Lombard Legacy: Cultural Strategies and the Visual Arts in Early Medieval Italy 1904597343, 9781904597346

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Lombard Legacy Cultural Strategies and the Visual Arts in Early Medieval Italy

Lombard Legacy Cultural Strategies and the Visual Arts in Early Medieval Italy John Mitchell

Pindar Press London 2018

Published by Pindar Press 30 Wentworth Drive Middlesex HA5 2PU · UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 904597 34 6

Printed by Short Run Press Ltd Exeter, Devon EX2 7LW This book is printed on acid-free paper

Contents Preface

i

The Arts in Early Medieval Italy I

Artistic Strategies and Cultural Patronage in Lombard Italy

1

II

The Power of Patronage and the Iconography of Quality in the Era of 774

40

III

The Painted Decoration of San Salvatore in Brescia in Context

66

IV

St. Johann at Müstair: The Painted Decoration in Context

140

V

The Wall-Paintings in Santa Maria foris Portas at Castelseprio and the Tower at Torba. Reflections and Reappraisal

185

Farfa Revisited: The Early Medieval Monastic Church

247

VI

San Vincenzo al Volturno VII

VIII

Literacy Displayed: The Use of Inscriptions at the Monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the Early Ninth Century

295

The Crypt Reappraised

339

IX

Spatial Hierarchy and the Uses of Ornament in an Early Medieval Monastery

411

X

A Word on Ornament

450

XI

Art of Many Colours: The Dadoes of San Vincenzo and Issues of Marbling in the Post-Roman World

454

XII

The Early Medieval Monastery as a Site of Commemoration and a Place of Oblivion

484

XIII

Cult, Relics and Privileged Burial at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the Age of Charlemagne: The Discovery of the Tomb of Abbot Talaricus (817 – 8th October 823)

501

XIV

Script about the Cross: The Tombstones of San Vincenzo al Volturno

522

XV

The Workshops of San Vincenzo al Volturno: Phases of Production and Dynamics of a Ninth-Century Monastery

553

XVI

A Carved Ivory Head from San Vincenzo al Volturno

592

XVII

An Early Medieval Enamel

613

XVIII

A Set of Sword Belt Mounts of Iron Inlaid with Silver and Associated Bridle-Furniture

631

XIX

The San Vincenzo Community in Capua

676

XX

Giudizio sul Mille: Rome, Montecassino, San Vincenzo al Volturno and the Beginnings of the Romanesque

695

Bibliography

713

Index

727

Acknowledgements

747

Preface

T

hese essays are the traces of a prolonged engagement with the arts of the Italian peninsular in the early medieval centuries. It is in the nature of such a collection of occasional studies they do not form a fully coherent and interrelated whole. However, a degree of underlying coherence is present in two factors, one locational and thematic, the other conceptual. The first is the two decades of excavation at the early Lombard monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, which constitute the focal point of reference for the majority of the individual chapters. The second is the thesis that visual strategies developed in the orbit of the royal and ducal courts of Lombard Italy in the course of the eighth century established paradigms of architectural and artistic practice and use that were largely to determine the course of the development of a new visual culture in the trans-European polity that Charlemagne was putting together in the years around 800. These in turn gave rise to some of the dominant artistic currents followed by artists in the following centuries. The essays in the first section address the actions of patrons and practitioners throughout the peninsular, indeed across the European continent. The first is a wide survey of the visual strategies developed at the courts of Lombard Italy and papal Rome, while the second looks at a single aspect of elite visual production, the way in which major patrons across Europe vied with their peers in finding craftsmen capable of producing buildings and artifacts to a surpassingly high specification of design and finish, with awesome quality as an index of political and social position and dynastic ambition. These are followed by studies of the pictorial decoration of particular buildings: San Salvatore in Brescia, a major Lombard ducal foundation from the period with surviving pictorial decoration, St Johann at Müstair, founded by Charlemagne in the mid 770s, immediately after his annexation of the Lombard kingdom, embellished by painters steeped in a north Italian tradition of aulic practice, and the enigmatic church of Santa Maria foris portas at Castelseprio. The latter may, like San Salvatore di Brescia, have provided elite funerary and commemorative provision; its

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complex painted imagery finds some of its closest analogues in the northern Lombard tradition of court art, although its date, in unsettled dispute since its discovery 70 years ago, now seems most likely to have been some two centuries after the collapse of Lombard rule in northern Italy. The last case study is Farfa in the Sabina, a day’s journey to the north east of Rome, where the abbey-church has commonly been misread and mis-orientated. Here in the second half of the eighth century the church was restructured, with a ring-crypt, the latest word in relic provision, and with painted scenes of a sophistication analogous to contemporary work in the northern and southern Lombard duchies. All the essays in the second section revolve around San Vincenzo al Volturno, one of the great monasteries of early medieval Italy, located on a plateau close to the source of the River Volturno, in the shadow of the high Mainarde range of mountains. San Vincenzo has been the site of major archaeological excavations and surveys over the past forty years and is by far the best preserved of any European monastic site from the period. Churches, monastic buildings, workshops, cemeteries, as well as the surrounding landscape of settlement, survive in plan and often in considerable elevation, with two painted crypts from the ninth century, a wealth of painted decoration from walls throughout the complex, and an extraordinary assemblage of material remains from the institutional, productive and everyday life of the monastery — capitals and architectural fittings, tombstones, glass windows, lamps and vessels, enameled plaques from liturgical objects and book-covers, copper and iron mounts and fittings of all kinds, including dress-accessories and sword-belt mounts, elements from horse-bridles and spurs, and artifacts in carved ivory and bone. A striking feature of the monastery in its heyday, in the first half of the ninth century, was the amount of writing prominently visible on the walls, floors and even the roofs of all the spaces of the monastery. The monks were buried in the atrium of the main abbey church, San Vincenzo Maggiore, their graves marked by stones carved with elegant epitaphs in large, deeply cut, carefully formed letters; prophets painted on the walls of the Assembly Hall, adjacent to the monks’ refectory, held up scrolls prominently inscribed with passages from their prophesies, and Christ and Mary in an early ninthcentury funerary oratory under the apse of the guest church hold open books, showing very readable texts; something like half of the large terracotta tiles which paved the floors of the halls, rooms and corridors of the monastic quarters, and an equivalent proportion of the tiles which covered their roofs,

PREFACE

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carried the contracted names of their makers, probably members of the community, in large characters drawn into the still soft clay before firing; and the dedicatory inscription, described in the Chronicon Vulturnense, which abbot Joshua set high on the façade of his new abbey church in 808, was set in gilded bronze letters, a foot high, one of a bare handful of such metal inscriptions known between the latest Roman instances in the 5th century and the 16th century, when they finally came back into general use. The first chapter in this section addresses the phenomenon of a community which appears to have seized on the written word as its signature mark. The essays in this section discuss aspects of the ubiquitous polychrome painted decoration which would have been the other prominent visual feature to meet the eyes of visitors to San Vincenzo. The first of these is an analysis of the imagery on the walls of the subterranean funerary oratory beneath the guest church, a complex programme centering on salvation for the deceased by way of a path of humility and service exemplified in a hierarchy of models, from martyr saints to Mary, and Christ himself. Below and around the figural imagery, the walls of the monastery were painted with high dadoes, imitating book-matched panels of polychrome polished veined marble in the rooms of the claustrum and complex visual riffs on marble opus sectile in the corridors of the annular crypt of S. Vincenzo Maggiore. This was a visual idiom which appears to have enjoyed a revival in Italy and subsequently in transalpine Europe in the 8th and 9th centuries. At San Vincenzo it was deployed in a range of ranked variants to establish a coherent visual ethos throughout the complex and to articulate the status and functions of the various spaces. Underlying the introduction of this idiom were experiments with painted marbling in the residences of the new Arab elite in the Umayyad caliphate, preserved in modern Jordan, Palestine and Syria. These issues are addressed in the three following studies. Three further essays pick up on themes of commemoration and burial, which were present throughout the fabric of the monastery — in portrait images of members of the monastic community and their benefactors, in oratories where the deceased would be remembered in funerary masses, and in the cemeteries where the graves of the monks, their patrons and their servants were framed in visible compounds, in graves that often had brightly painted interior walls and in the case of the monks were marked by stone slabs carved with their epitaphs. The graves were commonly painted with red and white crosses on their inner walls, surrounding and protecting the deceased from invasive harmful spirits and also seemingly standing as

iv

beacons of victory over death and points of passage to everlasting life in a world beyond. These crosses figured large, almost as a signature feature, in the designs on the faces of many of the stones which marked the burial places of the monks, with the lines of the epitaphs deployed about their arms. The following group of studies is devoted to San Vincenzo’s workshops and their production over the course of the ninth century. The first essay offers a concise overview of the various phases and the changing sites of industrial production at the monastery: first early temporary work-spaces producing tiles, copper and glass artifacts and lime-mortar for construction, sited directly in front of the new basilica of San Vincenzo Maggiore and later covered by the atrium and monks’ cemetery. Subsequently new workshop ranges were constructed immediately to the south of the atrium, in the first phase a line of buildings in pisé, later replaced by a range of ateliers in masonry construction. These underwent a major restructuring in the 840s, when two of the spaces were dedicated to the production of fine metalwork and enameling, another was converted into a residence for the Chamberlain, the monk responsible for overseeing craft production, and other old workrooms were reshaped for agricultural use. Particular artifacts made in the workshops are discussed in individual chapters: a striking head of a saint, carved from a scrap of new ivory, a fragment of a complex gilded plaque with figural imagery, made up of sections of polychrome cloisonné enamel, and an ornate set of sword-belt and scabbard mounts with a uniform fitting from a horse’s bridle, in iron embellished with foliate ornament in silver inlay. This last set is a variant of a typical north European, Carolingian baldric and bridle set, translated into an Italian idiom, executed in a traditional Lombard technique involving the inlay of polished iron with colourful and precious metals. San Vincenzo, like almost all other monastic institutions in western Europe, fell into steep decline after the mid ninth century, and in 881 it was attacked and sacked by Saracen mercenaries in the employ of the bishop and duke of Naples, intent on securing the treasure of the monastery and determined to eliminate what he saw as a rival to his interests in the region. The community escaped to Capua, where it established a new seat, under the patronage of the princes, Atenulf and Landulf, and built a new church and monastic complex. In the course of the following century, the monks reoccupied by stages the old site at the source of the Volturno, rebuilding the main abbey church around 1000 and reshaping a new smaller cloistered monastery adjoining the old basilica and its atrium in the third quarter of

PREFACE

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the century. Finally in the years around 1100, the decision was taken to abandon the old site and to construct a new walled fortified monastery on the other side of the river, half a kilometer to the east. One of the two final essays discusses the fortunes of the community during the exile in Capua, the second a particular aspect of visual production probably to be associated with the short-lived renucleation of the monastery around the rebuilt old abbey church, soon after the middle of the eleventh century. Here fragments of architectural sculpture in a simplified classicizing idiom announce the beginnings of a new cultural climate, which in architecture and the arts involved an interest in working stone in the round and a renewed engagement with forms and surfaces ultimately derived from Roman antiquity, the so-called first Romanesque. One of the most revealing aspects of the arts of this period is the critical role played by international contacts in artistic production. On the one hand this could lead to the formation of a whole new tenor in the artistic culture of a region or polity, or to engagement with a new medium with all its possibilities, while on the other hand it could involve a single moment of impact and take-up without substantive outcome, or the presence of chance imported artifacts valued for their foreign exoticism. Old explanatory paradigms, like Byzantium and the West, the assumed, almost self-evident, prime agency of Byzantine models in East-West relations, still alive and dominant in the 1960s, find strangely little support in the material and artistic record as it now appears. Other points of contact and impact are becoming apparent. The determining role played by the architectural and artistic strategies of the courts of Lombard Italy in the creation of new artistic norms in Carolingian Francia in the aftermath of Charlemagne’s annexation of the Lombard kingdom is one of these. A plethora of particular leitmotifs and italianisms in Carolingian buildings and artifacts chart this process. In turn, northern Carolingian types and patterns in ornate metal fittings were adopted and imitated beyond the borders of the Frankish kingdoms, in southern Scandinavia and along the Baltic in the north, in Great Moravia to the east and to the far south in the southern Lombard principality, at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the sword-belt mounts, bridle fittings and spurs fashioned in the monastery’s workshops. The adoption of gypsum stucco as a medium of architectural embellishment in high relief by Lombard masons and subsequently in Carolingian Francia, marks another such point of contact, learned from the Arab caliphate, where gypsum was a major medium for the decorative finishing of buildings in the great

vi

explosion of elite construction that had got under way in the late seventh century. This was itself a continuation of an old Sassanian Persian tradition of ornamentation in stucco. The striking analogies to be found between the painted marbled dadoes at San Vincenzo and a range of features in the painted decoration of San Salvatore in Brescia, on the one hand, and in the arts of the Umayyad desert palaces in the early eighth century, on the other, show that the impact of recent Arab cultural developments was not limited to gypsum stucco but was absorbed into the heart of artistic practice in the West. At the other end of the spectrum of cultural contact and engagement, the range of extraordinary small finds from the excavations at San Vincenzo exemplify the disparate variety of exotic bits and pieces that could find their ways to a focal institution of this kind along the landways and seaways between East and West, North and South in these centuries: an escutcheon from a hanging bowl from Anglo-Saxon England, an exquisite little panel of millefiore glass from Alexandria, lustre-ware and a delicate gold-glass vessel from the Umayyad caliphate, a sword-guard of nephrite jade from western China, and a finely worked soapstone vessel and a Neolithic axehead of polished green amphibolitic schist, both from the Alps, the axehead found in the southern workshop range where it may have hung in the rafters to avert lightning-strike. At San Vincenzo al Volturno both the firmly embedded paths of inspiration and imitation from the Carolingian north and from the Arab south-eastern Mediterranean and the occasional one-off arrival of an object of rare wonder expertly wrought in an exotic material show how a central place of the period could sit at the nexus of a particular, often irregular but vital web of contacts and connections which could extend far beyond the limits of the known world. A number of the essays included in this collected have multiple authors. I make no apology for this; just an explanation. I have worked closely with archaeologists for most of my professional life — the advantages and opportunities this affords to someone interested in the architecture and art of the early medieval period are legion — and archaeology is always a collaborative enterprise. Colleagues are mines of information and method, and collaboration becomes an engrained habit of operation. However, in the case of the multiple-authored items reproduced here I was the lead author and bear the burden of responsibility for the shape of the piece and the views expressed. Beyond this I owe a boundless debt to Richard Hodges, who invited me to join in the adventure of San Vincenzo almost at its inception and has been a constant source of inspiration and support ever since. I have

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tried the patience of Liam Gallagher and Tom Symonds, the moving spirits behind Pindar Press, well beyond the bounds of normal human endurance and would like to thank them for their invitation to publish with them and for their immense forbearance. John Mitchell

The Arts in Early Medieval Italy

I Artistic Patronage and Cultural Strategies in Lombard Italy

T

he history of European art in the eighth and ninth centuries is still commonly constructed, as it has been since the beginning of this century at least, around the presupposition that most of the really important initiatives originated roughly on the Rhine-Meuse axis, in the territories around the borders of modern France and Germany, with a significant if somewhat idiosyncratic contribution from Middle Saxon England and from Ireland. The Asturian kingdom in northern Spain gets a brief mention. The peninsula of Italy, in which some categories of production, like wall-painting and mosaic from this period, have survived more extensively than in any other region of Europe, is effectively ignored, with the marked exception of papal Rome, which enjoyed a special relationship with the Frankish rulers. Much is missing from this equation, and the purpose of this paper is to consider briefly the situation in some of the Lombard areas of Italy and to see how this may have related to what was happening in Rome and in the polities north of the Alps. In Italy the focus will be particularly on what was happening in and around cities and central places in the various Lombard duchies — those in the north more or less subject to the control of the king in Pavia, those in the south, Spoleto and Benevento, more or less independent and autonomous. The Artistic Patronage of the Lombard Courts in the Eighth Century The artistic patronage of the Lombard courts and the Lombard elite in the century before the Carolingian annexation of northern Italy in 773–774 was one of the most sophisticated, ambitious and refined in Europe.1 Its role 1 For a synoptic account of Lombard material and artistic culture, see I Longobardi, ed. G.G. Menis (Milan, 1990).

2

in the evolution of Carolingian court culture and even English Anglo-Saxon art has been seriously underestimated.2 To judge from the surviving material evidence, it was in the first half of the eighth century that the Lombard kings and aristocracy began to commission increasingly ambitious and impressive buildings and to decorate them with sculptural ornament and probably also paintings of considerable technical quality and sophistication. Inadequate archaeological data and a general lack of contextual evidence often make it impossible to be exact over the dating of excavated material from this period, but the surviving evidence, in particular a range of remarkable sculptural elements from high-status sites and buildings in the north, are usually assigned to the reign of King Liutprand (712–744).3 Characteristic of the sophisticated workmanship of this production are the well-known fragment of a transenna carved in relief with a lamb or a deer drinking from a chalice, found on the site of Liutprand’s summer residence at Corteolona (Fig. 1),4 the two magnificent stone screens carved with affronted peacocks and winged sea-lions from S. Maria Teodote (della Pusterla) in the Lombard capital at Pavia (Fig. 2),5 and the fragments of fine architectural sculpture

However, a number of authors have drawn attention to Lombard sculpture of the early eighth century as a possible analogue to, and influence on, masons working in Britain in the period: R. Cramp, ‘Mediterranean elements in the early medieval sculpture of England’, Union Internationale des Sciences Préhistoriques el Protohistoriques, IXe Congrès, Colloque 30 (1977), pp. 263–295; idem, ‘Anglo-Saxon and Italian sculpture’, Angli e Sassoni al di qua e al di là del mare. Settim. di Spoleto 32 (1984), 1, pp. 125–142; R.H.I. Jewel, ‘The Anglo-Saxon friezes at Breedon-on-the-Hill, Leicestershire’, Archaeologia 108 (1986), pp. 95–115, at p. 97; R.N. Bailey, England’s Earliest Sculptors (Toronto, 1996), pp. 30, 52–57; J. Mitchell, ‘Script about the cross: The tombstones of San Vincenzo al Volturno’, Roman, Runes and Ogham: Medieval Inscriptions in the Insular World and on the Continent, eds. K. Forsyth, J. Higgitt and D. Parsons (Donington, 2001). 3 Menis, I Longobardi, passim; and the survey of the architecture and art of the period in A. Peroni, ‘L’arte nell’età longobarda: una traccia’, Magistra barbaritas: I barbari in Italia, ed. G.P. Carratelli (Milan, 1984), pp. 229–297. at pp. 255–292. 4 G. Galderini, ‘Il palazzo di Liutprando a Corteolona’, Contributi dell’Istituto di Archeologia 5 (1975), pp. 1 74–203. pls. XX–XXI; A. Peroni. Pavia, Musei Civici del Castello Visconteo: Musei d’Italia–Meraviglie d’Italia Bologna, 1975), pp. 26–27, cat. 120; Peroni. ‘L’arte nell’età longobarda: una traccia’, fìg. 168; A.M. Romanini. ‘Committenza regia e pluralismo culturale nella “Langobardia Major”’, Committenti e produzione artistico-letteraria nell’alto Medioevo occidentale. Settim. di Spoleto 39 (1991), pp. 83–84, figs. 38–39; Menis, I Longobardi, cat. VII, 19. 5 A. Peroni, ‘Il monastero altomedievale di S. Maria”Teodote” a Pavia: ricerche urbanistiche e architettoniche’, Studi Medievali, Ser. 3, 12/1 (1972), pp. 1–43; Peroni, Pavia, 2

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from the now demolished church of S. Maria d’Aurona in Milan.6 By the middle of the eighth century and in the decades immediately before the Frankish invasion and the suppression of the northern Kingdom in 773–774, this fashion for elaborate architectural commissions and for lavish decoration in carved stone, stucco, mosaic and painting seems to have spread to the various Longobard duchies in central and southern Italy. The trend is very apparent in S. Salvatore in Brescia, the female monastery founded by duke (later king) Desiderius and his wife Ansa in 754. Here the sculptural decoration usually assigned to this phase of the basilica is sophisticated in conception and extraordinarily competent in execution. The famous peacock reliefs, from an ambo or screen, like most Lombard sculpture of this period in northern Italy, is based on a fifth- or sixth-century model seen at Ravenna.7 This is the work of a craftsman who looked to late antique sculpture for inspiration, and yet translated his model into a new idiom, more refined and elegant even than the original. The same phenomenon, a sculptural idiom derived from an early Byzantine tradition, is apparent in Pavia and Milan earlier in the century. Fragments from a slab from a Pavian church, perhaps S. Tommaso, cut for an elaborate inlay of coloured stone or glass paste (Fig. 3),8 are clearly designed to emulate late antique inlaid church furniture of a kind that is known from the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, like the colonnettes from the ciborium of Juliana Musei Civici del Castello Visconteo, pp. 28–29, cat. 126–129; Peroni, ‘L’arte nell’età longobarda: una traccia’, figs. 166–167; Menis, I Longobardi, cat. VI, 24 and VII, 16–17. 6 P. Dianzani, Santa Maria d’Aurona a Milano. Fasi altomedievali (Florence, 1989). See also: S. Casartelli Novelli, ‘Nota sulla scultura’, I longobardi e la Lombardia, saggi. Milano, Palazzo Reale dal 12 ottobre 1978 (Milan, 1978), pp. 75–101, at pp. 81–82, figs. 10–23; Peroni, ‘L’arte nell’età longobarda: una traccia’, figs. 159–161; Paolo Diacono, Storia dei Longobardi, eds. C. Leonardi and R. Cassanelli [Milan. 1985). figs. 282–286: Menis, I Longobardi, cat. 15. 7 G. Panazza, ‘Osservazioni sui frammenti scultorei di S. Salvatore’, S. Giulia di Brescia. Archeologia, arte, storia di un monastero regio dai Longobardi al Barbarossa. Atti del convegno, Brescia 1990, eds. C. Stella and G. Brentegani (Brescia, 1992), pp. 231–236, figs, on pp. 240–241; Peroni, ‘L’arte nell’età longobarda: una traccia’, figs. 177–178; M. Brezzi, C. Calderini, M. Rotili, L’Italia dei longobardi (Milan, 1987), fig. 22. Analogous peacocks figure on various monuments from Ravenna, for instance on the so-called sarcophagus of the Twelve Apostles and on that of Archbishop Theodore, both in S. Apollinare in Classe (G. Bovini, ‘Corpus’ della scultura paleocristiana bizantina ed altomedioevale di Ravenna, 2 [Rome, 1968], cat. 16 and 24). 8 Peroni. Pavia, Musei Civici del Castello Visconteo, pp. 22–23, cat. 88–89; Menis, I Longobardi, cat. VII.20.

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Anicia’s great early sixth-century church of St. Polyeuktos, and the furniture from the church of St. Euphemia, by the Hippodrome;9 and a little fragment of the arch of a ciborium, from King Liutprand’s foundation of S. Maria d’Aurona in Milan, in its use of raised script, follows a convention common in elite churches in Byzantium (Fig. 4);10 here again a comparison can be made with St. Polyeuktos, with the great dedicatory inscription running round the interior of the nave.11 The painted decoration of these eighth-century Lombard churches is similarly fragmentary in its preservation, but where it does survive, as in the vast but battered scheme in San Salvatore in Brescia, it shows artists working in a remarkably expert and refined idiom, executing complex narratives with inventive iconographies.12 The situation is the same at Cividale, in S. Maria in Valle, the so-called ‘Tempietto Longobardo’, a chapel which may have been designed to serve the needs of the Gastald, the king’s officer in the capital of the duchy of Friuli, St. Polyeuctos: R.M. Harrison, Excavations al Saraçhane in Istanbul. 1 (Princeton, 1986), pp. 129–130, figs. 138–140; R.M. Harrison, A Temple for Byzantium (London, 1989), p. 78, ills. 82–83, 94; R. Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (4th edition, Harmondsworth, 1986), pp. 220–222, fig. 179). St. Euphemia: R. Naumann and H. Belting. Die Euphemia-kirche am Hippodrom zu Istanbul (Berlin, 1966), pp. 53–67, figs. 21–23, 25. pls. 6–8; Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, fig. 178. 10 Dianzani, Santa Maria d’Aurona a Milano: Paolo Diacono. Storia dei Longobardi, eds. C. Leonardi and R. Cassanelli (Milan. 1985), fig. 284. 11 Harrison, Excavations at Saraçliane in Istanbul, pp. 117 119, figs. A, B, 87–88, 91, 93 100; Harrison, A Temple for Byzantium, pp. 33–34, 84, ills. 31, 86–89, 95, 96, 98, 99, 160, 168. Architectural inscriptions of this kind, with the letters carved in raised relief, are found elsewhere in late antique buildings in the eastern Mediterranean, for instance in the early sixth-century church of SS. Sergius and Bacchus in Istanbul (Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, fig. 184). 12 G. Panazza, ‘Gli scavi, l’architettura e gli affreschi della Chiesa di San Salvatore in Brescia’, in La Chiesa di San Salvatore in Brescia. Atti dell’ottavo Congresso di Studi sull’arte dell’alto Medioevo 2, ed. G. Panazza and A. Peroni (Milan, 1992), 5–228; C. Bertelli, … S. Giulia di Brescia. Archeologia, arte, storia di un monastero regio dai Longobardi al Barbarossa. Atti del convegno, Brescia 1990, eds. C. Stella and G. Brentegani (Brescia, 1992), 217–230. Recent work by G.P. Brogiolo has shown that the painted decoration of the church probably dates from the reign of King Desiderius and not from the ninth century, as has often been argued (G.P. Brogiolo, ‘La sequenza altomedievale della cripta di San Salvatore in Brescia’, Wandmalerei des frühen Mittelalters: Bestand. Maltechnik, Konservierung, ed. M. Exner (Munich, 1998), pp. 35–39; G.P. Brogiolo, ‘La nuova sequenza architettonica e il problema degli affreschi del San Salvatore di Brescia’, Arte d’Occidente: Temi e Metodi. Studi in onore di Angiola Maria Romanini Rome, 1999), 25–34. 9

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soon after 750.13 The carefully vaulted structure with its fancy brickwork and its sumptuous scheme of decoration, encompassing mosaics on the vaults of the sanctuary, elaborate figural and ornamental stuccoes, and a programme of paintings executed in an apparently new aulic style — in part derived from the best Byzantine practice of the previous century — is one of the most splendid and ambitious commissions surviving from eighthcentury Europe.14 A similar predilection for prestige architecture existed in the Lombard duchy of Spoleto, in the basilica of S. Salvatore, on the outskirts of Spoleto itself, and in the so-called Tempietto del Clitunno, on the via Flaminia, some 20 kilometers north of the city.15 Both structures arguably are roughly contemporary with the chapel at Cividale, and probably also date from the first half or middle of the eighth century.16 The Tempietto seems to have been The fundamental study of S. Maria in Valle is H.P. L’Orange and H. Torp. ‘Il tempio longobardo di Cividale’, Acta ad archaeologiam el artium historian pertinentia (Institutum Romanum Norvegiae) 7, parts 1–3 (1977 and 1979). The recent bibliography in Italian is given in Menis, I Longobardi, cat. VIII.3. A ninth-century date has been ingeniously proposed by Carlo Bertelli (‘Traccia allo studio delle fondazioni medievali dell’arte italiana’, Storia dell’arte italiana, part II, Dal Medioevo al Novecento, ed. F. Zeri, 5, Dal Medioevo al Quattrocento [Turin. 1983], pp. 89–92). 14 For the Byzantine antecedents of the paintings at Cividale, see H. Torp, ‘Il problema della decorazione originaria del Tempietto longobardo di Cividale del Friuli’, Quaderni della FACE 18 (January–June 1959), pp. 5–47. 15 Prominent in the older literature are F.W. Deichmann, ‘Die Entstehungszeit von Salvatorische und Clitumnustempel bei Spoleto’, Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts, römische Abteilung 58 (1943), 1–2, pp. 106–148; M. Salmi, La basilica di San Salvatore di Spoleto Florence, 1951). More recently, E. Russo, ‘Su S. Salvatore di Spoleto e sul “Tempietto del Clitumno”’, Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia (Institutum Romanum Norvegiae, ser. altera in 8o) 8 (1992), pp. 87–143. Two monographic studies on San Salvatore and the Tempietto have appeared in the last two years: J.J. Emerick, The Tempietto del Clituno near Spoleto (University Park, Pennsylvania, 1998), and C. Jäggi, San Salvatore in Spoleto. Studien zur spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Architektur Italiens (Wiesbaden, 1998). 16 I have argued for a mid-eighth-century date for the Tempietto in: J. Mitchell. ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’, Testo e immagine nell’alto Medioevo. Settim. di Spoleto 41 (1993), pp. 887–954, at pp. 945–949. See also J. Mitchell. ‘’The uses of spolia in Longobard Italy’. Antiken Spolien in der Architektur des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, ed. J. Poeschke (Munich, 1996), pp. 93–115, at pp. 94–97. Carbon-14 tests on material found recently in the façade-wall of San Salvatore, deposited behind the entablature over the central portal, are reported to have given a dating in the sixth or seventh century (G.P. Brogiolo, pers. comm.). An analysis of this material and its context may throw new light on the dating of the building. 13

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designed as a funerary oratory for a local aristocratic family, if not for the duke himself. Both buildings are quite exceptional for the classical Roman idiom in which they are conceived. The greater part of the carved ornament on both is new work, rather than spolia reused from ancient buildings, but designed and executed so cleverly and deceptively as to have deceived Andrea Palladio into thinking that the Tempietto was a Roman temple and to continue to mislead and baffle scholars to this day (Figs. 5 and 6).17 The shape of the Tempietto, its splendid leafy columns, its ornamental mouldings and the prominent inscriptions on the entablatures beneath its three pediments, all speak out to the visitor in a convincing Roman language. Similar cultural initiatives were followed in the more or less independent southern duchy of Benevento: a related interest in prestige architecture, complex in structure, striking in appearance and elegant and sophisticated in ornament and decoration. The surviving evidence is not extensive, but it is unequivocal. The clearest expression of this is the church of S. Sophia in Benevento, one of the best preserved and most complex structures of its time; constructed in the 760s, as a kind of national sanctuary, by Duke Arichis II (758–787), the son-in-law of the King in the north, Desiderius.18 Arichis, who was to maintain the independence of the southern duchy from Frankish dominion, today appears a somewhat shadowy figure, yet he must have been one of the most effective and enterprising rulers and one of the most ambitious patrons of his day.19 He extended his capital, Benevento, building a new quarter, the civitas nova, with a new circuit of walls;20 and built or extended the palace, probably with a palatine chapel dedicated to the Saviour,21 as well as 17 A. Palladio, L’architettura divisa in quattro libri (Venice, 1642, facsimile reproduction, Milan, 1968), 4, pp. 98–102. 18 H. Belting, ‘Studien zum beneventanischen Hof’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 16 (1962), pp. 175–193; M. Rotili. Benevento romana e longobarda: l’ immagine urbana (Naples, 1986), pp. 184–201. 19 On Arichis, see Belting, ‘Studien zum beneventanischen Hof’; P. Delogu. Mito di una città meridionale (Salerno, secoli VIII–XI) (Naples, 1977), chapter 1; Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 4 (Rome, 1962), pp. 71–78. 20 Delogu, Milo di una città meridionale, p. 16; Rotili, Benevento romana e longobarda: l’ immagine urbana, pp. 143 155. 21 Belting, ‘Studien zum beneventanischen Hof’, pp. 186–187; M. Cagiano de Azevedo, ‘Esistono una architettura e una urbanistica longobarde?’, La civiltà del Longobardi in Europa: Atti del Convegno internazionale sul tema, Roma/Cividale 1971 (Rome, 1974), pp. 289–329, at pp. 301–302; Delogu, Mito di una città meridionale, p. 23 n. 43; Rotili, Benevento romana e longobarda, pp. 107–109; P. Peduto, ‘Insediamenti longobardi

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founding the church of S. Sophia with its attendant female monastic house.22 The quality and pretensions of S. Sophia reside in its complex centralized design and vaulted structure, in its carefully selected reused ancient columns and capitals, and in the programme of painted decoration which once covered its whole interior (Fig. 7). The dedication also underlined the ambitions of its patron — it is recorded that the dedication to the Holy Wisdom expressly emulated the greatest church in Constantinople,23 which, like this far smaller church in Benevento, although not a palatine chapel proper, stood in close proximity to the precinct of the palace. The curious structure is best accounted for as an attempt by the best available local architect and masons, using the means and materials at their disposal, to imitate a famed building known to them only from verbal descriptions. After the Carolingian annexation of the northern Kingdom and duchies, Arichis, now having assumed the title of Prince, established a second capital on the coast at Salerno in the 770s and 780s. There he constructed a new circuit of walls extending the small existing settlement roughly four-fold. He also built a palace, looking out over the water; to judge from the account given by the anonymous tenth-century chronicler of Salerno, this was an impressive complex, magnificently decorated, with its main public chambers carefully designed and arranged so as to act as an effective and imposing setting for court ceremonial.25 Attached to the palace was a palatine chapel, dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, a large, lofty structure constructed over an old Roman thermal complex. This survives, somewhat battered, with the modern name of S. Pietro a Corte (Fig. 8). The chapel itself is on the upper storey, on a level with the upper apartments of the palace — a precocious instance of a type which was to become widespread in later centuries.26 The del ducato di Benevento (secc. VI–VIII)’, Longobardia, eds. S. Gasparri and P. Cammarosano (Udine, 1990), p. 319. 22 Belting, ‘Studien zum beneventanischen Hof’, pp. 175–93; Rotili, Benevento romana e longobarda, pp. 184–201. 23 Belting, ‘Studien zum beneventanischen Hof’, p. 183. 24 Delogu, Mito di una città meridionale, pp. 36–69. 25 Cagiano de Azevedo, ‘Esistono una architettura e una urbanistica longobarde?’, pp. 302–303; Delogu, Mito di una città meridionale, p. 44; P. Peduto, ‘Arechi II a Salerno: continuità e rinnovamento’, Rassegna storica salernitana 29, n.s. 15, 1 (1998), pp. 7–28. at pp. 12–16. 26 The construction of this lofty, two-storied, chapel by Arichis, within the confines of the palace at Salerno, is recorded by the anonymous author of the Chronicon Salernitanum. ed. U. Westerbergh [Stockholm. 1956), p. 22. See Delogu, Mito di una città meridionale, pp.

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interior of this chapel was airy and luminous, being lit by ranges of elegant arched windows. Paul the Deacon describes it as being gilded inside — presumably in part covered in golden glass mosaic — and doubtless the walls were painted.27 Sections of the pavement came to light during excavations in the late 1980s; this is of exceptionally fine quality, in opus sectile, with distinctive configurations of red porphyry, green serpentine and other rare stones, as well as specially moulded rectangular sections of various shapes and dimensions in green glass, with thickly gilded surfaces sandwiched beneath an upper transparent skin of glass.28 These glass panels were found in the area of the apse. They are quite exceptional and made it possible for gold sections to be included in the pavement or in the revetment of the santuary wall. They must have helped establish an atmosphere of sumptuous imperial splendour inside the chapel.29 An idiosyncratic feature of this building is the monumental inscription in gilded copper-alloy letters, a dedicatory text composed by Paul the Deacon, and set up either on its exterior, or, as has recently been argued, on its interior.30 In setting up this inscription, Arichis was clearly reviving 45–50. The chapel has been analysed and excavated by a team led by Paolo Peduto: M.P. and P. Peduto and M. Romito, ‘Chiesa di San Pietro a Corte’, Passeggiate salernitane 3 (1988), pp. 20–27; P. Peduto, ‘Un accesso alla storia di Salerno: stratigrafie e materiali dell’area palaziale longobarda: 1. La costituzione del documento archeologico e la sua interpretazione stratigrafica’, Rassegna storica salernitana, n.s. 5/2. 10 (1988), pp. 9–28: Peduto, ‘Insediamenti longobardi del ducalo di Benevento (secc. VI–VIII)’, pp. 324–326; Peduto, ‘Arechi II a Salerno’, pp. 15–17. The definitive publication of Peduto’s investigations is imminent. 27 The gilded decoration is referred to by Paul the Deacon in the verses he composed for the dedicatory inscription which was set up on the chapel. See K. Neff, Die Gedichte des Paulus Diacmius: kritische und erklärende Ausgabe (Munich, 1908), p. 18. 28 Peduto, ‘Un accesso alla storia di Salerno’, figs. 3–6; Peduto, ‘Insediamenti longobardi del ducato di Benevento’, pp. 325–326. This pavement is the subject of a recent, splendidly illustrated, monographic study: A. Di Muro, La cultura artistica della Longobardia minor nell’VIII secolo e la decorazione pavimentale e parietale della cappella palatina di Arechi II a Salerno (Naples, 1996). Di Muro argues that the gilded sections served as wall revetment, possibly in the area of the apse. See also F. Dell’Acqua, ‘Nota sui reperti vitrei del monastero di San Vincenzo al Volturno e della cappella palatina di Arechi I a Salerno’, Rassegna Storica Salernitana 27, n.S. 14, 1 (1997), pp. 243–257; Peduto, ‘Arechi II a Salerno’, pp. 23–25. 29 Di Muro effectively evokes the erstwhile splendor of the interior of the chapel with its brilliant polychrome marble pavement, its gilded revetment and its golden inscription (La cultura artistica della Longobardia minor nell’VIII secolo, pp. 19–34). 30 Peduto, ‘Un accesso alla storia di Salerno’, pp. 13, 42–45, fig. 1; Peduto, ‘Insediamenti longobardi del ducato di Benevento’, pp. 324–325, ill. on p. 325; P. Delogu, ‘Patroni,

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ancient Roman practice. Such gilded inscriptions on buildings were more or less totally abandoned in Late Antiquity — one of the last in the West is that on the Arch of Constantine in Rome — and they were not reintroduced until the mid-seventeenth century in Paris, in the time of Louis XIV. Largescale gilded copper inscriptions had been the most prestigious type of public lettering used in Roman Antiquity; but there are no more than a handful of examples surviving from the entire medieval period.31 An unusual detail of the painted decoration of Arichis’ church of S. Sophia, in Benevento, points in the same direction as the gilded bronze inscription at Salerno. This is an ornamental motif employed on the intradosses of two arches flanking the main portal, which once ran out from the façade of the church, and must originally have formed part of a porch or narthex.32 This is a version of a pattern which was in common use in the Roman imperial period and in Late Antiquity, consisting of ranks of particoloured overlapping semi-circular leaves. However, like the gilded copper inscription from Salerno, it is a motif which was almost never employed in the Middle Ages. In fact, it is known from only one other site — in the early ninth-century decoration of the southern Lombard monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, on the northern confines of the principality some 100 km north of Benevento.33 donatori, committenti nell’Italia meridionale longobarda’, Committenti e produzione artistico-letteraria nell’alto Medioevo occidentale. Settim. di Spoleto 39 (1991), p. 319; Mitchell, ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’, pp. 895–898; Di Muro, La cultura artistica della Longobardia minor nell’VIII secolo, pp. 32, 50–53, 55–56, fig. 35; Peduto, ‘Arechi II a Salerno’, pp. 17–22. Di Muro and Peduto argue that the inscription was set up, following a Byzantine fashion, in the interior of the chapel. See also U. Lobbedey and H. Westphal, ‘Beobachtungen zur Herrstellung der Monumentalinschrift am Westwerk zu Corvey’, Hammaburg, N.F. 12 (1998), pp. 157–164, at p. 162. 31 J. Mitchell, ‘Literacy displayed: the use of inscriptions at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the early ninth century’, The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. R. McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 186–225, at pp. 210–213; Mitchell, ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’, pp. 896–898; J. Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, San Vincenzo al Volturno, 3. The Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations, eds. J. Mitchell and I.L. Hansen (Spoleto, 2001), pp. 84–87, 94–109. 32 Mitchell, ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’, pp. 943–944, fig. 72; R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno (Abbey of Monte Cassino/Monteroduni, 1996), p. 113, fig. 4:69. 33 For discussions of the use of this motif in Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, see Mitchell, ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’, pp. 943–944;

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From the fragmentary surviving evidence, it would seem that Arichis, like his peers at Spoleto, was intent on creating an aulic style of building and a court art which was distinctly and curiously antique in tenor. But the antique citations employed are not the same as the ones used at Spoleto, and they are not ones in common use elsewhere in early medieval Europe. This would suggest that the southern Lombard ruler was aiming to develop a distinctive visual style, with unmistakable, indeed authentic, classical characteristics, but ideosyncratically and purposefully different from other similar initiatives in eighth-century Italy. This might be what one would expect of a situation of peer-polity rivalry in which neighbouring powers sought to promote their image and status through the creation of eye-catching visual apparatuses, and yet wished to appear distinct from their rivals, and indeed were determined to outdo and surpass their rivals in invention and novelty. San Vincenzo al Volturno Recent archaeological discoveries at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno have shed further light on the nature of the artistic culture of the court of Arichis. Here in the last years of the eighth century and in the first decades of the ninth, the relatively modest early eighth-century complex was completely redesigned and rebuilt, transformed, under its abbot Joshua (792–817), and his successors, Talaricus and Epyphanius, into a monastic city.34 The new monastery appears to have been laid out following an ordered, preconceived plan, and by the second quarter of the ninth century included eight churches, numerous conventual buildings, extensive ranges of workshops, agricultural buildings, barns and stores and a quarter for the lay community which served the monks. The principal focus of the new monastery was the main abbey church, S. Vincenzo Maggiore, a huge structure, an aisled basilica, some 63 metres long and 29 metres wide. The J. Mitchell, ‘Spatial hierarchy and the uses of ornament in an early medieval monastery’, L’ornement dans la peinture murale du Moyen Age, ed. D. Paris Poulain (Poitiers, 1997), pp. 35–55, at pp. 45–46. See also Hodges and Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno, pp. 83–87, 98–99, 13–14, figs. 4:26–8, 45–8. 34 R. Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno (London, 1997); R. Hodges, S. Gibson, J. Mitchell, ‘The making of a monastic city. The architecture of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the ninth century’, Papers of the British School at Rome 65, (1997) pp. 233–286.

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churches and the residential buildings were lavishly decorated and equipped, most interior walls being elaborately painted; furthermore, the excavation of the area of the workshops has shown that the San Vincenzo monks enjoyed an exceptionally rich material culture. There are clear connections between the artistic and material culture of this monastery in the early ninth century and that of the southern Lombard courts of the preceding generation.35 One brief example will suffice to make the point. We know that abbot Joshua set a large gilded copper inscription on the façade of his new basilica.36 Many fragments of this survive, and from the shape of the letters and from details of its construction, it is clear that it was directly modelled on an inscription like the one on Duke Arichis’ chapel at Salerno. There is nothing like them really anywhere else in Italy or Europe. San Vincenzo was a Lombard foundation: its principal endowments and benefactions throughout its history came from the Dukes and Princes of Benevento and the local Lombard elite, and Arichis II himself had been a major benefactor in the third quarter of the eighth century.37 In many ways, the artistic culture of San Vincenzo is best understood as the adaptation in a new monastic context of themes and motifs which had been developed in the Lombard capitals of Benevento and Salerno a generation or so earlier. Nowhere is this clearer than in the painted decoration of the ring crypt of the abbey-church, inserted into the main apse of Abbot Joshua’s basilica, by his successor Talaricus, c. 820, probably when the community acquired major relics of St. Vincent.38 The dadoes of the lower walls are in part well preserved. These constitute a sequence of designs which are remarkable for These are discussed by J. Mitchell, ‘Arichis und die Künste’, Für irdischen Ruhm und himmlischen Lohn. Stifter und Auftraggeber in der mittelalterlichen Kunst, ed. H.R. Meier, C. Jäggi, P. Büttner (Berlin, 1995), pp. 47–64 at pp. 52–54; and in Hodges and Mitchell, ‚The Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno, pp. 113–116. 36 A. Pantoni, ‘Due iscrizioni di S. Vincenzo al Volturno e il loro contributo alla storia del cenobio’, Samnium 35 (1962), pp. 74–84; A. Pantoni, Le chiese e gli edifici del monastero di San Vincenzo al Volturno (Monte Cassino, 1980), pp. 163–164, figs. 109 and 110; Mitchell, ‘Literacy displayed: the use of inscriptions at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the early ninth century’, pp. 205–216; Mitchell, ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’, pp. 916–918: Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, pp. 84–87, 94–109. 37 Chronicon Vulturnese del Monaco Giovanni, ed. V. Federici, 1 (Rome, 1925), passim; C. Wickham, ‘Monastic lands and monastic patrons’, San Vincenzo al Volturno, 2. The 1880–86 Excavations, Part II, ed. R. Hodges (London, 1995), pp. 138–152. 38 An initial description and analysis of Joshua’s abbey church, of its annular crypt and of the painted decoration of the basilica and crypt can be found in Hodges and Mitchell, 35

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the brilliance of their colour, their exuberant variety and sophistication of invention (Fig. 9). Here a ninth-century visitor would have been confronted by a dazzling display of colour and pattern: large ornate rotae (discs) and complex rectangular panels carrying perspectival compositions of great sophistication. This brilliant ornamental idiom has all the marks of having been designed not for a monastic context but for a secular, courtly, setting. Indeed, walking through the corridors of the crypt at San Vincenzo is probably the closest that we will ever come to walking through the state apartments of the palaces of Duke Arichis. The apparent origins and the general tenor of the designs seem to support this hypothesis. In general terms, the formal vocabulary is extraordinarily antique in appearance; indeed, some of the motifs at San Vincenzo seem to be direct citations from ancient buildings. For example, the frieze of perspective cubes, of so-called ‘tumbling blocks’, which runs round the walls of the crypt immediately above the dado, is a motif well-known in the Roman late Republican and early Imperial periods (Fig. 10)39 — very similar versions are to be seen in the marble pavements of the cella of the Temple of Apollo at Pompeii, in the tablinum of the House of the Faun and elewhere.40 But, aside from San Vincenzo, there is hardly another known use of this motif in the early Middle Ages. The patronage of Arichis II and the decoration of the crypt at San Vincenzo al Volturno well exemplify the nature and the vitality of Lombard court art in the second half of the eighth century, at the time when The Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno. It is now clear that the crypt was not an original feature of the basilica, but was inserted sometime after its completion in 808, probably c. 820, under Abbot Talaricus, possibly on the acquisition of major relics of St. Vincent. For the relics of St. Vincent at San Vincenzo, see J. Mitchell. L. Watson et al., ‘Cult, relics and privileged burial at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the age of Charlemagne: the discovery of the tomb of Abbot Talaricus (817–3 October 823)’, I Congresso Nazionale di Archeologia Medievale, Pisa 1997, ed. S. Gelichi (Florence, 1997), pp. 315–321. 39 The Roman use of this motif is discussed by: E.M. Moormann and L.J.E Swinkels, ‘Lozenges in perspective’, La peinture murale romaine dans les provinces de l’Empire, ed. A. Barbet (BAR, Intern. Ser. 165, Oxford, 1983), pp. 239–262. 40 Temple of Apollo: F. Guidobaldi, ‘Pavimenti in opus sectile di Roma e dell’area romana: proposte per una clasificazione e criteri di datazione’. Marmi antichi: problemi d’ impiego, di restauro e d’ identificazione (Rome, 1985), p. 211, pl. 15,1; House of the Faun: R. Ling, Roman Painting (Cambridge, 1991), fig. 15; R. Ling, Ancient Mosaics (London, 1998), fig. 19.

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Charlemagne was intervening in Italian affairs. In short, it would appear that, by the middle of the century, the King, the dukes and the elite families in the various Lombard areas of Italy were engaging in some kind of peerpolity rivalry. They seem to have been undertaking ambitious architectural enterprises, encouraging masons to develop new sculptural languages, in part based on antique models, and requiring these craftsmen to work to exceptionally high levels of competence. The idiom in the various areas differed, but the various formal dialects would all have been mutually comprehensible. In a period in which the political geography of Italy was changing, and at a time of developing trade, in which societies were becoming more complex, more outward-looking and consequently more aware of their own images, the ruling elites were developing showy, sometimes spectacular, cultural programmes, in order to promote their own interests and to express their peer status.41 Papal Rome In a sense, the papal State of Rome can be understood as following similar cultural strategies to those of the Lombard duchies, but to a different rhythm. The popes, sporadically throughout the eighth century, had built for themselves extremely richly appointed — if small — funerary oratories inside the basilica of Old St. Peter’s.42 For the most part these were vaulted structures, with splendid antique spolia incorporated into their fabric, and decorated with mosaics. Those on the walls of the oratory of Pope John VII, one of the earliest of these chapels, like the arts associated with the Lombard courts, appear to have been distinctly Byzantine in idiom.43 These oratories On Lombard Italy in the eighth century, see G. Tabacco, Egemonie sociali e strutture del potere nel Medioevo italiano (Turin, 1973), translated as The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy (Cambridge, 1989), chapter 2; C. Wickham, Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local Society, 400–1000 (London, 1981); T.F.X. Noble, The Republic of St. Peter: The Birth of the Papal State, 680–825 (Philadelphia, 1984). 42 I. Herklotz, ‘Sepulcra’ e ‘monumenta’ del Medioevo. Studi sull’arte sepolcrale in Italia (Rome, 1985); M. Borgolte, Petrusnachfolge und Kaiserimitation. Die Grablegen der Papste, ihre Genese und Traditionsbildung (Göttingen, 1989), pp. 94–119; J. Mitchell, ‘The crypt reappraised’, San Vincenzo al Volturno, 1. The 1980–86 Excavations, Part 1. ed. R. Hodges (London, 1993), pp. 112–114 (reprinted in this volume, ch. 8). 43 P.J. Nordhagen, ‘’The Mosaics of John VII’, Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia 2 (1965), pp. 121–166; M. Andaloro, ‘I mosaici dell’Oratorio di Giovanni 41

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were on a small scale; but Pope John also constructed an official residence, an episcopium, on the north flank of the Palatine Hill, overlooking the Roman Forum, and refurbished and decorated there the church of S. Maria Antiqua, with paintings and some sculpted elements similarly in a generally Byzantine idiom.44 And in the middle of the eighth century Pope Zacharias built a new elevated triclinium, an audience hall, ‘adorned with varieties of marble, glass metal, mosaic and painting’, and a ceremonial portico and towered gate-house at the Lateran Palace, apparently in imitation of structures at the imperial Byzantine palace in Constantinople.45 Fifty years later, in the final years of the century, following the demise of Lombard power in Italy, and with Frankish support, Pope Leo III was in a position to construct new churches, and to decorate them with mosaic. At the Lateran Palace, his new audience hall and banquetting hall, again in imitation of structures at the imperial palace at Constantinople, were perfect expressions of the ambitions of the papacy and its economic and political revival. Their interiors were embellished with columns of purple porphyry and white marble and sumptuous marble pavements, and in their principal apses grandiloquent compositions in mosaic featured portraits of the Pope and Charlemagne.46 Similarly, at St. Peter’s, Pope Leo built another equally splendid elevated triclinium, together with other spacious and elegant neighbouring

VII’, Fragmenta Picta: affreschi e mosaici staccati del Medioevo romano, eds. M. Andaloro, A. Ghidoli, A. Iacobini, S. Romano and A. Tomei (Rome, 1989), pp. 169–177. 44 Le Liber Pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne (Paris, 1955, reprinted 1981), 1, p. 385. For John VII‘s work at S. Maria Antiqua, see P.J. Nordhagen, ‘The frescoes of John VII (AD 705–707) in S. Maria Antiqua in Rome’, Acta ad archaeologiam el artium historiam pertinentia 3 (1968). See also R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980), chapter 4. 45 Le Liber Pontificalis, 1, p. 432 (Zacharias, ch. 18). 46 Le Liber Pontificalis, 2, pp. 3–4, 11 (Leo III, ch. 10 and 39). H. Belting, ‘I mosaici dell’aula Leonina come testimonianza della prima ‘renovatio’ dell’arte medievale di Roma’, Roma e l’età carolingia (Rome, 1976), pp. 167–182; H. Belting, ‘Die beiden Palastaulen Leos III. im Lateran und die Entstehung einer päpstlichen Programmkunst’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 12 (1978), pp. 55–83; C. Meckseper, ‘Zur Doppelgeschossigkeit der beiden Triklinien Leos III. im Lateranspalast zu Rom’, Schloss Tirol: Saalbauten und Bürgen des 12. Jahrhunderts in Mitteleuropa (1998), pp. 119–128. For an overview, see Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, chapter 5. See also B. Ward-Perkins, ‘Constantinople: a city and its ideological territory’, in Towns and their Territories between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. G.P. Brogiolo, N. Gauthier and N. Christie (Leiden, Boston, Cologne, 2000), 330–3, 340–411.

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structures.47 These were magnificently appointed aulic spaces designed to proclaim the power and authority of their Lord, the Pope. The language they speak would have been perfectly comprehensible to the now-deposed rulers of the Lombard polities of Italy — rich materials, accents of imperial splendour, with pronounced reference both to classical antiquity and to the culture of Byzantium. This is the contemporary rhetoric of power, with its evocations of the grandeur of Antiquity. It is not by chance that the subject of the apse mosaic of Leo’s Triclinium, the Mission of the Apostles, is thoroughly late antique in idiom — unmistakably similar in design to a late fourth-century sarcophagus from St. Peter’s in which the mortal remains of Leo Ill’s namesake and great fifth-century predecessor, Leo I, were subsequently conserved.48 The same rhetoric was evident in the magnificent churches with which Leo and his successors set about rebuilding the city: Roma caput orbis splendor spes aurea Roma — in the words of the inscription set up on one of the gates in the walls with which Leo IV girt St. Peter’s in the late 840s.49 It was voiced loudly in the spate of large basilicas constructed along early Christian lines, and in their mosaic programmes which generally followed and elaborated on late antique patterns;50 but it was also to be heard in sophisticated borrowings from imperial Antiquity, like the exotic frieze of bearded masks which crowned the walls, immediately under the eaves, of the churches of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo, S. Prassede and S. Martino ai Monti.51 These imitate masks from Roman imperial buildings, like those from Aurelian‘s third-century Temple of the Sun (Fig. 11). Charlemagne and Italy However, when Charlemagne marched down into Italy in 773 and subdued the Lombard kingdom, it was the court culture promoted by the Lombard Le Liber Pontificalis, 2, p. 8 (Leo III, ch. 27). Belting, ‘Die beiden Palastaulen Leos III. im Lateran’, pp. 63–64, figs. 5–6. 799– Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeil. Band 2. Katalog der Ausstellung. Paderborn 1999. eds. C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (Mainz, 1999), pp. 267–269. 49 P.K. Schramm, Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio (Darmstadt, 1984 4), p. 46: Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, pp. 119, 346. 50 For the papal building initiatives of the first half of the ninth century, see Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, chapter 5. 51 L. Pani Ermini, La diocesi di Roma. 1. La IV regione ecclesiastica (Corpus della sculptura altomedievale 7/1, Spoleto, 1974), pp. 114–116. cat. 55–57. pls. XXII–XXIII. 47

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elite that would have met his eyes in centres such as Pavia, Milan and Verona. The effect of this on the Frankish ruler must have been profound and, I suspect, far-reaching. Largely due to the political vicissitudes of the period, Frankish court culture seems to have been at a low ebb in the eighth century. There was little to compare with the high culture and probably high material standards of living which would have confronted Charlemagne and his advisers in Italy. One response to this was probably Charlemagne’s establishment of new or grandly refurbished palaces at Paderborn, Ingelheim, Aachen, and elsewhere.52 Previously the Frankish kings had been peripatetic, moving between residences. The very idea of a principal fixed palatial seat like the one Charlemagne established at Aachen, in the later 780s and 790s, was a new one; but one which appears to have been the norm for the Lombard rulers at Pavia and the dukes in their various centres.53 As we have seen, a characteristic feature of Lombard palaces was the presence of a palace chapel. The first of these of which we have record is that of king Liutprand at Pavia, in the first half of the eighth century.54 S. Maria in Valle at Cividale probably served an analogous function;55 and subsequently the southern Lombard duke, Arichis, built court-chapels in his two residences at Benevento and Salerno.56 These palatine chapels were splendidly appointed structures, and two of them at least appear to have been decorated with mosaics.57 We can only guess at the precise reasons why Charlemagne, in the 780s, decided to establish a permanent capital seat at Aachen; but when he occupied the Lombard kingdom in 774, he would have seen the royal and ducal residences there at first hand. His Italian experiences may well have planted in his mind the idea of a fixed domicile and have suggested G. Binding. Deutsche Königspfalzen, vom Karl dem Grossen bis Friedrich II (765– 1240) (Darmstadt, 1996), pp. 72–130. 53 Mitchell, ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’, pp. 935–936. 54 Paul the Deacon, Hist. Lang. VI, 58; Belting. ‘Studien zum beneventanischen Hof’, pp. 185–186. 55 H.P. L’Orange and H. Torp, ‘Il Tempietto longobardo di Cividale’, Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia 7, 2 (1977), pp. 226–229. 56 Belting, ‘Studien zum beneventanischen Hof’, pp. 170–171, 186–187; Cagiano de Azevedo, ‘Esistono una architettura e una urbanistica longobarda?’, pp. 301–302; Peduto, ‘Insediamenti longobardi del ducato di Benevento’, pp. 319, 324–326. 57 S. Maria in Valle at Cividale and arguably Arichis’ chapel of SS. Peter and Paul at Salerno. 52

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1. Deer or sheep drinking from a chalice. Fragment of a marble relief, from Corteolona, first half of 8th century. Pavia, Musei Civici del Castello Visconteo (after A.M. Romanini, “Committenza regia e pluralismo culturale nella ‘Langobardia Major’ ”, Committenti e produzione artistico-letteraria nell’alto Medioevo occidentale. Settim. di Spoleto 39 [1991], 1, pp. 57–89, tav. XXX, fig. 39).

2. Transenna with sea-lions, from S. Maria della Pusterla, Pavia, first half of eighth century. Pavia, Musei Civici del Castello Visconteo (after Magistra Barbaritas, ed. G.P. Carratelli [1984], fig. 166).

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3. Fragments of transenna, with sunken settings for coloured inlay, Pavia, first half of 8th century. Pavia, Musei Civici del Castello Visconteo (after A. Peroni, Pavia, Musei Civici del Castello Visconteo: Musei d’Italia – Meraviglie d’Italia [1975], fig. 88).

4. Fragment of the arch of a ciborium, from S. Maria d’Aurona, Milan, first half of eighth century. Milan, Musei Civici al Castello Sforzesco (after Paolo Diacono, Storia dei Longobardi, eds. C. Leonardi and R. Cassanelli [1985], fig. 284).

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5. Tempietto sul Clitunno, Pissignano, near Spoleto. Façade (photo: author).

6. Tempietto sul Clitunno, Pissignano, near Spoleto. Interior, detail of apsidal niche (photo: author).

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7. S. Sophia, Benevento, plan (after M. Rotili, Benevento romana e longobarda: l’immagine urbana [1986], fig. 63).

8. S. Pietro a Corte, Salerno (after P. Peduto and M. Romito, “Chiesa di San Pietro a Corte”, Passeggiate salernitane 3 [1988],

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9. S. Vincenzo Maggiore, S. Vincenzo al Volturno, painted dado in ring-crypt, c. 820 (photo: author).

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10. S. Vincenzo Maggiore, S. Vincenzo al Volturno, painted dado in ring-crypt, upper frieze of “tumbling blocks”, c. 820 (photo: author).

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11. S. Prassede, Rome, mask from cornice under eaves, c. 820 (after L. Pani Ermini, La diocesi di Roma, 1. La IV regione ecclesiastica [Corpus della scultura altomedievale 7/1, 1974], pl. XXIII).

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12. Marbled dado in the ‘Vestibule’, San Vincenzo al Volturno, early ninth century (photo: author).

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13. Canon table, with diagonally marbled columns, Lorsch Gospels, Alba Julia, Romania, p. 24 (after W. Braunfels, The Lorsch Gospels [1967]).

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14. Canon table, Codex Beneventanus, London, British Library, Add. Ms. 5463, fol. 4v, Benevento?, 739-760 (after D. Wright, “The canon tables of the Codex Beneventanus and related decoration”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 33 [1979], pp. 137–155, fig. 7).

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15. St. Mark, Gospels from Soissons, Paris, Bibl. Nat. Ms. Lat. 8850, fol. 81v (after W. Köhler, Die karolingischen Miniaturen, 2. Die Hofschule Karls des Grossen [1958], pl. 83).

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16. St. Augustine dictating, Egino Codex, Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Ms. Phillips 1676, fol. 18v (after I. Hubert, 1. Porcher, W.F. Volbach, Europe of the Invasions [1969], fig. 154).

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the benefits to be had from an impressive royal chapel rising within the palace complex. The decision to set mosaic in the cupola of the palace chapel at Aachen,58 and in the apse of the oratory of his adviser, Theodulf of Orléans, on his estate at Germigny-des-Prés,59 the prominent use of a classical language of architecture at Aachen, and the lavish employment of carefully selected spolia, decorative elements, such as columns and capitals, the finest taken from antique buildings in Italy, and transported north, all speak the language of Lombard court art. The first of Charlemagne’s grand new palaces, that at Paderborn, was begun as early as 776.60 It is tempting to think that here he had the Lombard royal palace in Pavia fresh in his mind; there are even Italian trace elements in some of the earliest painted decoration associated with this palace and the adjoining church.61 Such precise Italian influence, on early Carolingian court architecture and art, can be found in details. So there is a particular kind of crutch capital employed at Charlemagne’s palace at Ingelheim-am-Rhein, decorated with fluting all round; 62 this is characterized also by an extremely unusual deep concave moulding at the top. Crutch capitals of this type, with fluted and faceted decoration, and with exactly the same moulding were employed in the late eighth-/early ninth-century buildings at the south Italian monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, where this particular form of moulding was

H. Schnitzler, ‘Das Kuppelmosaik der Aachener Pfalzkapelle’, Aachener Kunstblätter 29 (1964) pp. 17–41. 59 A. Grabar, ‘Les mosaïques de Germigny-des-Prés’, Cahiers archéologiques 7 (1954), pp. 171– ff.; P. Bloch, ‘Das Apsismosaik von Germigny-des-Prés. Karl und der alte Bund’. Karolingische Kunst, eds. W. Braunfels and H. Schnitzler (Düsseldorf, 1965), pp. 234–261. 60 W. Winkelmann, ‘Die karolingische Burg in Paderborn’ and ‘Est locus insignis, quo Patra et Lippa fluentant’, Beiträge zur Frühgeschichte Westfalens: Gesammelte Aufsätze (Münster, 1990), pp. 114–117, 118–128; U. Lobbedey, Der Paderborner Dom (Munich, 1990), pp. 11–15; Binding, Deutsche Königspfalzen von Karl dem Grossen bis Friedrich II, pp. 123–130. 799—Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Band I. Katalog der Ausstellung, Paderborn 1999, eds. C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (Mainz, 1999), pp. 116–185. 61 The fragmentary excavated wall-paintings from the early phases of the palace and cathedral at Paderborn are discussed by Matthias Preissler, 799—Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn, Band 1. Katalog, pp. 133– 14.3. See also J. Mitchell, ‘Karl der Grosse, Rom und das Vermachtnis der Langobarden’, in the Ergänzungsband to the same publication. 62 794—Karl der Grosse in Frankfurt am Main: ein König bei der Arbeit, eds. R. Koch and A. Thiel (Sigmaringen. 1994), p. 41. cat. 1/5; R. Meyer, Frühmittelalterliche Kapitelle und Kämpfer in Deutschland (Berlin, 1997), pp. 160–162, 662 Abb. 1 and 2, 663 Abb. 3. 58

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the norm on all crutch capitals.63 The capitals from Ingelheim look like an imported Beneventan type. Another detailed point of contact is to be found in a convention used for the painted decoration of the dados of walls. In the Lombard areas of Italy there was a widespread fashion for painting dados in imitation of panels of polished marble revetment, with diagonal undulating veins endlessly repeating in sequences of upright and inverted chevrons.64 At the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, the veining is in alternating colours, red, or red and yellow, on one panel and in two tones of grey-blue on the next (Fig. 12).65 A similar convention is to be found in the southern Lombard funerary basilica at Prata, near Avellino.66 In the Carolingian north, this convention is known from only one site, but at an early date and in a significant location. It was used — apparently part of the original scheme of decoration — to embellish the embrasures of the windows of the ring-crypt of the royal abbey-church of Saint-Denis, just to the north of Paris — one of the traditional burial-places of Frankish rulers, built by abbot Fulrad in the 770s.67 Again Italian influence, in a crypt modelled on that of Old St. Peter’s in Rome, is likely. Further points of detailed influence are apparent in the magnificent display manuscripts of Charlemagne’s Court and Palace Schools. A feature of the richly decorated canon tables of these Gospel Books is the lavish 63 J. Mitchell, ‘Roman and early medieval sculpture’, San Vincenzo al Volturno, 3. The Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations, eds. J. Mitchell and I.L. Hansen (Spoleto, forthcoming), pp. 363–369. 64 Its widespread use in these areas is discussed by J. Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration of the early medieval monastery’. San Vincenzo al Volturno: The Archaeology, Art and Territory of an Early Medieval Monastery, eds. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell BAR Intern. Ser. 252, Oxford, 1985), pp. 125–176, at pp. 129–132, figs. 6:6–10; and Mitchell, ‘Spatial hierarchy and the uses of ornament in an early medieval monastery’, pp. 43–45. 65 Mitchell, ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’, p. 941, fig. 69; San Vincenzo al Volturno, 2. The 1980–86 Excavations, Part II, p. 36, pls. 3: 5–7, figs. 3:10 and 16; pp. 5–7, pl. 1:1, figs. 1:4, 6, 7 and 9. 66 The design is used on the dados on the walls of the nave of the church and on the inner wall of the ambulatory encircling the apse. This scheme of decoration dates from the late eighth or the early ninth century. 67 M. Vieillard-Troiekouroff, ‘L’architecture en France du temps de Charlemagne’, Karolingische Kunst, eds. W. Braunfels and H. Schnitzler (Düsseldorf, 1965), pp. 336–358, at p. 353, figs. 7 9: M. Wyss, ‘Enduits peints du haut Moyen-Age mis au jour à Saint-Denis’, Edifices et peintures aux IVe—XIe siècles, Actes du Colloque C.N.R.S., Auxerre 1992, ed. C. Sapin (Auxerre, 1994), pp. 63–69, at p. 66, fig. 4.

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use of diagonally veined marbled effects in the illusionistically painted columns. This convention is found occasionally in late antique manuscripts, but in the Court School of Charlemagne it is rampant (Fig. 13).68 This immediately calls to mind the diagonal marbling in wall-painting, so beloved of Lombard patrons; and it would not be surprising if this taste for marbled effects had been picked up earlier by scribes working on deluxe manuscripts for elite Lombard patrons. Indeed, there is a manuscript from the mid-eighth century, a copy of the Gospels, the Codex Beneventanus, made for an abbot of San Vincenzo al Volturno, Ato (739–60), probably in the southern capital, Benevento, with the same characteristic diagonal marbling on columns of canon tables (Fig. 14).69 Could this feature of Carolingian Court School practice be a borrowing from deluxe Lombard manuscript production? Similar connections can be seen in the painting of heads, in the types employed by the artists of Charlemagne’s Court School; for instance, in the Soissons Gospels (Paris, Bibl. Nat. Lat. 8850),70 c. 810, and a little later in a more advanced stage of development in the Lorsch Gospels (Alba Julia and Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Pal. Lat. 50), c. 815–820.71 The derivation from Lombard court-style, as exemplified in the paintings in S. Salvatore at Brescia, built and decorated under Desiderius, the last

68 W. Köhler, Die karolingischen Miniaturen, 2. Die Hofschule Karls des Grossen (Berlin, 1958), plate volume, pls. 13b, 14b, 15b, 34–37, 48–52, 54, 56, 58 61, 67, 69, 73–79, 83, 85, 87, 99b, 100–103, 108, 110; The Lorsch Gospels, facsimile with introduction by W. Braunfels (New York, 1967), passim. 69 London, British Library Add. Ms. 5463. D. Wright, ‘The Canon tables of the Codex Beneventanus and related decoration’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 33 (1979), pp. 137–155, fig. 7; C. Bertelli, ‘Codici miniati fra Goti, Longobardi e Franchi’, Magistra Barbaritas, fig. 476: Koch and Thiel, 794—Karl der Grosse in Frankfurt am Main. p. 90, cat. IV/19. I have argued that this book is unlikely to have been produced at San Vincenzo itself, and is more likely to have come from a scriptorium working in the milieu of the southern Lombard court (Mitchell, ‘Arichis und die Künste’, pp. 57–59). 70 Fol. 123v (St. Luke): Köhler, Die karolingischen Miniaturen, 2, pl. 85. 71 Vat. Pal. Lat. 50, fol. Av (St. Luke): Köhler, Die karolingischen Miniaturen, 2, pl. 108; The Lorsch Gospels, ed. Braunfels. 72 Panazza, ‘La chiesa di San Salvatore in Brescia’, fig. 101; J. Hubert, J. Porcher, W.F. Volbach, Europe of the Invasions (New York, 1969), fig. 131; K. Koshi, ‘Studien zu den Wandmalereien der St. Georgskirche von Oberzell auf den Reichenau (XV): stilistische Beobachtungen zur Darstellung der Köpfe als Kriterium für die Datierungsfrage’, Bulletin of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, 25 (1990), pp.

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Lombard king, before 773,72 and at San Vincenzo al Volturno, around 800, is clear.73 Characteristic features of this idiom arc the linear conventions used for defining the eyes and nose and the dramatic deployment of shadows and highlights. Connections between Italian practice and early Carolingian manuscript painting go farther than these points of detail. Among the most striking artistic phenomena of early Carolingian court art are the sumptuous manuscripts produced by the so-called Court School of Charlemagne, splendid deluxe copies of the Gospels and other liturgical texts, designed to be displayed on the altars of major churches throughout the realm.74 There is some evidence to suggest that the very notion of commissioning such grand books, for which there was little Frankish precedent before Charlemagne, may have derived from elite Lombard practice. Around 800 certain new compositional conventions were deployed in manuscripts which are associated with a second phase of production at the Carolingian Court School. These appear in two of the earliest surviving examples of this group, both probably from the first decade of the ninth century: the Gospel Book in London (London, British Library, Harley 2788) and the slightly later Gospels from Soissons. These characteristic new elements include a richly ornamented rectangular outer frame, enclosing the inner arched setting, and the use of curtains in the arch (Fig. 15).75 Similar settings are present in a slightly earlier book, a homiliary, made between 796 and 799, for Egino, bishop of Verona (Fig. 16).76 I would like to argue that this book is one of 3–82, fig. 49. Koshi discusses this tradition in the context of the paintings in St. Georg Oberzell on the Reichenau. 73 Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration of the early medieval monastery’, pp. 125–176, figs. 6:19–24; San Vincenzo al Volturno, 2, pl. 3:12–15, 17, 20. 74 Köhler, Die karolingische Miniaturen, 2; F. Mütherich, ‘Die Buchmalerei am Hofe Karls des Grossen’, Karolingische Kunst, ed. W. Braunfels and H. Schnitzler (Düsseldorf, 1965), pp. 9–53; B. Brenk, ‘Schriftlichkeit und Bildlichkeit in der Hofschule Karls d. Gr.’, Testo e immagine nell‘alto Medioevo. Settim. di Spoleto 41, 1993, pp. 631–691. 75 London Gospels, fols. 13v, 71v, 108v, 161 v (Köhler, Die karolingische Miniaturen, 2, pls. 54, 56, 58, 60); Soissons Gospels, fols. 17v, 81v, 123v, 180v (ibid., pls. 81, 83, 85, 87). 76 Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Ms. Phillips 1676. J. Kirchner, Beschreibende Verzeichnisse der Miniaturen-Handschriften der preussischen Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. 1, Die Phillips-Handschriften (Leipzig, 1926), pp. 6–9; J. Kirchner, ‘Die Heimat des Eginocodex’, Archiv für Urkundenforschung 10 (1926), pp. 112–127: Hubert, Porcher, Volbach, Europe of the Invasions, figs. 154–155; M. Camille, ‘Word, text, image and the early church fathers in the Egino Codex’, Settim. di Spoleto 41, 1993, pp. 65–94, figs. 3–6.

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the few remaining examples of a Lombard tradition of deluxe manuscript production, seen and appreciated by Charlemagne and his advisers, and subsequently adopted for their own purposes.77 The Codex Beneventanus could be another earlier representative of this Lombard tradition, made in the orbit of the southern Beneventan court, around 750. In layout and script it imitates most successfully a deluxe late antique Gospel Book, and its splendid canon tables are a painstakingly executed, although seriously flawed, imitation of a sixth-century exemplar, similar to the fragmentary set of canon tables now preserved in the Vatican Library (Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Lat. 3806).78 These two books give a tantalizing intimation of the spectacular artistic production of the Lombard courts in this period, a production which may have set new standards for court culture in eighth-century Europe.79 Conclusion The ‘Italian Question’ has bedevilled students of Carolingian art for the best part of this century. Albert Boeckler saw Italian models as being critical influences on the practice of the manuscript painters of the tenth-century Reichenau scriptorium; 80 Dimitri Tselos speculated on an Italo-Greek

Lawrence Nees, however (in a lecture at the annual conference of the College Art Association, in Los Angeles, in February 1999), has argued that the Egino Codex was produced in the milieu of the Court School of Charlemagne, and that its painted decoration is by the same hand as that of the Gospel Lectionary of Godescalc, the earliest of the Court School manuscripts (Paris. Bibl. Nat., Nouv. Acq. Lat. 1203). 78 Wright (‘The canon tables of the Codex Beneventanus and related decoration’) proposed that the canon tables in this book were a reused sixth-century set. However, F. De Rubeis has recently argued that they are coeval with the text and were made in the mideighth century (‘The Codex Beneventanus’, San Vincenzo al Volturno, 3. The Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations, eds. J. Mitchell and I.L. Hansen [Spoleto, 2001], pp. 987–1011). 79 In a paper read at the 18th annual Canadian Conference of Medieval Art Historians, at Toronto, in March 1998. ‘The Church of San Zeno at Bardolino and the Carolingan Court School’, John Osborne also identified some of the antecedents for the Charlemagne’s Court School in manuscripts and wall-paintings produced in northern Italy in the decades around 800. 80 A. Boeckler, ‘Bildvorlagen der Reichenau’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 11 (1943– 1944), pp. 7–29. 77

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tradition of painting — flourishing in some Italian centre, possibly in Rome — which informed the artists of the Utrecht Psalter; 81 elusive Italian archetypes figured prominently in the rigorous Textkritik to which Boeckler and Elisabeth Rosenbaum subjected the miniatures of Charlemagne’s Court School manuscripts; 82 and Hans Belting, in a landmark article, some thirty years ago, analysed some of the relations between early Carolingian art and Italian painting of the eighth and ninth centuries.83 I suspect that it was the artistic and cultural strategies and practices of the eighth-century courts of Lombard Italy that lay behind these Carolingian experiments which, in their turn, laid the foundations for some of the most dynamic subsequent artistic traditions north of the Alps. Indeed, I would argue that in many of its aspects, early Carolingian court art followed Italian practice, in concept as well as in detail. This was one aspect of a wave of Italian fashion which seems to have swept up through Europe. This is perhaps best seen at everyday level in Britain in the Middle Saxon period. The extent and significance of the cultural debt of Anglo-Saxon England to Rome and Italy in this period was immense and is well known.84 It ranged from the ideas and models behind the production D. Tselos, ‘A greco-italian school of illuminators and fresco painters’, The Art Bulletin 38 (1956), pp. 1–30, esp. p. 5. 82 A. Boeckler. ‘Die Evangelistenbilder der Adagruppe’. Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 3. F, 3–4 (1952–1953), pp. 121–144; A. Boeckler, ‘Die Kanonbogen der Adagruppe und ihre Vorlagen’. Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 5 (1954), pp. 7–22; E. Rosenbaum, ‘The evangelist portraits of the Ada School and their models’, Art Bulletin 38 (1956), pp. 81–90. 83 H. Belting. ‘Probleme der Kunstgeschichte Italiens im Frühmittelalter’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 1 (1967), pp. 94–143. 84 F. Saxl and R. Wittkower, British Art and the Mediterranean (Oxford, 1948); D. Wright, ‘The Italian Stimulus on English art around 700,’ Stil und Überlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlandes. Akten des 21. Intern. Kongress für Kunstgeschichte, Bonn 1964 (Berlin, 1967), pp. 84–92; R. Bruce-Mitford, ‘The reception by the Anglo-Saxons of Mediterranean art following their conversion from Ireland and Rome’, La conversione al cristianesimo nell’Europa dell’alto Medioevo. Settim. di Spoleto 14 (1966), pp. 797–825; R. Cramp, ‘The Anglo-Saxons and Rome’, Transactions of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, n.s. 3 (1974), pp. 27–38; G.M. Porru, ‘I rapporti fra Italia e Inghilterra nei secoli VII e VIII,’ Romanobarbarica 5 (Rome, 1980), pp. 117–169; R. Cramp, ‘Anglo-Saxon and Italian sculpture’, Settim. di Spoleto 32 (1984), 1, pp. 125–140. C.L. Neuman de Vegvar, The Northumbrian Renaissance. A Study in the Transmission of Style (London and Toronto, 1987); É. Ó Carragáin, The City of Rome and the World of Bede, Jarrow Lecture, 1994. 81

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of deluxe illuminated Gospel Books for the altars of episcopal and monastic churches, down to the forms of the bronze pins which women used to fasten their clothing. These little pins, with delicately shaped heads, found in their thousands on sites throughout England, are direcdy modelled on Italian forms, and bear striking witness to the extent to which Italian fashions of dress were adopted by English women in this period.85 The extent of English contacts with Italy in this period, at all levels of society, is nowhere more evident than in a famous letter of St Boniface to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, in which the great Anglo-Saxon missionary, who brought order to the church in the Saxon territories east of the Rhine, thunders: ‘. . . it would be well and favourable for the honour and purity of your Church and a sure protection against vice if your synod and your princes would forbid matrons and nuns to make their frequent journeys back and forth to Rome. A great part of them perish and few keep their virtue. There are many towns in Lombardy and Gaul where there is not a courtesan or a harlot but is of English stock. It is a scandal and a disgrace to the whole Church.’86 It looks as if Anglo-Saxons may have been attracted to Italy not only by the relics of the martyrs in Rome, but also by sophisticated southern standards of living, by the watering holes of Pavia, by contemporary high fashion there, and presumably also by the food and the climate, just as Anglo-Saxon (and other!) tourists are today. And Charlemagne himself, for all his protestations of his love of St. Peter, was probably not adverse to a little sun and some sophisticated southern company. In a collection of papers concerned with relations between the town and the country in Late Antiquity and the immediate post-Roman centuries this essay may seem out of place. However, in a very real way the issues of urbanism and town-life and the meeting of essentially non-urban with urban societies do underlie the patterns of activity described here. The urban fabric of the ancient world seems to have survived more intact in Italy than it did in the old Roman provinces north of the Alps. Throughout the Dark Ages Rome continued to function as a recognizable city, her old imperial fabric never lost completely its symbolic value and its physical substance, These bronze dress-pins and their Italian analogues have been studied and analysed by Seamus Ross (Dress Pins from Anglo-Saxon England: Their Production and TypoChronological Development, unpublished PhD. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1992, pp. 365–383). 86 The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, ed. C.H. Talbot (London, 19812), p. 133. 85

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and as the seat of the bishop of Rome and of the papal court it remained a focus of interest and deference for all of western Christendom. Furthermore, the Lombard kings and ruling elite occupied the principal old Roman cities throughout the peninsula, and early on seem to have established their courts there. It is only in recent years that archaeologists have begun to throw some light on what these centres actually looked like, and their nature and importance as truly urban settlements is still intensely debated.87 However, it does seem that patterns of settlement in Italy differed from those north of the Alps in this period. When Franks and Anglo-Saxons travelled to Italy they encountered societies in which political power and cultural production was tending more and more to be concentrated in cities and towns. The structures, the fabric and the cultural production of these centres offered them powerful patterns and ideas for emulation and adoption in the context of their own more dispersed social systems. It was the urban idea and amenities of cities like Rome and Pavia, as much as the relics of the early Christian martyrs, which proved such tempting attractions to northern travellers in the age of Desiderius, Arechis, Leo and Charlemagne.

Recent reviews of some of these debates are to be found in Towns in Transition. eds. N. Christie and S.T. Loseby (Aldershot, 1996); B. Ward-Perkins, ‘Continuitists. catastrophists, and the towns of post-Roman northern Italy’, Papers of the British School at Rome 65 (1997), pp. 157–176; G.P. Brogiolo and S. Gelichi, La città nell‘alto Medioevo italiano: archeologia e storia (Bari, 1998). 87

II The Power of Patronage and the Iconography of Quality in the Era of 774

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he purpose of this essay is to draw attention to an aspect of the artistic production of the earliest Middle Ages which is often acknowledged but seldom thought to require particular analysis or explanation. This is the surpassing quality of the workmanship of certain of the buildings and artifacts which were commissioned by some of the most ambitious patrons in the polities of Europe in the 8th and 9th centuries. Quality in any work of art is, of course, a feature which is notoriously hard to identify and characterize in an objective manner; inevitably, it is open to the subjective whims of perception, selection and preference of the individual observer1. However, not only can it be recognized; it must be perceived and acknowledged if the full significance of a visual artifact and the aims and ambitions of its maker are to be understood. The quality of a work in this period could carry an iconographical value. Extreme quality in the age of 774 is met with in one or more of a number of factors: in the studied complexity of the design and detailing of an artifact; in the technical virtuosity with which a particular medium is manipulated and finished; in an engagement with a new material and subject, often combined with the revival of a long-dead tradition, in which the conventions of design and technology had long been abandoned and forgotten; in an apparent desire to improve on and surpass ancient exemplars selected for emulation. 1 It is indicative of the hesitation with which art historians address the issue that there is no entry for ‘quality’ in the most comprehensive and authoritative modern work of reference on the history of the visual arts in English, The Dictionary of Art, (ed.) J. Turner, London, 1996.

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The obvious place to start in a consideration of quality in this period is the court of Charlemagne, where in the last quarter of the 8th century initiatives were undertaken in a number of areas of visual culture which set new standards of practice and achievement in continental north-western Europe2. Although the extant written sources for the period say little about a programme of cultural production initiated and promoted by Charlemagne and his advisers to advertise and proclaim the authority of Frankish rule, the works themselves, and their coherence across a number of media, suggest that such a programme was developed3. Indeed it is often assumed that Einhard, one of the courtiers most closely associated with the king, who was given the sobriquet of Bezaleel, the name of the craftsman called by God to make the Desert Tabernacle of Moses and all its furniture, fittings and textiles (Exodus 31, 2–5; 35, 30–35), was the person behind such a programme of architectural and artistic enterprises at the Carolingian court, as well as having been responsible for overseeing the construction of the new palace at Aachen4. For overviews of the visual culture associated with the court of Charlemagne see: D. Bullough, The Age of Charlemagne, London, 1965; W. Braunfels, Die Welt der Karolinger und ihre Kunst, Munich, 1968; L. Nees, ‘Art and architecture’, in R. McKitterick (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, II, c. 700–c. 900, Cambridge, 1995, p. 809–844; M. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds.), 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn. Paderborn 1999, 3 vols., Mainz, 1999. 3 Einhard, in his Life of Charlemagne, in describing what he considered to be the outstanding building projects undertaken in his reign, says: ‘he nevertheless began many projects in diverse places designed to add to the elegance and commodity of his kingdom; some of these he completed’ (Vita Caroli Magni, ch. 17). 4 For Einhard as a preeminent master of craftsman, see Walahfrid Strabo, De Einharto Magno, w. 1–3; and for his supervision of the building works at Aachen, see Gesta abbatum fontanellensium, 17, and Hrabanus Maurus’ Epitaph of Einhard, cited by L. Thorpe, trans, and (ed.), Einhard and Notker the Stammerer. Two Lives of Charlemagne, Harmondsworth, 1969, p. 174, and by P. E. Dutton (ed. and trans. ), Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete Einhard, Peterborough, Ontario, 1998, p. 5, 6–7, 10. Thorpe discusses the known facts of Einhard’s life on p. 12–15, 18–19; as does Dutton on p. 5–7 and 10. For Einhard’s engagement with architecture and the arts and as the possible Master of Works at Aachen, see: T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, 744–774, vol. vii, Frankish Invasions, Oxford, 1899, p. 293; M. Buchner, Einhard als Künstler, Strassburg, 1919; M. Buchner, Einhards Künstler- und Gelehrtenleben. Ein Kulturbild aus der Zeit Karls des Großen und Ludwig des Frommen, Bonn and Leipzig, 1922; G. Binding, ‘Multis arte fuit utilis: Einhard als Organisator am Aachener Hof und als Bauherr in Steinbach und Seligenstadt’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 30, 2 (1995), p. 29–46; P. E. Dutton, Charlemagne’s Courtier, p. xiii–xv. On Einhard, see also H. Schefers (ed.), Einhard. Studien zum Leben und Werk, Darmstadt, 1997; also the forthcoming D. Ganz, Charlemagne’s 2

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One cultural enterprise to which Einhard makes more than passing reference in his Life of Charlemagne is the basilica dedicated to the Holy Mother of God at the new palace at Aachen (Fig. 1)5. This he describes as a ‘wonderful construction’6, ‘a basilica of the greatest beauty’, which the king decorated with ‘gold and silver, with lamps, and with screens and doors of solid bronze. As he was not able to find marble columns for his building anywhere else, he had them brought from Rome and Ravenna’7. The palace church at Aachen was indeed an extraordinary building, of a type and quality hitherto unknown in Francia: externally a lofty sixteensided structure, containing a high vaulted central octagonal volume, ringed internally by a circling vaulted aisle surmounted by vaulted galleries. Eight angular piers and powerful rounded arches at ground-floor level gave way to two-storey columnar screens at gallery level. The columns were of highly polished rare dark stones carrying elegant Corinthian capitals8. A small rectangular sanctuary projected to the east. The superstructure was supported by a sophisticated system of masonry vaults: a complex sequence of groin vaults in the ambulatory aisle, and in the gallery above rampant transverse barrel-vaults in alternating rectangular and triangular bays. On its exterior the building was articulated with engaged pilasters crowned by Corinthian capitals of a studied classical order; on the interior the wallsurfaces were probably clad in polished marble, existing today in a 19th/ early 20th-century restoration in Swiss cipollino, and the vault of the central cupola was covered in mosaic, with an apocalyptic image of Christ as the Ancient of Days adored by the twenty-four elders. The structure was extraordinarily ambitious, in its design and construction emphatically different from any other building of its age. The prime inspiration and point of reference in the mind of its architect was Biographer: A Study of Einhard, in which the author will discuss Einhard as a patron of the arts. 5 M. Untermann, ‘‘opera mirabili constructa, Die Aachener ‘Residenz’ Karls des Grossen”, in M. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds.), 799 – Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn. Beiträge zum Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999, Mainz, 1999, p. 152–164; C. B. McClendon, The Origins of Medieval Architecture: Building in Europe, A. D. 600–900, New Haven and London, 2005, p. 108–121. 6 Einhard, Vita, ch. 17. 7 Einhard, Vita, ch. 26. 8 The gallery columns from Aachen are discussed in detail by D. P. S. Peacock, ‘Charlemagne’s black stones: the re-use of Roman columns in early medieval Europe’, Antiquity, 71 (1997), p. 709–715, at p. 710–711.

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1. Palace church, interior, Aachen, axonometric section (after C. B. McClendon, The Origins of Medieval Architecture, Yale Univ. Press, New Haven and London, 2005, fig. 117).

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clearly the great 6th-century martyrial church of San Vitale in Ravenna, which Charles and his advisers probably knew well9. However, the palace church at Aachen is by no means a slavish copy of the Ravennate church with its prominent visual memorial of Charles’s great 6th-century forebear, the Roman emperor Justinian; rather, it is a considered critique of the earlier church, selecting certain elements, reshaping or rejecting others and improving on the design, with reference to other prestigious buildings in Italy, to the mausoleum of the early 6th-century Ostrogothic king of Italy, Theodoric, at Ravenna10, probably to various palace-churches of the Lombard rulers of Italy11, and more genetically to the most prestigious palatine structures at Constantinople, Justinian’s church of S. Sophia12, and the Chrysotriklinos, the golden audience hall, inside the imperial palace13. The boldness of its conception, the inventive ambition of its construction, the precision and sumptuous elegance of its surface finish and fittings, and the bold formal reference to some of the most celebrated buildings of the late Roman world — a reference which is critical and surpassing rather than deferential — made the basilica of the Mother of God at Aachen one of the most potent and successful examples of exemplary court architecture ever created. A similar phenomenon can be recognized in a very different category of artistic production associated with the patronage of Charlemagne; the carved ivory panels which more than any other material survivals from the period announce the aims and ideals of the Carolingian court14. Elephant ivory 9 M. Untermann, ‘opera mirabili constructa’, p. 158–159; C. B. McClendon, The Origins, p. 123. 10 R. Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 4th edition, Harmondsworth, 1986, p. 269–273. 11 J. Mitchell, ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’, in Testo e immagine nell’alto Medioevo. Settimane di Spoleto, 41, Spoleto, 1994, p. 926–933, 936, 950; idem, ‘Karl der Grosse, Rom Und das Vermächtnis der Langobarden’, in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Beiträge, p. 95–108, at p. 102– 103; idem, ‘Artistic patronage and cultural strategies in Lombard Italy’, in G. P. Brogiolo, N. Gauthier and N. Christie (ed.), Towns and their Territories between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Leiden, 2000, p. 347–370, at p. 362–363. 12 As proposed by M. Untermann, ‘opera mirabili constructa’ p. 159–160. 13 As suggested by H. Fichtenau, The Carolingian Empire: The Age of Charlemagne, New York, 1964, p. 67–69. For the Chrysotriclinos, see Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, p. 77–78, 230–231. 14 H. Fillitz, ‘Die Elfenbeinarbeiten des Hofes Karls des Grossen’, in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 799 —Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Beiträge, p. 610–622; L. Nees,, ‘El

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was readily available in the late Roman world where it became the favoured material for the panels of the diptychs which were a major visual expression of official dignity, imperial and consular, as well as for the plaques which transformed the outer covers of the grandest display copies of Christian liturgical books, in particular texts of the Gospels15. Ivory-carving fell victim to the economic and cultural collapse of the later 6th, 7th and early 8th centuries16; the demand for ivory dwindled, the means of supply from east Africa and India no longer functioned, and the tradition of technical expertise in carving the material soon fell into abeyance. The spate of finely carved ivory plaques which started in the last decade of the 8th century in the orbit of Charlemagne announce an extraordinary new development, the resurrection of a tradition which had been dormant for over 200 years17. On the one hand, works like the front and back covers of the Lorsch Gospels (Fig. 2) are recreations of the five-part ivory covers of 6th-century books — it has even been argued that they incorporate elements from such an ancient cover reused as spolia18. However, on the other hand, they present a radically new front. While the architectural frames and the figural dispositions refer directly to early 6th-century archetypes, their interpretation and the execution of the work is quite novel. There is a smoothness and regularity in the carving, an attention to detail, an elaboration of surface configuration which immediately distinguishes them from their models, works like the five-panel Barberini diptych now in Paris19, and the two-part diptych of elefante de Carlomagno – Charlemagne’s elephant’, Quintana: rivista do Departamento de Historia da Arte, Universidadre de Santiago de Compostela, 5 (2006), p. 13–49. 15 For an extended analysis of the availability and value of ivory in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, see A. Cutler, ‘Prolegomena to the craft of ivory carving in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages’, in X. Barral I Altet (ed.), Artistes, Artisans et Production Artistique au Moyen Age, II, Paris, 1987, p. 431–471. 16 L. Nees, ‘El elefante de Catlomagno’, p. 19–21, 38–40. For the social and economic dynamics of this period, see B. Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, Oxford 2005. 17 H. Fillitz, ‘Die Elfenbeinarbeiten’, p. 612–616. Fillitz (p. 610, 618) has suggested that the craftsmen responsible for these works may have come from northern Italy, where there was a live tradition of carving ivory. 18 C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds.), 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Katalog, Band 2, cat. X. 22. 19 W. F. Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des Frühen Mittelalters, 3rd (ed.), Mainz, 1976, n. 48, p. 47–48, pl. 26; A. Cutler, ‘Barberiniana’, in Tesserae: Festschrift für Josef Engemann: Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Ergänzungsband, ix, (1993), p. 329–339. 20 C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Katalog,

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Christ and the Virgin Mary in Berlin (Fig. 3)20. The tenor of the Carolingian works is immediately apparent in the tightly curled locks of hair, in the sharply defined proliferation of folds and creases of garments, in the complex and delicate meandering line followed by the lower hems of tunics. This new precision and discipline, this attention to detail, this reference to prestigious ancient models, tempered by a liberating freedom of new invention, is particularly evident in the plaque with the Archangel Michael spearing a dragon, now in Leipzig21. There the design and execution of the drapery over the breast and legs, with its bravura torrent of cascading folds, its confusion of slashed looping surfaces and bands of pearling reveal a virtuosity of mind and hand which sets this composition apart from the world of 6th-century practice. Like the basilica at Aachen, these early Carolingian ivories were conceived as vocal critiques and improvements on the revered earlier patterns from which they drew their inspiration. The steep path by which craftsmen working for the court of Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious reached this degree of perfection can be traced via a sequence of slightly earlier surviving ivories, the covers of the Dagulf Psalter, in Vienna, of ca. 79522, with narratives of King David and St. Jerome, the cover of a Gospel Book in Oxford with Christ trampling the beasts23, and a detached panel with the lower part of the Ascension of Christ, in Darmstadt24. In commissioning these remarkable artifacts, the Carolingian court was not only resurrecting a lost art of small-scale figural carving to the highest specification; it was also reintroducing a material which must have been almost impossibly difficult to procure, often necessitating the reworking of ancient plaques in the absence of fresh supplies of tusks25. Furthermore, Band 2, cat. X. 26. 21 C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Katalog, Band 2, cat. X. 30. 22 J. Hubert, J. Porcher and W. F. Volbach, The Carolingian Renaissance, New York, 1970, fig. 208. 23 C. Stiegemann, and M. Wemhoff, 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Katalog, Band 2, cat. X. 7. 24 C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Katalog, Band 2, cat. X. 29. For this development of ivory carving at the Carolingian court, see H. Fillitz, ‘Die Elfenbeinarbeiten’, p. 618. 25 H. Fillitz, ‘Die Elfenbeinarbeiten’, p. 615; A. Effenberger, ‘Die Wiederverwendung römishe, spätantike und byzantinischer Kunstwerke in der Karolingerzeit’, in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Beiträge, p. 643–661, at p. 647.

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2. Virgin Mary and Christ Child, ivory relief, from the front cover of the Lorsch Gospels, London, Victoria and Albert Museum (after M. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds.), 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn. Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999, Band 2, Mainz, 1999, p. 734).

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3. Virgin Mary with Christ Child and Angels, Museum fur Spätantike und byzantinische Kunst, Berlin (after M. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds.), 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn. Katalog, Band 2, Mainz, 1999, p. 741).

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4. S. Salvatore, Brescia, interior to east (photo: Monica Ibsen, Brescia).

5. S. Salvatore, Brescia, nave arcade, first column on south side, detail (photo: Monica Ibsen, Brescia).

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6. Relief with peacock, Brescia, S. Salvatore (after G. C. Menis, I Longobardi. Electa, Milan, 1990, fig. VII. 12)

7. Sarcophagus of the Twelve Apostles, S. Apollinare in Classe (after G. Bovini, Corpus della scultura paleocristiana bizantina ed altomedioevale di Ravenna, II, De Luca, Rome, 1968, 16d).

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8. Tempietto sul Clitunno, detail of entablature (photo: author).

9. S. Sofia, Benevento, interior (after M. Rotili, Benevento romana e longobarda, Naples, 1986, pl. 38).

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10. Lateran Palace, Rome, with Triclinium and Banqueting Hall; isometric drawing (after M. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds.), 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn. Beiträge, p. 645, fig. la).

11. Two apostless, Breedon on the Hill, Leicestershire (photo: author)

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12. The annunciate archangel Gabriel, Lichfield cathedral (photo: David Rowan, copyright of the Dean & Chapter of Lichfield Cathedral).

13. Gold mancus of Coenwulf of Mercia, London 805–810; London, British Museum (after Current Archaeology, 194, 2004, p. 56)

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Charlemagne and his advisers were requiring their craftsmen not only to learn from scratch and without guidance the techniques and skills of carving ivory, but also to carve it and work it to a degree of detail and finish which surpassed the finest patterns available from the late Roman world. A glance at the deluxe display books produced for the Carolingian court at the same time, the Gospel Books of the so-called Court School and Palace School, shows scribes and illuminators being required to follow similar objectives, to create books which in the material sumptuousness, in the brilliance, in the brittle polychrome invention of their figural imagery, in the variety and complexity of their decoration, in their sheer quality equaled and surpassed the finest productions from the imperial court ateliers of late antique Italy26. To present himself as a paramount ruler, a peer of the greatest rulers of ancient Christian Rome and of the contemporary world, Charlemagne appears knowingly to have assembled the finest craftsmen available and to have directed them to produce a range of works which in craftsmanship, surface brilliance and visual impact surpassed the known categories of court art. A related occurrence can be detected in Lombard Italy a generation earlier. In 754, Ansa, together with her consort, Desiderius, the ambitious Duke of Brescia, later to become king, and their son, Adelchis, founded the monastery of S. Salvatore in the city. They intended the foundation as a principal focus of their worldly patronage, as an institution which through the incessant prayers of the community should care for the safety of their persons and their subjects during life and the salvation of their souls after their deaths; it was to become the place of their eventual burial and commemoration. Their daughter, Anselperga, was installed as first abbess, to ensure the success of the enterprise27. The church was a large elegantly proportioned basilica, For deluxe book-production at the court of Charlemagne, see now, F. Mütherich, ‘Die Erneuerung der Buchmalerei am Hofe Karls des Grossen’, in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Beiträge, p. 560–609. 27 S. Wemple, ‘S. Salvatore/S. Giulia: A case study in the endowment and patronage of a major female monastery in northern Italy’, in J. Kirshner and S. Wemple (eds.), Women of the Medieval World, Oxford, 1985, p. 85–102, at p. 86–89; G. P. Brogiolo, Brescia altomedievale: urbanistica ed edilizia dal IV al IX secolo, Mantua, 1993, p. 98–104; J. L. Nelson, ‘Making a difference in eighth-century politics: the daughters of Desiderius’, in A. C. Murray (ed.), After Rome’s Fall: Narrators and Sources of Early Medieval History. Essays Presented to Walter Goffart, Toronto, Buffalo, London, 1998, p. 171–190 at p, 173–174; G. P. Brogiolo, ‘Desiderio e Ansa a Brescia: dalla fondazione del monastero al mito’, in C. Bertelli and G. P. Brogiolo, Il futuro dei Longobardi: Saggi, Milan, 2000, p. 142–155. 26

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brick-faced with bold arched pilaster-banding framing large windows on the exterior, and on the inside, wide wall-surfaces expertly painted with a complex cycle of narrative paintings. Two magnificent sequences of paired spoliate Roman columns and select capitals constituted the nave arcades; the three apses and the soffits of the arcade arches were embellished with a virtuoso apparatus of stucco ornament. With its expertly carved stone furniture this must have been one of the most sumptuous public buildings of its time, designed to promote the ideals of its founders and to provide a worthy resting place and memorial after their deaths. The lengths to which Ansa and Desiderius were prepared to go to achieve their aims are revealed most sharply in the two magnificent fluted white columns at the head of the two arcades, nearest to the sanctuary and the eastern apses (Figs. 4 and 5)28. Rather than being spoliate shafts robbed from a convenient public monument of the old Roman town, these were freshly carved for the church from fine white limestone from the neighbouring Lago di Garda. The technology and expertise for carving full-scale columns had been generally lost in Late Antiquity; the instances in which new large columns were made in the early Middle Ages are extremely rare and always exceptional. At San Salvatore, the proportions and execution of the work are so good that at first the observer is unaware that they differ in kind from the other columns of the two arcades, in particular from the adjacent pair of apparently identical fluted columns, in the second position in the two arcades29. These four columns are uniform in design. It is only on closer inspection that the observer becomes aware of the type of stone used for the first, easternmost pair — local limestone, rather than imported marble — and takes notice of the inevitable irregularities in execution which resulted from masons being required to turn their hands to a task which was completely new to them and for which they had no training or tradition on which to fall back. It is clear that the patrons and their architect had only one pair of white fluted Roman columns at their disposal, whereas their design for the eastern end of the church and for the screened area of

28 G. Panazza, ‘Gli scavi, l’architettra e gli affreschi della chiesa di S. Salvatore in Brescia’, in La chiesa dì San Salvatore in Brescia: Atti dell’ottavo Congresso di studi sull’arte dell’alto Medioevo, Milan, H, 1962, fìg. 37; D. Bullough, The Age of Charlemagne, London, 1965, pl. 1; Santa Giulia Brescia. L’età altomedievale: Longobardi e Carolingi, San Salvatore, Milan, 1999, p. 93; G. P. Brogiolo, ‘Desiderio e Ansa’, p. 151. 29 D. Bullough, The Age of Charlemagne, pl. 1; G. P. Brogiolo, ‘Desiderio e Ansa’, p. 142.

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the sanctuary extending westwards from the central apse appears to have demanded four uniform shafts. The only solution was to manufacture two new columns, as similar in appearance as possible to the existing pair. The fact that the difference of this first pair of columns has gone unremarked shows how successful their makers were at imitating their Roman models, and beyond that demonstrates the degree to which elite patrons of the time prized extreme ambition and quality in craftsmanship as well as seamless uniformity in design, and were prepared to place almost impossible demands on their masons in order to realize these ideals30. The contemporary sculptural decoration of San Salvatore is also sophisticated in conception and extraordinarily competent in execution. This survives only in fragments; however, the quality and ambition of the workmanship is apparent in two peacock reliefs, from an ambo or a screen (Fig. 6)31. Like most Lombard sculpture of this period in northern Italy, these are based on a 5th/6th-century model seen at Ravenna (Fig. 7), the old imperial capital which the Lombards, under their kings, Liutprand and Aistulf, had wrested from the Byzantines a generation earlier. They are the work of a craftsman who had been directed to late antique sculpture for example and inspiration, yet who had translated his model into a new idiom, more refined, more detailed and elegant than the original.

30 Another similar case is perhaps to be found in the little mid 8th-century chapel, S. Maria della Valle, at Cividale, a building commissioned by the duke of Friuli or by the king’s gastald, where the columns together with their capitals supporting the barrel vault o£ the sanctuary may have been designed and cut expressly for their positions, rather than reused from an earlier Roman structure (H. P. L’ Orange and H. Torp, ‘II tempietto longobardo di Cividale’, (Institutum Romanum Norvegiae), VII, part 1, 1977, pls. XXXI, XL–XLV; part 2, 1977, p. 23–30, part 3, 1979, p. 131–137; J. Mitchell, ‘The uses of spolia in Longobard Italy’, in J. Poeschke (ed.), Antike Spolien in der Architektur des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, Munich, 1996, p. 93–115 at p. 93–4. However, contra: C. Bertelli, ‘La decorazione del tempio di Cividale’, in Paolo Diacono e il Friuli altomedievale (seco. VI–X). Atti del XIV Congresso Intemazionale dì Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, Spoleto, 2001, p. 439. 31 G. Panazza, ‘Osservazioni sui frammenti scultorei di S. Salvatore’, in C. Stella and G. Brentegani (ed.), S. Giulia di Brescia: archeologia, arte, storia di un monastero regio dai Longobardi al Barbarossa, Brescia, 1992, p. 231–244, at p. 240–241; Santa Giulia Brescia, l’età altomedievale, p. 94; C. Bertelli and G. P. Brogiolo (eds.), Il futuro dei Longobardi, Milan, 2000, fig. 366. Analogous peacocks figure on various monuments from Ravenna, for instance on the so-called sarcophagus of the Twelve Apostles and on that of the Archbishop Theodore, both in S. Apollinare in Classe (G. Bovini, “Corpus”. della scultura paleocristiana bizantina ed altomedioevale di Ravenna, 2, Rome, 1968, cat. 16 and 24).

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A similar strategy was being followed in other parts of Lombard Italy. In the duchy of Spoleto, a large basilica on the outskirts of the city of Spoleto and a small ornate funerary oratory on a branch of the Via Flaminia, some 20 km to the north, both in an extraordinary classicizing Roman idiom, were erected probably in the first half of the 8th century32. The greater part of the carved ornament on both buildings is new work, rather than spolia reused from ancient buildings, but designed and executed so cleverly and deceptively as to deceive as good a judge as Andrea Palladio into thinking that the Tempietto was a Roman temple and to continue to mislead and baffle scholars to this day (Fig. 8)33. Even the magnificent central columns of the main porch, carved to resemble a shaft of tiny closely-set overlapping leaves, are 8th-century work, meticulously mimicking a type of exotically ornate shaft occasionally used in deluxe buildings of the early imperial period. It is only in details of the carving of friezes, with their repeating sequences of ornamental motifs, that the Lombard mason, attempting the extraordinarily challenging task of historicist imitation and the recreation of a lost dead idiom, shows his hand. In both buildings, the patron, probably a duke of Spoleto, or a leading member of his court, has required his masons to create buildings which are so sophisticatedly designed, skillfully combining old and new, and so competently executed that observers are uncertain as to whether they are looking at a genuine Roman imperial temple, a later building put together out of carefully selected Roman spolia, or an early medieval oratory painstakingly carved in a long dead idiom. To a contemporary, their rich historicist language would doubtless have spoken an unmistakable message of authority and power, universally associated with the visual apparatus of ancient Rome. For these two buildings, see: F. W. Deichmann, ‘Die Enstehungszeit von Salvatorkirche und Clitumnustempel bei Spoleto’, Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts, römische Abteilung, 58 (1943), 1–2, p. 106–148; M. Salmi, La basilica di San Salvatore di Spoleto, Florence, 1951; G. Benazzi (ed.), I dipinti murali e l’edicola marmorea del Tempietto sul Clitunno, Spoleto, 1985; E. Russo, ‘Su S. Salvatore di Spoleto e sul tempietto del Clitunno’, Acta ad archaeologiam et atrium historiam pertinentia (Institutum Romanum Norvegiae), ser. altera in 8, 8 (1992), p. 87–143; J. J. Emerick, The Tempietto del Clitunno near Spoleto, University Park, Pa., 1998; C. Jäggi, San Salvatore in Spoleto. Studien zur spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Architektur Italiens, Wiesbaden, 1998; C. Bertelli and G. P. Brogiolo, Il Futuro dei Longobardi, cat. 295, 296, 298. The date of these two buildings has been endlessly debated. I have argued for an eighth-century date in ‘The display of script’, p. 887–954 at p. 945–949, and in ‘The uses of spolia’, p. 94–97. 33 Andrea Palladio, L’architettura divisa in quattro libri, Venice, 1642, facsimile reproduction, Milan, 1968, 4, p. 98–102. 32

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At Benevento, in the 760s, the Duke of the southern Lombard duchy, Arechis II (758–787) charged his masons to deploy a somewhat different assemblage of elements to similar effect, in his foundation of S. Sophia at Benevento, a centrally-planned church, served by a convent34. Early sources record that the church with its striking stellar ground-plan and double ambulatory of columns and slender rectangular piers was built in imitation of Justinan’s great 6th-century basilica of S. Sophia in Constantinople (Fig. 9)35. The brilliantly eccentric design, the elegant exterior cladding in brick and volcanic tufa set in banded bichrome opera listata, the eight spectacular Roman columns and capitals which together with eight slender piers support a daring sequence of vaults, the magnificently painted surfaces of the interior wall-surfaces, together constituted a building which in the coherence of its design and the quality of its elements, despite its modest scale, laid down a minor challenge to the greatest church of Constantinople and vied with the most prestigious buildings of 8th-century Europe. In the last years of the 8th century, Pope Leo III, the lord of the papal duchy of Rome, also set about orchestrating prestige architecture and ornament in a similar fashion. This is most evident in the two large triclinia, which he constructed at his official residence, the Lateran Palace: a new audience chamber and a banqueting hall (Fig. 10)36. Both buildings had their principal chambers elevated at first-story level. The triconch audience 34 H. Belting, ‘Studien zum beneventanischen Hof ’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16 (1962), p. 175–193; M. Rotili, Benevento romana e longobarda: l’immagine urbana, Naples, 1986, p. 184– 201; C. Bertelli and G. P Brogiolo (eds.), Il futuro dei Longobardi, Milan, 2000, p. 368–369; C. B. McClendon, The Origins, p. 54–57. 35 H. Belting, ‘Studien’ p. 141–193, at p. 182–185. 36 L. Duchesne (ed.), Le Liber Pontificalis (Paris, 1955, reprinted 181), 2, p. 3–4, 11 (Leo III, ch. 10 and 39); R. Davis, The Lives of the Eighth-century Popes (Liber Pontificalis), Liverpool, 1992, p. 183–184, 198; H. Belting, ‘I mosaici dell’aula Leonina come testimonianza della prima ‘renovatio’ dell’arte medievale a Roma’, in Roma e l’età carolingia, Rome, 1976, p. 167–182; H. Belting, ‘Die beiden Palastaulen Leos III. Im Lateran und die Entsteung einer päpstlichen Programmkunst’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 12 (1978), p. 55–83; R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, Princeton, N. J., 1980, ch. 5; C. Meckseper, ‘Zur Doppelschossigkeit der beiden Triklinien Leos III. im Lateranspalast zu Rom’, in Schloss Tirol: Saalbauten und Burgen des 12. Jahrhunderts in Mitteleuropa, 1998, p. 119–128; M. Luchterhandt, ‘Famulus Petri — Karl der Grose in der römischen Mosaikbildern Leos III’, in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 799 – Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Beiträge, p. 55–70; B. Ward-Perkins, ‘Constantinople: A city and its ideological territory’, in G. P. Brogiolo, N. Gauthier and N. Christie (ed.), Towns and their Territories, p. 325–345, at p. 340–341; C. B. McClendon, The Origins, p. 124–127.

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hall, c. 40 m. long and 13 m. wide, is described by Leo III’s biographer as being ‘of wondrous size, larger than all other triclinia’. The interior was entered through a screen of columns of purple porphyry and white marble, the walls were revetted in polished marble and the floor was paved in polychrome marble. In the principal apse was a grandiloquent composition in mosaic of the Mission of the Apostles, flanked by images of the Pope and Charlemagne before St. Peter. The slightly later banqueting hall with its eleven apses was considerably larger, 68 m. long and over 15 m. wide. Like the triclinium, its floor was laid with polychrome marble, there was a mosaic in the main axial apse and painted figural decoration in the ten lateral apses, scenes with the apostles preaching to the people. As in the dining halls of imperial Roman palaces, there was a fountain, in the form of a shell made of purple porphyry, in the middle of the room. These two reception halls were magnificently appointed aulic spaces designed to proclaim the power and authority of their Lord, the Pope, built in imitation and emulation of two of the principal ceremonial halls at the imperial palace at Constantinople, the Triclinium and the Dekanneacubita, the banqueting hall with 19 apses37. They were constructed to the highest specification, unprecedented in early medieval Rome in their architectural form and in their studied orchestration of materials and ambitious elegance of surface. With the visual rhetoric of these two new halls, and the sister triclinium which he built at the same time at his other residence at St. Peter’s38, the Pope was making a bid to raise the papacy to eminence in the contemporary world order. In a way they are pendants to the Constitutum Constantini, the Donation of Constantine, the notorious, document concocted in the papal chancery in the later 8th century which claimed for the papacy imperial honours and dignity and wide secular jurisdiction over Rome and the western provinces of the Empire39. In the aftermath of the demise of the Lombard kingdom, and the territorial security which the Frankish annexation of Italy had given to the Church of Rome, Pope Leo, from a position of political weakness, was equipping the B. Ward-Perkins, ‘Constantinople’, p. 340–341. For the Dekanneacubita, see R. Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, p. 349. 38 L. Duchesne (ed.), Liber Pontificalis, 2, p. 8 (Leo III, ch. 27); R. Davis, The Lives, p. 193. 39 For the Constitutum Constantini, see H. Fuhrmann (ed.), Constitutum Constantini, MGH, Fontes iuris germanici antiqui, Hannover, 1968; W. Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages, 3rd. (ed.), London, 1970, p. 74–86; T. F. X. Noble, The Republic of St. Peter: Birth of the Papal State, 680–825, Philadelphia, 1987, p. 134–137. 37

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papal residences with public spaces designed to impress, to amaze envoys from the other polities of Europe and the east; spaces appropriate to a lord who alongside his preeminence in spiritual matters, was renewing his claim to extensive independent temporal jurisdiction40. He succeeded so well, in setting a new benchmark for grandiose ceremonial court architecture of surpassing quality, that these two new triclinia continued in use as the two major ceremonial halls at the papal palace for over 500 years, down to the Late Middle Ages41. This concern with prestige architecture and art, with invention and overt workmanship of the highest order, which reached back to a revered imperial past and which required that masons and craftsmen pushed beyond the boundaries of contemporary practice and developed techniques which would enable them to emulate and even improve on their models, was not restricted to the rulers of Francia and Italy. Two recent discoveries have made it clear that the rulers of the most powerful kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England were very much alive to this same strategy, and that they engaged in it with similar enthusiasm. In the 8th and early 9th century a series of strong long-ruling kings, Aethelbald (726–757), Offa (757–96) and Coenwulf (796–821), had built Mercia into the predominant kingdom of Britain, extending their dominion from the south coast to Northumbria. Offa, in particular, laid claim to an authority on a level with the great rulers of his time, in particular with the all-powerful Frankish king, Charlemagne. The Frankish king addressed him, in correspondence, on terms of near equality, the only contemporary western ruler to whom he accorded this recognition; corresponded with him over commerce and other relations between the two kingdoms; and even entered into negotiations for a marriage alliance between his son, Charles, and a daughter of Offa42.

40 T. F. X. Noble, The Republic of St. Peter, p. 241–244, 290. In constructing these buildings, Leo was continuing an initiative of Pope Zacharias, who 50 years earlier, had set about refurbishing the Lateran Palace and providing it with grand new entrance and reception halls; see J. Osborne, ‘Papal court culture during the pontificate of Zacharias (AD 741–752)’, in C. Cubitt (ed.), Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages, Turnhout, 2003, p. 223–234. 41 M. Di Berardo, ‘Le aule di rappresentanza’, in Il Palazzo Lateranense, (ed.) C. Pietrangeli, Florence, 1991, p. 36–50, at p. 43; M. Luchterhandt, ‘Päpstliche Palastbau und höfisches Zeremoniell unto Leo III’, in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Beiträge, p. 109–122, at p. 116. 42 F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd (ed.), Oxford, 1971, p. 219–221; I. A. Walker, Mercia and the Making of England, Thrupp, Stroud, 2000, p. 16–18.

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Like Charlemagne and the Lombard kings and dukes before him, Offa and his successor, Coenwulf, encouraged the visual arts, promoting a rich and sophisticated visual culture in the orbit of their courts. This is best observed in the carved imagery and ornament designed for a group of old royal and aristocratic monasteries, at Medehampstead (Peterborough), Castor, Fletton, Breedon-on-the-Hill and at the episcopal seat at Lichfield43. In the decades around 800 these underwent a more or less coherent programme of reformation and rebuilding, with teams of masons and carvers working in related idioms, using similar models and conventions, following an established pattern of how churches of substance should be fitted out and decorated. The details of this initiative have yet to be fully investigated and understood but it is clear that the royal household and probably also the principal families of the realm were engaged on a systematic reformation of old aristocratic monastic houses with which they had ancient association. This involved major renewal of fabric, to create a coherent and visually arresting network of religious centres, showplaces of patronage, whose business was, through prayer, to ensure the prosperity and security of the kingdom and the salvation of the souls of their benefactors. Quite exceptional, when seen in the context of Continental European production of the period, is the quantity and ambition of the carved stone programmes in these buildings, the amount of figure sculpture and large narrative relief panels deployed, and the quality of the work. Extended sequences of large stone panels carved in deep relief with standing figures, with a particular predilection for the apostles, and with scenes relating to the life of Christ, together with long stretches of impost-frieze, richly carved with every kind of creature, with inhabited plant scrolls, scrolling rinceaux and an extensive repertoire of ornament, were deployed on the interior walls of the churches. Figures are rendered in skilfully foreshortened, deeply-cut and undercut three-dimensional relief, creating complex layered compositional structures, A. W. Clapham, ‘The carved stones at Breedon-on-the-Hill, Leicestershire, and their position in the history of English art’, Archaeologia 77 (1928), p. 219–240; R. J. Cramp, ‘Schools of Mercian sculpture’ in Mercian Studies, (ed.) A. Dornier, Leicester, 1977, p. 191–231; R. H. I. Jewell, ‘The Anglo-Saxon friezes at Breedon-on-the-Hill, Leicestershire’, Archaeologia 108 (1986), p. 95–115; R. Hodges, The Anglo-Saxon Achievement, London, 1989, p. 129; R. Jewell, ‘The classicism of Southumbrian sculpture’ in Mercia: An Anglo-Saxon Kingdom in Europe (ed.) M. R Brown and C. Farr, London and New York, 2001, p. 246–262; J. Mitchell, ‘England in the eighth century: state formation, secular piety and the visual arts in Mercia’, in V. Pace (ed.), L’VIII secolo: un secolo inquieto, Cividale del Friuli, 2010, p. 262–70, 427–32. 43

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with great attention to surface detail and finish, and a sophisticated interplay between modelled illusionistic plasticity and coherently insistent surface pattern. One is hard put to find any comparable body of architectural figural carving in Europe at the time. Quite exceptional is the almost programmatic adherence to a common figural idiom at the various sites. The sheer quality, the transcendent craftsmanship and extraordinary ambition of the work is apparent from a celebrated panel at Breedon, in which two figures, probably apostles, engage in ecstatic dialogue (Fig. 11). The level of the invention and execution is immediately apparent, if one compares these apostles with surviving examples of figure-sculpture from elsewhere in Europe, like the well-known stucco figures of female saints in the 8th-century chapel in the Lombard ducal capital of Cividale44. Despite the heavily overpainted somewhat battered state of the Breedon panel, in complexity, sophistication, virtuosic manipulation of surface, there is no contest. The Breedon relief is quite simply one of the finest surviving pieces of carving in stone from the European early Middle Ages; this is not without wider significance. A magnificent panel from the same tradition was found in 2003, during preparatory excavations for the construction of a new altar at the east end of the nave of Lichfield Cathedral (Fig. 12). This is a relief of the Archangel Michael, one half of an Annunciation, in a pale honey-coloured limestone. The stance of the figure, the drapery conventions with falls of cloth sweeping down across the body, and the undulating lower hem of the tunic, the complex layering of the composition, the prominent leafy plant springing from the ground, are all typical features of this aulic Mercian idiom. However, the complexity, the precision and detail of the carving, the attention paid to refined and mannered configurations of cloth over limbs are exceptional even in the context of the surviving corpus of this English tradition of elite sculptural practice. Abundant traces of pigment show that the composition was dramatically picked out in colours. There is a brilliance and a studied élan to this work which is the mark of the highest level of court production. There is little doubt that this relief belongs to a programme of reconstruction and refurbishment of the old cathedral at Lichfield, undertaken by King Offa to mark the successful realization of his design to establish a new

J. Hubert, J. Porcher, W. F. Volbach, Europe of the Invasions, New York, 1969, ills. 273–274; H. P. L’Orange and H. Torp, ‘Il Tempietto Longobardo di Cividale’, part I, pls. LVII–LXXV. 44

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third English archbishop’s seat at Mercian Lichfield. His aim in this was to add lustre and legitimacy to the kingdom and to subvert the domination of Canterbury, the primatial see in Kent, which periodically rebelled and passed in and out of Mercian control in this period45. The new Mercian see was established in 788 and after a short and stormy existence was annulled by the Pope in 803, early in the reign of Coenwulf. Sequences of standing apostles, often under arcades, play a prominent role in the repertoire of subjects deployed by masons of this Mercian school; and yet apostle-series are extremely rare in the artistic production of early medieval Europe. As was the case with Charlemagne in Francia and with the Lombard kings and dukes and the Pope in Italy, the bidding of a patron or his learned adviser is likely to have been responsible here for the choice of subject. It is probable that the sequences of apostles, which are one of the characteristic features of the imagery of the early church in Rome and southern Gaul, were selected as an ideal subject to revive and to reinvent. They would have served as an extremely effective expression of the desire of Lichfield and the Mercian church for apostolic dignity and of the aspirations of the Mercian kingdom to a place in the first rank of European states of the age. The second newly-discovered artifact from royal Mercia is a gold coin of Coenwulf, a mancus, minted in London, in the latter part of the first decade of the 9th century (Fig. 13). On its obverse it bears the name of the Mercian king and on the back the legend ‘de vico Lundoniae’. It was found on the bank of the River Ivel, near Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, and subsequently acquired by the British Museum46. The model for this remarkable coin, preserved in near-mint condition, seems to have been a late 4th-century gold solidus or medallion, perhaps of the Emperor Gratian47. The use of gold, rather than the far more common silver, for the coin, underlines the Roman reference; while this metal was commonly used for high-value coins and medallions in Late Antiquity, it was rarely used in England in the early Middle Ages — only seven other Middle and Later Anglo-Saxon gold coins

45 F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 215–218; I. A. Walker, Mercia and the Making of England, p. 13–25. 46 G. Williams, G. and R. Bishop, ‘Coenwulf, King of Mercia’, Current Archaeology 194 (2004), p. 56–57. 47 Cf. J. P. C. Kent and M. and A. Hirmer, Roman Coins, New York, 1978, pl. 180, nos. 708, 709.

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survive from the period48. The bust on the front recreates Coenwulf as a Christian Roman emperor with a clarity and force and a strength of design that is the equal of the celebrated romanizing busts of Charlemagne on the Frankish emperor’s almost exactly contemporary silver reform deniers49. Like the Lichfield angel, the boldness and sheer quality of this coin are astounding; both were designed as symbolic statements to impress on the observer the authority of these Mercian kings — whose control over their realms and fortunes was by no means always secure — and the sophisticated excellence of the cultural apparatus which they had at their command. It is clear from these examples that transcendent quality, supremely sophisticated craftsmanship, obtrusively meticulous surface finish, were things that the major players of Europe in the age of 774 expected of their artists; they made demands on their masons, carvers, metalworkers, moneyers and painters, which pushed them to their limits, and beyond. Supreme, overt quality and the finest technique and finish were things which a ruler with overreaching designs and ambitions regarded as a matter of course in the 8th and early 9th century. They constituted a critical element of the iconography of status, authority and power. Public architecture with daringly innovative structures and surfaces sheathed in the rarest and most resplendent revetments, sculptural imagery and ornament of bold composition and exquisite detail, deluxe artifacts in costly materials showing breathtaking invention in their design and the most skilled and refined workmanship in their execution were considered the appropriate visual expression of the highest political status and aspiration. Usually these are characterized by a clear reference to classical Roman precedent. However, this is no playful or merely learned reference to a past culture; it has little to do with an interest in antiquity for antiquity’s sake. It must be seen as an extended visual rhetoric, drawing on and expressing

48 H. E. Pagan, ‘A third gold coin of Mercia’, British Numismatic Journal, 34 (1965), p. 8–10; B. H. I. H. Stewart, ‘Anglo-Saxon gold coins’, in R. A. G. Carson and C. M. Kray (ed.), Scripta Nummaria Romana: Essays presented to Humphrey Sutherland, London 1978, p. 143– 172; M. Blackburn, ‘Coenwulf gold mancus’, http://www.mia.gov.uk/resources/assets//C/ Coenwulf_Mancus_Expert_s_statement_887i.doc 49 R Grierson, ‘Money and coinage under Charlemagne’, in Karl der Grosse. Lebenswerk und Nachleben I: Persönlichkeit und Geschichte, (ed.) H. Beumann, Düsseldorf, 1965, p. 501–536, at p. 518-530, pls. I–IV; P. Grierson and M. Blackburn, Medieval European Coinage: Early Middle Ages, 5th–10th Centuries, v. I, Cambridge, 1986, p. 209–210, 524– 525, nos. 748–749, pl. 34; C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, 799 — Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Katalog, Band 1, cat. II. p. 21–25.

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itself in a variety of ancient Roman idioms, which continued to be recognized throughout the footprint of the old Roman Empire as embodying and expressing imperial power, authority and prestige. Above all, elite patrons, in their desire to be noticed by their peers, required the craftsmen in their employ to set their sights on targets which lay well beyond the range of their normal practice, demanding that they engage with unfamiliar materials, master the means of working them without formal instruction, and achieve results which while referencing ancient works, celebrated cultural benchmarks of a past golden age, at the same time reinterpreted them, creating something essentially new and superior. This was a strategy which the rulers of Lombard Italy had developed during the 8th century in the architecture, sculpture in stone, carved ivory and deluxe illuminated manuscript which they commissioned for their palaces and elite monastic foundations50. In cultural terms, 774, the year of Charlemagne’s annexation of Lombard Italy, marked not so much the introduction of an invigorating, unifying, transformative force into the peninsular, as the opening of an Aladdin’s cave which introduced the invading Frankish king to strategies of self-presentation and display which would change the face of court art in northern Europe. Acknowledgments My thanks to Gian Pietro Brogiolo, Padua, Emily Howe, Lichfield, Monica Ibsen, Brescia, Sarah Leppard, Norwich, and Saverio Lomartire, Vercelli, for help of various kinds. Postscript Subsequent inspection has made it clear that all four of the fluted columns at the east end of the nave colonnades of San Salvatore in Brescia were newly cut expressly for the building; and conversely that the columns supporting the barrel vaults of the santuary in S.Maria della Valle, at Cividale, are old Roman shafts reshaped and adapted to their new function 50 J. Mitchell, ‘Karl der Grosse, Rom und das Vermächtnis der Langobarden’; idem, ‘L’arte nell’Italia longobarda e nell’Europa carolingia’, in G. R Brogiolo and C. Bertelli, Il Futuro dei Longobardi: Saggi, p. 173–187; idem, ‘Artistic patronage and cultural strategies in Lombard Italy’; idem, Out of the Dark Ages: Art and Sate Formation in Post-Roman Europe (forthcoming).

III The Painted Decoration of San Salvatore in Brescia in Context

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revious discussions of the painted decoration of San Salvatore in Brescia inevitably have had to devote much space to a consideration of the date of the various churches on the site, in particular the present structure, and to the phasing of the great programme of narrative scenes and iconic portraitheads of saints which in fragments is still preserved on the walls of the nave and aisles of the basilica1. This is no longer necessary. Taken together, the observations of Gian Pietro Brogiolo on the fabric and the sequence of construction, and of Vincenzo Gheroldi on the tight-knit relationship between built structure, painted intonaco and the stucco embellishments of the arcades, and the new carbon-14 dates for the reeds used as structural armatures for the stuccoes, all show that the present church was constructed and fully decorated in one campaign — to judge from the carbon-14 analysis, with a high degree of probability in the 760s and fairly certainly not later than 7702. The chronological and social context is now quite firmly established as the final era of Lombard dominion in northern Italy, the period of rule of the last king, Desiderius (756–774), who together with his wife Ansa, is documented as having founded a female monastery at the site dedicated to San Salvatore in 753. For the dating of the building, the identification of surviving compositions on the nave walls as depicting the passions of saints Sophia, Elpis, Pistis and Agape, if correct, is indicative: their relics are recorded as having been deposited in San Salvatore in 7633· 1 For a skeletal summary of the issues, see Brogiolo, Gheroldi, Ibsen, Mitchell 2010, pp. 226–227. 2 See Brogiolo, 2014, pp. 77–78. 3 Brogiolo 1999; Brogiolo 2000, pp. 145–149.

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The various arguments put forward for a 9th-century date for the standing church and for the paintings, including the debate on the words regnantem Desiderium followed possibly by tiro Hlu, still legible on the south wall in the course of the painted inscription which circles the nave over the arcades, must now be reconsidered in this optic4. 1. The pictorial programme The layout of the programme on the upper nave walls, with narrative scenes in three registers, and the windows descending down and breaking into the second register, as far as can be gathered from the surviving record, is at once both traditional and possibly innovative (Fig. I)5. The thematic organization of the programme of imagery on the nave walls is out of the ordinary, with Christological sequences above and hagiographical narratives below. Despite the extremely fragmentary remains of surviving painted plaster, it is clear that in the uppermost of the three narrative registers a New Testament sequence progresses in a clockwise direction, starting at the east end of the nave at the top of the south wall, probably with the Annunciation (SI), then the Visitation (S2) and Nativity (S3), and possibly the Annunciation to the Shepherds (S4), then proceeding round onto the north wall at the same level, past the Flight into Egypt (N3), through the Baptism (N5) and the Miracle at Cana (N6), and ending with one of Christ’s miracles of healing, at the eastern end of the north wall (N7)6. This sequence from the story of Christ seems to continue in the middle register on the south wall, where the fourth scene (SI 1) can tentatively be identified with Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery and the fifth (SI2) with Christ healing at a water tank, probably the pool of Bethesda (John 5, 2–13) or the pool of Siloam (John 9, 1–14). The surviving traces of painting on the north wall, at this level, are too few to allow for any scenes to be identified; however, if the middle register on one wall consisted of episodes from the life of Christ it is almost inevitable that the narrative would have continued along the opposite wall at the same level. The scenes on the third and lowest register, which are better preserved than those higher up, cannot be reconciled with New Testament iconography. Anderson and Weis have argued that they show the passions of saints whose relics were deposited in the basilica in 763; the story of santa Giulia, her 4 See Lomartire 1998, pp. 46–47 and 48 fn. 36 for a brief review of the debate on the inscription, and De Rubeis, 2014, for a new reading.

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enslavement by the Vandals at Carthage (S22), her martyrdom in Corsica and the subsequent translation of her relics to the Tuscan island of Gorgon, on the south wall, and on the north wall the passions of the virgin martyrs, Elpis, Pistis and Agape and their mother Sophia (N21–26)7. Schemes involving pictorial narratives and individual figures, either fulllength or bust-portraits in medallions, deployed over a series of registers on the interior walls of churches, had long been common practice since at least the 3rd century. Furthermore, the juxtaposition of a running sequence of episodes from the infancy, ministry and possibly the passion of Christ alongside narratives from the passions of martyr saints, revered because of their special relationship to the site, is not an uncommon phenomenon in churches of the period, although the precise layout followed at Brescia does not seem to be paralleled in surviving monuments. One regular pattern involved narratives from the Old and New Testament, set in a variety of antithetical ways, to constitute the principal scheme. This is evidenced in 5th-century Rome, where to judge from the records made by counterreformation antiquaries, at Old Saint Peter’s, the memoria of the leader of the Apostles and the first bishop of the city, there were two registers of painted narratives on the nave walls below the windows and probably large standing figures between the windows8. Here episodes from the two testaments faced each other across the nave. A similar arrangement was followed in the Lateran Basilica, where the two testaments also faced each other, although here in antithetical typologically matched pairs9. Both these painted programmes are thought to have been initiatives of Pope Leo I (440–461). Similarly, in the third great early five-aisled basilica in Rome, San Paolo fuori le mura, the Old Testament narrative stood against the acts of Saint Paul on the opposite wall, constituting some kind of thematic precedent for the combinatory scheme at Brescia10. At the same time, at Santa Maria Maggiore, the Old Testament alone filled the nave, with episodes from the lives of Abraham Panazza 1962, pp. 215–216, pls. E2 and F2. Ibsen, 2014, pp. 149–157. 7 Anderson 1976, pp. 110–111; Weis 1977, pp. 13–17; Ibsen, 2014, pp. 157–158. 8 Waetzoldt 1964, pp. 69–71, figs. 484–8; Giacomo Grimaldi 1972, figs. 52, 55; Andaloro 2006, pp. 411–415. 9 Anastasius Bibliothecarius in Migne, Patrologia Latina, 129, col. 289; Krautheimer, Corbett, Frazer 1977, pp. 10, 86; Brandenburg 2004, p. 23. 10 Waetzoldt 1964, pp. 56–61, figs. 328–408; Andaloro 2006, pp. 366–402. 11 Brenk 1973, pp. 9–132; Kessler 1985, pp. 31–33; Andaloro 2006, pp. 305–346. 5

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and Jacob on one wall facing Moses and Joshua on the other, keeping register beneath the windows above; with an idiosyncratic New Testament sequence on the upper wall-surfaces framing the apse. Each of the panels in the nave consisted of framed single fields, usually two part compositions, above and below. The great upper windows were close-set, leaving no space for figural imagery on the intervening wall-surfaces11. At Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, the church built by Theodoric at the entrance to the palace-complex in Ravenna, at the end of the century, the scheme was different, in idea perhaps more akin to Brescia. Here some kind of procession of standing figures, possibly hagiographical, subsequently refashioned after the imposition of imperial control over the city in the mid 6th century as long sequences of male and female martyrs, filled the space between the arcades and the windows, with standing figures of prophets or disciples between the windows above, and finally a cycle of small images of Christ’s ministry and passion running along the tops of the walls12. Similarly, in the excavated 6th-century basilica at Kami al-Ahbariya, some 35 km south-west of Alexandria, one of the few sites in the eastern Mediterranean where the painted imagery of the nave of a church has survived or can be reconstructed, the painted decoration of the navewalls has been painstakingly reassembled to give a single register of narrative episodes from the life of Christ over the arcades, and above, large standing figures, prophets, holding up inscribed scrolls, between the windows13. On the western entrance-wall of the nave, the scheme has been reconstructed with three registers, with a continuation of the Christological sequence at the lowest level, and above two further stages of framed narratives, in the higher of which subjects relating to the conversion of the emperor Constantine have been identified — in a way, an inversion of the order at Brescia14. Close in time to Brescia is the painted programme in Saint Johann at Müstair; the church is now securely dated to the mid 770s and the extensive painted programme must have been completed soon afterwards15. Five registers of narrative scenes completely cover the walls of the nave, with further episodes in the apses; an extensive sequence from the life of David from the Old Testament at the topmost level, then three central registers from the infancy,

12 Deichmann 1958, pls. 98–107; Deichmann 1969, pp. 171–189; Deichmann 1974, pp. 127–189; Deliyannis 2010, pp. 146–174. 13 Witte Orr 2010, figs. 25, 27, pls. 1, 4–6, 16–21. 14 Witte Orr 2010, fig. 26, pls. 2–3, 5a. 15 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 30 and passim.

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ministry and passion and afterlife of Christ, and finally at the bottom, at eye-level, a register of what seem to have been the passions of martyr-saints, probably including the Apostles. In the apses the programme continued with further hagiographical narratives, Saint John the Baptist, Saints Peter and Paul, and a saint who has been variously identified as Saint Stephen and a local saint, Vigilius, first bishop of Trent. Although the monastery church at Müstair was not an aisled basilica but a single-vesseled building with only a few, small, high windows, the idea behind the scheme of its painted decoration was not dissimilar to that at San Salvatore: the principal narrative a full Christological cycle, with David as an Old Testament préfiguration above, and below the passions of martyrs, witnessing in their own martyrdoms to Christ’s exemplary ministry and sacrifice16. However, there is nothing from the Mediterranean theatre quite like the scheme at Brescia, where the saints whose relics were a particular focus of veneration in the church were celebrated in dramatically conceived tableaux, for the faithful to inspect, in clear view, just over the columns of the nave, set in exemplary contrast to their ideal pattern, Christ, skied on the upper reaches of the walls above. The evident intention of the people who devised this programme was to present the passions of the newly-arrived martyrs in the most dramatic and visible way possible. Beneath these narrative registers a continuous inscription painted in characteristic slender sloping capital letters, originally in white against a red ground (now with the loss of surface pigment seemingly in red against a light ground), runs in a single line along the length of the nave on either side17. Originally it may have continued across the entrance wall as well. Aside from the much-debated sequence on the south wall, commonly read as ‘regnantem Desiderium tiro Hlu’, the surviving elements of this inscription are too meagre to reveal anything of the sense of the text. The practice of girding the interior of a church with a running inscription would appear to have been in vogue in Byzantium in the age of Justinian, when long and complex inscriptions in raised letters were carved onto the stone entablatures

At Müstair the extensive David cycle in the topmost register may have been introduced in pointed reference to the Frankish king, Charlemagne, who is traditionally revered as the founder of the monastery. See Mitchell 2013, reprinted in this volume, Ch. IV, p. 000. 17 Torp 1959, pp. 25–29; Panazza 1962, pp. 95–96; Mor 1982, p. 115; Lomartire 1998, pp. 46–47 and 48 fn. 36; De Rubeis 1999; Lomartire 2001, pp. 485–486; De Rubeis 2014. 16

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which encircled the naves of two churches, Juliana Anicia’s Saint Polyeuktos and Justinian’s and Theodora’s Saints Sergius and Bacchus at the Hormisdas Palace18. In both cases, the letters were probably gilded with blue grounds behind19. In the mid 8th-century chapel at Cividale, the capital place of the north-eastern Lombard marcher duchy of Friuli, a variant of this practice is followed, with a long inscription, three lines deep, in white letters on a purple ground, painted on the walls of the presbytery and the nave, beneath the register of frontal saints in niches and above the marble panelling of the dado20. Similarly, some time after 774, a prominent dedicatory inscription in large gilded bronze letters was set up round the interior walls of the chapel attached to Arechis II’s new palace at Salerno, the present San Pietro a Corte21. There is no clear surviving evidence for circling inscriptions of this kind from earlier sites in the western Mediterranean, and it is very possible that the idea was appropriated from eastern Byzantine practice, introduced by architects working for Lombard masters in northern Italy in the course of the 8th century. However, a prominent instance, much closer in date, is the 240 metre-long inscription in mosaic, with gold letters on a blue/green ground, which runs round the top of the walls of the octagonal arcade in the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem, set up by the Umayyad caliph, Abd al-Malik, in 691/222. Every western pilgrim to the Holy Land must have taken note of this building, dominating the Temple Mount, at the highest point in the city, although strangely the Anglo-Saxon Willibald, who was in Jerusalem more than once in the course of his extended peregrination in the Levant in the 720s, left no record of having seen it23. While it is unlikely that the Dome of the Rock provided a direct inspiration for the nave inscription at Brescia, it does bear witness to contemporary caliphal interest in and a similar appropriation of this striking feature of some of the most resplendent churches of Late Antiquity. 18 Saint Polyeuktos: Harrison 1986, pp. 5–8, 117–121, 407, figs. 87, 88, 91–105; Harrison 1989, pp. 33–34, 81–88, 127130, figs. 31, 34, 86–89, 95, 96, 98, 99. SS. Sergius and Bacchus: Mathews 1976, pp. 242–259. 19 Harrison 1986, p. 414; Harrison 1989, p. 84. 20 L’Orange, Torp 1977–1979, 1, pl. XXVII, XXXV, XXXVIb, colour pl. VII; Mor 1982; Lomartire 2001. 21 Peduto et al. 1988, p. 13; Delogu 1992, p. 319; Di Muro 1996; 799. Stiegemann and Wemhoff 1999, pp. 573–574, cat. VIII.55. 22 Grabar 1996, pp. 56–71; Grabar 2006, pp. 59–61, 90–93; Nees 2011. 23 Vita Willibaldi, pp. 80–117; Talbot 1981, pp. 151–177; Noble, Head 1995, pp. 141– 164.

