needed in Phase 3.15 Later, the pier design of Molfetta Cathedral moved to a single standard. The piers 1PS and 1PN and responds 0RN and 0RS, which can be associated with the later stages of the building effort (Phase 4), are all the same diameter, and do not articulate any hierarchies between the arches over the side aisles and those adjacent to the main bays. Furthermore, these piers exhibit aligned coursing between adjacent dosseret-and-shaft groups, for example on the west side of Pier 1PN (Fig. 36). The move to standard forms meant that quarry-based stone-cutters could rough out the shafts to one shape, forgoing nuance for broad utility. The second type of pier is found in several Apulian churches, all dated between about the end of the 12th century and the late 13th.16 In some examples, the regularized drums and half-cylinders were added at a late stage of construction and needed to be inserted with the help of irregular masonry, as at S. Leonardo in Lama Volara (Fig. 37). Because the quarrymen had shifted to rigid standards of supply, the onus was now on the side of site-based masons to make the components fit. The piers of Molfetta Cathedral represent a rudimentary example of how a specialized design component attained its form. The quarrymen maneuvered between the poles of flexibility and standardization, first varying the dimensions of their product to help building typologies maintain their special character, then later insisting on more standard dimensions. Both approaches responded to a diversity of architectural typologies: the former through multiple standards and the latter through a single standard. As a result of the regularization of pier design, churches throughout the Terra di Bari and the Gargano came to embrace a common formal language in spite of their programmatic diversity. Planning A second area of expertise at Molfetta Cathedral was the geometry of planning: the use of proportional relationships to determine the placement of the walls. In medieval architecture, this task was sometimes given to a caementarius (‘foundations specialist’) and in other cases to the protomagister (‘master mason’),

who was typically also responsible for overseeing the work of other specialists. The task of planning seems to have been separate from pier design and vault structure, for differences in these aspects occur in groups of buildings that use identical planning schemes. Planning was also separate from the task of selecting and organizing general features of the layout, as a number of medieval sources confirm.17 According to some texts, planners would meet on site with prelates in order to hash out the lines of the foundations.18 The choice to include conspicuous programmatic features, such as facade towers or a dome over the crossing, may have been up to the administration, but their precise outlines, both in plan and elevation, often followed the geometric schemes of planning technicians. In other words, the planner’s task was to bring proper dimension to the program by determining its proportions and reconciling it with the site. To illustrate the separation but co-dependence between the decisions of the administration and those of the planners, Molfetta Cathedral and SS. Trinità in Trani both follow a regional three-domeson-axis plan and each feature a high middle dome. The accented dome may have been a liturgical preference, chosen by prelates who hoped to distinguish both churches from other sites of the same typology (SS. Ognissanti in Cuti and S. Benedetto in Conversano). But the height of the dome also follows a specific geometric scheme: at both buildings, it rises to the peak of an equilateral triangle with a base defined by the length of the floor. The dome height was probably determined by planners who coordinated the geometry of the elevation with the standard scheme of axial square bays. Standardization allowed the planners to satisfy their clients while retaining their own conventions. As in pier design, the planning solutions of Molfetta Cathedral proved to have wide ranges of applicability. But the planners followed a different strategy from the quarrymen. Instead of simply manipulating the number of standard forms they offered, the planners employed standard components that remained consistent while producing ranges of plan types. The standard was not the overall plan, but could be a modular bay length, a geometric relationship between the width of the transept and that of the nave, or the ratio of the widths of the nave and side aisles. These modular components could be repeated two, three, or four times, or extended in different

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Figure 36.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Pier 1PN (west and south).

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Figure 37.  Lama Volara (Siponto), S. Leonardo. Detail of pier.

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directions. Thus the planners’ standard components were able to address the programmatic diversity of Apulian architecture and even the changing programs of sites like Molfetta. In the medieval construction of Molfetta Cathedral, three distinct planning schemes deserve special attention: the transept hall crypt of Phase 1, produced through modular geometry; the T-shaped transept basilica plan of Phase 2, utilizing a rotatingsquare method; and the three-square-bay-on-axis plan introduced in Phase 3, using a simple scheme of 1:1 and 2:1 length ratios. Comparisons to other sites in Apulia and surrounding regions show that the same combinations of planning techniques were used regularly and with intent. In the last chapter, I argued that a hall crypt, three bays deep and five bays wide, was the goal of the first phase of construction at Molfetta Cathedral. The crypt would have consisted of a grid of approximately square bays with groin vaults supported by small columns, as well as an apse and side rooms along the east wall. The plan of Molfetta’s crypt was determined with a module. A constant bay length was used (about 3.7 m.), as is evident from the wall arch palimpsests on the crypt walls. By repeating the module, the builders generated the hypostyle grid of the hall crypt. Elsewhere in Apulia, modular lengths proved versatile for creating hall crypts to different programmatic specifications. The original crypt of Molfetta Cathedral compares most closely with those of Giovinazzo Cathedral, S. Maria della Porta in Palo del Colle, and Biscéglie Cathedral, all three bays deep and five bays wide.19 All of these examples used square bays except for Biscéglie, where different modules were used for the lengths and widths of the bays, producing rectangles. Other more ambitious churches such as S. Nicola in Bari and the cathedrals of Bari, Bitonto, and Trani, which brought larger audiences into their crypts, opted for larger bay grids. The overall proportions of these different crypt plans were variable, resulting from the number of bays and the proportions of bay length to bay width. The dimensions could also vary slightly as a result of skewed alignments, as at Molfetta, where the planners appear to have struggled to insert the hall crypt into the dense urban fabric and/or find footings in the limestone bedrock. The skewed alignments were not a desired element of this scheme, and at Molfetta they would have posed challenges for the construction of groin vaults.

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In spite of the potential flexibility of the modular crypt, Apulian planners restricted the number of permutations. We do not find the full range of possible grids among Apulian hall crypts. Instead, the builders offered two main options. One was the 4 × 9 grid (S. Nicola in Bari, Bari Cathedral, and Trani Cathedral), which provided not only a deep space of prayer, but also a large amount of standing room under the transept arms (Fig.  30). The other option, based on the 3 × 5 grid (Molfetta, Giovinazzo, Palo del Colle, and Biscéglie), was only a bay shallower but sacrificed the laterally projecting arms (Fig.  25).20 The prevalence of two main plans may indicate a strategy by the planners to segment the demand for hall crypts. The larger crypt included many more columns, and was therefore fit for well-endowed cathedrals such as Bari and Trani. Not only were these cities wealthy, they were also ancient, and their bishops may have had easier access to the spolia columns necessary for the crypt. Moreover, the churches with larger hall crypts tended to have successful cults of relics from an early date, whereas smaller cathedrals like Molfetta did not obtain their precious relics until much later. The greater prestige and wealth of the larger cathedrals, along with their throngs of pilgrims, justified the selection of the ‘deluxe’ hall crypt. Meanwhile the cathedrals on the scale of Molfetta, which merely aspired to this status, adopted the same type of space but with much less capacity: in the smaller hall crypt, there were 15 bays in which to pray in contrast to 36. On the other hand, by opting for the smaller hall crypt, administrations such as those of Molfetta and Giovinazzo enjoyed a large discount on columns, needing only 8-10 as opposed to 28-30. The planners of hall crypts in Apulia, by constraining the range of options for bay grids to two main choices while retaining f lexibility in the bay shape, were able to limit arbitrary variation and still meet the peculiar demands of specific sites. The standard modular component was key to this success. Other types of standard components can be observed in the later planning schemes of Molfetta Cathedral. The hall crypt was followed by the plan of a T-shaped basilica with transept arms projecting slightly beyond the outer walls of the nave. The T-shaped plan was introduced in Phase 2 and combined with the crypt, but was only partially realized before the transformations of Phase 3, which substantially altered both previous plans (see discussion

Figure 38.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plan of ‘Phase 2’, showing the rotated square method of determining the proportions of the transept and the 2:1 relationship of the nave to the side aisles.

in Chapter 2). The basic geometry of the T-shaped plan remains in the cathedral today, and it reveals instructive patterns of technical standardization and flexibility. Unlike the hall crypt, whose proportions resulted from the multiplication of modules, the outline of the T-shaped basilica was governed by a totalizing geometry. Using a sophisticated scheme, the planners created a slight projection of the transept beyond the nave aisles, a distinctive feature that reformulated the typology of Apulia’s great transept basilicas on a smaller scale. To produce this effect, planners began by establishing a transept with a width √2 (≈1.41) times as great as its depth. As the √2 multiple exists in the diagonals of squares, the proportions of Molfetta’s transept were probably found using some variation of a rotated square method, a common approach in medieval planning. For example, the builders of Molfetta could have used rope to rotate the east edge of the transept by 45 degrees, establishing the new depth of the transept as well as the locations of the crossing piers (Fig. 38). Then the outer extents of the side aisles of the nave could be set twice as far apart as

the crossing piers, creating a 2:1 relationship between the width of the nave and that of each side aisle. This combination left the transept arms standing just proud of the aisle walls. Comparisons show that this planning scheme was often combined with specific compositional and constructional techniques pertaining to the elevation, suggesting that these buildings may have been planned by protomagisters (‘master masons’) and not merely caementarii (‘foundations specialists’). Three other churches serve as comparisons for the combination of a rotated-square transept and a nave-to-aisle ratio of 2:1. Two are in Apulia: the cathedrals of Bitetto and Conversano (Fig. 29). Another is in Abruzzo: the church of S. Maria di Ronzano, near Castel Castagna.21 At both Molfetta Cathedral and S. Maria di Ronzano, the T-shaped plan was packaged together with a specific compositional idea for the east facade: a colossal-order blind arcade interrupted by a central, elevated window (Fig.  4). Another key element of this package was the form of archi lunati, arches that widen towards the middle as a result of their outer

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curvature obeying a radius equal to that of the inner curvature. This technique, common in Apulia (and used throughout Molfetta Cathedral), was communicated between protomagisters and their masons with the help of carved assembly guides. One arco lunato guide is incised into the south facade of Molfetta Cathedral, possibly to inform the construction of the large arches of the central aisle. The guide consists of a gradual curve from which several lines radiate at intervals (Fig. 39). As Ambrosi has compellingly argued, these types of guides served not as rote templates that carvers directly traced, but as more general references helping stonecutters to create heterogeneous but coordinated blocks.22 To be specific, the incision at Molfetta would have communicated the size of the inner curvature and the alignments of the radiating stones, which were not to lie exactly perpendicular to the inner curvature but to gradually shift in accordance with the outer curvature. By setting the necessary curvature, protomagisters could integrate the technique of archi lunati into cohesive compositions, such as the facade elevations of Molfetta and Ronzano. Archi lunati prove critical to the compositional solution of Molfetta’s east facade. The narrow springers of the arches make room for the frequent intercolumniation (originally lining up with the crypt), while the bulging middles of the arches maintain a strong presence, especially the central window, boasting a double order of sculpted archivolts. In incorporating a large number of blind arches, Molfetta’s facade echoed the blind arcades of larger Apulian transept basilicas such as S. Nicola in Bari, Bari Cathedral, and Bitonto Cathedral, thereby approximating the larger building type on a smaller scale (Fig. 12). The facade of Molfetta Cathedral, probably inspiring or inspired by that of Giovinazzo, even doubled the intercolumniation by adopting interlaced arches, perhaps in part as a means of aping the nine-bay schemes of their larger neighbors (Fig. 14). The integrated plan and elevation of Molfetta’s east end uses both standard components and flexible standards. The T-shaped joining of the transept and the nave aisles is a standard component in that it could be combined with other choices for multiple results. The churches that employ this plan type feature various nave lengths: Conversano Cathedral has four bays, while Bitetto Cathedral and S. Maria di Ronzano have three. At Molfetta, this plan was

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adapted to the unusual situation of inheriting a hall crypt. The western extent of the crypt was abbreviated to fit the new proportions; meanwhile the transverse intercolumniation of the crypt was used for the rhythm of the arcaded facade. But the relational geometry that produced the T-shaped plan is also a flexible standard, as it is based on hinging angles rather than rigid, 90-degree ones. For example, the nave of Bitetto Cathedral terminates in a skewed west facade, throwing off the transverse alignments of the piers, and Molfetta’s nave walls are not perpendicular to the transept. These kinds of distortions are more extreme than those seen in the alignment of the hall crypt, which needed to remain close enough to right angles and square bays to permit somewhat regular arches and groin vaults. Because the T-shaped plan was usually combined with the idea of a wooden-roofed nave rather than a vaulted one, poor alignments of the walls and supports were acceptable and could help the plan adapt to irregularities of the site. The plan that I have attributed to Phases 3 and 4 at Molfetta Cathedral, which transformed the transept basilica into a plan of three domes on axis with vaulted side aisles, was based on another standard component: a unit, or ‘slice’, of the church one longitudinal bay long and three bays wide. This unit consisted of a square bay in the nave and two side aisle bays each half the width of the central aisle. The standard could be multiplied to create churches of various length. But like the T-shaped plan, it consistently came ‘packaged’ with specific features of elevation: in particular the combination of domes and quadrant vaults. As Ionescu pointed out, the four Apulian churches with three axial domes and quadrant vaults also feature similar proportions in elevation.23 In other words, the planners employed a standard geometric solution to accommodate a common type of program. While the most famous examples of this plan type feature three longitudinal bays (Molfetta Cathedral, SS. Trinità in Trani, SS. Ognissanti in Cuti, and S. Benedetto in Conversano), a number of Apulian churches employ it over only two bays (the small church of Seppannibale, near Fasano, and the Abbey of S. Maria della Calena), or as many as four (S. Domenico in Bitonto).24 There are also two sites in northern Apulia that include domes over some of the axial bays but not all, including S. Basilio in Troia and S. Leonardo in Lama Volara (near Siponto).

Figure 39.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Arch assembly guide on exterior south wall, with radiating lines to indicate the alignment of voussoirs.

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This last features three square bays on axis, quadrant vaults over portions of the side aisles, domes over the west and east bays, and a pointed barrel vault over the middle bay. Finally, one Apulian church uses the same proportional scheme but no domes at all: S. Benedetto in Brindisi, which features four square bays on axis with side aisles half the width of the nave, quadrant vaults over the side aisles, and rib vaults over the nave.25 To cite another variable, S. Benedetto in Brindisi and S. Benedetto in Conversano use columns instead of piers. All told, the Apulian planners employed the same geometric module in spite of numerous other variables. The solution was flexible in terms of the number of bays, which could vary to fit diverse liturgical preferences, as well as technical variations in the supports or vaults. The planning concept was a skeleton that could be fleshed out with a range of more specific features. On the other hand, the geometric attributes of the plan strongly encouraged certain features: for example, the square bays invited the possibility of building domes over any of the nave bays, and the half-width proportions of the side aisles found a fitting articulation in the form of the quadrant vault, which constituted literally half a vault (the churches of S. Leonardo in Lama Volara and S. Basilio in Troia, which paired quadrant vaults with full pointed barrel vaults over the main aisle, took particular advantage of this visual logic). The plan type often brought with it a certain approach to fenestration: the use of oculi in the side aisles, piercing the east and west walls and the quadrant diaphragm arches (SS. Ognissanti in Cuti and S. Leonardo in Lama Volara) (Fig. 15). By illuminating the space from the east and west, the oculi fill the role normally played by high lateral windows, which the quadrant vaults preclude. The circular shape of the oculus is also a graceful complement to the rounded surfaces of the vaults and domes of this typology. But oculi do not always accompany the plan of square bays and the 2:1 nave-to-aisle ratio: for example, they are absent from Molfetta Cathedral. Like the option of three longitudinal bays, it was a popular but not compulsory accessory to the underlying planning geometry. As in the planning of the hall crypt, the concept of square axial bays with side aisles half the width of the nave was a component geometry that could branch off into a range of overall plans. By introducing a

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strategy of standard components, the planners of Molfetta could serve churches with diverse technical repertoires and liturgical preferences without creating new solutions on a case-by-case basis. In addition, the hinging alignments of the T-shaped plan had introduced the idea of flexible standards, as this plan type tolerated deformation in the name of versatility. Overall, the various standardized plan types of Molfetta helped the cathedral overcome its most difficult problems. Creative use of these geometric schemes allowed a T-shaped transept basilica to be combined with a hall crypt and an axial-domes church to rise from the shell of a transept basilica, a transformation. that no other sites in the region had attempted. In other words, the challenges of Molfetta Cathedral pushed planners to explore the limits of open-ended technical solutions. Dome Structure While the planners of Molfetta may have coordinated other technical specialists in the cathedral, one type of expert seems to have had considerable autonomy from the planners: specialists of vault design. Visual evidence strongly suggests that Apulian domes were the product of specialized knowledge. The many types of specialized domes in Apulia vary among buildings that feature the same geometries of plan and elevation. Molfetta Cathedral, for one, includes various types of domes over the nave, while all three bays adhere to a single planning solution. Each of the three types of dome employed in the high vault of Molfetta, the pendentive dome, the pseudo-pendentive squinch dome (used in the first build of the middle and west domes), and the cuffia dome (an upgrade to the two squinch domes), has its own comparanda that vary in terms of planning and pier design. The builders responsible for designing the domes dealt with a different set of problems from those engaged with the composition of the supports, overall proportions, or general layout. Just as the planners incorporated wall builders’ techniques such as archi lunati into their schemes, the dome specialists also appear to have benefitted from the work of sub-specialists. In some Apulian domes, the stones for different parts of the vault come from different quarries, as the rock types vary in mass and play different roles in the structure.26

Figure 40.  Cuti (Valenzano), SS. Ognissanti. Dome with stereotomic pendentives.

Furthermore, the stones at various levels of the dome are cut to different shapes and coursed to different radii of curvature. A few Apulian domes, such as the handsome pendentive domes of SS. Ognissanti in Cuti, are stereotomic: complex stone vaults divided according to the geometry of solids into seamlessly fitted three-dimensional components (Fig.  40).27 The domes of Molfetta Cathedral, by contrast, take recourse to small subdivisions and thick mortar beds. Notwithstanding these variations within the dome building teams, their efforts could be coordinated, as with planning, through standards of regulating geometry. As proclaimed by structural engineer Jacques Heyman, the structural strength of masonry is a geometric problem: one of designing volumes that, by their shape, keep the stones in compression rather than tension.28 The dome specialists of Molfetta Cathedral progressed from the strategy of a single standard (the pendentive dome) to that of a flexible standard (both types of squinch dome). The pendentive dome over the center bay of the east end is a common structural system in Apulia, probably bestowed during the period of Byzantine rule between the late 9th and late 11th centuries. This system relies on curving triangular surfaces rising from the spandrels of the bay arches to

transition from the square contours of the bay to the circular base of the dome. Many Apulian domes, like those of Molfetta or SS. Ognissanti in Cuti, consist of pendentives supporting a hemisphere, often accented by a molding or corbel table (Figs 7, 40). Others, such as the dome over the central bay of S. Margherita in Biscéglie, are made up of pendentives rising uninterrupted to hemispheres, sans moldings. Both variations depend on true pendentives, which result from the intersection of a sphere and a cube. The use of a true pendentive dome is therefore normally restricted to square bays, as any discrepancy among the four angles or the four sides thwarts the volumetric intersection. Fortunately, square bays resulted from many typical planning geometries, including the axial-domes scheme discussed above, as well as domed side-aisle bays, as seen at Bitonto Cathedral. The pendentive dome was also a natural fit for the square crossing of Molfetta Cathedral, which had originally formed part of a T-shaped transept basilica not anticipating a dome. The pendentive dome was a rigid but highly applicable single standard. On the other hand, the pendentive dome was not a viable solution for the middle and west bays of the nave (begun in Phase 4), which were awkward parallelograms as a result of the skewed alignments of the

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nave walls (begun in Phase 2). The builders turned to a system of squinches, corner niches placed above the arches of a quadrangular bay that create an octagonal transition to a circular dome base (Figs 8-9, 41). Unlike pendentives, squinches are well adapted to non-square bays. In the Terra di Bari, where both systems existed side by side, squinches were consistently chosen for parallelograms, rectangles, and rhombuses (Molfetta Cathedral, S. Nicola in Bari, Bari Cathedral, and the rural church of S. Bartolomeo in Padule).29 Unlike the pendentive, the squinch does not require an intersection of perfect forms. Rather, a process of vertical stacking made it possible to reconcile squinch domes with irregular bays. The squinch dome gained its flexibility from one variable in particular: the placement, in plan, of the facing arches of the squinches. While the four squinch arches needed to have the same span so that they could all form semicircles of the same height, their locations in the corner of the vaults varied in order to limit the amount of space between the squinch arches and the perimeter of a roughly circular dome base. To accomplish this, the dome builders appear to have followed a parametric rule: each facing arch stayed parallel in plan with its counterpart located diagonally across the bay. This flexible rule adapted the same type of squinch dome to the differing shapes of the middle and west bays of Molfetta Cathedral, and was also applied in squinch domes over variously shaped bays throughout southeast Italy. Different variations of the squinch system were used in Phases 4 and 5 of Molfetta Cathedral, the latter replacing the former (see discussion in Chapter 2). In the first system, the squinches rose directly from curving surfaces called pseudo-pendentives. The builders stacked stones horizontally from the spandrels of the bay to produce rounded corners just above the height of the bay arches. A number of Byzantine and Romanesque churches in the Adriatic employ pseudo-pendentives, placing domes directly on top of them; however, this solution forced the builders to vault not a circle but an odd quadrilateral with rounded corners.30 The dome experts of Molfetta Cathedral instead drew upon an Apulian system of combining pseudo-pendentives with squinches, which had allowed the builders of S. Nicola in Bari and Bari Cathedral to attempt domes over their deep rectangular crossing bays. Molfetta’s first squinch system probably most closely resembled that of Bari

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Cathedral (Fig.  34). In this system, the squinches rise from the rounded corners established by the pseudo-pendentives and are coursed horizontally. A section of the same basic type of squinch at S. Nicola in Bari shows that the inner vertical edge rises from the base before hooking abruptly in the uppermost courses: in other words, a rounded-corner profile to echo the rounded-corner base (Fig.  42). To handle this cumbersome form, many of the upper courses are squeezed in the middle. In spite of this awkwardness, the pseudo-pendentive squinch dome successfully blended the concept of pseudo-pendentives with that of squinches, which eased the transition to the circular dome base. When the squinches of Molfetta’s domes were transformed into quarter-spherical cuffie in Phase 5, they still obeyed the geometric framework that made the earlier squinches effective, retaining the old positions of the squinch arches. At the same time, by inserting cuffie, the builders realized a pleasing hierarchy of hemi-spheres and quarter-spheres in the domes and their squinches. Then, to fill in the gaps between the octagonal squinch zone and the circular dome base, the builders of Phase 5 borrowed the regulating geometry of a large sphere, consistent with a pendentive method (Fig. 41). In sum, the underlying geometry of squinch domes proved flexible in two ways. First, this system allowed the planners and administration to realize domes over non-square bays. Second, it offered an opportunity to experiment with different squinch forms, from the odd, arch-backed squinches of Phase 4 to the more elegant quarter-spheres of Phase 5. Perhaps serendipitously, the new squinch system of Phase 5 complemented the sphere-based geometry of the pendentives in the east dome. The dome structure of Molfetta’s squinch domes best exemplifies the concept of a flexible standard: a regulating geometric relationship that could inherently deform while still remaining stable and visually effective. Indeed, it is difficult for a viewer of the domes to detect the gross differences between the shapes of the two bays. The visual articulation of the dome helps. Moldings articulate the contours that are nearly identical between the two domes, the dome bases and the squinches, but not those that are different, the bay shapes and the outer envelope of the squinches. The latter disappear into the indeterminate surfaces of the support system. As a result, the

Figure 41.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Orthophotograph of middle dome toward northeast (generated using photogrammetry; inward-curving dome base is result of distortion).

