Romanesque and the Mediterranean: Patterns of Exchange Across the Latin, Greek and Islamic Worlds c.1000-c.1250 (The British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions) [1 ed.] 9781909662803, 1909662801

Citation preview

ROMANESQUE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN Points of Contact across the Latin, Greek and Islamic Worlds c. 1000 to c. 1250 Edited by Rosa Maria Bacile and John McNeill

BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 2015

Published for the British Archaeological Association by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © British Archaeological Association 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of the copyright holders. Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Disclaimer Statements in the volume reflect the views of the authors, and not necessarily those of the Association, editors or publisher. Cover Image Oliphant in the National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (A.1956.562) (© National Museums Scotland) ISBN 13: 978-1-909662-80-3 (pbk)

CONTENTS Advisory Panel

v

Notes on Contributors

vi

Preface

ix

Colour Plates

following page x

Twelfth-Century Pilgrimage Art in Bethlehem and Jerusalem: Points of Contact between Europe and the Crusader Kingdom Jaroslav Folda

1

The Oliphant: A Call for a Shift of Perspective Mariam Rosser-Owen

15

Muslim Artists and Christian Models in the Painted Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina Jeremy Johns

59

Dress and Textiles in the 12th-Century Painted Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo Francesca Manuela Anzelmo

91

A Porphyry Workshop in Norman Palermo Rosa Maria Bacile

129

The Mausoleum of Bohemund in Canosa and the Architectural Setting of Ruler Tombs in Norman Italy Mark J. Johnson

151

The Date, Iconography and Dedication of the Cathedral of Canosa Eric Fernie

167

Preparing for the End: Painting in the Baptistery of Parma and the Great Devotion of 1233 Ludovico V. Geymonat

173

Hungary, Byzantium, Italy: Architectural Connections in the 11th Century Béla Zsolt Szakács

193

Building Jerusalem in Western France: The Case of St-Sauveur at Charroux John McNeill

205

A Western Interpretation of an Oriental Scheme: The Domed Churches in Romanesque Aquitaine Claude Andrault-Schmitt

225

The Migration of Mediterranean Images: Strange Creatures in Spanish Buildings and Scriptoria between the 9th and 11th Centuries Gerardo Boto

241

Sculptors in Medieval Spain after the Conquest of Toledo in 1085 Rose Walker

259

The Paintings of the Chapter-House of Sigena and the Art of the Crusader Kingdoms Dulce Ocón

277

iii

Catalan Panel Painting Around 1200, the Eastern Mediterranean and Byzantium Manuel Castiñeiras

297

Catalonia, Provence and the Holy Land: Late 12th-Century Sculpture in Barcelona Jordi Camps i Sòria

327

Index

337

iv

ADVISORY PANEL Dr Elizabeth Valdez del Alamo: Montclair University, New Jersey Dr Jordi Camps i Soria: Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona Professor Manuel Castiñeiras: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Dr Anthony Eastmond: Courtauld Institute, London Professor Pina Belli d’Elia: University of Bari Dr Ute Engel: University of Mainz Professor Eric Fernie: Courtauld Institute, London Professor Erla Hohler: University of Oslo Professor Jeremy Johns: Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford Dr Gerhard Lutz: Dom-Museum, Hildesheim Professor David Park: Courtauld Institute, London Professor Roger Stalley: Trinity College, Dublin Neil Stratford: Keeper Emeritus, British Museum Dr Bela Szakacs: Central European University, Budapest Professor Eliane Vergnolle: University of Besançon BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION STEERING GROUP Dr Rosa Bacile: Independent Scholar Dr Kathleen Doyle: British Library Professor Peter Draper: Former-President, BAA Professor Lindy Grant: President, BAA John McNeill: Hon. Secretary, BAA Dr Richard Plant: Hon. Publicity Officer, BAA

v

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Claude Andrault-Schmitt is Professor of Medieval Art History at the Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale (University of Poitiers and CNRS). She works on monastic architecture in the 12th and 13 centuries, as well as the early Gothic architecture of Aquitaine and the Loire Valley. She has written or directed monographs on Notre-Dame-la-Grande de Poitiers, St-Martial de Limoges, La cathédrale de Tours, St-Yrieix and, above all, La cathédrale St-Pierre de Poitiers. Enquêtes croisées (2013). Besides more synthetic papers for various journals, she has published a number of short monographs for the Société française d’archéologie in its annual Congrès archéologique. Francesca Manuela Anzelmo has a Ph.D. in ‘Memory and Matter in Works of Art’ (2013) and a postgraduate qualification in the Preservation and Enhancement of Historical and Artistic Heritage (2008), both from the University of Tuscia, Viterbo. Her research on the painted ceilings of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo has focused on a study of the costumes and textiles represented in the ceilings and their relation to the use of painted muqarnas decorations in the medieval Mediterranean of the 11th and 12th centuries. She is currently working with the Department for Cultural Heritage Science at University of Tuscia, on the project: Research and Enhancement in the Royal Palace of Palermo, led by Professor Maria Andaloro, managing an archival and art-historical research project and the setting up a multimedia database and new visiting systems for the Norman Palace. Rosa Maria Bacile is a scholar of medieval art, specialising in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. In 2009 she completed her D.Phil. at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, on the Royal Norman Porphyry Tombs, focusing on the carving techniques used to work porphyry in the Middle Ages. From 2009 to 2012, she served as a British Archaeological Association council member. At the same time, she has been a member of the steering committee for the BAA series of conferences on Romanesque, and in 2012 she convened and organized the second in this series of conferences titled Romanesque and the Mediterranean, which took place in Palermo. She was recently elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Gerardo Boto is Professor in History of Art at the University of Girona. His main field of interest is monastic and cathedral architecture and spatial expression in the 11th and 12th centuries in northern Spain, as well as Romanesque imagery in its cultural and monumental context. His publications include: Ornamento sin delito. Seres imaginarios en el claustro de Silos (2001); Claustros románicos hispanos (ed.), (2003). He recently coordinated Reino de León (910–1230). Hombres, mujeres, poderes e ideas (2010) and Islam y Cristiandad. Civilizaciones en el mundo medieval (2014). He curated the exhibition Imágenes Medievales de Culto (Girona, 2009 and Murcia, 2010). Currently he is the editor of the international journal Codex Aquilarensis. Revista de Arte Medieval and also preparing a collective book on Cathedrals in Mediterranean Europe (11th–12th centuries) — Ritual Stages and Sceneries. Jordi Camps i Sòria is Chief Curator of the Medieval Department of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC, Barcelona). He has been Associate Professor at the Universitat de Barcelona (1997–2009) and at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2008–09). His research activity is particularly concerned with sculpture between the 11th to 13th centuries, and the history and historiography of the Romanesque Collections at MNAC, where he has curated several exhibitions. He is the scientific coordinator, with Manuel Castiñeiras, of the Enciclopedia del Románico en Cataluña, edited by the Fundación Santa María la Real, and is also currently preparing a study dedicated to the cloister and the Romanesque gallery of the monastery of Ripoll. He is member of the Project Magistri Cataloniae, led by Manuel Castiñeiras. Manuel Castiñeiras is currently Head of the Department of Art and Musicology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), where he is Associate Professor of Medieval Art. His research focuses primarily on Romanesque imagery, specifically as expressed in panel and wall painting, architectural sculpture and manuscript illumination, as well as on the Pilgrimage to Santiago and artistic exchanges in the Mediterranean between the 11th and 15th centuries. Eric Fernie has held the posts of Professor of Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Courtauld Institute of the University of London. He is a fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Society of Antiquaries of London (of which he has been President), and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. His books include The Architecture of the Anglo-Saxons (1983), An Architectural History of Norwich Cathedral (1993), Art History and its Methods (1995), The Architecture of Norman England (2000), and Romanesque Architecture: The First Style of the European Age (2014). vi

Jaroslav Folda is Emeritus N. Ferebee Taylor Professor of the History of Art, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His most recent books include Crusader Art in the Holy Land, from the Third Crusade to the fall of Acre, 1187–1291 (2005), and Crusader Art: The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1099–1291 (2008). His new book, Byzantine Art and Italian Panel Painting: Images of the Virgin and Child Hodegetria and the Art of Chrysography will be published by Cambridge University Press in the summer of 2015. Ludovico Geymonat is Marie Curie Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana — Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, Italy (2012–15). He holds a Ph.D. in art history from Princeton University (2006) and a BA degree from the Università di Torino. His research centres on drawing, monumental programmes and the role of space in visual communication. He has published on topics ranging from 13th- and 14th-century Venetian painting and sculpture, to the Baptistery at Parma, the Wolfenbüttel Musterbuch, medieval drawings and visual memory. Jeremy Johns is Professor of the Art and Archaeology of the Islamic Mediterranean and Director of the Khalili Research Centre at the University of Oxford. He is principally interested in relations between Muslim and Christian societies in the Mediterranean as these were manifested in material and visual culture. He recently contributed a 250,000-word study of the painted ceilings to La Cappella Palatina a Palermo (ed. Beat Brenk, 2010), and is now preparing a revised English version. He is co-director, with Michael Macdonald (KRC, Oxford), of the Online Corpus of Inscriptions from Ancient North Arabia. With Elise Morero (KRC, Oxford), he co-directs a project investigating the medieval Islamic rock crystal industry. He is gradually publishing, with Vera von Falkenhausen (Rome), Nadia Jamil (Oxford) and Alex Metcalfe (Lancaster), new critical editions of the Arabic and bilingual documents of Norman Sicily, and is slowly working towards the final publication of fieldwork in Jordan (Khirbat Fāris) and Sicily (The Monreale Survey). Mark J. Johnson is Professor of Ancient and Medieval Art History and University Professor of Ancient Studies at Brigham Young University. His main areas of interest include the art and architecture of Late Antiquity about which he has published several articles and the books The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (2009) and The Byzantine Churches of Sardinia (2013). His other main interest is the art and architecture of Norman Italy with published articles on the mosaic programme at Cefalù Cathedral, Norman ruler portraits, the Norman veneration of icons and miracle stories connected with church buildings. John McNeill teaches at Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education, and is Honorary Secretary of the British Archaeological Association, for whom he has edited and contributed to volumes on Anjou, King’s Lynn and the Fens, the medieval cloister and English medieval chantries. He was also instrumental in establishing the BAA’s International Romanesque Conference Series, and, with Richard Plant, convened the first conference in the series, Romanesque and the Past, the transactions of which were published in 2013. He has a particular interest in the design of medieval monastic precincts. Dulce Ocón was formerly Professor of Medieval Art at the University of the Basque Country and is now retired. She has worked on architectural sculpture in Aragón and its relationship with the Gregorian Reform and on the iconography of Romanesque Spanish portals. Since 1988 her research has mainly focused on Spanish architectural sculpture of the last quarter of the 12th century, on the artistic role played by Alfonso VIII and Eleanor Plantagenet in Castile, and on the Byzantinizing trends discernible in Transitional art around 1200 and in the mural paintings from Sigena in Aragón. Mariam Rosser-Owen is the curator responsible for the Arab World collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She specializes in the material culture of the medieval Mediterranean, especially al-Andalus and the western Maghrib, and has researched widely on ivory. She recently co-edited with Alex Metcalfe ‘Forgotten Connections: material culture and exchange in the central and western Mediterranean’ (special issue of Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean, 2013), and she is currently co-editing the volume, The Aghlabids and their Neighbors: Art and Material Culture in Ninth-Century North Africa (to be published in Brill’s Arts and Archaeology of the Islamic World series). She has a joint article in progress with Glaire D. Anderson on ivories made for women at the Andalusi court. Béla Zsolt Szakács lectures in Art History at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest, as well as for the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University. He is particularly interested in the Romanesque architecture of Central Europe, Christian iconography and the history of monument protection. He is editor and co-author of an overview on photographic collections in East-Central Europe (Guide to Visual Resources of Medieval East-Central Europe, Budapest 2001) and published a monograph on the iconography vii

of the 14th-century Hungarian Angevin Legendary (Budapest 2006, to be published also in English in 2015 titled: The Visual World of the Hungarian Angevin Legendary). He is currently working on village churches in eastern Hungary, and is running a research project on a manual of liturgical arts. Rose Walker is a specialist in the art and architecture of Spain. She was Academic Registrar and Deputy Secretary of the Courtauld Institute of Art, before deciding to pursue a second career as a freelance art historian. She has published a book, Views of Transition. Liturgy and Illumination in Medieval Spain (1998) and a range of articles on sculpture, wall-paintings and the sumptuary arts. She is currently writing a second book, provisionally entitled Art in Spain and Portugal from the Romans to the Early Middle Ages: Routes and Myths.

viii

PREFACE The sixteen essays in this volume are the result of the second in the British Archeological Association’s series of Biennial International Romanesque Conferences — held over three days from 16–18 April 2012 in the lecture theatre of the Botanical Gardens in Palermo. The conference was inspired by a belief that the art and architecture of the Mediterranean between c. 1000 and c. 1250 was susceptible to transcultural exchange to a degree that gave it a peculiar importance in western Europe as a whole. Thus, the initial call for papers invited speakers to discuss points of contact between the Latin West and the Byzantine and Islamic worlds in the 11th and 12th centuries. This took many forms, from the widespread importation of artefacts — textiles, ceramics, ivories and metalwork for the most part — to a specific desire to recruit eastern artists or emulate eastern Mediterranean buildings. Crusading themes were important, as were commercial and artistic contacts with the southern Mediterranean, and the conference specifically encouraged offers of papers on interactions between Islamic, Byzantine and Latin cultures across the whole of the Mediterranean. Such was the promise of the conference, helped by what we saw as the innate potential in bringing scholars together to discuss these themes in a city close to the centre of the Mediterranean. The papers that were finally delivered in Palermo were hearteningly varied in subject and approach, touching on the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Egypt, Sicily, Italy, France, Hungary and Spain, while ranging across media to include discussions of artistic techniques, the movement of artists, the use of architectural models, and the deployment of materials such as ivory, porphyry and bronze. This geographical variety was also reflected in the ninety-one people who attended the conference, and made their way to Palermo from the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Israel, Iceland, Ireland, Slovenia, Hungary and the USA, six of them postgraduate students to whom the British Archaeological Association, with fantastically generous assistance from two of its members, Brendan O’Connor and Glenys Phillips, was able to award scholarships covering the cost of the conference, visits and accommodation. But the discussion did not end with the final conference dinner in the magnificent surroundings of the Convento Sant’Anna in Palermo. As most scholars had travelled considerable distances to attend the conference, and for many this was also a first visit to Palermo, there were two additional days of visits on 19–20 April, enabling the majority of those who attended the conference to spend further time together and visit a variety of Romanesque monuments in Palermo, Monreale and Cefalù. For their help in making the conference possible and illuminating its progress we would particularly like to thank Abigail Wheatley, who offered vital support in the run-up to the conference, and Professor Maria Andaloro, the Reverendo Padre Michele Polizzi and Professor Jeremy Johns, all of whom were instrumental in facilitating a memorable evening visit to the Palazzo dei Normanni. We are also immensely grateful to those who gave site presentations during the Thursday and Friday visits, namely Rosa Bacile, Manuel Castiñeiras, Lindy Grant, Jeremy Johns, John McNeill, Richard Plant and, above all, Jeremy Ashbee, who shouldered much the greatest burden, and uncomplainingly escorted a comet’s tail of scholars, BAA members and guests around Palermo, while offering extended presentations of San Cataldo, San Giovanni degli Eremiti and La Zisa. We are also much indebted to speakers and attendees alike for their rich and enlightening contributions throughout the conference. Sixteen out of the twenty-three papers given at the conference are published here, and though not all the papers were specifically intended for publication, enough were for this volume to reflect the character of the conference.1 Bringing out this set of conference transactions has taken longer than it should, and in the course of it the editors have incurred innumerable debts. Many of these relate to the conference itself, and the editors would like to express their gratitude to the small Steering Group which ultimately brought the conference into being, to the Advisory Panel (see p. v) and, of course, to the contributors. Grateful thanks are also due to Tony Carr for the extraordinary elan he has again brought to the task of providing an index, and to Linda Fisher for her impeccable editorial work. Finally, without the resourcefulness, patience and keen generosity of John Osborn there would be no International Conference series. The editors, the British Archaeological Association, and the wider world of Romanesque scholarship are profoundly in his debt. Rosa Maria Bacile and John McNeill NOTE 1 Papers that were read at the conference but are not published here were ‘The Kingdom of Sicily: The Norman Contribution’ (Caroline Bruzelius and William Tronzo), ‘Inventing Romanesque in Conquest Spain’ (Tom Nickson), ‘The Circulation of Ivories: Expanding Sacred and Cultural Boundaries in the Medieval Mediterranean World’ (Eva Hoffman), ‘Mediterranean Thresholds: Barisanus of Trani, Bonanus of Pisa and the Making of the Mediterranean Bronze Industry’ (Ittai Weinryb), ‘The Pisa Griffin, Lucca Falcon and Mari-Cha Lion’ (Anna Contadini), ‘The Tomb of Christ Rebuilt: Recovery from the Destruction of 1009’ (Martin Biddle), and ‘Crusader Castles’ (Hugh Kennedy).

ix

COLOUR PLATE I

PLATE IA (FOLDA FIG. 2). Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: male and female pilgrims associated with the icon of the Virgin and Child Glykophilousa (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin)

PLATE IB (FOLDA FIG. 4). Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: St James icon (head and torso) and male pilgrim with scallop shell on his scrip (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin)

COLOUR PLATE I I

PLATE II (JOHNS FIG. 7). Musician tuning a Triangular Psaltery. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North-east corner unit, Panel 27. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15002 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

COLOUR PLATE I I I

PLATE III (JOHNS FIG. 9). Scribe. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North-east corner unit, Panel 26. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15002 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

COLOUR PLATE I V

PLATE IVA (JOHNS FIG. 11). Man seated between Two Lions. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North side, Large unit 5, Panel 1. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15102 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

PLATE IVB (JOHNS FIG. 13). Mounted Dragon-Slayer. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, South side, Large unit 15, Panel 1. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15431 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

COLOUR PLATE V

PLATE VA (JOHNS FIG. 14). Mounted Dragon-Slayer. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North side, Large unit 7, Panel 1. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15060 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

PLATE VB (JOHNS FIG. 15). Mounted Dragon-Slayer. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, Central zone, Rhombus 3 (3rd rhombus from west end). Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.16084 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

COLOUR PLATE VI

PlATE VI (JOHNS FIG. 16). Marvellous Combat between Horseman and Dragon. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, South side, Large unit 18, Panel 14. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15060 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

COLOUR PLATE VI I

PLATE VIIA (JOHNS FIG. 20). Man rending Lion. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, South side, Large unit 13, Panel 1. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15491 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

PLATE VIIB (JOHNS FIG. 22). Man rending griffin. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North side, Panel 4. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre, ISL.14992 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

COLOUR PLATE VI I I

PLATE VIIIA (JOHNS FIG. 23). Man riding a Lion. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North-east corner unit, Panel 2. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre, ISL.14992 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

PLATE VIIIB (JOHNS FIG. 25). Man riding a Lion, detail showing head and headdress. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North-east corner unit, Panel 2. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre, ISL.14992 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh)

COLOUR PLATE I X

PLATE IXA (BACILE FIG. 1). Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Frederick II (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo)

PLATE IXB (BACILE FIG. 9). Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Constance (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo)

COLOUR PLATE X

PLATE XA (GEYMONAT FIG. 1).

PLATE XB (GEYMONAT FIG. 2). Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma)

Parma Baptistery: vault (Lisa Zdybel)

Parma Baptistery: interior (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni

COLOUR PLATE XI

PLATE XIA (BOTO FIG. 14). Girona Beatus: Cathedral of Girona, MS 7, fol. 159. Inter arbustis minimis requiescun arenacis (in middle of little trees [the hares] rest thirsty) (© Patrimoni. Catedral de Girona)

PLATE XIB (BOTO FIG. 15). Girona Beatus: Cathedral of Girona, MS 7, fol. 157v. Oceanus and a rider on an hybrid being (© Patrimoni.Catedral de Girona)

COLOUR PLATE XI I

PLATE XIIA (OCON FIG. 3). Paintings of the chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)

PLATE XIIB (OCON FIG. 4). Crucifixion. Chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)

COLOUR PLATE XI I I

PLATE XIIIA (CASTIÑEIRAS FIG. 5). Altar frontal from Santa Maria d’Avià (Berguedà). Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (© MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)

PLATE XIIIB (CASTIÑEIRAS FIG. 10). Altar frontal from Santa Maria d’Avià (Berguedà). Annunciation and Vsitation (upper register, left side). Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (© MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)

COLOUR PLATE XI V

PLATE XIVA (CASTIÑEIRAS FIG. 6). (Conflent) (Manuel Castiñeiras)

Magister Alexander (?), Altar frontal from Sainte-Marie d’Oreilla

PLATE XIVB (CASTIÑEIRAS FIG. 14). Altar frontal from Sant Andreu de Baltarga (Baixa Cerdanya) by the workshop of Magister Alexander. Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (© MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/ Sagristà)

COLOUR PLATE XV

PLATE XV (CASTIÑEIRAS FIG. 13). Charter confirming the foundation of the Confraternity of St Martin at the abbey of Saint-Martin-du-Canigou (Conflent), Paris: École des Beaux-Arts, Collection Jean Masson Mn. Mas 38 (Photo © Beaux-Arts de Paris, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image Beaux-arts de Paris)

COLOUR PLATE XVI

PLATE XVI (CASTIÑEIRAS FIG. 29). Altar frontal from Sant Andreu de Baltarga (Baixa Cerdanya) by the workshop of Magister Alexander: detail of Virgin and Saint John. Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (© MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 1–14

TWELFTH-CENTURY PILGRIMAGE ART IN BETHLEHEM AND JERUSALEM: POINTS OF CONTACT BETWEEN EUROPE AND THE CRUSADER KINGDOM Jaroslav Folda During the 12th century the three most important sites in the Holy Land were in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth. While these sites were controlled by the Crusaders (c. 1099– 1187), the numbers of pilgrims from the West increased, and the churches at each of the sites were gradually renovated and decorated. While they were cathedral churches for their respective Latin bishop, archbishop, or patriarch, nonetheless their greatest function was as centres of Christian pilgrimage. The artistic patronage of these pilgrims to the Holy Land in the 12th century provides ample evidence for the diversity of European visitors to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. In this regard, I propose that it was the church at Bethlehem that included the largest programme of pilgrim-sponsored art from the 12th century. Pilgrims to Bethlehem engaged local painters to provide icons that would commemorate their patron saints, linking the holy place of the birth of Christ with their European homeland. These large icons, which decorate columns of the nave and aisles of the Church of the Nativity, include a surprisingly diverse array of saintly figures that include cult images of the Virgin and Child, along with the images of apostles, bishops, deacons, ascetics, soldier-saints, holy kings and important female saints. On rare occasions the images of the pilgrims who may have commissioned the column paintings were also represented. Furthermore, in one independent instance there is a small devotional icon which links patron saints associated with the three great Christian pilgrimage sites at the time — Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela — ordered by an anonymous pilgrim who appears to have visited all three sites.

period of Crusader control. Each programme was designed to distinguish its site from the others and to proclaim its special importance to the pilgrims who came there, and proclaim a distinctive visual message through various media. These artistic programmes were also designed to relate to the other ecclesiastical and political functions that these churches served, and those functions differed significantly. Whereas the church of the Holy Sepulchre was a major focus of pilgrimage, it was also the cathedral church of the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, and the coronation and burial church of the Latin kings of Jerusalem.1 By contrast, the church at Bethlehem played no role as a state church for the kingdom after 1118, and the church at Nazareth (far to the north of Jerusalem) had no state function. While all were cathedral churches for their respective Latin bishop or archbishop, their greatest function was as centres of Christian

During the 12th century the three most important dominical sites in the Holy Land were located in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth. The church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was believed to incorporate the rock-cut tomb in which Jesus was buried and where he rose from the dead. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was the place where Jesus was born and laid in a manger, and where the Magi came to worship him. The church of the Annunciation in Nazareth was the place where Mary was told she would be the mother of God, and where the Incarnation took place. During the period when these sites were controlled by the Crusaders, from 1099 to 1187, the numbers of pilgrims from the West increased, and each of the sites was gradually renovated and decorated. We are all familiar to some extent with the artistic programmes that were commissioned during the © British Archaeological Association 2015

1

jaroslav folda pilgrimage is indicated by the fact that some of these images are accompanied by ‘portraits’ of kneeling donors who appear to be pilgrims, and it was they who apparently commissioned an individual icon. In this regard, it is notable that all of the extant donor/ pilgrims depicted (there are three sets) are apparently from the West. Third: the very earliest icon presents the holy image of the full-length Virgin and Child, Glykophilousa, enthroned in the cave grotto of Bethlehem itself, a celebration of the birth of Jesus and Mary’s child in this holy place. It is dated by an inscription to 1130, and is the only one of these icons to be dated. Stylistic analysis, however, makes it clear that these thirty icons were painted by different artists at different times between 1130 and 1187, most likely on commission. Therefore it is worth looking at a selection of examples to see which saints are honoured, reflecting the devotion of pilgrims from various parts of the Christian world, and what specific links can be established between Bethlehem and western Europe. As already mentioned, the earliest extant encaustic painting features an icon of the Virgin and Child, Glykophilousa, enthroned in the cave grotto in Bethlehem, on the west side of the fifth column in the south aisle of the church.5 It is a well-known Byzantine iconographic type, the Virgin of Tenderness, but the image is given a distinctly western formal and emotional flavour by an Italo-byzantine Crusader painter. It is also notable that the icon deploys inscriptions in Latin: there are two epigrammatic prayers: one below on the red border, ‘O Heavenly Virgin, grant solace to the needy’; and one above on the upper part of the image, ‘To the son, the true God, be merciful to these distressed ones’. The halo is then flanked by the inscription ‘Sca Maria, with a damaged inscription below this which appears to give a date of 1130.6 Mary holds the baby close to her with both arms; his head is nestled against her cheek and his arms reach around her neck. In style, this artist is generally comparable to the two Byzantinizing painters in the Melisende Psalter (London, British Library, Egerton MS 1139), but here it seems likely the icon painter could be a first generation Crusader painter who may originally be from southern Italy. Although the date of the Psalter is slightly later, c. 1135, both the icon and the Psalter exhibit very strong Byzantine influence in these significant early examples of Crusader painting.7 In addition to the two figures inside the red border of the icon, there are three figures outside (Fig. 2). At the lower left, directly beneath the vertical red strip of the border, is a kneeling bearded male figure whose body is in profile. He wears a grey tunic and a luxurious red cloak with a rabbit or squirrel fur lining. His head is in three-quarter view, while his dress and the large kite-shaped shield before him make clear that he is western European, although he is not otherwise identified. To the right are two kneeling women with long blonde hair, also in profile: the older figure behind is in white, with the younger woman dressed in red in

pilgrimage. In this regard, it is notable that the largest extant 12th-century programme of pilgrim-sponsored art among these three sites was that of the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. BETHLEHEM I make my case for the importance of pilgrimsponsored art in the Church of the Nativity and its role as a pilgrimage church on the basis of a special feature of its artistic decoration not found in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem nor in the church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. Each of these three great Holy Land churches had their own principal artistic programme achieved in specific campaigns: prior to 1149 at the church of the Holy Sepulchre, between 1167 and 1169 at the Church of the Nativity, and in the late 1170s at the church of the Annunciation.2 The Church of the Nativity is unique in having works of art commissioned by pilgrims painted on its columns from as early as 1130, that were then added to more or less continuously until shortly before 1187. I am referring here to a series of large icons, typically c. 1.50–1.75 m high and c. 500–800 mm wide, executed in encaustic, a wax technique, on the columns of the south aisle and nave. Altogether thirty of these icons survive in whole or in part.3 The icons deploy a traditional Byzantine format, that is, they are frontal images, with mostly standing figures full-length framed by red borders. They are all more or less the same large size, but even though in sequence they were painted somewhat randomly in the nave and south aisle between 1130 and the 1180s, by c. 1187 all twenty-two columns of the main nave had received an icon, along with six columns of the south aisle (Fig. 1).4 I suggest that these are direct reflections of the experience of pilgrimage to Bethlehem during the 12th century, and that some of these icons act as a link between the art of western Europe and that of the eastern Mediterranean. What is the specific evidence? First: the figures on these icons include a variety of images of saints worshipped in different, indeed far-flung parts of the Christian world, not just in the Crusader and Byzantine East. They include Old and New Testament figures, male and female martyrs, female virgins and male confessors, kings, bishops, warriors, deacons and devout ascetics from the East and the West. Some are universal saints known to Christians everywhere; other saints are known only in specific localized regions and were most likely commissioned by pilgrims from those areas; a number of these saints come from western Europe. Notable examples include St Leonard, born in France and founder of the monastery of Noblat near Limoges, St Catald, born in Ireland and who later became the bishop of Taranto, St Knute, king of the Danes, St Olaf, king of Norway, and St Fusca, from Torcello. Second: their direct link to the phenomenon of 2

twelfth-century pilgrimage art in bethlehem and jerusalem

Figure 1 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: Diagram of the locations of images, with their likely dates of execution listed below: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

James the Greater, with pilgrims (c. 1170s/early 1180s) Bartholomew (c. 1167–69) Virgin Glykophilousa, with pilgrims (1130) Brasius (c. early 1130s) Anne Nikopoia (c. 1140s–52) Leo (c. 1167–69) Marina/Margaret II (c. 1167–69) Virgin Hodegetria (c. 1130–87) Theodosius (c. 1167–69) Sabas (c. 1167–69) Stephen (c. 1140s–52) Knute (c. 1150s) Olaf, with pilgrim (c. 1150s) Vincent (c. 1140s–52) John the Baptist (c. 1150s)

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

Elijah (c. mid-1130s) Onuphrius (c. 1140s–52) Fusca (c. 1167–69) Marina/Margaret I (c. 1167–69) Macarius (c. 1140s–52) Anthony (c. 1167–69) Euthymius (c. 1167–69) George (c. 1150s) Leonard (c. 1167–69) Cosmas (c. 1167–69) Damian (c. 1167–69) Catald (c. 1140s–52) Virgin Galaktotrophousa (c. mid-1130s) John the Evangelist (c. 1167–69) Crucifixion (c. 1130–87)

From J. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (Cambridge 1995) (Courtesy of Cambridge University Press) 3

jaroslav folda

Figure 2 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: male and female pilgrims associated with the icon of the Virgin and Child Glykophilousa (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin). See also Plate IA in print edition

variety of different places with different subjects in mind. Seven of these icons represent specifically western saints, while twelve represent saints revered equally by Christians in the East and the West, and a number contain specifically Byzantine saints. Because of their damaged condition, not all of the images on these icons are easily visible, but I have chosen examples from each of these three categories, with an emphasis on saints from the West, so as to discuss both what can be seen and to provide evidence for the importance of Christian pilgrimage to Bethlehem, as a 12th-century phenomenon that links East to the West. We can look first at the other two icons which are accompanied by pilgrims/donors. As a result of Scandinavian pilgrimages to the Holy Land in the 1150s, we find icons celebrating two prominent northern saintly kings. There is Olaf, king of Norway (col. 5/south side, main nave) (Fig. 3), and Knute IV, king of the Danes (col. 4/south side, main nave).10 One of these icons, that of King Olaf, is accompanied by a kneeling donor or pilgrim. There is also an inscription, ‘Scs’, to the left of his halo, and on the right side ‘Olauus Rex: Norwagie:’ in Latin only. Note that, when the icon of Olaf was painted during the 1150s, fewer than fourteen icons had then been added to the columns at Bethlehem, all of which seem to have been randomly placed in the nave or south aisle.11 Olaf II Haraldsson (995–1030), baptized in Rouen in 1014, ruled for fifteen years. He twice planned to go on

the foreground. They too wear western dresses. These three figures, presumably a man with his wife and daughter, seem likely to be western pilgrims in Bethlehem in 1130, types of 12th-century Magi in effect come to worship the Child in the arms of his mother in the cave grotto. The fact that the letter ‘W’ appears over the head of the kneeling man and the letter ‘A’ appears over the head of the older kneeling woman on the red border of the icon suggests that, if these are abbreviations for their names, they are most likely to be from northern Europe.8 Although the figures are small in scale compared to the Virgin and Child, they are nonetheless boldly positioned with direct access to the cult figures, the heads of the man and the older woman overlapping the icon’s lower border. Indeed, they are most likely the donors, and this is their devotional icon. Even if we do not know their names or where exactly they came from, it is significant that the earliest datable icon on the columns of the Church of the Nativity is what appears to be a pilgrim’s icon. This demonstrates both the presence and importance of western pilgrims, as well as the significance of pilgrimage for the artistic embellishment of this holy site. This image of the Virgin Glykophilousa is one of four column-based icons that focus on the image of the Virgin, three of which appear in the south aisle, testifying to an entirely appropriate devotion to Mary, mother of Jesus, at this holy site.9 Elsewhere, icons were apparently commissioned by pilgrims from a 4

twelfth-century pilgrimage art in bethlehem and jerusalem

Figure 3 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: St Olaf icon seen from left and right (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin)

5

jaroslav folda presumably Norwegian, was a member of some aristocratic family, perhaps even the royal family, and was responsible for commissioning the image. It is not perhaps surprising that the third saint to be depicted in an icon at Bethlehem associated with a pilgrim/donor is none other than St James the Greater. He is shown on the first column of the south aisle, facing west, and is the work of another Crusader artist with Italian ancestry (Fig. 4). This icon has an inscription in Latin only, ‘Sanctus Iacobus’ (Feast day: 25 July).15 It is interesting, moreover, that the icon of St James the Greater at Bethlehem is one of the last icons to have been created, c. 1180, that is, after the main mosaic project of 1167–69.16 Furthermore, this icon is accompanied by two kneeling pilgrims: a male pilgrim to the lower left, and a female pilgrim to the lower right.17 The figure of St James is quite badly damaged and most of the lower portion of the figure is lost. However, we can make him out as a robust, tall, bearded figure with a large book. The two pilgrims/ donors kneel outside the frame at the same level as the ground line on which he is standing. These two figures are interesting as not only do they wear western dress, but they are also identified as pilgrims in a manner not seen with the others, namely they both

pilgrimage, and though he never reached the Holy Land himself he was known in Norway as Jorsalafarir, ‘Jerusalem pilgrim’, because of his avowed intention. Olaf’s cult as the most popular saint in Norway began to develop immediately on his death in 1030. His icon in Bethlehem was probably commissioned during a period of intense Norwegian pilgrimage to the Holy Land led by men such as Sigurd Mauclerc or Baron Roegnwaldr III, between 1130 and the 1150s.12 What is notable about the imagery of both of these kings is that for them the iconography of imperial Byzantine rulers is combined with that of western royalty — with western crowns, fur-lined garments and elaborate western shields, which linked them also to the icons of Byzantine warrior saints, such as that of St George, which was also painted at this time on the north side of the nave.13 Equally notable is that a praying female pilgrim or donor is depicted kneeling in a three-quarter pose on the same ground line as King Olaf. Her face is nearly frontal and her costume is very similar to that of the king with a tunic and cloak. She also has a dark head-dress covering her hair.14 She could represent one of the many Scandinavian pilgrims who came to Bethlehem around 1150. Indeed, it is even possible that this solitary female pilgrim,

Figure 4 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: St James icon (head and torso) and male pilgrim with scallop shell on his scrip (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin). See also Plate IB in print edition 6

twelfth-century pilgrimage art in bethlehem and jerusalem exclusively confined to the West.23 Cataldus is also given a bilingual inscription, which may be taken in this case to be a means of identifying an unfamiliar saint for the benefit of more local audiences. The image of Cataldus is badly damaged, so it is difficult to say much about the style of this figure other than that he is represented in a liturgical costume comparable to other western bishops at Bethlehem, that is, in Latin episcopal garments. The legend of Cataldus was that he was born in Ireland, but after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the mid- or late 7th century, he took up residence in Taranto, where he became bishop. His cult flourished after the rediscovery of his tomb by Drogo, the newly appointed Norman archbishop of Taranto, while excavating the new crypt of Taranto Cathedral in 1071, and became more widely celebrated across southern Italy in the course of the 12th century, particularly around Taranto and the Salentine peninsula. It is at the period when the cult was beginning to become more popular that perhaps a NormanApulian pilgrim commissioned this icon for the column in Bethlehem. We have already noted the 1150s icons of two Scandinavian kings, Knute IV and Olaf, suggesting that pilgrimage from the West was flourishing after the Second Crusade. There is also an icon of St George (col. 4/north side, main nave: bilingual inscription) depicted as a warrior standing frontally.24 We might comment that of all the soldier-saints found in Crusader and Byzantine icons in the Crusader period, George was the most popular, a saintly warrior patron for both the Byzantine and Crusader armies. In the Bethlehem representation, the basic iconography is largely Byzantine: a youthful man with curly hair, he stands frontally dressed in a tunic, with armour and mantle, holding a spear and round shield. Certain important features, however, suggest that he was painted by a Crusader painter well acquainted with the Byzantine tradition. The most visible of these features is the shield, on which the decoration consists of stylized lilies intertwined in a running pattern, a pattern otherwise unknown in Byzantine imagery of St George.25 There is no indication of who might have sponsored this icon at Bethlehem; it could have been a Crusader, or a Byzantine soldier, or even the relative of an English Crusader on pilgrimage. Later icons, particularly those of the 13th century, offer possible examples of this type of donor.26 Most importantly, St George appears as a stately warrior in a painting that was probably slightly later than the saintly warrior kings from Scandinavia, Olaf and Knute. And George was a saint obviously revered in both the East and the West, but with a very special cult location found inside the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, at Lydda/Lod, the traditional place of his martyrdom in the early 4th century.27 By the end of the 1150s, approximately fourteen icons had been painted on the columns, all but two on

wear a scrip on which the scallop shell is prominent, identifying them as pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela now come to Bethlehem. One other point to be made about these pilgrims is that the two kneeling figures here, along with those for the icons of St Olaf and the Virgin and Child Glykophilousa, commissioned icons on which there are only Latin inscriptions, reinforcing the likelihood that they were pilgrims from the West. We will comment on other implications of this below. None of the other column icons at Bethlehem support surviving pilgrim/donor figures, though I take this to reflect a deliberate choice on the part of the donors/patrons not to have commissioned such an image, either because of cost or because of other limiting or cultural circumstances. It seems reasonable nonetheless to suggest that these other icons were the result of similar patronage and were intended to commemorate a special saint here at this holy site. With that in mind, we can consider some other western saints that are likely to have been the choice of a western pilgrim or a Crusader, along with a number of images that were very likely commissioned by local Christians. Among the earliest group of icons, produced shortly after 1130, is the only Old Testament figure; the prophet Elijah (col. 8/south side, main nave). He appears with an inscription in Greek and Latin (Feast day: 20 July).18 In this case, a strongly Byzantinizing Crusader artist appears to work in a strap fold style somewhat similar to the headpiece painter in the Melisende Psalter (c. 1135).19 Given his links to Sinai and his devout asceticism, Elijah probably reflects the interests of local Christians. Like the 1130 Virgin, Glykophilousa, he is represented seated, but here the setting is a landscape, and we see him being fed by ravens in the mountainous wilderness (I Kings 17: 1–6). His significance here is mainly as the Old Testament-ancestor of St Anthony, a saint known as the ‘Second Elijah’.20 In this Palestinian region Elijah came to be regarded as a founder patron of the Carmelites, which order was begun on Mount Carmel at the end of the 12th century. In the following decade, the 1140s, we find six more icons among which there are saints associated with the Holy Land, including the deacon St Stephen with a bilingual inscription (col. 3/south side, main nave).21 Another deacon, though one associated with the West, is St Vincent, who was also given a bilingual inscription and who is represented in a similar way to Stephen.22 It is likely that his image and that of Stephen were both done here by a Crusader artist of Italian background. However, in many ways the most remarkable of this group of 1140s icons is that dedicated to the 7th-century bishop of Taranto, St Cataldus (col. 8/north side, main nave). He is a saint whose cult was important in Apulia and Sicily, but which is otherwise highly localized and almost 7

jaroslav folda columns in the main nave,28 so that when the main project to renovate and expand the mosaic programme of the church was initiated by King Amalrich I, Emperor Manuel I, and Ralph, bishop of Bethlehem in 1167, as documented by the bilingual inscription in the bema, serious attention was seemingly also given to adding further icons to the nave columns. At least twelve new icons appeared in or after 1167.29 The effect was to nearly double the number of icons, and to fill gaps in the nave where many columns had previously remained blank. Some of these icons may have been associated with the mosaic programme, in the sense that we find a series of eastern saints, that is to say Byzantine monks and ascetics, such as St Sabas (col. 2/south side of the main nave; bilingual inscription), St Anthony (col. 2/north side, main nave; bilingual inscription) and St Euthymios (col. 3/north side, main nave; inscription in Greek only).30 Both St Sabas (439–532) and St Anthony (251–356) are celebrated figures in the early monastic movement in the Near East, who are known also in the West. Anthony was widely considered to be one of the founding figures of monasticism, and Sabas was the disciple of St Euthymios, who founded the important monastery now known as Mar Saba, one of the oldest continuously inhabited Orthodox monasteries in the world. Both Anthony and Sabas are given bilingual inscriptions attesting to their recognition in both the Latin and Greek-speaking worlds. St Euthymios, by contrast, is an eastern ascetic little known in the West, whose identifying inscription here is given only in Greek. All three ascetics are represented with canonically correct Byzantine iconography in Byzantine garments (among which those of St Anthony are the best preserved), reflecting the strong Byzantine contribution to the embellishment of Bethlehem’s nave in the 1160s, in that these icons were exactly contemporary with the mosaics of 1167–69. At the same time, there were important western contributions to the new series of icons, two of which are remarkable: St Fusca (col. 10/on the south side of the main nave; bilingual inscription) from the Veneto (Fig. 5) and St Leo (col. 6/in the south aisle facing east) (Fig. 6). St Leo is of course the 5th-century pope (440– 61; Feast days: (west) 11 April and 28 June, and (east) 18 February) who was universally recognized in the East and the West.31 But at Bethlehem he is clearly represented in Latin ecclesiastical garments, mysteriously without the pallium or the papal tiara, and has been given an inscription in Latin only, thereby emphasizing his western significance and the probable western origin of the donor/pilgrim who may have commissioned this image. Leo’s heroic confrontations with Attila and Genseric, the Vandal king, and his attempts to save Rome from destruction, no doubt endeared him to the Crusaders who looked for similar leadership in the dangerous situation they faced against the Muslims. His image was probably painted by a local Crusader artist under Byzantine influence.

Few female saints appear among the icons other than the Virgin Mary, and the female martyr, St Fusca.32 This last is arguably the most unexpected saint of the entire group, and is important for the Bethlehem programme in three particular ways. First, her cult was located in northern Italy, centred on her shrine church at Torcello, and she was little known in the east. So along with the Venetian mosaicist, Zan, who signed the mosaics in the south transept at Bethlehem, she reflects a Venetian presence in Bethlehem in the late 1160s or perhaps 1170s.33 For the benefit of eastern pilgrims her inscription is bilingual, Latin and Greek, but exceptionally brief. Secondly, an Arabic inscription in black ink is visible at shoulder level to the left of her image.34 This inscription is presumably the work of an Arab visitor who came to Bethlehem in June 1192, after Jerusalem and Bethlehem had fallen into Muslim hands. As such this inscription provides a terminus ante quem for the icon, and in effect the entire series of icons extant in the nave and south aisle of the church, meaning the whole series was done between 1130 and, in all likelihood, the fall of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in 1187, but certainly before 1192. Finally, the St Fusca icon is unique in that it faces west. Unlike the other twenty-one nave icons, St Fusca does not face across the nave on a north–south axis, but westwards like the icons on the columns of the south aisle, for example, St James the Greater, St Batholomew, the Virgin Glykophilousa, St Anne Nikopoia, St Margaret/Marina II and the Virgin Hodegetria. This suggests that the artist wished to associate the icon of St Fusca with the images of the south aisle and not those of the main nave on the columns, suggesting in turn that it may have been painted just before mosaics were laid in the nave.35 It is also further evidence for the loose supervision of the nave icons in the sense that the wishes of the patron who commissioned the icon of St Fusca superseded the existing arrangement for the other twenty-one icons of the nave. Following this phase of intense artistic activity at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, only a few icons were painted in the 1170s and 1180s. The latest is likely to have been the image of St James the Greater. This is interesting with regard to one more piece of evidence in regard to pilgrimage art in the Holy Land. THE SIX-FIGURE ICON FROM ST CATHERINE, MOUNT SINAI This is a small icon of six saints for which the imagery, though clearly western, relates more to Jerusalem than to Bethlehem (Fig. 7). It is a small devotional icon dating to c. 1180 from the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, one of only two extant 12th centuryCrusader icons yet identified. First published by Kurt Weitzmann in 1966, it represents six saints in a twotier arrangement with the central figure on the upper 8

twelfth-century pilgrimage art in bethlehem and jerusalem

Figure 5 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: icons of St Fusca and St Marina/Margaret (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin) 9

jaroslav folda level identified by inscription as ‘Sanctus Jacobus Magnus’, St James the Greater.36 As compared to the image on the column, here James holds a scroll and blesses, whereas on the column he holds a large book with both hands, like an evangelist, but both feature full-length, frontal standing figures. When the icon was first published emphasis was placed on identifying the Crusader characteristics of the painting, encompassing the choice and western influenced iconography of the saints, and their connection to Jerusalem and the Crusades. The icon was also dated in the late 12th century, prior to 1187, primarily on stylistic parallels with Crusader monumental painting and manuscript illumination. Although we do not know the identity of the patron who ordered this icon, as with most of the column icons, we can be confident that he or she was Frankish. Beside the deacon Lawrence, two western French saints are depicted, St Leonard of Noblac and St Martin of Tours, all three in the lower tier. All six saints are also identified with a Latin inscription only. It seems most likely that the icon was ordered in Jerusalem, based on the choice of saints and the unByzantine organization and format of the panel. The double-decker format of this icon does not follow characteristic Byzantine types, such as the iconostasis beam icons with the Dodekaorta, the intercolumnar iconostasis icons with the Deësis images, the title-saint icons with scenes of the saint’s life and miracles, and the calendar icons with as many as six to ten tiers of saints.37 This is clearly a devotional icon made for a Frankish patron for which the format might have been inspired by the full-page miniatures of the four evangelists found in Crusader and Byzantine gospel books.38 The poses of the six saints in our icon appear to reflect the frontal images of the Bethlehem column type images, however, rather than the three-quarter poses of the evangelists in the codices. In fact, the image of St James in the top tier central position of the icon clearly seems to be modelled on an image of Jesus, frontal and blessing. The choice of James for this icon is significant because he appears here in the place of honour instead of Christ, as first bishop of Jerusalem who was martyred there. Furthermore he is accompanied by Stephen, the first martyr in Jerusalem, and Paul, who normally appears next to Christ accompanied by Peter. This remarkable grouping can only make sense in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The pose of St James above is echoed by St Martin of Tours below, as a concrete manifestation of the episcopal spiritual authority which flowed from Peter to James to later bishops such as Martin in the West. St Leonard as the patron of prisoners joins James and Martin and the deacon Lawrence as unusual if not unique in this mix of saints from East and West. If we can recognize this Crusader icon as the product of a Frankish pilgrim’s patronage in Jerusalem, we can see new meaning in its imagery. While the upper

Figure 6 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: St Leo (Courtesy of Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin) 10

twelfth-century pilgrimage art in bethlehem and jerusalem

Figure 7 Icon of Six Saints, Monastery of St Catherine, Mt Sinai (Courtesy of Cambridge University Press)

11

jaroslav folda this period that Latin pilgrims began coming to Bethlehem in increasing numbers. While we know very little about who the European pilgrims to Bethlehem were before 1130, what is not in doubt is that the Latin clergy of the Church of the Nativity welcomed a large icon of the Virgin and Child, Glykophilousa, enthroned with three worshipping western pilgrims below on each side as an indication in 1130 of the central importance of pilgrimage to this unique holy site. It was to be the first of thirty such icons. Although the Bethlehem icons were painted at differing times by a variety of artists, they are presented in a broadly similar format. This format is characteristic of Byzantine and Crusader icons, and as such is comparable to the smaller Six Saints icon from Mount Sinai. Most of the saints represented on these columns are full-length, frontal, standing, approximately lifesized figures, seen together with a few variations for full-length seated figures. This very fact suggests that there was some kind of loose overall supervision of what amounts to an artistic expression of pilgrimage made available to pilgrims by the Latin clergy of the Church of the Nativity. It is, however, also clear that the variations found in these icons with regard to size, and to their inscriptions, some in Latin or Greek only, some bilingual, indicate that a standard format was not rigorously enforced. Although their placement seems random, the gradual plan to fill the nave with icons was eventually achieved. The icons in the south aisle, along with the many blank columns both there and elsewhere, attests to the likelihood that more icons might have been created had the Crusaders had been able to hold on to Bethlehem after the end of the 12th century. It is also evident from even the partial selection of saints at Bethlehem that a remarkable ensemble was eventually put together. This was largely unsystematic, generated by, in effect, the random personal choices of visiting pilgrims from both the West and the East. That it featured some little-known saints at the expense of better-known figures makes it all the more likely that the choices were made by pilgrims of means for whom personal and local backgrounds were important. And clearly some of the saints found represented here are quite different from those we might find honoured and commemorated along the camino to Santiago de Compostela or the Via Francigena to Rome. Finally, the icons on the columns in Bethlehem are clearly one of the most important extant artistic statements of the importance of pilgrimage within the Holy Land as well as providing evidence of direct links between the Holy Land and western Europe in the 12th century. Furthermore, the icon of St James the Greater with two pilgrim donors at Bethlehem and the Six Saints Icon from Mount Sinai indicate how active some pilgrims were during the 12th century, visiting not only the Holy Land, but also Rome and/or Santiago de Compostela.

tier of saints still anchors the icon to Jerusalem, the lower tier of saints has important links to the two major pilgrimage routes in the west to Santiago de Compostela and to Rome. The figure of St James the Greater in the upper tier of course also indicates the importance of Compostela, but the figures of St Martin of Tours and Noblac (St-Léonard-de-Noblat) in the Limousin strongly reinforce this importance, as the shrine churches of both saints were celebrated in the 12th-century Pilgrim’s Guide and identified as significant centres on the camino to Santiago. Rome, the third major holy site, is represented here by St Lawrence, one of the seven deacons of ancient Rome, who was martyred during the persecution of Valerian in 258. While there can be no doubt that Lawrence was one of the most famous saints of the Roman church, the choice of St Lawrence rather than St Peter might be accounted for by the personal specifications of the patron. The six saints on the Sinai icon include four found on the columns at Bethlehem, and two, St Paul and St Martin, who are not. There is nothing about this devotional icon which specifically links it to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.39 The point is that, collectively, the saints represented on the Sinai icon will have been painted between 1170 and 1187 and can be seen to refer to the three great pilgrimages of the 12th century, those to Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela. I would also suggest that they are seen from the uniquely Crusader point of view in Jerusalem. The strong possibility exists that the icon was commissioned in Jerusalem by a pilgrim who had visited all three major 12th-century pilgrimage sites. If one accepts this, we can see here concrete evidence in the figural art of the Crusader East at Jerusalem for an idea advanced by Arthur Kingsley Porter in 1923 in regard to Romanesque architecture and sculpture, namely, that there was a ‘circular pilgrimage which should include the Holy Land and Italy as well as Galicia’.40 It is an idea which of course has also been taken up more recently by Manuel Castiñeiras.41 CONCLUSION Having discussed the selection of icons on the columns at Bethlehem, and the small devotional icon now in the Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai, we can conclude with the following observations. After the Crusaders arrived in Bethlehem in 1099, the large and venerable Church of the Nativity and the importance of the holy site attracted the attention of King Baldwin I, who wished to make the church a cathedral. By 1110 the papal legate, Gibelin, had appointed, with royal approval, Aschetinus to be the new Latin bishop of Bethlehem.42 In the meantime, the Church of the Nativity had served as the coronation church of King Baldwin I in 1100, and would serve again for the crowning of King Baldwin II in 1118. It was during 12

twelfth-century pilgrimage art in bethlehem and jerusalem of the pilgrim woman might have been done sometime after, but only shortly after the icon itself? See Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 317. 15 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 40–43, pl. XIII; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 456–57. 16 See note 3 for the dating. 17 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), pl. XIII and fig. 30. 18 Ibid., 32–36; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 163–65. The Greek inscription only gives his name and identifies him as a prophet. The Latin inscription provides his identification as the prophet Elijah and refers to the story of his being fed in the wilderness by a raven. 19 See, e.g., the headpiece images of St John the Evangelist, St Stephen, St Nicholas, St Mary Magdalene, and St Agnes in the Melisende Psalter: Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 151–52. 20 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 34. Antony is called a ‘Second Elijah’ in a hymn read on 17 January. See T. Spasky, ‘Le culte du prophète Elie et sa figure dans la tradition orientale’, Études carmélitaines (1956), f. 222. 21 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 64–69, pl. XX; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 283–84. 22 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 69–72, pl. XIX; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 283–84. 23 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 62–64, pl. XIX; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2) 283–84. 24 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 72–77, pls XXII–XXIII; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 315–17. 25 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 76, also refers to the glove St George wears on his left hand as a western, non-Byzantine element. 26 See, e.g., the icon of St Sergios with a female donor: J. Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, 1187–1291, from the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291 (Cambridge and New York 2005), 339–42. 27 Robin Cormack discusses this site for St George in his article with S. Mihalarios, ‘A Crusader Painting of St George: “maniera greca,” or “lingua franca”?’, Burlington Magazine, 126 (1984), 132–41, with further comments in idem, ‘191 Icon of St George and the Youth of Mytilene’, Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture from British Collections, ed. D. Buckton (London 1994), 176–77. 28 Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 365; fig. 10 illustrates which columns had icons prior to 1160. 29 Ibid., 347 and 350, for the Latin and Greek versions of this text in the bema. 30 There is a special Greek inscription on his scroll: ‘The Father-Superior Anthony has said that obedience and asceticism can subdue the Satans’; Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 86–92; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 366–69. 31 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 60–62; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 368–70. 32 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 102–05; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 368–70. 33 Ibid., (as n. 2), 358, 364, 370. 34 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3),102, pls XXX, XXXI. 35 It seems unlikely that with the strong focus on the nave walls above by the mosaicists in 1167–69 an independent Crusader/ Venetian painter might have left the nave side of his column blank in order to paint his image on the west side of the column. Furthermore, it seems too far-fetched to imagine that this icon painter wanted somehow to position his work parallel to the work of the Venetian mosaicist Zan in the south transept. Visually, someone in the south aisle looking at the St Fusca icon on the nave column would have linked it to the Virgin Hodegetria at the end of the south aisle, but why that might have been intended we do not know. 36 K. Weitzmann, ‘Icon Painting in the Latin Kingdom’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 20 (1966), 54–56, by the same author The Icon (New York 1982), 208–09 (colour plate), and Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 461–62, and col. pl. 41. See also my comments in the forthcoming volume of studies published for the VIII International Congress of Jacobean Studies in Santiago de Compostela.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to thank the officers and organizing committee of the British Archaeological Association for the invitation to participate in the 2012 Palermo conference, and for the opportunity to publish this paper in its transactions. My special thanks go to John McNeill for his careful reading of, penetrating questions about and skilful suggestions for revising the text of my article. Special thanks also go to Rosa Bacile for her assistance during the conference and for her excellent work as editor for this volume. My warm thanks also to my colleague, Manuel Castiñeiras, for his ongoing interest in addressing the problems of East–West interchange in the medieval Mediterranean world. NOTES 1 The Church of the Nativity served as the coronation church for kings Baldwin I and Baldwin II, but thereafter the coronation took place in the church of the Holy Sepulchre until 1187. 2 J. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (Cambridge and New York 1995), 177–245, 347–78, 414–41, I make my case for the dating at 177; I make my case for the dating of the marriage of Amalrich to the Byzantine Princess Maria in 1167 from the date given in the bi-lingual inscription, 1169, at 347; I make my case for the dating after the earthquake of 1170 at 414. See also D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, 3 (Cambridge and New York 2007), 6–72; D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, 1 (Cambridge and New York 1993), 137–56; and D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, 2 (Cambridge and New York 1998), 116–40. 3 See G. Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’, Frankfurter Forschungen zur Kunst, 14 (Berlin 1988), 1–147, for basic information and the best colour reproductions; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 91–7, 163–66, 283–5, 315–8, 364–71, 457–63, for the discussion of dating the paintings and some issues of iconography. 4 Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 93, fig. 2, shows the location of these icons on the columns by 1192. 5 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 15–22; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 91–97. 6 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 17–19; see also the discussion of these inscriptions in Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 94–95, and Pringle, Churches, Corpus, 1 (as n. 2) 154. 7 Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 137–59; and J. Folda, Crusader Art: The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1099–1291 (Aldershot, Burlington 2008), 34, for two colour illustrations. 8 These letters appear with similar abbreviation marks above them. The use of the letter ‘W’ relates to usage in northern Europe. The letters can clearly be seen in the reproductions in Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), pl. VI. 9 Ibid., 22–32; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 96, 163–65. 10 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), 112–25; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 315–17. 11 Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as in n. 3), pls XXXIV–XXXV. 12 Ibid., 117–18. 13 This fur is ‘vair’, that is, squirrel or rabbit fur, not ermine as is sometimes claimed. 14 Her image is faint and barely visible in the photo published by Kuehnel, ‘Wall Painting’ (as n. 3), pl. XXXV, fig. 59, at the lower left. The fact that she is represented alongside of the icon, not below, and that she does not touch Olaf’s image with her supplicating hands or her head has raised the question of whether the image

13

jaroslav folda 37 K. Weitzmann, ‘Icon Programs of the 12th and 13th Centuries at Sinai’, Deltion of the Christian Archaeological Society, 12 (Athens 1986), 63–116. 38 H. Buchthal, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford 1957), 26–27. 39 See Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 2), 461–62, for more discussion comparing the Six Saints icon with the column paintings at Bethlehem.

40 A. K. Porter, Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads, 1 (Boston 1923), 177. 41 The merits of Porter’s ideas are discussed most recently by Manuel Castiñeiras in ‘Compostela, Bari y Jerusalén: tras las huellas de una cultura figurative en los Caminos de Peregrinación’, Ad Limina, 1 (2010), 16–17. 42 B. Hamilton, The Latin Church in the Crusader States (London 1980), 59; D. Pringle, Churches Corpus, 1 (as n. 2), 138.

14

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 15–58

THE OLIPHANT: A CALL FOR A SHIFT OF PERSPECTIVE Mariam Rosser-Owen Oliphants are ivory horns made from an elephant’s tusk, which may be lightly faceted or carved with figurative motifs. Some eighty surviving oliphants decorated in a variety of styles (‘Islamic’, ‘Byzantine’ and ‘Latin’) can be attributed to southern Italy, and possibly other European centres, in the late 11th to the late 12th centuries. However, a decade ago a hypothesis was advanced arguing that some of these objects — the so-called ‘Saracenic’ group — were conceived and carved in Fatimid Egypt. This hypothesis has never been critiqued, and is now appearing in Islamic art scholarship. This article presents a detailed consideration of the Cairene origin theory, and argues for a reassessment of the oliphants by considering the ‘Saracenic’ group as one small subset of a much wider, European cultural phenomenon, which includes horns in materials other than ivory. By examining stylistic connections with the art of southern Italy under Norman hegemony, and the cultural conditions in which such horns were used and preserved, it aims to redirect the focus of future studies of these objects away from the Islamic world.

INTRODUCTION

discussion concluding the Cairene origin of Shalem’s Group II is two short paragraphs, just thirty-eight lines, long; while the ‘quite certain’ Islamic origin of his Group III is established in three paragraphs (42 lines).2 Despite these tentative foundations, this ‘Cairene origin theory’ has nevertheless already taken hold in the Islamic art field.3 However, this attribution still needs to be corroborated with other evidence — cultural, historic, economic, as well as considerations of materials, techniques and style. In this article, I will engage with Shalem’s arguments for the Fatimid attribution, before taking a step back to consider what I see as the problems with the Fatimid/Islamic interpretation. Part 1 provides a summary of Shalem’s arguments for assigning some of the oliphants to the Islamic world, followed by an analysis of those arguments; next follows a reconsideration of Ernst Kühnel’s three main points against an Islamic attribution (the lack of representations of horns and horn-blowers in Islamic art; the absence of medieval oliphants found in ‘the East’; the absence of reference to ivory horns in medieval Arabic sources), which are still pertinent. In Part 2, I concentrate on expanding the group of oliphants under discussion, by considering the different groups that exist outside the hitherto narrow focus on the ‘Saracenic group’. Connections will be made with oliphants decorated in other perceived styles (for example, ‘Byzantine’), as

The fact that the majority of the medieval oliphants were usually decorated with ‘oriental’ or ‘orientalised’ motifs suggests that in the collective memory of medieval man the origin of the oliphant was probably associated with the East.1

In his book, The Oliphant: Islamic Objects in Historical Context, Avinoam Shalem revisited the longdebated question of where a group of decoratively carved elephant tusks, known as oliphants, were made (Figs 1 and 2). This highly stimulating work was born of many years of scholarship on the author’s part, and provides an extremely useful encapsulation of the historiography of this subject as well as advancing new ideas and theories about the context, function and production of ivory horns. In his chapter on ‘Stylistic classification’, and especially in the section on ‘Stylistic groups’, Shalem presented the hypothesis, in some respects quite tentatively, that some of these ivory horns are Islamic objects — that is, they were conceptualized and produced in Fatimid Egypt, in the early 11th century. As I will discuss in more detail below, this attribution was based on stylistic comparisons with examples of Fatimid woodwork, in the (significant) absence of securely identifiable examples of Fatimid ivory with which to compare these objects, and some observations about carving technique. The © British Archaeological Association 2015

15

mariam rosser-owen

Figure 1 Oliphant in the National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (A.1956.562) (© National Museums Scotland)

16

the oliphant within a much larger class of horns in all materials that had a very specific role to play in the culture of the Latin West. Finally, in the concluding discussion, I turn to questions of chronology, places of production and consumption, showing that the balance of evidence very much rests with southern Italy in the late 11th to the late 12th century. It is posited that the conception and creation of oliphants was a paradigmatically Italo-Norman product. But, first, what is an oliphant? This is the term used to describe a tusk-shaped ivory object that has been carved from an elephant’s tusk, in some cases decoratively, in others quite simply, and that has at some later point been presented to a European church treasury. The eighty-odd surviving oliphants have been assigned mainly to the 11th and 12th centuries. The etymology of the term will be discussed below, but first it is pertinent to understand how an oliphant is actually made.4 The most likely process was to take advantage of the natural morphology of an elephant’s tusk (Fig. 3), in particular the pulp cavity which is a conical-shaped hollow occupying 20–30% of the length of the fully grown tusk (it can be more in young animals). The small and narrow examples (such as Kühnel nos 72–75) may have been made from milk teeth. Three or four centimetres of dentine are left around the hollow core, which allows for the carving of some surface decoration. The dentine between the pulp cavity and the tusk’s ‘bark’ (called cementum) could be shaved into very thin panels to be used for Figure 2 Oliphant in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Frederick Brown Fund and H. E. Bolles Fund (50.3426) (© 2015, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

well as those that are simply left out of consideration, taking as a particular point of reference the Horn of Ulf in York Minster (Fig. 17). I next examine stylistic connections between the decoration on the oliphants and contemporary Italian sculpture, including a discussion of the significant elements which are not common in the repertoire of Islamic art motifs. Part 3 turns to the cultural context within which the oliphants were used, considering their primary role as functional objects within the noble hunt, and their repurposing as reliquaries in ecclesiastical treasuries, which has ensured their preservation. This mode of transfer is analysed in the context of the use by European nobles of symbolic objects to gift land to the Church, especially after the Norman conquest, when land ownership was particularly contested. I then broaden the field still further by discussing non-ivory horns and other objects with an association to noble hunting practices, which have — like the oliphants — acquired an almost magical mystique since medieval times. Oliphants will be seen to be one type of object

Figure 3 Diagram showing (on the right) how an oliphant is formed from an elephant tusk along with other types of ivory objects (© all rights reserved, D. GaboritChopin, Ivoires. De l’Orient ancient aux Temps Modernes (Paris, Musée du Louvre, 2004) 17

mariam rosser-owen ‘oliphants’, and rightly so, as it forces scholars to stop thinking of ivory horns simply within the ‘Crusader’ context of medieval Europe.9 The surviving African oliphants date from the late 15th/early 16th century at the earliest, and indeed European oliphants are known from later dates as well: the V&A collection, for example, includes an early-14th-century oliphant which is Gothic in style.10 These are never included in the corpora of oliphants. The fixation on the ‘Saracenic’ group has developed through historiographical accident. The great cataloguer of ivories, Adolph Goldschmidt (1863–1944), never published his planned volume on ivory horns, and this gap was partially filled by Otto von Falke (1862–1942), who was the first to establish a division between those oliphants he attributed on the one hand to Egypt and Italy and, on the other, to Byzantium.11 In 1959, Kühnel (1882–1964) took the Egypt and Italy grouping and refined it, arguing that the whole group was made by Muslim craftsmen active in southern Italy, more specifically in cosmopolitan Amalfi. The reasons for bringing Islam into the picture at all were based entirely on style, as I shall discuss. Kühnel’s earlier essay was reprinted in his great posthumous work, Die islamischen Elfenbeinskulpturen, together with a fully illustrated catalogue of the ‘Saracenic’ group.12 A corpus of all oliphants was planned but not completed until 2014. As a consequence, the so-called ‘Saracenic’ group is the most published and best known, but it only comprises about one-third of the extant ivory horns. Kühnel divided the seventyfive oliphants known to him into four groups: (i) ‘Saracenic’ (about 30), thought to be made by Arab craftsmen or at least by western workshops strongly influenced by Fatimid motifs, which Kühnel thought was likely to be in southern Italy; (ii) a ‘Byzantine’ group (again about 30), of which he thought only a few were actually made in Constantinople, while probably most were again made in southern Italy (Salerno, Amalfi or Sicily); (iii) a European group (about 10), most of them made over the Alps, probably in England and Scandinavia; (iv) the rest of the oliphants, each unique.13 Now that the eagerly awaited corpus of medieval oliphants has been published, there is finally a single place where researchers can access images of all known ivory horns, and readily see the great differences that exist across the wider group.14 The point of departure for this paper is, therefore, how can we fully understand a phenomenon if we only concentrate on one tiny sub-set of it? A more significant hindrance to the proper consideration of this body of objects is the division of art history into discrete disciplines. Consequently, Islamic art historians are generally only interested in the oliphants decorated in an ‘Islamic’ style, while Byzantinists only look at those decorated in a ‘Byzantine’ style. Jill Caskey, in writing about the art of Norman southern Italy, has called this the ‘dissective tendency’.15 We

veneer, while the remainder of the tusk presents pure, good quality dentine which can be carved into a range of possible objects. This is significant when considering the time and place in which the oliphants were conceived and produced, as I will discuss below; it suggests that the idea to make oliphants occurred in a region where there was intense ivory production, and derived from the desire not to waste any element of the precious tusk. A secondary point to keep in mind is that the ivory material itself might to an extent have dictated issues of carving style and technique. Commonalities between ivories carved far apart, geographically and temporally, may be due to methods of production — cutting tools as well as artists’ empirical practice — remaining essentially the same over time. Iconographic, technical and stylistic similarities should not necessarily be considered etiologically — in the sense of being reasons for linking an object to a specific site or circumstance of origin — but might be caused by craftsmen’s common ways of working with a particular material. The stylistic and technical aspects in themselves should not be considered without reference to wider cultural and contextual factors. The word ‘oliphant’ — deriving from the Old French for ‘elephant’ — was coined in the chivalric epic known as the Song of Roland, written down in Anglo-Norman in the mid-12th century: the horn makes its appearance when Roland, fighting the Arabs in Spain at the battle of Roncevaux in 778, blows with all his might to recall his master Charlemagne.5 As David Ebitz noted, ‘the attribution of an ivory horn to Roland may be a reason for, and at least symptomatic of, the widespread popularity of this kind of horn as the hero’s horn par excellence’.6 That is, the 12th-century writer of the Chanson gives 8th-century Roland an ivory horn, because in the Norman context in which the Song was composed, that was already a sine qua non of the noble warrior’s accoutrements. A consequence of this etymology is that the word ‘oliphant’ has come to have a particular connotation of the intersection of Christian and Muslim cultures, which is now almost the only context in which these objects are discussed.7 This fixates scholars on a particular group, those that Kühnel originally called the ‘Saracenic’ group, which — as Shalem has stated it — seems to conform to three styles: ‘near-Fatimid, nearer-Fatimid and nearest-Fatimid’.8 This fixation has blinkered our view to all the other types of oliphants that were decorated in rather different styles, indeed all the other types of non-ivory horns that were also used by medieval noble Europeans. Might it be time to stop calling these objects ‘oliphants’ at all, as a way of opening our minds to this larger context? Alternatively, we might broaden the categories encompassed by this term: Ezio Bassani, who has written extensively on ivory horns in the sub-Saharan African context, insists on calling these objects 18

the oliphant same time he seems hesitant to ‘rule out’ the ‘probable production of Group I in Fatimid Cairo’. In his 2014 volume, he opts more broadly for ‘Egypt, southern Italy or Sicily’ for the locus of production. The large number of objects associated with Group I suggests they were commissioned by a wealthy clientele.

rarely, for example, consider the (‘Byzantine’-style) Clephane horn in the same context as the (‘Islamic’style) Borradaile horn, both of them in the British Museum and now in fact displayed together in that museum’s Medieval Galleries (Figs 4 and 5).16 However, as Antony Eastmond has recently commented, the ‘Byzantine’ oliphants have been largely ignored because of the unease of Byzantine art historians to consider them as properly Byzantine.17 Islamic art historians should take a leaf out of this book. If Byzantinists find it difficult to recognize anything truly Byzantine about the motifs on some of these oliphants, Islamicists are entitled to ask just how Islamic is the ‘Saracenic’ group? Such labels — whose application is, ultimately, subjective — may turn out to be too fragile to apply to these objects.