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Of the imagery on the outer walls of the aisles at Brescia only fragments of one scene are preserved, it would seem an episode from the Book of Revelation (Fig. 2). This is located towards the far eastern end of the north aisle, immediately above the original round-headed door, which pierces the outer wall a few meters in from the northern apse24. At the left-hand side of the composition a haloed frontal figure, a female, extends her left arm over a panelled chest, probably the Ark of God’s Testament (Rev. 11,19)· This figure has been identified with the Woman Clothed with the Sun (Rev. 12,l)25· Half-length figures are discernible on the right-hand side of this ark, and then two or three half-figure angels facing away down towards the right, and finally a full-length frontal standing angel. The lower part of the composition is given over to the undulating forms of large crested serpents, each with subordinate serpents growing out from its neck. These would appear to represent the great red apocalyptic dragon, here multiplied, with its seven crowned heads and ten horns, assailed from above by Michael and his angelic hosts (Rev. 12,3–17). Below the panel there are preserved a few letters of an inscription on two lines, in white on a red ground, and below this two letters from a further line of script. These inscriptions, like those over the arcades in the nave, may have run the length of the aisle wall26. This one surviving composition raises the possibility, even the probability, of an extensive sequence of scenes from the Apocalypse on the aisle walis of the basilica. While detailed cycles of images from the Book of Revelation are preserved in manuscripts of the period, the evidence for similar programmes on the walls of churches is scarce27. However, Bede records that the noble Northumbrian abbot, Benedict Biscop, brought images of the Apocalypse back to his newly constructed monastery church of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, in 679, from his fifth journey to Rome. These he set up on the north wall of the nave, facing illustrations from ecclesiastical history on the south wall. Bede writes that Benedict’s express purpose in doing this was didactic and admonitory, ‘so that all who entered the church, even if they could not read, wherever they turned their eyes, might have before them the amiable countenance of Christ and his saints, though it were but in a picture, and with watchful minds might revolve on the benefits of our Lord’s incarnation, and having before their eyes the perils of the Last Judgment, Panazza 1962, pp. 98–102, pl. G, figs. 104–111. Ibsen, 2014, p. 159. 26 Panazza 1962, p. 100. 24 25

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might examine their hearts the more strictly on that account’28. Whether at Brescia a sequence of scenes from Revelation in the north aisle was continued on the south wall of the basilica, or whether as at Monkwearmouth they faced a set with a different, maybe contrasting theme, is uncertain. However, it is possible that the choice of an Apocalyptic theme for at least one of the aisles, possibly culminating in a great Last Judgment on the west wall of the church, as is the case at Müstair, was dictated by the funerary function of the church, designed by Desiderius and Ansa to serve as a proprietary dynastic mausoleum for themselves, their relations and their dependents29. There are few comparable surviving instances of painted programmes from the outer aisle walls or the aisle faces of the colonnades in basilical churches from the period. The best preserved is at Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome, where in the early 8th century, there were Old and New Testament cycles in two framed registers on the aisle walls, completely remade in the third quarter of the 8th century. A Genesis cycle, over a long line of fulllength standing saints either side of Christ enthroned, with a running velum at dado-level, is well preserved on the north wall, while on the south wall are the remains of scenes from the infancy of Christ, work from the time of Pope Paul I (757–767)30. A further element of figural imagery, which is deployed in both the central nave and the lateral aisles at San Salvatore, are medallion busts with frontal heads — the few preserved examples all appear to be of males. In the nave these are located in the spandrels immediately over the columns of the arcades (Figs. 1, 3), while in the aisles, on the arcade elevations two superimposed medallions were set over each column, the upper one embedded in a meanderfrieze, the lower one in the triangular field between arches (Fig. 4); on the outer walls, to judge from the one surviving example, a single medallion was Klein 1992, pp. 175–178. Baedae, Opera historica, Plummer 1896, pp. 369–379 [Knowles 1910, p. 353]. 29 Brogliolo 2004. For the Last Judgment at Müstair, see Brenk 1966, pp. 107–118, figs. 30–34; Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 105–107, 212–225. The interior of St Johann at Müstair received its primary decoration, probably soon after 775, the work of a team of painters whose art was founded on the traditions of practice developed in the service of the Lombard courts in the middle decades of the 8th century, best exemplified in the remains of the painted programme of San Salvatore at Brescia. In this context, it is quite possible that the idea of reserving the entrance-wall of the church for a panoramic composition of the Last Judgment was devised and first deployed in a north Italian milieu. For the Italian roots of the painting at Müstair, see Mitchell 2013, reprinted here, Ch. IV. 30 Rushforth 1902, pp. 25–28, 81–82; Hubert, Porcher, Volbach 1969, pl. 137. 27 28

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set over each of the round-headed windows31 (Fig. 2). The identity of the individuals represented is unclear — in the seventh medallion on the north wall of the nave two letters of a name or title, PA, are preserved32. Sequences of medallions enclosing bust-images were one of the standard features of the decorative programmes of churches in Late Antiquity, commonly deployed on arches or the curving rims of apses, as at Santa Sabina in Rome, San Vitale in Ravenna and Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai33. Clipeate spandrel-portraits arrayed over the colonnades of basilicas were also a not uncommon phenomenon; the most well-known instances being in Old Saint Peter’s and San Paolo fuori le mura in Rome, where they represented the popes in succession, forming part of pictorial schemes which are traditionally dated to the first half of the 5th century34 (Fig. 5). A similar convention was deployed in Thessaloniki, possibly late in the 5th century, where medallion busts and heads of saints in mosaic are positioned over the arcade of the north inner aisle in the basilica of Saint Demetrios35. At San Salvatore, the images could represent the Apostles; the sequence of triangular spandrels, either fourteen or twelve in all, would suit their number — depending on whether the westernmost positions hard by the west wall of the basilica were filled: either a full sequence including Matthew, Paul and Barnabas or a more canonical sequence of twelve36. However, none of the surviving heads has any clearly diagnostic features to support this identification. A feature of the sequence at Brescia is that the medallion portraits in both nave and aisles in effect crown the shafts of the colonnades below, each being set in the triangular spandrel directly over a column, This was also the case at Old Saint Peter’s, where a large image of a pope stood in the spandrel over each shaft of the nave colonnades, with two apparently smaller medallion portraits above, set left and right immediately beneath the lower register of narrative scenes from the Old and New Testaments37 (Fig. 5). The convention of setting clipeate bust-portraits over columns and also over windows, followed at Brescia, would appear to have been a new Panazza 1962, pls. E2, F2, G and H. Panazza 1962, p. 96, fig. 102, pl. F2; Ibsen, 2014, p. 158. 33 Santa Sabina: Andaloro 2006, pp. 301–304; San Vitale: Deichmann 1958, pls. 301, 311, 334–339; Sinai: Forsyth, Weitzmann 1973, pls. CIII, CXXXVI–VII. 34 St Peters: Niggl 1972, figs. 52, 54, 55, 57–59; Andaloro 2006, pp. 411–415. San Paolo fuori le mura: Andaloro 2006, pp. 379–395. 35 Cormack 1969, pls. 1–9. 36 Krautheimer 1989, pp. 177–180. 37 Niggl 1972, figs. 52 and 55. 31 32

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departure in Christian churches38. While there had been a long association of columns with the human figure in the Greco-Roman cultural world — the caryatid columns of the Erechtheum on the Acropolis at Athens and the honorific statues attached to the columns of the axial via porticata at Palmyra are just two instances — medallion portraits used in this way had not been a feature of the interior elevations of public buildings in the ancient world39. It is tempting to see their introduction in the context of the extraordinary values placed by Christian apologists on architecture and its various elements as symbolic signifiers, a tradition exemplified in the early centuries by Saint Peter’s conceit of a spiritual house and a holy priesthood built of living stones, by Hermas’s vision of the triumphant Church as a tower constructed of stones which he identifies with the apostles, the bishops, doctors and ministers of the Church, and by Paulinus of Nola’s emphatic, almost obsessive, use of architectural metaphor and analogy in his letters40. Architectural simile and metaphor continued to provide a contextual framework for scriptural elucidation and exegesis for Christian writers throughout the first millennium and into the high Middle Ages. One telling aspect of this tradition is the association made between columns and Christ and his apostles and saints. Candidus of Fulda in the 9th century describes the single central column supporting the vault of the crypt of the round church of Saint Michael at Fulda as representing Christ sustaining his Church41. Saint Paul refers to the apostles, James, Peter and John, as columns or pillars42, and the author of Revelation has the Apocalyptic Christ say “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God’’43. The author of a celebrated Syriac hymn composed on the occasion of the reconstruction and rededication of the Cathedral of Edessa (modern The practice is also found on representations of buildings in Christian contexts, for instance on the exterior of the Holy Sepulchre on an ivory plaque of around 400, possibly of Roman manufacture, now in Munich; Volbach 1976, cat. 110, pp. 79–80, pl. 59. John Onians kindly brought this to my attention. 39 Erechtheum: Onians 1988, pp. 16–18. Palmyra: Browning 1979, pp. 109, 138, figs. 29–32, 51, 55, 67, 79–81, 83, 98, 100, 101, 113, 115–117, 123–124. 40 I Peter, 2, 5. Hermas, The Shepherd, Vision Ill, 24–81, esp. 52; Whittaker 1967, pp. 11–12. Paulinus of Nola, Letters, passim but esp. 24 and 32; Walsh 1966–1967, vol. 2, pp. 5078, 134–159. 41 Candidi, Vita Aigilis 21: Dümmler 1884, pp. 94–117; Migne, Patrologia Latina, CV, cols. 415–416. For this tradition, see Reudenbach 1980. See also Kinney 2011, pp. 184–190. 42 Galatians, 2, 9. 43 Revelation, 3, 12. 38

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Urfa in Turkey), soon after 550, pushes the association somewhat further: for him, the porticoed courts with their columns which flank the church represent the Tribes of Israel which surrounded the Tabernacle of Witness; the ambo, which is a replica of the Upper Room of the Last Supper at Zion, is supported by eleven columns like the eleven apostles who were hidden therein; and the ten columns which support the ciborium over the main altar in the sanctuary represent the ten Apostles who fled at the time when our Lord was crucified44. Similarly, the Frankish theologian, Ambrosius Autpertus, writing at the southern Lombard monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the 760s and 770s, in his Oratio contra Septem Vitia, likens the three deacon martyrs, Stephen, Laurence and Vincent, to the ‘milk-white columns of the Temple of the Lord in the Holy of Holies, attending the Lord of Heaven, and deserving to eat from the Tree of Life which is in Paradise’’45. And for Hrabanus Maurus, at Fulda early in the 9th century, columns are the apostles and the teachers of the Gospel; these he sees as prefigured in Iachin and Boaz, the two columns set up by Hiram at the entrance to the Temple of Solomon. Hrabanus goes on to explain that “the tops of the columns, that is the highest parts of them, are the minds of the teachers of the faithful, by whose thoughts dedicated to God all their works and words are guided, just as the limbs are guided by the head’’46. And in the 12th century, Abbot Suger describes the two circling sequences of columns of the chevet in his new abbey church at Saint Denis as representing the twelve apostles and the twelve prophets47. The tradition of identifying the columns of basilical churches with the apostles, martyrs, the bishops and the great teachers of the Church was, then, a commonplace throughout the early Middle Ages and it seems likely that the medallion busts set over the columns in Old Saint Peter’s in Rome and San Salvatore in Brescia may have been designed to bring this association palpably to the eyes and minds of the faithful, to show that the church was built of living stones, visibly sustained by her saints. Hrabanus Maurus’s likening of the tops of columns to the minds of the teachers of the faithful adds a pointed gloss to this practice. Mango 1972, pp. 58–59; Palmer, Rodley 1988, pp. 132–133. Weber 1975–1979, III, p. 959. 46 Hrabanus Maurus, De Universo, Book 14, chapter 23; Migne, Patrologia Latina CXI, cols. 9–614, at col. 404A–405A.; cited with translation in Onians 1988, p. 75. 47 Libellus alter de consecratione ecclesiae Sancti Dionysii, V, 11, 9–21; Panofsky 1979, pp. 104–105. 44 45

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On the outer aisle walls, as we have seen, medallion portraits were set above the windows. This is not a common feature in the decoration of early medieval churches; however, it is also found at another probably contemporary site in the region, in the oratory of San Romualdo at San Severo, in Classe, the port of Ravenna (Fig. 6), and perhaps a century or more later in Santa Maria foris portas at Castelseprio48. There is evidence, although not as strong as for columns, that windows were symbolized by Christian writers in similar fashion. In the óth-century Syriac hymn on the cathedral at Edessa, the windows of the nave are described as representing Christ and the Apostles, the prophets, the martyrs and the confessors49. And in western Europe, in the 13th century, Durandus of Mende likens the lattice-work in windows to the Prophets or other obscure teachers of the Church militant50. Arguably, at Brescia, the painted busts over the aislewindows were designed to reinforce a figurative association of these openings with exemplary members of the saintly hierarchy who constituted the living Church. 2. Frames and ornamental apparatus The main registers of narrative imagery are framed by elements which are indicative of their time and context. The borders of the main grid, marking the individual panels, consist of simple bars divided length-wise and particoloured red and white. A line of close-set pearls, also parti-coloured red and white, runs along the colour-divide, punctuated regularly by groups of five larger pearls, sometimes with a painted gem-stone at the centre, forming alternate upright and saltire crosses51. Horizontal framing elements, particoloured dark and light, with pearled embellishment, are not infrequent on painted walls of the period, for instance in the Assembly Room at San San Romualdo: Bertelli, Brogiolo 2000, p. 335, cat. 332, 340, fig. 214. The painted decoration of San Romualdo, an exact record of which is preserved in a drawing of 1745, has been dated to the 11th century; however an 8th-century date is more probable. See below. Castelseprio: Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pl. XC; Weitzmann 1951, figs. A, B. At Castelseprio the most recent Carbon-14 and dendrochronological evidence seems to indicate a date in the 10th century for the much-debated painted scheme of decoration; see Brogiolo 2013, and Mitchell, Leal 2013, pp. 311–327. 49 Mango 1972, p. 59; Palmer, Rodley 1988, pp. 132–133. 50 Durandus of Mende, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum I, 25; Davril, Thibodeu 1995, p. 74; Thibodeu 2010, p. 19. 51 Panazza 1962, p. 215, pl. E2; Bertelli 1992, p. 221. 48

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Vincenzo al Volturno, around 80052, and the convention continued for centuries in the region53. Furthermore, plain red and white, or variouslyhued light and dark divided bars are standard features of the crosses painted on the walls of block-built tombs of the early medieval period, in Italy54, and are used on painted crosses in commemorative contexts, for instance, in an early 9th-century arcosolium in the lower chamber of the funerary tower at Torba55, on the Olona, under Castelseprio, and the fragmentary cross surrounded by an inscription found in a late 8th-century context during excavation at the early Carolingian palace at Paderborn56. The dramatically illusionistic painted cornice at the top of the clerestory wall, with elaborately profiled consoles in perspectival projection, linked by airy depressed arches, has attracted attention from the time of its discovery57 (Fig. 7). With their deep illusionist three-dimensionality, their fine detailing, framing openings onto blue sky beyond, screened by delicate trellises, with birds and suspended veils, the sequences of console brackets, crowned by delicate graphic antefixes and connected one to the other by insubstantial airy arches, recall the romantic architectural confections of the old Roman Pompeian third and fourth styles. Caecilia Davis Weyer and others have seen close formal connections with the similar painted console frieze, from the mid 9th century, at San Martino ai Monti, in Rome, and with the complex illusionistically three-dimensional trompe l’oeil painted architectural cornice which separates the velum at dado-level from the narrative scenes above in Santa Maria foris portas at Castelseprio58. Whether or not, and in what way, these comparisons hold, the date in the 760s, or possibly the 770s, now assured for the scheme in San Salvatore removes these comparanda from the immediate picture. In the case of San Martino ai Monti, where the formal relationship is strikingly close, it would now seem likely that the influence came in from outside; that the artists responsible for the Roman paintings were taking their example from the practice of northern Lombard court art of some three generations earlier. Hodges 1995, p. 40, pl. 3:8. Butturini 1987. 54 Fiorio Tedone 1985; Fiorio Tedone 1986. 55 Bertelli 1988, fig. 31; Mitchell, Leal 2013, pp. 334–335, fig. 29. 56 Preissler 2003, pp. 46–57, 79–89. 57 Panazza 1962, 65–67, 215–216, pls. E2 and F2, figs. 72–82. 58 Davis Weyer 1987, p. 232, figs. 272–274; Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani D’arzago 1948, pls. LXII, XC. 52 53

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In the local sub-alpine region of north Italy, the closest comparison for the console frieze in San Salvatore is to be found in the oratory of San Romualdo at San Severo, in Classe, the port near Ravenna. The oratory and its decoration no longer survive but the painted scheme on the inner face of the entrance-wall is recorded in a water-colour drawing of 1745 (Fig. 6). This shows a central opening flanked by two small windows. Figures of two full-length donor saints, Saint Severus and Saint Apollinaris, offer elaborate buildings, one a church the other a church or perhaps a town, according to Paola Novara to be identified with the basilicas of San Severo and Sant’Apollinare Nuovo and Sant’Apollinare in Classe, to the Lamb of God in a medallion, supported by two angels59. The dado below consists of painted hangings, elaborately ornamented vela, while above the figural register a sequence of boldly projecting and profiled consoles, with great curling acanthus leaves on their undersides, painted in trompe l’oeil perspective, forms a closing cornice. As in San Salvatore, criss-cross trellises run along the top of the entablature, with birds standing before them, painted in profile. As Carlo Bertelli has observed, the trompe l’oeil console frieze, the elaborately patterned vela and the little clusters of flowering stems springing up from the ground around the feet of the two saints all indicate a date in the later 8th or early 9th century, and a close cultural relationship to the paintings at Brescia60. The significant aspect of the painted console cornice in San Salvatore is its classicizing Roman character. Cornices with running arches, illusionistically raising the ceiling and forming trompe l’oeil openings to the exterior, are quite often met with on the walls of Roman houses painted in the Pompeian Second Style, like the small cubiculum 16 in the Villa of the Mysteries, at Pompeii61. However, crowning cornices with running arches supported by consoles do not seem to be common before the 4th century AD; such a feature ran under the windows, dividing the two registers of opus sectile decoration, which covered the interior walls of both the Basilica of Junius Bassus, in Rome, around 35062, and the mausoleum of Constantine’s

Bertelli, Brogiolo 2000, p. 335, cat. 332, p. 340, fig. 214. Bertelli, Brogiolo 2000, p. 331. 61 Kraus, Von Matt 1975, pl. 126; Barbet 1985, fig. 21; Ling 1991, fig. 23; 62 Stern 1958, pp. 209–210, fig. 53; Whitehouse 2001, cat. 27; Andaloro 2006, pp. 247–252, figs. 7–9. Amanda Claridge kindly drew my attention to the Basilica of Junius Bassus, in this context. 59 60

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daughter, Constantina, Santa Costanza, traditionally dated to the mid 4th century, although recently a date in the first half of the 5th century has been proposed63 (Fig. 8). There is no evidence for a continuing presence of this motif in the repertoires of decorators between the later 4th and 8th centuries. It seems very possible that painters working for Lombard patrons in the 8th century reintroduced the feature, which they must have encountered during first-hand investigation of surviving late-Roman buildings in the region64. In the aisles, there are two further elements of the non-figural aspects of the painted decoration that call for comment. One of these is the prominent friezes of swastika meander, incorporating rectangular boxes in lateral perspective between the cruciform configurations, preserved fragmentarily in the north aisle. These run horizontally over the colonnade on the inner walls and over the single narrative register on the outer walls65 (Figs. 2, 3, 9). The perspectival meander was a favoured motif in antiquity, widely used across a range of media. A predilection for such elaborate perspectival effects and three-dimensional illusion in general seems to have been a marked characteristic of elite taste in the 8th and 9th centuries in Lombard and post Lombard Italy, where the tradition had a long afterlife, enduring right up into the 13th century and beyond. A similar complex painted meander frieze plays a prominent role in the initial late-8th-century phase in the apses of the monastery church of Saint Johann at Müstair (Fig. 10), and subsequently features prominently in Saint Benedikt at Mals, a few kilometres to the north-east of Müstair66. It is deployed in a somewhat different context, around 830, in a large painted rota, forming part of the dado in the annular crypt of the Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno, in the southern Lombard principality67 (Fig. 11). There are many other instances. The perspective meander was taken up by artists working 63 Now lost but recorded in a number of 16th-century sketches, for which see Stern 1958, pp. 208–210, figs. 48–52, Amadio 1986, p. 39, Stanley 2004, p. 133, fig. 33 and passim, for a date in the 5th century, and now Andaloro 2006, pp. 53–86, figs. 25, 30 and 31. 64 For evidence of the intact survival and continuing accessibility of the decorative schemes and fittings of buildings from the Roman period into the early Middle Ages, see Mitchell 1996, pp. 103–4; Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, p. 88; Schibille, Freestone 2013. 65 Panazza 1962, pls. G and H. 66 Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 84–92, 187–195, 225; Mals: Rasmo 1981, figs. 30, 40, 44. 67 Hodges and Mitchell 1996, pp. 94–8, figs, 4:39 and 44; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell 2011, pp. 74–5, figs. 3:30 and 34, pls. 3: 33–34.

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for Carolingian patrons, probably drawing on Italian example. It already features on fragments of wall paintings from the late 8th-century phases of Charlemagne’s palace at Paderborn, and subsequendy was freely deployed in the manuscripts of Charlemagne’s Court School, in the years around 80068. A second element is a lone fragment of the painted dado, at pavementlevel, preserved on the outer wall of the north aisle, adjacent to the door at its eastern end. This is a rectangular panel, filled with a chequer-board grid imitating opus sectile, yellow ochre and red, framed in white, with a superimposed rhombus of white bands interlacing with an inner square of blue bands (Figs. 2, 12). The panel is spanned by a large diagonal cross of doubled white bands, which intersect with one another and with the bands of the rhombus and the inner square69. Dadoes painted in imitation of opus sectile, with prominent intersecting bands, are a feature of the annular crypt of the basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno, of around 80070 (Fig. 13). Furthermore, panels containing large discs framed with white bands, slashed as if for interpenetrating intersection, form the principal motif of the dado of the facing wall in the funerary chamber in the tower of the monastery at Torba, under Castelseprio, on the River Olona, a scheme which dates from the early 9th century71. The practice of overlaying dado panels with fictive bands, with white prominent, interweaving and interpenetrating, may have formed part of the repertoire of the artists working for elite Lombard patrons in the mid 8th century, with the variants at San Vincenzo and Torba being late derivative outliers of this tradition. At San Vincenzo, diagonal saltire formations of this kind feature on the panels of the dado in the annular crypt of the Basilica of San Vincenzo Maggiore, at the point at which the curving corridors turn to approach the relic chamber, and on the walls of the axial access corridor itself72. It is possible that at San Salvatore the motif is deployed in a similar position, at the far eastern end 68 Paderborn: Preissler 2003, pp. 61–63, 112–127, 261–263 fig. 23. Court School manuscripts: Koehler 1958, pls. II, 53, 55, 77, 91a, 91g, 101b, 105a; Preissler 2003, figs. 149–157. Both the painted decoration from the early phases at Paderborn and the painted decoration of the manuscripts of Charlemagne’s court school draw heavily on Italian practice. 69 Panazza 1962, pp. 100–102, fig. 104, pl. G. 70 Hodges, Mitchell 1996, pp. 87, 99–101, fig. 4:30–31, 4:49–5; Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, pp. 67–68, 77–79, figs. 3:31, 3:38–41, pl. 3:4, 3:23, 3:38–40. 71 Mitchell, Leal 2013, p. 329, figs. 20 and 23. 72 Hodges, Mitchell 1996, pp. 87–88 (panel 15), 101103 (panels 29–30), figs. 4:3, 30–31, 49–52; Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, pp. 67–68 (panel 15), 77–79 (panels 29–30), 86–87, figs. 3.21, 38–41, pls. 3.4, 38–40.

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of the northern aisle wall, where it may have marked the juncture at which a screen enclosing the altar precinct in the north apse met the north aisle wall. This reticulate design seems to have carried particular connotations of sanctity and high status, for the eyes and minds of contemporary observers73. 3. The paintings in context How then is the painted scheme in San Salvatore to be situated and understood in the context of pictorial practice in Italy and in the wider Mediterranean cultural theatre of the later 8th century? Despite the extensive surviving areas of painted surfaces from the first phase of decoration, these are for the most part discontinuous, isolated and extremely fragmentary. A combination of the lacunose state of the paintings and the extreme paucity and arbitrary survival of surviving comparanda from the period make any assessment extremely difficult. However, there are sufficient indices to allow some tentative conclusions to be drawn. We will briefly consider three aspects of the paintings, their compositions, a number of diagnostic features of the pictorial vocabulary used by the artists, and then the very tenor, the psychological content of the painted narratives. The narrative scenes are typically complex compositions, in which the dramatis personae, either in clustered groups or as individuals in lively intercommunication, engage in psychologically expressive dramatic actions, against a backdrop which consists sometimes of varied architectural elements, sometimes an open landscape, sometimes a combination of the two. The architectural settings tend to be composed of a number of units characterized by tall door-like openings with flat lintels or depressed arches, typically with a narrow triangular formation in deep shadow under the lintel or arch to suggest an angled viewpoint or half-open door. In one composition on the south wall, the burial of a saint (S21), the architecture is festooned with draped hangings, dipping and falling dramatically74 (Fig. 14, 15). In a scene on the lowest register on the north wall, apparently the martyrdom of a female saint (N22), the setting consists of three detached structures, of which only the tops are preserved (Fig. 16)75. The widest of these three

Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, pp. 86–87. Panazza 1962, pp. 84–5, figs. 87–88, pl. E2; Ibsen 2014, p. 158. 75 Panazza 1962, pp. 90–91, pl. F2; Ibsen 2014, p. 157. 73

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buildings is in the centre, its front a broad opening with a flat arching lintel supported on narrow piers at either side; a more compact structure stands to the right, and to the left a tall narrow structure with a profiled impost at one side. The sequence and the composition appears to be replicated in one of the scenes on the north wall of Saint Johann at Müstair, Christ healing two blind men76 (Fig. 17). The painters at Müstair, working probably in the late 770s, very much took their cue from late Lombard elite pictorial practice; their art represents a somewhat flattened mannered variant of the idiom followed by the artists responsible for the decoration of San Salvatore77. In this scene, at Müstair, the larger central building has the same wide-open front, while the right-hand structure is a kind of asymmetrical pavilion, with an arched vault rising from a pier on the left, and falling on the right onto high stilted imposts supported by columns, which are joined by a lofty flat lintel, with the characteristic narrow triangular formation in deep shadow below to suggest an angled point of view or receding vault. The structure on the left is an abbreviated version of this, a linteled opening, sharply foreshortened, resting on a pier behind and a column in front. These are standard formulaic types characteristic of an aulic tradition of sacral idyllic architecture, with a punctuated history which can be traced from early lstcentury Roman wall paintings from Campania and Rome, in August Mau’s Pompeian Third Style, to deluxe illustrated Middle Byzantine manuscripts from Constantinople, like the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, Paris, Bibi. Nat. gr. 510 and the so-called Paris Psalter, Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 13978 The panel immediately to the left of this scene of martyrdom at Brescia (N23) similarly has compositional analogues at Müstair. Here a haloed female saint, who has been identified as one of the sisters, Elpis, Pistis and Agape, is shown suffering martyrdom by boiling in a cauldron, in centre field, while to the left the same saint harangues an official enthroned in judgment, surrounded by a group of attendants, and on the right side in a third episode she is finally executed79 (Fig. 18, 19). The composition of this scene of martyrdom in San Salvatore also corresponds to one of the patterns followed at Müstair, with the main protagonist in the centre, asymmetrically Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 150, 45k. Mitchell 2013. Reprinted in this volume, Ch. IV. 78 Pompeii: Borda 1958, pp. 195, 260, pl. 4; Ling 1991, figs. 114, 153. Paris Bibl. Nat gr. 510: Brubaker 1999, fig. 23. Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 139: Buchthal 1938, pls. III, V, XI. 79 Panazza 1962 pp. 89–90, pl. F2; Anderson 1976, pp. 94–98, 110–11; Ibsen, 2014, p. 157. 76 77

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1. Elevation of south wall of nave, San Salvatore, Brescia, detail (after Panazza 1962, pl. E2).

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2. South end of the outer wall of the north aisle with the Woman Clothed with the Sun and the Apocalyptic Dragon assailed by the angelic hosts, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. G).

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3. Elevation of south wall of nave, San Salvatore, Brescia, detail (after Panazza 1962, pl. E2).

4. Elevation of south wall of north aisle, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. H).

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5. Elevation of south wall of nave, detail, Old Saint Peter’s, Rome (after Giacomo Grimaldi 1972, fig. 55). 6. Inner façade wall of the Oratory of San Romualdo at San Severo in Classe, Ravenna, watercolour of 1745, Ravenna, Biblioteca Classense, Molhile 3.1.Q“/n.6 (after C. Bertelli and G. P. Brogiolo, 2000, p. 335, fig. 214).

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7. Upper cornice with consoles and running arches in perspective, north wall, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. F ).

8. Opus sectile marble revetment of the nave elevation, Basilica of Junius Bassus/Sant’Andrea Catabarbara, Rome, second quarter of 4th century, drawing by Giuliano da San Gallo, Bibl. Apost. Vat. cod. Barb. Lat. 4424, f. 3 v (after Stern 1958, fig. 53).

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9. Meander frieze, south wall of north aisle (photo AFDM).

10. Meander frieze, central apse, Saint Johann, Müstair (photo Michael Wolf ).

11. Dado panel with rota with circling perspectival meanders, annular crypt, San Vincenzo Maggiore, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 820 (photo Sarah Cocke).

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12. Dado panel, outer wall of the north aisle (after Panazza 1962, pl. G, detail). 13. Dado panel with intersecting diagonal bands, annular crypt, San Vincenzo Maggiore, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 820 (photo Sarah Cocke).

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14. The burial of a saint, panel S21, south wall of nave, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. E2). 14. The burial of a saint, panel S21, south wall of nave, San Salvatore, Brescia (photo AFDM).

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16. Martyrdom of a female saint, panel N22, north wall of nave, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. F2).

17. Christ healing two blind men, north wall, Saint Johann, Müstair (photo Stiftung Pro Kloster Saint Johann in Müstair. Foto Suzanne Fibbi-Aeppli, Grandson 1987; Bearbeitung: Michael Wolf ).

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18. Martyrdom of a female saint, panel N23, north wall of nave, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. F2). 19. Martyrdom of a female saint, panel N23, north wall of nave, San Salvatore, Brescia (photo AFDM).

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20. Christ before Filate, north wall, Saint Johann, Müstair (photo Stiftung Pro Kloster Saint Johann in Müstair. Photo Suzanne Fibbi-Aeppli, Grandson 1987; Bearbeitung: Michael Wolf ).

21. Sack of Carthage and abduction of saint Giulia, panel S22, south wall of nave, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. F2).

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22. Sack of Carthage and abduction of saint Giulia, panel S22, south wall of nave, San Salvatore, Brescia (photo AFDM).

23. Sack of Carthage and abduction of saint Giulia, panel S22, detail, south wall of nave, San Salvatore, Brescia (photo AFDM).

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24. SS. Peter and Paul meet at gates of Rome, north apse, Saint Johann, Müstair (photo Stiftung Pro Kloster Saint Johann in Müstair. Photo Suzanne Fibbi-Aeppli, Grandson 1987; Bearbeitung: Michael Wolf ).

25. Unidentified scene, south wall of nave, north wall of nave, panel N7, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. F, fig. 82).

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26. Miracle of Cana, north wall of nave, panel N6, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. F, fig. 81. Photo AFDM).

27. Angel appearing to Zacharias, Santa Sofia, Benevento, 760s.

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28. Jonah embarking at Joppa, Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, c. 890, Paris, Bibl. Nat. gr. 510, fol. 3r (after Buchthal 1938, fig. 8). 29. Psalm 48, Psalter, c. 830, Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotbeek, MS Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I nr 32, fol. 27v (after Dewald 1932, pl XLIV).

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30. Psalm 87, Psalter, c. 810, Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotbeek, MS Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I nr 32, fol. 50v (after Dewald 1932, pl. LXXX). 31. Subject kings, pool performance, bacchanal, west wall of audience hall, Qusayr Amra, Jordan, c. 730–40 (photo: courtesy of the Institut Français du Proche-Orient, after Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pl. 118).

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32. Performance at pool, west wall of audience hall, Qusayr Amra, Jordan, c. 730–40 (photo: courtesy of the Institut Français du Proche-Orient, after Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pl. 118).

33. Head of a saint, Santa Maria in Valle, Cividale, 750s (after L’Orange, Torp 1977–1979, pl. CXVll).

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34. Head of bather, west wall of hall, Qusayr Amra, c. 740 (photo Jane Chick).

35. Head of angel, Santa Maria in Valle, Cividale, 750s (after L’Orange, Torp 1977–1979, pl. C).

36. Head of onlooker in bathing scene, west wall, Qusayr’Amra, c. 740 (photo Heather Miles).

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37. Head, San Salvatore di Brescia, early 760s (after Panazza 1962, fig. 110).

38. Scene of acrobatic love-making?, north wall of central nave of hall, Qusayr ‘Amra, c. 740 (photo Jane Chick).

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39. Dado painted in imitation opus sedile, annular crypt of San Vincenzo Maggiore, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 820 (photo Sarah Cocke). 40.Dado painted in imitation of opus sectile, Qasr al-FLayr al Gharbi, Syria, c. 730 (after Schumberger 1939, pl. XXXIX,4).

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41. Burial of saints Elpis, Pistis and Agape, panel N26, north wall, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. F2 (photo AFDM).

42. Christ healing the blind at the pool of Bethesda or Siloam, panel S12, south wall, San Salvatore, Brescia (after Panazza 1962, pl. E2).

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43. Annunciation, Adoration of Magi, Massacre of Innocents, ivory plaque on front cover of Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. Ms 9393, Metz, c. 850 (after Goldschmidt 1914, pl. XXIX, 72).

44. Christ and two disciples at Emmaus, ivory plaque from a casket, Metropolitan Museum of Art/The Cloisters Collection, New York, 1970.324.1 (photo © The Metropolitan Museum

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45. Zacharias informing people of the name of his son, north apse, Santa Sofia, Benevento, 760s (photo Valentino Pace). 46. Annunciation and Visitation, south apse, Santa Sofia, Benevento, 760s (photo Valentino Pace).

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47. Annunciation, two witnesses, south apse, Santa Sofia, Benevento, 760s (photo Valentino Pace). 48. Visitation, south apse, Santa Sofia, Benevento, 760s (photo Valentino Pace).

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49. Wild-ass hunt in netted enclosure, north wall of east aisle, audience hall, Qusayr Amra, Jordan, c. 730–740 (after Almgro et al. 1975, pl. XXXI). 50. Women and children in idyllic setting, lunette, south wall, tepidarium, Qusayr Amra, Iordan, c. 730–740 (after Almagro et al. 1975, pl. XLIVb).

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51. Metal-smith, vault of east aisle, audience hall, Qusayr Amra, Jordan, c. 730–740 (after Almagro et al. 1975, pl. XXXV).

52. Scenes of engagement, east wall of east aisle, audience hall, Qusayr ’Amra, Jordan, c. 730–740 (photo: courtesy of the Institut Français du Proche-Orient, after Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pl. 53).

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flanked by a small group of bystanders on one side and just one or two figures facing in from the other side80. Here the group on the left is set against a tiled hip-roofed building which angles in, cutting the top left corner of the composition. The formula of the hip-roofed hall emerging from the upper corner of a scene also formed part of the repertoire of the artists at Müstair, and is deployed in a number of panels81 (Fig. 20). However, the outdoor setting with open country and trees is not a feature of any of the comparable surviving compositions at Müstair. The best preserved scene at San Salvatore is another case in point, This is a panel in the lowest register on the north wall, which has been identified as the sack of Cartilage by the Vandals and the abduction of saint Giulia82 (S22, Figs. 21, 22, 23). Here the composition is divided in two parts; on the left, a town ringed by defensive towers and crenellated walls, seen in birds-eye perspective, filled with pedimented buildings shown on the slant, and figures of young men, two clean shaven, one bearded, all carrying bundles, hurrying to the right; on the right outside the walls the saint, a haloed veiled female, is led forward by a young soldier with a shield, The motif of the city, seen from above, encompassed by crenellated walls, enclosing a building with pedimented gable, depicted on the slant, is also represented at Müstair, in a rather drastically reduced and simplified version, in the episode of SS Peter and Paul meeting at the gates of Rome83 (Fig. 24). However, the dramatically divided compositional type, in which two very different spaces are juxtaposed in one panel, does not feature at Müstair. The painted decoration of both San Salvatore at Brescia and Saint Johann at Müstair, two programmes executed within fifteen or twenty years of one another, then, would appear in some measure to draw on a common tradition of pictorial narrative composition, one which was at home in the elite cultural centres of northern Italy in the middle decades of the 8th century. With its profusion of retrospective classicizing elements, which must have been common to both cycles but are better preserved at Müstair, this tradition could be explained as a derivative of an aulic cosmopolitan Byzantine strain of painting, which surfaces in surviving monuments, in Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 149 (44k), 167 (64k), 200 (104k), and 211 (117k). Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 149 (44k), 150 (45k), 151 (46k), 202 (106k), 204 (109k).Panazza 1962, pp. 85–87, figs. 89–93, pl. E2; Anderson 1976, p. 107. 82 Ibsen 2014, p. 158. 83 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 200 (104k). 80 81

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the Byzantine East, principally manuscripts thought to have been made in Constantinople, only in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. However, an alternative line of thought sees it as a newly coined pictorial idiom, drawing on a range of earlier visual traditions, constructed for an ambitious and demanding Lombard elite patronage in the course of the 8th century, at a time of intensely competitive state formation in western Europe84. It is true that a number of elements in this visual repertoire make their appearance in metropolitan Byzantine manuscripts, like the Paris Gregory of Nazianzus, the Joshua Roll (Bibl. Apost. Vat. Palat, gr. 43I) and the Paris Psalter, in the decades around 900. These include architectural forms like the asymmetrical arched opening, supported on one side by a rectangular pier, on the other by a stilted impost rising from a column85 (Fig. 25), the opening with a flattened arch, seen on the slant with the lintel reduced to a narrowing triangular sliver of shade86 (Fig. 26), and the city in bird’s eye view, girt with crenellated walls and towers, enclosing buildings with tiled roofs and prominent pedimented gables, delineated in exaggerated vanishing perspective87 (Fig. 23). However, while these motifs do all surface in Byzantium around 900, they are more prominently represented in the work of artists active in Italy and Carolingian Francia in the 8th and early 9th century. The angled opening with a depressed arch or flat lintel, resting on one side on a masonry pier, on the other on a column with stilted entablature block, figures only rarely in Constantinopolitan books of the late 9th and 10th centuries, and then in what appear to be cramped and reduced versions88. However, this critical feature does have a history in the early medieval West, where apart from Brescia and Miistair, it features twice in the fragmentary remains of the original Mitchell 2013. Reprinted in this volume, Ch. IV. Brescia, panel N7: Panazza 1962 pl. F2, fig. 82; Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 150 (45k), 151 (46k)2 201 (105k), 209 (115k); Paris Bib. Nat. gr. 510 fol. 174v: Omont 1929, p. 23, pl. XXXVII; Brubaker 1999, fig. 23; Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 139, fol. 3v: Buchthal 1938, pl. III. 86 Brescia, panel N6: Panazza 1962, fig. 81, pl. F2; Bertelli 1992, p. 222; Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, passim; Paris Psalter: Paris, Bibl. Nat. gr. 139, fol. 428v, Prayer of Hannah: Buchthal 1938, pl. XI. 87 Brescia, sack of Carthage, panel S22: Panazza 1962, pp. 85–87, figs. 89–90, pl. E2; Bertelli 1992, p. 221; Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 200 (104k); Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 510, fol. 3r: Omont 1929, pl. XX; Brubaker 1999, fig. 6; Rome, Bibl. Apost. Vat. Palat. gr. 431: Weitzmann 1948, figs. 13, 19, 23, 37. 88 So in Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 510, fol. 174v: Brubaker 1999, fig. 23; and Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 139, fols. 3v and 428v: Buchthal 1938, figs. 3, 11. 84 85

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painted decoration of Santa Sofia at Benevento, the ambitious centrallyplanned church with associated female monastery, founded and constructed by Arechis II, duke of the southern Lombard duchy, in the 760s89 (Fig. 27). A further instance, in the Lombard south, of the oblique opening supported by pier and column with stilted entablature, is to be found in a wall painting of the martyrdoms of Saint Laurence and Saint Stephan, in the so-called Crypt of Epyphanius, a funerary oratory of the early 830s, at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno90. An angled opening with a slightly arched lintel configured as an elongated shaded triangle, of the characteristic type found at Brescia and Müstair, is also present in the Crypt of Epyphanius, in the representation of the Holy Sepulchre91. A similar situation is to be observed in the visual formula for a fortified town, shown in bird’s-eye view with circling crenellated walls, punctuated by tall round towers, often with upper windowed galleries, and enclosing basilical buildings set on the diagonal in vanishing perspective, with pedimented facades, which dominates the composition of the sack of Carthage at Brescia (Fig. 23). This features a century-and-a-half later in Constantinople in the Paris Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Fig. 28) and the Joshua Roll92. However, this motif constitutes a stock element of the repertoires of the various draughtsmen responsible for illustrating the Utrecht Psalter, at Rheims around 83093 (Fig. 29). Likewise there are many instances in the Utrecht Psalter of scenes featuring as a major architectural setting a tiled hip-roofed hall cutting in at the upper corner of a composition (Fig. 30); as we have seen, this is a convention deployed in the scene of female martyrdom on the north wall at Brescia (N23, Fig. 18) and in a number of compositions at Müstair94 (Fig. 20). It is clear that artists in Italy and Francia

Belting 1968, figs. 63–64; Rotili 1986, pls. XLIII–XLIV. Belting 1968, figs. 31, 33; Pantoni 1970, figs. 40–42; Mitchell 1993, 7:26–27. Reprinted in this volume, Ch. VIII. 91 Belting 1968, fig. 38; Pantoni 1970, pl. 52. 92 Brescia, panel N22: Panazza 1962, figs. 86, 89, 90, pl. E2; Bertelli 1992, p. 221; Paris Gregory: Brubaker 1999, fig. 6; Joshua Roll: Weitzmann 1948, fig. 19. 93 Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, ms. 32, fol. 27v, 58r, etc.; Dewald 1932, pls. XLIV, XCIII and passim. 94 Brescia: Panazza 1962, pl. F2; Bertelli 1992, p. 223; Müstair: Goll. Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 149 (44k), 167 (64k), 200 (104k), and 211 (117k); Utrecht Psalter: Dewald 1932, pls. XIII (Ps. 15), XIX (Ps. 22), XLIX (Ps. 54), LVII (Ps. 63), LXXX (Ps. 87), LXXXIV (Ps. 91) and XCII (Ps. 100). 89 90

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were conversant with elements of this pictorial repertoire a century or more before it makes its first appearances in manuscripts from Constantinople95. 4. Umayyad connections There is a further point of reference for the compositions of the scenes in San Salvatore. This lies in the visual culture of the most dynamic and culturally active power in the Mediterranean world at the time, the Arab Caliphate in the Fertile Crescent; however, to judge from the surviving evidence, the reference seems to be not to the contemporary Arab world under its new Abbasid rulers but the previous Umayyad order, which had prevailed a generation earlier, in the first half of the century. One of the better-preserved panels in the lowest register on the south wall (S21) shows the burial of a haloed figure, against a complex architectural setting, with a gallery and onlookers96 (Figs. 14, 15). The right-hand side of the composition is dominated by a large foreshortened stone sarcophagus, with three veiled women behind, leaning over the corpse, one holding a jar of myrrh to perfume the body. Behind is an elaborate architectural setting, a large rectangular ochre building, with a tall square-headed opening and a half open door indicated in shadow. A dramatic red curtain is draped across the front of this structure, hanging from projecting elements in a zig-zag formation, and descending down the right side of the building in a long falling passage. The left-hand side of the composition is dominated by an elaborate two-storied structure, with below an arcade with piers and arches receding in diminishing perspective and above a gallery from which at least

95 In recent years a number of scholars have voiced reservations about the default practice of seeing manifestations of this kind always in terms of eastern Byzantine influence on the West, arguing that there may have been a significant passage of ideas and patterns in the other direction: that where the earliest surviving instances of a particular material practice, iconographic type or even style are to be found in the West, we should at least countenance the possibility that the invention and early spread of these traditions also took place in western Europe (Buckton 1988; Osborne 1990; Brubaker 1991; Buckton 1996, pp. 659–660; Brubaker 2000; Mitchell 2013, p. 391; Mitchell, Leal 2013, pp. 324–325). The last two are reprinted in this volume, Ch. IV and V. 96 Panazza 1962, pp. 84–85, figs. 87–88, pl. E2; Anderson 1976, pp. 90–91, figs. 95–8; Ibsen, 2014, p. 58. Panazza is uncertain as to the identification of the scene, Anderson offers no opinion; however, Ibsen sees this as the burial of saint Epimenius, while Stroppa 2011 suggests the deposition of saint Giulia on the Island of Gorgona.

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one figure, possibly more — only hands resting on the parapet are preserved — seem to look down on the scene of entombment. High in this gallery an extended arm reaches out with a hand pointing into the picture. A quarter of the painted field on the left side is now missing, victim to a door put through the clerestory wall in the later Middle Ages. A striking parallel to this composition is to be found in one of the most famous and enigmatic painted fields in the vaulted audience hall at Qusayr ’Amra, the desert hamam, a palatial bathing complex, east of Amman in modern Jordan, commissioned by al-Walid ibn Yazid, sometime before he succeeded to the caliphate in 74397 (Figs. 31, 32). The scene shows a statuesque woman, naked except for the briefest of “bikini” bottoms, standing face-on and striking an attitude, in a large rectangular stone tank of water, represented in bird’s eye perspective. The performer is attended by a fully dressed female attendant, standing beside the pool, and is watched by a crowd of onlookers from behind the elegant reticulated screens of a raised gallery on the left-hand side, and by a lone spectator on the right. The setting is a lofty rectangular palatial building, essentially a screen of columns carrying three wide arches in curiously angled perspective, presumably to suggest the porticoed enclosure of the space, beneath an upper horizontal cornice, Under the widest arch, on the far left, a smaller arcade supporting a gallery crowded with excited spectators angles up in diminishing perspective, behind the water-tank with the naked woman. The narrowest arch at the far right encloses a second small gallery at capital level, from which a lone female observer gazes down; a curtain hangs below, filling the opening

Grabar 1973, p. 163, fig. 89; Almagro et al. 1975, pls. XVI, XVIII–XX; Fowden 2004, pp. 227–247, figs. 57, 60; Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pls. 28, 34a, 35, 115a,b, 118, 142a; Guidetti, Macchiarella 2007, figs. 4–6. The patronage of al-Walid is indicated by a painted inscription, uncovered during the current programme of conservation of the paintings, in which he is named, not yet with the titles of Caliph. This suggests that the hall was built and received its painted decoration during the years in which he was still a prince, during the caliphate of his uncle Hisham (723–743). The painted surfaces were conserved in the early 1970s in a campaign which involved extensive repainting. Currently, at the time of writing, a second major programme of conservation is taking place, with the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione ed il Restauro in Rome working in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and the World Monuments Fund. The results so far have proved to be quite revelationary; the uncovering of the original 8th-century designs and colours will demand a thorough reassessment and an extensive revision of current understanding of the building and its imagery. 97

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and distinguishing the individual above98. This episode is flanked by two others; on the left six rulers, in close order with hands extended to acclaim the reclining prince on the adjacent wall99, and on the right a remarkable scene, which shows a kind of palaestra with almost naked males dancing or leaping beneath vines in an open landscape100. The spatial composition of the central event, with the woman in the angled pool, surrounded by the arcades of a court, in part hung with curtains, with a gallery raised on a lower receding arcade to the left, from which onlookers gaze down on the proceedings, recalls in striking fashion the composition at San Salvatore (S21) in which three women assist at the burial of a saint (Figs. 14, 15). The receding angled arcade with its upper gallery of viewers is very much the same, the sarcophagus, foreshortened and seen from above, lies in the same relationship to its architectural setting as the angled foreshortened waterbasin at Qusayr ’Amra, with pious women taking the place of the enigmatic focal Umayyad bather, and the building behind characterized by rectangular openings rather than wide open arcades. In essence the two scenes are close variants of the same compositional formula. There are other points of relationship between the paintings at Brescia and those at Qusayr ’Amra. One of these is the practice of setting the protagonists against a responding screen of built structures, with arched and trabeated openings which dramatically inflect the narrative, sometimes framing, at others doubling and at others simply setting off the figures. Another related feature of this Umayyad art is the practice of combining two distinct episodes in one field, with no framing element to separate the one scene from the next. At Quasayr ’Amra, the composition we have been analysing is a salient instance, with the six rulers, the female performer in the pool and the bacchanal all juxtaposed, in one continuous field on the south wall (Figs. 31, 32). The three subjects are distinguished only by their differing settings: in sequence, ceremonially abstract, architectural interior, and exterior open landscape; with the left upper corner of the palatial setting to the central scene arching over the king on the far right of the group of

Almagro et al. 1975, pls. XVI, XX. Grabar 1954; Grabar 1973, pp. 45–88, fig. 3; Almagro et al. 2002, pls. XVI, XVII; Fowden 2004, pp. 197–226, figs. 52–53; Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pls. 28, 34, 115a, 142b. 100 Almagro et al. 1975, pls. XVI, XXI; Fowden 2004, fig. 60; Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pls. 28, 34, 115c, 118, 142. 98 99

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rulers, and the extended leg of one of the leaping men in the third subject intruding into the interior space of the bathing scene, in one continuous sequence. Something analogous is to be seen in the panel on the south wall at Brescia (S22, Figs. 21–22) in which the left hand half of the field is filled with a walled city full of figures, with a tower effectively establishing a divide down the middle of the composition; while to the right a soldier leads a female saint off, apparently in open landscape. These analogies could be attributed to a common ancestry in an eastern Greco-Roman, early Byzantine pictorial tradition. However, the compositional type shared by the burial scene at San Salvatore and the pool scene at Qusayr ’Amra does not seem to follow a known late Roman formula. While the pictorial idiom of the paintings at Qusayr ’Amra owes much, in both subject and style, to traditional Roman practice, there are many aspects to the programme that are idiosyncratically novel and must have been devised by artists responding to the demands of a new Umayyad patronage — these include a particular interest in the theme of hunting wild asses with packs of dogs, a dominant role played by vines, trees, plants and foliate motifs, and an extraordinary emphasis placed on females in the programme, clothed, naked and partly naked, attending, acclaiming, standing, framed in serried sequence, reclining in formal reception, engaged both as entertainers in aulic performance and as individuals in informal intercourse and care for their children in idyllic open landscapes. Indeed the very design of the courts which constitute the settings for the bathing scene at Qusayr ’Amra and the burial at San Salvatore, with arcaded galleries on two stories and elegant openwork parapets screening the openings on the upper level, may have its origins in Umayyad court architecture. The design of the main courtyard of the desert palace at Khirbat al-Mafjar, near Jericho, has been reconstructed along very similar lines101. Like the architectural ornament in stucco, then, the painted decoration in San Salvatore also seems to show evidence of Lombard cultural contact with the Islamic world102. Further evidence for this cultural contact between the Caliphate and Lombard Italy can be found in a range of points of comparison between Qusayr ’Amra and surviving monuments from the period in Italy, both in detail and in overall design and conception. On the one hand, there are some Hamilton 1988, p. 54, fig. 24. For the connections between early Arab architectural stucco and the stucco work in San Salvatore, see Leal 2014, pp. 234-243. 101 102

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striking similarities between the heads of painted figures at Santa Maria in Valle at Cividale and San Salvatore in Brescia, and heads on the west wall of the audience chamber at Qusayr ’Amra. Here conservators are currently engaged in removing secondary repaint from this wall and are gradually revealing the 8th-century painted surfaces, in all their virtuosic brilliance. The points of similarity between the head of the great female bather at Qusayr ’Amra and those of the full-length frontal male saints at Cividale, and between heads of bystanders on the elevated balcony in the bathing scene and those of other figures at Cividale and Brescia are such as to lead one to suspect direct contact between the two traditions. Diagnostic features include the overall topography of the face, the formation of the brow, the construction of the eyes, with dark sweeping eyebrows above and curling areas of light shadow below, and the mouth deliniated by a gently concave horizontal line with angled strokes sweeping down at either end103 (Figs. 33–37). A further point of comparison from a still uncleaned passage of painting is to be seen in the band of cloth which undulates across the façade of the building in the background of the fragmentary scene of what appears to be acrobatic love-making high over the main north door into the audience chamber104 (Fig. 38). As a motif this is closely cognate with the zig-zagging cloth band on the front of the structure in the Burial of a Martyr (S21) on the south wall of the nave at Brescia (Figs. 14, 15). A similar apparent acquaintance and engagement with the conventions and repertoire of Umayyad painting is also to be found at a site in the southern Lombard duchy of Benevento, the old monastic foundation of San Vincenzo al Volturno, established by Duke Gisulf in the first years of the 8th century105. The painted dadoes of the annular crypt inserted into the sanctuary of the basilica of San Vincenzo Maggiore in the 820s consist of panels painted in imitation of complex configurations of polychrome marble opus sectile, in which rectangular sections are interspersed with elaborate rotae, discs, each of which is a complex design of concentric bands, elaborately facetted and articulated with vectors, stars, fans and meanders, axonometrically angled to impart spin, and like the rectangular panels all Cividale: L’Orange, Torp 1977–1979, color pl. III, VI, pls. XCIX, C, CXVII, CXIX. Brescia: Panazza 1962, figs. 110. My thanks to Alex Sarra of the World Monuments Fund Qusayr ’Amra Paintings Conservation, who kindly discussed many aspects of the built fabric and painted decoration at Qusayr ’Amra on site in October 2013. 104 Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pl. 41. 105 Pantoni 1980; Hodges 1997. 103

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incorporating elaborate perspectival effects, often with marbling in the corner spandrels106 (Fig. 39). The combination of these complex spinning polychrome discs with equally complex rectangular panels finds a striking analogue in the painted dado beneath the long panel with the six kings, demonstrative pool-performance and bacchanal on the right-hand west wall of the audience hall at Qusayr ’Amra107 (Fig. 31). In the Umayyad desert palace, the dado features brightly-coloured discs, with a variety of complex faceted polychrome radial configurations against backgrounds of swirling marbling, remarkably like the rotae at San Vincenzo, alternating with panels imitating marble revetment with close-set zigzag veining, book-matched in radial symmetry, with painted pilasters separating the sections. Dadoes featuring painted imitations of opus sectile discs beneath panels of fictive veined marbling were also deployed in some of the principal rooms in the contemporary desert palace at Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, in Syria108 (Fig. 40). The dado panels at San Vincenzo have no precise analogues in ancient Roman opus sectile. The masters responsible for them were probably trained in an aulic tradition of painting which had its proximate origins in the culture of the southern Lombard courts at Benevento and Salerno, as they had been developed in the course of the second half of the 8th century109. To judge from the points of similarity between the dadoes at San Vincenzo and those at Qusayr ’Amra and Qasr al-Hayr, it seems likely that artists and patrons at the southern Lombard courts, like their counterparts in the northern Lombard duchies, were drawing on Umayyad practice of a generation earlier for ideas and formal repertoire110. 106 Hodges, Mitchell 1996, figs. 4:2–3, 11–52; Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, pp. 57–80, pls. 3.3–40. 107 Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pls. 29, 34, 85, 118, and also 26, 31. 108 Schlumberger 1939, pls. XXXVII, 2, XXXIX, 4; Schlumberger 1986, pl. 57a, c, d, g. 109 Mitchell 1995; Hodges, Mitchell 1996, pp. 113–117; Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, pp. 88–91. 110 Painted dadoes imitating opus sectile and elaborately veined marble revetment are a characteristic feature of the decoration of prestigious institutional spaces in Lombard and post-Lombard Italy in the 8th and 9th centuries. Similarly they are a salient feature in the decoration of elite Umayyad palaces and residences of the first half of the 8th century. Apart from Qusayr ’Amra, salient examples of this practice are preserved at Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi (Schlumberger 1939, pls. XXXVII, 2, XXXVIII, 3, XXXIX, 4), at Balis (Leisten 2002, pp. 6–7) and at Khirbat al-Mafjar (Hamilton 1959, pp. 316–317, 322, pl. LXXIV). It is not impossible that the predilection for painted marbling in the Lombard cultural spheres of influence in Italy had its proximate origins in this Arab taste; for this, see Ch. XI in this volume.

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Finally, at a more fundamental level, the way in which the walls at Qusayr ’Amra are lined and revetted with ornate coverings of varying material is replicated exactly in the Lombard chapel at Cividale. Both at Cividale and in the calidarium of the bathing suite at Qusayr ’Amra, sheets of polished marble revetment at the lowest level, and above in varying sequence, mosaic, painted relief in gypsum stucco and painted plaster are variously deployed to articulate the wall-surfaces of the interior spaces. Both in the materials and in their deployment, these two schemes speak the same language; precisely the same idiom of material expression is used to effect the interior décor. 5. Pictorial narrative A further aspect of the surviving passages of the painted programme at San Salvatore which calls for comment concerns pictorial narrative composition. To judge from the better preserved panels, the various episodes are characterized by a pronounced dramatic intensity, and a number of scenes seem to include both principal protagonists and supplementary bystanders, the former carrying the story, the latter observing and responding to the action. In the episode of the burial of a female saint (S2I) three veiled women lean over the sarcophagus, in complete concentration on anointing the corpse for burial111 (Figs. 14, 15). The emotional engagement of the women with their task is palpably described — in the composition, in the attitudes of the figures, clustered and bunched, expressing mutual support and concerted intent, in the almost violently dramatic white lighting and shading of their faces, and in the way in which an elaborate, asymmetrical architectural setting, hung with a zig-zagging red streak of curtained textile, is used to heighten the drama. One or more spectators looking down on the scene from the arcaded gallery of the left, their hands gripping the parapet in excitement, enforce the action of the women, and elicit the involvement of the viewer, in their role as present observers of the event in its real space and time, within the depiction. A similar pictorial and psychological dynamic is present in an analogous scene, on the north wall, identified as the burial of saints Elpis, Pistis and Agape (N26, Fig. 41)112. Here the action is set in an open landscape, and the role of architecture is passed to a range of dark dramatically outlined 111 112

Panazza 1962, pl. E2, figs. 87–8. Panazza 1962, pl. F2, fig. 99; Ibsen, 2014, pp. 157–158.

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hills which rise up behind the figures, giving a sombre poignancy to the scene of women mourning at the tomb. The narrative adjacent to the burial on the south wall, a relatively well-preserved panel, identified as the sack of Carthage by the Vandals and the capture of saint Giulia (S22, Fig. 23), is perhaps the most dramatic of the compositions to have survived. In the left half of the panel, three men, all carrying bundles on their shoulders or in their arms, hurry to the right, intent on their pressing purpose, their faces alive with touches of line, light and shadow. Despite their small number, the compressed energy of the figures and the ring of crenellated walls and towers filled with densely-set buildings, which closes tightly round, make the three men seem a crowd. To the right, outside the city, a tall stooping female, veiled and haloed, saint Giulia, is led forward and away by a soldier, continuing the direction of the men in the city. The intensity of the depiction and the striking juxtaposition and contrast between the hurrying men carrying off their booty inside the walls, their hands dramatically placed and ostentatiously lighted, and the saint calmly enduring capture and martyrdom, make for a powerfully engaging image, which draws the observer into the psychological dynamic of the action. This sense of intense sympathetic engagement is apparent whenever two figures are shown in interaction. So in a scene usually identified as the marriage feast at Cana, on the north wall (N6, Fig. 26), preserved only in under-drawing, Christ, with bended head, extends his hand down to effect the wondrous change of water to wine, while his mother gently recoils, drawing her arm across her chest, with open palm and fingers splayed in astonishment at the miracle113. A particularly telling index of their relationship lies in the delineation of their heads at complementary angles within great haloes, which almost touch. The critical role played by observant bystanders in the actions depicted is well exemplified in a scene from Christ’s ministry in the middle register on the south wall, possibly to be identified with the Samaritan woman at the well or with one of Christ’s miracles of healing at the pools of Bethesda and Siloam ( S12, Fig. 42)114. The composition is dominated by a standing haloed figure, presumably Christ, with a second person prostrate at his feet; the principal feature in the right foreground is an ornate rectangular basin, possibly a well or a pool, with a third figure behind. In the top left corner of the panel the clustered heads of a group of witnesses 113 114

Panazza 1962, pl. F2, fig. 81; Ibsen, 2014, p. 155. Panazza 1962, pp. 80–81, pl. E2; Ibsen, 2014, p. 156.

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gaze intently down on the proceedings. Here the central action is inflected by a secondary participant engaged over the pool and an excited group of bystanders whose evident interest draws the viewer into active participation in the narrative. In the following century, artists working for elite Carolingian patronage were to experiment with and develop precisely this type of composition, in which a number of principal and secondary actors played out a dramatic narrative, their bodies carrying and responding to the sense of the action, their heads and hands deployed in a sometimes explosively expressive visual rhetoric to communicate feeling, thought and speech. Compositions of this kind are well represented in carved ivory panels of the middle and second half of the 9th century115; and the illustrations to the Psalms and Canticles in the Utrecht Psalter provide another outstanding example of the genre116. Some twenty years ago, Robert Deshman drew our attention to this phenomenon in a brilliant analysis of some fundamental aspects of Carolingian pictorial representation, which previously had received little attention117. Focusing on the presence of servants and secondary, apparently supernumerary, bystanders in early medieval representations of episodes from the life of the Virgin Mary and Christ, he showed that these were in fact crucial protagonists in a new paradigm of visual narrative. On the one hand they exemplified the idea of service, a notion of obedient duty, which led to elevation and preferment. The patterns for this were Christ and his saints and especially the Virgin Mary, who because of the humility and service which she has shown at the Annunciation had been raised up to be Queen of Heaven and so the most powerful intercessor for mankind. On the other hand, these images were designed to engage the viewer in dramatic fashion, with the exaggeratedly emotive attitudes and gestures of the protagonists serving to capture attention and engender responsive participation. Secondary figures functioned almost as mediating surrogates with whom the viewer could identify, whose service in the narrative could be seen as the model for the humble service which the suppliant viewer vowed to fulfil, both in his religious devotion and in his secular allegiance. The process was informed by the old concept of the vicarious presence and even the envisioned real presence and participation of the viewer in the events of Goldschmidt 1914. Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, ms. 32. Dewald 1932; Van Der Horst, Noel, Wüstefeld 1996. 115 116

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the sacred history of the deep past. This was an idea which had its roots in the thinking of early Christian theorists, like Saint Jerome and Pope Leo I, and which had continued to underpin the devotional practice of pilgrims to the Holy Places in the Holy Land in the intervening centuries. In the early 9th century it was given renewed life and popularity in northern Europe by Carolingian liturgical commentators like Amalarius of Metz, who describes the act of devotion in terms such as: “With the cross of Christ placed before me, I hold Christ in my mind as if he were actually hanging upon it.”118 Two examples from the middle of the 9th century, both carved reliefs in ivory, show well the nature and the dynamics of Carolingian narrative composition. The first, still in its original setting on the front cover of a Gospel Book of ca. 850, associated with the patronage of Archbishop Drogo of Metz, consists of a central panel, divided into three superimposed fields, surrounded by four framing pieces carved with a virtuoso openwork medallion vine-scroll, winding about a central pole119 (Fig. 43). The three central fields contain three episodes from the infancy of Christ, the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi and the Massacre of the Innocents, expertly carved à jour. The stories are told with extra figures, two women attending to the Virgin Mary and the angel Gabriel in the first scene, and in the Massacre two infanticide soldiers, three protesting mothers and a courtier behind the throne of Herod. The three episodes are notable for the psychological intensity imparted to the narratives; in each case violently active, excited and fast-moving actors confront a calm protagonist, who stills and focuses the action, against a carefully orchestrated back-drop of courtly architecture, largely consisting of trabeated and arched openings elaborately hung with curtains. The observer is caught, as if privy to a powerful human event, and inevitably is drawn in, through empathetic engagement with the action and passion of each story120. Deshman 1989, esp. 50–66. See also Deshman 1980. Deshman 1980, p. 390. In images of the period which correspond to this text, in the Prayer Book of Charles the Bald, and in the crypt of Epyphanius at San Vincenzo al Volturno, a suppliant king and an abbot are represented on their knees before the crucified Christ, with both figures projected over the framing borders, as if to show the two men in the palpable presence of their suffering Redeemer, in a spatial continuum which also includes the observer (Deshman 1980, figs. 1, 2). 119 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Lat. 9393. Goldschmidt 1914, p. 40, cat. 72, pl. XXIX. 120 Meyer Schapiro, indicatively, posited north Italian inspiration behind this ivory (Schapiro 1952, p. 163). 117

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A second mid-9th century Carolingian ivory, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, is expertly carved in the same dramatic idiom, with the narrative of the risen Christ meeting the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and then revealing himself to them at supper121 (Fig. 44). As in panel S22 in San Salvatore, the sack of Carthage and the capture of saint Giulia (Figs. 21, 22), the field is divided into two distinct parts; on the left, in open country, Christ engages in lively discussion with his two followers, who with eloquent gesture persuade him to stay the night in the village rather than travel on; while on the right the three sit at supper, Christ blessing the bread, the two disciples extending their open hands in recognition, filling the interior of a city girt with walls and towers. Not only does the composition follow very much the same formula as the episode on the south wall at San Salvatore; there is an analogous dramatic psychological engagement expressed in the turning bodies, the thrusting profile heads and the emphatically gesturing hands. Now, this interest in dramatic visual story-telling which pervades the painted programme of Christological and hagiographical narratives in San Salvatore in the 760s and was to become one of the salient characteristics of Carolingian visual storytelling a century later, can also be traced in what survives of the original painted decoration of the contemporary monastery church of Santa Sofia at Benevento. This little church, with its sophisticated stellar form and complex vaulting, standing just outside the confines of the ducal palace, was a personal foundation of Duke Arechis II, erected ca. 760 and richly endowed122. Painted narratives are preserved in the two lateral apses of the church: in the northern apse, the Annunciation to Zaccharias and Zaccharias’ naming of his son John (Fig. 45); in the southern apse, two Marian episodes, the Annunciation and the Visitation123 (Figs, 46–48). There is an extraordinary verve to these compositions; figures are shown in dramatic action, engaging with one another in an intensely physical way or reacting strongly to the actions of others. In the northern apse, on one side, Gabriel rushes in to announce the birth of a son to Zaccharias, who inclines his head sharply, turning back to receive the angel’s greeting; while 121 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, 1970. 324.1. Melzak 1983; Elbern 1966, pp. 8–9, fig. 3. 122 Belting 1962, pp. 175–193. 123 Belting 1968, ills. 61–5; Bologna 1978, pp. 26–227; Leonardi and Cassanelli 1985, figs. 348–349; Rotili 1986, pls. 42–45; Menis 1990, pp. 334–335, cat. VIII.6; Pace 1994, pp. 243–244.

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on the other Zaccharias is shown a second time, now struck dumb, inclining his head in the opposite direction and gesturing with eloquent long fingers to an audience of four attentive men who emerge from an arch, intent on making out his meaning (Luke 1, 11–22). The painted surface from the middle of the apse is lost, but from what remains it would appear that the artist arrived at a powerful solution to the problem of fitting two successive episodes into the confined space of the apse, with the two figures of the priest, back to back, each turning strongly away from the centre. Similarly two episodes are combined in the southern apse. On the left the archangel gestures energetically to announce his message to the Virgin, who retreats at his advance, while below a completely supernumerary witness starts back in astonishment; and on the right Mary grasps the chin of Elizabeth who eagerly falls into her arms, while two maids attend, one observing closely from the left, while the other recoils from the violence of the embrace as she sweeps back a curtain. With her mantle flying, Elizabeth throws her arms round Mary with an extraordinary vehemence and loving passion. The rhetorical devices of the 9th-century Carolingian narratives are already present in these compositions in Brescia and Benevento, almost a century earlier; dramatically blocked-out narratives; intense psychological action and reaction; emotive expression; supernumerary attendant figures, servants and bystanders, who besides embodying the idea and ideal of service, intensify the drama by their physical responses, and by their very witnessing presence draw the observer sympathetically into the action; and settings of architectural elements which serve as mute protagonists behind the figures, articulating and enforcing the narrative. The sense for powerful visual narrative and human story-telling, which is one of the most striking features of Carolingian art, and is exemplified perhaps most tellingly in the compellingly intense compositions of the Utrecht Psalter, was founded on a tradition of narrative painting which appears to have been part and parcel of the shared court culture of the major Lombard courts in the 8th century. It seems possible, even likely, that this intensely engaging visual idiom was a new enterprise in western Europe, devised and developed by artists in the employ of Lombard patrons, experimenting with new strategies to underpin political ideology and ambitions in an age of increasingly competitive state formation in western Europe. The immediate origins and inspiration behind these Lombard developments in dramatic psychological visual narrative are not immediately obvious, It has long been recognized that Carolingian artists

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made careful study of and closely observed 5th- and 6th-century ivory reliefs to which they had access, and these early Christian narrative Christological compositions which have survived, mostly from the Latin west, tend to be conceived in eloquently dramatic terms, with lively interaction between figures, often backed by abbreviated architectural elements to set off the narrative124. However, given the striking formal connections we have seen between Qusayr ’Amra, c. 730–740, and the paintings in Italy, at Brescia c. 760–770, still operative some two generations later at San Vincenzo al Volturno, it is worth considering whether a major direct influence on this courtly Lombard pictorial tradition, with its signature dimension of intense psychological engagement, may have been the art of the Umayyad courts of the Levant. The paintings at Qusayr ’Amra have suffered considerably from their early conservation in the early 1970s, from not inconsiderable repainting and strengthening of contours, so that it is not always easy to judge their original surface-characteristics and impact. However, the various compositions are notable for the intense engagement of the various protagonists in the actions depicted. This is to be observed in the episode of performance-bathing on the west wall, in which onlookers pay avid attention to the central figure from their balconies125 (Fig. 31), in the focused energy with which hunters spear and cut down wild asses within a netted enclosure on the north wall of the west aisle126 (Fig. 49), in the various scenes on the walls of the tepidarium in which naked women with their children discourse in idyllic settings127 (Fig. 50), and even in the attentive attitudes and pensive looks of the craftsmen shown engaged in the various activities of building construction in the vault of the east aisle of the main hall128 (Fig. 51). Above all, this aspect is apparent in the extraordinary scenes of couples, in one case a female and a male, in the other apparently two males, with cloaks flying, rushing together to meet and fervently embrace in the spaces between the windows on the long east Volbach 1976, figs. 107–108, 110–121, 140–145, 161–199. Almagro et al. 1975, pls. XVI, XVIII–XX; Fowden 2004, pp. 227–247, figs. 57, 60; Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pls. 28, 34a, 35, 85, 86, 115b, 118, 142a. 126 Aimagro et al. 1975, pls. XXX–XXXI; Fowden 2004, pp. 101–102, fig. 34; VibertGuigue, Bisheh 2007, pls. 51, 144b. 127 Aimagro et al. 1975, pls. XLIII–XLVII; Fowden 2004, p. 55, 257–265, figs. 15, 62; Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pls. 66–68, 105–109, 133, 135. 128 Almagro et al. 1975, pls. XXXIII–XXXVIII; Fowden 2004, pp. 251–257, fig. 61; Vibert-Guigue, Bisheh 2007, pls. 57–63, 128–129, 131, 141f, 144h, 147a. 124 125

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wall of the east aisle129 (Fig. 52). There is a driving intensity, a passionate engagement about these scenes which recalls the notorious posthumous reputation of the patron, Prince al-Walid, for demonstrative, passionate even violent expression in human interaction and intercourse; a man who is recorded on one occasion, entranced by the performance of a celebrated singer, repeatedy to have torn off his robes and plunged naked into a pool filled with wine; and on another occasion, in sheer delight at another such entertainment, to have jumped up and covered the singer with kisses before tearing off his own clothing and presenting it to the startled performer130. The intense narratives of the actions depicted on the walls of the audience chamber at Qusayr ’Amra offer a striking visual correlative to a court culture informed by values and behaviour of this kind131. If this Umayyad aulic culture did indeed provide a pattern for artists tasked with creating a new visual image for the Lombard royal court, the 129 Aimagro et al. 1975, pls. XXX–XXXI; Fowden 2004, pp. 101–102, fig. 34; VibertGuigue, Bisheh 2007, p. 41, pls. 52, 103. 130 Hamilton 1988, pp. 35–37, 118–119 and passim; Hillenbrand 1982, pp. 12–13, 19–20 and passim; see also Fowden 2004, pp. 142–174. 131 The surviving narratives of al-Walid’s life are contained in the histories of authors, principally al-Tabari, al-Baladhuri, and al-Isfahani, writing long after his death, under the Abbasid caliphate, in a climate generally hostile to the preceding dynasty. These later accounts of his actions, behaviour and passions have yet to be cogently challenged and deconstructed; the extent and detail of the traditions they recount suggest that they may have been founded on a not entirely fabricated memory of the cultural climate at the courts of the later Umayyad caliphs. Steven Judd (2008), in a recent reassessment of al-Walid’s reputation, has argued, contrary to generally accepted opinion, that he followed a rational and systematic line of action in his accession to power, that he developed a cogent new ideology of absolute caliphal authority, and that he had a sophisticated theological understanding and a clear vision of his relationship with God, holding that whatever his behaviour, his actions would be divinely sanctioned by virtue of his position and office. However, Judd broadly accepts the reports of the caliph’s excessive drinking, and his exuberant pursuit of women and passion for poetry and sometimes violently expressive behaviour, seeing these as constituting an all too open exercise of practices regularly followed out of the public eye by the Umayyad rulers and their courts in the first half of the 8th century. Mattia Guidetti has associated the depictions of dramatic bodily presence and action and violent physical activity at Qusayr ’Amra with a tradition from al-Razi (854–925/35), recorded by al-Guzuli, in which the author describes an old tradition of decorating bath buildings with images of this kind to promote the relaxation of the body in its animal, psychological and physical nature. It is very possible that this played a part in the choice of these subjects for the programme of imagery in the audience chamber and adjunct thermal chambers at Qusayr ’Amra (Guidetti, Macchiarella 2007, pp. 57–58). For a translation of this text, see Rosenthal 1992, p. 266.

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critical contacts and communications must have taken place in the second quarter or middle of the 8th century, late in the reign of Liutprand or under Ratchis or Aistulf, or possibly under Desiderius in the very first years of the new Abbasid rule. The means and circumstances of such contacts and cultural diffusion are still obscure, although an overall picture of various and manifold contacts between the eastern and central Mediterranean theatres in this critical period is starting slowly to emerge. The documentary evidence, which has been mined brilliantly and exhaustively by Michael McCormick, gives tantalising glimpses of occasional sections and stages of the paths of communication, fragmentary data which probably represents the tip of an iceberg of a myriad trans-Mediterranean journeys of many kinds, for the most part completely unrecorded132. The ambassadorial relations initiated by the Frankish king, Pippin III, with the caliphal court at Baghdad, in 764– 766, may represent at the highest level not so much a lone initial contact with the new Arab world, as the earliest recorded instance of contact and longdistance inter-cultural communication around the Mediterranean at various levels in the first half of the 8th century133. Despite the extreme paucity of either documentary or material evidence for trading relations between the territories of the Caliphate and the Mediterranean ports of western Europe, in this period, a glimpse of the realities of travel and the opportunities available for cultural contact and transmission possible at this time, are provided by the Odeporicon of the Anglo-Saxon, saint Willibald134. A wellto-do, educated, and observant traveller, on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Loca Sancta, over three years, 721–724, Willibald was able to move with relative freedom around the Arab Near East, repeatedly visiting Damascus McCormick 2002. McCormick 2002, R169, p. 874. 134 The generally accepted understanding is that trade between the Levant and the central Mediterranean all but stopped in the first half of the 8th century (Wickham 2005, pp. 124– 133, 716–717, 770–780). There are a few instances of possible evidence for maritime movement out from the south-eastern Mediterranean in this period. Cooking ware from Egypt, found in recent excavations at the port of Classe, by Ravenna, on the upper Adriatic, has been dated provisionally to the early 8th century (Enrico Cirelli, pers. comm.), and Salvatore Cosentino (pers. comm.) has proposed that graffito-inscriptions in Arabic, recording burials, inscribed on the fabric of fully operational Christian churches on islands of the Aegean, also date from this period (pers. comm.). However, in both cases, the dating is not universally accepted. It is not until the second half of the century that there is clear numismatic and ceramic evidence for the development of regular trading relations between the Venetian lagoon and the Arab Levant (McCormick 2002, pp. 361–369, 523–526). 132 133

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and other cities in Syria and the Holy Land, before returning to Rome, via Constantinople, Syracuse and Catania, the Aeolian Islands, Naples and Monte Cassino. From Rome, Willibald, at the behest of the Pope, Gregory III, went to join saint Boniface, in Bavaria. On his way north he stopped in Lucca, where his father was buried, at the Lombard capital Pavia, at Brescia and at the Lago di Garda, before crossing the Alps and making his way via the courts of the Bavarian dukes, Odilo and Suitgar, to Boniface at Linthard and finally to Eichstätt, the estate donated by Duke Suitgar, where subsequently he would be consecrated bishop by Boniface135, Willibald provides an almost ideal exemplar for the kind of human movements which would enable ideas, cultural strategies, conceptual idioms and formal patterns to migrate from one part of the Mediterranean world to another. The Umayyad Caliphate had become the most powerful polity in the wider Mediterranean arena and the material and cultural production being developed to unterpin the strategies and ambitions of the caliph and the new Arab ruling elite was setting new standards, surpassing anything attainable in western Europe136. The new cultural paradigms being set in the Fertile Crescent offered a brilliant Roman-derived visual language, a formal rhetoric of new imperial rule, an obvious model and resource for other contemporary rulers aiming to construct cultural apparatuses to help realize their own ambitions. The Lombard kings in the 8th century, like their infinitely more powerful Arab counterparts but on a relatively minor scale, were aiming to expand and consolidate their territorial control at the expense of a distant and contracting imperial Byzantine presence and other relatively weak powers, including the papal duchy of Rome and the independent city states on the Tyrrhenian coast. Subsequently, it was the Frankish king and emperor, Charlemagne — whose diplomatic relations with the Arab court are recorded in some detail by his biographers, Einhard and Notker, and who famously received an elephant, Abul-Abbas, from the caliph, Harun al-Rashid, as a token of the contact — and the artists working in the orbit of his grandson, Charles the Bald, who really capitalized on and exploited

135 Huneberc of Heidenheim, The Hodeporicon of Saint Willibald. Vita Willibaldi: Holder Egger 1987; Talbot 1981, pp. 151–177; Noble, Head 1995, pp. 141–164. See McCormick 2002, pp. 129–134. 136 For overviews of the dynamics of Umayyad architecture in this period, see Grabar 1973 and Ettinghausen, Grabar and Jenkins-Madina 2001, pp. 3–101. See also Wickham 2005, p. 779.

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these artistic connections with the Arab world137. However, it seems that the cultural and presumably also diplomatic contacts with the courts at Damascus and subsequently Baghdad, which were to set this development in motion may have been made under the aegis of the Lombard kings half a century earlier, and San Salvatore at Brescia is one of their earliest and most eloquent witnesses. Acknowledgments My thanks for ideas and help of various kinds to Christine Brennan, Gian Pietro Brogiolo, Jane Chick, Enrico Cirelli, Amanda Claridge, Salvatore Cosentino, Monica Ibsen, Sauro Gelichi, Vincenzo Gheroldi, Mattia Guidetti, Richard Hodges, Bea Leal, Charles Little, Richard Maguire, Michael McCormick, Nadine Méouchy, Heather Miles, Larry Nees, Jinty Nelson, John Onians, John Osborne, Alex Sarra and Claude Vibert-Guigue.

For Abul-Abbas, see Annales Einhardi, a. 802, 810: Kurze 1895, p. 116; Einhardi, Vita Karoli, 16: Holder Egger 1911, pp. 19–20; Thorpe 1969, p. 70; Notker Balbulus, Gesta Caroli Magni, II, 8: Haefele 1980, pp. 61–62; Thorpe 1969, pp. 143–146; and Hodges 1988; McCormick 2002, pp. 217–219, 890–891; Nees 2006. 137

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R. Melzak, The Carolingian Ivory Carvings of the Later Metz Group. PhD. Dissertation, Columbia University, New York (New York, 1983). G. C. Menis (ed. ), I Longobardi (Milan, 1990). J. -P. Migne (ed. ), Patrologiae cursus completus …series latina, 217 volumes, Paris, 1844–55). J. Mitchell, ‘The crypt reappraised’, in San Vincenzo al Volturno 1: The 1980– 86 Excavations Part I, ed. R. Hodges (London, 1993), 75–114. J. Mitchell, ‘Arichis und die Künste’, in Für irdischen Ruhm und himmlischen Lohn. Stifter und Auftraggeber in der mittelalterlichen Kunst, ed. H.-R. Meier, C. Jäggi and P. Büttner (Berlin, 1995), 47–64. J. Mitchell, The uses of spolia in Longobard Italy’, in Antike Spolien in der Architektur des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, ed. J. Poeschke and H. Brandenburg (Munich, 1996), 93–115. J. Mitchell, ‘St. Johann at Müstair: the painted decoration in context’, in Wandel und Konstanz zwischen Bodensee und Lombardei zur Zeit Karls des Grossen. Kloster St. Johann in Müstair und Churrätien. Tagung 13. –16. Juni 2012 in Müstair, ed. H. R. Sennhauser, K. Roth-Rubi and E. Kühne (Zürich, 2013), 367–90. J. Mitchell and B. Leal. ‘Wall-paintings in S. Maria foris portas (Castelseprio) and the tower at Torba. Reflections and reappraisal’, in Castelseprio e Torba – sintesi delle ricerche e aggiornamenti, ed. M. De Marchi (Mantua, 2013), 311–44. C. G. Mor, ‘La grande iscrizione dipinta nel Tempietto Longobardo di Cividale’, Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia, ser. altera in 8, II (1982), 95–122. L. Nees, ‘Charlemagne’s elephant’, Quintana: Rivista do Departamento de Historia de Arte, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela 5 (2006), 13–49. L. Nees, ‘Blue behind gold: the inscription of the Dome of the Rock and its relatives’, in “And Divers are their Hues”: Color in Islamic Art and Culture, ed. J. Bloom and S. Blair (New Haven, Conn. and London, 2011), 152–73. R. Niggl (ed. ), Giacomo Grimaldi, Descrizione della basilica antica di S. Pietro in Vaticano, Codice Barberini Latino 2733, (Vatican City, 1972). T. F. X. Noble and T. Head (ed. ), Soldiers of Christ. Saints and Saints’ Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (London, 1995). H. Omont, Miniatures des plus anciens manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque Nationale, du VIe au XIVe siècle (Paris, 1929). J. Onians, Bearers of Meaning. The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle

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Ages and the Renaissance (Princeton, 1988). J. Osborne, ‘The use of painted initials by Greek and Latin scriptoria in Carolingian Rome’, Gesta 29, n. 1 (1990), 76–85. V. Pace, ‘La pittura medievale in Campania’, in La pittura in Italia. L’altomedioevo, ed. C. Bertelli (Milan, 1994), 243–60. A. Palmer and L. Rodley, ‘The inauguration of Hagia Sophia in Edessa: A new edition and translation with historical and architectural notes and a comparison with a contemporary Constantinopolitan kontakion’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 12 (1988), 117–67. G. Panazza, ‘Gli scavi, l’architettura e gli affreschi della chiesa di San Salvatore in Brescia’, in La chiesa di San Salvatore in Brescia. Atti dell’VIII Congresso di studi sull’arte dell’alto medioevo II, ed. G. Panazza, A. Peroni (Milan, 1962), 5–228. E. Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. -Denis and its Art Treasures, second edition, ed. G. Panofsky-Soergel (Princeton, 1979). A. Pantoni, San Vincenzo al Volturno e la cripta dell’abate Epifanio (Monte Cassino, 1970). A. Pantoni, Le chiese e gli edifici del monastero di San Vincenzo al Volturno (Miscellanea Cassinese 40) (Monte Cassino, 1980). P. Peduto, M. Galante, D. Mauro, I. Pastore, M. Romito, ‘Un accesso alla storia di Salerno: stratigrafie e materiali dell’area palaziale longobarda’, Rassegna storica salernitana 10 (1988), 9–63. C. Plummer (ed. ), Venerabilis Baedae Opera Historica (Oxford, 1896). M. Preissler, Die karolingischen Malereifragmente aus Paderborn (Mainz, 2003). N. Rasmo, Karolingische Kunst in Südtirol (Bozen, 1981). B. Reudenbach, ‘Säule und Apostel. Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von Architektur und architekturexegetischer Literatur im Mittelealter’, Frühmittelalterlicher Studien 14 (1980), 310–51. F. Rosenthal, The Classical Tradition in Islam (London and New York, 1992). M. Rotili, Benevento romana e longobarda: l’immagine urbana (Naples, 1986). G. McN. Rushforth, ‘S. Maria Antiqua’, Papers of the British School at Rome 1 (1902), 1–123. M. Schapiro, Review of K. Wetzmann, ‘The fresco Cycle of S. Maria di Castelseprio’, The Art Bulletin 34, no. 2 (1952), 147–63. N. Schibille and I. Freestone, ‘Composition, production and procurement of glass at San Vincenzo al Volturno: an early medieval monastic complex in southern Italy, PlosOne (October 16, 2013).

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D. Schlumberger, Les fouilles de Qasr el-Heir el-Gharbi (1936–38), Syria 20 (1939), 195–238. D. Schlumberger, Qasr el Heir el-Gharbi (Paris, 1986). D. J. Stanley, ‘Santa Costanza: history, archaeology, function, patronage and dating’, Arte medievale 3 (2004), no. 1, 119–40. H. Stern, ‘Les mosaïques de l’église de Sainte-Constance à Rome’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 12 (1958), 159–218. C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (ed. ), 799. Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit: Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn, Katalog der Ausstellung I (Mainz, 1999). C. H. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, new ed. (London, 1981). T. Thibodeu, The Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William Durand of Mende. A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One (New York, 2010). L. Thorpe (ed. and trans. ), Einhard and Notker the Stammerer, Two Lives of Charlemagne (Harmondsworth, 1969). H. Torp, ‘Il problema della decorazione originaria del Tempietto Longobardo di Cividale del Friuli. La data e i rapporti con San Salvatore di Brescia’, Quaderni della Face 18 (1959), 5–47. Utrecht-Psalter. Vollständige Faksimile-Ausgaube im Originalformat der Handschrift 32 aus dem Besitz der Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht. Kommentar, ed. K. van der Horst and J. H. A. Engelbrecht (Codices selecti phototypice impressi, 75), 2 vols. (Graz, 1984). K. Van der Horst, W. Noel and W. C. M. Wüstefeld (eds. ), The Utrecht Psalter in Medieval Art. Picturing the Psalms of David (Westrenen, 1996). C. Vibert-Guigue and G. Bisheh, Les peintures de Qusayr ’Amra : Un bain omeyyade dans la bâdiya jordanienne (Beirut, 2007). W. F. Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters, 3rd edition (Mainz, 1976). S. Waetzoldt, Die Kopien des 17. Jahrhunderts nach Mosaiken und Wandmalereien in Rom (Vienna and Munich, 1964). P. G. Walsh, Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola, 2 vols (New York, 1966–7). R. Weber (ed. ), Ambrosii Autperti Opera. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 27, 3 vols. (Turnhout, 1975–9). A. Weis, Die langobardische Königsbasilica von Brescia. Wandlungen von Kult und Kunst nach der Rombelagerung von 756 (Sigmaringen, 1977). K. Weitzmann, The Joshua Roll, a Work of the Macedonian Renaissance

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(Princeton N. J, 1948). K. Weitzmann, The Fresco Cycle of S. Maria di Castelseprio (Princeton N. J., 1951). H. Whitehouse, 2001, The Paper Museum of Cassiano del Pozzo. Series A. I. Ancient Mosaics and Wallpaintings (London, 2001). M. Whittaker (ed. ), Die apostolischen Väter I: Der Hirt des Hermas, second revised edition (Berlin, 1967). C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford, 2005). J. Witte Orr, Kirche und Wandmalereien am Kam al-Ahbariya – Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum Ergänzungsband 36, (Münster Westfalen, 2010).

IV St. Johann at Müstair The Painted Decoration in Context

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uch was the dominance that the Frankish king, Charlemagne, achieved in his own day and such is the renown that subsequent ages have accorded him, that he stands today as the embodiment of his time.1 We speak of the “Age of Charlemagne”, and, in popular syntheses, Europe in the later eighth and ninth centuries, in its political, social and cultural manifestations, is broadly conceived of as “Carolingian”. However, Charlemagne’s empire was vast and heterogeneous, encompassing many different peoples and long cultural traditions, which continued to flourish and to develop alongside what was taking place in the Frankish heartlands of Neustria and Austrasia. Beyond the borders of the Carolingian realm, there were other polities and peoples that communicated with the Carolingian sphere to a greater or lesser degree.2 Many had advanced and distinctive social traditions and cultures of their own — the various kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, the Scandinavian realms, the polities of the Iberian peninsular, Greater Moravia, and of particular importance for our purposes the Lombard kingdom and duchies of Italy.3 The monastery at Müstair, at the upper end of the Vinschgau, in the far south-eastern corner of modern Switzerland, is a case in point. In the geography of early medieval Europe, it lay on the southern confines of Raetia, at the southern end of one of the principal eastern passes over the Alps, on Braunfels and Schramm 1967; Fentress and Wickham 1992, pp. 154–162, 170–171. The Carolingian empire and its neighbours are surveyed by McKitterick 1983 and McKitterick 1995. 3 For the Lombard Kingdom, see Delogu 1980; Wickham 1981; Delogu 1995; for Churraetia, in which Müstair lies, see Kaiser 2008. 1 2

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the route which led from Lake Constance and Bavaria, past Chur, down the Etschtal, into northern Italy. It is often spoken of as a Carolingian, possibly a royal, foundation.4 It is possible that this is true. The large Romanesque stucco statue, traditionally identified as Charlemagne, still preserved in the church, suggests that in the late eleventh century there was a strong tradition that the monastery was founded by the Frankish king.5 Indeed the dendrochronological evidence from one of the great cross-beams of the roof of the main church, felled in 775 and presumably set in place soon afterwards, suggests that the monastery may have been founded, in the first half of Charlemagne’s reign, in the years following the Frankish conquests of 773–774, when this region became part of the Carolingian Kingdom of Italy.6 However, no secure early documentary evidence concerning the date or circumstances of the foundation of the monastery has survived.7 The first mention of the community at Müstair dates from around 824 and is found in the Liber confraternitatum of the monastery on the Reichenau, when there were already some thirty-six monks.8 The most promising sources of evidence for the foundation and the early history of Müstair are likely to come from the material fabric of the earliest buildings, and this includes, of course, the original cycle of wall paintings which once completely covered the interior of the church and which still survives in large part in varying degrees of conservation.9 This is not the place for a full-scale re-evaluation of the early painted decoration of the church. The brief of this paper is briefly to consider the paintings at Müstair in their wider context. Only passing attention will be paid to the historical evidence, documentary and material, exact and circumstantial, which can be brought to bear on the early history of the monastery and its material fabric; this has been comprehensively examined by Hans Rudolf Sennhauser and others.10 Similarly, little will be said about 4 On the tradition of Charlemagne’s role in the foundation of the monastery, see Sennhauser 1999. 5 On the stucco figure of Charlemagne, see Wirth 1995. 6 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 30, 43. 7 For the early history of the monastery, see: Müller 1982, pp. 9–23; Davis-Weyer 1987, pp. 202–208; Sennhauser 1999. 8 Authenrieth, Geuenich, Schmid 1979, pp. xv, xxxii–xxxvi, lxviii, pl. 17; Müller 1982, pp. 1–14; Davis-Weyer 1987, p. 203. 9 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007. 10 Sennhauser 1999.

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the iconographical compass and details of the painted programme. These have been analysed and explicated recently, in rather different ways, by Kirsten Ataoguz and Matthias Exner.11 Rather, it is the formal aspects of the painting that will be the focus of our enquiry, for it is these, more than anything else, which can give a lie to Müstair’s location in the cultural and visual landscape of the period. Material, archaeological, artistic evidence constitutes a text, equally eloquent but also of course just as equivocal as written documentary evidence for the understanding of a complex monument of this kind. While it will never lie, it is often able to conceal the truth, even under close crossexamination. The evidence will lead us south into Lombard and post-Lombard Italy, rather than north into transalpine Francia. However, the Alpine region, in which Müstair is located, while retaining a particular cultural identity of its own, has always constituted a bridge, rather than a divide, between the north Italian plain to the south, and the regions of southern France, Germany and Austria to the north, offering passage and residence to people, artefacts and ideas. The Layout of the Painted Scheme I want briefly to consider the pictorial scheme in the church in various of its aspects. First, the overall layout of the scheme, on the flanking walls of the nave, in a rectangular grid consisting of a dado underlying five registers of pictorial narrative, from pavement to roof-beams, is in itself not easy to account for (Fig. 1). Broadly comparable layouts, with narrative schemes normally in just one or two registers, and occasionally in three, were to be found certainly in Italy, since late antiquity and doubtless in northern Europe too. An instance of an extensive and complex three-tiered programme occurs in the basilica of San Salvatore in Brescia, the foundation of Duke Desiderius and his wife Ansa; the building and its elaborate decoration in paint and stucco are now pretty securely dated, on the evidence of carbon-14 results from the reeds used in the stucco embellishments of the arcades, to early in

11

Ataoguz 2007; Exner, in Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 83–113.

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the second half of the 8th century, to around 760.12 However, the extent of the scheme at Müstair, completely covering the interior surfaces of a church in which windows have been kept to the minimum, apparently to allow for as a large a surface as possible for painted decoration, is quite exceptional. It would seem to announce quite emphatically that this is no ordinary place, no ordinary foundation. Framing Motifs and Dadoes The foliate rods bound round with spiralling ribbons, which form the principal ornament of the framing members of the individual scenes are more informative and diagnostic.13 This motif is documented in the region, at Chur, where it figures on the carved relief of a post from a chancel screen, from the late 8th century;14 and it can also be found in the Lombard southern principality of Benevento, used in the frame of a panel of dado in the painted annular crypt of the Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno, work of around 820.15 At around the same time it enters the repertory of artists in one of the scriptoria working for the Frankish court, and makes an appearance in the frames of the text pages in the Lorsch Gospels, the last of the great Gospel books from the so-called Court School of Charlemagne, a manuscript probably dating from the second decade of the 9th century.16 The motive is also used with the same framing function in the painted decoration of the sanctuary in S. Maria foris portas at Castelseprio, the little memorial church on the outskirts of a fortified centre on the river Olona, north of Milan, which contains an extraordinary programme of paintings, a complex mariological cycle, painted in what is commonly seen as a pure Byzantine idiom.17 The relationship of the frames at Müstair with the motif at Castelseprio is particularly close, in that in both places at critical points the foliate rods issue from trumpet-tubes at the corners of the 12 Panazza 1962, foldouts E2 and F2. For the new dating evidence, see Brogiolo, Gheroldi, Ibsen, Mitchell 2010; Brogiolo and Morandini 2014. 13 See the illustrations in Goll, Exner, Hirsch, passim. 14 Sulser 1980 and Roth-Rubi 2014, pp. 408–409, figs. 15–16. 15 Hodges, Mitchell 1996, pp. 80–82, figs. 4: 21, 4: 22; Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, p. 63, figs. 3: 13, 3: 16, pl. 3: 19. 16 Bucharest, Alba Julia Library, s. n., eg. p. 155; Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Ms. Pal. Lat 50, eg. fol. 78r; Koehler 1958, pls. II, 106 b; Braunfels 1967. 17 Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani d’Arzago 1948, pls. L, XC; Weitzmann 1951, fig. C.

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walls.18 The detail of the containing tubes is a motif found already in late Roman floor-mosaics,19 which is known from the Byzantine / Islamic eastern Mediterranean in the post-Roman period, where it is deployed, without the ribbon, in the early 690s in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and with the ribbon, in the bema of Santa Sophia in Istanbul in the mid 860s.20 Here we encounter a phenomenon which will reoccur throughout the repertoires of artists working for elite patrons in the region, an engagement with the forms and norms of a striking classicizing pictorial tradition, a tradition which is clearly present at Müstair, although extremely difficult to pin down and account for. The close comparison with Castelseprio in this detail, a site in the same cultural region as Müstair, is problematic because of the chronology of the paintings there. The date of the paintings at Castelseprio continues to be hotly contested, seventy years after their discovery in 1944, with estimates varying between the later 6th and the first half of the 10th century.21 However, the most recent examination of a critical roof beam which is respected by the plaster carrying the paintings and so would seem to offer a terminus post quem and probably a terminus ad quem for their execution, has given a carbon-14 date of maximum probability of 885–910, and a further recent analysis based on the dendrochronological evidence, which in the case of chestnut wood used for the beam is not straightforward, has calculated a more precise date of 960 ± 13.22 Although inevitably margins of errors are involved in calculations of this kind, it seems fairly clear that this scientific evidence is now indicating a date for the crucial beam, and so the painted programme, in S. Maria di Castelseprio of at least around 900, if not a generation or two later. 18 Müstair: Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani d’Arzago, pl. LXXXIII; Wüthrich 1980, fig. I; Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, fig. 63, 85–87k. Castelseprio: Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani d’Arzago, pls. L and XC. 19 For instance, on the pavement of the late 5th-century basilica on the Vrina Plain, opposite Butrint, in Epirus Vetus, modern southern Albania (Greenslade, Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2006, p. 401; Mitchell 2008a, pp. 92–93; Mitchell forthcoming). 20 Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem: Grabar 1996, fig. 53; Nuseibeh and Grabar 1996, p. 84. Santa Sophia, Istanbul: Mango and Hawkins 1965, pp. 125–127, 137–139, figs. 21–22, 30, 41–42; Mango and Ertug 1997, pp. 37, 39. 21 For the extreme chronologies: 6th century: Romanini 1988, p. 235; Andaloro 1993, p. 458; De Spirito 1998; 10th century: Weitzmann 1951, pp. 1927. For a summary of diverging views on the dating of the paintings at Castelseprio, see Mitchell and Leal 2013, pp. 311–312. 22 The evidence is laid out by Brogiolo 2013, pp. 248–252.

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Other aspects of the repertoire used as framing motifs at Müstair have recently been subjected to an attentive analysis by Matthias Exner.23 One of these is the complex perspective swastika-meander, incorporating rectangular boxes in lateral perspective between each cruciform configuration. This motif forms dominant horizontal and vertical accents in the central apse at Müstair, and once circled the whole interior, at the top of the dado, creating a strong three-dimensional perspectival accent (Fig. 2).24 The perspectival meander was a favoured motif in antiquity, widely used in Roman imperial visual culture. It was picked up early by artists working for Carolingian patrons, already featuring on fragments of wall paintings from the late 8th-century phases of Charlemagne’s palace at Paderborn, and subsequently was freely deployed in the manuscripts of Charlemagne’s Court School.25 A predilection for such elaborate perspectival effects and three-dimensional illusion seems to have been a marked characteristic of elite taste in the 8th and 9th centuries in Lombard and post-Lombard Italy, where the tradition had a long afterlife, enduring right up into the 13th century and beyond. A similar complex painted meander frieze was used in the initial 8th-century phase in San Salvatore at Brescia, running over the arcades on the inner walls of the side-aisles (Fig. 3), and a generation or two later it features prominently in St. Benedikt at Mals, a few kilometres north-east of Müstair.26 It is deployed in a somewhat different context, around 820, in a large painted rota, forming part of the dado in the annular crypt of the Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno, in the southern Lombard principality (Fig. 4).27 There are many other instances. In the horizontal border over the dado in the central apse at Müstair the perspective meander pattern runs above a narrow band of simple meander, in which each crenulation is set into relief by an accompanying triangular highlight of plain white (Fig. 2). This is a related motif which is also deployed Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 84–92. Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 196, 100 k, p. 198, 102 k. 25 Paderborn: Preißler 2003, pp. 61–63, 112–127, 261–263, fig. 23. Court School manuscripts: Koehler 1958, pls. II, 53, 55, 77, 91 a, 91 g, 101 b, 105 a; Preißler 2003, figs. 149–157. Both the painted decoration from the early phases at Paderborn and the painted decoration of the manuscripts of Charlemagne‘s court school draw heavily on Italian practice. 26 Brescia: Panazza 1962, foldout H; Mals: Rasmo 1981, figs. 30, 40, 44. 27 Hodges, Mitchell 1996, pp. 94–98, figs. 4: 39 and 44; Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, pp. 74–75, figs. 3: 30 and 34, pls. 3: 33–34. 23 24

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along the upper edge of the dado zone at Castelseprio; and at San Vincenzo al Volturno, in the first half of the 9th century, it is used in a wilfully variant fashion, in large-scale stacked sequence to fill a long panel of dado down one arm of the annular crypt (Fig. 5).28 These meanders are an aspect of a preoccupation with bold pictorial effects of three-dimensional projection and illusion, which is a marked characteristic of elite taste in northern subAlpine Italy in the 8th and 9th centuries. This is exemplified, in more elaborate fashion, in the bold upper cornice at San Salvatore Brescia, with its trompe l’oeil consoles carrying a wall-arcade with views through arched openings, past railings and song-birds to the open sky (Fig. 7),29 and in the upper frieze of half-figure angels in St. Benedikt at Mals, set behind what seem to be enigmatic angled parapets (Fig. 6).30 The dado, the lowest zone on the walls of the nave of the church at Müstair, tells the same story. A little of this is preserved at the eastern end of the north wall, painted to resemble panels of closely veined polished marble revetment; the marbled effect here being referential and notional rather than illusionistically naturalistic. On one panel, immediately in front of the north apse, the veins consist of diagonal blue-grey bands of differing widths and one narrow red line with intermittent shakes along its length (Fig. 10).31 On another panel, the veining consists of thin vertical red lines, more or less evenly spaced, with periodic seismic twitches or shakes along their lengths, alternating with vertical bands of blue-grey on a white ground (Fig. 8).32 These panels are set within wide frames, also painted with diagonal veining. Finally, on the re-entrant angle of the apse there is a column also painted to imitate the natural veining of the marble, with striking rising arched configurations (Fig. 10). Painted marbled dadoes of this kind, almost always with diagonal veining, often disposed zig-zag, chevron-fashion, which have their origins in late Roman contexts, are another characteristic of practice in the old Lombard areas of Italy and are to be found in both the south and the north. In the south, for instance, they are ubiquitous in early 9th-century Castelseprio: Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani d’Arzago, pls. LXII, XC; Weitzmann 1951, figs. A–D. San Vincenzo al Volturno: Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, figs. 3: 30, 33, pl. 3: 32. 29 Panazza 1962, fig. 72. 30 Rasmo 1981, figs. 19–23. 31 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, fig. 68, p. 180, 83 k. 32 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 180, 83 k. 28

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phases at San Vincenzo al Volturno (Fig. 9), at the basilica of the Annunziata at Prata di Principato Ultra, in the Grotta of San Biagio at Castellammare di Stabiae, and at the sanctuary of San Michele on the Gargano;33 and an example from the north is in the painted decoration of the upper funerary chapel in the tower at Torba, just under Castelseprio, from the first half of the 9th century.34 At Müstair, the panels are somewhat aberrational variants on this type, in the one case with vertical veining and in the other diagonal but with only a single red twitching vein — either playful variants or else experiments with a newly encountered convention. In any case, the idea of diagonally veined painted marbling must have travelled north at a very early date, and can be found deployed in the little windows of the ring-crypt of Abbot Fulrad’s basilica at Saint Denis, one of the earliest surviving major Carolingian churches, dedicated in 775.35 Similarly the remarkable marbled column on the shoulder of the apse, at dado level (Fig. 10), has analogues in Italy, particularly in the Lombard south; for example, in the painted columns of the partially reassembled Prophet arcade excavated in the Assembly Room at San Vincenzo al Volturno, from the first decade of the 9th century, and in the composition with the Annunciation to Zacharias in the chapel at Seppannibale in Puglia in the far south (Fig. 11).36 Like the diagonally veined marbled panels, this conceit also seems to have crossed the Alps northwards, quite early. One of the artists of the Vienna Coronation Gospels of Charlemagne, in the last years of the 8th century, used a variant of this arcuated marbling in the columns of some of his canon tables.37 However, here the motif is painted so as to resemble stacked sequences of busts of human figures, apparently representing natural images in the veining of Proconnesian marble columns.38

33 San Vincenzo al Volturno: Hodges 1995, figs. 1: 6–9, 3: 10, 3: 13, 3: 16, 4: 11–12, pls. 1: 1, 3: 5–7; Prata di Principato Ultra: Muollo 2001: pp. 59–60; Castellamare di Stabiae: Belting 1968, p. 20. 34 Bertelli 1988, figs. 2, 10, 16, 19, 20. 35 Wyss 1994, p. 66, fig. 4. 36 San Vincenzo al Volturno: Hodges 1995, figs. 3: 16, 35, pl. 3: 11. Seppannibale: Bertelli 1994, fig. 68; Bertelli and Leppore 2011, p. 154, fig. 26, pl. VIII a. 37 Koehler 1960, vol. III, pls. 9, 10, 13, 14. 38 Mitchell 2012, pp. 34–36, fig. 13.

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Figural Compositions To situate the figural painting at Müstair is not at all straightforward. Neither the figural types used by the various artists in their compositions, nor the conventions of depicting clothed bodies, configurations of drapery, patterns of folds, or schemes of high-lighting, have obvious close correlatives in contemporary painting elsewhere, although Caecilia Davis-Weyer has sought to draw comparisons here with figures at Castelseprio.39 However, there are indeed a number of communalities which the conventions adopted at Müstair share with contemporary Italian practice, among which is the practice of showing the lower contour of a long tunic behind and below the edge of the front hem, in such a way as to impart a degree of threedimensional volume and interval to this part of a figure. This is a signature feature of Lombard and post-Lombard painting in Italy, exemplified, for instance, in the angel appearing to Zacharias in the northern apse of S. Sofia at Benevento, work of the 760s (Figs. 12 and 13).40 Another point of relationship with this Italian tradition is apparent in the heads and faces of the various dramatis personae, which always constitute dominant focuses in pictorial compositions. At Müstair, the wellpreserved heads have certain particular characteristics: faces typically have broad arching foreheads, spreading bowed eyebrows, intense eyes often with striking red pupils. Under the eyes run prominent dark curling shadows, often highly expressive almost abstract configurations, framed by fringes of brilliant white highlight, sometimes comb-lights, running down over the cheek-bones. Typically, the lower part of the nose is outlined with a sinuous contour and the mouth and the hollow of the cheek are defined by linear marks in red (Fig. 14). Older males are distinguished by characteristic scalloped beards. These conventions are met with at different stages of development in late Lombard painting and its outcomes in north and south Italy, for example, at Cividale and Brescia and S. Martino di Serravalle, in the north, at San Vincenzo al Volturno and Prata di Principato Ultra in the south (Figs. 15 and 16).41 Davis-Weyer 1987, pp. 226–232. Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 151, 46 k. Benevento: Belting 1968, pl. XXXII; Bologna 1978, pl. 1. 41 Cividale: L‘Orange, Torp 1977, I, colour pls. IV–VI, pls.CXIIICXV, CXVII–CXIX; Brescia: Hubert, Porcher, Volbach 1969: fig. 136; S. Martino di Serravalle: Brogiolo, Mariotti 39 40

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This pictorial convention, like the beribboned foliate rods framing the compositions and the marbled dados, was introduced into northern Francia, where it was taken up by the painters of the Court School of Charlemagne, at the very end of the 8th century;42 the type was developed quite dramatically in the last of the surviving manuscripts of the Court School, the Lorsch Gospels, particularly in the case of St. Luke (Fig. 17).43 This tradition, in an extremely effective late mannered variation, is met with a century later in the scenes from Christ’s ministry on the walls of St. Georg Oberzell, on the Reichenau, on the Bodensee, over the mountains to the north-west (Fig. 18).44 A pointed instance of this Italian connection at Müstair has come to light recently, with the examination and conservation of the painted decoration on the external surfaces of the Heiligkreuzkapelle, at Müstair, the little funerary chapel built in or soon after 788. Preserved are the upper part of the head of a figure, facing front, and the upper section of a cross, held out to the right (Fig. 20). Issuing from the top of the head is a peculiar configuration consisting of what looks like three fanning, diverging leaves, with lateral flourishes. This is the headdress of a female martyr, as we know it from the early medieval Italian tradition, exemplified in one of the virgin martyrs who greet visitors to a little funerary oratory at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, the so-called Crypt of Abbot Epyphanius, dating from around 830 (Fig. 19).45 Furthermore, some aspects of the overall narrative compositions, the prominent architectural settings beloved of the painters, and many details of the configurations of figures and buildings seem to point in the same direction. A three-way comparison has often been made between the images of the Flight into Egypt at Müstair and S. Salvatore in Brescia and the Journey to Bethlehem at Castelseprio.46 The composition at Brescia is a mere under-sketch, but the narratives at Müstair and Castelseprio have the same disposition of figures, progressing from an arched opening on the left to a walled and towered town on the right (Figs. 21, 22 and 23). 2009, p. 182; San Vincenzo al Volturno: Hodges 1995, pls. 3: 12–15, 17, 20; Prata di Principato Ultra: Belting 1968, fig. 72; Muollo 2001, p. 59. 42 Koehler 1958, pls. passim. 43 Braunfels 1967. 44 Koshi 1999, pl. 68 and passim. 45 Belting 1968, fig. 24; Pantoni 1970, fig. 31. 46 Panazza 1962, p. 173, figs. 80, 128, 135.

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At S. Salvatore in Brescia, only scarce fragments of the original painted programme are preserved and few of the surviving panels have compositions which can be readily compared with Müstair. However, one partially preserved scene in the middle register on the south wall, with three figures standing and one seated, seems to follow a compositional formula similar to one used at Müstair, with close-set standing figures dominating the front plane and filling much of the height of the panel, sometimes addressing an individual seated in authority.47 Another connection with the elite late Lombard tradition of painting in the region is to be found in the convention of festooning a building with a textile hanging, some kind of curtain, which occurs in a number of the scenes at Müstair.48 Exactly the same use of textiles to adorn architecture is found in an unidentified scene on the south wall of S. Salvatore at Brescia.49 Textiles of this kind served as supreme signifiers both of sanctity and of elite secular identity in the early Middle Ages, when they transformed the interiors of the most well-connected and endowed churches and identified palaces and noble residences. The extensive and complex architectural settings are one of the most striking aspects of the compositions at Müstair. Here a characteristic motif is the flat arched opening, often almost a bowed lintel, which on one side rests on a pier, on the other side on a column, often with a stilted entablature, with the opening shown somewhat on the angle, so that the arching lintel appears as a narrow bowed triangular formation in deep shadow. These elements are prominently deployed in the scene of St. Paul preaching in the north apse (Fig. 25).50 An earlier stage in the same tradition of creating elaborate architectural backdrops for narratives, characterised by juxtaposed openings with flattened arches, indicated on the angle, with etiolated triangular lintels deep in shadow, seems to have formed part of the pictorial repertoire of the artists active at San Salvatore in Brescia in the 760s (Fig. 24). The state of preservation at Brescia is not good but sufficient survives at the top of two scenes on the north wall to show that the same type of architectural vocabulary is being employed.51 47 Brescia: Panazza 1962, foldout E2. Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch, fig. 31, p. 148, 43 k, p. 151, 46 k, p. 154, 49 k, p. 156, 51 k, p. 157, 52 k, p. 201, 105 k, p. 202, 106 k. 48 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 154, 49 k, p. 159, 54 k, p. 176, 79 k. 49 Panazza 1962, foldout E2, fig. 87. 50 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 201, 105 k. 51 Panazza 1962, figs. 81, 82, foldout F2; Bertelli 1992, p. 222.

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However, close analogues for these architectural features at Müstair are also to be found in compositions at Castelseprio, like the Annunciation and the Journey to Bethlehem (Fig. 23),52 where they constitute prominent signature features of the pictorial repertoire; and somewhat cramped versions of the asymmetrical arches, supported on pier and column, with narrow angled triangular shaded lintels form the setting of scenes in the Byzantine Paris Psalter, one of the principal representatives of a markedly classicizing pictorial idiom which characterized the production of elite illuminated manuscripts and carvings in ivory in the late 9th and early 10th century in Byzantium (Figs. 32 and 33).53 In a similar vein, the narratives of the Healing of the Deaf-Mute and Christ with the Woman taken in Adultery, at Müstair, have underlying compositions similar to the one surviving extended multi-figure scene among the episodes depicted at Castelseprio, the Presentation of Christ to Symeon in the Temple (Figs. 13, 26 and 28).54 In all three, there are major protagonists at the centre, one upright and dominant, the other bending and ministering, with detached groups of witnessing secondary figures at either side, against a busy and varied architectural backdrop, characterized by a variety of openings, both arched and trabeated. This compositional idiom would appear to be related to the classicizing cosmopolitan Byzantine pictorial tradition; similar configurations can be found in narratives like the scene of Samuel anointing David in the Paris Psalter (Fig. 33).55 On the surface, it would appear that this formula may have had its origins in Byzantine practice, although the almost total absence of deluxe works in the relevant idiom from the Byzantine east, surviving from the 8th and 9th centuries, makes suppositions of this kind difficult to sustain. Certainly there are architectural formations at Müstair that on first sight appear to have been lifted straight out of Byzantine tradition. Lop-sided, asymmetrical constructions incorporating depressed arches and flat lintels resting on piers and columns, which have their ultimate origins in the conventional pictorial Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani d‘Arzago 1948, pls. XXXVI–XXXVIIIa, XLVb, XLVI; Weitzmann 1951, figs. 1, 4, 8. 53 Paris, Bibl. Nat. ms. gr. 139, fols. 3v and 428v. Buchthal 1938, figs. 3 and 11; Rice 1959, pl. VIII. 54 Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 151, 46 k, p. 157, 52 k. Castelseprio: Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani d’Arzago 1948, pls. LVII–LIXa. 55 Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 139, fol. 3v, David anointed by Samuel, Buchthal 1938, fig. 3; Cutler, Spieser 1996, fig. 157. 52

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1. Interior view, St. Johann Müstair.

2. Perspective meander, central apse, St. Johann, Müstair.

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3. Perspective meander, south wall of north aisle, S. Salvatore, Brescia, c.760.

4. Rota with meander, annular crypt, S. Vincenzo Maggiore, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 820.

5. Dado panel with stacked two-dimensional meanders, annular crypt, S. Vincenzo Maggiore, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 820.

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6. Cornice with angels, St. Benedikt, Mals.

7. Cornice with console row in three-dimension projection, S. Salvatore, Brescia, c. 760, reconstruction.

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8. Dado with vertically veined marbling, St. Johann, Müstair.

10. Dado with diagonally veined marbling and column, St. Johann, Müstair.

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9. Dado with diagonally veined marbling, Assembly Hall, San Vincenzo al Volturno.

11. Painted column with arcuated marbled veining, Seppannibale, early 9th century.

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12. Angel appearing to Zacharias, S. Sofia, Benevento, 760s.

13. Christ healing a deaf-mute, St. Johann, Müstair.

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14. Head of David, St. Johann, Müstair, last quarter 8th century.

15. Head, S. Salvatore, Brescia.

16. Head of prophet, Assembly Hall, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 810.

17. St Luke, Lorsch Gospels, Rome, Bibl. Apost. Vat. lat 50, fol. iv, second decade of 9th century.

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18. Head, St. Georg, Reichenau Oberzell, c. 900.

19. Female martyr, crypt of Epyphanius, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 830.

20. Head of female saint, external east gable, Heiligkreuzkapelle, Müstair, 787–790

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21. Flight into Egypt, St. Johann, Müstair, last quarter 8th century. 22. Flight into Egypt, San Salvatore, Brescia, c. 760.

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23. Journey to Bethlehem, S. Maria di Castelseprio.

24. Unidentified scene with depressed arches, S. Salvatore, Brescia, c. 760.

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25. St. Paul preaching, St. Johann, Müstair, last quarter 8th century. 26. Christ and the woman taken in adultery, St. Johann, Müstair, last quarter 8th century.

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27. Meeting of SS Peter and Paul at Rome, St. Johann, Müstair, last quarter 8th century.

28. Presentation of Christ in the Temple, S. Maria di Castelseprio.

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29. The abduction of S. Giulia from Carthage?, S. Salvatore, Brescia, c. 760.

30. Christ healing the blind, St. Johann, Müstair, last quarter 8th century.

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31. Gregory of Nazianzus, Homilies, c. 890, Paris, Bibl. Nat. gr. 510, fol. 3r, Jonah.

32. Prayer of Hannah, Psalter, Constantinople?, early 10th century, Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 139, fol. 428v.

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33. Samuel anointing David, Psalter, Constantinople?, early 10th century, Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 139, fol. 3v.

34: Penitence of David, Psalter, Constantinople?, early 10th century, Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 139, fol. 136v.

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35. Dream of Joseph, S. Maria di Castelseprio.

36. Psalter, c. 830, Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I nr. 32, fol. 60v, Psalm 105.

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37. David playing harp, Psalter, Constantinople?, early 10th century, Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 139, fol. 1v.

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168 38. Small naked figure of a man, in scene of Christ healing the children, St. Johann, Müstair.

39. Head of statue of Charlemagne in stucco, St. Johann, Müstair, probably late 11th century.

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imagery of rustic shrines from early Roman imperial painting in a sacralidyllic mode, are one of the leitmotivs of what used to be known as the Macedonian Renaissance, an elite classicizing cultural idiom and practice, dominant in Byzantium in the later 9th and 10th centuries, exemplified in fine manuscripts like the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus in Paris, the Paris Psalter and the Joshua Roll (Figs. 30 and 33).56 A similar trajectory is apparent in scenes involving the representation of walled and towered cities. In the partly preserved panel at Müstair with Saints Peter and Paul meeting at Rome, the city is girt, in front and behind, by a circle of crenellated walls, and prominent buildings are delineated with the same exaggerated vanishing perspective as that deployed in one of the best preserved compositions in S. Salvatore in Brescia, a scene which may represent the abducation of S. Giulia from Carthage (Figs. 27 and 29).57 These bird’s-eye-view representations of cities, circled by their walls and filled with basilical buildings on the slant with prominent frontal pedimented gables, also seem to form part of the same Byzantine tradition, exemplified on the Jonah page in the magnificently illustrated manuscript of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, in Paris, probably painted in Constantinople late in the 9th century, and in various episodes in the somewhat later Joshua Roll (Fig. 31).58 A final detail of classicizing reference — in this case in the end probably reaching back to representations of sundials and astrolabes on pillars from Roman imperial traditions of representing natural philosophers or individuals contemplating their immanent passage through the celestial spheres to eternal life59 — is the ornate angled pier surmounted by a radiant sphere, rising up behind the deaf-mute in the scene of Christ’s miraculous healing at Müstair, at the moment of the man’s transformation,

Weitzmann 1948, pp. 51–72; Weitzmann 1951, pp. 28–68. On the Macedonian Renaissance, see Weitzmann 1971. For Roman precedents see the mosaic with a gathering of philosophers from Torre Annunziata (Zanker 1995, fig. 160; Ling 1998, fig. 17) and painted sacra idyllic vignettes from Boscotrecase and Pompeii (Leach 1988, figs. 18, 19, 24; Ling 1991, fig. 153). 57 Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 200, 104 k. Brescia: Panazza 1962, figs. 89–90, foldout E2; Bertelli 1992, p. 221. 58 Paris Bibl. Nat. ms. gr. 510, fol. 3r. Omont 1929, pl. XX; Brubaker 1999, fig. 6. Rome, Bibl. Apost. Vat. cod. Palat. gr. 431: Weitzmann 1948, figs. 13, 19, 23, 37. 59 Philosophers: Zanker 1995, fig. 160; Ling 1998, fig. 17. Individuals contemplating spiritual transcendence: Marrou 1938. 56

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and restoration to hearing and speech (Fig. 13).60 This recalls the prominent use of a similar solitary pier behind the Prophet Nathan, in the depiction of the Penitence of David, in the Paris Psalter, deployed with symbolic force to underlie Nathan’s reproach to David and his transforming authority over the errant king (Fig. 34);61 it also recalls the dramatically emphatic column tied with a sash and surmounted by a sphere, in the Dream of Joseph at Castelseprio (Fig. 35).62 This column similarly is used as a mark to draw attention to the miraculous visitation of the angel to the sleeping Joseph, with his assurance of Mary’s chastity and virginal conception. Here the column supports one end of a ghostly angled stilted arched opening, of the type regularly featuring at Müstair and Castelseprio. Both at Müstair and at Castelseprio, the artists are letting their imaginations run; they are at play, experimenting freely with salient motifs, heavy with suggestively enigmatic symbolic meaning, taken from a sacral idyllic classicizing idiom, which enjoyed particular favour in Byzantium in the late 9th and 10th centuries (Fig. 37). The Italian Frame What then can we say about the nature of the painted decoration of the church at Müstair? In the present state of our knowledge, to a certain degree, it is particular, peculiar and somewhat isolated, in the way the painted narratives completely cover the walls of the church, in five registers, from pavement to roof, broken only by an arch and two small windows in each side wall, four small windows in the west wall and a single round-headed light in each apse. The exact figure style is also not easy to pin down and contextualize. However, many aspects of the painted decoration, both large and small, framing ornament and figural narrative, overall compositions and small details, can be situated and related. These point to an overarching engagement with the artistic culture of Italy as we know it from the 8th and early 9th centuries, a pictorial culture which developed and flourished in northern Italy, Lombardy, in centres like Pavia, Milan, and Brescia, in Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 151, 46 k. Paris, Bibl. Nat. ms. lat. 139, fol. 136 v. Buchthal 1938, fig. 8. 62 Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani d’Arzago 1948, pl. XLIII, XLVa; Weitzmann 1951, fig. B, pl. 3. 60 61

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the last years of northern Lombard control of the peninsular, and continued uninterrupted after the Frankish conquest, under the patronage of the new Carolingian lords, as well as the institutions and individuals who managed to accommodate with the new regime and retain a measure of control and power. The Carolingian Connection What of the Carolingian connections? The absolute dating of many of the relevant monuments in Italy is uncertain and a number are currently hotly debated. However, the strength of the traditions we have been looking at suggest that a range of critical diagnostic elements and motifs employed at Müstair had their home and development in this period south of the Alps: the painted veined marbling of the type deployed in the dados at Müstair, complex swastika meander as well as white-lit simple meander, and a predilection for bold illusionistic perspectival formations, a characteristic range of interrelated formulas used in the representation of the human face, certain conventions in the rendition of the clothed human figure, and particular architectural formations used to establish a background and setting for figural narratives. A number of these features make an appearance in the painted apparatus of the grand Gospel-books produced in the Court School of Charlemagne: ribbon-twined rods embellishing frames of text pages, elaborate fictive veined and breccia marbling, including examples with diagonal veining, in a range of designs and colour combinations, a similar predilection for complex meanders and other illusionistic three-dimensional ornamental forms, and a particular idiom for the rendition of the human face. Rather than being somehow at home in the Frankish north, these elements are best understood as southern imports, seized on and developed with great energy, invention and flair by the artists working for the Carolingian court. These answered the call of their patrons, Charlemagne and his inner circle, to establish palatial residences on a par with the royal and ducal palaces they had encountered in Italy, and to produce increasingly sumptuous, ornate and brilliantly polychrome and gilded books, vying with and aiming to surpass the court arts of both the ancient Roman Christian emperors and their contemporary successors in Byzantium. These books with their ivory covers were designed as ultimate gifts and possessions to establish the Carolingian monarch and his magnates as insuperable benefactors and powers in the regions of Europe. To achieve his aims, Charlemagne attracted

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to his court ideologues, administrators, churchmen, scholars and, of critical significance for our purposes, craftsmen, from all over Europe, perhaps also from the Byzantine and Arab East, always seeking out the best to realize his ambitions.63 In the case of public court art, one of the principal sources his artists drew on was Lombard Italy, with its ambitious and flourishing visual culture, newly conquered and incorporated into the realm. I have argued elsewhere that it is more appropriate, in some ways, to consider the court art of Charlemagne as a peripheral, albeit explosively successful derivative of elite Lombard artistic culture, than it is to speak of art of the late 8th and 9th centuries in Italy as Carolingian.64 The Byzantine Element Further, what are we to make of the apparently Byzantine element at Müstair? The key monument in this regard is S. Maria foris portas at Castelseprio, with its remarkable painted cycle of scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary, generally seen as the work of a highly proficient painter trained in, or at least fully conversant with, a fairly pure Constantinopolitan tradition. Kurt Weitzmann, in his book published soon after the discovery, made telling comparisons with the classicizing tradition of Byzantine manuscript painting of the late 9th and 10th centuries, with books like the Paris Psalter and the Joshua Roll.65 Indeed he dated the paintings to the first half of the 10th century, the period to which the latest carbon-14 and dendrochronological analyses are now also pointing. A possible narrative for the origins and development of the elite classicizing current that underlies the paintings at Castelseprio is that they represent an eastern pictorial tradition, which had its beginnings in Byzantium at some point in the pre-iconoclastic era, and continued in a more or less fully developed state for almost four centuries, although witnessed there in surviving monuments only in its final phases, the later 9th and 10th centuries. During this period it was periodically accessed by artists working for patrons in Western Europe, who saw advantage in appropriating a sophisticated pictorial idiom from the eastern imperial capital.

Mitchell 2008b, pp. 263–272. Mitchell 1999; Mitchell 2000a; Mitchell 2000b. 65 Weitzmann 1951. 63 64

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However, a signature classicizing motif at Castelseprio, which it shares with Müstair, the angled opening with depressed arch, resting on one side on a masonry pier, on the other on a column with stilted entablature block, figures only rarely in Constantinopolitan books of the late 9th and early 10th centuries, and then in rather reduced and cramped versions.66 Previous to that it is not represented in surviving works from the Byzantine eastern Mediterranean. Nevertheless, this critical architectural motif can be traced in the West, where it probably figured in the painted decoration at S. Salvatore in Brescia, and certainly features twice in the fragmentary remains of the original painted decoration of S. Sofia at Benevento, the ambitious centrallyplanned church with associated female monastery, founded and constructed by Arechis II, duke of the southern Lombard duchy, in the 760s (Fig. 12).67 A further instance, in the Lombard south, of the oblique opening supported by pier and column with stilted entablature is to be found in a wall painting of the martyrdoms of St. Laurence and St. Stephan in the so-called Crypt of Epyphanius, a funerary oratory of the early 830s, at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno.68 An angled opening with a slightly arched lintel configured as an elongated shaded triangle, of the characteristic type, is also present in the Crypt of Epyphanius, in the representation of the Holy Sepulchre.69 Further evidence for interest in and engagement with this classicizing tradition can be found in Carolingian Francia, in the Utrecht Psalter, with its extraordinarily ambitious and inventive illustrations to the Psalms and Canticles.70 This is a book, written and illustrated in Rheims around 830, which was designed knowingly to evoke, in its format and script, a late Roman luxury codex. In the drawings at the head of each psalm, graphic visual equivalents to phrases and words are combined in continuous flowing landscapes, with fortified towns and religious sanctuaries, with numerous human figures and animals in valleys and on hills set with prominent sentinel trees, in some cases by rivers and oceans. The landscapes here, with their beetling crags and precipitous hollows, are conceived in the same romantic

66 So in Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 510, fol. 174 v (Brubaker 1999, fig. 23); and Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 139, fols. 3 v and 428 v (Buchthal 1938, figs. 3, 11). 67 Belting 1968, figs. 63–64; Rotili 1986, pls. XLIII–XLIV. 68 Belting 1968, figs. 31–33; Pantoni 1970, pls. 40–42; Mitchell 1993, figs. 7: 26–27. 69 Belting 1968, fig. 38; Pantoni 1970, pl. 52. 70 DeWald 1932; Horst, Noel, Wüstefeld 1996.

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idiom as those deployed on the walls at Castelseprio and on the pages of the Paris Psalter and the Joshua Roll (Fig. 37). There is a similar delight in incorporating free-standing columns topped by sun-dials and towerlike funerary monuments into the folds of land, with light-blanched buildings rising from the haze over the lines of hills (Fig. 36).71 Similarly, visual formulas for fortified towns, shown in bird’s-eye view with circling crenellated walls, punctuated by tall round towers, often with upper windowed galleries, and enclosing basilical buildings set on the diagonal in vanishing perspective, with pedimented facades, which feature in the Paris Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Fig. 31) and the Joshua Roll, are found a century and a half earlier in S. Salvatore in Brescia (Fig. 29),72 and constitute a stock element of the repertoires of the various draughtsmen responsible for illustrating the Utrecht Psalter, at Rheims around 830.73 The early presence of this elite classicizing idiom in works from western Europe raises the possibility that rather than having its beginnings in Byzantium it was constructed by artists working for ambitious patrons in early medieval Italy, the Lombard kings and their more or less independent dukes, who aimed to surround themselves with demonstrative visual frameworks informed by rhetorics of both ancient and modern Roman power and culture. The 8th century was an age in which the ruling elites of Europe were constantly engaged in consolidating their positions and extending their areas of influence and control, and distinctive and identifying visual apparatus — architecture, art and ornament — often of a markedly classicizing Romanizing cast, was one of the effective means of announcing and furthering their ambitions. In this context the appropriation of elements of this tradition by artists in Carolingian Francia in the 9th century, in the Utrecht Psalter, would be a natural outcome, since the new Carolingian masters of Italy recognized the values and potentials of Lombard court culture and drew freely on the inventions and services of Italian artists in developing their own cultural strategies and visual paradigms.74 In this optic, the apparently Byzantinederived features at Müstair might be seen as advanced representatives of an

DeWald 1932, passim. S. Salvatore Brescia: Panazza 1962: figs. 86, 89, 90; Bertelli 1992, 221; Paris Gregory: Brubaker 1999, fig. 6; Joshua Roll: Weitzmann 1948, fig. 19. 73 Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, ms. 32, fol. 58 r. DeWald 1932, pl. XCIII and passim. 74 Mitchell 1999; Mitchell 2000a, 183–185. 71 72

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indigenous aulic pictorial tradition, developed in the courts of Lombard Italy and subsequently introduced to Carolingian Francia and to Byzantium. Leslie Brubaker and others have voiced reservations about the default practice of seeing manifestations of this kind always in terms of eastern Byzantine influence on the West, arguing that there may have been a significant passage of ideas and patterns in the other direction: that where the earliest surviving instances of a particular material practice, iconographic type or even style are to be found in the West, we should at least countenance the possibility that the invention and early spread of these traditions also took place in western Europe.75 The degree to which the artists and patrons at Müstair bought into and represented this elite classicizing pictorial tradition is made fully evident in a detail of the scene of Christ Blessing the Children, in the extraordinary little miniaturised figure of a naked man, striding across an architectural niche. He could have walked straight out of an eroticised classical scene of vintaging or a Bacchic revel (Fig. 38).76 Dating Finally, there is the question of the chronology of the painted decoration at Müstair — an early date, possibly late in the 8th century, or a later one, a generation or two later, in the 830s or 840s, as Mathias Exner has recently proposed.77 At San Salvatore in Brescia, the painted decoration is now securely dated to the second half of the 8th century, probably to the period between the deposition of the relics of S. Giulia and other saints in a new crypt in the early 760s and the demise of the patrons, Ansa and King Desiderius in 774. The reeds supporting the stucco ornamentation of the interior of the church in Brescia have recently been securely dated by carbon-14 to a mid point of probability around 760; and Vincenzo Gheroldi has demonstrated that the iron clamps securing the stucco in place were set into the walls of the building during and not after its construction, and further that the stucco overlaps in several places the plaster-level on which the painted scheme lies. At Brescia all elements hang together, construction,

75 Buckton 1988; Buckton 1996, 659–660; Osborne 1990; Brubaker 1991; Brubaker 2000. For a more extensive discussion of this thesis, see Mitchell, Leal 2016, pp. 738–45. 76 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 156, 51 k. 77 Exner in Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 108–109.

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painted decoration and stucco.78 Cividale, closely related in technique and style, must fall in alongside Brescia. As we have seen, the most recent carbon14 and dendrochronological analysis at Castelseprio point to a date around 900 or in the 10th century for the painted decoration. At Müstair we now have firm dendrochronological dates for the construction of the church, a roof-beam cut in 775, and for the Heiligkreuzkapelle, where floor-beams were cut in 785 and 788. The main church must have been built, and so presumably the monastery founded, in the mid 770s. There is an old thesis, recently renewed, that the emphasis placed on the story of David in the pictorial scheme, with a focus on his rebellion against King Saul, his betrayal by his son Absalom and Absalom’s death, constitutes a veiled reference to contemporary political events, to the turbulent relations between the Carolingian emperor, Louis the Pious, and his sons in the first half of the 830s.79 This, so goes the argument, implies a date for the paintings in the second quarter of the 9th century. However, the reasoning may be illusory. First the deployment of imagery from Holy Scripture in churches and other such sacred contexts to make particular contemporary political references is rare in the Early Middle Ages. Indeed, a recent study has offered a cogent interpretation of the Absalom sequence in exemplary, generic terms, as an example of faithless ingratitude, on one wall, opposed to David’s faithful service to Saul on the facing wall.80 Beyond this, it would make little sense to locate a pointed contemporary political visual reference in the very highest register of the cycle, directly under the roof beams, where it would have been legible only with considerable difficulty; particularly in a church which, if Sennhauser is correct, was purely monastic, closed to the lay public.81 On another tack, the presence of an underlying lime-washed layer of plaster, which appears to have been conceived as a finished surface, the function of this surface and the length of time the interior walls may have remained without coloured decoration are issues that continue to be debated.82 I tend to suspect that the painted decoration followed quite

Brogiolo, Gheroldi, Ibsen, Mitchell 2010; Brogiolo 2014; Gheroldi 2014. Discussed most recently by Exner, in Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 93–94, 108. 80 Ataoguz 2007, pp. 13–17. 81 Sennhauser 2010. 82 Exner, in Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, pp. 83–84, 267 fn. 1. 78 79

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closely on the completion of the church. Certainly in the neighbouring Heiligkreuzkapelle, the material evidence suggests that, as at Brescia, the stucco and painted decoration were executed in phase at the time of the construction of the building.83 Charlemagne and Müstair Charlemagne has not fared well in recent years in Müstair-Kritik. A late tradition names him as the founder of the monastery and the late 11th-century stucco statue in the church is always identified with him (Fig. 39). However, the presence of an extraordinary David cycle, unparalleled in its length and detail, some 20 scenes in all, running round the tops of three walls of the church, may be the most telling evidence of all for the Frankish king having played a central role in the foundation of the monastery. David, of course, was always held up as the ultimate scriptural model of kingship — and Charlemagne went by the name of David, his example, among his inner court circle.84 Whether or not Charlemagne provided a decisive impulse to the foundation of the monastery, the liturgical furniture in finely carved stone with which the church was furnished in its earliest late-8th-century phase, quite exceptional in its quantity, variety and fine quality, some 1,300 fragments from around 260 surviving individual elements, would appear to indicate patronage at the highest level for Müstair — possibly lay aristocratic patronage, maybe even royal patronage.85 My thanks for help of various kinds during the preparation of this paper to Jürg Goll, Bea Leal, Katrin Roth-Rubi, Hans Rudolf Sennhauser and Michael Wolf.

Pers. comm. Jürg Goll. King 1987, 320, 323, 325–326. 85 For the carved stone furnishings of the church, see Roth-Rubi 2015. 83 84

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Grossen. Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft. Koehler, W. 1960. Die karolingischen Miniaturen, III. Erster Teil: Die Gruppe des Wiener Krönungs-Evangeliars. Zweiter Teil: Metzer Handschriften. Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft. Koshi, K. 1999. Die frühmittelalterlichen Wandmalereien der St. Georgskirche zu Oberzell auf der Bodenseeinsel Reichenau. Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft. Leach, E.W. 1988. The Rhetoric of Space. Literary and Artistic Representations of Landscape in Republican and Augustan Rome. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. Ling, R. 1991. Roman Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ling, R. 1998. Ancient Mosaics. London: British Museum Press. L’Orange, H.P., Torp, H. 1977. ‘Il Tempietto Longobardo di Cividale: Tavole e Rilievi’. Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia 7,1. Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider. Mango, C., and Ertug, A. 1997. Hagia Sophia – A Vision for Empires. Istanbul: Ertug and Kocabiyik. Mango, C., Hawkins, E. J. W. 1965. ‘The apse mosaics of S. Sophia at Istanbul. Report on work carried out in 1964’. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 19, pp. 113–151. Marrou, H.-I. 1938. Mousikos Aner. Etude sur les scènes de la vie intellectuelle figurant sur les monuments funéraires romains. Grenoble: Didier and Richard. McKitterick, R. 1983. The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians, 751– 987. London: Longman. McKitterick, R. 1995. The New Cambridge Medieval History. Volume II c. 700– c. 900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Mitchell, J. 1993. ‘The crypt reappraised’. In San Vincenzo al Volturno 1: The 1980–86 Excavations Part I. London: The British School at Rome, pp. 75–114. Mitchell, J. 1999. ‘Karl der Grosse, Rom und das Vermächtnis der Langobarden’. In 799. Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Beiträge zum Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999, ed. C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, pp. 95–108. Mitchell, J. 2000a. ‘L’arte nell’Italia longobarda e nell’Europa carolingia’ In Il futuro dei Longobardi. L’Italia e la costruzione dell’Europa di Carlo Magno. Saggi, ed. C. Bertelli, G. P. Brogiolo. Milan: Skira, pp. 173–187. Mitchell J. 2000b. ‘Artistic patronage and cultural strategies in Lombard

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Italy’. In Towns and their Territories between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. G. P. Brogiolo, N. Gauthier, N. Christie. Leiden: Brill, pp. 347–370. Mitchell, J. 2008a. The Butrint Baptistery and its Mosaics. London and Tirana: Butrint Foundation. Mitchell, J. 2008b. ‘The power of patronage and the iconography of quality in the era of 774’. In 774, ipotesi su una transizione, ed. S. Gasparri. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 263–288. Mitchell, J. 2012. ‘Believing is seeing: The natural image in Late Antiquity.’ In Architecture and Interpretation. Essays for Eric Fernie, ed. J. A. Franklin, T. A. Heslop, C. Stevenson. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, pp. 16–41. Mitchell, J. forthcoming. ‘The mosaic pavements of the basilica’. In Butrint 6. Volume I: Excavations on the Vrina Plain. The Lost Roman and Byzantine Suburb, ed. S. Greenslade. Oxford: Oxbow. Mitchell, J., Leal, B. 2013. ‘Wall paintings in S.Maria foris portas (Castelseprio) and the tower at Torba. Reflections and reappraisal’. In Castelseprio e Torba: sintesi delle ricerche e aggiornamenti, ed. P.M.De Marchi. Mantua: SAP Società Archeologica s.r.l., pp. 311–344. Mitchell, J., Leal, B. 2016. ‘Art of Many Colours: the Dadoes of San Vincenzo and Issues of Marbling in the Post-Roman World’. In Sodalitas: Studi in memoria di Don Faustino Avagliano, ed. M. Dell’Omo and F. Marazzi, F. Simonelli, C. Crova (Miscellanea Cassinese 86), Monte Cassino: Abbazia di Montecassino, pp. 721–55. Müller, I. 1982. Geschichte des Klosters Müstair. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. 2nd edition: Desertina Verlag. Muollo, G. 2001. La basilica di Prata Principato Ultra. Viterbo: Betagamma editrice. Nuseibeh, S., Grabar, O. 1996. The Dome of the Rock. London: Thames and Hudson. Omont, H. 1929. Miniatures des plus anciens manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque Nationale du VIe au XIVe siècle. Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion. Osborne, J. 1990. ‘The use of painted initials by Greek and Latin scriptoria in Carolingian Rome’. Gesta 29/1, pp. 76–85. Panazza, G. 1962. ‘Gli scavi, l’architettura e gli affreschi della chiesa di S. Salvatore in Brescia’. In Atti dell’ottavo Congresso di studi sull’arte dell’alto Medioevo II. Milan: Casa Editoriale Ceschina, pp. 5–227. Pantoni, A. 1970. San Vincenzo al Volturno e la cripta dell’abate Epifanio.

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V Wall Paintings in S. Maria Foris Portas (Castelseprio) and the Tower at Torba. Reflections and Reappraisal (with Bea Leal*) Santa Maria Foris Portas, Castelseprio

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hen the extraordinary mariological programme of paintings on the walls of the church of S. Maria foris portas at Castelseprio was first uncovered, and then quickly made known to the art historical community in an exemplary publication, historians of early medieval art were transfixed. Here was the missing link, the key which would provide the means to unlocking and understanding the role that the classical Byzantine tradition of art played in the evolution of elite artistic developments in the various theatres of state formation in post-Roman Western Europe, from papal Rome to Carolingian Aachen and Northumbrian Lindisfarne, in the early medieval centuries. The artists responsible appeared to be masters of an almost undiluted tradition of Greco-Roman painting, testifying to the enduring existence of a strain of what has been designated by Ernst Kitzinger as ‘perennial Hellenism’, continuing unbroken in one or more centres in the eastern Mediterranean and potentially available to artists in western Europe, minded to recover some of the elements of ancient classical practice in an age in which overt classical form and subject-matter were valued at a high premium in the rival courts of Europe1. * School of World Art Studies and Museology, University of East Anglia. 1 Kitzinger 1956, p. 260; Kitzinger 1958, p. 7; Demus 1970, pp. 7–10; pp. 64–7; Kitzinger 1981, pp. 503–510; Andaloro 2006; Pace 2007.

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Paradoxically, after brilliantly illuminating the sky for historians of early medieval art for a decade or so, the star of Castelseprio started to wane, in large part since no final consensus could be reached on the date and immediate cultural context of the paintings. Alberto De Capitani d’Arzago, in the initial publication, had assigned them to the mid 7th century2, Weitzmann a few years later, argued cogently for early in the 10th century3, while Meyer Schapiro and Kitzinger opted for an intermediate stage in the development of early medieval art, sometime around 8004.The iconographic and stylistic indices could not be resolved. 14C dates of 865 AD ± 87 years, from a roof-beam respected by and originally sealed by the plaster intonaco carrying the painted decoration in the eastern apse5, thermoluminescence dates in the 9th century, with a median date of 828, for roof-tiles associated with an early phase of the building6, and a date of 787 AD ± 85 years for ceramic fragments from the make-up of what was believed to be the original pavement7, prompted Bertelli to argue for a date in the mid-9th century and to propose as founding patron of the church, John, Count of Seprio and Milan, a major protagonist in the region8. Subsequently a date in the middle years of the 9th century has found some general acceptance9. However, perceived similarities between the paintings at Castelseprio and 7th-and early 8th-century phases of painted imagery at S. Maria Antiqua, in Rome, have continued to lead others to argue for an earlier date10. A radically divergent early dating, to the 6th century, has also found favour with a number of scholars over the past twenty years11. A reasonably certain terminus ante quem for the paintings is provided by a graffito, traced into the surface of the painted plaster beneath the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, recording the name of Ardericus, archbishop of Milan in the second quarter of the 10th century (938–945); a further less Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pp. 699–700. Weitzmann 1951, pp. 19–27. 4 Schapiro 1950; Schapiro 1952; Schapiro 1957; Kitzinger 1958, pp. 8–9; Kitzinger 1962. 5 Leveto Jabr 1987. 6 Martini, Sibilia, Spinolo 1986. 7 Sibilia, Della Torre, Martini, Spinolo 1988. 8 Bertelli 1988a, pp. 896–897. 9 Lomartire 1994, pp. 50–52; Bertelli, Brogiolo 2000, cat. 370; Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 108. 10 Peroni 1973, p. 27; Lomartire 1994, p. 50; Rossi 2010, p. 132. 11 Romanini 1988, p. 235; Lusuardi Siena and Andaloro 1993, p. 458; De Spirito 1998, p. 32. 2 3

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secure graffito reference, located beneath the Adoration of the Magi, is the name of Tado, archbishop between 860–868, although an alternative reading for this has been proposed, Landulfus, the name of two archbishops of Milan, 896–899 and 979–99812. Meanwhile, both the consensus for a date in the 9th century, largely founded on 14C and thermoluminescence dating, by no means exact indices, especially in their early days, and essentially unsupported by secure stylistic or iconographie evidence, and the 6th-century consensus, which discounts the relevance of these scientific dates for the painted decoration, remain uneasy. Following De Capitani D’Arzago and Weitzmann, supposedly telling formal comparisons can be drawn between the frescoes in S. Maria at Castelseprio and paintings of the 7th and early 8th century in S. Maria Antiqua in Rome, on the one hand, and metropolitan Byzantine manuscripts of the early 10th century, like the Joshua Roll and the Paris Psalter, on the other, with no obvious point of resolution in sight — and a dating in the 6th century only extends the spectrum of uncertainty. We are faced with a situation comparable to that in which experts are unable to come to agreement on whether a particular work should be assigned to an artist working in a classicizing narrative mode in 16th-century Europe or to a historicist painter active in the 19th century. The situation is embarrassing. At the time of writing, a new dendrochronological examination of samples from the roof-beam in the eastern apse has just been completed and the results made known13. These give a 14C date of maximum probability of 885–910 and taking into account the dendrochronological evidence, which in the case of chestnut wood used for the beam is not straightforward, a more precise date of 960 ± 13 has been calculated. Although inevitably margins of errors are involved in calculations of this kind, it seems fairly clear that this scientific evidence is now indicating a date for the critical beam of at least around 900, if not 60 years later. As the plaster intonaco carrying the paintings respects this beam, this should result in a secure terminus post quem and probably a terminus ad quem for the painted programme14. The content and shape of the programme of imagery, the sense of the sequence of episodes from the life of Mary and the infancy of Christ, on the 12 Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pp. 344–345; Weitzmann 1951, p. 5; Petoletti 2009, pp. 323–324; Rossi 2010, p. 131; Rossi 2011, p. 23. 13 See Brogiolo 2013, pp. 249–50. 14 The evidence is laid out in Brogiolo 2013, pp. 248–52.