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Figure 42.  Bari, S. Nicola. Orthophotograph of squinch in incomplete crossing dome (generated using photogrammetry).

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solution of the middle and west domes of Molfetta is a tour de force, a formal synthesis of pendentive, pseudo-pendentive, and squinch technologies that vaults large and eccentric bays with panache. To recapitulate, the various workshops that passed through Molfetta Cathedral over the long course of construction almost certainly took part in a larger building industry centered in the Terra di Bari. Serving the efficiency and effectiveness of this industry, specialists in at least three areas of expertise – pier design, planning, and dome structure – attempted to regularize their applied geometric techniques while maximizing the versatility and flexibility of form. They accomplished this by following four different strategies: a single standard, multiple standards, standard components, and flexible standards. Let us now consider each strategy in turn for the specific type of economic benefits it could have lent to the larger production effort of central Apulian prestige architecture. The first strategy was to devise a single, versatile standard form, exemplified by the homogeneous pier design of Phase 4 (Piers 1PN and 1PS and Responds 0RN and 0RS). This design repeated the same template to create shafts of identical dimensions, regularizing and thereby simplifying the production of pier parts at the quarry. The pendentive dome structure designed for Phase 3 was also a single, standard form: a shell generated by the intersection of two specific spatial forms, the sphere and the cube. In both examples, the single standard streamlined production by reducing the number of templates or geometric references builders needed to use. The builders that employed the single standard pursued these benefits at the expense of formal nuance. For example, the standard pier design of Molfetta Cathedral eradicated the spatial hierarchies made possible by earlier, more varied pier designs. Likewise, the pendentive dome encouraged the use of domes only over square bays, precluding domed rectangular bays or rhomboid bays. The second strategy was that of multiple standards, whereby the builders applied variations of the same geometric technique in order to supply a small range of formal options. For example, the earlier piers and responds at Molfetta Cathedral, constructed in Phases  2 and 3 (Piers 2PN and 2PS and Responds 2RN, 2RS, 3RN, and 3RS), and those at comparanda such as SS. Trinità in Trani obeyed the same type of form but varied the size of the shaft template in order

to express a hierarchy of more and less important bay divisions. Analogously, the 3  ×  5-bay hall crypt designed by the planners of the first phase of construction at Molfetta was an alternative to the 4 × 9 crypt, employed for larger and wealthier transept basilicas. These two main options for hall crypts in Apulia –  one a large ‘deluxe’ option and the other a small ‘discounted’ option – segmented the demand for this form between administrations of different means. The strategy of multiple standards maximized the range of scenarios in which the specialists’ technical solutions could be applied. At the same time, the architectural workshops, attempting to meet the needs of different types of spaces at different scales, constrained the potentially infinite range of patrons’ demands to a finite menu. They thereby kept production streamlined while capturing various kinds of clients. In the third strategy, that of the standard component (or module), specialists offered a single standard that acted as a component of a larger form, which could achieve considerable variability. This strategy proved especially important to the planners. In the first place, modular lengths can be observed in the crypt plan of Phase  1 at Molfetta Cathedral. The T-shaped transept basilica plan of Phase 2 used a proportional relationship (between the dimensions of the transept and the width of the side aisles) that could be combined with various options for the length of the nave. Finally, the proportional relationship between side aisles and central aisles in the plan of multiple axial domes, introduced in Phase 3, could be employed in churches of two, three, or more longitudinal bays. The consistent use of modular design in planning may underline the extreme need for versatility in program. As I have argued in earlier chapters, the diversity of program in central Apulia was a function of institutional competition in port cities. As diverse institutions competed over a few key public functions, such as offering the sacraments to urban communities, and combined these functions with their own various private needs, they required building plans that expressed established functional typologies while also combining them in new ways. The modular strategy adeptly resolved this conundrum. The fourth strategy was that of a flexible standard: a geometric technique using relational parameters rather than strict lines and shapes. A flexible-standard technique produced forms that were capable of fitting into oddly shaped confines. This applied especially to

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dome design at Molfetta Cathedral. The support system of squinches, added to the middle and west nave bays during Phase 4 and revised in Phase 5, could not have been executed without this approach. The two bays in question were irregular and therefore ill-suited to pendentive domes, and because the bay shapes were determined by conditions outside the control of the dome engineers (namely the preceding sequence of plan revisions), there was no standard volumetric form that could be used. The dome specialists employed a relational geometry to adapt a single squinch system to the two different bays, one a rhombus and the other a parallelogram with sharper angles. It is important to emphasize that the flexibility of the squinch system stemmed from its regulating geometry (namely the rule that the facing arch of each squinch should be parallel with the one situated diagonally across from it), allowing dome builders to employ a single technique in bays of different form. In this way, the versatility of the construction industry was able to account not only for various established building types, but also buildings of disjointed design history, and the bizarre non-orthogonal forms that they tended to generate. Single and multiple standards, standard components, and flexible standards helped the building teams of Molfetta Cathedral regularize their production while answering a great array of needs. These strategies ensured the applicability of specific techniques to many different sites, their viability in moments of design change, and their mutual compatibility with other technologies. The technical specialists of Molfetta Cathedral found particular success in the formula of ‘multiple permutations’. Because the small sets of solutions created by each area of expertise were capable of locking together with those invented by the others, they could combine to produce a wide array of options. This helps to explain why Molfetta Cathedral and its neighbors in Romanesque Apulia appear to be made of the same forms and techniques reshuffled. Every building represents a singular combination of regularized practice. Each site is unique, but all connect. It is this interconnectivity of architectural knowledge among sites that commands our attention in the next chapter of this book. The transmission of knowledge in geographic space expanded the design options available to the work force of Molfetta, and helped yet again to satisfy the cathedral’s need for diversity and change.

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NOTES Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Bulding in Ten Books, trans. by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavenor, 10 vols (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), I. 2  On templates, David Turnbull, ‘The Ad Hoc Collective Work of Building Gothic Cathedrals with Templates, String, and Geometry’, Science, Technology, & Human Values, 18/3 (1993), 315-40 (p. 317). 3  For examples, Giuseppe Occhiato, ‘Robert de Grandmesnil, un abate “architetto” operante in Calabria nell’XI secolo’, Studi medievali, ser. 3, 28/2 (1987), 609-66 (pp. 623-26). 4  For example, Günter Bandmann, Early Medieval Architecture as Bearer of Meaning, trans. by Kendall Wallis (Berlin: Gebrüder Mann Verlag, 1951, as Mittelalterliche Architektur als Bedeutungsträger; repr. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), p. 48. 5  Raymond Rey, La Cathédrale de Cahors et les origines de l’architecture à coupoles d’Aquitaine (Paris: H. Laurens, 1929), p. 18. This work inspired Grigore Ionescu’s typological analysis of the three-domes scheme. Grigore Ionescu, Le chiese pugliesi a tre cupole, Ephemeris dacoromana, VI (Rome: Libreria di scienze e di lettere, 1935), p. 50. 6  See Dieter Kimpel, ‘La développement de la taille en série dans l’architecture médiévale et son rôle dans l’histoire économique’, Bulletin monumentale, 135/3 (1977), 195-222; Dieter Kimpel, ‘Ökonomie, Technik und Form in der hochgotischen Architekture’, in Bauwerk und Bildwerk in Hochmittelalter: Anschauliche Beiträge zur Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte, ed. by Karl Clausberg, Dieter Kimpel, and Hans-Joachim Kunst (Geißen: Anabas-Verlag, 1981), pp. 103-25; and Vibeke Olson, ‘The Whole is the Sum of its Parts: Standardizing Medieval Stone Production’, in Working with Limestone: The Science, Technology and Art of Medieval Limestone Monuments, ed. by Vibeke Olson (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 189-207. 7  Kimpel, ‘Ökonomie, Technik und Form’, p. 106; Olson, ‘Sum of its Parts’, pp. 193-95. 8  See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. by Richard Nice (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1972, as Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique, précédé de trois études d’ethnologie kabyle; repr. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 80: ‘[A] conductorless orchestration […] gives regularity, unity, and systematicity to the practices of a group […], and this even in the absence of any spontaneous or externally imposed organization of individual projects’. 9  Several churches in Bari offer early dates for this type of pier, including the cathedral (c.  1177), S. Gregorio, and S. Maria del Buonconsiglio, all of which seem to have been rebuilt after the city’s devastation by King William  I (‘the bad’) of Sicily. For a chronicle of William  I’s campaign, Hugo Falcandus, Liber de Regno Sicilie, in The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’ 1154-69, trans. by Graham A. Loud and Thomas E. J. Wiedemann (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), pp. 73-74. For chronologies of the three Bari churches, Pina Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica (Milan: Jaca Book, 2003), pp.  127-29, 283, and Kai Kappel, S. Nicola in Bari und seine architektonische Nachfolge: Ein Bautypus des 11.-17. Jahrhunderts in Unteritalien 1 

und Dalmatien (Worms am Rhein: Wernersche, 1996), pp. 166, 324-25, 326. 10  This kind of half-shaft was adopted for cross-shaped piers in the axial-domes churches of Molfetta Cathedral and SS. Trinità in Trani and for T-shaped piers and two-part rectangular piers (with shafts facing in the longitudinal directions) in w ­ ooden-roof basilicas such as Bari Cathedral, Trani Cathedral, Biscéglie Cathedral, and S. Maria Maggiore in Barletta. 11  Anita Guarnieri, ‘Materiali lapidei’, in L’arte della costruzione in pietra: chiese di Puglia con cupole in asse dal secolo XI al XVI, ed. by Rossella de Cadilhac (Rome: Gangemi, 2008), pp. 93-115 (p.  111). It would have been wasteful of energy and material to convey large pieces, such as the half-cylinders, to the work site for extensive further reduction. 12  There are mason marks on some of the monolithic half-shafts, which could imply dressing either at the quarry or on site. 13  The Norman nave of Otranto Cathedral must have been largely completed by the middle of 12th century, as the famous mosaic pavement was completed between 1163 and ’65. Belli D’Elia, ­Puglia Romanica, p. 238. 14  Comparanda include Bari Cathedral and other Bariot churches (S. Gregorio and S. Maria del Buonconsiglio), Trani Cathedral and other churches in this city (SS. Ognissanti and SS. Trinità), the cathedrals of Biscéglie, Ruvo, and Bitetto, and the church of S. Maria Maggiore in Barletta. 15  The shafts of Responds 2RN, 3RN, and 3RS and the north and south shafts of Pier 2PN conform to a single template with a large diameter; the east and west shafts of Pier 2PN conform to a similar but smaller template; and the shaft of 2RS and all four shafts of 2PS conform to a medium-sized, horseshoe-shaped template. The first two types are more likely associated with Phase 2, and the third with Phase 3. 16  These examples include S. Leonardo in Lama Volara (near Siponto) and S. Sepolcro in Barletta. The abbey of S. Leonardo in Lama Volara existed by 1127, but was described as ruined when conceded to the Teutonic Knights in 1260 and was subsequently restored. Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, p. 62. The nave of S. Sepolcro in Barletta has recently been dated to the late 12th or 13th century. It would have connected the transept to west end, both begun earlier. Kappel, p. 329. 17  Giovanni Coppola, L’edilizia nel Medioevo (Rome: Carocci, 2015), pp. 65, 86. 18  Caroline Bruzelius, The Stones of Naples: Church Building in Angevin Italy, 1266-1343 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 204.

The crypt of Biscéglie is the most securely dated at c. 1167. Kappel, p. 201. 20  There are at least two anomalies: Acquaviva Cathedral, a 3 × 7 crypt, and S. Lucia in Brindisi, a 2 × 3 crypt. Kappel, pp. 137-40, 236-41. 21  The main volumes of S. Maria di Ronzano are dated to around 1171 on the basis of an inscription. Paolo Favole, Abruzzo e Molise (Milan: Jaca Book, 1990), p. 66. Kappel, pp. 341-44 also draws attention to the close comparison of S. Maria di Ronzano with the Apulian churches. 22  Angelo Ambrosi, ‘Testimonianze sul tracciamento degli archi medievali in Terra di Bari e Capitanata’, in Modo di costruire, Atti del primo seminario internazionale, Roma, 6-8 giugno 1988, ed. by Maristella Casciato, Stefania Mornati, and C. Paola Scavizzi (Rome: Edilstampa, 1990), pp. 79-96 (p. 92), referring to drawings from the ‘lodge book’ of Villard D’Honnecourt. 23  Ionescu, p. 124. 24  See Chapter 1 discussing the dating of the church of Seppannibale. See Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, pp. 256-57, for S. Maria di Càlena: the church was first documented in 1023 when it passed to S. Maria dei Tremiti. The church came under the control of the Cistercians in 1237. 25  Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, pp. 213-14 suggests a date of construction around the time of a comital donation from Godfrey of Conversano and Sichelgaita in 1097 and the confirmation of the first Abbot in the early 12th century. 26  Rossella de Cadilhac, Anita Guarnieri, and Gabriele Rossi, ‘Orizzontamenti’, in L’arte della costruzione in pietra: chiese di Puglia con cupole in asse dal secolo XI al XVI, ed. by Rossella de Cadilhac (Rome: Gangemi, 2008) (pp. 160-62). 27  Sara Galletti, ‘Stereotomy and the Mediterranean: Notes Toward an Architectural History’, Mediterranea. International journal for the transfer of knowledge, 2 (2017), 73-120; and Marco Rosario Nobile, ed., La stereotomia in Sicilia e nel Mediterraneo (Palermo: Edizioni Caracol, 2013). 28  Jacques Heyman, The Stone Skeleton: Structural Engineering of Masonry Architecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 12. 29  For S. Bartolomeo in Padule, Pina Belli D’Elia, Puglia XI secolo: alle sorgenti del romanico (Bari: Dedalo, 1975; repr. Bari: Dedalo, 1987), pp. 226-27; and De Cadilhac, Guarnieri, and Rossi, ‘Orizzontamenti’, pp.  196-97. The existence of the church is documented from 1180. 30  For example, the Romanesque church of S. Luka in Kotor, Montenegro. 19 

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4. The Joints of Geography: Geology, Travel Pathways, and Knowledge Cabotage

We have seen disjuncture operating on many levels in Molfetta Cathedral. The program, which evolved and multiplied over time, created a need for versatility. To address this challenge, a heterogeneous array of aesthetic and technical concepts became folded into the design via interruptions in the building process and divisions in the work cycle. The design hinged on yet another kind of disjuncture: the diversity of geographic contexts from which the builders drew their repertoire. Molfetta’s eclectic forms and techniques have long been discussed. The three-domes-on-axis plan has been described as Byzantine, the towers and quadrant vaults French, and the interlaced arches Islamic. But it is possible to move beyond these cultural monoliths. I would like to explore how the specific formal and technical concepts observed in Molfetta circulated on the back of new social opportunities for travel and knowledge transmission that emerged during the boom in long-distance trade. In order to plug into these networks of exchange, the builders of Molfetta were willing to sacrifice stylistic consistency. But they reaped the reward of adaptability, using their new combinations of practice to solve unexpected problems in the cathedral. The fragmented geography of the builders’ repertoire was thus a fourth axis of disjuncture, standing alongside the program, process, and work cycle as a means of maximizing versatility in construction and design. The problem of how the builders of Molfetta came to adopt wide-ranging practices can be broken down into two questions. First, how did the builders gain the technical knowledge to execute design

concepts that were uncommon locally? The findings of the last chapter strongly suggested that specialized techniques were at the root of design innovations such as plan types, pier types, and specialized vaults. The elements of this knowledge were also generative and flexible. Borrowing these practices from faraway places was therefore not simply a matter of seeing and reproducing, as early scholars have implied, but would have entailed training and prior experience.1 It is thus necessary to account for the mechanisms of knowledge transmission over a range of distances, as Mediterraneanists such as Meinecke, Necipoğlu, and Grossman have done.2 As we shall see, the circulation of practice to Molfetta depended on pathways of professional travel such as roads and commercial routes, support infrastructure such as legal incentives for builders and artisans to relocate, and institutions that recruited builders over long distances, such as monastic networks. The second question is how building practices with long-range patterns of circulation remained useful in diverse contexts. The flexible quality of technical knowledge allowed the architectural ideas of Molfetta Cathedral to integrate concepts from beyond the local, as well as to morph to fit the various building types of other regions. Studying the patterns of architectural variance across space, and the response of those patterns to environmental and social conditions, can be difficult. Maps can illuminate these patterns and relationships. This chapter uses maps to locate ranges and clusters of sites that share specific building practices with Molfetta Cathedral, while also exploring the possible

impact of roads, geological zones, and trade agreements on their circulation. To generate my maps, I have created a GIS (Geographical Information System) of architectural sites, building on a budding discourse that uses the tool to understand patterns of variation among numerous historical buildings.3 The database includes attribute information such as geographic coordinates, building techniques held in common with Molfetta Cathedral, variations of those techniques, and material. It also includes other layers of data, some translated into GIS data from pre-existing maps, such as long-distance trade routes,4 and some already existing as GIS data sets, such as Roman roads, which served as the main overland travel pathways during the Middle Ages.5 Putting these data in the common frame of a map properly represents their real overlap in space. The historical layers also qualify our sense of distance, reminding us, for example, that Adriatic travel lanes tended to hug the coast rather than traverse seas directly, and that traveling along a coastal road, from Bari to Barletta for example, would have been easier than going the same distance inland. My particular use of a historical GIS is not to be considered quantitative analysis. The available physical evidence is patchy and incomplete. Because I have targeted types of architectural practice that are rare and specific, and therefore most likely to indicate specialized knowledge, the data sets are small. In addition, my search for sites cannot be considered comprehensive.6 But as Gregory and Geddes noted in their introduction to Toward Spatial Humanities (2014), historical GIS is useful not only for mapping statistically significant data, but also for noticing trends in the geographic distribution of smaller sets of evidence.7 I have used the tool in this way, to find leads in the study of historical geospatial relationships. By mapping patterns of architectural practice, we may avoid certain abstractions. One tempting abstraction is to simplify the gradations of geographical distance into two categories: local and foreign. This dichotomy can be found in the early historiography of southern Italian architecture. Ferdinand Von Quast, in his annotations of Heinrich Wilhelm Schulz’s Denkmaeler der Kunst des Mittelalters in Unteritalien (1861), drew a distinction between Bauformen (‘general formal models’), which were carried solely in the visual memory, and Ausbildung (‘constructional training’), of which builders had embodied experience.8 Whereas Von Quast described both of these