Group II (comprising eight oliphants, with two others associated) was ‘probably manufactured in Egypt, most probably in Cairo’.20 These objects have plain, lightly faceted bodies, decorated with raised borders, carved in one plane only, which contain friezes of running animals or geometricized designs of palmette scrolls (Fig. 2). The animals’ bodies are decorated with an elegant rinceau and feature deep scratches to indicate ribs, while their eyes are almond-shaped with pupils appearing at the pointed end rather than in the centre; there are no human figures or fabulous animals in this group. They are carved with the ‘typical oblique cutting back to the ground’. Unfortunately, however, this significant technical characteristic is nowhere defined or explained. There is a brief reference to Anthony Cutler’s The Hand of the Master, where Cutler describes one of the ‘three sorts of cut’ with which Byzantine craftsmen carved all ivories as a ‘cut with a slanting stroke’.21 The group’s style is ‘Islamic par excellence’: this refers to i) the repertoire of animals running after each other, for which ‘no parallels are known in the medieval West’; and ii) the ‘distinctive ornament of palmette scrolls organized within triangles’, of which the clearest example appears on the upper register of the Boston oliphant (Fig. 2). Otherwise ‘similarities’ in the ‘vocabulary of motifs and the treatment of details’ are related to two small wooden objects, one of them found at Fustat, which show the oblique cut ‘typical’ of Group II, as well as the sharp cuts to indicate ribcages and the characteristic elegant rinceaux. This is the basis on which Group II is attributed to Egyptian production. While the wooden quadruped found at Fustat (Shalem’s fig. 63) may well have been made in Fatimid Egypt, the carving of the rinceau and ribcage on its body is much more sophisticated than that on the animals in the Group II oliphants, where the scrollwork is cursory by comparison (see the border of the Edinburgh oliphant in Fig. 1), and actually relate more closely to the animals which feature on the wooden panel from the Palazzo Reale in Palermo.22 The second wooden piece he adduces is in the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin (his fig. 64), and no reason is given for assigning this to Egypt rather than Sicily or southern Italy. Group II also includes four oliphants (in Baltimore, Paris, Edinburgh and Berlin) whose bodies are ‘now decorated’ but which, following Ebitz’s argument about the oliphant in the Musée de Cluny, Shalem thinks likely were originally left plain and recarved later, because their style and carving method differ

PART 1. REASSESSING THE EVIDENCE: ARE THE OLIPHANTS ISLAMIC OBJECTS? In his 2004 study, Shalem focused on Kühnel’s ‘Saracenic’ group, refining its categories still further. He rightly called for ‘definition and clarity’, but this led him to reduce the group under consideration by rejecting at the outset various examples that did not fit his argument.18 The remainder were to be judged on ‘the method of carving and the variety of motifs’. On this basis, he identified three groups — in total, Shalem’s arguments apply to just twenty-four oliphants out of the total known number of eighty-odd. I précis his arguments in the following paragraphs, but refer the reader to his volumes for more specific details and references to particular objects. My discussion of these arguments will follow at the end of this summary. Group I is ‘Fatimid style’.19 It comprises thirteen oliphants, but is associated with a number of caskets and a penbox decorated in the same style. Its designs are characterized by inhabited scrolls and bands, with tiny scratches on the animals’ bodies to indicate fur and plumage; the animals’ eyes are round and the pupils are marked by a puncture at the centre. The cut of the carving tool is straight and deep, the background is left undecorated and the surface smooth, the objects are carved in two planes. A series of stylistic comparisons ‘strongly recall’ Fatimid woodwork: the examples cited include a wooden panel showing a procession of animals and birds inside roundels (which are not interlinked by small circles, as on the oliphants and caskets), and panels from Coptic churches. The remainder of the comparisons made are to southern Italian ivories, a self-fulfilling argument if the workshop producing Group I is to be located in southern Italy. Group I is subject to the ‘dominant force’ of the ‘international Fatimid style’. Though Shalem resists specifically stating a southern Italian localization for the workshop, it is strongly implied, though at the 19

mariam rosser-owen While Shalem does not explicitly state in his 2007 article that he now believes these four oliphants to have been produced in Norman Sicily, this is strongly implied by the concentration on comparisons with other examples produced in Roger’s reign that show the same ‘contrasting juxtaposition of two different styles within a single work of art’ (multilingual inscriptions, coins, the Cappella Palatina, and the royal mantle). He also now appears to have rejected the recarving argument. Finally, Group III (comprising only three oliphants, one each in Paris and Doha while the third was formerly in the Eduard Gans collection) is ‘possibly attributed to Norman Sicily’.25 This group includes the only oliphant to feature an Arabic inscription — the horn now in Doha, which repeats al-yumn, ‘good fortune’ (Fig. 7).26 This phrase is totally generic in, for example, the Mudéjar arts of Spain, that is, Islamicstyle art made for non-Muslim patrons; for this reason, I would agree with Shalem that this feature suggests that the Doha horn and its companions were ‘carved in a Muslim ambience or in an area strongly influenced by Muslim culture’.27 For the same reason, I would completely disagree that the presence of this Kufic inscription ‘might even suggest that these [oliphants] were carved by Muslim craftsmen’. As historians of the arts of medieval Spain know all too well, and have been trying to demonstrate for many years, the presence of Islamic aesthetic elements in a work of art does not mean it was made by Muslims. It seems that art historians of other multicultural areas, where the ‘Mudéjar’ concept also applies, could benefit from adopting a more nuanced approach. The three objects in this group have a single wide decorated band at the top and bottom, without the usual recesses allowed for carrying straps. Their bodies are left plain, with light faceting. The decorated bands are carved with a straight, deep cut, with the background left undecorated. They feature motifs which are ‘undoubtedly Islamic’, including the doublebodied sphinx with a crown on the lower band of the Paris oliphant (Shalem’s fig. 65), peacocks, a seated drinker, the scene of two lions devouring a stag or ox. Other motifs including the ‘lively banquet’, hunting scenes, and ‘busy composition [. . .] in a vegetal background’ recall the painted ceiling of the Cappella Palatina and the probably Fatimid openwork ivory panels now in Berlin and the Bargello. As such, this small group, which is ‘clearly Islamic’, is connected with the ‘opulent Norman city of Palermo’.

Figure 4 ‘Byzantine’ style oliphant in the British Museum (the ‘Clephane Horn’, M&ME 1979,7-1,1) (© Trustees of the British Museum)

from those in their upper and lower zones.23 While these border designs are supposedly Islamic, the bodies of these objects are markedly different, and in the case of the Cluny horn feature obviously Christian scenes (Fig. 6). I will return to this ‘recarving argument’ below, though it should be noted here that in a more recent publication, Shalem has presented a rather different view of these four objects, highlighting instead their ‘hybrid aesthetic’ or ‘Bivisualität’.24 To summarize: two very different styles are not fused into a single hybrid style on these oliphants, but remain separate and contrasting, implying they are consciously recognized and accepted by the craftsmen or patrons as different and ‘other’. This conforms to ‘an aesthetic tendency towards a hybrid style’ which Shalem says developed in the Latin West in the 11th and 12th centuries, in particular in the art of Norman Sicily under Roger II (r. 1105 [as count]/1130 [as king]–1154), whose commissions show ‘the coexistence of two separate aesthetic cultures in a single work of art’, and ‘clearly demonstrate the idea of a multicultural art’.

The clearest recurring theme in Shalem’s analysis is the tendency to treat Sicily, southern Italy and Fatimid Egypt as if they were one and the same thing — unified through the ‘complicated “international” Fatimid style’.28 Shalem is not the first nor is he the only scholar to treat the eastern Mediterranean as if it 20

the oliphant

Figure 5 ‘Saracenic’ style oliphant in the British Museum (the ‘Borradaile Horn’, M&ME 1923,12-5,3) (© Trustees of the British Museum)

21

mariam rosser-owen

Figure 6 Oliphant in the Musée de Cluny, Paris (Cl. 13065) (Mariam Rosser-Owen, by kind permission of the Musée de Cluny-Musée National du Moyen Âge, Paris)

22

the oliphant were an exclusively Fatimid sea in the 11th and 12th centuries — this view is now quite widespread. But these three regions were not the same — politically, confessionally, culturally — though merchants and objects, and thus artistic styles, certainly circulated between them. As Eva Hoffman has discussed, style travels, and imported Fatimid textiles and ceramics may have provided the stylistic models which were ‘translated’ (to use her term) into ivory, though paper may also have played a role, in the form of pattern books or illuminated manuscripts.29 We must also bear in mind the possibility of the circulation of artisans themselves. While the presence of an inscription in Arabic, no matter how generic the content, does suggest that a degree of Islamic style was considered desirable by the carvers or patron of that one oliphant, Shalem has to concede that ‘the fact that none of these carved horns [. . .] bears any Arabic dedicatory inscriptions, which usually ornament costly Islamic ivory artefacts, remains enigmatic’.30 Secondly, Shalem’s stylistic discussion does not go deep or wide enough. The comparisons he makes are selective and surprisingly few in number for the momentous conclusions that are drawn. Few of the Fatimid objects — in wood or ivory — he adduces are securely identified as such, and a vanishingly small number of his comparisons are drawn from Sicilian or southern Italian woodwork, which might feasibly have a comparable carving technique and style. Full discussions of examples such as the doors from George of Antioch’s church (Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, also known as the Martorana), and the panel, perhaps from a ceiling, from the Norman Palace and now in the Galleria Regionale, would have been expected.31 I would even go so far as to ask: what makes the style of the oliphants Fatimid anyway? Should palmettes, roundels containing animals, hunting scenes, and so on, be seen as distinctly and exclusively Islamic? What Islamic art historians call the ‘courtly cycle’ shares a common inheritance from classical antiquity with the art of Byzantium and the Latin West. We will return to stylistic questions in Part 2, but for the moment, in reference to the notion that friezes of running animals are exclusively and identifiably Islamic, without parallel in ‘the West’, I cannot resist drawing attention to the wonderful panel in the British Museum, carved from the tip of a mammoth tusk in France around 13,000 years ago (Fig. 8).32 This panel depicts male and female reindeer swimming one after the other, and is carved with deep, vertical cuts to indicate the female’s ribcage and looser incised strokes to indicate her long fur, in a similar manner to the animals on the oliphants. Far from suggesting that we should see any kind of continuum between this stunning piece of Ice Age art and the medieval oliphants, I merely note here the commonality in carving technique and style between two ivories carved 10,000 years

apart — again, probably due to an empirical familiarity with the material that caused craftsmen to cut and style their works in similar ways, despite geographical and temporal distances. Returning to Shalem’s classification of the ‘Saracenic’ oliphants, stylistic associations appear more objective by reference to carving techniques, above all the ‘oblique cut’, which is proposed as distinctively Fatimid (it is ‘typical’ of his Group II). However, the authority on ivory carving — Cutler, whom Shalem himself cites — is careful to state that ‘three sorts of cut’ are used, each distinguishable from the other but generally used in conjunction. Our ability to discriminate between these techniques should not be confused with the notion that they characterize different plaques (or carvers) [. . .] Not all three strokes were used on every ivory. But no ivory of which I am aware makes use of only one of these methods.33

His ‘cut with a slanting stroke’, also referred to as an ‘oblique cut’, is actually termed ‘Kerbschnitt’ by Cutler, to denote a form of undercutting that ‘removes less material, entering into the ivory but ending against a wall’.34 From the surface it gives the appearance of an undercut, but the carved element remains tethered to the ivory ground and thus has more stability. It helps to create effects of light and shade and gives the carving a greater sense of three-dimensionality. But is Cutler’s ‘Kerbschnitt’ really what Shalem means in the carving technique of the Group II oliphants? It seems unlikely, and it is unfortunate that Shalem does not define what he means by this ‘typical oblique cut’. A detailed physical examination of the oliphant in Edinburgh (Fig. 1), conducted by myself in June 2012, revealed that the bodies of the animals are rendered as three-dimensional by a smoothly rounded edge that curves down to the ivory ground, but does not undercut (Figs 9, 10 and 11).35 Additionally, I detected on this object a combination of both this ‘rounded edge’ and the ‘straight cut’, which is characteristic of Shalem’s Group I. On the Edinburgh oliphant, the walls of the roundels containing animals have a cut straight down to the floor of the tusk, as do the leaves in the interstices between the roundels, and the animals’ legs and other extremities, while their bodies have the ‘rounded edge’ to give them a greater sense of volume. As seems logical, the ivory carver used whatever type of cut was needed to create the desired sculptural effect. The type of cut is thus not a distinctive technique indicative of a specific place of production, and it is certainly not accurate to imply that a particular cut is ‘typical’ of a particular worksite. The Edinburgh horn is one of that sub-group of Shalem’s Group II that is said to feature uncomfortably different styles on its borders (animals running after each other, which Shalem considers to be characteristic of Fatimid production) and the ‘roundel 23

mariam rosser-owen

Figure 7 Oliphant (inscribed al-yumn, ‘good fortune’) in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (MIA IV.11) (© The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha)

Figure 8 The Swimming Reindeer, mammoth ivory (Palart.550) (© Trustees of the British Museum)

design’ (to borrow Hoffman’s phrase) of its body, which Shalem considers characteristic of his Group I (‘Fatimid style’ but possibly made in Southern Italy).36 The Edinburgh horn relates to three other horns which have ‘Group II borders’ but show a different aesthetic on their bodies. As mentioned above, Ebitz argued that these four oliphants had been recarved later, while

Shalem now opts for an explanation based on conscious, multicultural hybridizing. My own study of the Edinburgh oliphant certainly shows that it was carved in one campaign: the surface of the ivory in the body of the horn is at the same level as the borders, which means it cannot have been recarved from an originally faceted body; while the treatment of details on the 24

the oliphant bodies of the animals within roundels is identical to those in the borders. Compare, for example, the treatment of the ribs or the double detail at the animals’ shoulder, in my Figure 9 (from the upper border) and Figure 10 (from the body) — they are identical. All this suggests the simpler explanation that body and border were carved in the same place, at the same time. A recent study by Jennifer Kingsley has come to the same conclusion about the oliphant in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.37 A detailed optical analysis of its motifs and the execution of the carving between the endzones and the body of this oliphant ‘proves that all the carving [. . .] was executed at the same moment, probably by a single craftsman’. Carving ‘signatures’ such as the way of finishing the curls inside the scrollwork (endzone) and on a bird’s wing (body) are identical; while the interlacing snakes that occupy the full length of the inner curve of the horn cannot have been carved in a second phase, firstly because they are at the same level as the carving around them and secondly, as Kingsley points out, the design of the encircling borders has not been planned to match up if the snake motif were to be removed. Kingsley also shows how the overall design of the oliphant has been conceived to accommodate both vertical and horizontal axes of symmetry, which can only have been produced in a single campaign. Significantly, Kingsley does not believe the stylistic differences between body and border to be ideologically motivated:

Figure 9 Cut with a rounded edge around the body of an animal (upper border)

In no way does the carver signal his design choices to be motivated by anything but a response to the medium, nor does he introduce motifs that carry with them references to specific origins such as Christian religious motifs or Kufic writing [. . .] Rather the carver of the Walters’ oliphant worked to create a harmonious effect out of a wide variety of forms organized and oriented in what are at times visually discontinuous ways.38

Figure 10 Cut with a rounded edge around the body of an animal (body)

Is there any need to be worried about the different aesthetics employed in the borders and bodies of these oliphants? How different is the aesthetic, really, on the Baltimore and Edinburgh horns? The figurative bodies of the Cluny and Berlin horns raise more questions, perhaps. In both cases, when looked at in profile, the bodies of the horns seem to be recessed by a few millimetres, which might suggest that some ivory surface has been lost — but not as much as would be necessary if the carver had to plane down an originally faceted surface to start with a blank canvas. Ebitz’s argument about the horn in the Musée de Cluny is ingenious and attractive: its body features an Ascension scene which he suggests was carved in a new Byzantine- or Lombard-influenced context in the 12th century, to visibly ‘Christianize’ the horn and render this fundamentally secular object more appropriate to the sacred function of holding holy relics (Fig. 6).39 However, when one examines the minutiae of his argument,

Figure 11 Straight cut around interstitial leaf and wall of roundels (body) Details of the oliphant in the National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh (A.1956.562). (Mariam RosserOwen, by kind permission of the National Museums of Scotland) 25

mariam rosser-owen over the body decoration of this oliphant, they must have been part of his putative second carving campaign. The frieze of animals around the bottom of the body section presents a problem for the Christianizing interpretation of this recarving proposal, one which Ebitz acknowledged but did not fully elaborate on. If created in a totally different ‘aesthetic’ from the ‘Islamic style’ borders, why do they look so in keeping with Islamic modes themselves? Apart from prowling lions we have an animal combat scene, showing a lion attacking a deer with its head turned back. They reminded Ebitz of the

several things do not work, though my observations on the Cluny horn must remain provisional since I have not had the opportunity to study it in person.40 For example, Ebitz avers that the new carving incorporates the remains of drill holes left over from a band of braided ornament which originally formed the decoration of the raised belt in the oliphant’s upper zone (his fig. 4); similarly, a raised band of circles and lozenges containing rosettes has apparently replaced a raised belt of palmette scrolls — but in both these cases it is not possible for one to replace the other and remain at the same surface level. There do seem to be shallow drill holes visible in his fig. 4, though these could simply be the result of mistakes in the carving. The braided band at the base of the body, which Ebitz considers to be part of the oliphant’s original decoration, is carved at the same level as the animals above it, supposedly carved later, which rest their feet on it (Fig. 12). He seems to believe that the egg-and-dart border below this braided band was squeezed in between it and the raised belt with a palmette scroll below, since it does not appear in his proposed reconstruction of the oliphant’s original appearance (his fig. 5), and since egg-and-dart filled bands are seen all

beasts on the margins of Italian Romanesque church façades [. . .] On the one hand, they reflect a playful interest in fantastic creatures and a tacit appreciation of the aesthetic qualities of the already existing animals around the mouth of the horn. On the other hand, they may serve to signify the perils that beset the human soul and thereby intensify the desire for salvation.41

This rather reads as an evasion. In fact, these animals are stylistically very close to those on a group of oliphants that are never considered alongside the ‘Saracenic group’: those associated with the Horn of Ulf in York Minster, which I will discuss below (Fig. 17). The distribution of the body design of the Berlin horn (Shalem’s fig. 42) into horizontal zones filled with ‘narrative’ scenes also relates to the Ulf group, as do the rather squashed vegetal scrolls inside the narrow borders that separate these horizontal zones. The braided design which occurs twice in the lower zone of the Cluny horn is seen on one of the raised belts in the upper zone of the Berlin horn, while the style of the figurative scenes on the Berlin horn provides a link to the ‘Byzantine’ group of oliphants. In fact, these two horns, which at first glance seem rather unusual, have many points of contact with oliphants outside the very narrow group of ‘Saracenic’ horns, but which are never incorporated into the oliphant discussion. Indeed, within the small group of ‘Byzantine’ oliphants, there are several which could be said to have ‘surprisingly’ different styles in their bodies and borders: the Clephane horn in the British Museum (Fig. 4) is bordered by somewhat ‘naturalistic’ half-palmette scrolls while lions and sphinxes prowl at its bell-end, in a manner similar to the Horn of Ulf; the oliphant in the Treasury of St Vitus’ Cathedral in Prague has chariot-racing scenes at its centre, flanked by bands of roundels containing birds, mythical beasts and animal combat; while ‘Lehel’s horn’ in the Jász Múzeum at Jászberény, Hungary (Fig. 13) features an all-over composition on its body, with a border of roundels containing birds, animals, and so on, and guilloche bands on its raised belts, which are not too dissimilar from the braided bands seen on the Cluny and Berlin horns just discussed.42 This apparent combination — contradiction, perhaps — of ‘Islamic’ and ‘Byzantine’ elements

Figure 12 Detail of animals on the oliphant in the Musée de Cluny, Paris (Cl. 13065) (see Fig. 6) (Mariam Rosser-Owen, by kind permission of the Musée de Cluny-Musée National du Moyen Âge, Paris) 26

the oliphant

Figure 13 ‘Lehel’s horn’ (‘Byzantine’ style) in the Jász Múzeum at Jászberény, Hungary (Bela Zsolt Szakacs, with kind permission)

within the decoration of these horns has not been discussed by Shalem, Hoffman or Ebitz, and no arguments about recarving have been advanced to explain this supposed ‘hybridity’. This is because the three horns I just described have simply been left out of consideration. I will return in Part 2 to all these objects, but for now I note that there is no need to resort to elaborate arguments about recarving. In terms of the ‘visual effect’ of this small group, I concur with Kingsley in not seeing anything of deeper ideological significance here: perhaps the Cluny oliphant was always intended for an ecclesiastical context, hence its striking Ascension scene. We know nothing about the structure of the workshops in which the oliphants might have been produced, if workshops existed at all, but the differences perceived on these objects may simply have been a matter of different hands — one craftsman excelled in geometricized palmette borders, another was better at animals, and sometimes did both borders and bodies, as on the Edinburgh oliphant.

issues and resolves to his satisfaction that Kühnel’s objections no longer hold, concluding that ‘the Muslim and Christian populace in the Levant, especially in Mamluk Egypt, were quite familiar with oliphants’.43 However, Shalem’s analysis does not negate Kühnel’s objections; indeed, they remain relevant to the question of the oliphants’ origins. I will deal with these three issues in reverse order. i) Representations of horns and horn-blowers in Islamic art Compared to the enormous number of representations of curved horns (whether oliphants or other types of horns, as I will discuss below) being carried, drunk from or blown in the Christian European context, among the literally thousands of hunt scenes in Islamic art, a vanishingly small number features horns. The sole Islamic example that Kühnel could find was a medallion on a bronze candlestick in the Topkapı Palace Museum in Istanbul (inv. 2628); depicted in one of four small medallions which separate the panels bearing the dedicatory inscription is a rider who clearly sounds a horn, a motif which Kühnel called an ‘Ochsenreiter’.44 He attributed the candlestick’s manufacture to Ayyubid Syria (specifically Aleppo) in the 13th century, though now an Ilkhanid provenance and an early-14th-century date seem most likely.45 However, most interesting from our current perspective is the context in which the candlestick was discussed by David Storm Rice. He describes the scenes within the small medallions punctuating the inscription, concentrating on two medallions that

Function and depiction in the Islamic context Another key aspect of Kühnel’s attribution of the oliphants and their carvers to southern Italy and north-western Europe was based on the following three issues: i) the lack of any mention of ivory horns in medieval Arabic sources; ii) the fact that not a single medieval oliphant has been found in the ‘East’; and iii) the scarcity of representations of curved horns or oliphants in Islamic art. Shalem re-examines these 27

mariam rosser-owen feature musician couples in a garden. Rice comments that they ‘have a distinctive European (one is tempted to say Italian Trecento) flavour and recall early examples of European genre painting’. While they have haloes in the Islamic tradition, the figures’ poses, the cut of their robes and rendering of drapery, their hairstyles, and the shape of the benches on which they sit are all Western. Rice concludes, ‘There can be no doubt that the models for these scenes with musicians were European works of art and probably Italian’. The dating of the candlestick — in the late 13th or early 14th century — fits perfectly with the diplomatic contacts with Europe, especially with the Vatican, which followed the Mongol invasions, and the subsequent opening up of the Mongol lands to Italian merchants, who brought portable European works of art that began to influence local artistic production, as Rice goes on to discuss. It is tempting to wonder whether the unusual motif of the ox- or zebu-riding horn-blower on the Topkapı candlestick is based on another European prototype. Shalem adds new examples, but none is without problems. Apart from the clear depiction of a man blowing a horn on the southern Italian ivory casket in Maastricht — an object from Shalem’s Group I and thus a self-fulfilling argument — he adds a postSasanian gilded silver plate, perhaps made in Central Asia in the 9th to 10th centuries, which may depict the Biblical story of the fall of Jericho. However, this is a notoriously problematic group of objects, many of which are probably fakes.46 His other two examples are a Coptic wooden panel from the Mu‘allaqa church in Old Cairo, depicting the ‘Harrowing of Hell’, datable c. 1300, and thus to the Mamluk period; and a Crusader icon at Mount Sinai, also depicting the ‘Harrowing of Hell’ and datable c. 1250–75. None of these can really be claimed as examples of ‘Islamic’ art: the latter two, although made in Egypt, are both from Christian religious contexts and thus draw their references from Christian iconographical and hagiographical traditions, not to mention the possible influences of Crusader art. The most interesting aspect of these two examples is that they were produced during the Mamluk period, an issue to which I shall return. Another example was not known to Shalem, since it only came to light when it appeared on the London art market in April 2008; it is now in the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar (Fig. 14).47 This is a long, carved wooden beam, broken at its right-hand side, featuring four and a half ‘triple arches’ embedded in luxurious vegetation, within and around which a hunt scene plays out: at the far left, a male figure very obviously blows a horn. The beam is described in the Christie’s sale catalogue as ‘late Umayyad or early Taifa Spain, 11th century’; the museum label opts for the simpler and more impressive ‘Umayyad’. If this were true, this would indeed be a clear Islamic example of horn- or oliphant-blowing. But there is no way that this wooden beam can date from the 10th or 11th century, since the

Figure 14 Detail of the horn blowing man from the Mudéjar wooden beam in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (MIA WW.141) (© The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha)

type of arch profile employed here does not develop until the early 12th century. This is the so-called ‘mixtilinear’ or ‘lambrequin’ arch that develops in the Almoravid architecture of the Maghrib al-Aqsa’, whence it is introduced to Islamic and then Christian Spain.48 It is most fully developed by the time of the construction in Almohad style of the Assumption Chapel at the Monastery of Las Huelgas in Burgos (1187–1211).49 Other features in the decoration of that royal monastic complex reference the Islamic art of al-Andalus and the Maghrib: for example, harpies depicted with a similar female head and striated body to the harpy in the far left spandrel of the Qatar beam are seen in the plaster-decorated vaults of the monastery cloister. The leaf forms at Las Huelgas refer closely to the style of Umayyad and Taifa vegetation, with the characteristic striations indicating each vein of the leaf, interspersed with tiny rings. The more naturalistic, blockier leaf forms on the Qatar beam are similar to those seen in the synagogue of Samuel ha Levi, built in Toledo c. 1359–61. Thus, while this wooden beam — and the monument from which it came — has obviously been 28

the oliphant created within the idiom of the earlier art and architecture of al-Andalus, its closest parallels are with the Mudéjar art of northern Spain and perhaps particularly Toledo, which was famous for its woodwork.50 The arch type seen here is not earlier than the late 12th century, and other motifs in the beam have parallels from 13th- and 14th-century Mudéjar examples. There is no problem with accepting this beam as part of the decoration of a luxurious house or palace, constructed for a Christian within the Mudéjar artistic world of Toledo or further north, possibly as late as the 14th century. It is not, however, the missing link it has been claimed to be — an unproblematic Islamic depiction of an oliphant.51

this being the major difference between European and African ivory horns. Such magnificent objects formed part of the Swahili royal regalia: ‘The siwa had to be blown to mark any formal occasion in the life of a ruler or potential heir’.54 In his travel account, Vasco da Gama described the use of such horns when he arrived at Malindi (Kenya) in 1498: he writes of being received by the king attended by ‘many players on anafils, and two trumpets of ivory, richly carved and the size of a man, which were blown through a hole in the side and made sweet music with the anafils’.55 This is the earliest datable reference to the existence of such African ivory horns, but the Pate siwa is actually much later, probably crafted between 1650 and 1700. The Pate Chronicle tells us that the new siwa was a close copy of an older prototype, but the problem lies in the Arabic inscriptions, which ‘appear to be written in very corrupt Arabic’, and have ‘defied all efforts at interpretation’.56 Their style relates to those on another late-17th- or early-18th-century siwa, from Lamu, made of bronze in the lost wax technique.57 Knowledge of this technique is not recorded in the eastern and southern parts of Africa at this time, which has led to speculation that the Lamu siwa was ‘made outside of East Africa as a special commission for a Swahili ruler, or in exchange for (and as a mark of) some sort of vassalage’.58 Hamo Sassoon notes that ‘inevitably one thinks of the Arab world, of such centres of technical skill as Cairo and Baghdad’, and since the style of the siwa’s inscriptions has been identified as ‘Mamluk naskhi’ of 13th- or 14th-century date, a Mamluk original has been proposed — which ‘need not, of course, have been a horn’.59 The inscription itself has been reconstructed as four couplets from a poem in basit metre, written by the Abbasid poet Muhammad ibn Bashir al-Himyari.60 There is nothing in these lines that seems apposite to the siwa itself or its function, and James De Vere Allen concludes that the verses were likely ‘simply copied from some other artefact or document at the craftsman’s disposal in order to provide the siwa with textual ornamentation’.61 Why this focus on the Pate siwa? Shalem suggests that this spectacular East African ivory horn is based on a now-lost Mamluk example of an oliphant: ‘as the carved naskhi inscriptions [. . .] recall typical Mamluk naskhi inscriptions, it is possible that the ivory horn from Pate copied a Mamluk one’.62 But, although remarkable, the Pate siwa is not a unicum. Apart from its apparent pair in bronze, other siwas exist in wood and ivory, including the pommel end of another monumental ivory example, decorated with the same openwork design of four-armed crosses, now in the Cabinet of Curiosities at the Bibliothèque de SteGeneviève, Paris.63 It can only be dated by its depiction in an engraving by Claude Du Molinet published in 1692, so is probably coeval with the Pate siwa. Ivory panels with the same kind of knotwork designs, including in openwork, have been found in excavations at Kilwa and Gedi (ancient Malindi), in stratigraphic

ii) The lack of medieval oliphants found in ‘the East’ Shalem addresses this objection of Kühnel’s by reference to the ‘Pate siwa’, an enormous side-blown ceremonial trumpet (siwa) 2.15 m long, formed from two elephant tusks, and now in the Lamu Museum in Kenya (Fig. 15).52 This magnificent object the size of a man has a faceted body, bordered at the bell-end with an elaborate cursive Arabic inscription contained within bands of interlaced knotwork, and an ornately decorated central cylinder, carved in openwork with a network of four-armed crosses and bordered at both ends by other cursive inscriptions in Arabic.53 A large round opening in the middle of the horn allows the instrument to be side-blown rather than end-blown,

Figure 15 Ivory siwa of Pate after J. de Vere Allen (1976) fig. 2 29

mariam rosser-owen contexts datable to the 16th century.64 More are known from textual sources, such as the looting by the Portuguese of four siwas from Pate in 1679.65 However, the vast majority of surviving African oliphants hail from West Africa. Portuguese travel accounts of the late 15th and early 16th centuries talk of elephant tusks and objects worked from ivory on the West African coast, and it is now well established that by the 16th century carvers from ‘the ivory coast’ — that is, Sierra Leone, Congo, Nigeria — were producing objects, including oliphants, for the European market.66 Their carving and decoration was increasingly influenced by Europe, including copying motifs from imported European prints; some of the hunting scenes on the ‘Sapi-Portuguese’ horns look extremely close to medieval European oliphants carved three hundred years earlier.67 In the African tradition, oliphants are blown from an opening at the side, not the end as in the European oliphants, and those African horns that do have a blow-hole at the end are those we know to have been made for the Portuguese market. Though the African examples have largely survived through their preservation in European royal and courtly collections, it is not insignificant that they are all postmedieval, and seem to have responded to a European function and aesthetic. As with the oliphants themselves, the Pate siwa should be discussed within its proper context, rather than isolated as the ‘missing link’ to the putative ‘Islamic ivory horn’. It should not be a surprise that countries close to sources of raw ivory and which engaged in the ivory trade should have made use of elephant tusks as horns. Secondly, why suppose a derivation from an imported Arab source, for which there is otherwise absolutely no physical evidence? And, most significantly, how does a presumed Mamluk model explain why a group of ivory horns were made in Cairo under the Fatimids in the 11th century? Such a Mamluk model cannot be earlier than the late 15th century: this is the earliest date for which we have a textual reference to the presence of ivory siwas on the East African coast; and, as we shall now discuss, there is no evidence within the Mamluk context for the use of horns before the 15th century.

date. According to Ward, its shape is unique in enamelled glass, and the depictions of Christian saints and its ‘anodyne’ Arabic inscription indicate that it was a special commission for a European merchant.69 Its shape is identical to those of drinking horns made from aurochs and European bison, discussed in Part 3 of this article, and this commission would fit with a revived taste for drinking horns in central Europe in the 14th to 16th centuries.70 Apart from this unique example, Mamluk depictions of horns are all abstracted into the emblems which comprise composite blazons datable to the very end of the 15th/beginning of the 16th century (Fig. 16); no horn is contextualized by being represented in figurative scenes showing people actually blowing them, and thus their identity as horns, though likely, has not been definitively established. Shalem gives a clear account of the Arabic term būq, pl. būqāt or abwāq, used in medieval sources to describe a conical wind instrument irrespective of material, possibly deriving from the Greek βωχάνη or Latin buccina, implying an instrument that was ‘introduced to the Mediterranean Arabs by their western neighbours’.71 This term is used by al-Maqrizi (1364–1442) to refer to some of the riches of the Fatimid treasury during the reign of al-Mustansir (r. 1036–94), though this does not mean that these wind instruments were ivory oliphants. ‘Trumpets of peace’ are described by a late Fatimid/early Ayyubid historian, Ibn al-Tuwayr, as being used during Fatimid Nile flooding ceremonies, but it is particularly during the Mamluk period, ‘when interaction with the West and with crusaders in particular were intensive’, that horns are mentioned.72 Most significant is the all-too-brief statement by al-Qalqashandi (d. 1418) that ‘the investiture of an

iii) The absence of ivory horns in medieval Arabic sources This last objection of Kühnel’s still requires some dedicated research. The Mamluk period is the only context in which there is undeniably an Islamic custom of using and depicting horns, though whether these horns are made of elephant tusks, and what their function and symbolism actually was, is still a debated issue. This is also the only period for which a medieval Islamic example of a horn exists — the enamelled glass horn now in the Hermitage in St Petersburg, with probably German mounts added in 1551.68 Following Rachel Ward’s chronology, this object can be attributed to Syria (Damascus) with a mid-14th-century

Figure 16 Textile fragment with composite blazon showing horns, Mamluk period, late 15th–early 16th century, Egypt. Wool, appliqued and embroidered. H. 22.9 cm, W. 30.5 cm. Rogers Fund (1972.120.3) (© Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) 30

the oliphant amir included the presentation to him of a horn and a flag’ (ummira bi’l-būq wa’l-‘alam); as Shalem points out, this ‘is probably reminiscent of the medieval western idea of horns of tenure’.73 This seems to be the only occasion on which the būq as an amiral accoutrement is referred to in texts. Despite this, the horn was not one of the recognized Mamluk symbols of office. While other symbols regularly depicted on works of art commissioned for Mamluk amirs can be linked to specific positions in the sultan’s household (the cupbearer, keeper of the inkwell, bearer of the royal cloth, etc.), there is no office for which a horn is emblematic. As L. A. Mayer stated,

Qaitbay, and what its meaning might have been on the blazons, remains to be established, and would certainly be an interesting topic for future research. One Islamic context where the use of ivory horns can probably not be attributed to European influence is the kingdom of Mali in the mid-14th century. One source that certainly requires further exploration in this regard is the description provided by Ibn Battutah (1304–68) who travelled to Mali between 1351 and 1353. He described the ruler, Mansa Sulayman, sitting in his pavilion (qubba), and attended by his courtiers: each [amir] has his followers before him with lances, bows, drums and trumpets. Their trumpets (būqāt) are made out of elephant tusks and their [other] musical instruments are made out of reeds and gourds and played with a striker and have a wonderful sound.79

The figure does not recall any of the devices mentioned in Arabic literature and is the first of a series of badges which have to be interpreted without the aid of any contemporary meaning. We are forced to guess both at the objects they represent and at their meaning.74

This passage provides an instance where būqāt are explicitly made from ivory, which is not the case with the citations presented for Egypt. As we saw above, there was an indigenous culture in West Africa of producing horns from elephant tusks, a material which was abundantly available locally; while the surviving examples are all early-16th-century at the earliest, Ibn Battutah’s description allows us to push the date of their use back by some 150 years.

A variety of suggestions has been offered by scholars, including cornucopiae, horns, cornets, ostrich plumes, daggers, trumpets and elephants’ tusks, as well as the sarāwīl al-futuwwa, or ‘trousers of nobility’.75 William Leaf argued that they were horns, connecting them with ‘Siculo-Arabic horns’ — that is, oliphants — and citing Kühnel’s ivory corpus, which had been published a decade earlier: ‘Dr Kühnel says [these] may well be influenced by the work of Egyptian craftsmen’. A note of caution should be blown, however: al-Qalqashandi gives no indication that the horns featured in the amiral investiture ceremony were made of ivory. Further, in attempting to connect Mamluk horns with ‘oliphants’, it is important to keep chronology in mind. The horn motif first appears on Mamluk blazons at the end of the 15th century. It can be associated with the reign of Sultan Qaitbay (r. 1468–96) and his amirs, and was in use up to the Ottoman conquest of 1517. It always appears paired, and three-dimensionality or hollowness is suggested by the depiction of a disc or section at the opening. It is only ever found in composite blazons with the same six elements: ‘a napkin in the upper field, a big cup charged with a pen-box and placed between two figures [our horns] [. . .] in the middle field, and a small cup in the lower one’.76 Julia Gonnella states that this ‘was the most popular blazon of the late Burji period’, used by at least forty-seven amirs.77 It became a sort of Mamluk ‘state blazon’, with a specific reference of allegiance to Qaitbay. But why the horn/oliphant? Again, the answer probably lies in contact with Europe and influence from the West, which was intense at Qaitbay’s period, through trade and diplomatic relations, especially with Italy.78 In the 15th century, horns were still frequently depicted as noble accoutrements in European art, some of which may well have found their way to the Mamluk court. But why the use of this motif begins under

To summarize this discussion, none of the būqāt cited by Shalem is explicitly made from ivory, though the references he cites do seem to imply a culture of horn-blowing in Islamic Egypt at various periods, including the Fatimid, to mark significant or ceremonial occasions. This seems to have been particularly strong at the very end of the Mamluk period, when we even have oliphant-like objects regularly depicted in the ‘state blazon’ of Qaitbay and his amirs; this is likely due to contact with Europe. An Egyptian use of horns in the late 15th century does not, however, explain the putative Egyptian use of horns in the 11th century. The Islamic use of ivory for horns, cited by Shalem as another reason for considering plausible the existence of Fatimid oliphants, dates to the mid-14th century at the earliest, thanks to Ibn Battutah, and most of the extant evidence comes from West rather than East Africa, from an even later date. Finally, among all the thousands of hunting scenes in the history of Islamic art, there are almost no representations of figures blowing or using horns. We have to scrabble in the margins to find one, and when we do, those examples turn out to be problematic, or to have a strong connection with Europe. In contrast, we constantly encounter depictions of horns in the art of Latin Europe, especially in contexts datable to the 12th century. In sum, Kühnel’s objections to the Islamic-ness of the oliphant still very much hold. We now move to a detailed look at the internal evidence of the oliphants themselves, to see how this contributes to the discussion about where these objects were conceptualized and produced. 31

mariam rosser-owen PART 2. RAISING REASONABLE DOUBT: NON-‘SARACENIC’ OLIPHANTS AND NON-ISLAMIC MOTIFS

believe a group of objects, whose production presupposes abundant availability of the raw material, to be Fatimid, when there is actually very little other evidence for Fatimid ivory carving? The answer comes down to style, and the circulation of motifs in the Mediterranean during a period when there were close trade and diplomatic contacts between Egypt and southern Italy, when many objects travelled, especially ceramics and textiles.85 Hoffman’s notion of ‘pathways of portability’ provides a useful framework within which to see the ‘translation’ of motifs from Fatimid portable objects onto works of art made locally, though it is another matter whether such motifs were ‘identifiably Islamic’.86 We must also recognize, however, that many of the textiles and ceramics which came to Italy, and were preserved as bacini in church façades, were not Fatimid. In fact, only 4.6% of the bacini have been identified through scientific analysis as being of Egyptian manufacture, with Byzantine ceramics a close second at 3.2% and only 1.9% from the ‘Islamic Near East’ (Syria, Iran, etc.). The vast majority of the bacini — an astonishing 90.3% — have been shown to originate from the central and western Mediterranean, in particular from Islamic Sicily (10%), and the areas corresponding to present-day Tunisia (40%) and Spain (40%).87 These ceramics generally date from the last quarter of the 10th to the mid-13th century, and provide a good indicator of the period in which Mediterranean trade was exploding. They are also the tip of the iceberg, standing for the many textiles and perishable goods which were traded alongside the ceramics but have not survived. The failure to pay due attention to the contribution of the western Mediterranean is symptomatic of a more widespread historiographical neglect of the Islamic West and especially North Africa, and it is important to keep in mind that not all imports or sources of artistic influence came from ‘the East’.88 I will consider stylistic questions below, but first I want to broaden out the group of objects under discussion, to include those oliphants that do not easily fit with the main classifications. Since the objective of the historiography to date has been to localize the oliphants’ places of production, those objects that defy easy categorization have simply been left out of consideration, or subjected to outlandish explanations — such as the recarving argument discussed above — in order to explain a perceived non-conformity to the idea of what ‘Islamic’ or ‘Islamic-style’ objects should look like. However, once we take into consideration the oliphants that do not form part of the ‘Saracenic’ group, we start to see many points of contact between these objects, even when stylistically they are totally unalike. As Ebitz cautioned, the formal classification into ‘Islamic’ or ‘Byzantine’ groups has given rise to ‘false distinction[s]’ and ‘taken too much attention away from the smaller

The place of ivory in the context of Fatimid art history has been exaggerated. One key reason for this is that so many students of ivory have come from a background in the art of Byzantium or the Islamic East. This is compounded by the neglect of the central and western Mediterranean evidence for, on the one hand, trade in raw elephant ivory and, on the other, the production of large objects in solid ivory, revealing how abundant the raw material was in this region. The Andalusi ivories, made between the mid-10th and mid-11th centuries for named patrons in the Umayyad and Taifa royal households, are paradigmatic of this, but they are rarely placed by art historians into their wider Mediterranean or global context.80 In contrast, the only indisputably Fatimid ivory object known is the casket now in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional, Madrid, inscribed with the name of the caliph alMu‘izz (r. 953–75), and datable to the 960s, as Jonathan Bloom has convincingly argued.81 The inscription on the lid states that it was made in al-Mansuriyya, the Fatimid capital in Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia). This place of production makes perfect sense given what we know about Ifriqiya as an entrepôt and transit point for trans-Saharan trade, whose commodities included elephant ivory.82 Ivory gathered at the port of Mahdiyya would have been transported by Italian merchants, in particular the entrepreneurial Amalfitans (and later the Genoese), who may already have been trading with al-Andalus and North Africa by the early 10th century. Luxury silk textiles were the motor for this trade, as well as the basic foodstuffs, especially grain, that were the mainstay of their economy in the medieval period.83 It is thanks to this close trade that ivory must have been so abundant in southern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries that so many objects of all kinds have been attributed to this region: ecclesiastical objects like the Salerno ivory group, large chess pieces both figurative and non-figurative, the so-called Siculo-Arabic caskets, large carved caskets, a pencase and, I would argue, the oliphants. In contrast, all the ivories that have been called ‘Fatimid’ — the most famous being the openwork panels in Berlin and Florence — have been so attributed on stylistic grounds, and on the circumstantial evidence of provenance: there is no other inscribed or dated piece.84 It is also significant that the Fatimid ivories are all small plaques, intended to be mounted on to larger items of furniture. Apart from the al-Mu‘izz casket, there is no Fatimid object carved from solid ivory that can be compared to the Andalusi group, for example. This fact has not been widely recognized, but it is highly significant for what it implies about the supply of raw ivory in Egypt during the Fatimid period, as well as the broader context within which we should consider the oliphants: why 32

the oliphant with the Jászberényi oliphant, including its rather highly placed lower band of interlace. Such connections between the different oliphant groups should be considered rather than ignored, and this will be much easier to do in future with the arrival of Shalem’s new corpus. Eastmond examines four oliphants from the ‘Byzantine’ group, considering just how Byzantine they are.91 Two are decorated with chariot-racing, the ‘pre-eminent sport associated with Constantinople’ (see Fig. 4), and two with a ‘miscellany of hunting and fighting scenes, mixed in with mythological beasts’ (Fig. 13). Apart from these shared visual schemes, stylistically there is nothing in common between these individual objects. They cannot be easily ‘grouped’ and, as Eastmond notes, their styles ‘do not fit any [. . .] Byzantine carving[s] in ivory or other materials that we know about in this period’. Just as Kühnel observed that no oliphant has ever been found in Egypt, the same can be said for Byzantium. Eastmond concludes that these four oliphants should be placed ‘within the broader mainstream of oliphant production’, that is, they should also be attributed to southern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries.92 This region had, of course, been a Byzantine province until the 9th century, and, as Eastmond discusses, the schemes on these horns present a ‘distant memory of Byzantium’. He cites one connection between the Clephane horn and the art of southern Italy: ‘its double comma drapery and conical hats [. . .] can be compared to the telamones who hold up the episcopal throne in the church of San Nicola, Bari, made by archbishop Elias for the visit of pope Urban II in 1098’.93 In addition, we may note the tendency in the ‘Byzantine group’ not

formal units that characterize the style of a carver or [work]shop, such as favourite motifs, unconscious gestures and technical procedures’.89 It is these elements that I will attempt to highlight in the next section.

Expanding the discussion At the outset of his stylistic classification, Shalem explicitly excludes from his discussion the ‘small and narrow oliphants’ (Kühnel nos 72–75) as well as two related oliphants in Hanover and London, and two oliphants from the roundel group (Kühnel nos 64–65), including the Borradaile horn; these all have a carving style different ‘from the one employed in the Fatimidstyle group’. The Borradaile horn has ‘a specific carving style far beyond what one may call Islamic or even Saracenic [. . .] and several motifs are clearly unusual, when compared with Fatimid images’.90 The problem with these exclusions is that Shalem has already made up his mind what constitutes a ‘Fatimid-style’ oliphant, and thus only takes into consideration those objects that fit his argument. The ‘unusual’ motifs on the Borradaile horn are actually quite significant, and I will return to them in the next section. Other features on these excluded objects have connections to the ‘Byzantine’ style group, recently studied by Eastmond, as well as the ‘Ulf’ group, discussed below. For example, Kühnel nos 73 and 74 have a ‘roundel style’ body but the decoration at their upper border is arranged in vertical panels, as on some of the Ulf group. The St Petersburg horn (Kühnel no. 64), which according to Shalem features some ‘disturbing’ motifs, has affinities

Figure 17 Horn of Ulf, York Minster (© By kind permission of the Chapter of York) 33

mariam rosser-owen to confine the decoration within any kind of organizational structure, but to let it play out across the whole surface of the ivory in a rather haphazard way, as on the Jászberényi (Fig. 13) and Copenhagen horns.94 This recalls the decoration of some mosaic pavements in southern Italian contexts. One vivid example carpets the nave at Otranto Cathedral, datable 1163– 65, where an axial motif of a tree is surrounded by a chaotic mix of ‘Old Testament and legendary scenes’; the motifs here include a crenellated building, as on the Jászberényi horn.95 The next major group that has not yet been fully incorporated into the study of oliphants, though it was discussed by Hanns Swarzenski and more recently by Valentino Pace and now comprises Group B in Shalem’s new corpus, is a stylistically coherent group of six oliphants, of differing sizes, associated with the Horn of Ulf in York Minster (Fig. 17).96 Though this horn is not the largest or most heavily decorated of the group, it is the one for which there is associated documentary evidence to suggest a possible date in the 11th century. Its 17th-century silver mounts provide the information that the horn was given to York Minster by Ulf, ‘a chieftain of the Western Deira, with all his lands’.97 The oliphant is thus an archetypical ‘horn of tenure’, a physical symbol of the gift of land to the Church, as I will discuss in Part 3. However, the documentary record for this gift goes back no further than the late 14th century, though the horn was associated with Ulf at least a century earlier, as it is represented along with the benefactor’s attributed arms in the carved heraldry on the north side of the nave, begun in 1291.98 Antiquarian writers identified this Ulf as the powerful Danish nobleman who ruled what is now Yorkshire during the reign of King Cnut (r. [in England] 1016–35), and associated the gift with a period soon after Cnut’s death ‘when controversy arose between Ulf’s sons about sharing their father’s lands’.99 This would put the horn’s date of manufacture some time before the 1030s. Art historians have taken this as a fixed point in the chronology of the oliphants, which has lent support to the view that some were made as early as the early 11th century.100 However, Christopher Norton has rightly pointed out that very little is likely to have survived the destruction of Anglo-Saxon York Minster by the Normans in 1069, during which the building, its library, archives and treasury were destroyed and pillaged, leaving nothing that can be attributed today to pre-conquest York.101 Moreover, Norton points out that Ulf was a common name in 11th-century Yorkshire and several are listed in the Domesday Book. One of these held land in 1066 (the time of the census), which by 1086 had become the property of the see of York. This would fit with the historical association of the horn with a man named Ulf, but it would mean a post-conquest date for the land gift and associated horn.102 This would seem to be

Figure 18 Oliphant in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Maria Antoinette Evans Fund (57.581) (© 2015, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

the most plausible explanation from the point of view of both the 11th-century history of York and the likely dating of the oliphants in this group, which bear close connections with the Salerno ivories group, which have themselves been dated to the late 11th/early 12th century, as we will discuss. The Horn of Ulf itself has a plain, faceted body with decoration confined to the bell end and the raised belts on either side of where the mounts are attached. This arrangement is identical to the oliphant from Muri Abbey, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, though the decoration at the bell end differs from Ulf in featuring a human hunter among the animal combat scenes; the body of the Vienna horn has also been inscribed with the information that it was given by Count Albrecht III von Habsburg to Muri Abbey in 1199.103 The decoration of both oliphants is arranged in the same way as in Shalem’s Group 34

the oliphant

Figure 19 ‘Saracenic’ style ivory casket in the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (MIA IV.12.98) (© The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha)

III. Otherwise, the scenes show real and mythological animals facing off or attacking each other, all in the rather charming way that distinguishes the animal motifs of this group. The other oliphants are more densely decorated (Fig. 18), and are divided into several registers both horizontally and vertically (through the use of framing devices such as columns, arches, axial tree motifs). Their style is internally very consistent, and they are surely the product of the same hand or workshop. The same motifs occur again and again, and we will examine some of them individually in the next section. One distinctive creature is a ‘unicorn’ that is basically a lion with a pointed protuberance emerging from the top of its head. Disembodied animals’ heads poke up out of the ground; small creatures seem to fly through the air. This group features more human figures than the other oliphants, many of them nude or clad in a classicizing manner. The animals have smiling faces, with almond-shaped eyes, and their tails have smaller animalian terminations. All of these features are shared with some of the ‘roundel style’ group, such as the Edinburgh horn and the casket in Doha which can be associated with it (Fig. 19); in two examples of an identical motif on the ‘roundel group’, this animalian termination takes off on its own.104 These shared features may point to a connection between the carvers of the Ulf group and

those of at least some of the roundel group. Similarly, the tightly curling scroll in the vertical borders of the top register of the Zaragoza horn are very like those on the ‘border design’ group (Kühnel nos 52–55), and on some of the horns with running animals in friezes (Kühnel nos 77 and 79).105 As mentioned above, details in the decoration of the Cluny oliphant relate to the Ulf group, such as the division of the body into geometric sections, and the style of the animals in its lower border (Figs 6 and 12). However, the most telling comparison is between this group and the magnificent set of ivories from an unidentified piece of liturgical furniture, now in the Museo Diocesano in Salerno.106 In particular, the distinctive type of vegetal scroll that fills the raised belts of the oliphants in the Ulf group finds close parallels in the panels of the Salerno group, in particular the borders (Fig. 20).107 There, the vegetal scroll is given more space, so the individual motifs are bigger and rounder, but taking into account the attenuation of these elements to fit into a narrow belt on the oliphants, one appreciates that the triangular, cinquefoil form of the leaves, the bunches of grapes, the distinctively concave form of the rosette, as well as the veining of the scroll itself, the feathered details on the acanthus leaves, and so on, are all identical between the Salerno panels and the oliphants of the Ulf group. 35

mariam rosser-owen The last ‘group’ that should not be forgotten in discussing the oliphants are those which are totally plain, uncarved apart from the faceting of their bodies. These tend only to be discussed or published by art historians when they have interesting mounts. Examples include the Savernake horn in the British Museum (Fig. 21), which was in the possession of the Sturmy family by the second half of the 12th century.110 Its embellishments consist of two silver and enamelled bands datable 1325–50, and other later silver bands which probably replaced older ones. Another plain oliphant, extremely large at 72 cm in length, comes from the Treasury of the church of St Servatius in Maastricht, and is now in the Musée du Cinquantenaire in Brussels (inv. 4). It is decorated with gilt-copper mounts added by a Mosan atelier around 1160–80, to turn it into a reliquary.111 No doubt there are many other plain oliphants in international collections or still in church treasuries that have not yet become part of the oliphant discussion, though happily Shalem includes this category as Group E of his new corpus. Their lack of decoration makes assigning these horns to a particular region or date problematic. As we will see in Part 3, however, ‘cornua eburnea’, without any reference to further decoration except sometimes to metal mounts, are frequently mentioned in medieval church inventories, and thus these ‘plain’ horns have just as significant a role as decorated examples in understanding the creation and consumption of oliphants. The light faceting of the body of these sometimes huge oliphants allows the ivory material itself to be displayed, perhaps stemming from a desire to show off the use of this expensive material, or from a fascination with the exotic beast from which the tusk originally came. Such interesting questions certainly deserve some consideration. One last word on the ‘expanded group’ should be given to the anomalous horns, which can be no more than mentioned here, in the hope that eventually they will be better understood and contextualized. These include an oliphant in the V&A, the only example known so far of an oliphant with incised decoration, in a manner similar to some of the ‘Siculo-Arabic’ ivories of the 12th century.112 Paul Williamson has recently suggested a very early date, in the first half of the 11th century, based on the radiocarbon analysis of the tusk, and the crudity of the figural style which he associates with the ‘tenacity of Longobardic heritage’ in central and southern Italy. Another unusual example, in the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin (K3105), was published by Von Falke in his article on Byzantine oliphants, and attributed to early-13th-century Sicily.113 It has rich, three-dimensional scrolling ornament totally covering its upper and lower zones; the scrolls consist of unusual leaf forms and contain rather naturalistic animals, alone or in combat, as well as disembodied human heads facing each other among the foliage. Highly unusual are the bands of pseudoKufic inscriptions, carved in relief at the horn’s upper

Figure 20 Border panels from the Salerno ivory group, Museo Diocesano, Salerno (Francesca Dell’Acqua, with kind permission) The resemblance is not just stylistic but resides in the handling of how these motifs are carved. The Salerno border scrolls also feature birds and animals: the longbodied hare apparently trapped within a scroll has the same almond-shaped eyes, long rounded ears, and a ruff of fur which only covers the top half of its body. These same features characterize the deer on the Ulf group, seen for example in Figure 18. Very similar vegetal motifs are also occasionally seen on the plaques themselves.108 While it is broadly agreed that the Salerno ivories were made in southern Italy (whether in Salerno itself or in a neighbouring community such as Amalfi), there is still no real consensus on when they were made. Robert Bergman considered the consecration of Salerno Cathedral in 1085 as the most likely context for the commission, while more recent studies favour a date in the early 12th century.109 A late-11th-century date for the existence of the Salerno ivories workshop would fit neatly with the information outlined above for the Horn of Ulf. Indeed, perhaps the Horn of Ulf provides a date for the Salerno ivories, while the Salerno ivories offer the oliphants a locale. 36

the oliphant

Figure 21 The ‘Savernake horn’ (M&ME 1975,0401.1) (© Trustees of the British Museum) has understandably deterred scholars from undertaking it, since it also requires an approach that cuts across art historical disciplines and specialisms. This task will be facilitated immeasurably by Shalem’s publication of the oliphant corpus. Here, I would like to attempt a first look at certain motifs on the oliphants, some of which have been assumed to be indicative of their Islamic style or even origins, while the significance of others has not been highlighted as perhaps it should. It is important to note that several motifs recur on the oliphants that are unusual within the repertoire of Islamic art. A discussion of these motifs, which can only be superficial in the confines of an article, serves to ask the question: what makes the style of the oliphants Fatimid anyway? As with all the motifs discussed here, there are many more examples that could be gleaned from a comprehensive art historical survey. My selection is admittedly random. I am also not the first person to draw connections between motifs on the oliphants and those of contemporary Italian sculpture. But this approach has previously been taken (by Pace, for example) in order to localize the ivory workshop in a particular part of southern Italy. That is not my aim here, though I will return to the question of production centres in my conclusion. Rather, I aim to show that the oliphants’ style and iconography was current in Italian art of the late 11th to late 12th century, especially but not exclusively in architectural sculpture. There is thus no need to look to Islamic art for the immediate source of the decoration on the oliphants.

rim, and incised around the zone where the mounts are attached. I have already mentioned the Gothic example in the V&A.114 Since horns are depicted being worn and used by hunters in European art into the 15th century, it makes sense that there should still be a market for the creation of such objects, and Gothic carvers clearly had the available ivory and a wealthy enough clientele to sustain it.115 Thus, not only might some of the oliphants be earlier than the usual chronological focus of study, other examples take us considerably beyond that period, and suggest that we should look to other medieval centres of ivory production, perhaps even in northern Europe.

Stylistic connections It is clear that the stylistic connections within and beyond the oliphant group are more wide-ranging than a simple one-way conversation with Fatimid art. Ultimately, a comprehensive stylistic analysis is needed, which takes all the extant oliphants into account, and looks at the connections across the whole group, highlighting especially the incidental details — in borders, interstices, stylistic ‘tells’ in the representation of eyes, fur, and so on — that are often ignored but which say so much about the hands involved in production. Such a study should take into account comparative material carved in ivory as well as stone and wood, and should range across the Italian Peninsula, and probably beyond. The enormity of this task 37

mariam rosser-owen Starting with the purely ‘ornamental’ motifs — those which might be considered to be more ‘Islamic’ in origin than the figurative motifs — I begin with the motif of alternating triangles containing heart-shaped palmette scrolls, as seen in the wide border at the bellend of the ‘plain’ oliphant in Boston (Fig. 2). Shalem associates this elegant design with his quintessentially Islamic Group II, though he cites no Islamic examples of this motif. However, this pattern — along with other purely ornamental designs, often contained within roundels or vegetal scrolls, and bearing a strong textile aesthetic — is found in the mosaic decoration of the window embrasures of the royal Norman church foundations in Sicily. The pattern from the Boston oliphant is matched exactly by windows at the Cathedral of Monreale, founded by William II and dating to the 1170s–80s (Fig. 22).116 The rather swirling style of the scrolls within a geometric framework, which characterize the oliphants of Shalem’s Group II, are matched by the mosaics of other window embrasures, including the lower range in the outer walls of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, datable to the new campaign of mosaics added to the nave and aisles under William I in the 1150s–60s.117 Such examples show that these motifs were current in the elite art of Norman Sicily in the second half of

the 12th century. In fact, most of the purely ‘ornamental’ motifs seen in the decoration of the oliphants have parallels in the illuminated ornament of Byzantine manuscripts, which likely provided one of the models for the mosaics.118 For what M. Alison Frantz describes as the ‘motif of triangular palmettes dovetailed together and filling a zigzag’, the best parallels seem to be 11th-century manuscripts.119 Herbert Bloch illustrates several manuscripts copied at Monte Cassino in the late 11th century with the same type of scroll within a geometricized structure.120 There are also parallels in Byzantine illumination for the other border motifs we regularly see on the oliphants, including the ubiquitous half-palmette scroll (seen in Figs 1, 2 and 6, for example).121 The wide geographical spread of this motif surely attests to the use of portable models, such as manuscripts, or possibly pattern books. The intricate knotwork that fills the borders of several oliphants (seen in Fig. 6, for example) was, according to Frantz, one of the characteristic motifs of southern Italian illumination from the 9th to 11th centuries.122 She notes that this kind of interlace had become one of most prevalent forms of ornamental decoration by the 8th century. It is seen, for example, in the marble slab from the side of an ambo in the church of San Salvatore in Brescia, datable to the 8th or 9th centuries. Originally one of an affronted pair, this Lombard carving shows an elegant peacock surrounded by vegetal scrolls including bunches of grapes, and a border of elaborate knotted circles running along the base.123 Jumping forward to the mid-12th century, we see knotwork filling some of the lower soffits of the arcades in the Cappella Palatina, between the roundels depicting haloed figures; knotwork closer in style to that on the oliphants fills some of the long panels of sandstone carvings on the right-hand portal of the Basilica di San Michele in the former northern Lombard capital of Pavia, dating to the early 12th century.124 An elaborate knotwork design surmounts the main portal of the church of San Benedetto in Brindisi, datable to the late 11th or early 12th century.125 Whatever the ultimate derivation of this type of ornament — whether from Islamic or Celtic art — by the 11th century, these motifs were integrated and widespread in the decorative repertoire of medieval Italy. The next motif I want to examine is that of structuring decoration within linked roundels. The largest group of oliphants is decorated in this way, dubbed by Hoffman the ‘roundel design’ group. It is this group above all on which she bases her reading of the oliphants as central to the ‘expression of Crusader ideology and identity’, attesting to the ‘Crusader experience in the Eastern Mediterranean’.126 To summarize her argument, the designs of this group of oliphants were ‘specifically modeled on Fatimid portable objects in circulation in Italy’, in particular ceramics and textiles decorated with animal motifs inside roundels, which the oliphants ‘appropriated’. Their hunting imagery

Figure 22 Alternating triangle-and-scroll motif in mosaic in window embrasure in Monreale Cathedral, Sicily (Mariam Rosser-Owen) 38

the oliphant Decoration within roundels becomes particularly common from the second half of the 12th century. This is how the busts of haloed figures are contained in the soffits of the arches in the nave mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (1150s–60s). Here the roundels are linked, but not with the ‘connector loops’ which Hoffman associates with the Fatimid models for the ‘roundel design’. At Monreale, the busts of warrior angels just below the roof beams process along the walls within roundels with connector loops, whose linkages contain four-petalled rosettes (Fig. 23). This way of organizing the decoration literally covers the carving of the capitals and columns in the cathedral’s cloister, especially the clusters of four columns at the corners and around the fountain (Fig. 24). Indeed, the disposition of occupied roundels across the cylindrical surface of the column is handled in a very similar way to that of the oliphants, and there are many motifs among these carvings which find parallels on the ivories. Hoffman’s arguments concentrate on the roundels which contain animals, but it cannot really be said that Fatimid-Islamic art is the only one to adopt this motif. Animals within circular scrolls — from where it is a logical development to isolate them within roundels — are already seen on the throne of Maximian, probably made near Ravenna in the mid-6th century.128 Roundels with connector loops are seen in the basketwork capitals at San Vitale, also at Ravenna (built 526–47), while the ambo of Bishop Agnellus, now in Ravenna Cathedral, features single animals arranged in a grid: it is not a huge conceptual leap to adapt one to the other.129 Of course, animals within roundels are also widespread in another culture with a debt to late antique forms, namely medieval Spain, as seen for example on the exterior friezes at Quintanilla de las Viñas, among many possible examples. The next motif is that of running animals, as seen on the bodies of some of Shalem’s Group I and the borders of his Group II (Kühnel nos 77–81). As discussed in Part 1, the ‘repertoire of animals running after each other’ was Shalem’s reasoning for assigning Group II to Cairene production, and for being ambivalent about the localization of Group I. But hunting was not a preserve of the Islamic world. Looking at the oliphants, it would be a simple process to adapt the technique of faceting the bodies of plain oliphants to accommodate a frieze of carved animals, which are stylistically extremely close to those within roundels, and probably produced within the same workshop. This arrangement is simply reversed when, as on the Edinburgh oliphant (Fig. 1), we have roundels on the body and ‘running animals’ in the border. A carver faced with decorating the border of a cylindrical object which would be turned in the hand would surely not have taken long to come up with the idea of a ‘narrative’ cycle that would unfurl as the holder turned, be that a series of animals, or something more complex like the hunting or drinking scenes on the oliphant in

aptly ‘allude[d] [. . .] to the prowess of the owner of the horn during the hunt or in battle, an allusion easily translatable in Crusader terms’. Hoffman asserts that the eastern Mediterranean origin of these motifs would be ‘emphatically recognized’ by viewers of the oliphants, indeed that these objects became ‘identifiably Islamic’ by virtue of their decoration being contained inside roundels. These motifs even ‘authenticated’ the owners’ association with the Crusader experience, and provided a ‘tangible link to the Holy Land’. The notion of the ‘material transfer of holiness’ extended to Italian architecture as well, where the construction in certain cities of buildings modelled on holy monuments in Jerusalem provided a ‘strategy through which the topography of Jerusalem could be transferred to [Italy], linking citizens and their civic identities to the earthly and heavenly Jerusalem’. Unfortunately, Hoffman provides no references to primary sources which would support her assertions that this motif was indeed understood in this way by contemporary viewers. One has to query how many Crusaders in the Levant at this period could afford or be able to access lustrewares or silk textiles made in Cairo and usually shipped from Alexandria by Italian merchants. If anything, the structuring of the decoration within roundels alluded to luxury imports, as Hoffman argued in earlier studies; but those imports were not exclusively Fatimid. As we saw above, the vast majority of the ceramics reused as bacini in church façades originated in Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia) and Islamic Spain, two centres whose trade propped up the Italian economy in the 11th century. How might visual references to these luxurious commodities have carried a link to the Holy Land and the ‘Crusader experience’? From the late 11th century — well before Roger II of Sicily remodelled Norman kingship on the splendid courts of Cairo and Constantinople — such luxury imports were providing inspiration for Italian architectural decoration in an almost unmediated state. Caskey recently published a moulded stucco panel, probably originally from a chancel screen, which was found in excavations at the church of Santa Maria di Terreti in Reggio Calabria; this is one of three churches, all decorated with plaster, which can be associated with the patronage of Roger I (d. 1101).127 The panel in question features roundels containing paired birds in the upper register and paired quadrupeds (deer?) below, with the interstices filled by leaf decoration not unlike that seen on the Edinburgh oliphant (Fig. 1) and its closest associates. The roundels are linked by a small loop containing a fourpetalled rosette, and grouped in twos within vertical rectangles whose borders probably mask the scar left by the plaster mould. This decoration is very obviously based on an Islamic textile, though not necessarily one from the Fatimid realm. The whole composition is surrounded by a rather wobbly pseudoKufic ornament, indicating a clear Islamic origin for the model. 39

mariam rosser-owen

Figure 23 Warrior angels within linked roundels, Monreale Cathedral, Sicily (Mariam Rosser-Owen)

All the animals on the oliphants find parallels in the sculpture of 11th- and 12th-century Italy. Swarzenski illustrates a marble screen from the church of San Salvatore de’ Birecto in Atrani, near Amalfi, which shows two heraldic peacocks, their tails fully splayed, clutching prey in their claws (one of them a human figure) and flanked by birds and harpies.134 This recalls the ‘vigorous heraldic style’ of the splayed eagles clutching prey in the Ulf group and on the Doha casket, and those without prey on the roundel group (Kühnel nos. 62e and 65b).135 We see harpies on the roundel style oliphant in the Metropolitan Museum (Kühnel no. 67c) and the Ulf-group oliphant in Boston (Fig. 18), but more common is the sphinx, seen on the Byzantine-style Clephane Horn (Fig. 4), and regularly on the Ulf group.136 A griffin and winged lion face each other across a complex tree motif on an 11th-century marble screen from the church of San Giovanni Crisostomo in Bari; a particularly fierce winged lion decorates the ambo of Bari cathedral; and paired griffins appear in the pierced marble screens flanking the throne platform at Monreale Cathedral.137 In the carvings of the cloister’s columns and capitals, there is a plethora of animal motifs rendered in a similar