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walls of the church, together with the axial iconic images which punctuated the sequence, are also problematic. Two of the four iconic clypeate images are lost, only Christ at the mid-point of the apse and the Hetoimasia, the prepared throne, high on the facing west wall survive. This means that we are without two elements which could be crucial to a secure understanding of the iconographic and so theological articulation of the programme. The various narrative scenes are not arranged in chronological sequence but appear to follow a doubling, switching course, possibly determined by a design in which resonating subjects are paired off with one another in symmetrical counterposition15. The subjects illustrated have been selected from the apocryphal Protoevangelium of James as well as from the canonical Gospel narratives. The apocryphal scenes include the episode of the Trial of the Virgin’s Virginity by Water, the Presentation of the Virgin and her Domicile in the Temple and possibly other scenes from the early history of the Virgin, a now extremely fragmentary panel which has been identified as showing the Rejection of Joachim’s Gifts and another now completely lost, which may have shown the Birth of the Virgin, balancing the Nativity of Christ on the facing wall16. The canonical scenes include the Annunciation, Visitation, Journey to Bethlehem, Adoration of the Magi, and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. The underlying sense of the programme has been examined in some detail by Weitzmann, who sees it as primarily dogmatic and having the incarnation as its principal subject17. Paula Leveto, on the other hand, recognizes the Virgin Mary as being the focal subject of the cycle, and argues that she is here particularly identified with and assimilated with Ecclesia, the institution of the Church18. The number of scenes given over to episodes from the early life of the Virgin and the visual prominence she is given in every scene seem to confirm that she does indeed stand at the heart of the scheme. More recently Marco Rossi has seen the programme as an exposition of the mystery of the Trinity, with a particular focus on the two salvific aspects of Christ, his physical incarnation as Word incarnate, and his divinity as preexistent Logos19. The last word has not been said on this issue; moreover, the role played by the central apsidal chapel and its decorative programme Weitzmann 1951, pp. 66–68; Leveto 1990, pp. 406–109. Leveto 1990, pp. 409–413. Protoevangelium of James: Elliott 1993, pp. 57–60. 17 Weitzmann 1951, pp. 69–90. 18 Leveto 1985; Leveto 1990. 19 Rossi 2010, pp. 134–135; Rossi 2011, pp. 23, 34, 35. 15 16

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as one element in a sequence of interrelated spaces which included the nave of the church and the north and south apses, as a socially and liturgically functioning complex, needs further consideration20. From the outset, there has been a tendency to see the fresco-cycle as isolated, as the work of a painter of genius, a visitor from an alien cultural tradition, in all likelihood an artist schooled in a pure Byzantine tradition, from the eastern Mediterranean21. The dramatic compositions, the free and accomplished brushwork, the immediate visual impact and relatively good state of preservation of the paintings, have tended to add to the sense of difference, detachedness, even uniqueness, which scholars have seen in them (Fig. 1). Their otherness is only increased by the almost total loss of comparable Byzantine painting from the 7th–9th centuries and limited survival from the late 9th and 10th centuries. In the absence of direct comparanda, the paintings at Castelseprio have commonly been envisaged as a screen on which conceptions of ideal or actual Byzantine pictorial practice of the period can be projected. The artist, or rather artists, since to judge from the design and execution of the figures in the various compositions, there may have been at least two painters at work in the church, could have been trained in an eastern Mediterranean centre, possibly even in Constantinople itself, as Weitzmann was the first to argue22. However, in the absence of surviving examples of comparable Byzantine monumental painting from the early medieval period, it would be well to be cautious in this regard. The debates which have continued for almost a century on the roles which Byzantine artists may or may not have played in the mosaics of Norman Sicily provide a salutary warning of the difficulties involved in assessing the probable nationality, even the training, of the makers responsible for particular works, in any period. That the paintings at Castelseprio were composed using pictorial formulae which formed part of the stock in trade of Byzantine artists, in the early medieval centuries, is beyond question. They can be cogently related to a tradition which can be recognized in the scant material remains from 20 However, Bognetti 1949–50, p. 30, was of the opinion that the painted decoration of the nave of the building consisted of no more than a scheme of plain coloured fields. 21 Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pp. 682–700; Weitzmann 1951, pp. 27, 32, 34, 91,93–97; Demus 1970, pp. 23, 47; Bertelli 1988a, pp. 898, 906. For a contextual discussion of the Byzantine question at Castelseprio and other sites, see Pace 2007. 22 Weitzmann 1951, pp. 91–97; Leveto 1985, pp. 221–238; De Spirito 1998, pp. 29, 30, 43.

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the period. A diagnostic index of this relationship is the foliate rod bound round with spiralling ribbons which serves as a dramatic cornice-motif marking the horizontal divide between the narrative scenes above and the curtained dado below (Fig. 2)23. The detail of the foliate rods issuing from bell-mouthed trumpet-sleeves at the interior corners of walls is particularly indicative. Beribboned garland-rods of this kind, emerging from similar trumpet-tubes at the corners, frame the fields of mosaic in the bema of Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople, a scheme completed and dedicated in 867 (Fig. 3)24, and a version with straight tubes was deployed on the soffits of the arches of the octagon in the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem, probably the work of Byzantine craftsmen working for the Caliph, Abd al-Malik, in the early 690s25. Early in the 10th century, the motif was picked on again as a framing-device by one of the artists responsible for the so-called Paris Psalter (Paris, Bibl. Nat. gr. 139), one of the principal representatives of a markedly classicizing pictorial idiom which characterized the production of elite illuminated manuscripts and carvings in ivory in the late 9th and early 10th-century in Byzantium, a tradition which has gone by the name of the Macedonian Renaissance (Fig. 4)26. Similarly, some of the narrative compositions at Castelseprio, the prominent architectural settings deployed to dramatic narrative effect, and many details of figures and buildings seem to have their analogues in the surviving representatives of Byzantine elite metropolitan art of the later 9th and early 10th centuries. The composition of the scene of Christ being presented to Symeon in the temple, at Castelseprio (Fig. 5), has the same underlying structure as that of the full-page miniature of the Anointing of David in the Paris Psalter (Fig. 4) 27: the major protagonists at the focus, one upright and dominant, the other bending and ministering, with a somewhat detached group of secondary figures to one side, pictured against a busy and varied backdrop of buildings, characterized by a variety of openings, both arched and trabeated, with columns and piers supporting elaborate 23 Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pls. LV, LXll, XC; Weitzmann 1951, fig. 10. 24 Mango, Hawkins 1965, pp. 125–127; pp. 137–139, figs. 21–22, 30, 41–42; Mango, Ertug 1997, p. 37; p. 39. 25 Grabar 1996, fig. 53; Nuseibeh, Grabar 1996, p. 84. 26 Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 133, fol. 3v, David anointed by Samuel, Buchthal 1938, fig. 3; Weitzmann 1971. 27 Buchthal 1938, fig. 3.

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architectural crestings. A number of other characteristic features clearly show a close relationship with this elite Byzantine classicizing idiom, best preserved in the Paris Psalter and the Joshua Roll (Bibl Apost. Vat. cod. Palat, gr. 431 ):28 the location of scenes in romantic landscape settings, architectural settings with asymmetrical openings, arched or trabeated, depicted on the angle, supported by a column on one side and a rectangular pier on the other, irregular contorted trees growing around architectural structures to impart a sacral-idyllic identity to the location, a lone or engaged column sometimes supporting an urn or sundial, sometimes bound with a sash, ghostly groups of buildings on the horizon all but dissolved in ambient sunlight and heat-haze, and a range of formulaic figural compositions, as well as particular formal, stylistic conventions of representing figures and their physiognomic features. All these elements were derived, seemingly quite directly and knowingly, from an ancient Greco-Roman pictorial tradition, best exemplified in surviving paintings of August Mau’s Second and Third Pompeian Styles (Figs. 1 and 6)29. Kurt Weitzmann demonstrated this relationship with exemplary clarity over half a century ago30; and the 14C tests made in the 1970s, together with the recent 14C and dendrochronological examination of the roof-beam in the east apse seem to provide telling confirmation of Weitzmann’s dating and assessment. However, as well as the striking points of likeness to which Weitzmann drew our attention, the compositions at Castelseprio have other characteristics and features which are only distantly present in the 10th-century Byzantine manuscripts. Although there are similarities between some of the compositions at Castelseprio and ones from 10th-century Constantinople, the relationship is not always particularly close; so in design and in the attitudes and dress of the individual figures the Adoration of the Magi at Castelseprio has more in common with the painted version of the same scene in the sanctuary of S. Maria Antiqua in Rome, a work from the time of Pope John VII (705–707), than it has with the picture in the Paris Gregory of Nazianzus (Paris, Bibl. Nat. cod. gr. 510), a Constantinopolitan manuscript of the late 9th century31.

Weitzmann 1948. Weitzmann 1948, pp. 51–72; Weitzmann 1951, pp. 28–68. 30 Weitzmann 1951. 31 Castelseprio: Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pls. L, LIII, LV; Weitzmann 1951, figs. 6 and 10. S. Maria Antiqua: Nordhagen 1968, pl. XVI; Romanelli, Nordhagen 1964, pl. 25A. Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 510, fol. 137r: Brubaker 1999, fig. 18. 28 29

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Particularly striking features in many of the compositions at Castelseprio are the architectural settings of the narratives, with their prominent vocabulary of piers and columns, flat architrave-lintels and depressed arches, with characteristic thin triangular areas of shadow under the arches to intimate spatial depth and indicate that the openings are seen on the slant. However, these are not at all prominent in the Byzantine manuscripts. The angled opening, in particular, with a depressed arch, supported on one side by a masonry pier, on the other by a free standing column, usually with stilted entablature, which is a signature feature of the compositions at Castelseprio, makes only rare appearances in the manuscripts, in rather compressed and mannered versions32. Some of the features of this classicizing idiom can be traced to a much earlier period in the same geographical region as Castelseprio, in particular in wall-paintings at Brescia and Müstair. S. Salvatore in Brescia was commissioned by the Lombard king, Desiderius, and his wife, Ansa, and built and embellished with stucco and frescoes in the 760s33. The painted decoration of the monastery church there is now extremely fragmentary; however, enough survives to show that some elements of the architectural vocabulary used by the artists at Castelseprio were deployed in the narrative compositions on the nave walls, in particular architectural settings with the same angled openings with depressed arches and triangular shaded soffits34. In the same way, the striking similarity in composition and delineation between the donkey carrying Mary and the child Christ in the sketched sinopia for the Flight into Egypt at Brescia (Fig. 7) and the donkey bearing Mary to Bethlehem at Castelseprio (Fig. B) has struck observers since the uncovering of the early painted walls in S. Salvatore in the late 1950s35. Furthermore, in a well-preserved panel at Brescia, which has been

In the representations of Samuel anointing David in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, Paris, Bibl. Nat. gr. 510, fol 174v [Brubaker 1999, fig. 23] and in the Paris Psalter [Fig. 4. Buchthal 1938, pl. III]. 33 For the ascription of still standing church to Desiderius and Ansa, see Brogiolo, Gheroldi, Ibsen, Mitchell 2010: Brogiolo 2014a; Brogiolo 2014b. 34 Panazza 1962, figs. 81–82; Bertelli 1992, p. 222. 35 Castelseprio: Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pls. XLV–XLVII; Brescia: Panazza 1962, 173, figs. 79, 80, p. 135; Lomartire 1998, 46, figs. 49b, p. 50. The Image of the Flight into Egypt at Müstair also, in a reduced form, follows the same basic pattern as the Journey to Bethlehem at Castelseprio [Panazza 1962, fig 128; Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, 32k; Brogiolo, Gheroldi, Ibsen, Mitchell 2010, figs. 26–28]. 32

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identified tentatively as illustrating the transport of the relics of S. Giulia from Carthage (Fig. 9)36, the composition with a bird’s eye representation of a city, circled by crenellated walls and filled with basilical buildings on the slant with prominent frontal pedimented gables, seems to belong to the same tradition, on the face of it a Byzantine one, as that followed in the narrative miniatures of a late-9th-century manuscript of the Homilies of St Gregory of Nazianzus, a de-luxe book doubtless written and painted in Constantinople (Fig. 10)37. The analogies between Brescia and Castelseprio are such that Adriano Peroni, in his close analysis of the commonplaces in composition and style between the paintings in the two buildings, concluded that the artists at both sites had their training in the same eastern tradition of pictorial practice38. Beneath their dazzling surface style, the paintings at Castelseprio also share a range of critical features with the paintings in the monastery church at Miistair, despite the very different first visual impressions they leave on the observer39. Dendrochronological examination of one of the beams from the roof of the church at Müstair has given a date of 775, suggesting that construction was underway at that time; the painted decoration of the church was probably completed soon after this date40. To begin with the foliate rod or garland, wound with a ribbon and issuing from corner sleeves, which was used at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in the 9th century and in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem in the late 7th, and which at Castelseprio separates the narrative register from the dado zone; this same motif is deployed to frame the Ascension at the top of the east wall of the church at Müstair (Fig. 11)41. Ribboned foliate rods or garlands frame the Old and New Testament scenes on all five registers in the nave42, and a similar meticulously carved ribboned garland ornamented the vertical

Panazza 1962, figs. 86, 89–90, Bertelli 1992, p. 221. Brubaker 1999, fig. 6. 38 Peroni 1983, pp. 74–76. 39 Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani D’Arzago 1948, p. 667, pls. LXXXIIIb–d; Davis-Weyer 1987, pp. 226–232. 40 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 30. 41 Bognetti, Chierici, Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pl. LXXXIII; Wüthrich 1980, pl. I; Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, figs. 63, 85–87k. 42 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, passim. 36 37

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posts from a liturgical screen in the cathedral at Chur, also probably work of around 80043. In terms of composition, too, there are telling similarities between Casteiseprio and Müstair; in the grouping of figures and the use of dramatic architectural settings to bring life to the narrative. This is apparent if the Presentation in the Temple at Castelseprio (Fig. 5) is compared with scenes of Christ working miracles at Müstair, the Healing of the Deaf-Mute and the Healing of the Blind (Figs. 12 and 13)44. Although the execution and overall visual effect is very different, exactly the same vocabulary of piers and columns, angled openings with flat architrave-lintels and depressed arches is deployed, with characteristic thin triangular areas of shadow under the arches. The asymmetrical pavilion behind the two seated blind men in the scene of Christ Healing the Blind at Müstair (Fig. 13) is a more completely rendered variant of the structure on the right of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Fig. 5) and the setting for the Annunciation at Castelseprio45. This motif is also reproduced in a very similar form in the Paris Psalter, and a related structure is depicted in one of the miniatures in the late 9th-century Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, in Paris46. Another feature from this same tradition, at Müstair, is the angled free-standing pier crowned by a red sphere with a radiating fan of red and blue foliate rays, which marks the moment of the miracle of healing of the deaf-mute at Müstair (Fig. 12). On the one hand, compositionally, this is a variant of the prominent column, bound with a sash and topped by a brilliant disc, which performs a similar role at Castelseprio, announcing the miraculous appearance of the angel to the sleeping Joseph (Fig. 1)47; on the other hand, it is cognate with similar compositional devices in the Byzantine books, such as the pier-like building with prominent dark rectangular door in the Annunciation in the Paris

Sulser 1980, p. 17; Roth-Rubi 2010, p. 19, figs. 14, 16a, Castelseprio: Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pls. LVII–LIX, XC; Weitzmann 1951, figs, B, 7, 11; Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, 45k, 46k. 45 Castelseprio: Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pls. XXXVII– XXXVIll, LVII–LIX, XC; Weitzmann 1951, figs. A, B, 8, 11; Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, 45k. 46 Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 139, fol, 3v [Buchthal 1938, pl. III]; Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 510, fol. 174v [Brubaker 1999, fig. 23]. 47 Castelseprio: Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D’Arzago 1948, pl. XLIII, XLV, XC; Weitzmann 1951, figs. B, 3; Müstair: Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, 46k. 43 44

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Homilies of Gregory48, or the structure behind the prophet Nathan, in the Penitence of David, in the Paris Psalter49. A late stage in the evolution of the pictorial tradition of which Müstair is an earlier representative, just to the north across the Alps, on the shores of Lake Constance, can be seen in the painted programme with narratives from the miraculous ministry of Christ on the walls of the church of St Georg Oberzell, on the Reichenau. The church there was constructed under Abbot Hatto III (888–913) and there is little reason not to assign the principal painted decoration of the nave of the church to the same period50. The paintings at Reichenau are more or less of an age with those at Castelseprio, but they could hardly be more different in surface appearance. Clearly the tradition with which we are dealing followed diverse rhythms and chronologies, conjunctions, divergences and intersections, in northern Italy, Rome, and Byzantium. The origins and course, or courses, of this elite classicizing idiom are extremely hard to trace. On the one hand, it becomes visible in Byzantium, apparently fully developed in the late 9th and early 10th centuries, in the monuments of the so-called Macedonian Renaissance, and it has tended to be thought of as an essentially Byzantine tradition and phenomenon. However, the almost total loss of related elite Byzantine painting, mural, panel and manuscript, from the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries means that its earlier history and the shapes it assumed in the eastern Mediterranean are obscure. On the other hand, it is present in sub-alpine northern Italy, at Brescia and Müstair, a century or more earlier than in Constantinople. Traces of it can be picked up also at other sites in Italy, in the old Lombard duchy of Benevento. The signature depressed arch, resting on one side on a masonry pier, on the other on a column with stilted entablature block, features twice in the fragmentary remains of the original painted decoration of S. Sofia at Benevento, the ambitious centrally-planned church with associated female monastery, founded and constructed by Arechis II, duke of the southern Lombard duchy, in the 760s (Fig. 14)51. The stepped base of the columnar support in the scene of the Annunciation to Zacharias in S. Sofia is also embellished with ornamental rectangular recesses, coloured light and dark

Paris Bibl, Nat, gr. 510, fol. 3r [Brubaker 1999, fig, 6], Paris, Bibl. Nat. gr, 139, fol. 136v [Buchthal 1938, pl. VIII]. 50 Koshi 1999, pp. 249–254. 51 Belting 1968, figs. 63–84; Rotili 1986, pls. XLIII–XLIV. 48 49

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either side of a diagonal to indicate summary perspectival depth52. This detail is a feature both of the paintings at Castelseprio and the miniatures in the Paris Psalter53. A further instance, in the Lombard south, of the oblique opening supported by pier and column with stilted entablature, with not dissimilar ornamental rectangular recesses, is to be found in a wall painting of the martyrdoms of St Laurence and St Stephan, in the so-called Crypt of Epyphanius, a funerary oratory of the early 830s, at the monastery of S. Vincenzo al Volturno54. An angled opening with a slightly arched lintel configured as an elongated shaded triangle, of the characteristic Castelseprio type, is also present in the Crypt of Epyphanius, in the representation of the Holy Sepulchre55. Further evidence for interest in and engagement with this classicizing tradition can be found in Carolingian Francia, in the Utrecht Psalter, with its extraordinarily ambitious and inventive illustrations to the Psalms and Canticles56. This is a book, written and illustrated in Rheims around 830, which was designed knowingly to evoke, in its format and script, a late Roman luxury codex. In the drawings at the head of each psalm, graphic visual equivalents to phrases and words are combined in continuous flowing landscapes, with fortified towns and religious sanctuaries, with numerous human figures and animals in valleys and on hills set with prominent sentinel trees, in some cases by rivers and oceans. The landscapes with their beetling crags and precipitous hollows are conceived here in the same romantic idiom as those deployed on the walls at Castelseprio and on the pages of the Joshua Roll and the Paris Psalter. There is a similar delight in incorporating free-standing columns topped by sundials and tower-like funerary monuments into the folds of land, with light-blanched buildings rising from the haze over the lines of hills (Fig. 15). Furthermore there is the same love of filling them with discreet classical references; in the case of the Utrecht Psalter, amphitheatres, aqueducts, fountains, honorific columns carrying statues, lion-footed tables, personifications of places or

Belting 1968,fig. 63. Castelseprio: Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D‘Arzago 1948, pls. XXXVIIIa, LIII, LVa, LVII–LVIII, LXI–LXII; Weitzmann 1951, figs. A, B and D, 3, 8, 11. Paris Psalter: Buchthal 1938, pl.V. 54 Belting 1968, figs. 31–33; Pantoni 1970, pls. 40–42: Mitchell 1993, figs. 7:26–27. 55 Belting 1968, fig. 38; Pantoni 1970, pl. 52. 56 DeWald 1932; Horst, Noel, Wüsterfeld 1996. 52 53

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concepts, twisting sea-serpents; and a similar repertoire is deployed in the Joshua Roll. In particular, the two-stage tower-like funerary structures and the lone columns surmounted by spheres appear in strikingly analogous forms in both the Carolingian and the later Byzantine manuscripts; while the same visual formulas for fortified towns, shown in bird‘s-eye view with circling crenellated walls, punctuated by tall round towers, often with upper windowed galleries, and enclosing basilical buildings set on the diagonal in vanishing perspective, with pedimented facades, constitute a stock element of the repertoires of the artists working in S. Salvatore in Brescia (Fig. 9), of the various draughtsmen responsible for illustrating the Utrecht Psalter (Fig. 16), and the artists who embellished the Paris Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Fig. 1G) and the Joshua Roll57. A motif which exemplifies the geographical spread and sequential complexity of this tradition, with a long history reaching back at least to around 700, is a characteristic composition for figural narratives set in open landscape, quite extensively adopted by artists working in a slightly later phase of the Byzantine branch of our classicizing tradition, in the later 10th and early 11th centuries. This type features two precipitous rocky hills, their peaks breaking into sun-lit faceted crags, framing a central valley in which the drama of the event takes place — typically a biblical narrative or a scene of martyrdom. The convention is most clearly represented in the Menologion of Basil II, of the late 10th century, and in the same emperor’s Psalter, of around 1020; these images also feature some reduced variants of the classicizing architectural tropes of miniature painting of a century earlier (Fig. 17)58. A century earlier the formula had been deployed as a setting for the parable of the Good Samaritan in the magnificently illuminated Paris Homilies of St Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the most sumptuous surviving early representatives of this classicizing phase in book-painting59. This standard compositional type, consisting of two framing mountain peaks flanking a central valley, in which a protagonist, often with dramatically S. Salvatore Brescia: Panazza 1962: figs, 86, 89, 90; Bertelli 1992, p. 221; Utrecht Psalter: DeWald 1932, pl. Paris Gregory: Brubaker 1999, fig, 6; Joshua Roll: Weitzmann 1948, fig. 19. 58 Menologion: Bib. Apost. Vat. gr. 1613, fol. 333; Franchi de’ Cavalieri 1907, fol. 333; El Menologio 2005; Psalter: Venice Bibl. Marciana cod. gr. 17; Lazarev 1967, 141, fig. 129; Cutler 1976–1977; Cutler 1984, pp. 115–119, cat 58, fig. 413; Maguire 1988, pp. 93–94, fig. 7. 59 Paris, Bibl. Nat. gr. 510, fol. 143v; Brubaker 1999, fig. 19. 57

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flying cloak, engages with an adversary, is to be seen in a fully developed state in the image of David killing Goliath, painted on a low wall screening the bema in the church of S. Maria Antiqua in Rome (Fig. 18)60. This forms part of the comprehensive redecoration of the church, which took place under Pope John VII (705–7) in the first decade of the 8th century. The idiom took root in Rome and is to be seen in various devolved variants over the following generation or two, for instance in the early 740s in the focal image of the Crucifixion in the funerary oratory of Theodotus, also in S. Maria Antiqua61. Pope John was of eastern, Byzantine, ancestry, educated in Constantinople, S. Maria Antiqua was home to a community of Greek speaking monks, probably refugees from eastern iconoclasm, and the paintings and mosaics associated with John’s patronage in Rome have generally been understood as owing much to Byzantine pictorial tradition and practice. However, Leslie Brubaker and others have voiced reservations about the default practice of seeing manifestations of this kind always in terms of eastern Byzantine influence on the West, arguing that there may have been a significant passage of ideas and patterns in the other direction: that where the earliest surviving instances of a particular material practice, iconographie type or even style are to be found in the West, we should at least countenance the possibility that the invention and early spread of these traditions also took place in western Europe62. Over a century later, at Rheims, in Carolingian Francia, around 830, the artists of the Utrecht Psalter repeatedly drew on the same compositional type, adapting it variously for their idiosyncratic illustrations of the Psalms (Fig. 19)63. Both this landscape tradition and many of the conventions of composition and classicizing detail deployed in S. Maria at Castelseprio may have enjoyed a centuries-long, albeit punctuated, life in pictorial practice in the West, and possibly also in Byzantium, before the period of the so-called Macedonian Renaissance in the early 10th century. There would seem to be two possible narratives for the origins and development of the elite classicizing current that underlies the paintings at Romanelli, Nordhagen 1964, pl. IIIB; Nordhagen 1968, colour pl. IV. Romanelli, Nordhagen 1964, pl. VII. 62 Buckton 1988; Buckton 1996, pp. 659–660; Osborne 1990; Brubaker 1991; Brubaker 2000. 63 Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I, nr. 32: DeWald 1932, pls. XIII, XIV, XVII, XXIV, XXVII, XXIX, XXXV, XLIV, XLV, LVI, LXI, LXIV, LXVI, LXXIV, LXXVI, LXXXVI, LXXXVIII, XC, CXXXI, CXII and passim. 60 61

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1. Dream of Joseph, S. Maria di Castelseprio. 2. Foliate rod between dado and scenes, S. Maria di Castelseprio (after Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D’Arzago 1948a, pl. L).

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3. Foliate rod framing mosaic field in vault of bema, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, c. 867 (after Hawkins, Mango 1963, fig. 21).

4. Samuel anointing David, Psalter, Constantinople?, early 10th century, Paris Bibl. Nat. gr. 139, fol. 3v (after Cutler, Spieser 1996, fig. 157).

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5. Presentation of Christ in the Temple, S. Maria di Castelseprio (after Bognetti, Chierici, De Capitani D’Arzago 1948a, pl. LIXa). 6. Sacral idyllic grove, Pompeii, Naples, Museo Archeologico.

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7. Flight into Egypt, S. Salvatore, Brescia, c. 760 (photo: Civici Musei d’Arte e Storia, Brescia).

8. Journey to Bethlehem, S. Maria di Castelseprio.

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9. Translation of relics of S. Giulia from Carthage?, S. Salvatore, Brescia, c. 760 (photo: Civici Musei d’Arte e Storia, Brescia).

10. Gregory of Nazianzus, Homilies, c. 890, Paris, Bibl. Nat. cod. gr. 510, fol. 3r, Jonah (after Omont 1929, pl. XX).

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11. Ribboned rod, frame of Ascension, St. Johann, Müstair, last quarter of 8th century (after Wüthrich 1968, Pl. 1).

12. Christ healing the deaf-mute, St Johann, Müstair, last quarter of 8th century (photo: Michael Wolf, Müstair).

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13. Christ healing the Blind, St Johann Müstair, last quarter of 8th century (photo: Michael Wolf, Müstair).

14. Annunciation to Zacharias, S. Sofia. Benevento, 760s (after Bologna 1968–69, pl. 1).

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15. Psalter, c. 830, Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I nr 32, fol. 69v, Psalm 105 (after DeWald 1932, pl. XCVI).

16. Psalter, c. 830, Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I nr 32, fol. 58r, Psalm 102 (after DeWald 1932, pl. XCIII).

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17. Martyrdom of St. Euphrasia of Nicomedia, Menologion of Basil II, Constantinople?, late 10th century, Rome, Bibl. Apost. Vat. cod. gr. 1613, fol. 333 (photo: Wikimedia Commons). 18. David triumphant over Goliath, S. Maria Antiqua, Rome, 705–707 (after Nordhagen 1968, pl. LXXXVI).

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19. Psalter, c. 830, Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I nr 32, fol. 8v, Psalm 17 (after DeWald 1932, pl. XIV). 20. Drawing showing fragmentary remains of the earliest phase of painted decoration, central section of east wall, lower chamber in tower, Torba.

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21. Lower legs and feet of a standing figure facing left, central section of east wall, lower chamber in tower, Torba.

22. Fragment of inclined head, central section of east wall, lower chamber of tower, Torba.

23. Dado panel, east wall, lower chamber of tower, Torba.

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24. Female monastic below offering a candle to a standing saint above, lefthand reveal of arcosolium at southern end of the east wall, lower chamber of tower, Torba.

25. Flead of female monastic, left-hand reveal of arcosolium at southern end of the east wall, lower chamber of tower, Torba.

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26. Two female monastics below venerating two standing saints above, right-hand reveal of arcosolium at southern end of east wall, lower chamber in tower, Torba.

27. A female monastic, Aliberga, right-hand reveal of arcosolium at southern end of the east wall, lower chamber of tower, Torba.

28. Head of female monastic, Aliberga, right-hand reveal of arcosolium at southern end of the east wall, lower chamber of tower, Torba.

212 29. Epitaph of Alexandria, around a large cross, left-hand reveal of arcosolium at eastern end of the south wall, lower chamber of tower, Torba. 30. Epitaph of Alexandria, detail, left-hand reveal of arcosolium at eastern end of the south wall, lower chamber of tower, Torba.

31. East wall, upper chamber of tower, Torba.

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32. Dado with velum, east wall, upper chamber of tower, Torba.

33. Panel with two peacocks and vase, east wall, upper chamber of tower, Torba.

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34. Detail of inscription, south wall, upper chamber of tower, Torba.

35. The Mother of God and saints addressed by a suppliant patron, south wall, upper chamber of tower, Torba.

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36. Female saints and nuns, west wall, upper chamber of tower, Torba.

38. Head of nun, west wall, upper chamber of tower, Torba

37. Dado panel on west wall, upper chamber of tower, Torba.

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Castelseprio. On the one hand, this may have been an eastern tradition, which had its beginnings in Byzantium at some point in the pre-iconoclastic era, and continued in a more or less fully developed state for almost four centuries, although witnessed there in surviving monuments only in its final phases, in the later 9th and 10th centuries. During this period it was periodically accessed by artists working for patrons in Western Europe, who saw advantage in appropriating a sophisticated pictorial idiom from the eastern imperial capital. On the other hand, it is possible that the tradition had its beginnings in the West, arguably in Lombard Italy, in the course of the later 7th-8th centuries. In this period the courts of Lombard Italy, as well as papal Rome, developed new cultural strategies, paradigms of elite architecture and visual art, to advertise their powers and help realize their ambitions, as they sought to announce, confirm and extend their control over the various regions of the peninsular64. The appropriation of ideas, conventions and motifs from imperial Roman practice, as well as the incorporation of spolia from ancient Roman buildings, played an important part in this strategy. Aside from the common traditional markers of ancient Roman reference, prominent carved architectural elements like columns and capitals, and the incorporation of plant scroll of various types into new contexts, artists working for Lombard patrons, at the highest level, in the course of the 8th century, showed a predisposition to make somewhat idiosyncratic but highly effective direct new borrowings from antique Roman practice. Prominent instances of this are, first, the use of gilded bronze letters for the dedicatory inscription on the palace chapel of Prince Arechis II at Salerno in the 770s, and their subsequent adoption for the inscription on the façade of the new abbey church at the southern Lombard monastery of S. Vincenzo al Volturno in 808; second, the introduction of tri-axial tri-chrome cubes or ‘tumbling blocks’ into the ornamental repertoire deployed in the elaborate dados of the ring-crypt in the same church at S. Vincenzo; and third, the extraordinary replicative classical ornamental idiom adopted at S. Salvatore outside Spoleto and at the so-called Tempietto sul Clitunno, two buildings probably commissioned by the Spoletan nobility early in the 7th century, so classically Roman in spirit as frequently to confuse modern scholars. The gilded bronze inscriptions from Salerno and S. Vincenzo al Volturno are among a tiny handful of instances known from the Middle Ages;

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Mitchell 2000a, pp. 174–183; Mitchell 2000b, pp. 347–356.

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inscriptions of this kind seem to have gone out of regular use in the 4th century and were reintroduced into mainline practice only in the mid 17th century65 Tumbling blocks are a motif which formed part of the ornamental repertoire of Roman artists under the Empire; however, the pattern generally fell out of use in the course of the 3rd century, and apart from at S. Vincenzo al Volturno there appears to be no other surviving instance of its use in an early medieval context66. The two buildings in the Lombard duchy of Spoleto reproduce the elements of the Roman classic orders of architectural ornamentation with an insistent precision unparalleled elsewhere in early medieval Europe67. It seems likely that in all three of these cases artists, possibly at the behest of their patrons, initially had new recourse to ancient Roman buildings, and engaged in what amounted to archaeological expeditions to source not only actual spolia to incorporate physically into new structures, but also patterns and designs, virtual spolia, as it were, to replicate in new contexts68. It is possible that the overtly Roman motifs of the classicizing tradition of Castelseprio were originally sought out and combined in a new aulic pictorial repertoire in a similar context: the single column standing in a grove in open country, the angled opening with depressed arch or lintel asymmetrically supported by a pier and a column, the buildings on the horizon saturated and almost dissolved in ambient bright sunlight. These could all have been found in wall-paintings of the early first century AD, on the ruined walls of the Roman villas which filled the Italian coasts and countryside. Following this scenario, it is worth considering that the classicizing tradition with which we are concerned was constructed by artists working for ambitious patrons in early medieval Italy, the Lombard kings and their more or less independent dukes, who aimed to surround themselves with demonstrative visual frameworks informed by rhetorics of ancient Roman power and culture. The 8th century was an age in which the ruling elites of Europe were constantly engaged in consolidating their positions and extending their areas of influence and control, and distinctive and identifying visual apparatus — architecture, art and ornament — often of a markedly classicizing Romanizing cast, was one of the effective means of announcing

Mitchell 2001a, pp. 39–40. Mitchell 1996, p. 103, fig. 21; Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, p. 56. 67 Mitchell 1994, pp. 945–949; Emerick 1998; Jäggi 1998. 68 Mitchell 1996, pp. 103–104. 65 66

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and furthering their ambitions. In this context the appropriation of elements of this tradition by artists in Carolingian Francia in the 9th century, in the Utrecht Psalter, would be a natural outcome, since the new Carolingian masters of Italy recognized the values and potentials of Lombard court culture and drew freely on the inventions and services of Italian artists in developing their own cultural strategies and visual paradigms69. As we have seen, there has been an enduring tendency to see the paintings at Castelseprio as somehow isolated, as standing alone in the artistic landscape of Italy, and indeed of Western Europe. The new combined 14 C and dendrochronological dating for the roof-beam in the eastern apse in S. Maria, which would seem to locate a terminus post quem and probably a terminus ad quern for the paintings somewhere around 900 or two generations later, in the mid 10th century, in a way only increases this sense of detachedness and isolation. At this late date, the paintings stand very much alone in relationship to contemporary practice, to traditions of composition and execution then current in Western Europe. They may make best sense as the work of outsiders, of artists newly arrived from the eastern Mediterranean, trained in a sophisticated classicizing pictorial idiom, characterized by striking references to Roman painting of the early imperial period. This classicizing idiom, as we have argued, may have been originally developed in late Lombard Italy, from where it had been introduced subsequently to Byzantium. However, as we have seen, there are elements, like the old Roman trope of the angled asymmetrical opening with flat arch resting on pier and column, and in particular the thin elongated triangular shadows which prominently mark the soffits of the arches, which are rare or absent in contemporary art from Constantinople but which had been characteristic elements of the stock repertoires of painters working for elite patrons in Lombard and immediately post-Lombard Italy, in the late 8th and early 9th centuries. This might suggest that if the paintings at Castelseprio are indeed the work of a Byzantine workshop, these eastern artists were fully cognisant of earlier, 8th- and early 9th-century, painting in Italy and had appropriated elements from that tradition, to the extent that these figured among the signature features of their own compositions. In other words, the work at Castelseprio, far from representing current metropolitan Byzantine practice

69

Mitchell 1999b; Mitchell 2000a, pp 183–185.

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in a pure form, was to a degree a hybrid, a historicizing accommodation with practice from over a century earlier in the region70. For the moment, S. Maria foris portas at Castelseprio continues to keep its secrets. The Funerary Tower at Torba Twenty-five years ago, following the modern consolidation of the Tower at Torba and the cleaning and conservation of its wall paintings by FAI, Carlo Bertelli, with a team from the University of Lausanne, undertook a careful survey and interpretive analysis of the painted decoration of the two rooms in the upper levels of the building. The lower chamber contains commemorative images of prominent deceased members of the monastic community and an epitaph written around a great cross in its deep window recesses, and in the upper chapel the original painted scheme is to a greater or lesser extent miraculously preserved on all four walls71. However, there still exists some uncertainty as to the function of these two chambers in the context of the early medieval monastery, of which they formed part, and the precise sense and date of their painted decoration. The Lower Chamber The lower room is entered through a door at the mid-point of the west wall; the other three walls are each punctuated by two deep arched recesses, with window openings to illuminate the room. These arched alcoves are spaced so as to give a substantial field of wall-surface at the centre of each wall.

The local historical context for a refashioning and repainting of S. Maria di Castelseprio in the 10th century, and the chronology indicated by the 14C and dendrochronological analysis, is by no means clear. As Tom Brown observed, in discussion following a presentation of this material at the University of Edinburgh in October 2012, the later 9th and the 10th centuries in Italy are the period in which enterprises of this kind are least to be expected. Once the new scientific data has been thoroughly verified and accepted, we can start looking for a context and an explanation for the undertaking. The dominant mariological emphasis in the pictorial programme may point to the church being an expression of elite secular patronage, with primarily funerary and memorial functions. See Mitchell 2010, pp. 265–266. 71 Bertelli 1988b. See also: Peroni 1973; Bertelli 1980; Lomartire 1992; Rossi 2011, pp. 40–46. 70

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This lower chamber would appear to have received its first apparatus of painted decoration before the upper chamber with its more completely preserved scheme. The first level of plaster on the walls is best traced on the focal east wall facing the entrance. This appears to have served as a kind of arriccio, levelling up the wall surface, lapping up to the larger more projecting stones, the tops of which were in some cases left uncovered. Over this was laid a finishing layer of plaster, which received the first scheme of painted decoration (Fig. 20), The principal upper central field of this wall, between the two large arched niches, carries the remains of a complex figural composition, now fragmentary in the extreme. On the right-hand side of this area, next to the left shoulder of the right-hand arched recess, are traces of a standing figure, the lower curving sweep of a yellow pallium, articulated with foldlines in red, the skirt of an ankle-length bluish-white tunic and the ghost of a foot, in profile outlined in white (Fig. 21 ). The fall of the pallium and the foot show that the figure stood in profile, facing inwards towards the centre of the composition. There appear to be traces of plants with red flowers growing from the surrounding ground. Further up the wall, at a point about 2.84 m above the present pavement, and a little to the left, a patch of plaster is preserved, with the lower part of a head inclined down towards the left (Fig. 22). It seems likely that this head belonged to a second figure, set a little higher and towards the centre in the composition. Against a faintly pinkish ochre ground, the flesh-colour of the face is a warm light ochre. The head appears to be that of a young person, with features delicately defined in a soft red, the lower part of the nose contoured, the eye a strong red disc, circled with white, with a prominent curling hollow of shadow beneath, in turn defined with a running white highlight on the cheek-bone, with ragged fingers of white running down over the cheek. To the left in this central field, more or less on a level with the inclined head, are the faded remains of a complex of elements in reds and greys, with embellishment in white and an element of purple, in which vertical and horizontals in rectilinear formation predominate. Whether these represent the remains of an architectural feature is not clear. From the few fragmentary remains of painted plaster it is clear that the central field of this east wall was filled with a large narrative composition (Fig. 20). Given the funerary character of the chamber, and on the supposition that the rectilinear elements on the left side of the image may have formed part of a building, the standing figure on the right and the inclined head

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further up might be consonant with a representation of the Maries speaking with the Angel at the tomb of the risen Christ, with the guarding soldiers leaning against the Sepulchre in sleep, on the eve of Easter. At the bottom of this east wall, recognizable elements of a dado painted in imitation of polychrome opus sectile are preserved (Fig. 20). The distinguishing features of two painted panels can be made out in the centre and right-hand side of the wall-surface, each containing a porphyry rota, a disc. The righthand panel is the better preserved (Fig. 23). Here the central purple disc, some 0.41 m in diameter, is framed by a 60–70 mm white collar, strongly contoured in black and articulated with characteristic rounded rectangular features on the outer perimeter, at four axial positions. This, in turn, is set within a rectangular field, parti-coloured pink and yellow, with the colour-switches on the corner diagonals, all surrounded by a 60 mm frame in white. On its right-hand side this panel is bordered by a vertical band of pink extending to the rim of the right-hand recess, which is defined by a thick black band framing the arched opening. The left-hand panel of this dado, extremely fragmentary, is uniform with its companion but with the pink and yellow areas framing the central medallion counter-changed. The full height of the dado from the top of the outer white frame to the present pavement is c. 1.25 m. Traces of the same initial plaster level can be found on the other walls of the room. With the exception of a small passage high up by the right shoulder of the right-hand recess in the east wall, which may represent part of a wing, little of iconographie significance can now be recognized. However, it would appear that all four walls of the room were plastered and painted, in this initial phase, with a complex scheme of figural imagery over a dado of imitation polychrome marble revetment. The plaster of this first phase laps round into the openings of the two arched recesses in the south-east corner of the room, where the surfaces are best preserved. However, it does not appear to have gone any further; there are no obvious traces of this early plaster on the wall surfaces of the interiors of the recesses. In both the right-hand recess on the east wall and the left recess on the south wall, plaster supporting the preserved painted imagery appears to overlap the first-phase plaster on the outside wall-surfaces. This is best observed in the right-hand recess in the east wall, where the first-phase plaster just turns the corner, the deep purple band defining the outline of the opening extending just onto the reveal of the alcove, where it is met and overlapped by the plaster carrying the painted decoration of the interior surfaces. This suggests that when the chamber was first prepared for the use

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of the monastery, the first application of plaster covered only the principal forward surfaces, leaving the arched recesses bare. These were plastered and decorated only later in a subsequent phase or phases. In the right recess on the east wall, facing the entrance, the plaster on the rear wall below and around the window has largely gone; however, recognizable painted surfaces are preserved on the two flanking reveals. On the left side are the lower parts of a front-facing standing figure, wearing a long white tunic, articulated with long vertical folds in blue, and over this a pallium-like garment in deep purple; orange-red shoes issue from the lower hem of the tunic (Fig. 24). The feet are at a height of c. 1.3 m above the present pavement. This figure stands against a yellow ground, which continues down below its feet, and to the right of the lower leg is depicted what appears to be a piece of wooden furniture, possibly a skeletal seat. To judge from its attitude, this must represent a saint, in a stance of iconic frontality. Below, a female ecclesiastic stands in veneration, turning her head to confront the viewer, holding a long yellow candle up before her. This figure, of which only the upper part survives, seems to have been depicted on almost the same scale as the saint above. The painted surface is extremely abraded here; however, this postulant seems to wear a deep purple maphorion, a long mantle, drawn up over the head like a shawl, worn over a lower garment with tight pinkish-red sleeves. As with the inclined head high on the north wall, the flesh of the face is laid on in a pale ochre; with heavy impasto white lights on the brow and round the eyes, and the lower nose, mouth and eyelids are defined with fine red contours (Fig. 25). The flaring eyebrows and the eyes with their framing white lights to describe and contrast with prominent curling shadows beneath, are particularly striking and characteristic. It is unclear whether this observant nun is addressing and directing her candle to the saint directly above, or rather towards a now lost subject depicted on the rear wall of the arcosolium. A pendant group is depicted on the opposite right reveal of the arched opening (Fig. 26). Here two frontal figures, both female saints, were deployed on the upper level. A little more of these figures is preserved than is the case on the opposite reveal, but their bodies above the waist and their heads are lost. The ground against which they stand is banded, pale blue behind their legs, yellow from ankle-level down, bordered by a 40 mm band of deep purple, contoured in white, at the edges of the field. Both wear heavy enveloping almost cylindrical garments, with a tubular pipe of material falling down from the right arm. The left-hand figure is characterized by a particularly richly worked dalmatic, with a thick panelled golden yellow band and hem, set with

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jewels and worked with lines of closely-set pearls, and little red shoes contoured in white, characterizing a saint of noble even royal ancestry. Her companion may originally have been equally richly dressed; however, the embellishments on the bottom of her dress were painted in secco and have now fallen off the wall, leaving only the blue ground beneath and her shoes as mere shadows. Just as on the opposite reveal, suppliant figures stand at the feet of these two saints, set against a deep ochre ground, the one on the left better preserved than that on the right, with legs slightly flexed at the knee and hands raised in supplication (Fig. 27), In both cases, these are cowled female ecclesiastics, their deep purple-brown maphoria drawn up over their heads, their bodies probably in three-quarter profile, turned towards the centre, their faces looking almost fully out from the wall. The better preserved head, to the left, is characterized by a creamy light ochre flesh-tone, with the features described by dramatic white highlights on brow, eyes, nose and mouth, and then defined with a fine deep purple-brown contour (Fig. 28), The formal vocabulary used here is similar to that of the inclined head on the north wall and the kneeling nun opposite, but the colour is laid on rather more thickly, the highlighting systems are a little more rigid and the linear definition of the features more insistent, the shadows under eye and chin more blunt. Raised hands with expressively gesturing fingers, in the same ochre flesh tones as the face, lighted with white, are discernible immediately to the right of the head. Of the second pendant figure, on the right, only the top of the veiled head and one raised gesticulating hand are preserved. These two figures were both identified by tituli and the space between them filled with words in lines of large white capital letters. The inscription which must once have named the right-hand figure is now lost but the somewhat enigmatic title of her companion on the left, survives: ALIBERGA, in capital letters, deployed on four registers, characterized by A with square top and sloping median bar, E with short bars with bifurcating ends, and G with a short vertical ‘tail’ and branching upper terminal. There are traces of other white letters, of very similar type, written over and apparently erasing this inscription, which Rudolf Kloos read as CASTANA72, Bertelli as CASTA Aba(tissa)73. It would appear that this second designation was written with colour applied in secco, a medium far less stable than the al fresco application of the original name. Neither reading of the upper name is quite secure. 72 73

Kloos 1980, p. 213. Bertelli 1988b, pp. 39–40, figs. 34–6.

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A feature of the suppliant figures on both sides of the arch is that their heads have been painted on secondary thin skims of plaster, little giornate, apparently applied freshly at the appropriate points over the new and probably still damp plaster on which the figures are painted. These patches of plaster, here following quite closely the contours of the heads, can be traced most easily by raking light. In this the painters atTorba seem to be following a convention quite widespread in early medieval Italy for representing the portrait image of a living or recently deceased individual in a commemorative funerary context. The practice of adding the head of a painted portrait on its own skim of plaster is witnessed elsewhere, in the Chapel of SS. Quiricus and Julitta in S. Maria Antiqua, around the middle of the 8th century, where the heads of the donor, Theodotus, and the reigning pope, Zacharias, are treated in this way, and almost a century later, in the 830s, in a funerary oratory, the so-called crypt of Epyphanius, at the monastery of S. Vincenzo al Volturno, where a deacon donor and the abbot of the time are similarly depicted74. The space between the two suppliant figures was inscribed with text, in white capitals some 40–45 mm tall, in seven registers, against the ochre ground. The letters may have been painted in secco and their remains are vestigial. The text is probably in part retrievable but has yet to be read. Little painted plaster has been preserved on the back wall of this recess. A small surviving area on the far right, level with the left-hand frontal saint on the adjacent reveal, shows a blue field, with the right edge of a prominent greenish-ochre feature. This field is framed by a 45 mm band of red and then by 40 mm of deep purple brown at the extreme edge, with white pearls running up the divide between the two bands. Another area survives on the far left, here an ochre ground with a feature in light purple. There are no signs of a tomb having been constructed in this recess. On the rear wall the original plaster between the lower border of the painted field and the modern pavement (0.74 m) is plain lime-washed; and on the left reveal the surface at the bottom of the wall is also lime-washed, with a 20 mm band of pale purple forming a horizontal accent 40 mm above the pavement. It seems unlikely that a masonry structure was built against these surfaces. Painted imagery is also present in the adjacent recess, on the south wall. Here on the left-hand reveal of the alcove is preserved the lower half of a 74 Mitchell 1993, pp. 105–108; S. Maria Antiqua: Wilpert 1916, vol. IV, pls. 173, 181, 182/2, 183, 184; Belting 1987, figs. 1, 2 and 8; S. Vincenzo al Volturno: Mitchell 1993, pp. 105–106, figs. 7:33 and 40.

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large cross surrounded by an elaborate commemorative inscription in eight lines (Fig. 29). The cross is parti-coloured deep yellow and deep red, with the redemptive letters Alpha and Omega suspended by triple chains from the horizontal arms, and is set against a white ground. This white field is framed by a 10 mm band of black, a 35 mm orange-red band and then a 10 mm strip of purple red at the extreme edge, with white pearls running down the divide between red and purple. This border also frames the lower edge of the cross field, some 0.7 m above the present pavement, with below a 10 mm band of purple-red, 30 mm of orange-red and then lime-white down to the floor. The inscription, in large letters, 45–70 mm tall, black in the first two preserved lines, then red, has been read variously by Bertelli, Kloos and Lomartire75. Our reading, based on limited study on site, is as follows: [.]EX? [.]EX

DEH VERA

A [...] [...]VA[...] PVS.BAEVA.FAMO DRIA HIC IN IS [ci]O[in] PAC[e don]AEI [ternam?...] [...] [...]

B?[.]DNI SAL?[...] VT ANIMA [...] LA TVA.ALEXAN TV(m) LOCV(m) TVMVLO IA DNE REQVI SEPI ABRE ISAC ET IACOB [...] ONI [...] [...] AVD [...]

The letters are much faded, vestigial and in places lost, and the reading cannot yet be certain. However, this would appear to be the epitaph of a female ecclesiastic, with the name of Alexandria, the sense of the words being: ‘... that the soul (...) of your blessed servant Alexandria may lie in peace in this tomb. Lord (grant) her eternal rest (in the bosom of ) Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (...) (Fig. 30)76. Of the four short vertical sequences of letters immediately beneath the horizontal bar of the cross, the two on the right-hand side DEH and VERA Kloos 1980; Bertelli 1988b, p. 39, figs. 32–3; Lomartire 1992, p. 216. Lomartire 1992, p. 216. Saverio Lomartire kindly and most usefully commented on our reading of the inscription. 75 76

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are clearly legible, those on the left less so. Here Kloos reads HEK EX77. However, in the first word, the lower terminal which is all that survives of the first letter is not easily suited to a letter H in this position and the three surviving terminals of the third letter would suit an X more happily than a K. The sloping right member of the first letter of the second word is clear but set rather awkwardly to the left for a in this position and there are no visible traces of the corresponding left leg of this Greek letter. These two short words, and the degree to which they playfully combine Latin and Greek characters, require more attention. As Saverio Lomartire recognised, the name Alexandria is the name of the commemorated deceased woman rather than a reference to the Egyptian metropolitan city, as was proposed by Kloos78, and the word BAD[iss]A (abbess), immediately preceding FAMOLA TVA, proposed by Lomartire, is not a straightforward reading79. The cross itself with its parti-coloured stems and huge bar-terminals, flat on their outer sides but with angled peaks on their inner sides, is typical of the protective crosses commonly painted on the inner walls of elite blockbuilt tombs in the old Lombard regions of Italy, between the 8th and the 10th centuries, exemplified in Milan80, Monza81, Verona82, Leggiuno83, Mantua84 and Pavia85, in the north, and in the south at S. Vincenzo al Volturno86, at Troia87 and Canosa di Puglia88. Similarly, the whole composition, with the epitaph laid out around a cross, is one which is peculiar to the place and time, developed and favoured particularly in the area of Milan in the postantique period and subsequently taken up in a few other centres, particularly at the southern Lombard monastery of S. Vincenzo al Volturno, in Italy, and further afield at monasteries in Anglo-Saxon England and in Ireland89. Kloos 1980, p. 221. Kloos 1980, pp. 223–224; Bertelli 1988b, p. 47. 79 Lomartire 1992, p. 216. 80 De Capitani D’Arzago 1952, pp. 135–138, plate 11, figs. 43–9; Fiorio Tedone 1986, pp. 411–419, figs. 13–15, 19–29. 81 Cassanelli 1990. 82 Fiorio Tedone 1985, pp. 268–280, figs. 14,19; FiorioTedone 1986, pp. 420–421 fig. 33. 83 FiorioTedone 1986, p, 419, 84 FiorioTedone 1986, p. 420. 85 Bertelli, Brogiolo 2000, pp. 248–249 cat 264; Lomartire 2003, p. 426. 86 Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, p. 102, fig. 4.11, pl. 4.1. 87 Mazzei 1984, p. 361; D’Angela 1991. 88 Pers. comm. Marina Castelfranchi Falla 89 Mitchell 2001b. 77 78

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The absolute chronology of the phases of painting identified in this room is not easy to determine. The parti-coloured cross, with its characteristic terminal bars, on the reveal of the recess in the south wall, cannot of itself be dated with any precision. Painted crosses of similar type and function are found in a range of 8th–9th and even maybe 10th-century contexts. The script of the painted inscriptions is also not easy to assign with precision; however, the characteristic features of the letters of the epitaph about the cross seem to point to the first half of the 9th century: demonstrative impagination with lines of script running on a scaffold of red guide-lines and framed by similar red vertical contours at the sides, the rather tall, drawn-out proportions of the letters, the practice of varying the form of characters, as with A, sometimes with straight and sometimes with sloping median bar, A with square top and upper bar, M with one leg thin and the other thick and with short sloping bars, N in ligature with E and T with V, O elongated and tending to a point at top and bottom, X with dramatically bending lower member. These are features which appear in painted and carved inscriptions from the monastery of S. Vincenzo al Volturno, where they can be dated with some confidence to the first half of the 9th century90. The conventions used here are characteristic of painting in the old Lombard areas of Italy towards the beginning of the 9th century. The characterization of the painted heads points in the same direction. The formula adopted in the lower chamber at Torba for shaping and delineating the features of a face was one which had been evolving in Italian practice since at least the middle of the 8th century, The states it assumes in the now isolated fragmentary inclined head high on the east wall and in the suppliant figures of abbesses on the reveals of the right-hand recess on the east wall accord best with the tradition as it can be traced two or three generations later, in the first part of the following century: a pale ochre to render the flesh of the face, dramatic but formulaic white lights to draw attention to the brow, eyes and nose, large intense round pupils in the eyes, with emphatic curling shadows beneath, and delicate sinuous red contours to shape the nose, the mouth and eyelids. The degree of schematisation of the small fragmentary inclined head seems generally comparable (although less emphatic) to that of the painted figures of prophets from the monks’

90

Mitchell 2001a.

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Assembly Room at S. Vincenzo al Volturno, work of the first decade of the 9th century91. That of the now anonymous abbess standing before a saint on the left reveal of the recess on the east wall is closely related and may represent a slightly later stage in this pictorial tradition: while the face of Aliberga/Casta opposite, with its more rigid lights and harsher contouring of features seems to belong to a further typological advance in the process. Of course how these differences translate into absolute chronological intervals is impossible to say. However, to judge from their formal qualities, the portrait of the first abbess may have been made in the second decade of the century, and Aliberga possibly a decade later. Alternatively, they could be the work of two artists, working more or less contemporaneously. At the time it was painted out, probably early in the 9th century, and the arched recesses completed, the function of this lower chamber was undoubtedly funerary and memorial in some way. The painted panel with the parti-coloured cross surrounded by the epitaph of Alexandria, the images of the female ecclesiastics standing suppliant beneath frontal saints, one proffering up a candle as a votive offering, the representation of portraits of named individuals from the monastic community at Torba, their heads on individual giornate of plaster in typical funereal portrait iconography, even the lengthy inscription between the two nuns in the recess in the east wall, all speak the language of mortuary commemoration. The conventions are those commonly deployed in elite funerary oratories of the period, from the Chapel of Theodotus dedicated to SS. Quiricus and Julitta at S. Maria Antiqua to the Crypt of Epyphanius at S. Vincenzo al Volturno, the burial chapel of one of the pre-eminent benefactors of the monastery in the 830s92 However, there is no unequivocal evidence for these recesses having served as actual tombs for abbesses and particularly privileged members of the community. The plaster on the walls of these alcoves, with their original painted surfaces, extends right down to the present pavement of the room. If there were tombs in these niches, they must have consisted of free-standing sarcophagi, possibly of wood or lead, which have left no traces of their erstwhile presence. An alternative is that this room served a purely memorial purpose, a space, possibly furnished with an altar standing in front of the east wall, in which the nuns could gather to remember and pray for predecessors who had enjoyed high standing in the community. 91 92

Hodges 1995, plates 3, 12,13, 17, 20. Belting 1987; Mitchell 1993.

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The Upper Chamber The upper chamber in the Tower has been described and analysed fully and attentively by Carlo Bertelli93. Much of its original painted decoration is preserved, more or less intact, although the finishing applications of colour have either fallen or faded from the walls, so that in many areas the observer is confronted by figures in intermediate stages of execution, rather than in their finished state. On the focal, east wall of the room, at the mid-point between the two windows, Christ is represented, enthroned, frontal, beardless, holding his book in his left hand, gesturing in speech with his right. He is flanked by two angels, the best preserved holding an orb in his left hand. As Bertelli has described, Christ was accompanied, beyond the windows, by John the Baptist and three standing male saints, the first St Peter, to judge from his physiognomy, and two apostles, to his left (our right), standing in fields of red flowers; and to his right (our left), where the plaster has now completely gone, probably the Virgin Mary and two further apostles. Bertelli recognizes a further apostle in the figure standing above a dado painted as a velum at the far eastern end of the south wall, and projects three more on the east wall to the left of the central group of Christ, with angels, the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, and yet another three on the north wall at its eastern end (Fig. 31 )94. A feature which distinguishes this wall from the other three walls of the room is the dado, painted in imitation of hanging vela, rather than polished marble opus sectile (Fig. 32)95. These are divided in panels, with varying designs of curtains along the wall. In the central bay, beneath Christ and the two flanking archangels, these curtains are embellished with scrolling vinetrails, a scattering of stylized flowers or a reticulate design with little crosses and rosettes. However, as Carlo Bertelli has acutely observed, this sequence is broken beneath the section of the wall on which he believes the Virgin Mary was represented, standing alongside Christ, together with John the Baptist, constituting a deesis, the classic intercessional triad. Here the section of velum

Bertelli 1988b, pp. 12–34. Bertelli 1988b, pp. 25–26. 95 Osborne 1992. 93 94

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is dominated by a large cross at the centre of a field embellished with stems, flowers and fruits. This is an instance of the use of the dado to articulate and introduce hierarchical structure into a sacred space, a common practice of the period. Cognate instances are to be found at S. Vincenzo al Volturno. The first of these is in the Crypt of Epyphanius, a small subterranean funerary oratory, in which the panels of the painted dado, with their various reticulate designs, are broken in two places, behind the altar, where two affronted eagles call to mind the idea of rebirth and resurrection, and at the entrance where a large complex knot serves as a sentinel, protecting the soul of the dead person from invasive malign spirits96. A second instance is to be found in the ring crypt of the basilica of S. Vincenzo Maggiore, where the dado of complex polychrome painted opus sectile is broken in the axial corridor leading to the relic chamber by panels of reticulate design with diagonal accents, alluding to screens marking off a sacred focus, and then in the relic chamber itself, in which painted dados imitating marble revetment were replaced by actual vela of real silk, hanging round the lower walls, suspended from iron staples, one of which was found still in position during excavation97. On a more general level, painted dadoes were commonly used in this period to articulate sacred spaces in terms of a hierarchy of sanctity. The two principal idioms in the repertoire of referent materials used were vela, on the one hand, more or less richly embellished textile hangings, and on the other elaborate revetments in polished polychrome stone, either set in bookmatched panels with diagonal marbling or in compositions of opus sectile. Of these two, textiles, real and painted, held the superior rank; with their reference to the curtains of the Desert Tabernacle of Moses and to the Veil of the Temple. In the early Middle Ages, vela were markers of high sanctity and of elevated social status, out-ranking polychrome marble revetment and its painted imitation. The relative status of the two is clearly visible at other sites in Italy and in the Alps in the period. In the north, it is to be seen at Müstair, beyond Meran at the top of the Vinschgau, in the far south-east part of Switzerland, both in the main church of the monastery, St Johann, now firmly dated by dendrochronology to 775, and in the central apse of the subordinate funerary Heiligkreuzkapelle, similarly dated to 77898. In Mitchell 1993, p. 76; pp. 109–110, figs. 7, 6, 46. Hodges, Leppard, Mitchell 2011, pp. 77–80, 84, 86–87. 98 Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, p. 30, 43, 43. 96 97

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both the church and the free-standing chapel, the apses were painted with hanging vela, the walls of the nave with marbled revetment99. A similar arrangement is to be found in the Lombard south, in the middle decades of the 9th century, in the church of S. Ambrogio at Montecorvino Rovella, to the east of Salerno. There three distinct dado modes are in operation: a painted velum in the apse, beneath the Virgin Mary enthroned between four saints; panels of diagonally-veined marbling beneath the two flanking niches in the east wall, containing jewelled crosses; and panels imitating complex opus sectile revetment, on the side walls of the church. Here there is a clear hierarchy in the painted dados: first vela, then book-matched diagonally veined marbled panels, and finally panelled crustae featuring rectangles, lozenges, discs and other forms100. So at Torba, in the upper chamber in the tower, the figures on the east wall, Christ, archangels, the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and the apostles, stand above vela — extending round onto the start of the south wall, and undoubtedly once onto the north wall too, to mark the peripherally displaced apostles there. On the other three walls, on the other hand, panels painted in imitation of polychrome marble revetment, in a variety of types and designs, predominate. This suggests a dominant devotional and liturgical focus in front of the east wall, where it is possible that a free-standing altar may originally have been located. A curious detail of the scheme on the east wall is a small painted panel preserved beneath the right-hand window (Fig. 33). On this are delineated two birds, peacocks, or similar birds of Paradise, affronted either side of a large chalice with full bowl and sweeping conical base101. These figures are sketched in grisaille, in greyish-black against a greenish-grey ground. The effect is of chance images formed in the natural veining of polished stone, in a marble like Carystian green cipollino. If this was indeed the desired intent of the painter, it would accord with a fascination for the presence of natural mimetic images in patterned marble, and their reproduction in paint, for which there is widespread evidence from Late Antiquity and the early medieval period102. A feature of the scheme of decoration is a line of written text or texts in white capital letters running between the figural register above and the Goll, Exner, Hirsch 2007, figs. 30, 83 84k, 102k, 112k. Peduto, Mauro 1990, p. 23, figs. 4,12, 13; Orabona 2006, p. 14. 101 BertelIi 1988b, figs. 7–8. 102 Barry 2007; Mitchell 2012. 99

100

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dado register below, preserved in part on the east and south walls (Fig. 34), There may originally have been elements of inscription at this level on the other two walls; however, to judge from the preserved surfaces, it is unlikely that this band of white characters continued uninterrupted round the entire room. Lone words, parts of words and letters are preserved but insufficient to afford a sense of the tenor of the text. A second visual focus in the room, now sadly ruined and faded, met the eyes of the visitor at the centre of the north wall, between the two windows, immediately opposite the entrance door. Here a tall panel carrying a long painted inscription stood between two figures; on the right the large figure of an ecclesiastic, to judge from his stole, possibly an archbishop, who may once have held up the inscribed scroll; on the left a much smaller figure, a male in long apostolic tunic and sandals, with feet set 0.43 m above the lower border of this panel. The upper parts of these figures are lost and the letters of the inscription, in white on a purple ground, are fragmentary and faded beyond the limits of decipherability. This panel, emphasized in the dado below by a disc with polychrome sectors and flanked by prominent vertical vine-trails, is likely to have marked the dedication of the chamber as a sacred space, the larger figure possibly the presiding ecclesiastical authority, the smaller perhaps the material benefactor, although his dress is not easily accounted for. Much of the plaster on this north wall, facing the entrance, has been lost, but a surviving passage at the far left, western end, preserves the remains of what would appear to have been another focus, in this case devotional. Immediately to the left of the left-hand window, a fragment of the lower right section of a red aureole is preserved with the emerging head and forequarters of a lion holding a bejewelled book in its paws. Elements of the lower right-hand side of a throne or a seated figure, in brown, are visible within the frame of the aureole. This is the remains of a composition, quite widespread throughout the Mediterranean basin in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, consisting of the figure of Christ seated within an aureole, with the four apocalyptic beasts/symbols of the Evangelists emerging from behind on the diagonal axes103. The scheme was used from Hosios David at Thessaloniki in the 5th century104 to the chapels of the monastery of St Grabar 1957, pp. 219–222; 234–248; Lafontaine-Dosogne 1968, pp. 135–143. Hoddinott 1963, pp. 175–179, colour plates VI–VII, plate 48 ; Wisskirchen 1996; lacobini 2000, pp. 173–178, figs. 64–66. 103 104

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Apollo at Bawit on the Nile in the late 6th and early 7th century105, from the sarcophagus of bishop Agilbert at Jouarre, near Paris106, in the late 7th century, to an elite funerary oratory in the amphitheatre at Durres/Durazzo, in modern Albania, in the 11th century107. The position of this north wall immediately opposite the entrance, and the presence of the prominent dedicatory inscription with donors at its midpoint, suggest that this was possibly second only to the east wall in focal significance and rank, of the four walls of the chamber. The theophanic composition at its western end marks a devotional station, and possibly implies the presence of some article of related devotional furniture. Another rather different devotional station is attested by the composition on the southern, entrance wall, to the west, the right, of the door (Fig. 35), Here the Mother of God, holding the child Christ, stands at the head of a line of saints: first a virgin martyr, holding her crown and a little cross, then an ecclesiastic, a deacon, dressed in a dalmatic and holding a book, then two sainted bishops. The Mother of God inclines slightly to the left and stretches out her right hand to receive a candle, offered to her by the considerably smaller figure of a standing woman, clearly a donor and major benefactor of the monastery. To judge from her dress, a yellow over-garment, drawn up over her head, with tight sleeves, worn over a long red tunic, this was not a member of the monastic community but a lay-person. Closely framing her head is what appears to be a so-called square halo, in yellow, marking the image as a contemporary portrait of an individual of standing. Behind this lady, to the left is a frontal male martyr saint in court dress, long chlamys, short tunic, white hose and black slippers, with his jewelled crown in hand. These figures are all depicted within a framed field. The courtly male martyr is shown extending his right arm and laying his hand on the head of a further figure, far shorter, who stands outside the frame, immediately flanking the entrance door. This individual is vested as a bishop in long tunic and chasuble, with a richly embroidered stole emerging from the skirt of the chasuble and hanging down over his legs. He holds a scroll or book in his hand. His head is now largely lost but it is clear that he had no halo. This would appear to be the portrait of another donor or at least a ranking ecclesiastic with a particular interest in the community at Torba. lacobini 2000, figs. 16,18, 20, 22, 35. Hubert, Porcher, Volbach 1969, ill. 89. 107 Bowes, Mitchell 2009, pp. 580, 583, fig. 7. 105 106

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On the other side of the door and extending over the entrance is a further group of figures, to judge from one partly preserved head, haloed saints. These turn towards the left and so presumably to Christ on the adjacent east wall. For the most part only their legs and feet are preserved, dressed in carefully painted long tunics, with brilliant red clavi and ornamented with particularly richly embroidered broad vertical bands. It is unclear who is being distinguished here; martyrs have been proposed108. The west wall is given over to ranks of frontal figures, ranged about the single axial window on this side of the room, now closed with masonry. To the left, south, of the window are eight male saints, with panels of marbled dado below: looking from the central window, a metropolitan followed by another ranking ecclesiastic, a young eremitic, a figure in court attire, two ecclesiastics, one of whom is bearded, and finally two more aristocratic aulic saints, vested in chlamys and richly apparelled tunics. To the right north, of the window are eight female saints, the first retaining an identifying inscription in white characters, S. Eufemia; these are poorly preserved and hard to characterize more exactly, some dressed in monastic habits, others in richly ornamented courtly attire. Below each of these saints, at dado level, is depicted the frontal figure of a female monastic, eight in all, dressed in dark habits, drawn up over the head, one hand raised in a gesture of intercessory prayer, the other holding up a small cross (Fig. 36), The saints above may represent the name patrons of the nuns below, who, it has been suggested could represent the full community of the monastery at the time109. To judge from the disposition of the painted imagery, the room was designed to serve as a chapel, with its principal focus on the east wall. There Christ, with the apostles, in generic reference to the Last Judgement, with the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist in the central group as pre-eminent intercessors for mankind, were arrayed above a dado of variously embellished vela. Presumably a small altar stood in front of this wall. On the west wall, opposite, a range of male and female saints, segregated right and left, stood facing Christ and his co-inquisitors, in exemplary attendance, and below the female saints members of the community at Torba were portrayed in prayer, calling on their celestial patrons to intercede with Christ for their own elevation and preservation and for the health and salvation of the benefactors of the monastery. A group of saints, possibly martyrs, with particularly richly 108 109

BertelIi 1988b, p. 26. Lomartire 1992, p. 215.

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embellished clothing, to the left of the entrance door, on the south wall, seem to participate in this action, maybe representing the interests of highranking patrons of the community. There were two other focuses; one with the Mother of God with the Christ child and a company of saints, receiving a candle offered by a suppliant female donor, and another with a vision of Christ enthroned in an aureole surrounded by the apocalyptic creatures of the four evangelists. In what ways each of these functioned as independent devotional stations for the nuns and their guests is hard to determine. A striking feature of the painted programme is the number and the variety of portrait images of contemporary individuals, ecclesiastics, lay men and women, as well as members of the Torba community: the tall ecclesiastic accompanied by a smaller figure in apostolic tunic flanking the axial inscription, probably dedicatory, on the north wall, opposite the entrance; the bishop or priest, sponsored by a tall male saint in court attire, immediately to the right of the entrance door; the lady offering a candle to the Virgin and child, to the right of the door on this same wall; and the eight nuns on the west wall. The spirit of memorial is exceptionally strong here; portraits commemorating living or recently deceased individuals are a characteristic feature of funerary contexts, in the early medieval period — witness the oratory of Theodotus at S. Maria Antiqua in Rome and the Crypt of Epyphanius at S. Vincenzo al Volturno110. The room with its emphatic focus on epiphany, judgement, intercession and memorial has all the characteristics of a chapel intended for commemorative masses and prayer in a funerary context. As with the lower chamber, the date of this elaborate pictorial programme is not easy to determine. Carlo Bertelli, choosing his words with great care, while suggesting that the paintings in the upper chamber have an archaic, 8th-century, tenor about them — the beardless features of Christ and the standing figures rendered in quite straightforward fashion, without the mannerisms of outline and interior articulation of the draped body typical of pictorial practice in the later 8th and early 9th centuries in Italy — observes that this may not translate directly into an early date111. Saverio Lomartire accepts a date towards the end of the 8th century112.

Belting 1987; Mitchell 1993; Rettner 1995; Mitchell 1999a. Bertelli 1988b, pp. 41–45. 112 Lomartire 1994, p. 49. 110 111

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Indeed, the particular style of the painting is not easy to characterize or to place. There are few if any points of close acquaintance either with the paintings in the church of S. Maria foris portas, at Castelseprio itself, or with the aulic late Lombard tradition exemplified in the so-called Tempietto Longobardo at Cividale and in S. Salvatore in Brescia. However, these paintings can be situated in relation to the fragmentary remains in the lower chamber of the tower at Torba itself. First, one of the dado panels, at the southern end of the west wall, painted in imitation of a central disc of purple porphyry, ringed in white, and set within a rectangular field, parti-coloured red and yellow (Fig. 37), follows the same pattern as the two panels of the dado at the foot of the focal east wall in the lower chamber (Figs. 20 and 23). The version in the lower chamber is more ample in its proportions, more detailed in its articulation and somewhat more precise in execution. The panel in the chapel has the marks of a derivative of the dado in the lower room. Similarly, in the depiction of figures, the inclined head in the lower room (Fig. 22) is more delicately and finely rendered than those in the chapel (Fig. 38). The flesh tone used for faces in the upper chamber is a similar pale ochre but the dramatic and carefully orchestrated patterns of white lights and the delicate red or purple contouring lines defining features are not in evidence. The figures in the chapel are drawn quite flatly with little feel for volume or line. The same is the case with the painted inscriptions; the white letters are of the same type and design, but those of the epitaph set about a cross in the lower room are somewhat more elegantly formed than those in the chapel (Figs. 29–30 and 34). The paintings in the chapel, to a degree, belong to the same tradition but something of the elegance and style which must once have characterized the work in the lower chapel is absent. It would appear that the artists responsible for the chapel were trained in conventions which in some aspects were very close to the those evident in the lower chamber but in others different. It is likely that a certain distance separates the painted decoration of the two chambers. If the dating suggested above for the lower chamber is correct then the chapel is likely to have been decorated sometime later, perhaps in the second quarter of the 9th century. To judge from the painted schemes in the two chambers, the tower was restored by the monastic community at Torba, with the construction or possibly reconstruction of the two upper stories113, expressly for funerary

113

Lomartire 1992, p. 215.

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use, probably early in the 9th century. The lower room was designed as a place of individual commemoration, perhaps for the burial of prominent members of the monastery and possibly their preeminent patrons, the upper storey as a chapel for memorial masses, remembering and praying for the salvation of deceased sisters and benefactors. The tenor and function of the space is clear from the make-up of the pictorial programme on the walls, from the multiple portrait images of individuals associated with the monastery, and from the prominence of painted inscriptions. There is no reason to suppose that the chapel served initially as a major liturgical space for the regular use of the community, at a time before a proper church had been constructed114. It would appear to have been designed from the beginning as a corporate funerary oratory for the nuns and their patrons. We would like to thank Gian Pietro Brogiolo, Tom Brown, Marina De Marchi, Vincenzo Gheroldi, Jürg Goll, Saverio Lomartire and Michael Wolf, for help of various kinds in the preparation of this note.

114

Bertelli 1988b; Lomartire 1992, p. 216.

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VI Farfa Revisited: The Early Medieval Monastery Church 1 (with Sheila Gibson and Oliver J. Gilkes)

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ne of Richard Hodges’ major and lasting achievements during his tenure at the British School at Rome was to grasp the nettle of unpublished excavations. By the time he left the backlog was almost cleared (Otranto (Michaelides 1992), Gravina (Small 1992), Santa Cornelia, Santa Rufina and San Liberato in South Etruria (Christie 1991), Anguillara (Van der Noort and Whitehouse 2009)). Only one failed to fly: Farfa. Between 1978 and 1984, the British School at Rome had carried out a major sequence of excavations at the great Sabine monastery (Fig. l). The project had been conceived by David Whitehouse and Charles McClendon to examine the early stratified levels of a major early medieval site in Lazio, and the excavations were directed by Whitehouse, who had already made major contributions in the field of early medieval ceramics in the region (Whitehouse 1965). Interim reports were published (Donaldson, McClendon and Whitehouse 1980; McClendon and Whitehouse 1982; Newby 1991; Whitehouse 1984a, 1984b. See also McClendon 1987: 48–53). In 1992, given the lapse of time since the conclusion of the excavations, it was decided to take the opportunity to review the interpretation of the site. To this end, a further short season of excavation and survey was carried out in 1993, together with a review of the finds. Subsequently, in consultation with site-directors from the earlier excavations, a draft final report on the 1978–84 seasons was prepared. However, this was judged inconclusive and the site incapable

1

64.

An earlier version of this essay appeared in Archeologia Medievale XXII (1995): 343–

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1. Plan of the monastic complex at Farfa (Drawing: Karen Francis).

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of clear and comprehensive elucidation without a major further campaign of excavation. This was impracticable at the time and the publication was shelved. However, the reassessment in 1993 resulted in a re-interpretation of the early medieval phases of the abbey church, in particular as regards its orientation and dating, and a short paper on this was published (Gilkes and Mitchell 1995). While not pretending to be definitive, this challenged the prevailing understanding of the church and the model presented in 1984. The present study is a reworking of that paper. The physical remains of the medieval church at Farfa have suffered heavily from almost continuous occupation and development of the site since the 8th century (Fig. 2). The best-preserved section comprises the 11th-century campanile, originally one of a pair separated by a tall intervening bay, and the great rectangular structure — for convenience here called the counter-choir — which projected from the central bay out to the east (Fig. 3) (McClendon 1987: Figs. 10–11, Pl. 19). Elements of the nave, its flanking walls and parts of its splendid early pavement have also survived. At the western end of the church there is an apse with an annular crypt brought to light during excavations in the 1920s and ’30s, and associated flanking transepts found in the early 1960s (Croquison 1938; Markthaler 1928; Pertica 1962; VII settimana dei Musei 1964). Further elements of the early medieval complex were revealed to the west of the apse in the 1980s by archaeologists from the British School at Rome. The fragmentary and equivocal nature of the material remains renders the task of identifying the various parts of the structure and elucidating its phasing extremely difficult. The evidence is by no means straightforward. Despite over 100 years of research at the site, the precise form of the early church and the general topography of the early medieval monastic complex remain open to question and reinterpretation. Ildefonso Schuster was the first to recognize the eastern campanile as belonging to a medieval phase of the church (Schuster 1921; McClendon 1987: 20). He identified the lower section of this tower, together with its early painted decoration, with an oratory and crypt dedicated to the Saviour which Abbot Sichardus (830–42) is recorded as having constructed in the 830s. Sichardus’ foundation is referred to by Gregory of Catino in his Constructio monasterii farfensis: nam oratorium hoc quod cernimus in honorem Domini Salvatoris, adiunctum aecclesiae sanctae Marie, ipse construxit cripta deorssum, ubi corpora sanctorum Valentini et Hylarii martyrum de Tuscie

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2. Plan of the remains of the early medieval monastic church (Drawing: Karen Francis, Oliver J. Gilkes and Bea Leal). 3. Eastern counter choir and north bell-tower from south (Photo: after Pistilli 2015: 46).

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partibus translata, cum corpore sancti Alexandri sancte Felicitatis filii coniuncta, honorifice sepelivit (Constructio monasterii farfensis ch, xii: Chronicon farfense I, 21–22) For the oratory which we hold in honour of the Saviour he built joined to the church of St. Mary, with a crypt below in which he honorifically buried the bodies of the holy martyrs, Valentine and Hilary, translated from Tuscany, together with the body of Saint Alexander, the son of Saint Felicity (translation adapted from McClendon 1987: 7). In the 1920s Paul Markthaler undertook a detailed structural and archaeological investigation of the church (Markthaler 1928; McClendon 1987: 20–1). His findings supported Schuster’s identification of the base of the bell-tower with Sichardus’ early 9th-century oratory, although he assigned its painted decoration to a later period. Markthaler also followed Schuster in associating the rectangular eastern block and its exterior banded arcading with an early medieval phase of construction. This structure runs out to the east of the north tower, abutting its south east corner. Furthermore, during excavations at the opposite, western, end of the church, he recovered the remains of an apse containing an annular crypt (Croquison 1938:47). Don Giuseppe Croquison took the argument a stage further with his excavations at Farfa during the 1930s (Croquison 1938; McClendon 1987: 21–2). He followed Schuster and Markthaler in identifying the base of the bell tower with Sichardus’ oratory, which he believed formed part of a larger 9th-century complex. However, he recognized the eastern counter-choir with its banded articulation as 11th-century work and part of an extensive restructuring of the old Sichardian complex at the east end of the church, in which the two bell-towers were built as part of a kind of transept, with projecting rectangular counter-choir. Croquison proposed that the apse and annular crypt discovered by Markthaler belonged to the sanctuary-end of the early church, believing them to predate Sichardus’ oratory and crypt at the eastern entrance end of the complex. This interpretation remained unquestioned until the 1970s. Between 1959 and 1962 the Soprintendenza Archeologica del Lazio carried out a further campaign of excavations at Farfa (Gaudenzi 1985; McClendon 1987: 22–3). During the reopening and roofing of the western apse and its crypt, the archaeologists of the Soprintendenza discovered a transept associated with the apse, which had not been identified by Markthaler. Further excavations

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in the nave of the subsequent 15th-century church revealed a number of early walls, the remains of a late 8-/ 9th-century opus alexandrinum pavement and a section of an early medieval wall which had been painted on both sides. This fragment of wall had been preserved, encased within the fabric of the principal altar of the new church. These excavations demonstrated that the early medieval church consisted of a single nave, without the flanking aisles which Markthaler and Croquison had believed to have existed (Croquison 1938: Pl. opp. 70). Further studies of the church were published in the 1960s and 70s (Franciosa 1964; Pietrangeli 1970; Prandi 1976; Premoli 1976). In the 1970s and early 1980s, Charles McClendon undertook a thorough re-examination of all the surviving remains, which led him to revise radically all previous hypotheses. He argued that the early church had been entered from the west, not from the east as Markthaler and Croquison had believed, and that the principal sanctuary was located at the east end (McClendon 1987: 57–62). Furthermore, he showed that the eastern complex is out of alignment with the nave and the western apse and on this basis he attributed the eastern structures to a later phase of construction. McClendon identified the western apse as a transeptual oratory with ring crypt added to the early church in the 830s by Abbot Sichardus, the crypt being the one which Sichardus is recorded as having built to receive the remains of the martyrs Valentine, Hilary and Alexander. Taking his interpretation still further, he saw the archaeological evidence as indicting that under Sichardus an atrium was laid out to the west of the apse and crypt, presumably giving access to the church via stairs leading up into the transepts, although he does not directly address the problem of the western entrance into the church. He concluded that some two centuries later the original eastern apse and sanctuary were replaced by a large rectangular presbytery flanked by two bell-towers. In essence, McClendon proposed that under Sichardus the Farfa church became double-ended — a configuration well-known in northern Europe during the Carolingian period — its sanctuary with the principal altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary at the east end and a second apsidal focus at the western end, with transept and underlying annular crypt, dedicated to the Saviour (Lobbedey 1986: I, 150–7; McClendon 1987: 54–75). In a lecture given at Farfa in October 1993, McClendon cited as a close contemporary parallel the early church at Paderborn where, in the mid-830s, bishop Badurad added a large transept and apse with a ring-crypt to the western, entrance-end of the existing cathedral church (Lobbedey 1996 I: Fig. 20; 1990: Ill. 7).

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McClendon’s interpretation of the evidence and his understanding of the disposition and orientation of the early medieval church has found general acceptance (Acconci 2015; Betti 2015, with reservations; Curzi 1995; Pistilli 2015). However, a reconsideration of the questions raised by the surviving evidence, both standing and archaeological, undertaken in the course of the excavations and survey in 1993, suggested that the orientation and analysis of the church first proposed by Markthaler and Croquison was in some essential aspects correct. That is, the early medieval church was indeed oriented to the west, where its principal cult-focus lay within the apse enclosing a ring-crypt and set within a transept. The principal entrance is likely to have been at the east end where, some two and a half centuries later, the still extant large eastern counterchoir and two adjoining bell-towers were erected. The evidence from three areas will be considered in turn: first, the eastern complex comprising the 11th-century north bell-tower and the adjoining rectangular choir; second, the nave of the church; third, the western transept, apse and crypt. The eastern complex Markthaler’s excavations below the pavement of the northern bell-tower revealed a wall running east-west, with the remains of a dado painted on its northern face (Figs. 2A and 4) (Croquison 1938: 43, Fig. 4; McClendon 1987: Figs. 2 and 8, Pls. 45a–c; Valenti 1985: Figs. 1–2). The painting appears to be early medieval, datable to the 8th or the 9th century. The painted plaster is bisected at one point by a vertical scar, 100–120mm in width. The painting to the west of this point consists of a double velum; the lower one running uninterrupted, while the upper velum is bordered at the left (east) by a vertical dentated varicoloured band, in blue, white, ochre and red. The second upper velum is painted with an element of illusion to indicate billowing gatherings between suspension points; it has a delicate lower fringe, and the tail of a peacock at the left-hand edge shows that it carried a scheme of motifs (McClendon 1987: Pl. 45c). This passage of painting is richer and more elaborate than the scheme to the east of the vertical scar, where the painted surface is divided into two superimposed tiers of panels (McClendon 1987: 39–40, Pls. 45b–c). The lower panels are painted in imitation of inlaid marble revetment, with pale grey-blue diagonal veining accented with yellow, while the panels of the upper

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register contain a sequence of stylized foliate motifs rendered alternately in dull greenish-blue and yellow, and red and sedge-green. This wall may be interpreted as the remains of the south wall of a small but richly-appointed church or chapel. The sanctuary of this building would have been separated from the nave by a screen of stone panels — the vertical scar preserved in the painted surface marking the abutment of the screen with the wall (Valenti 1985: Fig. 2). It is likely that the sanctuary here was differentiated from the nave by its painted decoration. As described above, the painted decoration is richer on the western section of the surviving wall. Thus it may be surmised that the sanctuary lay to the west and the nave to the east. These fragments, as noted above, must have formed part of the south wall of a small church or chapel which stood immediately to the north of the east end of the abbeychurch of Santa Maria (McClendon 1987: Figs. 2 and 8). If the liturgical focus of this small church was situated at its west end it would seem likely that the adjacent main abbey church was similarly oriented. The remains of two major superimposed layers of painted decoration are preserved on the upper walls of the lofty rectangular 11th-century counterchoir. The first of these, very fragmentary, is from the original 11th-century scheme of decoration (Acconci 2015: 86); the other also fragmentary but more extensively preserved probably dates to the 12th century (Acconci 2015: 86–8, Fig. 34; Enckell Julliard 2008). Acconci has tentatively identified episodes from the infancy and life of the Virgin Mary, including the Dormition, or Death of the Virgin, in the upper registers of the betterpreserved later scheme (Acconci 2015:88–93). Lower down, Christ and the twelve apostles seated in judgement are shown on the east and south walls, with the jewelled walls of the Heavenly Jerusalem with large figures inside and a crowd of small monks, abbots and a bishop outside, in the same register on the north wall (Acconci 2015: 93–5, Figs. 49–52; Cantone 1985: Pl. 4; McClendon 1987: Pls. 64a, and 66). Versions of the Last Judgement and scenes associated with the Anastasis are sometimes found in the sanctuaries of churches in this period. The composition and iconography of the circular altar retable from San Gregorio Nazianzeno, in Rome (now in the Vatican Pinacoteca) provides a close parallel for aspects of the second-phase scheme in the eastern block at Farfa (Romano 2006: 45–55; Suchale 2002: 12–122). However, in Italy during the medieval period, scenes of the Last Judgement are found more commonly on the interior of the entrance-walls of churches. Such an arrangement can be seen at Sant’Angelo in Formis near Capua, in Torcello Cathedral, in

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4. Dado on north face of wall beneath northern bell-tower (Drawing: Will Bowden).

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5. Axonometric reconstruction of the western complex with north bell-tower and counter-choir (Drawing: after McClendon 1987: Fig. 11).

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6. Sections through the north bell-tower showing interior elevations of the four sides (Drawings: after McClendon 1987: Fig. 8).

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7. Plan showing elements of the pavement of the early medieval church (Soprintendenza per i Beni Ambientali e Architettonici del Lazio). 8. Fragment of early medieval pavement in the western transept of the 15th-century church, at the time of its discovery. D on Fig. 2 ( Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Ambientali e Architettonici del Lazio).

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9. Reconstruction of the west end of the early medieval church (Drawing: Sheila Gibson).

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10. Elevation of the western wall of the southern arm of the transept, Farfa (Drawing: Oliver J. Gilkes).

11. Plan of church and western enclosure (Drawing: Oliver J. Gilkes).

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12. Reconstruction of the western end of the church and of the enclosed area to the west as a cemetery (Drawing: Sheila Gibson).

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13. Scheme of painted decoration on the inner ambulatory wall of the annular crypt, with velum and remnants of narrative scenes above (Drawing: John Vickery).

14. Scene with reclining figure, of a martyr?; ambulatory of western annular crypt (Drawing: John Vickery).

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15. Reclining figure; ambulatory of western annular crypt (Photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Ambientali e Architettonici del Lazio).

16. Scene with figure rising from throne; ambulatory of western annular crypt (Drawing: John Vickery).

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17. Scene with figure stepping over stream; ambulatory of western annular crypt (Drawing: John Vickery).

18 Martyrdom of SS. Quiricus and Julitta, Oratory of Theodotus, S. Maria Antiqua, Rome, c. 750 ( Photo: John Mitchell).

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19. Dado with an imbricated design of overlapping tiles/scales, on the western wall of the southern arm of the transept, Farfa (Drawing: Karen Francis). 20. Fragment of epitaph of Abbot Probatus, died 781, Farfa, cloister wall (Photo: John Mitchell).

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Rome at San Giovanni a Porta Latina, in the chapel of Saint Sylvester at Santi Quattro Coronati and Santa Cecelia in Trastevere, and in the Arena Chapel in Padua. The earliest instance is to be found in the abbey church of St Johann at Müstair, built and decorated in the last quarter of the 8th century (Brenk 1966: 107–18, Figs. 30–4; Goll, Exner and Hirsch 2007: 105–7, 212–25) and there is reason to believe that a precedent from the mid-8th century in the same cultural region was on the west wall of the Lombard royal monastery church of San Salvatore at Brescia (Mitchell 2014: 172–3). Christ and his apostles seated in judgement would be apposite for the inner face of the entrance wall of a church in this period. The Dormition of the Virgin is also a scene often reserved for the entrance wall of a church — especially in the Byzantine eastern Mediterranean. Furthermore, with regard to the possible mariological programme in the counterchoir, it should be kept in mind that throughout the early Middle Ages, the Virgin, who for her exemplary humility has been lifted up, bodily assumed, to be Queen of Heaven, and exalted over the angels, was taken as the model for service leading to advancement, leading through her example to salvation and everlasting life. Consequently, images of the Virgin and episodes from her life are often depicted in commemorative funerary contexts (Deshman 1989; Mitchell 1995a: 100–2, 112–4). The architectural articulation of this eastern arm also militates against the traditional identification of the structure as the sanctuary of the medieval church (Fig. 5). The interior surfaces are articulated by slender engaged halfcolumns at the centre of each of the walls and in the four corners, and run up the full height of the walls. The presence of a half-column in the middle of the east wall appears to have caused the artist who designed the scheme of the Last Judgement in subsequent centuries to modify the traditional composition. Christ is usually shown as the central focus in such compositions. At Farfa he is located off-centre, to the right of the axial engaged half-column. As a result, insufficient space remained for the representations of the six apostles seated at Christ’s left hand and consequently these were set out on the eastern end of the adjacent south wall (Cantone 1985: Pls. 4 a and d). Such an awkward solution would be inappropriate in the context of the sanctuary of a church within a monastery of the importance enjoyed by Farfa during the period in question. Another factor which may have a bearing on the interpretation of this space is its illumination. The interior of the structure received little natural light. Originally there appear to have been four small windows, two in the

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north wall and two in the south wall (Cantone 1985: Fig. 3a; McClendon 1987: Figs. 10, 11, pls. 19, 49, 49, 51, 53; Pesci 1985: Pl. 2). McClendon suggests that the gloom may have been relieved by what little light filtered through from the central bay between the two towers, immediately to the west (McClendon 1987: 45–6, Figs. 10 and 11). Extra light would have been provided by artificial means. Nevertheless, it remains unlikely that there would have been an adequate and appropriate level of natural illumination for the sanctuary of a church of this status. To judge from the evidence of the painted decoration, it would appear that this eastern choir is unlikely to have housed the principal cult focus in the medieval period. On the same basis it is more likely that from the time of its construction until the rebuilding in the 15th century, the structure contained a secondary devotional or liturgical focus, at the entrance-end of the church. Such an interpretation might be called into question by the apparent lack of evidence for early doorways in the surviving structures at this end of the church. It could be claimed that there is no evidence for an entrance or an external doorway in the eastern rectangular choir or in the one surviving bell-tower, and that consequently this cannot have been the entrance-end of the church. This conclusion, however, would ignore the presence of a large arched niche in the east wall of the base of the surviving north tower (Figs. 2B and 6) (McClendon 1987: Figs. 8, 10 and 11, Pl. 35). This arched opening is clearly visible in the long corridor by which one now enters the interior of the monastery (McClendon 1987: Pl. 30). At some point the opening has been sealed with masonry. McClendon observed that the blocking is very similar to the masonry of the surrounding structure of the tower which is rendered in a distinctive opera listata. On this basis he concluded that the arch had been walled-up shortly after it was built (McClendon 1987: 36). Nevertheless, and as McClendon observed, the courses of the blocking are out of register with the surrounding masonry, suggesting that the blocking belongs to a subsequent phase. On the inside of the arch is a deep niche, plastered and painted with a yellow cross on a deep blue ground at the apex of the arch (McClendon 1987: Pl. 35). McClendon interprets this as a niche for an altar, inserted in the course of the 11th century when the arch was blocked. However, the cross does not seem to belong to the original scheme of the tower’s painted decoration. The layer of plaster on which the yellow cross is painted laps over the mid11th-century painted decoration (McClendon 1987: 44). Furthermore, the

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plastered surface of the jambs of this opening appear to continue beyond the rear wall of the niche towards the outer lip of the opening in the corridor to the east. There can be little doubt that this was originally a functioning major doorway which subsequently has been blocked. This entrance may well have been paired with a second such entrance in the south tower, now lost. It seems very possible that this doorway in the east wall of the north tower served as one of the principal entrances into the church, when the east end of the church was remodelled in the 11th century. If this arched portal and a similar doorway in the east wall of the no-longer existent southern tower were the principal entrances into the 11th-century church, then the high ground-floor interiors of the two towers were designed as vestibules, as transitional spaces between the porch and atrium outside and the tall bay between the towers, which in turn opened into the counter-choir to the east and the nave to the west (Fig. 5). The tall arched openings in the inward-facing sides of the towers opened directly onto the intervening bay, creating a kind of punctuated transept and a spatial continuum between the five continuous spaces — the two towers, the intervening bay, the counterchoir and the nave. If this reconstruction is correct, then visitors would have been confronted directly by whatever liturgical arrangements were in place in the counter-choir and possibly also by arrangements at a lower crypt level. Certain aspects of the 11th-century scheme of painted decoration within the north tower would appear to support this hypothesis (Fig. 6) (McClendon 1987: Fig. 8. On the paintings in the tower: Acconci 2015: 72–85; Enckell Julliard 2008; McClendon 1987: 34–6). The focus of the pictorial programme is provided by the decoration of the north wall, a version of Christ’s ascension (Acconci 2015: 64, Fig. ll). This is a large composition which must have covered much of the wall. The figure of Christ appears at the apex of the composition, ushered upwards by a company of angels. The scene is composed in such a way that it would have been clearly visible from the rectangular eastern arm of the church through the great arch which opened into the north tower (Cantone 1985: Fig. 1; McClendon 1987: Fig. 8). On the west wall of the tower, Christ is shown seated on a globe, his feet on Satan, flanked by angels (Acconci 2015: Fig. 15; McClendon 1987: Pl. 43; 2015: Fig. 15). This scene, more hierarchical and imposing than the ascension in its overall composition, faced the arched doorway in the east wall of the tower. This is the wall that would have confronted anyone entering the church through the arched door in the east side of the tower.

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On the intrados, the lower surfaces, of the great arch in the south wall of the tower, which opens into the axial counter-choir, two military saints on horseback are depicted, SS. George, Theodore or Demetrios. These were seen as having apotropaic sentinel powers and were not uncommonly represented in the vicinity of entrances where they stood guard over passage into a sacred space (Acconci 2015: 82). In short, the architectural features and articulation, the configuration of space, and the imagery of the pictorial programmes would seem to indicate that, from the 11th century onwards, the church was entered from its east end. Was the main entrance also located here in preceding centuries? The surviving archaeological evidence at this end of the building is unclear on this point; indeed it is largely lost. The nave There are two sets of evidence relating to the nave of the early medieval church. The first is the arrangement of the nave floor. Much of the late 8th- / 9th-century pavement survives and its remains have been the subject of a number of studies (Figs. 2 and 7) (Guidobaldi and Guidobaldi 1983: 477–85; McClendon 1980; McClendon 1987: Pls. 6a–b). The markedly linear effect of the east section of the floor would have acted as an effective visual device, drawing the visitor into the church or providing a highly visible ceremonial itinerary for celebrants. The central rota with its flanking chequerboard and geometric panels provides an unequivocal visual axis within the nave. The present nave floor retains the original split-level arrangement. Such a feature would have enhanced the visual effects of the pavement by physically subdividing the space within the church: at round about its midpoint there is a step, with the western half of the nave lower than the eastern half, and then a raised area at the far west end over the annular crypt. The effect would have been even more pronounced in the 11th century when steps were presumably introduced at the eastern end of the nave in order to give access to the raised level of the rectangular eastern arm and the flanking tower-vestibules (McClendon 1987: Figs. 3 and 4). The laying out of the church on a number of levels interconnected by flights of steps must have been visually arresting and presumably did much to underline the spatial and liturgical subdivision of its various parts. Further evidence for the nave of the early church is provided by a fragment of the original north wall. The wall survives beneath the modern

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altar; both sides are covered with a single layer of painted plaster (Fig. 2C) (Acconci 2015:68–72; Betti 2015:33; McClendon 1983,1987:54–7). On the basis of the scheme preserved on the southern face of the wall, the interior of the early medieval nave was gaily decorated with a dado painted in imitation of an ornate velum (Acconci 2015: Fig. 4; McClendon 1983: Fig. 1, 1987: Pls. 3 and 4; Valenti 1985: 48, Fig. 12). The exterior (northern) face of the wall retains the bust-figure of a bearded man set within a lunette. The frontal figure wears a square nimbus and is depicted in a gesture of invocation (Acconci 2015: Figs. 5–8; McClendon 1983: Figs. 2–3,1987: 54–6, Pl. 5; Valenti 1985: 48, Ill. 13). There is evidence to suggest that the image was originally flanked by a second painted lunette (McClendon 1983: Fig. 2; McClendon 1987: Pl. 5). A now fragmentary titulus identifies the image as the portrait of an abbot, and probably once gave the dates of his office. The inscription can be read: [...] VIR VEN(e)R(abilis) ABB(as) L[A? ...] // [...] S(an)C(t)O COENOBIO ANN(os) // [... obi]lT IN PACE XVIII [...] [...] that venerable man, Abbot L[a?...] // [...] in the sacred monastery years // [...] died in peace 18 [...] McClendon interpreted the image as a funerary portrait and part of the painted decoration of a sepulchral chapel constructed against the north wall of the church at this point. He identified the image as a likeness of Abbot Altbertus (786–90), the date of whose death he thought had been given in the titulus (McClendon 1983: 17). However, the first letter of the abbot’s name in the painted titulus is an L, while the second letter may be an A. The only known abbot of the early medieval monastery whose name began with these two letters was its almost mythical 5th-century founder, Laurentius of Syria (Chronicon farfense: I, 121–39; McClendon 1987: 5). Possible confirmation of an identification of this image with Laurentius comes from a document of 1604 recording the reconstruction of the high altar of the later church. The source describes how copper vases containing the remains of Laurentius and Thomas of Maurienne had been found beneath the altar; the reliquaries seem to have been discovered in front of painted images of the two abbots (Schuster 1907: 408; Valenti 1985:62–5, n. 12; Acconci 2015:71). If the surviving portrait is identified as Laurence, then presumably the second lunette contained an image of Thomas, who had effectually refounded the monastery in the last years of the 7th century (Chronicon farfense: I, 3–6; McClendon 1987:5). The two images would have been the principal

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devotional focuses in an external funerary oratory or space in which the monastery’s revered founders were commemorated. Though separate from the main body of the church, the oratory was connected liturgically to the nave during the medieval period by the provision of a devotional focus on the opposite (nave) side of the wall. It is probable that an altar was inserted at this point, standing beneath a canopy supported on two columns. During the 1959–62 restoration, a column base was found set into the original opus sectile pavement in this area. The focus appears to have been retained within the restructured Renaissance church: four mortared foundations straddling the painted wall-fragment from the early medieval church suggest that a ciborium once stood at this point, prior to the erection of the baroque altar. When the church was rebuilt in the late 15th century on a north-south axis, it was turned through ninety degrees, across and at right-angles to the early medieval nave, pivoting on the stone rota which formed the focal point of the 9th-century pavement. This later reorientation of the abbey church is so striking that one is tempted to suggest that it may have been formalising a pre-existing access from the southern side, perhaps even with its own secondary doorway. The axial rota was more or less in line with the ancient section of painted wall, which was retained as a relic within the fabric of the high altar (Fig. 2C). It would appear that the monks were anxious to maintain the relics and images of the monastery’s founders at the devotional and liturgical heart of the church. To which structural phase of the nave this section of painted wall belongs is uncertain. A stylistic analysis of its painted decoration would appear to provide the best available dating evidence. From an examination of the script of the painted titulus on the opposite flank of the wall, McClendon assigned the bust-figure to the second half of the 8th century (McClendon 1983: 17–20). However, Don Angelo Pantoni had observed that the script had characteristics of late 11th-century practice, and Julie Enckell Julliard has confirmed this (Enckell Julliard 2008: 44; Premoli 1974/5: 69, n. 31). Alessandra Acconci has proposed 11th-century Roman analogues for the velum painted on the opposite face of this wall; she tentatively associates both schemes of decoration to the restoration of the church in the course of the 10th century, after the return of the monastic community from exile following the sack of the monastery by Saracens in 897/8 (Acconci 2015: 72). From an examination of the surviving structure McClendon associated the painted wall with the nave of the church in its earliest surviving phase.

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Drawing attention to structural and relational irregularities — the difference in thickness between the foundations of the wall and those of the western transept and apse, the differing alignments of the north nave wall and the western apse, and the exceptional thickness of the foundations of the eastern walls of the transept at the junction with the nave — he argued that the western transept, apse and crypt were later additions to an existing nave (McClendon 1987:57). However, in the light of the reassessment of the dating of the painted surfaces on both faces of the wall-fragment, this judgement may need to be revisited. The early-medieval church is c. 34m long. In size it compares more favourably with the 8th-century abbey-church of San Martino at Monte Cassino (Pantoni 1973, plan at 99), the so-called ‘South Church’, the original 8th-century abbey-church of San Vincenzo al Volturno (Hodges and Mithen 1993: 182–3), and with Novalesa (Wataghin 1988: Fig. 3), than it does with the far grander expressions of the early 9th-century revival, such as abbot Joshua’s abbey-church of San Vincenzo Maggiore at San Vincenzo al Volturno (Hodges and Mitchell 1995), Santa Prassede in Rome (Goodson 2010: 116–22; Krautheimer 1980: 123–4), or with the great Carolingian monastic churches of the period. It fits quite happily with what we know of monastic churches in central Italy in the 8th century. The western complex — transept, annular crypt and western cemetery Critical to an understanding of the original arrangement of the western complex is a small area of 9th-century pavement preserved in the western transept of the Renaissance church. Though it has been relaid, a photograph and a plan made at the time of the restoration carried out between 1959 and 1962 show that it has been reset in more or less the same order in which it was found (Figs. 2D and 8) (Gilkes and Mitchell 1995: Figs. 3 and 5). The line of a screen is preserved by a single grey marble slab and an in-filled socket which may once have held an upright post or other support for the stone panels. Beyond this line, steps would have given access to the raised sanctuary platform situated above the western crypt. To the east of the line of the screen preserved in the area of pavement is a red porphyry disc (Fig. 9). This may have served to indicate the point of transition from the nave to the sanctuary. As originally conceived, the transept arms of the early-medieval church at Farfa were roughly equal in length, extending c. 4.35m from the central apse. The greater length of the southern arm noticed by McClendon

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(1987: 29–30) resulted from the addition of a construction of dressed stone, possibly a funerary chapel, during the later Middle Ages. No evidence survives for the floors of the transepts. These may have maintained the level of the nave. However, there is structural evidence to suggest that they were c. 0.60m below the pavement of the body of the church. In the west wall of the south transept an area of blocking is visible which may represent an early opening, giving access from the transept to a space out to the west (Figs. 2E, 9 and 10). If this opening is identified as a doorway, its threshold — and thus the floor level of the transept — clearly lay below the floor level of the nave. Such a configuration is not without parallel in the Sabina. A similar arrangement was to be adopted at the early-medieval church of Santa Maria in Vescovio, just 16km north of Farfa (Montagni and Pessa 1983: Figs. 18–21 and 23). There, the transept floors lay some 0.30–0.40m below the nave, providing an intermediate transitional level between the nave and the crypt. Doorways were set into the western faces of the transepts of Santa Maria in Vescovio, apparently to allow pilgrims and visitors to visit the relics in the crypt without causing disturbance to liturgical functions in the nave. At Vescovio, where the sanctuary is oriented, there is also a small secondary door in the east wall of the north transept arm which would correspond to the putative doorway in the west wall of the southern transept-arm at Farfa (Montagni and Pessa 1983: Fig. 19). Similar arrangements may have been deployed in certain of the large Carolingian churches north of the Alps. At Paderborn, in Bishop Badurad’s cathedral of the mid-830s, it has been proposed that there may have been major doorways in the ends of the two eastern transept-arms, affording pilgrims direct access to the shrine of St. Liborius (Lobbedey 1986: 3, ill. 476, 4, Rekonstruktion IIb; Lobbedey, 1990: 16, Fig. 7). A similar configuration may have been employed in Einhard’s basilica at Seligenstadt (Oswald, Schaefer and Sennhauser 1990:309–11). Likewise it is possible that the transepts of the early-medieval church of Farfa may have served as the principal means of access to the crypt for pilgrims; however, their imperfect preservation makes verification impossible. There is no existing hard evidence in the surviving fabric for major western entrances into the church by way of the transepts. Excavations showed that the area immediately to the west of the church was the site of a late-Roman enclosure. What occurred in this area during

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the early Middle Ages is crucial to understanding the orientation and arrangement of the church. In a number of aspects, the topography of the medieval church was determined by the presence of this late-Roman enclosure. It is clear that the earliest church did not occupy the full width of this space: the end of the south transept lay approximately lm within the enclosure-wall (Fig. ll). Had the same situation occurred on the north side of the church, two narrow flanking passages would have been created along its length. Later, the cemetery within the enclosure was extended with the insertion of graves into both of these possible passageways; the southern one was subsequently blocked with the erection of a mausoleum or funerary chapel. McClendon argued that this late-Roman space was redeveloped as an entrance-atrium affording access to the abbey-church, in the early medieval period (McClendon 1987: 74–5, Figs. 12–15, Pl. 75). One of the principal features in this area is an outer ambulatory which encircles the apse of the church. This is enclosed by an annular wall first discovered by Markthaler, some 2.30m to the west of the apse (Fig. 11) (Betti 2015: 36–9; Croquison 1938: Pl. opp. 70; McClendon 1987: 66–70). The southern end of the wall appears to have been bonded into the original structure of the southern transept at a point c. 0.75m from its southern end. This arrangement may have been repeated at the junction with the transept at the northern end of the ambulatory. The annular passageway may have been entered from the west through a number of doorways. The principal entrance may have been situated at the apex of the semi-circular wall, where there is evidence of an original opening which was subsequently blocked; other doorways may have been provided near the junctions with the transepts (McClendon 1987:52, Fig. 12, Pls. 75, 80 and 82). Thus if there was direct access to the church from the enclosure, this can have been only through doorways in the west transept walls, either directly or via the ambulatory. As we have seen, there is no evidence for apertures in the outer ends of the transept arms, outside the arc of the ambulatory. The only trace of an entrance within the ambulatory is provided by the blocking of a possible doorway in the west wall of the south transept, referred to above. If this does represent a route into the church via the ambulatory — and the evidence is by no means unequivocal — access was blocked prior to the 15th-century rebuilding. It is possible that the exterior ambulatory of the church at Farfa was accessible from within the church itself. The ambulatory of the 9th-century

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church of St. Kastor at Koblenz could be reached through the church (Jacobsen, Schaefer and Sennhauser 1991: 210–11). However, other more or less contemporary buildings are known not to have afforded the same communication, such as Einhard’s basilica at Seligenstadt (McClendon 1987: 162, n. 86; Oswald, Schaefer and Sennhauser 1990: 310) and the mid-8th-century ‘South Church’ at San Vincenzo al Volturno (Hodges and Mithen 1994: 134, Figs. 9:9, 54, 57). At Farfa, as we have seen, there is some evidence of a possible blocked doorway in the west wall of the southern transept, within the area of the ambulatory (Figs. 2E, 9 and 10). However, it is possible that this does not represent the original configuration, but rather is the result of a later medieval restructuring. No evidence survives for a corresponding opening into the north transept. Thus it is possible that one narrow route existed between the church and its ambulatory in the early phase. However, excavations in the area immediately west of the transept wall failed to identify any trace of the steps which would have been necessary to afford access to and entrance into the church by way of the transept. The original purpose for which the western exterior ambulatory was constructed is unclear. During subsequent phases it was used as a cemetery, presumably on account of its proximity to a major relic-deposit in the crypt. However, no burials appear to have been inserted within the ambulatory before the 10th century. Had it been a funerary chamber in its earliest phase, it is likely that burials would have been deposited in sarcophagi located above ground, like the inhumations associated with the ambulatories at Saint Kastor in Koblenz and at Fulda (Heitz 1980: 100; McClendon 1987: 70–71). Indeed, a reused Roman sarcophagus was recovered from the ambulatory during the restorations carried out between 1959 and 1962, the so-called Battle Sarcophagus (Betti 2015: Fig. 12; McClendon 1987: 68–9, Pl. 85). The date of this reuse cannot be determined precisely, but is presumed to be medieval. Photographs taken at the time of its discovery (and now in the photographic archive of the Soprintendenza per i Beni Ambientali e Architettonici del Lazio) show the sarcophagus to have lain above the foundation level of the ambulatory wall. Therefore, it is more likely to have been placed free-standing on a surface rather than inserted within a grave deposit. No floor-levels have been identified within the ambulatory by any of the excavations in this area, and the surface of the interior wall retains no visible evidence to suggest that any pavement ever abutted against or was keyed into it. It would appear that the ambulatory corridor was unpaved.

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The graves inserted in the ambulatory during the 10th century contained the skeletons of a number of mature individuals. Pathological and gender analyses of the human remains show the cemetery to have served both male and female members of a community which enjoyed good health and long life expectancy. Extensive evidence of osteophytosis has been observed, suggesting that these individuals led active lives (pers. comm. Marshall Becker and Valerie Higgins). These would appear to have been burials of élite individuals other than monks, very possibly valued benefactors of the community, whose patronage was recognised and rewarded with burial in privileged locations within the monastic enclosure. The burials were deposited with such concentration that frequently later graves disturb earlier inhumations. The presence of block-built sarcophagi indicate that this was a place of high-status burial. That the western enclosure was of some importance may be apparent from the successive restructuring and aggrandisement of its west portal, initially with the addition of a small porch and later with the creation of a more substantial portico. Evidently this was intended as a significant, privileged entrance to the area and its cemetery (Fig. 12). The ambulatory may have been reserved for distinguished burials. The area behind the sanctuary of an abbey-church appears to have been a preferred site for the burial place of a monastic community. This was the general location of the monastic cemetery at Reichenau in the 9th century (Zettler 1988: 67–75, TA 12), and on the St. Gall Plan of c. 830 (Saint Gall, Stiftsbibliothek MS 1092; Horn and Born 1979: II, 210–13; Price 1982: xii, 10, 66–7). However, the cemetery behind the apse of the church at Farfa could have been reserved for the monastic community only in its earliest phases, as both male and female inhumations have been identified in post 10th-century levels in this area. On the other hand, the entrance-atrium or narthex of a church was a location of choice for prestigious burials in the early medieval period — Old St Peter’s in Rome (Borgolte 1989), the basilica at Paderborn in the late 8th century (Gai 1999: Abb. 1; Gai and Mecke 2004: 116–7, 122, Abb. 55, Fig. V.3.2), and the Crypt Church at San Vincenzo al Volturno of around 830 (Hodges, Mitchell and Gibson 1993: 56–68, Figs. 6:18–28), to cite just three instances. It is possible that the area to the west of the apse and ambulatory wall of the early church at Farfa was laid out as a funerary atrium of this kind, although it should be noted that no evidence for paving was found during the excavation of the area. Secular burials, particularly of patrons and

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benefactors, might be located in the atrium. There are exceptions to this, for example, at San Vincenzo al Volturno, where the monks were interred in block-built tombs in the funerary atrium in front of the principal monastic church (Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell 2011: 98–104), while a zone behind the church was given over to a cemetery for the lay community associated with the monastery (Coutts 1995). McClendon, as we have seen, saw this late-Roman space behind the western transepts and crypt as having been redeveloped as an entranceatrium, as the principal access to the abbey-church, in the early medieval period. However, the use and condition of the enclosure from the 10th century onwards does not favour the hypothesis that it acted as an entrance court for the early-medieval church. Following the fire of 898, only small areas appear to have been cleared, while during the 11th and 12th centuries the associated portico did receive some paving and the enclosure was filled with dumps of rubble resulting from the demolition of buildings in other parts of the monastery. The area remained in this condition throughout the later Middle Ages; there is no archaeological evidence that the rubble deposits were ever subsequently surfaced over. In short, it is difficult to imagine how this area could have functioned as an atrium and major route of access to the church in this condition. It is far more likely that the atrium and the principal entrance to the early medieval church were located at its east end, immediately to the east of the eastern counter-choir and twin bell-towers. That area has not been excavated. The complex of structures at the west end of the church at Farfa — the apse, crypt, transepts and ambulatory — are contemporary features of a major restructuring of the monastic enclosure. The architecture exhibits a number of features current in the medieval West. Though limited and frequently equivocal, the archaeological evidence seems to locate the construction of this complex in the second half of the 8th century. The best dating evidence for the annular crypt at Farfa is provided by its painted decoration. It is clear that the corridors of the crypt carried an elaborate programme of narrative scenes. Fragments of these can be made out on the outer wall of the annular corridor, preserved up to a height of 1.5m in places (Fig. 13) (Acconci 2015: 65–8; McClendon 1987: Pl. l). The lower wall is decorated with a painted imitation velum, rendered in a broad, painterly hand (Acconci 2015: Fig. 1; Betti 2015: Fig. 8; McClendon 1987: Pl. 12; Pesci 1985: Pl. 1; Valenti 1985: 111. 15). Above are the remains of a sequence of figural compositions set within prominent frames of red and

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black; fragments of six panels are preserved (Figs. 14–17). Little detail is visible, but it likely that the scenes consisted of episodes from the lives and passions of the saints whose remains were deposited in the crypt (McClendon 1987: Pl. 14; Pesci 1985: Pl. 1). In the northern quadrant of the crypt the first frame is occupied by the figure of a man dressed in a short tunic and shown reclining on his left arm and raising his right hand to his face (Figs. 14 and 15). To the right of the composition, behind the right leg of the figure, are what appear to be the lower parts of the trunks of two trees. The lower right-hand corner contains a rich purple rectangle upon which the figure rests. Despite the decayed condition of this passage of painting, the quality of its execution is apparent. The modelling of the figure is bold and assured, while the dramatic effect of foreshortening in which the figure is represented is skilfully executed. The dynamic spatial effect is enhanced by the arrangement of the figure’s feet either side of the frame, one obscured behind, the other projecting in front. In the next panel of the sequence (Fig. 16) a figure is shown dressed in a long red garment and a cloak which billows about his shoulders. He appears to rise from a throne and advance towards the reclining figure in the panel to the right. His tunic is fringed with a richly embellished and bejewelled hem. On the throne is a large red cushion, and before it stands a footstool decorated along its front face with an ornamental arcade of miniature blind arches and possibly also with jewelled settings. McClendon (1987: 31) identified the feet and the hem of the skirts of another figure in this panel, facing the figure advancing from the throne. This second person is no longer visible; indeed the composition interpreted by McClendon as a figure may have been part of the richly appointed throne. Like the wings of a diptych, between them the two scenes appear to form a larger composition. The subject may be interpreted as a scene of martyrdom, in which the figure on the left rises from a throne to pronounce judgement over the reclining figure of a martyr-saint shown in the panel opposite. Of the next panel to the south (Fig. 17) the bare leg and sandaled foot of a striding figure is preserved. The foot is set down by a meandering band which broadens into two pools and which describes a flowing stream. Only the dull orange underpainting of this passage is preserved. In the panels of the southern quadrant there are faint traces of a further three figural compositions. In the second panel the draperies of a figure shod with smart pointed shoes can be made out, apparently processing towards the right and possibly depicted in formal court dress.

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Notwithstanding the condition and poor legibility of the surviving wall paintings, this is clearly the work of an established school of mural painting; however, there are no obvious close parallels for these compositions among the small body of wall paintings known from early-medieval Europe, and they have little in common with painting in Rome from the first half of the 9th century — the episode of martyrdom is very different in design and execution from similar subjects represented in the north transept of S. Prassede in Rome c. 820 (Goodson 2005: Figs. II. A–C; Wilpert 1917: Pls. 202–4). The passage which describes a stream in the third panel of the sequence is similar in general terms to the stream shown in a painted version of the martyrdom of Saints Quiricus and Julitta in the funerary oratory of Theodotus in Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome, which dates from about 750 (Fig. 18) (Belting 1987: Ill. 7; Bordi 2016: 266; Romanelli-Nordhagen 1964: Pl. 36a; Wilpert 1917: Pl. 87). A rather awkward version of the same composition appears in a miniature depiction of Christ’s arrest in the Garden of Gethsemmane in the so-called Gospels of St. Augustine (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 286), a manuscript thought to originate from Rome and datable to the late 6th century (Wormald 1954: Pls. I, III and V). The reclining figure in the first panel is particularly striking for its foreshortening and projection. The practice of depicting limbs protruding illusionistically beyond the pictorial space of a scene occurs frequently during Late Antiquity; and the effect makes a dramatic entry in the work of the manuscript painters working for the Carolingian court in the later 8th and early 9th centuries. One of the earliest instances of this is to be seen in the Evangelistary of Godescalc, a book commissioned by Charlemagne c. 781–3 (Brenk 1994: Ills. 6–9; Hubert, Porcher and Volbach 1970: Ills. 64 and 65; Koehler 1958: Pls. lb, 2a and b, 3a; Wolter-von dem Knesebeck 2014: Abb. 5–9). In this book, the Evangelists’ symbols and their lecterns repeatedly overlap the frames, creating dramatic perspectival effects. A striking characteristic of artistic production at the Frankish court in the time of Charlemagne is the degree to which it can be seen to have appropriated ideas and models from Italian Lombard visual culture (Mitchell 1999; 2000: 361–8). One of the features assimilated by artists working at the Carolingian court was the enduring fascination which Lombard artists and patrons had had for polychrome three-dimensional patterns rendered in lateral perspective (Mitchell 2014: 178). Taking into account the strongly Italianate nature of the painting in the Godescalc lectionary, it is very possible

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that the perspectival effects achieved in this book may have derived from the same source. The spatial dynamism of the composition with the reclining man in the crypt at Farfa could be regarded as an expression of the same Lombard preoccupation with three-dimensional representation and tricks of pictorial illusion, here in the interests of dramatic psychological pictorial composition. In this case, the painting in the crypt may provide a rare example of an idiom which was in fact quite widespread in élite Lombard circles in 8th-century Italy (Mitchell 2014:192–8). In her recent analysis of the painted decoration of the early medieval church, Alessandra Acconci has argued for a date in the second half of the 8th century for these paintings, and Beatrice Premoli had also put them in the 8th century (Acconci 2015:65–7; Croquison 1938:50; Premoli 1976:24–30). Observers who studied the wall-surfaces of the crypt in the early and middle 20th century, when they were in a better state of preservation than they are now, reported seeing evidence of layers of painted plaster underlying the scheme with velum and narrative panels (Acconci 2015: 65–6; Croquison 1938: 48; Premoli 1976: 24–30).2 It is hard to know what to make of this, if a late 8th-century date for the existing programme is correct. The construction of a transept with ring-crypt at a date earlier than the second half of the century, in the present state of our knowledge, is possible, although crypts of this type become frequent, in Rome at any rate, in the late 8th and 9th centuries (Acconci 2015: 66; Goodson 2008: 428–30). Transepts are rare occurrences throughout this period (Goodson 2010: 87–9; Krautheimer 1942:1–3). Analysis of another feature of the crypt’s surviving painted decoration may add weight to an 8th-century dating. The dado decoration of the west wall of the southern stair-passage leading to the crypt has been interpreted as a painted imitation marble revetment of inset porphyry disks (McClendon 1987:31). However, closer examination of the fragmentary remains reveals an imbricated design of overlapping semicircular tiles or scales (Fig. 19). The compass-drawn guidelines incised into the fresh plaster can be seen clearly under raking light. The motif is common in Roman antiquity, but in the early Middle Ages it is known only from two other sites. One example is to be found on the façade of the southern Lombard church of Santa Sofia Some of these underlying traces are still visible by raking light — a single compassdrawn circle some 38cm in diameter in the area beneath the reclining figure in the first panel appears to be the trace of an abandoned first design for the dado. 2

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at Benevento, built by Duke Arichis II in the 760s (Hodges and Mitchell 1996: Ill. 4:69; Mitchell 1994: 943–4, Fig. 72; 1995b: 52–3); here the painted scheme may be contemporary with the building of the church. The same motif occurs at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, where it was deployed on benches and dados in buildings belonging to construction phases associated with Abbots Joshua and Talaricus, who were in office during the first two decades of the 9th century (Hodges and Mitchell 1995: 36, Fig. 3.12, Pl. 3:1; Mitchell 1994: Fig. 71, 943–4). In this detail, as in many other aspects of their artistic culture, the monks of San Vincenzo can be seen to be drawing inspiration from the southern Lombard courts at Benevento and Salerno. Ideas and motifs which had been current in the élite arts of the southern duchies in the second half of the 8th century were appropriated and redeployed within the monastery a generation or two later. The presence of this imbricated design in the crypt at Farfa may also be best explained as an assimilation from the vocabulary of late 8th-century Lombard court art. Consequently, the paintings in the crypt at Farfa can tentatively be assigned to the second half of the 8th century. Such archaeological evidence as exists is not at variance with a date in this period. A fragment of a lustre ware glass vessel from the fill of a pit immediately pre-dating the construction of the ambulatory, like the paintings, may be dated to the later 8th century (Newby 1991). The construction of the western end of the church, crypt and transept, is likely to be contemporary or a little earlier than these fragments of its pictorial decoration. If a late 8th-century date for the western structures at Farfa can be sustained, then this would be an early instance of a church with both transepts and ring-crypt, following the example of Old St Peter’s. These features are a limited but conspicuous aspect of church-building in Rome, centralsouthern Italy and transalpine Francia in the early 9th century (Goodson 2010: 81–90,129–36; Krautheimer 1942). Their appearance at Farfa may have been roughly contemporary with their introduction at the Frankish royal monastery of Saint Denis in the late 760s and early 770s (Heitz 1980: 22–3, Crosby 1987: 52; Wys 1996: Figs. 16–17). The ambitious programme of restructuring and aggrandisement of the church at Farfa must be seen against the background of the monastery’s position within the framework of the politics of central Italy during this period. The programme may be associated with the abbacy of Probatus (770–81). In this period, Farfa appears to have provided a fulcrum in the interactions between the Papacy, the Lombard duchy of Spoleto and the

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Frankish invaders (Noble 1984:130–1). During the first half of the 770s, the papacy and the Duchy of Spoleto had been in direct contention for control over the Sabina, and Farfa lay almost exactly on the border between the papal state to the west and the Duchy of Spoleto to the east (Noble 1984:156–9). The monastery, an old Lombard foundation with strong ties to the Spoletan court, would have been keen to exploit this conflict of interests. After 775, when Duke Hildeprand of Spoleto had sworn allegiance to Charlemagne and the Frankish king had granted the whole of the Sabina to the Pope, Farfa was engaged in maintaining its territorial independence and immunity from papal control (Noble 1984:156–9). In the period of Carolingian hegemony following 775, Farfa enjoyed a prosperity which would have enabled the monastery to undertake prestigious building projects (Costambeys 2007:153–6). Under Probatus the monastery received thirty donations from non-ducal patrons and nine benefactions from the duke, and an aqueduct was built, ensuring a plentiful supply of water to the monastery (Costambeys 2007:153; Chronicon farfense : 1, 160. Aqueduct: Regesto di Farfa: 91–2, Docs 99–101); and in 775 Farfa received a diploma from Charlemagne confirming its possessions and granting the community spiritual immunity (Costambeys 2007: 154, 323–5; McClendon 1987: 128–9; Noble 1984:157–8). It is not unlikely that the restructuring of the western end of the abbey-church belongs to the same phase of activity. The architecture of the structures and their painted decoration exhibit both Roman and Lombard currents (Mitchell 1994: 925), which might be taken as a tangible reflection of Farfa’s position between the competing polities of central Italy. The finely-cut letters of the epitaph on abbot Probabus’s gravestone bear witness to the level of cultural refinement and the ambitious nature of artistic endeavour at the monastery in this period (Fig. 20) (McClendon 1983: Fig. 8). This privileged position was not to endure, however. Upon the pact struck between the popes and the Carolingian court in 781, the year of Probatus’s death, the monastery lost substantial territorial advantage to the papacy, and with it the means to sustain its earlier grandeur (Noble 1984:157–9). The addition of the western complex to the church at Farfa may best be understood as an expression of the monastery’s desire to reinforce its position and its interests at a time of political uncertainty and transition. The monastery’s response to the changing circumstances was couched in terms of the ambitious cultural strategies and dramatic architectural display fashionable in the various Lombard courts in Italy in the 8th

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century (Mitchell 1994: 2000). Similarly, ambitious cultural strategies were formulated and deployed by the rival peer-polities of early-medieval Italy as they sought to out-do each another in their quest for political advantage (Mitchell 1994: 925–33, 950; Mitchell 1995b: 47–9 and passim). The architectural forms chosen for the west end of the church may have been intended to emulate Old Saint Peter’s, a recurring touchstone for ambitious church-building throughout the Middle Ages, and the most prestigious new churches appearing in Carolingian Francia, among them the royal abbeychurch of Saint-Denis. Conclusion As regards the function of the western end of the medieval church we have to select between two possible models; a principal western entrance way with atrium or a secondary space, a graveyard, albeit an elite one. Physically there is not a great deal of difference between the two, but in terms of function the two options have very different implications. On the basis of the available evidence it seems unlikely that the area excavated by the British School to the west of the church was the site of the atrium of the church and that the building was entered from this direction during the medieval period. Rather, this area would appear to have been the site of a high-status cemetery surrounded by open spaces and thoroughfares, and possibly, to the south, by the abbot’s palace, in a later era. As Markthaler and Croquison contended, it is likely that the principal entrance to the church lay at its east end. The only major doorway giving access to the medieval church which is now preserved is the blocked arched opening in the east wall of the 11th-century north bell-tower. The early medieval church at Farfa as far as we know was a simple structure with an aisleless nave approached from the east. In the later 8th century its western end was elaborated with a sanctuary flanked by transepts with a ring crypt beneath. The church was small by comparison with the great early 9th-century buildings of Rome (Krautheimer 1980:109–42), Monte Cassino (Pantoni 1973) and San Vincenzo al Voltumo (Hodges and Mitchell 1996; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell 2011). Its modest scale must have stood in marked contrast to the wealth of the monastery in the 9th century. However, its new sanctuary and west end were ambitiously grandiose and should be understood in the context of the climate of cultural and political rivalry in 8th-century Italy, which found expression in some

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rather remarkable monuments: in Duke Arichis’ church of Santa Sophia at Benevento, and his palace chapel of Saints Peter and Paul at Salerno, and, in the Duchy of Spoleto, in the church of San Salvatore at Spoleto and the Tempietto del Clitunno at Pissignano, and in the north in San Salvatore in Brescia and in Santa Maria in Valle, the so-called Tempietto Longobardo at Cividale (Mitchell 2000: 349–56). At Farfa, the proximity of Rome, the shadow of the papacy and the renown of Constantine’s basilica may have induced the monks to reference Old Saint Peter’s in the new sanctuary-end of their abbey-church. Where, then, was Abbot Sichardus’s elusive oratory and crypt, dedicated to the Saviour during the 830s? While Markthaler and Croquison were clearly incorrect in their identification of the lower storey of the bell tower as Sichardus’s crypt, it would seem very probable that the oratory and crypt were located at the eastern end of the church. As already noted, the pavement seems to have risen, possibly in stages, by c. 0.80m from the nave to the 11th-century rectangular eastern counter-choir, possibly indicating the presence of a chamber beneath the floor at this point. This is an idea which has been taken up by Tersilio Leggio who has argued for the existence of a crypt below the raised floor of the eastern complex (Leggio 1992: 60–1). Could this be the location of Sichardus’s crypt? Following the example of the 8th- and 9th-century Popes in Rome he may have devised this crypt not only as a depository for the relics of the martyrs, but also as a funerary oratory for himself. His surviving epitaph records, how he constructed with prudence and ordered elegance the structures around his tomb: ‘Hec loca prudenti construxit et ordine miro’ (McClendon 1987: 8, 129–30, Pl. 84) It was not uncommon during this period for a founder or a building abbot to choose the entrance to his church for his place of burial — for example, Angilbert at Centula (Hariulf 1894: 77–8) and Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno (Chronicon vulturnense 1: 287; Hodges, Mitchell and Leppard 2011: 98–104), and the Frankish emperor, Louis the Pious, at his monastery of St Cornelius, on the Inde, north of Aachen (Ermoldus Nigellus, In honorem Hludowici II: Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini 2: 489; Jacobsen 1983: 15; Oswald, Schaefer and Sennhauser 1990:160).3 3 Don Tommaso, one of the oldest monks in the early 1990s, who was already a member of the community at Farfa when Guiseppe Croquison conducted his excavations in the

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The extraordinary rectangular eastern choir, which is too dimly lit ever to have served as the presbytery of the church, would make some sense in this context. This structure, together with the flanking bell-towers, the lofty interiors of which were designed as entrance vestibules, joined with it via an intermediate axial bay in a spatial continuum via great arched openings, may constitute a major 11th-century rebuilding and re-elaboration of the second major cult focus in the church. This would have been a focus established by Sichardus himself in the 830s, in his oratory, over the resting places of the martyrs’ relics he had acquired for Farfa and over his own burial place. When the early Romanesque building was complete, Pope Nicholas II re-consecrated the two principal altars in the church on July 6th 1060, one dedicated to the Saviour, the other to the Virgin Mary (McClendon 1987:12, 78, 134–5; Regesto di Farfa: vol. 5, 291–2). The altar of the Virgin presumably lay in the sanctuary to the west, the principal focus of the church, while that of the Saviour, stood at the other end of the church, in the magnificent new eastern entrance complex, in the counter choir, built as a splendid replacement for the old oratory of Sichardus. There the brilliant painted imagery, with dramatically narrated moments from the life and death of the Virgin and the Last Judgement, would have vividly recreated the commemorative funerary ambience of the resting place of a revered abbot whose personality and works were still very much alive in the minds of the community. We would like to thank Bea Leal, Valentino Pace and especially Alessandra Acconci for their help in preparing this essay.

1930s, recalled vividly and with clarity having seen evidence of what he described as a large tomb chamber with an entrance leading down from the west, when the modern pavement of the eastern counter-choir was lifted (pers. comm.). It is worth noting here that during his campaign of excavations, Markthaler discovered a series of tombs below the bell tower (Markthaler 1928: 43). These could be burials of the same general period as Sichardus in a portico in front of the early medieval church.

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Brenk, B. 1994. ‘Schriftlichkeit und Bildlichkeit in der Hofschule Karls d. Gr’. In Testo e immagine nel’alto medioevo. XLI settimana di studio del centro italiano di studi sull‘alto medioevo, Spoleto 15–21 april 1993: 632– 91. Spoleto, CISAM. Cantone, R. 1985. ‘La decorazione pittorica’. In Farfa, storia du una fabbrica abbaziale, Mostra permanente – 1985. Abbazia di Farfa – Fara Sabina (Rieti): 99–128. Rome, Veutro Editore. Christie, N. 1991. Three South Etrurian Churches: Santa Cornelia, Santa Rufina and San Liberato. London, British School at Rome. Costambeys, M. 2007. Power and Patronage in Early Medieval Italy. Local Society, Italian Politics and the Abbey of Farfa, c. 700–900. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Coutts, C. M. 1995. ‘The hilltop cemetery’. In Hodges, R. (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 2: The 1980–86 Excavations Part II: 98–119. London, The British School at Rome. Croquison, J. 1938. ‘I problemi archeologici Farfensi’. Rivista di archeologia cristiana 15: 37–71. Crosby, S. M. 1987. The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis from its Beginnings to the Death of Suger, 475–1151. New Haven, Yale University Press. Curzi, G. 1995. ‘Farfa, Abbazia di’. In A. M. Romanini (ed.), Enciclopedia dell’Arte Medievale 6. Roma, Treccani. Deshman, R. 1989. ‘Servants of the Mother of God in Byzantine and medieval art’. Word and Image 5/1: 33–70. Donaldson, P., McClendon, C. and Whitehouse, D. 1980. ‘L’abbazia di Farfa: rapporto preliminare sugli scavi’. Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria 103: 5–12. Enckell Julliard, J. 2008. Au seuil du salut: les décors peints de l’avant-nef de Farfa en Sabine. Rome, Viella. Franciosa, N. 1964. L’abbazia imperiale di Farfa. Naples, F. Fiorentino. Gai, S. 1999. ‘Die Pfalz Karls des Grossen in Paderborn. Ihre Entwicklung von 777 bis zum Ende des 10. Jahrhunderts’. In C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds), 799. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn, Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Beiträge zum Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999:183–96. Mainz, Philipp von Zabern. Gai, S. and Mecke, B. 2004. Est locus insignis... Die Pfalz Kark des Grossen in Paderborn und ihre bauliche Entwicklung bis zum Jahre 1002. Mainz, Philipp von Zabern. Gaudenzi, L. 1985. ‘Gli interventi di restauro‘. In Farfa, storia du una

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fabbrica abbaziale, Mostra permanente – 1985. Abbazia di Farfa – Fara Sabina (Rieti): 77–97. Rome, Veutro Editore. Gilkes, O. and Mitchell, J. 1995. ‘The early medieval church at Farfa: its orientation and chronology’. Archeologia Medievale 22: 343–64. Goll, J., Exner, M. and Hirsch, S. 2007. Müstair. Le pitture parietali medievali nella chiesa del’abbazia. Müstair, Amici del’abbazia San Giovanni di Müstair. Goodson, C. 2005. ‘The relic translations of Paschal I: transforming city and cult’. In A. Hopkins and M. Wyke (eds), Roman Bodies, Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century: 123–41. Rome, The British School at Rome. Goodson, C. 2008. ‘La cripta anulare di San Vincenzo Maggiore nel contesto dell’architettura di epoca carolingia’. In F. Marazzi and F. De Rubeis (eds), Monasteri in Europa occidentale (secoli VIII–Xl), topografia e strutture. Atti del convegno intemazionale, Museo archeologico di Castel San Vincenzo settembre 2004: 425–42. Roma, Viella. Goodson, C. 2010. The Rome of Pope Paschal I: Papal Power, Urban Renovation, Church Rebuilding and Relic Translation, 817–824. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Guidobaldi, F. and Guidobaldi, A. G. 1983. Pavimenti marmorei di Roma dal IV al IX secolo. Studi di antichità christiana 36. Vatican City, Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana. Heitz, C. 1980. L’architecture religieuse carolingienne. Les forms et leurs functions. Paris, Picard. Hodges, R., Leppard, S. and Mitchell, J. 2011. San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops. London, The British School at Rome. Hodges, R., Mitchell, J and Gibson, S. 1993. ‘The Crypt Church’. In Hodges, R. (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1: The 1980–86 Excavations Part I: 40–74. London, The British School at Rome. Hodges, R. and Mitchell J. 1995. ‘The Assembly Room: part of the Lower Thoroughfare’. In Hodges, R. (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 2: The 1980–86 Excavations Part II: 26–65. London, The British School at Rome. Hodges, R. and Mitchell, J. 1996. The Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno. Monteroduni, Abbazia di Montecassino. Hodges, R. and Mithen, S. J. 1994. ‘The “South Church”: a later Roman funerary church (San Vincenzo Minore) and the hall for distinguished guests’. In Hodges, R. (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1: The 1980–86 Excavations Part I: 123–90. London, The British School at Rome.

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Horn, W. and Born, E. 1979. The Plan of St. Gall. A Study of the Architecture and Economy of, and Life in, a Paradigmatic Carolingian Monastery. 3 vols. Berkeley, University of California Press. Hubert, J., Porcher, J. and Volbach, W. F. 1970. The Carolingian Renaissance. New York, George Braziller. Jacobsen, W. 1983. ‘Benedikt von Aniane und die Architektur unter Ludwig dem Frommen zwischen 814 und 830’. In: A.A.Schmid (ed.) Atti del XXIV Congresso internazionale di Storia dell’Arte (Bologna, 10.18. September 1979), Bd. I: Riforma religiosa e arti nell’epoca carolingia, 15–22. Bologna, Editrice CLUEB. Jacobsen, W., Schaefer, L. and Sennhauser, H.-R. (eds) 1991. Vorromanische Kirchenbauten. Katalog der Denkmäler bis zum Ausgang der Ottonen. Nachtragsband. Munich, Prestel-Verlag. Koehler, W. 1958. Die karolingischen Miniaturen, II Die Hofschule Karls des Grossen. Berlin, Deutsche Verein für Kunstwissenschaft. Krautheimer, R. 1942. ‘The Carolingian revival of Early Christian architecture‘. Art Bulletin 24:1–38. Krautheimer, R. 1980. Rome. Profile of a City, 312–1308. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press. Leggio, T. 1992. Da Cures Sabina all’Abbazia di Farfa. Trasformazioni del paesaggio tra Tevere, Corese e Farfa dall’età romana al medioevo. Passo Corese, Lithografia Gallia. Lobbedey, U. 1986. Die Ausgrabungen im Dom zu Paderborn 198/80 und 1983. 4 vols. Bonn, Dr. Rudolf Habelt GMBH. Lobbedey, U. 1990. Der Paderbomer Dom. Vorgeschichte, Bau und Fortleben einer westfälische Bischofskirche. Munich, Deutscher Kunstverlag. Markthaler, P. 1928. ‘Sulle recenti scoperte nell’abbazia imperiale di Farfa‘. Rivista di archeologia cristiana 5: 39–88. McClendon, C. B. 1980. ‘The revival of opus sectile pavements in Rome and the vicinity in the Carolingian period’. The Papers of the British School at Rome 48:157–66. McClendon, C. 1983. ‘An early funerary portrait from the medieval abbey at Farfa’. Gesta 22/l: 13–26. McClendon, C. 1987. The Imperial Abbey of Farfa. Architectural Currents of the Early Middle Ages. New Haven and London, Yale University Press. MacClendon, C. and Whitehouse, D. 1982. ‘La badia di Farfa, Farfa in Sabina (Rieti). Terza note preliminare’. Archeologia medievale 9: 323–9. Michaelides, D. 1992. Excavations at Otranto. Lecce, Congedo editore.

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Mitchell, J. 1994. ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’. In Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo, XLI settimana di studio del centro italiano d studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto, 15–21 aprile 1993: 887– 954. Spoleto, CISAM. Mitchell, J. 1995a. ‘The crypt reappraised’. In R. Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1: The 1980–86 Excavations Part I: 75–114. London, The British School at Rome. Mitchell, J. 1995b. ‘Arichis und die Künste’. In H.-R. Meier, C. Jäggi and P. Büttner (eds), Für irdischen Ruhm und himmlischen Lohn. Stifter und Auftraggeber in der mittelalterlichen Kunst: 47–64. Berlin, Dietrich Reimer Verlag. Mitchell, J. 1999. ‘Karl der Grosse, Rom und das Vermächtnis der Langobarden’. In C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds), 799. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn. Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Beiträge zum Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999: 95–108. Mainz, Philipp von Zabern. Mitchell, J. 2000. ‘Artistic patronage and cultural strategies in Lombard Italy‘. In G. P. Brogiolo, N. Gauthier and N. Christie (eds), Towns and their Territories between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: 347– 70. Leiden, Brill. Mitchell, J. 2014. ‘The painted decoration of San Salvatore in context’. In G. P. Brogiolo and F. Morandini (eds), Dalla corte regia al monastero di San Salvatore – Santa Giulia di Brescia: 169–201. Mantua, SAP Società Archeologica SRL. Montagni, C, and Pessa, L. 1983. Le chiese romaniche della Sabina. Genoa, Sagep Editrice. Newby, M. 1991. ‘The glass from Farfa abbey. An interim report’. Journal of Glass Studies 33: 32–41. Noble, T. F. X. 1984. The Republic of St Peter: The Birth of the Papal State 680–823. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press. Oswald, F., Schaefer, L. and Sennnhauser, H.-R. 1990. Vorromanische Kirchenbauten. Katalog der Denkmäler bis zum Ausgang der Ottonen. Reprint. Munich, Prestel-Verlag. Pantoni, A. 1973. Le vicende della Basilica di Montecassino attraverso la documentazione archeologica Monte Cassino, Monaci di Montecassino. Pertica, D. 1962. ‘Recenti scavi all’abbazia di Farfa’. Il Cantiere 4:41–7 Pesci, P. 1985. ‘L’ambiente urbano’. In Farfa, storia du una fabbrica abbaziale, Mostra permanente – 1985. Abbazia di Farfa – Fara Sabina (Rieti): 15–29.