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dynamics as present in medieval Apulia, arguing that French Crusaders encountered Byzantine Bauformen in the Holy Land, translated them into French Ausbildung, and, on the way home, trained Apulian masons to produce them, Émile Bertaux countered with the idea of autochthonous (‘locally rooted’) technical traditions. Bertaux argued that Apulian masons not only engaged with Greek formal models as a result of their own experience of Byzantine rule, but also developed their own techniques from timeless vernacular architecture: for example, he connected Apulian domed churches to the conical dwellings known as trulli.9 The author provoked scholars to connect the general typologies of prestige architecture to vernacular techniques and design traditions, an approach he affectionately called the ‘folk-lore des pierres’ (‘folklore of stones’). Although scholars have rejected some of Bertaux’s theories, his faith in the local geography of technical traditions as opposed to the more global geography of formal models has proven resilient. Today it often underlies the concept of syncretism: the combination of geographically diverse general forms under a local grammar of technique and design. This model drives a wedge between the geography of general forms, understood to have circulated among patrons and their international spheres of awareness, and that of specific technical practice, strictly associated with the local context. For example, the scholarship on syncretism in the architecture of Norman Sicily, a building culture that abounded with Islamic forms and techniques, has long framed the problem in terms of iconography, and has only recently begun to address the problem of how the builders executed such complex Islamic technologies.10 The evidence of Molfetta Cathedral troubles the neat dichotomy between local techniques and foreign general models. Two dynamics are particularly surprising. The first concerns the impact of the properties of Apulian limestone on Molfetta’s construction techniques and their geographic range. I will argue, counter to Bertaux, that local material did not lead to local techniques. Rather, certain techniques that stemmed from the affordances of limestone were also designed to remain useable outside the region and in different material economies: for example, the builders used limestone to create ‘structural skeletons’, concepts that could be exported to regions such as Abruzzo, where limestone was scarcer and needed

to be mixed with brick. In this way techniques could branch out into longer-distance webs. The second surprise concerns how the transmission of specialized knowledge responded to emerging opportunities for professional travel, especially long-distance recruitments by the Latin Church and legal incentives to move between cities. The evidence of Molfetta strongly suggests that traveling professionals could have transmitted general formal models and specific constructional practices alike, from cuffia squinches to the planimetric proportions of the domes-on-axis typology. The many short- and medium-distance journeys by builders between sites could have linked together to form a web of knowledge cabotage, ultimately enabling the circulation of forms and techniques over longer distances. The Mediterranean was far from an open highway of architectural knowledge. As I will argue, transmission responded to specific paths and opportunities. But the sea was also not broken up into mostly isolated regions of style, connected only by the general iconographic discourse of patrons. Builders overcame the limitations of geological zones by creating techniques supported by diverse materials, and they carried their techniques with them as they took advantage of new travel incentives. The example of Molfetta shows that architectural practice resided in networks of knowledge, not regions of style. Local Material Apulian Romanesque architecture is famous for its warm, bright limestone, which is used for moldings and architectonic sculpture as well as plain wall construction. Some sites, including Molfetta, were built almost exclusively of limestone: it is used for the walls, supports, vaults, sculpture, and even shingles. Apulian limestone gives the architecture of the region a sense of place, as the builders of surrounding regions did not have access to as much limestone and used it more sparingly. But this does not mean that Apulian limestone determined the architecture that used it, in other words that the repertoire of techniques and forms was anchored to the contours of geology and could not be used beyond them. Here I attempt to assess the geographical circulation of a few of Molfetta’s technical and formal concepts that employed limestone.

The stone used at Molfetta Cathedral is probably pietra di Trani or another of the several types of hard, light grey limestone found in the Terra di Bari and in the Murge.11 These limestones are the product of a chain of Mesozoic calcareous deposits throughout the Apulian littoral.12 As discussed in the last chapter, the quarry was probably the site of certain formal and technical developments at Molfetta. The quarrymen, who were responsible for rough-shaping the extracted limestone to specialized forms, exploited its versatility. For example, because limestone can be coursed in many different ways without sacrificing its strength under compression, the rough shapers created a visually pleasing mixed pier of half-cylindrical sections and coursed drums. Given that Romanesque buildings in the Terra di Bari and the Gargano extracted their stone from a few relatively proximate clusters of quarries in the region, especially those near Trani and Apricena, it is reasonable to expect that certain quarrying ideas would circulate within or even between these clusters. This may explain the ubiquity of the half-cylindrical concept throughout central and northern Apulia. Meanwhile, buildings beyond the service of the Apulian quarries, such as those in Abruzzo which used limestone more selectively, did not adopt the mixed piers, probably because they were out of range of Apulian quarrymen. Some techniques at Molfetta exploit limestone but would have been devised by on-site specialists in charge of planning or dome structure, and not by quarrymen. For example, I argued that the planners of Molfetta during Phase 2 incorporated archi lunati in an with a colossal-order blind arcade (see discussion in Chapter 3). The archi lunati are used for relieving arches, which use limestone blocks in compression to convey the loads of the superstructure to pilasters, permitting recesses beneath the arches. Like the mixed piers, this system is widespread in large-scale Apulian cathedrals and basilicas, probably stemming from S. Nicola in Bari and its influence over the region. But this facade composition, unlike the mixed piers, also extends beyond the region. As Kappel realized, the builders of S. Maria di Ronzano (in Abruzzo) employed the same composition for their , but executed it with a mix of brick masonry and limestone ashlars.13 Here, where limestone was in short supply, the composition was adapted to function without uniform limestone masonry. Limestone was used only for the skeleton of relieving arches and

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pilasters, while the brick was used for the superstructure and masonry under the arches. This ‘skeletal’ solution leveraged the stronger construction stone to convey the greatest compressive forces, optimizing the small supply of limestone. The squinch system that the dome specialists of Molfetta employed between Phases 4 and 5 also has a skeletal structure, and could thus be transmuted between regions affected by different material conditions. In the squinches of Molfetta, the facing arches convey loads from the superstructure over the voids beneath them. A few squinch domes with the pseudo-pendentive method and horizontal coursing also are found outside coastal Apulia: at S. Angelo in Orsara, in western Apulia, and Teramo Cathedral, in Abruzzo.14 In both examples, the arches of the squinches are constructed of limestone, while the niches are made of brick or local stone. As in the archi lunati found at S. Maria di Ronzano, the builders showed awareness of the properties of limestone, using a minimum of it to create a structural and visual system akin to the Apulian examples. The builders in Teramo adapted to the inherent differences between limestone and brick when completing the niches of the squinches. To accommodate the warped surfaces of the niches, they laid the narrow bricks at varying angles, sometimes curtailing adjacent courses (Fig. 43). Meanwhile the Apulian builders cut small limestone blocks into myriad shapes to accomplish the same result. In this way, bricks and limestones could be substituted when completing the interstices of the structural skeleton. The geographic distribution of the squinch dome structure using pseudo-pendentives reached between the Terra di Bari, western Apulia, and Abruzzo, overlapping with the spread of the composition with blind archi lunati, found in the Terra di Bari and Abruzzo (Chart 3).15 Previous scholarship has attested to the communication of specialized architectural and sculptural knowledge between coastal Apulia and western Apulia, following the via Traiana to Benevento, and between Apulia and Abruzzo, following the Via Salaria and the Via Adriatica.16 The roads and coastal travel routes probably both helped convey builders seeking commissions. At the same time, institutional apparatuses that linked these areas, such as the papal councils that targeted the Via Traiana between Benevento and Bari or the Benedictine monasteries that established dependencies along the

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coast, could have supplied a demand for visual solidarity among monumental churches.17 Some sophisticated uses of limestone at Molfetta Cathedral appear to have had a much larger range of transmission. The sculptural ensemble of the window, in which a semicircular arch with multiple orders of archivolts is mounted on miniature colonnettes supported by animals, can be found throughout South Italy (Fig.  44). Because the concept was so ubiquitous, it would be difficult to inquire into its circulation patterns. In general, the sculptural workshops responsible for the forms and compositions of archivolts appear to have traveled great distances for commissions.18 To facilitate the fluidity of sculptural practice across geographic space, specialized parts such as portal and window ornament were almost always constructed of limestone or marble rather than rougher local stone varieties. In sum, the forms and building techniques of Molfetta Cathedral, despite making excellent use of local limestone, did not always depend on the large quantities of it which were only available in the local context. It is important to delineate between practices that could not be transmuted between different material economies and those that could. The piers combining coursed drums and half-cylinders belong to the first category, while stone assembly concepts such as the blind archi lunati composition of the of Molfetta Cathedral, the pseudo-pendentive squinches of the middle and west domes, and the sculptural ensemble of the east window belong to the second. These practices were not anchored to the geological substrate and the locations of quarries; they could circulate beyond these confines, and did. The finding that construction techniques in the Terra di Bari were not determined by or bound to local material conditions is important to keep in mind when considering medieval architectural production throughout the Mediterranean. We are reminded once again that builders of the 12th and 13th centuries aggressively pursued economic interests. If the builders who worked at Molfetta Cathedral had followed a myopic, centripetal model of technological development based only on the peculiar affordances of local all-limestone construction, they would have limited their ability to find work. There were more opportunities in an expansive, centrifugal approach favoring ideas that could flow between regions of all-limestone and mixed construction. Put simply,

Figure 43.  Teramo Cathedral. Orthophotograph of squinch in crossing dome (generated using photogrammetry).

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Figure 44.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. East facade window.

it was advantageous for builders to devise construction techniques that covered as much ground as possible. Naturally, they sought clients for their expertise not only nearby, but also farther afield. The new travel routes and legal incentives that characterized the commercializing society of the medieval Mediterranean, and more specifically the Adriatic of

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the 12th and 13th centuries, enabled connections well beyond the boundaries of particular geological zones. We must conclude that the building techniques of Molfetta Cathedral were neither local nor foreign, but fundamentally non-localized. Attempts to classify techniques that start from the premise of localization – the idea that technical knowledge emerges in

response to material conditions and then stays in geographical vicinity to those conditions  – forget that architectural knowledge resides neither in territory nor buildings, but in the builder, a vessel capable of a high degree of mobility, ingenuity, and opportunism. Professional Travel If the conditions of geology did not hinder the circulation of certain building practices at Molfetta Cathedral, what conditions actually catalyzed their passage through space? Here we must turn to the question of human mobility. While it may have been possible to transmit some general architectural concepts through memory and word of mouth, Molfetta Cathedral uses a number of non-local practices that would have required embodied experience and training. The building site was an intersection of many networks of professional travel. These networks varied in distance and depended on specific social conditions, including the institutional webs of the Latin Church and new trade laws encouraging professional relocation. These networks overlapped and formed chains, allowing specific practices to incorporate others and ultimately carry them over long distances. This process was analogous to the cabotage of Mediterranean merchant ships, which exchanged their items in port after port until the hold was filled with diverse and exotic goods. In architectural exchange as in commerce, short-distance exchanges supported longdistance ones. In 12th- and 13th-century Apulia, the travel of specialist builders seems to have been commonplace. When inscriptions or documents mention a magister or protomagister and also give his place of origin, he is almost invariably from somewhere other than the building site.19 Sometimes the distances are relatively short – for example, when Lillus of Barletta worked at Bitetto Cathedral – suggesting that master builders, quite logically, moved throughout their region in search of work. But there are also examples of more distant relocations. On more than one occasion, protomagisters traveled across the Adriatic. In 1199, Eustasius, a protomagister and son of Bernaldus of Trani, was employed to supervise works at the cathedral of Ragusa (Dubrovnik).20 The text implies that it was common for a foreign protomagister to command the workshop of Ragusa, and that it was customary

for him to receive not only a monetary payment, but also rights to a tract of land and other privileges.21 In other words, the administration of Ragusa Cathedral had established a system for hiring master masons from abroad and accommodating their long-term relocation.22 Relocations of artisans between cities, especially those close to the coast, may have been related to the deeper context of changing citizenship restrictions in Mediterranean towns. Starting in the middle of the 12th century, Adriatic maritime cities began making bilateral trade pacts, beginning with an 1148 accord between Molfetta and Ragusa.23 The pact confirmed exemptions from docking and market duties for citizens of either city doing business in the other. The pact articulated that because of the consanguinitas of the two cities, citizens of Molfetta traveling to Ragusa, and vice versa, were to enjoy the same privileges as they would in their place of birth. The tax exemptions listed in the Ragusa-Molfetta pact and in other partnerships (eg. Ragusa-Bari, Ragusa-Ancona, and Ancona-Pisa) overruled a traditional distinction between the tax rights of locals and foreigners. In the same spirit, an item in Trani’s early 13th-century consuetudines, confirmed by Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen, stated that foreigners relocating permanently to Trani were entitled to the same privileges and protections as Trani citizens, and thus should not be removed from the city against their will.24 These kinds of protections were not only significant for the boost they gave to commerce, but also for the new status they afforded to all kinds of professional travelers. The relocations of protomagisters such as Eustasius depended on such incentives. It has proved difficult for scholars to match the documented movement of specific architects to visual comparisons of buildings they worked on. In most cases, the specific buildings either are not cited or no longer exist in their original form. The example of Ragusa Cathedral brings us as close as possible. Although the medieval cathedral has long been supplanted by the current Baroque edifice, archaeological evidence and surviving pre-Baroque illustrations suggest strong resemblances to Apulian Romanesque churches, including an external micro-gallery above the arcade level and the particular iconography of the portal sculpture, elements that may suggest the direct impact of Eustasius of Trani.25 This example suggests that the documented pattern of professional mobility in the medieval Adriatic, along with the systemic

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legal incentives supporting it, may serve as a starting point for explaining the circulation of specific architectural practices. A second means of professional mobility was the long-distance bureaucratic web of ecclesiastical institutions during the Church Reforms of the 11th and 12th centuries, as well as the ensuing political conquests such as the Crusades and the Norman conquest of Sicily. Grossman has shown that the 13thcentury Crusade to the Morea transplanted not only head prelates from northern Europe, but also personnel responsible for designing specific architectural forms (the author argued that local builders were hired to execute these forms).26 One type of builder that repeatedly traveled over long distances in the Middle Ages was the foundation planner, for example the magister caementarius Eudes de Montreuil and his probable father Pierre de Montreuil (d. 1267), who may have laid out foundations for a castle in Jaffa,27 and the caementarii of the late 11th-century Troina Cathedral in Sicily, posted there alongside Norman clergy.28 Roger  II of Sicily’s personal ‘Saracens’, employed to rebuild the Norman castle of Bari but tragically assassinated upon their arrival, were probably experts of planning foundations.29 The long-distance travel of foundation experts was not limited to the Latin West, but can also be observed elsewhere in the medieval Mediterranean. In the early 10th century, Abd-al Rahman  III, Caliph of Umayyad al-Andalus, sent fifteen al-haffarin (‘foundation diggers’) to assist in the construction of a castle in Morocco.30 Because planning specialists made it possible to erect specific building typologies, they were an asset in creating religious and political hegemonies through architecture. These two contexts of professional travel, legal incentives for intercity relocation and institutional transfers, would have been overlapping rather than separate. A builder deciding whether or not to make a journey might weigh both into his mental calculus, which also accounted for other base conditions of mobility: road systems, trade routes, and pilgrimage thoroughfares, which supplied waypoints, transportation, and traveling protections. The transmission of specific architectural practices to Molfetta Cathedral should be related to this net of conditions, rather than one exclusive cause.

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Several practices obey a particular distribution pattern along Italy’s Adriatic littoral between Apulia and Le Marche. As discussed earlier, the T-shaped basilica plan based on a rotated square is found between Apulia and Abruzzo, with a distribution pattern of sporadic examples and small clusters (Chart 4). Though the sample is small, it is consistent with general patterns of travel in the 12thcentury coastal Adriatic as attested in the aforementioned documents: builders tended to travel among proximate cities and occasionally took advantage of legal incentives to relocate over longer distances, especially along coastlines. The horizontally coursed pseudo-pendentive squinch domes used in Phase 4 of Molfetta Cathedral followed a similar geographic trajectory, connecting the Terra di Bari to Abruzzo and the lower Marche (Teramo, Ascoli Piceno) (Chart 3). Both of these techniques appear to have linked up with other practices that followed their own, semiindependent patterns of transmission. As observed in the last chapter, the T-shaped basilica plan shared by Molfetta Cathedral and S. Maria di Ronzano was bundled with an elevation featuring a colossal-order blind arcade and archi lunati. This type of facade was found in a number of buildings without the T-shaped basilica plan. The plan type, though originally unconnected to this kind of facade, could have integrated it at either Molfetta or Ronzano, whereupon a traveling master could have conveyed both practices as a package. The cathedral of Molfetta, in turn, integrated still another element with its own circulation patterns: interlaced arches, used for the east-end blind arcade (Fig. 4). The single other Apulian example to contain this form is Giovinazzo Cathedral, roughly contemporary with Molfetta Cathedral and less than 10 km. away (Fig. 14). In this lonely cluster of two buildings, the interlaced arches are combined with the idea of an east end enwrapped by a tall blind arcade and featuring a high central window. At Giovinazzo, the arches rest on alternating pilasters and semicircular shafts, while at Molfetta, because the arches were apparently added as an afterthought, they were accommodated with partial shafts and corbels not connecting to the base of the arcade recesses. The close proximity of the two sites suggests that masons could have transported the integrated facade concept directly between them.

Figure 45.  Portonovo (near Ancona), S. Maria. Dome.

On the other hand, the more general idea of an interlaced blind arcade was much more widespread. This popular motif occurred sporadically across the Mediterranean between the 10th and the 13th centuries and can be found in Islamic territories (the Great Mosque of Córdoba and the Mosque of Bab Mardum in Toledo), as well as in Sicily (the cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale), Campania (Casertavecchia Cathedral), Albania (S. Salvatore Arbanensis in Rubik), and even East Anglia (the Cluniac Priory of Castle Acre).31 The basic motif was probably transmitted to either Molfetta or Giovinazzo via longerrange spheres of awareness, as the idea of interlacing an arcade was not specialized technical knowledge, but an item of general visual literacy. As discussed in Chapter 1, the form may have had iconographical resonances, perhaps as a gesture to the Hautevillian royal churches of Sicily, such as Monreale Cathedral.

Like the T-shaped basilica plan and composition, Molfetta’s pseudo-pendentive squinch domes integrated a separate architectural concept with its own trajectories: the cuffie squinches, introduced partway through the creation of the domes (Figs  8-9). Like the interlaced arches added to the, cuffia squinches were almost unknown in the Apulian context. The only possible comparison in the region is the old ‘chiesetta’ di Seppannibale, with its rudimentary niches in the corners of the domes. The nearest firm comparandum is found farther away, on the northern Adriatic coastline: S. Maria di Portonovo, outside Ancona (Fig. 45).32 There are also many examples in Sicily and lower Calabria (S. Maria Maddalena and S. Cataldo in Palermo and S. Maria de Tridetti, in Brancaleone). In all cases other than Molfetta, the cuffie rise from square corners, similar to the domes of Aghlabid, Fatimid, and Zirid mosques in north Africa (eg. the Great Mosque of Kairouan and the Zaytuna Mosque in Tunis),

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Figure 46.  Lama Volara (Siponto), S. Leonardo. Plan. Image after Archivio Zodiaque, St. Lèger-Vauban. From Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, fig. 40.

and not rounded corners supported by pseudo-pendentives.33 The cuffia is probably best understood as a pleasing volumetric form that could be justified with a variety of structural systems. At Molfetta, for example, inserting cuffie into the support system of squinches did not alter the fundamental structure of these domes. Interestingly, some rupestrian churches in southern Apulia and Basilicata employ cuffie that serve no structural purpose at all, as they are carved out of the living rock.34 The builders of Molfetta found a synthesis of the pleasing form of the cuffia and the support structure of the pseudo-pendentive squinch. The two ideas could have been brought together through overlaps in the networks of professional travel: specialists could have transmitted the cuffie from Le Marche to Apulia following the same network that brought pseudo-pendentive squinches between the same two regions.

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In addition to transmissions along the Adriatic coast, some of Molfetta’s constructional repertoire may have been communicated from the distant region of Provence, in Southern France. The three-aisle plan with square axial bays and side aisles half the width of the nave, commonly combined with quadrant vaults over the side aisles and at least one axial dome, is also found in several Provençal churches, such as S. Michel in Garde-Adhémar. Here, the scheme was employed with only one axial dome in the central aisle, as in a few Apulian churches (eg. S. Leonardo in Lama Volara and S. Basilio in Troia) (Chart 5).35 S. Leonardo in Lama Volara and S. Michel in GardeAdhémar compare particularly closely with each other (Figs  46-47). Each is a nine-bay church with an octagonal dome over the east bay and a pointed barrel vault over at least one nave bay, though

Figure 47.  Garde-Adhémar, S. Michel. Plan. Image after Jean-Maurice Rouquette, from Provence Romane, p. 62.