Doha (Fig. 7), or that formerly in the Gans Collection (both in Shalem’s Group III).130 Turning to the animals themselves, among the types of fauna depicted are many — real and fantastical — with which Islamic art historians will be familiar: splayed eagles, peacocks, other birds sometimes with necks entwined, griffins, harpies, lions, deer, some with very long branching antlers, hares . . . These creatures are usually represented singly, sometimes in combat with each other, and often with the slight smile that seems to play on the faces of many creatures in the zoological world of the oliphants. Less common animals also feature, such as elephants and bears.131 However, while these types of animals might have connections to Islamic art, the style in which they are depicted often does not. Kühnel noted that many of the beasts and birds betray features foreign to Fatimid types, and reveal the intrusions of Christian and Western elements.132 Swarzenski reminded us that we should not forget that ‘on Italian soil a vast repertoire of animal and mythological subjects had its own long tradition from classical antiquity onwards’, citing by way of example the ‘heraldic winged sphinx [that] appears on the archaic Temple of Selinunte in Sicily’.133 40

the oliphant the Ulf group were ‘remarkable for the intrusion of classical themes among this array of oriental beasts’, singling out the man carrying a quadruped on his shoulders on the Chartreuse de Portes oliphant, which evokes the Kriophoros, the prototype of the Good Shepherd; on the associated oliphant in Boston (Fig. 18), a semi-nude Hercules figure wrestles with the antlers of a hind, in almost exactly the same pose as seen on a 4th-century marble carving in Ravenna (Swarzenski’s fig. 25); while the dog-headed giant seen on the Boston oliphant is probably the Cynocephalus, one of the marvels of the East as reported in the De Rerum Naturis of Rabanus Maurus (c. 780– 856), and a popular motif in 11th- and 12th-century art.140 In addition to these motifs, there are centaurs on the Boston oliphant and the Byzantine-style Jászberényi horn; a mounted hunter on the Chartreuse de Portes oliphant wearing the same classical-style tunic as the ‘Hercules and the hind’ motif; other naked huntsmen; obviously Norman knights, identifiable by their helmets and kite-shaped shields; and beasts, real and fantastic, all of which have parallels in the contemporary art of southern Italy. This art may also provide the source of the odd, disembodied ‘demon’ head which pokes out between the roundels of the St Petersburg oliphant (Kühnel fig. 64b), or the bird pecking at its breast on the V&A (‘roundel style’) oliphant (Kühnel fig. 66b), which Pace associated with ‘ai pellicani di ascendente simbologia cristiana’.141 On the horn in Auch (Kühnel no. 76), there are even three equal-armed crosses — a motif which is also present on the Cappella Palatina soffits — nestling between the apparently Islamic beasts! Two particularly distinctive motifs are a type of snake or dragon with a body which curls over itself into loops; and the motif of two birds on either side of a bowl, vase or fountain, sometimes drinking from it (both motifs are visible in Fig. 5). Both of these motifs derive from Roman or late antique precedents, and both are known from sarcophagi. The motif of the birds drinking from a fountain is more ubiquitous, perhaps because it came to have a Christian allegorical significance of ‘ingesting eternal life’.142 It is seen on a sarcophagus from the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, datable to the 6th century and now in the Archiepiscopal Museum in Ravenna; and on Roman spolia reused in Christian contexts, such as the interior lintel above the entrance to Charlemagne’s Palatine Chapel in Aachen, founded c. 798. Also in Ravenna, the motif is seen on abaci above some of the basketwork capitals in the early-6th-century church of San Vitale. It is occasionally encountered in early medieval contexts before undergoing a revival across 11th-century Europe, most spectacularly in western France. In northern Italy it appears several times on the early-12th-century portal of the Basilica di San Michele in Pavia; while in a southern Italian context, there are several examples in the remarkable sculptural capitals in the Monreale cloisters (Fig. 25).143

Figure 24 Cluster of four columns at one of the corners of Monreale Cloister, Monreale Cathedral, Sicily (Mariam Rosser-Owen)

manner to those on the oliphants, including pronounced ribs on running quadrupeds.138 The style in which these animal motifs are depicted is not consistent. The carving style in the architecture differs according to chronology and region; on the oliphants, within their stylistic groups they are usually internally coherent, but there is little in common between, for example, harpies on the ‘roundel style’ and those on the ‘Byzantine style’ groups. This suggests that the ivory carvers and stone masons are not all drawing on a single model, but that the artistic concept — of decorating with animals in roundels, or featuring mythological beasts — is shared across southern Italy at this period. Whether this is due to the ‘dominant force of the Fatimid style’, or to a local development from classical, late antique and Byzantine styles, is perhaps not the most important question.139 Instead, it is significant that this style was prevalent in southern Italy by the (late?) 11th century, and provides the artistic context within which the decoration of the oliphants was created. We will return to the implications of this. It is surely more instructive to take into consideration the motifs that recur across the oliphants that are not known within the repertoire of Islamic art. Swarzenski already pointed out that the horns of 41

mariam rosser-owen On the oliphants, particularly elaborate examples of the motif of two birds drinking from a fountain are seen on the Ulf group: an almost identical presentation of the motif is seen on the oliphants now in Boston, Paris and Zaragoza.144 Like the unicorn, another motif which is not widespread in medieval Islamic art, it is one of the motifs that unites the oliphants in this group.145 However, it is also seen on the ‘Saracenic’ oliphants, including the Borradaile horn in the British Museum, where it occurs in the top register of roundels on both sides of the body (Kühnel nos. 65a, c, excluded from Shalem’s groupings). Here the ‘fountain’ is depicted distinctively as a high bird-table with loops at top and centre, which is also how it appears in the front border of the lid of the Doha casket (Fig. 19), whose carving style and technique is otherwise close to the oliphant in Edinburgh (Fig. 1). This motif, with its Christian origins and allegorical meaning, is thus embedded in the iconography across all the oliphant groups. The curled–bodied dragon is also seen on the Borradaile horn, looking rather Celtic in two roundels in the top register of the horn’s outer curve, between the roundels of birds at the fountain (Kühnel nos 65c, d); it is seen all over the Blackburn horn (Kühnel no. 81), now in the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. On the magnificent oliphant in the National Museum in Copenhagen, which is associated with the ‘Byzantine’ group, a pair of creatures in the upper border, depicted rather differently with scaly bodies and wings, nevertheless shows the same way of looping the body.146 This provides another iconographic connection between the ‘Saracenic’ and ‘Byzantine’ groups. This way of depicting a fantastical snake, dragon or sea monster becomes extremely widespread in Italy, especially in the 12th century. It is seen in the Monte Cassino illustration of Rabanus Maurus, copied in 1023. Extant architectural examples date from the 11th century.147 There are several elaborate examples in the mosaic pavements of churches, including the main apse of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (1140s) where two snakes curl on either side of the main altar, perhaps intended as guardians.148 The wonderful mosaic frieze of birds and animals which adorns the architrave of the portico at the Cathedral of Terracina in Lazio, probably dating to the late 12th century, includes a curl-bodied ‘dragon’ with wings, a scaly body and a dog-like face very like the motif on the upper band of the Copenhagen oliphant.149 Turning to sculptural examples, this motif is depicted on either side of the entrance to the Campanile (‘Leaning Tower’) at Pisa, above the foundation date of 1173 on the right hand side (Fig. 26). It is winged and scaly, not unlike the examples on the Copenhagen oliphant, but fiercer, menacing a ram on one side and a cow on the other, and being attacked by bears. This motif, paired on either side of the belltower’s entrance, probably has apotropaic significance. The creature appears again

in the lintel above the south-eastern entrance to the Duomo, the Porta di San Ranieri, which faces the Campanile, whose bronze doors were made c. 1186 by Bonanus Pisanus, after returning from Sicily where he produced the bronze doors at Monreale Cathedral.150 A rather tamer dragon appears at the centre of the architrave of the main portal at San Benedetto in Brindisi, datable to the early 12th century. It is speared by a warrior, and flanked by two figures wearing Norman-style pointed helmets, spearing equally tame-looking lions; the rather amused expression of these three supposedly fierce beasts reminds one of the depiction of animals on oliphants, especially those in the ‘roundel style’.151 Finally, again in the Monreale cloisters, we see some highly elaborate examples of the curled-bodied monster in several of the capitals, sometimes combined with the motif of birds drinking from a fountain.152 The reason for lingering on these two distinctive motifs is that such non-Islamic motifs on the oliphants — even on the ‘Saracenic group’ — have, to my knowledge, not been pointed out before. Their presence, fully incorporated into the zoological world of the oliphants and peacefully cohabiting with the other animals whose origins and designs have been perceived to be Islamic, is significant. Other stylistic connections with the oliphants could be elucidated through a comparative study of medieval Italian sculpture: for example, other capitals in the Monreale cloister feature soldiers with the Norman kite-shaped shields, as well as a very ‘classical’ figurative style, which seems to relate to the ‘Byzantine’ series of oliphants.153 There is also a quadriga depicted in one of the ceiling paintings at the Cappella Palatina — might that have been influenced by a continuing local artistic tradition of depicting chariot racing, as illustrated on the ‘Byzantine’ oliphants? Stylistically, the oliphants — as with the architectural sculpture to which their iconography relates — are so diverse that there is likely to be no single common place of production. Many hands and styles are discernible, even within the one group that has been extensively studied, that at the very least there were probably different shops at work. Indeed, according to Cutler, to make objects in ivory you really only need one craftsman, sometimes with an assistant, carrying portable tools such as a bow-lathe, and a few tusks to supply the raw material.154 No ‘industrial’ equipment or fixed location is needed to carve ivory objects, and as the material is so precious, every inch of it is used, leaving only the rarest of traces in the archaeological record.155 The likelihood of itinerant craftsmen undermines the need for fixed places of production. Like Bonanus, perhaps sculptors travelled to where their craft was in demand. Some of these craftsmen may have worked in various media — perhaps in both stone and ivory as well as plaster and wood, though this has largely disappeared — facilitating the transfer 42

the oliphant

Figure 25 Capital with motif of birds at a fountain, Monreale Cloister, Monreale Cathedral, Sicily (Mariam Rosser-Owen)

Figure 26 Curl-bodied dragon above the entrance to the Campanile, Pisa (Mariam Rosser-Owen) 43

mariam rosser-owen of style and iconography across media; shared artisanal skills might mean that the oliphants were carved in Bari and Amalfi, and other centres besides. It is also highly likely that some of the oliphants were made in centres unconnected with the Mediterranean. We will return to some of these issues in the concluding discussion, but first we should turn to the cultural context in which oliphants were used, and for that we have to ask why they were produced — what was the function of the oliphant?

it with wine, and drank it in front of the altar on bended knee’.160 It is important to note that the horns mentioned in such sources would only rarely have been made of ivory. These anecdotes lead us from the primary function of the oliphant — as a noble accoutrement for hunting and feasting — to its secondary function, which sheds significant light on the cultural context in which these horns were created and used. All oliphants for which we know a provenance have come to us from the treasuries of churches, primarily in northern Europe (the so-called Latin West). The objects in Kühnel’s catalogue of the ‘Saracenic’ group, as well as the references to horns in medieval treasury inventories listed in his Appendix, all come from France, Germany and the British Isles. Indeed, given the likelihood that many oliphants were made in southern Italy, it is odd that there are none in Italian collections — apart from that now in the Bargello and previously in the Medici collection, which could thus have been acquired from anywhere — and Kühnel’s list of inventories does not include any sources from Italy.161 I will return below to why this might be. Many of the sources listed in Kühnel’s Appendix refer to horns as containers for relics.162 Such horns were once suspended above the great altar at Canterbury Cathedral, for example; the ivory horn inventoried at Durham in 1383 held the relics of St Oswald (d. 642 or 672), king of Northumbria; while the ivory horn inventoried at Angers in 1255 improbably contained the relics ‘of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Sarah, as well as fragments of the Lord’s supper and many other relics’.163 Importantly, the horns listed in these inventories are not just made from ivory: there are several instances in Kühnel’s Appendix of gold and silver horns. For example, the church at Eller in the Mosel region was equipped with ‘unam argenteam et alteram auro et lapidibus paratam’, while among the treasures given to Durham by King Aethelstan (r. 924–39) were three ‘cornua auro et argento fabricata’.164 Somewhat later, Edmund Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1381), bequeathed ‘by will his great Horn of gold; also his lesser Horn of gold, with the strings’.165 The majority of the references indicate no material at all, mentioning simply ‘cornua’, but if ivory is intended they are described as ‘cornua de ebore’ or ‘cornu eburneum’. Very rarely is any further description given of these objects, the exception being the 1295 inventory of St Paul’s Cathedral (London) which lists an ‘ivory horn engraved with beasts and birds, large’.166 More frequently, the only feature mentioned is the mounts: for example, the list of royal treasures seized from the castle of Edinburgh in 1296/7 includes ‘three ivory horns adorned (harnesiata) with silver and with silk’ (Kühnel, ‘Anhang’, no. 10); the Limoges inventory (1126–1245) lists four ‘cornua de ebore, quaedam sunt cum argento’ (Kühnel, ‘Anhang’, no. 15).167 One horn not included in Kühnel’s Appendix (which was not intended to be exhaustive) is listed

PART 3. SECULAR AND SACRED: THE LATIN CONTEXT Though they have taken on a rather mythical quality — as Ebitz said, the ‘spirit [of the oliphant has] escaped into the magic world of the romance’ — oliphants were originally essentially practical objects. They were horns. The tip of the tusks is usually hollowed out, allowing the horn to be blown. And they seem to have been effective, as evinced by past attempts to actually blow them.156 Oliphants were, therefore, eminently suitable for hunting, which is how horns are seen being used in hundreds of scenes in medieval art. Though it is often said that oliphants are too heavy to be practical, this varies, depending on the size of the tusk and thickness of the ivory. Many of them have been trimmed down from the outside so that the walls are quite thin, allowing them to resonate sufficiently to make a sound. They would certainly not have been too heavy for a seasoned hunter, who would be strapping on much heftier gear than this.157 The raised belts that are integral to the decoration of the oliphants are also fundamental to their use, as they allow straps — probably originally in leather or textile, later made more permanent and decorative in metal — to be attached, to facilitate the horn being carried during a hunt; or, if later repurposed, to be suspended, for storage or display. Some of the particularly large oliphants, which can be more than metre in length, may have been more of a status symbol or ceremonial rather than functional objects, or were presented directly to churches as reliquaries, as seems to have been the case with the plain St Servatius horn. Their hollow tip could be stoppered so that the signalling horn doubled up as a drinking horn, as King Harold and his knights are depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry, drinking during the feast at Bosham in 1064.158 This use is also frequently mentioned in the medieval sources: Ingulphus, abbot of Crowland (Lincolnshire) at the time of William the Conqueror, mentions in his history of the abbey the gift of Witlaf, king of Mercia, of ‘the horn used at his own table, for the elder monks of the house to drink out of on festivals and saints’ days’.159 Likewise, in describing the ceremonial presentation of his oliphant to York Minster, William Camden describes how Ulf took the horn, ‘from which he was accustomed to drink, filled 44

the oliphant in one of the inventories of Edward I’s treasury in Westminster Abbey: ‘a horn with silver fittings that belonged to St Thomas Cantilupe’, Bishop of Hereford (1275–82).168 So while these horns were clearly valued for their materials or their saintly contents or connections, it seems highly questionable whether they were understood as objects from ‘the east’, or had a recognizably Islamic association, as Hoffman has argued. Ebitz discussed the presentation of ivory horns to churches as ‘pious gifts’.169 Discussing the oliphant in the Musée de Cluny (Fig. 6), he believes it was recarved with Christian themes to make this fundamentally secular object more appropriate for its new role as a container for sacred relics. The stylistic comparisons, which we noted in Part 2, between the oliphants and southern Italian church architecture actually makes the decoration of the oliphants appear less overtly secular, a point I will come back to below. But the somewhat passive manner in which Ebitz talks of this object ‘passing [. . .] from the hands of its secular owner into the treasure of a church’ underestimates the importance of the presentation of the oliphant, horn or other item as a ‘symbolic object’ — to use Michael Clanchy’s phrase — of some more meaningful and substantive gift, usually land.170 Ulf’s horn in York Minster, for example, was a physical memorial of his presentation of lands to the Church. This was very common practice: as Clanchy has discussed, the presentation of a symbolic object was an essential aspect of what he calls ‘pre-literate property law’. Before conveyances were made with documents, witnesses ‘heard’ a donor utter the words of the grant and ‘saw’ him make the transfer by a symbolic object. This customarily involved the ceremonial laying of the object on the altar, in the presence of many witnesses. Such a gesture was intended to impress the event on the memory of all those present. If there were dispute subsequently, resort was had to the recollection of the witnesses, or to the presentation of the object itself. This actually happened with the Pusey horn (Fig. 27), purportedly presented to William Pusey by King Cnut, ‘by which to hold the land’.171 What John Cherry described as the ‘legal apotheosis of horn tenure’ occurred in 1685 when a case before Lord Chancellor Jefferies (1645–89) required the horn to be produced in court and with ‘universal admiration, [it] was received, admitted and proved to be the identical horn by which, as by a charter, Cnut had conveyed the manor of Pusey seven hundred years before’.172 Such horns are known as ‘horns of tenure’, and there are many other examples, in ivory as well as horns from domestic cattle, European bison, and aurochs. These latter had become extinct in England around 1500 BC but continued to survive in Germany and Poland until the 17th century, and it is assumed that their horns were imported ‘raw’ to be turned into drinking horns in England, or mounted in central

Figure 27 The ‘Pusey horn’ (M.220-1938) (© Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

Europe and then imported.173 Another famous tenure horn, which survives to this day in a private collection, is the Borstal Horn, said to have been given by Edward the Confessor as a symbol of land in Bernwood Forest, Buckinghamshire, which he gave to the huntsman Nigel who killed a wild boar that was infesting this royal hunting park.174 Nigel and his heirs were to hold this land in perpetuity ‘per unum cornu, quod est charta praedictae forestae’. By the late 12th century this hereditary office was symbolized by its bearer wearing ‘his horn hanging about his neck’ when attending the king’s army. The (ivory) Savernake Horn (Fig. 21) was named after the forest of which its owners were the ‘hereditary bailiffs and keepers [. . .] ever since the reign of Henry II’.175 The decoration on its 14th-century silver mounts consists of hunting dogs and hunted animals, especially deer and birds of prey, but in the most visible position at the top face of the uppermost mount are three figures: an aged king sitting under a Gothic canopy, lifting his right hand and holding a sceptre in his left; to his right, a bishop in his mitre, uplifting his hand like the king; on the left of the king is a forester or bailiff, blowing a horn with his right hand and drawing a sword with his left. The author of the antiquarian study of this object interpreted this combination of figures as denoting ‘some grant of office and power jointly conferred by the king 45

mariam rosser-owen commonly presented, as well as other non-oliphant objects made of ivory. For example, ‘the ivory handle of a whip’ was found in the ruins of St Alban’s Abbey, and appears to have been the testimony of a gift of four mares to the monks from one Gilbert de Novo Castello.185 However, ivory as a material was probably exceptional, and most horns in medieval treasuries were made from cattle. Sometimes these horns were already prestigious for their age: the drinking horn now in the collection of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, has been identified as coming from an aur-bull (an aurochs male) of the Holocene period, c. 3000 BC.186 Aurochs are probably the terrible beasts of the Hercynian Wood, described in Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, hunted heroically by young men of the Germani tribes; once killed they ‘display the horns in public’, and ‘these, eagerly sought for, they surround with silver on the mouths and use as cups in the grandest feasts’.187 Their ancient and heroic associations gradually led to the adoption of magical properties: a mounted ox-horn in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris, which came from Abbot Suger’s treasury at St Denis, was said to be a griffin’s claw.188 An ibex horn now in the British Museum is associated with St Cuthbert, and according to the inscription on its silver mount, added 1575–1625, was also thought to have been a griffin’s claw.189 These attributions make sense of some of the inventory sources included in Kühnel’s Appendix, including the gift to Winchester cathedral from Bishop Henry of Blois (d. 1171) of nine ivory horns ‘et ungula grifonis’ (‘Anhang’, no. 29).190 Aurochs horns became a supreme status symbol: Edward III (r. 1327–77) had ‘un corn de griffon pour boir’, garnished with gilt copper.191 Another magnificent creature that was becoming extinct in central Europe in the medieval period was the European elk. Regarded as ‘noble game’, the Ottonians banned their hunting without permission.192 An entire antler from a mature bull elk is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, with a provenance of the funerary chapel of Louis the Pious in the abbey church of Metz. Dated through radiocarbon analysis to the period AD 975–1020, the entire circumference of the antler, including its tines, is carved with a vine scroll inhabited by birds and lions. Though the recent publication of this object associates the carving style with north-eastern France in the late 11th/early 12th century, there are clear similarities — especially in the rendering of the grape bunches and birds’ bodies — with the Salerno ivories group. How an antler from a central European animal came to southern Italy, or how a carver from southern Italy might have come to Metz, is not a question for this article to address. More interesting is the possible identification of this carved antler with the famous shield of Louis the Pious, and the fact that it hung from the vault of his funerary chapel alongside an oliphant (that now in the Musée de Cluny, Fig. 6), as a combined ‘relic’ of Carolingian imperial power and authority.

and bishop on the person at their left hand, who as forester blows his horn of office and with his uplifted sword signifies the power he is invested with for the execution of that office’.176 In other words, the very visualization of the conveyance of land and therefore power which the horn itself physically represents. The choice of object presented in this manner stands for the type of gift: a horn — an accoutrement of hunting, which may itself have been obtained through acts of bravery in the hunt — stands for a gift of land which can be hunted on. Land tenure and hunting privileges signify territorial power and above all wealth — both to their secular owners and to the churches to which the land was conveyed. Hunting, both physically enacted and visually represented, is emblematic of ‘the unique privileges of land ownership, and the social status it secures’, as Jerrilyn Dodds has pointed out.177 David Rollason has recently stressed the importance of forests and parks as the sites of royal hunting and recreation, enhancing the ‘power of place’ controlled by castles and great houses throughout early medieval Europe.178 By the 11th and 12th century — because of the Normans’ invasion and their consequent need to codify and demonstrate land ownership — ‘hunting rights became one kind of concrete and symbolic proof of a lord’s sovereignty over the land’.179 It is in this context that horns of tenure become so widespread, ‘when land ownership was a particularly contested issue’.180 The Normans in England actively encouraged the expansion of hunting as a means of land appropriation, introducing fallow deer, possibly from Sicily or southern Italy, and establishing them in forests across England to be hunted as a prerogative of the ruling elite, as imposed by the new Forest Law.181 In addition, new hunting rituals were introduced, again possibly from Sicily, such as the ‘unmaking’ of the deer, the climax of a hunt when hunters displayed their skill at dismembering the carcass, gifting different parts of the animal to particular individuals. Rollason comments that ‘to have a share in the pursuit, killing and breaking up of the beast, and the distribution of the game [. . .] might well have been the same type of sought-after privilege as was attending the levée of Louis XIV at Versailles’.182 Hunting rituals became increasingly complex and circumscribed during the medieval period, and were encouraged as equivalent to warfare and an essential part of the education of the nobility. As Sally Sutton points out, ‘knowledge of the attendant rituals and procedures denoted status and were considered to be a mark of the ruling elite, the Normans’; as such, she concludes that, ‘ivory horns may well have been the ideal instrument for displaying Norman identity’.183 It is also interesting to note that the oliphants’ bestiary has parallels with literary descriptions of the animals that inhabited royal hunting parks.184 Horns are not the only type of object presented in this symbolic mode of conveyance: knives were very 46

the oliphant These non-ivory horns and related objects provide crucial cultural context for the oliphants, and they should be discussed together, but because of the hierarchies of materials within art history, the ivory horns — and above all, those ivory horns with decoration — have been extracted from their wider context and discussed in isolation. These other types of horn have been almost totally neglected in art history, since the attention of a few 18th-century antiquarians who were fascinated by them from a legal history point of view.193 These bovine horns present a host of problems to the art historian: they are usually undecorated, have mounts that are probably later, it is difficult to know genuinely how old some of them are (none of them, to my knowledge, has been radiocarbon dated). On the other hand, they have in most cases emerged from ecclesiastical, aristocratic and even royal collections, a provenance that cannot be ignored. Methodologically, as art historians, how do we work with such material, totally lacking in ars? What can be gained, art-historically speaking, by considering ivory oliphants in the broader context of horns? What happens to the role of ivory as a material in the appreciation and function of oliphants when they are considered within

the wider group of horns? What happens to their ornamentation? Such questions should inform the way in which research into this broader category is taken forward, a task which I am happy to defer to others.194 This expanded category of horns is the cultural context into which the oliphants fit, which informs us about their function and consumption, and within which they should be discussed and understood. We should be opening up the discussion of the oliphant, not only to include the many which are not decorated in an Islamic style, but also to attempt to understand the reason for their creation in reference to the cultural context in which they were used and valued. CONCLUSIONS This brings me to my final observations, about the places of production and consumption of these intriguing objects, as well as some remarks on chronology. Though it is an art historical truism that many uncategorizable objects have been dumped in southern Italy, as a melting pot of Byzantine, Islamic and Latin styles, nevertheless the southern Italian context remains

Figure 28 Porta dei Leoni at the church of San Nicola, Bari (Valentino Pace, with kind permission) 47

mariam rosser-owen perilous to attempt to match extant objects with medieval inventories, especially when the texts provide no further description of the objects concerned.198 The insistence on an early-11th-century date for the oliphants has sustained the Fatimid connection: since the Fatimids were in their heyday at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries, and this is when we can trace physical evidence of Fatimid works of art in Italy — the bacini in Pisa, or the lustreware tesserae that form the sea monsters on the Ravello ambo — then the oliphants must date from this period too. But if, as I am arguing here, we should downplay the Fatimid connection and look instead to the local Italian context, then it makes more sense to assign the oliphants to the late 11th century at the earliest, given the stylistic associations with the Salerno ivories and the plaster panels from Santa Maria di Terreti, and predominantly to the 12th century, perhaps even quite late in the century. Indeed, it is very likely that different groups of artisans produced oliphants throughout that century, probably working in different centres, and responding to the availability of the raw material. The possibility of travelling craftsmen, perhaps working in both stone and ivory — as well as other materials such as wood and plaster — has been mentioned, as a means by which such closely similar styles and motifs transferred across media. This is not the place for a full discussion of this question, but it is a genuine possibility. As Sarah Guérin has pointed out, the hardness of ivory (three on the Mohs scale) is equivalent to that of limestone, and implies that a carver skilled in one material could equally turn his skill to the carving of the other.199 Ivory carvers in Gothic Paris, for example, operated in guilds according to the types of images they produced, and were not specialised by material; and as Rose Walker discusses in her contribution to this volume, monks at Monte Cassino in the late 11th century were trained not only in laying mosaics, but also in metal and glass working, as well as ivory, wood, alabaster and stone carving.200 Sculptors may have travelled to where their craft was in demand, just as Bonanus travelled to where bronze doors were required. It is worth pointing out that if a consignment of tusks were to suddenly arrive, by whatever means, at an Italian centre, it would be necessary to find someone to carve them, and who better to turn to than sculptors already working in stone and stucco to adorn foundations such as Monte Cassino or Salerno Cathedral? This undermines the need for fixed places of production, and suggests that we should perhaps stop trying to localize the oliphants’ place(s) of production in specific southern Italian centres. Indeed, the availability of the raw material might have dictated when and where ivory objects were produced. It is possible that ivory was not constantly available in abundance, so that craftsmen may have worked in other materials during the ‘down time’.201 The seventy or so oliphants

the one for which there is strong circumstantial evidence for the production of these objects, through stylistic comparison to architectural schemes, as well as the consumption of comparable ivory objects.195 The stylistic connections outlined in Part 2 lead to the conclusion that the decorative schemes as conceived and executed on the oliphants come from an artistic repertoire that was widespread in Italy, especially but not exclusively in the south, from the late 11th to the late 12th century. As in the Islamic world, it is religious architecture that tends to survive, and all the most relevant comparisons come from ecclesiastical contexts. This is no doubt significant, given that the oliphants’ decoration has always been thought to be primarily secular, in apparent contradiction to their subsequent use as reliquaries.196 However, since these churches’ portals (Fig. 28) and interiors were frequently decorated in the same fashion, perhaps this contradiction was not so great, if it existed at all. Indeed, the widespread use of these motifs in church architecture makes it difficult to sustain the idea that the oliphants’ decoration was identifiably Islamic, unless the same also held true for the churches. The decoration of the oliphants drew on an iconographical pool that was fully current in 11thand 12th-century Italy, an aesthetic that was shared across the urban centres of the south, where the wealth and patronage power existed to commission such buildings or objects. There is thus no need to look to Islamic art for the immediate source of the motifs employed. Some of these may originally have derived from Islamic sources, but much of it was Roman, or Byzantine, perhaps ‘seasoned’ with a bit of Islamic art imported from the Fatimid world or, actually more likely, from further west, from the central and western Mediterranean, via the southern Italian ports of Bari, Palermo or Amalfi. One broad conclusion about dating can be drawn from the discussion of stylistic comparanda, though it raises many issues which I hope other scholars will elaborate and elucidate. The vast majority of the stylistic and iconographical parallels I have been adducing come from contexts datable to the 12th century, frequently to the end of the century. This must have an implication for dating the oliphants. These are usually dated broadly to the 11th and 12th centuries, with a preference to assign them to the 11th century, even to the early 11th century. This is based partly on the Horn of Ulf, whose early-11th-century date can no longer be sustained, and partly on the references to cornua eburnea in medieval church inventories, which begin in the early 11th century.197 Pace has suggested that the roundel style horn now in Berlin (Kühnel no. 60) is one of the ‘sechs Hörner von Helffantzehen gemacht’ presented to the cathedral of Speyer in 1065, implying a mid-11th-century date for the roundel group. But as far as I know there is no documentary basis for this association, and it is always 48

the oliphant son of Mansone’ (Manso./Tauro. Fi.), linked with one of the most powerful families in Amalfi at the end of the 11th century; and the Farfa casket, for which the consensus seems to be a date in the 1070s and an association with the same family who commissioned bronze doors for the new abbey at Monte Cassino.207 These associations point to a wealthy mercantile class with the money and patronage power to express their identity through sometimes ostentatious artistic commissions. Ecclesiastical patronage must also be considered. In the period after 1076 — the conquest of Salerno by Robert Guiscard, and adoption of this city as his capital — this patronage power seems also to have been expressed by the new Norman elite, who used artistic patronage to construct and display their new hegemony.208 So why have no oliphants been found in Italy? The consumption patterns we have been discussing — the presentation of these objects to churches, either as symbols of conveyed property or as reliquaries — is what has preserved them, and this seems to have been a northern European phenomenon. The early use of horns for drinking and as symbols of status seems to have been a Scandinavian custom since the Iron Age, particularly under the Vikings.209 Horns were also important status symbols in Anglo–Saxon culture.210 An anecdote related by Gervase of Tilbury, c. 1210, mentions drinking from ‘a great horn, adorned with gold and gems, as was the custom among the most ancient English’ — implying that, even so long after the Norman conquest, this was understood as a pre–Norman custom.211 Using the horn as a mode of conveyance seems likewise to have existed before the Normans, as Ingulphus, abbot of Crowland at the time of the conquest, remarks on the custom of ‘conveying [land] sine scriptis and by means of symbols’.212 Did the Normans in Italy — originally Vikings and still culturally Norsemen — invent the oliphant as a cultural symbol? As we have seen, the horn was the quintessential medieval symbol of hunting, and thus of prowess in battle, a crucial talent if you wanted to advance in Norman society. As a symbol of the hunt, it also came to signify the ownership of land, as well as the legal conveyance of land, an issue of great importance to the Normans as they established themselves in southern Italy. The types of animal from which horns of tenure were customarily made in the northern European lands from which the Normans hailed — bison and aurochs, especially — were not common in the Mediterranean.213 On the other hand, southern Italy was positioned at a focal point for trade with Ifriqiya, a commerce which had been flourishing for more than a century, in which ivory was a readily available commodity. The creation of the Salerno ivories group — and if Robert Guiscard was not himself the patron, then it was another member of the Norman elite — or other contemporary pieces, such as the Farfa casket, might have suggested an alternative use

that seem to have been made in southern Italy in the hundred years from the late 11th to the late 12th centuries — given the visual connections we have made with stucco and stone — and perhaps in temporal clusters within that broad period, attest to the fact that a lot of raw ivory was passing through the ports of southern Italy at this time. It is now emerging as a consensus that the source of this ivory was subSaharan reservoirs in West Africa, transported with other luxury commodities along the ‘Gold Route’ to Mediterranean ports in North Africa, especially Ifriqiya, and thence shipped to southern Italy.202 Conversely, the evidence for the availability of raw ivory in medieval Egypt is slim and patchy, since the Swahili ports of East Africa directed their trade to the Indian Ocean, with limited penetration of the Red Sea. Combined with the minimal evidence for the existence of Fatimid ivories, it is illogical to attribute this level of ivory availability and production to Egypt.203 Considering that African elephant tusks could reach a length of 2 metres, sometimes more, and that the pulp cavity — the conical hollow that was used to make an oliphant — occupied up to a third of the tusk, more than a metre of good quality dentine then remained from which to make other ivory objects (Fig. 3). In addition to the oliphants, a huge range of objects has been associated with southern Italy (in which I include Sicily) in the late 11th and 12th centuries, which seems to have been a region of intense ivory production in this period: the Farfa casket, the Salerno group and other ivories that can be associated with it, large caskets decorated in the style of the ‘Saracenic’ oliphants (Fig. 19), a plethora of large chess pieces both figurative and abstract, more than 300 surviving ‘Siculo-Arabic’ boxes associated with the Norman court at Palermo, and no doubt other objects whose origins have not yet been identified.204 Such objects are not normally discussed together, but should be, given what they cumulatively tell us about ivory trade and production patterns across one region at a relatively limited time — multidisciplinarity in the future study of this material is essential.205 Oliphants thus emerge as an object type inspired by a wider ivory-carving culture, as a way to use part of the tusk that would otherwise be thrown away. If it is true that the same craftsmen worked in ivory and stone, particularly close stylistic comparisons between objects and buildings might further elucidate the chronological question. Apart from the broad ‘groups’ that coalesce from ivories that are stylistically coherent and were probably therefore made by workshops, the ‘misfit’ oliphants may have been made outside of this structure, at any point from the 10th to the 13th century or later, when their production perhaps shifts to northern Europe, following the ivory supply.206 Turning finally to the question of consumption, southern Italy is again the region for which we have evidence in the form of the penbox made for ‘Taurus 49

mariam rosser-owen world; for close looking, and for sometimes taking the more difficult investigative path. I hope other scholars will take forward some of the ideas presented here, and that ultimately we will develop a richer understanding of the cultural context within which ivory horns were conceived, created and consumed.

for the piece of tusk that could not be carved into panels for the paliotto or to veneer caskets. Could the intensity of ivory carving for both secular and religious purposes, sponsored by a Norman elite actively engaged in consolidating their land and position in southern Italy, have led the ivory craftsmen to turn their hand to producing oliphants? These prestigious horns, made of luxury materials and richly decorated, would have become valued status symbols locally, but could also have been used as gifts within the complex network of Norman kinship ties across Europe. Perhaps this stimulated further demand in northern Europe for an object type which could only, at that date, be made in southern Italy, thanks to the trade with Ifriqiya, and fuelled an export trade in oliphant production?214 It is also possible that raw tusks were transported along Norman kinship networks, allowing for the possibility that some of the ‘misfit’ oliphants — those that do not conform to stylistic comparanda locatable in southern Italy — might have been carved in production centres in the north and west, far from the Mediterranean. If the demand for luxury ivory horns was just as great within Italy, for some reason the secondary process — of conveying the horn into a treasury collection, thus ensuring its preservation — was not so prevalent there, which is why no oliphants have apparently survived within Italian ecclesiastical collections.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks are due to the organizers of the BAA conference in Palermo, and especially to Rosa Bacile, for accepting my paper and finally giving me the opportunity to travel to Sicily after all these years; and for arranging such stimulating visits to the key Norman monuments, which really opened my eyes to the broader material context of Sicily and southern Italy. I am deeply grateful for the excellent and helpful feedback I received from other conference attendees then and since, including Martin Biddle, Richard Camber, Lev Kapitaikin, Christopher Norton and Ittai Weinryb. I would also like to thank those who were present at a first, very tentative presentation of these thoughts at the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha in March 2012, while I was there as visiting scholar. I am particularly grateful to all the friends and colleagues who took the time to read the early draft of this article and provide such helpful and honest feedback — their comments and suggestions have strongly informed my revisions, though of course any errors remain my own: Silvia Armando, Rosa Bacile, Isabelle Dolezalek, Barbara Drake Boehm, Antony Eastmond, Sarah Guérin, John McNeill and Rose Walker. Finally, sincere thanks to the colleagues who helped me to source images and permissions, including Marie–Cécile Bardoz, Sheila Canby, Elisabeth Delahaye, Francesca Dell’Acqua, Elisabeth O’Connell, Leslee Katrina Michelsen, Valentino Pace, Friederike Voigt, Laura Weinstein and Béla Zsolt Szakács. Other people have helped along the way and they are thanked in the footnotes.

The genesis of this article was a desire to staunch a tendency among Islamic art historians to absorb an hypothesis without subjecting it to a thorough critique. This hypothesis was based on assumptions about the role of Fatimid art and trade, and stylistic transfer between Egypt and southern Italy, that may be long-held but that need to be subjected to closer scrutiny. At the same time, this hypothesis focused on a small subset of a large group of objects, which did not allow for a wholistic understanding of an artistic and cultural phenomenon. The arguments outlined here conclude that there is no Fatimid cultural milieu within which oliphants could have been conceptualized or consumed; that the raw material to make them was scarce in Egypt, while in contrast it was abundant in southern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries; that the stylistic comparisons have a strong connection to the art of southern Italy in the Norman period; that the central and western Mediterranean contexts have been unduly ignored. There are still many unanswered questions about this intriguing group of objects, but I hope here to have made a case for opening up the subject broadly, rather than narrowing it down; for thinking about a familiar group of objects within an expanded framework that intersects with social, cultural and economic history; for releasing the small subset of ‘Saracenic’ oliphants from the circular arguments to which they have been subjected, which divert us towards the east and to connections with the Islamic

NOTES 1 A. Shalem, The Oliphant: Islamic Objects in Historical Context (Leiden 2004), 106. Shalem’s long-awaited corpus was literally hot-off-the-press when the final revisions to this article were due: see A. Shalem assisted by M. Glaser, Die mittelalterlichen Olifante, 2 vols, Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft (Berlin 2014). I have not had the necessary time to go through this new volume in detail and make a comparative study with the arguments proposed in 2004. In general it seems that the theoretical framework and the chronological/typological groupings presented in Shalem’s earlier publication have not changed substantially, though they have been refined somewhat and new sub-groupings proposed. As such, the arguments I express here, based on the 2004 study, still apply. 2 Ibid. (as n. 1), 76–79. 3 For example, Jonathan Bloom’s recent study of Fatimid art followed Shalem’s attribution by captioning the British Museum oliphant (OA +1302) after Shalem’s volume: both read ‘Egypt,

50

the oliphant 17 A. Eastmond, ‘On Diversity in Southern Italy. The Problem of Style, Culture, Geography and Attribution in Medieval Ivories’, in The ‘Amalfi’–‘Salerno’ Ivories and the Medieval Mediterranean: A Notebook from the workshop held in Amalfi, 10–13 December 2009, Quaderni del Centro di Cultura e Storia Amalfitana, 5 (2011), 105– 25. Now see his article ‘Byzantine oliphants?’, in ΦΙΛΟΠΑΤΙΟΝ. Spaziergang im kaiserlichen Garten. Schriften über Byzanz und seine Nachbarn. Festschrift für Arne Effenberger zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. N. Asutay-Effenberger and F. Daim, Monographien des RömischGermanischen Zentralmuseums, 106 (Mainz 2013), 95–118. Hoffman, ‘Translation’ (as n. 7), 105, says these are fashioned to look ‘authentically Byzantine’. 18 ‘I suggest [. . .] including into the Saracenic group only those oliphants which have a distinctive Islamic decoration or those which slightly diverge from the typical Islamic ones’: Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 61. 19 This discussion of Shalem’s Group I summarizes his arguments on Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 63–64, 70–76, 136. Shalem’s 2014 corpus refines these groupings and adds sub-groupings, but they remain essentially the same as those presented in 2004. Due to the new volume’s nature as a catalogue raisonée, Shalem is more specific about places of production. His Group I (A1–A13) is assigned to Egypt, southern Italy or Sicily, 11th century; Group II (A14–A18) is assigned to Egypt, probably Cairo, 11th century; A19 and A20 are ‘related to Group II’, also Cairo, 11th century; Group III (A21–A23) is assigned to Sicily, probably Palermo, in the late 11th to early 12th century; ditto the two oliphants (A24– A25) that are ‘related to Group III’; finally, there is a category of oliphants which present ‘variations of the Fatimid style in the West’ (A26–A30), assigned to southern Italy or Sicily, late 11th to 12th century. The objects assigned to Cairo are those that have a plain, lightly faceted body, with a decorated band at the bell-end featuring running animals or palmette scrolls. 20 This discussion of Shalem’s Group II summarizes his arguments on Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 64–65, 76–77, 136. 21 A. Cutler, The Hand of the Master: Craftsmanship, Ivory and Society in Byzantium (9th–11th Centuries) (Princeton 1994), 111. 22 F. Gabrieli and U. Scerrato, Gli Arabi in Italia (Milan 1979), fig. 196. 23 Compare Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), figs 39–42, conveniently arrayed across a double-page spread. 24 A. Shalem, ‘Islamische Objekte in Kirchenschätzen der lateinischen Christenheit: Ästhetische Stufen des Umgangs mit dem Anderen und dem Hybriden’, in Das Bistum Bamberg in der Welt des Mittelalters, Bamberger interdisziplinäre Mittelalterstudien Vorlesungen und Vorträge 1, ed. C. and K. van Eickels (Bamberg 2007), 163–76. 25 This discussion of Shalem’s Group III summarizes his arguments on Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 66–67, 77–79, 136. 26 M. Rosser-Owen, Ivory: 8th to 17th Centuries. Treasures from the Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar (London 2004), cat. 7, 32–33. This formula is extremely common on the ‘Siculo-Arabic’ caskets (with my thanks to Silvia Armando for this observation). 27 The word ‘Mudéjar’ derives from an Arabic word meaning ‘tamed’ or ‘submissive’, referring to the communities of Andalusi Muslims who continued to live in their native lands after they had been conquered by Christians and thereby ‘submitted’ to non-Islamic law in their territory. However, it was not necessarily Muslim craftsmen who made art in an Islamic style, which was highly fashionable among non-Muslims in the 15th and 16th centuries especially. For definitions, see the introductions to L. P. Harvey, Islamic Spain 1250–1500 (Chicago 1990); L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain 1500–1614 (Chicago 2006); G. Wiegers, Islamic Literature in Spanish and Aljamiado (Leiden 1994). For a discussion of the vogue for Mudéjar artistic styles, see M. Rosser-Owen, Islamic Arts from Spain (London 2010), chapter 3. 28 Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 73. 29 Hoffman, ‘Pathways’ and ‘Translation’ (as n. 7). Jeremy Johns has recently suggested the possibility of Islamic models travelling to southern Italy in the form of pattern books, citing the rare drawings

c. 1000’ (J. Bloom, The Arts of the City Victorious: Islamic Art and Architecture in Fatimid North Africa and Egypt (Yale and London 2007), 4, fig. 4; Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), pl. VI, fig. 44), though the ‘oliphant question’ is not discussed in Bloom’s text. Shalem’s theory was more explicitly reinforced by the inclusion of the Boston oliphant (50.3425) in the exhibition Gifts of the Sultan: the Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts (in its Los Angeles and Houston venues) and accompanying catalogue: see J. Bloom, ‘Fatimid Gifts’ in Gifts of the Sultan: the Arts of Giving at the Islamic Courts, ed. L. Komaroff (New Haven and London 2011), 95–109, fig. 88, cat. no. 127. 4 For more detail, see the discussion in Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 38–49. 5 D. Ebitz, ‘The Oliphant: Function and Meaning in a Courtly Society’, in The Medieval Court in Europe, ed. E. E. Haymes (Munich 1986), 123–41; discussed in Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 101–04. The word ‘oliphant’ was also used in the epic to refer to other objects made from ivory. 6 D. Ebitz, ‘Secular to Sacred: the Transformation of an Oliphant in the Musée de Cluny’, Gesta, XXV (1986), 31–38. 7 See, for example, the recent articles by E. Hoffman, ‘Pathways of Portability: Islamic and Christian Interchange from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century’, Art History, 24 (2001), 17–50 and 19; ‘Translation in Ivory: Interactions across Cultures and Media in the Mediterranean during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, in Siculo-Arabic Ivories and Islamic Painting 1100–1300. Proceedings of the International Conference, Berlin, 6–8 July 2007. Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana, vol. XXXVI, ed. D. Knipp (Munich 2011), 100–19. 8 E. Kühnel, ‘Die sarazenischen Olifanthörner’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 1 (1959), 33–50; Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 51. 9 See E. Bassani and W. Fagg ed., Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory (New York 1988); J. Levenson ed., Encompassing the Globe: Portugal and the World in the 16th and 17th Centuries, exhibition catalogue (Washington DC 2007); and E. Bassani, Ivoires d’Afrique dans les anciennes collections françaises (Paris 2008), 42–44. My thanks to Sarah Guérin for bringing this last book to my attention. 10 V&A: A.564–1910, see [accessed 19 May 2013]. This is attributed to Paris or Cologne, c. 1300 by P. Williamson and G. Davies in their recent catalogue of the V&A’s Gothic ivories, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200–1550, 2 (London 2014), 732–37 (cat. 250). Shalem includes it, and other Gothic ivories, in his new corpus (E2): Shalem, Die mittelalterlichen Olifante (as n. 1). Various examples are also attributed to the 15th century, such as the Relikhoorn of St Cornelius, now in Sint–Janshospitaal in Bruges, which is faceted and decorated with gilding: see S. Vandenberghe, Ivoor in Brugge: Schatten uit Musea, Kerken en Kloosters, Museum Bulletin 2 (Musea Brugge 2010). 11 O. von Falke, ‘Elfenbeinhörner I: Ägypten und Italien’, Pantheon, 4 (1929), 511–17; ‘Elfenbeinhörner II: Byzanz’, Pantheon, 5 (1930), 39–44. 12 E. Kühnel, Die islamischen Elfenbeinskulpturen VIII–XIII Jahrhundert (Berlin 1971), prepared by his wife and assistants; Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 52–53, describes the confusion that arose between the 1959 and 1971 iterations of Kühnel’s theories about the ‘Saracenic’ oliphants. 13 Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 3–4. 14 Shalem, Die mittelalterlichen Olifante (as n. 1). 15 J. Caskey, ‘Stuccoes from the Early Norman Period in Sicily: Figuration, Fabrication and Integration’, Medieval Encounters, 17 (2011), 80–119. 16 For more information on these objects, see Clephane horn, M&ME 1979, 7–1,1): (Borradaile horn, M&ME 1923,12–15, 3): [both sites accessed 30 June 2013].

51

mariam rosser-owen Sammlung türkischer und islamischer Kunst im Tschinili Köschk (Berlin 1938), 24, fig. 30. My deep gratitude to Julian Raby for identifying the Topkapı candlestick and the publications in which it features, and for sharing his own view on the origin of the candlestick. 45 Kühnel read the dedicatory inscription as naming one ‘al-Malik Ghiyath al-Din’. David Storm Rice, who later published the candlestick, seems to have been unaware of Kühnel’s earlier publication as he believed the inscription to be anonymous: see D. S. Rice, ‘The Seasons and the Labors of the Months in Islamic Art’, Ars Orientalis, 1 (1954), 1–39, esp. 34–35, pl. 18 (our medallion is shown in image b). Storm Rice also favoured a Syrian connection, but believed the candlestick to have been made by Syrian craftsmen for an Ilkhanid patron in north-western Iran, soon after the Mongol conquest of Syria in 1300. Raby does not agree with the Syrian connection, believing it to be Ilkhanid production, perhaps made during the reign of Öljeitü (r. 1304–16), who used the title ‘Ghiyath al-dunya wa’l-din’ (personal communication, 27 February 2013). 46 See the introduction to A. Gunter and P. Jett, Ancient Iranian Metalwork in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art (Washington DC 1992), 13–20. 47 WW.141.2008, see S. Rees and F. Hilloowala, ‘Carved wooden beam’, in Focus on 50: Unseen Treasures from the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar (Doha 2010), 34–37, also sale catalogue for Christie’s, King Street, 8 April 2008 (Sale 7571, Lot 39). 48 The earliest parallel I have been able to trace for a simpler version of this arch profile is in the oblong vault (the ‘dôme barlong’) in front of the mihrab in the Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fez, constructed as part of ‘Ali ibn Yusuf ibn Tashfin’s refurbishment of that monument between 1136 and 1143: see H. Terrasse, La Mosquée al-Qaraouiyin à Fés (Paris 1968), fig. 22. In the frieze that runs along the base of the vault, triple arches alternate with single ‘humps’, that by the time of the Mosque of Tinmal (founded 1156) are starting to be incorporated into the arch profile itself. On Tinmal, see H. Basset and H. Terrasse, ‘Sanctuaires et forteresses almohades’, Hespéris, IV/1 (1924), 9–91; G. Marçais, L’architecture musulmane d’Occident (Paris 1954), 201–02. I have not yet been able to find parallels for the way in which the bottom edge of the lambrequin arch overlaps and intersects with the next arch, as on the Qatar beam. 49 See, for example, R. Sánchez Ameijeiras, ‘El “çementerio real” de Alfonso VIII en Las Huelgas de Burgos’, Semata, 10 (1998), 77–109. 50 For example, the magnificent wooden doors which hang at the entrance to the Salón de Embajadores in the Reales Alcázares in Seville were made by craftsmen brought from Toledo, as stated in the Arabic inscription on the Patio Doncellas side, which also gives the date of 1366. See J. C. Hernández Núñez and A. J. Morales, The Royal Palace of Seville (London 1999), 58. 51 Rees and Hilloowala, ‘Carved wooden beam’ (as n. 47), 35. Some Islamic depictions of horn-blowing that do merit attention are some examples on 10th- and early-11th-century artefacts made in al-Andalus. In his new corpus, Shalem notes the depiction of horn-shaped objects being played in scenes of courtly entertainments on a ceramic bottle, some ivories and a marble basin, but — as he himself points out — the positions of the musicians’ fingers indicate that instruments with holes are being played, i.e. end-blown flutes such as a nay: Shalem, Die mittelalterlichen Olifante, 1 (as n. 1), 186–87. There is also no indication in these scenes that these instruments are made from ivory, though it is conceivable, given the material’s abundance in al-Andalus at this time. 52 Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 56–57, figs 18a–c; J. de Vere Allen, ‘The Siwas of Pate and Lamu: Two Antique Side–Blown Horns from the Swahili Coast’, Art and Archaeology Research Papers, 9 (1976), 38–47; H. Sassoon, The Siwas of Lamu: Two Historic Trumpets in Brass and Ivory (Nairobi 1975). 53 De Vere Allen, ‘Siwas’ (as n. 52), 41. 54 Ibid. (as n. 52), 40. 55 Ibid. (as n. 52), 38.

on paper that have survived in the dry conditions of Fustat (old Cairo), and are generally datable to the late 10th to late 12th centuries (coinciding with Fatimid rule in Egypt). One example, now in the Benaki Museum in Athens (inv. 16656), shows a roundel, linked to other roundels now lost, containing a camel howdah flanked by attendants. This scene appears several times on the Cappella Palatina ceiling, and on the ‘Saracenic group’ ivory casket in the Metropolitan Museum. J. Johns, ‘Strained Relationships: Carved Ivories of the “Amalfi Group”, “Siculo-Arabic” Painted Ivories and the Royal Art of Norman Sicily’, paper presented at the conference Ivory Trade and Exchange in Late Antiquity and Early Islam, The Warburg Institute, London, 18 June 2013. It should be noted that Jonathan Bloom is more sceptical about these fragments, which have all been recovered from unscientific, unstratified excavations. In his Paper before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World (New Haven and London 2001), 165, he says, ‘It seems best to treat all these unauthenticated fragments with extreme caution and not base an argument on them’. The same might be said of the thousands of ceramic fragments recovered from Fustat in the same way, but these continue to provide a useful source of study for the history of ceramic technology and trade. 30 Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 79 (my italics). 31 On the Martorana woodwork, see Gabrieli and Scerrato, Gli Arabi (as n. 22), figs 114–16. They illustrate other examples of Sicilian woodwork at figs 196–98, and a 12th-century panel from Monte Cassino at fig. 469. 32 British Museum: Palart.550, see [accessed 19 May 2013], also J. Cook, The Swimming Reindeer: Objects in Focus Series (London 2010); and by the same author Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind (London 2013), 267–69, figs 20–21. 33 Cutler, Hand of the Master (as n. 21), 110–11 (my italics). 34 Cutler’s second and third cuts are true undercutting and the ‘straight stroke’, which cuts back at a right angle to the plane of the ground: Hand of the Master (as n. 21), 111, 119. 35 Inv. 1956.562; Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), pl. XI, figs 5 and 40. I examined this object on 1 June 2012. My sincere thanks to Friederike Voigt, Godfrey Evans and Sarah Worden of National Museums Scotland for arranging for me to study this object. 36 Hoffman, ‘Translation’ (as n. 7), 106, following Shalem’s argument on these objects, calls this combination ‘surprising’. 37 J. Kingsley, ‘Reconsidering the Medieval Oliphant: The Ivory Horn in the Walters Art Museum’, in A New Look at Old Things [= Journal of the Walters Art Museum, 68/69], ed. K. B. Gerry and R. A. Leson (2010–11), 87–98, esp. 91–94. 38 Kingsley, ‘Reconsidering’ (as n. 37), 94. 39 Ebitz, ‘Secular to Sacred’ (as n. 6). This object came to hold the relics of St Arnoul, at his abbey church in Metz. If the object had been recarved at the time of its repurposing, one might reasonably expect this to have happened in Metz itself, which does not explain the stylistic connections to the Ulf group of oliphants, discussed below. See J. de Hond and F. Scholten, ‘The elk antler from the funerary chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz’, The Burlington Magazine, no. 1323, vol. 155 (June 2013), 372–80, esp. 373, 380. 40 D. Gaborit-Chopin, Ivoires médiévaux Ve–XVe siècle (Paris 2003), 206 is not convinced either: ‘Cette [. . .] hypothèse n’est toutefois pas convaincante, puisque la partie centrale de l’olifant, si elle été retaillée, serait beaucoup plus en contrebas qu’elle ne l’est aujourd’hui [. . .] Il semble raisonnable de revenir [. . .] à l’opinion de Kühnel, ou du moins à l’idée de deux interventions contemporaines, dans la seconde moitié du XIe siècle’. 41 Ebitz, ‘Secular to Sacred’ (as n. 6), 37. 42 Eastmond, ‘Byzantine oliphants?’ (as n. 17). I would like to thank Béla Zsolt Szakács of the Central European University in Budapest for sending me images and information about Hungarian publications on ‘Lehel’s horn’, which tend to associate it with Kiev, far from the Mediterranean. 43 Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 54–60 (my italics). 44 Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12), 15, fig. 31. He had written about this piece in an earlier publication: E. Kühnel, Die

52

the oliphant 56 Though Sassoon, Siwas (as n. 52), 9–10, cautions that the Chronicle’s author, Bwana Kitini, ‘had a regrettable reputation as a teller of good stories’, so the account of the siwa should probably not be treated as reliable history: De Vere Allen, ‘Siwas’ (as n. 52), 43. 57 Sassoon, Siwas (as n. 52), 10 and 16. 58 De Vere Allen, ‘Siwas’ (as n. 52), 43. 59 Sassoon, Siwas (as n. 52), 17–19. It should be observed, however, that the Lower Niger region was associated with lost-wax copper-alloy casting from the 9th century, with a particular flourishing in the 15th and 16th centuries: see J. Picton, ‘West Africa: the Lower Niger region’, in Bronze, ed. D. Ekserdjian (London 2012), 62–68. 60 As quoted by Abu Tammam (d. 846) in his anthology, Hamasa or ‘Poems of Bravery’: see Sassoon, Siwas (as n. 52), 19; De Vere Allen, ‘Siwas’ (as n. 52), 45. 61 Ibid. (as n. 52), 45. 62 Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 56. 63 Inv. 1943, no. 126, see Bassani, Ivoires d’Afrique (as n. 9), 42–44. Sassoon, Siwas (as n. 52), gives various examples, including a wooden siwa at Mweni which is 1.7 m long and needs to be held up at its bell-end by an assistant in order to be blown. 64 The pieces found at Kilwa were published in drawings by H. N. Chittick, Kilwa: an Islamic trading city on the East African coast, 2 (Nairobi 1974), 434–35, fig. 168c–e (e is carved in openwork, like the siwas). Their stratigraphy indicated a 16th- to 17th-century date. The Gedi panel was found in 2002, in a context datable to 1500–50: see S. Pradines, Gedi: une cité portuaire swahilie. Islam médiéval en Afrique orientale (Cairo 2010), 125–134, 235, 270, 272, fig. 229. My thanks to Stéphane Pradines for providing me with information and an image. 65 De Vere Allen, ‘Siwas’ (as n. 52), 41. 66 See Bassani and Fagg ed., Africa and the Renaissance (as n. 9); Levenson ed., Encompassing the Globe (as n. 9); Bassani, Ivoires d’Afrique (as n. 9), 42–44. A simple ivory horn just under half a metre in length was found in the early 1970s near the ruins of the Portuguese fort at Sofala in Mozambique: see Sassoon, Siwas (as n. 52), 3. 67 See the discussion and fascinating parallels cited by Bassani, Ivoires d’Afrique (as n. 9), 49–75. 68 M. Piotrovsky ed., Heavenly Art, Earthly Beauty: Art of Islam (Amsterdam 1999), cat. 167 and 201. It is worth noting that there was a widespread tradition in Lombard Italy, of the 6th and 7th centuries, of producing drinking horns from glass. These have been recovered from graves. See, for example, British Museum inv. 1887,0108.2, [accessed 6 August 2014], which includes bibliography. 69 My thanks to Dr Rachel Ward for sharing her thoughts on this object in a personal communication dated 6 June 2014. She also notes that if the horn was in Europe in the 16th century, it is highly likely that it had been there since its manufacture, as antiques were not trade items at that period. 70 See V. Etting, The Story of the Drinking Horn: Drinking Culture in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages, Publications of the National Museum Studies in Archaeology & History, 21 (Odense 2013). The enamelled glass horn is illustrated alongside examples of European drinking horns, which clearly shows its identical shape (48–49). Perhaps the glass horn was a copy of an aurochs horn the European merchant happened to have with him in Damascus? 71 Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 54–56. 72 Ibid. (as n. 1), 55. 73 A. N. Poliak, Feudalism in Egypt, Syria, Palestine and the Lebanon, 1250–1900 (London 1939), quoting ¼ub¬ al-A‘shā, IV (Cairo 1914–28), 70, ll. 2, 7, 9, 18. 74 L. A. Mayer, Saracenic Heraldry (Oxford 1933), 19. 75 Ibid. (as n. 74), 22. This was based mainly on the observation by Ambroise in his Itinerarium peregrinorum et gestae Regis Ricardi of 1191–96, that Taqi al-Din ‘Umar, the nephew of Salah

al-Din, ‘displayed in a most curious manner / a pair of draws upon his banner’ (Qui ot portrait en sa baniere / enseignes d’estrange maniere / Ço estoit une baniere as braies / c’erent ses enseignes veraies): ed. W. Stubbs (London 1864), cited by W. Leaf, ‘Not trousers but trumpets: a further look at Saracenic heraldry’, Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 114 (1982), 47–51. Leaf commented (51): ‘without Ambroise’s remark I do not think anyone would have noticed any similarity between two entirely separate, convex, curving, pointed objects and a pair of trousers’. He thinks it more likely that Ambroise described a bifurcated banner like those used by Byzantine armies, which would act as a rallying point for the troops, but also as a windsock, an invaluable reference for the mounted archers in the Ayyubid army (47–48). Mayer later changed his mind, advancing the new suggestion that these two curved objects depicted powder horns, or a powder horn paired with its cleaning instrument, represented as equal in size for symmetrical effect: L. A. Mayer, ‘Un énigme de blason musulman’, Bulletin de l’Institut de l’Egypte, 21 (1938/9), 141–43. This is not accepted by Leaf who notes the Mamluks’ ‘deep rooted detestation of firearms’, as the favoured weapon of their enemy, the Ottomans (51). 76 Mayer, Saracenic Heraldry (as n. 74), 32. 77 J. Gonnella, ‘Stone blazon’, in Discover Islamic Art. Museum With No Frontiers, 2013, [accessed 12 May 2013], citing M. Meinecke, ‘Zur mamlukischen Heraldik’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo, 28/2 (1972), 213–87. 78 See, for example, the enormous output by Marco Spallanzani of the Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Università degli Studi di Firenze, for example Ceramiche orientali a Firenze nel Rinascimento (Florence 1978), Ceramiche alla Corte dei Medici nel Cinquecento (Modena 1994), or Oriental Rugs in Renaissance Florence (Florence 2007). 79 Ibn Battutah, Tuhfat al-nuzzar fi ghara’ib al-amsar wa’l-‘aja’ib al-asfar, cited in J. Hopkins and N. Levtzion ed., Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (Cambridge 1981), 290 (my italics). 80 For recent studies on the ivories from Muslim Spain, see the special issue of the Journal of the David Collection, 2 (2005), which cites relevant bibliography. 81 J. Bloom, ‘The painted ivory box made for the Fatimid caliph al-Mu‘izz’, in ‘Siculo-Arabic Ivories’ (as n. 7), 141–50; S. Armando, ‘Separated at Birth or Distant Relations? The Al-Mu‘izz and Mantua Caskets Between Decoration and Construction’, paper presented at the conference Beyond the Western Mediterranean: Materials, Techniques and Artistic Production, 650–1500, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 20 April 2013. 82 S. Guérin, ‘Forgotten Routes? Italy, Ifrīqiya and the Trans-Saharan Ivory Trade’, Al-Masāq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean, 25/i (April 2013), 70–91. 83 For the key literature on trade in the central Mediterranean, especially between Amalfi and North Africa, at this time, see M. Brett, ‘Ifriqiya as a Market for Saharan Trade from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century A.D.’, Journal of African History, 10 (1969), 347–64; A. Citarella, ‘The Relations of Amalfi with the Arab World before the Crusades’, Speculum, 42 (1967), 299–312; A. Citarella, ‘Patterns in Medieval Trade: The Commerce of Amalfi Before the Crusades’, The Journal of Economic History, 28 (1968), 531–55; Á. Fábregas García, ‘Other Markets: Complementary Commercial Zones in the Nasrid World of the Western Mediterranean (Seventh/ Thirteenth to Ninth/Fifteenth Centuries)’, in Al-Masāq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean, 25/i (April 2013), 135–53; S. D. Goitein, ‘Medieval Tunisia: the hub of the Mediterranean’, in Studies in Islamic History and Institutions, XVI (Leiden 1966), 308–28; S. Guérin, ‘Avorio d’ogni ragione: the supply of elephant ivory to northern Europe in the Gothic era’, Journal of Medieval History, 36 (2010), 156–74; B. Kreutz, ‘Ghost ships and phantom cargoes: Reconstructing early Amalfitan trade’, Journal of Medieval History, 20 (1994), 347–57; P. Skinner, ‘Amalfitans in the Caliphate of Cordoba — Or Not?’, Al-Masāq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean, 24/ii (August 2012), 125–38.

53

mariam rosser-owen 84 See, for example, E. Hoffman, ‘A Fatimid Book Cover: Framing and Reframing Cultural Identity in the Medieval Mediterranean World’, in L’Égypte Fatimide: son art et son histoire, ed. M. Barrucand (Paris 1999), 403–20. 85 Shalem draws many comparisons with contemporary Egyptian woodwork, but this is a subject that still needs a thorough study. He did not give as much attention to southern Italian woodwork, and a comparative study of woodwork from both regions would contribute much to our understanding of carving methods in the medieval Mediterranean. 86 Hoffman, ‘Pathways’ and ‘Translation’ (as n. 7). 87 G. Berti, ‘Pisa città mediterranea. La testimonianza delle ceramiche importate ed esportate’, in M. Tangheroni, ed., Pisa e il Mediterraneo: Uomini, merci, idee dagli Etruschi ai Medici (Milan, 2004), 169–73. She comments at 170, ‘Di gran lunga più rappresentati sono i recipienti importati da paesi islamici occidentali’. See also G. Berti and L. Tongiorgi, I bacini ceramici del Duomo di S. Miniato (ultimo quarto del XII secolo) (Genoa 1981); G. Berti and M. Giorgio, Ceramiche con coperture vetrificate usate come ‘bacini’. Importazioni a Pisa e in altri centri della Toscana tra fine X e XIII secolo (Florence 2010); F. Berti and M. Caroscio, La Luce del Mondo: maioliche mediterranee nelle terre dell’Imperatore (Florence 2013), with my thanks to Marta Caroscio. 88 See M. Rosser-Owen, ‘Mediterraneanism: how to incorporate Islamic art into an emerging field’, in The Historiography of Islamic Art, ed. M. Carey and M. Graves, special issue of the Journal of Art Historiography, 6 (June 2012). 89 Ebitz, ‘Secular to Sacred’ (as n. 6), 34. 90 Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 61–62. 91 Eastmond, ‘Byzantine oliphants?’ (as n. 17). 92 Ibid. (as n. 17), 20. 93 Ibid. (as n. 17), 114. On the Bari throne, see R. Dorin, ‘The Mystery of the Marble Man and His Hat: A Reconsideration of the Bari Episcopal Throne’, Florilegium, 25 (2008), 29–52. 94 See also the comments by D. Glass, Romanesque Sculpture in Campania: Patrons, Programs and Style (University Park, Pennsylvania 1991), 57–59, where she compares the ‘small-scale motifs and incoherent organisation’ of a fragmentary, probably early-12th-century archivolt from Alife to the designs of the oliphants. My thanks to John McNeill for bringing this to my attention. 95 On the Otranto pavement, N. Rash-Fabbri, ‘A Drawing in the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Romanesque Mosaic Floor in Brindisi’, Gesta 13/1 (1974), 5–14, fig. 5. 96 H. Swarzenski, ‘Two Oliphants in the Museum’, Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, 60/320 (1962), 27–45; V. Pace, ‘Fra l’Islam e l’Occidente: il mistero degli olifanti’, in Studi in onore di Umberto Scerrato per il suo settantacinquesimo compleanno, ed. M. V. Fontana and B. Genito (Naples 2003), 609–27; republished in French as ‘Présence et reflets de l’art Islamique en Italie Méridionale au Moyen Âge’, Les Cahiers de Saint Michel de Cuxa, 35 (2004), 57–69. My thanks to Vicky Harrison, Collections Manager at York Minster, for arranging for me to study the Horn of Ulf on 14 July 2011. 97 T. D. Kendrick, ‘The Horn of Ulph’, Antiquity, XI/43 (September 1937), 278–82, esp. 278. The Latin inscription on the silver mounts reads: Cornu hoc Ulfus, in occidentali parte deirae princeps, unacum omnibus terris et redditibus suis olim donavit: amissum vel abreptum Henricus D. Fairfax demum restituit. Dec. et cap. de novo ornavit an. dom. 1675. See S. Gale, ‘An historical dissertation upon the antient Danish horn, kept in the Cathedral Church of York’, Archaeologia, 1 (1770), 182. 98 C. Norton, ‘York Minster in the time of Wulfstan’, in Wulfstan, Archbishop of York. The Proceedings of the Second Alcuin Conference, ed. M. Townend (Turnhout 2004), 207–34, esp. 211– 12, no. 10. His arms are also seen on the south side of the choir, constructed around 1400. 99 Gale, ‘An historical dissertation’ (as n. 97), 172–73. 100 Swarzenski, ‘Two oliphants’ (as n. 96), 36: ‘Thus this horn, and with it the whole group, cannot be dated later than the first half of the eleventh century’. Pace follows this: ‘Fra l’Islam e l’Occidente’ (as n. 96), 617 and ‘Présence et reflets’ (as n. 96), 62.