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Rome, Veutro Editore. Pietrangeli, C.1970. ‘L’abbazie di Farfa’. In C. d’Onofrio and C. Pietrangeli (eds), Abbazie del Lazio: 141–75. Rome. Pistilli, P. F. and Tabanelli, M. 2015. ‘La stagione del romanico, il coro orientale dell’abbaziale di Farfa e l’incompiuta basilica di S. Martino sul Monte Acuziano’. In I. Del Frate (ed.), Spazi della preghiera, spazi della bellezza il complesso abbaziale di Santa Maria di Farfa: 47–63. Rome, Palombi Editori. Prandi, A. 1976. ‘Osservazioni sull’abbazia di Farfa’. In Roma e l’età carolingia: 357–67 Rome, Multigrafica Editrice. Premoli, B. 1976. ‘La chiesa abbaziale di Farfa’. Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale d’Archeologia e Storia dì Arte 21–2: 5–77. Price, L. 1982. The Plan of St Gall in Brief. Berkeley, Los Angeles, University of California Press. Romanelli, P. and Nordhagen, P. J. 1964. Santa Maria Antiqua. Rome, Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato. Romano, S. 2006. Riforma e tradizione 1050–1198. La pittura medievale a Roma 312–1431, Corpus IV. Milan, Jaca Book. Schuster, 1.1907. ‘Spigolature farfensi 1.1 monumenti epigrafici’. Rivista storica benedettina 2: 402–15. Schuster, I. 1921. L’Imperiale abbazia di Farfa. Contributo allo studio del ducato romano nel medio evo. Rome, Tipografia poliglotta vaticana. Small, A. (ed.) 1992. Gravina: An Iron-Age and Republican Settlement on Botromagno, Gravina di Puglia. Excavations of 1968–1974. 2 vols. London, British School at Rome. Suckale, R. 2002. Das mittelalterliche Bild als Zeitzeuge. Berlin, Lukas Verlag. VII Settimana dei musei: Tutela e valorizzazione del patrimonio artistico di Roma e del Lazio. Roma, Palazzo Venezia, 12–19 aprile 1964: 122–35. Valenti, M. 1985. ‘Il complesso abbaziale’. In Farfa, storia di una fabbrica abbaziale, Mostra permanente – 1985. Abbazia di Farfa – Fara Sabina (Rieti): 33–57. Rome, Veutro Editore. Van der Noort, R. and Whitehouse, D. 2009. ‘Excavations at Le Mura di Santo Stefano, Anguillara Sabazia’. Papers of the British School at Rome 77:159–223. Wataghin, G. C. 1988. ‘L’abbazia di Novalesa alla luce delle indagini archeologiche: verifiche e problemi’. In Dal Piemonte all’Europa: Esperienze monastiche nella società medievale (XXXIV congresso storico subalpino 1985): 569–85. Turin, Deputazione Subalpina di Storia Patria.

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Whitehouse, D. 1965. ‘Forum ware: a distinctive type of early medieval glazed pottery in the Roman Campagna’. Medieval Archaeology 9: 55–63. Whitehouse, D. 1984a. ‘Farfa abbey: the eighth and ninth centuries’. Arte Medievale 2: 245–55. Whitehouse, D. 1984b. ‘L’abbazia di Farfa: VIII e IX secolo’. Archeologia Laziale 6: 289–93. Wilpert, J. 1917. Die römischen Mosaiken und Malereien der kirchlichen Bauten vom IV. bis XIII. Jahrhundert, vol. 4. Freiburg im Breisgau, Herder. Wolter-von dem Knesebeck, H. 2014: ‘Godescalc, Dagulf und Demetrius. Überlegungen zu den Buchkünstlern am Hof Karls des Grossen und ihrem Selbstverständnis’. In P. Van den Brink and S. Ayooghi (eds), Karl der Grosse: Karls Kunst: 30–45. Dresden, Sandstein Verlag. Wormald, F. 1954. The Miniatures in the Gospels of St. Augustine. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Wys, M. 1996. Atlas historiques de Saint-Denis. Des origines aux XVIIIe siècle. Paris, Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. Zettler, A. 1988. Die frühen Klosterbauten der Reichenau. Sigmaringen, Thorbecke.

San Vincenzo al Volturno

VII Literacy Displayed: The Use of Inscriptions at the Monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the Early Ninth Century

T

he monastery of San Vincenzo on the Volturno is situated at the head of the Volturno valley, a little more than 1 kilometre distant from the source of the river. It lies some 25 kilometres north of the old Roman town of Venafrum, modern Venafro, and about 30 kilometres north-east of Montecassino, across the Mainarde range of mountains. Founded in the first years of the eighth century, by three young men of noble birth from Benevento, it grew in size and fame, and became, for a relatively short period, one of the great monasteries of Europe. Contemporary sources refer to the exceptional size of the community in the closing years of the eighth century.1 In the later ninth century its fortunes began to decline, and in 881 it was sacked by an army of Saracens from North Africa, which had been harrying much of southern Italy for more than twenty years. The monks returned to San Vincenzo in 914, after thirty-three years of exile in Capua. The damaged buildings were gradually repaired and reconstructed, but the monastery Pope Hadrian I, in a letter to Charlemagne of 784, refers to the community at San Vincenzo as ‘tam magnam congregationem’, Codex Carolinus: MGH Epp. merov. et karol. I (=MGH Epp. III. 66, p. 594); and Paul the Deacon, in his history of the Lombards, composed at the neighbouring monastery on Montecassino, probably in the 790s, writes that the monastery of San Vincenzo ‘nunc magna congregatione refulget’ (Lib. 6, ch. 40), ed. G. Waitz, MGH SS rerum Langobardicanim, p. 179; Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, trans. W.D. Foulke (Philadelphia, 1907; new edn, Philadelphia, 1974), p. 283. In the early twelfth-century chronicle of San Vincenzo, it is recorded that either 500 or 900 souls were killed by the Saracen war-band which sacked the monastery in October 881. This number is said to have included the inmates of various monasteries and cells subject to San Vincenzo, who had gathered at the main monastery, presumably for protection (Chron. Vult., I, p. 368). 1

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never regained its former size and reputation. Finally, in the later eleventh century new monastic buildings were erected, and subsequently, under the Abbots Gerard and Benedict the main abbey church of San Vincenzo was completely rebuilt.2 Until recently it was assumed that the monastery of the eighth to the eleventh centuries occupied the same site as its successor of the eleventh to the twelfth centuries, a somewhat elevated position in a bow of the Volturno, protected by deep rock-cut ditches on two sides, and by the river gorge to the east, and that the material evidence for its principal church and buildings had been utterly destroyed in the process of reconstruction.3 However, excavations carried out during the years 1980–5 have demonstrated conclusively that the early monastery was, in fact, situated about 300 metres to the west of the later abbey, on the opposite bank of the River Volturno, on the eastern slopes of a low hill, the modern Colle della Torre, and on the narrow strip of plain between the hill and the river (Fig. 1). According to the Chronicle, the three founders established their monastery on the site of an abandoned settlement, where there stood an old oratory, dedicated to St Vincent, reputedly built by the emperor Constantine.4 Three churches are recorded as having been constructed in the first half of the eighth century: San Vincenzo under the first abbot, Paldo (703?–20),5 Santa Maria Maior under his co-founder Taso (729–39)6 and San Pietro under Ato (739–60).7 During the following fifty years the rate of growth increased. A generation after Ato, Abbot Paul (783–92) founded the church of Santa Maria Minor,8 and some years later his successor Iosue (792–817) completely rebuilt the principal abbey church, San Vincenzo, as an aisled The new abbey church of Abbots Gerard and Benedict survived, radically altered and truncated, until the Second World War. It was completely rebuilt by the monks of Montecassino thirty years ago. Most of what is known of the early history of San Vincenzo al Volturno is contained in the chronicle of the monastery, which was compiled early in the twelfth century, and incorporates earlier material. There is an excellent modern edition: Chron. Vult. A good brief account of the early history of San Vincenzo is given by A. Pantoni, Le chiese e gli edifici del monastero di San Vincenzo al Volturno (Montecassino, 1980), pp. 17–25. 3 Pantoni, Le chiese, passim. 4 Chron. Vult., I, pp. Ill, 145–8. 5 Ibid., p. 145. 6 Ibid., p. 155. 7 Ibid., p. 162. 8 Ibid., p. 204. 2

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basilica with sixteen columns in each arcade.9 Under the Abbots Talaricus (817–23) and Epyphanius (824–42), four further churches were built, so that by the second quarter of the ninth century there were in all eight churches within the confines of the monastery.10 During this period of expansion, between the late 780s and 840s, in which six new churches were constructed, the number of donations and bequests made to the community, mostly gifts from the dukes of Benevento and from local Lombard landowners, greatly increased,11 and the new Frankish rulers of Italy, Charlemagne, and his son, Louis the Pious, seem to have taken a direct interest in San Vincenzo.12 The recent excavations have largely confirmed the evidence of the Chronicle (Fig. I).13 The early ninth-century monastery was quite small, and had been established among the ruins of a small fifth- to sixth-century estate centre, a villa rustica, situated on the north-east slopes of the hill, close to an old Roman bridge over the Volturno, which is still in use today. A fifthcentury funerary church, which had served this early Christian community, was repaired and refurbished, perhaps as the first conventual church dedicated to St Vincent. Various eighth-century phases of construction have been identified, but it was not until the last years of the century that major changes took place in the layout and the appearance of the monastery. In two phases of activity, it was completely redesigned, with new construction taking place on a massive scale. The first of these phases has been associated with the Abbots Paul (783–92) and Iosue (792–817), and the second phase can be assigned to the time of Epyphanius (824–42), who erected two churches, and whose portrait is featured in the painted crypt of a small church at the northern end of the site, the crypt church, which was remodelled during the second phase of construction (Fig. 2). During this half-century of building activity the monastery expanded to something like ten times its original size. In the first phase of expansion, the original nucleus was extended towards the south, and a new abbey church, a columnar basilica, was built Ibid., I, pp. 220–1. The date of its dedication is given as 808. Ibid., pp. 287, 288. 11 Ibid., passim. 12 Ibid., pp. 204–15, 218–43, 289–90; Codex Carolinus: MGH Epp. merov. et karol. I (=MGH Epp. II), 66 and 67, pp. 593–7. See below, pp. 223–4. 13 Interim reports on the excavations have appeared each year from 1981 to 1986 in Archeologia Medievale. A volume of preliminary studies on various aspects of the project was published in 1985 : San Vincenzo al Volturno: The Archaeology, Art and Territory of an Early Medieval Monastery, ed. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, BAR, International Series 252 (Oxford, 1985). The Final Report on the excavations is in preparation. 9

10

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1. San Vincenzo al Volturno, the site of the early mediaeval monastery (a) (above) overall plan (b) (below) detail of main excavated buildings.

on an artificially constructed platform at the south-eastern corner of the hill, providing a new focus for the monastery. In the area of the late antique settlement to the north, an elevated guest hall, with a chapel at one end, was erected in the shell of the old funerary church, and immediately to the south of this an old garden atrium was remodelled with elegant columned porticos on two sides, and a refectory for distinguished guests on the side towards the river. Fronting this garden, to the west, was a splendid entrance hall, a building with arched and pilastered façade, containing a large staircase, which provided access to the raised guest hall and to ranges of buildings on the lowest slope of the hill behind. To the south, lay a great two-halled refectory, 33 metres long and 14 metres wide, with seating for about 450 monks. On the western side of this refectory, against the slope of the hill, was a long assembly room, with benches built against all its walls. This probably served as an ante-room for those about to dine, and may also have doubled up as a chapter-house. Beyond the refectory, in all probability, lay the kitchens, a large cloister, the dormitory and, to judge from extensive surface-scatter of building debris, a succession of further structures, all of which have yet to be excavated. In the second phase of construction, a long

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range of rooms and a substantial church were erected on the terraced slope of the hill overlooking these principal buildings, the guest hall at the northern end of the complex was rebuilt to a grander specification and provided with an inlaid marble floor and rich paintings on its walls, and the crypt church, to the north, was remodelled and embellished. On the middle slopes of the hill is the burial ground of the early mediaeval community, containing something in the order of 2,000 graves, and beyond this, on the summit, are the remains of another substantial structure, probably a church from the second phase. At the southern end of the hill, construction continued out

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on to the plain, and it was here that the monastery’s workshops were located. Abundant evidence of the manufacture of vessel- and window-glass and enamel and of fine metal-working has been excavated in this area.14 Surfacescatter indicates the presence of further extensive ranges of buildings far out on to the plain at this end of the complex. It is clear that, by the mid-ninth century, the monastery had evolved into a loosely structured concentration of churches, halls, cells, courts, passages and workshops extending over an area of about 6 hectares. Two things would have struck a ninth-century visitor to San Vincenzo with particular force. The first of these would have been the brightly painted surfaces of the plastered walls. The extent of the painted decoration of the monastery is remarkable. To judge from the recent excavations and survey of the site, it seems that nearly every interior wall-surface was painted, not only the walls of the churches and of the large communal rooms, like the monks’ refectory, the assembly room and the guest hall, but also the covered passages and porticos, and the individual cells of the ranges on the lower slopes of the hill. Even a building in the industrial area of the monastery, dating from the middle years of the century, which has been identified as the dwelling of the glass-master or the fine-metalsmith, had plastered walls with a simple decorative scheme of bands of colour.15 In the great majority of the excavated rooms from both of the ninthcentury phases of construction, the lower sections of the walls were ornamented with a dado painted in imitation of panels of polished stone revetment, with diagonal undulant veining endlessly repeating in sequences of stacked upright and inverted chevrons. This recalls the polished marble revetment of ancient Roman buildings, and of the more splendidly appointed early Christian churches. The upper surfaces of the walls carried 14 J. Moreland, ‘A monastic workshop and glass production at San Vincenzo al Volturno, Molise, Italy’, in San Vincenzo al Volturno, ed. Hodges and Mitchell, pp. 37–60. 15 Some painted plaster still adheres to the walls of the excavated rooms, but the greater part of it fell away in the decades following the Saracen sack of 881, and fragments of broken painted plaster were recovered in large quantities from most parts of the site. Considerable progress has been made in reassembling these fragments, and on the reconstruction of the various schemes of decoration. For a preliminary account of this material, see my chapter, ‘The painted decoration of the early medieval monastery’, in San Vincenzo al Volturno, ed. Hodges and Mitchell, pp. 125–76. A team of restorers working for the Istituto Centrale di Restauro in Rome has continued the recomposition of the pieces of fallen plaster, and a preliminary report of their progress has been published: G. Basile, ‘Abbazia di S. Vincenzo al Volturno: restauri in corso’, Arte Medievale 2nd series, 2, part 1 (1988), 153–6.

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figural subjects; in many of the rooms so far excavated are simple standing figures, prophets, apostles and saints, often set beneath elaborately painted arcades. Porticos and passages were also richly decorated. The rear wall of the eastern portico of the garden atrium had an elegant painted colonnade, with plants and shrubs in the intercolumniations, echoing the real colonnade of reused fluted ancient columns, and probably also real shrubs which once stood in pots between the columns. One of the long corridors, which are a feature of the plan of the monastery, conserves traces of its early ninth-century scheme of decoration, a sequence of panels, at dado level, painted to imitate crustae, cut pieces of polished stone, skilfully laid together to form elaborate repeating patterns, and on one end-wall a great round multicoloured disc. The best-preserved painting at San Vincenzo is on the walls of the small crypt of a church at the far northern end of the complex, the crypt church.16 Every surface of its interior was painted, during the abbacy of Epyphanius (824–42), with an elaborate iconographic scheme — images of Christ, Virgin Martyrs, Mary, Archangels, a brief infancy cycle, the martyrdoms of SS Laurence and Stephen and the Crucifixion, with the Abbot Epyphanius kneeling at the foot of the cross (Fig. 2). The programme is intricate and the quality of the painting is high. The excavations have shown that during the period of intense building activity at San Vincenzo in the closing decades of the eighth, and the first forty years of the ninth centuries, the greater part of the new structures were elaborately and brilliantly painted as soon as they were completed, and that this work was done by highly trained and skilled artists. The second thing about the monastery, which would have struck a ninth-century visitor, was the display of script. An extraordinary number of inscriptions of various kinds were to be seen in the various parts of the complex. These were executed in a number of media, two of which were quite exceptional for the time. Each category merits our attention. Many fragments of the painted inscriptions and tituli which accompanied the images on the walls of the various buildings were recovered during the excavations: inscriptions in white or black capitals on narrow coloured bands. Since only broken sequences of letters have been preserved, none of 16 H. Belting, Studien zur beneventanischen Malerei (Wiesbaden, 1968), pp. 24–41, 193–222, ills. 12–60; San Vincenzo al Volturno e la cripta dell’abate Epifanio 824–842 (Montecassino, 1970), figs. 29–63.

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2. Abbot Epyphanius (824–42), and inscription, crypt of crypt church, San Vincenzo al Volturno.

these has been deciphered and identified. However, their form and setting indicate that they ran along walls at major horizontal divisions in decorative schemes, presumably identifying or commenting on an adjacent image, spelling out an exhortation to the spectator or recording the names of the individuals responsible for the works. Other excavated fragments clearly come from small inscriptions set in fields of colour, evidently from short tituli written within scenes and images, which identified events, individuals and places. Both of these types of inscription are preserved in situ in the paintings of the crypt at the north end of the site (Fig. 2).17 Inscriptions of these kinds were commonly employed by artists in western Europe in the early middle ages. Somewhat less usual, however, was the practice of writing legible texts in books held open by individual painted figures. In the crypt, both Christ and Mary are represented with open books, the one with the words spoken by God 17 Belting, Studien, ills. 19, 21,23, 26, 32, 33, 38, 41, 49; San Vincenzo al Volturno e la cripta dell’abate Epifanio, figs. 34, 38–43, 45, 46, 51–4, 56, 60–2.

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3. Scroll with text from Micah 4.6, held by the figure of the Prophet, assembly room, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 800.

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to Moses from the burning bush: Ego sum D[eus] Abraha[m], the other with a passage from the Magnificat.18 These were clearly legible when they were newly written. While it is by no means unknown for figures to be depicted holding open books with legible texts in the early middle ages, it is certainly more usual for them to be shown with books which are closed, or which, if open, are either blank or covered with indecipherable script-like notations. The presence of two such fully inscribed books in a single small pictorial cycle, at this period, is exceptional. The written word was clearly a thing of some significance to the inventors of the pictorial scheme in the crypt. This interest is more forcibly expressed in the painted imagery of the long west wall of the large assembly room, which adjoins the refectory. The decoration of this wall has been reconstructed from the excavated fragments of its fallen plaster.19 A sequence of Prophets, almost life-size, stood, at intervals of about 1 metre, between the columns of a painted arcade. In his left hand each held a large scroll inscribed with a text, written in alternating lines of red and black capital letters (Fig. 3). The letters are about 5 centimetres high, and variant forms as well as inscript characters (small-scale letters which are embraced by ones of full size) are employed, for the sake of variety and ornamentation. The one inscription which has, so far, been more or less fully reconstructed has eight lines of script, and the length of the complete scroll was something in the order of 30 centimetres. The text is: In die illa dicit D[omi]n[u]s congregabo claudicantem et eam quam eieceram congregabo, a variant reading of Micah 4.6. The convention of introducing writing on scrolls or books was employed in the middle ages as a means of incorporating the act of speech into the mute medium of painting, and here the Prophets were represented calling out their prophecies in succession. Fragments of tituli recovered from the other side of the room suggest that the Apostles faced the line of Prophets, from the long east wall, and they may have held answering texts in their hands. Belting, Studien, ills. 21, 45 ; San Vincenzo al Volturno e la cripta dell’abate Epifanio, figs. 53, 54, 56, 62; F. de’ Maffei, ‘Le arti a San Vincenzo al Volturno: il ciclo della cripta di Epifanio’, in Una grande abbazia altomedievale nel Molise, San Vincenzo al Volturno: atti del 1 convegno di studi sul medioevo meridionale (Venafro — S. Vincenzo al Volturno, 19–22 maggio 1982, ed. F. Avagliano (Montecassino, 1985), pp. 274, 285. 19 Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration’, pp. 143–50. figs. 6:17–6:25; Basile, ‘Abbazia di S. Vincenzo al Volturno’, 153–6, figs. 3–7. A detailed reconstruction of the scheme of decoration on this wall will be published in the Final Report on the excavations (Ch. VIII in this volume). 18

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Figures holding open scrolls bearing legible inscriptions are not commonly found in the mediaeval west before the eleventh century; and in the one outstanding surviving instance of their use the texts in question were carefully and purposefully chosen, and relate to a particular historical situation: the four church fathers painted on the walls flanking the main apse of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome, in the middle of the seventh century. These four figures carry enormous scrolls inscribed with long texts in Greek, taken from the passages from their writings which were cited in refutation of monothelitism at the Lateran Council of 649. It was largely as a result of the decrees of this Council and of the staunchly anti-monothelite stance of the pope, Martin I, that the pope was abducted from Rome by the Byzantine exarch, transported to Constantinople, humiliated, tried and exiled to the Crimea. The images in Santa Maria Antiqua are usually interpreted as instruments of anti-Byzantine propaganda, commissioned after 649 and perhaps before Martin’s removal in June 651.20 In the west scrolls of this kind seem to have been of the utmost rarity before the eleventh century, and it was only in the twelfth century that they are often put in the hands of Prophets and other figures, in wall-paintings, mosaics, manuscript painting, ivory carving and in other media.21 In the Byzantine east the motif is somewhat more common. It appears already in the fifth century, in the mosaic in the apse of St George, in Thessaloniki, where Christ holds a scroll bearing a long inscription,22 and is found occasionally in the succeeding centuries: on pre-iconoclastic panel-paintings of the Virgin of Intercession, of St John the Baptist and Elijah, preserved in the monastery of St Catherine

20 G.M. Rushforth, ‘The church of S. Maria Antiqua’, Papers of the British School at Rome 1 (1902), 68–73 ; P. Romanelli and P.J. Nordhagen, 5. Maria Antiqua (Rome, 1964), pp. 32–4; P.J. Nordhagen, ‘S. Maria Antiqua: the frescoes of the seventh century’, in Acta ad archaeologiam et historiam artium pertinentia, Institutum Romanum Norvegiae 8 (Rome, 1978), pp. 97–9, pls. Ill–XI. For an account of the events of these years, see P. Llewellyn, Rome in the Dark Ages (London, 1971), pp. 150–6. A second, earlier, isolated instance of an inscribed scroll of this kind, bearing the Greek word ιχθυς, is held by Christ at the Second Coming on one of the panels of the fifth-century wooden doors of S. Sabina, in Rome : G. Jeremias, Die Holztür der Basilika S. Sabina in Rom (Tübingen, 1980), pls. 68, 69. 21 An early instance, dating from the 1070s, are the Prophets in Sant’Angelo in Formis, near Capua: O. Demus, Romanesque Mural Painting (New York, 1970), pl. 7. 22 R. Hoddinot, Early Byzantine Churches in Macedonia and Southern Serbia (London, 1963), colour pl. VÌ, pl. 48a; A Grabar, Christian Iconography: A Study of its Origins (Princeton, 1968), fig. 117.

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on Mount Sinai,23 and on one of the ivory plaques of the so-called Grado Chair group, carved with the figure of the Prophet Joel.24 From the tenth century onwards, the Prophets in monumental schemes of decoration, in the eastern Mediterranean, are often represented displaying their words on large open scrolls.25 It is possible that the idea for the motif was the result of the artists’ acquaintance with Byzantine imagery26 but, given its rarity in the west, the reason for the choice is likely to have been a desire to place special emphasis on the inscriptions held by the Prophets. The particular significance of the one text which has been fully reconstructed is not obvious, and it may be that it was the display of script, the very presence of lines of elegant letters on white fields, as much as the content of the texts, that interested the person who devised this scheme of decoration. Painted inscriptions are also found in early mediaeval graves at San Vincenzo. A small percentage of the many block-built graves excavated in various parts of the site had plastered walls and painted decoration. In most cases the state of preservation was too poor for the schemes of decoration to be reconstructed, but in the two instances in which the painted surface was preserved on the walls, inscriptions figured prominently on the short wall surface behind the dead man’s head. One of these, the grave of a young man, who died in the second quarter of the ninth century, is located before K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Icons, I: From the Sixth to the Tenth Century (Princeton, 1976), catalogue nos. B.4, B.11, B.17. 24 These ivories are dated by Goldschmidt to the sixth century, and by Weitzmann to the eighth century: A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der karolingischen und sächsischen Kaiser, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1914–26), IV, no. 121; K. Weitzmann, ‘The ivories of the so-called Grado Chair’, DOP 26 (1972), fig. 4. 25 The earliest examples, for which material evidence survives, seem to be the figures of the four major Prophets on the northern and southern tympana in Hagia Sophia, in Istanbul: C. Mango, Materials for the Study of the Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul (Washington DC, 1962), figs. 78, 80, 81, 85, 86. However, to judge from Photius’ dramatic description, the Prophets in mosaic in the church of the Virgin of the Pharos, in the Great Palace, of 864, already held up scrolls inscribed with their prophecies : The Homilies of Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, English Translation, Introduction and Commentary, ed. C. Mango, DOS 3 (Washington DC, 1958), p. 188; idem, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312–1453: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1972), p. 186. The type is also found in manuscript illumination later in the tenth century, in a copy of the Major and Minor Prophets, in Rome, Vat. Chis. R. VIII.54: K. Weitzmann, Die byzantinische Buchmalerei des IX. und X. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1935), pl. XIII, fig. 61. 26 Belting, Studien, pp. 200–2. 23

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4. Inscription flanking the head-niche in a grave at the threshold of the crypt church, San Vincenzo al Volturno, second quarter of the ninth century.

the threshold of the crypt church. The wall surface surrounding the headniche carried an inscription in well-formed red capital letters, ending with the formula et vitam eternam (Fig. 4).27 The inscription is in some of the finest painted script found at San Vincenzo, although the quality of the plaster on which it lies is extremely poor. A second painted grave, whose plastered sides are well preserved, is located under an arcosolium in a passage which ran beneath the great guest hall at the northern end of the site. A large cross is painted in the middle of each of the four walls, and the cross at the head is flanked by the protective inscription: crvx xpi confvsio diaboli.28 Plastered and painted graves were not uncommon in early mediaeval Italy, and quite often they bear inscriptions. However, they appear to have been more common in the north than in the south of the peninsula.29 Since the only two such graves at San Vincenzo to retain their painted decoration bear

Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration’, p. 158, fig. 6:32. Ibid., figs. 6:33 and 34. 29 Ibid., pp. 158–65; C. Fiorio Tedone, ‘Tombe dipinte altomedievali rinvenute a Verona’, Archeologia Veneta 8 (1985), pp. 251–88; idem, ‘Dati e riflessioni sulle tombe altomedievali 27 28

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inscriptions, it seems likely that a high percentage of them would have been similarly inscribed. A further category of inscription at San Vincenzo is found on gravestones. Some twenty-five of these, most of which are fragmentary, have survived (Figs. 5 and 6).30 The majority date from the ninth century and are in variant forms of a single script.31 The letters are tall and narrow in proportion and usually set quite closely together. Their individual strokes are clearly and deeply cut with slanting profiles, which meet at something approaching a right-angle in the trough, and create a lively play of lighted and shaded planes. Curving strokes expand and contract quite dramatically, while vertical strokes have almost parallel sides, which expand a little at their terminals into little wedge-serifs. The bars of letters such as ‘T’ and ‘E’ are formed of prominent triangular wedges. For the sake of variation and decoration variant forms of characters are used, for instance ‘A’ with straight or broken bar, and inscript letters are quite common. These inscriptions are clear and sharp, decorated with restraint and give an appearance of ordered, elegant precision. They are distinctly superior in quality to the general run of funerary inscriptions from early mediaeval Italy, and show that there was a carefully cultivated tradition of funerary calligraphy at San Vincenzo in the ninth century. A number of stones carrying ancient Roman funerary inscriptions were reused in the construction of churches and monastic buildings at San Vincenzo, in the building phases of the later eighth and early ninth centuries (Fig. 7). They were almost always laid so that the inscribed surface faced outwards or upwards, visible to the passer-by.32 Although the mediaeval internamente intonacate e dipinte rinvenute a Milano e in Italia settentrionale’, Atti del 10. congresso intemazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo, Milano 26–30 settembre 1983 (Spoleto, 1986), pp. 402–28. 30 A. Pantoni, ‘Epigrafi tombali di S. Vincenzo al Volturno’, Samnium 36 (1963), 14–33; Pantoni, Le chiese, pp. 158–70: San Vincenzo al Volturno, ed. Hodges and Mitchell, frontispiece. The early mediaeval carved inscriptions from San Vincenzo will be described in the forthcoming Final Report on the excavations. 31 The same script is also found on a number of other small fragments of carved inscriptions, found at San Vincenzo, which cannot with certainty be identified as deriving from funerary monuments. 32 The examples found, to date, are situated in the following locations: in the north wall of the guest hall ; in the refectory, set at the western end of the central spine-wall, forming the base of the western-most of the sequence of columns which support the roof; in the pavement of a walkway immediately to the south of the south wall of the refectory; in one of the treads

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5. Epitaph of the priest Tamfrid, San Vincenzo al Volturno, middle of the ninth century.

6.Fragment of a funerary inscription, San Vincenzo al Volturno, middle of the ninth century.

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masons did not always reuse these ancient gravestones in upright positions, with their texts correctly oriented, it is clear that they intended the lines of script to be seen. There are two further instances of the display of script at San Vincenzo, both of which are exceptional and remarkable. The first of these are the inscribed tiles of fired clay with which the floors of the principal rooms, corridors and porticos of the monastery were paved, and the inscribed roof tiles used to cover the majority of the buildings (Figs. 8, 9, 10 and 11).33 Four types of flooring were employed at San Vincenzo in the building phases of the late eighth and early ninth centuries. The most prestigious buildings were paved with small, smooth, shaped sections of marble and coloured stone laid in repeating patterns — opus alexandrinum. This was used in the various churches constructed during the period, and in the great elevated guest hall at the northern end of the complex. Buildings of second rank were paved with large rectangular clay tiles. The third kind of floor, which is found in ranges of cells on the lower terraces of the Colle della Torre, and in other buildings of less significance, is of mortar. The simplest floors are of compacted earth, and are found in structures of a purely utilitarian nature, like the workshops. The tiles which compose the second kind of floor, and which concern us, are of three sizes, all of them large: c. 54 x 40 x 4 cm; c. 50 x 36 x 4 cm; c. 38 x 30.5 x 4 cm. The roof tiles are large tegulae and imbrices, which were laid in alternating rows to form a continuous covering more or less resistant to the weather. Both floor and roof tiles were manufactured in one spate of production during the first phase of building operations which completely transformed the appearance of the monastery during the years around 800. The production was extensive, but short-lived. It had evidently ceased by the time of the following phase of construction, which took place a generation later. Tiles employed in this later phase were all old ones, reused. Between 40 and 50 per cent of the floor tiles, and a similar proportion of the tegulae and imbrices from the roofs, were marked with inscriptions and decorative motifs before firing. These record the names of some fifty-six

of a flight of steps climbing up onto the first terrace, immediately behind the west wall of the assembly room (Fig. 7). These inscriptions will be described and analysed by John Patterson in the forthcoming Final Report on the excavations. 33 The tile industry at San Vincenzo will be described in some detail in the Final Report.

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individuals, almost always in abbreviated form. The names are not evenly distributed among the tiles. More than 100 examples of some names have been found, while of others there are only one or two instances. Sixteen names are found on both the floor and the roof tiles, and show that both types were manufactured at the same time. The letters of the inscriptions are large and very legible. On the floor tiles and on the roof tegulae they vary in height from 2.5 to 48 centimetres, the majority being between about 6 and 25 centimetres tall, while on the smaller arched imbrices they vary from 2.5 to 8.5 centimetres, with a normal height of about 4 centimetres. The inscriptions are in letters of sufficient size to attract the eye, even to demand the attention, of any walking over them. Only one of the tiles, laid in the floor of the assembly room, is inscribed with a full name: livtperti svm (I am of Liutpertus) (Fig. 8). Other tiles marked with the name Liutpertus, and all of the other floor and roof tiles, carry abbrevated forms of names, with one, two, three or four letters. The abbreviated names include: alip (Alipertus), ge, gvn, lan, me, sa, tevp (Teupertus) and vr. Sometimes these inscribed tiles are embellished with compass-drawn designs of intersecting circles and arcs, or with reiterated undulating lines which apparently imitate the diagonally veined marbling of the painted dados of all the principal rooms of the monastery. When found in situ, the tiles with compass-drawn ornamentation are usually laid in prominent positions, at the thresholds of doorways, or before important features, such as the lector’s pulpit in the refectory. Tiles inscribed in this fashion, and dating from the early middle ages, are extremely rare. A few late Roman examples bearing abbreviated names in large letters have been found in Cividale, in the far north of Italy (two of these are displayed in the town archaeological museum), one dating from the fifth to the sixth centuries has been found in Naples, and a number of floor tiles from the church of San Giovanni at Canosa di Puglia carry the monogram of a sixth-century bishop of Canosa, Sabinus.34 The only other site where quantities of similarly inscribed tiles have come to light in an early mediaeval context is Montecassino. There they have been found both beneath the eleventh-century church of Abbot Desiderius on top of the mountain, and in the town below in the church of Santa Maria delle Cinque

P. Arthur and D. Whitehouse, ‘Appunti sulla produzione laterizia nell’Italia centromeridionale tra il VI e XII secolo’, Archeologia Medievale 10 (1983), figs. 3 and 7. 34

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7. Roman funerary inscription reused as a tread in a flight of steps, San Vincenzo at Volturno, c. 800.

8. Floor tile with the inscription livtperti svm, assembly room, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 800.

9. Floor tile with the inscription lan, assembly room, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 800.

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10. Floor tile with the inscription vr, and framing decoration of undulating lines, refectory, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 800.

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11. Floor tile with the inscription ge, assembly room, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 800.

12. Fragment of setting for metal letters, from the inscription of Abbot Iosue, San Vincenzo al Volturno, beginning of the ninth century.

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13. Fragment of setting for metal letters, from the inscription of Abbot losue, San Vincenzo al Volturno, beginning of the ninth century.

14. Fragment of setting for metal letters, San Vincenzo al Volturno, excavations.

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Torri, constructed under Abbot Teodemar (778–97).35 Both groups of tiles from Montecassino can be dated to the last quarter of the eighth century, that is, to approximately the same time as the production at San Vincenzo. Montecassino lies some 30 kilometres to the south-west; the two monasteries maintained close contact throughout the early middle ages, and their histories ran parallel courses. However, the tiles from the two neighbouring monasteries were not made by the same craftsmen. The inscribed names are, for the most part, different, and written by different hands, and those on the tiles from Montecassino tend to be either spelt out in full or to be in less abbreviated forms. This suggests that it was not the tilers themselves, but rather knowledge of the technology of tile-making, and the notion of inscribing the names, that travelled from the one place to the other. Neither the identities of the men named on the tiles from San Vincenzo, nor the meaning of these names, is immediately obvious. The one fully legible tile on which a name is spelt out in full, the one in the assembly room with the inscription: livtperti svm, gives the name in the genitive. The tile proclaims: ‘I am the tile of Liutpert’. One possibility is that the inscriptions record the names of benefactors who had contributed towards the construction of the monastery. There was, in late antiquity, an established custom of individuals donating particular areas of mosaic paving in churches. An inscription recording the name of the donor, and sometimes the area paid for, would be worked into the mosaic of the floor. Instances of this practice are to be found at Grado, in the sixth-century pavement of the cathedral and in the fifth-century floor of the church of Santa Maria.36 However, at San Vincenzo various factors suggest that the names are likely to be those of the men who made the tiles, and not those of friends of the monastery who contributed towards its rebuilding. First, tiles carrying a particular name are not laid in groups, as one would expect if a benefactor was involved, but 35 E. Scaccia Scarafoni, ‘La chiesa cassinese detta “Santa Maria delle Cinque Torri” ’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 22 (1946), 186; A. Pantoni, ‘Su di un cimitero alto medioevale a Montecassino e sul sepolcro di Paolo Diacono’, Atti del 2. congresso intemazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo. Grado 7–11 settembre 1952 (Spoleto, 1953), pp. 260–1; idem, Le vicende della basilica di Montecassino attraverso la documentazione archeologica (Montecassino, 1973), pp. 42, 84, fig. 40; idem, ‘Santa Maria delle Cinque Torri di Cassino: risultati e problemi’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 51 ( 1975), 252–6, figs. 6 and 7 ; Arthur and Whitehouse, ‘Appunti sulla produzione laterizia’, 529, fig. 5. 36 G. Brusin, Aquileia e Grado: Guida storico-artistica (Padua, 1964), p. 269, fig. 159, pp. 247–8, fig. 143.

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are set among tiles bearing other names, in seemingly random sequence. Second, the bare record of the name, almost always in abbreviated form, makes it most unlikely that the names of donors are recorded here. Their identity would have been forgotten within a generation. Third, the manner in which a particular name is recorded on different tiles is not standard. A name can be abbreviated in various ways, for instance Liutpertus, which is abbreviated ‘li’, ‘li’, or ‘l’ Fourth, each name, on all the tiles on which it is found, appears to be by a particular hand. To judge from the script, it does not seem that any one hand inscribed a number of different names on tiles. All in all, it seems most likely that it was the makers of the tiles who inscribed their own names into the clay before firing. If we are right, and it was the tilers who drew the inscriptions into the tiles, it is clear that they were literate, at least to the extent of being able to write their own names. None of the hands responsible for the tiles is hopelessly unpractised, and some of them appear to be well trained, and fully conversant with the conventions of contemporary scribal practice — the abbreviations ‘ge’ (Fig. 11), ‘me’ and ‘sa’ were all written by men well acquainted with pre-Caroline cursive script. It is most likely that the monks themselves were the tilers. All would probably have been able to read, many would have been able to write and some among them would have been trained scribes. The great number of names, probably fifty-six in all, the frequent incidence of some and the sporadic and rare occurrence of others, would be consonant with a situation in which a number of the monks were detailed to manufacture the tiles, while many of their brethren gave occasional assistance, or tried their hands at turning out half a dozen items, each man taking pride in inscribing his name. A further question is why the men who made the tiles took such pains to record their names on them. A possible explanation might be that the inscriptions served to keep a tally of the number of items made by each individual, perhaps to facilitate the calculation of payment. However, if this had been the purpose of the names, one would have expected either every tile to be inscribed, or else every fifth or tenth, or so, so as to keep a record of production. And, if it was the monks who made the tiles, it is almost inconceivable that they would have demanded or received payment. It is possible that the makers inscribed their tiles as an act of humility and self-mortification, in the knowledge that their names were destined to be trodden over by future generations of monks, and by visitors to the monastery, year in and year out. However, the inscriptions and the ornamental motifs of

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the roof tiles, which appear with a frequency more or less equal to those on the floor tiles, clearly cannot be explained in this way. They would have been fully visible probably only to people engaged on repairing the roofs of the buildings. Besides, many of the names on the floor tiles are inscribed with considerable flourish in large characters, and a not inconsiderable number are grandly framed by undulating lines imitating the veining of marble, or by elaborate compositions of compass-drawn circles and arcs. All this is hardly compatible with a desire for self-abasement and mortification. The fact that almost 50 per cent of the floor tiles and many of the roof tiles bear names, and that there is a very uneven distribution of the numbers of tiles carrying each name, indicates, on the one hand, a certain want of system and economy in the production of the tiles, and, on the other hand, a great interest in, even an infatuation with, writing, and perhaps also a concern to advertize mastery of the skills of literacy. Undoubtedly the most exceptional and the most technically elaborate inscriptions at San Vincenzo were those composed of large gilded metal letters, which were set up on the façades of more than one of the principal buildings of the monastery in the early ninth century. Angelo Pantoni, the distinguished architect, archaeologist and antiquary of Montecassino, recognized two limestone slabs which had been reused in the opus sectile pavement of the Romanesque abbey church of San Vincenzo, constructed by the Abbots Gerard and Benedict on the new site in the years around 1100, as fragments of the setting of the gilded inscription which their predecessor Iosue is recorded as having placed on the façade of his own new basilica of San Vincenzo in the first decade of the ninth century.37 These two pieces are at present set into the interior wall of the north aisle of the new abbey church of San Vincenzo, where the full text of the original inscription has been completed with painted characters (Figs. 12 and 13). The larger of the two fragments measures 62.7 x 30.8 cm, the smaller, 18 x 17.5 cm, and both are about 4 cm thick. The first bears the letters rdo, the second, the remains of the letters es. The letters themselves are lost, and what has survived are the shallow sunken settings cut to the shapes of the metal characters, which were probably laid in flush with the surface of the stone. None of these letter-settings is completely preserved, but enough remains of the larger fragment to show that the letters were once between 37 A. Pantoni, ‘Due iscrizioni di S. Vincenzo al Volturno e il loro contributo alla storia del cenobio’, Samnium 35 (1962), 74–9; Pantoni, Le chiese, pp. 163–5.

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29 and 30 centimetres in height, that is about 1 Roman foot (29.6 cm). The material of the letters themselves was, in all probability, an alloy of copper, a metal which is most suited for gilding. That the fragments really are mediaeval, and are not from a Roman imperial inscription, is clear both from the forms of the letters and from the manner of attachment to the support. The letters are distinctly irregular in execution: ‘O’ is asymmetrical about its vertical axis, and the vertical shaft of ‘D’ bows out to the left; and two of them are noticeably un-Roman in design : ‘O’ is vertically elongated and faintly pointed, and the leg of ‘R’ has a reverse curve, forms which are typical of ninth-century carved and painted inscriptions from San Vincenzo. Furthermore, the letters from San Vincenzo do not have the delicate and prominent serifs which are so characteristic a feature of ancient Roman monumental capitals. The settings are also uncharacteristic of Roman work. Roman metal letters are usually quite substantial objects, and lie in deep sockets cut into the underlying stone support. They are secured by means of small rectangular lugs which project from their rear surfaces and are set in lead in corresponding rectangular cuts in the floors of the sockets. The letters at San Vincenzo, by contrast, seem to have been very thin, their sockets being only between 2 and 4 millimetres deep, and they were held in place by round-sectioned rivets which passed right through the thickness of the stone support. This manner of fixing is rarely found on Roman monuments. The surviving characters on the two fragments retrieved by Pantoni from the pavement of the Romanesque abbey church fit perfectly into the text of the inscription which is recorded as having been set up in golden letters on the façade of the abbey church of San Vincenzo, by Abbot Iosue, in the first years of the ninth century: Quaeque vides ospes pendencia celsa vel ima Vir Domini Iosue struxit cum fratribus una.38

38 Chron. Vult., I, p. 221. The passage in which the erection of this inscription is referred to, reads as follows: ‘Ita autem virtus Domini cor regis [Louis the Pious] in huius operis amore convertit, et fratrum devocionem ac laborancium manus iuvit, ut non multo tempore preclaro opere et maximis columpnis ecclesia levaretur, in cuius ecclesie fronte ita, deauratis litteris, legebatur: Quaeque vides, ospes, pendencia celsa vel ima, Vir Domini Iosue struxit cum fratribus una’ – ‘The power of the Lord so affected the heart of the king with love of this work, and strengthened the devotion of the monks and the hands of the labourers, that

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The overall length of the inscription on the front of Iosue’s San Vincenzo can roughly be calculated from the two fragments re-used in the floor of the new abbey church. The mean width of a letter, to judge from the three preserved on the larger fragment, was about 15 centimetres, and the mean interval between them 5 centimetres. Consequently, the length of the inscription would have been something like 14.5 metres. It is likely that an inscription of these proportions would have run across the façade of the nave of the church, high up, under the base of its gable, in the manner of an inscription on the front of a Roman temple. The width of the nave of Iosue’s church can roughly be calculated. The overall width of the building is recorded in the Chronicle of the abbey as 16 passus? 39 The passus of 5 standard Roman feet of 29.6 centimetres had a length of 1.48 metres, which if applied to Iosue’s church would make its overall width 23.68 metres. But in the pre-metric period the length of the passus varied greatly from area to area. The passus which seems geographically most relevant to usage at San Vincenzo, one which is recorded as having been widely used in Campania and southern Abruzzo, measures 1.846 metres.40 The antiquity of this particular local standard is uncertain, in a short time the church was constructed with outstanding workmanship and with great columns: and on the façade of this church there could be read, in gilded letters: “Whatever lofty structures you see here, traveller, extending from low on high, were built by the servant of the Lord, Iosue, and his brother monks”.’ I am grateful to Michael Lapidge for help with this translation. 39 Chron. Vult., I. p. 221. 40 Various lengths of passus in use in Italy, including the passus of 1.846 metres, are collected by R.E. Zupko, Italian Weights and Measures from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1981), pp. 187–8. Pantoni, Le chiese, p. 21, briefly discusses the lengths of foot and passus current in Italy in the middle ages, in connection with the dimensions of Iosue’s church, and opts for a short passus, consisting of 5 Liutprandian feet of 28.5 centimetres each. This would give a width of 22.80 metres for Iosue’s church. Pantoni’s choice of the Liutprandian foot is determined by his observation that the dimensions given in the chronicle would more or less accord with those of the rebuilt abbey church of c. 1100 if calculated on the basis of this standard, and by his belief that this new edifice, whose dimensions have been recovered by excavation, was constructed directly over Iosue’s earlier church, and that the two buildings were more or less of the same size. However, the recent excavations have shown that the site of the new church of San Vincenzo was not settled by the monks before the late eleventh century, and that Iosue’s church was almost certainly located at the original site of the monastery on the other side of the river. Archaeological excavation has so far thrown no light on the dimensions of the earlier building. A. Pantoni, citing F. Guillaume, Essai historique sur l’abbaye de Cava (Cava dei Tireni, 1987), p. xiv, also refers to a long passus of 5.5 feet, varying between 1.87 and 1.96 metres, which he says was widely used in the middle ages. This long passus is close in length to the Campano-Abruzzan

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but local norms of measurement are likely to be fixed by tradition and to have long ancestries, and it is at least possible that this one, which was in use in the early modern period, was in origin far older. The application of this local standard for the passus to the measurements of the basilica recorded in the Chronicle would give a width of 29.536 metres for the full church, nave and aisles. Assuming that this passus of 1.846 metres is the one referred to by the chronicler, and assuming that the proportions of Iosue’s church were similar to those of a contemporary columnar basilica, whose dimensions are known, San Salvatore in Cassino, at the foot of Montecassino, in which each aisle was roughly half the width of the nave, the width of the nave of Iosue’s San Vincenzo would have been about 14.75 metres.41 In this case, the two verses of the inscription would probably have been laid out in a single long line of script, something like 14.5 metres in length, fitting quite precisely the width of the façade of the nave. Three further fragments of settings of large metal letters have been found during the survey and excavation on the site of the early mediaeval monastery : the straight sloping member of a letter, perhaps the leg of an ‘A’ ; the terminals of two adjacent, unidentifiable characters (Fig. 14); and a small fragment of the straight member of a further letter. All three of these settings are pierced by the characteristic round rivet holes found on the two sections reused in the floor of the Romanesque abbey church. Two of the pieces were found at the northern end of the monastery, one in a late mediaeval fill in the area of the vestibule, the other in an eleventhcentury destruction layer over the garden atrium. The third was picked up on the surface, on the plain at the south-eastern corner of the Colle della Torre, immediately in front of the pilastered façade of a prominent structure of c. 800, which has been tentatively identified as Abbot Iosue’s abbey church of San Vincenzo. However, the settings on these fragments, and those recovered from the pavement of the Romanesque abbey church by Pantoni, differ in their cutting and in the diameter of their rivet-holes. The shafts of the letters of the fragments found in the floor of the new abbey church seem to have been narrower than those of the second and passus of 1.846 metres, which we have identified as a possible candidate for the passus refered to in the Chronicle of San Vincenzo. 41 San Salvatore, which was erected in the time of Abbot Gisulf of Montecassino (797– 817), is now destroyed, but it survived into the eighteenth century when an accurate plan and elevation was made by Erasmo Gattola. See G. Carbonara, Iussu Desiderii: Montecassino e l’architettura campano-abruzzese nell’undicesimo secolo (Rome, 1979), ill. 2.

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third fragments found on the site of the early monastery, and the rivet-holes of the former fragments have a somewhat wider bore than those found during the excavations. The settings in the first and second fragments from the old site are sharply cut with steeply sloping sides. Those of the third fragment and of the two pieces from the floor of the abbey church are less exact in their cutting. There is a distinct possibility that different craftsmen were responsible for these various pieces, and that more than one of the early ninth-century buildings at San Vincenzo carried inscriptions in large gilded-copper letters on their façades. These letter-settings are remarkable on two counts. First, inscriptions of large metal letters were employed only very rarely in the middle ages, and, second, the practice of setting monumental inscriptions of any kind up on the façades of buildings was more or less totally abandoned in late antiquity. In Roman antiquity, inscriptions in large metal characters had been common, and had been used, throughout the Empire, in a variety of contexts, on the façades of temples,42 on triumphal arches,43 on city gates,44 on public buildings,45 on the bases of columns 42 For example, on the Augustan Maison Carrée at Nîmes: R. Amy and P. Gros, La Maison Carrée de Nîmes, 38th supplement to Gallia, 2 vols. (Paris, 1979), I, pp. 177–95, II, pls. 41, 74a, b and c; on the temple in the main square at Assisi, and in Rome, on the Pantheon: W.L. MacDonald, The Architecture of the Roman Empire, I: An Introductory Study (rev. edn, New Haven and Connecticut, 1982), pls. 96, 102; on the Temple of Hadrian: E. Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae (Bonn. 1912), pl. 17; and on the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina in the Forum Romanum: R. Cagnat, Cours d’épigraphie latine (Paris, 1914), pl. XI, 2. 43 For example, on the Arch of Cottius at Susa: J.E. Sandys, Latin Epigraphy (Cambridge, 1919), p. 122; on that of Augustus at Aosta; and, in Rome, on those of Claudius: E. Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, 2 vols. (rev. edn, London, 1968), I, figs. 106 and 107; of Titus: Cagnat, Cours d’épigraphie, pl. VIII, 2, Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, I, fig. 143 ; of Septimius Severus: R. Brilliant, ‘The Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum’, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 29 (1967), pls. 14, 15a, 16a and b; and of Constantine: Cagnat, Cours d’épigraphie, pl. XX, 1, Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, I, fig. 112; and on that of Trajan at Benevento: M. Rotili, L’Arco di Traiano a Benevento (Rome, 1972), pls. III, VII. For comparative illustrations of inscriptions on arches, see Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae, pl. 26. 44 For example, on the Claudian Porta Maggiore, at Rome: Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, II, fig. 968; and on the triple gate at Pisidian Antioch, erected by Gaius Julius Asper, consul in AD 212: D.M. Robinson, ‘Roman sculptures from Colonia Caesarea (Pisidian Antioch)’, Art Bulletin 9, no. 1, (1926), 45–6, figs. 1 and 67. I owe this reference to Stephen Mitchell of University College, Swansea. 45 For example, on the basilica in the forum at Silchester, in Britain: G.S. Boon, Silchester, the Roman Town of Coleva (2nd edn, Newton Abbot, 1974), p. 116.

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and statues46 and even set flat into the pavements of fora and other public spaces.47 However, metal inscriptions seem to have gone out of fashion in the fourth century. One of the last instances of their use on a major monument was on the Arch of Constantine in Rome, dedicated in 315. For more than thirteen centuries they almost completely disappeared; and it was not until the seventeenth century that they began to be reintroduced.48 Apart from San Vincenzo, they are met with only once on an early mediaeval building: in the framed inscription set high up on the façade of the Westwerk at Corvey, a late Carolingian structure, erected between 873 and 885.49 There, the inscription, which calls on God and his angels to protect the monastery, is in metal letters 11 centimetres high, four short lines within a frame 84 centimetres high and 168 centimetres wide. The script is in well-proportioned square classicizing capitals. The small scale of the letters of two metal-letter inscriptions known from the twelfth century makes them essentially different in kind from the ones from San Vincenzo. Abbot Suger, in his Liber de rebus in administratione sua gesta, and in his Libellus alter de consecratione ecclesiae Sancti Dionysii, records a dedicatory inscription in gilded copper letters, which he ordered for his new church of St Denis.50 In the latter work he gives its location as 46 For example, on the base of the column of Antoninus Pius, erected in AD 161, now in the Vatican: Sandys, Latin Epigraphy, p. 128; and an inscription with a dedication to the emperor Tiberius, from the base of an equestrian monument in the forum at Saepinum, in the Biferno valley, north of Benevento. 47 For example, the inscription which spans the forum at Saepinum, and the inscriptions on the dial of the great solarium of Augustus in Rome: E. Buchner, Die Sonnenuhr des Augustus (Mainz am Rhein, 1982), pls. 134—41, Nachtrag, pls. 1, 3–6. 48 It appears that it was in Paris, in the mid-seventeenth century, that monumental inscriptions in metal letters were first reintroduced in modern times. Two early examples can be seen on Lemercier’s portal at the Sorbonne of 1641, and on the façade of the church of the Val-de-Grâce, erected in the mid-1640s (M. Fleury, A. Erlande-Brandenburg and J.-P. Babélon, Paris Monumental (Paris, 1974), figs. 164, 225. For this information I am indebted to James Mosley, of the St Bride Printing Library in London, and to David Thomson, of the University of East Anglia. 49 W. Effmann, Die Kirche der Abtei Corvey (Paderborn, 1929), p. 11, pl. 30,2; Kunst und Kultur im Weserraum 800–1600, Ausstellung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2 vols. (Corvey, 1966), I : Beiträge zur Geschichte und Kunst, p. 20, II : Katalog, no. 378, p. 645 ; H. Thümmler, Weserbaukunst im Mittelalter (Hameln, 1970), figs. 2 and 32. 50 E. Panofsky, Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and its Art Treasures, ed. G. Panofsky-Soergel (2nd edn, Princeton, 1979), pp. 46–7, 98–9. Paul Williamson, of the Victoria and Albert Museum drew my attention to Suger’s accounts of this inscription.

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super portas . . . deauratas, that is, over the golden historiated doors in the central portal of the west front. Thus it was set low down on the façade, so as to be readily visible to any person entering the church, and the letters were probably quite modest in size. This is certainly the case with the mid-twelfthcentury metal (leaden?) inscriptions on two brackets supporting sculpted groups of figures which flank the west portal of the cathedral at Termoli, in Molise. The only other ninth-century phenomenon which is in any way comparable to the inscriptions in metal letters at San Vincenzo and at Corvey is a series of gravestones from Saint-Martin at Tours, of the second quarter of the century, with legends in lead letters in quite well-formed romanizing capitals, between 5 and 6 centimetres high, let into the surface of the stone;51 and a fragment of an epitaph preserved in one of the cloisters at the abbey of Farfa, which has been identified as that of the Abbot Ingoald, who died around 830.52 The latter, which is badly damaged, carried an inscription in two lines of metal letters about 10 centimetres high.53 In setting a great gilded-copper inscription on his new church at San Vincenzo, Abbot Iosue was clearly reviving Roman practice. His action was highly original, even idiosyncratic, seemingly without exact parallel in the years around 800, a period in which interest in Roman antiquity was becoming more intense in western Europe. Not only the idea of using large metal letters was taken from Roman usage, but also certain details of the fragmentary inscriptions from San Vincenzo seem to reveal a close acquaintance with Roman exemplars. Another instance of the use of metal letters in the twelfth century is to be found in the prominent inscription which runs round the main entablature of the ciborium over the high altar in San Nicola in Bari: see C.A. Willemsen and D. Odenthal, Puglia, Terra dei Normanni e degli Svevi (Bari, 1959), pl. 183. 51 P. Descamps, ‘Paléographie des inscriptions de la fin de l’époque mérovingienne aux dernières années du Xlle siècle’, Bulletin Monumental 88 (1929), pp. 5–86, pl. II, fig. 2; M. Vieillard-Troiekouroff, ‘Les Sculptures et les objets préromans retrouvés dans les fouilles de 1860 et de 1886 à Saint-Martin de Tours’, Cahiers Archéologiques 13 (1962), 112–13, figs. 33–5; N. Gray, A History of Lettering: Creative Experiment and Letter Identity (Oxford, 1986), fig. 69. 52 David Whitehouse, of the Corning Museum of Glass, has tentatively identified Ingoald as the subject of this epitaph. 53 Gray, A History of Lettering, p. 86, apparently refers to this fragment. The metal characters have been removed by robbers, but the settings give the outlines of rather irregularly formed classicizing square capitals, with rectangular cuttings to take the fixing lugs. This

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No complete letter from the San Vincenzo inscriptions survives, but enough remains of the two fragments which can be certainly associated with Iosue’s inscription to show that the letters were originally about 29 to 30 centimetres tall. This is close to 1 Roman foot (29.6 cm). The precise measurements of the characters of inaccessible inscriptions on Roman monuments are hard to come by, but in two instances where I have been able to ascertain the size of the letters, they are exactly, or close to, 1 Roman foot in height: the inscription on the front of the Maison Carrée at Nîmes, where the letters of the two-line inscription are precisely 29.6 centimetres high,54 and the inscriptions on the attic of the Arch of Constantine in Rome, where they are slightly larger, between 30 and 32 centimetres. It is possible that the foot-high letter was a size regularly employed on Roman buildings, and that the measurements of the inscription on Iosue’s church of San Vincenzo were taken from standard Roman practice. A second feature of the fragments seems to show that the makers of the inscription may have taken a particular accessible Roman example as their model. As was said above, Roman metal letters were usually anchored to their support by small rectangular lugs which projected from their rear surface and were set in lead in corresponding rectangular sockets cut into the stone. The inscriptions from San Vincenzo are remarkable in that they were held in position by round-sectioned rivets which passed right through the thickness of the stone support. Occasionally Roman metal letters were held in place by round-sectioned lugs, or nails. One instance of this is a gilded bronze letter ‘V’ found at Colchester, which was secured by two nails which passed through its arms.55 Another inscription with metal letters held in place by small round-sectioned dowels has been found at a site closer at hand. This bears a dedication to Tiberius, and comes from the base of an equestrian statue which stood on the south-west side of the forum at Saepinum, the Roman town on the road between modern Boiano and inscription, like the well-known epitaph of Ingoald’s successor, Sicardus (C.B. McClendon, ‘An early funerary portrait from the medieval abbey at Farfa’, Gesta 22/1 (1983), 13–26, fig. 9), has an enframing moulding which does not project to protect the lettering, as is almost invariably the case with framed classical inscriptions. Instead the moulding is sunk into the surface of the slab. 54 Amy and Gros, La Maison Carrée de Nîmes, I, pp. 177–95, especially p. 187, and II, pls. 41, 74a, b, and c. 55 R.G. Collingwood and R.P. Wright, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain, I (Oxford, 1965), p. 64, no. 198.

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Benevento, about 60 kilometres to the south-east of San Vincenzo.56 The holes for the dowels do not pass right through the stone slab, but the sockets for the letters, their copper fillings long-since removed to reveal the small round holes for attachment, could well have provided the makers of the San Vincenzo inscriptions with the idea of using long rivets to tie their letters to their stone supports.57 The gilded metal inscriptions from San Vincenzo were remarkable also in another way. Dedicatory inscriptions in large carved letters are found on the façades of ancient Roman buildings in all provinces of the Empire. They are one of the characteristic features of any major Roman settlement. On mediaeval monuments, however, they are very rare indeed. As was the case with metal letters, so also the practice of setting a large carved inscription on the façade of a building was abandoned in late antiquity; and the tradition was not revived until the middle of the fifteenth century, when Leone Battista Alberti ran the dedicatory inscription, in large Roman capitals, across the façade of his temple, the Tempio Malatestiano, at Rimini.58 In mediaeval Italy the normal position for an inscription recording the foundation or dedication of a church was outside, immediately over or flanking one of the principal doors, or inside, usually in the main apse. The few cases in which an inscription of large letters was set in a prominent position high up on the front of a building are instructive. There are only a handful of instances. The first are the inscriptions on the front and on the side-porches of the Tempietto sul Clitunno, near Spoleto. This is a small Christian oratory, constructed by the local Lombard aristocracy, probably in the second half of the seventh century, but so classicizing in its form and ornamentation, and using Roman spolia so successfully, that Palladio published it as an ancient temple,59 and modern scholars have sometimes been tempted to date it centuries too early.60 The inscription which runs across the front of the building under its main pediment is in elegantly cut It is now kept in one of the two small museums at the site. To judge from the published photographs, the letters of the inscriptions at Corvey may also have heen held in place by small round dowels, rather than by rectangular lugs : Thiimmler, Weserbaukunst im Mittelalter, fig. 32. 58 L.H. Heydenreich and W. Lotz, Architecture in Italy 1400 to 1600 (Harmondsworth, 1974), fig. 19; A. Bartram, Lettering in Architecture (London, 1975), figs. 15 and 16. 59 A. Palladio, I quattro libri dell’architettura, 8 vols. (Venice, 1570), IV, pp. 98–102. 60 The most recent publication on the Tempietto, in which the earlier literature is cited, is / dipinti murali e l’edicola marmorea del tempietto sul Clitunno, ed. G. Benazzi (Spoleto, 1985). 56 57

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romanizing capitals, 15 centimetres tall. The reason for the extraordinary classicizing appearance of this building has never been satisfactorily explained. But the inscriptions play a crucial role in the Roman language of its architecture.61 A second instance of a large inscription on the front of an early mediaeval church is on the cathedral at Salerno, which was consecrated in July 1084.62 This also runs directly beneath the gable of the façade, and is in large and carefully designed Roman capitals. These record that Robert Guiscard paid for the construction of the building from his own purse. Robert, who in 1084 had entered Rome, liberated the pope, Gregory VII, and had driven out the emperor Henry IV, is given the title: ROBBERTVS DVX. R. IMP. MAXIM[V]S TRIVMPHATOR, which has been completed ‘Robbertus Dux Romani Imperii Maximus Triumphator’.63 Robert is identified as a triumphator of or over the Roman Empire, and this may have been the reason for the decision to lay the inscription across the front of the building, in imitation of ancient Roman imperial usage.64 Prominent inscriptions were also set on the façades of three churches of the late twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries: in elegant carved letters on the architraves of the porches of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo and San Giovanni in Laterano, in

The inscriptions on the Tempietto sul Clitunno served as the inspiration for the ones on the façades of two other twelfth-century buildings in the vicinity, the cathedral at Foligno, and the church at Bovara. 62 E. Bertaux, L’Art dans l’Italie méridional (Paris and Rome, 1903), p. 318; M. de Angelis, Nuova guida del Duomo di Salerno (Salerno, 1937), pp. 23–5; A. Carucci, Il Duomo di Salerno e il suo Museo (Salerno, 1962), p. 27; H. Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, 3 vols. (Rome, 1986), I, p. 83. A. Thiery, in his commentary on Bertaux’s text in the Aggiornamento dell’opera di Emile Bertaux sotto la direzione di Adriano Prandi (Rome, 1978), p. 554, seems to have the wrong inscription in mind. Bertaux, L’Art dans l’Italie, stated that the inscription was not put up in the eleventh century, but did not give his reasons. 63 Carucci, Il Duomo di Salerno, p. 27; Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, I, p. 83 n. 2. The full text of the inscription runs as follows: ‘M(atthaeo) A(postolo) et EVA(n) GELISTAE PATRONO VRBIS ROBBERTVS DVX. R(omani?) IMP(erii?) MAXIM(U)S TRIVMPHATOR DE AERARIO PECVLIARI’. 64 The implications of the titles given to Robert Guiscard in the inscription are obscure. They may refer to his entry into Rome and his effective victory over the recently crowned emperor, Henry IV. However, if the inscription is later than the consecration of the cathedral, as Bertaux believed, the titles may be no more than a fanciful tribute to the great duke who was responsible for its rebuilding. For Robert’s activities in the 1080s, see: F. Chalandon, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicilie, 2 vols. (Paris, 1900), I, pp. 258– 84; H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Age of Desiderius: Montecassino, the Papacy, and the Normans in the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries (Oxford, 1983), pp. 136–76. 61

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Rome, and in mosaic on the arch and porch on the front of the cathedral of Cività Castellana. All three were the work of Roman marmorarii, who, in a broad climate of reform, drew heavily on ancient Roman and early Christian architecture and sculpted ornament.65 It is clear that not only the gilded metal letters, but also the very presence of a long dedicatory inscription on the façade of the abbey church of San Vincenzo, were extraordinary in an early mediaeval context. In both aspects of the inscription, specific reference is made to imperial Roman practice. The ninth-century visitor to San Vincenzo would have been confronted by script wherever he looked. As he approached the monastery, his eye would have been caught by the great inscription set high up on the front of the principal church, glinting golden in the sunlight. Once inside the complex, tituli accompanying painted images would have spoken to him from every wall, and as he entered the assembly room the line of Prophets, almost lifesize, would have cried out to him the words written on their long scrolls.66 Walking through the rooms, his feet touched script at almost every step, the names of the tilers written on the tiles in large letters. Periodically he 65 The porch of the Lateran basilica, which was demolished in the early eighteenth century, bore the name of the mason Nicolaus de Angelo, and the porch of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo has been attributed to the same master. Both were erected probably around 1180. The inscriptions on the central arch of the porch of Cività Castellana give the names of master Iacobus and his son Cosmas and the date 1210. The work of the Roman marmorarii is the subject of an excellent recent book, which covers the subject in exhaustive detail: P.C. Claussen, Magistri Doctissimi Romani: Die römischen Marmorkünstler des Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1987), pp. 22–6, fig. 17 (San Giovanni in Laterano), pp. 32–3, figs. 35, 36 (Ss. Giovanni e Paolo), pp. 82–91, figs. 98, 99, 103, 104 (Cività Castellana). Good illustrations of the inscription on the porch of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo are to be found in Bartram, Lettering in Architecture, figs. 11–14. The revival of Roman and early Christian types and motifs in Rome in the late eleventh and the twelfth centuries is briefly discussed by Claussen, Magistri Doctissimi Romani, pp. 239–41, and at some length by R. Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980), pp. 161–202. 66 A vivid reference to the mute utterances of imaged Prophets is given by the late ninthcentury patriarch of Constantinople, Photios, in his description of the church of the Virgin of the Pharos, in the Imperial Palace at Constantinople. It is most likely that the texts he records were written on scrolls held up by the figures on the walls of the church : ‘A choir of apostles and martyrs, yea of prophets, too, and patriarchs fill and beautify the whole church with their images. Of these, one (King David), though silent, cries out his sayings of yore, “How amiable are they tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth in the courts of the Lord”; another (Jacob), “How wonderful is this place; this is none other but the house of God” ’ (The Homilies of Photius, ed. Mango, p. 188; idem, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, p. 186).

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would come across an ancient Roman funerary inscription incorporated into the new monastic structure, and in the areas reserved for the burial of the monks stone slabs carved with epitaphs in the incisive and elegant script practised by the monastery’s masons were set into the floor over the individual inhumations. If our traveller’s visit had happened to coincide with the burial of one of the members of the community, just before the grave was closed he would probably have caught a glimpse of a protective formula written in neat capitals on the plaster behind the deceased man’s head. The quantity of lettering at San Vincenzo, the care which was taken over it, and the variety of the media and forms in which it was executed, are remarkable. The various means of exhibiting script employed in the churches and the other buildings derive from disparate traditions. It would appear that a purposeful effort was made by the men coordinating the expansion and the reconstruction of the monastery to feature lettering of various kinds on a wide selection of differing supports, some of which would have been quite novel to a contemporary observer. The effect of this would have been to arouse curiosity and interest and to focus attention sharply on the written word. The one thing that is missing in this manifold production of script is the scriptorium and the manuscripts written by the monks. It is most unfortunate that not a single eighth- or ninth-century manuscript can be assigned with absolute certainty to San Vincenzo.67 The community at this time was a large one, and it is very likely that there was an active scriptorium at the monastery.68 Indeed, what we know of the life and work of one of its most distinguished members, Ambrose Autpert, presupposes the availability, and probably also the production, of books. Autpert, who acted as abbot for a brief spell in the late 770s, was a renowned theologian who had composed a commentary on the Apocalypse and mariological homilies, as well as an account of the foundation of the monastery and of the lives of the three It is not until the eleventh century that there is fairly conclusive evidence for book production at the monastery. The Chronicle records that Abbot Ylarius (1011–45) had books made for the newly restored church of San Vincenzo (Chron. Vult., III, pp. 77—8); and there is a late eleventh–century manuscript, containing liturgical offices and prayers, now in the Vatican Library, cod. Chig. D.V.77, which was made for use at San Vincenzo (L. DuvalArnould, ‘Les Manuscrits de San Vincenzo al Volturno’, in Una grande abbazia altomedievale, ed. Avagliano, pp. 362–5); but compare McKitterick, below, p. 316. 68 For the size of the community at San Vincenzo in the late eighth and the ninth centuries, see n. 1, above. 67

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founders.69 From his own testimony we know that he had spent his adult life at San Vincenzo and had been educated there.70 One early book has been associated with San Vincenzo. This is a copy of the Gospels, in the British Library (Add. 5463), known as the Codex Beneventanus.71 The connection with San Vincenzo is based on two things: on the name ‘patris Atoni’, who is recorded in the colophon as having commissioned the manuscript, and who has been identified with the Ato who was abbot of San Vincenzo in the mid-eighth century (739–60); and on the demonstrable presence of the book, in the tenth century, in a house subject to San Vincenzo, the convent of San Pietro in Benevento. The manuscript is elegantly produced, with text in an expert uncial, colophons in alternating lines of red and black capitals, and canon tables which are either a reused sixth-century set, or else exact copies of a sixth-century exemplar.72 If the association with San Vincenzo is correct, the Codex Beneventanus would provide clear evidence of a high level of scribal practice at the monastery as early as the middle of the eighth century. However, the scripts found in the manuscript, the uncial of the main text and the capitals of the incipits and explicits have almost nothing in common with the scripts used in the first half of the ninth century for painted, carved, incised and cast metal inscriptions at the monastery.73 One explanation for this could be that the scribes working in the scriptorium were trained in completely different traditions from those followed by the painters, masons, 69 J. Winandy, Ambroise Autpert moine et théologien (Paris, 1953); C. Leonardi, ‘Spiritualità di Ambrogio Autperto’, Studi medievali 3rd series 9 (1968), 1–131. 70 Winandy, Ambroise Autpert, pp. 14–16. For the significance of the Apocalypse in relation to the display of script, see McKitterick, below, pp. 314–18. 71 E.A. Lowe, Scriptura Beneventana, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1929), I, no. iv; C. Nordenfalk, Vier Kanonestafeln eines spätantiken Evangelienbuches (Göteborg, 1937), passim; idem, Die spätantiken Kanontafeln (Göteborg, 1938), pp. 177–8, pls. 52–7; CLA II, 162; D.H. Wright, ‘The canon tables of the Codex Beneventanus and related decoration’, DOP 33 (1979), pp. 133–55; Duval-Arnould, ‘Les Manuscrits de San Vincenzo al Volturno’, pp. 354–60. 72 According to current scholarly opinion, the canon tables, with their elegant marbled columns, carefully depicted capitals and rich vocabulary of late antique ornament in the arches, are not mediaeval but are a reused sixth-century set: H. Belting, ‘Probleme der Kunstgeschichte Italiens im Frühmittelalter’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 1 (1967), 104; Wright, ‘The canon tables of the Codex Beneventanus’, passim. See Duval-Arnould, ‘Les Manuscrits de San Vincenzo al Volturno’, pp. 358–9. However, the last word on this matter has probably not yet been said. 73 Reproductions of script from the Codex Beneventanus have been published by Wright, ‘The canon tables of the Codex Beneventanus’, ills. 1–5, 9, 10, 12–15.

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tilers and metalsmiths; another could be that a new type of capital script was introduced in the late eighth century.74 A third possibility, of course, is that the Ato named in the colophon is not the same man as the Abbot Ato, and that the Codex Beneventanus was not written at San Vincenzo. The context for the display of script at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the last decades of the eighth and the first half of the ninth centuries is to be found in the great increase in the practice and use of writing, and the enhanced status it attained, in western Europe, during this period. Beginning in the last quarter of the eighth century, manuscripts were produced in considerably greater numbers than had been the case in the preceding 200 years. A new ‘lower case’ script, caroline minuscule, was devised, and quickly adopted by nearly all the major scriptoria of Continental northern Europe; ancient scripts — Roman square capitals and rustic capitals — were revived, redesigned and used in new contexts and new combinations; and the old book-hands, uncials and half-uncials, were adapted to conform to new concepts of harmonious design. Scribes and illuminators tried out new ways of laying out their texts, and experimented tirelessly with display scripts and with the ornamented initial letter, a phenomenon which had its origins in Roman scribal practice, but which had been developed in new directions in the British Isles, and simultaneously also in scriptoria in Merovingian Francia.75 It was the Carolingians who exploited script and the written word most fully. Charlemagne was particularly concerned to promote correct usage in speech and writing, and wanted schools to be established in monasteries and episcopal seats throughout his realm, for the purpose of teaching the basic skills of literacy, grammar, the study of literature, the rudiments of music and

74 This explanation does not find support in the one example of eighth-century script that has been found in the recent excavations at San Vincenzo, a tombstone with the epitaph of a monk, Ermecausus. The bowed members of the letters of this inscription have the peculiar exaggerated swellings which are occasionally found in ornamental display capitals in manuscripts from both Italy and north of the Alps in the second half of the eighth century. There is no trace of anything resembling this script in the Codex Beneventanus. Ermecausus’ epitaph will be described and illustrated in the forthcoming Final Report on the excavations. 75 For a discussion of the varieties of display script employed in Carolingian scriptoria, see the chapter by McKitterick in this volume, below, pp. 301–4; and for the early development of the decorated initial letter: C. Nordenfalk, Die spätantiken Zierbuchstaben, 2 vols. (Stockholm, 1970); J J.G. Alexander, The Decorated Letter (London, 1978), pp. 8–11; O. Pächt, Book Illumination of the Middle Ages (London and Oxford, 1986), pp. 45–54, 63–76.

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computus.76 Writing was employed by the Carolingians for eminently practical purposes. Under Charlemagne it came to be used in many areas of the day-today administration of the realm,77 and the emperor made full use of the church, with its educated and literate clergy and its network of communications, in the governing, administration and defence of his far- flung territories. In the monastic scriptoria the skills of reading and writing were developed to facilitate the study and editing of scripture and the copying and dissemination of texts. But writing also had strong symbolic associations. First, the written word was closely identified with the Christian faith. Christianity was preeminently the religion of the Word of the Book, and Charlemagne was a devout Christian, concerned to strengthen the church within his Empire. Second, literacy and the widespread use of writing in all spheres of life had been among the most salient characteristics of ancient Roman civilization. Carolingian scribes employed late antique scripts and artists looked for example to late antique traditions of ornamenting books, at the same time that scholars read ancient texts with attention and writers imitated the Roman poets and historians, and while their ruler assumed the Roman imperial title and established a fixed residence at Aachen in the manner of a Roman emperor. Third, literacy and the use of writing were restricted to an elite, largely, but not exclusively, made up of monks and clerics.78 Script, with its connotations of communication and administrative control, of access to religious truth and ancient wisdom, of education and literary achievement, was an extremely potent and visible symbol of political and cultural dominance. Anyone with pretensions to power in the ninth century made sure he had the allegiance and the service of subjects who practised the skills of literacy. The revival of interest in literacy, the uses of writing and the study of literature was not confined to northern Europe in this period. To a more 76 See, in particular, the circular letter, De Litteris Colendis: H.R. Loyn and J. Percival, The Reign of Charlemagne: Documents on Carolingian Government and Administration (London, 1975), pp. 63–4; P.D. King, Charlemagne: Translated Sources (Kendal, 1987), pp. 232–3; and paragraph 72 of the capitulary of 789, known as the Admonitio Generalis: King, Charlemagne, p. 217, ed. MGH Cap. I, nos. 29 and 22, pp. 78–9 and 52–64, at pp. 59–60. 77 F. L. Ganshof, ‘Charlemagne et l’usage de l’écrit en matière administrative’, Le Moyen Age 57 (1951), 1–25, reprinted in translation in his The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy (London, 1971), pp. 125–42. Compare J.L. Nelson, ‘Literacy in Carolingian government’, in The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. R.McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 258– 96, and McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 23–75. 78 This assertion should now be modified considerably in light of the evidence presented by McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word, especially pp. 77–134, 211–70.

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limited degree, a similar revival had taken place in the Lombard kingdom in northern Italy, in the first half of the eighth century, and subsequently in the duchy of Benevento in the south.79 Significant developments in script were also taking place in southern Italy during this period. It was in the second half of the century, perhaps in the scriptorium at Montecassino, that the characteristic and distinctive Beneventan script, the littera beneventana, first made its appearance.80 Similarly, the prodigal display of painted imagery and decoration at San Vincenzo in the late eighth and ninth centuries has to be understood in the context of the rapidly increasing production and exploitation of visual imagery in the Carolingian Empire during this period. The experiments and inventions in Carolingian painting between the 790s and the middle of the following century are among the most astounding developments in the history of western art. Frankish artists, with only the most rudimentary native tradition to draw on, established norms of naturalistic figurative representation and canons of ornamentation, which determined some of the broad paths painting and sculpture in northern Europe were to follow for the following 400 years. The most successful inventions came out of ateliers associated with the royal court, or located in the great monasteries which enjoyed royal patronage and were controlled by abbots or bishops who kept close ties with the emperor: the Court School,81 and the small group of contemporary artists who produced the Coronation Gospels of Charlemagne now in Vienna,82 the scriptorium which flourished for twenty years at Hautvillers under the episcopate of Ebbo of Rheims,83 the scriptorium M. L. W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in Western Europe A.D. 500 to 900 (new edn, Ithaca, New York, 1966), pp. 268–71 ; G. Cavallo, ‘La trasmissione dei testi nell’area benevento-cassinese’, Settimane 12 (Spoleto, 1975), 360–8; idem, ‘Aspetti della produzione libraria nell’Italia meridionale longobarda’, in Libri e lettori nel medioevo: guida storica e critica, ed. idem (Bari, 1983), pp. 101–12; idem, ‘Libri e continuità della cultura antica in età barbarica’, in Magistra Barbaritas: I barbari in Italia, ed. G.P. Carratelli (Milan, 1984), pp. 603–62, at pp. 635–51. 80 For the earliest phases of the Beneventan script, see E.A. Lowe. The Beneventan Script, second edition revised and enlarged by V. Brown, Sussidi Eruditi 33, 2 vols. (Rome, 1980), I, pp. 40, 93–121; and Belting, Studien, p. 4. 81 W. Koehler, Die karolingischen Miniaturen, 5 vols. (Berlin, 1930–82), II: Die Hofschule Karls des Grossen, 1958. 82 Koehler, Die karolingischen Miniaturen, III: Erster Teil: Die Gruppe der KrönungsEvangeliar. Zweiter Teil: Metzer Handschriften, 1960. 83 J. Hubert, J. Porcher and W.F. Volbach, Carolingian Art (London, 1970), pp. 92–123; C.R. Dodwell, Painting in Europe, 800 to 1200 (Harmondsworth, 1971), pp. 30–3. 79

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at Tours under the Abbots Adalhard and Vivian,84 and that at Metz under Bishop Drogo,85 to name the most prominent centres. The production of illuminated manuscripts increased enormously in this period, and to judge both from documentary evidence and from the meagre and fragmentary remains that survive, churches, palaces and other public buildings received more extensive and magnificent schemes of painted decoration than had been the case in the preceding centuries.86 There was a revival of pictorial decoration also in Italy during the later eighth and the first half of the ninth centuries. This occurred in various parts of the country: in Rome, where, after a caesura of 200 years, churches were once again sumptuously adorned with mosaics and paintings;87 in the old Lombard north, where there is considerable evidence of wall-paintings of the highest quality, best preserved in Santa Maria in Valle at Cividale88 and in San Salvatore at Brescia;89 and in the south, at Benevento, in the palace church of Santa Sophia.90 The reference to Roman imperial precedent so clearly expressed in the monumental inscription in gilded metal letters on the façade of the main church of San Vincenzo, and also apparent in some aspects of the pictorial decoration of the monastery,91 is also in line with the cultural preoccupations of the age. Scribes and artists both north of the Alps and in Italy drew extensively on Roman imperial and late antique early Christian models Koehler, Die karolingischen Miniaturen, I: Die Schule von Tours, 1930–33. Koehler, Die karolingischen Miniaturen, III: Erster Teil: Die Gruppe der KrönungsEvangeliar. Zweiter Teil: Metzer Handschriften, 1960. 86 See my article, ‘Excavated wall-paintings in Germany, England and Italy: a preliminary survey’, in Early Medieval Wall-Painting and Painted Sculpture in the British Isles, ed. S. Cather, D. Park and P. Williamson, BAR, British Series 216 (Oxford), 1990, 123–33 87 Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, pp. 109–42. 88 H. L’Orange and H. Torp, ‘Il Tempietto longobardo di Cividale’, in Acta ad archaeologiam et historiam artium pertinentia, Institutum Romanum Norvegiae 7, 3 vols. (Rome, 1977). 89 G. Panazza, ‘Gli scavi, l’architettura e gli affreschi della chiesa di S. Salvatore in Brescia’, Atti dell’ottavo congresso di studi sull’arte dell’alto medioevo, 2 (1962); B.B. Anderson, ‘The frescoes of San Salvatore in Brescia’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley (Ann Arbor microfilms, 1976) ; A. Peroni, ‘Problemi della decorazione pittorica del S.Salvatore di Brescia’, in Seminario intemazionale sulla decorazione pittorica del San Salvatore di Brescia, Brescia 19–20 giugno 1981 (Pavia, 1983), pp. 17–46. 90 Belting, Studien, pp. 44–53. 91 The most prominent antique motif in the painted decoration is a pattern of overlapping parti-coloured tiles used on some of the benches running round the walls of the assembly room, which were constructed and decorated in the years around 800. This 84 85

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for patterns and ideas. In part this phenomenon of cultural retrospection stemmed from a politically and ideologically grounded concern with antique, particularly early Christian, precedent, which was shared by the Carolingian emperor, the pope and by other contemporary rulers, in their different ways.92 However, perhaps equally important was the continuing existence, in the eighth and ninth centuries, of great numbers of ancient monuments and artefacts, which, with their powerful associations with a great imperial civilization of the past, would have provided early mediaeval artists with a spectacular and enormously various exemplary range of naturalistic imagery and ornament. San Vincenzo was open to influence both from Lombard Benevento to the south and from the Franks to the north, and in the later eighth century there were strong Lombard and Frankish factions in the community.93 The monastery stood in Lombard territory, quite close to the border between the Beneventan principality and the southern frontier of the Carolingian Empire, which after 774 extended down to a point well south of Rome. Throughout the first two centuries of its existence, San Vincenzo had close connections with the Lombard court in Benevento, and with the Lombard aristocracy of the region.94 It had been founded in the first decade of the eighth century, by three Beneventan nobles; the majority of its abbots and a considerable proportion of its monks were of Lombard origin, and throughout the eighth and ninth centuries it continued to enjoy the support and benevolence of the rulers of Benevento and of local Lombard landowners.95 The monastery came to possess extensive property in Beneventan territory and in the city of Benevento itself, and Arichis II (758–87) had placed two of his most prestigious foundations, San Salvatore in Alife, and

design had been common and widespread in antiquity, but it appears to have been almost unknown in the early middle ages. The only other instance of its use in early mediaeval Italy is to be found at Farfa, in the crypt at the western end of the first abbey church, and probably dates to the 830s, when Sicardus was abbot. See Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration’, pp. 143–4. 92 P.E. Schramm, Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio (4th edn, Darmstadt, 1984), pp. 9–43; Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, pp. 109–42. 93 For the Lombard faction in the monastery, see M. del Treppo, ‘Longobardi Franci e papato in due secoli di storia vulturnese’, Archivio storico per le provincie napoletane NS 24 (1955), 50ff. 94 Belting, Studien, pp. 226–7. 95 Chron. Vult., passim.

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San Pietro, outside the walls of Benevento, both female houses, under the jurisdiction of San Vincenzo.96 However, the new Carolingian rulers of Italy also took an interest in San Vincenzo. Charlemagne, in a diploma of 787, issued at the request of the Abbot Paul, confirmed the possessions of the monastery, allowed it the privilege of electing its own abbot, and granted it immunity from lay interference.97 There was one occasion on which he intervened directly in the affairs of the monastery. In 783 the abbot, Poto, a Lombard, was accused by one of the Frankish faction of refusing to join the community in chanting the customary psalm, Deus in nomine tuo salvum me fac, for the safety and health of the Frankish king. When report of this was brought to Charlemagne, he ordered that Poto be suspended, summoned to Rome, and tried before a papal court of enquiry, to find out the truth of the allegation. In the event, Poto was acquitted of the charge, but was required to take an oath of allegiance to the king, and ten monks, drawn from both factions of the community, were commanded to attest under oath to his innocence. The monks requested leave from the pope to go to Charlemagne himself. Whether they took the oaths, and what the outcome of the matter was, is not recorded. However, this affair shows on the one hand, that Charlemagne was concerned to preserve his name and honour at San Vincenzo, and, on the other, that both Frankish and Lombard interests were strongly represented in the monastery, and that relations between the two factions were by no means always harmonious.98 The monk John, who composed the Chronicle of San Vincenzo in the second quarter of the twelfth century, makes a lot of this Carolingian connection and has much to say about the interest of Charlemagne and his successors in the monastery and the love which they bore it. He tells how Iosue (792–817), the abbot responsible for the reconstruction of the main abbey church of San Vincenzo, was of royal blood, and had been educated at

Ibid., I, pp. 135, 348–9, 170. See Belting, Studien, p. 227. Chron. Vult., I, pp. 212–15. 98 The evidence for the affair of Poto is contained in two letters from Pope Hadrian to Charlemagne, preserved in the Codex Carolinus: MGH Epp. merov. et karol. I (=MGH Epp. III), 66 and 67, pp. 593–7. See del Treppo, ‘Longobardi Franci e papato’, 50–4; O. Bertolini, ‘Carlomagno e Benevento’, in Karl der Grosse, I: Persönlichkeit und Geschichte ed. H. Beumann (Düsseldorf, 1965), pp. 625–31; Belting, Studien, pp. 226–7. 96 97

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the royal (Carolingian) court, and goes on to claim that Iosue’s sister was the first wife of Charlemagne’s son and successor as emperor, Louis.99 According to the chronicler, Louis, as Augustus and successor to Charlemagne as emperor, together with his wife, visited San Vincenzo twice, on the second occasion for the dedication of Iosue’s church, which is recorded as having taken place in 808. The imperial couple are said to have presented the monastery with many gifts, and at the request of the abbot and the monks consigned to it an ancient temple in Capua with its great columns, to provide a source of building-material for the new church.100 The chronicler’s chronology is seriously awry. None of these claims can be substantiated today, many seem unlikely, and some are demonstrably untrue. One has to be extremely sceptical of everything the chronicler says concerning Charlemagne’s and Louis’ involvement with San Vincenzo, since it has been demonstrated that John forged a number of the diplomas confirming possessions and granting privileges to the monastery, which purport to have been issued by the two rulers.101 Nevertheless, the chronicler’s fabrications contain a nucleus of truth, and they may well have been fanciful and disingenuous elaborations on a tradition, current among the monks, of substantial Carolingian intervention in the affairs of the monastery in the decades following Charlemagne’s annexation of Lombard northern Italy in 774. During the period in question, it was the Carolingians, above all others, who exploited painting and script as two potent and visible symbols of their authority, their power and their presence. The excavations at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno have provided a rare opportunity of observing how a large and enterprising religious community, situated in

Chron. Vult., I, p. 219. Ibid., pp. 220–1. 101 Charlemagne did not die, and Louis did not succeed him as emperor, until 814. Federici, in his edition of the Chronicle, draws attention to the difficulty of reconciling the chronicler’s account of Louis’ visits to San Vincenzo with what is known of his itinerary and of events at the monastery during the relevant years (ibid., p. 220 n. 2, and p. 221 n. 1,225 n. 1). Of the four diplomas in the Chronicle ostensibly issued by Charlemagne in favour of San Vincenzo, Federici judges three to be later falsifications (see ibid., pp. 140 n. 1, 183 n. 3, 186–7 n. 3, 211 n. 3, 212–13 n. 3), and of the four issued by Louis, one is a forgery (ibid., pp. 223–4 n. 2, 233–4 n. 1, 289 n. 49, 309 n. 1). The interest allegedly shown by the Carolingian rulers for San Vincenzo is a theme which recurs throughout the Chronicle, for instance in the account of the eighth-century abbot and theologian, Ambrose Autpert (ibid., pp. 177–92). 99

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a highly sensitive location, in the border marches between Carolingian and Beneventan territory, deployed these cultural symbols to its own advantage. Painted decoration and prominent inscriptions not only gave the monastery an air of splendour and superiority, but they also doubtless served to attract the interest of benefactors from the region, whose support was vital to the continued prosperity and success of the community. The paintings, which were to be seen in almost every room at San Vincenzo, and the prodigal display of writing, in inscriptions of every kind in all parts of the complex, reveal the abbot and the monks as masters of an apparatus of cultural control, which was being developed and deployed by the most aggressive and successful powers in the contemporary world.102

Postscript After this article was consigned to the editor, Professor Paolo Delogu drew my attention to the dedicatory inscription from the façade of Arichis II’s palacechapel at Salerno, S. Pietro a Corte.103 This inscription, part of which came to light during excavation in 1987, consisted of gilded bronze letters, about 16 cm tall, which are very closely related, both in their design and in the manner of their fixing, to the characters of Abbot Iosue’s great gilded metal inscriptions at San Vincenzo. Arichis’ inscription must antedate those at San Vincenzo by at least a quarter of a century. There can be little doubt that it was either this inscription at Salerno, or a similar one on a contemporary structure elsewhere in the Lombard principality of Benevento, which served both as the inspiration and as the direct model for Iosue’s gilded metal tituli.

102 For information, comment and help of various kinds, I should like to thank David Abulafia, Julian Brown, Guglielmo Cavallo, Cathy Coutts, Paolo Delogu, Eric Fernie, Andrew Hanasz, Sandy Helsop, Richard Hodges, Ernst Kitzinger, Michael Lapidge, Stephen Mitchell, Victoria Mitchell, James Mosley, Christopher Norton, Barry Singleton, David Thomson, Paul Williamson and, of course, Rosamond McKitterick. 103 M.P. and P. Peduto, ‘Chiesa di San Pietro a Corte’, Passaggiate Salernitane, 3 (Salerno, 1988), 20–6, at 25–6; idem., ‘Un accesso alla storia di Salerno: stratigrafie e materiali dell’area palaziale longobarda. 1. La costituzione del documento archeologico e la sua interpretazione stratigrafica’, Rassegna Storica Salernitana, 10 (1968), 9–28, at 13, fig. 1 ; M. Galante, ‘Le epigrafi’, ibid., 44–5, at 42–5; P. Peduto, ‘Nel mondo dei ‘Longobardi’, Archeo, 57 (November, 1989), 116–19, at 119.

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The origins and the cultural context of the display of script at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the early ninth century will have to be reconsidered in the light of this recent find at Salerno.

IX The Crypt Reappraised

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he crypt first came to light on 10 March 1832, when a certain Domenico Notardonato, the occupier of the farmhouse which stood until recently over the apse of the ‘South Church’ (Fig. 3:2), unearthed its little north window. This countryman made his discovery while planting vines on the slopes of Colle della Torre. Notardonato reported his discovery to the local parish priest, Nicola Padula, who, early in April of the same year, wrote to the abbot of Montecassino, the proprietor of the site. In his letter, which is now in the possession of the Giampaoli family of Castellone in Castel San Vincenzo, Padula described the circumstances of the discovery, and gave a succinct account of the scheme of paintings in the crypt, which he identified as forming part of the celebrated monastery of San Vincenzo (Di Cicco 1990: 64–6; see Appendix 1). The discovery was recorded by the archivist of Monte Cassino, Don Fraia Frangipane, in his Giornali, in the entry for 10 April 1832 (see Chapter 1). After consulting the Chronicon Vulturnense Frangipane identified the structure as a chapel of Saint Laurence, which was recorded as having been built by Abbot Epyphanius in the ninth century. At the time of its discovery the original entrance to the crypt was blocked and entrance was effected through the small north window, although by the end of the nineteenth century the rectangular east window seems to have been the preferred means of access. The interior may have been partially filled with earth at this time, to judge from the position of some early graffiti high up on the vaults. However, despite the initial interest shown at the time of the discovery, more than 60 years were to pass before Don Oderisio Piscicelli Taeggi, one of Frangipane’s successors as archivist at Monte Cassino, published a systematic account of the crypt and its scheme of decoration (Piscicelli Taeggi 1896). The walls and the vaults of the crypt are plastered and carry an elaborate scheme of painted imagery: it is these paintings that have made San Vin-

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cenzo well-known to historians of medieval art. The cycle has been the subject of a number of studies during the past century. Apart from Piscicelli Taeggi’s valuable early account, the most notable of these are by Pietro Toesca, Hans Belting and Fernanda de’ Maffei (Piscicelli Taeggi 1896; Toesca 1904; Belting 1968: 24–41, 193–229; de’ Maffei 1985). However, none of these accounts is completely satisfactory. The style of the paintings, the pictorial conventions employed by the artists and the meaning of the programme all require further investigation and analysis. This is not the place for a comprehensive examination of the crypt and its decoration. A few remarks on the general scheme and significance of the cycle of paintings and on the function of the crypt are, however, in order, and may provide a point of departure for further enquiry. The Crypt Church The Crypt Church was completely remodelled in the second quarter of the ninth century (Hodges 1993: 41–2, 56–63, 72–4), in phase 5. Its predecessor was a small eighth-century church, bounded on its eastern, riverward, side by a rough, unpaved, yard which provided a means of access to the undercrofts beneath the ‘South Church’. The principal access to the earlier church would appear to have been via the north-south passage which ran beneath the guest-quarters and a door in the church‘s south wall, and not via an opening in its east front in the normal fashion. The principal features of this rebuilding were the insertion of the crypt and of the raised triconch sanctuary above in the apsidal end of the church, and the addition of a narthex and a little atrium at its eastern end. The reconstruction can be firmly dated to the period of office of Abbot Epyphanius (824–42), and formed part of a more extensive undertaking. This also involved the rebuilding of the ‘South Church’ to a magnificent specification, now provided with an opus sectile marble pavement and with sumptuous painted decoration, and the embellishment of the structures surrounding the Garden Court immediately to the south, including the addition of a pilastered and arcaded façade to the front of the Entrance Hall and the provision of elegantly decorated benching in the columned portico in front of the Distinguished Guests’ Refectory on the riverward side of the Garden Court area. The aim of this extended campaign of reconstruction was evidently the improvement and aggrandizement of the guest-quarters of the monastery.

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One of the principal functions of the new church must have been to serve the needs of visitors staying at San Vincenzo. While the earlier church had been entered from the interior of the monastery, and had apparently functioned as a monastic chapel, the new phase 5 church was designed to be a more public building, with its main entrance facing the river and the old Roman bridge at the northern entrance to the monastery. It seems likely that the Crypt Church was rebuilt on a rather larger scale to replace the modest chapel in the apsidal end of the phase 4 ‘South Church’, which had been suppressed in this phase of reconstruction, so as to provide a grander and more dignified place of worship for those residing in the adjacent guest-quarters. The crypt and the paintings on its walls and vaults must be understood in the context of the reconstruction and embellishment of the guest-complex. The Programme of Painted Imagery in the Crypt Before embarking on an analysis of the painted imagery on the walls of the crypt, it will be as well to give a skeletal description of the programme (Fig. 1). The visitor, who, on entering, glances up at the vault above the stairs which lead down into the crypt, is confronted by the remains of a large figure seated within a red double mandorla against a dark blue sky filled with stars (Figs. 1,1 and 2). This figure, who is to be identified with the risen Christ/ God, stretches out his left hand towards a book which is raised up to him by a second, smaller, individual who twists violently round so that his mantle flies out behind him (Fig. 3). The lower figure, of which only parts of the arms and the flying cloak survive, is painted at shoulder level on the righthand wall at the top of the steps (Figs. 1, 2). On the wall immediately to the left of the steps leading down (Fig. 1, 3) are two virgin martyrs holding crowns, and four more similar virgins process along the wall ahead (the west wall of the south arm of the crypt) (Figs. 4, 5 and, below, 30, 51). These were apparently all originally identified by inscriptions. Only one name has been identifiable in modern times, that of Anastasia, second in line on the short south wall adjacent to the steps (Belting 1968: 30; de’ Maffei 1985: 271). Beneath the four virgin martyrs on the west wall the dado consists of a configuration of yellow bands forming a large winged knot (Fig. 6). This is a virtuoso composition of interlace doubtless intended to catch and intrigue the eye of the visitor; but given its prominent position, immediately opposite the entrance, it may also have had an apotropaic, protective, function. Since the earliest times knots have

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been imputed with powers of averting the evil eye and countering malign influences. Opposite these (Fig. 1,4), on the short east wall of the southern arm, is an image of the Virgin Mary, crowned and regally robed, seated on a throne, with the Child Christ sitting before her in a mandorla (Fig. 47). The small figure of a deacon kneels before the Virgin in the act of proskynesis and grasps her left foot in adoration (Fig. 7). Beneath the Virgin and Child are the half-length figures of three male saints. These are painted on a secondary, overlying, skim of plaster and to judge from their stylistic features must postdate the other paintings in the crypt by a generation or so. Toesca, at the beginning of this century, could still read identifying inscriptions: SCS MARIVS PB beside the figure on the left and SCS EPIphaNVS (?) beside the central figure (Toesca 1904: 19, n. 3). Some letters of the first name are still legible. To judge from an early photograph published by Toesca, the heads of these saints were surrounded not only by circular haloes but also by square haloes, which were usually used in early medieval Italy to identify contemporary living dignitaries (Toesca 1904: pl. II. See also Belting 1968: 27–8, ill. 12 and de’ Maffei 1985: 295–6, fig. 21). A large figure of Christ seated on a sphere fills the vault where the three arms meet at the centre of the crypt (Figs. 1,5 and 8). In the apex of the vault of the western arm (Fig. 1,6), the principal axial arm of the crypt, the Virgin Mary is shown a second time, once more crowned and dressed in imperial robes, and again seated on a magnificent jewelled throne (Figs. 9, 10 and 48). Here, however, she holds not the Child Christ but an open book, in which is written a variant reading of a passage from the third verse of the Magnificat: ‘ex hoc enim beatam me dicent — ‘for (behold,) from henceforth (all generations) shall call me blessed’ (Luke 1.48). Many of the letters are now very hard to decipher. Below her, in the rounded apsidal end of this arm (Fig. 1,7), is a curious figure, an archangel, holding a long sceptre, who stands within a great red aureole (Fig. 49). Below, to the left (Fig. 1,8), just outside the aureole, a diminutive figure dressed in a long red garment approaches the angel in suppliant attitude (Figs. 11 and 12) (Belting 1968: fig. 27; de’ Maffei 1985: fig. 3). This little figure is much damaged and is extremely hard to make out. However, the lower hem of the mantle and two feet are readily discernible just above the horizontal black band at the top of the dado. There is an accompanying inscription in irregular white capitals which has not yet been deciphered. Belting read here: ..DA.MERIS.MED..IO.. (Belting 1968: 29, n. 23). Our tentative reading is D[..]EPIS[.]S?IDI?C?[...]. On the walls

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of this arm (Fig. 1,9), beneath the Virgin enthroned in the vault, are the four canonical archangels, more or less uniform with the archangel in the aureole (Figs. 13 and 14). One of the pair on the left-hand wall is still identified by a prominent vertical titulus as SCS RAPHAEL. The archangel in the apse is distinguished from his four companions by the richer colour of his vestments, as well as by his aureole and sceptre (Fig. 49). His tunic is deep blue and is apparelled with bands of purple and yellow across the thighs and at the lower hem, while those of the other four are white with just one broad yellow apparel at the hem. Facing the glorified angel in the apse, in the deep arched niche which forms a vestigial eastern arm to the crypt (Fig. 1,10–11), is the Annunciation, with the Archangel Gabriel and Mary separated by a rectangular opening, a window, which looks out into the nave of the church (Figs. 15–18). On the two flanking walls of this eastern arch (Fig. 1,12–13) the Nativity is represented in two parts. On the left-hand, northern, wall Mary reclines on a bed and Joseph sits beside her (Fig. 19). On the right-hand, southern, wall the composition is divided into two parts; above (and now all but indecipherable) the Child Christ is depicted wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger within a building (Piscicelli Taeggi 1896: 8), while below two midwives bathe him in a large chalice-like tub (Fig. 49). Lastly, there is the northern arm (Fig. 20). On its east wall (Fig. 1,14), immediately to the north of the deep arched niche painted with the Annunciation and the Nativity, is the Crucifixion flanked by Mary and Saint John, with Abbot Epyphanius (824–42), identified by a titulus, kneeling in supplication at the foot of the cross (Figs. 21 and 22). Beyond this there is a deep round-headed niche above which (Fig. 1,15) the crowned figure of Jerusalem sits weeping. Below the niche a rectangular block of masonry projects from the wall, apparently the support for a small altar or table. Behind the figure of Jerusalem (Fig. 1,16) is the Resurrection, with Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of James approaching an angel seated before the Holy Sepulchre. In the niche in this wall (Fig. 1,17–19) a standing figure of Christ, holding an open book in which is written ‘EGO SVM DS ABRAHAM’ — ‘I am ... the God of Abraham’ (Exodus 3.6), is flanked by Saint Laurence and Saint Stephen (Figs. 23, 24 and 25). On the opposite wall of this arm (Fig. 1,22) the martyrdoms of these two saints are depicted in elaborate compositions (Figs. 26 and 27). Towards the northern end of this west wall of the north arm is another deep painted niche, set lower down than the niche opposite. In it is depicted a standing deacon, his hands raised in an attitude of prayer, in the

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orant position so common in early Christian imagery and so rarely used in the Middle Ages (Fig. 28). Like the kneeling figures of Abbot Epyphanius before the crucified Christ and of the deacon at the feet of the Virgin and Child, he is distinguished by a square halo. Toesca read the remains of a titulus beside this figure: ‘F....R..M....S DIACONVS’ (Toesca 1904: 23–4). High up at the end of this arm of the crypt is the one outside window, which allows north light to penetrate into the dim semi-underground space (Fig. 1,23). The Right Hand of God is painted in the apex of the vault, just inside this window, signifying the active part played by God in all that is enacted within (Fig. 29). Finally, it should be noted that lines of little pyramidal clouds, alternating with red and blue, run along the shoulders of the vaults above the principal fields in the south and north arms and flank the figure of Christ in the central crossing (Fig. 30). A sequence of elaborate eight-pointed white stars punctuates the apex of the vault of the southern arm, and may once have been present in the northern arm too. Previous Interpretations of the Programme The two principal interpretations of this programme of imagery in the crypt are those of Hans Belting and of Fernanda de’ Maffei, and it is appropriate to preface our own observations on the paintings with a brief résumé of the conclusions reached by these two scholars. Hans Belting, in his Studien zur Beneventanischen Malerei, sees the programme as a conjunction of two schemes (Belting 1968: 216–22). The first of these comprises the figures of Christ and the Virgin enthroned one above the other in the vault (Figs. 8 and 9, 48), and the four archangels arrayed beneath the Virgin (Figs. 13 and 14, 48). Belting proposes that this is a contracted adaptation of a scheme devised for a much larger building. He thinks that it was derived from an early, pre-iconoclastic, version of a type of programme which was to become canonical in Byzantine cross-domed churches after the mid-ninth century — a programme which he sees already in the reconstructed pre-iconoclastic decoration of the Church of the Dormition at Nicaea. A version of this type of programme is known from written descriptions to have been used in Istanbul in the second half of the ninth century, and is best preserved in a number of eleventh-century churches, at Hosios Loukas in Phocis, at the Nea Moni on Chios and at Daphni, outside Athens. The second scheme, which he describes as intersecting the first, runs

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1. Plan of the crypt showing the programme of imagery (AH).

2. Christ in a double aureole on the vault over the entrance steps (JBB).

3. Turning figure raising a book up to Christ, on the north flank of the entrance (JBB).

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4. The south arm of the crypt (JBB). 5. The virgin martyrs on the west wall of the south arm (JBB).

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6. Dado with winged knot on the west wall of the south arm (JBB).

7. Deacon kneeling at the feet of the Virgin Mary, on the east wall of the south arm (JBB).

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8. Christ seated on a sphere, on the central vault (JBB).

9. The Virgin Mary enthroned holding an open book, on the vault of the west arm (JBB).

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10. Detail of the Virgin Mary enthroned, on the vault of the west arm (JBB).

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11. Suppliant figure below an archangel in an aureole, in the apsidal end of the west arm (JBB).

12. Suppliant figure below an archangel in an aureole, in the apsidal end of the west arm (AH, JM).

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13. Archangels on the south wall of the west arm (JBB). 14. Archangels on the north wall of the west arm (JBB).

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15. View looking towards the arched east niche (JBB). 16. The Annunciation and window, in the arched east niche (JBB).

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17. The annunciate angel Gabriel on the east wall of the arched east niche (JBB).

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18 The Virgin Mary of the Annunciation, on the east wall of the arched east niche (JBB).

19. The Nativity: the Virgin Mary and Joseph, on the north wall of the arched east niche (JBB).

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20. The north arm of the Crypt Church looking north (JBB).

21. The Crucifixion, on the east wall of the north arm (JBB).

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22. Abbot Epyphanius kneeling at the foot of the cross (JBB).

23. Christ flanked by Saint Laurence and Saint Stephen, in the niche in the east wall of the north arm (JBB).

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24. Saint Laurence, in the niche in the east wall of the north arm (JBB).

25. Saint Stephen, in the niche in the east wall of the north arm (JBB).

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26. The martyrdoms of Saint Laurence and Saint Stephen, on the west wall of the north arm (JBB). 27. The martyrdom of Saint Stephen, on the west wall of the north arm (JBB).

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28. Orant deacon, in the niche in the west wall of the north arm (JBB).

29. The right hand of God, on the vault at the north end of the north arm (JBB).

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30. Pyramidal clouds, on the vault of the south arm (JBB). 31. Elevation and section of tomb, arched east niche (KF).

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32. Tomb, arched east niche (JBB).

33. Tomb, arched east niche (JBB).

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34. Tomb, arched east niche (JBB)

35. Tomb of Theodora Episcopa, Rome, Santa Prassede, Chapel of San Zeno (after Waetzoldt 1964: fig. 501).

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36. Plan of Old Saint Peter’s, Rome, showing the locations of the funerary oratories of eighth- and ninth-century popes (AH, after Borgolte 1989: fig. 7). (1) Oratory with the graves of Leo I, Leo II, Leo III and Leo IV, founded by Sergius I (687–701) and reconstructed by Leo IV (847–55); (2) Oratory of John VII (705–7); (3) Oratory of Gregory III (731–41); (4) Oratory of Paul I (757–67); (5) Oratory of Hadrian I (772–95); (6) Oratory of Paschal I (817–24); (7) Oratory with the graves of Sixtus II, Fabian and Sergius II, constructed by Paschal I; (8) Oratory of Gregory IV (827–44), with the graves of Gregory I and Gregory IV.

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37. King Cnut and Queen Emma placing a cross on the altar of the New Minster, Winchester. Liber Vitae of the New Minster (Courtesy of the British Library, Stowe Ms. 944, fol. 6r).

38. The Last Judgement, the Blessed received into Paradise and the Damned cast down into Hell. Liber Vitae of the New Minster (Courtesy of the British Library, Stowe Ms. 944, fols 6v–7r.)

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39. The head of Abbot Epyphanius, as he kneels at the foot of the cross (JBB).

40. The head of the deacon, kneeling before the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child (JM).

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41. The head of Thcodotus. Rome, Santa Maria Antiqua, Chapel of Saint Quiricus and Saint Julitta (after Wilpert 1916: vol. IV (I), pl. 182.2)

42. The head of Pope Zacharias. Rome, Santa Maria Antiqua, Chapel of Saint Quiricus and Saint Julitta (after Wilpert 1916: vol. IV (I), pl. 181).

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43 .The head of Aliberga. Torba, tower, lower chamber (JM).

44. The head of a nun. Torba, tower, upper chamber (after Bertelli 1988a: fig. 48).

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45. The head of a donor. Rome, catacomb of Callixtus, cubiculum of Oceanus (after Wilpert 1916: vol. IV (I), pl. 182.1).

46. Two eagles, on the dado in the apsidal end of the west arm (JBB).

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47. The Virgin Mary and the Christ Child enthroned, with a deacon in prokynesis, on the east wall of the south arm (JBB).

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48. The west arm of the crypt, looking west (JBB). 49. The archangel in an aureole, on the apsidal end of the west arm (JBB).

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50. The Nativity: the Christ Child in the manger, above, and Christ being bathed by midwives, below, on the south wall of the arched east niche (JBB).

51. Virgin martyrs and vase, on the west wall of the south arm (JBB).

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along the west-east axis, and centres on the Virgin as mediator between earth and heaven. At one end of this axis is the most remarkable image in the crypt, the fifth archangel standing within an aureole in the apsidal end of the western arm (Fig. 49). Belting explains this as the angel who, in the Roman canon of the Mass, was called on to transport the host from the earthly to the heavenly altar. The figure of the Virgin Mary in the vault of the western arm forms the mid-point of this axis (Figs. 9, 48), and the representations of the Annunciation and the Nativity in the eastern niche lie at its other end (Figs. 15–19, 50). Following Toesca, Belting points out that the image of the Virgin in the vault, crowned, attired as a queen and seated on a throne, holding an open book inscribed with words from the Magnificat, depends on the teaching of Ambrosius Autpert, the distinguished eighth-century theologian and abbot of San Vincenzo. Autpert, in his Mariological homilies, celebrates the Assumption of Mary, her virginity and her queenly status, and speaks of her as the Queen of the Angels, and as being enthroned above the Angels. Autpert also lays emphasis on the humility of the Virgin, and Belting sees this as a principal theme in the programme. More recently, Fernanda de’ Maffei has published a detailed and penetrating interpretation of the paintings in the crypt (de’ Maffei 1985: 296– 327). While agreeing with Toesca and Belting that the two principal images of Mary reflect Autpert’s Marian theology, she rejects Belting’s proposal that the programme was adapted from a Byzantine model. De’ Maffei believes that the scheme is steeped in the theology of Autpert, and that it relies particularly heavily on his homily on the Assumption of the Virgin. She proposes that the paintings, like the writings of Autpert, were intended for the instruction and edification of the monks of San Vincenzo, and suggests that it may have been Abbot Epyphanius himself, depicted on his knees before the crucified Christ, who devised the programme (Fig. 22; de’ Maffei 1985: 298–9, 327). She also sees strong apocalyptic elements in the imagery, deriving from Autpert’s major work, his commentary on the Book of Revelation. The pivot of the programme, for de’ Maffei, is the image of the Virgin Mary in the vault of the western arm of the crypt. She understands this as an image of the Assumption, a favourite theme of theological exegesis and celebration in the eighth and ninth centuries. Mary is seated on a regal throne, above the angels, and is adorned with the gems of the beatitudes. De’ Maffei agrees with Belting that the principal theme enunciated here is the Virgin’s humility, alluded to in the words from the Magnificat inscribed on the pages of the book she holds, following Autpert’s reading of this verse. For

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Autpert, Mary is not only the perfect exemplification of the union between the human and the divine, a union which was established in her when she conceived Christ at the Annunciation, but also the prime instance of that perfect imitation of Christ which is the way of salvation for all Christians. The two poles of the way of salvation, to which Autpert repeatedly returns, are the conception and birth of the Son by the Virgin and the Assumption of the Virgin into heaven. The former constitutes the point of departure for every soul aspiring to salvation, while the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ are the events which make it possible for the believer, following the example of Mary, to attain eternal bliss. For de’ Maffei, the image of Mary enthroned in the vault and the radically curtailed Infancy and Passion cycles concisely illustrate these central themes. She recalls Autpert’s description of the martyrs who follow in the footsteps of Christ, and imitate the example of his Crucifixion, in explanation of the extended representations of the martyrdoms of Saint Laurence and Saint Stephen on the wall immediately opposite the Crucifixion in the northern arm of the crypt. She sees the extraordinary fifth archangel, who stands within an aureole in the little apsidal end of the western arm, again in terms of Autpertian exegesis. This is the angel who addresses Saint John in the opening verses of Revelation, and elsewhere in that book. De’ Maffei points out that for Autpert, in his commentary on the Apocalypse, the text of Revelation is a lesson, a veiled instruction on the themes of retribution and redemption, aimed at the Church as well as at the individual soul. This great lesson of Revelation is imparted by an angel, whom Autpert identifies in the first instance with Christ, and secondarily with the Church after the Resurrection. Saint John, whom de’ Maffei recognizes in the now sadly fragmentary figure at the entrance to the crypt, is equated by Autpert with the terrestrial Church. Together, the constellations Angel-Christ and Saint John-Church constitute for Autpert the unity of the mystic body of Christ, whose head is Christ and whose limbs are the faithful. For de’ Maffei, as for Belting, the scheme of imagery in the crypt has two principal thematic axes which intersect. The first centres on the Virgin Mary, who is exulted in the vault as Queen of Heaven and who provides the perfect pattern of the way to redemption and salvation for all humankind. The words of the Magnificat, uttered by her at the Visitation, here inscribed in her book, make her the point of departure of this whole subtle cycle, while her depiction as Queen assumed into Heaven establishes her simultaneously as its culmination. The second thematic axis, couched predominantly in

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Apocalyptic terms, concerns Christ, incarnate and born of the Virgin in the eastern end of the crypt, resurrected and glorified, and mystically returning to complete his ministry, in the figure of the angel in the focus of the western arm. The Principal Themes of the Programme As the elaborate analyses of Belting and de’ Maffei make all too clear, this is a complicated programme of imagery. There are a number of features in it of which we must take note. Firstly, the Virgin Mary is represented twice in majestic frontality, regally attired and enthroned, and she also figures prominently in the scenes of the Annunciation and the Nativity which are located about the structure on the main axis. There is little doubt that the crypt was dedicated to her. There is no independent record of the dedication of the crypt, but it is likely that this church is one of the two which are named in the Chronicon Vulturnense as having been constructed under Abbot Epyphanius, Santa Maria in insula and San Lorenzo in alia insula (Federici 1, 1925, 288). Secondly, at the heart of the pictorial programme lies the theme of the Virgin as the humble handmaid of the Lord, who joyfully acknowledges and submits to the will of God, is exalted above all humankind, and is raised to sit enthroned at God’s right hand as Queen of Heaven. Central to this theme, which has been masterfully examined by Robert Deshman in a recent article, is Mary’s song of praise, the Magnificat (Deshman 1989); and part of the third verse of this canticle, ‘ex hoc enim beatam me dicent’ — ‘For (behold,) from henceforth (all generations) shall call me blessed’ (Luke 1.48), is written out in the book she holds as she sits enthroned in the centre of the vault in the western arm. The quality which was to lead to her exaltation was her acceptance of God’s will at the Annunciation, her humility before God, which is referred to in the same verse of the canticle. It was this ‘ humilitatem’ which resulted in her subsequent Assumption and in her own magnification and glorification as Mother of God and Queen of Heaven (Belting 1968: 218–9; de’ Maffei 1985: 308–10; Deshman 1989: 45). Her exalted state is expressed in her attire, by the crown and the imperial robes she wears, and also by her elevated position, seated on a bejewelled throne above the company of archangels, ‘super angelos’, as she is repeatedly described in the eighth-century by Autpert and other writers of the period, when referring to her glorified state after the Assumption (de’ Maffei 1985: 299–302). It

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should be remembered that the Magnificat was sung daily at Vespers, and so would have been fixed in the hearts and minds of every member of the community at San Vincenzo and would have been almost equally familiar to the lay patrons and friends of the monastery. Deshman has observed that the theme of humility, service and reward is continued both in the image of the Annunciation, situated in the eastern niche directly above the tomb, where Mary is represented crowned and robed beside a jewelled throne — this was the occasion on which Mary humbled herself before God’s will and proclaimed herself to be his handmaid, an occasion which she later celebrated in the Magnificat — and in the emphasis placed on the bathing of the newborn Christ by the two midwives. Her future reward, her exaltation and enthronement by the side of Christ, are here alluded to by her crown and her richly apparelled regal attire, and by the throne before which she stands. A similar idea is expressed in the divided Nativity, in the emphasis placed on the bathing of the newborn Christ by the two midwives (Fig. 50). In nearly every other instance this latter action is represented as a subordinate episode within an extended Nativity. Here, however, the scene of the bath is given extraordinary prominence. Christ is shown not in the immediate proximity of Mary and Joseph, as is usual in medieval representations of the Nativity, but alone on the opposite wall; above, lying in a magnificent white marble crib, and below, in a great chalicelike bath, receiving the ministrations and service of the midwives. According to Deshman, the prominence and relative isolation of Christ’s first bath in this programme was designed to ensure that the ‘midwives should be understood as model good servants who imitate the Virgin’s own service in the Incarnation and who therefore can expect her intercession in heaven’ (Deshman 1989: 45). Deshman suggests that the full meaning of this image of the bathing of Christ is brought out by its association with the two devotional images of contemporary servants kneeling in humility on the two walls immediately flanking the niche, the unidentified deacon at the feet of the Virgin and Child and Abbot Epyphanius at the foot of the Crucifixion (Deshman 1989: 45–7). He contends that the virtue of humility is probably central to the meaning of both of these images. The prostrate attitude of the deacon, in proskynesis, at the foot of the Virgin indicates his servitude to her and to Christ who is seated on her lap, and implies his expectation of the Virgin’s intercession on his behalf and his hope of subsequent salvation. Here, again, the Virgin’s exalted state, the result of her humility and of the service she

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rendered to God, is shown in her enthronement and in her regal attire. The same idea is present in the pendant image of the Crucifixion. Saint Paul (Epistle to the Philippians 2.5–12) tells us that Christ himself took the form of a servant in becoming man incarnate and humbled himself by enduring pain on the cross, ‘Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given unto him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow (Epistle to the Philippians 2.9–10; Deshman 1989: 47). In these two images, the wish of the kneeling figures is that through imitating the humility and service shown by Mary at the Annunciation, and that of Christ at the Crucifixion, they, like the midwives who bathed Christ, will be rewarded with salvation and heavenly exaltation after death. The ultimate object of this self-abasement, of this good service, of these prayers and hopes, is Christ himself, and it is a large figure of Christ, seated on the universal sphere, which dominates the highest point of the vault, where the arms of the crypt meet (Fig. 8). A third noteworthy feature of the programme is the visionary, seemingly eschatological, Apocalyptical, setting of the whole scheme. This is announced at the entrance by the tantalizingly fragmentary passages of painting on the walls and vault over the stairs leading down into the crypt — the large figure seated or standing in a great double mandorla on the axis of the vault extending his hand towards a book held up by a man standing below, whose cloak flies out behind him as he twists violently round (Fig. 3). The enthroned figure must be God/Christ. Only the flying cloak, raised hands and book remain of the standing figure, and no titulus survives to identify him. However, whatever his identity, it seems that he is in visionary contact with God. This imagery of vision is continued in the rows of little pyramidal clouds, alternately red and blue, and the large white stars, in the vaults of the arms of the crypt. Clouds are, of course, the ubiquitous celestial furniture of epiphanies and Apocalyptic visions in medieval art, following Revelation 1.7, ‘Behold, he cometh with clouds’; and stars often figure prominently where theophanies are represented or are implied, usually in funerary or baptismal contexts — for instance, around the golden cross in the central vault of the mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna (Nordstrom 1953: 26–8; Deichmann 1958: pl. 19; Deichmann 1969: 163–4; Deichmann 1974: 84–6), and in the vault of the canopy over the font in the little third-century baptistery at Dura-Europos (Kraeling 1967: 43–4, pl. 12, 1.23). In this Apocalyptic vein, it should be recalled that de’ Maffei has argued that the enigmatic fifth archangel, who stands in an aureole in the curving

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end of the western arm of the crypt, should be identified with the angel who announces the Revelation of Jesus Christ (Revelation 1.1), and who is to be identified with Christ, as described by Autpert, in his commentary on the Apocalypse (de’ Maffei 1985: 320–3). An alternative identification for the fragmentary scene at the entrance, and for the glorified angel in the apsidal end of the western arm, will be offered below. A fourth point of which to take note is the possible presence of a secondary cult focus in the north arm of the crypt. Here the two exemplary deacon martyrs of the early church, Saint Stephen and Saint Laurence, are each represented twice, once in the little eastern niche where the two flank Christ, and again on the opposite, western, side of the arm, where their martyrdoms are depicted in extensive compositions which together cover the whole wall. The primary emphasis is on Saint Laurence, who stands on the right-hand side of Christ, and whose martyrdom precedes that of Saint Stephen on the west wall. The rectangular block of stone built into the wall just below the niche may have been designed to support the mensa of a small altar, perhaps dedicated to Saint Laurence or to both of these saints. In this connection, de’ Maffei has drawn attention to a passage in his Oratio contra Septem Vitia in which Autpert expresses the hope that the martyrs who triumphed in their deaths may support his prayer of intercession, and in which he makes particular reference to Stephen, Laurenee and Vincent. Autpert likens the three martyrs to the ‘milk-white columns of the Temple of the Lord in the Holy of Holies, who attend the Lord of Heaven, and deserve to eat from the Tree of Life which is in Paradise’ (Weber 1975– 79: vol. 3, 959; de’ Maffei 1985: 325–6). Stephen and Laurence seem to have been associated with Saint Vincent and to have enjoyed particular veneration at San Vincenzo. In his account of the ‘prehistory’ and the foundation of the monastery, John, the author of the Chronicon Vulturnense, recounts how the emperor Constantine, while on route from Rome to Constantinople, had rested on the banks of the river Volturno (Federici 1, 1925, 147–8). Three heavenly individuals appeared to him in his sleep, and introduced themselves as the saints Stephen, Laurence and Vincent. They bade the emperor erect a ‘templum’ at a place close to the source of the river. This was, of course, the first oratory on the site of the future monastery. It is interesting that the chronicler has Laurence act as spokesman for the three saints. This may reflect a particular interest in the cult of the Roman martyr at San Vincenzo. Certainly he takes precedence over Saint Stephen in the crypt.

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A fifth feature, to which attention must be drawn, is the large number of apparently contemporary praying and postulant figures incorporated into the scheme. There are four in all: Abbot Epyphanius, who kneels at the foot of the Crucifixion (Fig. 22), the now unidentifiable deacon who adores the Virgin and Child on the other side of the tomb-niche (Figs. 7, 47), the standing orant deacon with a square halo in the small western niche in the northern arm (Fig. 28), and finally the little figure at the feet of the fifth, aureolate, archangel at the end of the western arm (Figs. 11 and 12). The Tomb In The Eastern Arm Notwithstanding Belting’s and de’ Maffei’s thorough, meticulous and ingenious analyses of the painted programme, there is one principal feature in the crypt which has been misinterpreted and generally overlooked by commentators. This is of consequence, since an exact understanding of the nature and purpose of the crypt and an accurate reading of its pictorial programme depend on its correct identification. The feature in question is an elaborate projecting structure, now sadly ruined, which lies on the main east-west axis, in the deep arched niche which forms the short eastern arm (Figs. 15 and 31–34). That this is a primary feature, and must have been constructed at the same time as the crypt itself, is clear from the way the ninth-century painted plaster rides up over the structure at one point at its northeastern corner, showing that it was incorporated into the original scheme of painted decoration. Nicola Padula (the parish priest of San Vincenzo) in his letter of 1832 to the abbot of Monte Cassino, Piscicelli Taeggi, who made a careful examination of the crypt some 60 years later, and, more recently, Belting and de’ Maffei, all identified the feature as an altar (Di Cicco 1990: 65 (and see Appendix); Piscicelli Taeggi 1896: 5; Belting 1968: 26; de’ Maffei 1985: 275, 311, 320). However, this cannot be correct. Firstly, the main altar was almost certainly located in the little apsidal end of the western arm, in front of the fifth archangel. It would be most unusual to have a second altar on the principal axis of so small a space, positioned opposite the principal liturgical focus. Secondly, the structure in no way resembles any surviving ninth-century altar in Italy. To judge from its form, it must be a tomb of some kind. The structure is built of rubble and mortar, and consists of a chest c. 0.5 m high, with a superstructure which rises to a height of approximately

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1.74 m. The chest was originally covered by a slab of stone, or perhaps by tiles. Above this there was a large opening, apparently a kind of fenestella, which opened into an elaborately shaped interior space immediately over the chest. The back wall is hollowed out into a shallow semicircular niche, and masonry was built up around this to form an enclosed rectangular space with small rounded niches at either end. What remains of these interior surfaces above the chest is covered with a hard, dark, cement-like plaster. The exterior surfaces of the structure must also have been plastered, and very probably painted. In other words, this has all the characteristics of a major tomb, of elaborate design, the like of which has not been found elsewhere at San Vincenzo. Rather than being sunk into the ground, it is built up from the floor, after the manner of an early Christian arcosolium tomb, and like an arcosolium tomb the vaulted surfaces surmounting the chest must have been painted in bright colours. Nicola Padula, in his initial report on the discovery of the crypt in 1832, described an iron bracket, which he identified as a support for a lamp, projecting from the top of the structure (Di Cicco 1990: 65; Appendix). This feature was either built to receive the body of a recently-deceased member or friend of the community of high standing, or perhaps the bones of a revered individual associated with the earlier history of the monastery — in which case the crypt would be a funerary chapel; or else it was designed as a relic-grave, to take the remains of a long-dead saint, as Nicola Padula suggested — in which case the space would have functioned as a normal crypt (Di Cicco 1990: 65; Appendix). It is not immediately obvious which of these options is the correct one, since the tomb had been broken into and its contents removed before the first modern description of the crypt written by Padula in 1832. Whatever its function, however, one thing is clear: the central position of this structure, and the fact that it was built and decorated at the same time as the crypt itself, strongly suggests that the primary function of the crypt was to house it. A number of features might be adduced in favour of the thesis that the tomb is a relic-grave, designed to receive the remains of a saint. The plastered interior cavity of the chest is smaller than is usual for a normal grave: c. 1.44 m long at the bottom, 1.56 m at the opening and c. 0.38–0.41 m wide at its mid-point. If it was built as a tomb, it was for an unusually small person. The structure is far more elaborate than any other surviving grave at San Vincenzo, and cannot be exactly paralleled among the known graves of the period in Italy. Furthermore, it is situated directly below a rectangular

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window which gives onto the nave of the church. If our reconstruction is correct, the function of this opening may have been not so much to let light into the crypt, as to afford ‘access’ from the nave. The window would have been situated in a short sunken passage beneath the steps which lead up to the raised sanctuary. It might be interpreted as a fenestella opening somewhat awkwardly onto a relic-grave situated within the crypt, directly below. Furthermore, if the original altar in the sanctuary above was situated to the east, close to the top of the steps leading up from the nave, so as to have been fully visible from below, then it would have been located more or less directly over the tomb in the crypt, establishing a vertical relationship of a kind that was much favoured in the Middle Ages. However, it can equally well be argued that the structure was designed as a particularly elaborate tomb to take the body of a recently deceased individual of high status. The most likely explanation for the small size of the tomb-chest is that it was designed for a child. Moreover, it is by no means certain that the primary function of the little window in the western arch was to provide ‘access’ to the tomb below. A person wishing to use it in this way would have had to crawl most uncomfortably on all fours beneath the steps leading up to the raised sanctuary. A critical factor which must be taken into consideration in determining the nature of this structure is the scheme of painted imagery in the crypt. As we shall see, this seems to be more suited to a funerary context than to a martyrium housing the relics of a revered saint. If the crypt was built to receive relics, one might expect some pictorial reference to the saint in question. Of this there is no trace. The two saints who do feature prominently in the painted scheme are Laurence and Stephen. Neither of these is represented in the immediate vicinity of the tomb, and there is no mention in the Chronicon Vulturnense, or in any other written source, of relics of these two saints at San Vincenzo. Above all, despite its dimensions and elaborate form, the structure does, in broad terms, look like a tomb. In its general type it is paralleled in the tomb of Theodora Episcopa, the mother of Pope Paschal I (817–24), in the chapel of San Zeno, in Santa Prassede, in Rome. This chapel appears to have been built and decorated to serve as a funerary oratory for Theodora, as Gillian Mackie has argued (Mackie 1989). To judge from a seventeenth-century drawing, her tomb consisted of either a reused sarcophagus or a constructed tomb-chest set within a deep vaulted niche (Fig. 35) (Waetzoldt 1964: fig. 501; Mackie 1989: 183–7, pl. XXXVI.b). The arrangement was much the

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same as that in the crypt at San Vincenzo. Another related example, from the late ninth century, is the tomb of Saint Cyril, which lay just to the right of the apse in the lower church of San Clemente in Rome. John Osborne has convincingly reconstructed this monument as a sarcophagus set against the outer wall of the right aisle and surmounted by a small arch enclosing an image of Christ harrowing hell which is still preserved (Osborne 1981: 256–8, 273–4). The architectural form of the Crypt Church, with its triconch sanctuary and three-armed crypt beneath (Fig. 1), cannot really help in determining the original purpose of the building. Tricora were built for a variety of functions in late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages (Leclercq 1953; Deichmann 1954; Verbeek 1958). Some can be identified as having served as mausolea and funerary oratories, others as martyria, as chapels where the relics of saints were kept and revered, and others appear to have had no obvious connection with either burial or the relics of particular saints. The form of the building alone will not give us an answer to our question. The Programme Reappraised It is the paintings on the walls of the crypt which, as we have said, may provide a key to the function of the tomb-like structure and to the identity of its occupant. With its once resplendent axial tomb, the crypt has the appearance of having been designed as a funerary chapel, and the scheme of painted imagery on its walls makes best sense if understood in a sepulchral context. One of the principal functions of the Virgin Mary, the probable dedicatee of the crypt, in religious practice in the early Middle Ages was as the principal and most effective intercessor for humanity before Christ. Her preeminence in this area derived not only from her acceptance of God’s will at the Annunciation and her acquiescence in becoming the Mother of God, but also from her subsequent exaltation and assumption into heaven, where she sat as Queen of Heaven at the right hand of God. The Virgin’s role as intercessor was of vital significance to Christians throughout their lives, but at no time did her services become so crucial as at and after the death of the individual, when the question of salvation or damnation lay in the balance and when the dying person needed the support of the most influential and effective celestial patronage to ensure entry into Paradise. This is why images of the Virgin Mary, either as Mother of God with the Christ Child, or alone,

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often imperially attired as Queen of Heaven, figured prominently in sepulchral contexts throughout the Middle Ages. In the eighth and ninth centuries, the burial chapels of Pope John VII (705–7) (Nordhagen 1965; Tronzo 1987: 489–92; Borgolte 1989: 100–2), of Gregory III (731–41) (Maffeo Vegio, in Valentini and Zucchetti 1940– 53: vol. 4, 393; Borgolte 1989: 105), and of Paul I (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol I, 465; Borgolte 1989: 105–6), all in Saint Peter’s in Rome (Fig. 36), were dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and imperially robed and crowned images of Mary are recorded as having been set up in these three oratories and also in the funerary chapel of the early ninth-century pope, Paschal I (817–24) (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol II, 58; Nordhagen 1965: fig. 1, pls I– IV, XVIII–XIX; Niggl 1972: fols 90v–91r; Tronzo 1987: figs 5–6; Borgolte 1989: 117–8). Paschal I’s mother, Theodora, is represented in the company of Mary above her tomb in her funerary oratory, the chapel of San Zeno, in Santa Prassede (Mackie 1989: pl. XXXIVb), and the original image in the apse was also probably of the Virgin Mary and the Child Christ, like its later medieval replacement (Oakeshott 1967: fig. 126). The representations of the Virgin in the crypt accord well with this line of interpretation. Apart from the scenes of the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Crucifixion, she is shown once alone, enthroned in the vault above the angels, and once holding the Christ Child before her. In three of these images she is represented imperially robed and crowned, seated on or standing before a bejewelled throne; that is, in her exalted role as Queen of Heaven. Furthermore, as we have noted above, the Virgin’s humility and subsequent exaltation is one of the principal themes in the programme, centring on the image in the vault in which she displays the text from the third verse of the Magnificat, and continuing in the episode of the midwives bathing the newborn Christ. If Deshman is right, the kneeling figures of Epyphanius and the unidentified deacon at the foot of the Crucifixion pick up this imagery and bring it to a focus (Deshman 1989: 45–7). They imitate the humility and good service of Mary at the Annunciation and that of Christ at the Crucifixion, and, like the midwives who bathe Christ, hope for subsequent exaltation. These kneeling postulant figures would make good sense in a funerary context, since it is at death that the issue of the imitation of Mary and Christ becomes of vital importance. Deshman has called our attention to the way in which the theme of the humility, servitude and later elevation of the Virgin is employed in sepulchral contexts in two pictorial programmes

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at Rome in the early eighth century: in the oratory (and funerary chapel) of Pope John VII at Saint Peter’s and in a cubiculum in the catacomb of San Valentino (Deshman 1989: 36–44). In the former of these the founder of the chapel, also its prospective occupant, Pope John VII, is depicted standing beside the crowned and imperially robed Virgin Mary, who raises her arms in a gesture of prayer and invocation (Nordhagen 1965: pl. XVIII; Niggl 1972: fols 90v–91r; Tronzo 1987: fig. 6; Deshman 1989: fig. 11). The pope is described in the accompanying titulus as ‘Beatae Dei Genetricis Servus’. Here the idea of the pope humbly serving and imitating his mistress, the Virgin, is unambiguously spelt out. Implied is his subsequent salvation and exaltation which should follow the successful intercession of the Virgin on his behalf. In this programme, and even more in the catacomb of San Valentino (Deshman 1989: fig. 3), as in the crypt at San Vincenzo, particular emphasis is laid on themes in which the idea of good service is extolled — the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the service paid by the midwives to the newborn Christ. The brief christological and martyrological cycle in the chapel also makes good sense if regarded as relating to the grave of a deceased individual. The christological cycle, comprising the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion and Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James at the Sepulchre, is restricted to the essential episodes in the scheme of redemption, the Incarnation, the Passion and the Resurrection. It is, of course, Christ’s example in these crucial events that provides the Christian believer with the possibility of bodily resurrection after death, the hope of salvation and the means of redemption. The scenes of martyrdom on the wall opposite the Crucifixion in the crypt also fit well into the scheme. The proto-martyrs Stephen and Laurence, the type deacon-martyrs of the Roman Church, are exemplary cases of saints who joyfully accepted agonizing death in imitation of Christ’s passion, and so provided an ideal for all Christians to aspire to in their own lives and deaths. The presence of the six crown-bearing virgin martyrs who meet the gaze of the visitor entering the crypt can also perhaps be accounted for in a funereal sense. Belting sees them as forming a processional cortège accompanying the enthroned Virgin and Child on the opposite wall (Belting 1968: 216). In general terms he may be right. Even if hard to parallel elsewhere, a company of sainted virgins would be appropriate in a liturgical space dedicated to the Virgin Mary. They also, in a way, provide a pendant to the northern arm of the crypt, with its emphasis on the two male martyrs, Laurence and Stephen.

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De’ Maffei has pointed out that Autpert, in his Oratio contra Septem Vitia, alongside the martyrs, Stephen, Laurence and Vincent, calls on the blessed virgins, who assiduously follow in the footsteps of Christ, to intercede on his behalf with their prayers (Weber 1975–79: vol. 3, 959; de’ Maffei 1985: 326). However, it is also possible that the six virgin martyrs here are a fractionally abbreviated group of the seven virgins invoked in the prayer ‘Nobis quoque’ at the end of the canon of the Mass, one of the intercessionary prayers, whose introduction has been associated with the changes to the Roman Rite effected under Pope Gelasius (492–6) (Kennedy 1938: 9, 53, 188–9. We are grateful to Gillian Mackie for drawing our attention to this possibility). In the Mass for the Dead, this was the point at which the Commemoration of the Dead was recited (Kennedy 1938: 189–90). The one virgin who can still be identified in the crypt, Anastasia, is one of the company of seven female saints named in the prayer (her companions are saints Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucia, Agnes and Caecilia). However, eight male saints, apostles and martyrs are also invoked in this prayer, saints John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus and Peter. In the crypt there is, of course, no corresponding male company, only Saint Stephen and Saint Laurence in the northern arm. It is possible that the restricted wall-space available and the requirement of a focus for the cult of the two early deacon martyrs, constrained the person who designed the programme to substitute Saint Stephen and Saint Laurence for the full choir of male saints. In any case, the six virgins, triumphantly bearing the crowns of their martyrdom, are a female counterpart to the two male martyrs. At the outset of the programme, they introduce the central theme of posthumous celestial ennoblement and exaltation as the reward for humility, service, and sacrifice on earth. Indeed a pointer to their significance is positioned directly in front of the visitor entering the crypt. This is the large and ornate vase which stands between the fourth and fifth virgins, directly opposite the entrance (Fig. 51). De’ Maffei is very probably right in identifying the source of this in Saint Paul’s Second Epistle to Timothy 2.21: ‘If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel (vas) unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work’ (de’ Maffei 1985: 326). The virgins are to be understood as sanctified vessels, ‘vasa in honorem’, prepared to serve their Lord. Another feature which can be associated with the theme of death and burial is the visionary, eschatological and to some extent Apocalyptical set-

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ting of the whole scheme of decoration in the crypt. The first constellation of visionary imagery involves the violently twisting figure just inside the door who holds his book up to Christ enthroned in the vault over the stairs. These are the figures which would first have caught the eyes of the visitor to the crypt, and it seems likely that they were intended to establish the context in which the whole ensuing scheme of imagery is to be understood. The other overtly Apocalyptic subjects are the fifth archangel in the western arm, the lines of little pyramidal red and blue clouds, and the white eight-pointed stars in the vaults. Apocalyptic imagery is by its very nature suited to a funerary context (Mackie 1989: 178–80). We would like to propose a reading of this constellation of imagery which differs somewhat from previous interpretations. One of the principal functions of a funerary oratory in the early Middle Ages was to provide an appropriate setting for the regular liturgical commemoration of the buried person after death. It appears to have been usual, as seems to have been the case with the eighth- and ninth-century popes, Gregory III and Gregory IV, for individuals to make specific arrangements for votive masses to be held in their oratories, for ever, for the benefit of their souls (Duchesne 1955/81: vol. I, 417, 421, 422–3, and vol. II, 74; Borgolte 1989: 102, 118–9). Commemoration of this kind, memoria, played a major role in the lives of monastic communities in the early Middle Ages (Oexle 1976; Gerchow 1989). It concerned both the dead and the living and was an act of remembering and calling into the present the departed and the absent, a liturgical commemoration of the dead and the living by regular invocation and prayer, a constantly repeated act of intercession for the redemption of souls. Both the few who were in a position to make provision for the private votive masses associated with personal funerary oratories, and a far greater number of monks, clerics and laypeople who were not and found burial in graves marked, at the most, by a simply inscribed stone, were deeply involved in the process of ritual commemoration. Central to the process of memoria was the recording of the name of the dead or absent individual in a memoria-book which could take the form of a diptych, a martyrology, a calendar, a chapter-book, or a Liber Vitae — and the daily recitation of the recorded names either singly or generally by category, in chapter, at Matins or at Mass (Oexle 1976: 70–86; Oexle 1984: 385, 437; Gerchow 1989: 156–8). The memoria-book was often placed on the altar during Mass (Oexle 1976: 76). The individuals remembered in this process of memoria were not only the members of the institution in question

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and congregations of associated religious communities bound together in confraternities of reciprocal intercessionary prayer, but also members of the laity, patrons and friends of the community whose names were commemorated in return for particular benefices and services which they had provided (Oexle 1976: 88–95). The now fragmentary turning figure at the entrance to the crypt at San Vincenzo is holding a book up to the seated figure of Christ in the vault above. We would like to identify this book as a memoria-book, as a so-called Liber Vitae, a Book of Life. The man may be Saint John holding up the Book of Life referred to in Revelation 20.12 ‘. . . and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works’. Alternatively, he could be an individual associated with San Vincenzo holding up a book which is to be identified, on the one hand, with the Liber Vitae of the monastery in which the name of the person buried in the crypt would have been inscribed, to be remembered daily by the members of the community in their prayers, as well as in votive masses in the crypt, and, on the other hand, with the heavenly Book of Life of Revelation, from which the dead shall be judged according to their works. The Liber Vitae of a religious community was naturally thought of as an earthly counterpart of the celestial Book of Life of Revelation (Oexle 1976: 79, 90). The fifth archangel standing within an aureole in the western apse, between the four archangels, picks up and completes the imagery at the entrance. He is to be identified with the fifth angel of Revelation 7.1–3, who ascends from the east and has the seal of the living God, with which he will seal the foreheads of the elect, and who is described together with the four angels who stand on the four corners of the earth holding the four winds. However, his aureole identifies him simultaneously with Christ. Autpert associates the angel of Revelation 7.1–3 with the living God (Weber 1975–79: vol. 1, 297–8), and throughout his commentary on the Apocalypse he refers to instances in which Christ, the Redeemer, is manifested in angelic form (Weber 1975–79: vol. 1, 23–5, and vols 1 and 2, passim). To judge from the imagery in the crypt, this tradition was still very much alive at the monastery in the second quarter of the ninth century. This, then, is the angelus-Christus who seals the foreheads of the elect. An interpretation along these lines of the two figures at the entrance and of the fifth angel in the conch of the western arm would make perfect sense in the context of a funerary chapel.