S. Michel is much taller, and S. Leonardo features a dome over the west bay of the nave, probably added in a late campaign. Architectural historians such as Arianna Carannante have suggested a link between the Apulian and Provençal planning concepts on the basis of their structural logic – a much more compelling argument than the general formal comparison between Apulian and Aquitanian domed churches first proposed by Von Quast.36 Perhaps the axialdomes plan was not transmitted by Crusaders, as supporters of the Aquitaine comparisons have surmised, but by one of the ecclesiastical networks that reached from northern Europe to Apulia. To illustrate the range of these networks, S. Leonardo in Lama Volara seems to have originally been a dependency of S. Michele della Chiusa (in Piedmont).37 This mode of transmission would fit the pattern of long-distance

leaping, rather than short- and medium-distance hopping, that characterized the spread of this and other planning concepts. The main element that distinguishes most of the Apulian examples of the axial-domes plan from those in Provence is the basic choice to feature multiple domes on axis rather than just one. Like the general idea of interlaced arches, this choice was a matter of general visual literacy and could have flowed via longdistance spheres of awareness, possibly carrying iconographic meanings. For example, the multi-domed churches of Apulia may have appealed to Crusaders who constantly passed through the region during the 12th century, as it previewed the Byzantine typologies of the Levantine realms toward which they strove. The axial-domes church of S. Maria dei Martiri even formed part of a complex with a Crusader hospice.38

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Much as the form of interlaced arches was folded into a specialized type of facade composition, and cuffie were added to pseudo-pendentive squinch domes, the idea of multiple axial domes was integrated into a more technical planning geometry. In each of these examples, the wider patterns of transmission of the general formal idea joined up with those of the specific technical practice. After all, these different types of knowledge did not flow separate from each other, but converged in the spaces of professional travel and communication: roads, sea routes, and building sites. By engaging with long-distance networks of specialized knowledge, the builders of Molfetta compiled a unique repertoire. Specialized practices were not simply shipped between buildings and replicated; they were forced to transform and merge with other practices at individual sites. In this way, the interconnectivity of knowledge made practice more versatile. Molfetta’s peculiar squinch domes are a good example. The pseudo-pendentive structural skeleton supporting this kind of dome could be exported between different material zones, and its flexible geometry supported its use in a range of plan types. This concept could thus be employed beyond Apulia, in regions such as Abruzzo. The long-distance viability of this idea put it in contact with other, competing forms. The builders of Molfetta ultimately incorporated cuffia squinches, an idea they may have borrowed from Le Marche or Sicily, into the pseudo-pendentive squinches. Both practices flexed to make the synthesis work. As the builders of Molfetta Cathedral struggled to solve unexpected dilemmas, it was critical to never fix the building’s style, but to always respond elastically to the shifting web of practice. The builders’ impulse to devise flexible forms and techniques that could match with other architectural solutions in distant regions echoes their attempt to develop techniques that were compatible with a variety of material types. Both tendencies underline the centrifugal character of the building economy. Itinerant specialists maximized the flexibility of their applied knowledge so that they could find work in distant locations, where they would encounter unfamiliar technical conventions, materials, and building types. In other words, the web of specialized knowledge to which Molfetta Cathedral became attached was able to extend between different regions, not only because of logistical opportunities – travel routes and career incentives – but also because builders found it in their best economic interest to expand their reach.

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In sum, the example of Molfetta Cathedral challenges some commonly held conceptions of the relationship between geographic space and architectural knowledge in the Middle Ages. One is the idea of a sharp divide between the types of knowledge that circulated over short distances and those that were transmitted over long distances. As discussed earlier in this chapter, scholars have tended to associate specific and technical architectural ideas with a short-distance, regional geography, while relating more general formal and spatial typologies to an interregional discourse dominated by patrons. Such a pattern is not borne out in the present study. In the first place, the evidence of Molfetta and its comparanda shows that formal developments were deeply dependent on technical innovations (as observed in Chapter 3). In addition, general formal concepts and specific technical knowledge traveled along the same pathways, if over varying distances. In other words, there was neither a discursive nor a geographical gap separating technique from form. Technique enabled formal innovations and supported them in their geographic spread. Thus the circulation patterns of technical knowledge undergirded those of the formal knowledge that depended on those techniques. For example, the long-distance transmission of the form of cuffia squinches depended on shorter-range transmissions of component techniques, such as the volumetric geometry required to fit squinches into an odd-shaped bay, or the idea of squinches built of ashlar formwork and brick infill. Although not every site employed the same techniques to execute such forms, the techniques developed at each location flexed as much as they could to accept formal ideas developed in other locations. A specialized form could thus skip and leap its way across geographical space, finding in each building team a technical repertoire of sufficient flexibility to execute it. The long-range pass of a form was a function of smaller-range hand-offs of ­techniques: a perfect analogy to cabotage. In this way, geography became another arena in which the design of Molfetta Cathedral could hinge and maximize its set of options. The open approach by which builders developed techniques and forms to fit a range of scenarios perfectly suited the open-ended design strategy of the overall building. The incremental and revisionary chronology of Molfetta frequently produced incomplete fabric with divergent axes and unwieldy bay shapes, such that future construction

required as-yet-unavailable solutions (for example the middle and west nave bays, which at the end of Phase 3 demanded domes but were not adequately shaped for them as a result of their irregular datum lines). The builders therefore needed to put their faith in techniques and forms that could be introduced to the effort later, by different builders trained in different traditions. In the case of the geography of knowledge, as in the three other aspects of Molfetta Cathedral’s disjointed design strategy – program, process, and expertise – the builders fundamentally conceived of the project not as a closed, self-sufficient system, but as an open one, dependent on the future flow of external resources and ideas. In order to make external connections, the building sometimes needed to break its internal links, disrupting its own formal cohesion in favor of compatibility beyond its walls.

NOTES For example, Émile Bertaux, L’Art dans l’Italie Méridionale (Paris: Fontemoing, 1904; repr. Paris: De Boccard 1968), p. 338, suggests that a pilgrim could have transmitted the Norman gallery openings of French abbeys such as Jumièges to Apulian sites including S. Nicola in Bari. 2  Michael Meinecke, Patterns of Stylistic Changes in Islamic Architecture: Local Traditions Versus Migrating Artists (New York: New York University Press, 1996); Gülru Necipoğlu, ‘Connectivity, Mobility, and Mediterranean “Portable Archaeology”: Pashas from the Dalmatian Hinterland as Cultural Mediators’, in Dalmatia and the Mediterranean: Portable Archaeology and the Poetics of Influence, ed. by Alina Alexandra Payne (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 313-81; Heather Grossman, Architecture and Interaction in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean: Building Identity in the Medieval Morea (Routledge: London, 2017); and Heather E. Grossman, ‘On Memory, Transmission and the Practice of Building in the Crusader Mediterranean’, in Mechanisms of Exchange: Transmission in Medieval Art and Architecture of the Mediterranean, ca.  1000-1500, ed. by Heather E. Grossman and Alicia Walker (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 183-219. 3  See Vibeke Olson’s presentation on this theme: ‘Applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to the Study of Romanesque Capital Distribution in the Brionnais: a Pilot Study’ in ‘Abstracts: Stone: New Research Concerning Masons & Sculptors  I and II, 49th International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo’, (AVISTA, 2014), http://www.avista.org/; and Edward Triplett, A Wall of the Faithful: Spatial Analysis of Military Order Architecture on Medieval Iberia’s Religious Frontier (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Virginia, 2015). 4  Trade routes are derived from Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: The World System ad.  1250-1350 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). 1 

See Michael McCormick and others, ‘Roman Road Network’, in Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations (Harvard University), https://darmc.harvard.edu; citing Richard J. A. Talbert, ed., Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). 6  The expansion of my geographic range of comparanda beyond Apulia entailed some sacrifice of comprehensiveness. I thoroughly searched surveys of the Romanesque architecture for each region, in particular the Patrimonio Artistico Italiano series for Italian regions and the Nuit des temps series for French regions. 7  Ian N. Gregory and Alistair Geddes, eds, Toward Spatial Humanities: Historical GIS and Spatial History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014). 8  Heinrich Wilhelm Schulz, Denkmaeler der Kunst des Mittelalters in Unteritalien, ed. by Ferdinand von Quast, 5 vols (Dresden: the author, 1860), I, pp. 70-71. 9  Bertaux, pp.  398-99. The connection of medieval domed churches to trulli is specious. Bertaux mistakenly believed that the church domes, like those of trulli, were entirely corbelled; however, most employ radiating voussoirs. Roberto Pane, ‘Melphicta parva sed elegans: I-II’, Napoli nobilissima, 6 (1967), 81-88, 153-69 (p.  159). Furthermore, trulli are not proven to have existed in Apulia since ancient times. See Angelo Ambrosi, ‘L’architettura in pietra a secco: costruzione, progetto, tipologie (con riferimento alla Puglia)’, in Architettura in pietra a secco: Atti del primo seminario internazionale ‘Architettura in pietra a secco’, Noci-Alberobello, 27-30 Settembre 1987, ed. by Angelo Ambrosi, Enrico Degano, and C.  A. Zaccaria (Fasano: Schena, 1990), pp. 12-84 (p. 70) for one of the earliest datable trulli. Located in the hinterland of Locorotondo, it dates either to 1552 or 1592. 10  There is a vast historiography on the problem of Islamic forms in Norman Sicily and South Italy. See Wolfgang Krönig, The Cathedral of Monreale and Norman Architecture in Sicily, trans. by David Henry Wilson (Palermo: Flaccovio, 1966); Giuseppe Bellafiore, Architettura in Sicilia nelle età islamica e normanna (827-1194), (Milan: Lombardi, 1990); and William Tronzo, The Cultures of His Kingdom: Roger  II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), discussing syncretism. More recent scholarship has begun to discuss the use of specific Islamic techniques and design language: Elisabetta Scirocco, ‘Liturgical Installations in the Cathedral of Salerno. The Double Ambo in its Regional Context between Sicilian Models and Local Liturgy’, in Cathedrals in Mediterranean Europe (11.-12. c.), ed. by Gerardo Boto Varela and Justin E.A. Kroesen (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2016), pp. 205-21; and Lev A. Kapitaikin, ‘Sicily and the Staging of Multiculturalism’, in A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, ed. by Finbarr Barry Flood and Gülru Necipoğlu (Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2017), pp. 378-404 (pp. 391-92). 11  See Bruno Radina, ‘La Pietra di Trani’, Geotecnica, 5 (1956); Fulvio Zezza, ‘Pietre da costruzione e ornamentali della Puglia caratteristiche sedimentologico-petrografiche, proprietà fisico-meccaniche e problemi geologico-tecnici relativi all’attività estrattiva’, Rassegna tecnica pugliese, 8, no. 3-4 (1974), pp. 3-51; and Anita Guarnieri, ‘Materiali lapidei’, in L’arte della costruzione in pietra: chiese di Puglia con cupole in asse dal secolo XI al XVI, ed. by Rossella de Cadilhac (Rome: Gangemi, 2008), pp. 93-115 (pp. 94-96). 12  See map in Zezza, p. 4, fig. 1. 5 

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Kai Kappel, S. Nicola in Bari und seine architektonische Nachfolge: Ein Bautypus des 11.-17. Jahrhunderts in Unteritalien und Dalmatien (Worms am Rhein: Wernersche, 1996), pp. 341-44. 14  The domes can probably both be dated to the mid-to-late 12th century, contemporary with the dome at Bari Cathedral and predating the middle and west domes of Molfetta Cathedral. On S. Angelo in Orsara, Pina Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica (Milan: Jaca Book, 2003), p.  252; on Teramo Cathedral, Paolo Favole, Abruzzo e Molise (Milan: Jaca Book, 1990), pp. 111-17. 15  See Kappel, fig. 1, for a map of sites that include various aspects of the formal system of S. Nicola in Bari, including the composition with blind arches. 16  For example, authors have connected the sculptural workshops of S. Clemente in Casauria, in Abruzzo, to the Sulmona and Foggia cathedrals, as well as possibly S. Leonardo in Lama Volara. Francesco Gandolfo, Scultura medievale in Abruzzo: l’età normanno-sveva (Pescara: Carsa, 2004), pp.  154-55; and Jessica N. Richardson, ‘Between the Limousin and the Holy Land: Prisoners, Performance, and the Portal of San Leonardo at Siponto’, Gesta, 54/2 (2015), 165-94 (p. 171). 17  For papal councils possibly causing the visual similarity of churches along the Via Traiana, Evelyn M. Jamison, ‘“Pisan churches” on the Via Traiana’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 35 (1930), 163-88. 18  See, for example, the close comparison between the portal archivolts of Monopoli and Acerenza cathedrals. Bertaux, pp.  466-67; Antonio Thiery in L’Art dans l’Italie Méridionale: Aggiornamento dell’opera di Émile Bertaux sotto la direzione di Adriano Prandi, ed. by Adriano Prandi (Rome: École française de Rome, 1978), pp. 655-67 (p. 659). 19  See, for example Lillus from Barletta (present at Bitetto Cathedral), and Bartolomeo d’Amendolara, from the surroundings of Palo del Colle (present in Modugno). Kappel, pp. 70-71. 20  Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae II, ed. by Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski (Zagreb: Albrecht, 1874), doc. 301, pp. 320-21. In addition, Simiacca was protomagister fabrice ecclesie Sancte Marie in Barletta, and was accompanied by his son magister Lucas. See Maria Stella Calò Mariani, ‘Scultura pugliese del XII secolo. Protomagistri tranesi nei cantieri di Barletta, Trani, Bari e Ragusa’, in Studi di storia dell’arte in memoria di Mario Rotili (Naples: Banca Sannitica, 1984), pp. 177-91 (p. 184); citing Codice diplomatico Barese VIII: Le Pergamene di Barletta. Archivio Capitolare (897-1285), ed. by Francesco Nitti di Vito (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1914), doc. 93, pp. 132-33. 21  Ego Eustasius protomagister filius Bernaldi protomagistri cunctis tam presentibus quam subsequentibus testibus voluntate … dedi Simeoni filio Lamprigi Ursi comiti Ragusii, ut apridie et Ragusium aplicuero ad unum annum finitum labore(m) in matrici ecclesia eiusdem Ragusii, exercendum officium protomagistri cumanici. Nec ab eodem labore usque in predictum constitutum finem licet comiti ipsius Ragusii recedere, dato mihi pro labore a me in eadem matrici ecclesia faciendo septuaginta eorundem perpororum, de quibus in continenti viginti perperos mihi dedit. Dato etiam mihi demum in circa habite et partem piscium, sicut alii protomagistri solent habere, et in nativitate domini unum porcum et in pascha Christi unum arietem. Insuper tactis sacrosanctis 13 

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evangeliis eidem Simeoni regales aureos plene compleui, et ego atribui ei licentiam sui capituli. Que scriverit Mathias notaries qui tunc fuit. Signum notarii. 22  In addition to Eustasius, other foreign protomagisters would continue to be employed at the cathedral of Ragusa. In 1255, a foreign builder was granted citizenship for his work on the cathedral. Slobodan Ćurčić, Architecture in the Balkans from Diocletian to Süleyman the Magnificent (c.  300-c.  1550) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008; repr. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 451. 23  See Codex diplomaticus regni Croatiae  II, for the trade pacts, especially Doc. 63, p. 62 for the 1148 accord between Molfetta and Ragusa (Dubrovnik). The two cities later renewed their agreement when it was set to expire in 1208. On commerce between the eastern and western Adriatic coastlines, see Georges Yver, Le commerce et les marchands dans l’Italie méridionale au XIIIe et XIVe siècle (Paris: Fontemoing, 1903); and Nicola Cilento, ‘I rapporti del “Comune Pugliese” con le città delle due sponde adriatiche negli studi di Francesco Carabellese’, Archivio storico pugliese, 34 (1981), 41-53. 24  Jean-Louis Alphonse Huillard-Bréholles, ed., Historia Diplomatica Frederici Secundi, I.ii (Paris: Excudebant Plon Fratres, 1852), pp. 375-76; cited by Paul Oldfield, ‘Citizenship and Community in Southern Italy c.  1100-c.  1220’, Papers of the British School at Rome, 74 (2006), 323-38 (p.  327). See also Paul Oldfield, Urban Society and Communal Independence in TwelfthCentury Southern Italy (Ph.D. Dissertation, The University of Leeds, 2006), p. 193, for discussion of outsiders coming to Bari to become long-term citizens. 25  For an illustration of the medieval cathedral of Ragusa, Kappel, fig. 406. For further discussion of Adriatic protomagisters and their impact on specific sites, Calò Mariani. 26  Grossman, ‘Memory, Transmission’. 27  ‘Montreuil, Pierre de’ in A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 28  Giuseppe Occhiato, ‘Rapporti culturali e rispondenze architettoniche tra Calabria e Francia in età romantica: l’abbazia normanna di Sant’Eufemia’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen-Age, Temps modernes, 93, no.  2 (1981), 565-603 (p.  568); and Cleofe Giovanni Canale, La cattedrale di Troina (Palermo: Flaccovio, 1951), p. 11. 29  The episode is related in Alexander Telesinus’s Ystoria Rogerii Regis Sicilie Calabrie atque Apulie; see translation by Graham A. Loud, Roger II and the Making of the Kingdom of Sicily (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), pp. 90, 95. 30  Juan Antonio Souto Lasala, ‘La práctica y la profesión del artista en el Islam: arquitectos y constructores en Al-Andalus omeya’, Espacio, tiempo y forma. Serie  VII, Historia del arte, 10 (1997), 11-34. 31  See discussions of this form by Jerrilynn Denise Dodds, Maria Rosa Menocal, and Abigail Krasner Balbale, The Arts of Intimacy: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Making of Castilian Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 118-19; Bellafiore, pp.  108-17; Mario D’Onofrio, La cattedrale di Caserta Vecchia (Rome: Editalia, 1974; repr. Rome: Editalia, 1993), pp.  201-02; and Aleksander Meksi, Arkitektura e kishave të Shqipërisë (shekujt VII-XV) (Tirana: Shtëpia Botuese Uegen, 2004), pp. 102-03.

On S. Maria di Portonovo, Paolo Piva, Marche Romaniche (Milan: Jaca Book, 2003), pp. 84-93. 33  On Sicilian and Tunisian domes, and the connections between them, Lamia Hadda, ‘Le Cube: piccole architetture a cupola tra Sikilliya e Ifriqiya (XI-XII secolo)’, Lexicon, 21 (2015), pp. 7-12. 34  For example, the church of S. Maria delle Virtù in Matera. 35  For S. Michel in Garde-Adhémar, see Jean-Maurice Rouquette and Guy Barruol, Provence Romane, 2 vols (La Pierre-qui-Vire: Zodiaque, 1974-77), I, pp.  61-69. For S. Maria di Càlena, Belli 32 

D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, pp. 256-57. For S. Basilio in Troia, Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, pp. 250-51. 36  Arianna Carannante, ‘L’utilizzo delle semibotti nelle “chiese a cupole in asse” in Puglia tra X e XIII secolo’, in IV Ciclo di Studi Medievali: Atti del Convegno 4-5 giugno 2018 Firenze (Acore: Presso Eta Beta, 2018), pp. 528-35 (p. 532). 37  See Richardson, ‘Between the Limousin and the Holy Land’, p. 169. 38  Arnaldo Venditti, ‘Architettura a cupola in Puglia: III’, Napoli nobilissima, 7 (1968), 94-115 (p. 106).

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Conclusion: A Mediterranean Building Strategy

The Versatile Architecture of Molfetta Cathedral Molfetta Cathedral proved the viability, within its context of production, of an architecture of disjuncture, a strategy of building in which versatility prevailed over a tightly controlled design. Having examined the different cogs in this strategy – the program of functions, process of construction, division of labor, and circulation of knowledge – it is now possible to reflect on how they worked together to capitalize on a particular set of economic and institutional conditions. These conditions add up to a general type of context in which architectural disjuncture made sense. I would like to identify this context with cities throughout the Mediterranean after about the 10th century, a time in which urban economies became systemically fragmented but also interconnected by long-distance commerce. One unavoidable condition that shaped the course of construction at Molfetta Cathedral was the fragmented character of wealth and power in the town, as a result of the arrival of the Commercial Revolution to Apulia and the institutional competition it fostered in cities. As opposed to the ancient and wealthy bishoprics that produced famous cathedrals north of the Alps, such as Reims or Cologne, those of Apulia did not overshadow the temporal wealth of other lay and ecclesiastical institutions within the diocese. Rather, they were born poor and rarely received new temporal endowments from the regional lords, the Normans, who favored better-established institutions such as extra-regional monasteries.