101 Norton, ‘York Minster’ (as n. 98), 211–12. He notes that it is conceivable that Archbishop Ealdred (1060–69), his household or the clergy ‘managed to secrete and save some treasures from the looming disaster’, but he does not seem convinced. 102 C. Norton, personal communication, 28 March 2013. I am extremely grateful to Professor Norton for taking the time to send me his thoughts on this complicated matter and to hunt out references and photocopies for me, including W. Andrews, Old Church Lore (Hull 1891), 69–70, whose chapter, ‘Charter horns’, contains the information about the Ulf mentioned in Domesday Book at 69–70. 103 Swarzenski, ‘Two oliphants’ (as n. 96), figs 12 and 13. 104 For the fragmentary oliphant in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, see Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12), no. 68b, and ibid., no. 64c, for the horn in St Petersburg, which Shalem excludes. 105 On the Zaragoza horn, see also R. Cortés Gómez and A. Lavesa Martín-Serrano, ‘El olifante fatimí del Museo Pilarista de Zaragoza’, Anales de Arqueología Cordobesa, 12 (2001), 371–83. 106 Swarzenski already pointed out this connection, ‘Two oliphants’ (as n. 96), 44, and Shalem, Die mittelalterlichen Olifante (as n. 1), makes this association with Group B of his corpus. On the Salerno ivories, see R. Bergman, The Salerno Ivories: Ars Sacra from Medieval Amalfi (Cambridge MA 1980); F. Bologna ed., L’enigma degli avori medievali da Amalfi a Salerno, 2 (Naples 2008); A. Braca, Gli avori medievali del Museo diocesano di Salerno (Salerno 1994); F. Dell’Acqua ed., The ‘Amalfi’–‘Salerno’ Ivories and the Medieval Mediterranean (as n. 17). A publication is currently being prepared to encapsulate the contributions of a three-year research project based at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence: The Salerno Ivories: Material, History, Theology, ed. A. Cutler, F. Dell’Acqua, H. L. Kessler, A. Shalem and G. Wolf, 2 vols (Darmstadt forthcoming). 107 For good images of all the border elements, see Bologna, L’enigma degli avori (as n. 106), cat. 62. 108 See, for example, in Bologna, L’enigma degli avori (as n. 106): Old Testament, cats 13: creation of the plants and trees; 15: temptation of Adam and Eve (leaves on the tree); 21: Noah cultivating vines; 24: Pharoah returns Sarah to Abraham (the half palmette scroll border on the throne); 27: Jacob’s ladder (tree); New Testament, cats 44: flight into Egypt (leaves on the tree at bottom upper left); 52: crucifixion and burial of Christ (half palmette frieze underneath Christ’s feet, on cross); 55: doubting Thomas (palmette frieze); 58: ascension of Christ (floral motif beneath his mandorla). There are also stylistic similarities between animals on the Salerno plaques and those on the Ulf-group (and other) oliphants; for example, cat. 14: creation of birds, fish and animals, where the griffins, lions, dragon with looped bodies, and birds are particularly close to the oliphants. 109 Bergman, Salerno Ivories (as n. 106), 81–83, 128–30; Bologna, L’enigma degli avori, vol. 1 (as n. 106), 87, dates the Salerno panels ‘not earlier than 1137–40’ but his reasons are not clear. He seems to associate the commission with the Norman conquest of the Duchy of Naples by Roger II in 1137, the creation of a new charter for Salerno and the appointment of a new archbishop, William (until 1152) in the same year. It is hoped that the forthcoming edited volume The Salerno Ivories (as n. 106) presents a clearer argument for the 12th-century attribution. 110 British Museum inv. M&ME 1975,4–1,1. See Rev. Dr Milles, ‘On Lord Bruce’s Horn’, Archaeologia, 3 (1775), 24–29; J. Cherry, ‘The Savernake horn’, in Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400, ed. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London 1987), cat. 544, 437–38; J. Cherry, ‘The Savernake Horn: an oliphant adorned with metal’, in De Re Metallica: the Uses of Metal in the Middle Ages, ed. R. Bork, S. Montgomery, C. Neuman de Vegvar, E. Shortell and S. Walton, AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science and Art, vol. 4 (Aldershot 2005); G. Bathe, ‘The Savernake Horn’, Wiltshire Studies: Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 105 (2012), 168–81. 111 See La salle aux trésors: chefs-d’oeuvre de l’art roman et mosan, Musées royaux d’art et d’histoire (Turnhout 1999), no. 40, 106– 07; also J. Koldeweij, ‘De reliekenhoorn van Sint–Servatius: een

54

the oliphant 131 As on V&A: 7953–1862, see [accessed 30 June 2013]. 132 Cited by Swarzenski, ‘Two oliphants’ (as n. 96), 31. 133 Ibid. (as n. 96), 43. 134 Ibid. (as n. 96), 44, fig. 28. In note 25 he gives references to examples from ecclesiastical contexts in Bari and Rome of the eagle with a quadruped in its claws. 135 Swarzenski, ‘Two oliphants’ (as n. 96), figs 14, 21; RosserOwen, Ivory (as n. 26), cat. no. 9, which shows eagles with prey (on the back) and without (on the lid). One of these prey is a curled– bodied dragon: see discussion below. 136 Clephane horn, upper border, see Eastmond, ‘Byzantine oliphants?’ (as n. 17), fig. 3. For sphinxes on the Ulf group, see Swarzenski, ‘Two oliphants’ (as n. 96), figs 3 and 5 (Boston); figs 7 and 9 (Chartreuse de Portes). 137 Pace, ‘Fra l’Islam e l’Occidente’ (as n. 96), figs CII a and d and ‘Présence et reflets’ (as n. 96), figs 11 and 13. 138 See capital E15Sh39 in the online database of high-resolution photographs of all capitals in the Monreale Cloister (CENOBIUM project, coordinated by the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence), at [accessed 1 July 2013]. 139 Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), 74. 140 Swarzenski, ‘Two oliphants’ (as n. 96), 34. See D. Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art (Princeton 2003), esp. 50–51 and fig. 13, which illustrates a detail of two Cynocephali in the tympanum of the abbey church of La Madeleine in Vézelay, built c. 1125. The author argues for an interpretation of these motifs as representing contemporary Muslims whom Crusaders would expect to encounter in the Holy Land (159–60). She cites C. Lecouteux, ‘Les Cynocéphales: Étude d’une tradition tératologique de l’Antiquité au XIIe s.’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 24 (1981), 117–28, which I have not had the opportunity to consult. Rabanus Maurus was copied at Monte Cassino in 1022–23: see Swarzenski, ‘Two oliphants’ (as n. 96), 34, 44 and no. 26, citing Monte Cassino, Codex 132, produced under Abbot Theobald. See also Bloch, ‘Monte Cassino’ (as n. 120), 198; M. Reuter, Text und Bild im Codex 132 der Bibliothek von Montecassino, Münchner Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung, 34 (Munich 1984); Rabano Mauro, facsimile edition with commentary (1994); F. Newton, The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino 1058–1105 (Cambridge 1999), 20 and 326. 141 Pace, ‘Fra l’Islam e l’Occidente’ (as n. 96), 623. 142 D. Janes, God and Gold in Late Antiquity (Cambridge 1998), fig. 5. The classic study of this motif is M.-T. Camus, ‘Les oiseaux dans la sculpture du Poitou roman’, Mémoires de la Société des antiquaries de l’ouest, Ser. 4, vol. 11 (1973), 7–102. 143 Gabrieli and Scerrato, Gli Arabi (as n. 22), fig. 630. 144 Swarzenski, ‘Two oliphants’ (as n. 96), figs 5 (Boston), 8 (Paris) and 21 (Zaragoza). 145 See the classic study by R. Ettinghausen, Studies in Muslim Iconography I: The Unicorn, Freer Gallery of Art Occasional Papers, vol. 1, no. 3 (Washington, 1950). In the examples from the full panoply of Islamic art which Ettinghausen studies and presents all are winged and generally do not have an equine form, as they do in the European motif. He illustrates (pl. 5) the horned griffins on the Pamplona casket, made in Córdoba in 1004/5, as ‘the earliest representations of the unicorn in Muslim art so far traced’. The other ivory pyxis he illustrates here as being made in 11th-century al-Andalus is now generally considered a 19th-century creation by Pallás y Puig — the very European style unicorns being one reason for this attribution: see M. Rosser-Owen, ‘Questions of Authenticity: the Imitation Ivories of Don Francisco Pallás y Puig (1859–1926)’, in Journal of the David Collection, 2/2 (2005), 248–67. Ettinghausen cites a few 12th-century examples, but in general the ‘karkadann’ — the term by which he refers to the ‘unicorn’ motif in Islamic art, from the Arabic for ‘rhinoceros’ — becomes widespread from the 13th century onwards, and in the Islamic East, especially Anatolia and Iran.

romaanse jachthoorn in die collectie van de Koninklijke Musea’, Bulletin des Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, 56/2 (1985), 25–42. Shalem’s new corpus includes the plain oliphants as Group E, though they are dated en masse to the Gothic period, which cannot be the case for all of them. 112 V&A: 8035–1862, see [accessed 30 June 2013], also P. Williamson, Medieval Ivory Carvings: Early Christian to Romanesque (London 2010), 334–37, cat 85. A sample from the rim was analysed by radiocarbon dating, obtaining a date for the death of the elephant of AD 990–1051, with 63.4% reading within a 95.4% degree of probability. This object is in Group A/III of Shalem’s new corpus, which is assigned to Sicily, probably Palermo, late 11th to early 12th century: Shalem, Die mittelalterlichen Olifante (as n. 1), cat A22. 113 Von Falke, ‘Byzanz’ (as n. 11), 44, Abb. 9. 114 See Williamson and Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings (as n. 10). 115 See Guérin, ‘Avorio d’ogni ragione’ (as n. 83), and by the same author ‘Introduction to Gothic Ivories’, in Catalogue of Gothic Ivories at the Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon and Milan forthcoming). 116 On Monreale cathedral and cloister, the key work is W. Krönig, Il Duomo di Monreale e l’Architettura Normanna in Sicilia (Palermo 1965), though now also see T. Dittelbach, Rex imago Christi: der Dom von Monreale. Bildsprachen und Zeremoniell in Mosaikkunst und Architektur (Wiesbaden 2003). 117 For a useful discussion of the dates of the different decorative campaigns in the Cappella Palatina, see W. Tronzo, The Cultures of his Kingdom: Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton 1997), chapter 2: ‘New dates and contexts for the decorations and furnishings of the chapel’, 28–96. 118 M. A. Frantz, ‘Byzantine Illuminated Ornament: A Study in Chronology’, The Art Bulletin, 16/1 (March 1934), 42–101. 119 Frantz, ‘Illuminated Ornament’ (as n. 118), 44, pl. II: 9, 11–15 (which she dates to the late 10th/early 11th century), pl. II: 18–19 (‘still later’). See also pl. XVII for heartshaped palmettes within triangles. 120 H. Bloch, ‘Monte Cassino, Byzantium and the West’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 3 (1946), 163–224. For knotwork and scrolling ornament, see esp. figs 239 (dated 1072), 240–46 (dated 1071), 247–49 (datable 1076–87). 121 Frantz, ‘Illuminated Ornament’ (as n. 118), 60–64, pls XIII– XVIII. This motif is particularly prevalent from the 10th to 12th centuries. 122 Frantz, ‘Illuminated Ornament’ (as n. 118), 50–54, pls IV– VI; see also Bloch, ‘Monte Cassino’ (as n. 120). Examples on the oliphants are Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12), nos 64 (in St Petersburg); 65 (Borradaile horn); 71 (Vienna); the Jászberényi oliphant in Eastmond, ‘Byzantine oliphants?’ (as n. 17), figs 10–12, 14–15; the associated casket in Doha in Rosser–Owen, Ivory (as n. 26) cat. no. 9. Interestingly, knotwork borders do not seem to appear on the Ulf group. 123 F. Gabrieli and H. Betz ed., Mohammed und Karl der Grosse: die Geburt des Abendlandes (Stuttgart and Zürich 1993), fig. 107. This knotted interlace is equivalent in design to Frantz, ‘Illuminated Ornament’ (as n. 118), pl. IV: 11, from MS Patmos 33, dated 941. 124 Gabrieli and Scerrato, Gli Arabi (as n. 22), fig. 630. 125 Ibid. (as n. 22), fig. 348. 126 Hoffman, ‘Translation’ (as n. 7), 104–07. 127 Caskey, ‘Stuccoes’ (as n. 17), 84–87, fig. 12. See also Gabrieli and Scerrato, Gli Arabi (as n. 22), figs 303–08. The more fluid frieze of a single row of animals within roundels in fig. 308 seems particularly close to the carving style of the oliphants. Animals in roundels are also seen on Abbot Desiderius’ reliquary of c. 1086: see Bloch, ‘Monte Cassino’ (as n. 120), figs 257–58. 128 D. Talbot Rice, Art of the Byzantine Era (London 1986), 21–22, figs 10–12. 129 Gabrieli and Betz, Mohammed und Karl der Grosse (as n. 123), figs 42–46 (capitals), fig. 120 (ambo). 130 Rosser-Owen, Ivory (as n. 26), cat. no. 7; Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), figs 48, 66 (Gans Collection).

55

mariam rosser-owen 146

158

Eastmond, ‘Byzantine oliphants?’ (as n. 17), fig. 16. Bloch, ‘Monte Cassino’ (as n. 120), fig. 232. 148 Tronzo, Cultures (as n. 117), 33, fig. 26. Another pavement, at Sant’Adriano at San Demetrio Corone (Calabria), datable 1088–1106, features a snake whose body creates a pattern of three concentric circles with loops in its tail in the outer circle: Tronzo, Cultures (as n. 117), 33, no. 20. A further example is the sea monster swallowing Jonah, on either side of the ambo, datable c. 1130, in the Duomo at Ravello, intriguingly from tesserae made from Fatimid lustreware, datable 1025–75: see Rob Mason, ‘Middle Eastern Pottery in Italy and Europe’, at [accessed 1 June 2013]. 149 Gabrieli and Scerrato, Gli Arabi (as n. 22), fig. 473. 150 I. Weinryb, ‘The Bronze Object in the Middle Ages’, in Bronze (as n. 59), 69–77. 151 Gabrieli and Scerrato, Gli Arabi (as n. 22), fig. 348. 152 For example, dragons occur on capitals S8Sh57 (south face); S18Sh67; S20Sh69. They are combined with birds drinking from a fountain on S7Sh56. Birds at a fountain are also seen on N18Sh17 and S24Sh73. See [accessed 1 July 2013]. 153 For example, helmeted knights are shown duelling on capital N6Sh5 (south face) armed knights on N23Sh22; nude figures fight with each other on N12Sh11 (east and west faces); atlantes on E8Sh32 and E13Sh37: see [accessed 1 July 2013]. 154 Cutler, Hand of the Master (as n. 21), 66–78, ‘The Question of Workshops’. 155 The excavation of a knife-making workshop in Paris in 2000 not only revealed traces of iron casting, implying that knife blades were made in the same workshop as the handles, but while many offcuts of bone were recovered, only one small piece of ivory was found. This suggests that ivory was too precious to leave to waste, which may also explain why no traces of ivory working in the medieval Mediterranean have yet been identified archaeologically. See ‘Lecture, par M. Michel Fleury, d’une note de Mme Catherine Brut sur des découvertes de céramiques et de restes de coutellerie du XIVe siècle faites 34, rue Greneta (2e arr.)’, in Commission du Vieux Paris, procès -verbal de la séance du mardi 9 janvier 2001 (Paris 2000), no. 1, 14–21; and E. Hamon et al, La demeure médiévale à Paris (Paris 2012), 239–41. My thanks to Sarah Guérin for this information. 156 Kühnel himself ‘once asked a professional hornist to play an oliphant’, and he recalled in a letter to André Grabar that ‘the sound was so loud and intense that the staff and the museum visitors huddled together in fright’! Letter dated 14 January 1953, cited in Jens Kröger, ‘Kühnel and ivory scholarship up to 1971’, Journal of David Collection, 2/2 (2005), 268–93; and no. 71. The most recent attempt was made in Berlin in 2004, when the three horns in the collections of the Islamic and Bode Museums were blown by a solo hornist and trumpeter from the Berlin State Opera: Shalem notes that each of the horns produced an individual and haunting sound, which carried far. See Shalem, ‘Der Klang des Olifants’, in Wissen über Grenzen: Arabisches Wissen und lateinisches Mittelalter, ed. A. Speer and L. Wegener (Berlin 2006), 775–90. Shalem’s new corpus includes a CD with sound recordings of these experiments in oliphant-playing! Ebitz (‘Function and Meaning’ (as n. 5), 125) — who apparently blew oliphants himself in the British Museum and Cleveland Museum — noted that the resulting sound is ‘deep and limited to one, two or at most three tones’. See also the letter from Ebitz to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, cited in Shalem. 157 I acknowledge that the preciousness of the material might argue against the pure functionality of the ivory horn. As Eastmond notes, ‘the lack of wear on most of them suggests that they were not played often, and the lack of breaks suggests that they weren’t often taken out hunting. I do see them as ceremonial versions, perhaps to be played once you were back safely from the hunting in front of a nice warm fire’ (personal communication, 26 February 2013). He does believe, however, that ‘the breaks on the Clephane horn must [. . .] be related to an attempt to improve it as a musical instrument’, and it may be that objects that broke have not survived.

Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), fig. 70. ‘And that when they gave thanks, they might remember the soul of Witlaf the donor’: cornu mensae suae ut senes monasterii bibant inde festis sanctorum et in suis benedictionibus meminerint aliquando animae donatoris Witlafii, cited in Pegge, ‘Of the horn as a charter or instrument of conveyance. Some observations on Mr Samuel Foxlowe’s Horn, as likewise on the Nature and Kinds of these Horns in general’, Archaeologia, 3 (1775), 1–12. 160 William Camden’s Britannia, published in 1600, cited in Gale, ‘Historical dissertation’ (as n. 97), 169: Dominabatur Ulfus ille in occidentali parte Deirae, et propter altercationem filiorum suorum, senioris et junioris, super dominiis post mortem mox omnes fecit aeque pares. Nam indilato Eboracum divertit, et cornu, quo bibere consuevit, vino replevit, et coram altari, Deo et beato Petro, Apostolorum principi, omnes terras et redditus flexis genibus propinavit. 161 Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12), no. 78. My thanks to Benedetta Chiesi for showing me the Bargello’s ivory collection on 28 June 2012 and for discussing this object with me. According to Dr Chiesi, it would not be easy to reconstruct this object’s pre-Medici provenance, without painstaking work in the Medici archives. Tusks and oliphants are known in Italy but they are probably not medieval: Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12), 6, fig. 7, mentions an ivory horn recovered from the 7th-century BC necropolis in Palestrina, now in the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia in Rome; while an enormous unprepared elephant tusk, known as the ‘Tusk of Constantine’, hangs in the Treasury of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome: my thanks to Sarah Guérin for bringing this to my attention. 162 Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12), 85–88, ‘Anhang Quellen und Schatzverzeichnisse’: nos 11 (Eller): unam argenteam et alteram auro et lapidibus paratam, ambasque sanctis reliquiis interius redimitis; 12 (Erstein): Quintum cornum cum reliquiis sancti Adelphi. Sextum eburneum cum reliquiis sanctae Waltburgae . . . Both date from the first half of the 10th century. 163 Ibid. (as n. 12), ‘Anhang’, nos 5: . . . in majori cornu eburneo pendente sub trabe ultra magnum altare; 9: Item unum cornu eburneum . . .; and 36. There are also nos 28: two ivory horns presented by Henry II (r. 1002–24) to the church of St Vincent in Verdun between 1014–24, which were ‘reliquiis conferta’; and 19: ‘an ivory horn with silver mounts in the middle and at the ends hanging by a silver chain’, inventoried at Noyon in 1523, which ‘continet infra suam concavitatem de pluribus sanctis’. 164 J. M. Kemble and C. Rock, ‘The gifts of Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester (AD 963–984), to the Monastery of Peterborough’, The Archaeological Journal, 20 (1863), 355–66; no. 6 (the charter of Aethelstan to Durham, printed in the Monasticon). These remind one of the 5th–century golden horns found at Gallehus in Denmark (see below, note 209). 165 Pegge, ‘Horn as charter’ (as n. 159), 10. 166 Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12), ‘Anhang’, no. 16: Item cornu eburneum gravatum bestiis et avibus, magnum. Item aliud cornu eburneum planum et parvum. 167 Other examples are Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12), ‘Anhang’, nos 33 (John de Foxle, 1378), 34 (Charles V of Germany, r. 1364–80) and 35 (Thomas, earl of Ormonde, 1515). 168 The National Archives, London, doc. E101/357/13 m1: unum cornum argento munitum quod fuit sancti thome de cantilupo. Personal communication from Jeremy Ashbee, 25 April 2012. 169 Ebitz, ‘Secular to Sacred’ (as n. 6), 37. 170 M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, 2nd edition (Oxford 1996): Chapter 8 ‘Hearing and Seeing’ (253–93), section on ‘Symbolic objects and documents’ (253–60). 171 V&A: M.220&A–1938, aurochs horn, mounted with silver– gilt mounts, unmarked, around 1400, which are inscribed, ‘I kynge knowde [Cnut] gave Wyllyam Pecote [Pusey, mistranscribed by the goldsmith] thys horne to holde by thy land’. See M. Campbell, ‘The Pusey Horn’, in Gothic: Art for England 1400–1517, ed. R. Marks and P. Williamson (London 2003), cat. no. 182, 315, and [accessed 30 June 2013]. My thanks to Dr Kirstin

147

159

56

the oliphant grifonis ex ebore’. The association with the griffin derives from a story told of Pope Cornelius (elected in 251) who cured a griffin of ‘falling sickness’ (epilepsy). By way of thanks, the griffin ‘shook off one of his claws and left it with St Cornelius [. . .] [who] then used it for a drinking vessel, and is painted with it’: Rackham, ‘The Great Horn’ (as n. 186), 39. St Cornelius is usually depicted with a reliquary-horn as his attribute: see, for example, the wall-painting from c. 1459 in the cathedral of Roskilde, Denmark, in Etting, Story of the Drinking Horn (as n. 70), 90, or the polychrome wooden sculpture from the 14th century now in the Sint-Janshospitaal in Bruges. Ironically, some ‘griffins’ claws’ were made of ivory, including a 15th- and a 16th-century example also in Sint–Janshospitaal: see Vandenberghe, Ivoor in Brugge (as n. 10). 191 Rackham, ‘The Great Horn’ (as n. 186), 44. He lists six medieval aurochs horns in England, which can only be dated by the age of their mounts, or the date of their presentation, if known. The Corpus Christi horn is first mentioned in a college inventory datable c. 1385, though its silver finial — which may actually represent St Cornelius wearing his papal crown — probably dates from the late 13th century. There seems to have been a trend for horns in the 15th century, when the Egglesfield, Pusey and Christ’s Hospital horns all seem to have been (re)mounted. 192 De Hond and Scholten, ‘Elk antler’ (as n. 39). 193 See Cherry, ‘Symbolism and Survival’ (as n. 172), 115–16. Though now see Etting, Story of the Drinking Horn (as n. 70). 194 These questions were asked to me by two colleagues who read the first draft of this article, Sarah Guérin and Isabelle Dolezalek. Since they are so pertinent, I quote them directly and with gratitude. In a museological context, it is interesting to note that in the V&A, for example, the ivory oliphants are held in the Sculpture section, and are thus validated as artistic objects, while the drinking horns are held in Metalwork, valued only for their mounts. 195 Eastmond, ‘Diversity’ (as n. 17), 106. 196 Ebitz, ‘Sacred to Secular’ (as n. 6), 37. 197 The earliest listing in Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12), ‘Anhang’, which specifically mentions ivory is no. 28: the gift of two ‘cornua eburnea’ with their relics from Henry II (r. 1002–24) to the church of St Vincent, Verdun, after 1014. 198 Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12) ‘Anhang’, no. 25; Pace, ‘Fra l’Islam e l’Occidente’ (as n. 96), 617. 199 My thanks to Sarah Guérin for sharing with me the introduction to her doctoral dissertation, where this issue is discussed. I eagerly await the publication of her observations on this issue. 200 Guérin, ‘Introduction to Gothic Ivories’ (as n. 83); Leo of Ostia, ‘The Chronicle of Monte Cassino’, in A Documentary History of Art: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. E. Gilmore Holt, trans. H. Bloch (Garden City 1957), vol. 1, 12, §27 (with thanks to Sarah Guérin for the reference). Unfortunately the text does not state if the monks specialised or worked across media. 201 Lawrence Nees has made a similar argument in connection with Carolingian ivory carving, in ‘Charlemagne’s elephant’, Quintana: Revista de Estudos do Departamento de Historia da Arte, 5 (2006), 13–49. 202 Guérin, ‘Forgotten Routes?’ (as n. 82). The papers and discussion at the recent conference, Ivory Trade and Exchange (as n. 29), served to reinforce the view that the eastern Mediterranean bias for medieval ivory production has been unfounded. 203 Pace, ‘Fra l’Islam e l’Occidente’ (as n. 96), 620, no. 28, points out that significantly no oliphant is represented in the paintings of the Cappella Palatina ceiling, which might be expected if this was a contemporary Fatimid tradition in the process of being adopted by the Normans. 204 It is surely significant that the construction method of several of these caskets is the same as the two Fatimid ivories made in al-Mansuriyya in the 960s. This discovery was first shared by Silvia Armando in her paper ‘Separated at Birth or Distant Relations? The Al-Mu‘izz and Mantua Caskets between Decoration and Construction’, at the conference Beyond the Western Mediterranean (as n. 81). Could it be that ivory carvers or casket-makers came from Tunisia to southern Italy along with the ivory supply? 205 On the Siculo-Arabic group, see the recent PhD thesis by Silvia Armando, ‘Avori ‘arabo-siculi nel Mediterraneo Medievale’,

Kennedy of the V&A’s Metalwork Section for showing me the Pusey Horn and discussing it with me. 172 J. Cherry, ‘Symbolism and Survival: Medieval Horns of Tenure’, The Antiquaries Journal, 69/1 (March 1989), 111–18, esp. 115–16. 173 The art historical study of medieval drinking horns is almost non-existent, and as far as I am aware little if nothing has yet been written on how the ‘raw’ horns were obtained in order to be converted and mounted. See Etting, Story of the Drinking Horn (as n. 70). 174 Pegge et al., ‘Of the Borstal Horn’, Archaeologia, 3 (1775), 15–18. 175 See the references in n. 110. 176 Milles, ‘Lord Bruce’s Horn’ (as n. 110), 26. 177 J. Dodds, ‘Hunting in the Borderlands’, in Courting the Alhambra: Cross–Disciplinary Approaches to the Hall of Justice Ceilings, ed. C. Robinson and S. Pinet, special issue of Medieval Encounters, 14 (2008), 267–302. I would like to thank Glaire Anderson for reminding me of this article. 178 D. Rollason, ‘Forests, parks, palaces, and the power of place in early medieval kingship’, Early Medieval Europe, 20/4 (2012), 428–49. 179 Dodds, ‘Hunting’ (as n. 177), 291. 180 Ibid. (as n. 177), 292. 181 S. Sutton, ‘The Study of Oliphants’, essay submitted for the MA in History of Art, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2013, 11–13, citing N. Sykes, ‘Zooarchaeology of the Norman Conquest’, in Anglo Norman Studies, XXVII: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 2004 (Woodbridge 2005), 196. My thanks to Sally Sutton for sharing her unpublished research with me. 182 Rollason, ‘Power of place’ (as n. 178), 439. 183 Sutton, ‘Study of Oliphants’ (as n. 181), 13. 184 Rollason, ‘Power of place’ (as n. 178), 443, who quotes Ermold the Black’s description of the Carolingian park at Aachen, and Walafrid Strabo’s poem on the statue of Theodoric. 185 H. Ellis, ‘Observations on some ancient methods of conveyance in England’, Archaeologia, 17 (1814), 311–19, esp. 313, also discussed in Clanchy, From Memory (as n. 170), 257–59. My thanks to Martin Biddle for sending me an image of the record of this find, in the first minute book of the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society for 3 May 1733, ed. D. Owen, Lincoln Record Society, 73 (1980), 14. Ellis, as above, also mentions an ivory-handled knife used by William II in 1096 to give the Abbey of Tavistock seisin of the land or manor of Wlurinton [?] per Cultellum eberneum; inscribed on its haft were words signifying the donation. Kühnel’s Appendix notes a few instances of ivory caskets (Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12), ‘Anhang’, nos 24, 27: scrinium or scriniolum eburneum). 186 O. Rackham, ‘The Great Horn or Bugle’, in Treasures of Silver at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, ed. O. Rackham (Cambridge 2002), 33–45, esp. 34–35. My thanks to Kirstin Kennedy for bringing Rackham’s article and the Egglesfield horn in The Queen’s College, Oxford (presented 1341–49) to my attention. 187 Caesar, De Bello Gallico, vi, 28, cited in Rackham, ‘The Great Horn’ (as n. 186), 42. 188 Now in the Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque National de France, Paris, inv. St Denis 1794.4. The gallery label attributes the gilt copper mounts to ‘France or the Rhineland, 13th century’. There are many other examples, especially in German and Scandinavian collections: see Etting, Story of the Drinking Horn (as n. 70). 189 Inv. OA.24, see [accessed 20 February 2013]. Another ‘griffin’s claw’ cup in the British Museum (inv. WB.102) was mounted at Mainz in 1550 for the noble von Greiffenclau family, as indicated in the inscription on the mounts. See: [accessed 20 February 2013]. My thanks to Rosie Mills for bringing these objects to my attention. 190 Also Bamberg in 1127 (Kühnel, Elfenbeinskulpturen (as n. 12) ‘Anhang’, no. 1) of three ivory horns: ‘duo leunculi, et II

57

mariam rosser-owen Università della Tuscia, Viterbo 2012. Through physical analysis of the caskets in Italian collections, Dr Armando convincingly associates their production with a single structured workshop in Palermo, probably with some connection to the Norman court. 206 Guérin, ‘Avorio d’ogni ragione’ (as n. 83). Jeremy Johns has added complexity to the question of when this ivory might have arrived in southern Italy: the Norman invasion of Sicily in 1060 led to a decline in contact with Ifriqiya, until the Normans reached an accommodation with the Zirids around 1080. Since Amalfi was conquered in 1073 and Salerno in 1076, these states no longer operated as independent trading centres, but instead under the agency and control of the Norman ruler. Likewise, he notes an apparent decline in trade between Egypt and Sicily between 1090 and 1120. See J. Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Diwan (Cambridge 2002), 258–59. This would imply that the ivory from which the Farfa casket and possibly Salerno ivories were carved was already in southern Italy before 1060, or alternatively the whole group postdates 1080. 207 Shalem, Oliphant (as n. 1), fig. 34. It has been pointed out that the inscription might have been added to the object later, thus raising a question mark over the connection to this prominent mercantile family. This would nevertheless mean that the areas in which the inscription was later written were deliberately left blank, and this can only have been because they were intended to receive additional carving — such as a dedicatory inscription. It could have been passed from the sculptor to another craftsman, who was literate. Guérin, ‘Forgotten Routes?’ (as n. 82), 87–91. 208 On the consolidation and exploitation of land and land rights under the first generations of Norman settlers in Italy, see G. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Essex 2000). 209 For example, two golden horns datable to the 5th century were found at Gallehus in South Jutland (Denmark), in the 17th and 18th century. Unfortunately they were both stolen and melted down in the 19th century, though they are still known through a series of electrotypes created from the detailed descriptions and drawings made at the time of their discoveries, such as those in the British Museum (M&ME 1885–160a and 161a), see: [accessed 9 June 2013].

Etting, Story of the Drinking Horn (as n. 70), esp. 17–38, gives other examples of surviving bovine horns that can be associated with Iron Age and Viking Scandinavia, though the author notes that if the horns are buried they completely disintegrate, so frequently their metal mounts are the only archaeological trace. 210 Seven ox horns were found in the 6th/7th-century burial at Sutton Hoo, and three in the 6th-century princely burial at Taplow: see Rackham, ‘The Great Horn’ (as n. 186), 42, citing Victoria County History, Buckinghamshire, 1 (1905), 200. The Taplow horns, found with other rich grave-goods in 1883, were ornamented with ‘intricately embossed and gilded silver triangles around the mouth and with long silver finials’. All these horns are now in the British Museum (M&ME 1883,12–14,19–20). It is interesting that on the Bayeux Tapestry, it is the English not the Normans who are depicted drinking from horns, which seem to be a visual device signalling their Anglo–Saxon identity. See Etting, Story of the Drinking Horn (as n. 70), 38–39, citing two works by Carol Neuman de Vegvar which I have not had the opportunity to consult: ‘A Feast to the Lord: Drinking Horns, the Church, and the Liturgy’, in Objects, Images, and the Word: Art in the service of the Liturgy, ed. C. Hourihane (Princeton 2003), 231–56; ‘Dining with Distinction: drinking vessels and difference in the Bayeux Tapestry feast scenes’, in The Bayeux Tapestry: New Approaches. Proceedings of a conference at the British Museum, ed. M. J. Lewis, G. R. Owen-Crocker and D. Terkla (Oxford 2010), 112–20. How that fits with the idea of oliphants as something indicative of Norman identity is an important avenue for further investigation. 211 Rackham, ‘The Great Horn’ (as n. 186), 42. 212 Pegge, ‘Horn as charter’ (as n. 159), 4. 213 Etting, Story of the Drinking Horn (as n. 70), 47. 214 Pace and Eastmond have both recently made a similar point: Pace, ‘Fra l’Islam e l’Occidente’ (as n. 96), 620: ‘Dal vaglio delle fonti la localizzazione resta invece non solo irrisolta, ma sembra addirittura divenire ancor più problematica [. . .] la loro strada fosse sin dall’origine segnata da un immediato futuro di esportazione [. . .]’; Eastmond, ‘Byzantine oliphants?’ (as n. 17), 21: ‘The market for oliphants seems predominantly to have lain outside the region in which they originated. All the evidence indicates that they were valued above all in Northern Europe’.

58

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 59–89

MUSLIM ARTISTS AND CHRISTIAN MODELS IN THE PAINTED CEILINGS OF THE CAPPELLA PALATINA Jeremy Johns The ceilings of the Cappella Palatina were decorated by Muslim artists who probably trained in FāÐimid Egypt before coming to Norman Palermo in c. 1140. Most of the figural scenes belong to the traditional Islamic palatial cycle. Less than 10% of them have been attributed to a variety of Christian sources, and were presumably commissioned by the Norman patron or his agents. Four groups of Christian scenes, derived principally from Romanesque models, are discussed, and their likely impact upon the newly arrived Muslim artists is imagined, as they were set to work alongside other immigrant artisans to create the visual aspect of King Roger’s new monarchy, the most characteristic feature of which was the deliberate and polemical juxtaposition of the three cultures of his kingdom — Arabic, Greek and Latin.

INTRODUCTION

eight-pointed stars, octagons enclosing cupola, and rhombuses — separated by massive stalactite pendants. Second, the ‘vertical’, muqarnas zone, which make the transition from the central zone to the walls of the nave, is built of three types of large, multifaceted, three-dimensional units composed of small cells according to a strict geometrical scheme: twenty large units (nine on the north and south sides and one on the east and west), alternating with twenty-four small units (ten on each of the long sides and two on each end), and the four corner units which are, in effect, composed of the cells of two large units.4 The third zone is the bottom cornice, now bearing a 15thcentury Latin inscription, which masks the gap between the lower edge of the muqarnas and the top of the mosaics of the walls. A hidden superstructure, which can only be seen in the space between the ceiling and the roof, supports the painted surfaces of the central section and the muqarnas zone, which are built up from thousands of wooden panels, no more than a few millimetres thick, the largest of which measure 660 mm × 430 mm, while the smallest (not including the border panels) are 250 mm × 120 mm. Fir (Abies alba and possibly A. nebrodiensis) seems to have been used for most of the panels, but pine (Pinus negra and P. sylvestris), beech, birch and poplar are all present.5 Once assembled, the multi-faceted surface of the ceiling was covered with a thin layer of gesso, before being painted with tempera and gilded.6 Contrary to what has sometimes been thought, there can be no doubt that the ceiling of the nave was

The building now known as the Cappella Palatina or palace chapel was commissioned by Roger, the first king of Sicily (r. 1130–54), at the centre of his principal palace in Palermo (Fig. 1). It was built above an earlier chapel, now usually but misleadingly called a crypt, which occupies the ground floor, so that the Cappella Palatina is elevated on the first floor of the palace (Figs 2 and 3).1 Construction is most unlikely to have begun before Roger’s coronation on Christmas Day 1130, and the mosaic inscription running round the base of the cupola and bearing a date equivalent to the year 1143 demonstrates that the shell of the building was then complete and its decoration already advanced.2 There is general agreement amongst scholars that the aisled hall to the west of the sanctuary served, at least under King Roger, as an aula regia in which the king sat enthroned on a dais in the middle of the west wall (Figs 4 and 5).3 The central nave and two side aisles of that hall are covered by the painted wooden ceilings that are the subject of this paper (Fig. 6). The nave ceiling, upon which I shall concentrate, measures 18.5 m × 5 m and is built upon a trabeate framework suspended from wooden brackets slotted into the side walls. The lowest edge of the ceiling just overlaps the mosaics of the walls 10.5 m above the pavement, while the tops of the coffers of the central zone rise to 13 m. The ceiling may be divided into three zones. First, the ‘horizontal’, central zone, is composed of three types of coffers — octagons enclosing © British Archaeological Association 2015

59

jeremy johns

Figure 1 Hypothetical reconstruction of the plan of Palazzo dei Normanni in the 12th century showing the Cappella Palatina (no. 1) in the heart of the palace (© R. Longo 2011)

part of the original plan for the building.7 The slots for the wooden brackets from which it is suspended, and the slits for the ventilation of the space between the ceiling and the roof, were built into the original masonry of the walls of the nave.8 Again contrary to what has often been suggested, it is clear that the carpenters and painters worked together as a single co-ordinated team, because the massive stalactite pendants of the central part of the ceiling were built and painted on the ground before they were hoisted and fixed into place.9

It is highly probable that the ceiling of the nave was completed before 29 June 1143, although the cornice that runs round the four walls of the nave immediately below the ceiling proper, and now bears a 15thcentury Latin inscription, was added after the mosaics of the nave had been set, but clearly within a generation or so of the completion of the paintings of the nave. The similarities in style between the painting of the ceilings of the two aisles and that of the inscription cornice suggests that they may have been painted at about the same time.10 The intricate complexity of the 60

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina

Figure 2 Hypothetical reconstruction of the view of the Palazzo dei Normanni in the 12th century from the north-east, showing the bell tower and dome of the Cappella Palatina (centre) rising above the eastern buildings of the palace (© R. Longo 2011)

Figure 3 Section (west–east looking north) through Cappella Palatina and Lower Church, and plan of the Cappella Palatina, by Monti and Prescia (© T. Dittelbach, Stiftung Würth, Künzelsau & Swiridoff Verlag 2011) 61

jeremy johns that could be adjusted proportionally to cover any rectangular space. Second, except for the small number of scenes that reflect the intervention of the Sicilian patron or his agents — some of which will be discussed in detail below — all of the paintings of the nave belong to the cycle of scenes and inscriptions with which Islamic palaces and their contents had traditionally been decorated since the ʿAbbāsid heyday in 9th-century Baghdad and Samarra.13 And third, most of the painted scenes and all of the inscriptions are too high to be read clearly by a viewer standing on the pavement of the nave, suggesting that this type of ceiling and its decoration may originally have been designed to cover a space with a much lower roof, such as a palatial hall or pavilion. While, at the planning stage, it may have seemed wholly appropriate to cover Roger’s aula regia with a type of ceiling developed for an Islamic palace, the much greater height of the building that was in architectural terms the nave of a church, greatly reduced the visual impact of the ceiling once it had been constructed, concealing in the gloomy heights of the nave both the drama of its vertical articulation and the detail of its paintings. Both the wooden structure of the ceiling of the nave and its painted decoration were executed by an itinerant workshop of carpenters and painters who had clearly already collaborated in the construction of similar ceilings over palatial halls in the Islamic Mediterranean and possibly beyond. No comparable wooden ceiling now survives and the most likely explanation for that absence is that throughout the Islamic world, from Qu½ayr ʿAmra in the mid-8th century to the Alhambra in the mid-13th, no palace has survived with its decoration in place, except in Norman Sicily. There are no Islamic painted ceilings from this period because there are no Islamic palaces, and the sole surviving example of a more or less complete painted wooden palace ceiling from the Islamic world before the 13th century was commissioned by a Norman king to cover what is now the nave of a Christian church. There are good reasons to think that similar painted, wooden muqarnas ceilings may once have been widespread. The long-destroyed 12th-century palace of the Moukhroutas in Constantinople was covered by a muqarnas ceiling painted with images of a royal majlis from the Islamic palatial cycle, and a philological case can be made that it was built of wood and not, as once thought, of brick and plaster.14 Surviving fragments of plaster muqarnas ceilings, also painted with scenes from the Islamic palatial cycle, come from a bathhouse that should probably be dated to the mid-10th to mid-11th century near the Sanctuary of Abū l-Suʿūd in FusÐāÐ (Egypt), from 12th-century Coptic churches, and from a mid-12th-century palace beneath Santa Clara la Real in Murcia (Spain).15 Fragments of similar muqarnas units, again in plaster but painted with geometric and vegetal ornament, have been excavated in the palaces of the Qalʿat Banī ©ammād (Algeria), the capital of the ©ammādid state that succeeded

Figure 4 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: interior view from east (© Cosimo Franco Panini Editore Spa 2010)

Figure 5 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: interior view from west (© Cosimo Franco Panini Editore Spa 2010)

design for the ceiling of the nave, the manner in which the carpenters instructed the masons to allow for the spaces and systems necessary for the support, ventilation and maintenance of the ceiling, and the mastery with which the ceiling was executed and integrated into the structure of the building, all demonstrate that the carpenters were already expert in the construction of similar wooden ceilings before they started in the Cappella Palatina.11 Three considerations together suggest that, while they were accustomed to provide ceilings for Islamic palaces, this was the first time that they had made such a ceiling for a Christian church. First, in the north and south elevations of the nave, the rhythm of the units of the muqarnas sides of the ceiling is out of time with the rhythm of the clerestory windows and the arcades.12 This awkward irregularity suggests that the original design was not created specially for the chapel but was conceived as a template 62

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina

Figure 6 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: the three painted wooden ceilings of the aisles and nave of the from below (Photo: Gigi Roli, © Cosimo Franco Panini Editore Spa)

the FāÐimids in Western Ifrīqiya, dating to the early 11th century.16 In none of these cases do the muqarnas fragments seem to belong to domes; on the contrary, they all appear to have come from drums, zones of transition and vaults covering rectangular spaces.17 The ceiling of the ©ammādid palace of Bijāya (mod. Bougie, Algeria), celebrated in verse by Ibn ©amdīs, also seems to have covered a rectangular hall. While its decoration, consisting of vegetal ornament, golden birds and hunting scenes, was certainly painted, the Arabic verses imply that the ceiling was conceived of as having been ‘carved’ (mukharram, literally ‘pierced’), a term which under poetic licence could well have been applied to a multifaceted muqarnas ceiling constructed, like the nave ceiling of the Cappella Palatina, from multiple geometric wooden cells.18 The forms of the individual muqarnas cells employed in Norman Sicily are closer to those found in the Maghrib than to those from the Mashriq, and the closest surviving comparanda for the design of the muqarnas units in the ceiling of the nave of the Cappella Palatina are today found in the Almoravid and Almohad mosques of Algeria and Morocco, such as al-Qarawiyīn in Fez (Morocco), but those vaults are built of masonry and plaster not of wood, and — of

course — are not painted with scenes from the palatial cycle.19 The likelihood of a direct link between the painted wooden ceiling of the royal hall in Palermo and the plaster muqarnas vaults of Maghribī mosques, which are for the most part now undecorated, is remote. It is more probable that Almoravid and Almohad builders adapted to religious architecture a type of muqarnas that was already widespread in the palaces of the Islamic Mediterranean. If so, then the fact that the mosques and their ceilings have survived, while the palaces have not — except in Norman Sicily — has created the misleading impression that the nave ceiling of the Cappella Palatina may have derived from the ceilings of Almoravid and Almohad mosques. As might be expected of a ceiling built and decorated by an itinerant workshop of specialised carpenters and painters who had worked at different courts throughout the Islamic Mediterranean and beyond, the structure of the muqarnas, the style of the painting, and the range of iconographic subjects all reflect the influence of a variety of models from different sources. We shall see shortly how susceptible the painters of the Cappella Palatina were to the Christian models that they encountered on arriving in Sicily. 63

jeremy johns conquest and the coronation of Roger II, there is little evidence in Sicily of new building in the Islamic tradition.24 Mostly ecclesiastical monuments survive, and these attest above all to the importation of new architectural ideas from beyond the Alps via the Italian mainland.25 The few churches claimed to date from this early period that exhibit Islamic features, such as San Giovanni dei Lebbrosi in Palermo, or SS Piero e Paolo di Agrò with its muqarnas brick pendentives, can all be shown to have been built or rebuilt after 1130.26 The material and visual culture of the new Norman monarchy was created above all through the importation of artists, craftsmen and scholars from outside the island — mosaicists from Byzantium, scribes from FāÐimid Egypt, silk weavers from Byzantine Greece, porphyry-workers from Rome, sculptors from the Italian mainland and southern France, and so on.27 This is amply attested not just by the material evidence, but also by contemporary witnesses who comment on the importation of those scholars and artisans who built the kingdom.28 Local Sicilian craftsmen presumably participated as assistants and labourers from the outset, and seem to have gradually assimilated the ideas and techniques introduced by their foreign masters, so that by the 1170s and 1180s, in William II’s great church and palace complex at Monreale, forms and motifs first imported under King Roger are ‘now distilled, refined and blended so that they cannot be separated’.29 This characteristically Sicilian synthesis only fully emerged under William II and was the culmination of a process that had begun forty years earlier with the systematic importation of foreign craftsmen and scholars who were commissioned to create a deliberately syncretizing material and visual culture for the new monarchy — a culture which, in the words of William II’s minister and panegyrist, Eugenius of Palermo, was intended to demonstrate how the unifying power of the Norman king could ‘harmonize the inharmonious and mix together the unmixable [. . .] blending and uniting into a single race disparate and incongruent peoples’.30 The itinerant workshop that built and decorated the ceiling of the nave of the Cappella Palatina was active in the late 1130s or 1140s. Thereafter, other wooden ceilings in Sicily were painted in a style and with an iconographic repertoire that demonstrates how local artists appropriated and assimilated motifs first introduced in the Cappella Palatina. The remnants of the ceiling of the nave of the cathedral of San Salvatore at Cefalù assume particular importance because they alone survive in sufficient quantity to reconstruct the decorative scheme.31 Although the stellate coffers at Cefalù are clearly meant to evoke the far more elaborate stellate cupolae of the central section of the ceiling of the Cappella Palatina, the simple trabeate structure used at Cefalù, and above all the absence of muqarnas, suggests that the carpenters had learnt little from the

It is by no means universally accepted, however, that the carpenters and painters of the ceiling of the nave of the Cappella Palatina were indeed imported to Palermo from elsewhere.20 Nonetheless, there are strong historical grounds a priori for believing this to be so. Before the creation of the Norman monarchy in 1130, there had been no royal court on the island for approximately ninety years. An indigenous workshop expert in the construction and decoration of palace ceilings could not have survived unemployed and without court patronage for three generations only to reappear at the height of its powers after Roger’s coronation. This historical case is frequently misunderstood, or even ignored, and so must be rehearsed in some detail. Sicily had been conquered by Arab and Berber troops from Aghlabid Ifrīqiya during the 9th century. For the first hundred years, the island served essentially as a military base from which the Aghlabid emirs and their governors in Sicily launched successive attacks against Christian outposts in the east of the island and against mainland Italy. However, after 949, when the FāÐimid caliph installed the Kalbid family as governors of Sicily, Palermo developed into a centre of Islamic culture and learning. By 973, when the geographer Ibn ©awqal visited Sicily, he could compare Palermo, ‘the only famous and well-known city’ of the island, to Umayyad Cordova for its large number of mosques.21 But Kalbid Palermo flourished for only about a century and, during the late 1030s and 1040s, civil war tore apart the unified emirate.22 As rival warlords struggled to assert their authority, the surrounding Christian powers took the opportunity to invade. In 1038–42, a Byzantine expedition led by the general George Maniakes nearly succeeded in conquering the island. It included a large contingent of the Varangian guard commanded by Harald Hardrada, and reinforced by Lombards and Normans from southern Italy led by the two elder brothers of the de Hauteville family from Normandy, William Iron Arm and Drogo. In 1060, Robert Guiscard and Roger, the two youngest de Hauteville brothers, crossed the Straits of Messina ostensibly as mercenaries of the warlord Ibn al-Thumna and, on his death in 1062, began the conquest of Sicily for themselves. The Norman conquest of Sicily lasted for more than thirty years and caused massive damage to the island. So much so that, in 1093, Count Roger de Hauteville wrote: Who, seeing the huge and widespread destruction of the castles and cities of the Muslims, and observing the vast destruction of their palaces, built with such great skill [. . .] could not consider this to be a great and manifold disaster and an incalculable loss.23

The damage done by the Norman conquest to Muslim Palermo was left largely unrepaired until, in 1130, Count Roger’s son had himself crowned and founded the new kingdom of Sicily. Between the Norman 64

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina and his ministers after his coronation in 1130. The panel-by-panel study of the ceilings that I recently undertook for the Mirabilia Italiae, and the even more detailed analysis of the ceilings by Kapitaikin which I had the privilege to supervise, have only strengthened my conviction that the artists came from Egypt and introduced both a style of painting and an iconographic repertoire that were in effect completely new to the island.38 It has long been recognized that a small number of scenes in the ceilings — less than 10% of those involving human figures — do not belong to the traditional repertoire that constitutes the Islamic palatial cycle. Scholars, including Ugo Monneret de Villard, André Grabar, Dalu Jones, Erica Dodd, Maria Vittoria Fontana, David Knipp, Ernst Grube, Annliese Nef, Kapitaikin, Francesca Anzelmo and myself, have attributed these to a variety of Christian sources, from Byzantium, to East Christian Mesopotamia and Syria, to Coptic Egypt, to Sicily itself, and also to northwest Europe.39 It is principally upon the latter — sources that may be traced at least in part to northwest Europe, what I am loosely calling Romanesque models — that I wish to concentrate in this paper. I would like to do so by imagining the likely impact of these Romanesque models upon the Muslim artists, newly arrived in Palermo from Egypt, who set to work alongside the host of other immigrant artists and artisans that King Roger and his ministers had assembled in order to construct the visual aspect of the new monarchy — mosaicists invited from Constantinople, silk-weavers kidnapped from Corinth, ecclesiastical architects, masons and stone-carvers drawn from southern Italy, France and the Anglo-Norman world, palace architects and masons from the FāÐimid Mediterranean, Latin notaries from Rome, Montecassino and northwestern Europe, Greek logothetes and scribes trained in the great monastic scriptoria of Eastern Sicily and Calabria, Arabic secretaries from FāÐimid Cairo and many more besides. It has long been recognized that one of the most characteristic features of the visual language of the new monarchy was the deliberate and, indeed, the polemical juxtaposition of the three main cultures of the kingdom — Arabic, Greek and Latin. What might have been the effect of that juxtaposition upon the artists themselves?

masters of the Cappella Palatina. Similarly, the quality of the painting, which is much cruder at Cefalù than in the Cappella Palatina, and the fact that the paint was applied directly to the bare wood without a preparatory layer of gesso, suggest that the artists imitated what they had seen in Palermo, but were not themselves trained by the master painters of the Cappella Palatina. While the basic iconographic subjects at Cefalù are virtually all represented in the Cappella Palatina, many of the scenes in Palermo do not reappear in San Salvatore.32 Moreover, at Cefalù, there are no Arabic inscriptions, nor even pseudo-epigraphic designs, and stock figures from the Islamic palatial cycle are transformed into explicitly Christian images at Cefalù, so that seated nudamāʾ hold crosses instead of wine-cups, and royal eagles and bulls become symbols of the Evangelists.33 All this suggests that the ceiling of Cefalù was a work of synthesis executed by local carpenters and painters who sought to imitate the paintings of the foreign masters that they had seen in the Cappella Palatina, but who lacked the expertise to do so with exactitude.34 The same appears to be true for the ceilings of Palermo cathedral, Santo Spirito and La Magione.35 It is remarkable that no wooden muqarnas ceiling survives in Sicily after the Cappella Palatina, but only imitations of muqarnas forms, such as may be seen in the Sala Magna of Palazzo Chiaramonte (Lo Steri) in Palermo (1377–80).36 This suggests that the masters who built the ceiling of the nave of the Cappella Palatina left Sicily without having trained local carpenters in their specialised craft, so that later Sicilian builders who wished to reproduce the muqarnas of the royal palace could only imitate its outer form without recreating its underlying structure. As to the paintings, Lev Kapitaikin has now assembled a mass of evidence that demonstrates that the style of painting in Palermo is most closely paralleled in FāÐimid Egypt.37 The vast majority of the images belong to what has loosely been called the ‘princely cycle’ that had first been formulated under the Umayyads of Syria in the second quarter of the 8th century and the ʿAbbāsid caliphs in 9th-century Baghdad and Samarra, and had then spread widely throughout the Islamic world. Again, the closest comparanda for most of the vegetal and geometrical ornament, and for the calligraphic designs, can be found in FāÐimid Egypt. For this reason, there can be little doubt that the painters had trained in Cairo or FusÐāÐ. Kapitaikin has made a strong case that their repertoire included elements used by Coptic painters. Nonetheless, the balance of the evidence indicates that the painters of the nave ceiling were Muslims, and that they, together with the palatial cycle with which they decorated most of the ceiling, were not part of the indigenous culture of Islamic Sicily that the Normans had appropriated on their conquest of the island but, on the contrary, were imported to Sicily from the Islamic Mediterranean, probably from FāÐimid Egypt, by King Roger

KING DAVID AND NABĪ DAʾŪD The western end of the Sanctuary is replete with Solomonic references. The western arch of the cupola rests upon a pair of spiral columns that evoked the columns of Boaz and Jachin at the entrance of the Temple.40 On the eastern face of that arch is represented the Presentation of the Infant Christ in the Temple.41 King Solomon is figured on the western side of the drum, and King David on the eastern.42 The ceiling joins with the architecture and the mosaics adding, 65

jeremy johns right hand turning the peg of the shortest string with a tuning lever, while his left hand plucks the fourth string (Fig. 7). He sits upon a curule chair (sella curulis), one of only two figures in the ceilings to do so. In nearly all other respects, the figure is painted in the same style and composed according to the same iconographic formula as the other musicians in the ceilings. He is bare headed, and there is nothing to suggest that the nimbus surrounding his head is anything but purely conventional. His facial features are those of a young man, and are wholly in keeping with other male musicians in the muqarnas zone.50 His body is arranged in one of the standard poses for a musician — turned one quarter to the right and sitting with the right leg crossed over the left — a pose that looks rather awkward when adapted to the curule chair and triangular psaltery. He wears the long gown worn by other male musicians, in a plain, unpatterned fabric and without unusual decoration. Only shoes, which are rarely depicted in the ceilings, distinguish his costume from that of other male musicians. The usual trays bearing fruit and a wine-jug hover in the background, next to foliate sprigs. The scene is enclosed by an elaborate inner polylobed frame of a type not infrequently employed to surround musicians, nudamāʾ and other figures, in the large rectangular panels in the middle of all three muqarnas units.51 For all that, three anomalous elements — the triangular psaltery, the manner in which the musician does not play but rather tunes his instrument, and the curule chair (sella curulis) upon which he is seated — are not found in earlier Islamic painting and were almost certainly drawn from a Romanesque model depicting King David tuning his Psaltery. All three elements appear in that very scene in the Hortus deliciarum, as well as in in other 11th- and 12th-century examples (Fig. 8).52 In the same north-east corner unit, the large rectangular panel immediately to the north was painted by the same artist with the figure of a Scribe (Fig. 9).53 The bearded man wears a turban tied around a conical cap, a long robe adorned with gold bands ornamented in black, and very prominent shoes of exactly the same type as worn by the Musician tuning a Triangular Psaltery (Fig. 7). With his left leg crossed over his right knee, he too sits upon on a curule chair — the only other figure in the ceiling to do so. He holds with his left hand what appears to be a long scroll to which he points with the index finger of his right hand. Floating in the background behind his shoulders are a bottle and a tray laden with fruit. Foliate ornament is restricted to a few sprigs at the bottom of the panel, not least because of the tight confines imposed by the elaborate polylobed inner frame. Although the figure does not hold a pen he is usually identified as a Scribe because he adheres closely to the iconographic formula for the scribe in early Islamic art. While scribes as such are not often depicted, they are by no means unknown. The scribe in the famous birth-scene

in the precise centre of the east side above the apex of the arch leading to the Sanctuary, a pair of lions in combat with serpentine dragons, which not only guard the entry to the Sanctuary but also carry a reference to the two lions that stood beside Solomon’s throne.43 But it is with two adjacent panels that I wish to begin. In the north-east corner of the ceiling, abutting the arch that leads to the Sanctuary, a large rectangular panel in the second tier of the muqarnas is painted with a Musician tuning a Triangular Psaltery (Fig. 7).44 This instrument is unique in the ceilings and is very different from the rectangular psaltery played by five dancing girls (qiyān).45 Nor does it seem to occur elsewhere in early Islamic depictions of musicians. It is to be distinguished both from the harp with a wide, richly decorated sound-box (ponticello) that is drawn on the so-called Siculo-Arabic painted ivory caskets, and also from the similar (if not identical) harp played by musicians in the Islamic palatial cycle that appears in the ceiling of the FāÐimid Western Palace in Cairo.46 Such harpists are always depicted with their instrument held vertically or inclined towards them, with the pillar towards the body, plucking the strings with both hands.47 The artist in the royal chapel has drawn the triangular psaltery with the top and one side forming a right angle and represented as two sides of a frame, while the third and longest side is open and without a border. Eight pegs project from the top, and eight double courses of strings run from them not, as one might expect, diagonally to the other side of the frame but vertically to the third open side. There are no sound-holes, and it is not clear whether the instrument had a hollow box or merely a raised board. No attempt has been made to show a bridge or any method of fastening the strings to the third side. In short, an instrument of precisely the form drawn here could never have existed. It is probable that the model that artist struggled to follow was intended to represent the triangular psaltery that Christian writers, from at least the time of Isidore of Seville, had particularly associated with David the Psalmist.48 What appears to be the same instrument is given a variety of names in 12thcentury representations. In the Hortus deliciarum, King David tunes a triangular psalterium dicitur decacordium (Fig. 8). In the capital depicting King David and his Musicians in the cloister at Moissac, a standing figure playing a triangular instrument is identified as Name (i.e. [H]eman reversed) cum rota.49 The painters of the ceilings were far more successful in depicting realistically the rectangular psaltery, an instrument that clearly belonged to their organological repertoire and with which they may even have been personally familiar. All this suggests strongly that the artist of this panel was unaccustomed to draw the triangular psaltery, and reproduced the instrument not from his own stock repertoire but rather from a pictorial model that was new and unfamiliar to him. The Musician tuning a Triangular Psaltery is depicted not playing but rather tuning the instrument, with his 66

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina

Figure 8 King David: David rex. Psalterium dicitur decacordium. From the Hortus Deliciarum of Herrad of Hohenbourg (Landsberg 1176–96), fol. 59v (detail). After The Hortus Deliciarum fol. 59v, no. 81, pl. 37; I, 97; II, 123

Figure 7 Musician tuning a Triangular Psaltery. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, Northeast corner unit, Panel 27. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15002 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). See also Plate II in print edition

of the Schefer Maqāmāt, is shown as a bearded figure, wearing a turban, holding a long scroll in his left hand and a pen in his right; an almost identical scribe, seated on a stool, appears in the episode of Abū Zayd and his son in front of the cadi.54 In the other 13th-century Paris Maqāmāt, a scribe holds the long scroll in the shape of an inverted U that later can be seen to be a standard element of the iconographic formula.55 The figure of a scribe far more commonly represents the planet Mercury, al-ʿUÐārīd, known in Arabic also as al-Kātib, ‘the Scribe’, and thus drawn as a seated male figure holding either an open book or a long, U-shaped scroll, for example on a late-13th- or early-14thcentury metal basin from Mamlūk Egypt, and in the illustrations to later Arabic astronomical and astrological treatises, such as the famous manuscript of Abū Māʾshar al-Balkhī’s Kitāb al-Mawālid copied in Cairo in the 15th century.56 Perhaps the closest formal parallels for the Scribe in the Cappella Palatina come from Norman Sicily. One of the two notarii saraceni in Peter of Eboli’s famous

Figure 9 Scribe. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North-east corner unit, Panel 26. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15002 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). Compare with Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 694. See also Plate III in print edition 67

jeremy johns The most likely reconstruction of events is that the patron or his commissioners instructed the painters to insert images of David the harpist and the scribe of the psalms into the eastern end of the ceiling, where they would complement the cluster of Solomonic references in the Sanctuary. Because the Muslim artists carried no image of David in their repertoire, they were provided with a Romanesque model to follow, presumably an illuminated manuscript, perhaps containing the scene of King David and his Scribe. In translating that image to the ceiling, the painters retained some elements of the model formula, including the distinctive triangular psaltery, the tuning lever, the curule chair on which both David and his scribe sit, and their outlandish shoes, but omitted others, such as the crown that the Romanesque model is likely to have worn. The style of the painting and the composition of the scene are completely in harmony with the rest of the ceiling, and owe nothing to the Romanesque model. While this first example seems to be straightforward, a second will reveal some of the hidden pitfalls in the search for the iconographic models of the paintings of the Cappella Palatina.

illustration of the trilingual royal chancery is a bearded figure, wearing a turban and shoes, and with his left leg crossed over his right knee, writing on a long scroll.57 Less well known, in the painted beams from Cefalù Cathedral, a bearded and bareheaded figure, apparently seated, holds in his left hand a long scroll to which he points with his right hand, while a wine jug floats in the background.58 The artists of both these Sicilian images associated the scene with other images of royalty, so that there is some reason to identify the Scribe in the Cappella Palatina as a royal scribe, a symbol of Roger’s monarchy, and also, perhaps, as one of the ‘self-referential’ genre scenes in which the ceiling refers to the daily activities — in this case the administration — of the royal court and palace.59 The Cefalù Scribe was probably modelled directly upon the Scribe in the Cappella Palatina and so adheres to the conventional Islamic iconographic formula, while Peter of Eboli’s Scribe also seems to owe more than a little to the Islamic al-Kātib. The artist responsible for this pair of adjacent panels in the north-east corner of Cappella Palatina was careful to establish a close visual connection between the Musician tuning a Triangular Psaltery and the Scribe: both scenes are enclosed by elaborate polylobed frames, both figures wear shoes, and both sit upon curule chairs (Fig. 7 and Fig. 9). That these two panels, one of which drew heavily upon a Romanesque model of King David tuning his Psaltery, form a pair in the midst of all the Solomonic references in the east end, leaves little room for doubt that one represents David the Harpist and the other his Scribe who records the words of the Psalms.60 This pairing of harpist and scribe (or scribes) is familiar, as King David and his Scribe(s), from many Romanesque illustrations of the revelation of the Psalms. For example, in the mid-9thcentury Psalter probably originally from St Remi at Sens, now in the Bibliothèque municipale at Angers (MS 0018), King David and one musician are illustrated on the left-hand page of an opening, opposite the page depicting three more musicians in the upper register and, below them, two seated scribes, both writing upon long scrolls (Fig. 10).61 The Prophet Dāwūd —David in Muslim guise — is mentioned in the Qurʾān, and three passages refer to the revelation of the zabūr — a book usually identified with the Psalms.62 Unlike the Bible, the Qurʾān is never illustrated, but Dāwūd figures largely in the Arabic Qi½a½ al-anbiyāʾ, or ‘Tales of the Prophets’, where he is celebrated as the psalmist and, especially, as a musician and singer of miraculous power.63 But in the illustrated copies of these tales, the episodes from the life of Dāwūd most commonly represented are those relating to Uriah and Bathsheba, and I dare say that Dāwūd is never depicted in early Islamic art as a musician or as the psalmist, still less with an accompanying scribe. In short, there seems to be no source in Islamic art from which a scene of King David and his Scribe could have been drawn.

DANIEL AND DĀNIYĀL The axis that runs north–south through the centre of the ceiling associates another series of royal images. A pair of representations of a Seated ruler with Attendants to the south, is juxtaposed on the north side with a pair of panels representing the royal Palace and, within it, the royal Chapel — the Cappella Palatina itself.64 To the south, the large landscape panel at the base of the muqarnas unit is occupied by a Mounted Dragon-slayer, modelled on a Byzantine icon of St Theodore — to whom we shall return later (Fig. 13). To the north, the equivalent panel shows a Man seated between Two Lions, which he appears to be holding by the neck (Fig. 11).65 It is tempting to identify this scene as Daniel in the Lions’ Den. Daniel with his arms outstretched in an orans pose is frequently represented standing between two lions in early Christian art and, in medieval sculpture and painting, is often represented either seated or standing in the same pose.66 One or both of Daniel’s arms often drop on to the heads or necks of the lions, as on the capital of the column to the north of the main door of the west façade of San Donnino di Fidenza, conventionally attributed to the workshop of Benedetto Antelami, c. 1175, where Daniel, identified by an inscription, entrusts his right hand to the mouth of one lion and drapes his left arm around the neck of the other (Fig. 12).67 If this scene in the Cappella Palatina were indeed intended to represent the Prophet Daniel, then it would contribute to the royal programme of this north–south axis by referring to the mosaic figure of Daniel in the soffit of the drum of the cupola, 68

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina

Figure 10 King David composing the Psalms with his musicians and scribes. Psalter. Sens, Abbey of St Remi (?), c. 842–850. Angers, Bibliothèque municipal, MS 0018, fols 13v–14r (© Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes – CNRS)

Figure 11 Man seated between Two Lions. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North side, Large unit 5, Panel 1. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15102 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). Compare with Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 588. See also Plate IVA in print edition 69

jeremy johns

Figure 13 Mounted Dragon-Slayer. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, South side Large unit 15, Panel 1. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15431 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). Compare with Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 850. See also Plate IVB in print edition

Figure 12 Daniel in the Lions’ Den. Attributed to workshop of Benedetto Antelami, Fidenza, San Donnino: The capital of the column to the north of the main door of the west façade (© J. Johns 2014) who holds a text read on the vigil of the Nativity, the anniversary of Roger’s coronation, which refers to Daniel’s prophecy of the eternal kingdom of God — a double reference to Roger’s new monarchy.68 On the other hand, one of the iconographical sources for the Christian image of Daniel, the ancient Near Eastern image of the Royal Lion-Strangler or the Master of Beasts, had long been incorporated into the repertoire of Muslim artists and, by the mid-12th century, had spread throughout the Islamic world, as is attested by its appearance on an Almoravid silk, the so-called Dalmatic of St Bernard Calvó in New York.69 What is more, from at least the mid-9th century, Muslims understood this ancient scene to represent Dāniyāl in the Lions’ Den.70 The following tradition, reported on the authority of Ibn Abī l-Dunyā (d. 894), appears in a variety of popular collections, including the Qi½a½ al-anbiyāʾ of Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373).71 After the Arab conquest of Tustar in Khūzistān, south-western Iran:

Figure 14 Mounted Dragon-Slayer. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North side, Large unit 7, Panel 1. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15060 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). Compare with Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 627. See also Plate VA in print edition

I saw a seal-ring on the hand of Abū Burda ʿĀmir b. Abī Mūsā al-Ashʿarī.72 The stone of the ring was carved with two lions with a man between them, whom they were licking. Abū Burda said: ‘This is the ring of that deceased man whom the people of this town [Tustar] say is Dāniyāl; Abū Mūsā took it on the day of his [Dāniyāl’s] [re]burial’.73 Abū Burda continued: ‘Abū Mūsā asked the ulema of that town about the engraving of that seal. They replied that the king under whose rule Dāniyāl lived consulted astrologers and wise men, who told him: “On a certain night a youth will be born who will destroy your kingdom and depose you”. The king said: “By God! No child born that night shall remain except I shall have him killed”. However, they seized Dāniyāl and threw him into the lions’ den. But the lion and lioness went on licking him and did not attack him, until his mother arrived

and found them licking him. Thus, God saved him in this manner, and so what happened did’. Abū Burda concluded: ‘Abū Mūsā said: “The ulema of this town said: ‘And so Dāniyāl carved his image and the image of the two lions licking him into the stone of his seal-ring, lest he forget God’s blessing upon him in this”.’ This tradition is reliable.