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The only surviving instance of a related constellation of imagery from the early Middle Ages is to be found in a cognate context from AngloSaxon England, the Liber Vitae of the New Minster in Winchester, British Library Stowe Ms. 944, a memoria-book compiled by the Winchester monks in 1031–2. On one page in this book (fol. 6r), two great patrons of the New Minster, King Cnut and Queen Emma, are represented placing a golden cross on the altar of the abbey-church (Fig. 37). Angels descend with a crown for Cnut and the veil of the saved soul for Emma. Below a monk holds the Liber Vitae of the monastery, which contains the names of the two royal patrons, while, above, Christ in heaven holds the celestial Liber Vitae in which the names of the elect are recorded (Temple 1976: no. 78, ill. 244; Gerchow 1992: 222–30 and passim, fig. 8). On the following twopage spread (fols 6v–7r), is a composition in which an angel and Saint Peter introduce the blessed into Paradise, while the damned are relegated to Hell. Below the walls of the Heavenly Jerusalem an angel holding the Book of Life is opposed to a demon holding the Book of Sins, while between them Saint Peter disputes with the demon for the soul of a man (Fig. 38) (Temple 1976: no. 78, ills 247–8; Gerchow 1992: 230–1 and passim, fig. 10). The emphasis here differs from that in the crypt, but the Book of Life, as vehicle and symbol of salvation, plays a similar central role in both schemes of imagery. The prominent white stars which shine in the southern vault may also be interpreted in a funerary sense. Nordstrom has observed that in late Antiquity the dead were quite commonly described as residing among the stars (Nordstrom 1953: 28). The epitaph of the priest Tamfrid, found in the Garden Court, shows that this concept was still very much alive at San Vincenzo in the ninth century: ‘Membra sacerdotis licet tumulata sepulchro: hoc iaceant Tamfrid Spiritus astra petit‘ — ‘Although the limbs of the priest Tamfrid lie buried in this tomb, his spirit seeks out the stars’ (Hodges and Mitchell 1985: frontispiece). Finally there are the contemporary votive figures, the kneeling abbot and deacon painted on the walls flanking the tomb niche (Figs. 7 and 22), the orant deacon in the niche in the northern arm (Fig. 28) and the stooping figure at the feet of the fifth archangel (Figs. 11 and 12). It is unusual for so many images of contemporary figures engaged in acts of devotion and prayer to be represented in the context of an early medieval pictorial cycle of this kind, and one is hard put to account for their presence. In part this may be connected with memoria, with the concept of commemoration, which is one of the principal themes underlying the pictorial programme, and, indeed,

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with the very idea and working of a funerary oratory. Memoria involved the calling up into the present of dead or absent members and friends of a community; and the idea of making present the absent and the departed has always been one of the main issues and functions of portraiture. Portraits have a natural commemorative and memorial function and significance. Their association with the practice of commemoration has been examined by Oexle (Oexle 1984). This association lies behind the long tradition of displaying a portrait of a deceased person on or near his or her tomb — a tradition which is well-documented for Antiquity and late Antiquity and for the period from the later eleventh century to the present day (Panofsky 1964: passim), and which, in Italy, appears to have continued through the early Middle Ages (Osborne 1981: 273–4; Herklotz 1985: 149–51). Of course, not all of the four votive figures in the crypt can be portraits of the occupant of the tomb. However, one of them is likely to be an image of the dead person, and part of the explanation of the presence of the other three may be that, in this way, through their painted presence they could enjoy continuing association with the memorial liturgy and practice which must have centred on the tomb. Two of these figures, Abbot Epyphanius and the deacon at the feet of the Virgin Mary, share a peculiar feature which distinguishes them from the other two images and from most other medieval portraits of this kind. Epyphanius is identified by the titulus beneath the Crucifixion in which his office and title are spelt out in large white capital letters: DOM(inus) EPYPHANIVS ABB(as), and his head is framed by a so-called square nimbus, a device normally used in this period to distinguish living or recently deceased individuals of high standing (Ladner 1941b; Osborne 1979; Osborne 1981: 269–72). His face is described in meticulous fashion. The extraordinary feature of this image is the way his head is painted on its own skim of plaster, on what is, in fact, a giornata. This little patch of superimposed plaster in the area of the head and neck is best seen by raking light (Fig. 39). The head of the deacon kneeling at the feet of the Virgin, on the wall the other side of the tomb-niche, is the only other head in the cycle which is executed in this way (Fig. 40). He, like Epyphanius, once had a square halo, now no longer visible, suggesting that he, too, was a contemporary individual who was in some way involved in the construction of the crypt (Piscicelli Taeggi 1896: 15). An inscription in small white capitals was originally painted on the reddish brown vertical border immediately behind this figure — it has now perished but for one or two letters. Toesca, at the beginning of this century, was able

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to read only NVS .... PR (Toesca 1904: 19, n. 1). This may have given the name of the kneeling man; but it is equally possible that he was identified in an inscription running beneath the Virgin‘s throne, the pendant to Epyphanius‘s titulus on the opposite side of the tomb niche. Unfortunately the original plaster in this position, immediately beneath the throne, was cut away when the images of three saints were inserted here sometime in the second half of the ninth century (Toesca 1904: pl. II; Belting 1968: figs 12 and 23; Pantoni 1970: fig. 34; de’ Maffei 1985: figs 18 and 21). The practice of adding the head of a painted portrait on its own skim of plaster is found in two other early medieval painted schemes in Italy, in the Chapel of Saint Quiricus and Saint Julitta in Santa Maria Antiqua, in Rome, and in the two principal chambers in the great tower at Torba, on the river Olona under Castelseprio, to the north of Milan. In the chapel in Santa Maria Antiqua, the head of the donor, Theodotus, a prominent member of the papal Curia and the administrator in charge of the diaconia at Santa Maria Antiqua in the middle years of the eighth century (Fig. 41), and that of the reigning pope, Zacharias (Fig. 42), are similarly painted on added skims of plaster, in the extended composition of figures flanking the enthroned Mary and Christ Child on the altar-wall (de Grüneisen 1911: 120, pls XXXVII, XXXVIII, LXXIX, IC; Wilpert 1916: vol. IV, pls 179, 181, 182/2, 183, 184; Ladner 1941a: 101–3, fig. 90, pl. XI; Belting 1987: figs 1, 2 and 8); and at Torba two female figures, one named Aliberga, kneeling in invocation at the foot of two regally vested martyr saints, in the lower chamber (Fig. 43), and also a row of habited nuns on the west wall in the upper room (Fig. 44), apparently members of the community at Torba, likewise had their faces painted on added patches of plaster (Bertelli 1988: 29, 40, figs. 22, 25, 48, 49). It would appear that this was a convention used for portraits of contemporary individuals depicted in funerary contexts. The chapel of Theodotus and the lower chamber in the tower at Torba were probably both funerary oratories. The large and carefully-constructed tomb in the floor of the chapel of Saints Quiricus and Julitta at Santa Maria Antiqua is likely to be the burial vault of the dispensator of the church, Theodotus, and of his family, who figure prominently in the scheme of paintings on its walls (Rushforth 1902: 106). In addition to serving the family’s private devotional needs during life, the chapel would have provided a striking memorial to Theodotus and to his wife and two children after their deaths (Belting 1987). In the lower room in the tower at Torba, the kneeling figures of Aliberga and her companion

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are painted on the jamb of one of two arched niches which were apparently converted into arcosolium tombs in the eighth and ninth centuries (Bertelli 1988: 34–40, 45; Carlo Bertelli, pers. comm.). It seems that this room too was transformed into a sepulchral chamber. Furthermore, Wilpert has drawn attention to an instance of the same technique being used in an early Christian sepulchral context: for the image of a donor in the cubiculum of Oceanus in the catacomb of Callixtus (Fig. 45) (Wilpert 1916: vol. I (1), 108–9, vol. IV, pl. 182/1). Wilpert contends that in this case, and in the case of the portrait of Theodotus in Santa Maria Antiqua, the head was painted separately on a linen support, which was subsequently nailed in position on the painted figure on the wall. It is possible that he is right, but it is more likely that both of these heads were painted, not on linen, but on a separate skim of plaster trowelled around nails to aid adhesion, as is the case with the portrait of Pope Zacharias in the chapel of Santa Maria Antiqua (Wilpert 1916: vol. 1(1), 109–10; vol. IV, pl. 181). To judge from the locations of their portraits, the two kneeling individuals in the crypt must have been intimately connected with the tomb, and it is tempting to look for its occupant in one of them. We have already drawn attention to the long tradition of displaying a portrait of a deceased person on or near the tomb. However, we would like to argue that it is in fact unlikely that either of these two images is a portrait of the individual for whom the tomb and the crypt were made. The presence of Epyphanius is best explained by the fact that he was the abbot of San Vincenzo at the time of construction. The practice of displaying a portrait of the presiding local ecclesiastical authority — pope, bishop or abbot in buildings erected during his tenure of office, was common in Italy in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. An obvious parallel is the fulllength image of Pope Zacharias (Fig. 42), facing the portrait of Theodotus in the chapel of Santa Maria Antiqua, in Rome, some eighty years earlier (Wilpert 1916: vol. IV, pl. 181). The presence of the deacon is more difficult to explain. By analogy with the oratory in Santa Maria Antiqua, where Theodotus stands opposite Pope Zacharias on the altar wall, it might seem reasonable to identify him with the occupant of the tomb. This is possible, but private funerary chapels, mausolea, were exceptionally rare and prestigious phenomena in the early Middle Ages. In the eighth and ninth centuries, in Italy, it was only the popes, in Rome, who regularly erected funerary oratories for themselves. The oratory of Theodotus, who was one of the highest functionaries in the Curia, was

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probably an exceptional foundation. It would have been most irregular for a deacon to have been distinguished in this way. Besides it is hardly possible that a man old enough to be ordained deacon could have been buried in the little tomb-chest in the crypt, not 1.5 m in length and less than 0.4 m wide. It is more likely that the deacon before the Virgin at San Vincenzo is portrayed in such a prominent position because he played a leading role in the construction of the crypt and the remodelling of the church. The identity and the function of the image of the orant figure in the niche in the north arm of the crypt is also unclear. He is dressed as a deacon, in a dalmatic with a long stole over his left shoulder, and his head is framed by a square halo. He was once accompanied by an inscription, today invisible, which Toesca (1904: 23–4) read as: F.....R..M....S DIACONVS. The first word might be completed FRATER. The man’s attitude, hands raised on either side of his head, is a gesture of prayer, common in Late Antiquity, but rare in the Middle Ages. In the late sixth and early seventh centuries, saints are shown in this attitude in various mosaic icons on the piers and arcade-walls of Saint Demetrius at Thessaloniki (Grabar 1957: fig. 80; Volbach and Hirmer 1958: pl. 216), and in later Byzantine art the Virgin Mary quite often is represented in this way, particularly in images of the Ascension, for instance in the central cupola of Santa Sophia in Thessaloniki (Grabar 1957: figs 125 and 126). In most of the early medieval instances of this iconography the primary function of the imagery seems to be broadly intercessionary. The figure in question acts as an intermediary between the observing believer and God. It is possible that this is also the significance of the image of the deacon in the niche. He may be shown in an attitude of unceasing prayer for the soul of the individual lying in the tomb. De’ Maffei has proposed that his function may have been generally to ‘enfatizzare il valore della preghiera’ (de’ Maffei 1985: 288). Unlike Epyphanius and the kneeling deacon by the tomb, the head of this figure is not painted on a separate skim of plaster. However, it is unclear what was intended by this distinction. The last of the suppliant figures in the crypt is the tiny individual depicted striding forward just outside the lower left quadrant of the aureole which encompasses the fifth archangel at the end of the western arm (Figs. 11 and 12, 49). The titulus which once identified this figure is now indecipherable. However, it is clear that he/she wore an ankle-length dark red garment with black contours. The other three votive figures all wear long white tunics, and are clearly ecclesiastics, Epyphanius being vested as a priest, the other two as

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deacons. Unlike these, the individual at the feet of the archangel, in a heavy red robe, must be a member of the laity. We would like to argue that this is the person for whom the tomb and the crypt were prepared. Although this is the smallest in size of the four figures, and must have struck the eyes of a ninth-century visitor considerably less forcibly than the two kneeling men beside the tomb, its position is more exalted than theirs — in the principal liturgical focus of the crypt, in the curving apsidal end of the west arm, directly behind the position where the main altar would have stood. The little suppliant moves forward, apparently in an act of supplication, towards the fifth archangel, and is tiny in comparison with this figure. This would be most appropriate if what is represented is an Apocalyptic epiphany, in which the dead person stands before the Almighty, in the person of the angel of Revelation 7.1–3, who will set a seal on his/her forehead to mark him/her as one of the elect servants of God. The dead person is shown here at the moment in which he/she passes from Purgatory into Paradise and is enrolled into the number of the elect, the moment in which his/her name is entered into the celestial Book of Life. The location of the little advancing figure seems to corroborate this hypothesis. There is a direct axial and visual relationship between the tomb beneath the eastern arch and the apsidal focus of the western arm in which the red-robed individual stoops before the figure of the angel who is Christ, the ‘angel ascending from the east’, who presages the general Resurrection. The dado immediately below the angel and the little accompanying figure may confirm the sense of the imagery above. The dado on the walls in the other parts of the crypt consists of panels of reticulate design, no two of which are exactly alike. At this point only, there is a figural subject — two large birds, apparently eagles, summarily but skilfully executed in ochre and brown (Fig. 46). It would certainly be appropriate to identify these as eagles, since in Holy Scripture and in popular tradition this bird is commonly associated with the theme of rebirth, of renewal into everlasting life — the Psalmist sings of the Lord, ‘Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s’ (Psalm 103.5), and Isaiah, in his account of how God succours the weak, reiterates this concept: ‘But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint’ (Isaiah 40.31). David and Isaiah are here referring to the ancient belief that the eagle, when it grows old and weary, searches for a fountain of pure water, flies up into the sun, then plunges down into the Fount of Life

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and is there rejuvenated. This tradition was common knowledge throughout the Middle Ages, and is recorded in the texts of popular moralizing books of animal lore, the Physiologus and the Bestiary, as well as in Holy Scripture (Von Steiger and Homburger 1964: fol. 10v, pp. 66–7; White 1960: 105). Rebirth is, of course, essential to salvation. The locus classicus is Christ’s response to Nicodemus: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’ (John 3.3). Eagles, therefore, would not be out of place in the little apse of the crypt, immediately beneath the angel-Christ who descends at the end of time to mark the foreheads of the elect and the small votive figure who is represented at the moment of acceptance into Paradise and of rebirth into everlasting life. It would appear, then, that the crypt was designed to serve as the funerary oratory of a lay individual, whose remains were destined for the elaborate tomb constructed beneath the eastern arch. This must have been a valued patron and friend of the community, who wished to be associated with the monastery in death, and desired to enlist the help of the monks in ensuring entry into Paradise. The name of this person must have been recorded in the Liber Vitae, in the memorial diptychs, of San Vincenzo, and doubtless the family of the deceased would have taken care to make ample provision for regular intercessionary masses to be held in the crypt, for the salvation of his/her soul. This would have been a perfectly natural arrangement. Liturgical commemoration and beneficia were inextricably linked in the medieval mind, and stood in complementary relationship to one another (Oexle 1976: 87–95). The laity offered endowment and material support for the religious institution and in return the monks provided a commemorative service, ensuring the continuing remembrance of the names of deserving individuals and assisting their passage to salvation by assiduous intercessionary prayer. The person for whom the tomb was made was very probably a child, the scion of a prominent local family which had supported the monastery with benefactions. Two things support this conclusion: first, and more clearly, the small dimensions of the chest for the body; second, and more contentiously, the extraordinary prominence given to the Child Christ on the flanking wall. An infant burial in the crypt would help to account for the fractured Nativity, for the way in which Christ is shown more or less isolated, in the manger above, and being bathed by the midwives below, to the right of the tomb. It was not fortuitous that the Crypt Church was selected for this person’s mausoleum. It has been argued that the refashioning of the Crypt Church

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and the construction of the crypt formed part of a more extensive building campaign, undertaken during Abbot Epyphanius’s tenure of office, in the second quarter of the ninth century, the aim of which was to improve and embellish the guest-quarters of the monastery. It could only have been deemed appropriate, not to say advantageous, that a major benefactor should be commemorated in a splendid tomb in a funerary oratory in a church designed to serve the needs of guests. Here visitors could be induced to think on the munificence of the dead individual, and also be made aware of the sumptuous manner in which other valued friends of the monastery, in the future, might expect to be commemorated and provided for. If the crypt was designed to serve as a burial oratory for a child of parents who were major benefactors of San Vincenzo, as we believe, it is more than likely that the family of the deceased child would have materially assisted Epyphanius in his campaign of works. Both in Antiquity and in the early Middle Ages it was customary for individuals to undertake the construction of their own mausolea during their lifetime. The relatives of the child for whom the tomb was designed would most likely have been responsible for the construction of the crypt, and since this entailed a more or less complete rebuilding of the church around it, it is very possible that they would have taken responsibility for this work also. Further, one wonders if the family of the occupant of the grave may not have had a major hand in the rebuilding of the other areas designed to serve distinguished guests to the monastery, the great elevated hall (the ‘South Church’), and the Garden Court and the Entrance Hall immediately to the south. The monastery and the patron would have been working in close collaboration on an undertaking of this kind. For the abbot and the monks, the extensive campaign of construction and embellishment of the 830s is probably best interpreted as part of a strategy devised by the community to attract increased support and endowment from the landed nobility of the region at a time when benefices were becoming less frequent and the monastery was no longer expanding as it had been a generation earlier (Wickham 1995). For the patron, and for his/her family, a magnificent gift of new and splendid buildings, with the funerary oratory at their heart, would have functioned in various ways. On the one hand the donor’s generous benefaction to the religious institution, and the provision that would certainly have been made for regular commemorative masses in the crypt, would have greatly improved the chances of unimpeded entry into Paradise. On the other hand, the magnificent tomb and painted chapel, and, doubtless, accompanying dedicatory

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inscriptions on the church and adjacent buildings recording the liberality of the family of the deceased, would have added to its prestige and ensured that the fame of the occupant would live on in the minds of succeeding generations of visitors, who during their stay in the guest-quarters would be made all too aware of these past benefactions. Funerary Oratories in Early Medieval Europe and the Crypt at San Vincenzo Finally a few words should be said about the incidence of funerary oratories in eighth- and ninth-century Europe and about the implications of our identification of the crypt at San Vincenzo as such a chapel, designed to receive the body of a lay individual who enjoyed high favour at San Vincenzo. Sepulchre in grand individual mausolea was a Roman custom which was generally abandoned after the later fifth century. Although sporadic instances can be found in the succeeding centuries, for instance in the north of Italy where the Lombard royal family appears to have revived the tradition briefly in the decades around 700, it was the popes in Rome who began regularly to erect funerary chapels for themselves in the eighth century, and their example may have been an important factor in the limited revival of the custom in other parts of Europe in the ninth century. There are a number of Frankish instances of burial in funerary chapels from the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries (Hubert 1938: 53–65; Grabar 1946: 495–6; Krüger 1971: passim and index, s.v. Mausoleum). Two early cases, which are well-preserved and well-known are the semi-subterranean oratory of the seventh-century Abbot Mellebaude, near Poitiers, the socalled Hypogée des Dunes, which was not immediately associated with a church (Hubert, Porcher and Volbach 1969: 56–63, 352; Croix 1983), and the burial crypt of the founder and the early abbesses of the double monastery at Jouarre. This latter dates from the late seventh or early eighth century and lay, half-underground, beneath the east end of the funerary basilica of Saint Paul and Saint Martin (Maillé 1971). In Italy a few scattered instances are known from the late seventh or early eighth centuries: the chapel which Bishop John II of Ravenna built for himself at the west end of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, at the end of the 6th century (Borgolte 1989: 87), and the oratory of Theodore I in Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome, in which the pope’s father was buried and which, as Caecilia Davis-Weyer has argued, may, among other functions, have

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served as the latter’s mortuary chapel (Davis-Weyer 1989: 61, 80). Further, Krüger has proposed that the Longobard king, Rothari (ob. 652) may have been buried in a mausoleum adjacent to San Giovanni Domnarum at Pavia (Krüger 1971: 378), and that Perctarit (ob. 688), Cunincpert (ob. 700) and Aripert II (ob. 712) were laid in another mausoleum next to San Salvatore in the same city (Krüger 1971: 388–9). However, it was in Rome that the practice of burial in individual mausolea was revived in most conspicuous fashion, by the popes in the first years of the eighth century. Starting with John VII (705–7), a series of popes between the first decade of the eighth century and the middle of the ninth century were interred in elaborate and richly appointed funerary oratories constructed inside the basilica of Saint Peter in Rome. In most instances these were commissioned by the individual pontiffs expressly to receive their own bodies (Herklotz 1985: 85; Borgolte 1989: 94). The practice seems to have been begun by Sergius I (687–701), not for himself but for the body of his great fifth-century predecessor, Leo I, which Sergius had translated in 688 from its original resting place in the Secretarium at the southeastern corner of the basilica, to the south transept, where he had a new tomb constructed, probably with a chapel enclosing it (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. I, 375, 379, n. 34; Borgolte 1989: 94–7). In the metrical inscription which Sergius set up to record the translation, the tomb is described as having been adorned with precious marble and the structure decorated with figures of prophets and other saints — whether in mosaic or in paint is not stated (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. I, 379, n. 35). Pope John VII (705–7) was most probably acting under the influence of this initiative when he constructed a funerary oratory for himself in the north-eastern corner of the basilica of Saint Peter (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. I, 385; Nordhagen 1965; Herklotz 1985: 89; Tronzo 1987: 489–92; Borgolte 1989: 100–2). The interior was lavishly decorated with marble revetment, spiral vine-scroll columns and mosaics, which survived until the final demolition of the eastern bays of the nave in the first decade of the seventeenth century, and its appearance is well documented (Cerrati 1914: 106–7; Niggl 1972: 117–27). John was followed by Gregory III (731–41), who was buried in an oratory dedicated to the Saviour and the Virgin Mary (later Santa Maria in Cancellis), which he had erected during his lifetime in Saint Peter’s, at the southern foot of the triumphal arch. This chapel was vaulted and vested in mosaic (Maffeo Vegio, in Valentini and Zucchetti 1940–53: vol. 4, 393, 1.

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32; Borgolte 1989: 105), and contained a crowned and jewel-hung image of the Mother of God, Maria Regina. A daily office was provided by the monks of the three Petrine monastic communities who were required to recite three Psalms and the Gospel there, followed, on relevant feast days, by the hebdomadal priest who, after celebrating Mass at the confessio of Saint Peter, was to say a second Mass in the new chapel (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. I, 417, 421, 422–3; Borgolte 1989: 102). In addressing the priestly college of Rome in 732, on the occasion of the dedication of the oratory, Gregory specifically stated that he, unworthy (‘indignum’) as he was, had founded the chapel as an expression of his gratitude to God for his elevation to the high office of the papacy (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. I, 422; Borgolte 1989: 103). Nowhere in the early sources is it explicitly stated that Gregory planned this oratory as his place of burial, but Borgolte has argued convincingly that the foundation and its elaborate liturgical provision only makes sense if the pope did establish them to commemorate his person and to provide continuing intercession for the salvation of his soul after death. Some 25 years later Paul I (757–67) erected an oratory in the south transept of Saint Peter’s, near to the tomb of Leo I and just to the right of the entrance to the great rotunda of Santa Petronilla, the reputed daughter of Saint Peter (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. I, 465; Borgolte 1989: 105–6). The rotunda had originally been built as a royal mausoleum to house the graves of the western branch of the Theodosian dynasty (Koethe 1931; Borgolte 1989: 51–2); and in 757 it was rededicated by Pope Paul to the ‘aeterna memoria’ of the Carolingian King Pippin (Borgolte 1989: 109–10. It remained under the particular protection of the Frankish and later of the French kings, and came to be known as the ‘Cappella del re di Francia’ — Borgolte 1989: 110, n. 366). Paul’s own burial chapel therefore was situated in a prestigious position, at the entrance to the old imperial rotunda which had been given over to the particular care of the king of the Franks, and close to the confessio of Saint Peter and to the chapels of the earlier popes, Leo, John and Gregory. The Liber Pontificalis records that Paul’s chapel was dedicated to the Mother of God, that it was adorned with mosaic ‘et diversis metallis’, and that it housed a gilded silver statue of Mary. It should be recalled that in Santa Maria Antiqua, in the main apse, this same pope, Paul I, was represented standing, being presented by the Virgin Mary to Christ, imagery which involves the same theme of intercession and service as that deployed in the crypt at San Vincenzo (de Grüneisen 1911: figs 64, 106, 109; Ladner 1941a: 107–8, pl. XIIa; Borgolte 1989: 107).

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Hadrian I (772–95), 28 years later, was the next pope to be buried in his own oratory in Saint Peter’s. This was also located in the south transept, next to the tomb of Leo I and close to the chapel of Paul I. Hadrian’s burial chapel, the original dedication of which may have been to Saint Hadrian the martyr, is not mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis, but is briefly recorded by Petrus Mallius, in his Descriptio Basilicae Vaticanae, written in the third quarter of the twelfth century (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. I, 514, 522, n. 132; Mallius, in Valentini and Zucchetti 1940–53: vol. 3, 393; Borgolte 1989: 111–2). Parts of this structure may still be preserved (Krautheimer 1937–77: vol. 5, 194–5, fig. 167a). Pope Paschal I (817–24) was responsible for the erection of two funerary oratories, one for himself, the grand and richly appointed chapel of Saints Processus and Martinianus, which stood close to the oratories of his illustrious predecessors, in the south transept of the basilica, just to the left of the entrance into Santa Petronilla (Pertz 1829: 597, ch. 30; Thegan 1843: 418; Maffeo Vegio, in Valentini and Zucchetti, 1940–53: vol. 4, 391; Cerrati 1914: 44; Borgolte 1989: 117–8), and another for his mother, Theodora Episcopa, the chapel of San Zeno, in Santa Prassede, a similar splendidly ornate little structure, cruciform in plan, with four columns carrying the vault and an elaborate programme in mosaic covering the façade and the upper surfaces of the interior (Mackie 1989). The size, splendour and rich furnishings of the chapel in Saint Peter’s, with its four interior columns and vault decorated with mosaic is spelt out in two passages in the Vita of Paschal in the Liber Pontificalis (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. II, 53, 58). Prominent among its furnishings was an image of the purest gold, having the countenance of the Mother of God, weighing 10 pounds and 4 ounces, and clothed in Byzantine purple, gilded silver images of Christ and Saints Processus and Martinianus and, in the apse, another large gilded silver image on which various scenes (‘cum diversis storiis’) were represented (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. II, 58). Twenty-three years later Sergius II (844–7) was buried in a second chapel which Paschal had built in Saint Peter’s, the oratory of Saints Sixtus and Fabianus, which lay immediately before the confessio, just in front of the high altar (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. II, 105, n. 39; Mallius, in Valentini and Zucchetti 1940–53: vol. 3, 413–4; Maffeo Vegio, in Valentini and Zucchetti 1940–53: vol. 4, 389–90; Cerrati 1914: 33–4; Borgolte 1989: 118). This was another splendidly appointed little structure, vaulted, with four columns at its corners, its interior richly ornamented with marble, mosaic and gold (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. II, 53; Cerrati 1914: 33–4).

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Borgolte has argued that Gregory IV (827–44) and Leo IV (847–55) were also buried in oratories which they had founded in Saint Peter’s (Borgolte 1989: 118–9). Gregory is recorded as having built one, with mosaic in the apse and with a silver–sheeted altar, into which he translated the body of his illustrious predecessor, Gregory I (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. II, 74; Borgolte 1989: 118–9). This chapel, dedicated to Saint Gregory, was situated towards, or just off, the eastern end of the northernmost aisle of the basilica (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. II, 83, n. 3; Borgolte 1989: fig. 7). Gregory stipulated that the monks serving Saint Peter’s should sing ‘laudes’ to God in this place every day (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. II, 74). It is probable that he conceived of this chapel as his own place of burial, and was concerned to ensure that regular prayers were said there for the redemption of his soul. Leo IV, a decade or so later, undertook a major restoration of the oratory of Leo I, which had been established by Sergius I in the south transept (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. II, 113, 136 n. 21; Borgolte 1989: 119). Like the earlier burial chapels, this is described in the Liber Pontificalis as being extraordinarily beautiful, revetted with fine marble, and with mosaics of gold and other glorious colours in its apse. The Liber Pontificalis states that the pope laid the body of Leo I in this chapel, and raised over it an altar and a ciborium with gilded crosses, to the praise and glory of Christ’s name, so that he might procure for himself a worthy place in heaven (Duchesne 1955/1981: vol. II, 113). It is not recorded exactly where in Saint Peter’s Leo IV himself was buried, but it seems likely that he would have wished to have been laid beside his great predecessor of the same name, whose chapel he had rebuilt for the stated purpose of assisting his own entry into paradise. Leo IV was also responsible for the rebuilding of the basilica of the Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome. A little vaulted chapel was constructed just off the south aisle of this church, in much the same manner as Paschal’s San Zeno chapel at Santa Prassede (Krautheimer 1937–77: vol. 4, 27, figs 6, 26, 27, 29, 31). The original function of this small chapel is not known, but, to judge from its form and location, it is possible that it too was designed as a burial oratory for an individual who enjoyed an exalted reputation in the papal circle. After Leo IV, funerary chapels ceased to be erected in Saint Peter’s and the popes reverted to their previous custom of burial in relatively modest graves in the floor of the basilica (Borgolte 1989: 119–20). We have included this rather long excursus on the papal funerary oratories of the eighth and the first half of the ninth centuries not only to draw attention to a fashion

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of aggrandized individual burial favoured by the popes, which deserves to be far better known than is the case, but because they may have a direct bearing on the crypt at San Vincenzo. These opulent little structures must have impressed eighth- and ninth-century visitors to Rome most forcibly, and may also have played a critical role in the sporadic revivals of interest in funerary oratories evident north of the Alps, as well as in Italy, in this period. The phenomenon of burial in funerary chapels is occasionally found in northern Europe in the ninth century. The best-known instance in the ninth century concerns the Carolingian king, Louis the German, who was buried in 876 in a richly appointed semi-subterranean oratory, built on to the east end of the abbey-church at Lorsch. This was famed throughout the Middle Ages for its splendid painted decoration and was commonly known as the ecclesia varia or Vehenkirche (Behn 1934: vol. I, 59–66; Grabar 1946: vol. I, 495–6; Schrade 1958: 19–20). Other chapels of the period which have been interpreted as mausolea have come to light at Werden (dedicated to Saint Stephen, erected between 819 and 827) (Bandmann 1951: 186; Oswald, Schaefer and Sennhauser 1966: 372), and at Disentis (Oswald, Schaefer and Sennhauser 1966: 61). Similarly, in England, in the kingdom of Mercia, Martin Biddle has identified what he believes to be two royal mausolea at Repton. One of these he associates with the kings Wiglaf (ob. 839) and Wystan (ob. 849), and possibly already with King Aethelbald, who is recorded as having been buried at Repton in 757 (Biddle 1986: 16–22, figs 7b, 8 and 9; Hodges 1989b: 126–8; Biddle and Kjolbye Biddle 1992; but Fernie 1983: 116–21, for a pertinent critique). Somewhat later examples are a structure attached to the church of Saint Oswald at Gloucester which the excavators have identified as the mausoleum of Aethelflaed and Aethelraed of Mercia, dating from the first quarter of the tenth century (Heighway and Bryant 1986: 191, 193–4, figs 129, 130, 132 and 133), and the oratory dedicated to Saint Dionysius which Saint Edith built at Wilton as her place of burial sometime before 984, and which is recorded as having been decorated with an elaborate cycle of images painted in gold, lapis lazuli and other colours, the work of the Trier artist, Benna (Dodwell 1982: 65, 79–80, 92–3; Westermann-Angerhausen 1990: 20). If, as we have argued, the crypt at San Vincenzo is a funerary oratory, it would fit well into this tradition of burial in richly appointed private chapels. Extravagant pictorial decoration, in mosaic or paint, seems to have been a particular feature of these structures. In its Italian context, the crypt must be seen in the light of papal and of aristocratic lay burial during the period, and

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may be understood as an imitation, at a local, monastic, level, of a practice favoured in Rome by some of the more ambitious pontiffs of the age, and by certain members of the secular élite closely associated with the highest ecclesiastical circles. The funerary oratories of the ninth-century popes in Saint Peter’s and the chapel of Paschal I’s mother, Theodora, at the church of Santa Prassede, are contemporary parallels. However, the oratory at San Vincenzo differs from these structures in being semi-subterranean. In this it falls in with another dispersed tradition of funerary chapel, exemplified in the seventh-century oratory of Mellebaude near Poitiers, the crypt at Jouarre, the chapel of Louis the German at Lorsch, and the Mercian royal mausoleum at Repton. These provide the wider European context. Given the considerable Frankish presence in the community at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the decades around 800, and the interest which both Charlemagne and his successor Louis the Pius seem to have taken in the affairs of the monastery, in its expansion and in the construction of Abbot Joshua’s great new abbey-church, during the period (Federici 1, 1925, passim, especially 219ff.; Mitchell 1985: 166), it is possible that the old Frankish tradition of individualized burial in sunken chambers of this kind directly influenced the decision to construct the funerary oratory at San Vincenzo as a crypt. Note Thanks for ideas, observations, information, and help of various other kinds are due to Charles Barber, Carlo Bertelli, Sible de Blauuw, Beat Brenk, Leslie Brubaker, Robert Deshman, Albert Dietl, Christoph Liutpold Frommel, Jan Gerchow, Sandy Heslop, Leslie Jessop, Gillian Mackie, Éamonn Ó Carragáin, John Osborne, Cesare Poppi, Franco Valente, Chris Wickham and, above all, to Richard Hodges.

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Appendix Letter of 1832 describing the discovery of the Crypt of Epyphanius, written by Nicola Padula, parish priest of San Vincenzo, to the Abbot of Monte Cassino. The letter is in the possession of the Giampaoli family of Castellone. Since we have not had the opportunity to examine the original, we are reproducing Di Cicco’s transcription of the text. “Eccellenza Rev.ma, Nel giorno dieci and. mese (marzo 1832) un tal Domenico Notardonato scavando de’ fossi ad uso arbusio di viti sulle falde del Colle della Torre di mia spirituale giurisdiz. poiché di pertinenza di questo Comune di S. Vincenzo in distanza di circa 100 palmi dall’alveo del fiume Volturno, e propriamente nella direzione del ponte del Comune med., in uno de cernati fossi rinvenendo del vuoto, ne allargò l’apertura. Si avvide quindi che venia ad un sotterraneo speco guidato. Penetrando dentro l’istesso trovò, a mio credere, essere porzione del succorpo del celebre Monastero di S. Vincenzo a Volturno edificato nell’anno 703 dai tre celebri Principi Beneventani, e per la prima volta abbattuto dai sciaurati Saraceni, di cui appena pochi ruderi ed orme si ammirano. Lo speco, di cui fo motto della lunghezza di circa palmi 20 e poco men di larghezza della figura d’una croce greca, e nell’attual posizione, dal perché ripieno nel pavimento, di circa palmi 12 è tutto ricoperto da pittura senza che siavi neanche l’umido penetrato. L’ingresso attuale che’esiste a Settentrione parmi un forame che somministravagli il lume, mentre la porta antica, o forse anche meglio dove aveva la communicazione colla maggiore parte di esso, io la immagino ad oriente informe le vestigia dinotano. Al lato destro della presente entratura vi si ammira in pittura che ben si distingue, abbenché di rozzo pennello, come sono le restanti pitture, il martirio di S. Lorenzo con la iscrizione in lettere perpendicolari vicino a sgherri carnifices, quindi vicino al martire S. Laurentius. Terminato il muro ne principia un secondo di conica figura, che se mal non mi appongo, serviva di picciolo coro all’altare che di prospetto lo guarda. Nella volta del supposto coro vi ha l’effigie della SS. Vergine del Rosario, e nel muro che forma il secondo lato dell’immaginato coro, il ritratto di S. Michele Arcangelo. Giunti all’angolo del muro indicato esiste altra picciola volta, che parmi guidasse al prossimo

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ingresso o continuazione dell’istesso soccorpo. In prospetto, come cennai, nel muro parimente formato a cono eravi eretto un altare che si vede abbattuto al pari di un deposito di cadavere che esisteva sotto dell’altare medesimo, ossia nel seno di esso, e che io suppongo di qualche corpo Santo. Su del menzionato altare vedesi picciolo sfondo verticale da capo a fondo dal sopradetto altare, e alla di cui estremità si vede un ferro che doveva sostenere la lampada. All’angolo che fa fine il cono della parete dell’altare, e che da il principio all’altro picciolo muro, nel mezzo di questo trovasi la effigie di Gesù sulla Croce con a destra e sinistra le due Marie e sotto i piedi della Croce in lettere orizontali la seguente iscrizione Dom. Epiph. Abb. che immagino Dominus Epiphanius Abbas. Formato l’ultimo angolo di questo muro avvi altro picciolo vuoto ossia nicchia, in cui vedonsi effigiati tre personaggi e nella mano di uno degli stessi un libro aperto col seguente motto: Ego sum Dominus Abraham. Suppongo in conseguenza le tre divine Persone. Altre iscrizioni non ben si comprendono, poiché rose dall’antichità, e dai guasti che trovansi formati da punte di martello o di piccone. Non mancai nel giorno 12 di recarmi sopraluogo di unito a questo Sindaco e Regio Giud. onde formarne la oculare ispezione, ed alla presenza nostra medesima, si oppilo di bel nuovo il formato ingresso, per non permettere la continuazione dé guasti che senza dubbio sarebbe accaduta dalla voracità dei villani che sempre sperano l’ingordigia dell’oro, e colla posta immediata si è passato l’avviso al sig. Sotto Intend, del Distretto, come di presente lo umilio alla V.E.R., tra il perché disponga l’occorrente, e tra il perché ancora disponga se le aggrada, che in cotesto ammirabile archivio possano rinvenirsene le indagini sicure e non equivoche. La prego a perdonare e mandar buona la mia analitica descrizione del fatto, che ho creduto mio dovere indispensabile, per non mancare a propri doveri, ed a questa subbordinazione che l’è dovuta. Si degni intanto di compatirmi la Suo Personale benedizione e di perdonare l’alieno carattere, nell’atto che mi segno col più profondo rispetto.” F.to: P. Nicola Padula Arciprete di S. Vincenzo Your Most Reverend Excellency, On the tenth day of last month (March 1832), while digging ditches for the planting of vines on the slopes of Colle della Torre, a certain Domenico Notardonato came across an opening in the ground. This was about 100 palmi from the bed of the river Volturno, in the direction of the bridge of the Comune of San Vincenzo. Colle della Torre lies in the territory of the Comune of San Vincenzo and so comes under my spiritual jurisdiction. He

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enlarged the opening, and found that it led into an underground cavern. On entering it he found himself to be in what, in my opinion, is part of the substructures of the famous monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, which was built in 703 by the three celebrated Beneventan princes, destroyed for the first time by the dastardly Saracens, and of which only a few ruins and traces are now visible. The cavern, which was about 20 palmi in length and slightly less in width, is in the shape of a Greek cross. The pavement is at the moment covered with earth, but the walls are covered with paintings to their present height of about 12 palmi; and there is no trace of dampness having penetrated. The present entrance, which is to the north, is through an opening designed to admit light, while the original door, or rather the one which should have linked the subterranean chamber with the main part of the monastery, I imagine to have been on the eastern side, as certain remains seem to indicate its presence. To the right of the present entrance one sees the martyrdom of St Laurence, with an inscription in vertically arranged letters next to the executioners Carnifices, that is, next to the martyr, S. Laurentius. The painting is well preserved, but has been executed by a rough hand, as have the rest of the paintings. At the end of this wall is the start of a second wall of conical shape which, if I am not mistaken, served as a little choir for the altar which faces it. In the vault of this ‘choir’ is the image of the Holy Virgin of the Rosary [the Virgin Mary], and on the wall which forms the second side of our proposed choir is the portrait of the Archangel Michael. At the corner of this wall is another little vaulted space which leads to what is either the next entrance or the continuation of the same space. Opposite this, as I have mentioned, an altar has been erected against a cone-shaped wall. This has been demolished down to the level of a receptacle for bodies which lay beneath or rather at the centre of the altar, and which I suspect contained the remains of some saint. A little vertical cut runs down through the altar from top to bottom. At the end of this is an iron bracket which must have supported a lamp. At the corner which forms the end of the conical altar wall and which stands at the beginning of another short wall, is an image of Jesus on the Cross with the two Maries at his right and left, and beneath the foot of the Cross in horizontal letters the following inscription, DOM. EPIPH. ABB., which I think is Dominus Epiphanius Abbas. At the end of this wall is another little opening or rather a niche, in which one can see the images of three individuals, in the hand of one of which is an open book with the following legend: EGO SVM DOMINVS ABRAHAM. Consequently I believe these are the three divine Persons. There are other

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inscriptions which cannot be deciphered easily because of their decayed state, and because of areas of damage which have been inflicted with the point of a hammer or pick. On 12 March, together with the Mayor and the Royal Magistrate, I made visual inspection of the cavern, and, in our presence, the entrance was again securely closed, in order to prevent a continuation of the past damage which doubtless has been caused by the greed of peasants who are always desirous of finding gold. Notice of this has been sent by direct post to the Superintendent of the District, just as now I humbly submit it to Your Very Excellent Reverence so that you will be able to decide exactly what should be done, what action may usefully be taken, to search your admirable archives for reliable information which may throw light on the underground chamber discovered at San Vincenzo. I beg you to pardon and to look favourably on my analytical description of these events, which I have undertaken in fulfillment of what I believe to be my indispensable duty, and because of the duty which I owe to you. I beg you to grant me your personal blessing and to pardon my presumption. I remain your most respectful servant. Signed: Father Nicola Padula Archpriest of San Vincenzo

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IX Spatial Hierarchy and the Uses of Ornament in an Early Medieval Monastery Introduction

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n the later eighth and the early ninth centuries, monasteries throughout Europe increasingly became sites of hierarchical organization. In this period, as they became more integrated into the structures of lay society and increasingly came to serve as instruments in the administration and governance of polities throughout Europe, so they increased in size and their public offices developed, proliferated and received greater emphasis. High-ranking members of the monastic hierarchy came to be employed by secular rulers to exercise authority and to undertake diplomatic missions on their behalf. As a consequence the abbots of the great monasteries, in this period, came to rank among the “potentes” of the realm. These institutions had extremely large congregations and were complex, ranked, well ordered organizations, in a sense microcosms of society at large1. Although equal in the eyes of God, the monastic communities of the period in fact were highly stratified. Monks were ranked in order of seniority, with certain individuals holding offices and positions of authority over their fellow-brothers — the abbot, the provost, the cellarer, the chamberlain, and the other subordinate offices2. Likewise the servants of the monastery were ranked according to their duties and responsibilities. Occupying a half-way

1 On monasteries in the Carolingian age, see now: M. de Jong. “Carolingian monasticism: The power of prayer”. in R. McKitterick (ed), The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume II c. 700–c. 900, Cambridge, 1995, p. 622–33. 2 W. Horn and E. Born, The Plan of St. Gall, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1979, 1, p. 329–36.

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position between the monastic vocation and full lay status were prebendaries (provendarii). These were specialists in particular crafts and occupations, who were retained by the monastery for particular duties3. In some ways, they may have operated in a similar fashion to the lay-brothers of later centuries, working within and without the monastic confines in close association with the monks and sharing some measure of the discipline of conventual life. Then there was the outer lay familia of the monastery, that satellite community of men, women and children upon which the monks depended for their corporeal sustenance and for the practical, everyday necessities of existence4. In great monastic establishments of the early ninth century provision for guests was of paramount concern5. A preoccupation with stratification was naturally a critical factor in the design and layout of the buildings designed to house the various categories of visitors. On the Plan of St. Gall, a detailed scheme for a complex monastery, drawn up on the Reichenau, probably in the 820s, something like a sixth of the area of the precinct is given over to lodgings for different kinds of guest6. Separate provision is made for visiting monks, for distinguished lay guests, for the retinues which accompanied these great lords, and for pilgrims and paupers.

3 Prebendaries are well attested at Corbie, Bobbio and elsewhere. See F. Schwind, “Zu karolingerzeitlichen Klöstern als Wirtschaftsorganismen und Stätten handwerklicher Tätigkeit”, in L. Fenske, W. Rösener and T. Zotz (eds.), Institutionen, Kultur und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter. Festschrift für Josef Fleckenstein zu seinem 65. Geburtstag, Sigmaringen, 1984, p. 101–23, at p. 112–113. 4 The ideal of a complex Carolingian monastery, highly structured and stratified at all levels, both conventual and lay, is best expressed in Angilbert‘s writings relating to his late eighth-century foundation of St. Riquier at Centula. See Hariulf, Chronique de l’Abbaye de Saint-Riquier (Ve siècle–1104), ed. F. Lot, Paris, 1984, p. 296–8; F. Schwind, “Zu karolingerzeitlichen Klöstern” (op. cit., n. 3), p. 115–7; H.M. Taylor, “Tenth-century church building in England and on the Continent”, in D. Parsons (ed.), Tenth-Century Studies, London and Chichester, 1975, p. 141–68, at p. 142–52. 5 W. Horn and E. Born, The Plan of St. Gall (op. cit., n. 2), II, p. 140–67; J. Mitchell. “Monastic guest-quarters and workshops: The example of San Vincenzo al Volturno”, in H.-R.Sennhauser (ed.), Wohn- und Wirtschaftsbauten frühmittelalterlicher Klöster, Zurich, 1996, p. 127–55 at p. 127–43. 6 W. Horn and E. Born, The Plan of St. Gall (op. cit., n. 2), I, p. xxiv and xxviii; II, p. 146–7: L. Price, The Plan of St.Gall in Brief, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1982, p. xii, 10, 19, 42–7.

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A diagnostic mark of this new complexity was the introduction of large bells and the construction of bell-towers in monasteries in this period7. The tolling of the bell was a means of conducting some of the elaborate rhythms of everyday routine in a complex institution, in which the activities and movements of hundreds of individuals, engaged in many different activities and following different regimes, had to be directed and co-ordinated. San Vincenzo al Volturno: The Early Medieval Monastery This concern for stratification and hierarchy is very evident in the material fabric and the visual apparatus deployed in monasteries of the period. The phenomenon is exemplified in the great early medieval monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, where the architectural fabric is exceptionally well preserved, where the material culture is extraordinarily rich, and where sixteen years of excavation have uncovered many ranges of buildings in a number of representative areas of the settlement (Fig. 1)8. 7 A deep bell-pit and the debris of bell-casting, from the first years of the ninth century, have been excavated at San Vincenzo al Volturno, close to a temporary metal-working area, some 20 m. in front of the façade of the early-ninth-century abbey-church. To judge from the largest surviving fragment of the clay mantle from the casting, this bell must have weighed about fifty kilos (R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno, Monteroduni/Abbazia di Montecassino, 1996, p. 47–9; K. Francis and M. Moran, “Planning and technology in the early middle Ages: The temporary workshops at San Vincenzo al Volturno”, in S. Gelichi (ed.), 1° Congresso nazionale di archeologia medievale, Pisa,1997, Florence, 1997, p. 373–75). An early reference to church bells is made by Hildemar of Civate, in his Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict. Hildemar, a native of northern Italy, who had been educated at Corbie, under abbot Adalhard. in the first half of the ninth century, mentions the bell which called monks to church (Hildemar of Civate, Expositio in Regulam S. Benedicti, ch. 34, ed. R.Mittermüller, Regensburg, 1880, p. 465–6, cited by M. de Jong, “Power and humility in Carolingian society: The public penance of Louis the Pious”, Early Medieval History, I, no. I, 1992, p. 29–52, at p. 37–8). See also H. Otte, Glockenkunde, 2nd edition, Leipzig, 1884, p. 12ff., and E. von Sommerfeld, “Der Westbau der Pfalzkapelle Karls des Grossen zu Aachen und seine Einwirkung auf den romanischen Turmbau in Deutschland”, Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, 29, 1906, p. 195–222, at p. 198 ff., cited by W. Horn and E. Born, The Plan of St. Gall (op. cit., n. 2), I, p. 131, n. 12. 8 Some aspects of the ethos of hierarchy at San Vincenzo al Volturno have been addressed in J. Mitchell and R. Hodges. “Portraits, the cult of relics and the affirmation of hierarchy at an early medieval monastery: San Vincenzo al Volturno”, Antiquity, 70, no. 267, March, 1996, p. 20–30, and in R. Hodges, S. Gibson, J. Mitchell, “The making of a monastic city. The architecture of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the ninth century”, Papers of the British School at Rome, 65, 1997, p. 233–86. The excavations at San Vincenzo al Volturno are described

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San Vincenzo lies about 200 km. south-east of Rome, in the northwestern corner of the modern region of Molise. It was founded in the first decade of the eighth century, in territory recently added to the southern Langobard duchy of Benevento. The original settlement was established among the ruins of a long-abandoned late Roman estate-centre, on the lower slopes of a low hill, on the west bank of the River Volturno, close to its source. A fifth-century funerary basilica which had served the estate-centre was rebuilt at this time, as the first abbey-church9. In its initial phases, the monastery extended to little more than half a hectare. However, the community grew fast and in the last years of the eighth century and in the first decades of the ninth, under the abbot Joshua (792–817) and his successors, Talaric (817–23) and Epyphanius (824–42), the whole monastery was systematically redesigned and rebuilt on an incommensurably larger scale. By the 830s the complex covered more than six hectares and consisted of dozens of buildings, including eight churches, on both sides of the river (Fig. 1). This reformation centred round the re-siting of the main abbey church. San Vincenzo Maggiore10. In this operation, the area covered by the original early eighth-century monastery was transformed into quarters for distinguished guests to the monastery. The original church of San Vincenzo, a relatively modest building, some 21.5 m. long, was converted into a hall, a palatium, to serve the needs of these lay visitors (Fig. 2). In its place, a great new basilica was constructed, on a high artificial platform, some 120 m. to the south. This new structure, a three-aisled church, 63.5 m. long and nearly 29 m. wide, formed and analysed in R. Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno I: The 1980–86 Excavations. Part I, London, 1993; Idem. Part II. London, 1995; R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7). An excellent, succinct account of the history and archaeology of San Vincenzo, published just before the start of the current excavations, is: A. Pantoni, Le chiese e gli edifìci del monastero di San Vincenzo al Volturno, Monte Cassino, 1980. For a more recent synoptic history of the monastery in the light of the recent archaeological evidence, see R. Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages. The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno, London, 1997. The principal documentary source for the early history of the monastery is the chronicle of San Vincenzo, which was compiled early in the twelfth century, and which incorporates earlier material. There is an excellent modern edition: V. Federici (ed.), Chronicon Vulturnense del Monaco Giovanni, 3 vols., Rome. 1925–38 – Instituto Storico Italiano, Fonti per la Storia d’Italia, 58–60 (hereafter cited as Chron. Vult.). 9 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno. Part I (op. cit., n. 8), chapter 9; R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 23–31. 10 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 33–61.

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the fulcrum around which the monastery was restructured (Fig. 3). The new ranges of buildings were put up over a period of some forty years, following an extended but more or less systematic modular plan. They included a large two-aisled Refectory for the monks with an adjoining Assembly Hall (Fig. 2), many ranges of buildings on terraces on the eastern slopes of the hill, and others on the plain between the hill and the river. Immediately to the south of the new basilica, four and a half metres below the pavement-level of the church, ranges of workshops were laid out (Fig. 3). These looked out onto a yard to the south, and beyond to other ranges of buldings on the plain. Further to the west, alongside the funerary atrium and the basilica was a refectory and kitchens for the craftsmen. Still further to the west, alongside the basilica, other ranges have been excavated; their function has yet to be determined. On the upper southern and eastern slopes of the hill, overlooking the scores of buildings which made up this great complex, was a large cemetery which seems to have served the familia of the monastery, the lay community which ministered to the everyday material needs of the monks. The graves contain the bodies of males and females, adults and juveniles, although strangely almost no children or infants11. Construction seems to have ceased after 850 and only minor changes were made to the fabric in the following generation. Although the monastery continued to add to its territorial possessions in this period, it is likely that its congregation was declining in number12. There is evidence that some of the buildings were falling into states of semi-abandonment. San Vincenzo could not escape the political and social disruption which overtook many parts of Europe in the second half of the 9th century. In 861 the Arab war-lord Saugdan, Emir of Bari, threatened the monastery and had to be bought off with 3,000 gold pieces13. But in the autumn of 881, another Arab army, apparently in the employ of Athanasius, the duke-bishop of Naples, sacked and burnt San Vincenzo, and killed many of the monks14. That the destruction C. Coutts, “The hilltop cemetery”, in R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno. Part I (op. cit., n. 8), p. 98–118. 12 The economic and territorial fortunes of the monastery in the eighth and ninth centuries are reviewed by: C. Wickham, “Monastic lands and monastic patrons”, in R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno. Part 2 (op. cit., n. 8), p. 138–52. 13 Chron. Vult. I (op. cit., n. 8), p. 357. 14 Chron. Vult. I (op. cit., n. 8), p. 361–9. See R. Hodges, “10 October 881: the sack of San Vincenzo al Volturno”, in B. Magnusson, S. Renzetti, P. Vian and S.J. Voicu (eds.), VLTRA TERMINVM VAGARI. Scritti in onore di Carl Nylander, Rome, 1997, p. 129–41. 11

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was systematic and terrible is clear from the archaeological record. The survivors fled to Capua where they established a new house also under the patronage of St. Vincent15. It was not until the second decade of the tenth century that they returned to the source of the Volturno, and it was another hundred years before the community was fully re-established on the old site, and the ruined abbey-church was repaired and brought back into use16. However, the later fortunes of the monastery do not concern us here. The Expression of Hierarchy in the Fabric of the Monastery Hierarchical stratification was apparent everywhere in the material fabric of the ninth-century monastery and in its material culture17. Most obviously it was visible in the buildings. The eight churches which stood within the monastic precincts in the second quarter of the ninth century varied in size, from the great basilica of S.Vincenzo Maggiore, which rivalled the largest churches of its age, to churches of quite modest dimensions. San Vincenzo Maggiore, as we have seen, was a huge structure, some 63.5 m. long and 29 m. wide, with 24 columns in its nave arcades, and it was paved with Proconnesian marble (Fig. 3). Its sanctuary was raised up over a magnificently painted ring-crypt at one end. At the other, attached to the front of the church was a remarkable funerary atrium, which served as the cemetery for the monks. This atrium was c. 29 m. square, and may have contained a monumental staircase leading up to the front of the church. Future excavation will clarify the configuration of this area. In the porticoes of the atrium the monks were buried in block-built sarcophagi, grouped around the tombs of the two abbots responsible for the basilica, Joshua and Talaricus, flanking the main portal in the centre of the façade18. The atrium 15 The Saracen incursions into this area and the circumstances surrounding the sack of San Vincenzo are discussed by F. Marazzi, “San Vincenzo al Volturno tra VII e IX secolo: il percorso della grande crescita”, in F. Marazzi (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno: Cultura, istituzioni, economia, Monteroduni/Abbazia di Montecassino, 1996, p. 41–92. 16 Chron. Vult. (op. cit., n. 8), II, 342, III, 78, 89–90; A. Pantoni, Le chiese (op. cit., n. 8), p. 22–3; R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 123–38; R. Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages (op. cit., n. 8). 17 Some aspects of this phenomenon are discussed in R. Hodges et al., “The making of a monastic city (op. cit., n. 8). 18 R. Hodges, J. Mitchell, L. Watson, “The discovery of Abbot Talaricus (817–3 October 823) tomb at San Vincenzo al Volturno”, Antiquity, June, 1997, p. 453–6; R. Hodges et al., “The making of monastic city” (pp. cit., n. 8).

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had a pilastered façade, onto the front of which was added a vaulted undercroft carrying a raised outer narthex or porch. The porch was flanked by two low towers: a stair tower to the north, which served as the principal front entrance to the building; and to the south a bell-tower, which may also have contained a stair. Overall this great complex of basilica and monumental cemetery was 107 m. in length. An entrance atrium probably extended in front, further to the east, down towards the river. By contrast, to judge from what we know of them, the other seven churches were far smaller. The church built in the 830s to serve the needs of distinguished guests to the community, was only 18.5 m. long (Fig. 2). However, with its raised elaborately-formed triconch sanctuary, its sumptuous painted decoration, and its little narthex and atrium, in many ways it must have reflected the great abbey church some 120 m. to the south19. The original church of San Vincenzo, at the northern end of the site, had been only ca. 21.5 m. long. The other early churches have not yet been excavated. It is indicative that the funerary church which served a small community dependent on San Vincenzo, about 6 km. down the valley, at Colli S.Angelo, in its ninth-century phase, was a tiny building, only 10.4 m. long and 6.4 m. wide20. However, it would appear that this little church, with its exiguous aisles, its three tiny apses and its complement of finely crafted glass lamps from the workshops of San Vincenzo, was also designed to evoke the great abbey-church of the monastery. A similar ranked typology can be observed in the residential buildings. The Monks’ Refectory, built about 800, was also a large structure: 31m. long, 13 m. wide, with two parallel aisles (Fig. 2)21. The two halls were divided by a low central spine-wall, which carried columns of cipollino marble supporting a great open thatched roof (covered with reeds or conceivably wooden shingles, not with tiles of fired clay). The large windows were glazed with panes of coloured glass. The obligatory pulpit stood in one corner. This was an elegantly shaped construction with outer surfaces painted in imitation of marble revetment. The floor was paved with large terracotta tiles; and the walls were splendidly painted. R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno. Part 1 (op. cit., n. 8), chapter 6. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 8), ill. 2: 3; K. Francis and R. Hodges, “Excavations at Colle Sant’Angelo”, in K. Bowes, K. Francis ad R. Hodges (eds.), Between Text and Territory. Survey and Excavations in the Terra of San Vincenzo al Volturno, Rome, 2006, 225–61. 21 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), chapter 4. 19 20

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The refectory designed for the use of distinguished guests to the monastery was situated on the river-side of a small Garden-Court, between the Guest Palatium and the Monks’ Refectory (Fig. 2)22. It was much smaller than the great refectory, being some 15 m. long and between 5 and 10 m. wide (the riverward side of the room could not be excavated as it lay beneath a track still used by agricultural traffic). Its roof, like that of the main refectory, had been thatched. The lower surfaces of the walls carried a painted dado very similar to the ones in the Monks‘ Refectory and the Assembly Hall, except that it was executed in a richer colour scheme. The dominant colour here appears to have been Egyptian Blue, a relatively rare and expensive pigment23. This room, like the others, was tiled. A particular feature was an assemblage of broken glass drinking vessels of exceptionally fine manufacture, decorated with applied reticelli rods, found in the south-western part of the room. It appeared that these had fallen from a wooden cupboard when the room was consumed by fire during the Saracen attack on October of 881. These fine glass vessels had been manufactured in the monastery’s own workshops. It is significant that they have been found, elsewhere at San Vincenzo, only in the Guest Palatium and in the workshops. Clearly the monks were concerned to provide their visiting benefactors with luxuriously appointed apartments, painted with expensive colours and furnished with the most elegant tableware available. By contrast, the refectory built for the use of the craftsmen, who worked in the monastery’s workshops, was a small and simple hall, some 7.5 X 6.5 m., with walls built of clay and rubble (Fig. 3)24. As was the case with the small Guest Church and the great Abbey-Church, this was a poor relation to the Monks’ Refectory. Like the latter its roof was thatched, not tiled, and this roof was supported by a single central upright, probably a wooden pillar, rather than a procession of columns. Its floor was of beaten earth, with tiles laid in a number of critical areas. Its painted decoration probably consisted of a few coloured bands articulating the edges of the walls, as they do in the adjoining kitchen. A simple external pupit — three stairs leading up to a platform — was built against one of the long walls at its mid-point. There was no evidence that the windows were glazed. R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno. Part I (op. cit., n. 8), chapter 11. H. Howard,”An analysis of the painted plaster”, in J. Mitchell and I. Hansen (eds.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: The Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations (2 vols.), Spoleto, 2001, I, p. 287–96. 24 J. Mitchell, “Monastic Guest Quarters and Workshops” (op. cit., n. 5), p. 153–5. 22 23

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A similar relationship would doubtless have existed between the quarters designed for the monastery’s privileged craftsmen and the dwellings inhabited by the outer lay familia which provided for the material needs of the monks. This lay settlement has not yet been located, but to judge from the little farming settlements established by San Vincenzo in its terra in this period, some of which have been partially excavated, its houses would have been simple post-built or cob-built structures, and its material culture would have been markedly inferior to that promoted and enjoyed by the monks25. On a yet lower level was an extensive range of post-built wooden structures, dating from the ninth century, located about half a kilometer from the monastery, on the opposite bank of the river26. These may well have been barns and sheds used in agricultural and herding activities; but it is also possible that they served as dwellings for some of the least privileged lay servants of the monastic community. Hierarchical stratification was expressed not only in the overall shape and appearance of buildings, but also in the types of material selected for their walls and floors. These choices would have affected contemporary observers on both an overt and a subliminal level. In some cases, however, the choice of materials would not have been visually detectable. Here the relative importance of a structure would have determined its construction although this would not necessarily have been apparent in its outward form. The walls of the basilica of abbot Joshua, the most prestigious building in the whole complex, were founded on layers of river-worn boulders and stones, and were built in part of cut stone blocks, in part of rubble and mortar. The Guest Palatium too was constructed of a combination of cut blocks and rubble. At the next level down, the Monks’ Refectory, the Assembly Hall and other rooms in the residential part of the monastery were built of rubble and mortar. The Craftsmens’ Refectory had poorer walls of rubble bonded with clay and the adjoining kitchen and service room were timberframed structures with earth-fast walls. Partition walls in the workshops and in the purely utilitarian stables beneath the Guest Palatium were made of wattle and daub. The barns on the other bank of the river, probably designed R. Hodges, P. Grierson, P. Herring, V. Higgins, J. Nowakowski, J. Patterson, and C. Wickham, “Excavations at Vacchereccia (Rocchettta Nuova): A later Roman and early medieval settlement in the Volturno valley, Molise”, Papers of the British School at Rome, 52, 1984, p. 148–94; Bowes, Francis and Hodges (eds.), Between Text and Territory (op. cit., n. 20). 26 W. Bowden, C. Coutts, R. Hodges, F. Marazzi, “Excavations at San Vincenzo al Volturno in 1995”, Archeologia Medievale, XXIII, 1996, p. 467–76. 25

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for housing animals and for agricultural storage, were post-built wooden structures. A similar typology is to be observed in the types of floor employed in the various buildings. In the crypt of the main Abbey-Church, the holiest place in the whole monastery, the pavement was laid with small shaped pieces of rare and richly coloured stones: red and green prophyry, and spectacularly colourful africano survive. The nave and aisles of the Abbey-Church and the upper-level audience-hall in the Palatium for distinguished guests were paved with polished slabs of marble of a more sombre hue: white Proconnesian streaked with grey in the basilica and light and dark grey marble in the Guest Hall. The middle-ranking halls, rooms, porticoes and corridors in the monks’ and the guests’ residential quarters were paved with large terracotta tiles. Some rooms of lesser importance in the monks’ areas as well as the kitchen and service-rooms used by the craftsmen working in the monastery’s workshops had floors of cocciapesto, a hard mortar mixed with crushed tile. The workshops themselves, and a stable beneath the raised Guest-Hall, were floored with cobble-stones. Finally, at the bottom end of the scale, rooms of purely utilitarian function — store-rooms, and interestingly the Craftsmens’ Refectory — had surfaces of beaten earth. Another major field of hierarchical stratification was death and burial. The various social ranks within the extended community were distinguished in death by the relative size and splendour of their tombs, by their construction and by their location. One of the more prominent abbots and one major lay benefactor were buried in individual funerary oratories27. The two abbots responsible for the construction of San Vincenzo Maggiore, Joshua and Talaric, were buried in the west portico of the atrium in front of the basilica, in the most prominent positions, on either side of the main door into the church28. The monks were also interred in the walks of this atrium and their names were recorded in carefully cut epitaphs29. Favoured lay friends of the monastery had their graves in the narthex and atrium of the little Guest Church at the northern end of the complex30. The lay familia which served the monastic community were buried in the large R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 47; R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8). chapters 6 and 7. 28 R. Hodges, J. Mitchell, L. Watson, “The discovery of Abbot Talaricus (817–3 October 823) tomb” (op. cit., n. 18). 29 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 47. 30 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8), p. 59–63. 27

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cemetery on the hillside above the monastery31. Differential stratification is apparent within this lay burial ground, where the grandest tombs were set beneath two arcosolia carved out of an outcrop of natural rock, and others may have been ranked by their location, construction and degree of painted decoration. A remarkable feature of the visual culture of San Vincenzo in the ninth century was a preoccupation with the written word and with the display of inscriptions. Here also there were various levels of production. The dedicatory inscription set up by abbot Joshua on the façade of his great new basilica around 820, was in gilded copper letters, each one Roman foot high32. Monumental gilded metal inscriptions, of course, were almost unknown in the early Middle Ages. Joshua’s inscription, recalling the golden bronze letters of the grandest antique Roman public inscriptions, was designed to sieze the attention of visitors and to strike awe and wonder in their minds. At a somewhat lower level are the carved funerary epitaphs of the monks. About 150 of these have been found so far33. The grandest are very splendid indeed, large monuments with distinctive and expertly-cut lettering. Others are far smaller in size and are cut with less deliberation and care. None of these inscriptions was found in situ, and so it is very difficult to say what these distinctions in size and quality signify in social terms. However, it seems likely that they reflected differences in status or wealth within the monastic community. The male and female lay servants who were buried in the cemetery on the hill seem never to have been given grave-markers with carved epitaphs. They were more or less consigned to memorial oblivion34.

C. Coutts, “The hilltop Cemetery” (op. cit., n. 11). A. Pantoni, “Due iscrizioni di S.Vincenzo al Volturo e il loro contributo alla storia del cenobio”, Samnium, 35, 1962, p. 74–84: J. Mitchell, “Literacy displayed: the use of inscriptions at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the early 9th century”, in R. McKitterick (ed.), The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, Cambridge, 1990, p. 186– 225, at p. 205–16 (reprinted, chapter 7, in this volume); idem. “The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy”, in Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo: XLI settimana di studio del centro italiano ili sludi sull’alto medioevo. Spoleto 15–21 aprile 1993. Spoleto, 1994, p. 895–901, 916–18: J. Mitchell and I. Hansen, San Vincenzo al Volturno 3 (op. cit., n. 23), p. 39–40, 43–50. 33 The inscribed grave-markers found before 1986 are published in J. Mitchell and I. Hansen, San Vincenzo al Volturno 3 (op. cit., n. 23), chapter 2. 34 J. Mitchell, “The early medieval monastery as a site of commemoration and place of oblivion”, in Memory and Oblivion, Acts of the XXIXth International Congress of the History 31 32

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Here the social ranking of the different orders within the larger community is very clear. At a still lower, and less formal, level are the inscribed tiles, which are so remarkable a feature of San Vincenzo35. Some 37% of the thousands of floor-tiles and roof-tiles produced on the site for the new monastic buildings in the first quarter of the ninth century bear the abbreviated names of about one hundred individuals drawn into their visibly exposed surfaces, in large capital letters. The letters can be as tall as 40 cm., and were incised free-hand into the soft clay before the tiles were fired. Some are in quite cultivated hands, while others appear to be the work of people for whom writing was not a natural occupation. These are probably the work of the monks, who desired to record their participation in the rebuilding of the monastery. At the bottom of the hierarchy of script are the scribbled graffiti found on various surfaces throughout the monastery: on stone, fired clay tiles and pottery vessels and wall-plaster. These testify to an enthusiasm for the skills of literacy and a desire to practice the arts of writing at all levels of the community, from the highly educated to the semi-illiterate. Ornament and Order in the Painted Decoration of the Monastery It is clear from all this that visible hierarchical typologies, of different kinds and in various media and materials, were an essential feature of the vastly expanded monastic city at San Vincenzo in the first half of the ninth century. One of the most striking, subtle and elaborate of these typologies, deployed as a means of distinguishing the various parts of the monastery and of differentiating particular kinds of buildings from others, is to be found in schemes of wall-painting. These are particularly instructive since virtually every ninth-century building at San Vincenzo, which was not purely utilitarian, had some kind of painted decoration; and the schemes used seem to have been deployed in a fairly coherent and systematic fashion. As is often the case with excavated buildings, it is the dadoes on the lowest parts of the walls which are best preserved, and so it is on these that we shall concentrate of Art held in Amsterdam, 1–7 September 1996, Dordrecht, 1999, pp. 455–465, at p. 462 (reprinted, chapter 12, in this volume). 35 J. Mitchell, “Literacy displayed” (pp. cit., n. 32), p.199–205; idem, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), p.909–15; J. Mitchell and I. Hansen, San Vincenzo al Volturno 3 (op. cit., n. 23), chapter 3.

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our attention. We shall examine the ways in which strictly ornamental painting was used to define and to articulate the spaces of the monastery. In schemes of painted decoration, ornament works rather differently from primary figural imagery. Figural imagery tends to be more varied and more full of incident. Above all, it usually carries overt and more or less directly identifiable meaning for the observer. Ornament is different. It tends to be a constant element, which repeats from section to section, from wall to wall, even from room to room. In a sense it establishes an air of order and cosmos; whereas figural imagery has a tendency to be incidental, various, even chaotic. Of course ornament carries meaning, often no less insistent than that associated with the figural aspects of a scheme; and on occasion it can bear a very focussed and precise meaning. But, nonetheless, the meaning of ornament is normally of a more generic kind. Ornament establishes atmosphere and mood; it can evoke cultural context; it can indicate hierarchy within a single room, or it can reveal the relative status of different rooms and buildings within an institution or settlement. It can be used to differentiate zones and functions. Ornament can even be used to direct, guide and control the movement of visitors through a sequence of spaces. In short, it can reveal something about the social structure of an institution and it can tell us about the cultural ambitions of a community and the symbolic values that community associates with particular buildings and spaces. The Monks’ Quarters We shall start at the northern end of the monastery, in a room which has been called the Vestibule36. This room is located at the point at which the the public spaces of the quarters for distinguished guests meet the residential quarters reserved for the monks. It is a room through which guests would have had to pass to reach the staircase which led up to the upper level hall in the Palatium, but it was also a place where the monks would probably have met and talked with visitors. The dadoes in this room are painted in imitation of panels of polished marble revetment, with diagonal undulating veins endlessly repeating in sequences of upright and inverted chevrons (Fig. 13)37. The veining is in alternating colours, red and yellow on one panel and in two R. Hodges, “San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), chapter 1. J. Mitchell, “The painted decoration of the early medieval monastery”, in R. Hodges and J. Mitchell (eds.), San Vincenzo al Volturno: The Archaeology. Art and Territory of an Early 36 37

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tones of grey-blue on the next. The artists have even indicated the little black clamps which tie adjacent panels together. The main fields on the upper walls were painted with a sequence of full-length saints, a little under lifesize, apparently standing in fields of poppies38. This was a scheme executed in the 820s or 830s. The adjacent room, immediately to the south, is the Assembly Hall, a room in which the monks assembled before going into the Refectory to dine39. This was built and decorated around 800, perhaps a generation before the Vestibule. The principal scheme on its walls was a magnificent painted arcade, with Apostles under the arches on the principal, east wall, probably flanking a central image of Christ, and Prophets on the secondary west wall. The dadoes beneath these arcades are similar to those in the Vestibule; but they are simpler, with the panels and their veining in only two colours, red and blue-grey40. The same type of marbled dado was used on the walls of the Monks’ Refectory, next door41. Unfortunately this is now almost illegible and the figural decoration of the upper walls has disappeared without trace42. This type of dado was deployed in the middle-ranking rooms and halls in the residential parts of the monastery. It would appear that, just as in ancient Roman houses, like the great villa at Oplontis, particular schemes of marbling were used to identify the status and function of particular domestic zones43, so here, albeit in a less strict fashion, the intention may have been to characterize particular kinds of rooms and particular sections of the monastery by deploying immediately recognizable schemes of decoration on the walls. In general terms, this kind of veined marbled dado imitates the polished marble revetments of ancient Roman buildings and of the more splendidly Medieval Monastery, BAR Int. Ser. 252, Oxford, 1985, p. 125–176, at p. 129, figs. 6: 5–7; J. Mitchell, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), p. 941, fig. 69; R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), p. 5–7, pl. 1: 1, figs. 1: 4, 6, 7 and 9. 38 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), p. 12 and 14, pl. 1: 5. 39 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), chapter 3. 40 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), p. 36, pls. 3: 5–7, figs. 3: 10 and 16. 41 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), p. 73–4. 42 This great double hall was thatched with reeds or straw, which burned with consuming ferocity when the building was fired in the sack of 881. The surviving painted surfaces are scorched and cindered to an almost uniform grey. 43 La Villa di Oplontis, Naples, 1980, p. 22–24, 27; A. Barbet, La peinture murale romaine: Les styles décoratifs pompéiens, Paris, 1985, ill. 32; A. Wallace-Hadrill, “The social structure of the Roman house”, Papers of the British School at Rome 43, 1988, p. 80 and passim.

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appointed early Christian churches. The convention was used quite commonly in both secular and religious contexts in late antiquity: for instance in one of the rooms in the early 4th-century palatial residence at Piazza Armerina, in Sicily44. In the post-antique, early medieval period, the type is, on the whole, confined to the Langobard areas of Italy45; where it is found both in the northern kingdom and in the more or less independent southern duchy of Benevento — for instance in the great tower at Torba, on the Olona, under Castelseprio46, and at Müstair, in the north47; and, in the south, in the basilica of SS. Annunziata at Prata di Principato Ultra48, in the church of S.Ambrogio at Montecorvino Rovella, near Battipaglia to the southeast of Salerno49, in the Grotta di S.Biagio at Castellammare di Stabiae50, and at the sanctuary of S.Michele on the Gargano51. The effect of these dadoes is to create an atmosphere of rich and stately grandeur, evocative of the splendidly revetted interiors of late antique public buildings. They impart a degree of sumptuous, even if fictive, magnificence to the rooms at San Vincenzo. There are a number of striking connections between the artistic and material culture of the monastery in this period and that of the southern 44 A. Carandini, A. Ricci, M. de Vos, Filosofiana: La villa di Piazza Armerina, Palermo, 1982, fig. 39, Atlante, Foglio V. 21. Some other instances are cited by J. Mitchell, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), p. 941, n. 130. 45 J. Mitchell, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), p. 941–3. 46 C. Bertelli, Gli affreschi nella torre di Torba, Milan, 1988, figs. 2, 10, 16, 19, 20. 47 J. Mitchell. “The painted decoration” (pp. cit., n. 37), p. 125–76, p. 132, fig. 6: 9; U. Lobbedey, Die Ausgrabungen im Dom zu Paderborn 1978–80 und 1983, Bonn, 1986, III, ill. 375. 48 The design is used on the dados on the walls of the nave of the church and on the inner wall of the ambulatory encircling the apse. This scheme of decoration dates from the late eighth or the early ninth century. 49 There are diagonally veined marbled panels at dado-level on the two short walls flanking the apse (P. Peduto and D. Mauro, “Il S.Ambrogio di Montecorvino Rovella”, Rassegna Storica Salernitana, VII, 1,1990, p. 7–48, at p. 23, fig. 12). I am most grateful to Romina Orabona, Corso di laurea in beni culturali. Istituto Universitario Suor Orsola Benincasa, Naples, for drawing my attention to the dadoes in this church. 50 There are panels of veined marbling of this kind beneath the figures of standing saints on the reveals of one of the arcosolia in Gallery B. See H. Belting, Studien zur beneventanischen Malerei, Wiesbaden, 1968, ill. 1. 51 C. D’Angela, “Gli scavi nel santuario”, in C. Carletti and G. Otranto (eds.), Il santuario di S.Michele sul Gargano dal VI al IX secolo. Contributo alla storia della Longobardia meridionale. Atti del convegno tenuto a Monte Sant’Angelo il 9–10 dicembre 1978, Bari, 1980, p. 370–1, fig. 36.

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Langobard ducal centres of Benevento and Salerno52. It is likely that, in the south, this marbled idiom was taken up and deployed, in the first instance, in the public buildings of the Langobard courts around the middle of the eighth century, and was only later adopted by religious institutions to promote their own related cultural agendas. In the middle decades of the eighth century, the Langobard King in Pavia and the dukes in the various Langobard areas of Italy had been engaging in a kind of peer-polity rivalry, which is now most clearly evident in the cultural sphere. This involved the development of showy, sometimes spectacular programmes of building and decoration, by means of which the various potentes promoted their own interests and expressed their peer status53. In the central and southern duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, as well as in the northern duchies, different, mutually comprehensible aulic architectural and artistic idioms were developed. In these, imperial Roman and late antique formal traditions and models played a critical, even a dominant, role. In any case, it is clear that this kind of antique marbling possessed some special resonance for the monks at San Vincenzo. The conceit was translated, by them, to other media. Not only was the pulpit in the corner of the Monks’ Refectory painted in imitation of diagonally veined marbling54. The names on the tiles on the floor of the Refectory and the adjoining Assembly Hall were often embellished with squiggles which seem to imitate the undulating veins on the walls; and in some cases the entire surfaces of tiles were covered with parallel veining or with schemes inspired by a dado sequence of chevron-marbling55. Even the glass-maker who made the glass for the windows of the Refectory seems to have been trying to achieve the

These are briefly discussed by J. Mitchell. “Arichis und die Künste”. in H.-R. Meier. C. Jäggi and P. Büttner (eds.), Für irdischen Ruhm und himmlischen Lohn: Stifter und Auftraggeber in der mittelalterlichen Kunst, Berlin, 1995, p. 47–64, at p. 52–4: and in R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 114. 53 J. Mitchell, “Arichis und die Künste” (op. cit., n. 52); R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 115–6; J. Mitchell, “The uses of spolia in Langobard Italy”, in J. Poeschke (ed.), Antike Spotlien in der Architektur des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, Munich, 1996, p. 93–115, at p. 93, 97–8. 54 J. Mitchell, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), fig. 70; R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), p. 69–72, figs. 4: 6–13. 55 J. Mitchell, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), figs. 34 and 42; J. Mitchell and I. Hansen, San Vincenzo al Volturno 3 (op. cit. n. 23), chapter 3. 52

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same effect in some of his panes, with deep red veins running through green glass56. Two other patterns were used on the benches which ran round the walls of the Assembly Hall and the Monks’ Refectory. The first is a scheme of juxtaposed triangles, which can be read either as a sequence of large segmented squares, or as a succession of segmented lozenges laid end to end57. The second is an imbricated scheme of rounded parti-coloured overlapping tiles (Fig. 14)58. These are deployed so as to indicate the differing status of the various walls of the rooms. The design of overlapping tiles clearly had a superior value to the pattern of triangles. The triangular design is used on the secondary walls of the Assembly Hall, beneath the Prophet-arcade. On the principal east wall, under Christ and his Apostles, the two designs alternate, with adjacent passages of each on either side of the door leading into the monks’ Refectory. The tiled pattern is dominant here, being used both on the benches and on the wallsurfaces above. The marbled decoration on the dado is also more elaborate on this wall and is executed with more intense colours. Here it is associated with passages of the pattern of parti-coloured tiles, and intermittent vertical panels of imitation crustae59. There was a veritable riot of ornamental motifs on this wall. Following the age-old principle of ornamenting the outside of an entrance to indicate passage from a space of lesser to one of greater status, all this would have directed the attention of an observer towards the wide door leading through into the Refectory — the most important room in this part of the monastery. The associations which the triangular scheme on the benches may have had for the monks are unclear. However, the pattern of overlapping, parti-coloured tiles had clear referential connotations. The design was used quite commonly in Antiquity, both in floor-mosaics and in wall-paintings, although in Antiquity tiles of the same colour were invariably arranged in J. Mitchell, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), fig. 62; J. Mitchell and I. Hansen, San Vincenzo al Volturno 3 (op. cit. n. 23), chapter 6. 57 J. Mitchell, “The painted decoration” (op. cit., n. 37), p. 143, fig. 6: 15; R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), p. 32–5, pl. 3: 2–5, figs. 3: 10 and 16. 58 J. Mitchell, “The painted decoration” (op. cit., n. 37), p. 143, fig. 6: 16; J. Mitchell, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), p. 943–4, fig. 71; R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), p. 32–6, pls. 3: 1 and 6, fig. 3: 12: R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), pl. 4: 28. 59 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (op. cit., n. 8), p. 36, pl. 3: 6, fig. 3: 13. 56

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diagonal, rather than in horizontal, sequence60. Despite its popularity in the ancient world, this imbricated motif was almost unknown to artists in the early Middle Ages. The only other clear instance of it being used in Italy during this period, apart from San Vincenzo, is in Benevento. There it is to be found on the intrados of a broken arch running out from the façade of Duke Arichis II’s church of S.Sofia61. This may have formed part of an original narthex or atrium. S. Sofia was built in the 760s, and these fragments of painting probably date from an early phase in the history of the church. Like the diagonally-veined marbling, this would appear to be a motif which was revived by artists working for elite Langobard patrons, in this case, it seems, only in the southern duchy, presumably in order to add a further authentic touch of antique dignity and magnificence to their buildings. The reference was picked up by the monks at San Vincenzo to impart splendour and status to their own institution, and was deployed in the Assembly Hall to articulate the ideological and social dynamics of a sequence of rooms in the residential section of the monastery. The Guests’ Quarters An idiom similar to that used in the residential halls in the monks’ part of the monastery was employed for the decoration of the quarters for distinguished guests at the northern end of the complex. However, here it is inflected in a somewhat different fashion. The upper storey of the Guests’ Palatium no longer exists — only the walls of its undercrofts below still stand. However, something of the appearance of the interior of the hall can be learned from fallen fragments recovered from the underlying undercrofts during excavation62. The pavement of the hall was in carefully cut opus sectile, in dark grey and light grey marble. The walls of the hall carried painted figural decoration and dadoes very similar to those in the monks’ Assembly Hall. Some of the dadoes had the same design of chevron-marbling, with undulating veins; and the pattern of parti-coloured, overlapping tiles was used, perhaps

J. Mitchell. “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), p. 943. J. Mitchell, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), p. 943–4, fig. 72; J. Mitchell, “Arichis und die Künste” (op. cit., n. 52), p. 52–3; R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 114. pl. 4: 69. 62 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8), p. 168–70, 186; J. Mitchell. “Monastic guest-quarters” (op. cit., n. 5), p. 133–36. 60 61

1. San Vincenzo al Volturno, plan of the excavated parts of the early medieval monastery.

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2. San Vincenzo al Volturno, plan of the northern end of the early medieval monastery.

3. San Vincenzo al Volturno, plan of Abbot Joshua’s abbey-church of San Vincenzo Maggiore,

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5. San Vincenzo Maggiore, panels 5–8 of the dado in the crypt.

4. San Vincenzo Maggiore, panels 1–4 of the dado in the crypt.

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6. San Vincenzo Maggiore, panels 9–10 of the dado in the crypt. 7. San Vincenzo Maggiore, panels 11–14 of the dado in the crypt.

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8. San Vincenzo Maggiore, panels 15–19 of the dado in the crypt.

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10. San Vincenzo Maggiore, panels 22–26 of the dado in the crypt.

9. San Vincenzo Maggiore, panels 20–21 of the dado in the crypt. SPATIAL HIERARCHY AND THE USES OF ORNAMENT

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11. San Vincenzo Maggiore, panels 27–28 of the dado in the crypt.

22. Abbot Epyphanius kneeling at the foot of the cross (JBB).

12. San Vincenzo Maggiore, panel 29 of the dado in the crypt.

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13. San Vincenzo al Volturno, Vestibule, dado.

14. San Vincenzo al Volturno, Assembly Hall, bench on east wall.

15. San Vincenzo Maggiore, crypt, northern stair passage.

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on wall-benches here also. However, there is evidence that, alongside these elements, another richer and more sumptuous type of dado was deployed in this room. This was painted in imitation of an opus sectile revetment using veneers of polished red and black speckled Egyptian granite63. Granite, of course, was a very hard stone with old Roman associations of imperial grandeur and power. The corridor which led from the monastery’s north entrance, along the southern flank of the Guests’ Palatium, to the Vestibule, similarly had richly decorated walls64. These were painted in imitation of crustae, panels of opus sectile, in rare and colourful marbles. This passage was one of the principal routes used by lay visitors to San Vincenzo — it was the main thoroughfare through the guest-complex. Immediately to the south of this corridor lay a small, and very elegant, Garden Court, designed for the reception and recreation of guests65. The central area was bordered on two sides by columnar porticoes. Through a doorway in the middle of the east wall, beneath the portico on the river-side, was the Refectory for Distinguished Guests66. This was a small hall, which lay adjacent to the far larger Monks’ Refectory. Like the latter, its roof was thatched with straw or reeds. This thatched roof burnt ferociously when the building was destroyed, and most of the painted surfaces of the interior walls were obliterated. However, enough survived to make it clear that the dado in this room was similar to that of the Assembly Hall, with diagonally veined marbling. But the version in the little refectory was executed with more colours than those in the monks’ quarters and, as we have noted, the rare pigment, Egyptian blue, played a dominant role in this scheme. It is notable that, at San Vincenzo, this colour seems to have been reserved principally for the Guests’ Refectory. In the Garden Court, outside, was one of the richest concentrations of architectural, sculptural and painted embellishment yet to have been found 63 J. Mitchell. “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), p. 944, fig. 73: R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8), p. 168. 170. 186, pls. 9: 9–10: J. Mitchell, “Monastic guest-quarters” (op. cit., n. 5), fig. 7. 64 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8), p. 172–5, pl. 9: 1. figs. 9: 48–51; J. Mitchell. “Monastic guest-quarters” (op. cit., n. 5), p. 136–37, fig. 14. 65 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8), chapter 10: J. Mitchell and I. Hansen, San Vincenzo al Volturno 3 (op. cit., n. 23), chapter 3. 66 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8). chapter 11; J. Mitchell and I. Hansen, San Vincenzo al Volturno 3 (op. cit., n. 23), chapter 6.

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at San Vincenzo67. This was an extremely elegant peristyle court, with delicately fluted columns bearing finely-cut white capitals on its eastern side; and with the pilastered and arcaded façade of the Entrance Hall closing its opposite side, to the west. A splendid old Roman marble vase carved with Dionysiac imagery stood in the central space; and subtle illusionistic painting covered the rear wall of the eastern portico. On the southern end-wall of this eastern portico, beneath large standing figures of saints, the dado was painted in imitation of a revetment of polished speckled red granite. This was rather like the imitation granite veneer from the upper hall of the Guest Palatium, but without the latter’s complicated formal configurations imitating opus sectile. The rear wall of the portico was painted with full-scale illusionistic columns, which mirrored the real columns of the colonnade in front68. Life-like shrubs and pot-plants were painted in the intercolumniations. Clearly the intent was to recreate a peristyle court, all’antico, like those to be found in the grander Roman houses at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other sites on the Campanian coast. The ultimate model in the architect’s mind must have been something like the peristyle garden of the House of the Vettii, at Pompeii. There a formally designed central area, embellished with marble urns, basins and statues, is framed by columnar porticoes69. There too, as at San Vincenzo, naturalistically rendered plants are painted on the back walls of the porticoes, to suggest an extension of the space of the garden70. The conceit of deploying painted columns to correspond to the real columns of a colonnade is found in Roman villas with so-called “secondstyle” decoration, such as the House of the Labyrinth at Pompeii71. As was the case with the marbled dadoes in the Vestibule and the Assembly Hall, the immediate source of the ideas behind the whole ornamental scheme of the Garden Court may well have been the southern Langobard courts of Salerno and Benevento. But ultimately, they depend on the LanJ. Mitchell, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), p. 913–15, fig. 46: R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 1 (op. cit., n. 8), chapter 10; J. Mitchell, “The uses of spolia” (op. cit., n. 53), p. 101–2; J. Mitchell, “Monastic guest-quarters” (op. cit., n. 5), p. 137–39, figs. 13–17. 68 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8), pl. 10: 1, figs. 10: 8, 10–12 and 14. 69 T. Kraus and L. von Matt, Pompeii and Herculaneaum: The Living Cities of the Dead, New York. 1975. ills. 80 and 88. 70 A. Barbet, La peinture murale romaine (op. cit., n. 43), ill. 135. 71 C. Picard, Roman Painting, London, 1968, ill. XXXI: T. Kraus and L. von Matt, Pompeii and Herculaneum (op. cit., n. 69), ill. 73. 67

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gobard court artists’ first-hand knowledge of the ruins of the Roman villas which lined the Campanian coast in Antiquity. Some of these must still have been visible and accessible in the eighth and ninth centuries72. Here, in the Garden Court and in the surrounding spaces, antique Roman ornament and decorative conceits were carefully orchestrated and deployed so as to delight and impress distinguished guests and prospective patrons of the monastery. The Guest Church and San Vincenzo Maggiore Only two ninth-century churches with paintings have been excavated at San Vincenzo so far, the Guest Church and abbot Joshua’s basilica, San Vincenzo Maggiore. In the Guest Church, the dadoes are used to distinguish the more public space of the triconch sanctuary (and presumably the nave too, although the evidence here no longer exists) from the more private space of the crypt-like funerary oratory which was constructed within the base of the apse. In the sanctuary the walls were painted with fictive vela, curtains, which seem to have covered the surfaces almost to their full height73. These were ornamented with sequences of brightly coloured rectangles enclosing medallions, in imitation of richly woven silken hangings. The ranks of repeating polychrome squares on these walls must have been a powerful visual focus within the church. The dadoes in the subterranean funerary oratory beneath the sanctuary are very different. They are made up of a series of panels with reticulate diapered designs in red and yellow against a white ground74. The sequence constitutes a series of formal variations on a theme, each one differing from the others. Again the conceit would seem to involve the imitation of woven hangings. The overall effect of these relatively monochromatic compositions is very different from the bright polychromatic curtains in the church above. The dadoes in the funerary crypt are inflected iconographically at two points. In the principal apsidal focus two eagles are depicted, skilfully drawn R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 112: J. Mitchell, “Arichis und die Künste” (op. cit., n. 52), p. 57; J. Mitchell, “The uses of spolia” (op. cit., n. 53), p. 103–4. 73 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 1 (op. cit., n. 8), p. 42–9, pls. 6: 1 –3, figs. 6:7–11. 74 San Vincenzo al Volturno e la cripta del’abate Epifanio. Abbazia di Montecasino, 1970, ills. 30, 33, 36, 57; R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 1 (op. cit., n. 8), figs. 3: 12, 7: 4–6. 15. 72

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in red and yellow. Eagles in the Christian tradition are commonly associated with the theme of rebirth and renewal into everlasting life. Here, most appropriately, they watch over the mortal remains of a major ninth-century benefactor of the monastery75. On the wall immediately opposite the entrance to the oratory a bold configuration of yellow bands forming a large winged knot is superimposed on the reticulate dado-panel76. This performed an apotropaic, protective, function, and prevented the newly-buried occupant of the oratory from succumbing to the malign influences of the devil and other threatening powers of evil. The most splendid and sumptuously decorated structure in the whole monastery would appear to have been abbot Joshua’s new abbey-church, which was completed around 820 (Fig. 3)77. The different parts of this complex were articulated with various types of painted decoration. On the one hand, these distinguished this building from all the others so far investigated at San Vincenzo. On the other, the various ornamental schemes within the church were deployed to create effects which increased in splendour and brilliance, as the visitor approached the chamber in the annular crypt in which the principal relics were preserved. One passage of dado is preserved in the northern stair-tower, built onto the front of the funerary atrium78. This was probably the principal way up, from the main gate of the monastery to the atrium and to the front of the basilica. What remains consists of two schemes: a colourful reticulate diapered design and a pair of shaped panels framing curious stylized foliate motifs. The reticulate design is an elaborate version of one of the patterns used on the dadoes in the small subterranean funerary oratory in the Guest Church, at the other end of the complex79. It is also found in ranges of rooms of unknown function built against the hillside on the second terrace80. However, the dadoes in the stair-entrance tower are distinctly richer and more colourful than these similar designs used elsewhere in the monastery. They announce to the visitor that this is the entry to a building of exceptional importance. 75 San Vincenzo al Volturno e la cripta dell’abate Epifanio (op. cit., n. 74), ill. 32. R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n.8), p. 109–10, fig. 7: 46. 76 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8), p. 76, fig. 7: 6. 77 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7). 78 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), 3: 17 and 18. 79 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8), fig. 7: 15; J. Mitchell, “The display of script” (op. cit., n. 32), fig. 78. 80 R. Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno I (op. cit., n. 8), p. 21–2, fig. 3: 11.

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Most of the early ninth-century painted decoration of the interior walls of the basilica has been destroyed. However, a short passage of dado is preserved at the far western end of the north wall, that is at the sanctuary-end of the church (for the building is laid out with its apses to the west)81. Here two different schemes meet. The principal theme of this wall, at dado-level, was painted in imitation of a sumptuous marble revetment in opus sectile, notable for its deep chromatic tonalities. The main elements of this design were fictive pink porphyry discs above a frieze of inverted palmettes, set against a dark ground. At the western end of the wall, immediately before the north apse, this gave way to a panel painted to resemble a stone screen or transenna. The design on this consisted of a continuous sequence of interlocking black double-axe motifs, so-called “pelta” motifs, outlined in white. The dado on this wall must have formed a strong and rich foundation to the figural scenes on the surfaces above, and obviously it was articulated in such a way as to help define the functional and liturgical divisions of the interior space. The principal devotional focus of the building, indeed of the whole monastery, was located in the relics deposited beneath the fenestella confessionis, in the annular crypt beneath the sanctuary. It is here that the most remarkable constellation of ornamental elements of all is to be found. The crypt is a ringcrypt, clearly conceived in the likeness of the crypt of old St. Peter’s in Rome; but with a prominent central transverse chamber for relics — resulting in an overall cruciform configuration (Fig. 3). The main scheme in this room consisted of standing figures of saints. The feet and traces of the vestments of four of these are still preserved82. Two large half-figures of abbots, depicted with square haloes, are painted on the curving walls of two reliquary niches in the western walls of this relic chamber. These probably represent abbots Joshua (792–817) and Talaric (817–823); that is, the abbot who began work on the great church and his successor, under whom it was completed83. However, the most sumptuous and elaborate decorative scheme seems to have been reserved for the walls of the corridors which provided access to this 81 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 38–9, ills. 3: 9 and 10. 82 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 103–4, ills. 4: 53 and 54. 83 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), ills. 4: 60–64; J. Mitchell and R. Hodges, “Portraits” (op. cit., n. 8); R. Hodges at al., “The discovery of Abbot Talaricus (817–3 October 823) tomb” (op. cit., n. 18).

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central room in the crypt (Figs. 4–12, 15)84. The vaults with their painted figurative programme were removed when the church was demolished ca. 1100, and only a few fragments have been recovered so far85. But the painted dadoes of the lower walls are, in part, extraordinarily well preserved. These constitute a sequence of designs which, for brilliance of colour, exuberant variety and sophistication of invention, are hard to parallel in early medieval Europe. On decending the north stairs, and it was here that the crypt was intended to be entered, a ninth-century visitor would have been confronted by a dazzling display of colour and pattern: large ornate rotae, that is discs, and rectangular panels carrying perspectival compositions of great sophistication (Figs. 4–12, 15)86. The rotae consisted of configurations of concentric bands and sweeping radial arcs, elaborately divided and partitioned into sections, exploiting a number of basic forms and a limited sequence of colours in seemingly endless variation (Figs. 4–7, 10–11, 15). The discs are not painted in flat projection. The various configurations of line and colour are combined so as to give the illusion of elaborately curved surfaces, convex, concave or tilted into angular planes, and periodically breaking into elaborate perspectival motifs. No two rotae are the same. The rectangular panels consist of an ever-changing sequence of designs, usually involving an element of three-dimensional illusion, regular series of geometrical solid figures deployed in elaborate perspectival sequence, complex arrangements of facetted surfaces, or various highly ingenious diagonally-oriented designs (Figs. 4–10, 15). A certain number of basic configurations are employed in differing combinations and in varying versions on each panel: sequences of upright and inverted chevrons running zig-zag along the wall, chequer-boards, a perspective meander which at one point transforms into a crenellation rendered in chromatic perspective, facetted fan-shape formations and facetted stars, clusters of brightly-coloured truncated pyramids, the motif of overlapping parti-coloured tiles, and various schemes of polychromatic veined marbling. These motifs are constructed out of a number of basic shapes: squares, rectangles, triangles, lozenges, rhombi, parallelograms, often subdivided and parti-coloured, and arranged in ever-varying configurations. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), chapter 4, where these paintings are illustrated, described and analyzed. 85 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), ills. 4: 5–7. 86 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), ills. 4: 11–24. 84

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As one walks along the corridors one becomes aware of what amounts to a process of visual dialectic, a developing formal argument, in the compositions of the dadoes. A limited number of visual conceits and formal motifs is incorporated into the various panels in constantly varying ways. This is apparent in two adjacent compositions on the west wall of the north stair passage (Fig. 6)87. Here, the colour-combinations used in the two panels are almost identical, and the little triangular and quadrilateral forms which make up the compositions are very similar to the eye — but of course they are arranged so as to form different designs. In the rectangular panel, on the right, contiguous eight-pointed stars have continuous sharply-angled surfaces resembling a circular fan. This formation is taken up and reemployed in the adjacent rota, where a single large circling fan is set within a circling frame made up of bands of little diagonally divided rectangles. Another similar dialectical sequence — variations on the zig-zag chevron scheme — can be followed in a succession of panels on the outer wall of the southern corridor88. These must be viewed in succession as one walks down the passage towards the southern stairs (Figs 8 and 9): Panel 17: A chequered zig-zag of little red, black and white triangles. Panel 18: A dramatic scheme of massed banks of tangent cuboids in perspective, with an underlying staggered zig-zag progression. Panel 19: A two-dimensional sequence of bands of chequered zig-zag, in red and yellow on a white ground. Then, round the corner, on the west wall of the southern stair-passage: Panel 20: A dramatic, large-scale zig-zag with broken contours, formed of little red triangles against a white ground. Finally, flanking the south stairs: Panel 21: A simple chequerboard zig-zag in two tones of yellow and two tones of blue. The manner in which the designs were executed and the formal vocabulary used afford some indication of the origins of the ornamental idiom of the dadoes in the crypt. The various panels of decoration were laid out around grids of lines snapped and incised into the plaster when it was still damp. The intervals between these lines are never exact or regular, and the execution of the various patterns clearly was carried out at great speed and Panels 9 and 10. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), ills. 4: 21, 22 and 24. 88 Panels 17–21. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), ills. 4: 30, 32–38. 87

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without any overdue care for precision in the delineation of the various elements. However, despite this, the artists seem never to have lost their way in the execution of a design. It is clear that they were highly skilled practitioners, operating in a well-established workshop tradition. It is inconceivable that the pictorial vocabulary used here could have been designed especially for this commission. Where, then, did the artists learn their craft ? In brief, this brilliant and sophisticated ornamental idiom has all the marks of having been designed not for a monastic context, but for a secular, courtly, setting. Given the long-established links between the monastery and the dukes and landed elite of the duchy of Benevento, and the various connections which existed between the artistic culture of San Vincenzo and that of the southern Langobard centres, it seems likely that the painting in the crypt, like the diagonally veined marbled dadoes in the monks’ quarters, may reflect the arts promoted at the ducal courts at Benevento and Salerno, in the latter half of the eighth century89. Indeed, a visit to the crypt of Abbot Joshua’s basilica of San Vincenzo is probably the closest that we will ever come to walking through the state apartments of the old southern Langobard palaces. The origins and the general tenor of the designs seem to support this hypothesis. As we have said, in the eighth century, the dukes of Benevento seem to have been engaged in peer rivalry with the Langobard king and some of the other more or less independent dukes. The various courts in the peninsular developed elaborate artistic languages with which to pronounce their status. These were by no means uniform. One of the purposes of these court cultures may have been to differentiate each polity from its rivals. But the revived classical language of art played a major role in most of them, and abundant reference is made to antique Roman example90. At San Vincenzo, on the whole, the formal vocabulary employed was extraordinarily antique in appearance. Some of the compositions and most of the components employed would appear to derive from opus sectile and mosaic pavements and perhaps from wall-revetments of Roman, late republican, imperial and late antique public buildings and grand private residences. The various perspectival effects deployed on the panels also must have had their ultimate origins in such Roman antecedents. The artists even seem to have attempted to imitate particular Roman marbles and stones: including porphyry, rosso R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 113–117: J. Mitchell, “Arichis und die Künste” (op. cit., n. 52), p. 52–7. 90 See above, op. cit., n. 53. 89

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antico, africano, perhaps pavonazzetto, cipollino, giallo antico, alabaster and a grey striated marble. The wall-mosaics in the churches of Ravenna and Classe, on the one hand, and the ornate canon tables of late antique and early medieval Gospel books, on the other, show how the ornamental vocabulary of Roman antiquity continued to be used and developed between the fifth and the ninth centuries. But, in our case, it is likely that, in the eighth century, artists from Benevento and Salerno looked back to far older models. The remnants of elaborate decorative schemes in marble and paint very likely were still to be seen among the ruins of the splendid imperial and aristocratic villas which ringed the Bay of Naples and crowded the Campanian coast-line in Roman times. Some of the motifs at San Vincenzo seem to be direct citations from such ancient buildings91. For example, the panelled frieze of perspective cubes, of so-called “tumbling blocks”92, which runs round the walls of the crypt immediately above the dado (Fig. 6), is a motif well-known in Roman antiquity, in the late Republican and early Imperial periods93. Very similar versions are to be seen in the marble pavements of the cella of the Temple of Apollo94 and of the triclinium in the House of the Faun95, at Pompeii, and at Rome in the mosaic pavement and on the painted walls of the large triclinium in the House of the Griffins on the Palatine96. But, aside from San Vincenzo, there is no other known use of this motif in the early Middle Ages. Similarly, the motif looking like clusters of truncated pyramids, which is frequently employed in the crypt (Figs. 5 and 10), is commonly found in imperial Roman contexts; for instance in an opus sectile floor at Hadrian’s Villa, near Tivoli97. But it was hardly ever used in the early Middle Ages. J. Mitchell, “The uses of spolia in Longobard Italy” (op. cit., n. 53), p. 103–4. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell. The Basilica of Abbot Joshuae (op. cit., n. 7), ills. 4: 5, 9 and 27; J. Mitchell. “The uses of spolia in Longobard Italy” (op. cit., n. 53), p. 103, fig. 21. 93 E.M. Moormann and L.J.F. Swinkels, “Lozenges in perspective”, in A. Barbet (ed.), La peinture murale dans les provinces de l’empire, BAR Int. Ser. 165, Oxford,1983, p. 239–62. 94 F. Guidobaldi, “Pavimenti in opus sedile di Roma e dell’area romana: proposte per una classificazione e criteri di datazione”, in P. Pensasene (ed.), Marmi antichi: problemi d’impiego, di restauro e d’identificazione, Rome, 1989, p. 211, pl. 15, 1–2. 95 R. Ling, Roman Painting, London, 1991, ill. 15. 96 F. Wirth, Roemische Wandmalerei vom Untergang Pompejis bis zum Ende des dritten Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1934, pl. I; B. Andreae, The Art of Rome, London, 1978, pl. 25; A. Barbet, La peinture murale romaine (op. cit., n. 43), p. 29, ill. 18; R. Ling, Roman Painting (op. cit., n. 95), ills. 20 and 21. 97 F. Guidobaldi, “Pavimenti in opus sectile” (op. cit., n. 94), pl. 3, 6. 91 92

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A generation or two after the invention of this aulic ornamental vocabulary in the southern Langobard capitals, the abbot and monks of San Vincenzo commissioned artists to adapt it to embellish the most sacred spaces of their principal church. But to return to our perambulation of the corridors of the crypt: The sequence and arrangement of the dado panels seem to have been designed to be seen by someone who entered the crypt by the north stairs and who, after visiting the central chamber, left by the southern annular corridor and stairs. This would explain the more or less symmetrical disposition of the discs and rectangular panels flanking the stairs and in the short entrance-passage on the north side (Figs. 5–6, 15), and the asymmetrical disposition of compositions along the northern and southern curving corridors, with the three-metre-long running panels on their inner walls (Figs. 5 and 10). It would also account for the grouping of powerfully conceived panels on the wall at the east end of the southern corridor98. Here, at the end of the southern annular passage, two magnificent rotae with strong perspectival compositions and energetic perspectival borders (now in a sad state of ruin), lying adjacent to one another, meet the eye (Fig. 11)99. These were surely designed to sieze the attention of a person walking along round the southern passage towards the south exit. In this way, the ornamental panels were subtly deployed so as to direct and control the movements of visitors through the corridors of the crypt. At the apex of the annular corridor the visitor came to the central axial passage, which led straight back eastwards into the relic chamber. Here the nature of the dadoes changed dramatically, as if to break with the ultimately mundane polychrome material luxury of the outer corridors and to signal that a different type of space was being entered. The walls of the axial passage are painted with bold but intricate reticulate designs which are similar, but not identical, to one another (Fig. 12)100. The basic scheme on both sides consists of a large red and blue saltire cross which intermeshes with a large white lozenge. This design is not unknown in the Langobard areas of Italy. Something very similar was used at dado-level in S. Salvatore in Brescia,

R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), ills. 4: 45–48. Panels 27 and 28. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), ills. 4: 45–48. 100 Panels 29 and 30. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), ills. 3: 13, 4: 3, 4, 49–52. 98 99

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at about the same date101. However, in the crypt at San Vincenzo it is possible that these two long panels were intended to call to mind particular Old and New Testament loca sancta in the Holy Land. Both the curtains of the Temple at Jerusalem, in Byzantine imagery102, and the railings which flank the entrance to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem103, were typically represented with related reticulate configurations. The criss-cross panels in the axial passage in the crypt could have been indicators to alert visitors to the proximity of especially holy ground, a locus of great sanctity104. In the relic chamber itself the situation changes again. Here, on the upper surfaces, figures of full-length saints stood round the walls. Aristocratic courtly figures were arrayed on the principal eastern wall, flanking the fenestella confessionis and the main relic deposit; and there was a secondary order of sainted bishops and deacons on the west wall105. In two deep niches in this western wall are painted the large half-figures of the two abbots, hands extended in attitudes of prayer. It is likely that these were relic-niches designed to hold two large white spirally-fluted Roman vases, reused as reliquaries. The broken remains of these two Roman vases were found nearby during excavation106. One is immediately struck by the bareness of the relic chamber. The lower walls, below the figures, were left plain and unpainted107. However, a surviving iron staple in one corner of the rectangular niche in front of the fenestella confessionis shows that the dado of this chamber was once hung 101 G. Panazza, “Gli scavi, l’architettura e gli affreschi della chiesa di S. Salvatore in Brescia”, in La chiesa di San Salvatore di Brescia. Atti dell’ottavo Congresso di studi sull’arte dell’alto Medioevo II, Milan, 1962, p. 100–102, figs. 104 and 112. 102 K. Weitzmann and G. Galavaris, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai. The Illuminated Manuscripts I, Princeton. 1990, p. 52ff, fig. 147; H. Kessler, “Medieval art as argument”, in B. Cassidy (ed.), Iconography at the Crossroads, Princeton, 1993, p. 59–73, at p. 63–4, fig. 4. 103 A. Grabar, Les ampoules de terre sainte, Paris, 1958, pls. IX, XI–XIV, XVI, XVIII, XXII, XXIV, XXVI, XXVIII, XXXVII–XXXIX. LV. 104 The functional and symbolic role of lattice-work screens in Jewish and early Christian contexts is discussed by: J.R. Branham, “Sacred space under erasure in ancient synagogues and early churches”, Art Bulletin, LXXIV, n. 3, September, 1992, p. 375–94. 105 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 103–4, ills. 4: 53 and 54: J. Mitchell and R. Hodges, “Portraits” (op. cit., n. 8), p. 26. 106 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 106–8, ills. 4: 4, 60–64 and 66; J. Mitchell and R. Hodges. “Portraits” (op. cit., n. 8). p. 23–5, figs. 3–5 and 7. 107 R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua (op. cit., n. 7), p. 103, ills. 4: 4, 53, 58, 60 and 61.

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with silken curtains. Curtains, in the early Middle Ages, were indicators of the highest social status, and outranked polychrome marble revetment. This relationship is clearly visible in similar contexts at other sites in Italy. It is to be seen, in the north, in the upper room in the great tower at Torba, on the river Olona, under Castelseprio; where painted curtains are reserved for the east and north walls on which Christ is represented, while imitation marble revetment and various other designs are used on the dadoes of the other walls108. The same phenomenon can be found in the south, in the church of S. Ambrogio at Montecorvino Rovella, to the east of Salerno. There a velum is painted beneath the apse, in which the Virgin and Child is shown enthroned between four saints, while panels of diagonally-veined marbling are set beneath the two flanking niches, which contain jewelled crosses109. At San Vincenzo, the ninth-century visitor passed from imitation opus sectile, in the approach corridors, to real silken curtains, in the central chamber, the holiest place in the whole monastery. This was a passage from the gorgeous polychrome material luxury of this world to the real celestial presence of God and his saints in the world to come. Conclusion Ornament, in its repetitiveness and in its variety, in its formal clarity and in its chromatic regularity, is one of the most powerful and insistant and evocative of visual referents. Early medieval artists used it just as knowingly and as freely as artists of every other age have done. In ways which were at times carefully directed and systematic, at others relatively haphazard and disordered, ornament was used in every kind of context, at many levels of the social hierarchy. Simple linear devices incised onto articles of everyday use, intricately wrought foliate borders on architectural sculpture in stone and on small-scale reliefs in fine metal or ivory, the painted walls of the greatest secular and religious institutions of the age; all testify to the paramount role played by ornament in making visible the distinctions present in an increasingly hierarchical society. Nowhere is the variety and complexity of this phenomenon more apparent than in the excavations of the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno. C. Bertelli, Gli affreschi di Torba (op. cit., n. 46), p. 33–4, ills. 1–4, 7. P. Peduto and D. Mauro, “Il S. Ambrogio di Montecorvino Rovella” (op. cit., n. 49), p. 23, figs. 4, 12 and 13. 108 109

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rnament has often been considered in isolation. Particular ornamental forms have been studied as independent categories, for their origins and typological development, as characteristic and relatively pure expressions of artistic style, as embodiments of the Kunstwollen of an age, for their role as signifiers in more or less abstract readings of cultural expression and communication. Less frequently have they been examined for their effective function, for the roles they play in giving formal, social and symbolic articulation to a casket or a book, to the exterior of a building or to an interior space. Apart from generally embellishing and beautifying the interior of buildings, one of the major roles played by ornament in wall-painting is that of articulating and ordering spaces. This usually involves the serial deployment of particular designs and motifs to establish hierarchical relationships over a surface, between the different walls and openings in a room, between room and room, from space to space and from building to building, within a complex. Just as in the Roman imperial period, so in the early Middle Ages, painters deployed ornamental conventions and motifs to this effect, with a knowledge of what they were doing. In accordance with prevailing local traditions and with the availability of more unusual and exotic models, artists carefully chose and deployed their chosen ornamental vocabulary so as to create ranked sequences of spaces and zones to enable users to orientate themselves spatially and socially and to be able read the ideological geography of a site easily and effectively. A case in point is the use of painted curtains, vela, and of imitation marble revetment, crustae or opus sectile, in the dado zone of walls. Silken curtains ranked higher than polished marble revetment, and the two conventions were used in painted schemes to establish relative status and hierarchical

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order, as well as for their particular symbolic significance. Curtains in this context seem to have been associated with the curtains of the desert Tabernacle of Moses and with the veil of the Temple in Jerusalem. Thus, in the ninth-century church of S. Ambrogio at Monte Corvino Rovella, to the east of Salerno, a prominent painted velum hangs in the central apse, panels of diagonal marbling, arranged chevron-fashion, are located beneath the two subordinate niches flanking the apse, and sequences of imitation crustae, shaped panelled schemes of cut and polished marbles, cover the lower reaches of the two nave walls of the church. The various orders of ornament immediately instruct the observer in the sacred topography of the building. Ornament is also the element, which, more than any other, establishes atmosphere and a sensation of cultural and social context within a space. There are no explicit written sources to describe the associations and significances which particular schemes and motifs would have elicited in observers at particular times and in particular cultural and political contexts in early medieval Europe. However, attentive comparative and contextual examination of patterns and motifs and of the ways in which they are deployed in particular instances can give an intimation of what values patrons and artists associated with the apparatus of ornament, and thus can give the lie to some of the broad themes of cultural ideology in a particular polity and period. This is possible, above all, in cases in which certain conventions and devices seem to have been especially favoured in a particular political and social context, or where motifs appear to have been purposefully introduced from much earlier long abandoned traditions or from geographically distant alien cultures. Ornament is often a vehicle of transformation. Paint is used to counterfeit and recall to the imagination other costly materials - rare polished marbles, precious gemstones, elaborately figured silks from Byzantium, even panels of colourfully stained glass. Painted ornament is commonly deployed in such a way as to transform the appearance of the simple wall of a room, to make it into something other than what it is. The apparent wall-surface can be manipulated in depth and in texture as well as in its material. Wherever it is employed, ornament brings about metamorphosis. Sometimes this change and recreation seems to be more or less conventional and undirected, at others it is clearly controlled and designed to promote a particular cultural agenda. In the polities of post-classical Europe, this is particularly the case with the uses made of the classical Roman and late antique repertory.

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Ornament is ubiquitous and is extremely potent and pervasive in the effect it can have on the observer. In the early Middle Ages, by and large, a common ornamental language was deployed by monumental painters working in Continental Europe, both north and south of the Alps. There are, of course, local variants and idiosyncrasies; but in general the same motifs, meanders, zig-zags, chequer-boards and leaf friezes, and the same conceits, fictive curtains, imitation crustae and opus sectile, are found everywhere. Many of these patterns and devices had their origins in the conventions and ornamental vocabulary of Roman antiquity. This old Roman visual idiom, fragmentarily visible everywhere in the relics of the vanished empire, was generally associated with the values of elite power, high culture and civilized urban life. In an age of state-formation in post-classical Europe, as the new rulers and aristocracies sought to devise visual apparatus appropriate to their ideals and ambitions, it was inevitable that they should have turned to the abundant example of the ancient world. Their ideologies could be expressed most simply and effectively through an apparatus of ornament which could impart a specific veneer of associations to any social space or cultural artifact. The manner of the transmission of these devices, from the longestablished workshop practices of late antiquity, across the Dark Ages of the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries, into the stock-in-trade of succeeding centuries is still unclear in many aspects and cannot have been a uniform process. Our reconstruction of this process can only be the result of informed guesswork, founded on a usually inadequate evidential base. It is possible that continuity of practice ensured the endurance of some traditions in a few centres where patronage-demand continued, despite the general collapse of the structures of urban life throughout the Mediterranean and Roman Europe at the end of Antiquity. Far more commonly, however, it is likely that patrons and artists revived earlier traditions, which had survived only in buildings and artifacts fortuitously preserved from an earlier age. To a greater or lesser degree the mentality of revival and renaissance was one which is ever present in societies. In some cases, earlier forms and conventions could be simply copied from standing buildings in the neighbourhood or from ancient manuscripts in the possession of convenient institutions or individuals. In others, patrons and artists may have had to go to far greater lengths to obtain desired models — to travel to distant locations where known monuments were preserved, or even to engage in archaeological excavation for prestigious ornate spoils to be incorporated into new structures or for patterns and ideas which could then be copied and reproduced more or less faithfully in new

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buildings. The very rarity and obscurity of some of the designs painstakingly recalled into use after long centuries of oblivion show the value accorded to them and to the cultures which produced them by later artists and patrons. A constant theme in the painted decoration of early medieval buildings is the tension which exists between the ornamental and the representational, and between the differing ways in which these two genres carry meaning and significance. The boundaries between the two categories are often blurred. What is ornament and what is representation? When does one become the other? This blurring is apparent in the ninth-century painted decoration of the crypt in the cathedral at Auxerre, where the magnificent acanthus bursts which fill the vaults appear from their very size and prominence to play a more than ornamental role and to have been conceived as carriers of some more or less defined constellation of meaning. It is equally apparent in the early twelfth-century mosaic apse of San Clemente in Rome, where the extraordinary power of the composition lies in the way in which the designer imbued an essentially ornamental structure with the elements of a subtly layered allegory of Christian sacrifice and redemption, realized through the institution and offices of the church. The naturally ordered and systematic energies of ornament are here intricately harnessed to the inherently idiosyncratic, contingent, even chaotic tendencies of representation. It is paradoxical that ornament, which is the expression of system, order, organization, cosmos, is often neglected by commentators and considered inappropriate for close consideration. Indeed it can be particularly hard to talk about. On the other hand, representation, which is various, manifold, often awkward, sometimes unresolved, and naturally tends towards disorder, is inevitably the focus of attention, and engages most of the interest and energies of an observer. This situation may have something to do with contemporary conditions and mentalities : the late twentieth century is not an age which takes easily to the subtleties of ornamental inflection. The ornamental apparatus in the decorative scheme of an early medieval building is just as impressive and just as indicative of the cultural, social and political values of its makers and its period as are the elaborate iconographies of the figural compositions which the ornament frames and controls. It must be accorded the same attention as the representational and must be given its full due as a vehicle for imparting visual structure, social order, symbolic meaning, and cultural context.

XI Art of Many Colours: The Dadoes of S. Vincenzo and Issues of Marbling in the Post-Roman World (with Bea Leal) ‘The problem is thus posed whether these similarities are to be attributed to a direct eastern (Umayyad/early Abbasid) influence on Carolingian and Romanesque art or whether the two arts represent a similar, although not simultaneous, understanding by the medieval artists of the ancient world’1.

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isitors to the early medieval monastery of S. Vincenzo al Volturno are struck now, as they must have been even more forcibly 1300 years ago when the fabric was new, by the brilliant polychrome effects of fictive marbling and opus sectile. In the aftermath of an extended campaign of construction in the first decades of the 9th century, the plastered walls of virtually all the ceremonial and residential spaces were fully painted. In the more prominent rooms, the painted scheme was laid out typically in three registers, a cornice of horizontal ornamented bands at the top, a middle zone of figural imagery — sequences of large standing figures or narrative scenes — and at the foot of the wall a dado, usually about one metre high, painted to resemble brightly coloured marble revetment. In some of the halls and porticoes in everyday use by the community and its guests, masonry * In constant memory of Don Faustino, dear friend and most exacting, supportive, persistent, and kind of critics. The authors would like to thank Larry Nees and John Osborne for careful and extremely pertinent critiques of this essay in draft. 1 O. Grabar, ‘The Paintings,’ in R.W. Hamilton (ed.), Khirbat al Mafjar An Arabian Mansion in the Jordan Valley, Oxford 1959, pp. 294–326, at p. 324.

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benches were constructed against the walls and these too were decorated in imitation polychrome stone veneer. While the figural imagery above tends to be more varied and full of incident, and to carry overt and directly identifiable meaning for the observer, the dadoes below, with their striking, insistent and repeating repertoires of motifs, form a constant element, establishing order and mood. The various motifs and patterns, on the one hand, indicate aspirations to social standing, founded on an evocation of ancient Roman grandeur and more immediately on the visual strategies of contemporary secular courts which drew heavily on Roman example. On the other hand they can register differences of emphasis and prominence on the various walls of single rooms, and denote function and relative status in the successive spaces of a complex institution2. The painted imitation of polished marble veneer and polychrome opus sectile in early medieval Italy Dadoes painted in imitation of polished marble revetment, in juxtaposed book-matched panels or in complex compositions in opus sectile, are a common feature of built spaces in Roman antiquity. This tradition can be followed through the early middle ages throughout the Mediterranean and northern Europe. However, in the immediate post-Roman centuries in Italy and Western Europe, in ecclesiastical contexts at least, such fictive marbling was by no means the norm for the embellishment of interior walls. In Rome and other centres in Italy, from around 700, this lowest zone in churches was typically painted to resemble a velum, a band of low screening curtains suspended from a rod, often ornamented with discs, birds, rosettes, leaves and other motifs3. However, in other parts of Italy, in the 8th and first half of the 9th century, in particular in the old Lombard regions, schemes involving the painted imitation of polychrome marble revetment assumed a major role. In the 8th century this can be seen in S. Salvatore at Brescia. The basilica was founded in 754 by Ansa and her consort, Desiderius, duke of Brescia and subsequently king, as the focus of their dynastic family monastery, and 2 Cf. J. Mitchell, ‘Spatial hierarchy and the uses of ornament’ and ‘A word on ornament and its uses’, in L’ornement dans la peinture murale du Moyen Age. Actes du Colloque tenu à Saint-Lizier du 1er au 4 juin 1995, colloque concu par J. Ottaway et organisé par l’Office deTourisme de Saint-Lizier, Poitiers 1997, pp. 35–55, 213–215. 3 Cf. J. Osborne, ‘Textiles and their painted imitations in early medieval Rome,’ in Papers of the British School at Rome, 60 (1992), pp. 309–351.

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restructured and embellished with paint and stucco a decade later4. A section of the painted dado is preserved in the north aisle: a rectangular panel with two intersecting superimposed squares spanned by a diagonal cross, all in bands of white and blue, on an imitation opus sectile chequerboard background in yellow ochre and red. At another point a fragmentary panel is marbled in simulation of giallo antico5. The walls of the crypt were similarly marbled, with a pink scheme somewhat resembling breccia coralina filling the lower walls and elsewhere other types, including a vertical band imitating a yellow stone with black and occasional red veining6. In the late 8th and early 9th century a popular scheme consisted of bookmatched panels with close-set diagonal veining, running along the wall in zig-zag fashion, in upright and inverted chevrons. This became a standard feature of churches in the Italian peninsular. In the north, it is present in the monastery church of St. Johann at Miistair, now firmly dated to the mid770s, the painted decoration probably contemporaneous and deriving from the aulic Lombard tradition exemplified half a generation earlier at Brescia7. Some fifty years later, in the second quarter of the 9th century, this motif was used in the painted dado of the funerary chapel in the great tower of the monastery at Torba, north of Milan. Here diagonally veined marbling is deployed alongside other schemes of fictive marble veneer, and also a painted velum, which takes pride of place beneath Christ and the apostles on the focal east wall of the chamber8. Again, in the Lombard south, painted dadoes 4 Cf Dalla corte regia al monastero di San Salvatore – Santa Giulia di Brescia, ed. G.P. Brogiolo e F. Morandini, Mantova 2014. 5 Cf. G. Panazza, ‘Gli scavi, l’architettura e gli affreschi della Chiesa di San Salvatore in Brescia,’ in La Chiesa di San Salvatore in Brescia. Atti dell’VIII Congresso di Studi sull’Arte dell’Alto Medioveo, II, ed. G. Panazza and A. Peroni, Milano 1962, pp. 5–228, at pp. 100– 102, fig. 104, pl. G; J. Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration of San Salvatore di Brescia in context,’ in Dalla corte regia al monastero di San Salvatore, pp. 169–210 at p. 179, figs. 2 and 12. 6 Cf. Panazza, ‘Gli scavi,’ p. 106; M. Ibsen, ‘Sistemi decorativi per la basilica di Ansa e Desiderio,’ in Dalla corte regia al monastero di San Salvatore, pp. 141–168. 7 Cf. J. Göll, M. Exner and S. Hirsch, Müstair. Le pitture parietali medievali nella chiesa dell’abbazia, Müstair 2007, fig. 68, p. 180, 83–84k; J. Mitchell, ‘St Johann at Müstair: the painted decoration in context,’ in Wandel und Konstanz zwischen Bodensee und Lombardei zur Zeit Karls des Grossens. Kloster St. Johann in Müstair und Churrätien, ed. H.-R. Sennhauser, K. Roth-Rubi and E. Kühne, Zürich 2013, pp. 367–390, at pp. 377–378, 386–387, figs. 8 and 10. 8 Cf. C. Bertelli, Gli affreschi nella torre di Torba, Milano 1988, figs. 1–3, 7, 10, 15, 16, 19, 27; J. Mitchell and B. Leal, ‘Wall paintings in S. Maria foris portas (Castelseprio) and the tower at Torba. Reflections and reappraisal,’ in Castelseprio e Torba: Sintesi delle ricerche e aggiornamenti, ed. P.M. De Marchi, Mantova 2013, pp. 311–344 at pp. 337–9.

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with panels of veined marbling running a zigzag course are to be found in the funerary basilica of SS. Annunziata at Prata di Principato Ultra, in central Campania9, in the church of S. Ambrogio at Montecorvino Rovella, to the south-east of Salerno10, in the Grotta di S. Biagio at Castellammare di Stabia on the Bay of Naples11, and in the sanctuary of S. Michele on the Gargano12. The high value set on this particular design is clear from its placement in the scheme at Montecorvino Rovella. There, the dado of the main apse is a velum, widely deployed as an indicator of sanctity. On either side of the apse, two niches painted with jewelled crosses are set above diagonally-veined book-matched panels, while on the side walls of the church the dadoes are decorated with imitations of polychrome marble revetment in geometric designs of lozenges and discs13. This sequence suggests that the motif of dense diagonally-veined marbling, particularly in book-matched zigzag sequence, carried a sense of particular status, even of sanctity, in an ecclesiastical context. Confirmation of this is to be found in the funerary chapel at Torba, where panels of diagonally-veined marbling are again positioned adjacent to the painted velum on the altar wall, separating this from the dado panels on the remaining walls14. Similarly, in the monastic church of St. Johann at Miistair, marbled dado panels with densely-set undulating veins are painted at the eastern end of the north wall, marking the altar precinct immediately before the north apse, with its painted velum15.

Cf. G. Muollo, La basilica di Prata Principato Ultra, Viterbo 2001, pp. 60–62, figs, on pp. 59 and 60. 10 Cf. P. Peduto and D. Mauro, ‘Il S. Ambrogio di Montecorvino Rovella,’ in Rassegna Storica Salernitana, 7, 1, (1990), pp. 7–48, at p. 23, figs. 4, 12, 13; R. Orabona, ‘La chiesa di Sant’Ambrogio di Montecorvino Rovella,’ in Ottantanni di un maestro. Omaggio a Ferdinando Bologna, ed. F. Abbate, Napoli 2006, pp. 11–35, at p. 14, fig. 1. 11 Cf H. Belting, Studien zur beneventanischen Malerei, Wiesbaden 1968, pl. 1,1. 12 Cf C. D’Angela, ‘Gli scavi nel santuario,’ in II santuario di S. Michele sul Gargano dal VI al IX secolo. Contributo alla storia della Longobardia meridionale. Atti del convegno tenuto a Monte Sant’Angelo il 9–10 dicembre 1978, Bari 1980, pp. 370–371, fig. 36; G. Bertelli, Cultura Longobarda nella Puglia altomedievale. Il Tempio di Seppannibale presso Fasano, Bari 1994, p. 144, fig. 113. 13 Cf. Peduto and Mauro, Il S. Ambrogio di Montecorvino Rovella, p. 23, figs. 4, 12, 13; Orabona, La chiesa di Sant Ambrogio, p. 14, fig. 1. 14 Cf. Bertelli, Gli affreschi nella torre di Torba, figs. 1–4, 6., 7, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 20, 27; Mitchell and Leal, ‘Wall paintings in S. Maria foris portas,’ pp. 338–339, figs. 31, 32, 35, 37. 15 Cf. Göll, Exner and Hirsch, Müstair. Le pitture, fig. 68, p. 180, 183–184k, p. 206, 112k; Mitchell, St Johann at Müstair, pp. 371–372, figs. 8, 10. 9

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Zig-zag sequences of diagonally-veined marbled panels, endlessly repeating in sequences of upright and inverted chevrons, are also the dominant, almost diagnostic, aspect of the painted decoration of S. Vincenzo al Volturno in its early 9th-century phases. This scheme must have constituted a striking, unifying feature of the major halls and rooms of the monastic complex. Dadoes in this pattern were deployed in a number of variations throughout the monastery, in the Monks’ Refectory, in the adjacent Assembly Hall (Fig. 1), in the Vestibule below the first-storey Audience Hall of the Palatium, in this upper-level hall itself, and in the associated Distinguished Guests’ Refectory. The basic version of the design, in red and blue-grey, set against a white ground, was deployed in the Monks’ Assembly Room, in the first-storey Audience Hall and probably also in the great Refectory, although there the walls were scorched to the limits of recognition during the sack of the monastery in 88116. Each panel carried regular sequences of diagonal veining, composed of repeating units of a broad undulating band framed by single thin undulating veins, separated by narrow straight veins interrupted at regular intervals by seismographic shakes. In the red panels, the broad undulating bands are sometimes doubled in a lighter tone. The artists have indicated the little back clamps which secured marble panels to the wall, a regular feature in this tradition. The same scheme was also deployed, in combination with other elements of faux marbling and opus sectile, on the tile-and-mortar reading-lectern in the Refectory17. In the Vestibule, a public space which served as an anteroom at the foot of the stairs leading up to the great hall of the Palatium, an enriched variant of this design was used, with the wide undulating bands doubled, the red with yellow and the blue with a lighter shade of the same colour18. This scheme dates to the early 9th century, when the vestibule was remodelled. A further extreme variant is met with in a room in the guest-area of the monastery19. This has been identified as the Refectory for Distinguished Guests. Here the dado consisted of diagonal bands and lines of glinting Egyptian blue — a 16 Cf. Monks’ Assembly Hall and Refectory, in San Vincenzo al Volturno 2: The 1980–86 Excavations Part II, ed. R. Hodges, London 1995, pp. 36, 68, figs. 3: 9–10, 16, pls. 3:5, 7; Audience Hall in San Vincenza al Volturno 1: The 1980–86 Excavations Part I, ed. R. Hodges, London 1993, pp. 169–170. 17 Cf. San Vincenzo al Volturno 2, ed. Hodges, pp. 69–72, figs. 4:8, 11–13. 18 Cf. ibid., pp. 507, figs. 1:4–7, 9, pls. 1:1. 19 Cf. ibid., p. 213.

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synthetic and relatively recherché pigment — running in close order over a white ground. Finally, in the corridors of the annular crypt of S. Vincenzo Maggiore, constructed around 820, the same diagonal veining is used as a constituent motif in a number of the compositions of brilliantly inventive faux opus-sectile panels20. These dadoes of fictive chevron, zig-zag marbling, which constituted a recurring leitmotif in the painted decoration of both the claustral and the public areas at S. Vincenzo, were also picked up in other media in the fabric of the early 9th-century monastery. Undulating lines, referencing the veining of marbling, are a common motif on the tiles which made up the floor surfaces of the majority of the residential areas of the monastery in its 9th-century phases21. In a few cases, undulating veining covered the whole surface of the tile, sometimes in regular order22, at others deployed in somewhat unruly array23. On one tile an overall design of panelled chevrons appears in striking reference to the chevron sequence of painted dado panels24. Even the glassmaker responsible for the windows of the Monks’ Refectory may have been trying to achieve a similar effect, in some of his panes, with deep red veins running through a green ground25. If the motif of sequential diagonally veined marbling did indeed carry connotations of particular distinction, suggested by its deployment at Montecorvino Rovella, at Torba and at Miistair, then it would seem that its diffused use at S. Vincenzo may have been designed to impart a general aura of sanctity throughout the spaces of the monastery. However, the most dramatic display of faux marbling and opus sectile is to be found in the dadoes of the corridors which give access to the relic chamber in the crypt of Abbot Joshua’s basilica, S. Vincenzo Maggiore. These present a display which for brilliance of colour, exuberant variety and sophistication of invention is hard to parallel in early medieval Europe26. The

Cf. R. Hodges, S. Leppard and J. Mitchell, San Vincenzo al Volturno and its Workshops, London 2011, figs. 3:31–2, 25; pls. 3:29, 31, 33–4. 21 Cf. San Vincenzo al Voltumo 3: The Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations, ed. J. Mitchell and I.L. Hansen, Spoleto 2001, figs. 3:22, 38, 55, 60, 61, 122, 140, 141, 186, 199. 22 Cf ibid., fig. 118. 23 Cf ibid., figs. 3:51, 119, 145, 146.gg 24 Cf. ibid., p. 110, no. 69, figs. Ill, 196. 23 Cf. F. Dell’acqua and D. James, ‘The window glass,’ in San Vincenzo al Volturno 3, pp. 178–179, pls. 6:4, 7. 26 Cf. Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo al Volturno and its workshops, pp. 54–92, figs. 3:8–41, pls. 3:3–40. 20

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two basic formations are large, ornate rotae, discs, and rectangular panels carrying complex perspectival compositions (Fig. 2). The rotae are made up of concentric bands and sweeping radial arcs and planes, elaborately divided and partitioned, exploiting a number of basic forms and colours in seemingly endless variation. These discs present the illusion of elaborately curved surfaces, concave, convex or tilted into angular planes, or breaking into eye-caching trompe l’oeil formations. The rectangular panels are filled with regular series of geometrical solid figures in elaborate perspectival sequence, complex arrangements of faceted surfaces, or contrasting diagonallyoriented patterns. Motifs include zig-zags of upright and inverted chevrons, parti-coloured chequerboards of little equilateral triangles set in overarching chevron sequence, perspective meanders at various levels of complexity, faceted circular fan-shaped formations and faceted stars, and various schemes of polychromatic diagonally-veined marbling. The running chevron formation of veined dadoes found in other parts of the monastery is present here as a structural principle underlying many of the rectangular panels. Rotae and rectangular panels follow one another in irregular and punctuated alternation; both the discs, almost all of which incorporate a strong accent of spin, and the carefully considered sequence of the rectangular panels, with their underlying zig-zag rhythms, now short and staccato, now quiet and extended, impart a sense of movement, impelling the visitor along the corridors of the crypt in to the relic chamber and then out and away, in a carefully calculated dynamic27. A further scheme of dadoes involving large rotae in faux marbled opus sectile was deployed on the back wall of the so-called loggiato, an elegant galleried corridor running along the hillside above the Assembly Hall and the Monks’ Dormitory, probably designed to provide privileged access to S. Vincenzo Maggiore for the abbot and favoured guests of the monastery28. The rear wall was painted, probably around 830, with human figures above

Cf. ibid., pp. 86–88. Cf F. Marazzi, C. Filippone, P.P. Petrone, T. Galloway and L. Fattore, ‘San Vincenzo al Volturno — scavi 2000–2002. Rapporto preliminare’, in Archeologia medievale, 39 (2002), pp. 209–274, at pp. 264–266, figs. 37–38, pls. 1, 13, 18 and 19; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo al Volturno and its Workshops, pp. 413, 419,427–428, figs. 10,7 and 10; R. Hodges, S. Leppard and J. Mitchell, ‘The sack of San Vincenzo al Volturno. 10 October 881 reconsidered by archaeology,’ in Acta Archaeologica, 82 (2011), pp. 286–301, at pp. 288–289, 296, fig. 8. 27 28

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an elaborate dado, the former recognized only in fragments of fallen plaster29. The dado consisted of a sequence of rectangular panels bearing large rotae framed by vertical columnar bands. In the best preserved panel a dark rota is charged with a large bird and is set against a lighter marbled ground (Fig. 10). The flanking columnar band is also ornamented with a disc apparently filled with foliate motifs. Further evidence for a particular interest in bright polychrome marbling at S. Vincenzo al Volturno is to be found in a different quarter, in the canon tables of the Codex Beneventanus, a Gospel Book made for Ato, abbot of S. Vincenzo (739–60), around the middle of the 8th century (Fig. 3)30. The columns which frame the canon tables have bright eye-catching marbled surfaces, different on each page. These tables, a markedly idiosyncratic set, apparently laid out by a scribe who had little acquaintance with the conventions of this standard feature of late antique and early medieval Gospel Books, are usually taken to be a fragmentary 6th-century set, bound in with the text some two hundred years later, in the scriptorium at S. Vincenzo31. However, Flavia De Rubeis has adduced strong arguments in favour of these arches being contemporary with the text they preface, executed, albeit imperfectly, expressly for this book32. The minor differences in the design and layout of each arched frame suggest that this was not the work of a scriptorium with an established tradition of production. Rather it shows the mark of a scribe who was endeavouring to replicate faithfully, but without full understanding, a design from a past tradition. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the book was made at S. Vincenzo itself. Extensive excavation at the monastery over the past thirty years has not revealed any evidence for significant artistic production before the last decades of the 8th century. It is probable that the book was ordered by Abbot Ato from a scriptorium active in an accessible major cultural centre. Given the location and affiliations 29

265.

Cf. Marazzi, Filippone, Petrone, Galloway and Fattore, San Vincenzo al Volturno, p.

London, British Library, Ms. Add. 5463. Cf. D.H. Wright, ‘The canon tables of the Codex Beneventanus and related decoration,’ in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 33 (1979), pp. 137–155, at pp. 138–143. 32 Cf. F. De Rubeis, ‘The Codex Beneventanus,’ in J. Mitchell and I.L. Hansen (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 3, pp. 439–449. Larry Nees has observed (pers. comm) that the gathering containing the canon tables is distinct from the main body of the text of the manuscript in the range of pigments used in embellishment. This may indicate that canon tables and text were produced separately; however, it does not necessarily imply that the two parts differ significantly in age. 30 31

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of the monastery this is most likely to have been Benevento33. Whether produced in S. Vincenzo or Benevento, if the canon tables are accepted as 8th-century work, the Codex Beneventanus appears to furnish evidence for a lively interest in brightly varied polychrome marbling in the orbit of the southern Lombard court in the middle of the 8th century, in the same period that related schemes were being deployed on a monumental scale at S. Salvatore di Brescia, one of the major Lombard centres in the north. It should be noted that the columns of one of the pages in the Codex Beneventanus are painted with doubled undulating bands of diagonally veined marbling, recalling the dadoes prevalent at S. Vincenzo and elsewhere in the later 8th and 9th centuries (Fig. 3)34. This type of marbling is not commonly found in the canon tables of surviving late antique Gospel Books but it does figure prominently in the books of the so-called Court School of Charlemagne, from the first decades of the 9th century35. It has been argued that the artists responsible for these early Carolingian books drew heavily on contemporary Italian practice for patterns and ideas36. This Italian predilection for fictive polychrome marbling seems to have been adopted by the Carolingian Franks immediately after Charlemagne’s invasion and annexation of Lombard Italy in 773–774. The earliest evidence for this is to be found in the annular crypt of Abbot Fulrad’s new abbey church at Saint-Denis, consecrated in 775. There the embrasures of the windows in the curving outer wall are painted in the latest Italian fashion, 33 Cf. H. Belting, ‘Studien zum beneventanischen Hof im 8. Jahrhundert,’ in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16 (1962), pp. 141–193, at pp. 175–193; M. Rotili, Benevento romana e longobarda: l’immagine urbana, Napoli 1986, pp. 184–201. 34 Cf. fol. 4v. See Wright, ‘The canon tables,’ fig. 7; 794–Karl der Grosse in Frankfurt am Main. Ein König bei der Arbeit. Ausstellung zum 1200-Jahre-Jubiläum der Stadt Frankfurt am Main, Sigmaringen 1994, p. 90, cat. IV/19. 35 Cf. W. Köhler, Die karolingischen Miniaturen, 2. Die Hofschule Karls des Grossen, Berlin 1958, pls. II, 34–37, 39 (Abbeville, Bibi. Munie. Ms. 4, fols. 10r–16v, 66v) II, 48–52, 54, 56, 58–61 (London, British Library, Ms. Harley 2788, fols. 9v–l lv, 13v, 71v, 108v, 109r, 161v, 162r), II, 67, 69–80, 83–85, 87, 88 (Paris, Bibl. Nat. Ms. Lat. 8850, fols, lv, 7r–12v, 81v, 82r, 123v, 180v, 181 r), II, 94, 96 (Trier, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. 22, fols. 15v, 85v), II, 99b–103 c, 108, 110 (Bucharest, National Library, Alba Julia, Bibl. Batthyaneum, Ms. R. II. 1, pp. 24, 13, 15, 17, 23, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20–22; Vatican City, Bibl. Apost. Vat. Ms Pal. lat. 50, fols. Av, 67v); The Lorsch Gospels, facsimile with introduction by W. Braunfels, New York, 1967, pp. 13–24, fols. Av, 67v. 36 Cf J. Mitchell, ‘Artistic patronage and cultural strategies in Lombard Italy,’ in Towns and their Territories between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. G.P. Brogiolo, N. Gautier and N. Christie, Leiden 2000, pp. 347–370, at pp. 364–368.