But these financial limitations were not attended by small ambitions. As the cathedral of a booming port town and suffragan bishopric under Bari, Molfetta Cathedral was charged with the impossible: to grow into a monumental edifice using income streams that had barely started budding. Through its visual program, Molfetta strove for signs of status over its head. It featured the twin-towered east facade typical of the region’s larger transept cathedrals and was originally planned with a hall crypt, perhaps in the hope of obtaining prestige relics like those of the basilica of S. Nicola or the cathedral of S. Sabino in Bari. As it happened, the relics of St Conrad would not come to Molfetta until the end of construction. The discrepancy between Molfetta’s means and aspirations affected how the design related to time. It was out of the question to immediately erect the entire church, or even a majority of it. Instead, construction progressed over a series of episodes separated by long hiatuses as the administration waited for funds to trickle in from various sources: lay donations, tributes from the parish, and litigation against rival churches. The long duration of construction and its breakup into intermittent episodes had two main effects on the architecture. The first effect was the incremental folding of new functions into the program while the church was still under construction. Most noticeable is the hybridity of the main plan, which fuses the basic frame of a transept basilica-cum-east facade with a three-aisle interior with axial domes and low side aisles, two mismatched typologies that had evolved in

the region separately. To explain this unprecedented choice, I have proposed that changes to personnel and liturgical preferences over the course of construction created a need for both types. In addition, the cathedral became fragmented into various spaces that performed their own self-contained functions, such as the small chamber containing the relics of San Corrado – approximating its earlier setting in a small cave church – and the ancillary family chapels, which accrued around the exterior many years after the completion of the main volumes of the cathedral. I related this tendency to the piecemeal financial structure, whereby the administration eagerly accepted revenue sources with outside contingencies to help complete the building. The second effect of a slow and episodic building schedule was a remedy to the first. The divisions between construction phases served as built-in opportunities to update the design. The builders of each phase pursued a different strategy of revision depending on where the project stood in its progression: the beginning, middle, or end. In the early phases of construction, it was important to initiate key aspects of the cathedral – the transept and the crypt – whether or not resources were sufficient to complete them or even fully reconcile them with the site. The builders progressed over a series of false starts: establishing first an overlarge crypt, which needed to be shortened to make room for the nave, then a transept, which was immediately amended to make way for a new roofing system. In the key middle phase, when the builders grafted a new three-axialdomes layout onto the earlier transept basilica plan, they followed a second strategy. This involved surgical revision of the pre-existing walls in order to transform them with minimal destruction. This strategy prioritized the perfection of spaces already in progress, such as the transept, over progress into incomplete areas, such as the nave. In the final phases, the builders shifted to an endgame strategy of simplifying the details to expedite completion of the whole. This allowed them to enclose the nave, producing fresh real estate for an ongoing pattern of spontaneous upgrades, such as the cuffie squinches added to the middle and west domes. Now such embellishments did not impede overall progress, as they had before, but became finishing touches. Through these strategies of process, Molfetta Cathedral ultimately found an overall form that addressed its diverse economic

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and institutional challenges. It was a form that no one would have projected before construction, yet it was perfectly adapted. The social conditions of the trade boom not only introduced plurality and fragmentation into the economics of church-building in towns like Molfetta; it also supported the mobility of specialized labor. Trade pacts between Adriatic cities exempting merchants from docking and market duties developed into citizen privileges for all kinds of foreign professionals, including master masons. Meanwhile, foundation planners and construction supervisors sometimes traveled with ecclesiastical communities as they ranged far and wide to establish robust, diversified estates. These incentives, combined with the raw means of travel provided by the old Roman road network and increased maritime shipping, greatly increased the opportunities for professional relocation. Apulian builders embraced this improved mobility, moving beyond artisanal manufacture based at individual churches and forming a larger industry focused on many buildings at once, encouraging specialization. Different types of supports, plans, and specialized vaults followed their own patterns of circulation, implying the existence of discreet areas of expertise. The different specialists sought flexible solutions that could be mixed and matched with ranges of solutions in other areas of expertise: for example, the type of squinch structure used for the middle and west domes flexed to accommodate the two differently shaped bays, which were the product of an unusual combination of planning geometries. Alongside flexibility, the specialists tended toward standardization, as can be seen in the progression of Molfetta’s pier design from a type with variable shafts and drums to one with uniform dimensions. The balance between regularization of practice and flexibility of form was key to the versatility of this church. The experts of pier, plan, and vault construction adapted to each other’s concepts to produce a breadth of visual combinations, some never seen before. In this way, the builders answered the demand for programmatic multiplicity and resolved problems introduced by the episodic building process. In addition to specialization, Professional travel also supported, in addition to specialization, the exchange of knowledge over various distances. Specialization and knowledge exchange went hand in

hand. As experts tailored their technical solutions for maximum versatility, they reached beyond the region. Many practices in Molfetta’s repertoire seem to have circulated back and forth along specific long-distance paths, including one that connected central Apulia to the Abruzzo/lower Marche region and another that may have leapt between Apulia and Provence. Conditions such as the relaxed citizenship restrictions of Adriatic port towns and the long-distance relocations of church communities between northern Europe and southern Italy could have encouraged the transmission of specialized knowledge. Builders were incentivized to carry their solutions beyond their local environment, even when it meant adapting them to different material types: for example, Molfetta’s pseudo-pendentive squinch domes and its east facade composition with a particular arrangement of blind arches were transmuted between the Apulian context of all-limestone construction and other regions that used mixed construction. In this way, techniques and forms overcame the natural boundaries of geology and formed a larger web of knowledge. Access to this web proved indispensable to the builders of Molfetta Cathedral as they grappled with its design puzzles. In sum, the construction of Molfetta Cathedral responded to two main economic and institutional conditions, both closely related to the arrival of the Commercial Revolution to the shores of Apulia: 1. the fragmentation of its funding structure, and 2. the interconnectivity of human resources between sites. The administration and builders faced particular constraints and opportunities as a result of these conditions, leading them to commit to the principles of versatility. They embraced an approach in which all aspects of production – program, process, labor, and repertoire – rejected the centripetal pressures of the ‘whole’. Instead the builders searched for the joints, seizing any opportunity for hybridization, revision, and fragmentation. What they accomplished proved the concept of a building as an open system. The Role of the Mediterranean In what sense can Molfetta’s disjointed approach to construction and design be called a Mediterranean building strategy? I have argued that the economic and social changes that affected the city starting at the end of the 11th century, primarily the distribution

of institutional wealth as a result of the trade boom, underlay this particular strategy of architectural production. This is a Mediterranean context in the sense not of a territory or environment, but of a peculiar set of social dynamics in which the sea played a part. In other words, this context exemplifies Fernand Braudel’s ‘human Mediterranean’, which ‘only exists in so far as human ingenuity, work, and effort continually recreate it’.1 The twofold economic situation to which the builders of Molfetta Cathedral responded, a fragmentation of patronage and an interregional distribution of human resources, resembles a pattern that Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell have identified with Mediterranean economies of production in their groundbreaking 2000 book The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History. These authors challenged the Romantic conception that the Mediterranean historically consisted of large, homogenous regional environments. Instead, they argued, it was extremely heterogeneous in terms of both climate and resources. Consequently, the Mediterranean economy was distinguished by its reliance on the unit of the microecology, defined as ‘a locality […] with a distinctive identity derived from the set of available productive opportunities and the particular interplay of human resources to them found in a given period’.2 Inhabitants of the Mediterranean survived and flourished by connecting diverse microecologies, through travel, exchange, redistribution, and taxation. The Mediterranean discussed by Horden and Purcell is made up not of regions and boundaries, but nodes and networks. The academic culture of architectural history has long tended to specialize by country and region, imposing a territorial framework on the study of particular buildings.3 But Mediterranean sites such as Molfetta Cathedral may be better understood as microecologies of production, lying at the intersection of interregional networks of resources and opportunities. This lens makes sense of our conclusions about Molfetta Cathedral, especially the specialization and broad circulation of its building techniques as well as the episcopacy’s reliance on relationships with institutions external to the diocese. Other case examples suggest that fragmentation and interconnectivity were fundamental to Mediterranean architectural production in the Middle Ages. Several documents from the Cairo

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Geniza archive discussed by Shelomo Gov Goitein hint at the intense specialization and turnover at both modest and prestige buildings.4 Furthermore, the medieval Mediterranean is known for complex forms that appeared nearly simultaneously in many distant regions, such as the muqarnas honeycomb vaults of the 12th and 13th centuries, almost certainly indicating long-distance exchanges of specialized knowledge.5 As mentioned in the Introduction, Martin Warnke considered the problem of external funding in medieval church-building during the boom of commerce and large-scale architecture from the 11th century onward, describing a model of communal architecture that subordinated private interest to a shared goal.6 Warnke’s framework proves useful in the study of many Mediterranean buildings. Bari is a good example from the Apulian context. After the cathedral was allegedly razed in the invasion by Norman King William  I of Sicily in 1156, the archbishopric bounced back with an ambitious and highly unified edifice.7 Starting in 1178, Bishop Rainaldus, supported by Bari’s large territorial endowments, began the construction campaign, and over the following twenty years donations poured in from nobles.8 The Bari donors were doubtless driven by personal agendas: patronage of the cathedral was a sign of spiritual rectitude for anyone seeking a role in the important urban government of Bari. But the large number of donors contributing all at once seems to have neutralized the expression of individual beneficence. In this way, Bari Cathedral is consistent with other European and Mediterranean buildings in which plural patronage was baked into the architectural formula, including churches with courts and cloisters for lay burial (eg. the chiostro del paradiso in Amalfi Cathedral) and those with formalized ancillary chapel schemes, including radial and perpendicular arrangements (eg. Dominican and Franciscan churches).9 But Molfetta Cathedral diverges from the model of Bari and churches of its ilk. At best, Molfetta was a quarter as wealthy as Bari, and was never the beneficiary of many patrons simultaneously.10 Instead of creating a unified system that subdued external pressures, the administration and builders of Molfetta chose fragmentation, hybridity, and change. I suspect this was the case for many medieval buildings outside the Canon, which is populated by monuments from the financial stratosphere such as Amiens Cathedral

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and the Great Mosque of Córdoba. Targeted monographs on some of the countless less wealthy sites in the medieval Mediterranean may help develop the story of disjointed architecture.11 Further Study of the Problem If buildings of modest means are the data to help us better understand an architecture of disjuncture in the larger Mediterranean context, what are the questions must we ask of these data? Whereas this book developed its central questions around the evidence presented by Molfetta Cathedral, it is now important to translate our findings to lines of inquiry applicable to small- and medium-scale Mediterranean sites in general. Out of this project come three questions that may prove especially useful, notwithstanding others that scholars may introduce to the discourse in the future. Each of the three questions considers a particular problem that the prevailing social conditions of Mediterranean towns in the central Middle Ages – namely the fragmentation of wealth and the itinerancy of professionals – posed for architectural design and production. 1. How did the architecture of particular buildings resolve discrepancies between their institutional status and available resources? A key revelation in the story of Molfetta Cathedral has been the initial discrepancy between institutional status and available resources, and the decisive impact this problem had on design and construction. The relative poverty of the new bishopric of Molfetta, combined with its important dual role as a suffragan to the archbishopric of Bari and as the cathedral of a thriving port, motivated a fluid design strategy embracing opportunities for change and multiplicity. Other sites in the Mediterranean basin faced a variety of analogous institutional pressures. As at Molfetta, these pressures tended to manifest as requirements of the program, such as a mosque required to function as a madrasa or a monastery forced to incorporate a mausoleum. With diverse institutional requirements came structures of patronage that were increasingly divided amongst numerous stakeholders. Each patron leveraged his or her contribution to compete over status in the strong urban citizenries of the medieval Mediterranean. The charge to incorporate new elements of program tended, even when these elements

were privately funded, to complicate the task of finishing the whole edifice, and therefore strained rather than improved the building’s finances. How could a Mediterranean building team employ architectural design strategies to navigate this kind of challenge? The key at Molfetta was the use of time – the duration and intervals of construction – to postpone the difficult reconciliation of resources and status. Instead of confronting this reconciliation directly in a single campaign, the patrons and builders did so obliquely over a series of episodes. With postponement of the final product came the opportunity to deceive, to proceed as if the building were richly funded. Studying such temporal dynamics requires researching a building’s finances and construction chronology in great detail. If it is impossible to establish firm dates, as has been the case for Molfetta, the best recourse is to analyze longer-term trends in the disbursement of funds and in the patterns of construction. The purpose of such research is to reconstruct two temporal structures affecting the design and construction process: the schedule of finances and the schedule of construction. The patrons and builders manipulated both schedules as part of their strategies to influence the design, not only the design of the present intervention, but also the speculative design of the final building. Financial records and the archaeological record, taken together, can shed light on this long-term tug-of-war. To attempt to explain the design strategies of such a building without analyzing their sequence and timing is to lose track of them entirely. We have observed various time-sensitive design strategies at play in Molfetta Cathedral. The building team used the deceptive visual rhetoric of the work in progress to negotiate between an array of pressures, particularly the double bind of unsteady finances and high institutional ambitions. The cathedral tended to posture as one thing in the present and as something else in the future. It told pathos-filled narratives about the arc of the building enterprise, expressing, at different times, excitement for its future condition, dissatisfaction with its present, and remorse for its past. The building directed attention towards timely successes and misdirected the eye from imminent challenges. It constantly added to its semiotic tool kit, posing first as a triumphant bastion of the episcopacy and later as an enclave for the resilience of local

spiritual customs. Injecting time into the interpretation of the design exposes deeper vectors of meaning than the formal and iconographical. We are suddenly aware not only of the ultimate appearance of the building, but also of the community’s doubts, fears, and hopes about what it would become. It was for one fundamental reason that the factor of time played such a critical role in overcoming Molfetta’s discrepancy between means and ambitions. Time complicated the perception of the normally straight-forward relationship between a building’s wealth and its scale and richness. In buildings constructed all at once, large scale and sumptuous decoration indicate a rich institution. But at sites such as Molfetta, a design process based on episodic adjustments altered this relationship by introducing the powerful rhetorical device of the promise. In such situations, the equation is subtly different: a building that promises to be impressive in the future indicates an institution that promises to be rich. The casual observer sees a bright future in the expansive foundations of a new building. He or she does not notice if, as the building moves closer to completion, its overall scale is being reduced. Crucially, the memory of a generation of people is short compared to that of the construction period of cathedrals such as Molfetta. If the building has substantially changed its design, it is easy to mistakenly identify the most recent design with the original plan. Faced with the conundrum of building on an impressive scale with a limited and slow stream of funds, the builders of Molfetta Cathedral gained vital dynamism from time-oriented strategies of design. It is worth exploring how the building teams of other medieval Mediterranean sites may have used such methods to address the same kind of predicament. 2. How did particular zones of architectural production satisfy diversity in spatial program while limiting the range of construction techniques, thus maintaining economies of scale? In Mediterranean cities of the Middle Ages, institutional diversity prompted a variety of spatial typologies. The Mediterranean region was populated by many competing ecclesiastical and lay institutions, especially between the 11th and 13th centuries. During this time, new opportunities for long-distance commerce caused monasteries, bishoprics, and merchant families to spread their networks of property over long distances and thereby diversify their assets. In

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cities, different institutions could be found in extreme proximity to one another. Molfetta, for example, harbored institutional competition between the bishopric and other religious houses as these entities vied for large shares of the city’s oliculture. Institutional competition seems to have driven the complexity of Molfetta’s architectural program, which came to consist of multiple established typologies. For example, monks from local Benedictine monasteries, possibly operating from within the ranks of Molfetta’s clergy, may have inspired the adoption of the threedomed interior. Throughout the Mediterranean, as in Molfetta, institutional diversity and overlap stood to produce complex and fluid programs. At the same time, architectural workshops were expected to generate a higher quantity of buildings than ever before. Standardizing construction techniques was necessary to ensure economies of scale and keep up with the demand. The problem of how to address diversity of program without resorting to inefficient, customtailored construction methods would have been commonplace during the Mediterranean building boom of the 12th and 13th centuries. We have seen that in the Terra di Bari, the solution to this problem was the use of standardized construction techniques with high versatility, such that the techniques of one part of the work cycle could be mixed and matched with a range of techniques from other parts of the work cycle in a variety of permutations. Because form was closely dependent on construction techniques, the overall form of the building could be varied simply by experimenting with different combinations of techniques. From a limited set of technical approaches sprang an array of architectural ensembles, creating a wide range of building types to cope with diverse program combinations. In order for this system to work, individual building techniques needed to be applicable to a range of constructional situations. We have seen the various ways the construction techniques used at Molfetta and its comparanda attained maximum versatility, whether through one inherently versatile form, through variations on a form, through a logic of modular components, or through flexible geometric formulas that could produce ranges of forms. Identifying such strategies of balancing standardization against versatility may help to explain the development of construction techniques elsewhere in the medieval Mediterranean.

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In the effort to identify variations in construction technique, there is no substitute for rigorous comparative analysis. A consideration of only one building’s techniques without reference to comparanda cannot reveal how those techniques varied and flexed. We would therefore not fully understand a given technique or its rationale, that is, how the versatility of the technique allowed builders to form a streamlined industry. We would remain at the level of isolated particularities and learn nothing of how construction techniques served a larger zone of production (understood not as a bounded region but as a sufficiently dense cluster of networks by which productive resources, both human and material, circulated and were applied). It is obvious from a cursory glance at Mediterranean architecture after the middle of the 11th century that construction techniques customized for individual buildings were almost never the norm. In spite of the existence in each region of buildings of various scales and programs, they tend to share standardized tectonics. Builders maximized formal diversity while limiting technical variety by adopting the principle that standardizing the architectural component – the part – can create a flexible whole. The historian interested in the theme of disjointed architecture in the Mediterranean must use comparison to identify the contours of variation and standardization in architectural techniques within a zone of production, and thereby explain how those techniques answered the demand for a plethora of building types. 3. How did architecture meet the challenge of combining multiple design concepts developed in separate places? Among the most remarkable traits we have observed at Molfetta Cathedral was its capacity to integrate distinct formal and structural concepts developed in separate geographical contexts. This was a challenge faced by many Mediterranean sites between the 11th and 13th centuries, as specialist artists and builders became more mobile as a result of the travel incentives that accompanied the trade boom. The ‘multi-cultural’ character of individual Mediterranean buildings is often noted. But it is not sufficient to distinguish particular architectural ideas and localize them, that is, identify them with specific places of origin. These ideas developed through an ongoing exchange of knowledge between sites and through integration with other ideas at a variety of

building projects. Although it may be possible to trace the separate evolution and trajectories of different architectural ideas, their fusion at the site in question causes them to fundamentally transform. The spectacular results of this process can be seen in the middle and west domes of Molfetta Cathedral, which use a formal and structural solution that integrated a series of distinct concepts: pseudo-pendentives, rounded-corner squinches, and cuffie. At Molfetta, the method for combining two architectural ideas that were theretofore distinct, as in the hybrid domes over the nave and the combination of a transept basilica and three-dome-plan, entailed two steps. In the first place, it involved the surgical revision of fabric already partially completed according to the first of the two ideas, in order to prepare the way for the combination. Second, it required an act of grafting the second concept onto the first with minimum aesthetic dissonance. In the case of the transition from the transept basilica plan to the three-dome plan, the grafting was subtle and inconspicuous, involving transformations to the heights of arches and to the decorative hierarchies of the piers. The old fabric was recycled and gently modified to make the transition imperceptible. Conversely, in the case of the reconstruction of the domes from a pseudo-pendentive squinch system to a cuffia squinch system, the builders emphasized the change, incorporating elements from the first system as spolia in the second. But there was still a need for new fabric beneath the squinches to reconcile the volumetric shapes of the two different squinch concepts. The challenge of combining multiple, separately conceived architectural systems pushed the limits of constructional invention. Studying how distinct architectural ideas were integrated at a given site requires careful analysis not only of the formal and structural ideas employed in the building, but also of the reconciliation of each new form or technique with the building. This is fundamentally an extension of traditional formal analysis, in the sense of the close study of how components of the building relate to the whole in a unifying logic. It is necessary, however, to remember how the disjointed architecture of sites like Molfetta tends to elude formal analysis. In particular, the introduction of new components always changed the logic of the whole. For example, the cuffia domes completed in Phase 5 of Molfetta Cathedral radically altered the

overall program by admitting considerably more light than was possible in earlier designs for the church. The disjuncture-minded architectural historian must turn the formalist formula on its head, and consider how the builders reconciled the pre-existing whole with the logic of each newly added component. The challenge of integrating multiple architectural solutions developed in disparate contexts was one that building administrations of the medieval Mediterranean willingly embraced. Not only did foreign specialists bring novel and exciting forms, their innovative methods expanded the vocabulary of workshops, affording them flexibility in building the complex spaces that patrons demanded. Considering how builders combined disparate solutions can thus reveal the economic rationale behind a Mediterranean master builder’s repertoire, helping us to understand that repertoire at a level beyond the descriptive. In setting out to study Mediterranean buildings according to these three questions, it is worth emphasizing a point of methodology central to all of them. To study the architecture of disjuncture is to consider a building not merely as the product of an instantaneous formal idea, but as the embodiment of constructional events and processes. Applying the insights of Warnke and other adherents of Bauforschung and buildings archaeology – that is, considering architecture through the lens of economics, production, and industry – allows us to assemble an archaeological record of such events and processes. The building, generated by these events, is no longer merely an artistic problem related only to an intellectual context, but a window into longue-durée social, institutional, and economic conditions. In this way, architecture may become part of the human history of the Mediterranean system, or, indeed, of comparable socio-historical systems around the world. Finally, it is important, when identifying and describing the various design strategies evidenced by a given building – those of design change over time, of balancing standardization and versatility, or of integrating disparate solutions – to take a theoretical position on the problem of intentionality. With whom does the agency of these design strategies lie? In the case of Molfetta, these strategies developed collectively from the input of several patrons and builders over time. This collective action was constrained not only by human choice, but also by