Although no medieval Islamic representation of Dāniyāl between two lions is known, this written tradition demonstrates that, as early as the mid-9th century, what was presumably the image of the Royal Lion-Strangler or the Master of Beasts, engraved on an ancient Near Eastern seal-ring was interpreted by 70

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina Muslim scholars as representing Dāniyāl in the Lions’ Den. Given the extremely poor survival of Islamic painting before the 12th century, it is by no means impossible that the scene in the Cappella Palatina is the sole surviving example of an otherwise lost early Islamic tradition of depicting Dāniyāl. After all, in the Book of Daniel, God shuts the mouths of the lions, while in the Islamic tradition the lions open their mouths to lick Dāniyāl, just as one of the lions in this scene would seem to be doing.74 Be that as it may, this example serves as a salutary warning against relying too heavily upon the absence of evidence, especially when searching for formal prototypes in early Islamic iconography.

dragon on the ground, whose coils occupy the two sides and base of the panel. Both dragons have a fox-like head with pointed ears, a spotted muzzle and a mane, but the rest of the body is serpentine and covered in scales, except for the striped belly. The third scene occupies one of the rhombuses in the central zone of the ceiling (Fig. 15).79 Despite the constraints imposed by the tight, eight-lobed frame, the composition is close to that in the two panels already discussed above. The only significant differences are in the details of the dress of the rider. Although the artist has struggled to accommodate the small cloak that hangs from the rider’s right arm, he has taken pains to show both the folds in the surcoat and the details of the length of fabric draped over his left arm. (Elsewhere in the ceiling, riders use a similar length of cloth, again folded over the left arm, to ward off an attack by lions — suggesting that, again, it is drawn from the painters’ stock repertoire.)80 There are compelling reasons to conclude that the three images discussed so far are closely modelled upon the Byzantine icon of St Theodore. One wears an armoured cuirass (Fig. 13), all are bearded, all plunge long spears into the necks or throats of dragons, and all have short, stiff, military cloaks (which are drawn as if the artist had copied the detail without fully understanding what it was originally intended to represent) — these elements are all standard in the Byzantine icon of St Theodore the dragon-slayer (Figs 13–15). St Theodore was a 4thcentury Greek military saint who is depicted as a mounted dragon-slayer from as early as the 5th century, well before St George was generally represented in the same manner. By the end of the 10th century, St Theodore was commonly represented as a mounted dragon-slayer throughout Byzantium and the Eastern Churches, from Armenia, to Cappadocia, to Coptic Egypt.81 Such images of St Theodore often add explicit Christian identifiers, such as the name of the saint and a cross at the end of the shaft of the spear or elsewhere in the composition. In the Cappella Palatina, the three mounted dragonslayers so far discussed were demonstrably inspired by a Byzantine prototype. While the artists were perplexed by details such as the saint’s armour and his military cloak, they nonetheless successfully translated the composition as a whole into their own stylistic idiom while adhering closely to the Greek iconographic formula. They decorate the ceiling of a Christian chapel built under the patronage of a Christian king, and at least one of these images — the first to be considered — is given a prominent location on the royal axis than runs north–south through the centre of the ceiling, indicating that it must have been selected and positioned by the royal patron or his ministers or their agents (Fig. 13).82 And yet none of these images incorporates any explicit Christian identifier. All three images preserve one further characteristic of the Christian icon; they show the moment of triumph over the dragon, the victory of good over evil,

ST THEODORE, ST GEORGE AND THE MARVELLOUS COMBAT BETWEEN HORSEMAN AND DRAGON I now wish to explore a little further the impact of Christian models upon the Muslim painters of the ceilings. We have already seen that, on the royal axis that runs north–south through the centre of the ceiling, on the south side, below the pair of seated rulers with attendants, the large landscape panel at the base of the unit — the equivalent panel to that depicting Daniel in the Lions’ Den on the north side — is occupied by a Mounted Dragon-Slayer, almost certainly ultimately derived from a Byzantine icon of St Theodore (Fig. 13).75 In this case, once again, I believe that the choice of image represents the wishes of the royal patron or his agents, and reflects the well-known love of the Norman kings for warrior saints, so amply documented in the mosaics of the sanctuary of the Cappella Palatina and, indeed, in the other royal churches of Cefalù and Monreale.76 In all, four panels in the ceiling depict a mounted horseman fighting a serpentine dragon. Two of the four scenes occupy the ‘landscape’ panels at the base of large units of the muqarnas zone — that with which we began in the middle of the south side (Fig. 13), and another to the east of the middle of the north side (Fig. 14).77 The centre of the panel is occupied by the figures of a horse and rider, facing right. The rider’s head and upper body are turned three-quarters towards the viewer. He wears a robe or surcoat with decorated golden bands at the neck, cuffs, central opening and hem, and a small cloak flutters awkwardly behind his right shoulder. The former rider has a sash diagonally across his chest that seems to develop into the cloak, but the latter wears what may just be a cuirass of segmented armour indicated by three horizontal bands around his waist and chest.78 Both riders are bareheaded with short black hair and beards. Their horses are drawn from the painters’ stock repertoire and have the same tack and trappings as those of the other riders in the ceiling. In each panel, with both hands, the rider drives his spear into the neck of the 71

jeremy johns

Figure 15

Figure 16

Mounted Dragon-Slayer. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, Central zone, Rhombus 3 (3rd rhombus from west end). Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.16084 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). Compare with Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 1055. See also VB in print edition

Marvellous Combat between Horseman and Dragon. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, South side, Large unit 18, Panel 14. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15060 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). Compare with Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 913. See also Plate VI in print edition off the dragon with a small round shield, drawing back his sword ready to strike at the beast’s neck. (In the top left corner, a disproportionately large detail, which may represent either a curled acanthus leaf or, less plausibly, a panache, arches above the horse’s head; the red lines of the preliminary sketch are clearly visible here, and suggest that the artist changed his mind about this detail.) The torsos of the rider and dragon, and the adjoining background, are damaged and were heavily restored in 1949–53, so that much detail has been lost. In the Marvellous Combat between Horseman and Dragon, the narrative predominates over the symbolic so that, rather than representing a completed triumph of good over evil, this fight is very much in progress (Fig. 16). While the icon of St Theodore and the painted panels that it inspired emphasize the distance and superiority of the saint high on his horse over the dragon laying dead on the ground by interposing the long shaft of the spear, here the artist has raised the two combatants to the same level, placing them eyeball-to-eyeball. They are equally matched foes, both in the act of attacking, and neither is yet victorious. The uncertainty of the outcome strengthens the narrative charge of the scene by adding an element of suspense, and thereby dilutes its symbolic significance.

giving the symbolic meaning of the icon priority over its narrative content. This symbolism is made explicit in a poorly preserved 10th(?)-century wall-painting of St Theodore and St George slaying a double-headed dragon from Yılanlı Kilise, in the Ihlara Valley, Cappadocia; the pairing of the two holy dragonslayers has no narrative source, and the symbolic meaning of the scene is spelled out in an inscription written on both sides of the central cross, which compares the victory of the two saints over the dragon to Christ’s triumph over evil on the cross.83 The Marvellous Combat between Horseman and Dragon — the fourth image of a mounted horseman fighting a serpentine dragon in the Cappella Palatina — occupies one of the large square panels in the muqarnas zone to the right of the throne platform in the west end (Fig. 16).84 Its composition is markedly different from that of the three scenes discussed so far, and raises a series of intriguing problems about the artists of the paintings of the ceiling and their models. The rider is young and beardless, and wears a tall conical cap with a gold band, presumably intended to indicate an inscription, and a surcoat that falls open to reveal his robe.85 The dragon twists around the body of the horse and rears up to attack from behind. The rider turns in the saddle and uses his left arm to fend 72

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina himself. While there can be little doubt that this figurine is in some way related both to the Romanesque sword-bearing dragon-fighters discussed above and to the Marvellous Combat between Horseman and Dragon, the precise nature of that relationship remains far from clear. One possibility is that all were inspired by the romantic tale of St George and the Princess, which, once incorporated into the Golden Legend in the late 13th century, came to inspire most subsequent representations of St George and the Dragon.95 It is first known in an 11th-century Georgian manuscript, and the Georgian text is apparently a source for the earliest known versions of the episode in both Greek and Latin.96 St George first rescues a pagan princess from the dragon, which he subdues by making the sign of the cross, then tethers it with her girdle while he converts her people to Christianity, and finally rewards them by dispatching the dragon with his sword (or, in the Latin version, first by transfixing it with his lance, and then by decapitating it with his sword). The early history and development of the iconography of this episode is yet to be fully studied. Early depictions in Georgian wall-painting show the saint and princess with the tethered dragon, but not the death of the beast.97 Similarly, Byzantine depictions of the episode represent the dragon subdued and tethered, but only rarely illustrate its death, and I dare say that no Byzantine or medieval East Christian image of St George and the Dragon portrays him as a mounted swordsman.98 The earliest depiction known to me in Latin Europe of a scene identifiable as St George and the Princess is the wall-painting to the south of the window above the door on the west wall of the Templar chapel at Cressac-St-Genis (Poitou-Charentes), dated 1170–80: the saint stands with drawn sword between the princess standing on his right and the dragon on his left.99 In order to link the depictions of a mounted swordsman in combat with a dragon to the legend of St George and the Princess it would be necessary to imagine that the tale had reached northwest Europe before 1096 — the latest possible date for the composition of Lectionary F of Reims Cathedral — and had immediately inspired Romanesque artists to create an image illustrating the desperate combat between the saint and the dragon — an episode that is not in fact described in the text.100 Within a generation, this new scene would have spread to Norman Sicily, where it would have been adopted by the Muslim painters in the Cappella Palatina, and also to Frankish Syria whence, by unknown byways, it would have reached the potters of Raqqa before 1200.101 Such a path of transmission seems to me both implausible and overcomplicated, and I am inclined to suspect that the iconographic type of the mounted dragon-slaying swordsmen is independent of the tale of St George and the Princess.102

While the icon of the saintly dragon-slayer always symbolizes the triumph of good over evil, in this image their combat seems to hang in the balance, and the viewer is left wanting the end of the story. Like its three counterparts, it carries no Christian charge and would be completely at home amongst the ʿ ajāʾ ib, the marvels and wonders that were traditionally part of the Islamic princely cycle. In the Latin West, most early images of St George and the Dragon seem ultimately to derive from the Byzantine icon of the military-saint impaling a dragon with his spear.86 It is thus especially intriguing that a small number of late-11th- and early-12th-century Romanesque images not only share a common basic iconography with the Marvellous Combat between Horseman and Dragon, but also emphasize the marvellous and wondrous aspects of the scene over and above its symbolic meaning. Closest is a historiated initial in the Bury St Edmunds Miscellany, dated 1125–35 (Fig. 17).87 This image of the military saint and martyr in mortal combat with a monstrous foe introduces Abbo of Fleury’s Passio Sancti Edmundi, the tale of St Edmund’s struggle against, and martyrdom at the hands of, the pagan Viking leader, Ivar ‘the Boneless’ Ragnarsson.88 The rider, identifiable as St George by his youthful features and Phrygian helmet, is shown in desperate struggle with a dragon that bites down upon his left shoulder and blocks his sword-arm with both feet. Another scene of a mounted swordsman attacking a dragon introduces Jerome’s commentary on the Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16: 1–13) in Lectionary F of the cathedral chapter of Reims (Fig. 18).89 While the youthful features, pointed helmet, military cloak, and white horse of the rider are attributes conventionally belonging to St George, the addition of a second dragon to form the tail of the ‘Q’ suggests that the artist did not feel himself to be tightly constrained by either the stock iconographic formula or the original narrative.90 The Lectionary was made for Manasses, the provost and treasurer of the cathedral before he was elected archbishop in 1096, so that the scene may the earliest dated representation of St George and the Dragon in which the saint uses his sword.91 Most of the mounted dragon-slayers depicted by Muslim artists from the mid-12th century onwards conventionally transfix the dragon with a spear, but a few do wield a sword.92 One of the earliest to do so is a ceramic figurine from a decorative pool or fountain in a palatial complex in Raqqa (Syria), that was probably made in that city during the second half of the 12th century (Fig. 19).93 It portrays a rider with Turkic features, dark beard and long tresses, wearing a pointed, segmented helmet and mounted upon a white horse.94 With his right hand, he raises his sword against the small serpentine dragon that coils around the left foreleg of his horse to bite down upon the rim of the small round shield with which he seeks to defend 73

jeremy johns

Figure 17 Horseman in combat with dragon. Initial ‘A’ at the beginning of Abbo of Fleury, Passio Edmundi, Bury St Edmunds, c. 1125–35, in the Miscellany on the Life of St Edmund, The Morgan Library, New York, MS M.736, fol. 78r, detail (© The Morgan Library)

Figure 19 Horseman in combat with a serpentine dragon (coiled around the left foreleg of horse and biting rim of shield). ‘Raqqa ware’ figurine, Raqqa. Damascus, National Museum, inv. no. A/5819 (© Museum With No Frontiers 2004–14)

Before concluding this section, it will be helpful to return to the historiated initial from Reims Lectionary F— the earliest known example of the type (Fig. 18). As observed above, the attributes of the rider include those conventional to St George, but here he is pitted against not one but two dragons. The artist has capriciously chosen to stray from the narrative frame even though he might have drawn upon at least two welltried models for the letter ‘Q’, either of which would have permitted a literal depiction of St George and the Dragon. In the more conventional of the two, the saint would have filled the loop of the letter and speared the monster at his feet in the tail of the ‘Q’, in much the same way as may be seen in three initial letters ‘Q’ from the same Reims scriptorium, which show the Lord piercing the heads of leonine and human enemies with the shaft of His cross.103 In the other model, exemplified in the slightly later Moralia in Job from Cîteaux, the mounted swordsman would have charged the dragon in the tail of the letter.104 Either solution would have illustrated the original narrative and dispensed with the need for a second dragon. Instead, the Rémois artist has chosen to invest a hackneyed scene with new

Figure 18 Horseman in combat with two dragons. Initial ‘Q’ from Jerome’s Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, copied for Manassès de Châtillon, before 1096, in Lectionary F of the cathedral chapter of Reims. Reims, Bibliothèque municipal, fol. 185v, detail (© Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes – CNRS) 74

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina shoulders, with his legs wrapped tightly around its neck. He uses both arms to force back the lion’s head, twisting it towards the viewer so that its face is seen fully frontal but upside down, emphasizing the unnatural character of the episode. Although not immediately obvious from the panel itself, the iconographic type dictates that the figure is prising apart the lion’s jaws, with his right hand pushing down on the lower mandible. His face is turned three-quarters towards the viewer and surrounded by a nimbus. He has thick brown hair, a heavy beard, and wears what seems to be a plain brown robe with gold decorative bands, and a short, fluttering cloak which transforms into the scrollwork. In Christian art, the same iconographic type, which Julian Raby called The Riding Samson and Striding Lion — ‘Samson riding fully astride [. . .] pulls back the beast’s head and rends its jaws’ — illustrates similar episodes from the lives of two Biblical heroes: David strangling the lion that attacked his father’s flock (I Samuel 17: 33–36), and Samson rending the lion that he met in the vineyards of Timna (Judges 14.5–6; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 5: 8.5).112 David may carry a club and be accompanied by one or more of his flock, elements which serve to identify him, while Samson often has long or shaggy hair, which helps to distinguish him from David, but the visual confusion of the two figures was extreme, and artists frequently had to resort to written labels to make the subject absolutely clear.113 In this case, the figure’s long beard probably identifies him as Samson, because representations of the young David with a beard are rare, while — as we shall see in a moment — the presence in the ceiling of another hirsute ‘lion-rider’, who bears an emblem that in Christian art is exclusive to Samson, seems to rule out David.114 The Man rending a Lion belongs to a distinct sub-type of Riding Samson and Striding Lion in which the hero does not so much ride the lion as attempt to strangle it by wrapping one or both legs tightly around its neck in a scissors-hold (Fig. 20). This sub-type was used as early as c. 1108 for Samson (?) in a Moralia in Job copied in Rochester, and for David in the Ennarationes in Psalmos made for Cîteaux in the first quarter of the 12th century (Fig. 21).115 It is attested in southern France soon after 1150, and perhaps even earlier in Apulia where it was used at San Giovanni al Sepolcro in Brindisi for a carving of Samson on the north-west portal, conventionally dated to the first half of the 12th century.116 I dare say that Samson and the Lion is never found in Islamic art before the 14th century, and that there can be little doubt that the artist of the Man rending a Lion in the Cappella Palatina followed a Romanesque model, presumably drawn from an illuminated manuscript.117 While he did so with the greatest care and attention, reproducing accurately the precise positions of the figure’s hands and legs, the style of painting is once again wholly at one with the rest of the ceiling,

drama and suspense, just as did the Muslim painter of the Marvellous Combat between Horseman and Dragon in the Cappella Palatina.105 In the final analysis, programmatic and not iconographic considerations probably weight the argument in favour of there being a Romanesque model for the Marvellous Combat between Horseman and Dragon (Fig. 16). The particular devotion of the Norman rulers to warrior saints, including St George, and the location of the image in one of the large square panels in the muqarnas zone to the right of the throne platform, suggest that both the subject and its position were chosen by the royal patron or his agents.106 Even had the Muslim artist’s repertoire included the image of a combat between a mounted swordsman and a dragon — for example, one cast in the same iconographic mould as the Raqqa Horseman — he would have been be unlikely to have recognized the dragonfighter as St George (Fig. 19).107 He must therefore have been provided with an iconographic model, presumably in a Romanesque manuscript, at the same time that he was instructed to insert the image of St George and the Dragon into the panel to the right of the throne platform. The Romanesque image of St George locked in mortal combat with the dragon, far more than the icon of St Theodore, would have appealed to the artist’s taste for ʿ ajāʾ ib, the marvels and wonders so prominent in the conventional Islamic palatial cycle. So much so, it would seem, that he was inspired to interpret St George’s pointed helmet as the tall conical cap known as the qalansuwa. The artist may, or more probably may not, have known that the legendary caliph Harūn al-Rashīd had worn into battle against the Byzantines just such a qalansuwa, decorated with an epigraphic band that proclaimed him to be Ghāzi, ©ājj, ‘Warrior for the Faith, Pilgrim’ — a text that would have been no less appropriate to St George himself.108 SAMSON AS SUPER-MODEL A rather different interaction between the Muslim artist and his Romanesque model may be seen in my final example — the Man rending a Lion (Fig. 20).109 The scene occupies one of the large landscape panels at the base of the large muqarnas unit that is a little to the east of the centre of the south side of the ceiling.110 The whole width of the panel is occupied by the figure of a lion, to which the artists have given all of the conventional features of the FāÐimid lion, shown from the side and moving from right to left.111 The lion’s back legs are extended and flexed, one pointing forward, the other back, as if it were struggling to gain momentum, and its tail thrashes the air. The nearside front leg is stretched flat on the ground, and the other hangs limply in space, as if the whole weight of the animal were resting on its chest, which is forced to the ground by the man who sits fully astride the lion’s 75

jeremy johns

Figure 20 Man rending Lion. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, South side, Large unit 13, Panel 1. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre (Oxford), image no. ISL.15491 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). Compare with Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 806. See also Plate VIIA in print edition

formulae. The lion, again exhibiting all the conventional characteristics of the FāÐimid lion, is depicted walking from left to right, with its head turned threequarters frontal and its tail raised.121 A bearded figure, shown three-quarters frontal, perches upon the lion’s back with his left leg raised as if he is riding sidesaddle; what has become of his right leg is unclear, for the panel is heavily damaged at that point. The figure’s left arm appears to be wrapped around the lion’s neck and what might be his fingers are to be seen in its open mouth; in his raised right arm, he holds an implement with a rounded top, decorated blade and serrated edge. He wears a robe decorated with bands of gold and, resting on his nimbus, what now appears to be an elaborate headdress, the details of which are difficult to read. The most explicit clue to the identity of the rider is provided by the implement in his right hand, the jawbone of an ass with which Samson slaughters the Philistines (cf. Judges 15.15–16; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 5:8.8); Shamsūn, the Muslim Samson, wields the jawbone of a camel.122 The jawbone is depicted in precisely this manner as early as the 4th century in the Via Latina catacombs, and thereafter remains Samson’s most particular emblem.123 Two of the four principal iconographic formulae used in Christian art to depict Samson rending the

and exhibits not the slightest trace of having been influenced by the style of the model. A second scene in the ceiling, the Man rending a Griffin, was clearly inspired either directly by the Man rending a Lion or by their common Romanesque model (Figs 20–22).118 The man sits fully astride a long-necked griffin with his legs wrapped tightly around its neck in a scissors-hold and both hands pulling apart its jaws in exactly the manner of the Man rending a Lion. Griffin-riders are known from Sasanian art and were thence transmitted to Byzantium and the west, but in such images the human peaceably rides the griffin while hunting or playing a musical instrument, and never attacks his mount.119 I imagine that the artist carried such a griffin-rider in his stock repertoire but was so stimulated by his encounter with the new Christian formula of the Man rending a Lion that he immediately drew upon it so as to add new drama and wonder to the conventional scene. The image of a Man riding a Lion is another unique composition and occupies the large landscape panel on the eastern side of the north-east corner of the muqarnas zone, midway between the Musician tuning a Harp-Psaltery and the Scribe, but in the lowest tier (Fig. 23).120 The artist of this scene brought together elements from at least three different iconographic 76

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina lion of Timna, in addition to the Riding Samson and Striding Lion discussed above, show Samson pinning down the lion with one knee or foot on its back or rump.124 The pose adopted by the rider in this image seems to belong to one of these types, in that he appears to have only his left leg on the lion and has his left arm around its neck and perhaps even his left hand in its mouth. But, far from rending apart the lion’s jaws, the rider brandishes the jawbone in his right hand, thereby merging elements from two distinct formulae illustrating two different episodes in the hero’s life — conventionally, he should be either rending the lion

while sitting on its back, or killing Philistines with the jawbone, but not simultaneously riding the lion and waving the jawbone.125 At first sight, the figure’s headdress might also indicate Samson, because his strength lay in his hair (Judges 16.17), Samson was accordingly nearly always represented with long or shaggy hair and, at a later stage, a variety of tresses and hats, and eventually a long flowing cape.126 That this figure wears what seems to be a large headdress should accordingly identify him as Samson. On closer inspection, however, this line of reasoning fails. The precise form of the headdress

Figure 21 Samson and the Lion. Initial ‘D’ from the beginning of Book 29 of Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job (Parts 4–6, Books 17–35), Rochester, c. 1108–before c. 1122. British Library, Royal MS 6 C VI, fol. 152v detail (© The British Library) 77

jeremy johns

Figure 23 Man riding a Lion. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North-east corner unit, Panel 2. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre, ISL.14992 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). Compare with Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 686. See also plate VIIIA in print edition

the same elements as the coils of a serpentine dragon with a feline head, or even as the coils of two serpents with their heads hanging down on each side of the nimbus, that on the rider’s right more heavily damaged than the one on the left.128 The image is simply too badly damaged and too heavily restored to be sure, but what might be an intriguing parallel occurs on one of the capitals in the cloister of Cefalù, where the head of an anthropomorphic lion (with moustaches) of the South Italian type, is given the ‘headdress’ of a pair of human-headed dragons with long serpentine tails that curl around its head in a manner very reminiscent of the rider’s headdress (Fig. 26).129 There is nothing in the life of Samson, not in the Book of Judges, nor in the Jewish Antiquities, nor in the scant Muslim tradition, nor in Jewish or Muslim myth and legend, that might explain his depiction with an animal — whether a cat or a pair of snakes — upon his head. The artist of the Man riding a Lion has introduced a new and alien element into a scene in which two distinct iconographic formulae, belonging to two separate episodes in the life of Samson, are already confused (Fig. 23). On the one hand, Pavlovsky’s cat might suggest a headdress made from the mask of a lion, and thus point to Hercules who wore the mask of the Nemean Lion — a hero with whom, as has often been observed, Samson has more than a little in common.130 Indeed, two of the standard Christian formulae for Samson rending the Lion — but not the one employed for this scene — were adapted from classical images of Hercules and the Nemean Lion or the Keryneian Doe. Alternatively, serpentine coils might suggest a Gorgon’s mask, and thus Perseus, whose sickle is related to Samson’s jawbone, or even

Figure 22 Man rending griffin. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North side, Panel 4. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre, ISL.14992 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). Compare with Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 539. See also Plate VIIB in print edition

is now difficult to determine, but both the drawing of the panel published by Aleksei Andreevich Pavlovsky in 1890, and the photograph taken in 1991 under the supervision of Robert Hillenbrand, show that what originally lay across the top of the figure’s nimbus was an animal (Figs 24 and 25).127 Hanging down the left side of the rider’s head (the viewer’s right) is an almost feline head, drawn in profile, with two pointed ears, one eye, a nose, and what may be an open mouth. Below its chin was originally a foliate terminal belonging to the background scrollwork. The rest of the animal’s body is less well preserved: Pavlovsky’s drawing suggests that the arch of the body above the figure’s left eye and the more distinct volute above his right eye correspond, respectively, to the shoulder and thigh joints of a quadruped and accordingly, in his reconstruction, Pavlovsky’s artist stressed the animal’s cat-like features. But it would also be possible to read 78

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina raise the possibility of a link to the lion-tamer of Islamic art, who controls the lion that he rides with a bridle of snakes and a serpentine whip.131 I imagine that the artist came — or was brought — into contact with two different Christian images: Samson rending the Lion, and Samson slaying the Philistines with the Jawbone of an Ass. He faithfully copied the former in the Man rending a Lion, and was inspired to adapt it for the Man rending a Griffin but, instead of slavishly reproducing Samson slaying the Philistines, he borrowed from it only Samson’s emblem of the jawbone to place in the hand of the Man riding a Lion (Figs 20, 22 and 23). The fact that he clearly associated the jawbone with the lion-rider indicates that his model for the Man riding a Lion was Samson, and not David. This confusion of two distinct formulae suggests that the artist was not familiar with the underlying biblical narrative, and treated the scenes simply as further examples of ʿajāʾ ib, marvels and wonders. (And this, in turn, adds to the mass of evidence from the ceilings of the Cappella Palatina that the painters were Muslims, not Christians.) The artist’s apparent ignorance of the biblical narrative might also explain why he took the lion-rider’s extraordinary headwear from yet a third source, which cannot be identified with certainty but which may be traced back to the ancient tradition of the lion-rider, or in

some way linked to the Islamic figure of the lion-tamer with snakes, or both.132 CONCLUSIONS Two firm conclusions emerge from the foregoing discussion. First, although the painters of all of the scenes from the ceiling examined in detail — the Musician tuning a “Triangular” Psaltery and the Scribe (Figs 7 and 9); the Man seated between Two Lions (Fig. 11); the Mounted Dragon-Slayer (Figs 13–15) and the Marvellous Combat between Horseman and Dragon (Fig. 16); the Man rending a Lion, the Man rending a Griffin and the Man riding a Lion (Figs 20–23) — derived the basic iconographic formulae for these scenes from Romanesque models — respectively, David the Psalmist and his Scribe, Daniel in the Lions’ Den, St Theodore and St George and the Dragon and Samson rending the Lion — the style of painting into which they translated the formulae was entirely their own and at one with the rest of the paintings of the ceilings, so that it owed nothing to the Romanesque. Second, although all these scenes were commissioned by a Christian king or his agents for the ceiling of a Christian chapel, none carries an overt religious charge. This is not because the Muslim artists baulked

Figure 24 Drawing by Pomerantsev and Chagin from Pavlovsky, Zhivopis’ Palatinskoi Kapelly v Palermo 1891. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, Northeast corner unit, Panel 2: Man riding a Lion. Compare with Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 686 79

jeremy johns

Figure 25 Man riding a Lion, detail showing head and headdress. Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nave ceiling, Muqarnas, North-east corner unit, Panel 2. Photo taken in 1989 under direction of Robert Hillenbrand: Khalili Research Centre, ISL.14992 (© Barakat Trust and University of Edinburgh). See also Plate VIIIB in print edition

Figure 26 Cefalù, cathedral, San Salvatore, cloister, south side, capital 16, south face: Head of anthropomorphic lion wearing ‘headdress’ of a pair of human-headed dragons with long serpentine tails (© Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut) 80

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina figures remain largely obscure.136 For example, George of Antioch, Roger’s chief minister from 1126 until 1151, was probably an Armenian, born in Byzantine Antioch, trained in Zīrid Ifrīqiya, who defected as a young man to Norman Sicily. Not only can he be shown to have been chiefly responsible for different aspects of Roger’s monarchy, most notably the Arabic dīwān, but also, in his own church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, George tried out many of the visual ideas that were subsequently expressed in the Cappella Palatina.137 No comparable individual can be identified amongst the Latins in Roger’s court, although the presence can be inferred of at least one substantial figure, familiar with Romanesque art, who played a crucial role in the design of the ceiling. The third and final open question concerns the role of the artists themselves in the selection and adaptation of Romanesque models. I have argued that most of the scenes discussed in this study reflect the programmatic concerns of the royal patron or his agents: the Musician tuning a Triangular Psaltery and his Scribe amongst the evocations of Jerusalem and Solomon in the east end of the chapel (Figs 7 and 9); the Man seated between Two Lions on the royal axis running north–south through the centre of the ceiling and referring to the mosaic of the Prophet Daniel in the cupola (Fig. 11); and the images of the Mounted Dragon-Slayer and the Marvellous Combat between Horseman and Dragon that catered to the patron’s enthusiasm for warrior-saints (Figs 13–16). In these cases, and perhaps in a few others, possibly including the Man rending a Lion, I imagine that the patron or his agents decided that a particular scene should be placed at a particular point in the ceiling (Fig. 20).138 In conveying that instruction to the painters, the need for a Romanesque model became apparent, and a suitable one was duly provided. In other cases, however, the Muslim artists seem to have acted independently from the patron and his agents in drawing inspiration from Romanesque models. This is most clearly seen in the Man rending a Griffin and in the Man riding a Lion (Figs 22–23), but may also be found in the various scenes of Combat between a Lion and a Serpentine Dragon, in which the painters appear to have modified the stock formula for the FāÐimid lion with elements borrowed from a variety of Romanesque models without the intervention of the patron and with no programmatic intent.139 These are only fleeting glimpses of what, I imagine, must have been the profound impact upon the Muslim painters of the Byzantine and the Romanesque images that they encountered in Palermo. They had left Cairo when dynastic crisis, economic decline and social unrest had reduced the FāÐimid court almost to the nadir of its fortunes. The brilliant efflorescence of the arts and architecture that had lasted until the 1060s, and had been to some lesser extent sustained into the 1120s, had withered. The sources of patronage were running

at painting explicitly Christian scenes, as is demonstrated by the Male half-figure holding Two Crosses, the Chapel interior with Altar, Priest and Youth ringing Bell and the many signs of the cross throughout the ceilings.133 In part, of course, it is because these scenes, except for the depictions of warrior saints, illustrate episodes from the Old Testament, which, for all that they had Romanesque models, were not exclusively Christian. Indeed, as has been seen, Daʾūd was a prophet and leading protagonist in Islamic sacred history, while Dānīyāl, Shamsūn and Jirjīs all play minor roles. Whether, or to what extent, the Muslim painters of the Cappella Palatina recognized their own Muslim sacred figures in the Romanesque models and in the images that they derived from them remains an intriguing but ultimately unanswerable question; only for the Man seated between Two Lions is there clear evidence that at least some Muslims would have recognized the scene as illustrating the episode of the Islamic Prophet Dānīyāl in the Lions’ Den (Fig. 11). All these scenes, despite their origins in Christian art, once they had been translated into the artists’ own style, sat comfortably within the celebration of the royal majlis, where they became ʿajāʾ ib alongside the other scenes of marvels and wonders that belonged to the conventional decorative programme of an Islamic palace. In addition to these firm conclusions, a series of interesting questions remain open. The first concerns the medium or media through which the Muslim painters in the Cappella Palatina encountered their Romanesque models.134 In the foregoing discussion, it has repeatedly been observed that the models must have been transmitted on portable objects, very probably manuscripts. The difficulty is that very few illuminated manuscripts made in north-west Europe before the fall of the Norman kingdom are known from South Italy and Sicily. This is not, of course, to suggest that such manuscripts did not exist in the libraries of the Latin churches and monasteries of the kingdom, but merely to observe that there are now large gaps in the chain of transmission. However, no more than a dozen scenes amongst the original paintings in the ceiling of the nave of the Cappella Palatina were based upon Romanesque models, so that it is possible to imagine that all might have been found in just one manuscript, or at most a few manuscripts, housed in the royal palace and adjacent Latin religious institutions.135 The problem of the medium of transmission is closely connected to the second open question, which concerns the identity of the agents who, I imagine, sourced and provided the models that best represented the instructions of the royal patron and his ministers to have a particular scene painted at a specific location in the chapel. While we are relatively well informed about Greek and Muslim ministers and intellectuals in the court of King Roger and his successors, Latin 81

jeremy johns used of the ceiling of the Cappella Palatina before the 19th century. The word muqarnas is almost certainly the passive participle of the verb qarnasa, and seems originally to have indicated an object or structure ‘furnished with projecting overhanging elements’, precisely the function performed by the muqarnas zone in the chapel — projecting from the side walls of the nave, and overhanging the space between them and the outer edges of the central zone. In modern European languages, muqarnas is often translated as ‘stalactite’, an infelicitous usage that should be restricted to just one particular variety, the so-called ‘dripping’ muqarnas in which the cut sides of the niches in a muqarnas composition are projected downwards into space to form stalactite-like pendants. It is worth stressing here that the stalactite pendants in the central zone of the ceiling are not formed in this manner (see above 2, note 9). For further discussion and for bibliography, see J. Johns, ‘Le pitture del soffitto della Cappella Palatina’ and ‘Iscrizioni arabe nella Cappella Palatina’, in La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi, 353–407, II Testi: Schede, 429–56, 487–510, 540–665, III Atlante I, figs 133– 47, 158–94, 286–303, 369–84, IV Atlante II, figs 473–1220, 384–823, especially II Testi: Schede, 540, scheda 473. 5 M. Romagnoli, M. Sarlatto, F. Terranova, E. Bizzarri and S. Cesetti, ‘Wood identification in the Cappella Palatina ceiling (12th century) in Palermo (Sicily, Italy)’, International Association of Wood Anatomists (IAWA) Journal, 28/2 (2007) 109–23. 6 J. Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), I Testi: Saggi, 390–94, II Testi: Schede, 429, scheda (north aisle); 488–90, scheda 370 (south aisle), 540–55, schede 473–75 (nave ceiling). 7 L. Trizzino, ‘La Palatina’ di Palermo: dalle opere funzionali al restauro, dal ripristino alla tutela (Palermo 1983), 34; Brenk, ‘Parete occidentale’ (as n. 3), 48 n. 50; Tronzo, Cultures (as n. 3), 57 note 105; E. Borsook, Messages in Mosaic: The Royal Programmes of Norman Sicily 1130–1187 (Oxford 1990), 43 notes 17, 100–01; Johns, ‘Date’ (as n. 2), 6; D. Knipp, ‘Die almoravidischen Urspünge der Holzdecke über del Mittelschiff der Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in Die Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), 221. 8 V. Zorić, ‘Sulle tecniche costruttive islamiche in Sicilia: il soffitto della Cappella Palatina di Palermo’, in Scritti in Onore di Giovanni D’Erme, ed. M. Bernardini and N. L. Tornesello (Napoli 2005), 1281–1349. 9 P. Pastorello and C. Tomasi, ‘Conservazione e presentazione estetica della Cappella Palatina’, in Die Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), 330 and 332 fig. 2 (to which it must be added that the muqarnas sides and most, if not all, of the ceiling of the nave, except for these stalactite bosses, were clearly decorated in situ after the surface had been prepared for painting with the layer of gesso or gypsum plaster which runs over the joints between the panels), pace Knipp, ‘Die almoravidischen Urspünge’ (as n. 7), 221–22. 10 Johns, ‘Date’ (as n. 2), 6–7; Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 4). 11 F. Agnello, ‘Rilievo e rappresentazione del soffitto della navata centrale della Cappella Palatina’, in La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi, 297–351; F. Agnello, ‘The painted ceiling of the nave of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo: an essay on its geometric and constructive features’, Muqarnas, 27 (2010), 407–48; Zorić, ‘Sulle tecniche costruttive’ (as n. 8), 1289–91. 12 Ibid., 1290. 13 F. Gabrieli and U. Scerrato, Gli Arabi in Italia. Cultura, contatti, e tradizioni (Milan 1979), 63, fig. 43, caption; E. J. Grube, ‘The painted ceilings of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo and their relation to the artistic traditions of the Muslim world and the Middle Ages’, in Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 23; Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), I Testi: Saggi, 397–400. 14 Ibid., 398–99; I plan to revisit the question in a separate study. Meanwhile see also: A. Walker, ‘Middle Byzantine aesthetics of power and the incomparability of Islamic Art: the architectural ekphraseis of Nikolaos Mesarites’, Muqarnas, 27 (2010), 79–101; and F. Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti della Cappella Palatina di Palermo e l’orizzonte mediterraneo’, 2 vols (unpublished Tesi di dottorato di ricerca, Università degli studi della Tuscia di Viterbo, Dipartimento di scienze dei beni culturali, 2013), I, 67–72 and notes (I am most grateful to Dr Anzelmo for kindly sending me her excellent thesis).

dry and some of the most highly prized arts of the late 10th and 11th centuries, such as carved ivory and carved rock-crystal, seem to have completely ceased; even painting on lustreware had lost its early vigour.140 From that already depressed and still declining artistic environment, the painters were transplanted to Roger’s Palermo and set to work at the very centre of one of the greatest artistic enterprises of the 12thcentury Mediterranean, the very point of which was to assemble and juxtapose a variety of elements drawn from different visual traditions, to ‘harmonize the inharmonious and mix together the unmixable’.141 Whereas in Cairo they had been increasingly deprived of patronage and isolated from new artistic developments outside Egypt, they suddenly found themselves surrounded by artists and artisans from every corner of the Mediterranean and beyond, by the treasure house of portable objects that flooded into the Norman palace, and by a range of new ideas and images that would have been unimaginable in Cairo. Because no later work by either the painters of the Cappella Palatina or their successors is known to have survived, we can now only imagine the impact of this encounter upon the Muslim artists as they sailed away from Palermo towards their next commission.142 NOTES 1 T. Dittelbach, ‘La chiesa inferiore’, in La Cappella Palatina a Palermo, ed. B. Brenk, Mirabilia Italiae XVII, 4 vols (Modena 2010), I Testi: Saggi, 283–93; D. Sack, ‘Bauforschung in der Unterkirche der Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in Die Cappella Palatina in Palermo — Geschichte, Kunst, Funktionen. Forschungsergebnisse der Restaurierung Hg. im Auftrag der Stiftung Würth, ed. T. Dittelbach (Künzelsau 2011), 87–109. 2 J. Johns, ‘The Date of the Ceiling of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in E. J. Grube and J. Johns, The Painted Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina, Islamic Art Supplement I (Genoa and New York 2005), 1–14. For the inscription in the cupola, see now B. Crostini, ‘L’iscrizione greca nella cupola della Cappella Palatina: edizione e commento’, in La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi, 187–202. 3 E. Kitzinger, ‘The Mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo. An Essay on the Choice and Arrangement of Subjects’, The Art Bulletin, 31 (1949), 284; S. Ćurčić, ‘Some Palatine Aspects of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in Studies in Art and Archaeology in Honor of Ernst Kitzinger on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday, ed. W. Tronzo and I. Lavin, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 41 (1987), 125–44; B. Brenk, ‘La parete occidentale della Cappella Palatina a Palermo’, Arte medievale (1990), 135–50; B. Brenk, ‘Zur Bedeutung des Mosaiks an der Westwand der Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in Studien zur byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte. Festschrift für Horst Hallensleben zum 65. Geburstag, ed. B. Borkopp, B. Schellewald and L. Theis (Amsterdam 1995), 185–94; W. Tronzo, The Cultures of His Kingdom: Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton 1996), passim but especially 16–18, 96–125; S. Ćurčić, ‘Further thoughts on the palatine aspects of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in Die Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), 525–26; T. Dittelbach, ‘Der Herrscherthron — Topologie und Utopie’, in Die Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), 147–67. 4 The Arabic term muqarnas is problematic and is more used by modern historians of art and architecture than ever it was in the medieval Arabic-speaking world; there is no evidence that it was

82

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina 15 Cairo: Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, inv. nos 12880 etc. L. ʿA. Ibrāhīm and ‘A. Yāsīn, ‘A Æūlūnid ©ammām in Old Cairo’, Islamic Archaeological Studies: Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, 3 (1988), 35–78; for further bibliography, see Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 118, fig. 16.3; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 14), I, 74 and note 421, II, figs 19–23. For the scenes appropriate to painting in baths, see N. Warner, ‘Taking the plunge. The development and use of the Cairene bathhouse’, in Historians in Cairo. Essays in honor of George Scanlon, ed. J. Edwards, (Cairo 2002), 57–59. I am extremely grateful to Dr Mat Imerzeel of Leiden University for providing me with colour images of the painted muqarnas drum of the Chapel of Mar Jirjīs in the church of Abū Sayfayn, Old Cairo, see G. J. M. van Loon, The Gate of Heaven. Wall Paintings with Old Testament Scenes in the Altar Room and the Hūrus of Coptic Churches, Publications de l’Institut historiquearchéologique néerlandais de Stamboul 85, (Istanbul 1999), 17–30, pls 2–36 (esp. 6–8, 13, 19). The date of these paintings remains problematic — either c. 1094–1121 (the likely date of the muqarnas drum) or post-1168 to 1184 (see ibid., 27–30) — but there is a strong probability that the muqarnas drum would have been painted even before the fire of 1168. While not true muqarnas, the painted niches of the octagon of the haykal of St Mark in the church of Abū Maqār, Dayr Abū Maqār in the Wādī al-NaÐrūn, may date from as early as 1133: see ibid., 31–60, pls 38–61. Murcia: F. Dahmani, ‘Remarques sur quelques fragments de peinture murale trouvés à Murcie’, Tudmīr. Revista del Museo de Santa Clara, 1 (2009), 163–75 with earlier bibliography; for further discussion and bibliography, see Anzelmo, as above, I, 75–79 and notes. 16 L. Golvin, ‘Les plafonds à muqarnas de la Qal‘a des Banû Hammâd et leur influence possible sur l’art de la Sicile à la periode normande’, Revue de l’Occident musulman et méditerranéen, 17 (1974), 63–69. 17 Y. Tabbaa, ‘The muqarnas dome. Its origin and meaning’, Muqarnas, 3 (1985), 61–2. This somewhat qualifies the observations regarding the adaptation of muqarnas to cover a rectangular space in Almoravid mosques first made by M. Écochard, Filiation de monuments grecs, byzantins et islamiques. Une question de géometrie (Paris 1977), 65–76, and cited with approval by Knipp, ‘Die almoravidischen Urspünge’ (as n. 7), 221 and note 12. 18 Ibn ©amdīs, Dīwān, ed. I. ʿAbbās (Beirut 1960), no. 349, 545– 49, ll. 40–48; see also the translation and commentary by F. Gabrieli, ‘Il palazzo ©ammādita di Biǧāya descritto da Ibn ©amdīs’, in Aus der Welt der islamischen Kunst, Festschrift für Ernst Kühnel zum 75. Geburtstag am 26.10.1957, ed. R. Ettinghausen (Berlin 1959), 54–58. It was (and still is!) a common misapprehension that the muqarnas of the Cappella Palatina was carved from solid beams, rather than constructed on a superstructure from thousands of small wooden panels: e.g. Philagathos Kerameos in Johns, ‘Date’ (as n. 2), 13, para. 2, and ‘Hugo Falcandus’ in S. Tramontana, Lettera a un tesoriere di Palermo (Palermo 1988), 136. See also Nikolaos Mesarites on the Moukhroutas ceiling in Walker, ‘Middle Byzantine aesthetics’ (as n. 14), 94, para. 27. 19 V. Garofalo, ‘A methodology for studying muqarnas: the extant examples in Palermo’, Muqarnas, 27 (2010), 357–406; Knipp, ‘Die almoravidischen Urspünge’ (as n. 7) (with earlier bibliography). 20 D. Jones, ‘The Cappella Palatina in Palermo: problems of attribution’, Art and Archaeology Research Papers, 2 (1972), 41–57; Grube, ‘painted ceilings and their relations’ (as n. 13), passim, esp. 25 with exhaustive bibliography to 2005. 21 Ibn ©awqal, Opus geographicum auctore Ibn ©au±al secundum textum et imagines codicis Constantinopolitani conservati in Bibliotheca antiqui Palatii no. 3346 cui titulus est ‘Liber imaginis terrae’ (Kitāb ½ūrat al-arÅ), Bibliotheca geographorum arabicorum: pars secunda (Leiden 1938–39), 118 and 120; idem, Configuration de la terre (Kitāb ½ūrat al-arÅ), trans. J. H. Kramers and G. Wiet, 2 vols (Beirut 1964), II, 117–19. For Palermo in the early 11th century, see J. Johns, ‘Una nuova fonte per la geografia e la storia della sicilia nell’XI secolo: il Kitāb Gharāʾ ib al-funūn wa-mula¬ al-ʿ uyūn’, in La Sicile à l’époque islamique. Questions de

méthode et renouvellement récent des problématiques, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen Âge, 116/1 (Rome 2004), 409–49, and ‘La nuova “Carta della Sicilia” e la topografia di Palermo’, in Nobiles Officinae: perle, filigrane e trame di seta dal Palazzo Reale di Palermo, ed. M. Andaloro, 2 vols (Catania 2006), II, 15–23 and 307–12. For the Kitāb Gharāʾ ib al-funūn, see now Y. Rapoport and E. Savage-Smith ed., An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe. The Book of Curiosities, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Text and Studies no. 87 (Leiden and Boston 2014), with a new edition and English translation of the chapter on Sicily (136/١٧٨–145/١٨٧, 456–77). 22 The comparison that is sometimes drawn between the Iberian Ðawāʾ if or ‘party kings’ who ruled Islamic Spain for most of the 11th century and the petty warlords who squabbled over the ruins of Kalbid Sicily for less than a decade (c. 1053–61) is inappropriate at least insofar as regards art, architecture and literature; it is a priori unlikely, and no evidence whatsoever survives, that any of the latter had the inclination, opportunity, resources or time to be patrons of the arts. 23 J. Becker ed., Documenti latini e greci del conte Ruggero I di Calabria e Sicilia, Ricerche dell’Istituto storico germanico di Roma, 9, Rome, 2013, no. 33, 144–45 and no. 36, 152–55. 24 The two principal Norman palaces in Palermo — the Castellamare and the Palazzo Reale — are both built upon structures dating from the period of Muslim rule and were certainly refortified after the conquest of Palermo in 1072; however, the extent to which surviving structures may be dated to the period before the foundation of the monarchy in 1130 remains unclear: R. Santoro, La Fortezza del Castellamare in Palermo. Primi scavi e restauri (1988–94). Fronte sud-ovest e ‘Torre Mastra’, Ima parte (Palermo 1996); R. Longo, ‘The Royal Palace of Palermo: the medieval palace’, in The Royal Palace of Palermo, ed. M. Andaloro (Modena, 2011), 83–85. Recent excavation by the Soprintendenza dei Beni Culturali ed Ambientali di Palermo at the suburban palace of the Favara or Maredolce has revealed that perimeter walls of King Roger’s palace, on at least three sides, are built upon foundations dating to the 10th century: S. Vassallo, ‘Il complesso mounumentale di Maredolce: E le pietre restituiscono le vestigia del castello arabo’, Kalós, 24/3 (2012), 23–25. 25 For example, the episcopal churches founded by Roger I at Troina, Catania and Mazara del Vallo. See the classic studies of H. M. Schwarz, ‘Die Baukunst Kalabriens und Siziliens im Zeitalter der Normannen, I: Die lateinischen Kirchengründungen des 11. Jahrhunderts und der Dom von Cefalù’, Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 6 (1942–44), 1–112, and W. Krönig, ‘La Francia e l’architettura romanica nell’Italia meridionale’, Napoli Nobilissima, n.s. 1 (1961–62), 203–15, and G. Di Stefano, Monumenti della Sicilia normanna, 2nd rev. edn W. Krönig (Palermo 1979), 1–13 and pls I–XII. 26 S. Giovanni is still widely believed to have been founded in 1071, according to a legend long discredited by M. Amari, Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, 2nd rev. edn C. A. Nallino, 3 vols (Catania 1933–39), III, 120 no. 1 and 845 no. 1. The supposed foundation document of SS Piero e Paolo di Agrò, dated October 6625 A.M., Indiction IX (sic!), presumably intended to indicate 1115 or 1116, is a 13th-century ‘pastiche diplomatistico’ (V. von Falkenhausen, ‘La fondazione del monastero dei SS Pietro e Paolo d’Agrò nel contesto della politica monastica dei Normanni in Sicilia’, in La valle d’Agrò: un territorio, una storia, un destino. Convegno internazionale di studi, Hotel Baia Taormina — Marina d’Agrò (Messina) 20, 21 e 22 febbraio 2004. I: L’età antica e medievale, ed. C. Biondi (Catania 2005), 171–79, especially 175–76; Becker, Documenti latini e greci (as n. 23), no. 29, 131–42). In February 1133, when the monastery was placed under the authority of the newly founded archimandrite of Messina, it was sufficiently important to be a kephalikon and autodespoton under its own abbot (von Falkenhausen, ‘La fondazione’, as above, 173). The church was reconstructed after the 1169 earthquake for the Abbot Theosterictos of Taormina in 1171–72 by Gerard the Norman (A. Guillou, Recueil des inscriptions grecques médiévales d’Italie, Collection de l’École française de Rome, 222

83

jeremy johns (Rome 1996), no. 205, 227–28) but the extent of the reconstruction is debatable. I interpret the muqarnas brick pendentives, and the interlaced arches decorating the façades, as evidence that Gerard was keeping up with the latest, mid-12th-century Palermitan styles; see also G. D. Lowry, ‘L’Islam e l’Occidente medievale: l’Italia meridionale nell’XI e XII secolo’, Rassegna del Centro di cultura e storia amalfitana, 3 (1983), 7–56. For a different view, see C. Guastella, ‘Aspetti della cultura artistica nel Valdemone in età normanno-sveva: note e riflessioni’, in La valle d’Agrò, 225–34, esp. 225–27, with further bibliography; and C.E. Nicklies, ‘Builders, patrons, and identity: the domed basilicas of Sicily and Calabria’, Gesta, 43/2 (2004) 99–114, especially 102, 109–10, and 112, note 24 where it is stated that ‘Girard’s renovations appear to have been restricted to the rebuilding of the west and south portals, and perhaps the upper sections of the two western towers’ (citing C. E. Nicklies, ‘The architecture of the church of SS Pietro e Paolo d’Agrò, Sicily’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Illinois, 1992, 101–03, which I have been unable to consult). 27 Mosaicists: O. Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (London 1949), 369–74. Scribes: J. Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Dīwān (Cambridge 2002). Silk-weavers: U. Monneret de Villard, ‘La tessitura palermitana sotto i Normanni e i suoi rapporti con l’arte bizantina’, Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati: III, Letteratura e storia bizantina, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Studi e Testi, 123 (Vatican City 1946), 464–89. Porphyry-workers: J. Déer, The dynastic porphyry tombs of the Norman period in Sicily (Cambridge, Mass. 1959). Sculptors: see the superb online resource for a study of the capitals of the cloisters of Cefalù and Monreale, with bibliography:

[accessed 03/05/2015]. 28 ‘Hugo Falcandus’, Liber de regno Siciliae, ed. G.B. Siragusa, Istituto per il medio evo (Rome 1897), 6; al-Maqrīzī’s ‘Life of George of Antioch’, trans. Johns, Arabic Administration (as n. 27), 82. 29 Tronzo, Cultures of His Kingdom (as n. 3), 152. 30 Eugenius of Palermo, Versus iambici, ed. M. Gigante, Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, Testi e Monumenti, Testi X (Palermo 1964), no. XXIV (Laudes regis Guilielmi gloriosissimi trophaeis insignis), 127–31, trans. 162–64, ll. 65–69. 31 M. G. Aurigemma, Il Cielo Stellato di Ruggero II: Il Soffito Dipinto della Cattedrale di Cefalù (Milan 2004); V. Zorić, ‘Una grande carpenteria: tra struttura e decorazione’, in La basilica cattedrale di Cefalù: Materiali per la cognoscenza storica e il restauro, 8 parts (Palermo 1985–89), I, 307–40; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 14), I, 81–84, II, figs 42–47. 32 For a particularly telling example of direct transmission of the iconographic shell without the semantic content, compare the Scribe in the Cappella Palatina (Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante II, fig. 694 — see above, Fig. 9 and below, note 58 — with the Scribe at Cefalù (Aurigemma, Il Cielo Stellato (as n. 31), 227, fig. 209 bottom left, wrongly identified as a musician playing the cetra; see also below, note 58). 33 Aurigemma, Il Cielo Stellato (as n. 31), figs 58, 60, 136, 217. 34 In the absence of a secure chronology for the complicated constructional history of the nave of Cefalù, the date of its painted ceiling remains far from clear. For reasons outlined in the text, I very much doubt that they can belong to the reign of Roger II and suspect that they must have been painted well into the second half of the 12th century. 35 For these, see the important new data collected and discussed in Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 14), I, 84–99, II, figs 47–51, 53–56, 59–61, 64–65. The publication of her article devoted to these ceilings is anticipated. 36 E. Gabrici and E. Levi, Lo Steri di Palermo e le sue pitture (Milano 1932); F. Bologna, Il soffitto della Sala Magna allo Steri di Palermo (Palermo 1975); F. Vergara Caffarelli ed., Il soffitto dello Steri di Palermo: rilievo fotogrammetrico digitale (Palermo 2009); L. Buttà, ‘Storie per governare: iconografia giuridica e del potere nel soffitto dipinto della Sala Magna del palazzo Chiaromonte Steri di Palermo’, in Narrazione, exempla, retorica. Studi sull’iconografia dei

soffitti dipinti nel Medioevo Mediterraneo, ed. L. Buttà (Palermo 2013), 69–126. 37 L. A. Kapitaikin, ‘The Twelfth-Century Paintings of the Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina, Palermo’, 2 vols (unpublished DPhil thesis, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford 2011). 38 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4). 39 U. Monneret de Villard, Le Pitture Musulmane al Soffitto della Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Rome 1950); A. Grabar, ‘Image d’une église chrétienne parmi les peintures musulmanes de la Chapelle Palatine à Palerme’, in Aus der Welt der islamischen Kunst (as n. 18), 226–33; D. Jones, ‘The Cappella Palatina in Palermo: problems of attribution’ (as n. 20); E. C. Dodd, ‘Christian Arab sources for the ceiling of the Palatine Chapel, Palermo’, in Arte d’Occidente: temi e metodi. Studi in onore di Angiola Maria Romanini, ed. A. Cadei, M. R. Tosti-Croce, A. S. Malacart and A. Tome (Rome 1999), 823–31; M. V. Fontana, La pittura islamica: dalle origini alla fine del Trecento (Rome 2002), 67–71; D. Knipp, ‘Image, presence, and ambivalence: the Byzantine tradition of the painted ceiling in the Cappella Palatina, Palermo’, in Visualisierungen von Herrschaft. Frühmittelalterliche Residenzen: Gestalt und Zeremoniell. Akten des internationalen Kolloquium, ed. F. A. Bauer, Byzas, 5 (Istanbul 2006), 283–328; Grube, ‘painted ceilings and their relations’ (as n. 13); A. Nef, Conquérir et gouverner la Sicile islamique aux XIe et XIIe siècles, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d’Athénes et de Rome, fasc. 346 (Rome 2011), 145–74; Kapitaikin, ‘TwelfthCentury Paintings’ (as n. 37); Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4); L.-A. Hunt, ‘Ceiling and casket at the Cappella Palatina and Christian Arab art between Sicily and Egypt in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’, in Siculo-Arabic Ivories and Islamic Painting 1100–1300. Proceedings of the International Conference, Berlin, 6–8 July 2007, ed. D. Knipp, Römische Forschungen der Bibliotheca Hertziana, 36 (Munich 2011), 169–98; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 14). 40 As noted by Ćurčić, ‘Some Palatine Aspects’ (as n. 3), 143, and Borsook, Messages in Mosaic (as n. 7), 22 n. 52. The pulpit obscures the view of the southern column from the nave: see La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), figs 83–86, 195, 274, 457. For the idea: W. Cahn, ‘Solomonic elements in Romanesque art’, in The Temple of Solomon. Archaeological Fact and Mediaeval Tradition in Christian, Islamic and Jewish Art, ed. J. Gutmann (Missoula, MT 1976), 50–51, and H. Rosenau, Vision of the Temple: the image of the Temple of Jerusalem in Judaism and Christianity (London 1979), 67. For the currency of the idea in 12th-century Sicily, see the spiral columns depicted in the following representations of the Temple in the Christological scenes at Monreale: The Presentation, Christ among the Doctors, The Second Temptation of Christ, The Cleansing of the Temple; pairs of spiral columns also identify the synagogue in Christ curing the Woman with the Spirit of Infirmity, Christ healing the Man with the Withered Hand and Christ healing the Mother of Peter’s Wife, the church in The Baptism of Paul, and even the Praetorium in Christ before Pilate (E. Kitzinger, I mosaici del periodo normanno in Sicilia, 5 parts (Palermo 1992–97), III, Il Duomo di Monreale: I Mosaici dell’abside, della solea e delle cappelle lateriali, figs 191–93, IV, Il Duomo di Monreale: I Mosaici del Transetto, figs 18–19, 29, 99; V, Il Duomo di Monreale: I Mosaici delle Navate, figs 170, 184, 206, 217). 41 B. Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), IV Atlante II, fig.1225. 42 Ibid., IV Atlante II, figs 1258 (Solomon) and 1254 (David: the figure was completely restored in the 18th century; see the discussion by B. Brenk in La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 680, where earlier bibliography is cited). 43 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, figs 711 and 720–21. 44 Ibid., IV Atlante II, fig. 695 (Panel 27). 45 Ibid., figs 628 (left), 718 (right), 738 (left), 753, and 888 (left). For a general discussion of musicians in the ceilings, see ibid., II Testi: Schede, 497–509, scheda 381, now revised and amplified in idem, ‘Baghdad and Jerusalem: musicians and dancers in the painted ceilings of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in M. Ritter (ed.), On iconography and Islamic art, Welten des Islams — Worlds of Islam — Mondes de l’Islam (Berlin 2015 (forthcoming)).

84

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina 46 Ivories: P. B. Cott, Siculo-Arabic Ivories (Princeton 1939), figs 33d–e (Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kunst, inv. no. KFMV 60), 34b left (Palma de Mallorca, Cathedral, Treasury), 47a second from left (Würzburg Casket). Ceilings: E. Pauty, Les bois sculptés jusqu’à l’époque ayyoubide (Cairo 1931), pl. LII; S. Khemir, ‘The Palace of Sitt al-Mulk and Fatimid Imagery’, 2 vols (unpublished PhD thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1990), II, pl. 74d left. 47 Harpists are depicted in the same pose, playing what appears to be the same instrument in the late Sāsānian rock-reliefs at Æāq-i Bustān: H. G. Farmer, ‘The Instruments of Music on the Æāq-i Bustān Bas-Reliefs’, in idem, Studies in Oriental Musical Instruments (Glasgow 1939), 75–76, figs 2 and 3. 48 J. W. McKinnon, N. van Ree Bernard, M. Remnant and B. Kenyon de Pascual, ‘Psaltery: The ancient Greek and Latin terms’, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Oxford University Press, [accessed 3 May 2015] citing M. Gerbert, Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum, I (Milan 1931), 23. 49 C. M. Engelhardt, Herrad von Landsperg, Aebtissin zu Hohenburg, oder St. Odilien, im Elsass; im 12ten Jahrhundert, und ihr Werk; Hortus deliciarum (Stuttgart 1818), 8, pl. 4; R. Green, M. Evans, C. Bischoff and M. Curschmann ed., The Hortus Deliciarum of Herrad of Hohenbourg (Landsberg 1176–96): A Reconstruction, 2 vols (London 1979), fol. 59r, no. 81, pl. 37; I, 123; II, 97 and pl. 162. Moissac: south gallery, capital 8: V. Debiais, ‘Le chant des formes. L’écriture épigraphique, entre matérialité du tracé et transcendance des contenus’, Revista de poética medieval, 27 (2013) 118–24, fig. 7 (lower right). 50 Compare the head of the Musician in fig. 7 with the heads of the musicians in Johns ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 832, and also figs 671 and 792. 51 Ibid., IV Atlante II, figs 765–66, 740–41, 807–08, III Testi: Schede, 541–50, scheda 474: Large Units, Panels 13–14; Corner Units, Panels 25–27; Small Units, Panel 4. 52 For the various instruments played by David in Romanesque art, see I. Marchesin, L’image organum: la représentation de la musique dans les psautiers médiévaux 800–1200 (Turnhout 2000), 24–27. For the act of tuning, compare Fig. 7 with, for example, ibid., colour illus. F (Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale, fonds L’Escalopier, MS 2, fol. 115v: Psalter, Angers, mid-11th century) and illus. 16 (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. MS 343, fol. 12v: Psalter, Milan, late 10th century), 29 (Pommersfelden, Schlossbibliothek, Codex 334 (2776), fol. 148b: Bible, Cologne, c. 1100). For the curule chair: Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Schede, 600; Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 122 and 475. Romanesque artists usually seat King David upon a throne, but often instead place him on a curule chair, e.g. Marchesin, L’image organum, as above, illus. 18 (Klosterneuburg bei Wien, Stiftsbibliothek, CCL. 987, fol. 11v: Bible, Franconia, late 9th or early 10th century) and 39 (Mantua, Biblioteca Comunale, MS 340 (C.III.20), fol. 1v: Psalter, San Benedetto Po, c. 1125); see also the relief panel from the portal of the chapter house of Notre-Dame la Daurade, Toulouse (3rd atelier; c. 1165–75), now in the Musée des Augustins, K. Horste, Cloister Design and Monastic Reform in Toulouse: The Romanesque Sculpture of La Daurade (Oxford 1992), pl. 198. However, the curule chair was known in medieval Islam: J. Sadan, Le Mobilier au proche Orient médiéval (Leiden 1976), 131– 33. In Islamic painting of the early 13th century, it is particularly associated with royalty: a curule chair serves as the throne for Badr al-Dīn Luʾluʾ in frontispieces of the Cairo and Istanbul Kitāb al-Aghānī (Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, 579 adab, vol. IV, fol. 2a, Baghdad, AH614/1217–1218AD: B. Farès, Une miniature religieuse de l’école arabe de Bagdad: son climat, sa structure et ses motifs, sa relation avec l’iconographie chrétienne d’Orient, Mémoires de l’Institut d’Egypte no. 51 [Cairo 1948], pl. XI; and Millet Kütüphanesi, MS Feyzullah Efendi 1566, fol. 1b, Mosul, c. 1218–19; R. Ettinghausen, Arab Painting [Geneva 1962], 65), while the three examples of curule chairs illustrated in the early-13th-century Cairene Kalīla wa-Dimna (Bibliothèque nationale, MS Arabe 3465, fols 15b, 77a, 83a) — all

serve as thrones. For other Romanesque comparanda with Fig. 7, see also the image of a young musician tuning his harp-psaltery, representing the first musical mode, from the late-11th- or early-12th-century Gradual of St-Etienne of Toulouse, British Library, Harley MS 4951, fol. 295v; H. Steger, David Rex et Propheta (Nuremberg 1961), pl. 19.3 and good colour image at [accessed 03/05/2015]. 53 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 694 (Panel 27). 54 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Arabe 5847, respectively, fol. 122b and fol. 21a. 55 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Arabe 3929, fol. 53a. 56 The Islamic personification of Mercury as al-Kātib presumably continues the ancient association of the planet Mercury with the Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian scribe-god Nabū, the Egyptian Thoth: W. M. Senner, ‘Theories and Myths on the Origin of Writing: a Historical Overview’, in idem (ed.), The Origins of Writing (Lincoln, Nebraska and London 1991), 10–12. Metal basin: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 91.1.553: S. Carboni, Following the Stars: Images of the Zodiac in Islamic Art (New York 1997), 12–13, cat. no. 3; Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), fig. 28.10; K. al-Mawālid: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Arabe 2583, fols 4b, 5b (bis), 6b, 7b, 8b, 9b, 10b, 11b, 12b, 14b, 15b, 17b, 18b, 19b, 20b and 32b. 57 Peter of Eboli, Liber ad honorem Augusti, circa 1196. Bern, Burgerbibliothek, Codex 120 II, fol. 101a: Peter of Eboli, Liber ad honorem Augusti sive de rebus Siculis: Codex 120 II der Burgerbibliothek Bern; eine Bilderchronik der Stauferzeit, ed. T. Kölzer and M. Stähli (Sigmaringen 1994), 59. 58 Aurigemma, Il Cielo Stellato (as n. 31), 226, fig. 209 bottom left: wrongly identified as ‘suonatore di cetra’; A. Bellia, ‘Twelfthcentury musical symbols in the star-studded sky of King Ruggero II’, Music in Art: International Journal for Music Iconography 37 (2012), 30, fig. 9. 59 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), I Testi: Saggi, 400–01. 60 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 684: the view of the corner unit shows only the Scribe (fig. 694) because the Musician tuning a Triangular Psaltery (fig. 695) is hidden by a projection of the muqarnas. The relationship between the two panels (nos 26 and 27) is shown diagrammatically on II Testi: Schede, 596, and can be reconstructed by comparing figs 684 and 705, and focusing on the Male servant with basin (fig. 698) which appears in both. See also Monneret de Villard, Le Pitture Musulmane (as n. 39), figs 41–42. 61 L. Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 3 vols in 6 (Paris 1955– 58), II/i, 255–56, 263–64, 281–86; E. Kirschbaum et al., Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, 8 vols (Rome, Freiburg, Basel and Vienna 1968–76), I, cols 477–90, III, cols 466–81; Steger, David rex (as n. 52), 36, 40, 75, 77, 110, 120 and especially 155–57 cat. no. 3 and pl. 3 (London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A I, fol. 30v: Psalter, Canterbury, mid-8th century), 160–62 cat. no. 7 (Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 18, fols 13v–14r: Psalter, Sens, Abbey of St Remy, c. 842–50; see also Marchesin, L’image organum (as n. 52), illus 10–11 and colour good image at [accessed 3 May 2015]), 168–70 cat. no. 12 (Rome, San Paolo fuori le Mura, fol. 147v: Bible, Reims, 870–75), and 179–80 cat. no. 19 (Rome, Biblioteca Vaticana Cod. Lat. 82, fol. 12v, Bobbio (?), 10th century); Marchesin, L’image organum (as n. 52), illus. 16 (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. MS 343, fol. 12v: Psalter, Milan, late-10th century); Grube and Johns, Painted ceilings (as n. 2), 141, figs 28.9–10, 148–50, figs 32.1–33.3; Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-century paintings’ (as n. 37), 256–58, misses the crucial point that the association of David the Psalmist with his scribe(s) belongs firmly within the Romanesque iconographic tradition. 62 I. Hasson, ‘David’ and A. Schippers, ‘Psalms’, in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾ ān, ed. J. Dammen McAuliffe, 6 vols (Leiden 2001), I, 495–97 and IV, 314–18. See also the relevant sections of R. Tottoli, I profeti biblici nella tradizione islamica, (Brescia 1999; Eng. trans. Richmond 2002).