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with marbled panels with close-set diagonal veins, alternating thick and thin (Fig. 4)37. A generation later, in the Gospel Books of the so-called Court School, the columns of the cannon tables and evangelist portraits constitute a veritable gallery of marbled effects, almost always incorporating diagonal undulating veining38. Dadoes in veneers of polished marble, plain or polychrome, were a regular feature in rooms of high standing in Roman antiquity, and their painted imitation was widely used throughout the Roman period, in a protean range of types and configurations39. One scheme which was quite widely

Cf. M. Veillard-Troiekouroff, ‘L’architecture en France de temps de Charlemagne,’ in Karolingische Kunst, ed. W. Braunfels and H. Schnitzler, Düsseldorf 1965, pp. 336–358, at p. 353, figs. 7–9; M. Wyss, ‘Enduits peints du haut Moyen Age mis au jour à Saint-Denis,’ in Édifices et peintures aux IVe–XIe siècles, ed. C. Sapin, Auxerre 1994, pp. 63–69, at p. 66, fig. 4. 38 Cf. note 32. 39 Cf. S. Falzone, ‘L’imitazione dell’opus sectile nella pittura tardoantica a Roma e a Ostia,’ in I marmi colorati della Roma imperiale, a cura di M. De Nuccio, L. Ungaro, P. Pensabene and L. Lazzarini, Venezia 2002, pp. 170–174. Marbled dadoes are ubiquitous in painted rooms of the late Republican period — for instance in the Ixion Room in the House of the Vettii at Pompeii (M. Borda, La pittura romana, Milano 1958, p. 86) — and were still in common use in the Roman catacombs in the 3rd and 4th centuries (cf. ibid., p. 135; C. Pavia, Il labirinto delle catacombe, Udine 1987, pp. 118, 136 — Catacomb of Callixtus, Cappella Greca and cubiculum of David; A Ferrua, Catacombe sconosciute. Una pinacoteca del IV secolo sotto la Via Latina, Firenze, 1990, p. 78 — New Catacomb on the Via Latina), also in the late 3rd- or early 4th-century house beneath SS. Giovanni e Paolo in Rome (M. Andaloro, La pittura medievale a Roma, 312–1431. Corpus, Vol. I: L’Orizzonte tardoantico e le nuove immagini, 312–468, Milano 2006, p. 224). They are found equally on the periphery of the Roman world, in Herod’s palace complex at Masada, in the 1st century BC (Y. Yadin, Masada. Herod’s Fortress and the Zealot’s Last Stand, London 1966, pp. 44–51), around 200 AD in the synagogue at Dura Europos (C. Kraeling, Excavation at Dura Europos VII, 1. The Synagogue. Excavations at Dura Europos. Final Report, 8/1, New Haven 1956, pp. 34–36, 54–56, pls. XLIX – first phase –, fig. 13, XV, 1 – second phase; E. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, DC, 1, New York 1964, p. 42, pl. 353 – first phase –, p. 65, fig. 10, pls. 317–319– second phase), in the 4th century in painted tombs at Serdica, in modern Bulgaria and at Ascalon, in Palestine (Borda, La pittura romana, pp. 140–141), in the early 5th century in a grand house in Sardis (M.I. Rautman, A late Roman townhouse at Sardis, in Forschungen in Lydien, ed. E. Schwertheim, Münster 1995, pp. 49–66, at p. 56, pls. 11/2 and 12/2; M.L. Rautman, The aura of affluence. Domestic scenery in Late Roman Sardis, in Love for Lydia. A Sardis Anniversary Volume Presented to Crawford H. Greenewalt Jnr., ed. N.D. Cahill, Cambridge Mass. and London, 2008, pp. 147–158), in the terraced houses, the so-called Hanghäuser at Ephesus (V. Strocka and H. Vetters, Die Wandmalerei der Hanghäuser in Ephesos, Wien 1977, p. 113, fig. 256–262; C. Foss, Ephesus after Antiquity: A Late Antique, Byzantine and Turkish City, Cambridge 1979, p. 75, fig. 26); and in the 37

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deployed in the late Roman world was the design favoured at S. Vincenzo and elsewhere in Italy around 800, with panels of diagonal veining set in alternating sequence to form a zig-zag. Examples are preserved at the palatial early 4th-century villa at Piazza Armerina40, and in rooms at the 4th-century terraced Hanghäuser at Ephesus41. This old tradition of brightly coloured marbled dadoes seems to have fallen from favour in the western Mediterranean by the 6th century. The practice continued in punctuated fashion in a few centres, like Rome itself — elaborately marbled dadoes figure prominently in late 7th- and early 8th-century painted schemes in S. Maria Antiqua in Rome, beneath the church fathers flanking the main apse, a phase now dated to the second half of the 7th century42, and in the apse of the contemporary Chapel of the Forty Martyrs43. Roman and late Roman painted rooms may also still have been visible and accessible to patrons and artists. However, there is no evidence for strong unbroken continuity between the 6th and the 8th centuries. It is possible that the resumption of this practice was simply one aspect of a new interest in Roman models, in architecture, ornament and imagery, seized on and re-developed by artists working for the nascent polities of early medieval Italy, creating visual languages appropriate to the ambitions of their patrons in a climate of highly competitive and ever-evolving state

triclinium of the late 5th/early 6th-century in a house excavated on Odou Lapithou in Thessaloniki (S. Curcic, ‘The house in the Byzantine world,’ in Everyday Life in Byzantium, ed. D. Papanikola-Bakirtze, Athens 2002, pp. 228–238, at pp. 232–233, fig. 6). 40 Cf. A. Carandini, A. Ricci and M. De Vos, Filosofiana. La villa di Piazza Armerina, Palermo 1982, fig. 39. 41 Cf. Strocka and Vetters, Die Wandmalerei, p. 113, fig. 256–262; Foss, Ephesus after Antiquity, fig. 26. 42 Cf. P.J. Nordhagen, ‘The earliest decorations in S. Maria Antiqua and their date,’ in Acta ad archaeological et artium historiam pertinentia, 1 (1962), pp. 53–72, at pp. 58–61, pls. II and III; P.J. Nordhagen, ‘S. Maria Antiqua: the frescoes of the seventh century,’ in Acta ad archaeological et artium historiam pertinentia, 8 (1978), pp. 98–100, pls. Ill, VI, VIII. Nordhagen’s dating of this phase to the immediate aftermath of the Lateran synod of 649 has recently been revised to a decade or two later by Richard Price, in a lecture, ‘The frescoes in Santa Maria Antiqua and the Lateran Synod of 649,’ delivered at a conference at the British School at Rome, Santa Maria Antiqua: The Sistine Chapel of the 8th Century in Context, in December 2013, in course of publication. 43 Cf. Nordhagen, ‘The earliest decorations,’ p. 63; Id., ‘S. Maria Antiqua: the frescoes,’ pp. 133–135, pl. LX.

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formation44. However, it is also possible that the impetus to revive this visually striking idiom came from outside, from contemporary practice in the Umayyad caliphate. Faux Marbling in the Caliphate Excavation has revealed something of the extraordinarily rich interior decoration of the so-called desert palaces: elite, and in many cases demonstrably caliphal, residential stations, set in strategic locations in the Umayyad heartlands, modern Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. Painted decoration involving elaborately marbled compositions have been recorded at Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, between Damascus and Palmyra, constructed in 727 under Caliph Hisham45, at Resafa, Hisham’s reportedly favourite residence, in the 720s–30s46, at Balis, an early eighth-century sub-caliphal palace on the Euphrates west of Raqqa47, at Khirbat al-Mafjar near Jericho, from the 730s–40s48, and at the palatial hamam complex at Qusayr ‘Amra, east of Amman, built for al-Walid ibn Yazid before 74349. At all of these sites, the principal rooms are embellished with deep dadoes, and often successive registers on the upper wall-surfaces, painted with exceptionally striking and inventive schemes of polychrome marbling, based on the imitation of Cf. Mitchell, ‘Artistic patronage,’ pp. 358–359; Id., ‘The Power of Patronage and the Issue of Quality in the Era of 774,’ in Anno 774. Atti del Seminario sull’VIII–IX secolo, ed. S. Gasparri, Turnhout 2007, pp. 263–288. 45 Cf. D. Schlumberger, ‘Les fouilles de Qasr el-Heir el-Gharbi (1936–1938). Rapport préliminaire,’ in Syria, 20, 3, (1939), pp. 195–238, pls. XXXVII, 2, XXXVIII,3, XXXIX,4.; D. Schlumberger, Qasr el-Heir el-Gharbi, Paris 1986, pl. 57, a,c,d. 46 Cf. K. Otto-Dorn, ‘Grabungen im umayyadischen Rusafah,’ in Ars Orientalis, 2 (1957), pp. 119–133, at pp. 125–126, pl. 2, fig. 7. 47 Cf. T. Leisten, ‘The Umayyad complex at Balis. Report on the activities of the cooperative project of the Syrian Directorate of Antiquities and Princeton University in the Summer of 2002,’ in Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes, 47–48 (2004–2005), pp. 251– 270; Id., ‘For prince and country(side): the Marwanid mansion at Balis on the Euphrates, in Residences, Castles, Settlements. Transformation Process from Late Antiquity to early Islam in Bilad al-Sham, Rahden 2009, pp. 377–394, at pp. 379–380, figs. 9–13. 48 Cf. O. Grabar, The paintings, in R.W. Hamilton, Khirbat al-Mafar. An Arab Mansion in the Jordan Valley, Oxford 1959, pp. 23–24, 294–326, figs. 33–34, pls. XIII, LXXII, LXXIV, LXXV, XCVII. 49 Cf. C. Vibert-Guigue and G. Bisheh, Les peintures de Qusayr Amra. Un bain omeyyade dans la bâdiya jordanienne, Beirut 2007, pls. 22a, 23a, 24a, 2629, 31, 34, 53, 54, 98e, 112 b–e, 114a, 118, 130e. 44

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opus sectile veneer, sometimes enriched with motifs drawn in from other traditions50. At Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, in room 51, a large hall in the southwestern bayt of the palace, the painted decoration on the lower part of the west wall was preserved at the time of excavation. The lower half of the dado was divided into square panels, filled with various patterns executed in alternating thick and thin dark lines, slightly undulating, on a light background. One panel is covered with a four-part book-matched design; others are divided into smaller squares, upright or poised, containing a mixture of chevrons, parallel lines, and concentric forms resembling flowers51. It has been suggested that the range of designs in the sub-divided panels was inspired by contemporary techniques of real marble revetment, as can be seen in the east vestibule at the Great Mosque of Damascus; if so this implies a conscious interest in innovation on the part of the painters, and certainly an awareness of the latest Islamic examples52. In the register above, a series of large rotae, set against a white ground, march along the walls, each with eight tear-shaped petals or leaves pointing alternately inwards and outwards around a central rosette. In room 4, at the main entrance to the palace, the dado was painted to resemble a sequence of densely veined book-matched poised rhomboids, with nested Vs of veining in the resulting spandrels, creating a dense overall pattern of diagonal veining53. A third dado in room 14, one of the two main stair-halls, was painted with alternating dark and light panels, the latter also containing large roundels, rotae, with geometric designs, possibly imitating opus sectile inserts54.

50 The late Roman practice of revetting the lower walls of elite spaces with polished marble veneer was pursued in the caliphate; an outstanding early instance is to be found in the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusalem (S. Nuseibeh and O. Grabar, The Dome of the Rock, London 1996, pp. 52–53, 60–61, 67). Some aspects of this tradition are discussed by M. Milwright, ‘“Waves of the Sea”: responses to marble in written sources (ninth-fifteenth centuries),’ in The Iconography of Islamic Art: Studies in honour of Robert Hillenbrand, ed. B. O’Kane, Edinburgh 2005, pp. 211–221. 51 See Schlumberger, Les fouilles, pl. XXXIX,4; H. Franz, ‘Das Medaillon als Bauornament in der Kunst der Omajjadenzeit,’ in Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins, 72, 1 (1956), pp. 88–89, pl.3A. 52 Cf. Franz, Das Medallion, p. 89; K. Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, I, New York 1979, p. 174, pl.47a. 53 Cf Schlumberger, Les fouilles, pl. XXXVIII,3. 54 Cf ibid., pl. XXXVII,2; Franz, Das Medallion, pl. 3B.

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A similar, more or less contemporary, scheme of complex non-figural decoration covers the walls of the principal audience chamber at Balis, on the Euphrates (Fig. 5). This early 8th century palace has been associated with one of the leading military commanders of the time, Maslama b. Abd al-Malik b. Marwan. Here the deep lower register is preserved, extending up almost to the height of the doorways. In the main audience hall, the focal wall was divided into three panels, the central one painted as bright orangered marbled veneer inset with dark purple roundels. The two flanking panels carried a design of vertical poised rhombuses and chevrons in grey and white. This design was repeated on the side walls of the hall. The panels were separated by vertical piers, supported on paired columnar bases, and filled with a brilliant polychrome reticulate trellis, formed of a dense tessellation of little triangles, black and white, red and yellow55. All the panels were framed with a dramatic running angled motif, like a flight of windswept wings. The painted scheme in the great audience hall at Balis was without human or animal figures; instead we see walls of abstract configurations, inventively and playfully ringing the changes on traditions of Roman marble opus sectile wall-veneer, quite overpowering in the intensity and vibrancy of their visual effect. Enough survived of the painted decoration in Caliph Hisham’s palace near Resafah to show that the axial ground-floor reception room directly opposite the main entrance was similarly richly painted. The dado consisted of a running arcade with horseshoe tops, containing a range of marbled motifs, poised faux opus sectile rhombuses and cruciform configurations and panels of diagonal marbling. Above this rose three painted registers of contrasting ornamental motifs, crowned by a band of stucco ornament56. In the early 8th-century rural palace at Khirbat al-Mafjar, just north of Jericho, the painted decoration is known only from excavated fragments of painted wall plaster. However, from these it is clear that the great vaulted audience hall which dominates the eastern part of the complex was completely painted with complex designs, including extensive passages of fictive marbling and opus sectile57. These are particularly well-preserved in niches fallen from the level of the high clerestory windows, which are filled with four-way book-matched compositions of tightly undulating veined Cf Leisten, For prince and country (side), pp. 379–380, figs. 9–13. Cf. Otto-Dorn, Grabung in umayyadischen Rusâfah, pp. 125–126, pl. 2, fig. 7. 57 Cf. Grabar, ‘The paintings,’ pp. 319–322, pls. XIII, LXXIV,3, 5, LXXV,7, 11–13. 55 56

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marbling, with brightly painted variously-marbled columns framing the niches on the intervening wall surfaces58. On the inner reveals of the windows themselves, upright rectangles with two-toned diagonal veins frame larger panels with similar gently-waved veining, inset with dark lozenges59. In the centre of some of the lozenges are floral discs with elongated petal forms, similar to those at Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi. As at Qasr al-Hayr, while they do not appear directly to imitate opus sectile, the medallions are incorporated into larger marbled designs. In the great hall at Khirbat al-Mafjar, the horizontal cornices which ran over the main arched vaults, below the sills of the high windows, were painted with a reticulate scheme of little adjacent equilateral triangles, white, black, yellow and green, similar to those forming the pilasters at Balis, playing on a motif widely used in Roman opus sectile and floor-mosaics60. It is worth noting that similar designs may also have been used in imitation of floor tiles in the Sassanian Empire. Recent excavations at Gur/Firuzabad have uncovered floor paintings in a building opposite the Takht-i Nishkin Fire Temple, with a chequered design of white squares alternating with triangles in red, green, yellow and white61. Geometric designs of this sort were a staple of late Roman opus sectile and its imitations, and it is possible that they were also popular in the Sassanian period62. This floor painting has not yet been definitively dated, and may also be early Islamic. At ground level in the hall at Khirbat al-Mafjar, in the richly ornate focal apse (no. V), the archivolt was painted with a complex perspectival meander in fictive opus sectile, its angled planes in shades of green and yellow, incorporating at regular intervals panels with pomegranates, fruits, either alone or in vases, and other such elements63. Another motif which should be noted, from the vicinity of the same focal apse, is a rota framing an elaborate

Cf. ibid., p. 73, pp. 321, figs. 33–34, pls. LXXV.l 1, 13, 14, CV. Cf. ibid., fig. 33, pl. LXXIV.3. 60 Cf. ibid., pp. 319–320, pls. XIII,3, 6, 7. 61 Cf. D. Huff, ‘Formation and ideology of the Sassanian state in the context of archaeological evidence,’ in The Idea of Iran, III. The Sasanian Era, ed. V. Curtis and S. Stewart, London 2008, pp. 31–59 at 48–49, images available online at http://www. cais-soas. com/News/2006/February2006/19-02.htm. 62 Cf. F. Guidobaldi, Pavimenti in opus sectile di Roma e dell’area romana, Roma 1985, p. 224; F. Guidobaldi and A. Guiglia Guidobaldi, Pavimenti marmorei di Roma dal IV al IX secolo, Roma 1983, pp. 165, pp. 59–63, pp. 170–171, fig. 12.b. 63 Cf. Grabar, ‘The paintings,’ p. 320, pl. LXXV, 7, 12. 58 59

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eight-pointed star made up of four concentric bands, parti-shaded along the radii to resemble a concertinaed radial fan64. At the palatial bathhouse of Qusayr Amra, rather than constituting the greater extent of the surviving painted decoration, as at Balis and Rusafa, the register of fictive marble panels and opus sectile is limited to a low dado zone beneath the figural scenes which cover the walls and vaults of the audience hall. This complimented a revetment in real marble veneer, now lost, which once clad the lower wall of the principal axial recess, formed sub-dado bands running beneath the painted dadoes, and covered the walls of the adjacent bath suite up to the vaults65. The painted designs here are various. In the two small closed retiring rooms flanking the axial recess, the dado consists of rectangular panels each dominated by a large poised rhombus, crossed by diagonal bands from corner to corner, to form a reticulate design with subordinate rhomboid veining in the resulting spaces (Fig. 6). This is crowned by a prominent running horizontal zigzag cornice66. Extended trellis-like variations of this design are deployed beneath the figural fields on the eastern and southern outer walls of the hall. A more brilliant and complex scheme was chosen for the outer and end walls of the western aisle, the space in which the principal painted imagery of the hall, both iconic and narrative, is concentrated. Here thin vertical columnar strips separate the panels, which consist of large polychrome facetted discs against orange and red marbled grounds, alternating with four-part book-matched compositions of veined marbling forming a chiastic design of nested chevrons (Fig. 7)67. The polychrome discs seem to have been variants on two basic designs, one a circular fan, the other a radiate mesh of curling intersecting radii. In both cases an element of illusionistic relief is involved. Framing the figural scenes in the west aisle, and separating them from the dado level, is a border of linked discs containing foliate whorls. This early Islamic predilection for elaborate, bright, polychrome, ornamental schemes, visually referencing costly revetment in polished marble sheets and opus sectile, was undoubtedly inspired by and derived from the old Greco-Roman tradition of imitating polished stone veneer in paint. However, while some of the designs are direct variants of schemes common Cf. ibid., pp. 322–323, pls. XIII,5. Cf. Vibert-Guigue and Bisheh, Les peintures de Qusayr ‘Amra, passim. 66 Cf. ibid., pls. 22a, 23, a,d, 24a, 25c. 67 Cf. ibid., pls. 26, 29, 31, 118. 64 65

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in Roman imperial and late antique practice, like the panels of chiastic fourpart book-matched diagonally-veined marbling, others appear to be new inventions without close analogues in the late Roman Christian world. These include the two designs prominent at Qusayr Amra, the reticulate panels formed on a central poised rhombus and diagonal cross, and the scheme on the walls of the west aisle with complex polychrome discs alternating with rectangular configurations of dense diagonally-veined marbling. One factor which may have encouraged Umayyad innovation in the development of these motifs is the tendency, visible in several of the Umayyad palaces, to combine ornamental elements in a variety of different materials together in a single space. This can be seen at Qusayr Amra most clearly in the small domed calidarium, where real marble revetment, mosaic, carved stone and painted plaster are displayed in successive horizontal registers. The variety and richness of different types of ornament at Khirbat al-Mafjar and Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi are even more impressive, including stucco, paint, mosaic, marble panelling, stone screens and coloured glass, and each palace would also have been well-supplied with rich textiles. This juxtaposition of a range of ornamental media may in turn have inspired artists to incorporate patterns and forms associated with other materials into their marbling designs. For example, the fictive opus sectile zig-zags at the top of the dado level in the small chambers at Qusayr ‘Amra, and above the clerestory niches at Khirbat al-Mafjar, recall the stucco dog-tooth designs on the walls at Qasr Kharana, and surrounding the niches of the blind arcading of the mosque and audience hall at Amman68. It also seems possible that the floral medallions combined with the panels of imitation marble at Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, Khirbat al-Mafjar and Qusayr Amra reference patterns common in Byzantine, Sassanian and early Islamic silks69. This transfer of forms from one material to another may have equally gone in the other direction; the stucco ornament of the late 8th- or early 9th-century mosque at Fustat, Egypt, includes thin panels moulded with concentric lozenge-

68 Cf. S.K. Urice, Qasr Kharana in the Transjordan, Baltimore 1987, fig. 92; I. Arce, ‘The Palatine City at Amman Citadel,’ in Residences, Castles, Settlements: Transformation Processes from Late Antiquity to Early Islam in Bilad al-Sham, ed. K. Bartl and A. Al-Razzaq Moaz, Rahden 2008, fig. 9; A. Northedge, Studies on Roman and Islamic Amman, Oxford 1993, fig. 45, pl. 27.g. 69 For the possible imitation of marbling patterns in tenth-century Islamicicate woven cloth, see Milwright, ‘Waves of the Sea,’ pp. 216–217, fig. 13.1.

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shaped lines, set between plaster pilasters, reminiscent of the forms of marble revetment70. Overall the impression given by early Islamic marbled dadoes is of innovation, of the combination of motifs from disparate sources to make a new coherent whole, and the wish to showcase as many prestigious materials as possible in the major public rooms of Umayyad elite residences71. The Umayyad impact on fictive marbling in Italy Although there is scant evidence for anything to rival this taste for exuberantly complex and brightly coloured wall-decorations in Western Europe in this period, the revival of interest in marbled dadoes in Italy in the later 8th and 9th centuries may not be an unrelated phenomenon. The composition of the one surviving panel on the north wall of S. Salvatore in Brescia, dating from the early 760s, the field spanned by a poised square intersected by a diagonal axial cross, is in essence the same as the painted panels of the dadoes in the rooms flanking the axial recess at Qusayr ‘Amra (Figs. 8 and 6). Variant versions of this design are deployed on the walls of the annular crypt of the main abbey church of S.Vincenzo Maggiore at S. Vincenzo al Volturno, two generations later, around 82072. In both instances, they are positioned in critical locations, in the case of S. Salvatore, at the eastern end of the north aisle at the threshold of the altar precinct in front of the lateral apse, and at S. Vincenzo, in the axial corridor of the annular crypt, at the threshold of the relic chamber73. The dado register in the west aisle at Qusayr Amra finds even more striking resonances at S. Vincenzo (Figs. 7 and 2). There the scheme of complex polychrome discs alternating with rectangular fields of marbling is paralleled in both sequence and in details in the dado in the Cf Franz, Das Medallion, p. 96, pl.4,B. Cf J. Ball, ‘Byzantine Dress: Representations of Secular Dress in Eighth- to Twelfih-Century Painting, New York 2005, p. 109; M. Martiniani-Reber, Soieries sassanides, coptes et byzantines, V – XI siècles, Paris 1986, p. 10, figs. 68, 76, 77, 80; T. Thomas, ‘Silks’, in Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, ed. H. Evans, New York 2012, p. 148, fig. 67. 72 Brescia: Panazza, Gli scavi, pp. 100–102, fig. 104, pl. G; Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration,’ p. 179, figs. 2 and 12; S. Vincenzo al Volturno: R. Hodges and J.Mitchell, La basilica di Giosuè a San Vincenzo al Volturno, Montecassino – Monteroduni 1995, pp. 87–88, panel 15, pp. 101–103, panels 29 and 30, figs. 4: 30, 49–52; Mitchell, ‘Spatial hierarchy,’ pp. 52–53, figs. 8 and 12; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore, pp. 67–68, panel 15, pp. 77–79, panels 29 and 30, figs. 3:21, 38–41, pp. 86–87. Qusayr Amra: VibertGuigue and Bisheh, Les peintures de Qusayr ‘Amra, pls. 22a, 23a and d, 25c. 73 Cf. Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration,’ p. 179. 70 71

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annular crypt of S. Vincenzo Maggiore, where large multicoloured discs, filled with an ever-varying range of complex radial compositions, alternate irregularly with rectangular panels of complex perspectival compositions referencing polychrome opus sectile74. The sequences of great discs in rooms 14 and 51 at Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, in the way in which they accentuate the walls, find another compelling analogue in the rotae on the back wall of the Loggiato at S. Vincenzo (Figs. 9 and 10)75. Furthermore, the smaller lightcoloured disc on the framing vertical band at S. Vincenzo appears to contain a leaf-like pattern, more impressionistic than the opus sectile of the large rota, perhaps picking up on the early Islamic predilection for combining motifs from different media, and reminiscent of the discs forming the borders in the western aisle at Qusayr ‘Amra76. The great rotae which constitute one of the signature motifs in the decorative schemes at S. Vincenzo are equally prominent in the painted decoration of Umayyad desert palaces, where smaller ornate roundels in stone and stucco also form one of the visual constants77. Other antecedents of motifs within the visual vocabularies of artists working for elite patrons in late 8th- and early 9th-century Italy are to be found among the fragments of fallen painted plaster at Khirbat al-Mafjar. Panels of fictive marble veneer, with close-set undulating diagonal veining, are present in various contexts at Khirbat al-Mafjar, although not in the characteristic Italian fashion of book-matched panels running in zigzags78. It should be noted that, as in contemporary Italy, here in the niches flanking the clerestory windows this motif is selected for focal, if not critical, locations. Similarly, the reticulate design of small multi-coloured adjacent equilateral triangles used in the cornices running over the main arches in the great east hall is closely related to the panels of polychrome triangles forming running diagonal zig-zag sequences in various sections of 73 Cf. Hodges and Mitchell, La basilica di Giosue, pp. 63–122; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore, pp. 49–92. 75 Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi: Schlumberger, Les fouilles, pls. XXVII, 2 and XXXIX,4; S. Vincenzo: Marazzi, Filippone, Petrone, Galloway and Fattore, San Vincenzo al Volturno, fig. 38. 76 Cf. Vibert-Guigue and Bisheh, Les peintures de Qusayr Amra, figs, 26–35, pl. 118. 77 Khirbat al-Minya: Creswell, Architecture, p. 383, pl. 65.a–f; Qasr Kharana: Urice, Qasr Kharana, pl. 89, 134, 140; Amman: Northedge, Studies, fig. 53, pls. 25.f, 27.g, 36.b; Mshatta: Franz, Das Medallion, p. 87, fig. 1. 78 Cf. Grabar, The paintings, p. 319, pls. XIII, 3, 6, 7, LXXIV, 3, 5.

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1. Marbled dado in the vestibule, S. Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 820 (photo: author). 2. Painted dado in annular crypt, S. Vincenzo Maggiore, S.Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 820 (photo: Sarah Cocke).

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3. Canon table, Codex Beneventanus, London, British Library, MS. 5463, fol. 4v, Benevento?, 739–760 (after Wright, ‘The canon tables of the Codex Beneventanus and related decoration,’ fig. 7: cf. footnote 31 above).

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4. Marbled embrasures of the windows in the annular crypt of Abbot Fulrad’s basilica at St Denis, 775 (foto: UASD, O. Meyer).

5. Faux opus sectile decoration of the audience hall at the palace at Balis, first half of the 8th century, reconstruction (after Leisten, ‘For prince and country (side),’ fig. 10: cf. footnote 47 above).

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6. Dado panels, east closed chamber, Qusayr ‘Amra, before 743 (after Vibert-Guigue – Bisheh, Les peintures de Qusayr Amra, pl. 23a: cf. footnote 49 above).

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7. West wall of the audience hall, Qusayr ‘Amra, Jordan, before 743 (photo: courtesy of the Institute Français du Proche Orient, after VibertGuigue – Bisheh, Les peintures de Qusayr ‘Amra, pl. 118: cf. footnote 49 above).

8. Dado panel, north alse, S. Salvatore di Brescia, 760s (after Panazza, ‘Gli scavi,’ pl. G: cf. footnote 5 above).

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9. Painted wall in room 51, Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, c. 727 (after Schlumberger, ‘Les fouilles,’ pl. 39.4: cf. footnote 45 above). 10. Detail of the dado of the loggiato, S. Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 830 (after Marazzi et al., ‘San Vincenzo al Volturno,’ fig. 38: cf. footnote 28 above).

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the dado in the annular corridors of the crypt of the basilica at S. Vincenzo al Volturno, around 82079. This motif had also been employed to telling effect by Arab painters in the audience hall of the palace at Balis80. Again, the concertinaing fan-like stellar disc with its central radiating button, from the decoration framing the caliphal apse in the audience hall, although less complex in its design, is in the same tradition as the rotae which form such distinctive accents in the dado of the annular crypt of S. Vincenzo Maggiore81. A further derivative variant of this may be the fragmentary large eight-pointed star found on the site of the early Carolingian palace at Paderborn, in a context dating from the last quarter of the 8th century82. The palace at Paderborn was established in the immediate aftermath of Charlemagne’s annexation of Lombard Italy in 774, and its earliest painted decoration draws heavily on Italian practice. A final analogy between the painted decoration at Khirbat al-Mafjar and pictorial practice in the Italian sphere can be found in the perspective meander which must have constituted a striking framing element of the focal caliphal apse in the great audience hall83. The perspective meander was a critical component of the vocabulary deployed by painters working for painters in Italy, in particular in the old Lombard regions. At S. Salvatore di Brescia it is used as a horizontal cornice at the top of the walls of the north aisle84; at Miistair, it is the major articulating device in the principal apse, marking out the principal surfaces, framing the central window and serving as a prominent horizontal accent dividing the curtained dado from the narrative scenes above85; and at Montecorvino Rovella a broad meander

Khirbat al-Mafjar: ibid., p. 32, ps. XIII, 8, LXXV, 11, 13; S. Vincenzo al Volturno: Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, ‘San Vincenzo al Volturno and its workshops,’ figs. 3:8, 12, 21, 23, 27, 29pls. 3:10, 16, 24, 28. 80 Cf. Leisten, For prince and country (side), figs. 10 and 13. 81 Khirbat al-Mafjar: Grabar, ‘The paintings,’ pp. 322–323, pl. XIII, 5; S. Vincenzo al Volturno: Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, ‘San Vincenzo al Volturno and its workshops,’ figs. 3:13, 16, 35–37, pl. 3:19. 82 Cf. M. Preissler, Die karolingischen Malereifragmente aus Paderborn, Mainz 2003, pp. 57–58, 108–112, figs. 17, 123–124. 83 Cf. Hamilton, Khirbat al Mafjar, p. 320, pl. LXXV,7 and 12. 84 Cf. Panazza, Gli scavi, pp. 96–98, pls. G and H. Ibsen, Sistemi decorativi, Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration,’ p. 178, figs. 2, 4 and 9. 85 Cf. Göll, Exner and Hirsch, Müstair. Le pitture, pp. 187–198, 88k–102k, figs. 58, 67, 68; Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration,’ p. 178, fig. 10. 79

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band similarly runs across the apse at dado height86. At S. Vincenzo al Volturno, the meander is one of the signature motifs in the crypt of S. Vincenzo Maggiore: in its full axonometric complexity in the rotae 87, in other panels in straightforward crenelated projection with diagonal shading to impart perspectival recession88, and in simple chequered form in almost planar projection89. The axonometric meander formed part of the repertoire of artists in Roman antiquity; however, it was not normally employed by Roman artists as a structuring motif in the painted decoration of interiors. Its use as a focal framing motif in the great audience hall at Khirbat al-Mafjar provides a compelling antecedent for its widespread use, often as a marker of prominence and high sanctity, in 8th- and 9th-century Italy. Epilogue Strong cases have been made for the formative impact of artistic practice in the Umayyad caliphate on critical developments in the arts at the courts of Lombard Italy and subsequently on the visual landscape of artists working for Carolingian patrons in the 9th century90. Both the material and the forms of the gypsum stucco decoration introduced into major Lombard churches in the mid-8th century and picked up by the new Frankish masters of Italy in the years around 800, are best explained as the outcome of acquaintance with the contemporary Umayyad/early Abbasid tradition of architectural ornament in this medium, continuing a long antecedent Sassanian practice. Similarly, in compositional formulas and details of figural characterization, as well as in the tenor of dramatic representation of human emotion and action, the paintings at Qusayr Amra — their original appearance now being revealed progressively in all its subtle brilliance by the current

86 Cf Peduto and Mauro, Il S. Ambrogio di Montecorvino Rovella, Orabona, La chiesa di Sant’Ambrogio, fig. 1. 87 Cf Hodges and Mitchell, La basilica di Giosuè, figs. 4:39, 44–48; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, ‘San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops,’ figs. 3:30, 34–37, pls. 3:33–36. 88 Cf Hodges and Mitchell, La basilica di Giosuè, figs. 4:39, 43; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, ‘San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops,’ figs. 3:30, 33, pl. 3:32. 89 Cf. Hodges and Mitchell, La basilica di Giosuè, figs. 4:30, 33; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, ‘San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops,’ figs. 3:21, 25. 90 Cf. B. Leal, ‘The stuccoes of San Salvatore, Brescia, in their Mediterranean context,’ in Dalla corte regia al monastero di San Salvatore, pp. 221–245, at pp. 234–243; Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration,’ pp. 187–201.

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campaign of conservation — provide striking antecedents for new currents in mid-8th-century Lombard painting which would determine the course of artistic understanding and composition in the Carolingian north in the following century. The vogue for marbled effects both in wall-painting and in manuscript illumination at the Lombard courts in the 8th century may well be another instance of this recourse to contemporary developments in the Arab world by patrons and artists intent on creating compelling new visual apparatuses in a landscape, international as well as regional, of intensely competitive political and cultural rivalry91. This is not to say that Italian artists and their Frankish pupils consistently directly imitated and reproduced exempla from the Levant, although in some cases there does seem to be compelling evidence for a close acquaintance with Arab composition and motifs. In the case of polychrome marbling, it was the role which elaborate abstract compositions played in the decoration of principal spaces in elite residences in the Caliphate that impacted most strongly on the visual strategies of patrons and artists in Italy and Western Europe. Once the seed was planted, individual practitioners then could have searched for available examples of the idiom to use as patterns, preserved in the ruined Roman and late antique structures which thronged the towns and countryside. The precise paths by which these practices and patterns passed from the caliphate to Italy, in the course of the 8th century, are not known and probably can never be recovered. However, there seems little doubt that western artists and patrons did have more than a distant and blurred acquaintance with contemporary artistic developments in the south-eastern Mediterranean. Michael McCormick has brilliantly laid out the evidence for Mediterranean travel in the period92. Although recorded cases of direct relations between Islam and the central Mediterranean are few for the period, they are not completely lacking, and there is palpable evidence for trade93. A possible, even

91 Cf. J. Mitchell, ‘Karl der Grosse, Rom und das Vermächtnis der Langobarden,’ in 799 – Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn. Beiträge zum Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999, edd. C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff, Mainz 1999, pp. 95–108; J. Mitchell, ‘L’arte nell’Italia longobarda e nell’Europa carolingia,’ in II Futuro dei Longobardi. L’Italia e la costruzione dell’Europa di Carlo Magno. Saggi, a cura di C. Bertelli and G.P. Brogiolo, Milano 2000, pp. 173–187. 92 Cf. M. McCormick, The Origins of the European Economy, Cambridge 2001. 93 Cf. A. Walmsley, Economic developments and the nature of settlement in the towns and countryside of Syria-Palestine, ca. 565–800, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 61 (2007), pp.

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likely, conduit would have been a traveller of high birth and substance, like the Anglo-Saxon Willibald of Eichstätt, who for three years, 721–4, travelled extensively and freely in the Arab near east, visiting not only Jerusalem and the loca sancta but also Damascus three times before returning to Rome, then Lucca, Pavia, Brescia and Lake Garda in Lombard north Italy and finally to St. Boniface in Germany, via Constantinople, Syracuse, Naples and Monte Cassino. It is not at all unlikely that a noble ecclesiastic, on extended pilgrimage like Willibald, would have included in his entourage one or two artists and craftsmen, who by purposeful observation and association, even short-term apprenticeship, with caliphal workshops, could learn new techniques and new patterns, to be applied and realised on returning to the west94. The marbled dadoes at S. Vincenzo al Volturno are likely to have been one component of an ambitious visual vocabulary that had been developed in the orbit of the southern Lombard courts at Benevento and Salerno, as part of the expansive cultural policies prompted by Duke Arechis II (758– 87) in the later 8th century95. Many traces of this aulic visual culture, adapted for monastic use, are preserved in the fabric and surviving material culture of S. Vincenzo; one exemplary instance of this is the presence of overlapping parti-coloured tiles on the painted benches and dadoes at S. Vincenzo, an old Roman motif, which is found elsewhere in early medieval Italy only at Benevento, some forty years earlier, on Arechis II’s church of S. Sofia96. Another equally eloquent case is the large gilded copper inscription which Abbot Joshua set high on the façade of his new basilica of S. Vincenzo Maggiore, dedicated in 808. Many fragments of this survive, and both from the shape of the letters and from the manner of its cutting and fixing it is clear that it was directly modelled on an inscription like the one which ran round the interior of the chapel attached to Duke Arechis’ palace in 319–352, at p. 329. For Bede’s incense and pepper, see Cuthbert, Epistola de obitu Bedae, Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, ed. B. Colgrave and R. Mynors, 2nd revised ed., Oxford 1993, p. 585. 94 Cf. Hugeburc of Heidenheim, The Hodeporicon of St. Willibald, O. Holder-Egger (ed.), Vitae Willibaldi et Wynnebaldi auctore sanctimoniali Heidenheimensi, Hannover 1887 (MGH. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, 15, 1), pp. 80–117; C.H. Talbot, The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, new edition, London 1981, pp. 151–77; T.F.X. Noble and T. Head (ed.), Soldiers of Christ. Saints and Saints’ Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, London 1995, pp. 141–64. See McCormick, The Origins, pp. 129–134. 95 Cf. Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops, pp. 88-91. 96 Cf ibid., p. 89, pls. 3:21 and 55.

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Salerno97. One source on which this aulic culture drew for inspiration and example was the flourishing artistic practice of the Umayyad and early Abbasid caliphate. Paradoxically, the Saracen mercenaries who sacked the monastery so emphatically in the autumn of 881 were unwittingly and most likely uncaringly destroying the ornate fabric of an institution which owed one of the distinctive marks of its visual identity to high Arab example98.

Cf J. Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval inscriptions,’ pp. 84–87, 94–109; P. Peduto, ‘Un accesso alla storia di Salerno: stratigrafie e materiali dell’area palaziale longobarda: 1. La costituzione del documento archeologico e la sua interpretazione stratigrafica,’ in Rassegna storica salernitana, 10 (1988), pp. 9–28; A. Di Muro, La cultura artistica della Longobardia minor nell’VIII secolo e la decorazione pittorica e parietale della cappella palatina di Arechi II a Salerno, Napoli 1996, pp. 31, 50–53, fig. 35; 799 – Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn, cat VIII.55, pp. 573–574. 98 Cf. Chronicon Vultumense del monaco Giovanni, a cura di V. Federici, I, Roma 1925 (Fonti per la storia. Istituto Storico Italiano, 58), pp. 361–369 ; R. Hodges, ‘10‘h October 881: the sack of San Vincenzo al Volturno,’ in Ultra terminum vagari. Scritti in onore di Carl Nyander, a cura di B. Magnusson, S. Renzetti, P. Vian and S.J. Voicu, Roma 1997, pp. 129–141; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, ‘The sack of San Vincenzo al Volturno.’ 97

XII The Early Medieval Monastery as a Site of Commemoration and a Place of Oblivion

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onasteries in the early Middle Ages were hierarchical institutions, in which the practice of commemoration, in its various guises, was one of the principal means of constructing an enduring tradition of corporate identity. The most obvious manifestation of communal remembering was in the liturgical practice of memoria. This involved not only regular prayer and intercession for the redemption of the souls of the departed, but also daily recitation of the recorded names of deceased alumni and of absent friends of the monastery, both religious and lay.1 But commemoration took other forms, including many striking visual manifestations, such as brightly painted funerary oratories, prominent tombs, commemorative inscriptions and painted portraits of leading members of a community. In the words of Patrick Geary, “memoria was a key organizing principle, not only in medieval theology but in every aspect of medieval life”.2 The phenomenon is clearly exemplified at San Vincenzo al Volturno, where the architectural fabric and the material culture of the early medieval monastery is exceptionally well preserved and where fifteen years of excavation have uncovered a number of representative areas of the settlement.3 O. G. Oexle, “Memoria und Memorialüberlieferung im früheren Mittelalter”, in Frühmittelalterliche Studien, Vol. 10 (1976), pp. 70–95; O. G. Oexle, “Memoria und Memorialbild”, Karl Schmid and Joachim Wollasch (eds.), Memoria. Der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter, Munich 1984, pp. 384–440; J. Gerchow, “Societas et fraternitas. A report on a research-project based at the universities of Freiburg and Münster”, Nomina, Vol, 12 (1989), pp, 153–71, 2 Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium, Princeton, N.J, 1994, p. 18, 3 Richard Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1: The 1980–86 Excavations. Part I, London 1993; Richard Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 2: The 1980–86 Excavations. 1

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San Vincenzo al Volturno, located some 200 km. south-east of Rome, in the modern region of Molise, was one of the preeminent monastic institutions of early medieval Italy. It was founded in the first decade of the eighth century in territory recently added to the southern Langobard duchy of Benevento.4 The original settlement, on the west bank of the river Volturno, had been quite small but in the last years of the eighth and first decades of the ninth century, under the abbot Joshua (792–817) and his sucessors, Talaric (817–23) and Epyphanius (824–42), the whole monastery was systematically redesigned and rebuilt on: an incommensurably larger scale. By the 830s the complex had grown to the size of a small city with hundreds of buildings, serving all manner of different functions, on both sides of the river. This reformation centred round the resiting of the main abbey church, San Vincenzo Maggiore. Much of the area covered by the small early eighth-century settlement was transformed into quarters for distinguished guests. The original church of San Vincenzo, a relatively modest building some 21.5 metres long,5 was converted into a hall, a palatium, to serve the needs of lay visitors and a great new basilica was constructed, in its stead, some 120 metres to the south (Fig. l).6 This new structure, a three-aisled church, 63.5 m. long and nearly 29 m. wide, with 24 columns in its main arcades, formed the fulcrum around which the monastery was restructured. The new ranges were constructed over a period of some thirty or forty years, following an extended, more or less systematic, plan. Commemorative structures, graves, images, inscriptions recording names, and referential marks of various kinds were systematically incorported into the fabric of the new monastic buildings. These constitute a remarkable constellation of signs designed to call to mind the individuals, living, dead and sanctified, who formed the actual and the ideal community of the monastery.7 Part II, London 1995. The earlier literature is referred to in these publications. For a recent analytical account of the history and culture of the monastery in the light of recent excavations, see Richard Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno: A Dark-Age Pompeii, London, 1997. 4 C. Wickham, “Monastic lands and monastic patrons”, in Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 2 (see note 3), p. 138. 5 Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1 (see note 3), chapter 9. 6 Richard Hodges and John Mitchell, La basilica di Giosue a San Vincenzo al Volturno, Monteroduni, Abbazia di Montecassino 1995. 7 Some aspects of commemorative practices at San Vincenzo have been discused in J. Mitchell and R.Hodges, “Portraits, the cult of relics and the affirmation of hierarchy at an

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The most prominent mark of individual commemoration was a monumental dedicatory incription in large letters of gilded copper alloy, which abbot Joshua placed high up on the façade of his new basilica (Fig. 2).8 This definitely associated Joshua’s name with the foundation of the huge church: “QUAEQVE VIDES OSPES PENDENCIA CELSA VEL IMA/ VIR DOMINI IOSVE STRVXIT CVM FRATRIBVS VNA”: “Whatever lofty structures you see here, stranger, extending both low and high, were built by the servant of the Lord, Iosue, and his brother monks”.9 In Roman antiquity, gilded copper inscriptions had commonly been displayed on the most prestigious public buildings and monuments. But after the fourth century they ceased to be used. At San Vincenzo the adoption of this idiom is quite exceptional and was in conscious imitation of antique practice. It was designed to amaze visitors and to induce them to wonder at the great new building and its illustrious founder. This reference was picked up in the central chamber of the annular crypt of the basilica, where portraits of two abbots are painted in two deep, lowset niches in the western walls (Fig. 3). Each figure is shown in an attitude of prayer or intercession, flanked by palm trees.10 The two figures have rectangular haloes, which mark them as portraits of contemporaries, of living or recently deceased members of the community.11 They are probably to be early medieval monastery: San Vincenzo al Volturno”, Antiquity, Vol. 70, no. 267 (March, 1996), pp. 20–30. 8 Abbot Joshua’s gilded copper inscription and the earlier closely related inscription from Duke Arichis II’s palace chapel at Salerno are discussed by J. Mitchell “Literacy displayed: the use of inscriptions at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the early ninth century”, in R. McKitterick (ed.), The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, Cambridge 1990, pp. 186–225, at pp. 205–16; P. Delogu, “Patroni, donatori, committenti nell’Italia meridonale longobarda”, Committenti e produzione artistico-letteraria nell’alto medioevo occidentale: Atti del XXXIX settimana di studio del centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto 4–10 aprile 1991, Spoleto 1992, pp. 319–20; J. Mitchell, “The display of script and the uses of panting in Longobard Italy”, Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo: Atti del XLI settimana di studio del centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto 15–21 aprile 1993, Spoleto 1994, pp. 887–954, at pp. 916–19, where the earlier literature is cited. 9. V. Federici (ed.), Chronicon vulturnense del monaco Giovanni, Vol. 1, Rome 1925 (henceforth referred to as Chron. vult.), p. 221. 10. Hodges and Mitchell, La basilica di Giosue (see note 6), pp. 106–8, ills. 4:60–4. 11 On the phenomenon of the “square halo” and its significance, see: G.Ladner, “The socalled square nimbus”, Medieval Studies, Vol. 3 (1941), pp. 15–45; J.Osborne, “The portrait of Pope Leo IV in San Clemente, Rome: a re-examination of the so-called ‘square’ nimbus in medieval art”, Papers of the British School at Rome, VI. 47 (1979), pp. 58–65; J. Osborne, “The

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1. Plan of San Vincenzo Maggiore (Karen Francis).

2. Setting for the dedicatory inscription in gilded copper letters from San Vincenzo Maggiore (photo: Ben Taylor).

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identified with Joshua and Talaric, the abbot reponsible for beginning the work on the new church, and his successor, under whom the building was completed and decorated. The niches in which they are represented appear to have been designed to display relics, probably contained in two large and splendid Roman spirally-fluted marble vases, fragments of which were found nearby during excavation.12 The scheme of imagery on the vertical walls of this central chamber was dominated by standing figures of individual saints. On the east wall, flanking the main relic niche, were aristocratic saints in court dress; on the opposite wall, saints in clerical attire, holy bishops, priests and deacons, flanking the niches with the two abbots. Here Joshua and Talaric, the first of whom had not only begun the basilica, but was the man chiefly responsible for the great planned expansion of the monastery, were portrayed in unceasing prayer before some of the community’s most valued relics. They were aligned with members of the celestial clerical hierarchy who stood on the walls beside them and they faced a superior hierarchy of aulic saints on the opposite wall, flanking the relics of St. Vincent himself. Relics and images together made present the passions and ministries of saints who in their lives and deaths had proved perfect examples for the monks and their lay congregation to aspire to. The portraits of the two abbots exemplified the monks’ reverential custody of the relics in their possession. In this way the authority of the contemporary officers of the monastery was confirmed by association with sanctified members of the church hierarchy who enjoyed particular veneration at San Vincenzo. At the same time, these images of contemporary abbots who had contributed substantially to the success of the monastery must have been major visual expressions of a cult of prominent alumni. The purpose of this emphasis on hierarchical individuation was to commemorate and to put into the minds of visitors visible exemplars, a college of corporate worthies, who would inspire admiration and devotion, exemplify the ideals and aspirations of the community and compel acknowledgement of the success of the institution. Tombs, of course, are used as vehicles of commemoration in almost all societies. At San Vincenzo, as one might expect in a hierarchical community, they are ranked spatially and differ in form and elaboration. Abbot Joshua, who died in 817, according to the twelfth-century Chronicle of the painting of the anastasis in the lower church of San Clemente, Rome: a re-examination of the evidence for the location of the tomb of St. Cyril”, Byzantion, Vol. 51 (1981), pp. 269–72. 12 Hodges and Mitchell, La basilica di Giosue (see note 6), p. 108, ill. 4:66; Mitchell and Hodges, “Portraits” (see note 7), pp. 24–5, fig. 7.

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monastery, was buried on the right-hand side of his new basilica (that is the left-hand side, looking up towards the altar), just in front of the façade.13 His robbed tomb was found in 1996, immediately outside and to the south of the main door of the church — we know from the Chronicle that his remains, which had begun to work miracles, were translated when the old monastery was abandoned around 1100.14 In an analogous position immediately to the north of the main door of the basilica is the tomb of Joshua‘s immediate successor, Talaricus. This is a beautifully constructed block-built tomb, painted with large crosses surrounding the occupant and an inscription: EGO TALARICVS CREDO S(an)C(t)AM RESURRECTIONE(m).15 Thus the graves of the two founders of the church were set in the most prominent positions on the façade, in axial alignment with the portrait images of these same two abbots in the relic-niches in the annular crypt, some 60 metres to the west. Above ground these two graves were probably identified by prominent carved inscriptions. No ninth-century visitor would have been left in doubt as to the role these two men had played in the construction of the great church. Other ninth-century abbots were buried in simpler graves against the outside wall of the south aisle of the basilica.16 A small ninth-century structure containing a robbed tomb with headniche, built against the north wall of the atrium of the church, has the remains of elaborately painted walls, with elaborately marbled dadoes.17 This has all the marks of a grandiose individual mausoleum or funerary oratory, perhaps designed for another of the abbots. Funerary chapels were rare and extremely prestigious in this period.17 Not only did they serve to commemorate the noble dead in monumental form; just as importantly they provided settings for regular mortuary masses in which the deceased individual was remembered and in which the community prayed for the salvation of the departed soul. Chron. vult. I, p. 287. At that time they were relocated to a large stone sarcophagus in the atrium in front of the new early twelfth-century abbey-church, on the other side of the river Volturno. 15 The letters of the inscription are quite well preserved. Only the last three letters of the third word are still legible. The reading CREDO has been proposed by Dottssa. Flavia de Rubeis. 16 Hodges and Mitchell, La basilica di Giosue (see note 6), p. 131, ill. 5:1. 17 J. Mitchell, “The crypt reappraised”, Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1 (see note 3), 111–4. 13 14

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Extraordinary funerary provision was also made for the monks at San Vincenzo. Rather than being buried in an ordinary open cemetery, behind the apse of the church, they were interred in stacked block-built sarcophagi beneath the pavement of the porticoes of the atrium, a large area, 29 x 29 metres, which lies immediately in front of the basilica. Excavation in 1996 suggested that the inside walls of this atrium were grandly articulated with pilasters and that they may have enclosed a monumental staircase which climbed some five metres from the levels in front of the complex up to the front of the church. Visitors who walked up this splendid staircase would have had to cross the cemetery in the portico and take notice of the monks’ tombs and their inscribed markers on their way to the main door of the basilica. Both the dead and the living at San Vincenzo were abundantly commemorated in public inscriptions. Indeed there was something of a vogue for the display of script at the monastery.18 The deceased monks were commemorated on tombstones carrying elaborately carved epitaphs and occasionally symbolic imagery. Some one-hundred and fifty of these have been found so far, most of them fragments. The great majority date from the ninth century and are executed in a series of interrelated and distinctive, carefully formed scripts. This is an exceptionally large number of inscribed markers to have survived from a early medieval monastery, equalled only at nearby Monte Cassino. Among the living, it was not only the abbots whose names were recorded in the fabric of the monastery. The individual monks also publicly registered their names, in rather an extraordinary fashion, on floor-tiles and rooftiles throughout the complex (Fig. 4).19 Some 38% of the floor-tiles and a roughly equivalent percentage of the tiles from the roofs of the buildings, bear inscriptions. These consist of large letters drawn free-hand into the soft clay before firing, recording the contracted names of over one hundred individuals. A number of factors suggest that it was the monks who were the tilers.20 Precisely why the monks wished to display their names in so evident

Mitchell, “Literacy displayed” (see note 8); Mitchell, “The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy” (see note 8), pp. 904–24. 19 Mitchell, “Literacy displayed” (see note 8), pp. 199–205; Mitchell, “The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy” (see note 8), pp. 909–16. 20 These include: the great number of different names on the tiles, the frequent occurrence of a few names and the infrequent incidence of the great majority of them, the distribu18

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3. Portrait of an abbot (?Joshua 792–817) in the central chamber of the crypt of San Vincenzo Maggiore (photo: Sarah Cocke).

4. Floor-tile inscribed with the contracted name Sa (photo: author).

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5. Antique carnelian gem-stone inscribed early in the ninth century with the contracted name MA (Jon Vickery).

6. Plans and elevations of the guest church (Sheila Gibson).

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7. Interior of funerary oratory looking eastwards towards the tomb (photo: James Barclay-Brown).

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8. Portrait of abbot Epyphanius (824–42) in the funerary oratory at San Vincenzo al Volturno (photo: James Barclay-Brown).

9. Portrait of an unidentified deacon in a niche in the northern arm of the funerary oratory (photo: James Barclay-Brown).

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and public a fashion is not easy to fathom. But it seems likely that part of the reason was a desire to record their participation in the rebuilding of the monastery, to leave their own marks in a way that was at once informal and yet could not fail to attract the attention of anyone entering a room or looking down over the roofs of the complex. The letters on floor-tiles can be as tall as 48 cm. and simply cry out from beneath one’s feet. The same phenomenon is evident in the private sphere of the community. An early ninth-century hand inscribed the joined letters MA, within an oval frame, on the display-face of a tiny antique carnelian gem-stone, which was found in a ninth-century context near the front of the monks’ cemetery (Fig. 5).21 The monogramme, like those on the tiles, must be the contracted form of a name, perhaps Marci or Mauricii. Here the name of an individual is recorded on an item of personal jewellery, possibly one designed to be worn by a friend, another monk or a lay acquaintance of the community. This is private commemoration, designed to make the absent or departed person present in the mind of the owner. A dense constellation of commemorative monuments and imagery is deployed in and near a little church at the northern end of the site, which was rebuilt in the 830s to serve the needs of distinguished lay guests (Fig. 6). Clusters of high-status graves were situated at two points: in the narthex and atrium in front of the church22 and about an arcosolium at the mid-point of a passage running beneath the guests’s palatium.23 These must have been the graves of benefactors of the monastery and in both cases they are grouped about a principal extravagantly decorated tomb. However, the most remarkable concentration of commemorative elements is to be found in a semi-subterranean funerary oratory constructed beneath the raised sanctuary of the guest church. Within this oratory, on the central axis, beneath an arch facing the little apse, are the remains of a splendid painted tomb (Fig. 7). This was the resting place of the person for whom this crypt was made — presumably a member of a prominent local

tion of the signatures over the floors, and the various levels of skill and cultivation evident in the inscriptions. 21 Mitchell, “The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy” (see note 8), p. 919, fig. 80. 22 Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1 (see note 3), pp. 59–63, figs. 6:18–20, 22–24. 23 Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1 (see note 3), pp. 147–50, figs. 9:22, 27–30, pls. 9:6–8.

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family which supported the monastery. The walls and vaults of the oratory are painted with an extremely elaborate scheme of painted imagery.24 One level of commemoration here is apparent in the emphasis laid on saints who were of particular interest to the monks of San Vincenzo. In the northern arm of the oratory there is a marked emphasis on images of SS. Laurence and Stephen and on scenes of their martyrdoms. These were saints who figure prominently in the prehistory of the monastery. It was they, together with St. Vincent, who were believed to have appeared to the Emperor Constantine in a dream, when he was in the area, and bade him erect a templum on the site of the future monastery.25 These saints may have been present in a more immediate way, in relics, deposited probably in an urn, which stood in a deep niche in the wall of this north arm of the chapel (Fig. 9).26 Other aspects of commemoration are embodied in a sequence of portraits painted on the walls of the oratory.27 These were images of contemporary individuals, either still alive or recently deceased. The abbot of the time, Epyphanius, is portrayed to one side of the tomb, on his knees before the crucified Christ (Figs. 7 and 8). He was represented for his office and standing in the contemporary hierarchy of the community. A deacon, on the other side of the tomb, kneels in proskynesis, to grasp the foot of an enthroned and imperially robed Virgin Mary (Fig. 7). This is Maria Regina, the Queen of Heaven, the principal intercessor before God for departed mortals. The deacon must have had a special relationship with the deceased during life. A second deacon stands frontally, arms raised orant-fashion in prayer, within the deep niche in the northern arm of the chapel (Fig. 9). Like the abbot and the first deacon, this man is shown with a square halo, the mark of a living or recently deceased individual of standing. The niche in which this deacon stands, like the ones in the annular crypt of the basilica, may have been designed to hold a reliquary, venerated by the imâge of the praying contemporary. Here, it would seem, it was the saints in the relics who were commemorated and the role of the deacon was to embody the

24 J.Mitchell, “The crypt reappraised” (see note 18), 75–114, where the principal earlier literature is cited. Reprinted as Chapter VIII in this volume. 25 Chron. vult. I. pp. 147–8. See Mitchell, “The crypt reappraised” (see note 18), pp. 93–7. 26 Mitchell and Hodges, “Portraits” (see note 7), p. 27. 27 Mitchell, “The crypt reappraised” (see note 18), pp. 76–80, 97, 104–9; figs. 7:1, 7, 11–13, 21, 22, 28, 39, 40; pls. 7:1–3.

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veneration which the community paid to these relics through prayer and liturgy. The fourth portrait, in secular dress, an ankle-length red garment, is of the dead person, for whom the oratory was made. This tiny figure stands before Christ, repesented in the guise of an archangel, directly opposite the tomb, in the little apse of the oratory. This image makes palpable the dead person’s salvation and passage into Paradise. The little figure of the deceased is also the object of the mechanism of memoria, ritual liturgical intercessory commemoration. This process is articulated in a fragmentary scene at the entrance of the oratory.28 Here, by the steps down, the memoria-book, the Liber Vitae, of the monastery, in which the name of the deceased was recorded, is shown being passed up by a terrestial figure into the hand of God. It is shown in the process of being assimilated with the heavenly Book of Life referred to in the Book of Revelation, in which are recorded the names of the dead, to be judged according to their works (Rev. 20, 12). At the same time, the tiny image in the apse would have called to mind the munificence of the dead person. It would have announced to visitors to the guest-church the sumptuous manner in which other valued frends of the monastery, in the future, might expect to be commemorated and provided for. However, parallel with the construction of these paths of remembrance ran manifold courses to oblivion. The difference between the two was determined by various factors: by the institutional affiliation and the status of the individual, by the enduring effectiveness or the obsolescence of particular structures and memorials, by intentional or random acts of men or God. While the monks and their well-to-do lay benefactors were commemorated in various ways in the material fabric of the monastery, it would appear that, for the most part, their lay servants, the familia of the monastery, received scant visible memorial. In the large 9th-century lay cemetery on the hill-side above the monastery, there is some evidence of ranked burial: at one point two imposing arcosolia enclosing prominent graves were cut into the face of a low cliff. About one third of the graves excavated had plastered interior walls, and a few may have had some kind of painted interior decoration. But the majority of the graves in this cemetery appear to have been undifferentiated and there is no evidence that any of them had carved grave-markers bearing

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Mitchell, “The crypt reappraised” (see note 18), pp. 103–4, figs. 7:1–3.

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inscriptions which recorded the names of the men and women who provided for the everyday needs of the monks. It would seem that, to a large degree, commemoration was dependent on status and institutional affiliation; and the social and ideological gulf between the monks and their lay servants was considerable. On the other hand, despite this preoccupation with memoria, with commemoration, at many different levels, at San Vincenzo, it is remarkable how ready the monks were to consign the palpable and visible memorials of their past history to oblivion. In the late eighth and early ninth centuries, in two phases, the first abbey-church was converted into a palatium for distinguished guests. The old building was torn down and its painted altar smashed. No consideration whatsoever seems to have been paid to the venerable status of the building or to its associations with the founders of San Vincenzo in the earliest years of the seventh century. Three hundred years later, around 1100, the community left the old site, hallowed by history and by the martyrdom of many of the monks there at the hands of an Arab raiding party, which had sacked San Vincenzo in 881, and had forced the community into exile in Capua for a generation. The old buildings were dismantled and the material of their fabric was transported piecemeal across the river, to be incorporated into a new nucleated monastery founded by the abbots Gerard and Benedict. It was not only the residental quarters of the monks and the eight churches within the confines of the old monastery which were systematically torn down and cannibalized. What remained of the monks’ cemeteries, which had been profaned and broken up by the Saracen raiders during their sack of the monastery, appears to have been looted for building stone and ornamental veneer at this time. The broken carved epitaphs of the monks, together with the marble setting for abbot Joshua’s great gilded copper inscription from the façade of his basilica, were gathered and transported across the river, to be incorporated into opus sectile stone pavements in the new Romanesque abbey-church. Intentional destruction of sensitive instruments of commemoration may have been part of the strategy of the Saracen raiding party, in the hire of Athanasius, the bishop and duke of Naples, which systematically sacked and burnt the monastery in October 881. The Chronicle of San Vincenzo laments the sacrilege committed by the Saracen leader, Saugdan, who made off with the treasure of the monastery, mockingly drank wine from the holy chalices, had himself censed with golden thuribles taken from the basilica

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and threw the food-stores into the river.29 It is remarkable that only one complete funerary inscription has been found during the excavation of the monastery. The remainder are all broken fragments, and many of them have been recovered from the burning layer which is the clear material witness to the Saracen attack in many parts of the complex. In nearly all cases, it would appear that these had been broken up before they were burnt. It would seem that the raiders of 881 may have purposefully targeted the monks’ cemetery and may have systematically torn up and smashed the carved epitaphs recording their names and lives. There is abundant evidence that script and writing were particularly prized and valued by the monks at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the ninth century.30 There is a distinct possibility that the broken and scorched tomb-stones are witnesses to a particularly cruel damnatio memoriae, an attempt to break the spirit of the monks by destroying something which lay close to the heart of their system of values. However, the Saracens aside, how can one account for the apparent discrepancy between an overwhelming concern for remembering and commemorating on the one hand and, on the other, what, to a modern sensibility, appears as a brutal, even sacrilegious, disregard for the material memorials of the past? It must be that although memoria was commonly manifested in material form, in monuments, painted images and inscriptions, it did not, to any perceptible degree, evoke a sense of nostalgia for the past and its material relics in the minds of contemporaries. Venerable buildings associated with the founders and the fabled early abbots of San Vincenzo do not seem to have been valued or preserved as intrinsically important monuments. What was important was purposeful, creative remembering and the re-creation of the past in ways that were effective and which promoted the interests and aspirations of the contemporary community. In literary terms, evidenced in the early twelfth-century Chronicle of San Vincenzo, this involved the preservation of authentic texts and documents and the retelling of old stories which could add lustre to the fame of the monastery and could help assure its title to its landed possessions. But in monumental terms it meant the opposite, the demolition of the old, small and sparsely adorned churches, and their replacement by new, larger, more

Chron. vult. I, p. 365. Mitchell, “Literacy displayed” (see note 8); Mitchell, “The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy” (see note 8), pp. 904–24. 29. 30

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grandiose and more splendidly decorated ranges of buildings, often built in different locations in accordance with extensive new overarching masterplans. It meant tearing apart the mausolea and the tombs of some particularly revered old abbots, translating their bodies, and reburying them in prominent new monuments, which effectively articulated newly established focuses or a new site.31 It meant representing the tutelary saints of the monastery and the prominent individuals associated with its rise in new images, which would speak clearly and powerfully to the contemporary world; which would impress on visitors a sense that sanctity and virtue are to be associated with institutional ranking, both past and present, and consequently would help to legitimize the authority of the current hierarchy at the monastery. The early medieval monastery hung between commemorative practices which were renewed or revised by each generation, and a disegard for the historical fabric which tended to cast the palpable relics of the past into oblivion.

31

Federici (ed.), Chronicon vulturnense, I (see note 21), p. 287.

XIII Cult, Relics and Privileged Burial at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the Age of Charlemagne: The discovery of the Tomb of Abbot Talaricus (817–3 October 823) (with Lucy Watson, Flavia De Rubeis, Richard Hodges and Ian Wood)

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n the age of Charlemagne relics of saints increasingly came to act as major repositories of sanctity, to serve as focuses of devotion, and to provide occasion for ambitious building projects, in ecclesiastical institutions of all kinds (Geary 1990). This is nowhere so apparent as in the numerous monasteries which in this period were reformed and rebuilt often on a new expanded scale throughout western Europe (De Jong 1995). In many cases the saints associated with the beginnings and the early histories of these foundations enjoyed open veneration and were closely identified with the very identity of the institutions in question. Familiar examples include St. Dionysius at St. Denis, St. Richarius at Centula, St. Gertrude at Nivelles, and St. Benedict at Monte Cassino. Relics of eponymous patrons were often kept in the principal churches of monastic settlements and were the objects of particular veneration. However, in other cases, the saints which gave their names to such institutions appear to have had a less tangible presence in the life of the community. This is the case with St. Vincent, at the early eighth-century foundation bearing his name situated at the source of the River Volturno, on the northern confines of the southern Langobard duchy of Benevento. Although this was one of the pre-eminent monastic communities of early medieval Italy, the circumstances which gave rise to its association with St. Vincent of Saragossa, who suffered martyrdom at Valencia in the first years of the fourth century, are unknown. There is precious little documentary

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evidence to suggest that he enjoyed a prominently featured cult at the monastery in the period of its greatest success, between the late eighth and the middle of the ninth century. In the account of the foundation of the monastery composed by Ambrosius Autpertus, monk and abbot of San Vincenzo, in the second half of the eighth century, there is no reference to any tradition that the saint played a particularly prominent part in the early history of San Vincenzo (Federici I, 1925, pp. 101–23). Similarly the compositor of the Chronicle of San Vincenzo, the Chronicon Vulturnense, writing in the first half of the twelfth century, keeps a strange silence on the subject of relics and saints that enjoyed particular cults in the community; although, in the manuscript of the Chronicle, the saint is repeatedly portrayed in image, as the recipient of charters and diplomas issued in favour of the community (Federici 1925– 38, passim; De Benedittis 1995, plates at end of volume). However, for the twelfth-century community, St. Vincent did play a role in the prehistory of the monastery. The chronicler recounts a legend that the Emperor Constantine, while on route from Rome to Constantinople, stopped and rested by the banks of the Volturno. While he slept, three heavenly individuals appeared to him and introduced themselves as the deacon-martyrs Stephen, Laurence and Vincent (Federici I, 1925, pp. 147–8). They commanded the emperor to erect a “templum” at a place close to the’source of the river. This was, of course, the first oratory on the site of the future monastery, the ‘Oratorium martyris Christi Vincencii nomine dicatum’, to which the three founders of the monastery were directed by their spiritual director, Thomas of Maurienne, abbot of Farfa (Federici I, 1925, p. 111). In the Chronicon Vulturnense, St. Vincent is identified only as a priest, as a levita and as the archdeacon of Saragossa ‘apud Cesaraugustam simili archidiaconatus pollens honore’ (Federici 1925 I, p. 148). This is St. Vincent of Saragossa, deacon and proto-martyr of Spain. The traditional original resting place of St. Vincent was Valencia; but he was widely venerated in Spain, Italy, Gaul, Dalmatia and Africa in Late Antiquity. In Italy, his cult was celebrated in Rome and Ravenna, and relics are recorded at Ravenna in 550, when Bishop Maximian acquired them, together with those of nineteen other saints, for his new foundation of S. Stefano (Agnellus 1878, pp. 327–8; Mackie 1990, pp. 54–5). Although the Chronicle makes no mention of the presence of relics of St. Vincent at the monastery, there is an early tradition that the community was in the possession of such relics in the ninth century. Sigebert of Gembloux,

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1. Plan of the excavated areas of the early medieval monastic settlement of San Vincenzo al Voltumo (Karen Francis).

writing in the 1050s, records the acquisition of relics of St. Vincent by Dietrich I, bishop of Metz, when he was in Italy in 970, with his cousin, the Emperor, Otto I (Pertz 1841, p. 475. See Appendix 1). Agents of Dietrich obtained the relics, said to have originated in Spain, from a monastery at Cortona. This they did with the compliance of the bishop of Arezzo, who desired to win the favour of the German emperor. Subsequently, when he was travelling in the south, in the territory of Capua, bishop Dietrich actually visited the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, which he found still in a state of devastation, as the result of its destraction by a Saracen raiding party in 881. The few old monks in residence told the bishop that the body of St. Vincent had been brought to the monastery by two monks, from Spain, where it had remained until the Saracen sack, when it was taken to Cortona. There is corroborating evidence for this story from a ninth-century source. Writing at some time between 858 and 896, Aimoin, a monk of St.-Germain-des-Prés in Paris, which was then under the patronage of St. Vincent, recorded that his monastery tried to obtain the body of the saint from Valencia, the place of his martyrdom. On route to Spain in 858, while

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at d’Uzès in Languedoc, the monks learnt from a bishop Walefrid that St. Vincent’s body had been removed from Valencia to Benevento. However, Aimoin believed that this tradition was false (Aimoin, De translatione Ss. martyrium Georgii monachi, Aurelii et Nathaliae, I, 3:Acta Sanctorum Julii 1868, p. 460: ‘compierunt ... corpus memorati almi Vincentii matyris a supra dicta urbe Valentia Beneventum esse transmissum, quod quidem aliter erat‘). He seems to have accepted the claim made by the monks of Castres in Aquitaine, that they possessed the bodily remains of the saint (Aimoin, Historia translationis S. Vincentii: Acta Sanctorum Januarii 1863, pp. 13–18). Certainly it would appear that by the time of the reestablishment of the monastery on a new site on the east bank of the river Volturno, under abbots Gerard and Benedict in the years around 1100, any relics that the community had once possessed had been lost. It is recorded in the Chronicle that Pope Paschal II deposited relics of St. Vincent, together with those of fifty other saints, when he consecrated the new basilica in 1115. The words used by the chronicler imply that these were newly imported remains rather than ones already owned by the monastery: ‘Venerande memorie dominus papa Paschalis secundus hanc ecclesiam consecravit ad honorem summmi Dei et vocabulo eius preciosi martyris Vincencii, in qua honorifice suis manibus ipsius beatissimi Vincencii martyris et alioram sanctorum fere quinquaginta sacras reliquias collocavit’ (Federici I, 1925, p. 20). Excavation at San Vincenzo al Volturno over the past sixteen years has provided some measure of support for the tradition of the presence of relics of St. Vincent at the monastery, as recorded by Sigibert of Gembloux and Aimon of St.-Germain (Hodges 1993; Hodges 1995; Hodges and Mitchell 1995; Hodges 1997). In the last years of the eighth century and in the first decades of the ninth, under the abbot Joshua (792–817) and his successors, Talaricus (817–23) and Epyphanius (824–42), the small original settlement was systematically redesigned and rebuilt on an incommensurably larger scale. By the 830s the monastery covered more than six hectares and consisted of hundreds of buildings, including eight churches on both banks of the river (Fig. 1). This reformation centered round the re-siting of the main abbey church, San Vincenzo Maggiore. The original abbey church of San Vincenzo, a relatively modest building some 21.5 m. long, was relocated and replaced by a splendid new basilica some 120 m. to the south. This new structure was a three-aisled church, 63.5 m. long and nearly 29 m. wide, preceded by a large atrium,

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29 X 27 m., the porticoes of which seem to have served as the principal cemetery for the monks in the ninth century (Figs. 2 and 3). The church had three apses, 24 columns in its main arcades, a fine marble pavement and brilliantly painted walls. The great building, completed around 820, was the fulchrum around which the whole monastery was reformed. The occasion for this major reconstruction of the monastery, a reformation which amounted to little less than a refoundation, is not known; but it is very possible that the rebuilding was associated in some way with the arrival of important relics, and that it was at this time that Sigibert’s two monks obtained the bones of St. Vincent from Spain and brought them to the source of the Volturno. A major acquisition of relics of this kind could go some way to account for the exceptional size of abbot Joshua’s new basilica and to the emphasis given to the western, sanctuary-end of the new abbey church. A large ringcrypt was constructed in the central apse, supporting a raised sanctuary, in apparent imitation of the crypt of St. Peter in Rome; but with a prominent central transverse chamber for relics, resulting in an overall cruciform configuration (Fig. 2). The corridors of this crypt were painted with an extraordinarily rich and varied scheme of decoration, with figural scenes on the vaults, standing saints in the embrasures of the windows and below a dazzling dado painted in imitation of perspectival panels in opus sectile (Fig. 4). These dadoes confronted a contemporary visitor with an array of colour and pattern, large ornate rotae and illusionistic rectangular panels, which in sophistication and exuberance is unparalleled in surviving schemes of wall-painting from early medieval Europe. The fragmentary remains of the pavement of the crypt — sections of red and green porphyry, exotic africano and white Proconnesan streaked with grey show that the floor must have been as brilliantly polychromatic as the walls. The crypt forms the climax of a carefully orchestrated sequence of spaces, in which architecture, building materials and decorative elements were deployed in sequential order to transport the visitor from the entrance of the monastery along routes of increasing elabortion to the culmination of cult and sanctity in the central relic-chamber (Hodges and Mitchell 1995, chapter 4). The main relic-deposit in this chamber was in a tile-lined box set directly beneath the sill of the fenestella confessionis (Figs. 5 and 6). This window, located in a deep rectangular niche in the middle of the east wall of the crypt, formed a means of direct access to the relics and a view into the crypt from the western end of the nave of the church. On excavation, the relic-box still contained numerous fragments of glass lamps and the delicate copper

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chain by which these lamps were once suspended in the little window above. Nothing was found which might throw light on the identity of the relics in this deposit. However, its status and the high honour accorded to its original contents are not in doubt. The large niche which embraces the fenestella constitutes the principal focus of the relic-chamber. Its rear wall would appear to have been differentiated from the other walls of the room by being revetted in real marble, now gone. (Fig. 6). The window itself is flanked by two figures painted in facing profile, turning in towards the opening, with hands raised towards the window or perhaps to some painted image just above it. Painted frontal images of standing saints stood round the walls of the chamber; high-ranking aristocratic figures in court attire on the east wall flanking the principal relic-niche and on the opposite wall a secondary order of sainted bishops and deacons. In two deep niches in the subordinate western wall are painted the large half-figures of two abbots, their hands extended in attitudes of prayer, with “square haloes” framing their heads, to show that these are portaits of prominent contemporary office-holders (Fig. 5). In all likelihood these are the two contemporary abbots who were responsible for the construction of the crypt and the great basilica above it. The older, grey-haired individual in the southern niche must be Joshua, the Frank responsible for starting work on the new church and for creating the new monastic city at San Vincenzo (Fig. 7); and the younger man in the northern niche must be his successor, Talaricus, under whom the work on the crypt was completed (Fig. 8). It is likely that these two niches were designed to hold two large white spirally-fluted Roman vases, reused as reliquaries. The broken remains of these two vases were found nearby during excavation (Fig. 9) (Hodges and Mitchell 1995, pp. 106–8, ills. 4:4, 60–4, 66; Mitchell and Hodges 1996, pp. 23–5, figs. 3–5, 7). The sanctity and special character of this chamber would have been recognized by any visitor from the decoration of its lower walls. Here, instead of a painted simulation of polychrome marble revetment, real silken curtains were hung. In the early Middle Ages curtains were indicators of the highest social status, and outranked ornamentation in coloured marbles. This relationship is clearly visible in similar contexts at other sites in Italy; for instance, in the north, in the upper room in the great tower at Torba, on the river Olona, under Castelseprio (Bertelli 1988, pp. 33–4, ills. 1– 4, 7); and, in the south, in the church of S.Ambrogio near Montecorvino Rovella, to the east of Salerno (Peduto and Mauro 1990, p. 23, figs. 4, 12, 13; Orabona 1995/6).

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2. Plan of San Vincenzo Maggiore (Karen Francis and Lucy Watson).

3. Reconstruction of San Vincenzo Maggiore (Sheila Gibson).

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4. San Vincenzo Maggiore, detail of the dado in the annular crypt (John Mitchell).

5. San Vincenzo Maggiore, central relic-chamber of the crypt, looking westwards (John Mitchell).

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6. San Vincenzo Maggiore, principal niche in the east wall of the relic-chamber of the crypt, with the fenestella confessionis (John Mitchell).

7. San Vincenzo Maggiore, crypt, relic-niche with image of abbot Joshua (John Mitchell).

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8. San Vincenzo Maggiore, crypt, relic-niche with image of abot Talaricus (John Mitchell).

9. Fragments of a Roman spirally-fluted marble vase (James Barclay-Brown).

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10. Plan of the tomb of Abbot Talaricus, showing construction and floor-tiles (Lucy Watson).

11. West wall of the tomb of Abbot Talaricus (Lucy Watson).

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Here in the central chamber, Joshua and Talaricus, the abbots who directed the great project of reconstruction in the first quarter of the ninth century, were commemorated in portraits set in close proximity to the principal relics in the possession of the community. This close and visually dramatic association both with the saints painted on the walls and with the relics, preserved in the box beneath the fenestella and in the two marble reliquary vases, must have been designed to promote the renown of the two building abbots and to throw lustre on the contemporary hierarchy of the monastery. Further light was thrown on this constellation of architecture, imagery, ornament and relics by excavations in 1996 in the area of the atrium immediately in front of the façade of the basilica (Hodges, Mitchell and Watson 1997) (Fig. 2). The initial results show that this area in front of the church was given a complex architectural form. Our working hypothesis, in advance of full excavation, is that the atrium was entered at two levels. Those entering from the raised eastwork which formed the eastern facade of the abbey-church complex, passed through covered porticoes to the principal door into the basilica. Numerous tombs were buried in these porticoes. It would appear that the atrium was also entered from the sides at ground level, and that certain categories of visitor may have passed into a central open court (beneath the elevated porticoes) before climbing up a flight of steps to the main door in the façade of the basilica. Only full-scale excavation will determine whether this interpretation is correct or not. The most remarkable discovery made in this trial excavation was the tomb of Abbot Talaricus (817– 3 October 823). In our earlier interpretation, we had proposed that work on the great basilica was completed under Talaricus, while his successor, Abbot Epyphanius (824–42), was responsible for the ambitious atrium and eastwork (Hodges and Mitchell 1995, chapter 2). This hypothesis would now seem to be confirmed by these latest discoveries. Talaricus’ tomb is a carefully constructed block-built structure set against the front wall of the church, immediately to the north of the main door; internally ca. 2.04 m. long, 0.66 m. wide and 0.64 m. deep (Figs. 2 and 10). The head and foot of the tomb are formed of massive squared blocks of local limestone, with gently concave depressions on their inner faces, to form shallow niches, and single large slabs closed the two sides. The cavity was covered by one massive limestone block, carefully cut and rebated to fit over the side walls. This had been partially lifted and fractured into five pieces at an early date. The floor of the tomb is made of five large terracotta

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floor-tiles. Two of these were inscribed before firing with signatures, IE and MA, in the typical San Vincenzo manner, and a third is marked with a peculiar branching device (Mitchell 1990, pp. 199–205; Mitchell 1994, pp. 909–16). The central three tiles are pierced with holes in regular sequence, for drainage. Beneath this floor is a cavity about 0.4 m. deep. The tomb is assymetrical in construction. The slab which should form the eastern side of the tomb at first glance seems to be missing. Unlike the other sides this side is not plastered and it is set back from the niches, to form the western side of a subsequent block-built tomb to the east. However, the setting of the basal tiles, the finished edges of the plaster on the head- and foot-walls, and the shape of the cover-slab make it clear that the tomb was originally constructed in this way. Whether this was done with the intention of reopening the tomb from this side to insert further corpses, or for other reasons, remains unclear. Other tombs, including one with a prominent cappuccino superstructure, were built to the east and north of Talaricus’s grave. Only further excavation will clarify the sequence of these and their relationship to the tomb of the abbot. The tomb of Talaricus contained the remains of six individuals. One fully articulated and a second partially articulated skeleton overlay a jumbled collection of bones at the foot of the grave, partially destroyed by rodents. A further two articulated lower legs were found within this pile of bones, which contained the remains of four more individuals, earlier occupants of the tomb, and presumably among them the bones of Talaricus himself. Each skeleton had been swept to the foot of the grave as a new corpse was inserted. Preliminary skeletal analysis suggests that, with the exception of one skeleton which shows mild signs of arthritis, the skeletons are of young people, showing almost no signs of bone deterioration indicative of advanced age. Three died in their late teens, judging from the presence of unfused epiphyses on many long bones as well as unerrupted third molars. The interior walls of the tomb were plastered and painted (Fig. 11). The imagery was sparse but imposing and effective: large crosses on the concave surfaces at the head and foot and on the long west wall. These were expertly and carefully executed, about guide-lines which had been incised into the wet plaster. The arms of the crosses have huge bar-terminals, flat on their outer sides, but on their inner surfaces bulging out in graceful curves — this is an elgant variation on a wedge-bar. Each of the arms of the crosses is particoloured lengthwise, red and pink. Crosses of this kind, parti-coloured and with the same long curvilinear wedge-bars, were widely used in the Italian

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peninsula in the later eighth and ninth centuries. They are commonly found painted on the sides of tombs, in just this fashion, in the old Langobard northern kingdom, in Milan (De Capiotani d’Arzago 1952, pp. 135–8, pi. XI, figs. 43–9; Fiorio Tedone 1986, pp. 411–19, figs. 13–15, 19–29), Monza (Cassanelli 1990), Verona (Fiorio Tedone 1985, pp. 268–80, figs. 14, 19; Fiorio Tedone 1986, pp. 420–1, fig. 33), Leggiuno (FiorioTedone 1986, pp. 419), Mantua (FiorioTedone 1986, p. 420), and Pavia (recently discovered tombs in San Felice); and also in the south, for instance at Troia (Mazzei 1984, p. 361; D’Angela 1991, pp. 279–85), and in a splendid painted tomb in the great suburban church of S. Leucio outside Canosa di Puglia. Crosses of this shape were also used extensively at San Vincenzo itself, in a prestigious painted tomb and on grave-stones (Mitchell 1985, p. 158, figs. 6, 33–4, 36; Hodges 1993, pp. 147–50, figs. 9, pp. 27–30; Hodges 1995, pp. 15–16, fig. 1:15). The deployment of this imagery is clearly apotropaic. The crosses surrounding the body protected the newly dead from the evil spirits and malign influences which could threaten it during the interval before the spirit had fully departed and found definitive rest in the next world. These crosses in tombs are often associated with painted inscriptions, and this is the case at San Vincenzo. Flanking the cross on the western wall, below the horizontal arms, are the words: EGO TALARICVS / [CR]EDO S(an)C(t)AM RESVRRECTIONE(M) (Fig. 11). These are written in expertly formed capitals, black in the upper line and red in the lower line. The script accords well with what we know of epigraphic practice at San Vincenzo in the first half of the ninth century. The individual letters are characteristic of the distinctive script employed by the masons who carved the commemorative inscriptions on the grave-stones of the monks (Mitchell 1990; Mitchell 1994; De Rubeis 1996. See Appendix 2). This tomb was designed to form a pendant to that of abbot Joshua, Talaricus’s immediate predecessor, who had been responsible for initiating the construction of the new abbey-church in the first decade of the century, and whose name was spelt out in large gilded bronze letters in a dedicatory inscription set high up over the two graves, on the façade of the basilica (Federici 1,1925, p. 221). The Chronieie of the monastery informs us that Joshua was buried in front of his new church, on the right-hand side (Federici I, 1925, p. 287). In the early medieval period, right and left, in the context of a church, tended to be reckoned from the point of view of the officiating priest, standing behind the principal axial altar, facing the congregation and with his back to the apse. By this reckoning, the tomb of Joshua was located

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on the south side of the principal door. Excavation in 1996 revealed in this position, in precise correspondence to the tomb of Talaricus, a large robber trench. The Chronicle goes on to say that when the community moved to a new location on the opposite bank of the river Voltumo, in the years around 1100, the body of Joshua was exhumed and translated to the new site. There, together with the bodies of some of the more prominent early abbots, it was laid in a stone sarcophagus in the atrium before the new abbey-church. It is now clear that not only Joshua’s mortal remains, but also his whole tomb, were removed at the time of this translation. The siting of the tombs of the two founding abbots on either side of the main door into the basilica, like the gilded inscription above, seems to have been part of a strategy to promote the contemporary hierarchy of the monastery and to associate it in the minds of visitors with the central focus of the cult of St. Vincent, located in the ring-crypt at the other end of the church (Mitchell and Hodges 1996, pp. 23–6). There, in the central relicchamber, the images of the two abbots, adoring the reliquary vases in the two deep semicircular niches, are positioned in line with the two tombs flanking the main entrance some 60 m. to the east. To the south, the niche with the older abbot is aligned with the tomb of Joshua, and to the north, the younger man is on axis with the tomb of Talaricus. There can be little doubt that the images in the relic-chamber represent the two abbots who were buried in the two prominent tombs flanking the main door of the great basilica for which jointly they had been responsible. The excavations at San Vincenzo al Volturno lead us to speculate that the ambitious rebuilding of the monastery in the early ninth century may have owed much to the monastery’s recent acquisition — legally or illegally — of the relics of St. Vincent. In effect, abbot Joshua or his immediate successors recognised the significance of the cult to the monastery, as the flow of pilgrims passing down the Via Numida, close to the site of the monastery, from the Caroligian kingdoms to Adriatic ports steadily increased (Hodges 1997). Further, possession of the relics would have emphasised the political importance of the monastery as it served as a mediating force between the ideology promoted by the new Carolingian masters of the peninsular and the local aristocracy in the principality of Benevento. Finally, the excavations give us cause to reconsider why the monastery was dedicated to St. Vincent in the eighth century, and as a result to re-examine its early history.

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Appendix 1 Sigibert of Gembloux, Vita Deoderici I: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores 4, ed. G.H. Pertz, Hannover, 1841, p. 475. De sancto Vincentio levita: Beatum martyrem et levitam Vincentium in civitate quadam antiquissima, quae ad solum usque iam longo tempore diruta fuerat, Corduno nomine, quae ab Arethio duodecim milibus distat, ex monasterio proximo satis pulchro ornatu, quod multa itidem frequentia venerabatur, Bertaus diaconus, comitante secum quodam clerico episcopi Arietini, cui nomine Crisulfus, indice loci, cum magna licet difficultate, vitae quoque non minimo periculo, transtulit. Hunc ex Hispania in Italiam deportatum firmiter assuerunt. Cuius modum translationis postea, domno praesule Beneventum veniente, dum nurui imperatoriae a Graecia venienti obviam missus esset, plenius cognovimus. Iuxta Capuam siquidem monasterium iam pene dirutum nomine sancti Vincentii reperimus, quod grandi et miro opere quondam a fratribus tribus nobilibus constructum, veterani qui ibi tunc pauci visebantur monachi dixerunt, et corpus sancti Vincentii postea a duobus monachis ex Hispania ibi clam deportatum, atque deinceps multis temporibus maxima veneratione habitum, donec a paganis eodem monasterio vastato, corpus sanctum inde sublatum et ad praedictam Corduenensem civitatem esse translatum. Tunc etiam episcopus Ariethinus non modicam portionem sanguinis beatissimi prothomartyris Stephani in vase cristallino optime auro gemmisque composito, et de sanguine Innocentium in alia pixide, et de capillis sancti Petri, breviculis per singula appositis, quamvis invitus et summo in discrimine apud imperatorem sui suarumque rerum positus, dedit; et quia redemptionis suae facultas eum angustabant, peccatorem suum nostrum venerabilem praesulem per hoc et per corpus sancti Vincentii paravit, atque sic in gratiam imperatoris, eo interveniente, vix rediit. De hoc ipso beato matyre plures Italorum episcopi iam ante saepe temptaverant ut id adquirere possent; in quibus Ambrosius Bergamensis, pro eo quod sedes episcopatus sui in honore sancti Vincentii esset, et ante breve tempus, cum quibus potuerat, diem quo eum excepturus esset statuerat. Sed Domino ordinante, ut in crastinum ille condixerat, nocte praecedenti a nostris praeoccupatam est. Hoc clerici de monte Romarici tulerunt.

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Concerning the priest the holy Vincent. Bertaus the deacon, together with a cleric of the bishop of Arezzo called Crisulf, his guide, with enormous difficulty and no little danger to his life, removed the blessed martyr and priest Vincent from a very old city, which had long been destroyed, called Cortona, which is about twelve miles from Arezzo, from a beautifully decorated monastery in the neighbourhood, where it was venerated by many who went there. They asserted firmly that it had been taken from Spain to Italy. We later learnt more about the mode of translation when our lord the bishop came to Benevento, when he was sent to meet the daughter-in-law of the emperor, coming from Greece. At Capua we found a monastery called San Vincenzo, almost completely destroyed, which had once been built in a marvellous and grand way by three noble brothers, or so the old monks who then appeared to be few in number, said. Subsequently the body of Vincent was brought there secretly by two monks from Spain, and was then held in the greatest veneration for a long time, until the monastery was devastated by the pagans, and the body of the saint was then taken to the aforeaid city of Cortona. Then the bishop of Arezzo gave a sizeable portion of the blood of the protomartyr Stephen in a crystal flask, magnificently worked with gold and gems, and the blood of the Holy Innocents in another pyxis, and hairs of St. Peter, each with written notes attached, since he was out of favour and he and his belongings were placed in utmost danger by the emperor. And because he was beggared by so redeeming himself, he made up to his intercessor, our noble bishop, in this way and with the body of S.Vincent, and thus just regained the favour of the emperor, through his intecession. Many Italian bishops had often tried to get this blessed martyr, among them Ambrose of Bergamo, because his cathedral is dedicated to saint Vincent, and a short while before he had arranged a day on which he would take possession of the body, together with those he could command. But God ordained that the night before the day he had chosen the body was taken by our men. Clerics from Remiremont took it away.

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Appendix 2 The discovery of Talaric’s tomb establishes another fixed chronological point for dating script at San Vincenzo, joining Abbot Joshua’s monumental dedicatory inscription in gilded copper letters on the façade of the new basilica, many fragments of which have been recovered during excavation (Federici I, 1925, p. 221; Mitchell 1990, pp. 205–16, figs. 12–14; Mitchell 1994, pp. 916–8, figs. 47–9; Mitchell 2001, pp. 39–40, 43–50, figs. 2:14– 39), the fine painted inscription naming Abbot Epyphanius (824–42) in the well-known subterranean painted funerary oratory at the north end of the site (Hodges 1993, figs. 7, 21–2), and a number of less precisely dateable carved funerary inscriptions which show signs of burning and must predate the fire of 881. Using this framework it is possible to locate the many other surviving inscriptions from San Vincenzo with some precision. These are fashioned in various media, carved in stone, incised into clay and painted on walls. It is noticeable that greater care was given to some inscriptions than to others. Those associated with abbots — abbot Joshua’s monumental gilded inscription from the façade of the basilica, the controlled lettering in the tomb of Talaric and the elegently formed characters in the cryptoratory in which Epyphanius is depicted — are all executed in capitals with no trace of uncial elements, and are set within guidelines which form rigid framing matrices. A rather different situation is found in a mid-ninthcentury painted arcosolium tomb in the corridor beneath the distinguished guests’ palatium, where an inscription at the head of the tomb is written out with scant attention to regularity. The many ninth-century gravestones from the site differ considerably in size and in the care expended on their carved epitaphs. It is clear that graphic distinctions were deployed to emphasize social stratification within the hierachy of the monastic community (Mitchell 1997). We are most grateful to Prof. Saverio Lomartire who told us about the newly discovered painted tombs in S. Felice in Pavia and kindly provided photographs of them, and to Ann Christys for drawing our attention to Aimoin of St.-Germain’s reference to the tradition of a translation of the body of St. Vincent from Spain to the principality of Benevento.

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Bibliography Acta Sanctorum Januarii III 1863, pp. 13–18, Paris, Victor Palme, 22 January, Aimoin, ‘Historia translationis S. Vincentii Martyris.’ Acta Sanctorum Julii VI 1868. Paris and Rome, Victor Palme, pp. 459–69, 27 July, Aimon, ‘De translationes Ss. martyrium Georgii monachi, Aurelii et Nathaliae ex urbe Corduba Parisios.’ Agnellus 1878, Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis, MGH, SRL. Vienna. Bertelli C. 1988. Gli affreschi nella Torre di Torba, Milan, Electa. Cassanelli R. 1990, ‘Sepolture altomedievali dipinte,’ in R. Conti (ed.), Il Duomo di Monza. La storia e l’arte, pp. 71–4, Milan, Electa. D’Angela C. 1991, ‘Due tombe altomedievali scoperte a Troia (Foggia),’ in G. Volpe (ed.), Puglia paleocristiana e altomedievale, VI, pp. 279–85. De Benedittis G. (ed.) 1995, San Vincenzo al Volturno: Dal Chronicon alla Storia, Isernia, Cosmo Iannone Editore. De Capitani d’Arzago A. 1952, La “Chiesa Maggiore” di Milano Santa Tecla, Milan, Ceschina Editore. De Jong M. 1995, ‘Carolingian monasticism: The power of Prayer,’ in R. McKitterick (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, II, c. 700–c. 900: 622–53, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. De Rubeis F. 1996, ‘La scrittura a San Vincenzo al Volturno fra manoscritti ed epigrafi,’ in F. Marazzi (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno: Cultura, istituzioni, economia, pp. 21–40, Monteroduni, Abbazia di Montecassino. Federici V. 1925–38, Chronicon vulturnense del monaco Giovanni, 3 vols. Rome, Istituto Storico Italiano, Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 58–60. Fiorio Tedone C. 1985, ‘Tombe dipinte altomedievali rinvenute a Verona,’ Archeologia Veneta, VIII, pp. 251–88. Fiorio Tedone C. 1986, ‘Dati e riflessioni sulle tombe altomedievali internamente intonacate e dipinte rinvenute a Milano e in Italia settentrionale,’ in Atti del 10 Congresso intemazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo, Milano 26–30 settembre 1983, pp. 403–28, Spoleto, Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo. Geary P.J. 1990, Furta Sacra: Theft of Relics in the Central Middle Ages, Princeton, Princeton University Press. Hodges R. (ed.) 1993, San Vincenzo al Volturno I: The 1980–86 Excavations, Part I, London, The British School at Rome.

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Hodges R. (ed.) 1995, San Vincenzo al Volturno 2: The 1980–86 Excavations, Part II, London, The British School at Rome. Hodges R. 1997, Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno, London, Duckworth. Hodges R., Mitchell J. 1995, La basilica di Giosue a San Vincenzo al Volturno, Monteroduni, Abbazia di Montecassino (English edition: 1996). Hodges R., Mitchell J., Watson L. 1997, ‘The discovery of Abbot Talaricus’ (817–3 October 823) tomb at San Vincenzo al Volturno,’ Antiquity, 71, no. 272. Mackie G. 1990, ‘New light on the so-called Saint Lawrence panel at the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna,’ Gesta, XXIX/1, pp. 54–60. Mazzei M. (ed.) 1984, La Daunia antica. Dalla preistoria all’altomedioevo, Foggia and Milan, Banca del Monte di Foggia/ Electa. Mitchell J. 1985, ‘The painted decoration of the early medieval monastery,’ in R. Hodges, J. Mitchell (eds.), San Vincenzo al Volturno. The Archaeology, Art and Territory of an Early Medieval Monastery, pp. 125–76, Oxford, BAR International Series 252. Mitchell J. 1990, ‘Literacy displayed: the use of inscriptions at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the early ninth century,’ in R. McKitterick (ed.), The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, pp. 186–225, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Mitchell J. 1994, ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy,’ in Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo: XLI settimana di studio del centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto 15–21 aprile 1993, pp. 887–954, Spoleto, Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo. Mitchell, J. 1997, ‘Spatial hierarchy and the uses of ornament in an early medieval monastery,’ in D. Paris-Poulain (ed.), Le rôle de l’ornement dans la peinture murale du Moyen Age, pp. 35–55, Poitiers, Université de Poitiers, Centre d’Études de Civilisation Médiévale. Mitchell, J. 2001, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions, in J. Mitchell and I.-L. Hansen (eds.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: The Finds from the 1980–96 Excavations, pp. 33–81, Spoleto, Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo. Mitchell J., Hodges R. 1996, ‘Portraits, the cult of relies and the affirmation of hierarchy at an early medieval monastery: San Vincenzo al Volturno,’ Antiquity 70, no. 267, pp. 20–30. Orabona R. 1997, Il culto dei santi milanesi in Campania dalle origini paleocristiane all’altomedioevo (IV–X); con particolare riguardo alla chiesa

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di S. Ambrogio a Montecorvino Rovella (Salerno). Tesi di laurea in storia dell’arte bizantina, Istituto Universitario Pareggiato di Magistero “Suor Orsola Benincasa” Napoli, Anno Accademico 1995/6. Naples. Peduto P., Mauro D. 1990, ‘Il S. Ambrogio di Montecorvino Rovella,’ Rassegna Storica Salernitana, VII, 1, pp. 7–48. Pertz G.H. (ed.) 1841, Sigibert of Gembloux, Vita Deodericì I: MGH Scriptores 4, Hannover, Hahn.

XIV Script about the Cross: The Tombstones of San Vincenzo al Volturno

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arved epitaphs were ubiquitous in Antiquity and were among the salient monuments of the Roman world. However, after the sixth century, the practice of recording the name of the deceased in lapidary fashion was generally abandoned, and where funerary inscriptions were set up in the immediately post-Roman period, as often as not, it would appear that they were intended as conscious evocations of Roman practice — in idea if not always in formal design. Antique traditions of literate activity seem to have persisted more enduringly in the Italian peninsula than in other parts of western Europe, and two of the most extensive surviving bodies of epigraphic material from the earliest medieval centuries are from two of the great monastic foundations in southern-central Italy, where the skills of literacy were cultivated and exploited to particular effect: Monte Cassino and San Vincenzo al Volturno.1 However, it is by no means certain that these two monasteries lay at the centre of this development. It is perhaps more likely that they represented peripheral 1 A. Pantoni, Gli iscrizioni medievali dell’abbazia di Montecassino (Monte Cassino, forthcoming); A. Pantoni, Le chiese e gli edifìci del monastero di San Vincenzo al Volturno (Monte Cassino, 1980), 157–82; J. Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, in San Vincenzo al Volturno 3. The Finds from the 1980–86 excavations, ed. J. Mitchell and I. L. Hansen (Spoleto, 2001), 33–81 at 50–79. The early medieval carved inscription found between 1987 and 1998 are now described in R. Hodges, S. Leppard and J. Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops (London, 2011), 296–330. The cultivation of the arts of writing and the deployment of script at these two monasteries are discussed by J. Mitchell, ‘Literacy Displayed: The Use of Inscriptions at the Monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the Early Ninth Century’, in The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, ed. R. McKitterick (Cambridge, 1990), 186–225; J. Mitchell, ‘The Display of Script and the Uses of Painting in Longobard Italy’, in Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 41 (Spoleto, 1994), 887–954, at 901–25; F. de Rubeis, ‘La scrittura

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manifestations of cultural initiatives which had evolved in the orbits of secular centres of governance, where strategies of this kind would have supported the ambitions and the political and social agenda of forces intent on establishing new structures of power and authority. This process of cultural diffusion affected widely disparate regions and is evident in the adoption of particular types and designs in distant parts of Dark Age Europe. This paper is concerned with one instance of this, in which a type developed in the evolving Langobard polity in northern Italy, one particularly associated with Milan and its hinterland, travelled not only south to the two monasteries in the sphere of the southern Langobard duchy of Benevento, but also north across the Alps as far as the recently founded monastic houses in the kingdom of Northumbria in northern England. This is one instance of a characteristic phenomenon of the early medieval West, in which ideas emanating from one of the new centres of political and cultural power gave rise to vital peripheral initiatives on the frontiers of Europe. Over the past forty years some two hundred funerary inscriptions have been recovered from the site of San Vincenzo al Volturno. A handful of these are complete, the rest mere fragments.2 The great majority are carved into prepared stone slabs, but a few are incised into fired clay floor-tiles and there are three graves with inscriptions which form part of their painted decoration. Among these commemorative monuments there is one type which appears to have been peculiarly favoured by the community. In this the text of the epitaph is inscribed about a large cross, the arms of which span the full height and width of the stone. So far three complete and twelve fragmentary epitaphs of this kind have been found. All of these date from the last years of the eighth or the ninth century, the period in which the monastery developed into a major centre of monastic life and of cultural production.3 Whoever embarks on a study of a particular aspect of the archaeology, architecture or a San Vincenzo al Volturno fra manoscritti ed epigrafi’, in San Vincenzo al Volturno: Cultura, istituzioni, economia, ed. F. Marazzi (Abbazia di Montecassino and Monteroduni, 1996), 21–40. 2 On the possible phenomenon of wilful destruction of inscribed grave-markers at San Vincenzo in October 881, when the monastery was sacked by a Saracen raiding-party: J. Mitchell, ‘The Early medieval Monastery as a Site of Commemoration and Place of Oblivion’, in Memory and Oblivion, Proceedings of the XXIXth International Congress of the History of Art held in Amsterdam, 1–7 September 1996, ed. W. Reinink and J. Stumpel (Dordrecht, 1999), 455–65. Reprinted in a revised version, Chapter XII in this volume. 3 The early medieval inscriptions from San Vincenzo and their dating is discussed in Mitchell , ‘The medieval inscriptions’. For the early history of the monastery: R. Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno (London, 1997).

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visual culture of the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno or its neighbour, Monte Cassino, is liable to discover that the great architect, archaeologist, art historian, epigrapher and antiquary of Monte Cassino, Don Angelo Pantoni, has been there before. This is the case with these cross-inscribed epitaphs, which, thirty years ago, Pantoni described and set in their historical context in half a dozen lapidary pages.4 The most splendid and best preserved of the carved stone monuments with this scheme of decoration, at San Vincenzo, is a large complete gravemarker bearing the epitaph of one Teudelas, outstanding for the clarity and elegance of its design and execution (Fig. 1).5 The epitaph is laid out with one line above the horizontal arms of the cross and three below: HIC : | | REQVI|ESCI| |T : TEV|DELA| |S : IN | PAC| |EM. The outline of the cross is deeply incised into the smoothly worked surface of the slab; its arms are broad and straight-sided and splay out at their ends to merge into wide terminal bars. Cross and inscription are laid out on a lightly incised grid of vertical and horizontal guide-lines. The cross spans almost the full surface of the stone and the inscription similarly runs from one margin to the other. This marker was found lying in a mid-eleventh-century destruction layer in a garden-court in the part of the monastery designed for the accommodation of distinguished guests and may have come from the main monastic cemetery in the atrium of the abbey church of San Vincenzo Maggiore.6 A fragment of a second similar grave-marker was found nearby in one of the undercrofts of the early ninth-century guest palatium, again in an 4 A. Pantoni, ‘Epigrafi tombali di San Vincenzo al Volturno’, Samnium 36 (1963), 14–33, at 15–23. 5 First half of ninth century (= SV 1984 Context D 8107, SF. 2878). Mitchell, ‘The Display of Script’, fig. 31; De Rubeis, ‘La scrittura’ fig. 8; Mitchell, ‘The late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. no. 37. 6 The garden court: R. Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1. The 1980–86 Excavations, Part I (London, 1993), chap. 10. The monks’ cemetery in the atrium of the basilica of San Vincenzo Maggiore: R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno (Abbazia di Montecassino and Monteroduni, 1996), 46–7, figs 1:4, 3:4 and 3:16; R. Hodges, J. Mitchell and L. Watson, ‘The Discovery of Abbot Talaricus’ (817–3 October 823) Tomb at San Vincenzo al Volturno’, Antiquity 71 (June 1997), 453–6; J. Mitchell, L. Wason, F. de Rubeis, R. Hodges and I. Wood, ‘Cult, Relics and Privileged Burial at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the Age of Charlemagne: The Discovery of the Tomb of Abbot Talaricus (817–3 October 823)’, in Atti del 1 Congresso nazionale di archeologia medievale, Pisa, 1997 (Florence, 1997), 315–21; R. Hodges, S. Gibson and J. Mitchell, ‘The Making of a Monastic City: The Architecture of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the Ninth Century’, Papers of the British School at Rome 65 (1997), 233–86, at p. 248.

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eleventh-century destruction level (Fig. 2).7 On this the terminal bars were evidently extremely long and swelled out dramatically towards their ends. Of the inscription only the terminal of one letter is preserved. On a third fragment from another stone, from a non-stratified context, only the tip of the swelling right-hand arm of the lower terminal bar and the adjacent letters -ONA[C]- (from the word monachii) are preserved (Fig. 3).8 Another epitaph, also from an unstratified context, three-quarters of which was recovered in four adjoining fragments, is a smaller and less accomplished version of the tombstone of Teudelas, with the epitaph, + HIC RE|QVI| |ESCIT | [-] | | ERT | [-] | | ELLA | -, running about a cross of similar form, but with the arms of the terminal bars somewhat more harshly defined (Fig. 4).9 Again the cross fills most of the space of the slab. A further small piece from a tombstone, found in an eleventh-century rubble layer adjacent to the main abbey church of San Vincenzo Maggiore, is incised with part of the lower stem and left arm of a similar cross (Fig. 5).10 Here the long terminal bars with their curvilinear inner profiles were simply appended to the straight sides of the cross arms. Only part of one word from the inscription, the first half of the first line below the left arm of the cross, is preserved: -PECCA- (presumably some inflection of the word peccator). Another marker, an irregularly shaped stone with a tapering foot, smaller and less elegant than the previous examples, was found in a modern field wall at the southern edge of the site of the early medieval monastery (Fig. 6).11 Only the lower half is preserved, with the names of Christ in the genitive, IHV | | XPI, inscribed on either side of the stem of a cross. The letters are somewhat irregular in formation and the cross is executed in a 7 First half of the ninth century (= Context G 711, SF. 0065). Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. no. 38. The palatium is discussed in Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1, chap. 9. 8 First half of ninth century (collected by Pantoni before 1980). Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. no. 61. 9 First half of ninth century (collected by Pantoni before 1980). Pantoni, ‘Epigrafi tombali’, cat. 5, at 17, pl. I; Pantoni, Le chiese, 160–1, fig. 107; Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. no. 60. 10 Ninth century (SV 1995, SVM 16, Context 3038, SF. 3053). 11 Late eighth to early ninth century (context: HH 4201, SF. 0059). J. Mitchell, ‘The Painted Decoration of the Early Medieval Monastery’, in San Vincenzo al Volturno: The Archaeology, Art and Territory of an Early Medieval Monastery, ed. R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, British Archaeological Reports International Series 252 (Oxford, 1985), 125–76, fig. 6:36; De Rubeis, ‘La scrittura’, fig. 14; Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. no 40.

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summary manner, with wandering contours. Its foot is a wide linear bar expanding towards the ends into rounded versions of wedged serifs which project inwards. A larger monument is the fragmentary tombstone of the two priests, and probably brothers, Gundelaich and Liutprand, from an unstratified context (Fig. 7).12 Here the cross has simple straight-sided arms, which issue from a central disc and flare at their terminals into curling hairline serifs. The inscription was in four lines of tall well-formed capitals, of which the first one and a half lines are lost: - | | DVORVM | [G]VNDEL[AI]CH | | ET LIVTPRANDI | PRESBY | |TERORVM. Unlike the majority of the grave-markers from San Vincenzo which are of upright format, this stone was a little wider than it was tall, and the composition of the epitaph had a horizontal rather than a vertical emphasis. Another unstratified gravestone of similar type but with rather roughly cut and poorly formed characters is partially preserved in two fragments (Figs. 8a and 8b).13 The cross appears to have been a spindly affair with straight-sided arms which flared slightly at the ends where they terminated in small bars with thin wedge-shaped projections. What remains of the epitaph runs: -| | PVLC[-] | [-] | | ETA [-] and -| | BIN-. Far grander and more ambitious is a fragmentary stone spanned by a large cross with dramatically splayed bar-terminals, which incorporates figurai imagery in sunken relief as well as an epitaph (Fig. 9).14 This was found in an eleventh-century demolition deposit over the western end of the south aisle of the abbey church of San Vincenzo Maggiore. At the midpoint of the cross is the Right Hand of God, shown raised with the fingers and thumb extended upwards, in a fashion typical of monuments from the Langobard areas of Italy in the eighth and ninth centuries.15 Each of First quarter of the ninth century (collected by Pantoni before 1980). Pantoni, ‘Epigrafi tombali’, cat. 4, at 15–16, pl. I; Pantoni, Le chiese, 158–60, fig. 106; Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. no. 59. 13 Late eighth to early ninth century (collected by Pantoni before 1980). Pantoni, ‘Epigrafi tombali’, cats. 10–11, at 20, 22; Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. nos. 58a and 58b. 14 Late eighth to early ninth century (SV 1994, SVM South, context 2206, SF. 1604). 15 At San Vincenzo itself, the Right Hand of God figures prominently in the painted decoration of a subterranean funerary oratory constructed in the 830s (H. Belting, Studien zur beneventanischen Malerei (Wiesbaden, 1968), ill. 18; J. Mitchell, ‘The Crypt Reappraised’, in Hodges, San Vincenzo al Volturno 1, 75–114, at 80–1, fig. 7:29). In the north of Italy this feature is quite common, for instance on a fragment of carved stone frieze from Santa 12

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1. Grave-marker of Teudelas, mid-ninth century, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 50 cm., W. 36.5 cm., D. 4.5 cm. (Ben Taylor).

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2. Fragmentary grave-marker with epitaph composed about an incised cross, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 8.5 cm., W. 13 cm., D. 2 cm. (Ben Taylor).

3. Fragment from a grave-marker of a monk with epitaph composed about a cross, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 8.1 cm., W. 8.6 cm. (Ben Taylor).

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4. Fragment of a grave-marker with epitaph about a cross, San Vincenzo al Volturno. Dimensions (when complete): H. 22 cm., W. 22.5 cm., D. 5.1 cm. (John Mitchell).

5. Fragment of a gravemarker with epitaph about a cross, San Vincenzo al Volturno. Dimensions (when complete): H. 22 cm., W. 22.5 cm., D. 5.1 cm. (John Mitchell).

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6. Fragment of a grave-marker with IHV XPI about a cross, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 12.5 cm., W. 13 cm., D. 2.5 cm. (Ben Taylor). 7. Fragment of the grave-marker of Gundelaich and Liutprand, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 23.5 cm., W. 42.5 cm., D. 7.8 cm. (Ben Taylor).

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8a and 8b. Two fragments of a grave-marker with epitaph about a cross, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 11.3 cm., W. 15.2 cm., D. 4.2 cm.; and H. 11.5 cm., W. 15.3 cm., D. 4.2 cm. (Ben Taylor).

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9. Fragment of a gravemarker with epitaph about a cross with the Dextera Domini and a lamb, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 18 cm., W. 12.5 cm., D. 5.2 cm. (James Barclay-Brown).

10. Fragment of a gravemarker with epitaph about a cross, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 8.7 cm., W. 9.5 cm., D. 2.5 cm. (James Barclay-Brown).

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11. Fragment of a grave-marker with indecipherable epitaph about a cross, San Vincenzo al Volturno. Dimensions: H. 11.7 cm., W. 8 cm., D. 3 cm. (James Barclay-Brown).

12. Fragment of a grave-marker, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 11 cm., W. 14.5 cm., D. 5 cm. (Ben Taylor).

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13. Grave-marker with cross surrounded by apotropaic inscription cut into a re-used floor-tile, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 54 cm., W. 38.5 cm., D. 4 cm. (John Mitchell). 14. Painted cross flanked by an apotropaic inscription at the head of a grave located at the mid-point of the passage beneath the Distinguished Guests’ Hall at San Vincenzo al Volturno. Dimensions (of painted panel): H. c.45 cm., W. c.83 cm. (John Mitchell).

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15a and 15b. Two fragments of a grave-marker with the epitaph inscribed on a cross, San Vincenzo al Volturno. H. 21 cm., W. 29.5 cm., D. 4.5 cm.; and H. 15 cm., W. 11.5 cm., D. 4.5 cm. (Ben Taylor).

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16. Grave-marker from Monte Cassino, Abbazia di Montecassino. H. 19.5 cm., W. 13 cm. (James Barclay-Brown).

17. Grave-marker from S.Salvatore in Brescia. Brescia, Musei Civici di Brescia. Original width: c. 104 cm.

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18. Grave-marker of Herebericht. Monkwearmouth, St Peter’s Church. H. 104 cm., W. 53 cm., D. 18 cm. (copyright Department of Archaeology, University of Durham; photographer T. Middlemass).

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19. Grave-marker of Hildithryth from Hartlepool. H. 27.9 cm., W. 29.2 cm., D. 14 cm. (Copyright Department of Archaeology, University of Durham; photographer T. Middlemass). 20. Fragmentary grave-marker of Leobdeih from York Minster. York, Yorkshire Museum. H. 16 cm., W. 26 cm., D. 9.5 cm. (Copyright Department of Archaeology, University of Durham; photographer T. Middlemass).

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21. Lost inscription set about a cross with the dextera Domini, San Vincenzo al Volturno. Regular octagon measuring 16 cm. between opposite sides (Angelo Pantoni).

22. Inscription from tomb of Abbot Talaricus (817–23), S. Vincenzo Maggiore, San Vincenzo al Volturno (drawing by Lucy Watson).

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23. Commemorative inscription of Aldo, from San Giovanni in Conca, Milan. Dimensions (when complete): height c. 190 cm; width c. 74 cm; depth 9 cm (after R. Rachini in Lusuardi Siena, Arte Medievale, 2nd ser., 4.1 (1990), fig. 2).

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24. Inscriptions from painted tomb in S. Ambrogio, Milan (after Fiorio Tedone).

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the arms carries a three-stranded ribbon-twist. In the one preserved upper quadrant is a lamb facing in towards the cross, with a six-petalled rosette above its back; and an identical composition in mirror reversal undoubtedly filled the opposite, left-hand, upper quadrant. The two lower quadrants below the horizontal arm of the cross contained the memorial inscription, in neatly cut small capitals with the prominent wedged bars and frequent use of litterae inscriptae, typical of epigraphic practice at San Vincenzo in the ninth century. A stylized foliate scroll runs along immediately above the column of script on the right; the equivalent area of the stone on the left has been lost. Parts of the first two lines of the inscription are preserved: -RE | |QVIES[-] | [-]DE| |MARI:[EO]~. The design of this slab appears to have been inspired by fashions in the northern Langobard Kingdom. This derivation is apparent not only in the raised Right Hand of God, but also in the flanking lamb, ultimately derived from a Late Antique Byzantine idiom, abundantly available in Ravenna, which lay behind the sculptural achievements of eighth-century northern Langobard sculptors. A cross centred on the Dextera Domini featured on another ninthcentury tombstone from San Vincenzo. This is a regular octagonal fragment, cut down for re-use in a pavement, which was found and published by Angelo Pantoni, but which subsequently has gone missing

Maria di Aurona in Milan, where it is set within a wreath and is adored by two lambs (C. Leonardi and R. Cassanelli (eds), Paolo Diacono, Storia dei Longobardi (Milan, 1985), fig. 286), in painted tombs of the eighth to ninth century in Verona (C. Fiorio Tedone, ‘Tombe dipinte altomedievali rinvenute a Verona’, Archeologia Veneta 7 (1985), 251–88, fig. 20) and in Pavia (the tomb of an abbess, Ariperga, in the disused church of San Felice: see note 24 below). The Dextera Domini also features in a painting of the eighth to ninth century in a subsidiary room in the hypogeum of Santa Maria in Stelle at Valpanena near Verona (B. Forlati Tamaro, ‘L’ipogeo di S. Maria in Stelle (Verona), in Stucchi e mosaici altomedievali. Atti dell’VIII convegno di studi sull’arte dell’altomedioevo (Milano, 1962) I, 245–59, fig.4; Fiorio Tedone, ‘Tombe dipinte’, fig. 22; S. Lusuardi Siena (ed.), ‘Le tracce materiali del Cristianesimo del tardo antico al Mille’, in II Veneto nel Medioevo. Dalla ‘Veneta’ alla Marca Veronese (Verona, 1989), 87–328, fig. 51). On the velum of Classe, a silk embroidered stole of late eighthcentury date the Hand is depicted inverted, descending on the ranked bishops of Classe (Fiorio Tedone, ibid., fig. 21; Lusuardi Siena, ‘Le tracce materiali’, fig. 2). On a fragmentary marble transenna recently excavated at Miistair, probably of the ninth century, the Right Hand of God is represented reaching up, issuing from a cylindrical feature and flanked on the left by an angel (Francesca dell’Acqua kindly drew my attention to this newly discovered relief. See now K. Roth-Rubi, Die frühchristliche Marmorskulptur aus dem Kloster St. Johann in Müstair, 2 vols. (Ostfildern, 2015), cat. Pla 4, Katalogband, 462–4).

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(Fig. 21).16 At the centre of the composition was the Right Hand of God, with the third finger bent to touch the thumb in the so-called ‘Greek’ gesture of benediction or address, contained within a wreath. From this issued the arms of a cross with simple expanding terminals. Only a few letters of the inscription, from the upper right-hand quadrant, were preserved: -| |QVIE[S-] | [-]| | DVOR[V]~. Pantoni tentatively proposed the reconstruction: ‘Hic requiescunt corpora duorum monachorum -’. Two fragments from ninth-century grave-markers of the same broad category, with an inscription set about a cross, were recovered from a range of buildings immediately to the south of the main abbey church. One of these was found in a context which can be associated with the destruction of San Vincenzo by a Saracen war-party in 881 (Fig. 10).17 The cross is outlined with deeply cut angular grooves. The sides of the stem curved outwards at the base and the horizontal arms seem to have had peculiar triangular serifs at their ends. Only the lower left quadrant is preserved with the letters: -CEG| | [-] | PEB| | -, in an exuberant interpretation of the San Vincenzo house-style, with wildly exaggerated wedged bars and tails.18 The other stone, which was found in the subsoil, is from a monument of the same general type (Fig. 11).19 But here the stem of the cross is ornamented with a sequence of angular configurations, and the surviving characters, again from the lower left quadrant, are decidedly eccentric in form, and are not all recognizably from the Latin alphabet. Presumably the inscription was designed to be intelligible. This text raises interesting questions about the extent to which the masons were in command of the skills of literate communication. A further fragment of an inscription in a mid-ninth-century script, from an unstratified context, may be from another composition of this type (Fig. 12).20 The letters -AELESTIS[-] | [-]LA are preserved above two parallel horizontal grooves which could represent the arms of a cross. However, it is First half-mid ninth century (collected by Pantoni before 1980 and now lost). Pantoni, ‘Epigrafi tombali’, cat. 6, at 17–18, 22; Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. no. 97. 17 Ninth century (SV 1995, SVM 16, context 3069, SF 3183). De Rubeis, ‘La scrittura’, fig. 11. 18 The types of script employed at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the ninth century are discussed in Mitchell and Hansen (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 3, chaps. 2 and 6, and by De Rubeis, ‘La scrittura’. 19 Ninth century (SV 1995, SVM 16, context 3074, SF 3107). 20 First half of ninth century (collected by Pantoni before 1980). Pantoni, ‘Epigrafi tombali’, cat. 7, at 18, 22; Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. no. 64. 16

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also possible that these formed part of a frame incised round an inscription which ended perhaps with the words caelestis aula. A complete monument with an inscription about a cross was found in situ, in its original upright position, at the head of a mid- to late ninthcentury grave in the floor of the Vestibule, a room at the northern end of the site, situated in the guests’ quarters, just outside the limit of the monks’ clausura (Fig. 13).21 Here the cross and its surrounding inscription were cut into a re-used floor-tile rather than into a stone slab. The cross has thin arms with splaying ends, and the inscription is the common apotropaic formula: CRVX | | XPI : |CONF| |VSIO : | DIABOLI | | EST. The same protective formula was painted in irregular black letters about an angular pink cross on the head-end of a mid- to late ninth-century block-built tomb, at the northern end of the site (Fig. 14).22 The tomb is set within an arcosolium in a passage running beneath the distinguished guests’ palatium. The cross has wedged angular versions of the wide terminal bars employed on many of the stone grave-markers. Another remarkable instance of a painted cross flanked by a text, in a funerary context, formed the principal imagery in the tomb of the abbot Talaricus (817–3 October 823). This was a plastered and painted block-built sarcophagus, situated beneath the pavement in the porch in front of the main abbey church of San Vincenzo Maggiore, immediately to the right of the main door of the basilica (fig. 41).23 The inscription identifying the occupant reads: [EG]O [T]ALA | | RICVS | -[E]DO [.]CAM RE | | SVRRECTIO[N]E[.] (ego Talaricus credo s(an)c(t)am resurrectione(m). The arms of the cross are parti-coloured lengthwise, red and pink, and terminate in huge barterminals, flat on their outer sides, but on their inner surfaces bulging out in graceful curves. Crosses of this kind, parti-coloured and with the same long curvilinear wedge-bars, were widely used in northern Italy in the later eighth and ninth centuries, particularly in painted tombs in the major centres of the northern Langobard duchies, like Milan, Monza, and Pavia.24 R. Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 2. The 1980–86 Excavations, Part II (London, 1995), 15–16, fig. 1:15; Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. no. 39. 22 Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1, 147–50, pls 9:6–7, figs 9:28–30; Mitchell, ‘The Display of Script’, fig. 30. 23 Hodges et al., ‘The Discovery of Abbot Talaricus’ (817–3 October 823) Tomb’; Mitchell et al., ‘Cult, Relics and Privileged Burial’. 24 A. de Capitani D’Arzago, La ‘Chiesa Maggiore’ di Milano Santa Tecla (Milan, 1952), 135–8, pl. XI. figs 43–9; C. Fiorio Tedone, ‘Dati e riflessioni sulle tombe altomedievali 21

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Slightly different from this category of tombstone are two fragments from a stone on which the epitaph was inscribed within the contours of a cross, rather than flanking its arms (Figs. 15a and 15b).25 Apart from one instance at the neighbouring monastery of Monte Cassino, a fragment of another small grave-marker of the ninth century (Fig. 16),26 the only other concentrations of monuments of this kind in early medieval Italy are to be found in the Langobard north, especially in the area around Milan and in Brescia. As we have just noted, the form of cross which was commonly employed on these funerary monuments at San Vincenzo — with arms terminating in wide bars, which expand to form pronounced curvilinear or rectilinear projections on their inner sides — was a northern type. This design must have been introduced into the southern monastery sometime in the late eighth or early ninth century. From Milan there are a number of large and imposing grave-markers inscribed with epitaphs disposed about crosses. Perhaps the earliest is the epitaph of Manifrit from San Vincenzo in Galliano, usually dated to the seventh century.27 Here a large cross surrounded by an inscription in capitals stands over a little lamb holding its own cross. Even larger and more elaborate is a late seventh-century tombstone, from San Giovanni in Conca in Milan

internamente intonacate e dipinte rinvenute a Milano e in Italia settentrionale’, in Atti del 10o Congresso intemazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo, Milano 26–30 settembre 1983 (Spoleto, 1986), 403–28, at 411–19, figs 13–15, 19–29. Monza: R. Cassanelli, ‘Sepolture altomedievali dipinte’, in II Duomo di Monza. La storia e l’arte, ed. R. Conti (Milan, 1989), 71–4, figs 29, 31, 32. Pavia: tombs excavated in 1996 in the atrium of the ninth-century monastery church at San Felice. Professor Saverio Lomartire kindly told me about this discovery and provided photographs of the tombs. See also Hodges et al., ‘The Discovery’, and Mitchell et al., ‘Cult, Relics and Privileged Burial’. A similar cross is painted in a niche in the chapel of Anspert at San Satiro in Milan (G. Chierici, La chiesa di S. Satiro a Milano (Milan, 1942); J. Hubert, P. Porcher and W. F. Volbach, Carolingian Art (London, 1970), ill. 9). 25 Ninth century (both collected by Pantoni before 1980). Pantoni, ‘Epigrafi tombali’, cats. 8 and 9, at 18–20, 22, pl. I; Mitchell, ‘Late antique and early medieval carved inscriptions’, cat. nos. 66 and 67. 26 Pantoni, Gli iscrizioni medievali dell’abbazia di Montecassino, cat. no. 393. 27 Castello Sforzesco, Museo d’arte antica. U. Monneret de Villard (ed.), Catalogo delle iscrizioni cristiane anteriori al secolo XI, Castello Sforzesco in Milano (Milan, 1915), no. 37; R. Cassanelli, ‘Materiali lapidei a Milano in età longobarda’, in II millennio ambrosiano. Milano, una capitale da Ambrogio ai Carolingi, ed. C. Bertelli (Milan, 1987), 238–55, fig. 243; S. Lusuardi Siena, ‘“ ...PIUM [SU]PER AM[NEM] ITER ...”: riflessioni sull’epigrafe di Aldo da S. Giovanni in Conca a Milano’, Arte medievale, 2nd ser., 4 (1990), 1–12, fig. 10.

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(Fig. 23).28 This is almost two metres in height and carries a long and elaborate inscription recording the conversion, from the Arian to the Roman faith, of Aldo, who has been tentatively identified as a descendent of the Langobard queen Theodolinda.29 A third epitaph, rather similar to that of Aldo, but somewhat later in date, is the tombstone of Benedict, abbot of the monastery of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan (d. 806).30 Here a long and elaborate text is inscribed in close lines of capitals all round a tall cross. The cross is decorated with a running pattern of inverted heart-shaped motifs and its arms have terminal bars consisting of simple projecting triangular wedges. These bars are closely paralleled in the crosses painted on the walls of the arcosoliumgrave beneath the distinguished guests’ palatium at San Vincenzo al Volturno (Fig. 14). A later instance of this kind of commemorative monument from Milan is the large intact grave-stone of the priest Dominicus, found in 1870, during the excavation of the fourth-century baptistery attached to the old cathedral, Santa Tecla.31 This dates from the 920s — the archbishop Lampertus (922–31?) is mentioned in the inscription. A related composition, in paint, is to be found in the lower chamber of the great tower at Torba, to the north of Milan, on the Olona, just under Castelseprio.32 There, a large parti-coloured cross with flaring terminal bars, surrounded by an elaborate and lengthy inscription, is painted on the embrasure of an arcosolium in close proximity to a tomb. This is the memorial of one of the abbesses of the female monastic community at Torba in the late eighth or early ninth century. The overall conception of the design is the same as that of the epitaphs of Aldo, from San Giovanni in Conca, and of Abbot Benedict, from Sant’Ambrogio in Milan. The grander sort of block-built cross-girt graves in north Italian centres of the eighth and ninth centuries, referred to above, also frequently have inscriptions of one or more lines flanking the crosses on their interior walls — on exactly the same pattern as the tomb of Abbot Talaricus at San Vincenzo al Volturno (Fig. 22). A number of these were excavated immediately to the east of the Castello Sforzesco, Museo d’arte antica. Monneret de Villard, Catalogo, no. 29; Leonardi and Cassanelli, Paolo Diacono, fig. 22; Cassanelli, ‘Materiali lapidei’, 246, fig. 285; Lusuardi Siena, PIUM [SU]PER AM[NEM] ITER 29 Lusuardi Siena, PIUM [SUJPER AM[NEM] ITER ...’, 9. 30 Fiorio Tedone, ‘Dati e riflessioni’, 417–18, fig. 31; Cassanelli, ‘Materiali lapidei’, 246, fig. 287. 31 Castello Sforzesco, Museo d’arte antica. Monneret de Villard, Catalogo, no. 14. 32 C. Bertelli, Gli affreschi nella torre di Torba (Milan, 1988), figs 31–2. 28

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southern transept of Santa Tecla, in Milan, in the late 1940s,33 and another in Sant’Ambrogio (Fig. 24).34 Fragments of two other large commemorative stones of abbesses, one of them named Ermingarda, each inscribed with an epitaph about a large cross, have been found during excavations at San Salvatore in Brescia (Fig. 17).35 Both must date from the later eighth or ninth century. An instance of a composition of this kind on a tile is the tombstone of the priest Adelbertus, from Portadore, near Lodi, which has been assigned to the late seventh or early eighth century.36 Here the epitaph has been incised into the clay free-hand about a cross carved in relief, which spans the full surface of the tile (57 cm. x 47 cm.). The only other part of western Europe in which grave-markers with a text inscribed around a cross appear to be found in any numbers is the British Isles, in particular, in the late seventh and eighth centuries, in the

33 de Capitani d’Arzago, La ‘Chiesa Maggiore’ di Milano Santa Tecla, 135–8, pl. XI, figs 43–9; Fiorio Tedone, ‘Dati e riflessioni’, 403–28, 413–19, figs 17–29. The painted plaster from one of these tombs is preserved in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. 34 Fiorio Tedone, ‘Dati e riflessioni’, 411–12, figs 11–15. One painted composition of this kind is known from the Carolingian realms, north of the Alps. A parti-coloured cross with large swelling terminal bars of a strikingly Italianate appearance, flanked by an inscription in lines of magnificent red capital letters, has recently been assembled by Matthias Preissler from wall-plaster excavated from a late eighth-century context in the area of the Carolingian royal palace at Paderborn. The painting probably dates from the last decades of the eighth century; its original context is not known but it would appear to have been funerary. Fragments of the inscription, but not the attendant cross, were published by W. Winkelmann, ‘Capitalis Quadrata’, Westfalen 48 (1970), 171–6, reprinted in his Beiträge zur Frühgeschichte Westfalens. Gesammelte Aufsätze (Münster, 1984), 106–9, pls 63–4. The material has recently been published in a more comprehensive form by M. Preissler, in 799 – Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit, 1, Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999, ed. C. Stiegmann and M. Wemhoff (Mainz, 1999), 133–6, cat. HL 17–21, and in his ‘Fragmente einer verlorenen Kunst: Die Paderborner Wandmalerei’, in 799 – Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit, Beiträge zum Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999, ed. C. Stiegmann and M. Wemhoff (Mainz, 1999), 197–206. See now M.Preissler, Die karolingischen Malereifragmente aus Paderborn (Mainz, 2003), 46–59, 73–89. This is one instance of the pervasive influence which Italian visual culture exerted on the Carolingian north in the late eighth and ninth centuries. 35 One of these is described and illustrated in G. Panazza and A. Tagliaferri, Corpus della scultura altomedievale, III, Le diocesi de Brescia (Spoleto, 1966), nos 60–1. 36 A. Caretta, ‘Note sulle epigrafi longobarde di Laus Pompeia e del Cremasco’, Archivio storico lombardo 90 (1966), 175–95, at 190–3.

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kingdom of Northumbria.37 Monuments of this kind have been found on a number of monastic sites, Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, Lindisfarne, Hartlepool, and also at York Minster. From Monkwearmouth there is the early eighth-century tombstone of Herebericht, on which the epitaph is expertly inscribed in a capital script around a large cross carved in high relief (Fig. 18) and a fragment of another rectangular slab with an inscription in both runic and Roman characters set about a cross with square terminals;38 and from Jarrow, the other site of this double-monastery, there are fragments of two monuments with inscriptions in large capitals flanking crosses carved in relief, both from around 700, a remarkable tall stone with the inscription: In hoc singular(i sig)no vita redditur mundo, and a more straightforward grave-marker.39 From Lindisfarne there is a group of eleven round-headed grave-markers with epitaphs set about crosses, dating between the later seventh and the mid-eighth centuries;40 and from Hartlepool another group of ten such commemorative stones of seventh- or eighth-century date, all but one of which are cut on small rectangular slabs (Fig. 19).41 Fragments of three related, more or less rectangular, monuments, perhaps steles rather than simple slabs, have been found on the site of York Minster (Fig. 20).42

J. Higgitt in J. Lang, York and Eastern Yorkshire, British Academy Corpus of AngloSaxon Stone Sculpture 3 (Oxford, 1991), 44; I. Henderson and E. Okasha, ‘The Early Christian inscribed and carved stones of Tullylease, Co. Cork’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 24 (1992), 1–36, at 25–6; R. N. Bailey, England’s Earliest Sculptors (Toronto, 1996), 40. There is one instance of a cross surrounded by the letters of an inscription in a funerary context from Carolingian Francia. This is the cross drawn in the centre of the orchard cemetery on the St Gall Plan, with the accompanying verses: Inter ligna soli haec semp(er) s(an)c(t)issima crux; In qua p(er)petuae poma salutis olent (‘Among the trees of the soil, always the most sacred is the cross On which the fruits of eternal health are fragrant’): W. Horn and E. Born, The Plan of St Gall (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1979), ∏, 210–12; L. Price, The Plan of St Gall in Brief (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1982), 67. 38 R. Cramp, County Durham and Northumberland, British Academy Corpus of AngloSaxon Stone Sculpture (Oxford, 1984), I, 124 and 123–4; II, pl. 110, ills. 604 and 600. 39 Cramp, Durham and Northumberland, I, 110, and 112–13, II, pl. 94, ill. 506, and pl. 96, ill. 520. 40 Cramp, Durham and Northumberland, I, 202–5, II, pls 199–201, ills. 1111–27 and 1129. 41 Cramp, Durham and Northumberland, I, 97–101, II, pls 84–5, ills. 429–49; E. Okasha, ‘A Second Supplement to Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Non-runic Inscriptions’, AngloSaxon England 21 (1992), 37–85, at 47. 42 Lang, York and Eastern Yorkshire, 62–6, ills. 80, 81, 86–94. 37

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Outside Northumbria, a small triangular grave-marker, carrying the epitaph NE| | ITANO | SACER | |DOS inscribed about a cross, preserved at Peebles, has tentatively been dated to the late seventh or early eighth century;43 and the more or less contemporary memorial stone of Ioruert and Ruallaun, from Llanlleonfel, in Breconshire, bears a magnificent epitaph composed around a small cross.44 Furthermore, there is a widespread tradition of early medieval Irish grave-markers on which a commemorative inscription is set about a cross. There is one complete monument and a number of fragmentary ones from Tullylease, Co. Cork, of uncertain date, the earliest perhaps of the eighth or ninth centuries;45 and other grave-slabs with epitaphs variously positioned in relation to inscribed crosses are known from many other sites in Ireland, with a particular concentration at Clonmacnois, Co. Offaly.46 None of these is securely dated, but all are likely to be later than the Northumbrian tombstones. The grave-markers with epitaphs centred on a cross from San Vincenzo al Volturno and those from the Langobard north are clearly related phenomena. The ones from San Vincenzo al Volturno are all from the ninth century and so are over a century later in date than the early examples of this type from the Langobard north. Given the close relations between the southern duchy of Benevento and the northern Kingdom in the eighth century and the many artistic and cultural contacts which existed between the two areas, it seems almost certain that the masons at San Vincenzo derived the idea for this type of monument ultimately from northern Italian practice and models.47 43 K. A. Steer, ‘Two Unrecorded Early Christian Stones’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 101 (1968–9), 127–9, pl. 9a. 44 C. Thomas, And Shall these Mute Stones Speak? Post-Roman Inscriptions in Western Britain (Cardiff, 1994), 322–3, fig. 18.9. I am exceedingly grateful to Professor Charles Thomas for drawing my attention to these two monuments and for providing me with photocopies of the relevant publications. 45 Henderson and Okasha, ‘The Early Christian inscribed and carved stones of Tullylease’, nos 1, 12 and 14, and possibly 11 and 13, pls I and II. 46 P. Lionard, ‘Early Irish grave-slabs’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 61, C (1961), 95–169, passim. I am most grateful to John Higgitt for drawing these Irish grave-slabs to my attention and for directing me to the relevant literature. 47 Various aspects of the cultural connections between northern and southern Langobard regions in the peninsula are discussed by: A. Pantoni, ‘La basilica di Gisulfo e tracce di onomastica longobarda a Montecassino , in Atti del 1 Congresso intemazionale di studi longobardi, Spoleto, 27–30 settembre, 1951 (Spoleto, 1952), 433–42; H. Belting, ‘Probleme

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This must have occurred in the closing years of the eighth century, at the time at which the monastery was being redesigned and enormously enlarged and when the community was embarking on an ambitious programme of artistic and craft production.48 It is less clear whether the formally related grave-markers from Northumbria were also inspired by this north Italian fashion. A major difficulty here is the uncertain dating of the earliest Italian and English monuments. However, on balance, it seems probable that the form of the English monuments was determined by knowledge of Italian practice.49 The many contacts which are known to have existed between England and Italy in the seventh and eighth centuries lend weight to the thesis that the idea for this type of cross-centred commemorative inscription was transmitted from the one region to the other. There was considerable individual contact between the two areas in the upper reaches of society, both in the ecclesiastical and the secular spheres. Laymen and clerics from the British Isles were constantly travelling to and from Rome, principally on pilgrimage to the resting places of Saints Peter and Paul, but also on diplomatic business to the papal court.50 On their way many would have visited and spent time in the Langobard centres in northern Italy. The extent and significance of the cultural debt of Anglo-Saxon England to Rome and Italy in this period is immense and is well known. It ranged from the ideas and models behind the production of de luxe illuminated Gospel Books for the der Kunstgeschichte Italiens im Frühmittelalter’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 1 (1967), 94–143; G. Cavallo, ‘La trasmissione dei testi nell’area beneventano-cassinese’, in La cultura antica nell’occidente latino dal VII all’XI secolo, Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 22 (Spoleto, 1975), 357–424; Mitchell, ‘The Display of Script’, 925–35; J. Mitchell, ‘Arichis und die Künste’, in Für irdischen Ruhm und himmlischen Lohn. Stifter und Auftraggeber in der mittelalterichen Kunst, ed. H.-R. Meier, C. Jäggi and P. Büttner (Berlin, 1995), 47–64. 48 Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages, chapter 5; Hodges et al., ‘The making of a monastic city’. 49 As suggested by J. Higgitt in Lang, York and Eastern Yorkshire, 44. 50 W. Levison, England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford, 1946), esp. 36–41; B. Colgrave, ‘Pilgrimages to Rome in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries’, in Studies in Language, Literature and Culture of the Middle Ages and Later, ed. E. Bagby Atwood and A. A. Hill (Austin, Texas, 1969), 156–72; R. Cramp, ‘The Anglo-Saxons and Rome’, Transactions of the Durham and Northumberland Archaeological Society 3 (1974), 27–37; E. O Carragâin, The City of Rome and the World of Bede, Jarrow Lecture 1994 (St Paul’s Church, Jarrow); J. L. Nelson, ‘Viaggiatori, pellegrini e vie commerciali’, in II Futuro dei Longobardi – l’Italia e la costruzione dell’Europa di Carlo Magno: Saggi (Milan, 2000), 163–71.

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altars of the cathedrals and monastic churches of England, down to the forms of the bronze pins which women, in settlements throughout the country, used to fasten their clothing.51 The extent of English contacts with Italy in this period, at all levels of society, is nowhere more evident than in a famous letter of St Boniface to Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury: it would be well and favourable for the honour and purity of your Church and a sure protection against vice if your synod and your princes would forbid matrons and nuns to make their frequent journeys back and forth to Rome. A great part of them perish and few keep their virtue. There are many towns in Lombardy and Gaul where there is not a courtesan or a harlot but is of English stock. It is a scandal and a disgrace to your whole Church.’52 Anglo-Saxons travelling in northern Italy in the seventh century must have become aware of these striking Langobard grave-stones and conceived of the notion of commissioning similar monuments for themselves from masons back in the British Isles. Compositions dominated by large crosses surrounded by lines of script are occasionally met with in manuscripts in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries,53 but what made them so appropriate for grave-markers was the powerful protective virtues associated with the cross in early medieval Europe. This preoccupation with the powers of the cross was particularly evident in the duchies of Langobard Italy and in the British Isles during this period. In Italy, not only were they commonly painted on the inside walls of tombs, 51 For the Italian antecedents of Insular gospel-book production in the seventh and eighth centuries, see D. Wright, ‘The Italian Stimulus on English Art around 700’, Stil und Überlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlandes. Akten des 21. internationalen Kongress für Kunstgeschichte, Bonn, 1964 (Berlin, 1967), I, 81–92; R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, ‘The Reception by the Anglo-Saxons of Mediterranean Art following their Conversion from Ireland and Rome’, Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 14 (Spoleto, 1967), 797–825. For Anglo-Saxon and Italian dress-pins, see Seamus Ross, ‘Dress Pins from AngloSaxon England: Their Production and Typo-Chronological Development’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford (1992), 365–83. 52 C. H. Talbot (ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany (London and New York, 1954), 133. The letter dates from 747. John Higgitt thoughtfully drew my attention to this passage. 53 B. Bischoff, ‘Kreuz und Buch im Frühmittelalter und in den ersten Jahrhunderten der spanischen Reconquista’, in his Mittelalterliche Studien: ausgewählte Aufsätze zur Schriftkunde und Literaturgeschichte (Stuttgart, 1967), II, 284–303.

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but small intricately stamped crosses of gold-foil were sewn to the shrouded body, evidently to protect the individual from the powers of evil which were believed to threaten the deceased during the particularly vulnerable first months and years following death.54 In Anglo-Saxon England there appears to have been an even more pervasive and deeply rooted fascination with the cross in its many forms and uses. This interest found expression in many ways, in pectoral amulets, in disc brooches with cruciform compositions on their display faces, in the remarkable so-called ‘carpet pages’ in Gospel Books, which usually incorporate one or more crosses in their design, and in the standing crosses which are one of the most characteristic and idiosyncratic categories of monument in the British Isles in the early medieval period.55 It may have been their particular respect for the cross and its powers which led patrons in Langobard Italy and in Northumbria to commission memorial stones on which epitaph and cross were so effectively combined.

G. C. Menis (ed.), I Longobardi (Milan, 1990), cat. nos. II.9, 11, 18 and 191; III.5 and 6; IV.58c and d, 100–2; V.l, 8–14; X.47a,–70, 75a, 76a, 77a, 78a, 79, 80a, 81a, 83v, 84a, 99, 172, 175, 191b. 55 For pectoral crosses, disc brooches and ‘carpet pages’: R. B. K. Stevenson, ‘Aspects of Ambiguity in Crosses and Interlace’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology 44/45 (1981–2), 1–27; L. Webster and J. Backhouse, The Making of England. Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600–900 (London, 1991). For high crosses: G. Baldwin Brown, The Ruthwell and Bewcastle Crosses ..., The Arts in Early England 5 (London, 1921); W. O. Stevens, ‘The Cross in the Life and Literature of the Anglo-Saxons’, in W. O. Stevens and A. S. Cook, The Anglo-Saxon Cross (Hamden, Conn., 1977), 1–109, at 43–65; N. Edwards, ‘The Origins of the Free-standing Stone Cross in Ireland: Imitation or Innovation?’, The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 32 (1985), 393–410; Bailey, England’s Earliest Sculptors. 54

XV The Workshops of San Vincenzo al Volturno: Phases of Production and Dynamics of a Ninth-Century Monastery1 (with Richard Hodges and Sarah Leppard)

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he monasteries of early medieval Europe have been the subject of considerable interest and inquiry during the past thirty years or so, an interest which owes much to the often contentious, but highly energizing theses and questions raised by Walter Horn and Ernest Born in their extraordinary publication of the Plan of St. Gall in 1979.2 The plan itself and Horn and Born’s exhaustive and meticulously detailed description and analysis show what an early ninth-century Carolingian abbot on Lake Constance, and a twentieth-century historian, might expect and hope to find within the confines of a major monastic settlement of the period. However, invaluable as it is as a document of ninth-century practice, the St Gall Plan through its very detail and ordered layout can raise misleading expectations, setting an ideal paradigm, which by its very existence leads one to look for and expect a corresponding situation in the surviving material record. Despite their ubiquity and the crucial role they played in the life of polities and societies in the early Middle Ages, the destruction of the material 1 This paper is drawn directly from the chapters by Richard Hodges and Sarah Leppard on the workshops at San Vincenzo in R. Hodges, S. Leppard and J. Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshop, London, 2011. My thanks to them for help of every kind in its preparation. 2 W. Horn and E. Born, The Plan of St. Gall, 3 vols., Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1979.