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economic conditions and institutional requirements, which were in turn perpetuated by each generation of patrons and builders. In other words, the design of the building assumed a life of its own, responding to a collective set of motives and constraints and not to the strict control of any individual. It is thus helpful to regard the building as something of its own agent and subject12. The building was like a boulder that is given a push, and various types of spin, by many different human beings, until it begins traveling according to its own unpredictable momentum. This is not to imply that a building has consciousness and acts towards goals, but merely that it is the locus of the collective habitus of every individual involved, and therefore also the real space in which design strategies take shape. Disjuncture in Current Design Education The types of architectural strategies evidenced by cash-strapped Mediterranean sites like Molfetta Cathedral have implications not only for the methods of architectural history, but also for current pedagogy of architectural design. The dynamic and changeful approach of Molfetta’s builders to an array of problems encountered during the construction effort may lend inspiration to the building culture of today, in which fixed design proposals often struggle to address changing finances or institutional upheavals. It is therefore a helpful speculative exercise to consider how strategies of disjuncture could be integrated into the curriculum of a typical architecture student of today. In contrast to embracing a disjointed design process, modern architecture education emphasizes the pre-construction proposal, in which the student rigorously attends to every detail. This model discourages dramatic changes in the design while construction is underway and grants almost all creative authority to the architect instead of distributing it across the larger building team. This leaves little room for designing at the ‘joints’ of production, that is, using discontinuities in program, process, expertise, and the geography of specialized knowledge to maximize versatility in the design. At first glance, the model of the design proposal and that of disjuncture may seem irreconcilable. As discussed in the Introduction, preRenaissance buildings were designed not as they are

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today, from controlling principles addressed at the outset of the project (design by ‘root’), but from a process of incremental additions, checks, and adjustments carried out during the act of construction (design by ‘branch’). In spite of this dichotomy, we have much to gain by bringing disjointed design strategies into modern curricula. I do not suggest replacing the ‘root’ method with the ‘branch’ method, but synthesizing the two. To return to a time before the architectural treatises of the Renaissance and design curricula based on controlling principles would be both inadvisable and impossible. The responsible modern architect, informed by the rich discourses surrounding different kinds of architectural values such as form, statics, energy efficiency, environmental impact, affordability, and social equity, cannot practice design without careful attention to these ideals. In contrast, the interests that drove design choices in the medieval Mediterranean were largely private and institutional. These specific interests have lapsed with each particular patron and institution, whereas the more universal values of contemporary architecture are vital to a world struggling with massive social and environmental problems. In order to ensure that new buildings are helping to solve, rather than exacerbate, these problems, architecture faculty ask their students to address universal architectural values at an early stage in design development. The value of this approach is precisely that it nests these core principles in the building from the outset, and therefore protects them from being suppressed by the expedients of construction. What is required is therefore not a return to a naive design method that ignores controlling principles and finds solutions only through incremental adjustments, but an approach that incorporates project versatility as one of the core values guiding the initial design development. In other words, strategies of disjuncture should become part of the proposal. This is to make an important break from medieval practice, for medieval builders never committed their strategies of disjuncture to ink. We can imagine that patrons and public alike might have been horrified to learn that a cathedral master mason intended to repeatedly redesign the building with each constructional episode, to outsource major formal ideas to technical specialists, and to openly embrace new forms and techniques from beyond the region. Even

if builders consciously employed such strategies, they merely refined them through practice and passed them along as conventions of the trade, and did not codify them or open them to formal discussion. By contrast, I have attempted in this book to define and explain these strategies with language and theory. Considering how such strategies could be formalized as part of a contemporary design proposal allows us to probe deeper into the theoretical advantages of this medieval design strategy. Such a proposal would diverge from common studio practice in two ways. First, the final form of the proposed building would be open-ended. A fixed idea of the ultimate product cannot coexist with strategies of disjuncture. By extension, a student should not be expected to predict the future by charting out an exact series of transformations leading to the final form, for this is still to fix the ultimate design. Instead, a student may present the initial constructional episode, which could subsequently be expanded or consolidated in response to unpredicted financial or institutional changes. Second, the student could be expected to write a ‘versatility statement’, in which he or she defines clear strategies to exploit the four aforementioned ‘joints’ of construction, and thereby maximize the building’s capacity to adapt to change and conflict. For each of the four types of ‘joints’, the student should write a paragraph describing an appropriate versatility strategy, cite architectural precedents, and provide relevant illustrations. First the versatility statement would articulate a strategy for adapting the program to changes in resources or administration. Program is already one of the primary concerns in a typical architecture thesis. Alongside site, it is one of the first factors considered. Indeed, the program informs the parti, the arrangement of the massing in the context of the site. A student decides which functions the building will serve, then draws upon his or her knowledge of typologies to create component spaces of appropriate size and form for those functions. The spaces are then composed in relation to one another to create the massing, often through a process called ‘blocking and stacking’, and then positioned in relation to the site in a series of parti alternatives. The student weighs these alternatives before pursuing one to a more detailed design. How can the architecture student of today introduce to this process greater adaptability to institutional or financial upheaval? Many contemporary

buildings, such as houses, schools, office buildings, and commercial complexes undergo expansions, contractions, and consolidations as a matter of course. Change is part of their business models and an essential principle of their architectural designs. Just as there exist commonly repeated formal typologies, there are also commonly accepted program-change strategies: ways of adjusting the massing to accommodate new elements of program. Precedents can be found in very commonplace situations. Orthogonally planned buildings prove especially well-suited to programmatic change, as one edge can easily be removed and the perpendicular edges extended to expand the space. A house might thereby add a new garage, a guest room, or even an entire wing. An office building may expand vertically or horizontally to incorporate more of the modular office spaces that make up its form. As a building gets larger, it may eliminate old interior divisions and thereby enlarge its main spaces. For example, a school that increases its enrollment may need to expand its assembly hall, which might be accomplished by gutting an old classroom wing, converting this wing into a unified assembly space, and reconstituting the lost classrooms in a new wing. These are only the simplest of many established program-change strategies that an architect could cite in his or her proposal. Buildings with more complex, non-orthogonal massing may adapt essentially orthogonal programchange strategies by using modern design approaches that pose indirect relationships between structure and form. These include Le Corbusier’s famous free plan (the use of point-loaded pillars inside and outside the building to liberate the plan of walls from the perimeter structure) and Adolf Loos’s raumplan (the three-dimensional planning of a building according to a hierarchy of variably sized rooms and discontinuous floor levels). These design methods can take advantage of the versatility of orthogonal structures and envelopes while producing fluid and complex spaces. The paragraph describing the student’s programchange strategies can be accompanied by parti diagrams that show not only different options for adapting the program to the site, but also many permutations of potential changes over time. The student must present several possible iterations, as he or she will not be able to predict the specific changes that will be necessary in the future.

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A second section of the versatility statement, closely related to the program-change strategy, would explain how future revisions could be accomplished with minimal waste of labor and fabric: in other words, a strategy for capitalizing on the joints of process. Whereas the strategy for program change would be largely concerned with plan and space, and could be incorporated into the program and parti stages of the design development, the process strategy would focus on tectonics: the techniques and procedures of construction. The student would demonstrate how the structure and building systems are designed to adapt to the potential program changes outlined in the earlier part of the statement, and to prove that such changes would not require completely replacing systems and structure. Architects of today are challenged to manipulate building systems considerably more sophisticated than those of the medieval Mediterranean. A Romanesque wall composed almost entirely of ashlar with rubble core is very different from a modern one containing structural material, insulation, electricity, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and plumbing. A change in program such as the removal of a wall or the addition of a new wing threatens to complicate or disrupt these essential circuit-based systems. To add, modern building systems depend not only on the contents of the poché, but also the form of interior space. As architects strive for greater energy efficiency, they increasingly constrain the spatial form, ensuring that rooms are small enough and adequately enclosed to retain their temperature, that the building is adequately fenestrated to make use of natural light and heat, and that there exist natural currents of air flow to ventilate the entire space. The added ingredient of a process strategy that involves swapping out walls, roofs, and floors would surely compound the difficulties. But there is much to gain from accepting this challenge. A building that works from an energy-efficiency strategy coupled with a strategy to adapt its systems to changes in program would prove versatile in the face of the inevitable vicissitudes of construction. An energy-efficient plan is more likely to be realized if it will not cave when it encounters obstacles. Most important, a materialefficient strategy to transform the building’s walls can avoid a total rebuild, and thus save the project from massive waste of energy in the form of demolition, reconstruction, and remanufacture of components.

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‘Energy-efficient’ buildings that are inflexible in their design, and thus have to be completely reconstructed during execution, often cancel out their own environmental benefits. The process section of the versatility statement should also include typical illustrations of building systems: wall sections, exploded axonometric views, HVAC plans, and/or diagrams showing sun exposure, heat transfer, ventilation, etc. The student must then produce the same visuals for all of the various program-change possibilities shown in the first part of the versatility statement. The student may become overwhelmed at this stage, not simply by the volume of work but, moreover, by the challenge of balancing energy efficiency and process strategy. This is not, however, merely an artificial challenge that a professor gives a student, but a true assessment of the reallife challenges a modern building must confront. Any new building must strive for energy efficiency while also realistically assessing the obstacles of implementation and the possibility of changes in plan. The third section of the versatility statement would focus on the ‘joints’ of expertise. In this part, the student would present a strategy of integrating the future innovations of contractors into the ongoing development of the design. The student must therefore demonstrate that the design is open to revision of its tectonics and to updates of its structure and building systems. It is not necessary to identify these technological upgrades – indeed, this would be highly speculative. It is more important to show that the tectonics of the project are designed with built-in systems of revision. Thus the building is strategically poised for a range of updates, including technologies that have not yet been invented. Molfetta Cathedral used a fairly consistent approach to updating the structure and decoration of the building, subtracting from the pre-existing masonry and inserting new structures through the use of ad-hoc supports such as corbels. Modern technologies are much more versatile than this, allowing a less labor-intensive process of revision to tectonic systems. Walls can be operated upon with minimal destruction of fabric, using technologies such as removable wall panels and modular wall sections that can be swapped in and out with new parts as the Metabolist architects of Japan devised13. A passenger plane is updated in this way multiple times in its ‘lifetime’. Visuals for this part of the versatility statement

would again include wall sections and other typical building system diagrams. The student should show walls and other building components in different states: in construction, in use, in removal, and in conversion to updated systems. Thus the design is, as far as possible, poised to accept the technological improvements of the future. Ideally, this stage of the statement can unburden the student of the daunting perceived need to find existing tectonic solutions to every potential program iteration and process strategy he or she has suggested. As in the construction of Molfetta Cathedral, it is permissible to proceed ‘into the dark’, as long as the architect ensures that the design is broadly compatible to updates. The student is allowed to hold faith in unknown solutions. Contractors for structure and integrated building systems are thus empowered to solve the new problems posed by the project, giving them greater creative agency in the design. These problems provide the proverbial necessity at the root of invention. Thus a building designed following a disjointed strategy of tectonic upgrades can stay in step with technological progress, and even help to drive it forward. Such a building would reflect the cutting edge of technology and performance at the time of its completion, and not merely the technological standards at the time of the proposal, which stand to become outmoded. The final section of the versatility statement would concern the joints of geography, that is, the international web of knowledge to which today’s architects have access. This section would explain how the design, from its basic plan to its tectonics, makes itself compatible with innovations brought from other parts of the world. The student must show that his or her building is not provincial, but capable of locking together with global design discourses, thereby expanding the possibility of finding design solutions to the problems brought about by the disjointed building process. This section would entail intensive precedent analysis representing a range of contemporary building cultures. In particular, the student should seek formal and technical ideas that can be incorporated into buildings already underway or that stem from the increasingly popular practice of adaptive reuse. These kinds of design discourses, which make visual gestures expressing the duration and history of a work, are natural allies of an architecture of disjuncture.

As research and practice in design, structure, and integrated building systems becomes increasingly global, an open-ended building proposal is poised to link up with this network rather than stay tethered to more local conventions. With its centrifugal logic of reaching outward for solutions, such a design can keep in step with the rapid change of our contemporary design culture. In addition to drawing from a global network, an architecture of disjuncture would also emit through it, making its design strategies available to any building culture that might find it advantageous. As in the medieval Mediterranean, an architecture of disjuncture can only function if many far-flung zones of production employ it simultaneously, opening up to each other and pooling their applied knowledge across an expansive web. This speculative exercise has illustrated the paradoxical but elegant logic of an architecture of disjuncture. This design strategy is both ambitious and noncommittal. It pursues the difficult task of compromising between many different interests; however, it suggests that the solution cannot be found immediately, but only at a mature stage of the building’s realization and with the input of future innovations and foreign ideas. Put simply, an architecture of disjuncture depends on promise. It is here that the dissonance with contemporary design is most acute. The jury assigned to an architecture thesis featuring a versatility statement may balk at the high degree of speculation in the project. How can a proposed building whose final form cannot be visualized inspire faith? At the present moment, it is impossible to surmise how willingly contemporary architects would adopt this design strategy, whether it would be practicable in our current economies of production, or how adeptly it would answer the needs of our current world. But we may confidently point to a time and context in which an architecture of disjuncture proved itself not merely viable, but crucial. As the Commercial Revolution connected the diverse shores of the Mediterranean, and noble families and monastic networks began to expand their holdings along the coastlines, the wealth of bishoprics began to shrink. New dioceses emerged without significant endowments, and relied on outside revenues in order to build their cathedrals. Clever prelates and builders found that this problem supplied its own remedy, for Mediterranean trade had also

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created a diverse and ever-growing web of human creativity. Building administrations and master masons abandoned strict control over the project in favor of confidence in a solution not yet determined, or even known. Perhaps no one ever spoke of this approach openly. But its effectiveness made it irresistible. The cathedral of Molfetta is the product of a nimble, hinging architecture accrued from the outside in and from the ground up, an architecture oriented to its extremities rather than its navel, an architecture that, left to its own devices, worked miracles.

NOTES Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip  II, trans. by Siân Reynolds (Paris: Armand Colin, 1949 as La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéan à l’Epoque de Philippe  II; repr. New York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 276. 2  Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), p. 80. 3  Mariam Rosser-Owen, ‘Mediterraneanism: How to incorporate Islamic art into an emerging field’, Journal of Art Historiography, no. 6 (2012), 1-33 (p. 3): ‘There was a tendency for scholars to study in depth isolated pockets around the Mediterranean coastlands, rather than the interaction between them […] In the past, Spanish scholars have exclusively studied Iberia, Italian scholars Italy […]’. 4  Shelomo Gov Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab world as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967-93), I, pp. 86, 90, 95-96, 112-13. 5  Armen Ghazarian and Robert Oustherhout, ‘A Muqarnas Drawing from Thirteenth-Century Armenia and the Use of Architectural Drawings during the Middle Ages’, Muqarnas, 18 (2001), 141-54, discusses the transmission of this technique between Byzantine and Armenian contexts and the use of working drawings. 1 

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Martin Warnke, Bau und Überbau (Frankfurt am Main: Syndikat, 1976; repr. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984), p. 29. 7  On William  I’s military campaign, Hugo Falcandus, Liber de Regno Sicilie, in The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’ 1154-69, trans. by Graham A. Loud and Thomas E. J. Wiedemann (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), pp. 73-74. 8  Kai Kappel, S. Nicola in Bari und seine architektonische Nachfolge: Ein Bautypus des 11.-17. Jahrhunderts in Unteritalien und Dalmatien (Worms am Rhein: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1996), pp. 158-59. 9  On this theme, Caroline Bruzelius, ‘Project and Process in Medieval Construction’, in Ex Quadris Lapidibus: La pierre et sa mise en oeuvre dans l’art médiéval. Mélanges d’Histoire de l’art offerts à Éliane Vergnolle, ed. by Yves Gallet (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2011), pp. 113-23; and Caroline Bruzelius, ‘The Dead Come to Town: Preaching, Burying, and Building in the Mendicant Orders’, in The Year 1300 and the Creation of a New European Architecture, ed. by Alexandra Gajewski and Zoë Opačić (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2007), pp. 203-24. 10  The relative wealth of the two dioceses during the 12th century is suggested by the maximum annual incomes of the two dioceses given later in the Angevin and pontifical records (12651325): Molfetta received up to 150 ounces of gold as opposed to Bari’s 600. Kristjan Toomaspoeg, ed., Decimae: il sostegno economico dei sovrani alla Chiesa del Mezzogiorno nel XIII secolo: dai lasciti di Eduard Sthamer e Norbert Kamp (Rome: Viella, 2009), p. 536. 11  For an excellent example of a monograph focused on the construction and production of a small church, Amanda Dodseth, San Quirce de Burgos: Reframing Romanesque Architecture in Castile (Ph.D. Dissertation, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2015). 6 

12  On this theme, Annabel Wharton, Architectural Agents: The Delusional, Abusive, Addictive Lives of Buildings (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015). 13  Marvin Trachtenberg, Building-in-Time: from Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), p. xvii: '[The Metabolists and other contemporary movements] sought in diverse ways to counter the High Modernist obsession with the timelessly perfect architectural object of desire with a vision of architecture as process, and to devise new conceptual and methodological strategies that would allow buildings and city-planning schemes to evolve with changing user and technological needs through time'.

Appendix 1: Construction Chronology of Molfetta Cathedral (c. 1100-1300)

This Appendix proposes a sequence and approximate dating of the medieval construction campaigns of Molfetta Cathedral on the basis of published archival records and close observation of the built fabric. It includes a timeline of documented key dates as well as an overview of the archaeological evidence for my proposed phase divisions (Chart 1). I identify five constructional episodes between the early 12th century and the end of the 13th, each distinguished by its own technical repertoire and design goals (Chart 2). Timeline The extant documentary record for the medieval construction of Molfetta Cathedral is fragmentary, and uneven circumstances resulted in the survival of some relevant texts and the disappearance of others. Most significant, the medieval episcopal archive of Molfetta was burned in a French invasion in 1529, and the parts of the archive that were saved – transcribed in the city’s Libro Rosso, a book of the city’s privileges kept by the Università – date only as far back as the late 14th century.1 Francesco Carabellese, when compiling Le Carte di Molfetta (1912), drew from a variety of sources to collect material relevant to the early history of the city. The majority of records from Le Carte are from the rich archive of Cava de’ Tirreni, a Benedictine monastery that controlled considerable financial interests in Molfetta. Most of the documents in Le Carte are therefore transactions that concerned both Cava and the cathedral of Molfetta. Other relevant documents published in

Le Carte were generated by smaller monasteries, including a number of now-defunct houses whose archives were consolidated in the Naples State Archives under the Pergamene de Monasteri soppressi. Le Carte also includes relevant texts from the Angevin Registers, which are especially informative about the fundraising efforts of the bishops of Molfetta in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. Finally, other volumes in the Codice Diplomatico Barese series contain diocesan archives from other Apulian cities, and are sometimes relevant to the finances of Molfetta Cathedral.2 Despite the thoroughness of the early work by archivists such as Carabellese, it is almost certain that key documents are missing beyond those lost with the destruction of the episcopal archive. Given that many of the donations to S. Corrado are published simply because they recorded gifts to other well-known foundations, such as Cava, and were thus found in these famous archives, it is likely that other donations were produced by smaller institutions and are now lost or undiscovered.3 Given the inconsistency of the written record, it is important to be cautious about the conclusions we can draw. Even the documented donations do not necessarily indicate construction activity. Occasionally they offer a terminus post quem, the earliest possible date of a building event, or a terminus ante quem, the latest possible date of a building event, with which to frame a chronological analysis. Most of the time, however, they concern the gradual accumulation of revenues for a building process that followed its own calendar.

Figure 48.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Tombstone of Bishop Risandus.