85

jeremy johns 63 R. Milstein, K. Rührdanz and B. Schmitz, Stories of the prophets: illustrated manuscripts of Qi½a½ al-anbiyāʼ (Costa Mesa 1999), 142–44. 64 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, figs 844, 853–54 (south side) and 583, 590–91 (north side). 65 Ibid., figs 844, 850 (south side) and 583, 588 (north side); II Testi: Schede, scheda 588, 579–80. 66 See, for example, capital 5 in the north end of the west side of the cloister of St-Pierre-de-Moissac, c. 1100: M. Schapiro, The Sculpture of Moissac (London 1985), 65, fig. 86; T. Droste, Die Skulpturen von Moissac: Gestalt und Funktion romanischer Bauplastik (Munich 1996), 124–25, 133, no. 61; and the closely related capital from the monastery of Notre-Dame la Daurade (Toulouse), now in the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse (inv. no. ME 104), c. 1100–10: M. Lafargue, Les Chapiteaux du cloître de Notre-Dame la Daurade (Paris 1940), pl. III, figs 1–2 (usefully illustrating both Moissac and la Daurade). For Daniel in medieval art, see Réau, Iconographie, II/i (as n. 61), 401–06; R. B. Green, ‘Daniel in the Lions’ Den as an example of Romanesque typology’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Chicago 1948); Kirschbaum, Lexikon, I (as n. 61), cols 470–73; W. Travis, ‘Daniel in the Lions’ Den: Problems in the iconography of a Cistercian manuscript. Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 132’, Arte medievale, 2nd ser., 14 (2000), 49–71; Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 218–19, figs 71.1–9; Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 372–78, argues that this panel represents not Daniel but rather the legendary Iranian lion-strangler Bahrām Gūr. 67 W. Déonna, ‘Daniel, le maître des fauves, à propos d’une lampe chrétienne du musée de Genève’, Artibus Asiae, 12 (1949), 119–40 and 347–74, esp. pls 1a–b; G. De Francovich, Benedetto Antelami, architetto e scultore, e l’arte del suo tempo, 2 vols (Milano 1952), II, pl. 233, fig. 383. See the same pose in a 12th-century capital in the cathedral of Chur, Switzerland (Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 219, fig. 71.7; W. Weisbach, ‘Das Daniel-Kapitell im Dom von Chur und der dämonische Stoffkreis der romanischen Plastik’, Phoebus, 1 (1946), 151–55, figs 1–4), and another capital attributed to Antelami’s workshop, from the pontile of Modena Cathedral, in which Daniel rests both hands upon the lions’ necks (De Francovich, Benedetto Antelami, pl. 43, figs 81–82). See also: Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 2, fol. 324r: Y. Zaluska, Manuscrits enluminés de Dijon (Paris 1991), cat. no. 104, 132–36, pl. 40, and good colour image at [accessed 3 May 2015]; and the several capitals in the nave of San Michele Maggiore, Pavia, pre-1155, in which a male figure conventionally identified as Daniel holds variously the head, neck and ears of a pair of lions (G. Chierici, Le sculture della Basilica di San Michele Maggiore a Pavia (Milan 1942), pls CXV(b), CXXV(a–b), CXXVII(b), CXLI(a), CXLIII). 68 The text is an amalgamation of Daniel 2: 34 and 2: 45. La Cappella Palatina, (as n. 1), IV Atlante II, fig. 1265; I Testi: Schede, 682–83. See also Borsook, Messages in Mosaic (as n. 7), 25–26, 46–47. 69 Déonna, ‘Daniel, le maître des fauves’ (as n. 67), 136–40, who cites early bibliography. For more recent studies of the ancient iconography, see D. B. Counts and B. Arnold ed., The Master of Animals in Old World iconography (Budapest 2010). For the Dalmatic of St Bernard Calvó (New York, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, inv. no. 1901-1-220); J. D. Dodds, Al-Andalus: the art of Islamic Spain (New York 1992), 320, cat. no. 88. 70 G. Vajda, ‘Dāniyāl’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, ed. H. A. R. Gibb et al., 13 vols (Leiden 1960–2002), II, 112–13. 71 A. Dietrich, ‘Ibn Abi ʾl-Dunyā’, Encyclopaedia of Islam (as n. 70), III, 684: Ibn Abī l-Dunyā < Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh [b. al-©asan al-Muthannā b. al-©asan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Æālib] < A¬mad b. ʿAmr b. al-Sar¬ < [ʿAbd Allāh] Ibn Wahb [b. Muslim al-Fihrī al-Qurashī] < ʿAbd al-Ra¬mān b. Abī al-Zanād < Abū al-Zanād; Ibn Kathīr, Qi½a½ al-anbiyāʾ , ed. M. ʿA. al-Q. Shāhīn, (Beirut 1998), 368–69. See also al-Æabarī, The History of al-Æabarī (Taʾ rīkh al-rusul waʾ l-mulūk). Volume XIII: The Conquest of Iraq, Southwestern Persia and Egypt, trans. and annotated G. H. A. Juynboll (Albany, NY 1989), 148.

72 The editor misreads: ‘Ibn Burda b. Abī Mūsā al-Ashʿarī’. See J. Schacht, ‘al-As̲h̲ʿarī, Abū Burda’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, I (as n. 70), 693–94. 73 That is, following the initial discovery and excavation of Dāniyāl’s tomb at the time of the conquest. For Abū Mūsā, see L. Veccia Vaglieri, ‘al-As̲h̲ʿarī, Abū Mūsā’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, I (as n. 70), 695–96. 74 In Mozarabic painting, the detail of the lions licking Daniel’s feet — e.g. in the Biblia de Leon, where Daniel sits in the orans pose between two lions who lick his feet (Leon, Archivo Capitular de la Real Colegiata de San Isidoro, fol. 325v: Monastery of Sts Peter and Paul, Valeranica, 960; J. Vallejo Bozal, ‘El ciclo de Daniel en las miniaturas del códice’, in Codex Biblicus Legionensis: veinte estudios, ed. C. Alvarez Alvarez (León 1999), 178–79, and 154 illus. 37) — may derive independently from Visigothic art, and seems to be in part the product of confusion between the alternative meanings of lacus, as is suggested by the capital showing Daniel in the Lions’ Den in the crossing of San Pedro de la Nave, Zamora, dated to the late 7th or early 8th century, in which the lions appear to lick or to suck up the water from the lacus leonum in which Daniel is paddling: H. Schlunk, ‘Observaciones en torno al problema de la miniatura visigoda’, Archivo español de arte, 18/71 (1945), 241–65. Alternatively, the artist of Fig. 11 may have intended to represent the protruding tongue of a strangled lion. An 11th-century painted capital in the nave of the abbey of St-Sever (Landes) — a much frequented stop on the Via Lemovicensis to Santiago de Compostela — represents a standing figure, conventionally identified as Daniel, grasping with outstretched hands the long tongues that protrude from a pair of monstrous lion-heads: J. Cabanot, ‘Le tympan du portail nord de St-Sever (Landes): Le Beatus et le décor sculpté de l’abbatiale’, in Ex quadris lapidibus. La Pierre et sa mise en oeuvre dans l’art medieval, ed. Y. Gallet (Turnhout 2011), 400 and fig. 13. In Romanesque art, too, Daniel is often depicted as the Master of the Beasts, as in the remarkable historiated initial that opens the prologue to the Book of Daniel in a Bible made for St-Pierre-deJumièges in c. 1080, where Daniel strangles a lion with his left hand and, in two Christ-like gestures, holds the globe with his right hand and with each foot tramples a lion: Rouen, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 8, fol. 127r: Travis, ‘Daniel’ (as n. 66), 54 and fig. 6, and good colour image image at http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/ [accessed 3 May 2015]. 75 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 850; and II Testi: Schede, 587–89, scheda 627. 76 La Cappella Palatina, (as n. 1), III Atlante I, figs 223–29; Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 392–97; M. J. Johnson, ‘The Episcopal and Royal Views in Cefalù’, Gesta 33 (1994), 118–31, 127–29; Borsook, Messages in Mosaic (as n. 7), 10 and 15 notes 40–45, and 23, 46, notes 64–65; Kitzinger, ‘Mosaics of the Cappella Palatina’ (as n. 3), 284. 77 Large Unit 15: Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 850, and II Testi: Schede, 587–89, scheda 627; Large Unit 7: ibid., IV Atlante II, fig. 627. 78 Ibid., IV Atlante II, fig. 1055. 79 Rhombus 3 — the third from the west end — ibid., IV Atlante II, fig. 1055. 80 Ibid., IV Atlante II, fig. 661. 81 For the well-studied history and iconography of St Theodore: C. Walter, ‘Saint Theodore and the Dragon’, in Through a Glass Brightly: Studies in Byzantine and Medieval art and archaeology presented to David Buckton, ed. C. Entwhistle (Oxford 2003), 95–106; C. Walter, The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition (Aldershot 2003), 44–66; C. Jolivet-Lévy, ‘Saint Théodore et le dragon: nouvelles données’, in Puer Apuliae. Mélanges JeanMarie Martin, ed. E. Cuozzo, V. Déroche, A. Peters-Custot and V. Prigent (Paris 2008), 357–71; P. L. Grotowski, Arms and Armour of the Warrior Saints (Leiden 2010), 57–123. See also Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 228–33, figs 76.1–78.7 and 79.3; Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 382–401. 82 See the ingenious arguments for a programmatic role for all the dragon- and lion-slayers in the ceiling advanced by Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 397–401.

86

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina 83 O. Pancaroğlu, ‘The Itinerant Dragon-Slayer: Forging Paths of Image and Identity in Medieval Anatolia’, Gesta, 43 (2004), 155, fig. 4. 84 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 913: Large Unit 18, Panel 14, paired with a Nadīm flanked by Two Attendants within a Palace (IV Atlante II, fig. 912) in Panel 13. See also above 19, note 106 below. 85 D. Nicolle, ‘The Cappella Palatina ceiling and the Muslim military inheritance of Norman Sicily’, Gladius, 16 (1983), 45–145, 70 and fig. 4) cautiously, but wrongly, identifies it as a pointed nasal helmet: see also above 20, and note 108 below. 86 Walter, Warrior Saints (as n. 81), 109–44. Strangely, the iconography of St George is not yet as well studied for the medieval Latin West as it is for Byzantium and the Christian East: J. A. Aufhauser, Das Drachenwunder des heiligen Georg in der griechischen und lateinisichen Überlieferung, Byzantinisches Archiv 5 (Leipzig 1911), 231–36; Réau, Iconographie, III/ii (as n. 61), 571–79; Kirschbaum, Lexikon (as n. 61), VI, cols 365–90; S. BraunfelsEsche, Sankt Georg: Legende, Verehrung, Symbol (Munich 1976); K. J. Dorsch, Georgszyklen des Mittelalters (Frankfurt 1983); G. Didi-Huberman, R. Garbetta and M. Morgaine ed., Saint Georges et le dragon: versions d’une légende (Paris 1994); S. Hahn, S. Metken, B. Steiner, ed., Sanct Georg: der Ritter mit dem Drachen (Lindenberg 2001). See also: Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 135, fig. 25.4 and 228–33, figs 76.1–78.7 and 79.3; Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 382–401. 87 Horseman, initial ‘A’, Miscellany on the Life of St. Edmund, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M.0736, fol. 78v: Bury St Edmunds, 1125–35 (The New Palaeographical Society, Facsimiles of ancient manuscripts, ed. E. M. Thompson et al. (Oxford 1903–30), pl. 113, and the good colour image at [accessed 3 May 2015]; Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 388–89, fig. 11.39. 88 It is tempting to speculate that the serpentine dragon may somehow play on Ivar’s nickname — in Old Norse, Ívarr hinn beinlausi, ‘Ivar the Boneless’ (or ‘Legless’). 89 Reims, Bibliothèque municipale, MS. 294, fol. 185v, Lectionnaire F du chapitre de Reims: good colour image at . 90 See also the discussion of the Man Rending a Griffin (Fig. 22) and the Man Riding a Lion (Fig. 23), see above 21–24, and notes 119–32 below. 91 H. Loriquet, Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France. Départements. Tome XXXVIII– XXXIX, Reims, 2 vols (Paris 1904–09), II, 283–90, esp. 289–90; M. de Lemps and R. Laslier, Trésors de la Bibliothèque municipale de Reims (Reims 1978), cat. no. 19. 92 See S. Kuehn, The Dragon in Medieval East Christian and Islamic Art (Leiden 2011), 92–100, and Pancaroğlu, ‘The itinerant dragon-slayer’ (as n. 83). Combat between a mounted swordsman and a dragon might be depicted on the Bobrinski Bucket, dated 559/1163, probably made in Herat — Kuehn, The Dragon, as above 96 and fig. 90; despite its fame and importance, the object is not well published, for bibliography see M. B. Piotrovsky, J. Vrieze et al. ed., Earthly Beauty, Heavenly Art: Art of Islam (Amsterdam 1999), 159, cat. no. 114 — but neither of the two horsemen framing the dragon wields what is indubitably a sword. For other late-12th- or early-13th-century examples of the use of the sword in dragon combat, see Kuehn, The Dragon, as above figs 91, 93, 96–99, 102. 93 Damascus, National Museum, inv. no. A/5819: E. Delpont ed., L’Orient de Saladin: l’art des Ayyoubides. Exposition présentée à l’Institut du monde arabe, Paris du 23 octobre 2001 au 10 mars 2002 (Paris 2001), cat. nos 53, 56–59; Pancaroğlu, ‘The itinerant dragonslayer’ (as n. 83), 157–58; Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 388–89, fig. 11.40; Kuehn, The Dragon (as n. 92), 99–100, misdates it to the ‘mid-13th century’. 94 For his equipment, see D. Nicolle, Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era, 1050–1350, 2 vols (White Plains, NY 1988), 163, illus. 412A–D. 95 Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 387–89.

96 Jerusalem, Greek Patriarchal Library, Cod. 2: R. P. Blake, ‘Catalogue des manuscrits géorgiens de la Bibliothèque patriacale grecque à Jérusalem’, Revue de l’Orient chrétien, 3rd ser., 3/23 (1922–23), 357–62. Russian trans. in E. L. Privalova, Pavnissi (Tbilisi 1977), 73, from which the English trans. in C. Walter, ‘The Origins of the Cult of Saint George’, Revue des études byzantines, 53 (1995), 320–22, and Walter, Warrior Saints (as n. 81), 140–42. The Georgian legend of St George and the Princess reached Byzantium before the 13th century and is first known in a late-12th- or 13thcentury manuscript in the Bibliotheca Angelica (Rome), MS 46, fols 189r–191v: Aufhauser, Das Drachenwunder (as n. 86), 52–69. The earliest known Latin version of the legend is in the early-13thcentury Vitae Sanctorum from St Emmeram, Regensburg, now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, Clm. MS 14473, fol. 5r; ibid., 182–86; E. Klemm, Die romanischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek: Teil 1. Die Bistümer Regensburg, Passau und Salzburg (Wiesbaden 1980), 43, cat. 50). Only in the Latin version, does George transfix the dragon with his spear before beheading it with his sword (see below, note 100). 97 Privalova, Pavnissi (as n. 96): Adisi (late 11th century), 77, fig. 18, pl. XVIII; Bočorma (c. 1100), 83 fig. 20; Ikvi (12th century), 80, fig. 19; Pavnisi (1170–80) 18, fig. 5 (right). 98 For example: the church of St George in the Novgorodian fortress of Staraya Ladoga (Volkhovsky District, St Petersburg Oblast, Russia), datable to 1180–1200 (V. N. Lazarev, ‘A new painting from the twelfth century and the figure of St George the Warrior in Byzantine and Medieval Russian art’, in idem, Studies in Early Russian Art (London 2000), 85–162, esp. 148–50 and fig. 15; Visoki Dečani (Peć, Metohija, Kosovo), fresco on the east wall of the east dome of the north nave of the narthex, c. 1350; C. Walter, ‘The cycle of St. George in the Monastery of Dečani’, in Dečani i vizantijska umetnost sredinom XIV veka: Medjunarodni naučni skup povodom 650 godina manastira Dečana septembar 1985. Primljeno na 9 skupu Odeljenja istorijskich nauka, održanom 25. novembra 1987, ed. V. J. Ðurić (Belgrade 1989), 347–54, drawing 3 and fig. 5, and good colour image of the fresco at [accessed 3 May 2015]. For an example of George spearing the dragon with the princess in attendance, see the carving in the tympanum of the window in the west façade at Visoki Dečani in J. Maglovski, ‘The sculpture of Dečani — Programme and meaning’, in Dečani, 222 and figs 28–29, and colour image at [accessed 3 May 2015]. 99 P. Deschamps and M. Thibout, La peinture murale en France. Le Haut Moyen Âge et l’époque romane (Paris 1951), 132–37 and fig. 46; C. Davy, ‘Les peintures murales de la chapelle des templiers de Cressac’, in Congrès archéologique de France. 153e session, 1995, Charente, Société française d’archéologie (Paris 1999), 171–78, where the princess is sometimes identified as Ecclesia: E. Dehoux, ‘Représenter le martyre. Images de saint Georges et de saint Maurice dans le Regnum Francorum (IXe–XIIIe siècles)’, in Corps outragés, corps saccagés. Regards croisés de l’Antiquité au Moyen Âge, ed. L. Bodiou, V. Mehl and M. Soria (Turnhout 2011), 117–37, fig. 8. The fresco is best seen at [accessed 3 May 2015]. 100 The tympanum of the west door of San Giorgio in Ferrara, carved by Nicholaus in c. 1135, is an important exception — the saint charges with raised sword at a dragon whose throat is already been transfixed by a shattered lance: A.M. Romanini ed., Nicholaus e l’arte del suo tempo. Atti del seminario tenutosi a Ferrara dal 21 al 24 settembre 1981 organizzato dalla Deputazione provinciale ferrarese di storia patria, 3 vols (Ferrara 1985), III (Atlante), 143–5, 177–81; see also E.N. Lusanna, ‘Nicholaus a Ferrara’, in ibid., II, 407–40, and G. Zanichelli, ‘Iconologia di Niccolò di Ferrara’ in ibid., II, 561–605. This composite scene follows the earliest Latin version of St George and the Princess almost to the letter: Ad hec autem porrigens manus beatus Georgius pilo draconis fauces transfixit et evaginato gladio eius caput amputavit: Aufhauser, Drachenwunder (as n. 86), 186. (The persistent tradition that Robert II Count of

87

jeremy johns 113 R. Favreau, ‘Le thème iconographique du lion dans les inscriptions médiévales’, Comptes Rendues de Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (1991), 613–36. 114 Pace Knipp, ‘Image, Presence, and Ambivalence’ (as n. 39), 294–96. 115 Samson: British Library, Royal MS 6 C VI, fol. 152v: notes, extensive bibliography and colour image at [accessed 3 May 2015]. The manuscript must be earlier than 1122: I therefore am not persuaded that the sub-type originated in southern France, pace G. Swarzenski, ‘Samson Killing the Lion, a Mediaeval Bronze Group’, Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 38 (1940), 71. David: Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 147, fol. 2a: Y. Załuska, L’Enluminure et le scriptorium de Cîteaux au XIIe siècle (Cîteaux 1989), 204–06, no. 5, pl. 56, illus. 105, and good colour image at [accessed 3 May 2015]. 116 Southern France: in capitals at St-André-le-Bas, Vienne (Isère) datable to 1152 (Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), fig. 64.7) and from the abbey of St-Ruf(?), Avignon (now in the Fogg Museum, Harvard, and attributed to Nôtre-Dame-des-Doms, Avignon) datable 1156 to c. 1160 (L. V. Seidel, ‘Romanesque Sculpture in American Collections. X. The Fogg Art Museum. II. The Rhone Valley, Provence, Languedoc, Western and Nothern France’, Gesta, 11/2 (1972), 62–63, no. 3, fig. 8), and in the medallion on the so-called ‘Lanterne de Bégon’ (or ‘de St Vincent’), in the Trésor de Ste Foy, Conques, datable to the second half of the 12th century (D. Gaborit-Chopin and E. Taburet-Delahaye, Le trésor de Conques: exposition du 2 novembre 2001 au 11 mars 2002, musée du Louvre (Paris 2001), 46–49, figs 40 and 44; in Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 204, fig. 64.5, the medallion is regrettably misdated). Apulia: B. Sciarra, La Chiesa di S. Giovanni del Sepolcro in Brindisi (Brindisi 1962), fig. 12 (see also fig. 16, which illustrates the carving of a bare-breasted woman riding a lion side-saddle, from the other jamb of the same portal); Kapitaikin, ‘TwelfthCentury Paintings’ (as n. 37), 368 and fig. 11.8. 117 Raby, ‘Samson’ (as n. 112); A. Rippin, ‘The Muslim Samson: Medieval, Modern and Scholarly Interpretations’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 71 (2008), 239–53; Milstein et al., Stories of the Prophets (as n. 63), 175, note 64, cite the depiction of the Samson story in the 15th-century section of the Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh, Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müsezi, Hazine Library MS 1654, fol. 16r, which I have not seen. 118 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 539. The scene occupies the large rectangular Panel 4 in Small Unit 3, towards the western end of the north side of the muqarnas zone. 119 Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 242–43, figs 85.1–13. Although, as Grube notes, similar scenes do appear in Romanesque art — e.g. the roundel in the top left corner of the back of the late-12th-century abbatial throne in the Museo del Santuario di Montevergine, Campania (S. De Mieri, ‘Cattedra abbaziale [di Montevergine]’, in L’Enigma degli Avori Medievali da Amalfi a Salerno, ed. F. Bologna, 2 vols (Naples 2008), II, 482–88, cat. no. 90, with good colour images and bibliography), a capital in the chapter house of St-Lazare, Autun (c. 1130: Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 242, fig. 85.10), and the two corner panels at the foot of the Good Samaritan Window (no. 13) in the ambulatory of St-Etienne, Bourges (c. 1210–15: A. Martin and C. Cahier, Monographie de la Cathédrale de Bourges: Vitraux du XIIIe siècle (Paris 1841–44), pls 6 and 196: ‘Je n’oserais pas me prononcer sur la fonction de cette espèce d’autruche chevauchée par un enfant [. . .] Serait ce le symbole adopté par un métier (par example, par des paonniers ou chapeliers plumassiers), qui auraient partagé la dépense de cette verrière? Je ne puis rien alléguer qui me convainque [. . ].’) — all these figures are merely riding giant birds and not, Samson-like, strangling them with the scissors-hold. Nonetheless, it is striking that, in the upper two registers of the back of the Montevergine throne, Samson rending the Lion is juxtaposed with five other scenes of ‘beast-riders’: a man with a threshing flail riding an ostrich, another man with a flail upon a camel, three soldiers

Flanders gave to Ferrara the arm of St George that he had acquired on the First Crusade is contradicted by his well-documented gift of the relic to the monastery of Anchin in Flanders: J. Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095–1131, (Cambridge 1997), 151–52 and notes.) 101 And, presumably, the metalworkers of Anatolia, the Jazīra and even Khurāsān (see Kuehn, The Dragon (as n. 92), figs 91, 93, 96–99, 102) — at least, these would seem to be the implications of the discussion in Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 387–89. 102 The type is perhaps more likely to have emerged from ‘the new cultural mélange’ created by the Turkish incursions into Anatolia after the battle of Manzikert in 1071 — Pancaroğlu, ‘The itinerant dragon-slayer’ (as n. 83) — and thence to have spread westwards to Europe and throughout the Muslim East. 103 Cambridge, St John’s College, MS B.18, fol. 86r: Psalterium Triplex, Reims, early-12th century; W. Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts: The Twelfth Century, 2 vols (London 1996), I, fig. 159, II, 83–84, cat. no. 66,; further bibliography and a colour image at [accessed 3 May 2015]. 104 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 173, fol. 20a: see below, note 105. 105 It is from about this time that representations of dragoncombat unrestrained by any narrative frame begin to multiply. See, for example, the famous four-volume manuscript of Gregory’s Moralia in Job (Cîteaux, c. 1110–20: Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, MSS 168–70 & 173: Cahn, Romanesque manuscripts (as n. 103, II, 73–74, cat. no. 59), in which there are no less than seven different representations of dragon-combat (MSS 168, fols 4v, 52v, and 173, fols 20r, 29r, 111v, 122r, 156r), most with two dragons, only one of which may be related more or less distantly to St George (MS 173, fol. 20r): colour images at [accessed 3 May 2015]. 106 Note, however, that the panel is angled towards the north-east so that it cannot be seen from the throne platform. 107 I know of no early Islamic Life of George (nor of al- KhiÅr) that has him slay a dragon, not even those rare episodes that seem to be loosely based upon the legend of St George and the Princess: e.g. al-Rabghūzī, The Stories of the Prophets: Qi½a½ al-anbiyāʾ , an Eastern Turkish version, ed. and trans. H. E. Boeschoten, M. Vandamme and S. Tezcan, 2 vols (Leiden 1995), vol. 2, 460–62. But, for modern legends of St George and the Dragon in Lebanon, see M. Ayoub, ‘Cult and culture: common saints and shrines in Middle Eastern popular piety’, in Religion and Culture in Medieval Islam, ed. R. G. Hovanissian and G. Sabagh (Cambridge 1999), 109–10. 108 al-Æabari, Tārīkh al-rusul wa-al-mulūk, ed. M.J. de Goeje et al., 15 vols (Leiden 1879–1901), vol. 3, 709; al-Æabari, The History of al-Æabarī (Taʾ rīkh al-rusul waʾ l-mulūk). Volume XXX: The ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in Equilibrium, trans. and annotated C.E. Bosworth (Albany, N.Y. 1989), 262–63. 109 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 806 and II Testi: Schede, 617–20, scheda 806. 110 North side, Large Unit 13, Panel 1. Kapitaikin advances a series of ingenious arguments for the programmatic significance of this unit: Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 235–50, 332–44 and pl. VI. 111 Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 192–99, figs 58.1–61.9; Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), II Testi: Schede, 492–94, scheda 374; Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 152–56. 112 G. Mobley, Samson and the Liminal Hero in the Ancient Near East (New York and London 2006), is now the indispensable introduction to all aspects of Samson in the ancient Near East. For similarities between Biblical Samson and David, see ibid., 80–84; Réau, Iconographie, II/i (as n. 61), 240–41, 258–59; Kirschbaum, Lexikon, I (as n. 61), cols 477–90, IV, cols 30–38. For the iconography of Samson in Islamic art, and much else: J. Raby, ‘Samson and Siyāh Qalam’, Islamic Art, 1 (1981), 160–63. For Samson and lion-riders in general, see Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 204–17, figs 64–70.12.

88

the painted ceilings of the cappella palatina Brundage, ‘Heracles the Levantine’, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 17 (1958), 226–36; and O. Margalith, ‘Samson’s foxes’, Vetus Testamentum, 35 (1985), 224–29, ‘Samson’s riddle and Samson’s magic locks’, Vetus Testamentum, 36 (1986), 225–34, ‘More Samson legends’, Vetus Testamentum, 36 (1986), 397–405 and ‘The legends of Samson/Heracles’, Vetus Testamentum, 37 (1987), 63–70. 131 See above, note 129. Raby, ‘Samson’ (as n. 112); Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 216–17, figs 70.1–12. 132 Ibid., 208–17. 133 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 511 and II Testi: Schede, 564–65, scheda 511; see also the discussion of the same panel in idem, ‘Arabic Inscriptions in the Cappella Palatina: Performativity, Audience, Legibility and Illegibility’, in Viewing texts: Inscriptions as image and ornament in the Late Antique and Medieval Mediterranean, ed. A. Eastmond and E. James (Cambridge, pp. 132–33, 2015); Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 591 and II Testi: Schede, 581–82; Kapitaikin, ‘TwelfthCentury Paintings’ (as n. 37), 487–95 and 671–79, Appendix 2. 134 See the discussion in ibid., 89–91, 522–24. 135 In addition to those discussed in this study, see the Man dining between Two Attendants, modelled on various scenes of Christ dining, Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 609 and II Testi: Schede, 584–85, scheda 609, and Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 440–42, figs 13.20–24; the Two Servants Well, possibly modelled on Christ and the Samaritan Woman, Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 870 and II Testi: Schede, 629–30, scheda 870, and Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 449–50, who vigorously rejects the derivation; the Chapel interior with Altar, Priest and Youth ringing a Bell, Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 591, II Testi: Schede, 581–82, scheda 591, and Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 432–40, 13.1–10; and elements in the various scenes of Combat between a Lion and a Serpentine Dragon, Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante I, fig. 182, IV Atlante II, figs 720–21, 899, II Testi: Schede, 604–5, scheda 720, and Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 354–63 and figs 10.20–28. While Kapitaikin (‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’, 152, figs 3.40–45) gives Romanesque comparanda for the Tricorporate Lion (Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 1150, II Testi: Schede, scheda 1150), this type of visual puzzle was so widely diffused that it is likely to have travelled independently to north-west Europe and to the Islamic world, as was almost certainly the case with the Three Hares Motif (Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 1126 and II Testi: Schede, scheda 1126). 136 Kapitaikin, ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 524, does his best to make the case for Robert of Selby, Roger’s chancellor, and the much-cited Master Thomas Brown, but the evidence is desperately thin. 137 Johns, Arabic Administration (as n. 27), passim, esp. 80–90, 258–68; Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), I Testi: Saggi, 406. 138 The Man dining between Two Attendants, the Chapel and, possibly, the pair of Combat between a Lion and a Serpentine Dragon in the middle of the east end of the muqarnas, and the Two Servants at a Well — for all of which, see above, note 135. 139 See above, note 135. 140 J. Bloom, Arts of the City Victorious: Islamic Art and Architecture in Fatimid North Africa and Egypt (New Haven and London 2007), 157. Lustre ceramics, pace Bloom, did not entirely cease to be produced in Egypt under FāÐimid rule. 141 See above, note 30. 142 One possible destination may have been the Mouchroutas Palace in Constantinople: see above, note 14.

in the castle on an elephant, and a centaur loosing an arrow at a unicorn: here, at least, Samson seems to be conceived as a lion-rider. 120 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 686: Northeast Corner Unit, Panel 2. 121 See above, note 111. 122 Réau, Iconographie (as n. 61), II.i, 243; Rippin, ‘The Muslim Samson’ (as n. 117), 241. 123 A. Ferrua, Le Pitture della Nuova Catacomba di Via Latina (Rome 1960), 63–65, pls 46.2, 50.1, 105; For the complicated history of the jaw-bone see: M. Schapiro, ‘Cain’s Jaw-Bone that did the first Murder’, Art Bulletin, 24 (1942), 205–12; A. A. Barb, ‘Cain’s Murder-Weapon and Samson’s Jawbone of an Ass’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 35 (1972), 386–89. 124 Raby, ‘Samson’ (as n. 112), 160–61, formulae 2 and 3. 125 The two episodes are often juxtaposed, even within a single frame (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Français 159, fol. 104r, image at [accessed 3 May 2015]), but almost never confused. Indeed, I have come across only one other medieval iconographic conflation of the two episodes: in an early-14th-century French translation of the Bible copied in Paris (Troyes, Bibliothèque municipale MS 59: images at [accessed 3 May 2015]), a conventional image of Samson rending the Lion appears at the end of fol. 142r while, on the next opening (fol. 143r), Samson is depicted astride the lion apparently preparing to dispatch it with the jawbone. 126 Rippin, ‘Samson’ (as n. 117), 242; Raby, ‘Samson’ (as n. 112), 161. See also Mobley, Samson (as n. 112), 22–25; R. Wenning and E. Zenger, ‘Der siebenlockige Held Simson: Literarische und ikonographische Beobachtungen zu Ri 13–16’, Biblische Notizen, 17 (1982), 43–55. 127 This is one case where the new image — Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), IV Atlante II, fig. 686 — made after the restoration of 2005– 08, only obscures the issue. A. A. Pavlovsky, Zhivopis’ Palatinskoi Kapelly v Palermo (St Petersburg 1890), 212, fig. 101 (reversed), is reproduced in Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 2), 209, fig. 66.1B, and in Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), II Testi: Schede, 618 fig. 396. The artists, Aleksandr Nikanorovich Pomerantsev, better known as the architect of what is now the GUM building in Red Square, Moscow, and his assistant F. I. Chagin, worked from a scaffolding erected as part of a project for the Esposizione Nazionale held at Palermo in 1891: Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4) I Testi: Saggi, 390. Hillenbrand’s 1989 photograph: Oxford, Khalili Research Centre, Image Archive, slide no. ISL 14992; Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), II Testi: Schede, 618 fig. 397 (detail). 128 Compare with the dragons’ heads in Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), III Atlante I, fig. 182, and IV Atlante II, figs 899 and 941. 129 South side, capital 16, west side, C. Valenziano, Introduzione alla basilica cattedrale di Cefalù (Palermo 1981), no. 7; R. Alaimo, S. Calderone and M. Carapezza, ‘Il Chiostro del Duomo di Cefalù. Cause ed effetti del degrado’, in La Basilica Cattedrale di Cefalù: Materiali per la Cognoscenza Storica e il Restauro, 8 parts (Palermo 1985–89), VI, 57–97, no. 4 (not illustrated); Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 4), II Testi: Schede, 619, fig. 398 — best seen at [accessed 3 May 2015]. Kapitaikin’s objections to this comparison — ‘Twelfth-Century Paintings’ (as n. 37), 371 n. 33 — ignore the fact that we cannot now reconstruct with any confidence the headdress originally worn by the Man riding a Lion. 130 Mobley, Samson (as n. 112), 7–12, goes against the trend set by F. Dornseiff, ‘Das Buch der Richter. 2. Ist Herakles ein griechischer Samson?’, Archiv für Orientforschung, 14 (1941–44), 324–28; B. C.

89

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 91–127

DRESS AND TEXTILES IN THE 12TH-CENTURY PAINTED CEILINGS OF THE CAPPELLA PALATINA IN PALERMO Francesca Manuela Anzelmo This article presents the results of my doctoral research into the ceilings of the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, and addresses these unique works of art from a hitherto unexplored perspective; the representation of dress and textiles as worn by the participants in the royal banquet depicted in the ceilings. It both catalogues the clothing and textiles, and then carefully examines the resulting typologies in order to identify the most appropriate comparators, taking into consideration the Islamic and Christian culture of the medieval Mediterranean and Middle East. The analysis of the clothing and textiles used in the paintings offers a route to a better understanding of the paintings themselves, as well as offering a resource for future interdisciplinary research into the material culture, workshop organization, and artistic circulation in the medieval Mediterranean.

Abbreviations used in the text (excluding footnotes) for references to published images of the painted ceilings of the Palatine Chapel in Palermo and the Cathedral of Cefalù:

one of the most admired works of the whole chapel (Figs 1 and 2),3 while the aisles are covered by flat ceilings (18.50 × 2.50 m; 8.30 m high) made up of panels with semicircular ends.4 These three ceilings, along with the architecture and other sumptuous decorations of the building (liturgical furnishings, figurative mosaics, and opus sectile pavements and walls), are exceptionally well preserved. Indeed, the ceiling decoration constitutes the largest ensemble of monumental painting extant from the medieval Muslim world and one of the most exstensive in 12th-century Europe.5 The present essay is intended to summarize the principal findings of my doctoral research, in particular those related to the study of the costumes and headgear worn by the figures depicted on the ceiling, as well as the ornamental motifs used in the painted textiles.6 A number of studies have highlighted the importance of this subject matter not only for our understanding of the ceilings, but also for research into artistic production in Norman Sicily and the medieval Mediterranean as a whole.7 As early as the 1940s and 1950s, Ugo Monneret de Villard and Maria Accascina highlighted the importance of the painted ceilings in the Cappella Palatina for the study of the textile production and material culture in Norman Sicily.8 Subsequently, David Nicolle’s study of military costume in the Cappella Palatina paintings stressed the Islamic sources of the variety of military items depicted in the ceilings, underlining particularly close relations with Egypt, Ifriqiya and western Maghrib.9

CPMI B. Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina a Palermo [Mirabilia Italiae, volume XVII], 4 vols (Modena 2010), Testo I–II: Saggi-Schede; Atlante I–II AUR M. G. Aurigemma, Il cielo stellato di Ruggero II: il soffito dipinto della cattedrale di Cefalù (Milano 2004) INTRODUCTION The nave and aisles of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, commissioned by the first Norman King of Sicily, Roger II (1130–54), are covered by wooden ceilings painted with figural subjects, Arabic inscriptions and ornamental motifs.1 Although the principal subject of the paintings is an Islamic royal banquet (arab. sing. majlis), chaired by the sovereign who is accompanied by his ‘bon companions’ (arab. sing. nadīm) and entertained by musicians and dancers, authoritative studies over the last sixty years have also pointed to the presence of Christian themes.2 Notwithstanding any Christian dimension, the muqarna½ vault over the nave is both structurally and geometrically strikingly Islamic (18.25 × 5 m; c. 10–13 m high), and © British Archaeological Association 2015

91

francesca manuela anzelmo to the Islamic princely cycle, but are particularly interesting for the content they introduce in the pictorial decoration of the ceilings, and for the likely allusion they make to Roger II and to the building of the chapel and the Norman Palace.14 My research analyses 360 figures in total: 284 are in the nave ceiling — about 251 of which can be found on the muqarna½ cornice, two in the eastern side of the cavetto moulding at the base of the ceiling, and thirty-one (both busts and full-length figures) in the upper stellar domes.15 In the aisles, where much of the original painting has been lost and the ceilings have been overpainted on several occasions, seventy-six original figures are preserved.16 There are also sixty-nine small figures (half-length busts) that occupy almost all the small lunettes of the upper tiers of the muqarna½ cornice of the nave ceiling (Fig. 8) and three busts enclosed in medallions (Fig. 6) which will be considered.17 These figures do not always exhibit attributes that allow them to be identified as musicians or nadīms. In some cases they held a cup or a glass (Fig. 6) or a musical instrument (specifically a flute).18 Sometimes, however, their hands, though empty, are represented in positions that suggest the act of holding an object or playing an instrument.19 As has been pointed out, these characters either employ iconographic formulae used for the nadīm, or they are musicians, and have therefore been included in the analysis.20 The same identification has been suggested for the figures painted in the eastern side of the cavetto

While most recently, Lev Kapitaikin has examined some features of the dress, headgear and textiles worn by certain figures in the ceilings and suggested new interpretations of the iconography and pictorial programme, further supporting a Fatimid attribution for the paintings.10 The decision to devote a study to the appearance of dress and textiles in the paintings comes out of a desire to develop a better understanding of the ceilings from a largely unexplored perspective, and to discover whether and how the uses of dress and textile can shed light on a number of unresolved issues.11 To better achieve this aim, this article concentrates on a particular category of figures; the drinkers, musicians, dancers and ‘bon companions’ flanked by attendants (Figs 1–5). These are the main protagonists in the representations of the Islamic royal banquet. Furthermore, among the human figures depicted in the ceilings, they are the most varied in the types of dress and headgear they wear, while their dress is particularly rich in terms of embellishments and ornamental motifs. Other figures, such as the soldiers, horsemen, servants, do not generally wear such highly decorated dress.12 Conversely, the attendants represented at the side of a king or a nadīm as they take part in the banquet, are dressed in a manner that compliments that of the participants in the royal banquet, and are therefore included in this examination (Figs 1 and 2).13 My investigation also includes scenes and subjects that recent research has indicated are alien

Figure 2 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Crowned ruler flanked by two attendants, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (south side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Figure 1 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Crowned ruler flanked by two attendants, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (south side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo) 92

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina

Figure 5 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Female dancer flanked my musicians, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (north side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Figure 3 moulding, though their presence and meaning have been interpreted by Jeremy Johns as a reference to the theme of the Three ages of man on the basis of their position at the entrance of the presbytery and their flanking a central cross.21 The survival of attributes with some of these figures, as well as in those in the stellar domes, suggests they may have been conceived as a schematized version of the nadīms and musicians, simplified, perhaps, as a result of their being placed in small panels and therefore being less visible from the floor of the chapel.22 In the aisle ceilings, the musicians and nadīms that stand as busts at the semicircular ends of each panel, and those depicted full length in the central field of the panels, have also been examined (Figs 9, 7, 41, 42, 46).23 In total, sixty figures have been studied in the north aisle, as against just sixteen in the south aisle, as most of the original painting has been lost in this area.24 The study is organized in two ways. One consists of a typological catalogue of the dress, headgear and the ornamental motifs used on the textiles. The latter are distinguished between motifs that decorate the dress itself, and motifs that decorate the background to the panels, principally in the side ceilings.25 These patterned backgrounds employ elements such as a rod with curtain-bearing rings (Figs 18 and 29) and horizontal decorative bands (Ðirāz-like) (Figs 7, 9, 49) that suggest they were conceived as hanging draperies.26 Having determined the nature and distribution of dress, headgear and textile design, the second part of the study looks at the possible sources of the various different categories.27 The evidence provided by artistic representations and extant textiles from Islamic and Christian areas of the medieval Mediterranean,

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Musician, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (south side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Figure 4 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (east side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo) 93

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 6

Figure 7

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Bust of nadim, nave ceiling, lower part of the muqarnas-cornice (north side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim, ceiling of the northern aisle (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

and beyond, is crucial for this, and is fully taken into consideration.28 In order that this might be useful in the future I also created a database of the paintings made up of 322 entries, which is designed so to function as an interactive catalogue. This contains detailed information about each of the figures, its topographical position, an assessment of the typology of the dress and headgear, a record of the ornamental decoration of the dress and the background of the panel; information about restorations and repaintings; a photographic archive and a bibliography.29 The entries not only enable the user to consult figures across the typological categories of the costumes, headgears and textiles represented in the chapel ceilings, but they also make it possible to consider the relationship between individual figures, their dress or headgear and their position within the three ceilings. The research in its articulation allows to outline the cultural context(s) for the different types of clothing’s items and hangings, to discern which examples of dress might be considered a reflection of contemporary real use, to differentiate between the ornamental motifs of the textiles that pertain to a ‘repertoire’ and those that can be related to surviving and contemporary textiles, and to highlight the role of the costume and textiles in the paintings of the ceilings. Requirements of space do not allow me to present the entire study here, and I chose to omit headgear and to focus on the results related to the categories of dress and textiles because these at least give a good and useful overview of the main results of the research.

DRESS General common features The costumes worn by the various ‘banqueters’ have a number of features in common, namely the ankle length of the vest, wide long sleeves, a large range of ornamental motifs, and what were originally golden trimmings that are still preserved in a few cases. In addition, when depicted frontally or in a three-quarter view, both seated and standing figures display a trimmed slit that runs from the waist to the ankle, which in many cases reveals white trousers beneath the dress (Figs 2, 42, 45, 47, 49).30 There are often fluttering veils, either attached to the sleeves or other part of the dress (Figs 19, 24, 35, 45, 47), and also three types of belts: sashes with a knot where one or both ends hang loose (Figs 1 and 4); and belts with or without hanging pendants (Figs 3 and 13). The cut of the neckline can be rounded, V-shaped or polygonal (Figs 1, 2, 19, 35, 45, 47).31 Despite the damage suffered by the paintings, many dresses retain their original decoration. The photographic records make it clear that a large number of ‘banqueters’ originally wore dresses with both ornamental motifs and gold trimmings in the necklines, the cuffs, the sleeves and/or the shoulders, the hem, and the slits in the lower part of the vest. Some of these trimmings have preserved their golden decoration, in particular in the aisle ceilings (Fig. 9). Black adornaments, such as pearls, palmettes and scrolls, have occasionally survived, in spite of clumsy restoration 94

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina

Figure 8

Figure 9

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Bust of a male figure, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice, lunette of the upper part (north side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim, ceiling of the southern aisle (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

(Figs 7, 8, 13, 43). The ornaments of the sleeves also occasionally support Arabic and pseudo-Arabic letters (Fig. 9).32 Close parallels for all these features can be found in the art of Fatimid Egypt. The wide sleeves, the slit in the lower part of the dress and the decorative bands on the sleeves (the so called Ðirāz, in Arabic) can be compared with costumes depicted in Fatimid lustreware (Fig. 36) or to the muqarna½ fragment from FusÐāÐ (Fig. 37), as well as with clothes worn by figures in certain manuscripts, such as the Maqāmāt of al-©arīrī.33 It has been suggested that some of the dresses illustrated in the Maqāmāt manuscripts are types of durrā’a, a garment mentioned in written Arabic sources as a ceremonial dress worn by Fatimid and Abbasid caliphs, and used by the court entourage.34 In Sicily, dresses similar to those in the chapel in Palermo appear in the 12th-century ‘Islamicate’ paintings on the wooden ceiling in the nave of cathedral of Cefalù (Fig. 10).35 Peculiarities such as the polygonal contour of the necklines, the use of a pearl pattern in the necklines, the trimming of the slit in the lower part of the dress, the pearl, scroll and palmette patterns, or the pseudo-Arabic letters, of the bands on the sleeves and shoulders, are frequent in Fatimid art (Figs 30, 36, 37, 39).36 Meanwhile, the white trousers discernible beneath the outer tunics recall the Persian sirwal (pl. sarawil), a garment adopted in both western and eastern Islamic lands during the Abbasid period.37 The fluttering

veils that embellish many of the ceiling costumes are a Sasanian convention, attested in Fatimid art of Egypt (Figs 19, 35, 37, 45, 47).38 In some examples, the lower slit and the bottom edge of the dress worn by the Palermitan ‘banqueters’ has a jagged hem (Figs 3 and 47) that Richard Ettinghausen compared with the dress of a female dancer in a mural painting in the Abbasid Palace at Samarra.39 Furthermore, this jagged hem is again paralleled in paintings on the ceiling of the cathedral of Cefalù (Fig. 10), and in some Siculo-Arabic ivory caskets with painted decorations (Figs 11 and 12).40 The presence of gold trimmings is a feature of luxury garments as depicted on both Islamic and Byzantine art.41 However, woven and/or intricately embroidered golden bands are one of the most peculiar aspects of the famous Norman royal dresses produced in the workshops of the court (Nobiles Officinae) and now at the Schatzkammer in Vienna.42 As such, the richly decorated costumes of the ‘banqueters’ depicted in the Cappella Palatina ceilings may be thought of as a reflection of the pomp and the richness of the court of the Norman king and patron of the chapel, Roger II.43

The typological categories Even though the costumes worn by the participants at the royal banquet have common characteristics — their length, the frontal slit from the waist to the 95

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 10 Cefalù, Cathedral: Musician, ceiling of the nave (Archivio della Soprintendeza per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali di Palermo, with permission Cefalù Cathedral) Figure 11 Musicians, detail of a ‘Siculo-Arabic’ ivory casket, from the Treasure of the Cathedral of Würzburg (© Silvia Armando 2012, courtesy Cathedral of Würzburg)

ankles, the wide sleeves, the golden trimmings, and the white trousers beneath the robe — there is enough in the details to lend variety. These variations can be divided into four categories, here indicated by the letters A, B, C, D. The types A and D are in turn divided into sub-categories, A1, A2, A3, D1, D2, as they present subtly different features.

the majority of the busts that occupy nearly all the small panels of the upper tiers of the muqarna½ cornice (Fig. 8), as well as some of the lower medallions (Fig. 6). The exceptions are three dresses of Type A1 and four of Type A2 (Fig. 42) among the full length musicians in the central area of the aisle panels.46 The three examples of dresses of Type A1 and A2 of the figures in the external termination of two panels of the southern ceiling are likely to be the result of restoration in the first half of the 19th century.47

Type A. Costumes with decorative bands in the sleeves Type A is characterized for the presence of decorative golden bands in the upper arms and/or on the shoulders (Figs 1–4, 13, 38, 42, 45, 47, 49). In Type A1 there is only one band placed horizontally in the upper arms or vertically on the shoulders (Figs 2, 8, 32, 35, 38, 45, 47, 49). Type A2 presents two bands: one horizontal in the upper arm and another vertical on the shoulder (Figs 2, 3, 4, 13, 42), whilst Type A3 has a decorative band in the upper arm or on the shoulder, and where the lower part of the dress is not skirt-shaped, but looks like a trouser (Figs 27 and 28). Type A1 and Type A2 are worn by sovereigns, musicians, nadīms, dancers and attendants flanking a sovereign or a nadīm.44 Type A3 is mostly visible in musicians located in the muqarna½ cornice, particularly those represented in pairs at the sides of a vegetal element.45 As Table 1 shows, Type A1 is the most widespread across the three ceilings (about 200 examples), and is particularly concentrated in the nave, extending to

Type A1. Dresses, like Type A1, with bands in the upper arms decorated with pearl patterns, scrolls, palmettes, pseudo-Arabic letters, are found in various different categories of figures in Islamic art from the 10th to the 14th centuries (Figs 2, 8, 31, 32, 35–38, 45, 47, 49). They are modelled on luxury Islamic dresses or textiles with inscribed Ðirāz in the sleeves.48 In the Islamic examples the Ðirāz-like bands are usually arranged horizontally on the upper arms, whilst in the Cappella Palatina many appear vertically on the shoulders (e.g. Figs 2, 6, 8). The best parallels for the Palermo treatment are to be found in two examples of lustreware, one from Fatimid Egypt (Fig. 36), the 96

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina TABLE 1. DRESSES TYPOLOGICAL CATEGORY

FIGURES

TYPE A1 (decorative bands in the upper arms or shoulders)

Nadims, musicians, rulers, female dancers and musicians

170

25

3

2*

200

TYPE A2 (decorative bands in the upper arms and shoulders)

Nadims, musicians, rulers, female dancers and musicians

26

2

2

3*

33

Pair of musicians flanking a vegetal element; some female standing musicians

38

38

Nadims; Male figure with a scroll (scribe); chess players

9

9

TYPE C (white dresses with long sleeves around the wrists)

Female dancers

5

5

TYPE D1 (capes and decorative bands in the shoulders)

Nadims and musicians

7 (busts of figures)

TYPE D2 (capes and decorative bands in the shoulder and upper arms)

Nadims and musicians

TYPO A3 (decorative bands in the upper arms or shoulders; the lower part of the dress is with trousers) TYPE B (mantles, capes, showls)

NAVE CEILING muqarnas-cornice

NAVE CEILING NORTHERN SOUTHERN TOTALS domed area - stellar domes AISLE AISLE

5

2

14

45

5*

50

* Seven of the fourteen figures depicted half-length in the panels of the ceiling in the southern aisle show signs of restorations and repaintings dated between the 19th and the first half of the 20th century.

other one from Tell Minis in Siria, where the Ðirāz-like bands in the dresses of the figures seem to be arranged vertically.49 This same vertical arrangement is also the preferred form at Cefalù, and can be found embellishing the tunic of a dancer in a painted casket at Würzburg (Figs 10 and 11).50 The question as to whether the depiction of costumes with Ðirāz-like bands in the nave ceiling of the Cappella Palatina reflects their use by Roger II and members of his court has been discussed by Johns in relationship to the two images of sovereigns flanked by attendants in the south side of the nave ceiling of the chapel (Figs 1 and 2),51 and even if the evidence at our disposal, both written (Arabic and Latin) and material, does not allow us to say definitively whether Norman kings and their court wore robes with Ðirāz-like bands on the sleeves, the hypothesis is not unlikely.52

two decorative bands, horizontal in the upper arms (Ðirāz-like), and vertical in the shoulders (clavi-like). These are worn crosswise by sovereigns (Fig. 1), ‘bon companions’ (Fig. 4), musicians (Figs 3 and 42), dancers (Fig. 23).53 As such they seem to be something of a novelty, in that this peculiar combination of horizontal and vertical bands is not found elsewhere in medieval works of art in either Christian (Latin or Byzantine) or Islamic (western and eastern) contexts, with the exception of a few figures on the nave ceiling in the Cathedral at Cefalù (Fig. 14).54 The presence, in both the Palermo and the Cefalù painted ceilings, of such a combination of the decorative bands is obviously significant for discussion of the relationship between the workshops at the Cappella Palatina and those at Cefalù Cathedral. Surviving painted SiculoArabic caskets do not show anything comparable.55 Clavi (vertical bands on the shoulders) are characteristic of Roman tunics and are often depicted in Late Antique and medieval mosaics in Byzantium, Western Europe and Norman Sicily.56 Golden vertical bands

Type A2. Although obviously related to Type A1, Type A2 is characterized by a peculiar combination of 97

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 12

Figure 13

Novara of Sicily, Church of Maria SS. Assunta: Musician, detail of a ‘Siculo-Arabic’ ivory casket (© Silvia Armando, courtesy Church of Maria SS. Assunta)

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Figure raising two cups, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (south side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Figure 15 Reconstruction of the layout of ornamental bands in the tunics of Coptic tradition (after I. A. Bierman, ‘Art and Politics: The Impact of Fatimid used of tirāz fabrics’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chigago, 1980) Figure 14 Cefalù Cathedral: Figure with two vegetal elements in the hands, ceiling of the nave (Archivio della Soprintendeza per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali di Palermo, with permission Cefalù, Cathedral)

on the shoulders are present in a ceremonial alba in Utrecht, traditionally associated with St Bernulf and usually dated to the 12th century.57 However, the presence of both vertical and horizontal bands, typical of the Type A2 costumes in the Cappella Palatina, is most closely paralleled in Coptic tunics, some of which date back to the early Islamic period, others to the Fatimid era (Fig. 15).58 A linen tunic in the Coptic Museum at Cairo (Fig. 16), decorated with embroidered bands on the sleeves and shoulders and generically attributed to the Islamic period, has been identified as an example of a muzannar textile by Yedida Stillman. The term muzannar is used in the trousseau records of the Cairo

Figure 16 Cairo, Coptic Museum, Tunic with decorative bands (linen), Islamic period, inv. 6669 (© Cairo, Coptic Museum) 98

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina Type B. Costumes with upper garments (nave ceiling)

Geniza, and Stillman suggests that it should be interpreted as referring to ‘textiles with decorated bands’.59 Scholars have long recognized the importance of the different categories of artefacts recorded in manuscript fragments from the Cairo Geniza in documenting common uses for textiles and clothing among Jews, Muslims and Christians in Egypt between the 10th and the 13th century.60 There is no written or material evidence attesting to the use of clothes with Type A2 bands at the Norman court or in the city of Palermo. So, for the moment, the closest parallels for these types of dress are with Coptic Egypt. This should certainly be taken into account in discussions of the culture and geographical origin of the workshop, and indeed, Kapitaikin has recently pointed to this Coptic influence on the Moslem artists working on the ceilings at the Cappella Palatina as strongly suggestive of a Fatimid provenence for the painters, if not for the possible participation of Coptic artists alongside the Muslim ones.61

Some of the figures are outstanding for the presence of upper garments such as mantles, capes and perhaps shawls. The catalogue distinguishes between two categories: one where the upper garments of dresses do not have decorative bands in the sleeves and/or shoulders (Type B) (Figs 17–20), and a second, which we will discuss shortly, where bands are present (Type D) (Figs 7, 9, 29, 46). The distinction also reflects figural distribution among the three ceilings. The Type B dresses are located on the nave ceiling, specifically in the muqarna½ cornice, while the Type D dresses are typical of the musicians and nadīms painted half-length in the semicircular ends of the panels of the ceilings in the side aisles. There are 9 examples of Type B dresses, out of 284 figures that could be examined, all of them in the muqarna½ cornice. Seven of these are painted full length in large rectangular panels, namely three nadīms (Figs 17–19), a male figure flanked by attendants (Fig. 20), two chess players and the male figure holding a scroll. The remaining two figures are depicted half-length in the lunettes at the top.67 The white garment worn by the male figure flanked by attendants (Fig. 20) is tied under the chin and remains open at the front, covering the arms above the elbows. Owing to its frontal position it is not possible to say how much the garment stretches around the back, but it seems to be a sort of mantle with a gold trimmed hem and rounded borders. This is the only example of its kind in the ceilings. In Islamic representations of courtly banquets, there is no evidence of sovereigns or ‘banqueters’ with mantles tied under the chin like the one in Palermo. In fact, there are few examples of figures with upper garments worn over dresses in surviving representations of Islamic court scenes. The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg conserves a silver plate, dated to between the 9th and the early 11th century, depicting a banquet attended by a sovereign, attendants and musicians, where both the sovereign and the two attendants wear comparable cloak-like garments.68 These are short at the front and cover the upper chest without a visible join. In the attendant on the left, the garment is longer at the back. The upper garment of a figure pouring wine (or water?) on an ivory plaque in Paris, generally assigned to Fatimid Egypt and dated to the 11th or 12th century, rests on the right shoulder and from there wraps the figure.69 The setting for this scene is unclear, but an interesting comparison is found in the mantle of two male figures depicted in a fragment of a manuscript page from FusÐāÐ (Fig. 33).70 Thereafter there are no good comparators for Palermo surviving from the Islamic eastern Mediterranean. Among the mantles or shawls in the depictions of rulers with attendants in a manuscript of the Kalīla wa-Dimna, or in the numerous ways of wearing different types of cloaks, mantles, wraps represented in the manuscripts of the Maqāmāt

Type A3. If Type A1 and A2 motifs are found across different categories of figures, there is one type of dress that does seem to be specific to any one particular group of figures. This is the case with the dresses worn by almost all the pairs of seated musicians who flank a vegetal motif in the niche-shaped panels at the base of the muqarna½ cornice (Figs 27 and 28). The lower part of these dresses is not open like a skirt but is shaped as a trouser, and they are embellished with decorative bands on the sleeves (Type A3). Dresses of this kind are also worn by the pairs of standing musicians flanking a female dancer (Fig. 5) and by a female crowned figure (Fig. 24). A Type A3 costume is also possibly used for one of the female dancers.62 The robes of Type A3 are thus associated with figures playing musical instruments or who have a direct relation with the dance. This type of trouser-suit may have affinities with Islamic representations of female dancers, in particular with dancers depicted on Fatimid lustreware.63 The figure with a flute on the painted ivory casket from Würzburg, which belongs to the Siculo-Arabic group of caskets, wears a comparable dress with trousers (Fig. 11).64 Can we assume that the musicians wearing Type A3 dresses are indeed female? Islamic art is often ambiguous in representing the specific gender of human figures. The possibility that the pairs of seated musicians are female is arguably bolstered by the type of headdress they commonly wear: a headband with a knot (Fig. 27), for what iconographical and written evidence there is associates this kind of headdress with female use.65 Meanwhile, the crowns of some of the standing musicians (Figs 5 and 24), in conformity with documented use in Islamic culture and art, are an elegant headgear used by both men and women, particularly on ceremonial courtly occasions.66 99

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 19 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (south-eastern corner) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Figure 17 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (south side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo

Figure 20 Figure 18

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Male figure flanked by two attendants, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (south side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (south side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo) 100

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina with a trimmed bottom edge, is also worn by a figure with a flabellum in the ceiling of the nave in the cathedral of Cefalù (Fig. 21). It is just possible that there is a second example at Cefalù, though this is badly damaged and only close inspection would be able to settle the matter (AUR, fig. 60). For the moment, however, it seems to belong in this same group and that is interesting, since the figure in Cefalù holds two objects: an amphora positioned towards the centre of the chest and a processional cross. To either side of the figure are respectively a winged bull and an eagle. These have been taken to be evangelist symbols, although neither creature has a halo.81 If this second Cefalù composition has been correctly identified then the garment might just take on a specifically Christian identity. The unambiguous figure at Cefalù wearing this same upper garment (Fig. 21), and the nadīm on the ceiling of the Cappella Palatina are not specifically Christian figures (Fig. 18). Where Siculo-Arabic ivories depict possible Christian figures, the upper garments do not have the same form and length as the examples in the ceilings of the Cappella Palatina and Cefalù. In the paintings of the ivory casket of Portovenere, for example, one of the two haloed figures wears an upper garment (chasuble? phelonion?) decorated with flowers inscribed within medallions.82 As far as studies of medieval Christian liturgical vestments have been able to establish, chasubles and phelonions were not available in half-length versions akin to the upper garments in the ceilings of the Cappella Palatina and cathedral of Cefalù.83 On the other hand, medieval Islamic artefacts do show these short cloaks/mantles, as worn by the sovereign in the aforementioned silver plate in the Hermitage museum.84 Arabic sources also record that the ridā’ might cover only the upper abdomen, front and back, in a manner similar to that of a cape without a hood.85 Thus, this could be the garment worn by the nadīm with an amphora in the nave ceiling of the Cappella Palatina?86 In quoting Ibn al-Athir’s account of the Abbasid court around the 9th century, Reuben Levy tells us that on ceremonial occasions it was possible to wear a ridā’ with a thawb, the latter being a fabric placed above the ridā’.87 The nadīm in the Cappella Palatina wears a similar combination of an upper garment beneath a second fabric that covers only the back of the figure (Fig. 18). Hopefully, it is clear from what has been said so far that this white garment merits future research. In particular, it points to the need for further investigation of the relations between the artists responsible for the ceilings in the Cappella Palatina and those working in the cathedral of Cefalù. It also invites new reflections on the figures with similar white cloak-like garments: the two figures in Cefalù, one with a flabellum, the other with a processional cross and amphora (Fig. 21 and AUR, fig. 60), as well as the figure with an amphora but without explicit Christian elements in or around it, at the Cappella Palatina (Fig. 18).

of al-©arīrī — one of the richest iconographic sources for our knowledge on medieval Islamic dress — there are no direct parallels for the peculiar way of pinning the white mantle in the Cappella Palatina.71 Meanwhile, in Byzantium and the Latin West the custom was for semicircular mantles (or capes) to be tied on the right shoulder leaving only the left side of the body covered, or to be tied under the chin.72 Nevertheless, as regards medieval Islamic costume, written sources do give different names to different types of mantle, cloak or wrap that could be knotted or clasped in front of the neck so as to hang down the back, could be worn crisscrossed over the chest, or could be draped in the style of a toga. Examples also existed that could cover the head and fully envelop the body.73 It is not always easy to associate a name with a specific shape, or to be sure of the respective ways in which any one type might be worn.74 Sometimes, terms are used interchangeably. Written sources, for instance, attest to two types of mantle — ridā’ and burda — which were used by the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs on ceremonial occasions, but we do not know how they were worn, nor exactly what differences existed between the two.75 Albert Arazi’s studies suggest that the ridā’ could be short and covered only the upper part of the body.76 It might also have rounded edges and it could be worn by being simply rested on the shoulders.77 The mantle in the nave ceiling of the Cappella Palatina seems similar to this.78 Moreover, semicircular mantles, sometimes knotted at the neck, are attested in Islamic costume, even though no direct visual parallels survive, especially in representations of Islamic court life.79 As already noted, the mantle in the nave ceiling of the Cappella Palatina is the only example of its kind in the paintings, meaning that the artists probably intended to single out this figure. Perhaps he was intended to represent a specific person, or depict the holder of a particular office at the Norman court of Palermo. Whatever the case, in depicting the mantle, the artists might have represented both what they already knew from their Islamic background, and what they now saw in use at the Norman court of Palermo. The garment worn by a nadīm painted on a patterned background in the southern side of the muqarna½ cornice (Fig. 18) wears a mantle with broadly similar characteristics to that described above: white colour, gold trimmings and the effect of softness and lightness of the fabric conveyed by fine black lines. The garment worn by this figure may even have a central opening at the front, obscured by the arm that holds the amphora.80 It could be that the upper garment is a kind of short cloak/cape that covers the upper abdomen at the front and back. There are just two other figures, depicted half-length in the small lunettes of the muqarna½ cornice, that seem to wear something analogous to this garment (CPMI, Atlante II, figs 674 and 675). A comparable upper garment, white and 101

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 21 Cefalù, Cathedral: Male figure with a flabellum, ceiling of the nave (Archivio della Soprintendeza per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali di Palermo, with permission Cefalù Cathedral)

One final Type B case that deserves detailed examination is the upper garment of the nadīm with a wide turban (Fig. 19). This garment is arranged in the upper part of the chest above a costume decorated with hexagons. It is made up of three bands of different colours which take on a U-shape when viewed frontally. Since the ornamental motif that decorates the dress is interrupted only in the portion of space in which the upper garment is set, it may be a shawl rather than a cape.88 In the 13th century, this way of wearing shawls seems to have been associated with male usage.89 Conversely, in Abbasid and Fatimid art, it is seen on female figures and in particular is associated with representations of dancers.90 It is often difficult to distinguish between genders in the paintings of the Cappella Palatina, but in this case the presence of such a wide turban suggests the figure is male. Among the Type B dresses present in the muqarna½ cornice are also the upper-garments of four figures; a nadīm (Fig. 17), two chess players and the male figure with a scroll (CPMI, Atlante II, figs 694, 871). These

garments are more like short capes (both at the back and the front) without visible openings except for the neck, and they will be discussed with the upper garments in the aisle ceilings (Type D).