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fabric of early medieval monasteries has been almost complete. Although the churches around which they hung tend to be better preserved, in reality, we know extraordinarily little about the layout of monasteries in the first millennium, about the shape and details of the structures, the ranges of halls, galleries, porticoes and courts, the chambers and utilitarian buildings of which they were formed.3 Monastic workshops are a case in point. Although it is arguable that the industrial areas of monasteries played a central role in the manufacturing of utilitarian artefacts, as well as being centres for the production of deluxe objects of all kinds, our knowledge of their location in a typical monastic precinct and of the forms and fittings of the workshop-buildings themselves is extremely limited. From the Frankish kingdom north of the Alps there are scraps of archaeological evidence from sites such as Corvey,4 Fulda,5 and Lorsch,6 and from Anglo-Saxon England from Bede’s monastery at Jarrow in Northumberland7 and from the arguably monastic settlement at Flixborough.8 In Italy, evidence of craft-production has been found in the ranges surrounding the courts of the Lombard ducal foundation of S. Salvatore at Brescia,9 from the eighth and ninth centuries, at Nonantola,10 Novalesa and at Farfa, and at Rome at the Cypta Balbi, from a little earlier, 3 For recent surveys of early medieval monastries, see F. De Rubeis and F. Marazzi (ed.), Monasteri in Euuropa occidentale (secoli VIII–IX): topografia e strutture, Rome, 2008; H. Dey and E. Fentress (ed.), Western Monasticism ante litteram. The Spaces of Monastic Observance in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Turnhout, 2011; H. Dey, ‘Architettura monastica in Italia dagli inizi all’epoca di Carlo Magno’, in S.De Blaauw (ed.), Storia dell’architettura in Italia da Costantino a Carlo Magno, Milan, 2011, 300–20; F. Marazzi, Le città dei monaci. Storia degli spazi che avvicinano a Dio, Milan, 2015. 4 H.-G. Stephan, ‘Archäologische Erkenntnisse zu karolingischen Klosterwerkstätten in der Reichsabtei Corvey’, Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 24, 1994, 207–16. 5 T. Kind, ‘Karolingerzeitliches Glas und Verschiedene Handwerksindizien aus dem Kloster Fulda’, Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters 31, 2003, 61–93. 6 M. Sanke, K. H. Wedepohl, and A. Kronz, ‘Karolingerzeitliches Glas aus dem Kloster Lorsch’, Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters 30, 2002, 37–76. 7 R. Cramp, Wearmouth and Jarrow Monastic Sites Volume 2, Swindon, 2006. 8 C. Loveluck, ‘Wealth, waste and conspicuous consumption: Flixborough and its importance for middle and late Saxon rural settlement studies’, in H. Hamerow and A. MacGregor (eds), Image and Power in the Archaeology of Early Medieval Britain, Oxford, 2001, 78–130. 9 T. Mannoni, A. Cucchiara and F. Rabbi, ‘Scorie e forni di S. Giulia e la metallurgia nel Medioevo’, in C. Stella and G. Brentegani (eds), S. Giulia di Brescia: Archeologia, arte, storia di un monastero regio dai Longobardi al Barbarossa, Brescia, 1992, 211–16. 10 S. Gelichi and M. Librenti, Nonantola 1. Florence, 2005.

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and recently evidence for the activity of a metalsmith in the seventh century has come to light in the vicinity of the episcopal church at Comacchio;11 and from the Chronicle of Monte Cassino around 800 there is the tantalising reference to “maximas atque pulchras…officinas” in the description of Abbot Gisulf ’s lower monastery church of S.Salvatore, at the foot of the mountain at Cassino.12 An exception is to be found at the southern Lombard monastery of San Vincenzo, where the almost complete abandonment of the early monastery at the end of the eleventh century and subsequent light agricultural use of the site has resulted in the exceptional preservation of the footprint of the early monastery, with standing walls and a wealth of artefacts brought to light by excavations over the course of the past 30 years (Fig. 1).13 In brief, the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno was founded in 703, and endowed with a considerable tract of territory, the gift of the duke, Gisulf I, on the northern marches of the southern Lombard duchy of Benevento, some 200 km south-east of Rome. The founders were three members of the Beneventan elite, Paldo, Tato and Taso. The site they chose was an abandoned late Roman settlement on the fertile plateau at the top of the valley of the Volturno, on the banks of the river, close to its source. The earliest monastery was established over a complex of old ruinous late antique buildings, which included two churches and a tower, possibly a defunct fifth/sixth-century episcopal seat, on the east-facing slopes of a low hill, the Colle della Torre, and on the narrow plain between the hill and the river. 11 S. Gelichi (ed), L’Isola del vescovo: Gli scvi archeologici intorno all Cattedrale di Comacchio, Florence, 2009. 12 Leo of Ostia: Chronica monasterii Casinensis, ed. H. Hoffmann, Die Chronik von Montecassino, MGH SS 24 (Hanover, 1980) I, 17, p 58, l. 31–2; A. O. Citarella and H. M. Willard, ‘The Ninth-Century Treasure of Monte Cassino in the Context of Political and Economic Developments in South Italy’, Miscellanea Cassinese 50, Monte Cassino, 1983, pp. 39–42. It is by no means clear that the word “officinas” as it is used in this passage refers exclusively or even in part to productive workshops. 13 For an assessment of the site pre-1980: A. Pantoni, ‘Le chiese e gli edifice del monastero di San Vincenzo al Volturno’, Miscellanea Cassinese 40, Monte Cassino, 1980; for the excavations and survey at the monastery 1980–1997: R. Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1: The 1980–86 Excavations, Part I, London, 1993; R. Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 2: The 1980–86 Excavations, Part II, London, 1995; R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, La Basilica di Giosue a San Vincenzo al Volturno, Monte Cassino and Monteroduni, 1995; R. Hodges, S. Leppard and J. Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops, London, forthcoming; and for the subsequent 2000–2002 excavations: F. Marazzi, C. Filippone, P. P. Petrone, T. Galloway and L. Fattore, ‘San Vincenzo al Volturno – scavi 2000–2002. Rapporto preliminare’, in Archeologia Medievale XXIX, 2002, 209–274.

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The monastery thrived and expanded fast so that by the end of the century the community was noted by two contemporary writers, Pope Hadrian I and Paul and Deacon, for its exceptional size.14 In part to accommodate the fast-growing numbers of monks, principally under its abbot Joshua (792– 816), the monastery was completely reshaped and a new abbey church, San Vincenzo Maggiore, was erected and dedicated in 808. This is a fixed point and date, which we have from the twelfth-century Chronicle of San Vincenzo and on which much else hangs. In terms of size, opulence and wealth, San Vincenzo seems to have reached its apogee in the second quarter of the ninth century under Abbot Epyphanius (824–842). By the end of the century, when on the 10 October 881 a Saracen raiding party, under the direction of the duke-bishop of Naples, Athanasius, thoroughly sacked the monastery, its fortunes and fabric were already in decline.15 A succession of active officine, construction yards and their associated workshops, as well as specialized craft ateliers, were in operation at San Vincenzo al Volturno between the end of the eighth century and the sack of the monastery in 881. The activities and sequence of these workshops provides a telling history of the fortunes of the monastery itself, an index of the strategies pursued by the monks as they reshaped their monastery on a new grandiose scale and subsequently endeavoured to sustain its operations

14 Pope Hadrian I, in a letter to Charlemagne of 784 in the Codex Carolinus, no. 66, ed. W. Gundlach, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi I, Berlin, 1892, 594; Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum VI, 40: in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum Rerum Langobardicarum ed. G. Waitz, 179; Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards, trans. W. D. Foulke, Philadelphia 1904, new edition Philadelphia 1974, 283. 15 For the history and building-history of the monastery see: R. Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno, London, 1997. The possibility of an episcopal seat at San Vincenzo in late Roman times is discussed by K. Bowes, ‘Beyond Pirenne’s shadow: Late antique San Vincenzo reconsidered’, in Between Text and territory: Survey and Excavations in the Terra of San Vincenzo al Volturno, ed. K. Bowes, K. Francis and R. Hodges, London, 2006, pp. 287–305, at pp. 298–302. The standard edition of the 12th-century chronicle of San Vincenzo is: V. Federici (ed.), Chronicon Vulturnense del Monaco Giovanni, 3 vols., Rome, 1925–1938. For the sack of the monastery see: R. Hodges, ‘10 Ooctober 881: The sack of San Vincenzo al Volturno’, in B. Magnusson, S. Renzetti, P. Vian and S. J. Voicu (eds), Ultra Terminum Vagari: Scritti in onore di Carl Nylander, Rome, 1998, 129–41. For the role played by Athanasius in the sack of San Vincenzo, see: F. Marazzi, ‘San Vincenzo al Volturno tra VIII e IX secolo: il percorso della grande crescita’, in F. Marazzi (ed), San Vincenzo al Volturno: Cultura, istituzioni, economia, Monteroduni, 1996, 41–92, at 76.

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in the face of changing social and political conditions through the course of the ninth century. The Temporary Workshops No evidence for systematic craft activity has yet been found in eighth-century contexts at San Vincenzo. However, at the time of the great expansion of the monastery around 800 it appears that craftsmen in the employ of the monks began to engage in the production of specialist building materials and artifacts needed for the construction and equipment of the new monastic buildings, on an almost industrial scale. A focus of this activity was located around the front of the great platform on which the new abbey church, San Vincenzo Maggiore was erected, at the southern end of the settlement. Here a multi-phase industrial zone was situated, first in a temporary phase, in front of the Basilica, in the area which was subsequently to be covered by the great funerary atrium of San Vincenzo Maggiore, and then in a second more permanent phase in a range of buildings along the southern flank of the atrium of the church. Preceding the earliest identifiable phase of these Temporary Workshops was a range of buildings built in pisé construction, with clay-bonded walls, which in its orientation is aligned with the initial major dispositional axis of the reshaped monastery – an axis which connects the old nucleus of the original eighth-century foundation to the north, with the new basilica of San Vincenzo Maggiore to the south (Figs. 1 and 3). The Basilica and its atrium were laid out on a slightly divergent axis, apparently lined up with the river to the East. The pisé range therefore probably belongs to a phase which preceded the basilica. It consisted of two large adjoining rooms, later subdivided and extended to the east. Parts of this range remained in use right through the ninth century, when they were incorporated into the First and Second Collective Workshop ranges which followed broadly the same footprint. The original function of these structures is hard to identify. The fact that the western room was fitted with a porch on its south side may indicate that it had some status and that it served as a dwelling or some kind, possibly for the craftsmen engaged on the construction of the Basilica in the first decade of the ninth century. In a subsequent phase, which can be assigned to the first years of the century, in the run-up to the dedication of San Vincenzo Maggiore in 808, the open area in front of the church, the area which subsequently was to be

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filled by the atrium, was used for a succession of manufacturing operations.16 Much of this area was subsequently enclosed by the walls of a high vaulted corridor, which ran beneath the front of the atrium, connecting the heart of the monastery, to the north, with the later permanent workshops ranges to the south (Figs. 2 and 12). Only part of this area has been excavated, but it has an exceptionally rich archaeology which shows four distinct phases of manufacture: (i) tile-making, (ii) bronze-smelting, (iii) glass-working, and (iv) bell-casting (Fig. 4). At the end of each phase, it would seem that once a sufficient quantity of materials had been finished, the particular operations and their associated furnaces and kilns were replaced by new ones directly over the previous working surfaces. The first of these phases involved the making of roof-tiles and floor-tiles (Fig. 4a). Sections of two structures associated with tile-making, possibly two independent kilns or more likely two parts of one large kiln, were uncovered immediately beside and underneath the pilastered façade of the funerary atrium. These were constructed out of fragments of Roman dolia and Roman and early medieval tiles as well as bricks made expressly for the purpose. The more fully excavated kiln was a large rectangular structure, measuring some 5 x 3.5 m, with several parallel flues, each about 0.9 m. wide, underlying the vaulted brick floor of the furnace, on which the tiles were fired (Fig. 5). The floor was pierced to allow the heat of the furnace below free passage to the stacked freshly-made tiles above. This was a tile kiln of a common Roman design,17 a type which continued to be used across Europe into the late Middle Ages.18 Just to the west of these flues was a large vaulted chamber with walls constructed of specially-made cylindrical and It has been proposed that the area immediately in front of the Basilica was left as open ground for 300 years and that the atrium was not added until the 11th century (F. Marazzi, C. Filippone, P. P. Petrone, T. Galloway and T. L. Fattore, ‘San Vincenzo al Volturno – scavi 2000–2002. Rapporto preliminare’, Archeologia medievale XXIX, 2002, 209–74). However, the evidence, archaeological, architectural and art historical, all shows that the atrium was an original feature, projected from the outset and built soon after the completion of the church. The arguments for this have been laid out in brief in R. Hodges, K. Francis, and J. Mitchell, ‘Contro la nuova interpretazione dell’atrio di San Vincenzo al Volturno, Archeologia medievale 29, 2002, 557–60 and at greater length in Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops. 17 Le Ny type IIE: F. Le Ny, ‘Les fours de tuiliers gallo-romains’, Documents d’Archéologie Française 12, Paris, 1988. 18 L. Tonezzer ‘Mittelalterliche Ziegelbrennöfen’, in R. Röber (ed.), Mittelalterliche Öfen und Feuerungsanlagen, Stuttgart, 2002, 101–14, at 104. 16

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rectangular bricks bonded with clay. This may have been part of a second kiln, but it is also possible that it formed part of the firing chamber associated with the rectangular structure. It must have been here that the thousands of tiles required for the roofs and floors of the new monastery were fired.19 After the production of tiles had ceased, the kiln was filled in and the area levelled up with clay. The presence of a mortar-mixing level covering part of the area of the tile kiln suggests that construction was going on nearby, in this phase, perhaps at the Basilica of San Vincenzo Maggiore, some 30 m. to the west. The immediately succeeding phase of activity in this area involved copperworking (Fig. 4b). The copper workshop was a structure with walls of limestone rubble, containing a complex sequence of hearths and pits, from a succession of phases (Figs. 6 and 7). Principal features from the early phase were a tile-lined pit, 0.9 x 0.9 m. and 0.66 m. deep, a kiln for smelting raw copper, and a little to the west of this, a large globular ceramic jar covered by an inverted bowl, set in a specially prepared pit. This may have served as a reservoir for water for smithing operations, of the kind described by Theophilus, writing some three hundred years later.20 At higher levels there were further kilns, associated with numerous copper alloy drops and fragments of copper alloy slag, large amounts of charcoal and fragments of crucible. Several small pits here were possibly used for storing materials used in working and casting copper and three prominent postholes may be associated with a large bellows for one of the furnaces. After the metal-working phase, the area was levelled over with tips of clay and rubble and a small workshop, with simple rubble-built walls, between 0.55 and 0.7 m. thick, was erected for glass-working (Figs. 4c, 8 and 9). There were two principle kilns in the workshop. One was located in the north-east angle of the room, a semi-circular structure made of tiles, which, to judge from its relationship with the walls, may have had a chimney. This could have functioned as a subsidiary furnace, possibly used for melting down cullet, that is recycled fragments of old vessel- and window-glass, to make new glass. The main kiln was a large, central feature which consisted of an L-shaped or tripartite structure with a central firing chamber and connecting ash pits. 19 For the tiles and tile producton at San Vincenzo see: M. Moran, ‘Produzione di laterizi in un monastero meridionale in epoca carolingia: San Vincenzo al Volturno’, in S. Gelichi and P. Novara (eds), I Laterizi nell’Alto Medievo Italiano, Ravenna, 2000, 169–84, and J. Mitchell, ‘The early medieval tiles and modillions’, in J. Mitchell, and I. L. Hansen (eds), San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: The Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations, Spoleto, 2001, 83–121. 20 Theophilus, De Diversis Artibus – The Various Arts, ed. C. R. Dowell, London 1961, 74.

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The firing chamber consisted of a square pit, which when found was filled with a large quantity of vessel glass, window glass and glass-working waste. This was surrounded by subsidiary hearths and chambers and by two ash-pits containing great quantities of glass waste in the form of moils (the waste ring of glass from the end of the blowing pipe), clippings and reticelli rods (Fig. 10). It was unclear if this main kiln was a three-storied southern type, in which the heat was transmitted upwards into the upper chambers, or a northern type in which the heat was transmitted laterally to surrounding hearths, a type described by Theophilus.21 It may have been a composite of the two types, three-tiered with annexed lateral annealing chambers. It is clear from the material in this glass-house that both window and vessel glass was being made, and that a remarkable range of colours was produced. There was a wide variety of vessels, oil lamps with vertical handles, bowls, jars, bottles, flasks, dishes and drinking vessels. The glass-waste assemblage demonstrates that a range of decorative techniques was employed, including decorative flashing and the application of trailed thread. The majority of the window glass was produced with the cylinder technique, but there was evidence also of some crown glass being produced. Both techniques were ancient and show that the glass-workers of San Vincenzo were using techniques which had been widely practiced in Roman times.22 The most striking feature of the workshop is the quantity of waste glass present. Normally glassmakers were very economical with this precious material and reused every scrap. This was not the case here, where droplets and trimmings, pieces of broken vessels, reticelli rods (Fig. 10) and Roman coloured mosaic tesserae were found in great quantities. Among the most interesting pieces among the reused scrap material were fragments of exceedingly fine de-luxe vessels decorated with foliate and lozenge designs in gold leaf, concentrated in the firing pit of the central kiln.23 These are comparable to eighth-ninth-century

Theophilus, 37–38. For the vessel and window glass at San Vincenzo, see: J. Stevenson, ‘The Vessel Glass’, in J. Mitchell and I. L. Hansen, (eds), San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: the Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations, Spoleto, 2001, 203–79; F. Dell’Acqua, ‘Ninth-century window glass from the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno (Molise, Italy)’, Journal of Glass Studies, 39, 1997, 3–41; F. Dell’Acqua and D. James, ‘The window glass’, in J. Mitchell and I. L. Hansen (eds) San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: the Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations, Spoleto, 2001, 173–201. 23 J. Stevenson, ‘Ninth century glassware production at San Vincenzo al Volturno, Italy’, in G. De Boe and F. Verhaeghe (eds), Material Culture in Medieval Europe, Brügge, 125–36. J. Stevenson in C. Stiegemann and M. Wemhoff (eds), 799 Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. 21 22

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vessels with gold-foil decoration found at Dorestad, Helgö and particularly at Borg on Lofoten, off the northern coast of Norway.24 Evidently the glassmakers had access to considerable quantities of waste glass, derived from both ancient and contemporary sources, which they melted down and worked into new vessels in their kilns. There is no evidence from any period that new glass was being made from its basic constituents at San Vincenzo. Ready-made glass must have been imported in large quantities. Either recycled ancient glass was systematically collected from ancient sites in the neighbourhood; or else shiploads of raw glass which had been manufactured elsewhere were imported to the monastery.25 A late phase of activity in this area involved bell-casting. Some 8.0 m. to the south east of the glass workshop a characteristically deep, clay-lined pit for making a bell was found, together with a second subsidiary pit, possibly a water reservoir (Fig. 4d). The main pit was 3.0 m. deep and 1.4 m. across, similar in form to others known from many medieval churches.26 The pit seems to have served both for firing the clay core of the bell, and subsequently for the casting of the bell itself. The bell was made using the lost-wax casting method, it would appear following a process similar to that described by the early-twelfth-century writer, Theophilus, in his treatise, De Diversis Artibus.27 The large quantity of well-preserved bell-mould fragments found, in particular one large section from the bottom of the clay cope, indicate a bell 0.45–0.5 m. in diameter, which would have weighed something like 50 kg. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III. in Paderborn, Band I, II. Katalog der Ausstellung Paderborn 1999, Mainz, Philipp von Zabern, 180; ‘Gilded vessel-glass’ in ‘The small finds’, in Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops, 261–3. 24 Van Es, V. A. and Verwers, V. J. H. (1980) Excavations at Dorestad 1: The Harbour. Hoogstraat 1 (Nederlandse Oudheden 9). Amersfoort, ROB; W. Holmqvist and B. Arrhenius, (1964) (eds), Excavations at Helgo II. Stockholm, KVHAA; J. Henderson and I. Holand (1992) ‘The glass from Borg, an early medieval chieftain’s farm in northern Norway’, Medieval Archaeology, XXXVI, 29–58. 25 For a brief account of the excavation of sixteen large glass furnaces in the Beit Eliezer neighbourhood, east of Hadera, on the coast of Israel, possibly producing for export by ship and sale at Mediterranean ports see: Y. Gorin-Rozen, “Hadera, Beit Eliezer”, Hadashot Arkheologiyot (Archaeological News) 100 (1993), 36 (in Hebrew). See also D. Whitehouse, ‘Things that travelled”’: the surprising case of raw glass’, Early Medieval Europe 12, 3 (2004), 301–5. 26 See, for example: B. Ward-Perkins, ‘Scavi nella Torre Civica di Pavia’, Archeologia medievale 5, 1978, 107–21; E. Neri, De Campanis Fundendis. La produzione di campane nel medioevo. Milano, 2006. 27 Dodwell, Theophilus, 150–8.

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This must have been one of the earliest bells founded at San Vincenzo. It is not clear where it hung but bells were traditionally caste close to the site of their eventual use. It is possible that this one was destined for the predecessor of the South Tower of the Eastwork, a structure of the third or fourth decade of the ninth century (Fig. 2). There it would have helped to regulate patterns of liturgical observance and to toll out the rhythms of everyday life for the hundreds of monks, as well as the large lay community which served them, in Abbot Joshua’s great new monastic city at San Vincenzo. It would have been a bell like the one which Hildemar of Civate, writing around 840, refers to in his commentary on the Rule of St, Benedict, as calling monks to the liturgical offices in their church.28 After a brief period of operation, the glass workshop was abandoned and dismantled. The ground was roughly levelled with tips of building rubble and clay to create a builders’ yard. The most prominent feature of this yard is a circular mortar-mixer, just to the north of the glass-workshop (Fig. 11). This was some 3.0 m. in diameter and was contained within a wattle-and-daub frame. A hole for a central shaft and a series of surrounding post-holes indicate that there was a substantial wooden upper structure to which the heavy paddles were attached. Oxen or mules would have been used to turn these paddles and to mix the mortar.29 The western wall of the later eastwork vaulted corridor was built directly on top of this yard and dramatically bisects the mortar-mixer. Next the funerary atrium was constructed in front of Abbot Joshua’s Basilica of San Vincenzo Maggiore. The Basilica was probably completed by the end of the first decade of the ninth century, and the atrium was built on soon afterwards, in the years between 810 and 820. The TemporaryWorkshop area clearly precedes the atrium and must have been in use from the earliest years of the century until the time when the Basilica was approaching completion. It would seem that the monks designed these workshops to produce material in quantity for major projects which it would take the best part of a decade to complete. Tiles, copper fittings and artefacts, lamps and vessels of glass and window panes and finally a 50 kg. bell were manufactured and possibly stockpiled in turn. After each operation had been

28 Hildemar of Civate, Expositio in Regulam S. Benedicti, ed. R. Mittermüller (Regensburg, 1880), 465–56 (ch. 34), cited by M. De Jong, ‘Power and humilty in Carolingian society’, Early Medieval Europe I, 1 (1992), 1992, 29–52, at 37–8. 29 For mortar-mixers of the period, see: D. B. Gutscher, ‘Mechanische Mörtelmischer’, Zeitschrift für schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 38 (1980), 178–88.

1. San Vincenzo al Volturno, overall plan of the monastery (after Marazzi et al. 2002).

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2. S. Vincenzo Maggiore, atrium, eastwork and workshops (Sarah Leppard). 3. Range of structures to the south of the atrium, preceding the temporary workshops (phases 3c-41a) (Sarah Leppard).

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4. Plans of the sequence of temporary workshops subsequently covered by the atrium and the eastwork of S.Vincenzo Maggiore (Sarah Leppard).

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5. Tile kiln during excavation.

6. Plan of temporary copper workshop (Sarah Leppard).

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7. Temporary copper workshop during excavation.

8. Plan of temporary glass workshop (Sarah Leppard).

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9. Temporary glass workshop under excavation.

10. Reticelli rods for the decoration of glass vessels.

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11. Mortar-mixer cut by the subsequent east wall of the corridor under the front of the atrium.

12. Corridor beneath the front of the atrium, with the underlying temporary workshops during excavation.

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13. Plans of the collective workshops (phases 4a1–5a1) (Sarah Leppard).

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14. Crucible for copper from Room B.

15. Plan of Room B (phases 5a1–5a2) (Sarah Leppard).

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16. Plan of Room C (phases 5a1–5a2) (Sarah Leppard).

17. Base of large crucible with blue glass from Room C.

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18. Terracotta corbel from Room C.

19. The collective workshops on the Plan of St Gallen (from Horn and Born 1979).

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20. Plan of south wall of atrium with collapsed wall to south with fallen arch, window and the north entrance to Room C (phase 5a2).

21. Collapsed wall with arch and window, with view to south-west over Room D.

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22. Plan of Room D (phases 5a1–5a2) (Sarah Leppard).

23. Plan of Room D as granary (phase 5a2), and the granary on the Plan of St Gallen (Sarah Leppard, after Horn and Born 1979).

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24. Plan of Room E (phases 5a1–5a2) (Sarah Leppard). 25. Plan of Room F (phases 4a7-5a1) (Sarah Leppard).

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26. Room F, view to the south-west.

27. Head of saint in ivory.

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28. Panes of window glass set in lead cames.

29. Fragments of gilded and silvered beaded wire.

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30. Cloisonné enamel plaque with a foliate motif. 31. Uniform set of sword-belt mounts and bridle fittings in iron inlaid with silver.

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32. Silver deniers of Sico, Prince of Benevento (817–32), and Guiamar I, Prince of Salerno (880–901).

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completed, the associated industrial structures were abandoned, and new work-places for new purposes were erected. This then was not a permanent collective workshop of the sort found on the Plan of St. Gallen (Fig. 21).30 Rather it was a sequence of operational ateliers and yards, created to provide materials and artifacts for particular ranges of buildings under construction. These must have included the large new Abbey Church and a bell-tower. The Collective Workshops While the funerary atrium was being erected, a row of permanent workshops was formed immediately to the south, on ground on which, during the preceding years, the refuse from the Temporary Workshops and the builders’ yard had been dumped. This was the First Collective Workshop, built over and incorporating the earlier pisé range. Before construction began, this area was landscaped with clays containing yet more waste from the builders’ yard. These clays were then covered with a rough cobbled surface. The new row of workshops was constructed parallel to the atrium, and close to the front entrance to the Basilica, but at a much lower level (c. 4.5 m) and cut off from the living quarters of the monks, the claustrum, by the mass of the atrium. They could probably have been accessed in this period from the south side of the atrium via a staircase of which only the stone pads supporting its principal supporting members are preserved. In its first phase, around 820, this new range consisted of a large subrectangular room or enclosure, with a second separate room to the east, both aligned with the new atrium, and to the west, the two westernmost rooms of the old clay-bonded pisé range (rooms E and F), which were retained, angled on their old original alignment (Fig. 13). These two old rooms may have continued to be used as accommodation during the construction of the atrium. A narrow east-west corridor ran along immediately to the north, separating the range from the southern wall of the atrium. The floor surface of the larger of the two new rooms suggests that this end of the range was used for storing and preparing materials for construction. At an early stage during the construction of the atrium, a third relatively narrow room, room B, was created at the eastern end of the large room/enclosure. The presence of droplets of copper in the floor surface of this room B and the presence of a

30

Horn and Born, The Plan of St. Gall, 189–99, figs. 419 and 420A.

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number of small hearths with associated debris of metal working, including fragmentary copper artifacts, remnants of crucible and one complete crucible (Fig. 14), suggest that this space was being used for the working of copper at this time. Subsequently a further cross-wall was inserted into the long room/ enclosure to create two further rooms, C and D (Fig. 13). Together with the pisé buildings (rooms E and F), to the west, these formed the nucleus of the Second Collective Workshop, running down the south side of the Basilica and its atrium. The range may have continued in both directions, to the west and to the east. The First Collective Workshop seems to have coincided with the construction of the atrium, an operation which can probably be dated to the years around 820; while the Second Collective Workshop was formed when the eastwork was built onto the front of the atrium and when a large vaulted corridor was punched through the front of the atrium, from north to south, establishing a new monumental connecting thoroughfare, which joined the monks’ claustrum to the north to the workshops to the south of the atrium (Fig. 2). This probably occurred between 820 and 830, certainly before Room A was remodeled with a wall bench and a new working floorsurface, which can be dated to 820–30 — silver deniers of Prince Sico of Benevento (817–832), in more or less mint condition, were found in the make-up and first surface of this floor (Fig. 32).31 In this first phase, the complex included room A at its east end, with doors at each end leading north to the area in front of the atrium and south to the open area beyond, and the adjoining old room B which now had its north and south walls removed to form a thoroughfare which continued the newly constructed vaulted corridor under the front of the atrium through the workshop range to the south (Fig. 13). The southern opening of room B was closed by a large double-valved door on massive stone door-pads, which burnt and fell at the time of the sack of the monastery in 881. The walls were plastered and decorated with simple painted articulation. Room C in this phase was converted for glass-working, with a kiln inside the room and two associated hearths outside immediately to the south, which were filled with crucible fragments, small filigree glass rods and fragments of decorated and plain vessel glass, as well as the base of a large crucible with about 2 cm For the deniers of Prince Sico, see: ‘Coins’ in ‘The Small Finds’, in Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops, 331–2, fig. 7.117. 31

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of deep blue glass remaining in its bottom (Fig. 17). It would appear that this room was used for a range of activities associated with the production and working of glass. To the west, room D was remodeled, with mortared limestone walls, a floor in rough cobbles, and with a thatched roof supported by two wooden uprights resting on stone pads in the middle of the room. The function of the room in this phase is not clear although a wide range of objects including iron buckles, pottery, bone, painted plaster, glass and crucible were found trampled into the cobbled floor. The two earlier pisé structures, E and F, were retained; E with two doors, one leading north into the narrow corridor running along the south side of the Atrium, the other leading into the adjoining room F. The south wall of Room E was rebuilt in mortar-bonded limestone and a central pad was inserted for a vertical beam which supported a thatched roof. Room F, like E, was retained from the old pisé range, with two small rooms added on its southern side. A central stone pad in the main room supported a post for the thatched roof. The little southwest room had a door in its west wall suggesting further rooms on that side. Apart from room C, which was clearly given over to glass-working, relatively little is known of the particular activities which took place within the individual rooms during these phases, before further extensive changes were made to the rooms probably in the 840s. However, in room A, given the taste for silvering rather than gilding copper which was prevalent at San Vincenzo in the later ninth century, it seems likely that the coins of Sico were there to provide silver for the plating of fine metalwork (Fig. 31). There is also other evidence which suggests that room A in this period served as the atelier of a fine-metalsmith: small fragments of worked metal, including an unfinished piece of beaded wire and a copper alloy gemstone setting with silver plating. A quantity of other material from this room, fragments of copper sheet and strip, beaded wire, trays of cloisonné enamel (Fig. 30), tacks, iron rods, hooks and fittings, fragments of glass, sherds of crucible, part of a rich agate vessel, an antique chalcedony gem cut with the figure of Bonus Eventus, and glass imitation gem-stones certainly show that this room was given over to the making and finishing of fine metalwork later in the century. It was here that a specialist craftsman was making enamel trays and beading for such objects as reliquaries, book covers and processional crosses. The principal evidence for the production of the workshops in this period comes from a series of middens, deposits, up to a meter in depth, lying to the north of room B, in the southern end of the vaulted eastwork

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corridor, which came to be partially blocked and to cease to function as a major thoroughfare. These represent tons of refuse which was cleared out of the workshops, when the range underwent a further major restructuring in the early 840s. The middens contained thousands of objects, including the debris of both daily domestic activities and skilled craft production – over 23,000 fragments of animal bone, much of it from domestic use, but over 100 pieces of worked bone, including ornamental plaques, combs, decorated trial pieces and needles. Ivory was also worked: a small latchet and the finely-carved head of a saint with blue and purple glass eyes (Fig. 27). Within the workshops, worked bone was only recovered from rooms A and B, suggesting that these, perhaps, are the most likely locations of the first phase bone-workshop. Other finds from the midden included 55 kg of pottery in the form of jugs, jars and bowls and over 100 iron objects, such as nails, rods, tacks, buckles, horseshoes and knives. These finds obviously represent both domestic and artisanal refuse. In addition, there was other less usual material, fragments of soapstone vessels, vessel and millefiori glass, glass beads, glass stoppers, spindle-whorls, pestles and whetstones. Interestingly, a considerable number of prehistoric stone tools, including a miniature green-schist axe was also recovered from the midden.32 Evidence for copper-working from this early phase of the Collective Workshop is provided by the discovery of 1 kg of crucible, including a complete example of a bronze-working crucible. A range of bronze objects, including strips, beaded wire, a gilded ring-setting containing a large chalcedony, a damaged tray for cloisonné enamel and five penannular brooches, were also found. Finally 68 lead objects were retrieved from the midden, including leaden window cames as well as latticework ventilating screens and strips (Fig. 28). All this provides some sense of what was being produced in the workshops at San Vincenzo in the early ninth century. On the prehistoric lithics and axe-heads found in this area, see R. Hodges, ‘Beyond feudalism: monasteries and their management in the VIII and IX centuries’, in I Longobardi dei ducati di Spoleto e Benevento. Atti del XVI Congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto-Benevento ottobre 2002, Spoleto, 2003, 1077–98 at 1089–92; J. Mitchell, ‘San Vincenzo al Volturno: the archaeology of the arts and magic at an early medieval monastery’, in I Longobardi dei ducati di Spoleto e Benevento. Atti del XVI Congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto, 20–32 ottobre 2002, Benevento, 24–27 ottobre 2002, Spoleto, 2003, 1099–1124 at 1116–23; and K. Francis and Mother Ph. Kline, ‘Prehistoric stone tools in medieval contexts’, in Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops, 393–405. 32

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A second phase of activity within the Second Collective Workshop, which relates to the period between c.840/850 and 881, began with significant structural alterations to the range, which included the introduction of timber partitions and the laying of fine cocciopesto floor surfaces in some of the rooms. Changes in access were also made, including the closing of entrances that had existed between and through the separate rooms. Emphasis instead was placed on directing access to and from the south of the workshop range. This was accomplished by the introduction of large doorways, wide enough for carts in some cases, in the south walls. These changes appear to have been associated with the construction of a major new stairway on the south side of the atrium, which led down to a door in the north side of room C. It was this major restructuring of the range which seems to have occasioned the emptying of rooms B, C and D and possibly other work-spaces at this time and the formation of the middens in the vaulted corridor. At the time of this restructuring, the opening in the north end of room B was narrowed and gated, closing it off from the now dysfunctional vaulted corridor, and this room was converted back into a workshop, with a prominent oval kiln with a tiled base towards its northern end. A wide variety of objects was found in the room, many of them apparently stored on shelves on the walls. The presence of the large kiln, some iron tools, a copperworking crucible and a large cylindrical soapstone vessel, as well as lumps of copper, suggest that the room was used for small-scale metalworking, perhaps for the intricate finishing or repair of objects. A lock from the burnt southern door shows that the contents of this room were of some value, and possibly that they were particularly targeted by the Saracen war-band which sacked the monastery in 881.33 In this period room D, to the west, which like rooms E and F seem to have had a thatched rather than a tiled roof, appears to have been converted for use as a granary, with rectangular compartments, bins, for the storage of grain, in the four corners, separated by a cruciform configuration of threshing-lanes (Fig. 22). A granary for the brewer, of very similar design, is present in the design for a large monastery on the Plan of St. Gall (Fig. 23).34

33 Hodges, ‘10 October 881’, 134–5; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops, 168–72, 447. 34 Horn and Born, The Plan of St. Gall, 202, figs. 422 and 425A–F.

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At this time a new doorway was opened in the south wall. The identification of this building as a granary in this phase was confirmed by the presence of a burnt wooden vessel, possibly a bucket, containing a quantity of burnt grain, against the west wall. Room D was destroyed by fire some time in the course of the ninth century and subsequently used probably as some kind of store room. The finds from this late phase, pottery, including a colander or cheese strainer, together with fragments of glass, an iron buckle, and one iron clapper from a small bell, do not reveal much. Room E had two salient features: a rectangular tank in one corner, never excavated, possibly a grain silage bin, associated with the granary next door, or an olive press; and a short flight of three steps leading to a small platform against the west wall (Fig. 24). This could have been the lowest stage of a stair leading to an upper story, or it could have led to an opening in the wall, which gave on to the neighbouring room F to the west. By 881, when the room suffered from fire, the tank had been filled with rubble and the room was in a poor state of maintenance. The neighbouring room F was floored with a fine cocciapesto and tile surface in this phase (Figs. 25–6). The two smaller southern rooms attached to the main room also had floors of cocciapesto and the south-western one had an oven or hearth in its south-eastern corner. The walls of the two south rooms were plastered and painted with simple red and grey bands. Given the extensive use of painted decoration to articulate the social hierarchy of spaces throughout the complex at San Vincenzo, it seems likely that these simple decorative schemes were designed to mark these rooms off from the other sections of the workshop range as domestic spaces of some distinction.35 The main room was also plastered during this phase. Little was found in these rooms, suggesting that it is unlikely that they served as workshops. The presence of the fine tile and cocciapesto floors and the decorated walls, together with the possible association of the steps in room E with a pulpit for reading, set into the east wall of F, suggest that the main room may have been used as a refectory for the artisans working in

35 On the use of painted decoration and other material indices to articulate the social structure of the monastery, see J. Mitchell, ‘Spatial hierarchy and the uses of ornament in an early medieval monastery’, in D. Paris-Poulain (ed), Le rôle de l’ornement dans la peinture murale du Moyen Age. Actes du Colloque international tenu à Saint-Lizier di 1er au 4 juin 1995, Poitiers, 1997, 35–55.

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the rest of the workshops.36 It is also possible that in its late phase this suite of rooms served as a dwelling for an individual associated with overseeing the agricultural operations which were occupying rooms D and E at this time. Finally, room C may hold the key to all the transformations which the rooms of the workshop range underwent in this phase. Here the old glass atelier was completely restructured as a dwelling, consisting of two rooms served by an internal passage running north-south (Fig. 16). A wattle and daub-wall separated the passage from the rooms, plastered and decorated simply with painted red, blue and white bands. The larger southern room, floored in cocciapesto and also painted, appears to have served as a living room; while a feature of the smaller northern room was a lavatory behind a wicker screen in the north-east corner. The presence of various tools, awls, chisels, a large pair of iron-forging tongs, and a linen-heckle — a comb for preparing wool and flax — as well as iron hooks and nails and copper and lead sheet and strip, suggest that this room served as a store for tools. The presence of a door-lock and key, similar to the lock from room B, is a sign of the importance of this building. Its south front was apparently decorated with elaborate terracotta corbels, a mark of the status and dignity of the individual who occupied the house (Fig. 18). This person was presumably someone closely connected with the operations of the Collective Workshop. It is tempting to identify him with the chamberlain of the monastery, the official responsible for the monks’ clothing and bedding and for the monastery’s tools and utensils. On the Plan of St. Gall, the apartment of the chamberlain, the camerarius, is prominently identified at the centre of the Collective workshop (Fig. 19).37 Just such an official, the camerarius primus, is recorded as having overseen the workshops at the monastery of Bobbio.38 The status of this individual and the importance of the workshop range to the monastery at this time would seem to be indicated by the insertion of a new stair on the south wall of the atrium, which led down to a grandiose arch flanked by pilasters, set in an impressive wall of drafted stone, which stood across from the new north door of room C, and led to 36 See: J. Mitchell (1996a) ‘Monastic guest quarters and workshops: the example of San Vincenzo al Volturno’, in H. R. Sennhauser (ed.), Symposium Wohn- und Wirtschaftsbauten Frümittelalterliche Klöster, 127–55. Zurich, 1996, 127–55, at 153–5. 37 Horn and Born, The Plan of St. Gall, figs. 419 and 420A. 38 E. Destefanis, Il Monastero di Bobbio in Età Altomedievale, Florence, 2002, 51.

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the internal passage which traversed this newly remodeled building (Figs. 20 and 21). The location of the pilasters, on the north face of this grand arched opening, indicating the superior status of the space beyond the arch, that is room C, would appear to be a mark of the value associated with the building and its occupant. The restructuring of the workshops in this phase, which probably took place sometime early in the 840s, was clearly an initiative of major importance for the monastery. It appears to have involved a thorough reorganization of industrial production, in which the various craft activities, and possibly also some of the agricultural operations of San Vincenzo were put under the close supervision of a ranking officer of the monastery. The Workshops and the Fortune of San Vincenzo To a degree, the sequence and fortunes of artisanal operations at San Vincenzo over the course of the ninth century can be seen as an expression of the history of the community as it adapted to the political, social and economic vicissitudes of the age. For its first 100 years San Vincenzo was in effect a proprietary monastery, which developed and flourished along with the southern Lombard duchy, under the patronage of the dukes and with the support of the local Lombard elite. In the late eighth century, taking advantage of the new challenges and possibilities and the new political dynamics resulting from the fall of the Lombard kingdom, the Carolingian annexation of northern Italy, the growing ambitions of the southern Lombard court, and the impressive example of prestige building set by a reinvigorated papacy in Rome, the monastic community, under energetic and far-sighted abbots, Paul (783–92) and Joshua (792–817), undertook the complete restructuring of the monastery, resulting in a new much enlarged layout, some ten times the size of the eighth-century complex. This involved the construction of a new abbey church, San Vincenzo Maggiore, a huge building, some 63 m. long, together with its atrium close to 100m. overall. To service this undertaking, temporary specialized workshops were set up, producing and it would seem stockpiling in large quantities the tiles and bricks, the copper fittings, the glass vessels and the window glass, the bells, and undoubtedly also artifacts in many other materials, iron and lead, stone and wood, cloth and bone, required for the completion of the project. The prodigious nature of this operation is apparent in the quantity of the glass waste, which was so plentiful that it

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was subsequently used in tips to level up the surfaces on which the First Collective Workshops were built. With the construction of the atrium in front of the Basilica, in the second decade of the century, the old range of pisé buildings was re-organised into a First Collective Workshop, in which evidence of continued glass-working can be identified. This range was closed off behind the mass of the atrium, shut away from the everyday life of the community in the claustrum to the north, and accessible from the river and from the fields to the south, and probably by a stair leading down from the south side of the atrium. The remodeling of this range into the Second Collective Workshop took place soon afterwards and coincided with the erection of a new façade to the atrium, the grandiose eastwork, and the construction of a substantial vaulted corridor under the front of the atrium, creating a major thoroughfare directly connecting the workshops with the claustrum and the heart of the monastery to the north. This seems to signal a moment in which the workshops assumed a new importance, and to judge from the debris swept out from the rooms of this phase into the middens in the vaulted corridor, in which they were in full production in a wide range of materials. Chris Wickam’s analysis of the monastic lands and economy of San Vincenzo has shown that while between 800 and 819 the monastery received many small donations from local benefactors, these fell off abruptly during the 820s, when no donations of any kind are recorded in the San Vincenzo Chronicle. It was only in the 830s that these gifts of land and buildings to the monastery picked up again.39 The construction of the prominent eastwork at the front of the church, like the insertion of the annular crypt at the other end of the Basilica, can be seen as part of a strategy to increase this network of support, to attract the attention and so the benefactions and patronage of a wider public. The production of prestige artifacts in the Collective Workshops may have played a part in this process, resulting in the workshops gaining an increased importance, leading to their physical incorporation into the main body of the monastery by the construction of the vaulted corridor under the atrium. This strategy seems to have been continued up until 881.

39 C. Wickham, ‘Monastic lands and monastic patrons’, in R. Hodges (ed), San Vincenzo al Volturno 2: the 1980–86 Excavations part II (Archaeological Monographs of the British School at Rome 9), London, 1995, 138–52.

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However, with the radical reorganization of the workshops in the 840s, there was a change of direction. They were given a new emphasis with the conversion of room C into an elegant residence for the officer overseeing production, and with the construction of a grandiose pilastered arched portal at the foot of the stairs from the atrium. There appears to have been a focusing of activity, with a special attention paid to the continued production of fine-metalwork in rooms A and B. The rooms to the west, D and E, however, seem to have been turned over to agricultural activity. In the increasingly turbulent times of the 840s, when the political tensions in the kingdom of Benevento were leading towards an outbreak of civil war, it would seem that San Vincenzo on the one hand was paying a new more careful attention to controlling its agricultural resources while on the other hand it was directing its craftsmen to concentrate on the production of deluxe artifacts and equipment. These were perhaps intended not so much for internal consumption; rather they may have been designed as means of exchange with the outside world. In the second half of the century the workshops were producing elaborately ornamented weaponry and personal fittings, probably glassware, and certainly fine-metalwork (Fig. 29), enamels (Fig. 30) and gemstones in settings for reliquaries and the covers of deluxe books. These could have been for internal use, but it is perhaps more likely that they were intended to leave the monastery, not so much as commodities as objects to be given as gifts, to rich laymen or to dependent or associated ecclesiastical institutions. The extraordinary set of sword-belt mounts, in iron inlaid with silver, made by one of San Vincenzo’s master craftsmen probably in the 870s (Fig. 31),40 and the fragments from complex artifacts ornamented with cloisonné enamel (Fig. 30),41 also probably from the last phases of activity before the sack of 881, should probably be seen as objects of this kind, as counter-gifts, as tokens designed to consolidate relationships with elite lay benefactors and

J. Mitchell, J. , ‘Fashion in metal: a set of sword-belt mounts and bridle furniture from San Vincenzo al Volturno’, in D. Buckton and T. A. Heslop (eds), Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture presented to Peter Lasko, Far Thrupp, Stroud, 1994, 127–56; J. Mitchell, ‘A set of sword-belt mounts of iron inlaid with silver and associated bridle-furniture’, in J. Mitchell and I. L. Hansen (eds), San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: The Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations, Spoleto, 2001, 393–410. 41 J. Mitchell, ‘An early medieval enamel’, in J. Mitchell and I. L. Hansen (eds), San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: The Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations, Spoleto, 2001, 279–84. 40

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with powerful elements in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, on whose material benefactions and goodwill the San Vincenzo community was dependent for its survival, at a time in which the fortunes of the monastery were in steep decline.42

R. Hodges, ‘Rethinking San Vincenzo al Volturno’, in Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops, chapter 11. On the culture and practice of gift exchange which lay at the heart of elite social relations in early medieval Europe, see: F. Curta, ‘Merovingian and Carolingian gift giving’, Speculum 81, 2006, 671– 99; and also S. D. White, Custom, Kinship and Gifts to Saints, Chapel Hill, 1988, and A. B. Weiner, Inalienable Possessions. The Paradox of Keeping-while-Giving, Berkeley, 1992. 42

XVI A Carved Ivory Head from San Vincenzo al Volturno

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n the early Middle Ages ivory was a rare commodity and one of the preeminent signifiers of luxury and prestige. In Antiquity, however, it had been in plentiful supply and had been used for carved reliefs and free-standing sculpture, both small and large, throughout the Roman world.1 But it was only in Late Antiquity, in the fifth and sixth centuries, a period in which the production of figural sculpture was in steep decline, that it came into its own as a major vehicle for carved relief. This is most clearly apparent in the great diptychs, which exploit the full size of the largest available tusks of African elephants, in thrones revetted with ivory panels, of which Archbishop Maximian’s at Ravenna is the principal surviving example, and in the round caskets known as pyxes, fashioned from cylindrical sections of tusk.2 Like other luxury industries, the carving of ivory became increasingly uncommon in the second half of the sixth century, and by the seventh century the craft was all but extinct. It was not until some two hundred years later that it was revived and reached a new peak of excellence in a magnificent group of panels associated with the patronage of the court of Charlemagne, among them the covers of the Dagulf Psalter, MS Douce 176 in Oxford, and the A. Cutler, ‘Prolegomena to the craft of ivory carving in late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages’ in X. Barral i Altet (ed.), Artistes, artisans et production artistique au moyen age, Colloque international, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Rennes – Haut-Bretagne 2–6 mai 1983, II, Commande et Travail (Paris 1987), 431–43. 2 W. F. Volbach, Elfenenbeinarbeiten der Spätantike und des frühen Mittelalters (third edition, Mainz 1976). 3 A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der karolingischen und sächsischen Kaiser 1 (Reprint, Berlin 1969), cat. nos 3–5, 13, 14, 11a; J. Hubert, J. Porcher and W. F. Volbach, The Carolingian Renaissance (New York 1970), pls 207, 208, 210–12; C.T. Little, ‘A 1

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Lorsch Gospels, the St Michael in Leipzig, and the St John in New York.3 Once re-established, ivory came to be one of the principal materials favoured by Carolingian patrons for ceremonial items such as caskets, liturgical combs and fans, and for the embellishment of the covers of luxury manuscripts. About two hundred examples of ninth-century work are known.4 However, these Carolingian works were not always fashioned from newly imported tusks, as was the case with their Late Antique antecedents. Not infrequently they were cut from reused earlier carved plaques.5 Trans-Mediterranean trade had broken down in the decades around 600, and new imports of exotic materials like ivory were infrequent and probably somewhat sporadic in western Europe after this time.6 The value and prestige associated with ivory seems to have increased as the supplies diminished. In Italy, however, where many of the finest Late Antique ivories had been carved, medieval craftsmen were rarely called upon to work with this material before the eleventh century. The only two surviving pieces with unassailable Italian provenances are the so-called pax of Duke Ursus at Cividale, a crucifixion plaque of the later ninth century, strongly influenced by a Carolingian model,7 and the late ninth-century diptych from Rambona, near Ancona, in the duchy of Spoleto.8 Consequently the subject of this paper, the head of a tonsured saint carved in the workshops of the great New Ivory of the Court School of Charlemagne’ in K. Bierbrauer, P. Klein and W. Sauerländer (eds), Studien zur mittelalterlichen Kunst 800–1250. Festschrift fur Florentine Mütherich zum 70. Geburtstag (Munich 1985), 11–28. 4 Goldschmidt, Elfenbeinskulpturen 1; D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires du Moyen Age (Fribourg 1978), 44–79. 5 Goldschmidt, Elfenbeinskulpturen 1, cat. nos 8, 9, 10, 11, 20, 37, 132, 133, 135, 139, 140, 149, 158, 163, 168, 180, 182, 185; K. Weitzmann, ‘The Heracles Plaques of St. Peter’s Cathedra’, Art Bulletin, lv (1973), 25–9. 6 A. Cutler, The Craft of Ivory. Sources, Techniques, and Uses in the Mediterranean World: A. D. 200–1400 (Washington, D.C. 1985), 29—37; A. MacGregor, Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn. The Technology of Skeletal Materials since the Roman Period (London and Sydney 1985), 38–9; Cutler, ‘Prolegomena to the craft of ivory carving’, 454–5. 7 Goldschmidt, Elfenbeinskulpturen 1, cat. no. 166; Paolo Diacono, Storia dei Longobardi, testo originale e versione italiana, ed. C. Leonardi and R. Cassanelli (Milan 1985), pl. 194; G. C. Menis (ed.), I Longobardi (Milan 1990), cat. no. X. 188, ill. on p. 359. The Ursus Dux whose name is inscribed on the plaque is often identified with Ursus, the last Lombard Duke of Céneda, in the Veneto, and the ivory dated to the middle or third quarter of the eighth century. However, this identification must be incorrect. The relief of the Crucifixion is clearly derived from a Carolingian model, an ivory of the so-called Later Metz Group, and cannot be earlier than the last quarter of the ninth century (cf. Goldschmidt, Elfenbeinskulpturen 1, cat. nos 83, 85, 86, 88 and 89).

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south Italian monastery of St Vincent on the river Volturno in the early years of the ninth century, is an object of considerable interest (Figs. 3 and 4). The monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno lies near the source of the river, in western Molise, about 120 miles south-east of Rome and 30 miles due east of Monte Cassino. It was a Lombard foundation, established in the first years of the eighth century, allegedly in 703, by three members of the Beneventan nobility, in territory which then lay close to the northern confines of the southern Lombard duchy of Benevento.9 The community flourished, and in the last quarter of the eighth century and the first half of the ninth, under the Abbots Paul, Iosue, Talaric and Epyphanius, the monastic complex was completely rebuilt and expanded in size to become one of the great monasteries of western Europe. By 830 it extended over about six hectares, incorporated eight churches, and many ranges of claustral buildings, and housed between three and four hundred monks.10 Extensive areas of the early medieval monastery have been uncovered during successive seasons of excavations over the years 1980—91.11 One of the features which these excavations have brought to light is the large collective workshop of the monastery. This industrial complex was established around 800, and was then completely reorganised and restructured twenty or thirty years later.12 The reformed workshop of the 820s–830s consisted of a series of rooms in which a range of specialised Goldschmidt, Enfelbeinskulpturen 1, cat. no. 181. Chronicon Vulturnense del Monaco Giovanni 1, ed. V. Federici (Rome 1925), 62–3, 101–23, 145. 10 A. Pantoni, Le chiese e gli edifici del monastero di San Vincenzo al Volturno (Monte Cassino 1980), 17–21; R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, ‘The San Vincenzo Project 1980–82, an early medieval monastery, its art and its territory’ in F. Avagliano (ed.), Una grande abbazia altomedievale nel Molise, San Vincenzo al Volturno, Atti del I convegno di studi sul medioevo meridionale (Venafro–S. Vincenzo al Volturno, 19–20 maggio 1982) (Monte Cassino 1985), 473–83; R. Hodges, ‘Excavations at San Vincenzo al Volturno: a regional and international centre from 400–1100’ in R. Hodges and J. Mitchell (eds), San Vincenzo al Volturno, the Archaeology, Art and Territory of an Early Medieval Monastery (Oxford 1985), 1–35; R. Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1. The 1980-86 Excavations, Part I (London, 1993); 2 (1995). 11 The excavations have been directed by Richard Hodges, of the University of Sheffield and the British School at Rome, in collaboration with the Soprintendenza Archeologica del Molise. R. Hodges, Preliminary reports in Archeologia Medievale 1981–1990; Hodges and Mitchell, San Vincenzo al Volturno (1985); Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1 and 2. 12 R. Hodges, C. Coutts and J. Mitchell, ‘The glass makers of San Vincenzo’, Current Archaeology no. 122, XI 2 ( 1990), 86–90; R. Hodges, ‘From the Empire of Charlemagne’, The Illustrated London News 279, no. 7104 (1981), 79–81. 8 9

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industrial processes took place — glass-making, the working of fine metals, the carving of bone and antler, and blacksmithing — under the supervision of a chamberlain.13 This complex was situated towards the southern end of the site, and lies adjacent to the south flank of the principal abbey church of S. Vincenzo, a great columnar basilica constructed on an elevated artificial platform during the abbacy of Iosue (792–816) (Fig. 1). The ivory head, together with one other piece of worked ivory, a little hinged latch of uncertain function, considerable quantities of animal bone and antler, much of it showing traces of working, a dozen rectangular blanks cut from antler, and some thirty fragments of trial pieces and finished objects, were retrieved from the foundation of an eleventh-century floor-surface laid down in a spacious vaulted passage, abutting the façade of Abbot Iosue’s basilica. This passage, which seems to have served both as the undercroft of the raised narthex of the church and as a principal thoroughfare leading from the south into the heart of the monastery, at its southern end opened into one of the rooms of the workshop (Figs. 1 and 2). It is probable that the head and the latch, together with the miscellaneous assembly of worked and unworked bone and antler from the vaulted passage, formed part of the debris of the monastery’s bone-carving atelier, which was swept up from a nearby room and redeposited in the eleventh century, more than a century after the destruction of the collective workshop during an attack by maurading Saracens, Aghlabid Arabs from the north African coast, who fired and pillaged the monastery in October 881.14 The fragment under consideration consists of the head, neck and part of the draped shoulders of a tonsured man; 3.1 cm high, 2.7 cm wide, and with a maximum thickness of 4 mm (Fig. 3). It has been sawn across at the bottom, cleanly, on the slant, and, to judge from the traces of drapery preserved about the neck, must have been cut from a half- or full-length figure. It is unclear why the piece was reduced to its present form, but it seems that this was done with a particular setting in mind, since the cut was subsequently filed smooth. The front face is cut with some mastery, but the surface has not been polished, and the marks of the carver’s knife are

13 J. Moreland, ‘A monastic workshop and glass production at San Vincenzo al Volturno’ in Hodges and Mitchell, San Vincenzo al Volturno (1985), 37—60; Hodges, Coutts and Mitchell, ‘The glass makers of San Vincenzo’; Hodges, ‘From the Empire of Charlemagne’. 14 Chronicon Vulturnense 1, 361–8; Moreland, ‘A monastic workshop’, 44–5.

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visible all over. The eyes are set with small glass beads. The back of the piece is gently concave, and is articulated with a closely set sequence of parallel, smoothly undulating, ridges and furrows (Fig. 4). This rear surface shows no traces of working and must have been a feature of the ivory in its natural state. This naturally undulating formation seems to have been cut from the concave walls of the pulp cavity of a tusk at a point close to its base. Since this is a part of the tusk usually discarded by carvers, it would appear that the craftsmen may have been concerned to make the most of every available scrap of the material. It is also clear that he had at his disposal at least part of a raw tusk, and was not reworking an older plaque.15 The ivory is probably from an elephant.16 The head, carved in low, but precisely articulated, relief, is full frontal, broad at the brow, and tapers to a finely rounded chin. The hair is represented as a diadem of striated sections, resembling a sequence of little balls of wool, which circle the head, dividing the brow from the shaved crown above. At the sides this circlet of hair drops down behind the ears. The nose is narrow and waisted, angular at the nostrils, and flares out at the bridge into broadly arching eyebrows. Below, the mouth is small and straight, with a full, somewhat pendulous, lower lip. This is positioned rather low, beneath an unusually wide philtrum which is articulated by a little vertical channel. The ears are prominent and are set rather high, the left one pricked up, the right one drooping down just below the line of the hair. As is often the case with images of the human countenance, it is the eyes which draw the immediate attention of the observer, and which give the face its life. The pupils are two glass beads, the left one blue, the right one a deep violet, set into sockets which are drilled right through the thickness of the ivory. The difference in the colour of the two beads is only apparent if the head is held up to the light, something that would have been impossible in the original setting, in which the low-relief figure would probably have been fastened down to a wooden matrix clad with gilded sheet-copper. The lids and the hollows which surround the eyes have been carefully and forcefully shaped with incisive cuts of the craftsman’s knife. Each glass pupil is framed 15 It is just possible that the head could be a reworked fragment from the inside surface of a round pyx, a box made of a cylindrical section cut from a tusk. 16 The little latchet, which was also found in the vicinity of the workshop at San Vincenzo, is certainly of elephant ivory. With the head an element of doubt remains. The pattern and the depth of the undulations on its rear face do bear a certain resemblance to the configuration of the walls of the pulp cavities of hippopotamus tusks.

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by a reserved ring of bone with a little pointed tail running out from its outer edge towards the ear, and a deep circling groove has been cut around this inner ring, to represent the hollow of the eye-socket. When the head is illuminated from an appropriate angle, the effect is one of circling lights and deep rings of shadow about the dark central pupils. The figure wears a tunic, the neck-line of which is preserved, and on top of this a pallium which falls over the right shoulder in broad regularly spaced bands. This fashion was commonly employed for apostles and many saints in Late Antiquity and in the early Middle Ages. There are no obvious close parallels among early medieval carvings in ivory or bone to the figure from San Vincenzo, no straightforward, immediate context into which it falls. However, the head, wide at the brow and tapering sharply to the chin, with a broad low forehead, a long nose which rises into two prominently arching eyebrows, and, below, a small, delicate, mouth set in a rather long lower third of the face, is a ninth-century variant of a type which had already had a long history. It belongs to one of the standard head-types in the repertoire of the early Byzantine artist. We find it already in the late fourth century in imperial images. On the Missorium of Theodosius, dated by inscription to 388, the head of the Emperor has the same essential structure, although this earlier instance is fuller, more fleshed-out, than the one from San Vincenzo, in which the various features are reduced to a linear and ascetic abstraction of their natural state (Fig. 6).17 A fine early example of the type is the head of one of the standing saints in mosaic, dating from the fifth century, in the cupola of Hagios Georgios in Thessaloniki (Fig. 7),18 where the form is somewhat more compact, but the principal proportions are much the same. Here, too, an early version of the convention for representing the hair employed on the bone head is already in evidence, in the tiers of striated locks which frame the sides of the face. Variants of the type, usually more rounded and compact, are met with in the frontal images of fifth- and sixth-century consuls on many of the ivory consular diptychs. Two of the closest parallels among these are on the diptychs of a western and eastern consul, both probably cut in Roman workshops; those of Basilius, of 480,19 and of Orestes, of 530 (Fig. 17 A. Grabar, Byzantium, from the Death of Theodosius to the Rise of Islam (London 1966), pl. 348. 18 Ibid., pl. 138. 19 Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, cat. no. 5; K. Weitzmann (ed.), The Age of Spirituality, Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century (New York 1979), cat. nos 46

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8).20 Other variants, in paint, can be found on two encaustic panel paintings from St Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai, in the figure of a young saint in court attire, on the icon of the Virgin and Child flanked by two saints and two angels, of the late sixth or early seventh century,21 and in the half-length images of SS. Sergius and Bacchus on a seventh-eighth-century icon, now in Kiev.22 Other versions, in mosaic, are to be seen in St Demetrios in Thessaloniki, the best comparison being a bust-figure of the titular saint on the wall of the north inner aisle, which dates from about 620.23 There are roughly contemporary Italian parallels for the figures of St Demetrios in the mosaics in the chapel of St Venantius, attached to the Lateran Baptistry in Rome, a scheme which probably dates from the time of Pope Theodore (642–8).24 The Dalmatian martyr, St Maurus, in this chapel, provides a compelling formal comparison for the head from San Vincenzo (Fig. 9).25 Somewhat more smoothly finished and elegantly described are the heads of a sequence of painted full-length images of standing saints, dating from around 700, which were recovered during excavations in S. Saba in Rome.26 This early Byzantine pictorial tradition also lies behind the painted decoration of the little Lombard chapel at Cividale, S. Maria in Valle, which was constructed and embellished with mosaics, stuccoes and paintings soon after 750. The three best-preserved painted heads, all of saints in court dress, belong to the type in question, although they are fuller and more rounded and 47; A. Cameron and D. Schauer, ‘The Last Consul: Basilius and his Diptych’, Journal of Roman Studies lxxii (1982), 126–45; pls IV and V; C. Davis-Weyer and J. J. Emerick, ‘The Early Sixth-Century Frescoes at S. Martino ai Monti in Rome’, Römisches Jahrbuch fir Kunstgeschichte 21 (1984), 57–8. Cameron and Schauer have argued that this diptych was commissioned by the Basilius who was consul in 541, but their thesis has been refuted by Davis-Weyer and Emerick, who identify the man with the consul of 480. 20 Volbach, Elfenbeinarbeiten, cat. no. 31; G. P. Carratelli (ed.), Magistra Barbaritas. I Barbari in Italia (Milan 1984), fig. 541; N. Netzer, ‘Redating the Consular Ivory of Orestes’, Burlington Magazine CXXV (1983), 265–71. 21 K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai, The Icons, Volume One: From the Sixth to the Tenth Century (Princeton 1976), cat. no. B3, pls iv, vid, xlvb. 22 Ibid., cat. no. B9, pls xii, lii–liii. 23 V. Lazarev, Storia della pittura bizantina (Turin 1967), fig. 45. 24 G. Matthiae, Mosaici medioevali della chiese di Roma (Rome 1967), 191–8, pls 105, 106, 116–24. 25 Ibid., pl. 120. 26 F. Gandolfo, ‘Gli affreschi di San Saba’ in M. Andaloro et al. (eds), Fragmenta Picta. Affreschi e mosaici staccati del medioevo romano, Rome, Castel Sant’Angelo, 15 dicembre 1989– 18 febbraio 1990 (Rome 1989), 183–7, colour pls on pp. 88 and 89.

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versions than the ivory from San Vincenzo (Fig. 10).27 The paintings at Cividale are the earliest surviving witnesses to an aulic Longobard pictorial tradition which flourished both in the northern Longobard kingdom and in the southern duchy of Benevento, and which continued to develop in both the north and the south of Italy long after the northern kingdom fell under Frankish domination in 774. At San Vincenzo al Volturno, the painters who covered the walls of the churches and the claustral buildings of the monastery in two major phases in the first half of the ninth century belonged to this tradition (Figs. 11–13).28 The painted heads from both of these phases at San Vincenzo show critical points of relation to the new ivory head. There are two works of sculpture which also throw light on the ivory. One of these is the altar of the Lombard Duke, and later King, Ratchis, made in the years between c. 731 and c. 744, and now in the cathedral at Cividale.29 The sides of this stone altar are carved in low relief and were once elaborately painted. The frontal faces of the figures on it are rather angular configurations, with broad rounded brow and long cheeks whose sides are almost straight and converge acutely on a narrow rounded chin (Fig. 14). The heads on the altar, however, have an abstract, almost grotesque, quality, which is not found in the ivory. There are also certain critical points of comparison between the San Vincenzo head and that of Christ on the diptych from Genoels-Elderen, a pair of ivory panels, carved à jour and probably designed to embellish the covers of a book (Fig. 5). This is the work of a craftsman strongly influenced by Insular, Northumbrian, stylistic conventions, who was active late in the eighth century in a so-far unidentified centre on the mainland of Europe.30 The similarities lie in the shape of the nose, with its concave sides and angled nostrils, the rather long lower half of the face, with

27 H. P. L’Orange and H. Torp, ‘Il Tempietto Longobardo di Gividale’, Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia (Institutum Romanum Norvegiae) vii, pt. 1 (1977), colour pls iv–vi, pls cxiii, cxv, cxvii–cxix. 28 J. Mitchell, ‘The painted decoration of the early medieval monastery’ in Hodges and Mitchell, San Vincenzo al Volturno (1985), 150–5, figs 6:19–6:24, 6:26–6:30; H. Belting, Studien zur beneventanischen Malerei (Wiesbaden 1968), ills 32, 35, 59; San Vincenzo al Volturno e la cripta dell’abate Epifanio (Monte Cassino 1970), pls 41, 42 and 55. 29 J. Hubert, J. Porcher and W. F. Volbach, Europe of the Invasions (New York 1969), pls 277, 279–81; M. Durliat, Des barbares à l’an mil (Paris 1985), ill. 240; Paolo Diacono, Storia dei Longobardi, pls 290–2. 30 Goldschmidt, Elfenbeinskulpturen 1, cat. no. 1; Hubert, Porcher and Volbach, The Carolingian Renaissance, pl. 200; P. Lasko, Ars Sacra 800–1200 (Harmondsworth 1972),

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its small straight mouth and the little grooved philtrum, and in the little beads of blue glass set in the eyes. The glass eyes of the San Vincenzo head require some comment. The practice of setting glass beads into eyes is only rarely met with in early medieval ivories. It is most frequently found on pieces from northwestern Europe, particularly in English work, of the later Anglo-Saxon and Romanesque periods.31 The only surviving example from the period of the ivory head from San Vincenzo is the Genoels-Elderen diptych, although in the British Isles there was a tradition, as old as the eighth century, of inlaying the eyes of figures fashioned in metal with glass beads.32 However, there is evidence that glass inlay was particularly favoured by Lombard craftsmen and their patrons in northern Italy in the eighth century. Accents of glass figured prominently in the architectural stucco embellishment of the Longobard oratory, S. Maria in Valle, at Cividale,33 and somewhat later in San Salvatore at Brescia, a foundation of the Lombard Duke Desiderius and his wife Ansa.34 And it would appear that inlays of glass paste were extensively used on the most famous of all surviving examples of Lombard carved relief, the altar of Duke Ratchis — in the eyes of figures, on the wings of angels, on Christ’s cross-halo and on his stole, and in little crosses and rosettes on the front panel (Fig. 14).35 Furthermore, it could be pl. 11; C. L. Neuman de Vegvar, ‘The Origin of the Genoels-Elderen Ivories’, Gesta xxix/1 (1990), 8–24; L. Webster and J. Backhouse (eds), The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600–900 (London 1991), cat. no. 141. 31 A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der romanischen Zeit XI–XIII Jahrhundert in (Reprint, Berlin 1972), cat. no. 124; ibid, iv (1975), cat. nos 4–6, 19, 32, 55 and 269; J. Beckwith, Ivory Carvings in Early Medieval England (London 1972), cat. nos 4, 25, 26, 33, 43, 49, 68, 69, 75, 83, 84, 98–100; P. Williamson and L. Webster, ‘The Coloured Decoration of Anglo-Saxon Ivory Carvings’ in S. Cather, D. Park and P. Williamson (eds), Early Medieval Wall Painting and Painted Sculpture in England (Oxford 1990), 179, 184–5, cat. nos 6–9. 32 D. M. Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork 900–1100 in the British Museum (London 1964), 15–16, 31, cat. nos 18, 19, 45 and 152; Williamson and Webster, ‘The Coloured Decoration of Anglo-Saxon Ivory Carvings’, 179. 33 L’Orange and Torp, ‘Il Tempietto Longobardo’ 1, pls lxxx, lxxxi, lxxxv–lxxxviii; Menis, I Longobardi, pl. on p. 241. 34 A. Peroni, ‘La ricomposizione degli stucchi preromanici di S. Salvatore di Brescia’ in La Chiesa di San Salvatore di Brescia, Atti dell’ottavo Congresso di studi sull’arte dell’alto Medioevo II (Milan 1962), 263, figs 13, 15–171 20, 29, 39 and 41. 35 Hubert, Porcher and Volbach, Europe of the Invasions (New York 1969), pl. 277; Durliat, Des barbares à l’an mil, ill. 240; Paolo Diacono, Storia dei Longobardi, fig. on p. 240 and pl. 291; Menis, I Longobardi, fig. on p. 104.

A CARVED IVORY HEAD FROM SAN VINCENZO

1. San Vincenzo al Volturno, plan of excavations. 2. San Vincenzo al Volturno, plan of excavations. Abbot Iosue’s basilica of St Vincent and the composite workshop, c. A.D. 830.

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3. Ivory head from San Vincenzo al Volturno excavations. Front.

4. Ivory head from San Vincenzo al Volturno excavations. Back.

5. Head of Christ, Brussels, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, diptych from Genoels-Elderen (late eighth century). Ivory.

A CARVED IVORY HEAD FROM SAN VINCENZO

6. Head of Theodosius I, Missorium of Theodosius (A.D. 388). Silver. Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia.

7. Head of saint, Salonica, Hagios Georgios. Mosaic.

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8. Head of Orestes, Consular Diptych of Orestes (A.D. 530). Ivory. London, Victoria and Albert Museum.

9. Head of St Maurus, Rome, Lateran Baptistry, Chapel of St Venandus (A.D. 642–8). Mosaic.

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10. Head of St Hadrian, Cividale, S. Maria in Valle (c. 750–60). Wall painting.

11. Head of St Stephen, San Vincenzo al Volturno, subterranean oratory of Abbot Epyphanius (A.D. 824–42). Wall painting.

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12. Head of prophet, San Vincenzo al Volturno excavations (c. A.D. 800–10). Wall painting.

13. Head of saint, San Vincenzo al Volturno excavations (second quarter of the ninth century). Wall painting.

A CARVED IVORY HEAD FROM SAN VINCENZO

14. Christ and Cherubims, Cividale, Cathedral, Altar of Duke Ratchis (A.D. 731– 44). 15. Reliquary of Bishop Altheus, Sion Cathedral (late eighth century).

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argued that the inlaid eyes of the figures on many of the ivory panels of the so-called Salerno Antependium are a late instance of a Lombard tradition of glass inlay. These are the remains of an unidentified item of furniture, perhaps a bishop’s throne, probably commissioned for the cathedral of Salerno at the time of its reconstruction in the 1080s, soon after the old southern Lombard capital had fallen to the Normans under Robert Guiscard.36 We may conclude, therefore, that not only are some of the closest contemporary parallels for the general form of the head to be found among Lombard work of the later eighth and early ninth centuries, but the beaded eyes of the head from San Vincenzo apparently reflect a Lombard taste for glass inlay which is attested to by sporadic survivals from the eighth and the eleventh centuries. The closest comparisons for the head are to be found, not surprisingly, among early ninth-century wall paintings from the walls of the monastic buildings and from a subterranean oratory at San Vincenzo itself. This is most strikingly apparent in the particular attention paid by the carver to the areas around the eyes. The manner in which he has set each glass bead within a raised ring of ivory, which in turn is circumscribed by a continuous groove casting a deep circling shadow, shows a marked resemblance to the formula employed by the painters active at San Vincenzo for the eyes of their frontal figures. This is most evident in a series of prophets which date to the first decade of the ninth century, and belong to the great phase of rebuilding and expansion under Abbot Iosue ( 792–817).37 The eyes of these prophets are painted with large red pupils set within brilliant white corneas, which in turn are framed by configurations of shadow, a great dark curving arc beneath each eye and a narrower swathe above (Fig. 12). It appears that the carver of the ivory head was concerned to reproduce these effects in his relief, the dark glistening glass beads replacing the great red pupils, the prominent framing ring representing the white cornea, with a little spur similarly projecting on the outer side, and the deep encircling groove reproducing the dramatic configurations of shadow around the eyes of the painted figures. The peculiar formation of the lower end of the nose, with its two short sloping surfaces which meet at the tip, are repeated in the head of another figure from San Vincenzo, a young saint, executed a few years later than the prophets, which has been reassembled from painted plaster fallen from one of the walls of a room at the northern end of the monastery (Fig. 13). 36 Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen iv, cat. no. 126; R. P. Bergman, The Salerno Ivories. Ars Sacra from Medieval Amalfi (Cambridge, Mass, and London 1980). 37 Mitchell, ‘The Painted Decoration’, 144–9, figs 6:19–24.

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However, in overall design the ivory head comes closest to the frontal heads of tonsured saints which figure in various contexts in the painted decoration of the subterranean oratory of Abbot Epyphanius (824–42) (Fig. 11).38 The little ivory head shows every sign of having been made by someone who knew and admired the painted decoration of the monastery. The craftsman employed an old head-type which formed part of the repertoire of the painters active at San Vincenzo in the first decades of the ninth century, and took particular care to reproduce some of the effects of dramatic highlighting employed by those artists. The context in which the head was found suggests that this man was active in the monastery’s collective workshop subsequent to its reformation in the 820s or 830s. The oratory of Epyphanius, which provides the closest overall formal comparisons for the ivory, was constructed and decorated in precisely these years. The ivory was very probably carved some time in the second quarter of the century. Finally, there is the question of the destination and original function of the ivory head from San Vincenzo. The figure was clearly designed to be set against a ground of contrasting colour and material, very probably a sheet of gilded copper alloy laid over a wooden matrix. The piece has been sawn off at shoulder-level, and the vestigial traces of drapery which remain by the left side of the man’s neck imply that the carving originally continued. It is not possible to say with certainty whether the figure was full-length or only half-length. Nor is it clear whether this was an isolated figure or if it formed part of a larger plaque in which much of the ground was cut away to leave the relief free-standing, displayed à jour against a contrasting ground. A roughly contemporary example of this latter technique is the GenoelsElderen Diptych, mentioned above (Fig. 5).39 If the figure was free-standing, one might imagine it as having been made to adorn the cover of a book or a reliquary. The front of the Altheus reliquary, in Sion Cathedral, a work of the later eighth century, carries comparable half-length figures of tonsured saints holding books, in bright enamel (Fig. 15).40 It is tempting to imagine the San Vincenzo head as having been made for a similiar context, a small wooden casket sheathed in gilded copper, embellished with ivory busts of saints and with gems in rich settings. Like the saints on the Altheus reliquary, Belting, Studien zur beneventanischen Maleri, ills 32, 35, 44, 46, 59; San Vincenzo al Volturno e la cripta dell’abate Epifanio, pls 40–2, 53–5. 39 Goldschmidt, Elfenbeinskulpturen 1, cat. nos 1 and 2. 40 Hubert, Porcher and Volbach, The Carolingian Renaissance, pl. 197; Lasko, Ars Sacra, pl. 10; Durliat, Des barbares à l’an mil, ill. 351. 38

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the tonsured figure from San Vincenzo may originally have held a book in his hand. A bone casket carved with half-figures of saints, probably made in Apulia in the early twelfth century, and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, may be a descendant of the type of box for which the ivory was designed.41 The new ivory from San Vincenzo adds something to our understanding of the kind of institution the abbot and monks were building up at the monastery of San Vincenzo in the early years of the ninth century. Under Abbot Iosue, the monastery had been greatly expanded, and the monks had employed painting, stained glass and the written word in an exceptionally extravagant fashion to embellish the monastic buildings.42 In this they were following the practice of earlier Lombard and Carolingian patrons who in the mid- and later eighth century had experimented with the display of painted imagery and script as symbols of cultural authority and means of ideological control. In a second phase, probably to be associated with Abbot Epyphanius (824–42), various areas within the monastery were selected for further additions and elaboration. The current excavations have shown that this later activity was focused on two parts of the complex: at the northern end of the site, on the range of buildings and courts designed for the reception of important guests and the little Crypt Church designated for their use, and, to the south, on the workshop complex. The ivory head, it is suggested, was carved in the collective workshop after it had been reorganised and restructured in the second quarter of the ninth century. This second, limited, phase of embellishment at San Vincenzo was undertaken at a time when the fortunes of the abbey were beginning to falter, when sustaining gifts of property to the community were falling off.43 A likely explanation of this initiative is that the monks hoped that an improvement in the physical appearance of the public areas of the monastery would help commend it to the outside world and would attract wider recognition, increased support, and new endowment. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen iv, cat. no. 151 ; P. Williamson, The Medieval Treasury. The Art of the Middle Ages in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London 1986), 160–1. 42 J. Mitchell, ‘Literacy displayed: the use of inscriptions at the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno in the early ninth century’ in R. McKitterick (ed.), The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge 1990), 186–225; Hodges, Coutts and Mitchell, ‘The glass makers of San Vincenzo’. 43 C. Wickham, ‘Monastic lands and monastic patrons’ in San Vincenzo al Volturno 2. The 1980-86 Excavations. Part II (London 1995), 138–52, at 145. 41

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The restructured collective workshop could have played an important role in this strategy. On the one hand, its activities would have confirmed ties with the neighbouring secular élite, which would have looked to San Vincenzo for the manufacture of essential utilitarian equipment as well as for prestige goods, such as fine glassware, and sumptuous items of personal display, like ornate mounts for arms and armour.44 A service of this kind would also, doubtless, have brought in much-needed revenue. On the other hand, the workshop would have provided the monastery itself with prestigious and splendid fittings and ornaments of various kinds, coloured panes for the windows of the churches and halls of the monastery, intricately leaded glass lamps in many colours, finely decorated glass tableware for the use of distinguished guests, reliquaries splendidly embellished with polychrome enamel, all manner of fine metalwork and carefully carved items in bone. In the present state of our knowledge, it seems that San Vincenzo al Volturno was the only centre in Italy in which ivory was being carved in the period between the seventh and the later ninth centuries. It is tempting to argue that the monks purposefully sought out and acquired a small quantity of this rare and beautiful material, which had enjoyed considerable prestige in the fifth and sixth centuries, particularly at court, with the senatorial aristocracy, and among élite circles of the Church, and which had recently been revived by the Carolingians on account of its associations with Late Antique imperial ceremonial and ecclesiastical magnificence. It is unlikely that the monastery came into possession of more than one or two elephant tusks. These could have been ancient, the remnants of Late Antique stock. But it is equally possible that they were fresh imports, perhaps brought over to a port on the Campanian coast by Aghlabid Arab merchants from the Maghreb, the grandfathers of the Saracen marauders who were to destroy San Vincenzo two generations later in 881.45 In its material, as in its form, Hodges, Coutts and Mitchell, ‘The glass makers of San Vincenzo’; Hodges, ‘From the Empire of Charlemagne’; R.Hodges, S.Leppard, J.Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops (London, 2011). 45 A. O. Citarella and H. M. Willard, The Ninth-Century Treasure of Monte Cassino in the Context of Political and Economic Developments in South Italy (Monte Cassino 1983), 63–82. Citarella and Willard have argued that the prosperity of southern Italy in the later eighth and ninth centuries was in large part due to close economic ties with Arab markets on the North African coast. The North African elephant had been hunted to extinction in Late Antiquity, but it is perfectly possible that merchants would have imported a few East African or Indian 44

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the new head confirms what is evident from many other aspects of the visual culture of the monastery, that in the early ninth century the community at San Vincenzo was concerned to demonstrate its adherence to the ideals and practices of the Lombard and Carolingian Renaissances.46 Acknowledgements For information, advice and help of various kinds I am indebted to Michael Brandon-Jones, Juliet Clutton-Brock, Nigel Gardner, Sandy Heslop, Richard Hodges, Tony Irwin, Ernst Kitzinger, Victoria Mitchell, Ian Riddler, Martin Sheldrick and Paul Williamson. Endnote This essay was written in the mistaken belief that the material of the head was elephant ivory. Anthony Cutler has kindly pointed out (pers. comm) that the densely set undulations of the inner pulp cavity are incompatible with elephant ivory and appear to be from another animal, possibly walrus. If correct, this would open up a possible range of references and connections with far north-western Europe.

tusks into the Maghreb in the early ninth century. See Cutler, ‘Prolegomena to the Craft of Ivory Carving’, 441–3, 454–5. 46 Mitchell, ‘The Painted Decoration’, 125–76; Mitchell, ‘Literacy Displayed’, 186–225; Hodges, ‘From the Empire of Charlemagne’, 79–81. For this ivory head now see also Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops, 266–9.

XVII An Early Medieval Enamel

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ne of the most spectacular examples of fine craft-production at San Vincenzo is a fragment of a large composite rectangle of copper alloy, with gilded display-surfaces, once partially or completely covered with trays of brightly coloured cloisonné enamel (Figs. 1–6) (Mitchell 1984; Mitchell 1985; Basile 1988: 155–6; Hodges and Mitchell 1996: fig. 3:26; Hodges 1997: 150; Mitchell 1994: 934; Bertelli and Brogiolo 2000: cat. 442; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell 2011: 257–61). It was apparently designed to be mounted on a wooden matrix, to ornament the cover of a de-luxe manuscript or the lid of a reliquary, or perhaps even to serve as a devotional image. There is little doubt that it was manufactured in the monastery’s own workshops, probably in the third quarter of the ninth century when San Vincenzo’s craftsmen were still extremely productive, despite a general decline in the fortunes of the monastery. The fragment (SF 0663) was found in 1982 in a phase 6b tip (D 466) within the doorway of wall 468 of the Vestibule (Hodges 1995: fig. 1:3). It may originally have formed part of a small hoard, perhaps a fine-metalsmith’s stock of bits and pieces, part of which was preserved in a shallow pit (D 320), situated a few metres to the west, on Terrace 1 (see Hodges: 1995: 21–2, and Filippucci 2001: 336–8, cat. 42–54). This little hoard would appear to have been deposited when the monastery was sacked by a Saracen war-band on 10 October 881. It was disturbed and its uppermost items shovelled away, probably in phase 6b, in the third quarter of the eleventh century, when the buildings in this area of the old site were systematically demolished, in the time of abbot John V (1053–76). The enamelled piece has been torn on two of its sides. The right half has been broken off, and a section is missing from the bottom. What survives is a somewhat buckled irregular rectangle measuring 16 cm x 10.5 cm, probably

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1. Enamelled plaque. Front, back and constructional details.

about a third of its original size. When discovered, a section of the back-plate was bent forward on itself. This was straightened out by members of the staff of the Istituto Centrale di Restauro in Rome, who were responsible for the final conservation of the object (initial on-site cleaning and conservation had been carried out by the excavation’s conservator, Julie Jones). The underlying fabric of the fragment consists of a copper-alloy backplate (0.5 mm thick), around the edges of which a secondary plate is riveted, to form a stiffening frame and to give some strength and rigidity to the structure (Fig. 1). From a superficial inspection it has not been possible to determine whether the surviving secondary plate consists of one or more sections. However, it is likely that it is all of one piece. The positions of rivet holes in the back-plate show that originally secondary plates ran all round the edges of the plaque. There is no evidence that an additional stiffening plate was ever laid in the large central field. One surviving copper nail and a number of nail holes in the back-plate suggest that the plaque was once attached to a wooden support. The outer contours are framed

AN EARLY MEDIEVAL ENAMEL

2. Enamelled plaque, front.

3. Enamelled plaque, back.

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4. Enamelled plaque, front, detail.

5. Enamelled plaque, front.

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6. Enamelled plaque, front, detail.

7. Votive hanging cross, London, Victoria and Albert Museum, detail (photo: author).

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8. Cross reliquary of Pope Paschal I, detail (after von Matt et al., n.d.).

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with strips of thick, heavily-gilded, beaded copper wire (4.4 mm), which are cradled in the gently up-curling edges of the back-plate (Figs. 1–4). Between the back-plate and the border-beading are soldered long strips, which are bent to a shallow S section along their length and are gilded on their upper surfaces. These overlapped and helped secure the little trays of enamel which were deployed around the edges of the plaque. The one surviving corner does not turn at a right angle, but follows a diagonal, slightly concave, course. The beaded cresting on this corner has been filed down, as if to accommodate an angle ornament, or, more likely, some kind of fixture which held the frame at this point, perhaps to secure it to an underlying support. It is likely that more than one alloy of copper was employed in the construction of the plaque. The metal of the back-plate is fairly soft and pliable, whereas the secondary plate appears to be of a somewhat stiffer composition. Thin narrow copper strips (0.5 mm thick), in pairs, are soldered to the surviving secondary plate to form a sequence of variously-shaped cells. These paired strips clasp sunken lengths of fine gilded beaded wire, of two gauges, to create ornamented borders (Figs. 1, 4 and 6). Like the S-sectioned strips round the periphery, these paired strips were bent outwards to secure the little trays of enamel which must have been disposed symmetrically around the edges of the plaque. These little devices in full cloisonné enamel originally encircled a single large figural composition in the central field. The one enamelled field that remains lies in the upper left-hand corner of the plaque. Against a deep azure ground, an exotic tree or flower, like a great daisy, grows on a turquoise stem which issues from a turquoise pollarded trunk. The head of the tree is notable for its chromatic symmetry, its red, yellow, white and green petals being diametrically opposed about a red button at the centre. The motif is fashioned from thin copper-alloy cloisons gilded along their visible edges. For the most part the enamel is opaque, partially discoloured and uneven in texture, and long exposure to the earth has left it broken and fissured. This tree was doubtless paired by a similar plant, in exact reverse, in the upper right-hand corner. The enamel was made from soda-lime-silica glass, coloured with recycled ancient mosaic tesserae, which presumably had been collected from accessible Roman sites, in the manner described by the early twelfth-century author, Theophilus, in his treatise, On Divers Arts (11.12). Numerous coloured tesserae were found in the monastery’s workshops where the glass was worked.

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One of the crucibles excavated from this area still contained a yellow tessera half-fused in plain glass. This clearly is an instance in which a particular operation of creating coloured glass was interrupted and abandoned (Hodges 1991:74–6; Dell’Acqua 1997: 36). It is probably not possible to reconstruct, with any certainty, the shape of the original composition of the interior field. However, it looks as if the main subject on the surviving fragment was a nimbed figure facing to the right. The outline of a halo is clearly discernible, and its silhouette continues in undulating curves, which must have described the composition as it developed to the right. The shape of the fragment and the disposition of the partition-walls suggest that the figure was originally balanced by a second one, or perhaps by a small group of figures, on the lost right half of the plaque. Possible candidates for such a two-part composition are: the Annunciation, the Presentation of the infant Christ in the Temple, and the three Magi before the Virgin and Child. The existing contour does not correspond exactly with any known compositional iconography of these scenes, but a somewhat similar configuration can be seen in the depiction of the Adoration of the Magi in the early eighth-century funerary oratory of Pope John VII in the old basilica of St. Peter, in Rome (Nordhagen 1965: colour plate and pl. XVIII; Andaloro et al. 1989: 80, pl. 19, 171, fig. 2). The figural group on the plaque from San Vincenzo, like the surrounding cells, may have been in full cloisonné enamel, although it is perhaps more likely that it was fashioned from a different, contrasting material, like ivory or even repoussée sheet-metal. The paired copper strips which constitute the margin of the central composition are constructed differently from those which separated the peripheral trays of enamel (Fig. 1). Whereas the latter are soldered to the stiffening-plate parallel to each other and a few millimetres apart, the border surrounding the central area is made up of an outer strip which rises vertically from the plate and a second which is curled along its length and laid alongside the first to form a U-section, with one straight and one curving side. Furthermore, there is no indication that the central composition, like the peripheral trays of enamel, was supported by a secondary plate. This would seem to imply that differing materials and techniques were used for the outer cells and for the central reservation. Imperfections in the enamelling and a certain roughness in the construction of the gilded frame suggest that the plaque was made in a provincial atelier, and not by a craftsman working to the highest specification

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in a major Italian centre of artistic production, such as Rome or Milan may have been at this time. There exists a real possibility that it was made at San Vincenzo itself, in the workshop-range excavated in FF. The spectographic analyses of its blue glass undertaken by Drs. Bimson and Freestone show that it has a similar composition to the blue vessel-glass and window-glass made in the monastery’s workshops (Bimson and Freestone 2001) and the bilateral chromatic symmetry of the petals of the tree in the surviving tray of enamel was a particular characteristic of the formal vocabulary used by the artists active at the monastery in the ninth century (Hodges 1993: 137, pls. 9: 3-4; Hodges 1995: 35, figs. 3:2–4; Hodges and Mitchell 1996: figs 4:5, 9, 16, 22, 42, 50, 52; Delogu, Hodges, Mitchell 1996: 39–41). Gilded and silvered wire, sometimes attached to backing strips of copper, of exactly the same kind as those employed on the plaque, have been recovered from one of the rooms of the workshop-range (Room A). Two further elements of cloisonné enamel and other material associated with fine-metal-working and enamel production were also found in the area. It seems likely that this was the room in which San Vincenzo’s fine-metalsmith and enameller worked in the ninth century (Hodges and Mitchell 1996: 51, figs 3: 24–5; Mitchell 1996: 148–9, figs 26–8; Lusuardi Siena 1999: 178–9; Bertelli and Brogio 2000: cat. 443; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell 2011: 163–6). The Chronicle of San Vincenzo makes no reference to the manufacture of glass or enamel at San Vincenzo, although the archaeological evidence for glass-production at the monastery on a huge scale in the early ninth century is overwhelming (Moreland 1985; Hodges, Coutts, Mitchell 1990; Hodges 1991; Hodges and Mitchell 1996: 47–53; Dell’Acqua 1996; Dell’Acqua 1997; Francis and Moran 1997; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell 2011: 163–6, 217–20, 257–61). However, in the Chronicle of Monte Cassino, it is recorded that Abbot Gisulf (796–817), the contemporary of Abbot Joshua of San Vincenzo, when he rebuilt the old oratory of St. John the Baptist which housed the body of Saint Benedict, on the summit of Monte Cassino, set up over the altar dedicated to the saint a silver ciborium, which was decorated with gold and with enamels (Chronica Monasterii Casinensis I, 18: Hoffmann 1980: 59; Hahnloser 1965: 80–2; Citarella and Willard 1983: 44–45). Given the close relations which existed between the two neighbouring monasteries throughout the early Middle Ages, it is very probable that the enamels on this ciborium were similar in idiom and technique to the fragment from San Vincenzo. It is even possible that Abbot Gisulf turned to the craftsman at

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San Vincenzo for enamels to adorn the splendid canopy which he raised over the body of Saint Benedict. Nearly three centuries later, in about 1070, Monte Cassino’s abbot Desiderius would have to commission craftsmen in far-off Constantinople to fashion for his new basilica a golden antependium embellished with episodes from the New Testament and the miracles of Saint Benedict in enamel (Chronica Monasterii Casinensis III, 32: Hoffmann 1980: 403; Holt 1957: 15). Early in the ninth century the technology for making such an altarpiece would have been available within a day’s journey, if indeed it was not to be had in Monte Cassino’s own workshops. Desiderius’ recourse to Byzantine expertise in the eleventh century may be symptomatic of the changing geography of enamel production in the Mediterranean area in the early Middle Ages. David Buckton has proposed, contrary to generally accepted opinion, that while the technique of cloisonné enamel was practised in certain parts of western Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries, it was virtually unknown in the Byzantine East before the end of this period (Buckton 1988; 1995: 361; 1996: 659–60). He writes ‘the cloisonné technique, for which Byzantine enamellers are justly famous, was imported from the West at the end of Iconoclasm, and the antecedents of Middle Byzantine enamel, which is almost exclusively cloisonné and largely figural, are to be found not — as has been supposed — in early or Iconoclastic Byzantium, but in Carolingian Europe’ (Buckton 1988: 244). The relative priority of eastern and western production of cloisonné in this early period is still contested. Lusuardi Siena has argued for a continuous Byzantine/ Slav/Avar tradition of cloisonné since the fifth century (1999: 178–80). Futhermore, there is evidence for the manufacture of complex cloisonné compositions in Georgia, in the Caucasus, as early as the eighth century. The earliest surviving eastern pieces, the Deesis on the Martvili staurotheque, and a number of elements on the Khakhuli Triptych, from Georgia, are of uncertain date, but are probably ninth-century work, although earlier dates have been claimed for them (Beridze, Alibegasvili, Volskaja and Xuskivadze 1983: 206–7, pls. on pp. 212–3; Khuskivadze 1984: no. 1, 3–5; Javakhishvili and Abramishvili 1986: 101, 107, figs. 88, 175. Thurre 1996 has reviewed the state of knowledge and opinion on early Georgian enamels, and Buckton 1996 and Cormack 1994 have done the same for early Byzantine production). Eastern and western enamels can be very difficult to tell apart. One of the earliest surviving examples of Byzantine cloisonné, the magnificent pair of bracelets (perikarpia) from Thessaloniki, is technically almost indistinguishable from ninth-century Italian work (Pelekanides

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1959; Wessel 1969: 62–63, cat. 14; Haseloff 1990: 31–3; ills. 38a–e). To judge from the little evidence we have, it would seem that a number of the principal centres for enamel production in this period were in Italy, but parallel traditions were developing in Byzantium and Georgia at the same time; and it now seems increasingly likely that the latter were the culmination of a continuing late antique eastern tradition of cloisonné. However, more hard archaeological evidence will be needed before the relationship between eastern and western cloisonné is satisfactorily understood. Nonetheless, the fragments from San Vincenzo should help clarify the western side of the debate. It is the only early Italian enamel to have been found in a controlled archaeological context, in the proximity of a contemporary workshop engaged in the manufacture of glass and fine metalwork. It affords crucial evidence for localizing and understanding the early Italian tradition of cloisonné, and an indication of the means of production that may have been available locally to Abbot Gisulf of Montecassino when he commissioned his gilded and enamelled silver ciborium. No surviving object provides a full parallel for what the San Vincenzo fragment must have looked like in its original state. However, in particular aspects, it must generally have resembled the well-known cross-reliquary of Pope Paschal I (817–824) in the Museo Sacro at the Vatican, which is likely to have been commissioned by the pope from a Roman workshop (Fig. 8) (Rosenberg 1922: 41–62; Hackenbroch 1938: fig. 1; Stohlman 1939: 47–48; Wessel 1969: 46–50; Hubert, Porcher, Volbach 1970: ill. 198; Gauthier 1972: 44–46, 319; Haseloff 1990: 77, 172, ill. 49; von Matt et al n.d.: pls 75–77; Stiegemann and Wemhoff 1999 II: cat. IX.32), and a votive cross in silvered copper, covered with trays of enamel, of modern Venetian provenance, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Fig. 7) (Mitchell 1917; Gauthier 1972: 39, 40, 317, ill. 9; Campbell, M. 1983: ill. 6; Haseloff 1990: 79–80, ill. 53; Stiegemann and Wemhoff 1999 II: cat. XI.13). Also related is the upper cover of another staurothek, the FieschiMorgan cross-reliquary in New York (Rosenberg 1922: 31; Hackenbroch 1938: fig. 5; Wessel 1969: 42–44; Weitzmann 1979: 634–636; Haseloff 1990: 34, ill. 41), which recently has been dated, with convincing arguments, to the ninth century, probably the work of a craftsman active in the eastern Mediterranean, aware of contemporary western practise (Buckton 1982; Kartsonis 1986: 94–123, esp. 123; Buckton 1988: 242–3; Cormack 1994: 69–71; Buckton 1996: 659–60; Evans and Wixom 1997: cat. 34). In construction, all three are cognate with the fragment from San Vincenzo,

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with double cell-walls ornamented with beaded wire containing trays of full cloisonné enamel. In the first case the imagery consists of scenes from the life of Christ, in the second, floral motifs and, in the third, the Crucifixion surrounded by images of saints. The gilded beading of the outer frame is a common feature of deluxe metalwork of the period. The technique of cloisonné enamel would appear to have been practised by craftsmen in Italy at least since the eighth century. This may have been a craft which was particularly prized and cultivated in Lombard court circles. A possible early example of Lombard enamelling, which appears to be in a mixed champlevé/cloisonné technique, is a little gold mount, expertly decorated with the figure of a brightly-coloured bird, from Cividale. This was found there in the so-called ‘grave of Gisulf ’, an elite burial of the mid-seventh century (Lasko 1972: 9, 259, ill. 4; Haseloff 1990: 21, ill. 20; Menis 1990: 470, ill. X.191d; Bertelli and Brogiolo 2000: cat. 287). It is usually thought to have been an import, the work of a Byzantine or even a Roman craftsman. It could be Byzantine work, but given the fascination which Lombard patrons showed for glass and the ingenuity with which Lombard craftsmen employed it in ornamental contexts (Mitchell 1994: 933–5), it could be argued that this mount from Cividale is a lone survivor of a sumptuous early Lombard tradition of cloisonné enamelling. Very little survives of this putative early Italian production of cloisonné. From the following century there is only the Castellani Brooch in the British Museum, London, which has a provenance in Canosa di Puglia (Lasko 1972: 9, ill. 5; Haseloff 1990: 20–21, ill. 18; Thurre 1993: 152–3, fig. 25), the plaques on the back cover of the Lindau Gospels, in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (Lasko 1972: 8–9, ill. 2; Hubert, Porcher and Volbach 1970: 213, ill. 192; Haseloff 1990: 86–8, ills. 66b and c), and ones on the Caja de las Agatas, in Oviedo (Lasko 1972: 8–9, ill. 3; Hubert, Porcher and Volbach 1970: 215, ill. 314; Haseloff 1990: 84–5, 88, ill. 63). If the Cividale bird is the work of an Italian craftsman, it would compel us to reconsider radically our understanding of the early development of the production of cloisonné enamel, not only in the Alemannic and northern Lombard areas, but also in early medieval Europe in general. After 774 the northern part of the Italian peninsular was under Carolingian control. However, this change in governance seems to have had little effect on the arts and crafts practised in the conquered areas. Artists continued to work in the old accustomed traditions, albeit for new patrons. The fashion for glass and enamel continued. A handful of pieces of ecclesiastical

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metalwork set with enamels of Italian manufacture survives from the ninth century. There is Pope Paschal’s cross-reliquary in the Vatican, the hanging votive cross in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, the magnificent ninth-century altar of Vvolvinus in Sant’ Ambrogio, in Milan (Hackenbroch 1938: 18–21, Elbern 1952; Hubert, Porcher and Volbach 1970: figs 220– 22; Gauthier 1972: cat. 10; Lasko 1972: 50–55, figs 46–4; Bertelli 1988: 19–54, ills. 23–28, 30–33, 37–51, 54–6; Haseloff 1990: 78–9, ills. 51a–r; Capponi 1996), the enamelled plaques on the so-called ‘Reliquary of Pippin’ at Conques (Haseloff 1990: 79, ill. 52), the ninth-century elements of the so-called ‘iron crown’ in the treasury of Monza cathedral (Hackenbroch 1938: 21–2; Bârany-Oberschall 1966; Hubert, Porcher, Volbach 1970: 246, 355, ill. 225; Bertelli 1988: 49–53, ills. 61–2; Haseloff 1990: 80–81, ill. 54; Lusuardi Siena 1999) and possibly the Beresford Hope pectoral cross (Wessel 1969: cat. 8; Haseloff 1990: 78, ill. 50a–b; Buckton 1996: 660), in London, and, from the later eighth century, the five little nimbed figures on the reliquary of Altheus in Sion (Hubert, Porcher and Volbach 1970: 217, ill. 197; Lasko 1972: 10, ill. 10; Haseloff 1990: 83–4, ills. 59a–c; Thurre 1993). To this tiny corpus of early Italian enamels, the new fragment from San Vincenzo is a substantial addition, not least because it is the only one to have been found in a controlled excavation, in close proximity to the atelier in which it was manufactured. Acknowledgements David Buckton has answered my queries on early medieval enamel, over many years, with unfailing patience, and has provided all manner of help and support. For information, ideas, comment and help of all kinds, in the preparation of this chapter, I would also like to thank: Giuseppe Basile, Beat Brenk, Catherine Coutts, Anuradha Dey, Anna Donadoni, Victor Elbern, Paola Fiorentino, Margaret Frazer, Marie-Madeleine Gauthier, Richard Hodges, Julie Jones, Ernst Kitzinger, Charles Little, Victoria Mitchell, Matthew Moran, John Moreland, Jack Ogden, Ian Riddler, Franco Valente, Rosalia Varoli, Paul Williamson.

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Bibliography Andaloro, M., Ghidoli, A., Iacobini, A., Romano, S. and Tornei, A. (1989) Fragmenta Picta. Affreschi e mosaici staccati del medioevo romano. Rome, Argos. Bárány-Oberschall, M. von (1966) Die eiserne Krone der Lombardei und der lombardische Königsschatz. Vienna, Munich, Herold Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft m.b.H. Basile, G. (1988) ‘Abbazia di San Vincenzo al Volturno: restauri in corso’. Arte Medievale 2 ser., 2, pt. 1: 153–61. Beridze, V., Alibegasvili, G., Volskaja, A., and Xuskivadze, L. (1983) The Treasures of Georgia. London, Century Publishing. Bertelli, C. (1988) ‘Sant’Ambrogio da Angilberto II a Gotofredo’. In C. Bertelli (ed.), Il millennio ambrosiano: La città del vescovo dai Carolingi al Barbarossa: 16–81. Milan, Electa. Bertelli, C. and Brogiolo, G. P. (2000) Il futuro dei Longobardi: Italia e la costruzione dell’Europa di Carlo Magno. Milan, Skira. Bimson, M. and Freestone, I. (2001) ‘An analysis of blue glass from the enamel’. In San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: The Finds from the 198086 Excavations I: 285-6. Spoleto, Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo. Buckton, D. (1982) ‘The Oppenheim or Fieschi-Morgan reliquary in New York and the antecedents of Middle Byzantine enamel’. In Abstracts of the Eighth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference: 35–6. Chicago. Buckton, D. (1988) ‘Byzantine enamel and the West’. In J.D. HowardJohnston (ed.), Byzantum and the West c. 850–1200. Proceedings of the XVIII Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Oxford, 1984: 235–44. Amsterdam, A.M. Hakkert. Buckton, D. (1995) ‘Chinese whispers. The premature birth of the typical Byzantine enamel’. In C. Moss and K. Kiefer (eds), Byzantine East, Latin West: Art-historical studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann: 591–6. Princeton, Princeton University Press. Buckton, D. (1996) ‘Early Christian and Byzantine, VII, 7 (ii) (b): Enamels, mid-9th century early 10th’. In Dictionary of Art IX: 659–63. London, MacMillan. Campbell, M. (1983) An Introduction to Medieval Enamels. London, Her

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Majesty’s Stationery Office. Capponi, C. (1996) (ed.) L’altare d’oro di Sant’Ambrogio. Milan, Silvana Editoriale. Citarella, A.O. and Willard, H.M. (1983) The Ninth-Century Treasure of Monte Cassino in the Context of Political and Economic Developments in South Italy. Monte Cassino, Monaci di Montecassino. Cormack, R. (1994) ‘Reflections on Early Byzantine cloisonné enamels: endangered or extinct’: In M. Vassilaki, E. Georgoula, A. Delivorrias and A. Markopoulos (eds), Thumiani in Memory of Laskarina Bouras: 67–72. Athens. Dell’Acqua, F. (1996), Le vetrate del monastero altomedievale di S.Vincenzo al Volturno. Tesi in Storia dell’Arte Medievale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Anno Accademico 1994–95. Dell’Acqua, F. (1997) ‘Ninth-century window glass from the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno (Molise, Italy)’. Journal of Glass Studies 39: 33–44. Delogu, P., Hodges, R., Mitchell, J. (1996) San Vincenzo al Volturno. La nascita di una città monastica. Rome, Aldo Rotatoni. Elbern, V. (1952) Der karolingische Goldaltar von Mainland. Bonner Beiträge zur Kunstwissenschaft, Band 2. Bonn, Kunsthistorisches Institut der Universität. Evans, H.C. and Wixom, W.D. (1997) The Glory of Byzantium. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Filippucci, P. (2001) ‘Artifacts in silver and copper alloy’. In San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: The Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations I: 329–45. Spoleto, Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo. Francis, K. and Moran, M. (1997) ‘Planning the technology in the early Middle Ages: the temporary workshops at San Vincenzo al Volturno’. In S. Gelichi (ed.), I Congresso Nazionale di Archeologia Medievale: 373–8. Florence, All’Insegna del Giglio. Gauthier, M.-M. (1972) Émaux du moyen âge occidental. Paris, Office du Livre. Hackenbroch, Y. (1938) Italienisches Email des frühen Mittelalters. Basel and Leipzig, Holbein-Verlag. Hahnloser, H.R. (1965) ‘Magistra latinitas et peritia Greca’. In G. von der Osten and G. Kauffmann (eds), Fortschrift für Herbert von Einem 16. februar 1965: 77–93. Berlin, Verlag Gebr. Mass. Haseloff, G. (1990) Email im frühen Mittelalter: Frühchristliche Kunst von der

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Spätantike bis zu den Karolingern. Marburg, Hitzeroth. Hodges, R. (1991) ‘A fetishism for commodities: ninth-century glassmaking at San Vincenzo al Volturno’. In M. Mendera (ed.), Archeologia e storia della produzione del vetro preindustriale: 67–90. Florence, Edizioni all’Insegna del Giglio. Hodges, R. (ed.) 1993 San Vincenzo al Volturno 1. The 1980-86 Excavations Part I. London, The British School at Rome. Hodges, R. (ed.) 1995 San Vincenzo al Volturno 2. The 1980-86 Excavations Part II. London, The British School at Rome. Hodges, R. (1997) Light in the Dark Ages: The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno. London, Duckworth. Hodges, R., Coutts, C. and Mitchell, J. (1990) ‘The glass makers of San Vincenzo’. Current Archaeology XI/2, no. 122: 86–90. Hodges, R. and Mitchell, J. (1996) The Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno. Miscellanea Vulturnese 2. Monte Cassino, Abbazia di Montecassino. Hodges, R., Leppard, S and Mitchell, J. (2011) San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops. London, The British School at Rome. Hoffmann, H. (ed.) (1980) Die Chronik von Montecassino (MGH Scriptores XXXIV). Hannover, Hahnsche Buchhandlung. Holt, E.G. (1957) A Documentary History of Art. Volume I. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance. New York, Doubleday Anchor. Hubert, J., Porcher, J. and Volbach, W.F. (1970) The Carolingian Renaissance. New York, Braziller. Javakhishvili, A. and Abramishvili, G. (1986) Jewellery and Metalwork in the Museums of Georgia. Leiningrad, Aurora Art Publishers. Kartsonis, A.D. (1986) Anastasis: The Making of an Image. Princeton, Princeton University Press. Khuskivadze, L.Z. (1984) Medieval Cloisonné Enamels from the Collections of the Georgian State Museum of Fine Arts. Tbilisi, Xelovneba. Lasko, P. (1972) Ars Sacra 800–1200. Harmondsworth, Penguin Books. Lusuardi Siena, S. (1999) ‘The material and historical identity of the crown: an enigma in resolution?’ In G. Buccellati (ed.) The Iron crown and Imperial Europe. Vol. 2.2 In search of the Imperial crown, science: 173– 243. Milan, Mondadori. Menis, G.C. (ed.) (1990) I Longobardi. Milan, Electa. Mitchell, H.P. (1917) ‘An enamel from the Carolingian Period from Venice’. Archaeological Journal 74: 122–31.

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Mitchell, J. (1984) ‘Smalto del nono secolo proveniente da San Vincenzo al Volturno’. In E. Nocera (ed.), Almanacco del Molise: 201–5. Campobasso, Edizione Enne. Mitchell, J. (1985) ‘An early medieval enamel from San Vincenzo’. In R. Hodges and J. Mitchell (eds), San Vincenzo al Volturno. The Archaeology, Art and Territory of an Early Medieval Monastery (BAR International Series 252): 177–84. Oxford, British Archaeological Reports. Mitchell, J. (1994) ‘The display of script and the uses of painting in Longobard Italy’. In Testo e immagine nel’alto medioevo: XLI settimana di studio del centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto 15–21 aprile 1993: 887–954. Spoleto, Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo. Mitchell, J. (1996) ‘Monastic guest quarters and workshops: The example of San Vincenzo al Volturno’. In H.-R. Sennhauser (ed.), Wohn- und Wirtschaftsbauten frühmittelalterlicher Klöster: 127–55. Zürich, vaf Hochschulverlag AG an der ETH Zürich. Moreland, J. (1985) ‘A monastic workshop and glass production at San Vincenzo al Volturno’. In R. Hodges and J. Mitchell (eds.), San Vincenzo al Volturno, the Archaeology, Art and Territory of an Early Medieval Monastery (BAR International Series 252): 37–60. Oxford, British Archaeological Reports. Nordhagen, P.J. (1965) ‘The mosaics of John VII (705–707 A.D.)’. In Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia (Institutum Romanum Norvegiae) II: 121–166. Rome, L’Erma di Bretschneider. Pelekanides, S. (1959) ‘Ta chrysa byzantina kosmemata tes Thessalonikes’. Deltion tes christianikes archaiologikes hetaireias: 55–77. Rosenberg, M. (1922) Geschichte der Goldschmiedekunst auf technischer Grundlage. Zellenschmelz. III. Die Frühdenkmäler. Frankfurt am Main, Joseph Baer. Stiegemann, C. and Wemhoff, M. (1999) 799: Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III in Paderborn. Mainz, Verlag Philipp von Zabern. Stohlman, F.W. (1939) Gli smalti del Museo Sacro Vaticano. Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Thurre, D. (1993) ‘Le reliquaire d’Altheus, évêque de Sion et abbé de SaintMaurice’, Helvetia Archaeologica 24, 95/96: 126–76. Thurre, D. (1996) ‘Émaux cloisonnés de Géorgie: mises au point et nouvelles attributions’. In A. R. Calderoni Masetti (ed.), Studi di oreficeria =

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Bollettino d’Arte 95 (supplement): 25–38. von Matt, L., Daltrop, G. and Prandi, A. (n. d.) Art Treasures of the Vatican Library. New York, Harry N. Abrams. Weitzmann, K. (ed.) (1979) Age of Spirituality. Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Princeton University Press. Wessel, K. (1969) Byzantine Enamels from the 5th to the 13th Century. Shannon, Irish University Press.

XVIII A Set of Sword-Belt Mounts of Iron Inlaid with Silver and Associated Bridle-Furniture

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mong the most interesting features of the monastery brought to light during excavation is a sequence of workshops and service buildings, in the vicinity of Abbot Joshua’s abbey-church of San Vincenzo Maggiore (These will be the subject of a subsequent study. See Moreland 1985: 37–60; Hodges, Coutts & Mitchell 1990: 86–90; Hodges 1991; Mitchell 1992b; Hodges and Mitchell 1966: 51–3; Marazzi and Francis 1996; Mitchell 1996: 148–55; Francis and Moran 1997; Hodges 1997: 131–5). In the first years of the ninth century, a succession of contemporary workshops associated with the construction of the basilica were located in the area which was later to be covered by the front of its atrium. Here the tiles, the metal fittings and the glass for the great church were manufactured. Subsequently, these temporary work-stations were replaced by an extensive range of buildings, fronting onto a large yard, lying immediately to the south of the atrium of San Vincenzo Maggiore. This range included ateliers for specialized craftwork such as fine metalwork, enamel-working and the carving of bone and ivory, as well as store-rooms, barns and possibly dwellings for some of the personnel who worked here. The surviving fragments of the craft-production of these workshops are of more than incidental interest for what they reveal about the cultural complexion of the monastery and the ways in which the community interacted with the landowning elite of the area during the period of its greatest prosperity. The most spectacular group of items from the hands of the finemetalsmiths of San Vincenzo, to have been found to date, is a set of swordbelt mounts fashioned in iron and embellished with inlays of silver wire, and a number of associated iron fittings from a horse’s bridle (Figs. 1–9, 11–12;

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Mitchell 1994b; Gerchow 1999: cat. 402; Bertelli and Brogiolo 2000: cat. 420). These were found in 1984 and 1985, not in the area of the workshops themselves, but in fills, mostly dating from the mid eleventh century, in the Garden Court which, in the ninth century, had formed the centrepiece of the monastery’s guest-quarters at the northern end of the site. The sword-belt set consists of a trefoil strap-distributor, two oval mounts and a semicircular buckle; the bridle fittings are a cruciform fourway strap-distributor and a long-shanked rein-shackle. All these items are of iron. The four sword-belt elements carry elaborate ornamentation in silver inlay. The trefoil mount is of a type familiar in northern and eastern Europe in the Carolingian period, with three diverging arms of more or less equal length with rounded outer ends (Figs. 1, 2, 11a). Lines of five ornate domeheaded collared rivets run in sunken channels across the inner ends of the three arms, and secure narrow backing strips on the rear face. The displayface, roughly 88 mm across, is gently convex and is completely covered with a scrolling plant-motif fashioned in inlaid silver wire and amalgam. The vocabulary of the design consists of the continuous lines of stems and branches, trefoil clover leaves, teardrop-shaped leaves either in full silver or in outline, a small number of large round dots and a great number of very small dots. At first glance, it appears as if the whole plant is outlined by these points of silver. On the rear face, pierced lugs were pegged into the outer ends of the arms, before the decoration was applied to the front. Two of these are preserved, and an X-ray photograph shows that a round hole has been drilled through the third arm at the point where a lug or rivet would be expected. Little rectangular iron plates lie over the two existing lugs and are held in place by S-shaped twists of copper wire. All traces of the material to which the mount was riveted and pegged — doubtless leather straps — seem to have disappeared. The two oval mounts are roughly similar to one another in shape, but differ a little in size, and have very different schemes of inlaid decoration. Like the trefoil, the show-face of each is bisected by a channel pierced by five ornate rivets. On the smaller mount, the rivet-channel is off-centre, so that its two arms are of unequal lengths (Figs. 1, 3, 11b). The inlaid ornament on this mount is uniform with that on the trefoil. On the reverse, the remains of a pierced attachment lug are preserved towards the end of the longer arm a little to one side of the central axis. There is no visible evidence of an accompanying lug on this arm, to form a pair, as is sometimes the case on

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mounts of this kind, and there is no trace of a corresponding fixing point on the other arm of the mount (Wamers 1981: 103–4). The second oval mount differs from the first in various ways, in its greater size, in details of manufacture, and its scheme of inlaid decoration (Figs. 1, 4, 11c). While the first mount is almost flat in section, the second is pronouncedly bowed about its transverse channel, and unlike the other, its rivet-channel is centred. The rivets include three variant forms, none of which is uniform with those of the trefoil and the smaller oval, although all conform to the same general type. The arms have both been drilled for attachment, and one rivet still projects from the reverse. As on the first oval, the design on this mount is more or less symmetrical about the central row of rivets, but the motif is a different one — a stylized tree or plant, with five symmetrical pairs of stiff branches projecting from a central stem. The branches differ in design, alternately uninflected and ornamented, and gradually diminishing in size towards the apex of the tree. As on the other two mounts, these little trees are set in dense fields of tiny dots, which for the most part follow the contours of the stems and branches. Various details of design and execution suggest that the larger of the two oval mounts was not made by the same craftsman as the trefoil, the small oval and the buckle. The most obvious of these features are the use of rivets rather than pierced lugs at the ends of the arms of the larger oval, the different forms of the transverse sequence of rivet-heads on this mount, and the nature of the silver inlay on its display-face. It is probable that the two do not constitute an original pair. The larger one appears to be a replacement, perhaps fashioned anew, perhaps taken from a second similar set, substituted at some subsequent date for a lost oval, the original companion of the smaller mount. However, the technique used on both pieces is generally very similar. They must have been made in a similar milieu, if not in the same centre, and not many years can separate them. The buckle which belongs with these three mounts is decorated with a simple scrolling rinceau of silver wire and by broken sequences of tiny silver dots (Figs. 1, 11d). Trefoil, ovals and buckle are designed to fit leather straps about 3 cm wide. When complete, the set would have included a long iron strap-end, almost certainly ornamented in a similar fashion to the trefoil and the small oval mount. This is a sword-belt set of a type associated with northern and eastern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries. The type is usually thought to be of Carolingian Frankish design and origin, although only one mount

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of this kind, a trefoil from Kückshausen in Westphalia, has actually been found within the confines of the Carolingian realms (Capelle 1972: 347–9; Capelle 1974: 300). Full sets consisting of trefoil, ovals, strap-end and buckle are extremely rare, since personal equipment of this kind tends to survive only in graves, and the custom of burying the dead fully clothed and armed had been largely abandoned by the Franks long before the end of the eighth century, when these mounts came into fashion. Nonetheless, a number of more or less complete sets, some apparently Carolingian imports, others locally manufactured imitations, have survived in graves in areas on the periphery or outside the limits of the Carolingian Empire, where pagan traditions of furnished burial persisted: in the Slavic regions of Bohemia, Slovakia and Greater Moravia, where the Carolingians followed an active policy of involvement in the ninth century (McKitterick 1983: 127–30), at Kolín (Schrânil 1928: 293; Benda 1967: pls. 57, 58; Capelle 1968b: 237; Turek 1968: 297–8; Fraenkel-Schoorl 1978: 350–2; Dekan 1980: pl. 174; Stiegemann and Wemhoff 1999 II: cat. X.32; Bertelli and Brogiolo 2000: cat. 421), Stará Kourim (Capelle 1968b: 237, fig 5:1–2; Menghin 1973: 44; Wamers 1981: 102), Blatnica (Fettich 1937: 263–79; Benda 1963: 199–222; Roth 1979: 190; Dekan 1980: 64, 71), and Pobedim (Dekan 1980: pl. 106; Bialekovä 1981: pls. 65–7, 72; Chropovsky 1986: fig. 18); in Croatia, at Biskupija-Crkvina and at Koljani, near Split (Warners 1981:102, figs. 16:3– 4); and in Sweden, at Östra Pâboda, in Smâland (Arbman 1937: 147–8; Fraenkel-Schoorl 1978: pls. 45–6). However, the majority of surviving mounts of this kind are isolated finds, trefoils or ovals which have been found apart from their original contexts in numerous locations, likewise on the northern and eastern edges of the Carolingian realms (Fraenkel-Schoorl 1978: passim; Warners 1981: pls. 45–6). Although the precise details of attachment and function are still not fully understood, there is little doubt that the trefoil from these sets acted as a threeway strap-distributor on the sword-belt, that the two ovals served to attach the straps to the scabbard, and that the buckle was the principal fastening of the belt (Fig. 14) (Menghin 1973: 44, figs 43:5 and 45; Warners 1981: 100–14, fig. 15:2). The principal evidence for the use of mounts of this type is found in three Carolingian manuscripts in which similar fittings are shown in representations of warriors (Capelle 1968a: 1–2, fig. 1; Menghin 1973: 44, figs 40–2; Wamers 1981: 100 and n. 38, fig. 12:6) — in the representations of King David and of Charles the Bald in the Vivian Bible, Paris Bibl. Nat., Ms. Lat. 1, fols. 215v and 423r (Fig. 17) (Köhler 1930: pls. 72, 76; Hubert,

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Porcher and Volbach 1970: pls. 128, 129; Mütherich and Gaehde 1977: pl. 22; Durliat 1985: pl. 101), and in the image of the emperor in the Gospels of Lothar, Paris, Bibl. Nat., Ms. Lat. 266, fol. lv (Köhler 1930: pl. 98a; Schramm and Mütherich 1962: pl. 25; Hubert, Porcher and Volbach 1970: pl. 133; Mütherich and Gaehde 1977: pl. 25; Durliat 1985: pl. 102), both produced in the scriptorium at Tours in the mid-ninth century, and in the picture of the Judgement of Solomon in the Bible of Charles the Bald at S. Paolo Fuori Le Mura in Rome, which was made in an unidentified scriptorium, probably Reims, about twenty years later (Schramm and Mütherich 1962: pl. 56; Kessler 1977: 7, n. 34, fig. 166; Mütherich and Gaehde 1977: pl. 44). However, in all of these images the intent of the artists seems to have been to draw attention to the golden mounts as splendid objects of display and prestige, rather than to depict accurately their functions as working parts of the suspension system for a sword. In the Carolingian pictures, the set consists of a trefoil, an oval, a halfoval and a long and prominent strap-end. The oval and half-oval mounts are attached to the upper end of the scabbard, the full oval above the half oval, while the trefoil and the strap-end are given equal prominence and are shown hanging before the sheath. At San Vincenzo, as in the sets from Kolín and Östra Pâboda, a second smaller oval mount replaces the half-oval (Warners 1981: 104–8). The longer mount in these sets apparently corresponds to the full oval of the miniatures and was designed to be set high up near the mouth of the scabbard, while the shorter one replaces the half-oval positioned a little lower down the sheath. Like the sword-belt set, the cruciform bridle mount is articulated with channels for rivets, but there is no trace of silver inlay on any of the raised fields on the front face (Figs. 5, 12a). The ends of the arms of this mount are also pierced for rivets, and these are still visible on the backs of two of them (Figs. 6, 12a). On one arm the small rectangular plate which secured the strap to the terminal rivet survives. Cruciform strap-distributors of this kind have been identified as the mounts which secure the intersection of the cheek-pieces and the nose-band of the head-stall on either side of the muzzle of a horse, and the crossing of the cheek-pieces with the brow-band and the throat-lash higher up on the temples (Müller-Wille 1987: fig. 6:3; Gabriel 1988: 120). Since a fitting of this shape would not suit the angles formed where cheek-pieces, brow-band and throat-lash meet on the temple, in our reconstruction we have preferred to associate this cruciform mount with the intersection of straps on the nose of the horse (Fig. 15).

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The rein-shackle is forged in one piece, and consists of a rectangular strap-ring attached by a long shank to a semi-circular base-plate (Figs. 7, 12c). It is elegantly crafted with bevelled display surfaces. The base-plate is pierced by four rivet-holes, three of which are set in a row in a channel across the inner edge of the plate, at the base of the shank. As with the cruciform mount, there are no traces of inlaid silver decoration on the baseplate. Rein shackles served as link-pieces between the bit and the reins on either side of the horse’s mouth (Fig. 15) (Gabriel 1988: 120; Müller-Wille 1987: pl. 68:1, fig. 6:1). Gabriel, in his publication of a very similar ninthcentury example from Oldenburg, has proposed that the semi-circular plate at one end of the fitting was rivetted to a short strap which buckled on to the ring at the end of the bit, while the rectangular ring at the other end of the shank received the rein, the end of which ran through the eye, up round the shank, back down through the eye again, and was then secured on itself by means of a simple half-hitch (Gabriel 1988: 120). One of the reinassemblages at Thumby-Bienebek was sufficiently well preserved to allow for a straightforward reconstruction of this part of the bridle (Müller-Wille 1987: pl. 68,1, fig. 6,1). These items, like the sword-belt mounts, are copies of north European prototypes. Cruciform strap-distributors have been found at various sites in northern, northeastern and central Germany, in a number of locations in Norway and Sweden, and in Greater Moravia; shanked rein-shackles of the San Vincenzo type have been found, sometimes together with cruciform mounts, at sites in Schleswig-Holstein in the north-west, in Mecklenburg in the east, in locations in Alemannic territory from Württemberg in the north to the Canton of Bern in the south, and in some quantity at sites in modern Slovakia and Hungary (Paulsen 1967: 56–7; pls. 93:13, 17, fig. 25; Müller-Wille 1987: 43; Gabriel 1988: 120–2). As at San Vincenzo, they are usually, but not always, made of iron. The two fittings have been found in combination at Kallstadt, to the west of Ludwigshafen in the Pfalz (Polenz 1988: 212, pl. 68: 2–3) and at Thumby-Bienebek, in Schleswig (MüllerWille 1987: 38–43) and they have been found together with sword-belt fittings of the same kinds as those from San Vincenzo at Starigard/Oldenburg in Wagrien, eastern Holstein (Gabriel 1988: 120–2) and in fully furnished burials at two sites in Slovakia and Greater Moravia, at Blatnica (Turóc) (Fettich 1937: 263–79; Benda 1963: figs 15: 4–5, 16; Laszló 1976: 62–3; Roth 1979: 190, fig. 110; Dekan 1980: pl. 82; Bialekovâ 1981: fig. 64) — it is probable, but not certain, that the sword-fittings and the bridle-

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furniture from Blatnica come from the same burial — and at Pobedim, Trancin district, Moravia (Capelle 1968b: 235, pl. 1; Dekan 1980: pl. 106; Bialekovâ 1981: figs 65–6; Chropovsky 1986: fig. 18. Capelle, however, has drawn attention to the fact that the Pobedim trefoil is pierced by only one rivet, at its centre-point, and so can hardly have functioned as a three-way strap-distributor). The material culture of all of these areas was subject to strong Carolingian influence during the ninth century. There are two other fittings, found in related contexts in the same area of the garden-court at San Vincenzo, which may come from the same bridle as the cruciform distributor and the rein-shackle. The first of these is a simple iron ring, now considerably corroded (Fig. 12d). Its size (65 mm in diameter) is what one would expect for the two snaffle-rings which are found on the ends of many early medieval bits, providing a point of attachment, on either side of the horse’s mouth, for the reins and the cheek-pieces. The second possibly related fitting is a decorated strap-slide, with a convex oval displayface plated first with copper and then with silver (Figs. 8–9, 12b). The silvered surface has subsequently been scored with bands of hatching round its periphery and down its long axis, and the underlying iron is articulated with lines of stippling which are faintly visible through the overlays of copper and silver. This rather splendid silvered slide and the cruciform mount were designed for straps of the same size — about 20 mm wide and 5 mm thick. It is possible that the slide formed part of this assemblage and originally was one of a pair which functioned alongside the principal buckles regulating the length of the cheek-pieces on either side of the horse’s head (Fig. 15). However, slides of this kind were also commnly used, during this period, on the straps securing spurs, and it is possible that this slide comes from a pair of spurs which formed part of the original ensemble. Well preserved examples are those in the ninth-century Croatian sets from Biskupija, and in the set from Kolyana, in Bulgaria (Chropovsky 1989: 277–9, 61; Jelovina 1986). All of these pieces from San Vincenzo were found quite near one another, mostly in closely related contexts, eleventh-century tips in the distinguished guests’ Garden-Court. The sword-belt mounts, the cruciform mount and the rein shackle are generally uniform in design, and appear to be from the equipment of a single individual. They are fashioned of iron, have similarly rounded terminals, and all are distinguished by channels of domical-headed collared rivets, in runs of three and five, which not only served to anchor the mounts to the straps to which they were attached but also formed striking decorative accents on their display faces. They are generally Carolingian

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in type; but they do not appear to be ultramontane imports. It is likely that they are of local manufacture, made in imitation of imported Frankish equipment. Carolingian sword-belt mounts of this pattern are usually made of gilded silver, occasionally of gilded copper-alloy, and in one case of gold (FraenkelSchoorl 1978). Iron, so far as we know, was rarely employed for this kind of fitting by Frankish smiths. Carolingian mounts are typically decorated in relief with richly articulated leafage displayed in symmetrical array on a structure of stems which often branch out from a central median trunk. Their front faces are sometimes articulated with bands of rivets, just as on the set from San Vincenzo, and pierced lugs are set into their backs, or are cast in the angles of the arms, to serve as additional points of attachment. The Carolingian set from Kolín (Fig. 16), with its rich leaf ornamentation and its bands of rivets with prominent collared heads, provides an excellent comparison for the San Vincenzo fittings. This is also the only other surviving set which includes a uniform buckle (Menghin 1973: 44). Notwithstanding these Carolingian parallels, the mounts from San Vincenzo differ significantly from all the other related sets and individual mounts found north of the Alps. The materials used and the nature of the ornamentation indicate that they are of local Italian manufacture. The technique of inlaying iron with more precious colourful metals, usually silver and/or brass, was practised in various parts of Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries and was widespread in Merovingian France and in Germany (Salin 1957: 166–210). It was particularly favoured in the Alemannic and Bavarian regions of southern Germany (Werner 1955: 13, pls. 14, 22; Dannheimer 1960: 179ff; Stein 1967: 32ff, pls. 74, 86, figs 5, 9; Christlein 1971: 27ff; Christlein 1978: pls. 76, 78–80, 82, 99, 100; von Hessen 1978: 20; Melucco Vaccaro 1978: figs 11–21; Roffia 1986: 67 n. 217), and in Lombard Italy (Mengarelli 1902: cols 211–12, 223–4, 265–6, 291–5, 306–10, 333; Pasqui and Paribeni 1918: cols 137–352; Åberg 1923: 135–42; Melucco Vaccaro 1978: 9–75; Melucco Vaccaro 1982: 121 and 128; von Hessen 1971: 50, pls. 21: 5–6; von Hessen 1975: 20–3, 43–6, 54–7, pls 1, 2, 12, 15; von Hessen 1978: 20–1; Roffia 1986: 34–7, 64–72, 74–7, 88–91, 94–6; Giostra 1998); and it is on decorated metalwork from these parts that the closest parallels to the inlay on the San Vincenzo mounts is to be found. Melucco Vaccaro has distinguished various categories of inlaid ornamentation in the surviving material from these areas (Melucco Vaccaro 1978: 17–23). The inlay on the mounts from San Vincenzo accords

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most closely with her type d, in which simple curving lengths of silver and brass wire and silver and brass dots are laid into a field of polished iron. This particular style of inlay is prominent on objects found in graves of the seventh century in the Lombard cemeteries at Nocera Umbra and Castel Trosino, in the Marche (Fig. 18) (Melucco Vaccaro 1978: 19, figs 23, 25, 26; Paroli 1997: figs 42, 52). In this period, it seems to have been almost totally confined to craftsmen working in Lombard milieux in the duchy of Spoleto; only one isolated example of this category of inlay from north of the Alps was known to Melucco Vaccaro, an iron ferrule from Epolding-Mühlthal in Bavaria (Dannheimer 1968: pls. 14: 1–3). The tradition of inlaying iron with silver and brass may have continued uninterrupted for a considerable time, even for centuries, in regions of Italy in which Lombard culture was dominant, but, since the fashion for burying the dead fully dressed and armed was generally abandoned early in the eighth century, the number of later examples which have been preserved is very small. A rare later survival is an iron folding chair richly inlaid with silver, gilded copper and niello found at Pavia by the river Ticino, which Peroni has attributed to a craftsman operating somewhere in northern Italy in the latter half of the tenth century (Peroni 1967: 67–8, 154–72, pls. 8, XLI–LIV) Further evidence for the provenance and date of the San Vincenzo mounts is provided by the inlaid designs on their fronts. In overall scheme, these designs, like the very forms of the mounts, imitate the motifs employed on many of the Carolingian trefoils, ovals and strap-ends. They consist of trees or plants with symmetrically balanced branches growing out on either side of an axial stem to fill the available space (Fraenkel-Schoorl 1978: figs 3, 5, 7a, 8a–c, 17, 18, 20a, 23e; Wamers 1981: figs 1, 2, 4, 7–10). However, the scrolling- and straight-branched trees from San Vincenzo have no exact, or even close, parallels on northern metalwork. Rather, it is in Italy, on carved stone reliefs from the ninth century, that the best comparisons are to be found. Scrolling plant trails with a prominent trefoil leaf, or some other motif, framed within each scroll — that is the basic iconographic unit which underlies the schemes on the trefoil and the smaller oval mount from San Vincenzo — were part of the formal vocabulary employed by Italian masons during the later eighth and the ninth centuries. There are good examples at the abbey of S. Pietro at Savigliano, near Turin (Casartelli Novelli 1974: no. 91, pl. 71, fig. 91), on the so-called Urn of S. Anastasia, in the abbey of S. Maria in Sylvis at Sesto al Reghena, near Pordenone in Friuli (L’Orange

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and Torp 1977: part 3, figs 258, 264), on the architrave of the iconostasis in S. Leone at Leprignano, near Capena in Upper Lazio (Raspi Serra 1974: nos 180–1, pls. 130–3, figs 210–14), on a fragment of a slab from the Market of Trajan in Rome (Pani Ermini 1974: nos 102–3, pl. 40), and on a fragmentary carved slab at Sutri, to the north of Rome (Fig. 19) (Raspi Serra 1974: no. 291, pl. 211, fig. 342). Similarly, the tree with symmetrically scrolling branches winding out on either side — the device used on the trefoil and on the smaller oval mount — is a standard iconographie motif on sanctuary barriers and other articles of church furniture in many parts of Italy in the eighth and ninth centuries. There are examples in S. Maria di Castello, Genova (Dufour Bozzo 1966: no. 70, pl. 84, fig. 105), and in S. Sabina in Rome (Haseloff 1930: pl. 60). However, the configuration of the scrolling branches on these large trees in carved relief differs from that of the plants on the San Vincenzo mounts in that they grow out horizontally from the central trunk, instead of growing upwards, with each scroll developing out of the one below. In this aspect, the closest parallels for the San Vincenzo pattern are to be found on the sides of two column-bases of late eighth- and early ninth-century date in the chapel of S. Zeno at S. Prassede in Rome, where superimposed charged scrolls flank a central vertical element in exactly the same fashion (Fig. 20) (Pani Ermini 1974: nos 93–4, pls 44–5). Equally, there do not seem to be any exact parallels in contemporary ultramontane metalwork for the stylized tree with straight branches on the larger oval mount from San Vincenzo (Figs. 1, 11c). This motif is harder to match in the surviving corpus of early medieval Italian carved reliefs than the scrolling trees on the trefoil and the smaller oval. But generic parallels can be found among this material — in two trees on a ninth-century carved closure slab at S. Maria in Trastevere in Rome (Fig. 22) (Haseloff 1930: pl. 61; Prandi 1968: fig. 49), in two exotic palms on the late eighth-century altar in the church of S. Martino at Taizzano, south of Narni in Umbria (Bertelli 1985: no. 103, pl. 47), in another very stylized palm tree on the ninthcentury well-head in the cloister of the Lateran basilica in Rome (Melucco Vaccaro 1974: no. 78, pl. XXXII; Durliat 1985: fig. 259), and in a tree surmounted by a bird within an arch on a fragmentary carved slab from a sarcophagus, in the Lapidario del Duomo at Modena (Trovabene Bussi 1980: 708, fig. 9). The two types of embellishment which occur on the branches of this mount are also typical of Italian eighth- and ninth-century work. The rough fleur-de-lis terminals of four of the branches are a very common motif: examples can be found on closure slabs dating from the time

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of Paschal I (817–24) at S. Prassede in Rome (Pani Ermini 1974: no. 58, pl. 24), and in a scrolling plant-trail of the later ninth century at Ceccano, in southern Lazio (Ramieri 1983: no. 128, pl. 45). Similarly, the branches which break out along one side into three rounded foliate projections have numerous parallels, for instance in the extended scrolling vine on a carved slab of the ninth century at Ischia di Castro, north of Tuscania in Upper Lazio (Fig. 21) (Raspi Serra 1974: no. 32, pl. 24, fig. 42), and in prominent corner-filling leaves on closure slabs in the basilica at Aquileia (Tagliaferri 1981: no. 12, pl. 5 and no. 17, pl. 7). In short, to judge both from their technique and from the design of their ornamentation, the San Vincenzo mounts were almost certainly made in Italy. In the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to determine their precise date. However, the parallels for the ornamentation which are to be found on Italian carved reliefs present a strong argument for the ninth century, a date which is in complete conformity with the overall form of the set itself, made in pointed imitation of a Carolingian sword-belt set of a type which is thought to have originated in the late eighth century and which remained in fashion throughout the ninth. If Wamers is correct in positing a connection between the dimensions of the Carolingian mounts and the dates at which they were produced, the northern prototype on which the San Vincenzo set was based is likely to have been made around the middle of the ninth century (Wamers 1981: 112–14). A number of indices suggest that the sword-belt mounts and the associated bridle-furniture were manufactured in the monastery’s own workshops. First, a plain iron buckle (SF 0748) of exactly the same pattern and size as the silver inlaid buckle of the sword-belt set was found during the excavation of one of the rooms in the workshop-range, Room D, in FF 4378, a phase 5al context which can be associated with the construction of the range in the first half of the ninth century (Fig. 10, 12e). Secondly, three other examples of the long-shanked rein-shackle of the bridle-set have been found during the excavations at San Vincenzo (Fig. 13a–c). All three of these are of iron. Like the buckle, two of these were found in the early ninth-century workshop-range, in a store-room, Room B — one, SF 0754 from FF 4035, a burning layer on the east side of the room, associated with the destruction of the monastery in 881; the other, SF 0755, from FF 4001, the topsoil overlying the southern part of the same room. The third example, SF 1020, was found in FF/I 5222, an eleventh-century tip used to level up the ground immediately to the north of the north-east

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corner of the atrium of San Vincenzo Maggiore, some thirty-five metres to the north of the workshop room B (For the workshops see also Hodges and Mitchell 1996: 51–3, figs 3:16, 24, 30; Francis and Moran 1997; Mitchell 1996: 148–55, figs 2, 26; Marazzi and Francis 1996; Hodges 1997: 131–5, fig. 6:9; Hodges, Gibson and Mitchell 1997: 273–8, fig. 27; and now Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell 2011, 157–93). These three shackles are from three different bridles but are of exactly the same type, a design which is relatively rarely met with in graves in northern Europe in this period. Far more common is a variant of this type which, in place of the rivet-plate, has a round ring which links directly to the snafflering on the end of the bit. Examples of this latter type are legion: for instance from seventh-century graves in the cemetery at Niederstötzingen and Sontheim /Brenz, close to Schretzheim (Paulsen 1967: pl. 93, figs 25, 48), from the Viking-age cemetery at Thumby-Bienebek in Schleswig (Müller-Wille 1987: pl. 61:1, fig. 6:1), and from graves 708 and 830 at Birka, in south-western Sweden (Arbman 1940–3: 243, fig. 193, pl. 26 and 302, fig. 249). By contrast, rein-shackles of the San Vincenzo type are otherwise not only unknown in Italy, but have been found elsewhere only in three areas: in the far north of Germany, at Elisenhof, Tönning, near Eiderstedt, in Schleswig (Gabriel 1988: 121), at Oldenburg in Holstein (Gabriel 1988: 120–1, figs 5, 8), and at Teterow, to the south-east of Rostock, in Mecklenburg (Unverzagt and Schuldt 1963: pl. 36e; Gabriel 1988: 121); at three sites in Alemannic territory in the south, at Niederstötzingen in eastern Württemburg (Paulsen 1967: pl. 93:17; Gabriel 1988: 121, n. 64), at the Runde Berg near Urach (Christlein 1974: 26, pl. 14:21; Koch 1984: 94, pl. 11; Gabriel 1988: 121, n. 64), and on the river Saane in Canton Bern, in modern Switzerland (Gabriel 1988: 121, n. 64); and at various sites in Greater Moravia, at Blatnica (Fettich 1937: pl. XCVII; Benda 1963: figs 16: 10–11; Laszló 1976: pl. 7; Roth 1979: 190, fig. 110; Dekan 1980: pl. 82; Bialekovâ 1981: figs 65, 66), at Pobedim (Dekan 1980: pl. 106; Bialekovâ 1981: figs 65, 66; Chropovsky 1986: fig. 18), at Zâvada, Topol’cany district (Bialekovâ 1981: figs 68, 69), and at Miculčice (Klanica 1968: 128, 125, figs 2, 4–6; Klanica 1984: 148, fig. 8; Gabriel 1988: 121, n. 67). A bridle from north of the Alps, fitted with this type furniture (perhaps together with a uniform ornate sword-belt set), must have found its way to the Upper Volturno, where it was adopted as a model by the monastery’s fine-metalsmiths. Both the sword-belt set and the associated bridle-furniture are items of considerable quality and would have been indicators of the high social

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standing of their owner. Most of the surviving Carolingian fittings of this kind are rather magnificent objects, cast in silver or in bronze and gilded with exuberant foliate ornament in relief. They are not particularly common, and when found in the context of a burial are always associated with other high-status grave-goods. It is significant that when sets of these mounts are represented in paintings in ninth-century manuscripts, they invariably adorn the sword-belt held by one of the two arms-bearers of the Carolingian king or emperor, and that they do not figure in any of the many other surviving Carolingian images of individuals wearing or wielding swords (Fig. 17). The weapons and the sets of mounts displayed in these images appear to have a ceremonial status equivalent to that of regalia. The mounts are not depicted merely as the normal furniture of a sword belt; indeed the artists made no effort to show how the trefoil functions in relation to the straps of the belt. The trefoil, the two ovals, and the prominent strap-end are, like the hilt, painted in gold and stand out from the rest of the sword as striking formal and presumably also symbolic accents. It would be absurd to use the manuscript evidence to conclude that this type of sword-belt set was reserved exclusively for the use of Carolingian rulers. The many trefoil and oval mounts, of varying sizes and qualities, which have been found in nonregal contexts in locations in various parts of northern, western and eastern Europe, argue against any such hypothesis (Wamers 1981: 113). However, it is clear that these were types of ornamental fittings used by the king, presumably also by the Frankish nobility, and consequently by the warriorelite of the Carolingian realms. It may well have been because sword-belt mounts of this type continued to be associated with royalty and with the highest strata of Carolingian society that they were seized upon for imitation by smiths working for elite Slavic, Scandinavian and Italian patrons, who adopted Carolingian noble fashions in order to add lustre to their own selfimage and authority. Like the sword-belt set, the bridle-furniture found in the Garden-Court at San Vincenzo did not belong to the everyday equipment of a ninthcentury commoner. Horses were relatively rare and costly possessions in early medieval Europe (White 1964: 29–30, 57–69). There is little evidence to suggest that the generality of the people used them as a means of transport; and common soldiers fought on foot. Principally, horses served as the mounts of the nobility, of holders of high office in Church and State and, above all, of the cavalrymen who formed the proto-feudal elite corps of the army (White 1964: 1–6, 10–21, 29–30). This is clear from contemporary

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representations in which horses are almost invariably ridden by fully-armed, and sometimes armoured, warriors — for instance in the Utrecht Psalter of around 820 (DeWald 1933: pls. III, XXIV, XXIX, XXX, XXXVII, XL, XLIX, LXX, LXXVI, XCI) and in the so-called Golden Psalter of St. Gall (Hubert, Porcher and Volbach 1970: fig. 158). Consequently, iron bridlemounts of the type found at San Vincenzo should be seen as coming from elite cavalry equipment, rather than from the tack of a simple countryman. The blade of the sword to which the trefoil and oval mounts and the buckle belonged was not recovered during the excavation of the garden or of any of the adjacent areas, but there is one other item which may have formed part of the same assemblage. This is a fitting of nephrite, which was also found in an eleventh-century tip in the garden-court, the guard from the hilt of a sword, which had somehow found its way to the Upper Volturno from Central Asia (Mitchell 1994b: Pl. 13; Mitchell 2001). The sword-belt mounts and the bridle-furniture found in confused destruction contexts in the garden at San Vincenzo must be part of the equipment of a single individual. The fact that so many uniform items were recovered makes it probable that they come from a single deposit (One of the items, the cruciform strap-distributor, was found in an earlier, phase 4, context. The explanation for this is not clear, given the apparent uniformity of this with the other pieces, and the likely mid-later ninth-century date of the assemblage). One possibility is that the sword-belt and bridle were purposefully concealed or casually dropped and abandoned, either during the Arab sack of the monastery in October 881 or at some time in the ensuing years, and subsequently found their way, piece-meal, into the fills in the Garden Court. They could have formed part of a fine-metal-worker’s hoard similar to the one found on the Upper Thoroughfare, which was deposited in 881 and subsequently disturbed, and some of its contents swept down into the Garden, when the Upper Thoroughfare was demolished in the mid eleventh century (Hodges 1995: 21–2; Filippucci 2001: 336–8, cat. 42–54). Another possibility is that the set derived from the grave of a man buried fully accoutred and armed. The precise location of such a grave is irrecoverable. Presumably it would have lain somewhere in the vicinity of the Garden Court, an area designed to serve the needs of guests at the monastery. Its western side seems to have been used as a place of burial during the ninth and tenth centuries, and many of the graves in this area were disturbed when this part of the monastery was ransacked for building material in the eleventh century (Hodges 1993: 204, 220–60). Supposing

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that this gear does come from a grave (which is by no means certain), the presence of bridle-furniture opens up the possibility — albeit a somewhat unlikely one for ninth-century Italy — that the warrior may have been buried not only with a full assemblage of grave- goods, but also together with his horse. The discovery of richly furnished seventh-century burials of warriors alongside their horses at Vicenne, near Boiano, on the road to Benevento, some 100 km to the south-east, raises the question of the possible survival of this tradition in the southern Lombard duchy (Ceglia 1988). However, no major horse-bones were found in the fills in the Garden Court, and so it seems unlikely that the bridle-fittings did come from a burial of this kind (see Appendix). Why a member of the local nobility should have been buried fully equipped in a monastery on the Upper Volturno sometime in the middle or late ninth century it is hard to say. By this date simple burial of the unadorned body was the norm, and furnished burial had become extremely rare, probably due to the opposition of the Church (Böhner 1958: 456–7). If we are dealing with equipment from a burial here, the dead man would have to have been a valued friend and patron of the community, whose particular desires and whims the monastery was prepared to accommodate. Whatever the early fortunes of the sword-belt and bridle furniture may have been, there is little doubt that they were made at San Vincenzo. They show that, during the period of the monastery’s greatest expansion and prosperity, its workshops were not only serving the immediate internal needs of the community, but were also manufacturing arms and equipment for export, for the landed elite of the neighbourhood. This complements the sparse and sometimes inconclusive evidence that already exists to suggest that ninth- century monasteries served as centres of production for the manufacture of armaments and functional metalwork of all kinds, as well as for luxury crafts such as goldsmithing and fine glassmaking — evidence such as that provided by the early ninth-century plan of a monastery at St. Gallen, on which workshops for ‘grinders or polishers of swords’, ‘shieldmakers’ and ‘blacksmiths’, as well as for ‘goldsmiths’, are explicitly identified (Horn and Born 1979: II, 189–99), and that found in a document of 854 which refers to the annual exaction or ‘gift’ of ‘two horses with shields and lances’ required of each of his monasteries by Louis the German (Wartmann 1863: 52–4, cited by Horn and Born 1979: I, 347). The sword-belt and bridle-set, consisting of elements of Carolingian Frankish origin translated into a Lombard idiom, exemplifies the ideological

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and cultural profile of San Vincenzo in the ninth century. The monastery was a Lombard foundation of the early eighth century. The majority of the monks were probably always of southern-central Italian origin, and the community enjoyed the patronage of the dukes of Benevento and of the local Lombard aristocracy during the first two centuries of its existence. However, by the third quarter of the eighth century there was a significant Frankish faction among the monks, and there appears to have been a considerable Carolingian involvement in the affairs of the monastery in the years around 800 (Federici 1928–38 I: passim; Del Treppo 1955: 50–53; Pantani 1980: 17–20; Mitchell 1990: 222–4; Hodges 1997: 77–8). The monastic city of San Vincenzo, created by Abbot Joshua, was essentially Carolingian in its conception, while in the details of its construction and its painted decoration it conformed to a traditional Lombard idiom (Mitchell 1985: 155; Mitchell 1992a: 19; Mitchell 1994a; Mitchell 1995; Hodges and Mitchell 1996: 57–9, 112–6; Hodges 1997: chapter 5; Hodges, Gibson and Mitchell 1997). Similarly, sometime in the second half of the ninth century, a fine metalsmith working in the monastery fashioned for one of his clients an ornate sword-belt and horse-trappings of Carolingian design, which he reworked in the light of a local Lombard tradition of deluxe metalcraft, transposing the elaborate relief foliate ornament of the original into a contemporary Italian idiom in silver-inlay. The recipient, in adopting elements of Carolingian high fashion in his dress-equipment was, like the abbot and the monks, seeking to affirm his social position by associating himself with the dominant elite culture of ninth-century Europe. He must have been a member of the local nobility who had patronized the monastery and endowed it with benefices, and who relied on its workshops to supply his needs for arms and equipment and perhaps also for other luxury items. He may even have been a member of the armed retinue which large monastic institutions of this age were wont to maintain and to equip for the protection of their interests and possessions (Horn and Born 1979: I, 347). At his death it would have been natural for his family to request that he be buried within the confines of the institution which he had supported during his life; and as has been suggested it is possible that the set derives from a burial. A cemetery adjoining the guest-quarters would have been an appropriate place for the grave of a valued friend of the monastery. There succeeding generations of visitors could observe his memorial and learn of the services and benefactions he had bestowed on the community. The dead man would have benefited from the liturgical commemoration which the monks would have provided

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1. Trefoil strap-distributor, scabbard mounts and buckle.