My analysis has used a consolidated timeline, which only includes the handful of dated records that bear most strongly on the medieval construction chronology of Molfetta Cathedral (Chart 1).4 The documents date between 1071, the first mention of Molfetta’s episcopal status, and 1285, when the building was apparently still incomplete. In a­ddition to the documentary evidence is the inscribed tombstone of Bishop Risandus (giving the year of his death 1271), inserted into the supporting masonry of Respond 3RS (Fig. 48). It may be possible to take this as a terminus ante quem for the destruction of the crypt, whose vaults needed to have been razed prior to the placement of the stone in this position. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that the gravestone originally occupied a different position and was later moved. There are no further references to construction at the cathedral until the early 15th century, and subsequent building efforts were mainly ancillary additions and restorations. Of the surviving medieval records, I have included those that directly refer to construction, such as lay donations and dues collected from the diocese, as well as those that mark turning points in Molfetta’s institutional and economic history.

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Analysis of the Fabric I approach Molfetta’s archaeological evidence – the physical fabric and the building activity it implies – using the methods of stratigraphic and comparative analysis. Stratigraphy interprets relative chronology, the sequential ordering of building phases, by identifying layers of construction and analyzing interfaces between them.5 By comparing the construction techniques associated with each phase of Molfetta Cathedral to those of other sites, it is possible to align the relative chronology with approximate dates or date ranges. I infer stratigraphic layers using the following signs in the built fabric: 1.  Masonry breaks: discontinuities in the wall suggesting interruptions in the sequence of work. Vertical breaks are typically betrayed by a misalignment between the horizontal mortar joints of two adjacent sections of wall. Horizontal breaks are often indicated by a row of stones razed to a narrow coursing, a shift in the alignment of the vertical joints, or the termination of a connecting vertical break. By their shape and position, masonry breaks often indicate the sequential

primacy of construction on one side. Applying Edward Harris’s Law of Superposition, when a zone of masonry is delineated in part by a horizontal break, it typically means that the area above the break was emplaced after the area below.6 Following Harris’s Law of Original Continuity, two zones of matching masonry that are separated from each other may have originally formed a single layer but were interrupted by a later layer.7 A wall with lacerations on its front plane can also represent the partial destruction of an earlier layer, reminding us that construction occurs in three dimensions and cannot be wholly reduced to the two-dimensional logic of strata. I investigated the evidence of masonry breaks using a digital photogrammetric model of the interior, which consolidated breaks from many different surfaces (Fig.  1). The 3-D model also permitted the study of undistorted proportions, alignments, and angles. 2.  Constructional variations: changes in the built fabric indicating a shift in the technical conventions of the builders. The most relevant include, •  bay lengths. •  alignments of walls. •  dimensions of pier and respond elements (including supporting masonry, plinths, bases, shafts, capitals, and imposts). •  the profiles of plinths (e.g. scarped or not scarped). • base and impost molding sequences (the order of elements such as the fillet, fascia, scotia, torus, etc). •  window shape and construction. For the purposes of my analysis, zones of continuously constructed masonry and matching variations were assigned to the same constructional episode, and episodes were put in a sequence according to Harris’s stratigraphic laws. My approach, however, departs from stratigraphy in two ways. First, I do not consider my phase divisions a comprehensive list: there is always the possibility of discovering additional phase divisions and expanding the number of phases; for example, some scholars study breaks between individual giornate (‘work days’). I have targeted constructional breaks and changes in technique

that suggest significant gaps in the progress of the building or changes in plan. Second, I support the important point by Richard Morriss that a rational assessment of the overall design goals of each intervention should be used to check the positivism of Harris layers.8 This interpretive lens is critical to my hypothetical chronology. A general overview of the evidence of masonry breaks and constructional variations is worthwhile before zeroing in on the more specific observations that support my proposed construction chronology. As it is best practice to start an archaeological interpretation from disinterested observation, the intent of this overview is descriptive, not analytical. On the other hand, a good description of the archaeological evidence cannot refrain from some degree of explanation: for example, when an exterior and interior masonry break are aligned, they obviously both indicate the same interruption in works. The buildings archaeologist should seize upon, not try to avoid, such straightforward associations. There are four prominent vertical masonry breaks, an internal and external break just west of the transept in both the north and south lateral walls of the second longitudinal bay, that are laterally aligned and thus probably belong to the same constructional hiatus (Figs 20, 49-51). These breaks coincide with several differences between the east bay and the middle and west bays, most notably the change in vault structure from a pendentive dome to squinch domes and the accompanying discrepancy in the exterior roofs: a square pyramid over the eastern, pendentive dome and octagonal pyramids over the squinch domes to the west (Fig. 52). Other masonry breaks on the exterior are smaller in scale and indicate post-medieval transformations, such as breaks in the east facade (repairs and conservation), the north facade (the Early Modern revisions to the portal), and the west facade (the removal of the Chapel of S. Corrado in the middle of the 20th century). On the interior, there is a small anomaly that implies either an interruption in works or a change in plan: it concerns the window in the upper north wall of the transept (Figs 53-54). As a result of contradictory blind arcade rhythms on the interior and exterior, this window is interrupted by the curvature of an interior blind arch. The interior contains several other masonry breaks, almost all of them located in the lower walls of the church and to the east of the

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Figure 49.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Exterior view of south aisle masonry break.

aforementioned vertical breaks in the second longitudinal bay. In some of these breaks, the interface between building phases runs perpendicular to the plane of the wall, while in other cases this interface is co-planar with the wall, for the wall plane is a section cut from an element that originally projected beyond it. The breaks articulate the curved contours of destroyed vaulting and are found on the east, south, west, and north interior walls of the transept (Figs  23-24, 55-60), in the transition between the

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transept and the north side aisle of the nave (Figs 28, 61), and in the eastern parts of both north and south side aisles of the nave (Figs 61-62). Other interior breaks in the east end are localized and appear to indicate changes in the liturgical apparatus of the choir affixed to the east wall and Piers 2PN and 2PS. The most important interior masonry breaks occurring to the west of the major breaks in the second nave bay are adjustments to the squinches of the domes, indicated in part by the small corbels located

Figure 50.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Masonry break in north side aisle.

below several of the squinch bases and retained from an early phase of construction (Figs 8-9). Aside from this, several masonry breaks indicate the opening and closing of walls to accommodate ancillary chapels, interventions which take us well beyond the medieval period of construction. The variations in construction techniques and formal elements at Molfetta Cathedral are countless. This overview will focus on the most dramatic variations: larger volumetric forms such as domes, structural detailing, and architectonic sculpture. More minute types of variations will be discussed as needed in the chronological interpretation below. I will also refrain here from identifying variations in the building’s larger plan typologies, which combine many constructional variations at once and are discussed in the body chapters of this book. The arches used to define openings and bay divisions at Molfetta Cathedral are almost all rounded

archi lunati, whose voussoirs expand in height toward the middle of the arch as a result of the intrados and extrados obeying different centers of curvature. The two openings in the north wall of Bay 2 are pointed, rather than rounded, archi lunati (Fig. 63). The blind arcade of the exterior east end is made up of interlaced archi lunati (Fig. 17). The intersections of the arches are not handled in the typical manner, which entails one of the intersecting curves to completely interrupt the other, signifying two intertwined arcades. Instead, the intersections at Molfetta are accomplished using two different methods, both visible on the east facade. In all of the intersections to the left of the central window, the voussoirs at the intersection continue the curves below and interrupt those above, creating the impression of a series of pointed arches linked together by superposed segmental arches (Fig. 64). In every one of the intersections to the right of the window, an odd trapezoidal

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Figure 51.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Exterior view of north aisle masonry break.

voussoir is used to continue the outer edge of the descending curve while also giving way to part of the ascending curve, as if the two arcades are not merely intertwining but also cutting into each other (Fig. 65). For a distant and probably unrelated precedent, the Islamic Aljafería Palace in Spain (11th century) employs the same concept in its incomparably more ornate arcades. At Molfetta, it is likely that all of the interlaced arches were originally accomplished in one method or the other, and that one of the east

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facade’s many restorations occasioned an ad-hoc repair following the other method. The vaults in the principal volumes of Molfetta Cathedral are quadrant (half-barrel) vaults, over the six side-aisle bays, and domes, over the central aisle bays. As mentioned before, the domes are variable. The dome over Bay 3 of the central aisle is a pendentive dome (Fig. 7), whereas the domes over Bays 1 and 2 are squinch domes composed of pseudo-pendentives and cuffie (Figs  8-9). Further variations within

Figure 52.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Exterior view from north of roofline discrepancies between Bays 2 and 3.

the domes become relevant as part of the forthcoming chronological interpretation. The piers and responds of Molfetta Cathedral are all composed of a kit of five parts. First and second are plinths, which underlie the entire support, and bases, which underlie each shaft of the support (Figs 33, 66-74). Third are the shafts themselves, which obey various dimensions of curvature. Fourth and fifth are capitals, which surmount each shaft, and impost moldings, which surmount the capitals and wrap around the pier to connect to adjacent imposts (Figs 75-92). Capitals and imposts are also used for corbels, including the large corbels 1CS and 1CN supporting diaphragm arches in the side aisles of the church (Figs 93-94), and the small corbels supporting the ‘weak’ divisions of the interlaced blind arcade of the east end’s facade and flanks (Figs 95-102). Additional imposts sans capitals support the ‘strong’ divisions of the interlaced blind arcade on the exterior, as well as interior blind arches and groin vault fragments belonging to the lost crypt. The patterns of variation of each of the aforementioned components – plinths, bases, shafts, capitals, and imposts – within the space of the church do not always coincide with one another. For example, scarped

plinths are found in Responds 0RS, 0RN, and 2RS, as well as Pier 2PS, but the shafts for 2PS and 2RS obey a larger diameter than those of 0RS and 0RN. The capitals of corbels 1CS and 1CN are iconographic twins (ape heads sprouting banana leaves), but their imposts are different: the impost of 1CN is almost identical to those surmounting the upper capitals of Pier 2PS, whereas that of 1CS is similar to the imposts of Pier 1PS. More examples are cited in the chronological interpretation below. These discrepancies strongly suggest that the piers were assembled and reassembled over many different phases and often borrowed pre-existing components from each other. It is tempting to chart minute variations in iconography and formal motifs throughout the cathedral, such as the diamondhead moldings that occur in the two portals in the south wall of Bay 2, in the imposts of the south-facing capital of Pier 1PS and the north-facing capital Pier 1PN, and in the impost of the farthest-left figurated capital on the exterior north wall of the east end, but this can lead to over-interpretation. Often builders from different campaigns had command of the same generic motifs.

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Figure 53.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Exterior view from north of interlaced blind arcades. Note filled window, which is overlapped on the interior by a blind arch.

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Figure 54.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Window in north wall of the transept, obscured by interior blind arch.

Figure 55.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated masonry on south wall of the transept, indicating crypt arches and vaults.

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Figure 56.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated masonry in southwest corner of the transept, indicating crypt arches and vaults.

Figure 57.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of lacerated masonry in southwest corner of the transept, implying that the vertical plane of the arch was cut back when the superposed masonry was added.

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Figure 58.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Fragmentary palimpsest of crypt arch on the east face of Pier 2PS, interrupted by the supporting masonry of the pier’s east-facing shaft.

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Figure 59.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Fragmentary palimpsest of crypt arch on the north wall of transept, interrupted by the spur wall at the northwest corner.

Figure 60.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated masonry on east face of the spur wall at the northwest corner of the transept, indicating a crypt vault.

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Figure 61.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated masonry on west and south faces of the spur wall at the northwest corner of the transept and north wall of the nave, indicating crypt vaults under the original nave and transept.

Figure 62.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Lacerated masonry on south wall of the nave, possibly indicating crypt vaults under the original nave.

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Figure 63.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. View from north of right portal of the north flank’s two-portal ensemble, which originally connected the church to the outside and not to the current chapel of S. Giuliano.

A telling group of architectonic sculpture are the distinctive medallion-shaped reliefs in the keystones of many bay-defining arches, which may belong to the same building phase. Other examples of architectonic sculpture tend to occur once in the building and are therefore not helpful for stratigraphic interpretation. These include the sculpted corbel table encircling the base of the pendentive dome in Bay  3 (Fig. 103) as well as the sculptural ensemble of the east facade window (Fig. 44). This window is supported by vegetal corbels, load-bearing lions, detached colonnettes, and archivolts. The archivolts are supported by animals and feature a main motif of abstract intertwining curves in a repeating pattern with variable overlaps, perhaps meant as an abstraction of floriated Kufic (monumentalized Kufic and pseudo-Kufic inscriptions are found in other Romanesque Apulian sites such as S. Nicola in Bari and Bohemond’s Mausoleum at Canosa Cathedral).

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The archivolts are capped by a half-destroyed, anonymous seated figure (Fig. 104). The following chronological analysis results from a stratigraphic synthesis of the evidence of masonry breaks and constructional variations, as well as an iterative ‘process of elimination’, in which I proposed chronological hypotheses and rejected them if they contradicted the stratigraphic clues. Phase 1: Standalone Hall Crypt (c. first half of 12th century) The first phase of construction appears to have established a groin-vaulted hall crypt in the area of the transept, now lost (Chart 2a). Several fragments belonging to the crypt are visible in the present building. These include interior pilasters with their imposts, some hidden below the current pavement and some exposed by the 20th-century stairwells

Figure 64.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of interlaced blind arches on east facade: arch intersection to the left of the main window.

Figure 65.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of interlaced blind arches on east facade: arch intersection to the right of the main window.

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Figure 66.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 0RS.

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Figure 69  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 2RS.

Figure 67.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 0RN.

Figure 70.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and bases of Pier 2PS.

Figure 68.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and bases of Pier 1PS.

Figure 71.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and bases of Pier 2PN.

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Figure 72  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 2RN.

Figure 73.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 3RS.

Figure 75.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 0RS.

Figure 76.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 0RN.

Figure 77.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capitals of Pier 1PS (north and west). Figure 74.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Plinth and base of Respond 3RN.

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Figure 78.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 1PS (north and west).

Figure 81.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 1PN (north).

Figure 79.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 1PS (south).

Figure 82.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capitals of Pier 1PN (south and east).

Figure 80.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 1PN (west).

Figure 83.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 2RS.

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Figure 84.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capitals of Pier 2PS (north and west).

Figure 87.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 2PN (west).

Figure 85.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 2PS (east).

Figure 88.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 2PN (north).

Figure 86.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Pier 2PS (south).

Figure 89.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capitals of Pier 2PN (south and east).

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Figure 90.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 2RN.

Figure 93.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Corbel 1CS.

Figure 91.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 3RS.

Figure 94.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Corbel 1CN.

Figure 92.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Capital of Respond 3RN.

Figure 95.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on east facade, first from left.

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Figure 96.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on east facade, second from left.

Figure 97.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on east facade, center.

Figure 98.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on east facade, second from right.

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Figure 101.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on north flank, second from left.

Figure 102.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on north flank, third from left.

Figure 99.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on east facade, first from right.

Figure 103.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Detail of corbel table in east dome.

Figure 100.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Figurated corbel on north flank, first from left.

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Figure 106.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Mosaic pavement fragment. Removed to chapel of S. Antonio da Padova.

Figure 104.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Damaged, anonymous seated figure surmounting east facade window.

Figure 105.  Molfetta, S. Corrado. Mosaic pavement fragment. In situ west of Pier 2PS.

leading to the basements of the east towers, as well as fragments of arches and groin vaults in the lower parts of the transept and in the easterly area of the nave, described in the foregoing overview. These features can be distinguished from later construction by masonry breaks (Figs 19-21). Especially striking is a vertical division between the west edge of the north transept wall and the lower masonry of respond 2RN, which interrupts the crypt arcade in the middle of its third longitudinal bay.9 An analogous break between the south crypt arcade and the supporting masonry of respond 2RS can also be inferred. Here, the transverse respond is located at the bay division at the end of the second longitudinal bay of the crypt, rather than in the middle of the third bay. The surface of the transverse wall arch that springs from this juncture is lacerated back to the plane of the wall, supporting the possibility that it was originally an open transverse arch leading into the third crypt bay, and was later transformed into a terminal wall by the addition of masonry above and below the arch. Further breaks on the supporting masonry of responds 3RN and 3RS and the east shafts of piers 2PN and 2PS imply that they were added after Phase 1. Masonry breaks also separate the cryptlevel wall arches from the upper walls of the transept and its pilasters, which were completed later. The elements belonging to the first building phase are related to each other in terms of dimensions and workmanship. The bay lengths projected by all of the arch fragments are approximately equal (about 3.7 m); the molding profiles belonging to the imposts of the north and south crypt-level pilasters are identical (a stack, from bottom to top, of torus, fillet,

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echinus, fillet, and fascia); and the north and south crypt walls feature the same unusual type of window, with its upper extent bounded by the intrados of a wall arch (Fig. 23). The fragments associated with Phase 1 outline a typical regional scheme. A 3 × 5-bay hall crypt in the area of the transept, featuring a single semicircular apse along with square east towers connected by a rectilinear wall, is a typology shared with a few churches in the region, in particular the cathedrals of Giovinazzo (Fig.  25) and Biscéglie, towns neighboring Molfetta on the Apulian littoral. The crypt of Giovinazzo is particularly similar to that of Molfetta, featuring square crypt bays, a crypt-level apsidal window bounded by walls that interrupt an east passageway between the tower basements, and the aforementioned feature of windows enclosed by wall arches.10 Although the construction of the crypts at Giovinazzo and Molfetta are difficult to date with precision, both crypts were probably underway prior to donations in the 1170s and 1180s, and could have existed by the early or mid 12th century.11 Phase 2: Partial Construction of Transept and Easterly Portion of the Nave (c. 1150-84) According to the present analysis, the second phase of construction shortened the hall crypt and realized the lower parts of the transept, as well as the easterly parts of a nave with crypt (Chart 2b). The areas to be attributed to this phase are marked out by several masonry breaks (Figs  19-21). They include a large portion of the transept walls above the original crypt, including the east wall (other than Responds 3RN and 3RS above their supporting masonry and the upper-most parts of the apse), the upper parts of the north and south transept walls up to the imposts of the blind arches, the supporting masonry of Respond 2RN (bearing fragments of wall arches that may have supported the new vaults in the transept crypt and nave crypt) (Fig.  28, 61), Respond 2RN, and the wall and blind arch of the north side aisle of the nave (east of the vertical masonry break). Other zones can be associated with the second phase of construction. The area of the south transept wall belonging to Phase 2 may have originally connected to the (largely restored) supporting masonry of Respond 2RS and the crypt-level construction in the lower parts of the south aisle wall of the nave (Fig. 62). Masonry breaks

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separate this entire zone from Respond 2RS, which should be attributed to a later episode. The possibility that Respond 2RS was almost entirely replaced after Phase 2 is supported by the existence of exterior breaks in the southwest corner of the transept corresponding to the breaks on the interior: only the masonry of the lowest part of this exterior corner, below the cavetto molding, is continuous with the exterior wall of the south aisle of the nave, and thus might be associated with Phase 2 (Fig. 49). A number of matching constructional variations support the unity of the areas assigned to Phase 2. The east wall includes matching apsidioles, roundheaded windows, and entrances to the towers at the original floor level of the transept, which are elevated above the current level. The two pilasters in the north and south transept walls once included plinths and bases at the original floor level (as deduced from the lacerated outlines still present in the wall), and the pilasters are positioned in the north and south transept walls to create equal intercolumniations. Because the new western extent of the transept crypt was located in the middle of the third bay, the pilaster on the north transept wall was positioned slightly to the left of the crypt-level bay division below. The supporting masonry of responds 2RN and 2RS can be grouped together on the basis of their similar widths (1.2-1.3 m). The lower walls of piers 2PN and 2PS, not including the masonry supporting the eastern members of these piers, align with these responds, implying that they formed part of a new crypt-level wall that curtailed the western extent of the transept crypt. Additional elements, dispersed throughout the church, may be identified with this phase. Many of the plinths, bases, half-shaft sections, capitals, and imposts that make up the piers and responds of the transept were probably originally fashioned for Phase 2, though most of them probably did not match their current configuration. The conversion of the church from the transept-basilica arrangement of Phase 2 to the current formation of axial domes would have entailed an adjustment of the relative heights of the supports. For example, in a normal elevation of a transept basilica, the west-facing members of the two crossing piers would have been required to match the heights of the supports facing into the side aisles, rather than echo the supports facing across the central aisle as they do currently. This transformation would

have caused, in turn, a rearrangement of the variously sized capital blocks, as the dimensions of capitals at the same level needed to match. Given the likelihood of a major reorganization of pier elements after Phase 2, it is difficult to specify which elements belonged to this episode, or determine where they were originally positioned. If Respond 2RN was emplaced in its entirety according to its current configuration during Phase 2 (as the stratigraphic evidence suggests), it may be possible to associate the execution of plinths, bases, shaft sections, and capital blocks currently making up responds 3RN and 3RS with the same phase, as they closely match the dimensions of respond 2RN. The shafts of responds 2RN, 3RN, and 3RS, and pier 2PN might be associated with each other on the grounds that they all conform to a semicircular plan, rather than the horse-shoe plan employed in later phases. A few churches in the region can be compared to Phase 2 of Molfetta Cathedral on technical grounds. Choices in structural detailing accord with Giovinazzo Cathedral: both churches feature the interlaced arches unknown elsewhere in the Apulian context, as well as round-headed windows in parts of their transept wall. Other details compare with Bari Cathedral, where blind arches survive on parts of the interior transept walls.12 The proportions of the floor plan outlined by Phase 2 at Molfetta, on the other hand, are not those employed at Giovinazzo or Bari, but follow more closely the plans of Conversano Cathedral (Fig.  29) and Bitetto Cathedral. These buildings are distinguished by a slight differential between the width of the transept and that of the side aisles of the nave, the product of planners employing a rotating-square method to plot out the proportional relationships between bays (see discussion in Chapter 3).13 The medieval documents for the cathedrals of Giovinazzo, Conversano, and Bitetto do not offer strong absolute dates.14 A better reference for the approximate date of Phase 2 at Molfetta Cathedral comes from the written record of this church: in 1184, a lay donation was made in support of the ‘completion’ of S. Corrado, in return for which prayers on the donor’s behalf were expected at the high altar.15 This implies that the upper church of the transept, where the altar was housed, was probably at least underway by this date.