Type C. The dresses of some female dancers This category concerns the dresses of five female dancers. The dresses are white, tight-fitting, have no decorative bands on the sleeves/shoulders, and are equipped with long sleeves tied around the wrists so to cover the hands (Figs 5 and 22).91 Occasionally, the lower part of their costume consists of trousers (Fig. 5), whilst in other cases it is more like a skirt (Fig. 22). In the Cappella Palatina ceilings, there are twenty-one figures that can be associated with dancing. Some of these are dancers with veils or objects such as cups, swords and maybe bracelets; others are playing an instrument to accompany the dance and are moving their legs as they are also dancing.92 102

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina the dresses of which might be associated to the same Type D1.101 As mentioned above, there are four figures in the muqarna½ cornice (Fig. 17 and CPMI, Atlante II, figs 694, 871) wearing upper garments similar to those of the all half-length figures of the aisle ceilings (Figs 7, 9, 29, 46). In both nave and side aisles, these garments are bell-shaped, covering the upper torso and extending to just below the shoulders or, rarely, above the elbows. They have no openings except for the neck. In some figures (Fig. 17 and CPMI, Atlante II, fig. 871) the garment does not seem to extend down the back, and can be identified as a short cape with an opening only for the head. The way the capes are painted suggests that they are stiffer than the white garment worn by the figure with an amphora discussed above (Fig. 18). They thus seem to represent two different types of cloak or cape made of different fabrics. The absence of Christian liturgical comparanda for these short capes was discussed above, but neither are there Islamic representations that mimic the peculiar shape of the painted capes of the Cappella Palatina, except, perhaps, for one figure holding a beaker in a fragment of Fatimid lustreware from Egypt that Kapitaikin recently cited as a parallel.102 Despite this paucity of visual comparators, the painted capes of the ceilings show an affinity with a garment, the Ðaylasān muqawwar (also known as sāj, or Ðar¬a), discussed by Arazi.103 Arazi’s studies are particularly important for the new information they offer on the Ðaylasān. He revealed the existence of forms of Ðaylasān other than the one generally known that was used to cover the head, shoulders and back.104 Specifically interesting for the capes at the Cappella Palatina is the reconstruction of the Ðaylasān muqawwar: a garment with rounded rim, and with only an opening for the head; it covers the upper part of the body at the shoulder height and it has no hood.105 The sources compared it to half of a lunar disk, and classify it as a round garment.106 As regards its use, the Ðaylasān was not restricted to the judiciary. It formed part of the official costume of the Abbasid Caliph, was worn by courtiers, and also seems to have enjoyed a wide currency among the upper classes of Iraqi society during this period.107 The Ðaylasān muqawwar was also used in the Fatimid caliphate.108 It was part of the official costume of judges, jurists, notaries, the Grand Qadi and the vizier, while the Caliph wore it on special occasions.109 Moreover, at the Fatimid court in Egypt this garment seems to have had a particular meaning as a mark of the judicial authority of the caliph. On this basis, Kapitaikin suggested that the decision to award a cape to all the nadīms and musicians in the semicircular ends of the panels of the aisle ceilings could be seen as an ‘allusion to the monarch’s [Roger II’s] role as the supreme judge’.110 As already noted, the representation of the halflength figures in the aisle ceilings, painted with halos

The five dancers with Type C dresses are likely to be performing the so-called ‘sleeve dance’, using veils and the long sleeves of their dress, while all other dancers are wearing dresses that can be related to Types A1, A2 and A3.93 The variety of dances performed by this group in the Cappella Palatina should probably be seen as a reflection of the beautiful, educated and exotic slave (Arabic qiyān) who entertained Islamic sovereigns during court ceremonials, as well as in their private harem.94 The custom imitated the practice of the Abbasid court and may even have been a feature of life in the Norman Palace of Palermo.95 Nevertheless, the fact that the members of the group are concentrated on the east face of the muqarna½ cornice (including its two corners) by the entrance of the presbytery, where there are references to Solomon and David, led Kapitaikin to advance an intriguing argument that sees them as an evocation of the biblical dances of triumph performed in front of the Ark of the Covenant and Temple.96 Whatever view one may take of this particular suggestion, the iconography and the clothing of the Cappella Palatina dancers closely resembles depictions of female dancers in Egyptian Fatimid art, where representation of the dance seems to have experienced unprecedented popularity.97

Type D. Dresses with upper garments (ceilings of the side aisles) The last typological category, Type D, is distinguished by the existence of upper garments comparable to those of Type B, though sufficiently different to justify a separate category. Firstly, the upper garments of Type D are used over dresses with decorative bands in the sleeves and/or the shoulders (Figs 7, 9, 29, 46). The breakdown into Type D1 and D2 corresponds to that of Types A1 and A2. Secondly, as we will see shortly, all the dresses of Type D can be identified as capes and are typical of almost the half-figures depicted at the ends of panels on the aisle ceilings.98 A notable peculiarity is that a certain variety exists among the costumes used on the nave ceiling, whereas the capes dominate the aisle ceilings. Bearing in mind the loss of original painting on the aisle ceilings, it is possible to distinguish only five examples of Type D1 dresses in the northern ceiling and two in the southern one (Table 1).99 The number of examples of Type D2 is far greater: forty-five figures on the north aisle ceiling and five in the southern one. A case of a Type D1 dress is worn by a half-length figure on the muqarna½ cornice, while it is arguable that four more similar figures wear a cape, though the paintings are badly damaged and they would require direct examination in order to determine the compositional type exactly.100 Evident repaintings are visible in two figures in the east side of the cavetto moulding at the base of the nave ceiling, 103

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 22 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Female dancer with long sleeves that cover the hands, nave ceiling, muqarnascornice (south-eastern corner) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

104

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina and 13) and in the dress of a lion-strangler.121 A similar belt with hanging elements is worn by a musician in a Sasanian silver plate, and Kapitatikin has drawn attention to a comparison with the thonged belt worn by Salomè in a Coptic manuscript (Paris, Bib. Nationale, MS Copte 13), some of whose paintings have been held to reflect contemporary Fatimid art.122 The second aspect concerns the dress of one of the most enigmatic figures in the Cappella Palatina. This figure is at the centre of a triptych in the north-eastern corner of the nave ceiling that consists of two musicians (probably female), respectively holding a drum and a wind-flute (Fig. 24).123 The figure itself stands on a footstool wearing white trousers and a robe with decorative bands on the sleeves. Though the dress resembles a Type A dress, it is short and has a slit that runs from the waist down at the front, leaving the legs exposed. Johns and Kapitaikin are the first scholars to have attempted to identify this figure.124 They point out its proximity to the female dancers on the ceiling but, at the same time, they stress its distinctive pose — frontal and with hands held in a curious position, as if it once held an object that has now vanished — as well as the characteristics of the dress.125 Johns argued that the figure might be based on the Koranic account of the entrance of Bilqis (the Koranic name of the Queen of Sheba) at the court of the King Solomon (Koran, 27, 17–44).126 Kapitaikin thought the figure might be involved in an investiture ceremony, and drew royal Sasanian parallels for the dress and the crown adorned with ribbons.127 Certain details of this figure also compare to fragments of plastered and painted muqarna½ found in Murcia in the 1990s.128 These belonged to a palace, apparently known as Dar al-Sughra, likely to date from the time of one of the last Almoravid rulers or to Muhammad Ibn Mardanish, who ruled in Murcia from 1142 to 1172.129 The painted fragments from Murcia are all the more important as they are the only examples of Islamic monumental painting from Islamic Spain that pre-date the 14th century, and constitute unique evidence for the existence of muqarna½ domes in 12th century al-Andalus, and not only in Almoravid North Africa.130 In her recent article, Fatma Dahmani highlighted the many similarities between the Murcian fragments and the paintings of FusÐāÐ and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo.131 The particular fragment that concerns us here preserves a few traces of painted decoration that Dahmani has read as the bottom of a belted dress, left open on top of the trousers (Fig. 25), suggesting it is similar to the figure in the muqarna½ ceiling of the Cappella Palatina (Fig. 24), as well as with a dancer from the palace of Samarra (Fig. 26).132 The figure from Murcia, therefore, provides new evidence for reconsidering the crowned figure in the nave ceiling of the Cappella Palatina as a possible depiction of a female dancer.

instead of headgear and dressed in capes, differs from the more varied compositions evident in the nave ceiling, and it is possible that they were entrusted to convey a particular message. The figures, holding a vessel or playing an instrument, do not have any obvious Christian attribute, though in the past some have been repainted as saints or evangelists. Although the majority of iconographic studies have focused on the central ceiling, scholars have nonetheless provided different interpretations for the aisle figures: as musical angels; as fixed stars or souls of dead; as Elders of the Apocalypse; as an allusion of the magnificence of the Norman king and court through the representation of music — one of the principal pleasures and privileges of the Islamic sovereigns; as a reference to the Koranic Paradise; as people in the Norman court leaning out of the windows of the palace (the semicircular shape of the panels), with drapes behind of them (the ornaments of the backgrounds) that evoke of the actual furnishings of the Palace of Palermo.111 Discussion of the possible meaning of the ‘drinkers’ and musicians in the aisle ceilings of the chapel remains very much open. In concluding this section on dress in the ceilings of the Cappella Palatina, two last aspects remain to be discussed. The first concerns the presence of accessories adorning the dresses, specifically three types of belt, examples of which are confined to Types A1 and A2: the simple sash (Fig. 23); the knotted sash with one or two loose ends (Figs 1 and 4); the thonged belt with hanging elements (Figs 3 and 13).112 These belts and sashes are indiscriminately applied to representations of sovereigns, musicians, nadīms, dancers and even two attendants flanking a sovereign. Therefore, it does not seem likely that the belts denote rank.113 Currently, the dresses embellished with belts and sashes are concentrated in the nave ceiling, particularly in the muqarna½ cornice. Some of the simple belts without hanging elements or loose ends retain traces of black circular elements, probably intended to denote metallic plates.114 Similar belts and sashes are attested in Islamic art and in figures related to a courtly context.115 By restricting the comparanda to works dating from the 12th century and earlier, we can find a parallel for the simple sash-belt on the crowned sovereign in a bas-relief from al-Mahdiyya (11th century).116 The sash with a hanging end compares to the costume of a sovereign in the silver plate in the Hermitage Museum dated to between the 9th and the early 11th centuries.117 The most interesting type of belt in the nave ceiling is that with hanging circular elements (Figs 3 and 13). This seems to have a Central-Asiatic origin.118 It was adopted by Sasanian officials, and in the Islamic world was often associated with military guards of Turkish origin.119 It is mostly found, in fact, in representations of horsemen and guards.120 In the nave ceiling of the Cappella Palatina these belts are worn by some figures among the group of ‘banqueters’ (Figs 3 105

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 23

Figure 24

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Female dancing figure with a flute, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (east side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Crowned female figure flanked by standing musicians, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (north-eastern corner) (© Cosimo Franco Panini Editore Spa 2010)

ORNAMENTAL MOTIFS OF THE TEXTILES

thickness and sometimes arranged in waves, articulate the costumes, be they blue, ochre, brown or grey, and do seem to simulate the appearance of a ‘shiny’ fabric (Figs 2 and 20). Some of the costumes found in the manuscripts of the Maqāmāt of al-©arīrī similarly use white linear highlights, which have been interpreted not as simple drapery folds but as an attempt to suggest the shimmering qualities of luxury fabrics, such as moiré silk (atlas mutammar), which was produced in medieval Baghdad.137 The treatment of these streaks of white in the dresses of the Cappella Palatina ceilings is not exactly the same of these later examples.138 Rather, they seem to be more reminiscent of the lines in the dresses of the female dancers from mural paintings at Samarra and in some Fatimid lustrewares, or they can be compared with those visible in the manuscript with the BayāÅ wa-RiyāÅ of the beginning of the 13th century.139 But however different in detail, the Cappella Palatina highlights do seem to be an attempt to create a comparable effect of brightness and softness of the fabric, and make a marked contribution to the embellishment of the dresses. The same system of streaky white lines is also used for the costumes in the nave ceiling of cathedral of Cefalù, with one exception, where one finds white flowers on a blue background (Fig. 10).140 This last is the only highly patterned dress at Cefalù, a point worth making in that it offers a notable contrast to the extraordinary abundance of patterned dresses at the Cappella Palatina. Even though one should remember that the paintings at Cefalù have deteriorated, the difference between the ‘banqueters’ of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo and the figures in the ceiling of the cathedral of Cefalù is

Despite the damage that has been suffered by the paintings over the centuries, most of the costumes still retain a range of ornamental detail, although in some cases this is only partially preserved. As the result of a detailed examination of photographs taken before and after the two main restoration campaigns (1948–53 and 2005–08), it has been possible to recover examples of ornamental motifs and other type of embellishments in the dresses that have otherwise been lost, or are difficult to read.133 The headdresses, as well as the garments, were originally decorated with ornamental motifs, such as scrolls or palmettes, drawn in black (Figs 42 and 47).134 These embellishments are now mainly preserved in the haloes of the figures in the aisle ceilings (Figs 9 and 35).135 Figurative motifs are absent from the patterned costumes. The picture is dominated by geometrical and vegetal ornamentation, some of it exquisitely refined (Figs 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 18, 19, 27, 28, 32, 35, 42, 45, 47, 49; Tables 2 and 3). There are others types of patterns, essentially abstract though curvilinear, such as inverted hearts (Fig. 7 and Table 4). As outlined above, the existence of other embellishments, namely the golden trimmings of the neck, sleeves, shoulders, cuffs and bottom hems of costumes enriched with pearl patterns, palmettes, spirals or pseudo-Arabic letters (Figs 7, 8, 9, 13), further underlines the importance attached to the decoration of the ‘banqueters’ dress.136 Even where the dresses are not patterned, they are not left plain. White lines (rarely yellow), of varying 106

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina

Figure 25

Figure 26

Murcia, Santa Clara la Real: Fragment of a painted muqarnas, c. 1140–70 (© F. Dahmani Murcia 2008)

Watercolour and pencil on photograph of a mural painting from the Caliphal Palace of Samarra (Jawsaq al-Kaqani), Iraq: Dancing girl (© The Ernst Herzfeld Papers, Department of Islamic Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, [ID number, eeh1220])

TABLE 2. HEADDRESSES TYPOLOGICAL CATEGORY CROWNS THREE POINTED with or without ribbons TRIANGULAR with or without ribbons FLAT with or without ribbons TURBANS (diverse shapes) HEADBAND with Lateral knot

Two lateral knots

FIGURES

NAVE CEILING NAVE CEILING NORTHERN SOUTHERN TOTALS muqarnas-cornice domed area - stellar domes AISLE AISLE

Rulers, nadims, musicians (male and female)

25

1

Nadims, musicians, attendants

15

1

Female musicians and dancers Nadim

SEMICIRCULAR CALOTTE WITH A KNOTTED BAND

Female musicians and dancers; nadim

CONICAL CAPS

Nadims, musicians

FEMAL VEILING ITEMS

Female figures looking out the windows in representations of buildings

26

1

17

41 1

2

45

1

21

21

7

4

7

4

107

francesca manuela anzelmo TABLE 3. GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTAL MOTIFS. DRESS NAVE CEILING muqarnas-cornice

NAVE CEILING domed area - stellar domes

NORTHERN AISLE

1

2

INTERLACE with eight pointed stars six pointed stars HEXAGONS arranged in different compositions

7

LATTICE Hexagons Hexagons and rhombi Octagons and rhombi Quadlobes Square

2

11

1

1

1

2

3

1 1 1 1 1

3 8

CHESSBOARDLIKE PATTERN decorated with Cross and quadlobes Flowers QUADLOBES AND SPOTS

TOTALS

2

2

Intersecting CIRCLES ROW OF VERTICAL BANDS decorated with pearl pattern and scrolls

SOUTHERN AISLE

1

5

1

1

2

6

12

SIX POINTED STARS and ELONGATED HEXAGONS

1

1

LOZENGES

1

1

WAVY LINES arranged diagonally and alternated with SPOTS

2

2

SPOTS or MEDALLIONS

7

7

TABLE 4. VEGETAL ORNAMENTAL MOTIFS. DRESS NAVE CEILING muqarnas-cornice

NAVE CEILING domed area - stellar domes

NORTHERN AISLE

SOUTHERN TOTALS AISLE

WHITE SCROLLS with PALMETTES on a blue background

10

2

WHITE SCROLLS with PALMETTES on a ocher/pink/grey background

11

2

13

SCROLLS with FLOWERS

3

2

5

ROSETTES

6

2

PALMETTES

3

2

1

14

9 3

so marked that one suspects it is deliberate, and was a consequence of the relative original functions of the two buildings.141 There are also differences in the application of ornamental motifs and embellishments between the human

figures in the Cappella Palatina ceilings. The main distinction concerns the ‘banqueters’ and the other human figures represented in the paintings — the armed guards, knights and servants. The military guards and servants generally wear knee-length 108

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina garments with tight sleeves.142 The most widely used belt is the sash.143 Only one figure (a lion-strangler) wears a thonged belt with hangings.144 The dresses are plain with the exception of a very few that sport tiny white or black streaks.145 The main forms of embellishment for the costumes are the trimmings of the neck, the hems and the sleeves, none of which present traces of gold. Similar trimmings decorate the dresses of the knights (with horses, camels or elephants).146 They occasionally wear long garments and there is just the one example of a patterned dress.147 As to the ‘banqueters’, there is an absence of ‘hierarchy’ discernible in the decorative treatment of dress, so that figures of sovereign, musicians, dancers, nadīms, all wear dresses that are richly adorned (Figs 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 18, 19, 27, 28, 32, 35, 42, 45, 47, 49). Moreover, the attention payed to these ornamental motifs and adornments of the textiles are quite uncorrelated with their apparent prominence or visibility. Given the height of the chapel’s ceilings, little of the ornamental detailing of the costumes could be seen

Figure 28 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Pair of musicians, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (north side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Figure 27

Figure 29

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Pair of musicians, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (south side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Palermo, Cappella Palatina, Nadim: ceiling of the northern aisle (© F. M. Anzelmo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo) 109

francesca manuela anzelmo from Floor level, with the exception, perhaps, of the figures on the aisle ceilings.148 Nonetheless, even some of the half-length figures high in the stellar domes wear dresses decorated with ornamental motifs (Fig. 32 and CPMI, Atlante II, fig. 1093). Originally, the most prominent aspect of the painted ceilings must have been the gleaming gold decoration, something, in fact, recorded in 12th-century sources.149 However, bearing in mind the original lighting of the Cappella Palatina, it would be wrong to assume that the ornamental detailing the dress contributed nothing, for even though individual motifs may have been unintelligible, the cumulative effect of a multitude of figures richly dressed would have been considerable.150 Furthermore, in the ceilings of the side aisles, ornamental motifs are not only present in the costumes, but recur in the backgrounds to the semicircular ends of the panels, where the figures of musicians and nadīms

stand out (Figs 9, 29, 41, 43, 46). The designs are the same as in the dresses, and again vegetal and geometrical motifs prevail (Tables 5 and 6). In the nave ceiling there are only two cases of patterned backgrounds (Fig. 18 and CPMI, Atlante II, fig. 920). Sometimes there are two curtains — white or white with blue-grey strips — tied or knotted at the sides of the background where the figure is depicted (Fig. 49), and in one case the curtains are decorated with exagons (Fig. 38).151 Generally, however, the backgrounds are filled with ‘floating’ vegetal/floral elements and/or vessels, which been read as an allusion to the typical settings of the Islamic majlis.152 As regards the patterned backgrounds of the aisle ceilings, these can be regarded as representations of luxury hanging textiles.153 This is clear from a number of features. Firstly, some panels display a horizontal bar with rings above the patterned designs (Figs 18

TABLE 5. OTHER ORNAMENTAL MOTIFS. DRESS NAVE CEILING muqarnas-cornice HEART upside-down

1

LITTLE SPIRALS AND SPOTS

1

NAVE CEILING domed area - stellar domes

NORTHERN AISLE

SOUTHERN AISLE

TOTALS

2

1

4 1

TABLE 6. GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTAL MOTIFS. BACKGROUNDS OF THE CEILINGS’ PANELS NAVE CEILING muqarnas-cornice

NAVE CEILING domed area - stellar domes

INTERLACE eight pointed stars Quadlobes LATTICE with HEXAGONS HEXAGONS arranged in different compositions

2

ROWS OF VERTICAL or HORIZONTAL BANDS (sometimes decorated with pearl pattern and/or scrolls) con o senza motivo perlinato CHESSBOARD-like pattern Cross and quadlobes Flowers

NORTHERN AISLE

TOTALS

1 1

2

2

2

1

3

7

1

SOUTHERN AISLE

4

11

1

2

6 POINTED STARS and elongated HEXAGONS

1

1

SPOTS

2

2

110

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina and 29). Secondly, one or two horizontal bands (originally golden), decorated with palmettes, scrolls and occasionally with pseudo-Arabic letters, evoke Islamic Ðirāz textiles (Figs 7, 9, 18, 29, 41, 43, 46, 49).154 The hanging drapes that act as backgrounds at the semicircular ends of the panels in the aisle ceilings can thus be read as a ‘realistic’ element. One might either see this as a reflection of the hangings used in Islamic ceremonial, such as the majilis, or consider it as no more than a reference to the general use of lavish hangings during ceremonial occasions within royal palaces, attested in both the Byzantine and Islamic world, as well as at the Norman court.155 Given the importance of luxury textile production for the image

of the Norman monarchy, the painted patterned background could be also a sign of royal pomp and prestige. Distributed across the space of three aisles that could be used as an Aula Regis, the assembly of richly dressed figures on the ceilings were presumably intended to evoke the Norman king and his court.156 In addition to the larger cultural context revealed by the figures of the ‘banqueters’ and the implications this has for the chapel and its patron, Roger II, the study has also raised a number of other issues. The same repertoire of ornamental motifs is used for costumes, headgear, halos and the backgrounds of the panels. The similarities between the patterned dresses and background are such that in future it would be

Figure 30 Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art: Soldiers, ink on paper, Egypt, inv. 13703 (© Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art) 111

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 31 Richmond (Surrey), Keir Collection: Nadim, Fatimid lusterware, Egypt (© Keir Collection, London)

Figure 33 Male figures, page of manuscript (?) found in Fustat, Fatimid Egypt (after E. J. Grube, Studies in Islamic Painting, London 1995)

Figure 32 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Bust of a nadim, nave ceiling, detail of a star in the central domed area (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo) helpful from a technical point of view to determine how the patterns were translated into paint (Fig. 46). This would be useful both in the analysis of workshop practice, and in the dating of the aisle ceilings: whether these are contemporary with the nave ceiling (mid12th-century) or slightly later (c. 1170–80). The close parallels that exist in the treatment of the decoration of the costumes, headgear and halos suggesst the aisle paintings are likely to be close in date to the muqarna½ ceiling over the nave. Most of the ornamental motifs used for the textiles, as well as the types of garment and headgear, are directly paralleled in Islamic art. There are also good comparisons with surviving contemporary Islamic textiles.157 A number of these ornamental motifs, though used in textiles, should be considered part of a

Figure 34 Veroli, Tresure of the Cathedral: Siculo-Arabic ivory casket (detail), Falconer (© S. Armando, courtesy Veroli Cathedral) 112

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina

Figure 35 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (north side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

113

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 36

Figure

Athens, Benaki Museum: Female figure with a cup, Fatimid lustreware, inv. 206 (© Benaki Museum, Athens)

Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art: Figure of nadim, fragment of a painted muqarnas (plaster), from the bath of Abu Su‘ud at Fustat (old Cairo), inv. 12880 (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

37

Figure 38

Figure 39

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (north-western corner) (© Cosimo Franco Panini Editore Spa 2010)

Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art: Nadim, bowl, Fatimid lusterware, inv. 15501 (© Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art)

114

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina ‘conventional’ repertoire, widely used in the Mediterranean area throughout the medieval period across a variety of artistic media, lasting at least into the 13th century. These include, for example the hexagons (Figs 27, 28, 29, 38); the chequerboard-like lattice with cruciform elements (Figs 18 and 38); the quadrilobes with cruciform elements and circlets (Fig. 35); and the floral rosettes (Fig. 28).158 Striking parallels for all these compositions can be found in Fatimid art from Egypt (Figs 30, 31, 33, 36, 37).159 Ornamental motifs such as the one deploying circlets (Fig. 38) were in vogue in medieval Islamic artistic representations (Fig. 39) and textile production.160 The appreciation and/or use of this type of ornamental motif is also attested in a Christian Mediterranean environment during the 11th century, particularly in Cappadocia (Fig. 40) and southern Italy.161 In southern Italy, specifically in Bari, Philip Ditchfield has found evidence for the existence of fabrics called, among other terms, fuffude, fuffudi, buffudi.162 The terms are probably originally Arabic (from fafel) and refer to textiles decorated with spots or circlets. It is possible that such textiles in Apulia were imported from Islamic lands, either directly or via Byzantium, where textiles with spots (φουφoυλια) are recorded in written sources from the 10th century.163 Once in Apulia the textiles were used for both dresses (or capes) and furnishings.164 Thus, the ornamental motif in the ceiling paintings of the Cappella Palatina could already have been known in Sicily. Nevertheless, as was said earlier, the pattern also corresponds to a well-established Islamic artistic tradition. The circular elements of the dress of a nadīm in the nave ceiling are larger and resemble medallions (CPMI, Atlante II, fig. 813). The painting is damaged and unfortunately there is no evidence for whether the individual roundels framed designs. The costume

could be based on fabrics decorated with rotae, a textile design popular in both Byzantine and Islamic culture of which an example is recorded in the inventory of 1309 of the Treasury of the Cappella Palatina.165 Alternatively, the costume may be based on what is known as siqlatun, a luxury fabric of wool or silk characterized by circular or octagonal medallions and often mentioned in Arabic sources. This was also produced in Byzantine territories during the 10th and 11th centuries, though its precise properties are uncertain.166 The ornamental motif consisting of upside-down hearts was popular across the medieval Mediterranean both in textile production and in painting (Fig. 7).167 It is also found in ceramics from Norman Sicily, as can be seen in the representation of a horse on a polychrome glazed ceramic bowl from Caltagirone.168 Equally well known in medieval textile production, both Islamic and Christian, is the one example of a figurative motif used in the Cappella Palatina’s painted textiles. This decorates the background of a panel in the south aisle ceiling and is made up of a lattice of lozenges which frame black silhouettes of birds with a palmette on the head (Fig. 41, Table 8).169 Despite visible repainting, examination of the photographic evidence for recent restoration, together with similarities between the design and images of birds in profile silhouette on ceramics from Fatimid Egypt and Norman Sicily, suggest this motif is probably original and medieval.170 Only a close-up examination of the painting would be able to settle its status, however.171 In many ways, the most interesting of the ornamental motifs used on the chapel ceilings of the chapel are those that seem to reflect contemporary textiles known in Fatimid Egypt, namely Yemeni ikats and Indian printed textiles, both of them either found or produced in Egypt.172 Horizontal vertical bands or strips of different dimensions were well attested in textile

TABLE 7. VEGETAL ORNAMENTAL MOTIFS. BACKGROUNDS OF THE CEILINGS’ PANELS NAVE CEILING muqarnas-cornice

NAVE CEILING domed area - stellar domes

NORTHERN AISLE

SOUTHERN AISLE

TOTALS

PALMETTES (different shapes)

12

3

15

SCROLLS

2

2

SCROLLS with FLOWERS and/or PALMETTES

2

2

ROSETTES

1

1

TABLE 8. FIGURAL MOTIF. BACKGROUNDS OF THE CEILINGS’ PANELS NAVE CEILING muqarnas-cornice

NAVE CEILING domed area - stellar domes

LATTICE OF LOZENGES WITH BIRDS

115

NORTHERN AISLE

SOUTHERN AISLE

TOTALS

1

1

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 40

Figure 41

Turkey, Cappadocia: Church of St Theodore in Ortahisar, detail of the mural paintings (after J. L. Ball, Byzantine Dress: Representations of Secular Dress in Eighth-to Twelfth Century Painting, New York and Basingstoke 2005)

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim (restored and overpainted), ceiling of the southern aisle (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Figure 42

Figure 43

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Musician, ceiling of the southern aisle (© F. M. Anzelmo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim, ceiling of the northern aisle (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo) 116

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina

Figure 44 Cairo, Coptic Museum: Fragment of textile, Islamic period, inv. 1875 (© Cairo, Coptic Museum)

Figure 46 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadims, ceiling of the northern aisle (© F. M. Anzelmo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

with flowers can also be compared to medieval Egyptian textiles (Figs 42 and 43). The most relevant comparison is with a fragment kept in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, possibly dating back to the Islamic period (Fig. 44).176 Kalfon Stillman identified this textile as an example of a mutakhkhat (‘panel’) or shaÐranjī (from shaÐranj, the Arabic word for ‘chess’) fabric, as mentioned in the Cairo Geniza records.177 Finally, it should be said that my analysis of the ornamental motifs of the textiles in the ceilings has taken into account the possibility of the circulation of motifs among the various artists working at the chapel and Norman Palace (painters, mosaicists, makers of pavements and work in opus sectile and those employed in the production of luxury textiles). The use of common models on the part of the makers of surviving embroidered textiles from Norman Sicily and the painters of the ceilings have been recently discussed, in particular in relation to the iconography of the lion attacking a camel embroidered in the mantle of Roger II and the same subject painted on the southern ceiling.178 Alongside this is the close affinity that exists between the formulas used for the Arabic inscriptions in in the ceilings of the chapel, and those used elsewhere in Norman Sicily, embroidered in textiles, recorded in the royal dīwān or made in opus sectile, or carved stone or stucco.179 With regard to the ornamental motifs examined in this study, two cases are particularly worthy of attention. One concerns the interlace pattern with sixpointed or eight-pointed stars used on three costumes and as the background of a panel (Fig. 46).180 The closest comparators are the robes of the musicians and a dancer in the ivories of the National Museum of Bargello, Florence (Egypt, 11th–12th century, or Sicily, 12th century).181 However, the design is also strikingly similar to the interlace pattern of six-pointed

Figure 45 Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Musician, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (north side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

production of Fatimid Egypt and were described as jārī al-qalam (the flow of the pen) in the Cairo Geniza records.173 Appreciation of this type of textile in Egypt is also echoed in the words of Nasir’i Khusraw, a visitor to Cairo in 1047–48.174 Nasir’i records that expensive striped Sicilian silks were sold in the markets of Cairo.175 Unfortunately, none have been recognized in the surviving corpus of medieval textiles, so it is, sadly, impossible to say whether they are reflected in the striped textiles of the chapel ceilings. The ornamental motif consisting of a chessboard-like lattice decorated 117

francesca manuela anzelmo

Figure 47

Figure 48

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Musician, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (south side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

Milano, Castello Sforzesco: textile fragment, lampas in silk and golden threads, Sicily, inv. 2117T (after M. Andaloro ed., Nobiles Officinae. Perle, filigrane e trame di seta dal Palazzo Reale di Palermo, 2 vols, Catania 2006)

Figure 49

Figure 50

Palermo, Cappella Palatina: Nadim, nave ceiling, muqarnas-cornice (north side) (© R. Longo, courtesy Cappella Palatina, Palermo)

The Textile Museum, Washington: textile fragment, Abbasid manufacturing, found in Egypt, inv. 31.2 (© The Textile Museum, Washington) 118

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

stars and hexagons used in the opus sectile decoration of the Cappella Palatina.182 A second opus sectile pattern in the chapel also parallels the interlace of eight-pointed stars visible in the ceiling of the northern aisle.183 Notwithstanding the broader distribution of star-based patterns in pavements, this formal affinity between the two types of interlace (painted and in opus sectile) opens the intriguing possibility of a migration of models and motifs between the respective artists working in the chapel. The second case concerns the affinity, discussed by Maria Andaloro, between two geometrical motifs in the Cappella Palatina’s ceilings (Figs 47 and 49) and a lampas in silk and gold thread attributed to a Sicilian workshop active in the 12th or 13th century (Fig. 48).184 Andaloro has compared the lattice of rhombi in the upper part of the lampas with the ornamental motif used in the dress of a musician (Fig. 47). The decoration in the lower part of this same textile has been paralleled with the dress of a nadīm (Fig. 49).185 The similarity between the designs found in this textile (kept in the Cappella Palatina of Palermo until 1944, but now in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan), and their counterparts in the paintings of the nave ceiling, persuaded Andaloro to propose dating the textile to the reign of Roger II.186 Both of the patterns in the paintings and the lampas are ornamental motifs widely used in medieval Islamic textile production, and are paralleled in turn by two surviving textiles in particular: one is attributed to Egypt or Palestine of the 7th or 8th century; the other, on the basis of certain technical and ornamental peculiarities, was attributed by Ernst Kühnel to a 9th-century Abbasid workshop (Fig. 50).187 Nevertheless, the lattice of rhombi in the lampas now in Milan is particularly close to that of the paintings of the Cappella Palatina nave ceiling (Figs 47 and 48), not only in the correspondence that exists between the broken lines that trace the respective octagons and diamonds, but also in the similarity of the palette of colours. This raises a larger question of the potential role played by the textiles depicted in the ceilings in relation instead to other aspects and areas of the artistic production of the Norman period. The study of the Cappella Palatina paintings — investigated from the peculiar perspective of dress, headgear and textile design — has shown the important contribution that this kind of analysis can make to medieval studies at large. It can provide data that will assist in the iconographic analysis of the roles played by character types; it is helpful in determining the origin or cultural background of the artists involved; it is invaluable in helping to date the ceilings in both the nave and aisles; and it offers a wealth of detail that bears on the technical practices of artists in the ways in which they create and reinterpret the material culture of an Islamic Siculo-Norman and medieval Mediterranean world.188

I would particularly like to thank Maria Andaloro for encouraging my PhD research. This formed part of a wider interdisciplinary research project concerned with the Cappella Palatina and the Norman Palace conducted by the Dipartimento di Scienze dei Beni Culturali at the Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Viterbo. I would also like to express my gratitude to Maria Vittoria Fontana for assisting me in the preparation of this paper and discussing many crucial points, and Lev Kapitaikin for sharing with me his recent and excellent PhD research, a monograph on the painted ceiling of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo. I am also grateful to the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione e il Restauro and the Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte in Rome, the Soprintendenza ai Beni Culturali e Ambientali of Palermo and Monsignore Francesco Masi of the Cappella Palatina, for facilitating my research. Other people I wish to acknowledge are mentioned in the footnotes. NOTES 1 See B. Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina a Palermo, Mirabilia Italiae, vol. XVII, 4 vols (Modena 2010), I–II Testo: Saggi-Schede, Atlante I–II, figs 158–94, 369–84, 473–1220. For a discussion of the paintings, and extensive bibliography, see E. J. Grube, ‘The painted ceilings of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo and their relation to the artistic traditions of the Muslim world and the Middle Ages’, in E. J. Grube and J. Johns, The Painted Ceiling of the Cappella Palatina, Supplement I to Islamic Art (Geneva and New York 2005), 15–34; J. Johns, ‘Le pitture del soffitto della Cappella Palatina’, in La Cappella Palatina (as above), I Testi: Saggi, 387– 407; L. Kapitaikin, ‘“Paintings” of the Ceiling of the Cappella Palatina, Palermo’, vols I–II (unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 2011). On the paintings of the ceilings in the aisles: L. Kapitaikin, ‘The Paintings of the Aisle-Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina, Palermo’, Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana, 35 (Rome 2003–04), 115–48. 2 See the discussion in Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi, 397–400; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), vol. I, Part II. For the iconography of the nadīm in Islamic art and the ceilings of the Cappella Palatina, see J. Sadan, ‘Nadīm’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden and New York 1993), vol. VII, 849–52; Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 557–59; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), vol. I, 250–56. Themes and iconographies from Romanesque, Middle-Byzantine and also Coptic traditions have been alleged. See E. Cruikshank Dodd, ‘Christian Arab Sources for the Ceiling of the Palatine Chapel, Palermo’, in Arte d’Occidente: Temi e metodi: Studi in onore di Angiola Maria Romanini, 3 vols, ed. A. Cadei et al. (Rome 1999), II, 823–31; D. Knipp, ‘Image, Presence, and Ambivalence. The Byzantine Tradition of the Painted Ceiling in the Cappella Palatina, Palermo’, in Visualisierungen von Herrschaft Frühmittelalterliche Residenzen: Gestalt und Zeremoniel, ed. F. A. Bauer (Istanbul 2006), 283–328; Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi, 400–02; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, esp. 507–17. 3 Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I–II, figs 473–1220. On the structural features of the nave ceiling, see V. Zorić, ‘Sulle tecniche costruttive islamiche in Sicilia: il soffitto della Cappella Palatina di Palermo’, in Scritti in Onore di Giovanni M. D’Erme (Università degli Studi di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’,

119

francesca manuela anzelmo 12

Dipartimento di Studi Asiatici, Series Minor LXVIII), ed. M. Bernardini and N. L. Tornesello, vol. III (Naples 2005), 1281– 1349; F. Agnello, ‘Rilievo e rappresentazione del soffitto della navata centrale della Cappella Palatina’, in B. Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi, 295–352; F. Agnello, ‘The Painted Ceiling of the Nave of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo: An Essay on its Geometric and Constructive Features’, Muqarnas, 27 (2010), 407–48. 4 Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I, figs 160, 370; Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 429. 5 See W. Tronzo, The Cultures of his Kingdom: Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton 1997); Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1); T. Dittelbach ed., Die Cappella Palatina in Palermo -Geschichte, Kunst, Funktionen, Forschungsergebnisse der Restaurierun Hg. Im Auftrag der Stiftung Wurth (Swiridoff Verlag 2011). 6 F. M. Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti della Cappella Palatina di Palermo e l’Orizzonte Mediterraneo’, 2 vols (unpublished PhD Thesis, Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Viterbo, 2013). 7 See U. Monneret de Villard, ‘La tessitura palermitana sotto i Normanni e i suoi rapporti con l’Arte Bizantina’, in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati (Città del Vaticano 1946), 464–89, esp. 487–89; M. Accascina, ‘Les soieries siciliennes du «Tiraz» normand au XVIIIe siècle’, in Actes du Ier Congrès International d’histoire du costume (Venice 1955), 170–74 (reprinted in I. Bruno, ‘Palermo “culla della grande industria serica italiana”: la fortuna delle Nobiles Officinae tra Ottocento e Novecento’, in Nobiles Officinae. Perle, filigrane e trame di seta dal Palazzo Reale di Palermo, ed. M. Andaloro (Catania 2006), vols 2, II, 267–301, spec. 297–301); D. Nicolle, ‘The Cappella Palatina Ceiling and the Muslim Military Inheritance of Norman Sicily’, Gladius, XVI (1983), 45–145; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1). 8 Monneret de Villard, ‘La tessitura palermitana’ (as n. 7); Accascina, ‘Le soieries siciliennes’ (as n. 7). 9 Nicolle asserts that, even when European items can be isolated, they are also known in the Islamic territories mentioned above. Nicolle, ‘The Cappella Palatina Ceiling’ (as n. 7), esp. 78–79. 10 Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1). 11 A number of issues remain unresolved, and are worthy of debate: is there a comprehensive ‘programme’ underlying the decoration of the Cappella Palatina? — what is the geographical and cultural provenance of the workshop? — and how should we date the ceilings over the aisles? See above, note 1. Scholars generally support the idea that the painters arrived in Sicily from abroad. Attributions to Muslim painters range from Fatimid Egypt to North Africa and Iran. See D. Jones, ‘Romanesque East and West?’, The Connoisseur, ns 191/770 (1976), 280–85; E. J. Grube, ‘La pittura islamica nella Sicilia normanna del XII secolo’, in La Pittura in Italia. L’Altomedioevo, ed. C. Bertelli (Milan 1994), 416–31; G. M. D’Erme, ‘Contesto architettonico e aspetti culturali dei dipinti del soffitto della Cappella Palatina di Palermo’, Bollettino d’Arte, no. 80 (1995), 1–32; Grube, ‘The painted ceilings’, in Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), 15–34; Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi, 394–400; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 507–17. For an attribution to Christian artists from the eastern territories of the Norman Principality of Antioch see Knipp ‘Image’ (as n. 2), 310–22. For a new suggestion that argues for the impact of Egyptian Christian on the Cappella Palatina paintings, if not the actual participation of Coptic artists beside the Muslim painters from Fatimid Egypt, see Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 507–17. An attribution to painters working in a local Sicilian tradition, nowadays otherwise unrepresented, is examined by Jones, ‘The Cappella Palatina in Palermo: Problems of Attribution’, Art and Archaeology research papers, no. 2 (1972), 41–57; Grube, ‘The painted ceilings’, in Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1). The nave ceiling is generally dated to between 1140 and 1147 (probably c. 1143). See Johns, ‘The date of the ceiling of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceilings (as n. 1), 1–14. The aisle ceilings have been considered either later (c. 1170–80) or contemporary with the nave ceiling. See Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 429 e 553; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), vol. I, 206–09.

See above, 106–09. They are all depicted on the southern side of the muqarna½ cornice. See Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 853, 854, 872, 912; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 210, 211, 221, 228. Two panels showing a sovereign flanked by two attendants are also found in the northern side of the muqarna½ cornice, close to its north-west corner and above the platform of the throne in the western wall of the nave. The paintings are badly damaged and only a few features of the clothing are readable, but they show evidence of repaintings. See Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 514–15; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 29 and 30. See also Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 626–28. 14 All of them are in the muqarna½ cornice of the nave ceiling. In the north-eastern corner: Seated male figure with a scroll (Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 694; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry 135); Seated male figure tuning a harp-psaltery (Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 695; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry 138); Standing female figure with a crown (Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 700; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry 122). In the southern side: Two men playing chess (?) in front of a tent (B. Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 871; F. Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry 216); Man dining with two male attendants (Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 609; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry 68); Pair of musicians with end-blown flute and oval drum at a palace fountain (Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 832; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry 201). In the northern side: Palace façade with veiled women (Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 590; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry 58); Chapel interior with altar, priest (?) and youth ringing bell (?) (Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 591; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry 59). 15 Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), I Testo: Schede, fig. 369; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 247– 48. Only 7 of the 20 stellar domes in the flat zone of the nave ceiling preserve orginal paintings with the depiction of human figures (in some cases, partially repainted). See Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 1038, 1062, 1093, 1140, 1041, 1158, 1159, 1182, 1189; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 240–46. 16 Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I, figs 160, 370; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 249–322. 17 See Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 500, 538, 557; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 27, 39, 45. There is only one case where the pair of lunettes in the upper part of the muqarna½ are embellished with vegetal ornament instead of figures. Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 882. 18 Five of these figures are musicians and they are visible in the little panels of the upper part of the muqarna½ cornice. See Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 506, 843, 917, 924, 944; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 31, 32, 230, 233, 239. 19 See the figures in the little panels of the upper part of the muqarna½ cornice, for example. Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, e.g. figs 500, 538; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries e.g. 27, 39, 45. 20 See Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 557–59; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), vol. I, 280–83. 21 See Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 554–55, 557. 22 Of the 31 figures in the stellar domes only 3 hold musical instruments: oud, flute, hourglass drum. The other 28, in many cases, held a cup and/or a flower. Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 1038, 1062, 1092, 1093, 1140, 1141, 1158, 1159, 1182, 1189; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 240–46. See also Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), vol. I, 274–83. 13

120

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina 23 Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I, figs 160, 370; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 249–322. 24 For a discussion of the repaintings and restorations of the three ceilings between the 12th century and the most recent work concluded in 2008, see Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 101–32. See also J. Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 429–42 (northern ceiling), 487–92 (southern ceiling); Kapitaikin, ‘Aisle-Ceilings’ (as n. 1), 142–45. 25 I started the typological catalogue in 2008 during research at the Specialist School for the Preservation and Enhancement of Cultural Property (Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Viterbo). See F. M. Anzelmo, ‘Classification of the Decorated Garments and Headdresses in the Painted Ceilings of the Cappella Palatina’, in Dittelbach ed., Die Cappella (as n. 5), 499–505. I then revised parts of my previous study in my PhD, and included new observations on aspects of dress, headgear and textiles in the paintings of the ceilings. This led to a systematic critical analysis of the resulting catalogue. 26 For a discussion on these patterned background see above, 110–12. 27 The analysis has been carried out on the basis of a large number of photos that allow me to compare the state of the paintings before and after the two major restoration projects of the ceilings. The first of those restorations was undertaken by the Istituto Superiore per la Conservazione e il Restauro (ISCR) in Rome (1948–53); the second was carried out more recently between 2005– 08. On the unpublished restorations of ISCR, see F. M. Anzelmo, ‘Un illustre inedito. L’ICR e la prima campagna di restauri dei soffitti della Cappella Palatina di Palermo’, in Studi in onore di Maria Andaloro, Gangemi Editore (Rome 2014), 467–71; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 119–30. Some of the photos used in the study were taken with the help of Ruggero Longo in 2005 and 2007, taking advantage of the scaffolding that was then in place, and subsequently in 2010. Others belonged to the historical photografic catalogues of Italian public Institutions (namely the above mentioned ISCR, the Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte in Rome, the Archive of the Soprintendenza ai Beni Culturali e Ambientali of Palermo) or were images of the paintings taken over the last 60 years and available in U. Monneret de Villard, Le pitture musulmane al soffitto della Cappella Palatina di Palermo (Rome 1950); F. Gabrieli and U. Scerrato, Gli arabi in Italia (Milan 1979); Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1); Brenk ed., ‘La Cappella Palatina’ (as n. 1), Atlante I–II. 28 Concerning the latter we have made extensive use of published examples, and images that are available via the online catalogues of International Museums. 29 To identify the position of the paintings, I used the system of symbols established by Kapitaikin for the database of the Cappella Palatina ceilings created by the Khalili Research Centre at the University of Oxford. See Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi 387–88, 392; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 28. This Oxford database recorded all the ceiling paintings, while the database we made for my research involves a selection of human figures, highlighting their dress, headgear and the ornamental motifs used on textiles. Since both digital catalogues covered the same artefacts, I thought it was helpful to ensure they were consistent in the way they identified position, so that it should be possible to merge the two catalogues at some point in the future. All the symbols corresponding to the locations of the figures are listed on specific plans of the three ceilings provided by Kapitaikin. See Kapitaikin, ‘Aisle-Ceilings’ (as n. 1), figs 23–24; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), II, figs 1.33–37; I, 65–66. 30 For a frontal view of the trimmed slit in the dress of a stand figure see Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 697; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry 133. Kapitaikin suggested that a similar slit could be present on the back of the dress, perhaps to facilitate movement, as is seemed to be indicated by the presence of trimmed edges along the calves of the figures sitting on the ground. See Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 109.

31 For the different types of belts see Brenk ed., ‘La Cappella Palatina’ (as n. 1), Atlante II, e.g. figs 658 672, 718, 719, 723, 754, 765, 769, Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 102, 112, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 148, 171, 173, 175. 32 For the complete list of the ornaments in the trimmings of the dresses see Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 160, note 192 and Database entries. Some of the black decorations of the golden trimmings of the dresses were still visible, though partially, before the last restorations (2005–08). I have recovered some of these decorations thanks to the study of the photographic documentation preceding these restorations. All information in this regard can be found in the Database entries. 33 For the Fatimid lusterware, see Female figure with a goblet, Athens, Benaki Museum, inv. 206 (H. Philon, Early Islamic Ceramics, Ninth to Late Twelfth Centuries (Athens and London 1980), fig. 463, pl. XX, B); Musician with a turban, Fatimid lustreware, Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art, inv. 14923 (B. O’Kane, The Treasures of Islamic Art in the Museums of Cairo (Cairo and New York 2006), fig. 75). For the painted muqarna½ fragment (Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art, inv. 128880) see B. O’Kane, The Treasures of Islamic Art in the Museums of Cairo (Cairo and New York 2006), fig. 51. This is one of the fragments of painted muqarna½ brought to light in 1932 during excavations undertaken in the bathrooms near the Mosque of Abū Suʿūd in FusÐāÐ, probably destroyed in 1168. The attribution is controversial. Some scholars believe that they are Tulunid (9th century) but, in all likelihood, they should be assigned to the 11th century. See A. L. Ibrahim and A. Yasin, ‘A Tulunid Hammam in Old Cairo’, Islamic Archaeological Studies: Museum of Islamic Art, Cairo, 3 (1988), 42–46, figs 22–24; J. Zick-Nissen, in Die Kunst des Islam, Propyläen Kunstgeschichte, IV, ed. J. Sourdel-Thomine and B. Spuler (Berlin 1973), 262, pls XXXIV a–b; E. J. Grube, ‘A Drawing of Wrestlers in the Cairo Museum of Islamic Art’, in Studies in Islamic Painting (London 1995), 63–125, esp. 67–70; Grube, ‘The painted ceilings’ (as n. 1), 29, note 41; O’Kane, The Treasures (as n. 33), 64–65, no. 51; J. M. Bloom, Arts of the City Victorious: Islamic Art and Architecture in Fatimid North Africa and Egypt (New Haven and London 2007), 171–73, fig. 142. For the Maqāmāt of al-©arīrī see Paris, National Library of France, MS Arabe 5847, fol. 67v, Iraq, 13th century (1236–37) (in the website Mandragore, manuscripts online of the National Library of France. From here: Mandragore online). The surviving manuscripts of the Maqāmāt of al-©arīrī are discussed in O. Grabar, The Illustrations of the Maqamat (Chicago and London 1984). 34 See I. A. Bierman, ‘Art and Politics: The Impact of Fatimid used of tirāz fabrics’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chigago, 1980), 86; P. L. Baker, ‘A History of Islamic Court Dress in the Middle East’ (unpublished PhD thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1985–86), 68, 122–23. See also the different observations on the peculiarities of the durrā’a in R. P. A. Dozy, Dictionnaire detaillé des noms des vêtements chez les Arabes (Amsterdam 1845), 177–81; R. Levy, ‘Notes on Costume from Arabic Sources’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, ns 2 (1935), 319–38, esp. 326 and 335; Y. K. Stillman, ‘Female Attire of Medieval Egypt: According to the Trousseau Lists and Cognate Material from the Cairo Geniza’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1972), 35; M. Ahsan, Social life under the Abbasid: 170–289 AH, 786–902 AD (London and New York 1979), 39–40 and 56; P. Sanders, Ritual, Politics and the City in Fatimid Cairo (Albany 1994), 53, 104; and Y. K. Stillman, Arab Dress. A Short History from the Dawn of Islam to Modern Times (Leiden and Boston 2003), 47. 35 On the painted ceiling in the cathedral of Cefalù, founded by Roger II, see M. G. Aurigemma, Il cielo stellato di Ruggero II: il soffito dipinto della cattedrale di Cefalù (Milano 2004), figs 191 and 195. As regards the debate on its chronological, stylistic and iconographic relations with the paintings of the ceilings in the Cappella Palatina of Palermo, see V. Zorič, ‘Problemi storicoartistici e di conservazione relativi al tetto della Cattedrale di Cefalù e alle sue pitture islamiche’, B.C.A. Sicilia, nos 3 and 4 (1981), 118– 31, esp. 129; V. Zorič and T. Viscuso, ‘La copertura della nave,

121

francesca manuela anzelmo 44 See Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, e.g. figs 514, 651, 667, 719; 853, 854, 878, 912; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Data base entries 29, 92, 110, 146; 210, 211, 221, 228. 45 See also the standing musicians flanking a crowned figure and a female dancer (Figs 5 and 24). Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 96, 98, 121, 123; Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, 655 and 700. Another case of dress type A3 may be worn by a female dancer.See Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry, 109. Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, 668. About the dress of the dancers see above, 102–03. 46 Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 287, 290, 291, 300, 301, 310, 311. 47 See Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), vol. I, 115–18; Database entries, 315, 317, 321. 48 See Curatola, ‘Il costume’ (as n. 37). As regards the comparisons of the ornamental motifs of the Ðirāz-like bands in the paintings of the Cappella Palatina, see above, 96–99; Y. K. Stillman, P. Sanders, ‘Æirāz’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition (Leiden 2000), vol. X, 534–38. 49 Figure with two beakers, lustreware, Syria, Tell Minnis, late 12th century, Copenaghen, David Collection, inv. n. Isl. 195 (). See Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 110; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 189. 50 See above, notes 35 and 40. 51 J. Johns, ‘Re Normanni e Califfi fatimidi: Nuove prospettive su vecchi materiali’, in Giornata di Studio della Fondazione Leone Caetani, Roma 3 maggio 1993, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, ed. B. Scarcia Amoretti (Roma 1995), 9–50, esp. 40–46; idem, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi, 400 and 405 and II Testi: Schede, 580–82. 52 See Johns, ‘Re Normanni’ (as n. 51). Arabic literary sources, such as Ibn Jubayr (1145–1217) and al-Maqrizi (1364–1442), suggest the adoption of the Islamic courtly costume by both Roger II and William II, but unfortunately they do not provide more specific indications about the characteristics of the Islamic garments worn by the Norman kings. For al-Maqrizi, see A. De Simone, ‘Il Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo visto dall’Islam africano’, in Atti delle XIII giornate normanno-sveve, ed. Goisuè Musca (Bari 1999), 261–93; J. Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily. The Royal Dīwān (Cambridge 2002), 80–82; Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi, 406; A. Nef, Conquérir et Gouverner la Sicile islamique aux XIe et XIIe siècles (Roma 2011). For Ibn Jubayr, see Muhammad b. Ahmad Ibn Jubayr, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr — Rihlat Ibn Jubayr, eds. William Wright and M. J. de Goeje (Leiden 1907). Latin sources are not generous in providing details useful in this regard. See the Coronatio Regis in R. Elze, ‘Tre “ordines” per l’incoronazione di un re e di una regina del regno normanno di Sicilia’, in Atti del Congresso Internazionale sulla Sicilia normanna, Palermo (Palermo 1973), 438–59, and the description of the Roger II’s Coronation Day by Alexander of Telese in Ystoria Rogerii regis Sicilie Calabrie atque Apulie, Fonti per la storia d’Italia 112, ed., and trans. L. de Nava and D. Clementi (Rome 1991). The luxury dresses of the Norman Kings, made in the royal workshop and today kept at the Schatzkammer in Vienna, do not have Ðirāz-bands on the sleeves. Nonetheless, refined embroidered bands, also with Arabic inscriptions with the name or a reference to Kings Roger II and William II, are used on the hems and are a peculiar feature of the dress and royal insignia of the Norman kings. See Andaloro ed., Nobiles Officinae (as n. 7), I, 45–63. In medieval Islamic culture, the Ðirāz-bands were used also on the hems of dresses and mantles, around the neckline or on headgear, principally turbans. See Bierman, ‘Art and Politics’ (as n. 34), 81–82; 96–139; Stillman, Arab dress (as n. 34), 120–37. For considerations on dress in Norman Sicily, within and outside the Norman court, see S. Tramontana, Lettera a un tesoriere di Palermo (Palermo 1988), 49–51 and 85–94. On Norman southern Italy, mainly on Apulia region, see P. Ditchfield, La culture matérielle médiévale: l’Italie méridionale byzantine et normande (Rome 2007) and T. Goskar, ‘Material Worlds: The Shared Cultures of Southern Italy and Mediterranean Neighbours in the Tenth to Twelfth Centuries’, Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean, 23 (2011), 3, 189–204.

i suoi restauri e la sua decorazione pittorica’, in Documenti e testimonianze figurative della basilica ruggeriana di Cefalù (Palermo 1982), 119–26, esp. 123; Tronzo, The Cultures (as n. 5), 62; and Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), I Testi: Saggi, 396–97. 36 See the numerous examples mentioned in Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 109–10. See also Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 186. 37 On the sarawil see Ahsan, Social Life (as n. 34), 45; Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), 47. Persian-style trousers beneath the robe are visible in the statue of a prince from the Ummayad Palace of Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi (c. 725–50); in the mural painting with a bearer of a gazelle (?) from the palace of Jawsaq al-Khāqānī at Samarra (second half of the 9th century). See R. Ettinghausen, O. Grabar and M. Jenkins-Madina, Islamic Art and Architecture 650–1250 (New Haven and London 2001), 51; M. V. Fontana, La pittura islamica dalle origini alla fine del Trecento (Rome 2002), pl. IV. For parallels in Fatimid art of Egypt, see Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 111. Trousers (often white) beneath long dresses are to be found in different figures of the miniatures of Islamic medieval manuscripts until the 14th century. See G. Curatola, ‘Il costume nelle miniature islamiche’, in Atti del Convegno di Studi, Trento 7–8 ottobre 2002, L. Dal Prà, ed. P. Baldi (Trento, 2006), 89–105. 38 See E. H. Peck, ‘The representation of Costumes in the Reliefs of Taq-i-Bustan’, Artibus Asiae, ns 31, 2/3 (1969), 101–46; J. Rose, ‘Sasanian Splendor: The Appurtenances of Royalty’, in Robes and Honor. The Medieval World of Investiture, ed. S. Gordon (Burlington 2001), 35–56. See also Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n.1), I, 111. 39 R. Ettinghausen, ‘Painting in the Fatimid Period. A Reconstruction’, Ars Islamica, 9 (1942), 112–24, esp. 114. 40 See in particular the paintings in the Cathedral of Cefalù that Maria Aurigemma has attributed to an artist probably working also in the ceilings of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo. Aurigemma, Il cielo stellato (as n. 35), figs 191 and 195. Similar jagged hems are visible in other painted figures of Cefalù’s ceiling made by other artists (ibid., figs 222–23). As regards the ivory casket see, among other possible examples: the Painted ivory casket of the Church of Saint Maria Assunta, Novara di Sicilia (C. Ciolino, entry no. 39, in Federico II e la Sicilia: dalla terra alla corona, ed. Maria Andaloro (Palermo 1995), 2 vols, II, 186–89; S. Armando, ‘Avori ‘arabosiculi’ nel Mediterraneo Medievale’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Viterbo 2012, Database, NOV DI SIC 001); the Painted ivory casket from the Treasure of the Cathedral of Würzburg. P. B. Cott, Siculo-Arabic Ivories (Princeton 1939), 38–39, no. 47a–d, Pl. 25; Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), fig. 31.1. 41 Golden trimmings in dresses are present in Islamic manuscripts, such as the Kitāb al-Aghānī of Badr ad-Dīn Luʾluʾ (Iraq 1217–19), Istanbul, Millet Library, MS Feizullah Efendi 1556, fol. 1r (see R. Hillenbrand, Islamic Art and Architecture (London 1999), fig. 100), and the Maqāmāt of al-©arīrī, Paris, Bib. Nationale, MS Arabe 5897, fols 1v, 138v. See also Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 110 for comparisons with decorations of manuscripts of the late 12th and 13th century perpetuating or reflecting Fatimid art of Egypt (such as the Kalīla wa-Dimna, Paris, Bib. Nationale, MS Arabe 3465, Egypt or Syria, first quarter of the 13th century; and a Coptic Gospel bookfrom Damietta of 1178–80; Paris, Bib. Nationale, MS Copto 13, Egypt (Damietta); For images of both of the manuscripts, see Mandragore online. For evidence in Byzantine art, see the representations of Michael VII Doukas (1071–78), in Paris, Bib. Nationale, MS COISLIN 79, fol. 2v, and Alexios I Komnenos and Christ in throne, in Rome, Vatican Library, MS Vat. gr. 666, fol. 2v (post 1109–11). M. G. Parani, Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th–15th Centuries) (Leiden 2003), figs 6 and 13. 42 See Andaloro ed., Nobiles Officinae (as n. 7). 43 See Anzelmo, ‘Classification’ (as n. 25), 502; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 111. The central role played by the production of luxury textiles and dresses in the construction of a kingly identity for the Normans is well known. See Andaloro ed., Nobiles Officinae (as n. 7).

122

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina 53 On the basis of the figure holding two cups with the arms raised (Fig. 13), it can be assumed that the vertical bands on the shoulders can reach the waist also in the other representations of human figures where this particular is hidden by the position of the arms. 54 Aurigemma, Il cielo stellato (as n. 35), figs 53, 195, 210. 55 See above, note 40. 56 See Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I, e.g. figs 267, 286–93. 57 This is among the few existing medieval ceremonial alba. See M. Flury-Lemberg, Textile conservation and research: a documentation of the Textile Department on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Abegg Foundation (Bern 1988), 190–95, figs 323–25. 58 R. Pfister, Tissus coptes du Musée du Louvre (Paris 1932); W. F. Volbach and E. Kühnel, Late Antique Coptic and Islamic Textiles (New York 1936); J. Beckwith, ‘Coptic Textiles’, Ciba Review, 12 (1959), 2–5; D. Thompson, Coptic Textiles in the Brooklyn Museum (New York 1971); V. Gervers, ‘Weavers, Tailors and Traders. A New Collection of Medieval Islamic Textiles in the Royal Ontario Museum’, Hali, 2 (1979), 125–32; A. Baginski, A. Tidhar, Textile from Egypt: 4th–13th centuries C.E. (Jerusalem 1980). 59 Y. K. Stillman, ‘New data on Islamic textiles from the Geniza’, in Patterns of everyday life, ed. D. Waines (Aldershot-Ashgate 2002), 197–208, fig. 3 (linen tunic, Islamic period, Cairo, Coptic Museum, inv. 6669). See another example of Coptic tunic with decorative bands on sleeves and shoulders in Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), fig. 51 (linen tunic, Cairo, Islamic period, Coptic Museum, inv. 2066). About the trousseau lists (dating mainly from the Fatimid and Ayyubid periods) and their importance for the study of the attire of both the Jewish and Muslim women in medieval Egypt, see Stillman, ‘Female Attire’ (as n. 34); Y. K. Stillman, ‘The Importance of the Cairo Geniza Manuscripts for the History of Medieval Female Attire’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 7 (1976), 579–89; Y. K. Stillman, ‘Textiles and Patterns Come to Life through the Cairo Geniza’, in Islamische Textilkunst des Mittelalters: aktuelle Probleme (Riggisberg 1997), 35–52; Textile muzannar are mentioned in the trousseau lists especially for linen, silk or brocade dresses and mantles. Stillman, ‘Female Attire’ (as n. 34), tables 1, 2, 6; Stillman, ‘The Importance’ (as above), 585; Stillman, ‘New data’ (as above), 205. 60 See Stillman’s studies in note 59 and Gervers, ‘Weavers’ (as n. 58), 131. 61 Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 513–16. 62 See above, note 45. 63 See Female dancer, Fatimid lustreware, Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art, inv. 15950 (Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling, as n. 1, fig. 34.3, 34.4). See also the observations in Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 464–70. 64 See above note 40. 65 Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 216–19. 66 Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 224–27. 67 Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 116, 117, 135, 169, 181, 216, 221, 238. See Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 674–75; 694, 742, 789, 871, 878, 940. 68 See N. Dürr and J. P. Croisier, Céramiques islamiques dans les collections genevoises, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire (Geneva 1981), fig. 23; B. I. Marshak, Silberschätze des Orients. Metallkunst des 3.–13. Jahrhunderts und ihre Kontinuität (Leipzig 1986), fig. 30. 69 Paris, Louvre, inv. 6265. See Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), fig. 92.1 A–C. 70 See E. J. Grube, Studies in Islamic Painting (London 1995), 76, fig. 89r. 71 Paris, Bib. Nationale, MS Arabe 3465, fols 15v, 20v, 23v, 34v (Egypt or Syria, first quarter of the 13th century). See Mandragore online. See also Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), 73–74. For a bibliography on the different manuscripts of the Maqāmāt of al-©arīrī; see above, note 33.

72 See W. Tronzo, ‘Il manto di Ruggero II. Le parti e il tutto’, in Andaloro ed., Nobiles Officinae (as n. 7), II, 257–63. 73 Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), 73–74. 74 See Stillman, ‘Female Attire’ (as n. 34), 46–50; 52–54; 59–61; 120–23; 179–88; Y. K. Stillman, ‘Libās’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden 2000), vol. V, 732–50. 75 For instance, Abu Bakr was wearing a ridā’during a public cult. See Levy, ‘Notes on Costume’ (as n. 34), 328. The caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 908–32), instead, was wearing a burda over a brocade dress during a procession from Baghdad to Raqqa (ibid., 331–32). On burda and ridā’ mantles, see Levy, ‘Notes on Costume’ (as n. 34), 331–32; A. Arazi, ‘Noms de vêtements et vêtements d’après al-Ahādīth al-Hisān fī Fadl al-taylasān d’al-Suyūtī’, Arabica, ns 23 (1976), 109–55, esp. 117–24 (where also the use of the words burda and ridā’ as synonyms is discussed); Ahsan, Social Life (as n. 34), 53–55; Baker, ‘A History’ (as n. 34), 61–66; Sanders, Ritual (as n. 34), 24 (as regard the burda in Fatimid Egypt); Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), 8, 9, 12, 13, 26, 27, 33, 43–45, 73, 74. The ridā’ could be also decorated with poetry. See Stillman, Arab dress (as n. 34), 90 and 127. 76 Arazi, ‘Noms de vêtements’ (as n. 75), 118–23. 77 Ibid. 78 See also Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 114–15. 79 See J. Deér, ‘Byzanz und die Herrschaftszeichen des Abendlandes’, in Byzanz und das abendländische Herrschertum, Sigmaringen, ed. P. Clasen (Sigmaringen 1977), 42–69, esp. 53–54; R. Bauer, ‘Manto di Ruggero II’, in Andaloro ed., Nobiles Officinae (as n. 7), I, 45–49, esp. 47. 80 The possibility was also noted by Kapitaikin. Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 115. 81 See Aurigemma, Il cielo stellato (as n. 35), 92. 82 La Spezia, Museo Diocesano. See C. Di Fabio, in Federico II e la Sicilia: dalla terra alla corona, ed. Maria Andaloro (Palermo 1995), 2 vols, II, 206–07; Armando, ‘Avori arabo-siculi’ (as n. 40), Database, n. inv SP002. See also the painted ivory casket in London, Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. 603–1902. Cott, ‘Siculo-Arabic Ivories’ (as n. 40), cat. no. 39; J. Ferrandis, Marfiles arabes de Occidente (Madrid 1935–40), II, cat. no. 12; R. Pinder-Wilson, C. Brooke, ‘The Reliquary of St. Petroc and the Ivories of Norman Sicily’, in Archaeologia, 104 (1973), 261–305, esp. 276. 83 J. Mayo, A History of Ecclesiastical Dress (London 1984), 40–45, 141–43; K. C. Innemée, Ecclesiastical Dress in the Medieval Near East (Leiden, New York and Cologne 1992), 48–50, 78. See, among other existing examples, the chasuble of Bishop Bernard of Hildesheim at St Godehard, Hildesheim (Flury-Lemberg, ‘Textile conservation’ (as n. 61), 196–207). 84 Dürr and Croisier, Céramiques islamiques (as n. 68), fig. 23; Marshak, Silberschätze (as n. 68), fig. 30. 85 Levy, ‘Notes on Costume’ (as n. 34), 119. 86 Kapitaikin has suggested to identify this upper garment as a mantle ridā’. See Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 114–15. 87 Ibid., I, 114–15. Levy, ‘Notes on Costume’ (as n. 34), 323. 88 This garment is considered a cape by Kapitaikin. See Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 116. A striped shawl is worn by a female figure in a manuscript of the BayāÅ wa-RiyāÅ (Spain or North Africa, early 13th century), Rome, Vatican Library, MS Arabo 368, fol. 13. However, the shawl here covers the back, and is supported on the shoulders. See Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), fig. 11. On the manuscript, see C. Robinson, Medieval Andalusian Courtly Culture in the Mediterranean: Hadîth Bayâd wa Riyâd (London 2007). 89 See Stillman, Arab dress (as n. 34), 74, and the Maqāmāt of al-©arīrī, Paris, Bib. Nationale, MS Arabe 6094, fol. 174 (Mandragore online). The manuscript was compiled in Syria (Jazira) in 1222–23. 90 See the Female dancers found in 9th-century mural paintings from Samarra (E. Herzfeld, Die Malereien von Samarra, Berlin 1927, pls I and II) and the Female dancer in a Fatimd lustreware in the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, inv. 15950 (Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), fig. 34.3).

123

francesca manuela anzelmo 91 Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 097, 108, 137, 164, 168. See also Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 655, 667, 699, 743, 746. 92 Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 092, 093, 096, 097, 098, 108, 109, 110, 111, 131, 133, 136, 137, 143, 144, 145, 146, 165, 164, 167, 168; Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 651, 652, 655, 667, 668, 696, 697, 698, 699, 718, 719, 743, 744, 745, 746. 93 See above, 96–99. The long-sleeve dance has Chinese or Central Asian origins and is attested in the art of Northern Iran and Fatimid Egypt by the 10th century. See Grube, Studies (as n. 76), 28–30. 94 See Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 591–92; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), vol. I, 470–73. 95 Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 471–73. 96 Ibid., I, 473–82. 97 See E. J. Grube, ‘Fostat Fragments’, in The Keir Collection. Islamic Painting and the Arts of the Book, ed. B. W. Robinson et al. (London 1976), 25–128, esp. 44–45; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 469. The figures of dancers in the fragment from FusÐāÐ are in Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art, no. inv. 12880 (Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), II, fig. II.21); the wooden panels from the Western Fatimid Palace are in Paris, Louvre Museum, no. MAO 460 (E. Anglade, Musée du Louvre: Catalogue des boiseries de la section islamique (Paris 1988), 64, n. 33). For the lustreware of the 11th– 12th century in Washington, Freer Gallery of Art, acc. no. 46.30, see Grube and Johns, ‘The Painted Ceiling’ (as n. 1), fig. 34.3. 98 Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n.1), Atlante I, figs 160, 370; Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 249–322. Also two nadīms in the central area of a panel in the northern ceiling show this type of dress (ibid., Database entries 304–05). 99 See note 33. 100 Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 149, 150, 151, 160,179; Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 711, 730, 731. As it has been suggested by Kapitaikin, two figures of these mentioned above could also be representations of veiled women, similar to those that look out of the windows in the scenes with the facade of a Palace and the two musicians at the sides of a fountain. See Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), vol. I, 281; Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 590, 832. 101 See above, 92–93 and note 21. 102 Cairo, Museum of Islamic Art, inv. 5296/5. See La céramique égyptienne de l’époque musulmane, Musée de l’Art Arabe du Caire (Basel 1922), pl. 50; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 116–17 and II, fig. 2.101. 103 See Arazi, ‘Noms de vêtements’ (as n. 75), 129–55, esp. 136– 42. The relation between the Ðaylasān muqawwar and the capes painted in the side ceilings of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo has been recently discussed by Kapitaikin. See Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 117–20. 104 Arazi, ‘Noms de vêtements’ (as n. 75), 129–55, esp. 136–42. 105 Ibid., 136–142. The shape of the Ðaylasān muqqawar has similar features with the ridā’ mudawwar mentioned in relation to the drinker with an amphora (see above, Fig. 18). In this regard, Albert Arazi highlights that the sources sometimes refer to the Ðaylasān muqqawar as al- ridā’ mudawwar (ibid., 137–38). 106 Arazi, ‘Noms de vêtements’, 137 and 141. After the survey on the informations derivable from different written sources, Arazi writes, ‘La conclusion qui s’impose est que le Ðaylasān al-muqqawar ou sāğ devait ressembler au collet-manteau avec une ouverture plus large au col, porté, de nos jours, par les agents de police en France. I1 semble que ce collet-manteau connu par les anciens Israélites — les docteurs cites par al-Suyuiti sont unanimes a le leur attribuer — soit passé a l’ancien empire perse sassanide, où les Arabes le connurent’. Ibid., 138. 107 Arazi, ‘Noms de vêtements’, 140-42. In the wardrobe of the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid, besides 1000 ridā’ there were also 1000 Ðaylasān. See Levy, ‘Notes on Costume’ (as n. 34), 334–35; Arazi, ‘Noms de vêtements’ (as n. 75), 141 and 142. 108 See Arazi, ‘Noms de vêtements’ (as n. 75), 142; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 119 (the scholar mentions other sources in addition to those studied by A. Arazi).

109

Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 119 Ibid., I, 117–20. 111 K. Meyer-Baer, Music of the Spheres and the Dance of the Death (Princeton 1970), 89; A. Simon-Cahn, ‘Some Cosmological Imagery in the Decoration of the Ceiling of the Palatine Chapel in Palermo’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Columbia University, 1978), 32–33; T. Seebass, ‘Musikdarstellung und Psalterillustration im früheren Mittelalter’, Studien ausgehend von einer Ikonologie der Handschrift Paris Bibliothèque Nationale fonds latin 1118, 2 vols (Bern 1973), I, 172; D. Gramit, ‘I dipinti musicali della Cappella Palatina di Palermo’, Schede Medievali, 10 (1986), 5–55, esp. 35–40; Kapitaikin, ‘Aisle-Ceilings’ (as n. 1), I, 121 and 128–29. 112 There are twelve examples of belts without hanging elements: Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 17, 102, 112, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 154, 171, 188, 211, 245. See also Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 658, 672, 716, 718, 719, 734, 754, 796, 854, 989, 1158, 1159. Thirteen examples of knotted sahes: Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 7, 10, 59, 118, 142, 147, 156, 210, 224, 228, 232. See also Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as in. 1), Atlante II, figs 591, 679, 700, 712, 716, 738, 853, 888, 912, 920, 959. Four examples of belts with hanging elements: Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 22, 148, 173, 175; see also Brenk ed., ‘La Cappella Palatina’ (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 496, 723, 765, 769. 113 See Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 213–15. In the Sasanian and Seljuk costume different types of belts were associated to the social rank. See Peck, ‘Representation of Costumes’ (as n. 38), 117–20; Baker, ‘History of Islamic Court Dress’ (as n. 34), 116–17. 114 See Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 112; Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 672. 115 As regards the different belts and sashes used in medieval Islamic aristocratic contexts see Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), 35, 48, 51, 52, 58, 63,64. About the Seljuk metallic belts see Baker, ‘History of Islamic Court Dress’ (as n. 34), 116–17. 116 Tunis, Bardo Museum. See G. Marçais, L’architecture musulmane d’Occident: Tunisie, Algerie, Maroc, Espagne et Sicilie (Paris 1954), 76; Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), fig. 31.8. 117 Dürr and Croisier, Céramiques islamiques (as n. 68), fig. 23; Marshak, Silberschätze (as n. 68), fig. 30. In Egyptian Fatimid art, sashes tied around the waist, with or without a knot, are often present in figures of servants and attendants represented in lustrewares or ivories. See Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 113–14. Evidently, sashes could be used in different contexts. Differences were due to the preciousness of the materials (see F. M. Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), 213–15). The Fatimid examples have been compared to sashes and belts in the depiction of servants, attendants and guards in the muqarna½ cornice of the nave ceiling in the Cappella Palatina (Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 113–14). See also Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, figs 559, 579, 618, 703, 704. 118 See Peck, ‘Representation of Costumes’ (as n. 38), 117–20; I. Jansson, ‘Gürtel und Gürtelzubehör vom orientalischen Typ’, in Birka II:2. Systematische Analysen der Gräberfunde, ed. G. Arwidsson (Stockholm 1986), 77–108; B. Overlaet, ‘Regalia of the ruling classes in Late Sasanian Times: the Riggisberg strap mountings, swords and archer’s Fingercaps’, in Entlang der Seidenstrasse Frühmittelalterliche Kunst zwischen Persien und China in der Abegg-Stiftung, ed. C. Otavsky (Abegg-Stiftung, Riggisberg 1998), 267–97. 119 See Peck, ‘Representation of Costumes’ (as n. 38), 117–20; Baker, ‘History of Islamic Court Dress’ (as n. 34), 115–17; E. H. Peck, ‘Clothing In Persia from the Arab conquest to the Mongol invasion, in Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. V (1992), Fasc. 7, 760–78, esp. 760–78. 120 Belts with hanging elements are worn by a falconer in a mural painting from ‘Vineyard Tepe’ at Nishapur, probably 9th century, and by the guards depicted in the mural paintings of the Ghaznavid Palace of Lashkari Bazar in Afghanistan, 11th century. See 110

124

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina 143

C. K. Wilkinson, Nishapur. Some Early Islamic Buildings and their Decoration (New York 1986), 202–17, figs 2.38–2.41; D. Schlumberger, Lashkari Bazar: une résidence royale ghaznévide et ghoride, 1A-L’Architecture, (Paris 1978), pl. 122 b. 121 Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, fig. 588. 122 See Herzfeld, Die Malereien (as n. 90), 28, fig. 13; Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), fig. 31.10; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 114. 123 Among the figures catalogued in this study, there are three more cases where the individual peculiarities of an item of clothing do not recur in that worn by other ‘banqueters’. In some cases, these peculiarities can be related to the iconographic models used by the artists. See Anzelmo,’I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 167–69. 124 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 601–02; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 482–86. 125 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 601–02; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 482–86. 126 Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testi: Schede, 601–02. 127 Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 482–86, and 479–80. 128 J. Navarro Palazòn and P. J. Castillo, ‘Casas y Palacios de Al-Andalus, siglos XII–XIII’, in Casas y palacios de al-Andalus, El Legado Andalusi (Granada 1995), 17–37; J. Navarro Palazòn, ‘La dâr a½-¼uġrà de Murcia. Un palacio andalusì del siglo XII’, in Colloque International d’archéologie islamique, ed. Roland-Pierre Gayraud (Cairo 1998), 97–139; F. Dahmani, ‘Remarques sur quelques fragments de peinture murale trouvés à Murcie’, Tudmīr (Murcia), 1 (2008), 159–71. For a study on the diffusion of painted muqarna½ with figural decorations across the Islamic and Christian Mediterranean during the 11th and 12th centuries, see Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 62–80. 129 Navarro Palazòn, ‘La dâr aṣ-Ṣuġrà’ (as n. 128), 116–22, figs 19–24. 130 The existence of muqarna½ domes in al-Andalus has been supposed by Jonathan Bloom, though he does not seem to be aware of the painted fragments of Murcia. See J. Bloom, ‘Almoravid Geometric Designs in the Pavement of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in The Iconography of Islamic Art: Studies in Honour of Robert Hillenbrand, ed. B. O’Kane (Edinburgh 2005), 61–80, esp. 74–78; J. Bloom, Arts of the City Victorious: Islamic Art and Architecture in Fatimid North Africa and Egypt (New Haven and London 2007), 190–93. 131 Dahmani, ‘Remarques’ (as n. 128), 159–71. I thank Mariam Rosser-Owen for alerting me to Fatma Dahmani’s article on the Murcia paintings. 132 Dahmani, ‘Remarques’ (as n. 128), 164–65, fig. 9. 133 See Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), 1, 115–30 and Database entries, 52, 78, 102, 112. 134 See Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), 1, 216–31: See also examples of ornamental motifs in crowns and headbands with a knot in Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 001, 013, 088, 122, 155, 159, 170, 311; Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I–II, 382, 637, 700, 739, 747, 753, 961, 982. 135 See Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 249–322. 136 Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 46, 94, 104, 106, 114, 130, 132, 166, 175, 258, 260, 261, 263, 264, 270, 271, 276, 304, 309, 310, 312. 137 See M. Lombard, Les textiles dans le monde musulman: VII– XII siècles (Paris and New York 1978), 246–47; Baker, ‘History of Islamic Court Dress’ (as n. 34), 122–23. 138 See note 41. 139 E. Herzfeld, Die Malereien (as n. 90), pls I and II; For the Female dancer, Fatimid lustreware, Washington, Freer Gallery of Art, acc.no 46.30, see Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), fig. 34.3. For the manuscript BayāÅ wa-RiyāÅ, see above, note 88. 140 Aurigemma, Il cielo stellato (as n. 35), figs 46, 53, 63, 112–117, 126–28. 141 See note 35. 142 See Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante II, e.g. figs 559, 579, 599 (servants); 633, 634, 703, 748 (guards).