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2. Trefoil strap-distributor, rear face.

4. Larger scabbard mount, rear face.

3. Smaller scabbard mount, rear face.

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5. Cruciform strap-distributor, front face.

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6. Cruciform strap-distributor, rear face.

7. Rein-shackle.

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8. Strap-slide with silvered face.

9. Strap-slide with silvered face, side-view.

10. Buckle from workshop Room D.

11.Trefoil strap-distributor, scabbard mounts and buckles, cat. 1–4.

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12. Cruciform strapdistributor, silvered strap-slide, reinshackle, iron ring, cat. 5–8, and buckle from workshop Room D.

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13.Three iron rein-shackles, from the area of the workshops.

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14. Reconstruction of the sword-belt set.

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15. Reconstruction of the bridle furniture set.

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16. Sword-belt set from Kolín (National Museum, Prague).

17. Royal sword-bearer from the Vivian Bible of Charles the Bald, 845 AD. Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 1, fol. 215v.

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18. Lombard belt-fittings inlaid with silver and brass, Melucco Vaccaro, type d (after Melucco Vaccaro 1978).

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19. Fragment of a carved transenna, Sutri (after Raspi Serra 1974).

20. Column-base from the Chapel of S. Zeno, S. Prassede, Rome (after Pani Ermini 1974).

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21. Transenna panel at Ischia di Castro, Upper Lazio (after Raspi Serra 1974). 22. Transenna panel at S.Maria in Trastevere, Rome (after Haseloff 1930).

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for the souls of prominent lay persons buried within their house. This was a common arrangement in early medieval Europe. Liturgical commemoration and beneficia were inextricably linked in the medieval mind and stood in complementary relationship to one another. The laiety provided endowment and material support for the religious institution and in return the monks provided a commemorative service to ensure the salvation of the souls of their benefactors (Hodges 1993: 103–4, 109–14; Oexle 1976: 87–95; Gerchow 1989; Mitchell 1999). In the last analysis, the set of sword-belt mounts and bridle-fittings from the workshops of San Vincenzo bears eloquent witness to a moment of harmonious interaction between oratores, bellatores and laboratores, the three orders of early medieval society. CATALOGUE 1. Sword-belt set No. 1. Trefoil strap-distributor. SF 0662. (Figs. 1, 2, 11a) Context: D 540 (20 east), a phase 6b rubble and loam layer overlying the Garden Court (Hodges 1993: fig. 10.17). Dimensions: 88 mm x 87 mm x 3–4 mm. Width of arms: 32–33 mm. Weight: 142.9 g. This mount is of a type well known from northern and eastern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries, with three diverging arms of more or less equal length with rounded ends. The angles between two of the arms are obtuse and roughly equal, while the third angle is smaller, scarcely more than 90 degrees. Thus a principal directional axis is established by the arm which lies between the two obtuse angles. A narrow sunken channel, containing five evenly-spaced rivets with prominent domed heads, runs across the inner end of each arm, defining a triangular field at the centre of the mount. Each channel has been drilled with five holes. An annular collar of beaded wire has been laid over each of these holes, and a thin strip of beaten brass then positioned along the channel over all five of these rings. Brass rivets were subsequently driven through the brass strip, the collars and the holes, through the material to which the trefoil was fastened, and finally through a narrow strip of metal which acted as a back-plate, corresponding to the narrow brass strip in the channel on the front face. Thirteen of the original fifteen rivets

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survive. X-ray photographs show that small holes were drilled through the outer ends of two, and maybe of all three, of the arms before the decoration was applied to the front face. Pierced lugs were secured, presumably pegged, in two of these holes, where they still remain, projecting from the rear face. No obvious trace remains of a similar fixing lug on the third arm, although X-ray photography shows that a round hole has been drilled through this arm at the point where a lug or rivet would be expected. Other similar ninthcentury trefoil mounts from north of the Alps usually have these fittings on all three arms (Wamers 1981: passim). Little rectangular iron plates lie over the two existing lugs and are held in place by S-shaped twists of copper wire. All traces of the material to which the mount was rivetted seem to have disappeared. However, to judge from the preserved intervals between the back of the trefoil and the backing strips and plates, from the weight of the object, and from what is known about the function of this type of mount, there is little doubt that this was leather. To judge from the width of its arms, the trefoil was designed for c. 32 mm straps. The front face of the trefoil is gently convex and is covered with a scrolling plant-motif fashioned in inlaid silver wire and amalgam. The vocabulary of the design consists of the continuous lines of stems and branches, trefoil clover leaves, tear-drop-shaped leaves either in full silver or in outline, a small number of large round dots and a great number of tiny dots. In the central triangular field, bounded by the three channels of rivets, six stems of two different lengths meet at the mid-point, to form a six-pointed star, with trefoil clover leaves at the terminals. Between the stems are little flowers on waving stalks fashioned from chains of tiny inlaid silver dots, with a larger dot at the head ringed by more of the little dots. Tiny dots also ring the axial foils of the clover leaf terminals. A similar vocabulary is used to form more elaborate designs on the three arms of the mount. A central stem bisects each arm, terminating in a three-petalled leaf. This stem forks at its lower end. Each lower branch circles round and upwards, and continues to form two counter-curling scrolls, flanking the stem, one above the other. A threepetalled clover leaf grows up within each of these scrolls, each leaf being more or less aligned with the axis of the main stem. Tear-drop-shaped leaves articulate the major exterior indentations of the design, two in full silver between the major scrolls on either side of the central stem, and three in outline along the base of the plant. Sequences of tiny silver dots run round the contours of the scrolls and encircle the leaves, with larger dots at focal points in the angles of the clover leaves and flanking the tear-shaped leaves.

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At first glance it appears as if the whole plant is outlined by these silver dots. No. 2. Mount ornamented with opposed axial stems flanked by vertically scrolling plant trails. SF 0660. (Figs. 1, 3, 11b) Context: D 548 (19 East), a phase 6b black soil lens at the south-west end of the Garden Court. Dimensions: 61 mm x 32 mm x 3 mm. Weight: 41.4 g. No. 3. Mount ornamented with two stylised branched “trees”. SF 0661. (Figs. 1, 4, 11c) Context: D 540 (11 East), a phase 6b rubble and loam layer overlying the Garden Court (Hodges 1993: fig. 10.17). Dimensions: 68 mm x 33 mm x 35 mm. Weight: 58 g. The two oval mounts (Cat. 2 and 3) are roughly similar to one another in shape, but differ somewhat in size, and differ completely in their inlaid ornament. The display face of each is bisected by a channel pierced by five rivets. As on the trefoil mount, an annular collar of beaded wire is laid over each rivet hole, and these are covered by a thin strip of brass which spans the width of the mount. The rivets are driven through this strip and the collars before passing through the iron mount, through the material to which the mount was attached, and finally through a narrow transverse backing-plate. Like the trefoil these two mounts were made for straps c. 32 mm wide. On the smaller mount, (Cat. 2), the median channel with its five rivets is off centre, resulting in two arms of unequal lengths. The large domed heads of the rivets are uniform in shape and colour with those of the trefoil. On the reverse, the remains of a pierced attachment lug are preserved towards the end of the longer arm, a little to one side of the central axis. There is no visible evidence of an accompanying lug on this arm to form a pair, as is sometimes the case on mounts of this kind (Wamers 1981: 103–4, pl. 5), or of a similar lug at the end of the opposite arm. The rear face of the mount is disfigured by corrosion, and scars left by original features which have since been lost would not necessarily be visible now. However, both superficial visual examination and X-ray photographs suggest that there may never have been more than the one lug on this mount. (This is exactly the arrangement on the related oval mounts from Kolín. On those from Östra Pâboda there

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is a pair of lugs on the longer arm only — Wamers 1981: 103–104, figs. 9, 4 and 5). The immediate impression given by the ornamented display face is of two arms of the trefoil joined base to base. On the longer arm of the mount the design is almost exactly the same as that used on the arms of the trefoil. A curtailed version, with only one pair of scrolls flanking the main stem and lacking the tear-shaped leaves on the base and sides of the plant, is used on the opposite shorter arm. The principal difference between these configurations and those on the trefoil is that on the oval mount two thin straight stalks, absent on the trefoil, angle out from a point near the top of the main stem, each with a single large tear-drop-shaped leaf at its end. The second oval mount (Cat. 3) differs from the first in various ways, apart from its greater size, and its scheme of inlaid decoration. While the first mount is almost flat in section with a gently convex face, the second is pronouncedly bowed, almost bent, about its transverse channel. Unlike its companion, this mount has its rivet-channel more or less centered. The brass strip beneath the rivet-heads is missing, although this may have been an original feature, but two of the collars of beaded wire beneath the heads are preserved. The rivets are a mixed lot and none of them is uniform with those of the trefoil and the smaller oval. All have prominent domed heads, but these differ from those on the other two mounts in their precise forms and in their colour. There are three variant types of rivet-head. The first and fifth rivets form a pair, as do the second and fourth, and the third is different again. X-ray photographs show that holes have been drilled through the mount at the end of each arm. On the reverse an iron rivet projects from one of these holes and is capped by a little iron plate. The rivet is not visible on the front face, and so must have been inserted before this was inlaid with silver and finished. The scar of a corresponding rivet is discernible a little off-centre on the opposite arm of the mount. As on the first oval mount, the design on this oval is more or less symmetrical about the central row of rivets. However, the motif is a different one. On either side rises a stylised tree or plant, with a broad stem from which five symmetrical pairs of stiff branches project. Stem and branches are defined by simple silver outlines. The pairs of branches differ in length and design. All but one pair grow out from the trunk at right-angles. Three have straight sides and simple rounded ends, but differ in length, gradually diminishing in size towards the apex of the tree. Alternating with these uninflected branches are two ornamented pairs. One set, the longest of all, terminates in roughly defined trefoils, while the final pair is angled gently

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down towards the middle of the mount. The inner contours of this last pair of branches are straight, but their outer edges break into three rounded foliate projections, which typologically probably derive from a seqence of indentations along the edge of a schematically rendered leaf. The trees on this mount are set in dense fields of tiny dots, which for the most part follow the contours of the stems and branches. No. 4. Buckle. SF 0654. (Fig. 1, 11d) Context: X 8147, a phase 4 deposit of brown soil within the Garden Court. Dimensions: 46 mm x 32 mm x 4 mm. Weight: 24.3 g. The buckle which belongs with these three mounts is decorated along its curving loop with a simple scrolling rinceau of silver wire. The curls of the trail are accompanied by intermittent sequences of tiny silver dots. The tongue of the buckle has gone, but its base remains. The rectangular plate which formed the attachment to the leather belt survives, bent round the straight bar of the buckle, with two rivets still joining its two faces. The dimensions of this plate are 31 mm x 20 mm. It was designed for a strap of more or less the same width as the preceding three fittings (Cat. 1–3). Various details of design and execution suggest that the larger of the two oval mounts was not made by the same craftsman as the trefoil, the smaller oval and the buckle. The most obvious of these are the use of rivets rather than pierced lugs at the ends of the arms of the larger oval, the different forms of the rivet-heads on this mount, and the nature of the silver inlay on its display face. The decoration on the larger mount (Cat. 3) differs both in design and in technique from that of the other items of the set. The stiff-branched trees on the larger mount (Cat. 3) are laid in thinner wire than the scrolling plants of the smaller one (Cat. 2), and the effect of the backgound dotting is different. On the latter the silver dotting is delicately applied and elegantly articulates the outlines of the design, while in the former, although the dots do, by and large, follow the contours of the motif, the overall effect is of a dense and somewhat randomly peppered background contrasting with the plain stems and branches of the trees. It is probable that the two mounts are not an original pair. The larger one appears to be a replacement, perhaps fashioned anew, perhaps taken from a second similar set, and substituted at some subsequent date for a lost oval, the original companion of the smaller mount. However, the technique used on both pieces is generally very similar. They must have been made in

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a similar milieu, if not in the same centre, and not many years can separate them. (On the other hand, it is just possible that the second, larger oval, is the sole survivor of a second sword-belt set, closely related to the first in type and ornamentation, which was tossed into the Garden Court at the same time). The difference in size between the two oval mounts is not necessarily only to be explained by their having being made at different times by different craftsmen. Scabbard-mounts of this kind typically came in pairs of unequal sizes. A pair of oval mounts of differing sizes form part of the splendid cast silver ninth-century baldric set from Kolín in the Czech Republic, which provides one of the best surviving parallels for the San Vincenzo set (Fig. 16) (Schrânil 1928: pl. 65; Benda 1967: pl. 57; Capelle 1968b: 237, figs. 5,3–6); and in mid-ninth-century paintings of individuals with sword-belts furnished with fittings of this type, the two mounts attached to the scabbard — in these representations invariably one oval and one half-oval — are also of different sizes, the larger one being set higher up on the scabbard (Fig. 17. See above). 2. Iron fittings from a horse’s bridle No. 5. Cruciform strap-distributor. SF 0745. (Figs. 5, 6, 12a) Context: D 574, a phase 4 brown clay loam in the southern part of the garden area of the Garden Court. Dimensions: 71 mm x 70.5 mm x c. 5 mm. Width of the arms: 20 mm. Depth of channels traversing the arms: 2.5–3 mm. Weight: 65 g. The arms of this cruciform mount have parallel sides and roughly semicircular ends. As on the sword-belt mounts, channels for rivets articulate the front face. Here they cross the inner ends of each of the four arms, leaving five raised areas on the front face of the mount, one at the centre and four at the terminals of the arms. There is no obvious trace of silver inlay on any of these raised fields. Each of the four channels has been pierced for three rivets. Some of these are missing, while others are deeply corroded in position. Presumably thin metal plates behind originally secured leather straps to the mount, as was the case with the trefoil and the two ovals; but no traces of these remain. The ends of the arms are also pierced for rivets, and these are still visible on the backs of two of them. On one arm the small rectangular

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plate which secured the strap to the rivet survives. This mount was made for leather straps about 20 mm wide. For the function of this mount and its position on the bridle, see above and Fig. 15. No. 6. Rein-shackle with long-shanked strap-ring. SF 0651. (Figs. 7, 12c) Context: D 540 (spit 13) a phase 6b rubble and loam layer overlying the Garden Court (Hodges 1993: fig. 10:17). Dimensions: Length: 86 mm. Strap-ring: 37 mm x 21 mm. Shank: 37 mm x 6 mm. Base-plate: 28 mm x 24 mm. Depth: c. 5 mm. Weight: 31.2 g. This fitting, which consists of a rectangular strap-ring attached to a roughly semicircular base-plate by means of a long shank, is cast in one piece, as are the other items of the set. Its upper surfaces are bevelled, while the rear ones are flat. The base-plate is pierced by rivet-holes. Three rivets are set in a row in a channel across the inner edge of the plate, at the base of the shank, and a fourth pierces the plate 35 mm in from its curving outer margin. All four rivets are very corroded. No traces of decoration remain on the plate, and, since the head of the terminal rivet is visible on its display surface, it is most unlikely that this ever carried silver inlay. The shanked base-plate was attached to the bit by a 23 mm strap, and the rectangular ring was designed to take reins 20-25 mm wide. For the function of this piece and its location on the bridle, see above and Fig. 16:15. There is one other fitting, found in the same context as the smaller oval mount, which may come from the same bridle as the cruciform distributor and the rein-shackle: No. 7. Iron ring. SF 0753. (Fig. 12d) Context: D 548 (19 east), a phase 6b black soil lens at the south-west end of the garden area of the Garden Court. Outer diameter: 61–65 mm Inner diameter: c. 47 mm Section of ring: 5–10 mm This is a simple iron ring, now considerably corroded. The confused nature of the destruction context in which it was found makes any sure identification of its original function impossible. However, its size is what one would expect for the two snaffle-rings which are found on the ends of many early medieval bits, providing a point of attachment, on either side of the horse’s mouth, for the reins and the cheek-pieces. This ring may well

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be from the bit which went with the bridle to which the cruciform strapdistributor and the rein-shackle belonged (Fig. 15). No. 8. Iron strap-slide with silvered display-face. SF 0659. (Figs. 8, 9, 12b) Context: D 540 (20 east), a phase 6b rubble and loam layer overlying the Garden Court (Hodges 1993: fig. 10:17). Dimensions display face: 28 mm x 21.5 mm x 2.5 mm. Dimensions of sleeve for straps: c. 21.5 mm x 14 mm. The slide has an oval display-face with gently convex sides which meet in a barely discernible ridge along its long-axis. This face has been plated first with copper and then with silver, and the silvered surface has subsequently been scored with bands of hatchings round its periphery and down its long axis. The surface of the iron is articulated with lines of stippling which are faintly visible through the skins of copper and silver. This rather splendid silvered slide is designed for straps about 20 mm wide and 5 mm thick. In form it is best paralleled in strap-slides associated with late eighth- and ninth-century Carolingian or Carolingian-influenced spurs from Koljane Gornje-Crkvina and Koljane Gomje-Vukovica Most, near Vrlika, Sinj, and at Biljane Donje-Begovaca, near Smiljcic, Benkovac, in former Yugoslavia (Jelovina 1986: nos. 75, 79, 86, 87, 97, 101, 159, 161, 185, 193, 195, 199, 201). Each of these spurs is provided with a uniform set of mounts, consisting of a buckle, a strap-end and a slide. Two pairs of slides from the latter half of the ninth century from Crkvina come closest in form to the one from San Vincenzo (Jelovina 1986: nos. 193, 195, 199 and 201). On the other hand, it is possible that the silvered slide belongs with the fittings from the horse-bridle. The width of the arms of the cruciform distributor from the bridle is also 20 mm, and so the straps of the head-stall, which were held in position by this mount, must also have been about 20 mm in width. The slide was also designed for a strap of this width. If it did originally form part of this assemblage it would most likely have been one of a pair which functioned alongside the principal buckles regulating the length of the cheek-pieces on either side of the horse’s head (Fig. 15). However, to our knowledge, strap-slides of this pattern have not been found elsewhere in association with fittings from a bridle. A second plain but elegant iron strap-slide was found in a related context in the Garden (D 550) (Tremlett and Coutts 2001: 368, Cat. 56). This is similar in design to the first, but its display face is almond-shaped with

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angled sides and a pronounced ridge along its long axis. It is smaller than the first slide, its display-face measuring 20 mm x 12 mm and its strap-sleeve 15 mm x 11 mm. Acknowledgements This chapter is a revised version of a study published as ‘Fashion in Metal: A set of sword-belt mounts and bride-furniture from San Vincenzo al Volturno’, in D. Buckton and T.A. Heslop (eds.), 1994 Studies in Medieval Art and Architecture presented to Peter Lasko: 127–56. Far Thrupp, Stroud and London, Alan Sutton. For assistance and advice of various kinds, I would like to thank, in the first place, Dafydd Kidd of the British Museum, who has been indefatigable and extraordinarily generous in his help and support, and in directing my attention to all manner of relevant literature; then Penelope Allison, James Barclay-Brown, Michael Brandon-Jones, David Buckton, Sally Cann, Cathy Coutts, Andrew Hanasz, Sally Martin, Matthew Moran, Ian Riddler, Jon Vickery, Nicholas Watkins, and, as ever, Richard Hodges. I got great benefit from reading a preliminary report by Torsten Capelle on the set of swordbelt mounts. The elements of the sword-belt set and the bridle fittings were conserved by Julie Jones of the University of York, and their condition has subsequently been monitored by Phillipa Pearce of the Department of Scientific Research of the British Museum, and by Wilma Basilissi of the Istituto Universitaria Suor Orsola Benincasa, Naples.

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Klanica, Z. (1968) ‘Vorgrossmährische Siedlung in Miculcice und ihre Beziehungen zum Karpatenbecken’. Stud. Zvesti AUSAV 16. Klanica, Z. (1984) ‘Die südmährischen Slawen und anderen Ethnika im archäologischen Material des 6.–8. Jahrhunderts’. In Interaktionen der mitteleuropäischen Slawen und anderen Ethnika im 6.–10. Jahrhundert. Symposium Nové Vozokany 3–7 Oktober 1983: 139–50. Nitra. Koch, U. (1984) Der Runde Berg bei Urach 5. Die Metallfunde der frühgeschichtlichen Perioden aus den Plangrabung 1967–1981. Heidelberg, Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. Köhler, W. (1930) Die karolingischen Miniaturen, I. Die Schule von Tours. Berlin, Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft. L’Orange, H.P. and Torp, H. (1977) ‘Il tempietto longobardo di Cividale’. Acta ad archaelogiam et historiam artium pertinentia (Institutum Romanum Norvegiae) 7. László, G. (1976) ‘Blatnica’. In H. Beck, H. Jankuhn, K. Ranke and R. Wenskus (eds), Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, voi. 3, 1/2: 62–63. Berlin and New York, Walter de Gruyter. Marazzi, F. and Francis, K. (1996) ‘L‘eredità dell‘antico. Tecnologia e produzione in un monastero imperiale carolingio: San Vincenzo al Volturno’. In M. Khanoussi, P. Ruggeri and C. Vismara (eds), L’Africa Romana: 1029–45. Ozieri, Editrice II Torchietto – Università degli Studi Sassari. McKitterick, R. (1983) The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians. London and New York, Longman. Melucco Vaccaro, A. (1974) Corpus della scultura altomedievale 7. La diocesi di Roma, part 3, La II. regione ecclesiastica. Spoleto, CISAM. Melucco Vaccaro, A. (1978) ‘Il restauro delle decorazioni ageminate ‘multiple’ di Nocera Umbra e di Castel Trosino: un’ occasione per un riesame metodologico’. Archeologia medievale 5: 9–75. Melucco Vaccaro, A. (1982) I Longobardi in Italia. Milan, Longanesi. Mengarelli, R. (1902) ‘La necropoli barbarica di Castel Trosino’. Monumenti antichi publicati per la cura della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, vol. 12: 145–380. Menghin, W. (1973) ‘Aufhängervorrichtung und Tragweise zweischneidiger Langschwerter aus germanischen Gräbern des 5. bis 7. Jahrhunderts’. Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums: 7–56. Mitchell, J. (1985) ‘The painted decoration of the early medieval monastery’. In R. Hodges and J. Mitchell (eds), San Vincenzo al Volturno. The Archaeology, Art and Territory of an Early Medieval Monastery (B.A.R. International

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Stiegemann, C. and Wemhoff, M. (1999) 799. Kunst und Kultur der Karolingerzeit. Karl der Grosse und Papst Leo III. Mainz, Verlag Philipp von Zabern. Tagliaferri, A. (1981) Corpus della scultura altomedievale 10. Le diocesi di Aquileia e Grado. Spoleto, CISAM. Tremlett, S. and Coutts, C.M. (2001) ‘Artifacts in iron’. In J. Mitchell and I.-L. Hansen (eds.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: The Finds from the 198086 Excavations: 347–79. Spoleto, CISAM. Trovabene Bussi, G. (1980) ‘Aspetti artistico-culturali di una zona di confine della Lombardia: la diocesi di Modena’. In Atti del 6. congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo, Milano, 21–25 ottobre 1978, II. Spoleto, CISAM. Turek, R. (1968) ‘Zur Ornamentik der mitteleuropäischen kleeblattförmigen Beschläge’. In M. Claus, W. Haarnagel and K. Raddatz (eds), Studien zur europäischen Vor- und Frühgeschichte – Festschrift für H. Jankuhn: 297– 301. Neumünster, K. Wachholtz. Unverzagt, W. and Schuldt, E. (1963) Teterow. Ein slawischer Burgwall in Mecklenburg. Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften Berlin, Schriften der Sektion Vor- und Frühgeschichte 13. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag. von Hessen, O. (1971) Primo contributo alla archeologia longobarda in Toscana. Le necropoli. Florence, Olschki. von Hessen, O. (1975) Secondo contributo alla archeologia longobarda in Toscana. Reperti isolati e di provenienza incerta. Florence, Olschki. von Hessen, O. (1978) Il cimitero altomedievale di Pettinara-Casale Lozzi (Nocera Umbra). Florence, La Nuova Italia. Wamers, E. (1981) ‘Ein karolingischer Prunkbeschlag aus dem RömischGermanischen Museum, Köln’. Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters 9: 91–128. Wartmann, H. (1863) Urkundenbuch der Abtei Sankt Gallen, vol. I. Zürich, S. Höhr. Werner, J. (1955) Das alamannishe Gräberfeld von Mildenheim. Augsburg, Verlag der Schwäbischen Forschungsgemeinschaft. White, L. (1964) Medieval Technology and Social Change. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

XIX The San Vincenzo Community in Capua

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n the morning of 10 October 881 an Arab war-band, operating in collaboration with the duke and bishop of Naples, Athanasius, rode across the plateau at the top of the Volturno valley and attacked the monastery of San Vincenzo with volleys of fire-arrows. The monks and their servants put up a stiff resistance at the Marble Bridge, but the churches and ranges of buildings of the old monastery, laid out on the slopes of a low hill, the modern Colle della Torre, and on the narrow plains by the banks of the river Volturno, and covering something between 6 and 10 ha, were essentially undefended. The monastery’s servants, on whom the monks must have been relying to repulse the attack, defected to the Arab raiders, who soon broke into the monastery. Some 500 (according to another tradition, 900) monks were cut down. The attackers plundered the monastery, and according to the Chronicon Vulturnense, tipped off by the servants, found its main deposit of treasure; they threw its stored reserves of foodstuffs into the river, and then torched the monastic buildings and San Vincenzo’s nine churches (Federici I 1925: 361–9; Marazzi 1996: 74–6; Hodges 1997, ‘The Sack’). The Chronicon, following an eyewitness account by the abbot of the time, Maio, describes how the monks who survived the violent destruction of their monastery subsequently fled down-river to Capua, the seat of a Lombard principality that recently had established itself as the dominant power in the region (Federici II 1925, 5–8). There they recounted the sad story to the princes, Atenulf and his son Landulf. For the redemption of their own souls and for the salvation of their subjects, the two rulers granted the monks a plot of land in the city, close to the Porta Sant’Angelo, to build a new monastery dedicated to Saint Vincent (Di Resta 1985: figs 10, 24). This first settlement was extremely modest, to judge from a passing reference in the Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, and consisted of just a few small claustral

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buildings and a little church (Hoffmann 1980, 136; Federici II 1925: 7). The monks had lost their treasure and had been forced to abandon most of their worldly possessions when they fled the old monastery. Almost immediately they set about letting out some of their lands in order to raise money to finance the new buildings in Capua and to ransom their colleagues who were still in the hands of the Arabs. To this end, they leased various pieces of land to a certain Leo, a native of Isernia, for 29 years, for a payment of 35 lbs of silver and an annual rent of one solidus (Federici II 1925: 6–9). Abbot Maio also sold the wood of Pantano, in Liburia, to the archbishop of Naples for 100 lbs of silver, with an option of redeeming it at a later date (Federici III 1938: 144); and he exchanged property of San Vincenzo in Piacenza for a church and land in the territory of Capua belonging to the Empress Ageltrude of Spoleto. Besides raising money for establishing the new monastery in the city, it would appear that the abbot was also concerned to consolidate San Vincenzo’s landed possessions. Abbot Maio, who had led the surviving members of the community to the safety of the city, died in 901 or 902 and was succeeded by Godelpert (ob. 920). In 914, Abbot Godelpert exchanged the site by the Porta Sant’Angelo in Capua, which the community had received from the two princes, for a property belonging to Monte Cassino at the other end of the city, in the oxbow of the Volturno, just outside the northwestern gate (Federici II: 31–5) (Fig. 1). The Cassinese community, like the monks of San Vincenzo, had been driven from Monte Cassino by the Arabs in 883, and had sought refuge in Teano. However, after their house there was destroyed by fire the monks were persuaded by their new abbot, John, a noble Capuan, related to the ruling family, to transfer to Capua and to establish a new monastery there (Hoffmann 1980: 131–7). They exchanged the land that had been assigned to them by the princes for San Vincenzo’s plot, where Abbot John set about building a new monastery in place of the little church and the small and apparently squalid house, fit for only three or four brothers, which Abbot Maio had constructed there for the San Vincenzo community some 30 years before. It appears that San Vincenzo’s abbot, Godelpert, also began to construct a new church and monastic buildings on the land he had acquired from Monte Cassino, by the church of Santa Maria que nuncupatur Laudi magistri — although it is possible that the passages in the Chronicon that seem to allude to this could be referring to a new church begun by this abbot at the site at the source of the Volturno (Hoffmann 1980: 136–7; Federici II 1925: 31, 41). The Chronica Monasterii Casinensis tells us that Godelpert

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1. Plan of Capua in the tenth century. (IWA after Di Resta 1985: fig. 10).

gathered his dispersed monks into this new house and, from there, set about regaining control over San Vincenzo’s lost possessions. It is unclear why this exchange took place. However, there is little doubt that the princes were involved in the matter, just as they must have been instrumental in the transfer of the Monte Cassino community to Capua. In the contract drawn up by the abbot of Monte Cassino in November 914 it is stated that the agreement was made with the permission of Landulf (Federici II 1925: 32). In a diploma issued in the same month Landulf and Atenulf, on learning that the site was not adequate to the needs of the community, made a gift of a further plot of land to San Vincenzo (Federici II 1925: 35–6). This additional plot is described as lying just outside the walls of the city, land on which their father, Atenulf, had begun to construct a church together with the castle, bordering on the external piazza of the city and the river Volturno. The chroniclers of both monasteries take pains to emphasize the equivalence in size and nature between the two plots (Hoffmann 1980: 137; Federici II 1925: 32–5). However, it would appear that Monte Cassino was already in possession of a property lying adjacent to the site at the Porta Sant’Angelo, and that the exchange allowed them to consolidate their holdings in one strategically well-placed location in the city (Federici II 1925: 34). It may be

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2. Plan of Santa Maria in Abbate. (IWA after Pane and Filangieri 1994: fig. 82).

3. Santa Maria in Abbate, façade. (From Pane and Filangieri 1994: fig. 79. Reproduced courtesy of Prof. Arch. Giulio Pane).

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4. Santa Maria in Abbate, interior view. (From Pane and Filangieri 1994: fig. 84. Reproduced courtesy of Prof. Arch. Giulio Pane).

5. Santa Maria in Abbate, interior view. (From Pane andFilangieri 1994: fig. 83. Reproduced courtesy of Prof. Arch. Giulio Pane).

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6. San Salvatore, Monte Cassino. (From Carbonara 1979: fig. 2. Reproduced courtesy of Prof. Giovanni Carbonara).

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7. Santa Maria in Abbate, ionic capital. (From Pane and Filangieri 1994: fig. 88. Reproduced courtesy of Prof. Arch. Giulio Pane).

8. Plan of San Benedetto. (IWA after Spedale and Torriero Nardone 1995: fig. 5).

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9. San Benedetto, interior view. (From Speciale and Torriero Nardone 1995: fig 4).

10. Portrait of Abbot Adelpertus, in San Benedetto. (From Spedale and Torriero Nardone 1995: fig 15).

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11. Painted dado in the Crypt of Epyphanius at San Vincenzo. (Photo: author).

12. Monte Cassino, Cod. Casin. 175, p. 2. (From Orofino 1994: pl. XX. Reproduced courtesy of the Biblioteca del Monumento Nazionale di Montecassino (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali) and Prof. Giulia Orofino).

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that, in reality, the monks of San Vincenzo came off second best in the deal; giving up a site within the walls of the city, situated close to the principal east gate, not far from the palace, in exchange for a somewhat more marginal site on the bank of the river, in the oxbow of the river, just outside the northwestern gate, the so-called Porta Fauzana or ‘False Gate’. It may have been princely pressure that compelled the San Vincenzo community to cede their original location to the monks of Monte Cassino and their well-connected abbot. Capua, which lay on the Volturno some 100 km down towards the coast, was the nearest and most easily accessible major Lombard capital. Not only had it played a part in the early history of the monastery, but it also continued to hold an enduring place in the collective memory of the community at San Vincenzo. The old Roman city of Capua figures prominently in the protohistory of the monastery as it is recorded in the Chronicon Vulturnense, compiled in the first half of the twelfth century. Its legendary foundation by Capis Silvius is recorded after Dido’s foundation of Carthage and before the foundation of Rome (Federici I 1925: 45); in the account of Constantine’s establishment of an oratory dedicated to Saint Vincent at the source of the Volturno, Saint Laurence, addressing the emperor in his sleep, introduces his companion, Saint Stephen, as the saint whose church Constantine had constructed at Capua (Federici I 1925: 147); and an ancient temple in Capua was the alleged source of the columns and other select building spolia that the Carolingian emperor, Louis the Pious, was traditionally believed to have presented to Abbot Joshua for his new abbey-church of San Vincenzo Maggiore, in the first decade of the ninth century (Federici I 1925: 220). Furthermore, in the early years of the ninth century the community was given a number of properties in and around old Capua (Federici I 1925: 240, 241, 242, 253, 258, 266). The abandonment of Capua Vetere, the establishment of a new city, Sicopolis, by Count Landulf, on Mons Trifliscus, in 841, its destruction by fire in 856, and the subsequent foundation of the new Capua on the river Volturno ad pontem Cansulini, by Prince Lando and his brothers, are all recounted in the Chronicon Vulturnense (Federici I 1925: 315). It was under Abbot Godelpert that a small community was re-established at the site at the source of the Volturno, supposedly also in 914, after ‘threethree’ (33) years of exile in Capua. However, the accuracy of this tradition is open to question: the Chronicler himself makes the connection between the period during which the site was abandoned and the traditional span of Christ’s life on earth (Federici I 1925: 370). In the document of November 914 confirming the exchange of land in Capua between the San Vincenzo

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and Monte Cassino communities, the monastery of San Vincenzo is referred to as olim situs erga Vulturni fluvii fontes (Federici II 1925: 32). This would suggest that the monks had still not returned to the upper Voltumo valley by the end of the year. The resettlement initially was slow and somewhat piecemeal. In the first years probably only a few monks took up residence at the old site. Much of the ninth-century monastery was abandoned, and it was only slowly that a number of the old churches and residential buildings were repaired and brought back into use. As late as 970, when Bishop Dietrich of Metz visited San Vincenzo, he found the monastery still in a sad state of disrepair, ‘almost completely destroyed, which had once been built in a marvellous and grand way by three noble brothers, or so the old monks, who then appeared to be few in number, said’ (Pertz 1841: 475; Mitchell et al. 1997: 315, 320). It was not until the end of the century that the old abbey-church of San Vincenzo Maggiore was repaired and brought back into everyday use, under Abbot John IV and his successors, Maraldus and Ilarius (Federici II 1925: 342; III 1938: 78). In documents of the tenth century, the monastic community of San Vincenzo is regularly associated with the site at the source of the Volturno and is referred to as ... monasterio Sancti Vincencii, qui situm est in Samnie partibus unde oritur fluvio Volturno, or some such formula (Federici II 1925: 55). However, the new house at Capua clearly remained throughout the century an all-important second seat for the community, conveniently situated in the city that had become the major centre of power and patronage in the region. It would appear that a substantial proportion of the community stayed in Capua, and to judge from various chance references in the documents preserved in the chronicle, the abbots often must have been resident in the city, where they were close to the court and would have enjoyed a measure of protection from the perils of the tenth-century countryside. Construction in Capua continued under Godelpert’s successor, Raimbaldus (920–44). He completed the new church of Saint Vincent there, and had it decorated with wall-paintings. He also built a church dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God and Virgin, just outside the gates of the new monastery, and was responsible for the construction of other buildings there. He assembled a large number of monks in Capua, and continued to build up the resources of the community (Federici II 1925: 41–2). Raimbaldus’ successor, Leo (944–57), is recorded as having finished the church of Santa Maria in Capua, and as having been responsible for the erection of many buildings (et plura edificia statuit. Federici II 1925: 61).

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Often matters involving the interests of the monastery were transacted at the cell in Capua. In a document of January 947, it is stipulated that the annual rent for a plot of land at Oria, in Apulia, belonging to the mother house, leased out to a certain Gungelgardus, one follicello of incense, should be paid at the seat in Capua on the feast of Saint Vincent (Federici II 1925: 87–8). Many of the documents relating to the interests of San Vincenzo from the late 940s until the mid 970s were drawn up by the notary Erchembert, who would seem to have been based in Capua. Furthermore, the prestige of the cell is apparent from a bequest of Lando, Count of Teano. When, in November of 986, Lando, on the eve of a pilgrimage to the church dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel on Monte Gargano, bequeathed 300 modia of land near Vairano to San Vincenzo, he stipulated that from the day of his death this property should pass into the possession of those monks who daily sang praises to the Lord and sang the offices in the monastery of Sancti Vincencii de Monte, that is the cell in Capua. Twice in this document Lando specifies the monks in Capua as the ones to whom he is leaving the land (Federici II 1925: 317–19). There are many indications that the community continued to enjoy favour at the Capuan court in the tenth century, and it was this princely support and protection that enabled San Vincenzo to recover from the effects of the destruction of the old monastery by the Arabs, to regain its alienated possessions, and to attract farmers to settle and cultivate its abandoned terra. In 957–8 the Princes Landulf IV and Pandulf I Ironhead granted the monks fishing-rights in the lake of Patria, at the request of the Princess Gemma (Federici II 1925: 165–7); in 964 they presented them with their share of 117 plots of land in finibus Patriae, 300 modia in all (Federici II 1925: 216–33); in a diploma of 28 December 965, Pandulf Ironhead and Landulf III, at the request of Princess Aluara, confirmed a previous privilege granted by Louis II to the monastery and made it a present of Monte Aceru in territorio Commanense (Federici II 1925: 158–62); in a diploma of 27 July 967, Pandulf and Landulf granted the monastery the licence to construct and control towers and castles on its lands (Federici II 1925: 162–4); and in 968 and again in 970 Pandulf supported San Vincenzo in its struggle to retain control of its dependent female house of Santa Maria in Apinianici (Federici II 1925: 146–50, 154–8). After Pandulf ’s death in 981, the delicate balance of powers and interests in the Lombard states was radically disturbed, and the great monastic institutions like Monte Cassino and San Vincenzo that had flourished

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during his long and relatively stable reign were now constrained to manage their affairs and negotiate to their advantage in a city in which the princely family was not necessarily still the dominant power (Loud 1985: 36–8). This was a time in which the San Vincenzo community was once forced to flee its house in Capua and twice lost control over its governance. The situation was complicated and exacerbated by the arrival of the Normans, who increasingly pursued their own interests in the region and finally, under the leadership of Richard of Aversa, took the city in 1058. It would appear that the abbot of San Vincenzo was quite frequently in residence in Capua in this period. Abbot Roffridus (984–98) seems to have spent considerable periods in the city. A contract of 984, signed by this abbot, for the lease of lands owned by the monastery in Marsia was drawn up in Capua (Federici II 1925: 328–31); and in late April 993, after the assassination of Prince Landenolf, the abbots of both San Vincenzo and Monte Cassino were there, and they became involved in a plot to support Hugh, Margrave of Tuscany, who was besieging the city. In the ensuing fighting, Abbot Roffridus of San Vincenzo was forced to flee by the river (Federici II 1925: 325–6); and in 996, in the changed political climate within the city, Manso, abbot of Monte Cassino was kidnapped and blinded (Federici II 1925: 16). Subsequently, a certain Coppari de Sancto Benedicto bought the monastery of San Vincenzo in the city, stripped it of many possessions and misused its servants for a period of ten months; and the monks abandoned the house. The earlier status quo was restored only after Roffridus took his case to Emperor Otto III in Rome, and the usurper was compelled to leave the monastery. Similarly, the chronicle records that some 45 years later Abbot Ilarius was in Capua when he learnt that the monastery at the source of the Volturno had been attacked and pillaged by the Borelli, predatory nobility from the region of Valva to the north, who had recently moved into the area. The abbot had recourse to Prince Guaimar, who sent a count, Raynulf, to expel the aggressors (Federici III 1938: 79). Ilarius is recorded as having undertaken major building work at the monastery in the city: he not only reconstructed the presbytery of the main church there (titulum ecclesie), but also built a sacristy (secretarium) and a lofty bell-tower (Federici III 1938: 78). Evidently, San Vincenzo’s decision to back the losing side in Capua during the troubles of the 990s cost them dear in subsequent years. The Chronicon Vulturnense relates that, after the death of Ilarius in 1045, the monastery in the city was sold by the Capuans to a certain Lando, a cleric of

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the city. Lando kept control of the cell for three years and was expelled only when the newly-crowned emperor, Henry III, came to Capua and a German, Liuhtfridus, was elected as Ilarius’s successor (Federici III 1938: 84). The 1040s were lawless times in outlying areas of the Lombard principality, and the monastery lost a number of its possessions in the upper Volturno and surrounding regions to avaricious predators, among which the Borelli were pre-eminent (Federici III 1938: 84). The Abbot Liuhtfridus endeavoured to regain control over these lands but was finally compelled to retreat with many of the monks to the safety of the house in the city, and it was there that he died in 1053 (Federici III 1938: 88). The insecure position of the monks in Capua in this period is shown by the fact that after Liuhtfridus’s death the simoniac cleric, Lando, again managed to acquire the church of San Vincenzo in Capua from the citizens. He held it for a further three years. After first Lando had been excommunicated by Pope Leo IX and then the whole Capuan citizenry were excommunicated by Leo’s successor, Stephen, an accommodation between the monks and the people of Capua was reached. The abbot regained control of the monastery, but was compelled, in some kind of exchange, to give over to Lando the monastery of Santa Croce, on Monte Marsico (Federici III 1938: 89). Clearly, despite the full support of the pope, the abbot of San Vincenzo had carefully to negotiate his way back into possession of his cell in Capua. The Chronicon Vulturnense tells us very little about the fortunes of the house in the city after the Norman Richard, Count of Aversa, captured Capua in 1058. However, it would appear from a lacunose section of the narrative that one of the abbots around 1100, perhaps Abbot Benedict (1109–17), may have resided in the city in the final years of his life and died there (Federici III 1938: 108). San Vincenzo in Capua was clearly a useful base and a refuge in times of trouble. However, the extent to which it continued to serve as the centre of the community’s activities and as the principal residence of the abbot is unclear from the Chronicon. It is remarkable that in two privileges confirming the possessions of San Vincenzo, one issued by Pope Marinus II in 944 (Federici II 1925: 105), the other by Nicholas II in 1059 (Federici II 1925: 93), the monasterium Sancti Vincendi in Capua is given no especial prominence among the other monasteries subject to the mother house. The cell in Capua remained an important seat for the abbot of San Vincenzo as late as the late twelfth century. In a bull of 1180, addressed to

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the bishops of Teano, Sessa and Caiazzo, the pope refers to the abbot of San Vincenzo as abbot of the monastery in Capua (dilectus filius noster abbas Sancti Vincendi de Monte), and asks the bishops to go to Capua to sort out any outstanding matters concerning certain lands that had been alienated from San Vincenzo (Federici II 1925: 291). Some of the principal elements of the monastery that the monks built in 914, on the plot acquired from the abbot of Monte Cassino, are still identifiable. The area, on the western edge of the old city, by the river-bank, is still associated with the name of San Vincenzo. The buildings may have continued to house a religious community until secularization in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Two of its principal structures still stand, the church and a range containing a well-preserved building that may be the old refectory. These two buildings lie on parallel axes, some 20 m apart, the church to the north. Today they are separated by a basketball court that must lie directly over the old cloister-court. The ‘refectory’ is now a large two-storey building, probably dating from the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Until the Second World War it served as army barracks, and at present is a carpenter’s workshop. The church, now variously known as Santa Maria in Abbate, San Leonardo and Sant’Anna, is no longer in use and is in some state of disrepair (Figs. 2–5) (Pane and Filangieri 1994: I, 116–19). Behind a simple eighteenth-century façade an early medieval church survives essentially intact. It has a basilican plan, with five columns sustaining arches in each of the colonnades separating the aisles from the central nave. At the eastern end the central apse is flanked by two smaller apses, following a plan that was adopted for the early ninth-century abbey-churches at both San Vincenzo al Volturno and Monte Cassino, and which was widespread in Italy in the early Middle Ages (Pantoni 1973: 148–55, plan opp. p. 98; Carbonara 1979: 34–5, 36–40, fig. 2; Hodges and Mitchell 1996: fig. 3:3; Hodges 1997, Light in the Dark Ages: figs. 5:7–10) (Fig. 6). While much of its original underlying structure may be preserved essentially intact, the building has undergone many changes over the centuries. None of the original windows is now visible, and it is possible that the clerestory walls and the side aisles have been substantially reconstructed. Only a careful examination of the fabric and removal of wall-plaster inside and out would reveal the extent of these renovations. Outside, the church now has a graceful eighteenth-century façade, with a giant order of pilasters with ionic capitals, surmounted by a low pediment with prominent dentil

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articulation (Fig. 3). The pediment frames a single oculus. There is one central door in this façade, surmounted by a round-headed window. A flat-arched window opens in the front of each side aisle, and three similar openings are set in the flanking walls of these aisles. The clerestory is now lit by three simple rectangular windows on either side. A low campanile with plain round-headed openings rises over the main apse. Inside, the original spatial configuration is largely preserved, but a thorough restoration in the nineteenth century involved the systematic redecoration of all interior surfaces (Fig. 5). The old columns were retained in the colonnades, but the ionic capitals that they carry and their dramatically flaring abaci seem to be modem (Fig. 7). Whether they date from the last century or from an earlier restoration is unclear. Both the wooden coffered ceiling and the maiolica tiled pavement appear to be nineteenth-century additions. It is unclear if this three-apsed basilican structure is the church built by Abbot Godelpert immediately after 914, or a somewhat later rebuild. Only a detailed survey of the fabric and archaeological investigation of the area would give the answer. Similarly San Benedetto, the church of the Monte Cassino community on the site next to the Porta Sant’Angelo, survives essentially intact (Speciale and Torriero Nardone 1995). The church that Abbot John erected, soon after his acquisition of the plot in November 914, was radically rebuilt by Abbot Desiderius towards the end of the eleventh century (Hoffmann 1980: 436). This Desiderian church still stands as the ex-Jesuit church of Santi Ignazio e Francesco Saverio: an aisled basilica, with nine columns in each colonnade carrying finely carved Corinthian capitals (Figs. 8 and 9). It is possible that this structure incorporates substantial elements of its early tenth-century predecessor. It would appear that much of the early medieval fabric is preserved beneath the eighteenth-century façade and the modem plaster of the interior. An earthquake in 1980 inflicted considerable damage on the building, and during subsequent repairs elements of the early medieval structure came to light, including a substantial passage of its painted decoration. This area of painted plaster is located on the south wall of the nave, more or less abreast of the second arcade column from the west. The scheme consists of a sequence of images in medallion frames of the early tenth-century abbots of Monte Cassino, including the founder, John, his predecessor, Leo, and his immediate successor, Adelpertus (Fig. 10) (Speciale and Torriero Nardone 1995: 96–100; Gunhouse 2004), running over a dado imitating a hanging with a characteristic reticulate pattern of diagonally intersecting lines. These have been assigned by Lucinia Speciale,

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in her careful publication of the surviving early painted decoration, to the latter half of the eleventh century, to the time of Desiderius, but it is possible that they are somewhat earlier. The design of the dado is related closely to patterns used by painters working at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the first half of the ninth century (Hodges 1993: figs. 3.11–15; Mitchell 1993) (Fig. 11). The author of the Chronica Monasterii Casinensis describes how Abbot John quickly built his church in the second decade of the tenth century and made it ready for the use of 50 or more brothers. John’s church was sumptuously decorated, and among the foundation gifts from the abbot were a missal and a Gospel Book with covers of gilded silver, an altar covered with silver imagery on all four sides, a beautiful processional cross ornamented with gemstones and enamels, two silver thimbles, a silver ewer, a great brass basin weighing 600 lbs, many liturgical books, and a full set of vestments for the monks and their servants (Hoffmann 1980: 137–8). Of all this, one splendidly illuminated manuscript survives: Monte Cassino Cod. Casin. 175, a copy of Paul the Deacon’s Commentary on the Rule of Saint Benedict, evidently produced in the scriptorium of the Capuan house during its first years of operation (Bloch 1986: III, pl. 1; Orofino 1994: 52–7, pl. XX). In the frontispiece (p. 2), Abbot John is shown presenting this book to Saint Benedict, who is seated before a simplified columnar basilica (Fig. 12). This offers a contemporary image of John’s church, albeit in schematic form. Abbot Godelpert’s new church of San Vincenzo at Capua must have been similarly appointed, with brightly painted walls and with rich furnishings, fittings, books and vestments, to rival those of the Benedictine community on the other side of the city. It is clear that the house in Capua played a major role in the life of the community of San Vincenzo in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Indeed, it is possible that it remained the principal residence of the abbot and the home of the greater part of the congregation for much of this period. Neither the documentary nor the archaeological evidence suggests major building activity or extensive occupation of the site at the source of the Voltumo before the refurbishment of the abbey-church of San Vincenzo Maggiore under John IV and Ilarius in the early years of the eleventh century.

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Bibliography H. Boch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages, 3 vols. (Rome, 1986). G. Carbonara, Iussu Desiderii Montecassino e l’architettura campano-abruzzese nell’undicesimo secolo (Rome, 1979). I. Di Resta, La città nella storia d’Italia: Capua (Rome and Bari, 1985). V. Federici, (ed.), Chronicon Vulturnense del Monaco Giovanni (Fonti per la storia d’Italia 58–60), 3 vols. (Rome, 1925–38). G. Gunhouse, 2004, ‘Sequential abbots’ portraits in two south Italian churches’, in Shaping Sacred Space and Institutional Identity in Romanesque Mural Painting, ed. T. E. A. Dale (London, 2004), 230–44. R. Hodges (ed.), San Vincenzo al Volturno 1: the 1980–86 Excavations, Part I (London, 1993). R. Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages. The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno (London, 1997). R. Hodges, ’10 October 881. The sack of San Vincenzo al Volturno’, in Ultra Terminum Vagari: Papers in Honour of Carl Nylander, ed. B. Magnusson, S. Renzetti, P. Vian and S. J. Voicu: 129–41 (Rome, 1997). R. Hodges, and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno (Monte Cassino and Monteroduni, 1996). H. Hoffmann, (ed.), Chronica Monasterii Casinensis. Die Chronik von Montecassino, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores 34 (Hannover, 1980). G. Loud, Church and Society in the Normal Principality of Capua, 1058– 1197 (Oxford, 1985). F. Marazzi, ‘San Vincenzo al Volturno tra VIII e IX secolo: il percorso della grande crescita’, in San Vncenzo al Volturno: Cultura, istituzioni, economia (Miscellanea Vulturnense 3), ed. F. Marazzi (Monte Cassino/ Monteroduni,1996), 41–92. J. Mitchell, ‘The crypt reappraised’, in San Vincenzo al Volturno 1: the 1980– 86 Excavations, Part I, ed. R. Hodges (London, 1993), 75–114. J. Mitchell, L. Watson, F. De Rubeis, R. Hodges and I. Wood, ‘ Cult, relics and privileged burial at San Vincenzo al Volturno in the age of Charlemagne: the discovery of the tomb of Abbot Talaricus (817–3 October 823)’, in 1 Congresso nazionale di archeologia medievale (Florence, 1997), 315–21.

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G. Orofino, I codici decorati dell’archivio di Montecassino I: secoli VIII–X, (Rome, 1994). G. Pane and A. Filangieri, Capua: architettura e arte. Catalogo delle opere, 2 vols. (Capua, 1994) A. Pantoni, Le vicende della basilica di Montecassino attraverso la documentazione archeologica (Miscellanea Cassinese 36) (Monte Cassino, 1973). G. H. Pertz (ed.), ‘Sigeberti Gemblacensis, Vita Deoderici I’, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores 4 (Hannover, 1841), 461–83. L. Speciale and G. Torriero Nardone, ‘Sicut nunc cernitur satis pulcherrimam construxit: la basilica e gli affreschi desideriani di S.Benedetto a Capua’, Arte medievale 9, 2 (1995), 87–104.

XX Giudizio sul Mille: Rome, Montecassino, S. Vincenzo al Volturno, and the Beginnings of the Romanesque

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ille, the eleventh century, has long been a pretty dark era in the history of Italian art. Aside from ground-breaking new initiatives in Venice, Pisa, and Milan, and a few outstanding individual reasonably well-dated monuments like S. Vincenzo in Galliano at the beginning of the century and the celebrated painted panels in the lower church of S. Clemente in Rome towards its end, it has not been easy to identify, describe, or recognize the characteristics and conventions of carving in stone and of painting and their trajectory though this 100 years, in the various parts of the peninsula. However, remarkable progress has been made in recent years, for Rome at least. For painting, these advances are exemplified in Maria Andaloro and Serena Romano’s magisterial new corpus of painting, La pittura medievale a Roma, and in the acts of the 2004 Lausanne conference ‘Roma e la riforma gregoriana’, and for sculpture in Peter Cornelius Claussen’s Corpus Cosmatorum and in many detailed studies by him and others over the past few decades.1 Now, finally, it seems that more fixed points are being established and a clearer idea of what was going on is emerging. The title makes reference, of course, to Roberto Longhi’s celebrated essay, ‘Giudizio sul Duecento’, Proporzioni 2 (1948), pp. 5–54. 1 S. Romano, Riforma e tradizione 1050–1198, La pittura medievale a Roma IV (Milan, 2006); S. Romano and J. E. Julliard (eds.), Roma e la riforma gregoriana. Tradizioni e innovazioni artistiche (XI–XII secolo) (Rome, 2007); R. C. Claussen, Magistri Doctissimi Romani. Die römischen Marmorkünstler des Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1987); P. C. Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050–1300, Corpus Cosmatorum II, vol. I (Stuttgart, 2002); P. C. Claussen, Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050–1300, S. Giovanni in Laterano, Corpus Cosmatorum II, 2 (Stuttgart, 2008).

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In all this, the monastery of Montecassino has played and continues to play a pivotal but curiously shadowy role. Abbot Desiderius’s great new basilica and the completely restructured monastery which rose around it in the course of the later 1060s and 1070s are known to us from the extraordinary discursive contemporary description of Leo of Ostia in the Cassino Chronicle and from the verses of Alphanus and the narrative of Amatus, both members of the community at the time of rebuilding, from two sixteenth-century plans by the architect Antonio da Sangallo the younger, and of course from the structural remains — or rather what survived of them after the destruction of the abbey by allied bombardment in 1944.2 In the aftermath of that destruction and the opportunities it offered, Don Angelo Pantoni did a valiant and invaluable job of describing and analysing the surviving evidence for the fabric of the medieval monastery in his many publications on the archaeology, building history, and art of the complex, although he was not in a position to undertake controlled scientific excavations.3 Significant elements of the fabric and ornament of the Desiderian phase probably do survive, but their association with the original phase of construction is for the most part hypothetical and casual, rarely demonstrable; and few tangible relics of the aspects of embellishment which contemporaries picked out for particular mention, like liturgical furniture, mosaics, and wall-painting, can be identified with absolute certainty. Nonetheless, Desiderius’s Montecassino has commonly been seen as introducing a new pattern and a new standard into elite ecclesiastical building in central Italy and in Rome, and as reviving a church type and conventions of embellishment and imagery to a considerable degree devised in conscious imitation of hallowed Early Christian Roman archetypes of the

2 Leo of Ostia: Chronica monasterii Casinensis, ed. H. Hoffmann, Die Chronik von Montecassino, MGH SS 24 (Hanover, 1980), pp. 393–7. Alphanus, Carmina, A. Lentini and F. Avagliano (eds. ), I carmi di Alfano l’arcivescovo di Salerno, Miscellanea Cassinese 38 (Montecassino, 1974), carm. 32, pp. 171–9, carm. 54, pp. 217–19; Amatus: Storia dei Normanni, V. De Bartholomaeis (ed. ), Storia dei Normanni di Amato di Montecassino, Fonti per la storia d’Italia 76 (Rome, 1935). Plans of Sangallo: H. M. Willard and K. J. Conant, ‘A project for the graphic reconstruction of the Romanesque abbey of Monte Cassino’, Speculum 10 (1935), pp. 144–9; G. Carbonara, Iussu Desiderii. Montecassino e l’architettura campanoabbruzzese neU’undicesmo secolo (Rome, 1979), p. 50, figs. 11–12; B. D’Onorio, G. Spinelli, and V. Pirozzi, L’abbazia di Montecassino. Storia, religione, arte (Rome, 1982), ills. 91–2. 3 In particular A. Pantoni, Le vicende della basilica di Montecassino attraverso la documentazione archeologica, Miscellanea Cassinese 36 (Montecassino, 1973).

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fourth to sixth centuries.4 It has been seen as having provided the example for an ecclesiastical building-boom in Rome in the last decades of the eleventh century and the early twelfth, and as a pivotal factor in the reintroduction of the concept of large-scale church building and the basilica with continuous transept into central Italy.5 Montecassino has also been seen as lying behind the reintroduction of programmes of mural imagery in mosaic with Early Christian themes, as well as influencing wall-painting and as having had a defining effect on the production of a new order of opus sectile pavements and a new taste in church furniture, carved in marble in a distinctive classicizing antique Roman idiom, now inlaid with gleaming cubes of glass mosaic — in these last instances as having initiated a tradition which culminated in the practices of the new Roman marmorarii, the Cosmati.6 The elaborate marble frame of the door in the west front of the church, with its trellis of poised coffers containing prominent rosettes, with red, black, and gold glass mosaic set in all the interior fields and defining vertical linear accents, is certainly couched in a bold classical idiom, clearly derived from ancient Roman example, if hard to pin down as to its precise referent — brought to brilliant new life by the glinting glass accents of colour.7 A striking fragment which appears to be the remains of a large paschal candlestick may well also derive from the initial Desiderian phase of the basilica.8 With its bold reverse

4 H. Toubert, ‘Le renouveau paléochrétien à Rome au début du XIIe siècle’, Cahiers Archéologiques 20 (1970), pp. 99–154 (rep. in H. Toubert, Un art dirigé. Réforme grégorienne et Iconographie (Paris, 1990), pp. 239–310); Claussen, Magistri Doctissimi Romani, p. 239; P. C. Claussen, ‘Renovatio Romae. Erneuerungsphasen römischer Architektur im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert’, in B. Schimmelpfennig and L. Schmugge (eds. ), Rom im hohen Mittelalter. Studien zu den Romvorstellungen und zur Rompolitik vom 10. bis 12 Jahrhundert (Sigmaringen, 1992), pp. 87–125, at p. 91. 5 R. Krautheimer, Rome. Profile of a City, 312–1308 (Princeton, 1980), pp. 78–82. 6 Toubert, ‘Le renouveau paléochrétien’, p. 152; E. Kitzinger, ‘The Gregorian reform and the visual arts: a problem of method’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th Ser. , 22 (1972), pp. 87–102; Krautheimer, Rome. Profile, pp. 178–80; B. Brenk, ‘Die Benediktszenen in S. Crisogono und Montecassino’, Arte medievale 2 (1985), pp. 57–66; Claussen, Magistri Doctissimi Romani, pp. 36, 38, 43. 7 Pantoni, Le vicende, pp. 166–73, figs. 87–9, 94, 96; M. D’Onofrio and V. Pace, La Campania, Italia Romanica 4 (Milan, 1981), p. 47, fig. 3; D’Onorio, Spinelli, and Pirozi, L’abbazia di Montecassino, fig. 58; H. Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages (Rome, 1986) voi. I, pp. 72—3, 89, 482, vol. III, figs. 15a, 16,17; Claussen, Magistri Doctissimi Romani, p. 43, fig. 47; Claussen, ‘Renovatio Romae’, fig. 7. 8 Claussen, Magistri Doctissimi Romani, p. 30, fig. 29.

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fluting framed by bands of somewhat irregular but vigorous egg-and-dart, it cuts a very classical figure. In recent years, this all-embracing picture of the prime and isolated, inventive and effective agency of Desiderius’s Montecassino has begun to be subjected to some qualification. Peter Cornelius Claussen has identified classicizing carving produced in Rome which is contemporary with or even earlier than Desiderius’ work at Montecassino, and which he sees as constituting an independent development.9 And similarly, the activities of contemporary and earlier painters working in sophisticated idioms cognate with what one might expect of Montecassino production are being recognized in the region.10 However, even so, there is a lingering tendency to impute Cassinese origins and initiative. These issues will be considered briefly in the light of material from two sites, which have not yet been brought into the larger discussion: one a church in the centre of Rome, S. Lorenzo in Damaso, the other 200 km to the south, the old Benedictine monastery of S. Vincenzo al Volturno, in many ways a sister-house to Montecassino and situated just a short distance to the east, over the hills. The issues to be considered are the introduction of a new classical Romanizing idiom in stone-carving and fleetingly the development of new conventions in painting in Rome and central Italy in the course of the eleventh century, and the extent of the role played by Desiderius and his initiatives at Montecassino in determining how patrons built and embellished their buildings in this era. The Roman church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, the old titulus in the Campus Martius, now on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, was founded by Pope Damasus late in the fourth century, restructured in the mid eleventh century, and finally abandoned and replaced by a new church on an adjacent plot in the first years of the sixteenth century, as part of Cardinal Raffaele Riario’s grandiose new palace, the present Palazzo della Cancelleria. Major excavations undertaken by Christoph Frommel in collaboration with Richard Krautheimer in 1986–90 revealed the basilica of Damasus, altered and refurbished in a number of subsequent phases, but essentially preserved,

9 P. C. Claussen, ‘Un nuovo campo della storia dell’arte. Il secolo XI a Roma’, in S. Romano and J. E. Julliard (eds.), Roma e riforma gregoriana. Tradizione e innovazioni artistiche (XI–XII secolo) (Roma, 2007), pp. 61–84. 10 For instance, at S. Vincenzo al Volturno; see below.

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beneath the courtyard of Riario’s palace.11 Fifty years before, in 1937, limited excavations had been undertaken in the area of the courtyard. These produced a number of fragments of carved stone which presumably derived from the old church, among them four remarkable reliefs which are now set into a wall of a secondary courtyard of the place, the so-called ‘Cortiletto’. In their present state, these fragmentary reliefs are mutilated, clearly cut down and reshaped for a new purpose in a later phase of building, possibly for a pavement. However, they certainly once embellished the fabric of a church, presumably the old titulus on the site, three deriving from the broad frame of a major doorway, the fourth from either a door frame or possibly from a panel of a liturgical screen. They are in two different designs. One piece, measuring 1.06 m by 28.5 cm, appears to be from one of the upper corners of a door frame, and carries a splendid vegetal composition in deep relief (Fig. 1).12 The subject, a large branching hybrid vine-like plant, with its curling stems, would have filled the whole frame. The stems have somewhat rounded octagonal sections and bear various kinds of leaves, exotic flowers and fruits, stylized pine-cone-like bunches of grapes, and a quatrefoil flower with ribbed petals. Leaves have sharply faceted surfaces. The flowers include an extraordinary layered blossom with a rounded fruit at its apex. The stems, leaves, and fruit cut elegant contrasting figures against the ground, quite widely spaced so as to create a strong figure-ground effect. Sections of the frame on two adjacent sides are preserved, plain stepped fascias. The idiom is generally an antique one, apparently inspired by sumptuous reliefs of Roman imperial date, with elaborate acanthus-vines and other such fanciful vegetal compositions expressing ideas of prosperity and abundance; and the strong stems with their faceted sides have the same origin. But here leaves and flowers and fruits assume forms which would never spring from authentic classical stock. A second large fragment (80 x 29 cm), from either a door frame or possibly a screen panel, is in a somewhat different idiom, also with an expertly carved and extremely rich vegetal composition (Fig. 2).13 Here, similarly, the design consisted of a great plant with stems curling and interweaving in elaborate C. R. Frommel and M. Pentiricci (eds.), L’antica basilica di S. Lorenzo in Damaso. Indagini archeologiche nel Palazzo della Cancelleria (1988—93), vol. I: Gli scavi, vol. II: I materiali (Rome, 2009). 12 J. Mitchell, ‘Reperti marmorei e in travertino di età tardoantica, altomedievale e medievale’, in Frommel and Pentiricci (eds.), L’antica basilica, vol. II, pp. 117–42 at p. 140, cat. 58, fig. 50. 11

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and probably more or less symmetrical configurations. The stems are simply but powerfully modelled in quite high relief, with rounded edges and a prominent furrow cut along the ridge. Little spiralling shoots grow out from stems, which terminate in splendid palmette-shaped leaves. The blades of these leaves are cut with steeply angled sides to create strong accents of light and shade. Two of these leaves are arranged symmetrically on long curling interlacing stalks. As before, the relief is two-layered and is quite deep, c. 20 mm. Again, a small section of frame is preserved; similarly consisting of simple, strong, stepped fascias, together more than c. 11.5 cm wide. There are two other smaller fragments, both closely related in idiom to the first of the larger pieces.14 On one there are two crossing stems, with two leaves, one a ribbed quatrefoil, the other a simple leaf with one side plain and bowed and one indented with deeply faceted blades. A section of the frame is completely preserved, 16 cm wide and made up of three plain and robustly conceived stepped fascias. The other small fragment has two spiralling stems, the inner one plain and culminating in an elaborate fruit or bud, resembling a rose-hip in a petalled cup; the outer stem wrapped with a deeply indented leaf, with faceted blades and prominent drill-holes in the troughs of the indentations. A section of the frame is also preserved, 11 cm wide and consisting of two plain stepped fascias. All four fragments seem to belong together — the nature of the relief, two-layered with the ground curling up at the outer edges to the outer frame, and the form of the frames suggest this. Two typological idioms are deployed, three fragments in one idiom and one large fragment in another. The frames vary somewhat in design also, suggesting that we have to do with various distinct elements from a single unitary campaign of embellishment, which may have involved liturgical screens as well as the surrounds of one or more major doors. Now, when were these made? Where should we place them? The twolayered relief, the abstracted, stylized leaves and flowers, with their powerfully conceived faceted surfaces, are features which point to a date in the eleventh or possibly the twelfth century. In broad terms, they may be compared with the elaborate frames of the doors of a number of Roman churches, including S. Pudenziana and S. Apollinare, which are now generally dated around 1080, to the time of Gregory VII and the anti-pope Wibert of Ravenna, Clement 13 14

Mitchell, ‘Reperti marmorei’, p. 140 cat. 57, fig. 49. Ibid. , p. 140, cats. 59–60, figs. 51–2.

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1. Rome, basilica of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, fragment of a door frame.

2. Rome, basilica of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, fragment of a door frame or screen panel.

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3. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, church of S. Vincenzo Maggiore, fragment of a pilaster capital or cornice (a).

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4. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, church of S. Vincenzo Maggiore, fragment of a pilaster capital or cornice (b).

5. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, church of S. Vincenzo Maggiore, fragment of head of Christ from central apse.

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III.15 However, on these, the vine trails scroll more regularly and the designs are more dense, without the space and the resulting figure-ground effect of the panels from the Cancelleria. Carved reliefs from earlier in the century from Rome are hard to identify, but Sartori and Claussen have associated the remains of a door frame now cut down and reused in the chancel steps of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina with a restructuring of that building in the mid 1040s by Gregory VI (1045–6), who had previously been the archpriest of the church.16 In their general expansive disposition, in their strong contours and in the broadly simplified forms of the leaves, with their deeply faceted surfaces, these do bear some affinity with the Cancelleria reliefs. However, the forms of the leaves at the Cancelleria, with their angled surfaces, perhaps bear a closer resemblance to the boldly emblematic foliage of the more regular rinceaux on four other fragments, possibly from posts of a screen, in the same church, S. Giovanni a Porta Latina, which have been broadly dated by Melucco Vaccaro to the late tenth or the eleventh century, and which may derive from the same mid-century progamme of refurbishment as the step fragments.17 Written documentation for the early history of S. Lorenzo in Damaso is sparse; but there is a reference to work at the church in this period. It is recorded in a life of Damasus preserved in a twelfth-century Legendarium in the Archivio di S. Pietro that the church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, which had been destroyed by fire, was repaired under John XIX (1024–32): igne consumpta a Joanne nonodecimo fuit reparata. The same source refers to a rededication (second dedication) of the church by Pope Stephen IX (1057–8).18 It is very possible then that the powerful simplified unrestrained classicism of the Cancelleria panels belongs to a major restoration of S. 15 Claussen, Magistri Doctissimi Romani, p. 118, figs. 131–5; C. Fratini, ‘Considerazioni e ipotesi nella cornice di Sant’Apollinare nelle Grotte Vaticane’, in G. Rocchi Coopmans de Yoldi (ed. ), San Pietro. Arte e storia nella Basilica Vaticana (Bergamo, 1996), pp. 51–68, at pp. 57–60, figs. 11–20, pls. 1–2; Claussen, Kirchen, vol. III, pp. 93–107; Claussen, ‘Un nuovo campo’, p. 62. 16 O. Sartori, ‘Possibili valenze storiche-ideologiche di un rilievo medievale romano. Il gradino di San Giovanni a Porta Latina’, Studi Romani 47 (1999), pp. 289–310; Claussen ‘Un nuovo campo’, pp. 62, 68–9, fig. 9 (Claussen, ‘Renovatio Romae’, figs. 4a–b). 17 A. Melucco Vaccaro, Le diocesi di Roma, vol. III: La II regione ecclesiastica, Corpus della scultura altomedievale VII (Spoleto, 1974), pp. 99–100, cat. 37, pls. xvi–xvii, 37a–d. 18 BAV, Archivio di S. Pietro, A3, fols. 78–83. M. Cecchelli, ‘San Lorenzo in Damaso: la documentazione delle fonti’, in Frommel and Pentiricci, L’antica basilica, vol. 1: Scavi, pp.

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Lorenzo in the first half of the eleventh century, during the pontificate of John XIX, following a disastrous fire sometime in the first half of the century, which necessitated a second dedication of the church in the late 1050s. The recent excavations have shown that the church was indeed badly damaged by an extensive fire during this period; carbon-14 dating of material from this burning context gave a date range of 980–1025. Consequentially, the fabric of the building required major repairs, which included the replacement of the original columns of the nave arcades with piers and major work on the walls, culminating in replastering and repainting.19 It would appear that it may also have involved the provision of magnificent new door frames and possibly chancel-screens as well. If this scenario is correct, these remarkable reliefs would be notable early witnesses to the first Romanesque in central Italy, to that strong revival of classical forms which is apparent at both Montecassino and, as we shall see, S. Vincenzo al Volturno in the second and third quarters of the century.20 The second site is the Benedictine monastery of S. Vincenzo al Volturno, some 200 km south-east of Rome, and only a day’s trek from Montecassino, with which it enjoyed the closest relations throughout its history. S. Vincenzo, which at its height in the ninth century had extended over a site of some 10 hectares, was sacked by Saracen mercenaries in 881 and temporarily abandoned.21 The monastic community took temporary refuge in Capua, returning after some thirty years to bring the old monastery back into operation. The main abbey church of S. Vincenzo Maggiore, a huge structure, some 63 metres long, constructed under Abbot Joshua in the early years of the ninth century, was evidently severely damaged and its repair 277–83 at p. 283. See also R. Krautheimer and M. Pentiricci, ‘S. Laurentius in Damaso’, in R. M. Steinby (ed. ), Lexikon Topographicum Urbis Romae, vol. III (Rome, 1996) , pp. 179–82 at pp. 181–2. This passage was already noted and copied by Pietro Costantino Gaetani (1560– 1650), prefect of the Vatican Library in the early seventeenth century; F. Sarazani, Damasus papae opera quae exstant (Rome, 1638), pp. 40ff. 19 M. Pentiricci, ‘Lo scavo: Periodi 10–14’, in Frommel and Pentiricci, L’antica basilica, vol. I, pp. 334–47 at pp. 333–8; R. Krautheimer, ‘La ricostruzione della basilica damasiana nella prima metà dell’xi secolo’, in Frommel and Pentiricci, L’antica basilica, vol. I, pp. 383–5. 20 Claussen, ‘Renovatio Romae’, p. 91; R. Hodges and J. Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua at San Vincenzo al Volturno (Monteroduni, 1996), pp. 123—9. 21 R. Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages. The Rise and Fall of San Vincenzo al Volturno (London, 1997) , pp. 77–143. For the sack of San Vincenzo, see R. Hodges, ‘10 October 881: the sack of San Vincenzo al Volturno’, in B. Magnusson, S. Renzetti, P. Vian, and S. J. Voicvu (eds. ), Ultra Terminum Vagari. Scritti in onore di Carl Nylander (Rome, 1998), pp. 129–41.

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was beyond the immediate capabilities of the monks.22 In fact it was only eighty years later, under Abbot John IV (998–1007), that it was restored and brought back into use; in the words of the twelfth-century Chronicle of S. Vincenzo, ‘with great effort he restored the marvellous basilica, which the Saracens had burned, but which they had not totally destroyed’.23 John’s successor, Hilarius, abbot from 1011–45, is recorded as having built a high campanile in front of the church, and he also had the interior completely and magnificently painted.24 Finally John V, abbot from 1053–76, completed this lengthy campaign of reconstruction and refurbishment with a new pavement, a new roof and beautiful wooden panelling/ceiling (pulchroque tabulatu), providing it with the necessary books, silver crosses, an altar ciborium, a silver altar-frontal, vestments, chalices, and thuribles. Abbot John also set about giving a new shape to the old monastery, which had been laid out on terraces around a low hill, building an interior and exterior cloister (claustrum), a chapter house, a dormitory, refectory, and other necessary buildings.25 Soon afterwards, this newly reformed and refurbished monastery was abandoned and systematically demolished under Gerard, abbot from 1076–1109, and the complex rebuilt on a completely new and more defensible site, on level ground, about 1 km to the east, on the far bank of the river.26 When S. Vincenzo Maggiore was partially excavated in the mid 1990s, a quantity of fragments of architectural sculpture of a markedly classicizing tenor was recovered in and around the church. These included pieces which appear to be from a series of large pilaster capitals, or possibly an elaborate cornice (the major surviving fragment is 40 cm, almost half a metre, high): a ribbed quatrefoil flower, of a sort also found on the reliefs from S. Lorenzo in Damaso, at the top, then a large and powerful, almost pneumatic sequence of egg-and-dart, followed by an equally powerful bead-and-reel, and then on the concave inward-sloping face of the calyx a sequence of elaborate palmettes 22 Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages, pp. 83–94, 154; R. Hodges, S. Leppard, and J. Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops (London, 2011), chap. 2. 23 Chronicon Vulturnense, ed. V. Federici, Chronicon Vulturnense del Monaco Giovanni, 3 vols., Fonti per la storia d’Italia 58–60 (Rome, 1925 and 1938), vol. II, p. 342. 24 Chronicon Vulturnense, vol. III, p. 78. 25 Ibid. , pp. 89–90. 26 W. Bowden and S. Gruber, ‘The new abbey. The early medieval borgo and the twelfthcentury monastery’, in K. Bowes, K. Francis, and R. Hodges (eds. ), Between Text and Territory. Survey and Excavations in the Terra of San Vincenzo al Volturno (London, 2006), pp. 135–86.

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alternating with splendid upright flowering plants consisting of vertical reticulated cylindrical blossoms rising from striated or cable-moulded stems, with leafy sub-stems issuing from the base of the flower on either side (Figs. 3 and 4).27This is an extraordinary and striking confection, in a simplified, almost abstracted classical idiom. Other related fragments include a section with leaf-and-tongue moulding on a cyma recta,28 a bold helix from a Corinthian-type capital with prominent cable moulding (18 cm long),29 and a series of little palmette leaf-clusters broken from capitals.30 A later phase in this tradition of classicizing carving at S. Vincenzo is represented by a remarkable block from the upper right corner of the frame of a major door, framed by deeply faceted leaf-work, a fascia and a bold egg-and-dart, and with a splendidly characterized lion with leaves at mouth and tail, which once patrolled the entrance. This was found by Don Angelo Pantoni in the vicinity of the new early twelfth-century abbey church on the east bank of the river, and may be one of the two little lions recorded by a seventeenthcentury informant as having supported the tympanum over the main portal of the basilica.31 None of this material could be precisely phased, from its archaeological context, to the beginning, or to the first half, or the third quarter of the eleventh century; but all of it is likely to post-date the Saracen sack in 881, and must pre-date the final abandonment of the monastery towards the end of the eleventh century. There is little doubt that it relates to new sculptural embellishment of the fabric of the church as it was restored under Abbots John IV and Hilarius in the first half of the century, or possibly to John V’s reshaping of the monastery with new claustral buildings, which he appears to have laid out close to the basilica, a generation later. It is clear that the

These two fragments are SF 2645, context 2709 (1995), unstratified (dimensions: 40 x 20 x 19 cm); and SF 2636 from the same context. Other fragments are SF 0061, context FF/E 4826 (1991), a post-eleventh-century deposit over Room A of the workshop-range; and SF 2699, also from the unstratified context 2709 (1995). 28 SF 2670, unstratified context SVM 2709 (1995). 29 SF 2536, context SVM 15, 3081 (1995), a post-eleventh-century deposit. 30 Surviving fragments: SF 2001, context SVM 6,10041, a post-eleventh-century tip below the topsoil; SF 1862, context SVM North 2263, probably a post-eleventh-century demolition deposit; SF 4021, context FF 4600; SF 2728, context SVM 2709 unstratified. 31 Pantoni, Le vicende, pp. 191–2, fig. 129; J. Mitchell, ‘Roman and early medieval sculpture’, in J. Mitchell and I. L. Hansen (eds. ), San Vincenzo al Volturno, vol. in; The Finds from the 1980–86 Excavations (Spoleto, 2001), pp. 135–72, at p. 170, cat. 197, fig. 5:181. 27

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masons working at S. Vincenzo in this period were deploying a powerful and eye-catching new classicizing idiom, with a repertoire of ornamental elements drawn from ancient Roman exemplars, in marked contrast to the conventions followed by their predecessors who worked on the early ninthcentury monastery.32 It should also be noted that the classicizing elements and forms used at S. Vincenzo have no immediate parallels or correlates in the surviving classicizing architectural sculpture from Desiderius’s reshaping of Montecassino. The two enterprises appear to have been independent from a formal point of view. At Montecassino this engagement with the classical past took two forms. First, the incorporation of carefully selected spolia, like the tall panels carved with slender grape-bearing stems with palmate tops and bound about with spiralling trails, reused as doorjambs for one of the secondary portals of the basilica;33 and second, the manufacture of new sculptural apparatus in a strikingly antique Roman idiom, like the frame of the main west door of the abbey church with its reticulation of lozenge coffers set with rosettes and framed with leaf-and- dart ornament and inlaid with glass mosaic, and the calyx from a paschal candlestick with its bold reverse fluting between collars of devolved egg- and-dart.34 At S. Vincenzo, although ancient spolia were probably also deployed in the eleventh-century refurbishment of the abbey church — the section of a richly carved first-century door frame reused as the front of a small table and piscina at the western end of the north aisle may be a case in point35 — the classicizing forms developed by the masons working on the sculptural embellishment of the rebuilt basilica were not drawn from the same repertoire as those used on Desiderius’s new church at Montecassino. Although a related simplified and somewhat blown classicizing idiom was in use in both monasteries, to judge from what survives the patterns and motifs deployed at the two sites were different in their particular forms and details. See Mitchell, ‘Roman and early medieval sculpture’. Pantoni, Le vicende, figs. 90, 91, 93. 34 Ibid. , figs. 86, 87–89, 94, 96; Claussen, Magistri Doctissimi Romani, figs. 47 and 29. 35 Hodges and Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua, figs, 3:9 and 15; J. Mitchell, ‘The uses of spolia in Longobard Italy’, in J. Poeschke (ed. ), Antike Spolien in der Architektur des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Munich, 1996), pp. 93–115, at p. 101, fig. 15; Hodges, Leppard and Mitchell, San Vincenzo Maggiore and its Workshops, chap. 7, ‘Carved Stone’, cat. 19. 32 33

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It was not only in sculptural decoration that a new visual order was being introduced at S .Vincenzo. The same development may be observed in the painted decoration of the basilica, which the Chronicon Vulturnense tells us was executed under Abbot Hilarius between 1011 and 1045.36 A fragment of a great head, a little short of a metre in height when complete, which was found in the corridor of the annular crypt immediately beneath the conch of the central apse, would seem to have fallen from a large frontal image of Christ which once dominated the centre of the apse (Fig. 5).37 The figure had glaring eyes, features powerfully contoured in black, an elegant long sweeping moustache (now all but flaked away), quite delicately delineated lips and striking red hair. Strong green shadows define the nose, the eye sockets and the outer edges of the face, and the cheeks displayed prominent roses. This was clearly a large and extremely impressive head. In design, in style, and in the conventions of colour modelling it can be compared to advanced painting of the eleventh century elsewhere in Italy — for instance, with the head of St Benedict healing a leper, from S. Crisogono in Rome, from a sequence which dates from around 1070 and is cognate with schemes then in circulation at Montecassino.38The Christ from S. Vincenzo, presumably from Abbot Hilarius’s restoration of the interior of S. Vincenzo Maggiore, may have been painted a generation before the paintings in S. Crisogono.39 Part of the head of an angel from the same central apse shows the same characteristic features and considerable expressive vivacity.40 Another fragment from the same area, a remarkable passage of drapery from the leg of a figure, is painted in two shades of green with brilliant highlights in elegant configurations of white, and with minor folds defined in dull red and black.41 Particularly striking is the circular white comblight on the knee. The configurations of material represented here are advanced proto-damp-fold, typical of early Romanesque painting, and can be compared with the tunic of a figure from the same painted cycle in S. Crisogono, in Rome.42 Chronicon Vulturnense, III, p. 78. Hodges and Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua, fig. 5:2. 38 Brenk ‘Die Benediktszenen’, pp. 60–4, fig. 2; Romano, Riforma e tradizione, pp. 81–7, fig. on p. 84. 39 Chronicon Vulturnense, vol. III, p. 78. 40 Hodges and Mitchell, The Basilica of Abbot Joshua, fig. 5:3 41 Ibid., fig. 5:7. 42 Romano, Riforma e tradizione, fig. on p. 82. 36 37

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I have laboured these two new data-sets to show that a new wave of sculptural practice was breaking over central-southern Italy in this period, starting apparently early in the century and continuing and developing probably in many different manifestations and variations during its course. Broadly speaking, Italian masons of the period developed a range of strongly, even aggressively, classicizing idioms, which marked a clear break with the immediate past, that is with the flatter, denser, more uniform, more over-all patterning, with its predilection for ribbon-interlace and monotonous scrolling vine-trees, found on chancel screens, ciboria, and other church fittings throughout much of the peninsula in the later eighth and ninth centuries.43 In its architectural sculpture, and probably also in its painted decoration, Desiderius’s remade monastery at Montecassino clearly constituted a major statement in this development. Its classicizing borrowings and inventions were somewhat different, with their scintillating inlay of coloured glass tesserae, introducing a new refinement, possibly more immediately eye-catching, than what was being done in many other places. However, essentially Desiderius was buying into a taste and a fashion which was already well established. He was not really starting anything conceptually new in his great undertaking, although he called in artists and craftsmen from far and wide to realize and extend his ambitions to maximum effect. This preoccupation with a visual rhetoric which drew afresh on the examples of classical Antiquity, with the repertoire of classical ornament, and with the old Greco-Roman traditions of figural representation, was something which can be observed in Rome, from the first half of the century — if the context and dating of the fragments from S. Lorenzo in Damaso proposed here are correct — through to its end, in the remarkable spiral columns from ciboria preserved at S. Trinità dei Monti in the city and at Cave out by Preneste, with extraordinary naked figures romping through vines.44 This was an idiom, a visual language, a rhetoric, which individuals and institutions not only in Italy but throughout Europe were seizing on to signal change, renewal, and new ambitions.

43 See the volumes of the Corpus della scultura altomedievale, published by CISAM at Spoleto. 44 Claussen, ‘Un nuovo campo’, pp. 64–6, figs. 4–8.

Bibliography & Index

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il caso della fibula di Monteri (GR)’, in Tempo e preziosi. Techniche di datazione per l’oreficeria tardoantica e medievale. Ornmenta 6, ed. I. Baldini and A. L. Morelli. 193–213. Bologna: Antquem, (co-author with G. Bianchi). ‘Echoes of Milan in Ninth-Century Langobardia Minor? Preliminary findings on the painted programme of S. Ambrogio alla Rienna, Montecorvino Rovella (Salerrno)’, Convivium IV, 2, 202–7 (co-author with F. Dell’Acqua, I. Foletti, V. Gheroldi, B. Leal and S. Marazzini). 2018 ‘Inscribed Tiles from Excavations to the South-East of the Abbey Church’, in Nonantola 6. Monaci e contadini. Abati e re. Il monastero di Nonantola attraverso l’archeologia (202–2009), ed. S. Gelichi, M. Librenti and A. Cianciosi, 295–301. Florence: all’Insegna del Giglio. Lombard Legacy. Cultural Strategies and the Visual Arts in Early Medieval Italy. London, The Pindar Press. In Press (2018): ‘The small finds’, in Butrint 3, Volume 2. Excavations at the Triconch Palace: The Finds, ed. W. Bowden, Oxford: Oxbow. ‘The mosaic pavements of the channel side domus’, and ‘ The mosaic pavement of the 6th century Basilica’, in Butrint 6, Volume I: Excavations on the Vrina Plain. The Lost Roman and Byzantine Suburb, ed. S. Greenslade. Oxford: Oxbow. ‘Vrina Plain small finds’, in Butrint 6, Volume II: Excavations on the Vrina Plain. The Finds, ed. S. Greenslade. Oxford: Oxbow. ‘Italy 500–1000’, in Sir Bannister Fletcher, Global History of Architecture, 21st edition, ed. M. Fraser, I, ch. 31. London: Bloomsbury. ‘A burial. A brooch and a church: anthracalogical analyses and radiocarbon measurements of a medieval religious foundation in southern Tuscany’, in Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Metrology for Archaeology, 22–23 ottobre 2015, Benevento (co author with G. Bianci, M. P. Buonincintri, G. Di Pasquale, C. Lubritto and P. Ricci). ‘An 8th-century casting matrix for a gilt-bronze letter from Comacchio’, in Un emporio e la sua cattedrale. Gli scavi in piazza XX Settembre a Comacchio, ed. S.Gelichi, C.Negrelli and E.Grandi. Firenze: All’Insegna del Giglio.

Index Aachen, 16, 32, 41, 185, 284. Aachen, basilica of the Mother of God, 42. Abd al-Malik (Umayyad Caliph, 685– 705), 71, 190. Abraham, 343. Absalom, 176. Abul-Abbas (elephant), 128. acanthus, 453. Acconci, Alessandra, 254, 271, 280. Adalbertus (priest at Portadore, Lodi, late 7th– early 8th century), 547. Adalhard (abbot of Tours, 834–43), 333. Adelchis, Lombard king (759–74, died 788), 54. Adelpertus (abbot of Montecassino, 934–43?), 691. Adoration of Magi, 620. Aeolian Islands, 128. Aethelbald (king of Mercia, 716– 857), 400. Aethelbald (king of Mercia, 726–57), 60. Aethelflaed (Lady of the Mercians, 911–918), 400. Aethelraed (ealdorman of Mercia, 879–911), 400. africano marble, 420, 446, 505. Ageltrude (Spoleto, queen of Italy, empress of Rome, ob. 923), 677.

Aghlabid merchants, 611. Agilbert (bishop of Dorchester, fl. c. 650–80), 233. Aimon (monk of St. Germain-desPrés, before 845–89), 503–4. Aistulf (Lombard king, 749–56), 56, 127. Al-Walid ibn Yazid (caliph 743–4), 114, 126, 465. Alberti, Leon Battista, 325. Aldo (Milan, late 7th century), 546. Alexandria, vi, 225, 228. Aliberga (abbess? at Torba, late 8th– early 9th century), 223, 228, 389. Alife, S.Salvatore, 334. Alipertus, 311. Alphanus (monk of Montecassino, archbishop of Salerno, theologian, poet, translator, 1058–85), 696. Altbertus (abbot of Farfa, 786–90), 270. Altheus reliquary (Sion cathedral), 609, 625. Aluara (princess of Capua, consort of Pandulf Ironhead, mid –late 10th century), 687. Amalarius of Metz (theologian, liturgist, author, c. 775–c. 850), 122. Amatus (monk of Montecassino and historian, 1010–90), 696.

728 Ambrose (bishop of Bergamo, mid11th century), 516–7. Ambrosius Autpert (c. 730–84, monk, abbot and theologian of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 730– 84, abbot 777–8), 76, 328–9, 336 note 101, 342, 373, 374, 377, 386, 502. Amman, 465, 470. Andaloro, Maria, 695. Angel-Christ, 373–4, 386, 392, 393. Angilbert (abbot of St. Riquier at Centula, 794–814), 284. Anglo-Saxon England, vi, 226. Anguillara, 247. Ansa (Lombard queen, died after 774), 3, 54–5, 66, 73, 142, 175, 192, 455, 600. Anselperga (Lombard princess, abbess of S.Salvatore and S.Giulia, Brescia, died after 781), 54. antependium, 622. Aosta, Arch of Augustus, 321 note 43. Apostles, 63, 74, 424, 427. Aquileia, cathedral, screen panels, 641. architectural settings, painted, 82–3, 111–6, 150–69, 191–3. architectural simile and metaphor, 74–6. Ardericus (archbishop of Milan, 938– 45), 186. Arechis (Arichis) II, duke of Benevento (758–87), 6, 8, 11, 12, 16, 39, 58, 112, 123, 173, 195, 216, 281, 334, 337, 428, 482. Arezzo, 503, 516–7. Aripert II king of Lombards, 701– 12), 395. Assisi, temple, 321 note 42. Ataoguz, Kirsten, 142. Atenulf I (Prince of Capua 887–910),

iv, 676, 678. Athanasius (duke and bishop of Naples, died 898), 415, 498, 556. Athens, Erechtheum, 75. Ato (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno (739–60), 34, 296, 329, 330, 461. Auxerre, 453. Badurad (bishop of Paderborn, 815– 862), 252, 273. Baghdad, 127, 129. Balis, Syria, 465, 467, 468, 469, 479. Barberini diptych, 45–6. Bari, S.Nicola, 323 note 50. Basilius (west Roman consul 480), 597. Battipaglia, 425. Bawit, St. Apollo, 232–3. Beaded wire, 578, 583, 584, 614– 619, 621, 624. Bede, 72, 554, 619, 621, 624. bell-towers, 413, 417. bells, 413, 558, 561–2, 588. Belting, Hans, 37, 340, 342, 344, 372, 373, 374, 378. Benedict (abbot of S.Ambrogio, Milan, ob. 806), 546. Benedict (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 1109–1117), 296, 317, 498, 504, 689. Benedict Biscop (founder and abbot of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, 674–90), 72. Beneventan script, 332. Benevento, 1, 6, 11, 16, 58, 143, 195, 281, 295, 297, 325, 332, 334, 414, 425, 426, 428, 439, 445, 446, 462, 482, 485, 501, 504, 515, 523, 549, 555, 590, 599, 646. Benevento, Arch of Trajan, 321 note

INDEX

43. Benevento, S.Pietro, 329, 33. Benevento, S.Sofia, 6, 7, 58, 112, 118, 123–4, 148, 173, 195, 280–1, 284, 333. Benna (artist from Trier, second half of 10th century), 400, 428. Beresford-Hope pectoral cross, 625. Bertaus (deacon), 516–7. Bertelli, Carlo, 79, 186, 219, 223, 229, 235. Bestiary, 393. Bezaleel, 41, 42. Biddle, Martin, 400. Biljane Donje-Begovaca, Benkovac, Croatia, 667. Bimson, Mavis, 621. Birka, Sweden, rein-shackle, 642. Biskupija-Crkvina, Croatia, set of sword-belt fittings, 634, 637. Blatnica, Greater Moravia, set of sword-belt fittings and bridle, 634, 636, 642. Bobbio, 587. Boeckler, Albert (1892–1957), 36, 37. Boiano, 324. bone- and ivory-working, 584, 595. Bonus Eventus, 583. borders and frames, 77–8, 143–6, 190, 193–4, 224–5. Borelli, nobility in the region of Valva, Campania, 688, 689. Borg on Lofoten, Norway, 561. Borgolte, Michael, 397. Born, Ernst (1898–1992), 553. Bovara, Umbria, 326 note 61. breccia coralina, 456. Breedon-on-the-Hill, Leics., 61–2. Brescia, 128, 170, 482, 545. Brescia, S. Salvatore, i, vii, 3, 4, 34, 54–6, 66–129, 142–3, 145–6,

729 149–50, 169, 173–177, 192–3, 195, 197, 236, 266, 333, 447–8, 455–6, 462, 471, 479, 547, 554, 600. Brescia, S. Salvatore (date), 66–7. bridle-fittings, 631–75. British School at Rome, 249, 283. Brogiolo, Gian Pietro, 66. Brubaker, Leslie, 175, 198. buckles, 583, 586, 632, 641. Buckton, David, 622. Byzantine, v, 3, 5, 71, 110–111, 116, 143, 151–70, 172–5, 185, 189, 191, 194–5, 197–8, 215–6, 218, 344, 391, 622–4. Caja de las Agatas, Oviedo, 624. caliphate, Umayyad, iii, vi, 113–29, 454, 465–83. caliphate (contact with Lombard Italy), 113–29. Candidus of Fulda (monk at Fulda and author, ob. 845), 75. Canosa di Puglia, 226, 311, 514, 624. Capis Silvius, 685. Capua, iv, v, 295, 336, 416, 498, 503, 516–7, 676–94, 705. Capua, S.Benedetto, 691–2. Capua, S.Maria que nuncupatur Laudi magistri, 677. Capua, Porta S. Angelo, 677, 678, 691. Capua, Porta Fauzana, 685. Capua, Ss. Ignazio e Francesco Saverio, 691. Capua, S.Maria, 686. Capua, S.Vincenzo 686, 689–91. Capua, church of St. Stephen, founded by Constantine, 685. Capua Vetere, 685. carnelian, 495. Carthage, 685.

730 Casta Abatissa (abbess at Torba, late 8th-early 9th century), 223, 228. Castana (abbess at Torba, late 8thearly 9th century), 223. Castellammare di Stabiae, Grotta di San Biagio, 147, 425, 457. Castellani Brooch, 624. Castelseprio, Santa Maria foris portas, i, 77, 143–4, 146, 148, 149, 151, 170, 172–4, 185–219, 236. Castelseprio, Santa Maria foris portas, dating, 144, 186–7. Castel Trosino, Marche, Lombard cemetery, 639. Castor, Cambs., 61. Castres, Aquitaine, 504. Catania, 128. Cave, Lazio, 710. Ceccano, Lazio, carved relief, 641. cemeteries, 275–7, 299. Centula, 284, 412, n. 4, 501. chalcedony, 583. chamberlain, 411, 587, 595. Charlemagne, i, v, 13, 15, 16, 32, 38, 39, 41, 44, 46, 60, 65, 128, 140–2, 145, 171, 177, 282, 297, 330, 331, 335–6, 401, 462, 501. Charles the Bald (Carolingian Frankish king and emperor, 843–77), 634. Chur, cathedral, 194. ciborium, 621, 623, 706. Cividale, 311. Cividale, S.Maria in Valle, 4–5, 16, 71, 117, 119, 176, 236, 284, 333, 598–9, 600. Cividale, grave of Gisulf, 624. Cività Castellana, 326. Classe, 446. Classe, oratory of S.Romualdo at S.Severo, 77, 79. Claussen, Peter Cornelius, 695, 698,

704. clipeate (medallion) busts, 73–4, 77. Clonmacnois, Co. Offaly, 549. Cnut (king of England, 1016–35), 387. Codex Beneventanus (London, British Library, Add. Ms. 5463, Benevento?, mid 8th century), 34, 36, 329–30, 461–2. Coenwulf (king of Mercia, 796–821), 60–4. Colchester, 324. Colli S.Angelo, Colli al Volturno, Molise, church, 417. column as human figure, 74–6, 147, 377. Comacchio, 555. commemoration, iii, 484–500. Constantine, 69, 296, 496, 502, 685. Constantinople, 3, 128, 189, 191, 198, 218, 305, 377, 482, 502, 622. Constantinople, church of Virgin of the Pharos, 327 note 65. Constantinople, imperial palace, 14, 59. Constantinople, SS. Sergius and Bacchus, 71. Constantinople, St. Euphemia, 4. Constantinople, St. Sophia, 7, 44, 58, 144, 190, 193. Constantinople, St.Polyeuktos, 4, 71. Constantinople, Chrysotriklinos, 44. Constitutum Constantine (Donation of Constantine), 59. Coppari de Sancto Benedicto, 688. copper-working, 558, 559, 562, 581–2, 584, 585, 588. Cormack, Robin, 622. cornices, illusionistically painted, 78, 79, 146. Corteolona, Lombardia, 2.

INDEX

Cortona, Toscana, 503, 516–7. Corvey, Westphalia, 554. Corvey, abbey church, 322, 323, 325 note 57. Cosmati, 695, 697. counter-gifts, 5.90. Crisulf (cleric of Arezzo, c. 970), 516–7. Crkvina, spur-strap fittings, 667. Croquison, Don Giuseppe, 251–3, 280, 283–4. cross, iii, iv, 78, 224–6, 230, 267, 457, 513–4, 522–52. cross with cloisonné enamels (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 9th century), 623. crucibles, 582–3, 620. Crucifixion, 624. crustae, 427, 438, 450, 451, 452. crutch capital, 32–3. Cunincpert (king of the Lombards, 688–700), 395. cupboard, 418. curtains, 452, 506. Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury (74–60), 38, 551. Cutler, Anthony, 612. dadoes, iii, 11–12, 33, 81–2, 117–9, 146–7, 216, 221, 229–32, 253–4, 280–1, 300, 301, 423– 38, 440–9, 450–1, 454–83, 505. Dagulf Psalter (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. vind. 1861, before 795), 46, 592. Damascus, 127, 129, 465, 482. Damascus, Great Mosque, 466. Damasus, (pope, 366–84), 698. damnatio memoriae, 499. Daphni, 344. David (prophet), 69–70, 176–7, 198,

731 327 note 65, 392, 634. Davis Weyer, Caecilia (ob. 2014), 78,148, 395. De Capitani d’Arzago, Alberto, 186–7. De’ Maffei, Fernanda (1917–2011), 340, 344, 372, 373, 374, 376, 377, 378, 384, 391. De Rubeis, Flavia, 461. Desert Tabernacle, 451. Deshman, Robert (1941–95), 121, 374, 375, 382. Desiderius, king of the Lombards (756–74, died c. 786), 3, 6, 34, 39, 54–5, 66, 70, 73, 127, 142, 175, 192, 455, 600, 692. Desiderius (abbot of Montecassino, 1058–87), 622, 690, 691, 696, 698, 710. Dido (queen of Carthage), 685, 7–8. Dietrich I (bishop and archbishop of Metz, 964–84), 503, 686. Disentis, Graubünden, 400. Dominicus (priest at S.Tecla, Milan, ob. In 920s), 546. Dorestad, Utrecht, 561. Drogo (archbishop of Metz, 823–51), 122, 333. Dura-Europos, baptistery, 376. Durandus (bishop of Mende, theologian, c. 1230–96), 77. Durres, amphitheatre, funerary oratory, 233. D’Uzes, Languedoc, 504. eagles, 392–3, 440–1. Ebbo (bishop of Rheims, 816–35, 840–1), 332. Edessa (Urfa. Syriac hymn on cathedral), 75, 77. Egino Codex (Berlin, Deutsche Stadtbibliothek, Ms. Phillips 1676,

732 late 8th century), 35. Egyptian blue, 418, 438, 458–9. Eichstätt, 128. Einhard, 41, 128, 273. Elisenhof, Tönning, Schleswig (reinshackle), 642. Emma (Ælfgifu, queen of England, 1085–52), 387. enamel, cloisonné, iv, 583, 590, 613– 30. enamel, cloisonné, Georgian, 622–3. Enckell Julliard, Julie, 271. Ephesus, Hanghäuser, 464. epitaphs, ii, iii, 420, 421, 490, 498, 499, 514, 522–52. Epolding-Mühlthal, Bavaria (silverinlaid iron ferule), 639. Epyphanius, abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno (824–42), 10, 297, 301, 339, 340, 343, 344, 372, 374, 375, 378, 388, 389, 390, 391, 394, 414, 485, 496, 504, 512, 556, 594, 610. Erchempert (notary at Capua, mid 10th century), 687. Ermecausus (monk at S.Vincenzo al Volturno, late 8th century), 330 n. 74. Ermingarda (abbess San Salvatore, Brescia, late 8th – early 9th century), 547. Exner, Matthias, 142, 145, 175. FAI (Fondo Ambientale Italiano), 219. Farfa, ii, 247–85, 334 note 91, 502, 554. Farfa, Battle Sarcophagus, 275. Farfa, St. Mary, oratory of abbot Sichardus, 251. Fieschi-Morgan cross-reliquary (9th century), 623.

fine-metal-working, 581–2, 583, 590, 595, 621, 631–75. Fletton, Peterborough, 61. Flixborough, 554. floors, 420, 459, 468, 505, 581, 585, 586, 587. flowers, 424. Foligno, 326 note 61. Frangipane, Don Fraia (archivist of Montecassino, 1763–1843), 339. Freestone, Ian, 621. Frommel, Christof Liutpold, 698. Fulda, 554. Fulda, St. Michael, 75. Fulrad, abbot of Saint-Denis (75084), 33, 147, 462. funerary oratories, iii, 6, 13–14, 198, 224, 228, 233, 235–7, 249–2, 271, 274, 279, 284–5, 382, 385– 401, 420, 440, 489, 495–7, 500. Fustat, 470. Gabriel, archangel, 343. Gabriel, Ingo, 636. Gargano, sanctuary of S.Michele, 147, 425, 45. Geary, Patrick, 484. gem stones, 583, 590. Gemma (Princess of Capua, 940–?), 687. Genoels-Elderen diptych, 599, 609. Genua, S.Maria di Castello (screen panel), 640. Gerard (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 1076–1109), 296, 317, 498, 504, 706. Germigny-des-Prés, 32. Gheroldi, Vincenzo, 66, 175. giallo antico, 456. Giampaoli family (Castellone, Castel San Vincenzo), 339. Gisulf I (duke of Benevento, 689–

INDEX

706), 555. Gisulf (abbot of Montecassino, 796– 817), 555, 621, 623. glass-working, 558, 559–61, 582–3, 588–9, 590, 595, 645. glass lamps, 417, 505–6, 562, 610. glass reticelli rods, 418. glass vessels, 418, 560, 562, 582, 584, 588, 610. glass for windows, 417, 426–7, 459, 560, 562, 588. Gloucester, St Oswald, 400. Godelpert (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 901/2–20), 677–86, 691. Godescalc evangelistary (Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 1203, 781–3), 279. Grado, S.Maria, 315. graffiti, 422. granaries, 585–6. granite, Egyptian, 438, 439. graves, iii, iv, 224, 228, 275–7, 299, 306–8, 378–81, 416, 420–1, 485, 488–90, 495–6, 497–8, 500, 512–15, 544, 546, 644–5, 646–60. gravestones, 308–10, 522–52. Gravina, Puglia, 247. Gregory I (pope, 590–604), 399. Gregory III (pope, 431–41), 128, 382, 385, 396. Gregory IV (pope, 827–44), 385, 399. Gregory VI pope, 1045–6), 704. Gregory VII (pope, 1073–85), 326, 700. Gregory of Catino (monk at Farfa, chronicler, 1060–after 1130), 249. Gregory of Nazianzus, Homilies (Paris Bibl. Nat. Ms. gr. 510, Constantinople, 879–82), 83, 111, 112,

733 169, 174, 191, 193–5, 197. Guaimar (Prince of Salerno, 1027– 52), 688. Gundelaich (monk at S.Vincenzo al Volturno, first half of 9th century), 526. Gungelgardus (lessee of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 947), 687. Gur/Firuzabad, Iran, 468. guest-provision, 412, 428–40. gypsum stucco, v, 119, 480. Hadrian I (pope, 772–95), 39, 556. Hartlepool, 548. Harun al-Rashid (Abbasid caliph, 786–819), 128. Hatto III (abbot of Reichenau, 888– 913), 195. Hautvillers, Marne, 332. Helgö, Sweden, 561. Henry III (German king and emperor, 1039–56), 689. Herculaneum, 439. Herebericht (priest at Monkwearmouth, early 8th century), 548. Hermas, (theologian, 2nd c), 75. Hildemar of Civate (monk at Corbie and Civate, author, mid-9th century), 413, n. 7, 562. Hildeprand (duke of Spoleto, 774– 89), 282. Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (Umayyad caliph, 724–43), 465, 467. Holy Innocents, 516–7. horses, 643–4, 645. Hosios Loukas, Greece, 344. Hrabanus Maurus (abbot of Fulda, archbishop of Mainz, author, theologian, c. 780–856), 76. Hugh (Margrave of Tuscany, 869– 1001), 688. humility as ideal, iii, 121.

734 Hypogé des Dunes, Poitiers, 395, 401. Iachin and Boaz, 76. Ilarius – Ylarius (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 1011–45), 328 note 67, 686, 688, 692, 706, 707, 709. incense, 687. Ingelheim, 16, 32–3. Ingoald (abbot of Farfa, 815–830), 323. inscriptions, in gilded copper iii, 8, 11, 216–7, 317–25, 337–8, 421, 486, 498, 514–5. inscription, interior, running, 8–9, 70–1, 231–2. Ioruert (Llanlleonfel, Powys, late 7th – early 8th century), 549. Isaiah, 392. Ischio di Castro, Lazio (carved relief,) 641. Islam – see caliphate. Istituto Central di Restauro, Rome, 614. ivory, 44–54, 584, 592–612. Jarrow, 548, 554. Jericho, 465, 467. Jerusalem, 127, 343, 482. Jerusalem, Dome of the Rock, 71, 144, 190, 193. Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, 448. Jerusalem, Temple, 76, 448, 451. John (count of Seprio and Milan), 186. John VII (pope, 705–7), 13–14, 191, 198, 382, 383, 396. John XIX (pope, 1024–32), 704–5. John II (bishop of Ravenna, 578–95), 395. John I (abbot of Montecassino, 914– 34), 677, 691, 692.

John IV (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 998–1007) 686, 692, 706, 707. John V (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 1053–76,), 613, 706, 707. John VI (monk, abbot and chronicler of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 1139?–1144), 335, 377. Jones, Julie, 614. Joshua (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 792–817), iii, 10,281, 284, 296, 297, 318, 319, 320, 323, 335, 337, 401, 414, 416, 420, 421, 443, 445, 482, 485, 486, 488–9, 504, 505, 506, 512, 514–5, 556, 562, 588, 594, 595, 608, 610, 621, 631, 705. Joshua Roll (Rome, Bibl. Apost. Vat., Ms. Pal. gr. 431, Constantinople first half of 10th century), 111, 112, 169, 172, 174, 187, 191, 196–7. Jouarre, Seine-et-Marne, Ss. Paul and Martin, 233, 395, 401. Judgement of Solomon (Bible of Charles the Bald, S.Paolo fuori le mura, c. 870), 635 Juliana Anicia (Roman imperial princess, 462–527),3, 71. Kallstadt, Pfalz (rein-shackle), 636. Kami al-Ahbariya, Egypt (Christian basilica), 69. Khakhuli Triptych, 622. Khirbat al-Mafjar, Jordan, 116, 465, 467, 468, 470, 472, 479, 480. Kidd, Dafydd, 668. Kiev (icon of Ss. Sergius and Bacchus), 598. Kitzinger, Ernst, 185. Kloos, Rudolf, 223, 226.

INDEX

knots, 341, 441. Koblenz, St Kastor, 275. Kolín, Bohemia, Czech Republic (set of sword-belt fittings), 634, 635, 638, 662, 665. Koljane, Sinj, Croatia (sword-belt set and spur-strap fittings,), 634, 667. Kolyana Bulgaria (spur-strap fittings), 637. Krautheimer, Richard (1898–1994), 698. Krüger, Karl Heinrich, 96. Kückhausen,Westphalia (trefoil sword-belt mount), 634. Lake Constance, 553. Lake Garda, Veneto, 128, 482. Lake of Patria, Campania, 987. Lampertus (archbishop of Milan, 922–31?), 546. Landenolf II (prince of Capua, 982– 93), 688. Lando (count of Capua 843–61), 685. Lando (count of Teano, late 9th century), 687. Lando, (cleric of Capua), 688–9. Landulf I (count of Capua, 816–43), 685. Landulf III (prince of Capua, 901– 43), iv, 686, 687. Landulf (IV) (prince of Benevento and Capua, 939/40–62), 687. Landulfus I (archbishop of Milan, 896–99), 187. Landulfus II (archbishop of Milan, 979–98), 187. Last Judgement, 72–3, 234, 254–266, 285. Laurence of Syria (5th-century founder of the monastic community at Farfa), 270.

735 lay familia of monastery, 412, 414, 419, 420, 421. Leggio, Tersilio, 284. Leggiuno, Lombardia, 226, 514. Lemercier, Jacques, (architect, 1585– 1654), 323 note 48. Leo I, (pope, 440–61), 15, 68, 122, 396, 397, 398, 399. Leo III (pope, 795–816), 14, 14, 39, 58–60. Leo IV (pope, 847–55), 15, 399. Leo IX (pope, 1049–54), 689. Leo (abbot of Montecassino, 899– 914), 691. Leo of Ostia (monk and chronicler of Montecassino, bishop of Ostia and Velletri, 1046–1115), 696. Leo (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 944–57), 686. Leo (of Capua, lessee of San Vincenzo al Volturno), 677. Leprignano, Lazio, S.Leone (chancel screen), 640. Leveto, Paula, 188. Liber vitae of the New Minster, Winchester (British Library, Stowe, Ms. 944, 1031?), 387. Liber vitae, 385–6, 392, 393, 497. Lichfield, 61–3. Lindau Gospels (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M1, 9th century), 624. Lindisfarne, 185, 548. Liuhtfridus (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno (1045–53), 689. Liutpertus, 311, 315, 316. Liutprand (monk at S.Vincenzo al Volturno, first half of 9th century), 524. Liutprand (king of the Lombards, 712–44), 2, 16, 56, 127. Llanlleonfel, Powys, 549.

736 Lomartire, Saverio, 226, 235. Lorsch, 554. Lorsch Gospels (Alba Julia and Rome, Bibl. Apost. Vat., Ms. Pal. lat. 50, early 9th century), 34, 45, 143, 149, 592. Lorsch, ecclesia varia, oratory of Louis the German, 400, 401. Lothar Gospels (Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 266, Tours, 849–51), 635. Louis the German (Frankish king, 843–76), 400, 645. Louis the Pious (Carolingian Frankish king and emperor, 813–40), 46, 176, 284, 297, 336, 40, 687. Louis XIV (1638–1715, king of France, 1643–1715), 9. Lucca, 128, 482. Lusuardi Siena, Silvia, 622. Macedonian Renaissance, 169, 190, 195, 198. Mackie, Gillian, 380. Magnificat, 302, 372, 374, 375, 382. Maio (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 874–901/2), 676, 677. Mals, St. Benedikt, 80, 145–6. mancus of king Coenwulf, 63. Manifrit (S.Vincenzo in Galliano, 7th century), 545. Manso (abbot of Montecassino, 985/6–96), 688. Mantua, 226, 514. Maraldus (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 1007–11), 686. marbling, 33–4, 146–7, 171, 300, 423–7, 449, 451, 454–83. Marinus II (pope, 942–6), 689. Markthaler, Paul, 251–3, 274, 283–4. marmorarii (Rome), 697. Marsia, 688. Martin I (pope, 649–55), 305.

Martvili staurotheque, 622. Mary, ii, iii,, 121, 124, 170, 187–8, 192, 229, 231, 233, 234, 235, 301, 302, 305, 342, 343, 344, 372, 373, 374, 378, 381, 382, 388, 389, 391, 396, 397, 398, Mary as model of humility and service, iii, 121, 266, 374–5, 382. McClendon, Charles, 247, 252, 267, 271–2, 274, 277–8, 449, 496, 598. Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik (Umayyad prince and general, fl. 705–38), 467. Maximian (bishop of Ravenna, 546– 56), 502, 592. McCormick, Michael, 127, 481. McKitterick, Rosamond, 330 note 75. meander, 73, 80–1, 145–6, 171, 452, 479. Medehampstead (Peterborough), 61. Mellebaude, (abbot, 7th or 8th century, Poitiers), 395, 401. Melucco Vaccaro, Alessandra (1940– 2000), 704. memoria, 385–8, 393, 497, 646–60. Menologion of Basil II (Rome, Bibl. Apost. Vat., Ms. gr. 1613, late 10th – early 11th century), 197. Mercia, 60–4, 400. Metz, scriptorium, 333. Micah (prophet), 304. Mikulcice, Greater Moravia, 642. Milan, 3, 16, 143, 170, 226, 514, 523, 544, 545, 546, 621, 695. Milan, S. Ambrogio, 547. Milan, S. Giovanni in Conca, 545, 546. Milan, S. Maria d’Aurona, 3, 4. Milan, S. Tecla, 546–7. Milan, S. Tommaso, 3.

INDEX

Missorium of Theodosius, 597. Modena (Lapidario del Duomo, carved relief, 640). Monkwearmouth, 72, 548. Monte Aceru in territorio Commanense, 687. Montecassino, 128, 295, 311, 317, 332, 339, 482, 490, 501, 522, 524, 545, 621, 687, 690, 696, 697–8, 705, 708, 709, 710. Montecasino community in Capua, 677–85, 686, 690–2. Montecassino, S.Maria delle Cinque Torri, 311–15. Montecassino, S. Martino, 272. Montecassino, oratory of John the Baptist, 621. Montecassino, S.Salvatore, 320, 555. Montecorvino Rovella, S.Ambrogio, 231, 425, 449, 451, 457, 459, 479, 506. Monte Sant’Angelo sul Gargano, 687. Monza, 226, 514, 544. Monza (iron crown), 625. mortar-mixer, 562. mosaic tesserae, 560, 619–20. Moses, 302. Mount Sinai, St Catherine, 74, 305–6, 598. Mount Sinai, St Catherine, icon of Theotokos, saints and angels, 598. Müstair, Heiligkreuzkapelle, 149, 176–7, 230. Müstair, St. Johann, i, 69, 73, 80, 83–110, 112, 140–83, 193–5, 230, 266, 425, 456, 457, 459, 479. Müstair, St. Johann (dating), 141, 175–7. Naples, iv, 128, 311, 415, 482.

737 natural images, 147, 231. Nea Moni, Chios, 344. Neitan (priest, Peebles, late 7th – early 8th century), 549. nephrite sword-guard, 644 Nicaea, Church of the Dormition, 344. Nicholas II (pope, 1059–61), 285, 689. Nicolaus de Angelo (mason, Rome, second half of 12th century), 327 note 65. Niederstötzingen, eastern Württemburg (cemetery, rein-shackle), 642. Nimes, Gard, Maison Carrée, 321 note 42, 324. Nivelles, Belgium, 501. Nocera Umbra, Umbria (Lombard cemetery), 639. Nonantola, Emilia-Romagna, 554. Nordstrom, Carl Otto (1916–2009), 387. Normans, 688. Northumbria, 523, 548, 549, 550, 552. Notardonato, Domenico (farmer, San Vincenzo al Volturno, c. 1832), 339. Notker, (monk at St Gallen, author, c. 840–912), 128. Novalesa, Piedmont, 272, 554. Novara, Paola, 79. oblivion, 497–500. Odilo and Suitgar (Bavarian dukes), 128. Oexle, Otto Gerhard (1939–2016), 388. Offa (king of Mercia, 757–96), 60–3. Oldenburg, Holstein (rein-shackle), 636, 642.

738 Oplontis, 424. opus sectile, 428, 438, 439, 442, 445, 446, 449, 450, 452, 454–83. Orabona, Romina, 425 n. 49. Orestes (east Roman consul, 530), 597. Oria, Puglia, 687. ornament, 422–23, 449, 450–3. Osborne, John, 381. Östra Pâboda, Smâland, Sweden, 634, 635, 662. Otranto, Puglia, 247. Otto I (German king and emperor, 936–73), 503. Otto III (German king and emperor, 996–1002), 688. overlapping leaf/tile pattern, 9, 280–1, 333–4 note 91, 427–8. Paderborn, 16, 32, 252, 273. Paderborn, palace, 78, 81, 145, 479. Padua, Arena Chapel, 254. Padula, Nicola (parish priest of Castel San Vincenzo c. 1832), 339, 378, 379. palace chapel, 6, 16, 32. Paldo, (founding abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 703–20), 296, 555. Palladio, Andrea (architect, 1508– 80), 6, 57, 325. Palmyra, 75, 465. Pandulf I Ironhead (prince of Benevento and Capua, 943/4– 81), 687–8. Pantano, Liburia, 677. Pantoni, Don Angelo (1905–88), 271, 317, 524, 542, 696, 707. Paris Psalter (Paris Bibl. Nat. Ms. gr.139, Constantinople, first half of 10th century), 83, 110, 111, 151, 169–70, 172, 174, 187, 190–1, 194–7.

Paris, 9. Paris, church of Val-de-Grace, 323 note 48. Paris, Sorbonne( portal), 323 note 48 Paschal I (pope, 817–24), 380, 382, 398, 401, 623. Paschal I, enameled cross-reliquary, 623, 625. Paschal II (pope, 1099–1118), 504. Paul I, (pope, 757–67), 73, 382, 397, 398. Paul the Deacon (monk, poet, historian, Lombard court and Montecassino, 720s–799), 8, 556, 692. Paul the Deacon (Commentary on the Rule of St Benedict, Montecassino cod. casin. 175, first half of 10th century), 692. Paul (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 783–92), 297, 335, 588, 594. Paulinus of Nola (patron, author, 354–421), 75. Pavia, 1, 3, 16, 32, 38, 128, 170, 226, 426, 482, 544. Pavia, folding iron chair, 639. Pavia, S.Felice, 514, 545, n. 24. Pavia, S.Giovanni Domnarum, 395. Pavia, S.Maria Teodote (Pusterla), 2. Pavia, S.Salvatore, 395. Pax of Duke Ursus of Cividale, 593. Peebles, 549. Perctarit (king of the Lombards, 661–2, 671–88), 395. Petrus Mallius (canon of St Peter’s and author, Rome, 12th century), 398. Photios (patriarch of Constantinople, 858–67, 877–86), 327 note 65. Physiologus, 393. Peroni, Adriano, 639. Piacenza, 677. Piazza Armerina, 425, 464. pins, 38.

INDEX

Pippin III (Frankish king, 751–68), 127, 397. Pisa, 695. Piscicelli Taeggi, Don Oderisio (archivist of Montecassino, 1840– 1917), 339, 340. Pisidian Antioch, 321 note 44. Pobedim, Moravia (set of sword-belt mounts and bridle fittings), 634, 637, 642. Pompeii, 12, 439. Pompeii, House of Faun, 446. Pompeii, House of Labyrinth, 439. Pompeii, House of Vettii, 439, 463, n. 39. Pompeii, Temple of Apollo, 446. Pompeii, Villa of Mysteries, 79. Pompeian four styles of painting, 78, 79, 83, 191, 439. porphyry, 420, 442, 445, 505. Portadore, Lodi, 547. portraits of contemporary or historical individuals, excluding saints, iii, 63–4, 141, 222–4, 228, 232–5, 270–1, 486–8 489, 496–7, 506, 512. Poto (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 780–3), 335. Prata di Principato Ultra (basilica dell’Annunziata), 33, 147, 148, 425, 457. prebendaries (provendarii), 41. prehistoric stone tools, 584. Premoli, Beatrice, 280. Probatus (abbot of Farfa, 770–81), 281–2. Proconnesian marble, 416, 420, 505. prophets, 304–6, 327 note 66, 424, 427. psychological engagement, 119–26. pulpit, 417, 418, 426, 586.

739 Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, Syria, 118, 465, 466, 468, 470, 472. Qasr Kharana, Jordan, 470. Qusayr ‘Amra, Jordan, 114–119, 125–6, 465, 469–70, 471, 472, 480. Raimbaldus (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 920–44), 686. Rambona diptych, 593. Raphael, archangel, 343. Raqqa, Syria, 465. Ratchis (king of the Lombards, 744– 9), 127, 599. Ratchis, altar, 599, 600. Ravenna, 3, 42, 56, 446, 502, 542. Ravenna, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, 376. Ravenna, Mausoleum of Theodoric, 44. Ravenna, S.Apollinare Nuovo, 69. Ravenna, S.Stefano, 502. Ravenna, S.Vitale, 44, 74. Raynulf (count, late 10th century), 688. regalia, 643. Reichenau, 276, 412. Reichenau, St. Georg Oberzell, 149, 195. relics, 11, 67, 175, 251, 379, 380, 442, 488, 496–7, 501–12, 515, 621–2. Reliquary of Pippin (Conques), 625. Remiremont, Vosges, 516–7. Repton, Derbyshire, 400, 401. Resafa, Syria, 465, 467, 469. Revelation, Book of, 72–3, 328, 372, 373, 377, 386, 392, 497. Rheims, 196, 198. Riario, Raffaele (cardinal, 1461– 1521), 698. Richard (Count of Aversa), 1049–78),

740 688, 689. Right Hand of God, 344, 542–3. Rimini, Tempio Malatestiano (San Francesco), 325. River Saane, Canton Bern (reinshackle), 642 Robert Guiscard (Norman war-lord, count and duke of Apulia and Calabria, duke of Sicily, prince of Benevento, c. 1015–95), 326, 608. Roffridus (abbot of S.Vincenzo al Volturno, 984–98), 688. Romano, Serena, 695. Rome, 1, 13–15, 42, 58–60, 72, 128, 283, 333, 377, 395, 400, 401, 464, 482, 502, 550, 551, 621, 685, 695, 696–7. Rome, Arch of Constantine, 9, 322, 324 Rome, Arch of Septimius Severus, 321 note 43. Rome, Basilica of Junius Bassus, 79. Rome, catacomb of Callixtus, cubiculum of Oceanus, 390. Rome, catacomb of S.Valentino, 383. Rome, Crypta Balbi, 554. Rome, House of the Griffins, 446. Rome, Lateran basilica, 68, 326, 327 note 65, 640 (well-head in cloister). Rome, Lateran Baptistery, chapel of S.Venanzio, 598. Rome, Lateran palace, 14–15, 58. Rome, Market of Trajan, carved relief, 640. Rome, Old St. Peter’s, 13, 14, 33, 68, 74, 76, 276, 281, 283–4, 396, 398, 399, 401, 442, 505. Rome, Old St. Peter’s, papal oratories, 382. Rome, Old St Peter’s, oratory of Ss.

Processus and Martinianus, 398. Rome, Old St Peter’s, oratory of SS. Sixtus and Fabianus, 398. Rome, Old St Peter’s, rotunda of S.Petronilla, 397, 398. Rome, oratory of John VII, 396, 620. Rome, Palazzo della Cancelleria, 698– 705. Rome, Pantheon, 321 note 42. Rome, Porta Maggiore, 321 note 44. Rome, S. Apollinare, 700. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, 254. Rome, S. Clemente, 381, 453, 695. Rome, S. Constanza, 79–80. Rome, S. Crisogono, 709. Rome, Ss. Giovanni e Paolo, 326, 327 note 65. Rome, Ss. Giovanni a Porta Latina, 254, 704. Rome, S. Gregorio Nazianzeno (altar retable), 254. Rome, S. Lorenzo in Damaso, 698, 704–5, 706, 710. Rome, S. Maria Antiqua, 14, 73, 186–7, 191, 198, 224, 228, 235, 279, 305, 389, 397, 464. Rome, S. Maria Antiqua, oratory of the Forty Martyrs, 464. Rome, S. Maria Antiqua, oratory of Theodotus (SS. Quiricus and Julitta), 198, 224, 228, 235, 279, 389, 390. Rome, S. Maria Maggiore, 68. Rome, S. Maria in Trastevere (screen panel), 640. Rome, S. Martino ai Monti, 15, 78. Rome, Ss. Nereo ed Achilleo, 15. Rome, S. Paolo fuori le mura, 68, 74. Rome, S. Prassede, 15, 272, 279, 641 (screen panels). Rome, S. Prassede, oratory of S.Zeno, 380, 382, 398, 399, 401, 640.

INDEX

Rome, S. Pudenziana, 700. Rome, Ss Quattro Coronati, 399, 254 (chapel of St. Sylvester). Rome, S. Saba, 598. Rome, S. Sabina, 74, 640 (screen panel). Rome, S. Stefano Rotondo, 395. Rome, S. Trinità dei Monti, 710. Rome, solarium of Augustus, 322 note 47. Rome, Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, 321 note 42. Rome, Temple of Hadrian, 321 note 42. Rosenbaum, Elisabeth (1911–92), 37. Rossi, Marco, 188. Ruallaun (Llanlleonfel, late 7th – early 8th century), 549. Runde Berg, Urach (rein-shackle), 642. Sabinus (bishop of Canosa di Puglia, 514–66), 311. Saepinum, Molise, 322 notes 46 and 47, 324. Saint-Denis, 33, 147, 281, 283, 322, 462–3, 502. Salerno, 7, 11, 16, 118, 281, 425, 426, 439, 445, 446, 482, 482. Salerno, cathedral, 326, 608. Salerno, S.Pietro a Corte (Ss. Peter and Paul), 7, 9, 11, 71, 117, 125, 216, 284, 482. Salerno ivories, 608. Sangallo, Antonio da (architect, 1484–1546), 696. S. Angelo in Formis, 254. S. Cornelia, Lazio, 247. S. Croce, Monte Marsico, Campania (monastery), 689. S. Maria in Apinianici, Pescina, Abruzzo, 687.

741 S. Rufina and S. Liberato, Lazio, south Etruria, 247. S. Vincenzo in Galliano, 545, 695. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, passim. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, assembly hall, 77–8, 147, 227–8, 281, 297, 300, 304, 415, 418, 419, 424, 426, 427, 428, 438, 458, 460. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, chamberlain’s house, 587. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, crypt church (guest church), 276, 306–7, 417, 418, 420, 440–1, 495–7, 610. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, crypt of Epyphanius, 112, 149, 173, 196, 224, 228, 230, 235, 302–4, 339– 406, 609. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, entrance hall, 297, 340, 394, 439. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, garden court, 297, 301, 340, 394, 438, 440, 524, 632, 637, 643, 645, 660, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, guest palatium, 297, 299, 300, 307, 394, 414, 418, 419, 420, 423, 428, 438, 439, 458, 484, 498, 524, 544, 546. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, lay cemetery on hillside, 415, 420–1, 497–8. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, loggiato, (thoroughfare on hillside), 460–1, 472. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, monks’ dormitory, 460. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, monks’ refectory, 297, 300, 304, 415, 417, 418, 419, 424, 426, 427, 438, 458. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, kitchens for craftsmen, 415.

742 S. Vincenzo al Volturno, monks’ cemetery, 499, 490, 505, 512–15. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, oratory of St. Vincent, 685 (see: Constantine). S. Vincenzo al Volturno, refectory of craftsmen, 415, 418, 419, 420, 586. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, refectory for distinguished guests, 297, 340, 418, 438, 458. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, late 11th– early 12th–century romanesque abbey church, 317, 320–1, 498, 504. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S. Vincenzo Maggiore, annular crypt, 11–12, 80, 81, 117–8, 143, 145–6, 216–7, 230, 281, 420, 441, 442–9, 459–60, 471–2, 480, 505, 589. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S. Vincenzo Maggiore, iii, iv, 10, 11, 216, 272, 277, 297–8, 317–20, 336, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 421, 440, 441–9, 459, 460, 482, 485, 486, 488, 490, 504, 512, 525, 526, 556, 557, 559, 562, 581, 588, 595, 631, 705, 709. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S. Vincenzo Maggiore, atrium, 415, 416, 420, 490, 505, 512, 557, 558 n. 16, 581, 582, 589. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S.Vincenzo Maggiore, eastwork, 589. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S.Maria in insula, 374. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S.Lorenzo in alia insula, 374. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S.Lorenzo, 339. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S.Maria Maior, 296.

S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S. Maria Minor, 296. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S. Pietro, 296. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, S. Vincenzo, 296, 297. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, ‘South Church’ (S. Vincenzo Minore), 272, 275, 337, 340, 341, 394, 414, 484, 498, 504. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, Vestibule, 423, 424, 438, 458, 544, 613. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, workshops, 300, 415, 420, 553–91, 594–5, 611, 621, 631, 641–2, 645. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, Lombard faction, 334–5. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, Frankish faction, 334–5. S. Vincenzo al Volturno, sack of, 10 October 881, 418, 582, 595, 613, 644, 676, 705, 707. S.Vincenzo al Volturno, terra, 419. Saracens, iv, 271, 295, 418, 483, 498, 499, 503, 556, 611, 613. Saragossa, 502. Saul, 176. Saugdan (Emir of Bari, c. 857–71), 415, 498. Savigliano, Piedmont, S.Pietro (stone relief ), 639. Schapiro, Meyer (1904–96), 186. Schuster, Ildefonso (1880–1954), 249, 251. script, ii–iii, 295–338, 421–2, 490– 95. scrolls, ii. Seligenstadt, Hesse, 273. Sennhauser, Hans Rudolf, 141, 176. Seppanibale, Fasano, Puglia, 147. Sergius I (pope, 687–701), 396, 399. Sergius II (pope, 844–7), 398.

INDEX

Serravalle, S.Martino, 148. service as ideal, iii, 121, 266, 374–5, 382, 397. Sichardus (abbot of Farfa, 830–42), 249, 251–2, 284–5, 324 note 53, 334 note 91. Sico (prince of Benevento, 817–32), 582. Sicopolis, Campania, 685. Sigibert of Gemlbloux (monk of Gembloux and historian, c. 1030–1112), 502, 516–7. Silchester, 321. Soissons Gospels (Paris, Bbl. Nat. lat. 8850, early 9th century), 34, 35. Soprintendenza Archaeologica del Lazio, 251. Soprintendenza per i Beni Ambientali e Architettonici del Lazio, 275. Speciale, Lucinia, 692. Spoleto, 1, 10, 282, 325, 426, 639. Spoleto, S.Salvatore, 5–6, 57, 216–7, 284. spolia, 57, 217, 682. square halo, 233, 270, 342, 344, 388, 391, 442, 486, 506. St. Alexander, 251–2. St. Anastasia, 341. St. Benedict, 501, 621, 622, 692, 709. St. Boniface (c. 675–754), 38, 128, 482, 551. St. Cornelius, monastery on the Inde, 284. St. Cyril, 381. St. Dionysius, 501. St. Edith of Wilton (c. 963–86), 400. St. Epiphanus, 342. St. Eufemia, 234. St.. Felicity, 251. St. Gertrude, 501. St. Giulia, 67–8, 110, 120, 123, 169, 175, 193.

743 St.Hilary, 251–2. St. Jerome (347–420), 122. St. John, Evangelist, 373, 386. St. Laurence, 301, 343, 373, 377, 380, 384, 496, 502. St. Liborius, 273. St. Marius, 342. St. Maurus, 598. St. Paul, 376, 550. St. Peter, 75, 387, 397, 516–7, 550. St. Richarius, 501. Ss. Sergius and Bacchus (panel painting, St Catherine’s Sinai), 598. Ss. Sophia, Elpis, Pistis and Agape, 66, 68, 83, 119. St. Stephen, 301, 343, 373, 377, 380, 384, 496, 502, 516–7, 685. St. Valentine, 251–2. St. Vincent, 11, 296, 297, 377, 384, 416, 488, 496, 501, 502, 503, 504, 505, 515, 516–7. St. Augustine Gospels (Cambridge, Corpus Christ College, Ms. 286, second half of 6th century), 279. St. Gallen, Golden Psalter, 644. St. Gallen Plan, 276, 412, 553, 581, 585, 587, 645. Stara Kourim (set of sword-belt fittings), 634. Stephen IX (pope, 1057–8), 689, 704. Suger (abbot of Saint-Denis, 1122– 51), 76, 322. Susa, Arch of Cottius, 321 note 43. Sutri, Lazio (carved relief ), 640. sword-belt mounts, 590, 631–75. Syracuse, 128, 482. Tado (archbishop of Milan, 860–8), 187. Taizzano, Umbria, S. Martino (altar), 640. Talaricus (abbot of San Vincenzo al

744 Volturno, 817–24), 10, 11, 281, 297, 414, 416, 420, 442, 485, 488–9, 504, 506, 512–15, 544, 546, 594. Tamfrid (monk of San Vincenzo al Volturno, first third of 9th century), 387. Taso, (abbot of San Vincenzo al Volturno, 729–39), 296, 555. (abbot of San Vincenzo al Volturno, 721?–9), 555. Tempietto del Clitunno, 5–6, 57, 216–7, 284, 325, 326 note 61. Teodemar (abbot of Montecassino, 778–97), 315. Termoli, cathedral, 323. Teterow, Mecklenburg (rein-shackle), 642. Teudelas (monk at San Vincenzo al Volturno, first half of 9th century), 524. Teupertus, 311. Theodolinda (Queen of the Lombards, 570–62), 546. Theodora Episcopa (mother of pope Paschal I), 380, 382, 398, 401. Theodore (pope, 642–8), 598. Theodotus, (papal primicerius, consul and duke, Rome, mid-8th century) 198, 224, 228, 235, 279, 389, 390. Theodulf of Orléans (theologian, author c. 750–821), 32. Theophilus (fine-metal-smith and author, c. 1100), 560, 561, 619. Thessaloniki, 622. Thessaloniki, Hosios David, 232. Thessaloniki, St. Demetrios, 74, 391. Thessaloniki, St. George, 305, 597. Thessaloniki, St. Sophia, 391. Thomas of Maurienne (abbot of Farfa, after 680–before 720). 270, 502.

Thumby-Bienebek, Schleswig (reinassemblage), 636, 642. Thurre, Daniel, 622. Tiberius (Roman emperor, 14–37 AD), 324. tiles, ii, 310–17, 417, 418, 420, 422, 459, 490–5, 512–3, 523, 558–9, 562, 588. Tivoli, Lazio, Hadrian’s Villa, 446. Toesca, Pietro (1877–62), 340, 342, 372, 378, 388, 391. tombs — see graves. tombstones, 490, 522–52. Torba, 78, 81, 147, 219–37, 389, 425, 449, 456, 457, 459, 506, 546. Torba (dating,) 227–8, 235–6. Torcello, cathedral, 254. Tours, S. Martin, 323. Tours, scriptorium, 333. Troia, 226, 514. Tselos, Dimitri (1901–96), 36. Tullylease, Co. Cork, 549. tumbling-blocks pattern, 12, 216–7, 446. Urn of S.Anastasia, S. Maria in Sylvis, Sesto al Regena, Friuli, 640. Utrecht Psalter (University Library, Ms 32, Hautvillers, Rheims, 830–40), 37, 112, 124, 173–4, 196–7, 644. Vairano, Campania, 687. Valencia, 501, 502, 503, 504. velum 79, 229–31, 270–1, 277, 280, 440, 448–9, 450, 451, 455, 456, 457, 506. Venafro, 295. Venice, 695. Verona, 16, 226, 514. Vescovio, S.Maria in, 273.

745

INDEX

Via Numidia, 515. Vicenne, Boiano, Molise (Lombard cemetery with horse-burials), 645. Vienna Coronation Gospels (Vienna, Schatzkammer, c. 800), 147, 332. Vivian (count, abbot of Tours, 843– 51), 333. Vivian Bible of Charles the Bald (Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat.1, Tours 845), 634. Vvolvinus altar, S.Ambrogio, Milan, 625.

Wibert of Ravenna (anti-pope Clement III, 1080–1100), 700. Wickham, Chris, 589. Wiglaf (king of Mercia, 827–9, 830– 839), 400. Willibald of Eichstätt (monk, pilgrim, bishop, c. 700–87), 71, 127–8, 482. Wilpert, Joseph (1857–1944), 390. Wilton, oratory of St Dionysius, 400. workshops, iv, 553–91, 622.

Walefrid (bishop, mid-8th century), 504. Weitzmann, Kurt (1904–1993), 172, 186–9, 191. Werden, oratory of St. Stephen, 400. Whitehouse, David (1941–2013), 247.

Zacharias (pope, 741–52), 14, 224, 389, 390. Zâvada, Topol’cany district, Greater Moravia, 642. zig-zag, 452, 456–8, 460, 464, 472.

York, Minster, 548.

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