Phase 3: Transformation of Transept and Partial Nave According to Axial-Domes Plan (c. 1184-1250) My analysis suggests that Phase 3 saw the destruction of the crypt and the renovation of the transept and partially built nave to accommodate a new roofing system of axial domes and side-aisle quadrant vaults (Chart 2c). The plinths of Responds 0RN and 0RS may also have been emplaced in this phase, along with the plinths of Piers 1PS and 1PN (Figs 33, 66-68).16 Attributable to Phase 3 are several sections of the transept and nave walls, all of which appear to have been added to pre-existing fabric that did not anticipate them (Figs 19-21). The two pairs of blind arches on the north and south transept walls, the partial blind arch on the wall of the south side aisle of the nave, and Respond 2RS are coursed continuously with each other and are separate from masonry belonging to Phase 2 below. The presence of corbels supporting the east and west springers of the blind arches in the north transept, along with the one supporting the east springing of the easterly blind arch on the south wall, suggests that these arches were reappointed during Phase 3, probably in a lower position than before. The narrow pilaster strip supporting the west springing of the south transept arcade is bonded with Respond 2RS in Phase 3. The blind arches allowed for the installation of a corbel table and quadrant vaults in the east bay and the easterly parts of the nave aisles. Also identifiable with this episode is the east dome, along with the semicircular apse, as it is in proportion with the height of the quadrant vaults and east dome. Masonry breaks also suggest that Phase 3 saw the destruction of the crypt in the transept and nave. The work to remove the crypt-level groin vaults in the nave and transept left behind rubble surfaces or replacement stones on the north and south walls of the easterly part of the nave, on the east, west, and south faces of the masonry supporting Respond 2RN, on the east face of the masonry supporting Respond 2RS, and on the north, east, and south walls of the transept (see overview of masonry breaks earlier in this Appendix). The east supports of Piers 2PN and 2PS, along with their underlying masonry, and the new Responds 3RN and 3RS are also separated from the construction of Phase 2 by breaks, suggesting that they were added during Phase 3.

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The masonry of Phase 3 is bounded by the oftnoted vertical breaks on the walls of both side aisles of the nave (Figs 22, 49-51). These breaks start from the floor (on the north wall) and from just above the upper extent of what may be the lost nave crypt (on the south wall) and continue into the quadrant vaults of both side aisles, terminating the partial blind arches on the north and south walls. The elements bordering these breaks to the east appear to have been put in place at different times. The crypt-level walls of the north and south aisles and the upper masonry of the easterly part of the north wall may have already been established during Phase 2, including the partial blind arch and its superstructure up to the corbel table, but work had not yet commenced on the south nave wall above crypt level. The builders of Phase 3 thus encountered different situations in the north and south nave walls. Before adding quadrant vaults over the north side aisle, they would have needed to curtail the blind arch on the north wall in order to lower the height of its apex; this may explain why the arch is terminated at the precise point in its curvature where it meets the corbel table. The trapezoidal block at the end of the curvature of this arch was probably also inserted during this phase, as it does not match the construction of the arch termination on the south wall (attributed to Phase 4). Meanwhile the south wall, where only the crypt-level masonry in the first bay appears to have been established prior to Phase 3, could be built to accord more closely with the new scheme of quadrant vaults. The partial blind arch thus springs below the impost of respond 2RS and projects an apex comfortably below the corbel table. The excavated fragment of mosaic floor just west of Pier 2PS might be associated with Phase 3 on the basis of its location in the church (Fig. 105). It is unknown to what phase the other excavated mosaic fragment (currently held in the chapel of S. Antonio da Padova), executed in a different style, should be attributed (Fig. 106). Without more extensive evidence of the mosaic floor it is impossible to infer a stratigraphic progression. The areas associated with Phase 3 contain several common features differing in dimensions and workmanship from those of Phase 1 or Phase 2. The new blind arch commencing on the south wall, had it been completed, would have

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obeyed a larger radius of curvature than that of the partial arch on the north wall. The south wall arch would thus have accorded with the more spread-out intercolumniation imposed by the 3-dome scheme, assuming the same rhythm of two blind arches per bay established in the east bay. The construction of the new Responds 3RN and 3RS and new supports appended to piers 2PN and 2PS, along with the completion of Respond 2RS, called for the creation and renovation of various pier elements. Responds 3RN and 3RS stand on new supporting masonry of similar width (about 1.35 m). The supporting masonry of piers 2PN and 2PS was truncated to a level below that of Responds 2RN and 2RS across from them (Fig.  26). These piers thus adopt an intermediate height to soften the discrepancy between the new floor level sans crypt and the lower extents of Responds 2RN and 2RS. The five supports belonging to Respond 2RS and all members of Pier 2PS can be associated with each other on the basis of their equal-size horse-shoe plans as well as the scarped profile of their plinths (Fig. 69-70). The impost moldings of these supports (Figs 83-85) match those crowning the pilasters of the blind arches on the north and south walls (a stack, from bottom to top, of torus, fillet, cavetto, fillet, fascia). Corbel 1CN in the north aisle of the nave (attributed to Phase 4) also features an impost with this molding, suggesting that it may have appropriated the molding from a capital or impost from Phase 3 (Fig. 94). The builders of Phase 3 probably rearranged numerous pier elements from Phase 2. In order to emplace the east and north capitals of Pier 2PS and east and west capitals of Pier 2PN – almost certainly appropriated from other locations in the church – they fitted the capitals with astragals slightly offset from the lower edges of the blocks, creating an even capital height (about 98 cm. tall including the atragals and abaci) (Figs 84-85, 87, 89). The highly individualized capital of Respond 2RS, on the other hand, is likely to have been carved anew in Phase 3 along with the completion of this respond (Fig. 83). This elaborate crocket capital with human faces is wider than any of the other capitals (about 100 cm. measured at the abacus). As a result of the new construction in Phase 3, the completed piers of the east end achieved their current configuration featuring twelve capitals in all. Also associated with Phase 3 are the group of

medallion reliefs seen in the keystone voussoirs of the arches over the crossing, in the blind arches on the interior transept walls, and in the partial blind arch on the southwest exterior corner of the transept. The church of SS. Trinità (currently S. Francesco) in Trani provides a close formal and technical comparison for the interventions of Phase 3 at Molfetta. Not only do both feature axial domes, quadrant vaults, and four-part piers, both include scarped plinths (Responds 2RS, 0RS, and 0RN and Pier 2PS of Molfetta), interior blind arches that spring below their adjacent capitals, and a proportional relationship in which the heights of the side aisle transverse arches almost match those of the central aisle. SS. Trinità was likely under construction in the second half of the 12th century and was consecrated in 1184.17 It is thus reasonable to suggest that the long period of construction spurred by lay donations to Molfetta Cathedral between 1184 and 1256 brought about the works of Phase 3. Phase 4: Completion of the Nave and Domes up to the Bases of the Squinches (c. second half of 13th century) The elements I have associated with Phase 4 include the walls, piers, responds, arches, and quadrant vaults to the west of the vertical masonry breaks on the side aisle walls, not including the openings to ancillary chapels that were incorporated after 1400 (Chart 2d; Figs  19-21). The builders of this episode abandoned the motif of interior blind arches. Whereas the partial arch on the north wall is terminated by a trapezoidal block, already installed in Phase 3, the arch on the south wall is terminated by horizontally coursed blocks associated with Phase 4. The builders of this phase also may have built a monumental west entrance porch, and they appear to have initiated the middle and west nave domes according to a pseudopendentive structure, reaching the bases of the current squinches. Belli D’Elia has discussed the possibility that the west end was intended to include a monumental arched entrance porch flanked by towers, similar to the entrance of SS. Ognissanti in Cuti (Fig.  32).18 Supporting this theory are the thick walls of the west chapels, which suggest that they are indeed truncated towers. If a marine entrance porch stood between

the towers, it might explain the tall massing of the later Chapel of S. Corrado. Because the chapel is destroyed, our archaeological understanding of this problem is necessarily limited.19 The middle and west domes of the nave appear to have been built over a series of at least two phases (Figs 8-9). Identifiable with Phase 4 is the masonry of the squinches of both domes below the moldings of the cuffie (quarter-spherical niches), except for the southeast squinch of the middle dome. The upper parts of the dome belong to Phase 5. The unity of the fourth phase is confirmed by a number of homogeneous features. Many elements of Piers 1PN and 1PS and Responds 0RN and 0RS match, including the shafts (all horse-shoe-shaped and featuring a common circumference of 88-89 cm.), capitals, and bases, although these last appear to have been adapted to plinths of various sizes and forms. The plinths of Pier 1PN feature double-order dosserets while those of Pier 1PS do not, and only the plinths of responds 0RN and 0RS are scarped (Figs 33, 66-68). All of the plinths were probably fashioned earlier for the nave piers of Phase 2 and Phase 3 and then incorporated into Phase 4. The adaptation of piers with small shafts to relatively large plinths prompted the odd solution of broad, flat base moldings. Also belonging to Phase 4 are the two Corbels 1CN and 1CS, which match each other in form and iconography: an animal head sprouting banana leaves (Figs 93-94). The impost of Corbel 1CS is similar to that seen on the east, north and west capitals of Pier 1PS (a stack, from bottom to top, of thumb, fillet, cavetto, fillet, ovolo, fascia), suggesting that it was carved along with them during Phase 4 (Figs 77-78). Meanwhile, the impost of Corbel 1CN compares closely with the imposts of Phase 3, and may have been repurposed from this episode. An important comparison for Phase 4 of Molfetta Cathedral is the cathedral of Bari, which employs the same method of squinch construction found in the lower parts of the middle dome at Molfetta, as well as the small corbels to the sides of the squinch (Fig. 34). Bari Cathedral was rebuilt around 1177, after the destruction of this city by King William  I of Sicily.20 It seems likely, however, that the construction of Phase 4 at Molfetta Cathedral occurred during the late 13th century,

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as it constituted the last episode of construction involving the main walls of the church and probably lined up with the fundraising push of Bishop Angelus and his successors. Phase 5: Completion of the Middle and West Domes with Cuffia Squinches (c. late 13th centuryearly 14th century) According to my analysis, the interventions of Phase 5 account for a significant portion of the middle and west domes in the nave: the entirety of the southeast squinch of the middle dome, all eight cuffie, the cardinal walls of the cuffia zone, and the domes themselves (Chart 2e). The evidence of structural geometry suggests that the southeast squinch of the middle dome was the hinge between Phase 4 and Phase 5, completely relinquishing the old system of pseudo-pendentives, used in the other seven squinches, in favor of cuffia squinches. The masonry supporting the southeast squinch is semi-cylindrical, and a photogrammetric cross-section through the dome shows that this squinch has a quarter-spherical profile rather than the roundedcorner profile of the other squinches (Fig.  41). The other seven cuffie were placed atop already completed pseudo-pendentive bases and accommodated with transition stones. The builders of Phase 5 incorporated small corbels, probably from Phase 4, as spolia into some of the completed squinches. The middle and west domes at Molfetta Cathedral compare with the oval domes of a number of churches in the Terra di Bari, which, like Molfetta, feature octagonal exteriors; though it is interesting to note that these examples do not always incorporate squinches.21 These sites with octagonal dome roofs, many of which are rural, are difficult to date with precision. The cuffia domes at Molfetta probably date to the late 13th or early 14th century, around the time when documents for construction ceased and work most likely concluded on the main volumes of the church.

NOTES Codice diplomatico Barese VII: Le Carte di Molfetta (1076-1309), ed. by Francesco Carabellese (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1912), p. iii. On the invasion of

1 

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Molfetta in 1529, Arnaldo Venditti, ‘Architettura a cupola in Puglia: III’, Napoli nobilissima, 7 (1968), 94-115 (p. 97). 2  For example, Codice diplomatico Barese  I: Le pergamene del Duomo di Bari (952-1264), ed. by Francesco Nitti di Vitto and G. B. Nitto de Rossi (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1897); and Codice diplomatico Barese III: Le pergamene della Cattedrale di Terlizzi (971-1300), ed. by Francesco Carabellese (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1899). 3  For example, the abbey of SS. Trinità of Montesacro (in the Gargano) was almost as active as Cava in securing agricultural properties in Molfetta, and it was sometimes included, alongside Cava, as a beneficiary of the aforementioned wills to Molfetta Cathedral. 4  For a more comprehensive timeline of documents from the earliest mention of the city to the 20th-century restorations of the cathedral, Kai Kappel, S. Nicola in Bari und seine architektonische Nachfolge: Ein Bautypus des 11.-17. Jahrhunderts in Unteritalien und Dalmatien (Worms am Rhein: Wernersche, 1996), pp. 265-67. 5  Edward C. Harris, Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy (London: Academic Press, 1979; repr. London: Academic Press, 1997). 6  Harris, pp. 30-31. 7  Harris, pp. 32-33. 8  Richard K. Morris, The Archaeology of Buildings (Stroud: Tempus, 2004), pp. 153-55. 9  Kappel, p. 268, also observed this. 10  See Kappel, p. 273, for this comparison. 11  The construction history of Giovinazzo Cathedral roughly paralleled that of Molfetta. S. Maria in Giovinazzo was mentioned in 1103, but the first known donation for construction was an 1172 privilege, allowing the bishop to take on affidati (serfs transferred from another estate) to aid in the construction effort. The dedication of the medieval church did not occur until 1283. Ezio de Cillis, ‘La cattedrale di Giovinazzo, restauri e rinvenimenti’, Cultura e societá in Puglia in etá sveva e angioina, Atti del convegno di studi, Bitonto, 11-12-13 dicembre 1987 (Bitonto, Centro ricerche di storia e arte bitontina, 1989), pp. 327-64; and Kappel, pp. 252-53. 12  See also the transept walls of Taranto Cathedral, reconstructed in its principal volumes between the end of the 11th century and the middle of the 12th. Kappel, p. 345. 13  See discussion in Chapter 3. 14  For Giovinazzo Cathedral, see above. See Kappel, p. 242, for the documentation of Conversano Cathedral during the Romanesque period of its construction. For documents pertaining to Bitetto Cathedral, see Kappel, p.  213; citing Heinrich Wilhelm Schulz, Denkmaeler der Kunst des Mittelalters in Unteritalien, ed. by Ferdinand von Quast, 5 vols (Dresden: the author, 1860), I, p. 78, for the claim that the town and cathedral of Bitetto were destroyed by King William I in 1164. 15  See discussion in Chapter 1. 16  The dimensions and workmanship of the plinth of 1PS suggest that it may have been adapted from Phase 2 and moved during Phase 3. 17  Pina Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica (Milan: Jaca Book, 2003), pp. 272-74; and Pina Belli D’Elia, ‘Restauri e scoperte in S. Francesco in Trani’, in Studi in onore di Giosuè Musca, ed. by Cosimo Damiano Fonseca (Bari: Dedalo, 2000), pp.  21-51 (pp.  25-26).

The church probably existed in the early part of the 12th century, but fell under the control of the Benedictines of SS. Trinità di Cava as early as 1168, bringing an increase in their fortunes as well as autonomy from local jurisdiction. The church was consecrated in 1184. 18  Belli D’Elia, Puglia Romanica, p. 204. 19  See discussion of restorations in Chapter 2.

Kappel, pp. 158-60. See Rossella de Cadilhac, Anita Guarnieri, and Gabriele Rossi, ‘Orizzontamenti’, in L’arte della costruzione in pietra: chiese di Puglia con cupole in asse dal secolo XI al XVI, ed. by Rossella de Cadilhac (Rome: Gangemi, 2008) for examples, including S. Spirito in Giovinazzo (pp.  212-13) and S. Felice in Balsignano (pp. 214-15).

20  21 

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Charts

Chart 1. Timeline of events relevant to the construction of S. Corrado in Molfetta. Date

Summary

Implications for Construction

1071 Oct. 1

First mention of a Bishop of Molfetta, present at the Consecration of Montecassino Abbey.1

Terminus post quem for promotion of the bishopric.

1136 Oct.

Mention of Bishop Iohannes of Molfetta and the existence of Cathedral exists on an institutional level. an agricultural plot belonging to sancte marie episcopii.2

1184 Oct.

Testamentary donation by Griso, iudex (judge) from Molfetta, referring to expenditure for ‘completing’ the works.3

1236 Aug. 3

Donation by Gaydelgrima, citizen of Terlizzi and daughter of Fabrica receiving funds. one Luca from Molfetta.4

1252 Sept. 8

Testamentary donation by Grifo, iudex (judge) from Molfetta.5

1256 Sept. 15

Testamentary donation by Curileone, including funds for the Construction still in progress. campana magna (‘great bell’) and its mounting during the construction of the cathedral.6

1285 Apr. 29

Bishop Angelus demands tribute from S. Margherita in Molfetta in gold to expedite construction on the cathedral.7

Terminus post quem for beginning of construction.

Fabrica receiving funds.

Construction still in progress.

Chart 2. Hypothetical phases of construction at S. Corrado in Molfetta: a) Phase 1 (hall crypt); b) Phase 2 (beginnings of transept basilica); c) Phase 3 (introduction of axial-domes plan); d) Phase 4 (continuation of axial-domes plan with squinch domes); and e) Phase 5 (completion of middle and west domes, using cuffia squinches).

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Chart 3. Churches featuring squinch domes with pseudo-pendentives (filled circle) and horizontally coursed squinches (double circle).

Site

Squinches are supported by pseudo-pendentives

Squinches are coursed horizontally

Molfetta, S. Corrado

X

X

Bari, Cathedral

X

X

Bari, S. Nicola

X

X

Orsara, S. Angelo

X

X

Teramo, Cathedral

X

X

Ascoli Piceno, S. Maria inter vineas

X

X

Ascoli Piceno, S. Tommaso

X

X

Ch arts

147

Chart 4. Churches featuring rotated-square transept plan, some with east facade and blind arcade (filled circle).

Site

148

Transept has east facade with blind arcade

Molfetta, S. Corrado

X

Bitetto, Cathedral

 

Conversano, Cathedral

 

Ronzano, S. Maria

X

Arch i t ect ur e of D i s jun ct ur e

Chart 5. Churches with domes, quadrant vaults, and axial square bays with 2:1 nave-to-aisle: three longitudinal bays (filled circle), multiple domes (double circle).

Site

Plan is three bays long

Multiple axial domes

Molfetta, S. Corrado

X

X

Trani, S. Francesco

X

X

Lama Volara, S. Leonardo

X

X

Cuti, SS. Ognissanti

X

X

Fasano, Church of Seppannibale

X

Brindisi, S. Benedetto

   

Conversano, S. Benedetto

X

X

Troia, S. Basilio

 

 

Trani, S. Antonio Abate

X

X

Bitonto, S. Domenico

X

Savasse, N. Dame la Blanche

     

Garde-Adhémar, S. Michel

X

S. Maria di Calena

NOTES Die Chronik von Montecassino, pp. 398-99. 2  Archivio della Badia di Cava, Arm. G. 19, A and Arm. G. 20; cited by Kappel, p. 265. 3  Codice diplomatico Barese  VII, doc.  70, pp.  89-92; cited by Kappel, p. 265. 1 

 

X

   

Codice diplomatico Barese  III, doc.  233, pp.  253ff; cited Kappel, pp. 265-66. 5  Codice diplomatico Barese  VII, doc.  101, pp.  129-32; cited Kappel, p. 266. 6  Codice diplomatico Barese  VII, doc.  109, pp.  140-41; cited Kappel, p. 266. 7  Codice diplomatico Barese  VII, doc.  144, pp.  184-86; cited Kappel, p. 266. 4 

by by by by

Ch arts

149

Bibliography

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