Ibid., Ibid., fig. 588. 145 Ibid., figs 554, 634, 661, 748, 812. 146 Ibid., e.g. figs 160, 530, 686; Kapitaikin, ‘Aisle-Ceilings’ (as n. 1), pls V, VI, IX. 147 Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I, fig. 160; Kapitaikin, ‘Aisle-Ceilings’ (as n. 1), pl. III. 148 The ceiling over the nave is between 10 m and 13 m above pavement level, those in the ailes are approximately 8.30 m. high. See F. Agnello, ‘Rilievo’ (as n. 3), 295–352; Johns, ‘Pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testo: Schede, 429. 149 See, in particular, Philagatos of Cerami and Hugo Falcandus: G. Rossi Taibbi, Filagato da Cerami. Omelie per i vangeli domenicali e le feste di tutto l’anno (Palermo 1969), sermon 27; Johns, ‘The date’ (as n. 11), 1–14, esp. 2–7; Tramontana, Lettera a un tesoriere (as n. 52), 137. 150 Vladimir Zorič has reconstructed fifty windows in the original design of the chapel. See V. Zorič, ‘La luce nella Cappella Palatina’, in Abscondita in lucem, Scritti in onore di mons. Benedetto Rocco, monographic number of Ho Theologos, 16 (1998), 261–70. On this latter topic, see also B. Brenk, ‘L’importanza e la funzione della Cappella Palatina di Palermo nella storia dell’arte’, in Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Saggi, 27–78, esp. 41 and 42. The issue of the visibility of the paintings in the three ceilings has been raised by scholars in relation to the question of the existence of a comprehensive program for the paintings. See B. Brenk, ‘Retorica, valenza e funzione della Cappella Palatina a Palermo’, in in Dittelbach ed., Die Cappella (as n. 5), 247–71, esp. 452, n. 44; Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), II Testo: Schede, 541–50; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 62–67; Nef, Conquérir et Gouverner (as n. 52), 157 and 158. 151 Twelve examples, see Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 22, 52, 65, 68, 84, 88, 114, 118, 126, 153, 179, 225. In the paintings of the aisles only one example of this kind is present, in the southern ceiling. Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry, 318; Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I, fig. 370. Curtains knotted at the sides of a figure are often present in both medieval Islamic and Byzantine art, particularly in manuscript illustrations. See Curatola, ‘Il costume’ (as n. 37), 94 and 95. 152 For a detail study of the objects in the backgrounds of the ceiling panels in the Cappella Palatina, see Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), vol. I, 138–46. 153 This interpration is shared and discussed also by Kapitaikin. See Kapitaikin, ‘Aisle-Ceilings’ (as n. 1), 121, 128, 129; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 142–46. 154 Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 259, 261, 265, 267, 271, 312, 320; See Kapitaikin, ‘Aisle-Ceilings’ (as n. 1), 121 and note 55; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 143 and note 380. About Ðirāz textiles in general, see Y. K. Stillman, P. Sanders, ‘Ðirāz’, (as n. 48), 534–38. 155 See Canard, ‘Le ceremonial fatimite et le ceremonial byzantine. Essai de comparison’, in Byzantion, 21 (1951), 355–420; L. Golombek, ‘The Draped Universe of Islam’, in Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Mediterranean, ed. E. R. Hoffman (Oxford, 2007), 97–114; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 142–46. Drapes between the columns of the Cappella Palatina are mentioned in the famous homily of Phiagatos of Cerami. See E. Kitzinger, ‘The date of Philagatos: Homily for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul’, in Bizantino-Sicula II, Miscellanea in onore di G. Rossi Taibbi (Palermo 1975), 301–06; Johns, ‘The date’ (as n. 11), 2–7. Hanging drapes and carpets are quoted by Alexander of Telese when describing the luxurious furnishings of the Norman Palace during the royal banquet on the day of the coronation of Roger II. See Ystoria Rogerii (as n. 74), II.5, 26, 110. See also the discussion in Tronzo, The Cultures (as n. 5), 102; Kapitaikin, ‘Aisle-Ceilings’ (as n. 1), 121, 128, 129; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 142–46. 156 See Tronzo, The Cultures (as n. 5), 97–125; Andaloro ed., Nobiles (as n. 7). Brenk, ‘L’importanza e la funzione’ (as n. 150), 27–37; see Kapitaikin, ‘Aisle-Ceilings’ (as n. 1), 121, 128, 129; Anzelmo, ‘Classification’ (as n. 25), 502; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 145 and 146. 144

125

francesca manuela anzelmo 157 For a detailed analysis and an extensive discussion on the ornamental motif of the textiles painted in the ceilings of the Cappella Palatina, see Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 232–46. 158 Monneret de Villard, in his comments on the ornamental motifs used in the painted textiles of the Cappella Palatina ceilings, traces the history and fortune of the hexagonal design in Islamic and Byzantine culture, showing that it arrived from China via Mesopotamia and the Sasanian Empire. See Monneret de Villard, ‘La tessitura palermitana’ (as n. 7), 464–89, esp. 487 and 488. Villard mentions Byzantine textiles with hexagons dated to the 11th and 12th century held in the Vatican Christian Museum in Rome, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Schloss Museum of Berlin. See also an Abbasid mural painting from Samarra (Herzfeld, Die Malereien (as n. 90), pl. XXXIX, 3, no. 68). The hexagonal design had a wide chronological and geographical circulation in Islamic art. For other examples, see Anzelmo ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), 235–37, and A. U. Pope and P. Ackerman, A Survey of Persian Art from Prehistoric Times to the Present (London and New York 1938–39), pl. 689 for an example on a Seljuk mina’i ceramic, of c. 1187. For the chequerboard pattern, with or without decorative elements inside the frame, this is common in textiles (garments and backgrounds) depicted in Islamic manuscripts from the 13th century onwards. See the examples in A. Contadini, ‘A Question in Arab Painting: the Ibn al-Sufi manuscript in Tehran and its arthistorical connectios’, Muqarnas, 23 (2006), 47–84 (fig. 5: Kitāb Na’t al-©ayawān, c. 1220–25, North Jazira (?), London, British Library, MS Or. 2784, fol. 101v). The ornamental motif with quatrilobes is confined to garments and is not used in the backgrounds to the panels of the Cappella Palatina ceilings in Palermo. See Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries, 47, 94, 114, 258, 274, 275, 282, 289, 297. Quatrilobes are visible in the dress of a nadīm with a headband with two lateral knots in the nave ceiling, and can be seen in images before and after the restorations in 1948–53 (see Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entry, 118; Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I, fig. 679). For quatrilobes in Fatimid art, see O’Kane, The Treasures (as n. 33), fig. 75. The quatrilobes are also found also in a fragment of silk, thought to be 11th–12th century and from Syria or Egypt, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, inv. 734–1905, / [accessed 18 February 2014]). Within the Cappella Palatina, cruciform/quatrilobed elements alternating with circlets are visible in the mosaic decoration of the presbytery area (see Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I, figs 208 and 222.The ornamental motif made up of flowers/rosettes with a variable number of petals is the most frequent pattern in the decoration of the dresses on Siculo-Arabic ivory caskets which, in turn, can be compared both with the paintings of the Cappella Palatina and examples of Fatimid lustreware (here Figs 28 and 31). See the painted ivory caskets in Berlin, Museum für Islamische Kuns, inv. KFMV 9b (Cott, Siculo-Arabic (as n. 41), 35, no. 33, and pl. 16; J. Ferrandis, Marfiles arabes de Occidente (Madrid 1935–40), II, cat. 30); Armando, ‘Avori arabo-siculi’ (as n. 40), Database, SP002); Veroli, Treasure of the Cathedral (Cott, ‘Siculo-Arabic Ivories’ (as n. 40), 38, no. 44, pls 23 and 24; Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), (fig. 44.9). In addition to the parallels mentioned so far, it would be intersting to know the design of the ornaments ‘cum rosis’ and ‘de rosis de auro’ recorded in the inventory of 1309 of the Treasury of the Cappella Palatina, in relation to two ancient capes (decribed as ‘veteres’) and one dalmatic. See M. Andaloro, ‘La Cappella Palatina di Palermo e l’inventario del 1309 fra analisi e ragionamenti’, in Andaloro ed., Nobiles Officinae (as n. 7), 91–115, esp. 112 and tables 5 and 10. 159 See the comparisons suggested in Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), vol. I, 234–46; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), vol. I, 108– 11, 507–17. As regards the discussion on the possible circulation of patterns’ book by the 12th century, see J. M. Bloom, Paper Before Print: The Introduction of Paper in the Islamic Lands (New Haven 2001). 160 See the dress of a guard in the mural paintings of the Ghaznavid Palace of Lashkari Bazar, Afghanistan, 11th century (Schlumberger,

Lashkari Bazar (as n. 120), pl. 122b; the seated figure (male?) in a fragment of a Fatimid textile in the Textile Museum of Columbia District (see Ettinghausen, ‘Painting’ (as n. 39), fig. 25); the seated figure painted in a Seljuk ceramic from the Qubadabad Palace in Konya (13th century) or some examples of Iranian lustreware (13th century), kept in Italy (Venice and Treviso), see Hillenbrand, Islamic Art and Architecture (as n. 41), fig. 95; G. Curatola ed., Eredità dell’Islam. Arte Islamica in Italia (Milan 1993), entries 117– 18. The Iraqi Abu l- Ðayyib Muḥammad al-Washshā’ (d. 936/325) author of the book On Elegance and Elegant People, in which he describes the types of clothing worn by his contemporaries and reports on the canons of taste of the refined people, affirms that the mu’ayyan (‘eyes’) pattern should have been used in 10th-century Baghdad because it was particularly elegant (Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), 46, 59). Mujayyari fabrics, namely ‘decorated with dots’, also occur in the documents of the Geniza, albeit rarely (see Stillman, ‘Textiles and Patterns’ (as n. 59), 45; Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), 59. 161 See the male figure in a mural painting in the Church of Saint Theodore in Orthahisar dated to the decades to either side of 1000. The pattern with spots in the dress of the figure has been suggested as an example of Islamic influence on the Byzantine aristocracy in the peripherical Byzantine lands. See J. L. Ball, Byzantine Dress: Representations of Secular Dress in Eighth-to Twelfth Century Painting (New York and Basingstoke 2005), 68, fig. 18. 162 Ditchfield, La culture matérielle médiévale (as n. 53), 415 and 416. 163 Ibid., 415. 164 Ibid., 415. 165 Andaloro, ‘La Cappella Palatina di Palermo e l’inventario del 1309’ (as n. 158), II, 102, table 5. 166 The etymology of the word is discussed in G. Cornu, ‘Sources iconographiques pour l’étude des tissus et costumes islamiques du Xe au XIIIe siècle’, in Islamische Textilkunst des Mittelalters: aktuelle Probleme, ed. M. Abbas et al. (Riggisberge 1997), 53–63, esp. 54–55 and note 10. 167 For examples of this ornamental motif in Byzantine and Islamic textiles, see Villard, ‘La tessitura palermitana’ (as n. 7), 488 and notes 95 and 96; E. J. Grube, ‘Studies in the Survival and Continuity of Pre-Muslim Traditions in Egyptian Islamic Art’, in Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, ns 1 (1962), 75–97, esp. 79. See also the figure of a female dancer in the bronze dish with cloisonné enamelling in the Ferdinandeum at Innsbruck (12th century), attributed to the Artuqid Jazira or Georgia and well know to scholars for its iconography and technique, mixing Byzantine and Islamic culture (see S. Redford, ‘How Islamic is It? The Innsbruck Plate and Its Setting’, Muqarnas, 7 (1990), 119–35). 168 Caltagirone (Sicily), Regional Museum of Ceramics. See Curatola ed., Eredità dell’Islam (as n. 160), 194; Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), fig. 44.7. 169 For examples of Byzantine and Islamic textiles with lozenges where are depicted real or marvellous animals, among them birds, see J. La Fontaine Dosogne ed., Textiles Islamique. Proche-Oriente et Méditerranée (Bruxelles 1983), 2; B. M. Alfieri, ‘Seta islamica’, in La Seta e la sua via, ed. M. T. Lucidi (Roma 1994), 113–16, esp. 113 and 114. In the records of the Geniza in Cairo, textiles so called mutayyar (‘with birds’) are annotated. See Stillman, ‘The importance of the Cairo Geniza’ (as n. 59), 587; Stillman, ‘New data’ (as n. 59), 206. In the Inventory of 1309 in the Treasure of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo are recorded one pallium, two capes (qualified as ‘ancient’) and one dalmatic with a pattern ‘ad aves’, evidently different from the textiles ‘ad aquilam’. See Andaloro, ‘La Cappella Palatina di Palermo e l’inventario del 1309 ‘ (as n. 158), 110–11. 170 The eastern area of the southern ceiling was extensively repainted between the end of the 19th century and the first three decades of the 20th century. See Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), vol. I, 116–18. 171 The pattern consisting of birds, drawn in profile and with a palmette-like vegetal element on the head, is of Sasanian origin and

126

dress in the ceilings of the cappella palatina 179 Johns, ‘Le iscrizioni e le epigrafi in Arabo. Una rilettura’, in Andaloro ed., Nobiles Officinae (as n. 7), vol. II, 46–67, esp. 47–64 and 63. 180 Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), Database entries 101, 271, 294, 296. See also Brenk, La Cappella Palatina (as in. 1), Atlante I, figs 160 (136 and 137), 657. 181 Inv. 80C. See Cott, ‘Siculo-Arabic Ivories’ (as n. 40), pl. 78 b-c; E. Kühnel, Die islamischen Elfenbeinskulpturen VII.–XIII. Jahrhundert (Berlin 1971), 68–73, pl. XLVII-C, nn. 88–101; Curatola ed., Eredità dell’Islam (as n. 160), 135 and 136, fig. 63; Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), figs 34.5, 92.4A. See another example of exagons and stars in the dress of a figure painted in a mina’i ceramic (12th-13th century) in Washington, Freer Gallery of Art (inv. 38.12). G. Fehérvári et al., La ceramica islamica (Milan 1985), 51. 182 See R. Longo, ‘The opus sectile Work of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in Dittelbach ed., Die Cappella (as n. 5), 491–98, esp. 492, figs 6–7. 183 Ibid., Tav. 2. See also Brenk ed., La Cappella Palatina (as n. 1), Atlante I, fig. 81. 184 Civic Collections of Applied Art and Engravings of the Castello Sforzesco, Milan (Italy), Inv. 2117T. See M. Andaloro, ‘Restoration of the Whole and its Parts. A Project Proposal for the Cappella Palatina’, in Dittelbach ed., Die Cappella (as n. 5), 586–91, esp. 587 and 588. About the fragment of lampas, see Andaloro ed., Nobiles Officinae (as n. 7), vol. I, 212, III. 28. 185 Andaloro, ‘Restoration’ (as n. 184), 587 and 588. 186 Ibid. 187 For these textiles, see K. von Folsach and A. M. Keblow Bernsted, Woven Treasures. Textiles from the World of Islam (Copenhagen 1993), cat. no. 1, 94–95 (The David Collection, inv. 12/1988).; E. Kühnel, ‘Abbasid Silks of the Ninth Century’, Ars Orientalis, no. 2 (1957), 367–71, esp. 368, fig. 9 (Washington, Textile Museum, inv. 31.2). See Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), vol. I, 246 and fig. VI.110. 188 It is worth again stressing that the paintings of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo are the most extensive pictorial evidence we have for the Islamic world up to the 12th century. Studies on costume in medieval Islamic civilization tend to make use of illustrations in manuscripts, the oldest specimens of which date back to the late 12th and early 13th century. See Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34).

is common in the ceramic production of the Fatimid Egypt. See Philon, Early Islamic Ceramics (as n. 33), figs 412, 422, 429. See also the polychrome glazed ceramic bowl, Sicily, 11th–12th century, Reggio Calabria, Archeological Museum (no inventory number). Curatola ed., Eredità dell’Islam (as n. 160), 194. For other similar examples see. Grube and Johns, The Painted Ceiling (as n. 1), figs 99.5, 99.6. 172 Kapitaikin, ‘Aisle-Ceilings’ (as n. 1), 121 and 122, 128, figs 3–5; Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 144 and 145, figs 2.195–200, note 390 and fig. 2.196. One of the textiles considered is a fragment of linen and silk, made in Egypt between 11th and 12th century, imitating the Yemenite ikat and kept in London, Victoria & Albert Museum, T.N. 1–1987). Kapitaikin also discusses two Indian printed textiles found in Egypt and dated back to the 11th–12th century, today in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (New Berry Collection, inv. 1990-138 and 1990.205). Kapitaikin, ‘Paintings’ (as n. 1), I, 145, note 391, II. 199–200). See also Anzelmo, ‘I soffitti dipinti’ (as n. 6), I, 242 and 243. 173 See Stillman, ‘Textiles and Patterns’ (as n. 59), 45; Stillman, ‘New data’ (as n. 59), 205, note 42 (for the striped tunic in the Coptic Museum in Cairo – inv. 2073 – though the quotation is not accompanied by illustrations). The term jārī al-qalam probably refers to thin strips (Stillman, ‘Textiles and Patterns’ (as n. 59), 45; Stillman, ‘New data’ (as n. 59), 205, note 42). An example of jārī al-qalam suggested by Y. K. Stillman is the tunic of a disciple in a manuscript of the Materia medica, Mossul, 1228, kept in Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, MS Ahmet III, 2127, fol. 2. See Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), fig. 12. 174 See Villard, ‘La tessitura palermitana’ (as n. 7), 469; D. Jacoby, ‘Seta e tessuti di seta nella Sicilia araba e normanna: il contesto economico’, in Andaloro ed., Nobiles Officinae (as n. 7), Saggi, 133–43, esp. 134. 175 Ibid. 176 Cairo, Coptic Museum, inv. 1875 (see Stillman, ‘New data’ (as n. 59), fig. 7). 177 See Stillman, ‘The importance of the Cairo Geniza’ (as n. 59), 587; Stillman, ‘Textiles and Patterns’ (as n. 59), 46–47; Stillman, ‘New data’ (as n. 59), 206; Stillman, Arab Dress (as n. 34), 59–60. 178 See Johns, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 1), III Schede, 451–52; W. Tronzo ‘Restoring Agency to the Discourse on Hybridity: the Cappella Palatina from a Different Point of View’, in Dittelbach ed., Die Cappella Palatina (as n. 5), 579–85, esp. 435–38.

127

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 129–149

A PORPHYRY WORKSHOP IN NORMAN PALERMO Rosa Maria Bacile That a workshop specialising in the carving of porphyry existed in 12th-century Palermo can be proven not only by the presence of five porphyry sarcophagi in the cathedrals of Palermo and Monreale, but also by the presence of other medieval porphyry artefacts in churches sponsored by King Roger II (1130–54) and his successors.1 This paper considers the porphyry sarcophagi as a coherent group of monuments commissioned by the Norman kings of Sicily from a workshop that specialised in carving porphyry. Until recently, scholars have assumed that there were no stonemasons who had the technical skills and the tools to carve porphyry during the Middle Ages. The Norman tombs and their demonstrably 12th-century carving counter this view, however, and are evidence that both sculptors and tools must have been available. Analysis of the form and making of the tombs will suggest the provenance of the material, and possibly also that of their sculptors.

INTRODUCTION

medieval sources and documentary evidence and the style of the sculptural elements of the porphyry tombs in Palermo and Monreale was conducted by the author in her doctoral thesis, which argued that the history of the porphyry monuments now in the cathedrals of Palermo and Monreale strongly suggests that they should be considered as a coherent group of monuments produced around the middle of the 12th century by a porphyry workshop sponsored by the king of Sicily, Roger II, and that they were intended to form the centrepiece of a dynastic mausoleum in the cathedral of Palermo.4 The below discussion of the making of the tombs will provide further evidence for dating all five sarcophagi to the Norman period, in which respect it should be noted that the sarcophagi of Frederick II and Constance are similar in size to the sarcophagi of Henry VI and William I. No other capital in either the West or the East housed a workshop that specialized in carving porphyry during the Middle Ages. Thus, the provenance of the material and of the sculptors, and an analysis of the techniques used to carve porphyry, is crucial for an understanding of these extraordinary monuments. A discussion of porphyry will show that the material was scarce by the 12th century, and medieval usage was relatively rare. Hitherto, the form of the tombs has led scholars to see them as medieval works made by reusing porphyry columns obtained from Rome.5 However, this theory has never been proved. Thus, this article will also attempt to reconstruct the putative columns from which the sarcophagi were possibly made. This, it is hoped, should enable us to establish

A well-established historical tradition maintains that King Roger (1130–54), his daughter Constance (1154–98), her husband Emperor Henry VI (1165–97), and their son Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250), are buried in the sarcophagi in Palermo, while William I (1131–66), Roger’s son, is buried in the porphyry sarcophagus in the cathedral of Monreale (Figs 1–7). This historical tradition will be followed here when naming the tombs in this paper. In a 1959 monograph entitled ‘The Dynastic Porphyry Tombs of the Norman Period in Sicily’, Josef Deér concluded, from documentary sources, that the sarcophagus in which Frederick II was buried must be that originally intended for King Roger II, and that Henry VI’s sarcophagus was originally intended for Roger’s heir. Deér also argued that the sarcophagi of William I and Constance were commissioned by the Hohenstaufen Emperor, Henry VI, and were therefore of a later date, supporting his argument by highlighting how all the elements of these two sarcophagi (lids, troughs, supports) were made by different pieces of porphyry joined together.2 This, he contended, was evidence that the porphyry workshop was running out of material by the time the two later sarcophagi were commissioned. Against this, a recent publication by Joachin Poeschke has argued that all the sarcophagi are to be dated to the late 12th century/ early 13th century on stylistic grounds.3 The history and sculptural style of the tombs will not be treated in this paper. A critical analysis of the © British Archaeological Association 2015

129

rosa maria bacile

Figure 1 Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Frederick II (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo). See also Plate IXA in print edition

rulers of Sicily. From ancient times, porphyry has been regarded as an exclusive commodity — appreciated for its lustre and purple colour, for its rarity, and for its hardness, this last being a crucial factor that made its extraction, transportation and carving extremely complex and expensive.6 If porphyry was rare in Roman Antiquity, it was far rarer during the Norman period in Sicily, and its choice for the burial monuments of the Norman rulers suggests that they were concerned to demonstrate that they could afford such an expensive stone, which was available only to a privileged few in the Middle Ages. The rarity of porphyry depends on the fact that its quarry, so-called Mount Porphyrites, or Gebel Dokha, is located in an inaccessible and remote location in the Eastern desert of Egypt, 50 km from the harbour at Myos Hormos on the Red Sea.7 From the 1st to the 5th centuries, porphyry was extracted and transported to Rome and many other provinces of the Roman Empire. After the 5th century, the quarry was abandoned and eventually its location was forgotten.8 The name of the quarry and its location were, however,

whether such columns could have existed in Roman times and, if so, where they might have been found by the Norman rulers. Finally, the article will conclude with an analysis of the techniques and tools necessary to work porphyry, and by extension how it might have been possible to turn antique porphyry columns into sarcophagi, and suggests a possible provenance for the sculptors. PORPHYRY Porphyry is an exceptionally hard rock composed of crystals of red or white feldspar embedded in a fine reddish purple groundmass that was widely appreciated in Antiquity. Between the 1st until the 5th centuries AD, the Egyptian quarry that was the source of porphyry was in continuous use, and it was from this quarry that the kind of porphyry reused in Norman Sicily was originally extracted. The intrinsic qualities of porphyry made it an ideal material for the burial monuments of the Norman 130

a porphyry workshop in norman palermo

Figure 2

Figure 3

Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Frederick II, front view (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo)

Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Frederick II, lions’ support, detail (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo)

preserved in Ptolemy’s Geografia. Although this work may have been known to Arab geographers from at least the 10th century and was rediscovered in Byzantium in the late 13th century, the quarry itself remained abandoned and unrecognized, even after the Geographia was translated from Greek into Latin by the Tuscan Jacopo d’Angelo (Giacomo da Scarperia — Jacobus Angelus) in the early 15th century.9 It was not until the 19th century that it was rediscovered by the archaeologists James Burton and John Gardner Wilkinson.10

cathedrals of Pisa, and also of Lucca were imported from Rome.11 The trade in stone and other valuable materials continued throughout the medieval period. Abbot Suger in Libellus alter de consecratione ecclesiae St Dionysii states that Rome is the best source for precious materials.12 As Deér has shown, Rome was in all probability the source of the porphyry for the Norman tombs.13 The argument that the porphyry used for the royal Sicilian tombs was sourced there is strengthened by the fact that Roger II had established a political alliance with a wealthy and influential family of Jewish converts in Rome, the Pierleoni, who were not only supporters of the papacy but one of whom, Pietro Pierleone, became Pope as Anacletus II in 1130. In the 12th century, for example, this family provided him with military support in the south of Italy, in exchange for a yearly appanage. In short, the Pierleoni were Roger’s Roman vassals. Because trading in precious marble was an exclusive affair that required large sums of money and good connections in Rome, a sponsor, such as the Pierleoni family, would have been essential in securing

Provenance of the material Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, porphyry could only be obtained as a reused material from antique spolia, for which Rome became the main source. Since the early Middle Ages, Rome was a centre for the trade of marbles and precious stones. For example, the materials, including porphyry, for the furnishing of the abbey of Monte Cassino, the 131

rosa maria bacile It refers to the dye extracted from a particular kind of shell, at only a very few centres around the Mediterranean.17 Esteem for the colour purple goes back to ancient times;18 the Romans, for example, associated it with consular and, later, imperial rank. During the reign of Diocletian (284–305), its symbolic associations were further exploited, and it came to denote divine character.19 Thus, the word porphyry was later used to describe the purple stone quarried in Egypt and used by the Roman emperors as a symbol for their transcendental character in both public and private imperial ceremonies.20 The Byzantine emperors continued to attribute similar significance to the colour purple and to porphyry and they too used purple in their ceremonies and porphyry to decorate their palaces. This was done especially to mark the birth or death of an emperor. In the imperial palace of Constantinople, the room where emperors were born was covered with porphyry.21 Hence, emperors born in this particular room, the so-called Porphyra, were called Porphyrogeniti. In the Alexiad, Anna Comnena describes this chamber and explains that it was lined with porphyry, a Roman stone (as the Byzantines called it), and was used by her ancestors as a symbol of their high rank.22 In the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, emperors were buried in porphyry sarcophagi until the time of the Emperor Marcian (d. 457).23 By 1130, however, the Byzantine Emperors had stopped using porphyry for their tombs, and had also abandoned the Church of the Holy Apostles as a dynastic mausoleum.24 Instead, the Comneni founded and were buried in monasteries elsewhere in Constantinople, such as the monastery of the Pantokrator, which was later used by the Palaeologi.25 In the early Middle Ages, the Carolingian and Ottonian Emperors followed Roman and early Byzantine tradition. They too placed porphyry columns in their palaces and used porphyry for their tombs. Otto I’s new great cathedral at Magdeburg is an outstanding example of the 10th-century appreciation of porphyry.26 Otto II, who was buried in a Roman sarcophagus after his death in Rome in 983, also used porphyry for his tomb. Otto’s sarcophagus was buried underground in the atrium of the Old St Peter’s basilica and was covered with a labrum made of white and green marble.27 From a contemporary description, it seems that the sarcophagus dated from the imperial era and bore the effigies of the two deceased for which it had originally been made. A porphyry bagnera was placed on top of the sarcophagus as a lid. In the 16th century, when the atrium of the old basilica was destroyed for the building of the new St Peter’s, Otto II’s remains were exhumed and transferred to another tomb, a Roman strigillated sarcophagus still to be found in the Vatican grotte. The porphyry bagnera was then reused as the basin of the font in the baptistery of the new basilica.28

Figure 4 Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Henry VI (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo)

supplies of porphyry for the Sicilian king.14 The close relationship between Roger II and the Pierleoni continued without interruption throughout his reign. Moreover, the Pierleoni maintained their high status in Rome even when their main rival, the Frangipani family, defeated them over the election of Pope Innocent II in 1138.15 While not conclusive, Deér’s argument leaves little doubt that King Roger acquired his porphyry from Rome, through his allies and vassals the Pierleoni. Moreover, as we shall see in the next section when discussing the form and making of the sarcophagi, if these were indeed made by reusing massive size columns from which the Sicilian tombs were cut, there can be no serious doubt that Rome was the source of the porphyry from which the tombs were carved.

Meaning of porphyry In addition to its rarity, porphyry was appreciated for its colour.16 The word porphyry comes from the Greek porphyros, a word used to describe the colour purple. 132

a porphyry workshop in norman palermo

Figure 5 Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Henry VI (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo)

133

rosa maria bacile porphyry. Later popes, especially Paschal I (817–24), furnished the Lateran Palace and other Roman churches such as Santa Prassede and Santa Maria Maggiore with red marble in order to imitate porphyry.32 Pope Innocent II, a contemporary of King Roger II, was also buried in a classical Roman porphyry bagnera. In the Norman kingdom of Sicily, too, cathedrals and churches commissioned by the Norman Kings made lavish use of porphyry. It is used extensively in the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, where the royal throne, the altar, the ambo, the floor, panels set within the aisle walls and the columns supporting the dome are all crafted from the stone.33 Elsewhere, the floor of the church of St Mary of the Admiral (the church commissioned by King Roger’s admiral, George of Antioch) makes use of porphyry rotae, as do the floors of the cathedrals of Palermo and Monreale.34 In these cathedrals, porphyry is present within the sculptural programmes, and also in the liturgical furnishings. As such, the choice of porphyry as the material for the Norman tombs can be explained by the high status assigned to the stone in the Middle Ages given its physical properties (rarity and durability), as well as its liturgical and imperial connotations. Figure 6

THE ORIGINS OF THE FORM OF THE TOMBS AND OF THEIR MATERIAL

Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Constance (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo)

The origins of the form of the porphyry sarcophagi found in the cathedrals of Palermo and Monreale have long been a matter of scholarly debate. In this section, an analysis of the form of the monuments will lead to a new argument on the making of the sarcophagi and of the possible origins of their material and the sculptural workshop responsible for their manufacture. The form of the tombs makes clear that they could have been made by reusing Roman porphyry columns. Analysis of the possible size and form of the putative Roman columns will lead to the conclusion that these were of unusual size, and could have come from very few places in the Middle Ages. Two Imperial buildings in Rome, the Baths of Caracalla and the Baths of Diocletian, are the sites where the biggest Roman porphyry columns and shafts could still be found in the Middle Ages. As already stated in the introduction, an historical tradition maintains that King Roger, his daughter Constance, her husband Henry VI, and their son Frederick II are buried in the sarcophagi in Palermo, while William I, Roger’s son, is buried in the porphyry sarcophagus in Monreale. This historical tradition will be followed here when naming the tombs in this article. The tombs of Henry VI, Empress Constance and William I are similar in design, but that of Frederick II is distinctive because of its figurative sculpture, while the tomb of Roger II stands apart because of its lack

In the Middle Ages, liturgical significance was also attributed to porphyry on account of its purple colour, which reminded believers of the blood of Christ and, by extension, the rite of the Eucharist. Thus, porphyry was used to build altars, ciboria and other liturgical objects. Numerous examples come from France and Germany.29 A magnificent example is the eagle amphora commissioned by Abbot Suger of St Denis (1081–1151). The porphyry vase is Egyptian or Roman spolia reused by Suger and given a gilded vermeil mount in the shape of an eagle (Fig. 8). This object offers a clear example of the liturgical meanings that the stone acquired. Suger describes it in these terms: Nec minus porphyreticum vas sculptoris et politoris manu admirabiliter factum, cum per multos annos in scrinio vacasset, de amphora in aquile formam transferendo auri argetique materia altaris servitio adaptavimus, et versus hujusmondi eidem vasi inscribi fecimus: Includi gemmis lapis iste meretur et auro, Marmor erat, sed in his marmore carior est.30

Medieval popes, too, used porphyry as a symbol of their ‘papal-imperial’ authority.31 As Deér has stressed, the Lateran palace was furnished to reflect the idea of ad imitationem imperii. Thus, Pope Leo III (795–816) built for his palace two triclinia embellished with 134

a porphyry workshop in norman palermo

Figure 7 Monreale, cathedral: sarcophagus of William I (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Monreale)

of decorative patterns and idiosyncratic form. As the tomb known as that of Roger II bears no obvious relation to the others, it will not be considered here. The remaining four tombs present a number of features in common, which place them in a coherent group, while the similarities in size shared by the sarcophagi of Frederick II and Constance and by the sarcophagi of Henry VI and William I suggest we might further subdivide these into two pairs. The four tombs are composed of five elements: a long semicircular trough, a gabled lid, two supports and a canopy (though the tomb of William I lacks the latter). The form of the canopy needs to be treated separately, as this outstanding feature sets the tombs of the Norman Kings apart from other medieval sepulchral monuments. Furthermore, the Norman sarcophagi are the very first examples of medieval freestanding secular tombs in the West, and therefore play a unique role within the history of Italian sepulchral art (earlier and later tombs are adjacent to, and dependent on walls).35 That the Norman sarcophagi were designed to function as freestanding monuments is attested by the fact that they are decorated on all sides, as opposed to Roman sarcophagi, the backs of which were left bare because they rested against the

wall and were hidden from view. Nevertheless, like Roman sarcophagi, both the shorter sides of the troughs and the tympana of the gabled lids of the Norman sarcophagi are decorated with reliefs located on their top centre, but both their wider sides are decorated in exactly the same way. This comprehensive decorative treatment means that the tombs must be considered in the round, and do not have an identifiable back or front. The form of the Norman tombs is, therefore, quite different from their Roman predecessor, which is why Deér called them ‘peculiar monuments’.36 The form and origins of the Norman sarcophagi have been treated by various scholars.37 Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68) was the first to argue that the tombs were simple Roman troughs. He identified them as Roman spolia, which had been removed from the Roman thermae and transported to Sicily by order of the Norman rulers.38 He believed that they followed a known late Roman and medieval practice of reusing Roman porphyry troughs or bagnerae as sarcophagi.39 In the Middle Ages, it was indeed quite common for troughs or bagnerae to be used as sarcophagi and there are various examples of this medieval custom dating back to the 5th century.40 135

rosa maria bacile putative Roman column. The four Sicilian sarcophagi have been re-measured and the dimensions given below complement and in several respects supersede the table Deér published in 1959. Note that, while the troughs, lids and supports of Frederick II and Henry VI are all carved from single pieces of porphyry, the supports for William’s sarcophagus are made up of four different pieces of porphyry and that all the elements (trough, lid and supports) of the sarcophagus of Constance are built by adding various slabs and pieces of porphyry together. Photographs of this last sarcophagus clearly show how the different pieces of porphyry are joined together (Figs 9 and 10). Moreover, it should also be noted that none of the sarcophagi, apart from that of Henry VI, are of regular shape: the trough of William I is distinctly tapered, narrowing from an arc of 1.38 m at one end to 1.24 m at the other; that of Constance has an arc of 1.30 m at one end and of 1.25 m at the other, while the sarcophagus of Frederick II has an arc of 1.30 m. at one end, 1.27 m in the middle and 1.28 m at the other end. Deér took this to be clear evidence that ‘all the Sicilian porphyry sarcophagi were made from huge antique porphyry shafts’.43 Even though he was perfectly aware that the troughs of Henry VI and William I are significantly wider than the thickest porphyry columns surviving from ancient Rome, Deér argued that the medieval rotae in the floor of Santa Maria in Aracoeli (diameter of 1.87 m), which he assumed were sliced from ancient columns, demonstrated that porphyry shafts of greater diameter had been available in Rome during the 13th century.44 In support, he cites a passage in the 12th-century account of the Baths of Diocletian by the English pilgrim Master Gregorius as evidence that the Roman marmorarii were able to cut and rework huge ancient columns, though in the passage in question Master Gregorius was simply reporting what he had been told by the cardinals of Rome, that each of the great grey granite columns in the frigidarium would have taken one hundred men one year to cut, polish and finish.45 Be that as it may, there is abundant evidence from 12th-century Rome — and, for that matter, from Palermo and other centres — that masons could indeed cut, polish and finish porphyry. The problems to be re-examined, therefore, are three: first, do the Norman tombs themselves yield evidence to suggest that they were newly carved from ancient Roman columns; second, what is the evidence that columns of sufficient size could have been obtained by the Norman kings; and, third, was there a workshop with the technical skills and tools necessary to manufacture the Sicilian sarcophagi in 12th-century Palermo, and was this workshop sponsored by Roger II? It will be most convenient to discuss the first two problems together, for each sarcophagus in turn, leaving the third to the end.

Figure 8 Eagle amphora commissioned by Abbot Suger of St Denis (© Paris, Louvre Museum)

It was the 18th-century Sicilian historian, Francesco Daniele, who recognized that the Norman sarcophagi were indeed medieval monuments, made in Sicily under the Norman kings. Daniele stressed that the emblems on the sarcophagi were typical medieval religious or monarchical symbols and could not, therefore, be Roman.41 In the 20th century, first Delbrueck, and later Deér, both concluded that all four sarcophagi in Palermo and Monreale were medieval and were modelled on the so-called Lateran trough, a monumental semi-cylindrical Roman trough from Hadrianic times that was decorated with a fluted cornice ending in an egg-and-dart design. This trough was used as a sarcophagus for Pope Clement XII in 1740. Deér followed Delbrueck in arguing that the Lateran trough would have been known to 12thcentury sculptors, as it is known to have then stood in front of the Pantheon in Rome.42 Both authors believed that the troughs of the Norman sarcophagi were newly manufactured from reused Roman columns. However, this theory has never before been tested by a critical examination of the available evidence. For this, it is crucial to estimate whether the sizes of the troughs correspond to the sizes and shape of a 136

a porphyry workshop in norman palermo

Figure 9 Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Constance (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo). See also Plate IXB in print edition

Figure 10 Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Constance (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo) 137

rosa maria bacile

Figure 11 The sarcophagus of Henry VI, east elevation (© Sophie Ungerer)

First, it will be helpful to make a few fundamental points about the design of Roman columns.46 Columns were typically prepared in the quarries according to the standardized proportions of the various architectural orders, the most popular being the Corinthian and the Composite.47 With the composite order, the proportion of the height of the column to the diameter at the base was generally 10:1, while a ratio of 5:6 generally determined the relationship of the height of shaft to that of the entire column (including the capital and the base). The entasis of the shaft — that is, the slight convex curvature applied to the shaft for aesthetic purposes — varied quite widely, but generally began at one-third of the height of the column from the base.48 Not only were the proportions of columns determined by such general rules, but also their actual height. The height of the shaft was generally a multiple of 5 Roman feet (1 Roman foot = 0.2962 m), and that of the whole column a multiple of 6 Roman feet.49 It will be convenient to begin with the sarcophagus of Henry VI (Figs 11 and 12), the width of this trough is 1.11 m at both ends, so that it presents none of the evidence of tapering to be seen in the sarcophagi of William I, Constance and Frederick II. While this demonstrates that they were almost certainly manufactured from lengths cut from the tapering shafts of ancient columns, the sarcophagus of Henry VI could either have been from the outset made as a trough (in which case it is likely to be a reused Roman bagnera), or have been carved from a length of shaft cut from the bottom part of a massive column, where there was little or no taper. To calculate the diameter of the column shaft from which the sarcophagus of Henry VI might have been carved, we need to find the radius of a circle (r) from the length (c) and height (h) of the chord. As the chord is the maximum width of the trough (in the middle of the second moulding) which measures 1.11 m at a height of 0.60 m above the bottom of the trough, this

Figure 12 The sarcophagus of Henry VI, north elevation (© Sophie Ungerer) will give the minimum diameter of the shaft column from which the sarcophagus of Henry VI might have been carved: r = (c2 + 4h2) / (8h) Thus: r = (1.112 + (4 x 0.602) / (8 x 0.60) = 0.55 Therefore, the minimum diameter of the circle of the section of the shaft of the putative column from which the sarcophagus of Henry VI might have been carved is equal to twice the radius, or approximately 1.1 m. Assuming that the column from which this shaft came adhered to the regular proportions of the composite order, the minimum height of the column would have been ten times the diameter of its base, or approximately 11 m (37 Roman feet), and the minimum height of the shaft five-sixths of the height of the column, or approximately 9.16 m (31 Roman feet). However, were the column to have been of standard height in a multiple of 6 Roman feet, its height would have been 42 Roman feet, and that of the shaft 35 Roman feet (10.36 m). The same formula, applied to the sarcophagus of William I (Figs 13 and 14), gives very similar results. The trough is carved from a single piece, the tapered sides of which suggest that it was carved from a column; the arc of the trough diminishes from 1.38 m at one end to 1.24 m at the other, probably because the trough retains the tapering of the shaft of the column from which it was made. The maximum width of the trough diminishes from 1.7 m at one end to 1.1 m at 138

a porphyry workshop in norman palermo

Figure 13 The sarcophagus of William I, east elevation (© Sophie Ungerer)

the other, and the height above the bottom of the trough of, respectively, this same point is 600 mm and diminishes to 490 mm. In other words, had the sarcophagus been carved from a shaft, the circle of the section must have had a diameter large enough to accommodate a chord at least 1.7 m wide at a height of at least 0.60 m. The formula to find the radius of a circle (r) from the length of a chord (c = 1.07 m) and the height of the chord (h = 0.60 m) is:

Figure 14 The sarcophagus of William I, side elevation (© Sophie Ungerer)

r = (c2 + 4h2) / (8h) r = (1.072 + (4 x 0.602) / (8 x 0.60) r = (1.1449 + 1.44) / 4.80 = 0.540 0.538 = 2.5849 /4.80

giving a minimum diameter of approximately 0.98 m, a minimum column height of 9.8 m (33 feet), and a minimum shaft height of 8.16 m (27 feet). However, were these dimensions to be standardized they would amount to 35 and 30 feet respectively.

Therefore, the minimum diameter of the circle of the section of the smaller end of the shaft must have been approximately 1.076 m, giving (0.538 x 2 = 1.076). Assuming that the column from which this shaft came was of the composite order, we can calculate the minimum height for the column (hc) from the diameter of its base (db) as approximately of 10.76 m (37 Roman feet), and a minimum height for the shaft of 9.1 m (around 31 Roman feet).

Constance: r = (c2 + 4h2) / (8h) r = (0.91 + (4 x 0.382)) / (8 x 0.38) = 0.46 r = (0.83 + 0.57) / 3.04 0.46 = 1.4 / 3.04 2

which would give a minimum diameter of approximately 0.92 m, a minimum column height of 9.2 m (31 feet), and a minimum shaft height of 7.6 m (26 feet). However, were these dimensions to be standardized they would amount to 35 and 30 feet respectively. This shows that both the troughs of Frederick II and Constance could have been carved from a putative column of the same size. The preceding calculations suggest that the putative column needed for the troughs of Henry VI and William I might have measured as much as 42 Roman feet in height, and that one needed for the troughs of Frederick II and Constance might have measured as much 35 Roman feet. Roman columns occasionally reached a height of 60 Roman feet (17.8 m), but marble and granite columns were usually shorter because of the rarity of the stone and difficulties involved in

hs = 5 x (hc/6) 9.1 = 5 x 1.82 However, were the column to have been of standard height in a multiple of 6 Roman feet, its height would again have been 42 Roman feet, and that of the shaft 35 Roman feet (10.36 m). Similarly, the trough of Frederick II and Constance yield the same results (Figs 15–18), although in this case the size of the putative Roman column needed for these two troughs is much smaller. Frederick II: r = (c2 + 4h2) / (8h) r = (0.99 + (4 x 562)) / (8 x 56) = 0.49 r = (0.98 + 1.25) / 4.48 0.49 = 2.23 / 4.48 2

139

rosa maria bacile

Figure 15 The sarcophagus of Constance, side elevation (© Sophie Ungerer)

transport, production and finishing. Nonetheless, very tall marble and granite columns are found, for example, in the thermae of Rome. The Baths of Caracalla, built in the early 3rd century AD, employed columns of grey granite higher than 50 Roman feet (14.8 m).50 But even in this gigantic building, the tallest porphyry shafts from the frigidarium measured only 30 Roman feet (8.9 m), so that the whole column, including the base and capital, would have been more or less 36 Roman feet.51 These are the largest known porphyry shafts to survive from Roman antiquity. We only know from documentary evidence that the diameter of the base of their shafts are 0.96 m or 0.88 m, but, in the absence of precise data, cuttings have been found and ordered have been reconstructed of columns in red porphyry of 30 feet.52 Shafts of this size would have been perfectly adequate for the sarcophagi of Frederick II and Constance, but probably too small for those of Henry VI and William I. If the porphyry roundels in the medieval churches of Rome were indeed cut from ancient columns, as Deér suggested, then they would provide evidence that larger columns once existed, but are now lost. One of the largest porphyry roundels forms the centre of the quincunx at the west end of the nave of St Maria in Cosmedin. It measures 2.13 m in diameter.53 Had it been sliced from the base of a shaft, the column would have been at least 21.3 m in height, equivalent to 72 Roman feet — impossible dimensions that clearly demonstrate that this roundel could not have been sawn from a column. But this was an exceptional piece, and none of the other porphyry roundels in St Maria in Cosmedin pavement exceed 0.7 m in diameter. Indeed, very few of the porphyry roundels in Rome have a diameter greater than 0.7 m, which suggests that porphyry columns of more than 24 Roman feet must have been rare. However, the porphyry roundel at the centre of another quincunx, in the pavement of the nave of SS

Figure 16 The sarcophagus of Constance, north elevation (© Sophie Ungerer)

Quattro Coronati, consecrated in 1116, measures 1.42 m in diameter.54 Had it been cut from a shaft, the minimum height of the column would have been 14.2 m (48 Roman feet). That columns of such dimensions were indeed imported to Rome from Egypt is confirmed by both documentary sources, and surviving columns. As it happens, the columns in the portico of the Pantheon are also 14.2 m high, and are made of Aswan granite, a material that in hardness, density and provenance is comparable to porphyry. The shafts of these columns are 11.6 m high, with a diameter of 1.51 m at the base and 1.31 m at the top. Note how, presumably because of their great size, they are thicker than the order prescribes, with a proportion of 9.4 diameters to the height of the column. Similarly, the relationship of the total height of the column to the height of the shaft is irregular.55 If a porphyry shaft of that same size had ever existed, it would have sufficed for the manufacture of all four sarcophagi, including troughs, lids and supports. If the maximum lengths of the four sarcophagi are added together, they come to 9.40 m, leaving 2.2 m for the supports and lids. The troughs would have required no more than 0.75 m of the diameter of the shaft, and the supports would have needed at least 0.85 m, leaving a generous surplus for the four lids, and also for the cornice that had to be added to Constance’s trough. Until now, it has been assumed both that the putative columns from which the sarcophagi were carved adhered regularly to the proportions of the composite order, and also that the columns were of a standard size in corresponding to a multiple of 5 Roman feet. However, it would be equally possible to take a 140

a porphyry workshop in norman palermo

Figure 18 The sarcophagus of Frederick II, north elevation (© Sophie Ungerer)

Figure 17

Roman feet in height. At the other extreme, the sarcophagi could have been carved from two shafts taken from different columns of the regular composite order and of the standard sizes of 35 and 30 feet. Another possibility, of course, is that the porphyry for the Sicilian sarcophagi came not from monolithic column shafts but rather from column drums, such as those apparently found in Rome for Constantine the Great, and shipped to Constantinople for erection in the Forum of Constantine.57 But these drums are actually much bigger and their diameter is 2.9 m, and therefore it is impossible to argue that each of the four sarcophagi could have been carved from a drum of this size.58 Moreover, such massive drums would not have exhibited the pronounced tapering found on the sarcophagi of William I and of Constance. If we consider the fact that the masons of the sarcophagus of Constance appear to have been short of porphyry, we might conclude that the source of material for large objects like the sarcophagi was modest, and was beginning to run out by the time the sarcophagus of Constance was made. This would lead to the conclusion that the Palermitan workshop had one very large shaft of 35 feet and a few smaller pieces of porphyry from which the other objects were produced. If we then factor in all the off-cuts of porphyry that survive in contemporary ecclesiastical building and decoration in Norman Sicily, we would have to concede that the workshop had porphyry in abundance in the workshop but that its stock was largely made up of smaller pieces.59 My own opinion is that, although we cannot be certain, the evidence at our disposal suggests that it is highly probable that the sarcophagi of William and Henry VI were carved from one large monolithic shaft of 35 feet. This shaft could also have supplied material for the supports of Frederick II, their largest width is 1.08 m, which approximately matches the width of the

The sarcophagus of Frederick II, side elevation (© Sophie Ungerer)

different approach, reconstructing the dimensions of the putative column or columns from the dimensions of the sarcophagi, ignoring the proportions of order and of standard sizes. This would yield a column shaft with the following minimum dimensions: height, 9.4 m; diameter at base, 1.1 m; diameter at top, 0.90 m. The shaft would have a height of approximately 8.5 m base diameters. From a point 2.36 m above the base, the shaft would taper from 1.1 m to 0.9 m (i.e. a total of 0.2 m) over a height of approximately 7.04 m. While a shaft with these proportions would belong to no order, it would by no means be outside the variations from the regular recorded in ancient Roman columns.56 Here, it is crucial to remember that, while the sarcophagi of Henry VI and Frederick II are carved from solid blocks of porphyry, those of William I and of Constance are composed by joining several pieces of porphyry together. As we have seen, the supports of the sarcophagus of William are formed from four distinct pieces of porphyry, while the whole sarcophagus of Constance is made of several pieces of porphyry. This might suggest that the masons in Palermo did not possess a surplus of material but, on the contrary, were so short of porphyry by the time that they began to manufacture the sarcophagus of Constance that they were forced to resort to patching it together from off-cuts, remnants and scraps. The foregoing discussion is not conclusive, but rather suggests a range of possibilities. At one extreme, all four sarcophagi could conceivably have been carved from a single column measuring as little as 42 141

rosa maria bacile lions supporting the sarcophagus of Frederick II, were stylistically related to work from southern France, Deér felt, though he offered no examples or evidence in support of this suggestion.63 In more recent years, authors such as Avinoam Shalem and Francesco Gandolfo have argued that the techniques used to work porphyry are similar to those used for cutting and carving precious gemstones and rock crystals, and have concluded that a porphyry workshop active in Palermo would also have specialized in carving these precious gems, and that the sculptors who knew these techniques and were working in this workshop were originally from Ifriqiya.64 Supporting evidence for this can be in Anton Francesco Doni’s 16th-century account of how to work porphyry, where he clearly states that the best techniques used to carve this unforgiving stone were similar to the ones used to carve crystals, agate and jasper.65 It was possible thanks to the development of machines with gear-wheels — machines that were still used in 15th-century and 16th-century Italy by gem engravers. Thus, more recently, Suzanne Butters concluded that in Roman times, and possibly in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, these techniques were ‘deployed on a colossal scale’.66 Gandolfo has also suggested that the stonemasons who produced the porphyry slabs which adorn the Cappella Palatina were from Ifriqiya. Gandolfo arrived at this conclusion by first considering two slabs on which an Arabic inscription has been set using an intarsia technique in porphyry and marmo verde.67 As the art of intarsia was known in Ifriqiya, but was seemingly unknown in 11th- or early 12th-century Sicily, Gandolfo reasoned that the artists who produced these two slabs came from Ifrqiya and knew how to cut porphyry. Roger II entertained diplomatic relations in the period between 1145–49 and it was in these same years that part of Ifriqiya was conquered by the Norman ruler.68 From this Gandolfo argued that the sculptors responsible for the small porphyry objects and the sarcophagi in Sicily could also have been from Ifriqiya.69 However, recent experiments on tool-marks found on medieval rock crystal objects, led by Elise Morero and Jeremy Johns at the Khalili Research Centre, Oxford, have clearly shown that the techniques to carve rock crystal are different to those used to work porphyry.70 Thus, there is no technical reason why there should be a relationship between the rock crystal and porphyry workshops in Norman Sicily, making it more difficult to argue that the artists came from Ifriqiya. The use of an intarsia technique on the slabs in the Cappella Palatina is not of itself sufficient evidence to prove that they were made by the same artists as the sarcophagi and that these artists came from Ifriqiya. The following analysis on the carving technique and of the tools necessary to carve porphyry in general, as

sarcophagus of William I. The lids of the sarcophagi of Frederick II, William I and Henry VI and the supports of the sarcophagus of Henry would also have to be extracted from large pieces of porphyry. A study of the shape of the crystals, and a microscopic analysis of the porphyry from which all the sarcophagi are made, could ultimately indicate whether the sarcophagi have been cut from the same piece of porphyry, or whether the porphyry has come from more than one source. Because of its formation, the crystals in porphyry have a unique shape which changes according to where within the volcanic core, and thus the quarry, the basic rock had formed. In the absence of such a detailed analysis, historical sources suggest that the raw material for the sarcophagi and all the other small porphyry objects attributed to Norman Sicily was certainly acquired in Rome, most probably from a gigantic ancient structure, such as the Baths of Caracalla. In support of this hypothesis, it is important to recall Deér’s argument as to Roger II connections with the Roman Pierleoni family. Whatever the source of the porphyry used in King Roger’s Palermo, there can be no question that most of the porphyry artefacts, including not just the sarcophagi but also the floor rotae and various furnishing in the Cappella Palatina of Palermo and in the Church of St Mary of the Admiral, were all produced in the years immediately following 1140, at a time that he could have exploited his connection with the Pierleoni and Frangipani families.60 It was also during these years that the king’s sons, Roger and Anfusus, conquered most of the Italian mainland south of the Papal States, and even conquered Ceprano, which bordered the papal lands. It is possible that the king had the opportunity to obtain the material at this point of his reign.61 THE SCULPTORS AND CARVING TECHNIQUES The previous section concluded that the raw material needed to produce four of the porphyry sarcophagi probably came from Rome. However, the third of the questions raised at the beginning of this paper, on the provenance of the sculptors of the tombs and on the techniques needed to carve the four sarcophagi, has yet to be addressed. There is no indication that the sculptors were procured, along with the raw material, by King Roger in Rome. Until now, no evidence has been found of a 12th-century porphyry workshop in Rome that specialised in fine carving. The Roman marmorarii did use porphyry for flooring and to adorn churches furnishing, but they did not carve objects, so while they were able to cut a rotae or obtain a slab and knew how to polish porphyry, there seems to be no evidence that they carved porphyry.62 Deér considered the provenance of the sculptors in passing, but went no further than to suggest that they were not Roman. The decorative elements and the 142

a porphyry workshop in norman palermo difficulties of carving porphyry, which holds that the four martyrs from Pannonia were able to carve porphyry only thanks to steel tools that had been tempered by Christ.81 Tempering techniques to make appropriate steel tools for working porphyry were only discovered by the sculptor Francesco del Tadda, who claimed to have devised a new herbal solution to temper steel tools at the court of the Medici and was thus able to resurrect the art of working porphyry in 16th-century Florence.82 As such, steel tools were available in Antiquity and in 16th-century Italy, but had seemingly fallen out of use in the medieval West. However, the more ancient techniques of abrasion and the use of pounding tools remained in use, and were the only tools with which medieval stonecarvers could have cut porphyry. As it happens, not only is this no impediment — it may even have been an advantage. Recent experiments on granite and quartz by Denys Stocks, in Manchester and Egypt, using replicas of ancient cutting tools known from documentary and archaeological evidence, have shown that copper and bronze saws used with abrasives like emery or desert sand are more effective than steel saws.83 The reason for this being that the soft metal of the copper saw adheres much more easily when in contact with the angular crystals present in stones like quartz and indeed porphyry, and will be embedded within the soft metal of the saw, reducing the friction and increasing the efficiency of the saw (Fig. 19).84 These experiments have also demonstrated that it was the use of abrasive sands which would have made the sawing more effective. The use of emery and other abrasive sands was well known to the Romans. The Roman historian Pliny remarks:

well as to carve the Norman porphyry sarcophagi, will suggest that the tools and techniques necessary to carve the Palermitan tombs were known in the Middle Ages, and were similar if not the same as the techniques employed by the Roman marmorarii who cut and polished porphyry rotae to adorn the medieval churches of Rome.

Carving techniques Part of porphyry’s appeal lay in its durability and hardness. It has always been believed that, in order to carve fine works in porphyry, sculptors required specialised carving techniques and suitable steel tools, which were believed to be rare or unknown in medieval times.71 The hardness of the stone derives from its geological formation. Porphyry contains crytals that were created in two phases: the first happens in the deep magma where the larger crystals grow and develop their distinctive shapes; the second corresponds to the more rapid cooling of the volcanic lava on eruption.72 It is the very presence of these crystals that gives porphyry its durability and makes it so hard to cut or carve.73 Throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, porphyry remained one of hardest stones to work, and the technical knowledge and the tools required to cut or carve porphyry were not always available or easy to acquire.74 Egyptians rulers and, later, Roman emperors, were the first to extract and work this stone to furnish and decorate their palaces.75 The Egyptians seem to have cut porphyry with flint chisels, and used desert sand and other hard aggregates to abrade its surface.76 The knowledge of these ancient techniques has come down to us through the work of an Italian artist of the 16th century, Anton Francesco Doni, who wrote ‘a poetic account of ancient craftmanship’, in which the carving of porphyry is included.77 In this work, the author explains that first the Egyptians during the Ptolemaic era and, later, the Romans incised details with copper drills, and used wheels for abrasion and erosion of the surface of very hard stones like porphyry.78 In Roman times, sculptors were equipped with carving tools of steel, which had been obtained by quenching and tempering the metal until it became sufficiently hard. It has always been believed that it was these tools that facilitated the carving of elaborate folds and to foliate motifs on large-scale statuary. In addition, the techniques of abrasion and erosion, and the use of pounding tools, produced rounded surfaces and broad details.79 Doni speaks of ‘imaginary and extraordinary tools’ in order to explain how the Roman sculptors managed to carve porphyry, and his 16th-century poetic account has transmitted an erroneous belief that porphyry could only have been carved by using steel tools.80 The famous tale of the Quattro Santi Coronati also includes an anecdote that highlights the

The cutting of marble is effected apparently by iron, but actually by sand, for the saw merely presses the sand upon a very thinly traced line, and then the passage of the instrument, owing to the rapid movement to and fro, is in itself enough to cut stone.85

So while it was believed until recently that the techniques to work porphyry were unknown in the Middle Ages, new experiments on hard stones have shown that copper/bronze tools and abrasive techniques are perfectly suited to the material. Indeed, Butters remarks that porphyry is characterized by small white crystals, ‘if the hard stone is pounded the softer matrix can release the hard crystal’, which then needs to be carved laboriously with the use of wheels and abrasive techniques. Sculptures characterized by elaborate folds and grooves are then executed with copper drills and abrasives.86 As such, if the sarcophagi were indeed manufactured out of Roman porphyry columns, this would mean that the troughs of the tombs in Palermo would correspond to a length of a column laid horizontally, one face of which would have been sliced off in order to obtain a flat surface, which would have become the 143

rosa maria bacile

Figure 19 Saw for a large block of hard stone (© D. Stocks (2003))

top of the new sarcophagus. The excess stone within would then have been removed to form a cavity into which the corpse of the deceased could be laid. Although this process was very laborious, it was straightforward and required little carving skill. The length of the column would have been sawn, and the slice prized off with the aid of rods. This process was well known in the Middle Ages and the Roman marmorarii were well acquainted with sawing porphyry rotae from columns. Thus, the porphyry columns could have been sawn in the porphyry workshop in Palermo by using rods or copper saws together with abrasive sands. The hollowing out of the half-columns to create the cavity of the sarcophagi would have been the most difficult part of the process. It is also known that it was harder to re-carve porphyry from ancient columns which had already been previously cut and polished, as opposed to carving a fresh block from the quarry, because the stone would be very dry from having been exposed to the elements and was therefore harder.87 It has always been believed that, in Roman times, for the production of porphyry sarcophagi and troughs, the cavity was chipped out with steel chisels, reducing the porphyry waste to small chips or even dust. However, experiments on Egyptian Aswan granite using replica tubular copper drills, produced

following ancient Egyptian models, have shown that a copper drill is much more effective than a steel one, especially when used with abrasives like desert sand or emery (Figs 20 and 21).88 Although no experiments have been carried out on porphyry, the experience gained with rose granite and quartzite shows that copper tools and abrasive techniques would have also been much more effective in hollowing out the cavity of a sarcophagus. A bow-driven tubular drill can make circular indents with a depth of between 50 to 80 mm. These indents are made from the perimeter to the central mass, hollowing out the perimeter area first and leaving the central mass of the stone isolated. The circles would be distributed equally to absorb friction and vibration and to avoid any damage to the side and internal walls of the sarcophagus (Fig. 22). A copper drill would have generated less friction than a steel one, and abrasive sand like emery or desert sand with added water would be used to make the drilling more effective; once the holes had been drilled in lines, the mass of the remaining stone around the drilled holes would have been removed very easily with the help of punches and chisels.89 The final stages of smoothing and polishing of the sarcophagi were very easy, and they were achieved with sandstone and mud or organic oils. Abrasive techniques and the use of a bow driven flat copper drill 144

a porphyry workshop in norman palermo

Figure 20 Flat copper drill (© D. Stocks (2003))

Figure 22 Diagram of holes drilled within a sarcophagus cavity (© D. Stocks (2003))

could have been used to execute the exterior sculptural features of the sarcophagi. Butters remarks that the Egyptians managed to achieve delicate grooves and sculptural details with abrasive and copper drills. The use of pounding tools would create the rounded features which characterize the lions that support the sarcophagus of Frederick II (Fig. 23). CONCLUSION Although the experiments described above were not conducted on porphyry, they show that ancient abrasive techniques and the use of copper saws and drills, a technology which remained in use during the

Figure 21 Flat copper drill and abrasive sands (© D. Stocks (2003)) 145

rosa maria bacile

Figure 23 Palermo, cathedral: sarcophagus of Frederick II, lions’ support, detail (© Rosa Maria Bacile with permission of the cathedral of Palermo)

146

a porphyry workshop in norman palermo 6 R. Delbrück, Antike Porphyrwerke (Berlin and Leipzig 1932), 1–3; S. B. Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan, Sculptors, Tools, Porphyry, and the Prince in Ducal Florence, vols 1–2, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, XIV (Florence 1996); P. Malgouyres and C. Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre, La Pierre Pourpre Des Ptolémées Aux Bonaparte, Catalogue of the exhibition: ‘Porphyre’, Louvre, Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris 2003); D. Del Bufalo, Porphyry (Torino 2012). 7 Malgouyres and Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre (as n. 6), 14; Del Bufalo, Porphyry (as n. 6), 55–63. 8 Butters The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 35; J. B. WardPerkins, ‘Quarrying in Antiquity: Technology, Tradition and Social Change’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 57 (1971), 141–49; R. Gnoli, Marmora romana (Roma 1988), 125–26; C. Dubois, Étude sur l’administration et l’exploitation des carriers marbres, porphyre, granit, etc. dans le monde romain (Paris 1908), 61–68; D. Peacock and V. Maxfield, The Roman imperial porphyry quarries. Survey and excavation at Mons Porphyrites 1994–1998 (London 2001); Del Bufalo, Porphyry (as n. 6), 55–63. 9 Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 35. 10 Malgouyres and Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre (as n. 6), 14; Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 40. More recently, between 1994 and 1998, the site has been visited by archaeologists from the University of Southampton, and between 1993 and 1996 the British sculptor, Stephen Cox, visited the quarry and extracted a few blocks of porphyry. J. Puttnam, Ancient Egypt and Contemporary Art, exhibition catalogue, London, The British Museum, 1994 (London 1994), 34–37; S. Bann, The Sculpture of Stephen Cox (London, 1995); exhibition catalogue, Stephen Cox: Surface and Stones of Egypt, at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds (1995). 11 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 117. On Montecassino, see H. Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass. 1986), 3 vols, while the text of Leo of Ostia’s chronicle is published as Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, ed. H. Hoffmann, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 34 (Hannover 1980). An English translation of the sections that concern the purchase and transport of ancient building materials from Rome for Desiderius (Book III, sections 26–33) made by Herbert Bloch, is conveniently published in E. Holt, A Documentary History of Art, rev. ed. (New York 1957), I, 10–11. There is an extensive literature on the subject, but in particular see L. de Lachenal, Spolia: Uso e reimpiego dell’antico dal III al XIV secolo (Milan 1995), while the most useful synthetic overview of the reuse of marble in M. Greenhalgh, Marble Past, Monumental Present: Building with Antiquities in the Medieval Mediterranean (Leiden 2009). For general remarks and a more recent bibliography, see J. McNeill, ‘Veteres Statuas Emit Rome: Romanesque Attitudes to the Past’, in J. McNeill and R. Plant, Romanesque and the Past (Leeds 2013), 1–24. 12 E. Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture: its changing aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini (New York, 1964), 90. 13 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 117–19. 14 Ibid., 120. For a recent short summary of the standing and interests of the Pierleoni family, see C. Wickham, Medieval Rome: Stability and Crisis of a City, 900–1150 (Oxford 2015), 222–24 and 244–47. 15 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 122. 16 Malgouyres and Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre (as n. 6), 13. 17 Ibid., 13; Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 159. 18 Ibid., 159; S. Y. Edgerton, ‘Alberti’s Colour Theory: A Medieval Bottle Without Renaissance Wine’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 32 (1969), 116–17 and 119–20; M. Reinhold, History of Purple as a Status Symbol in Antiquity (Brussels, 1970). 19 Malgouyres and Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre (as n. 6), 13 and 63–64. 20 Butters, The Triumph Of Vulcan (as n. 6), 52–59, and 67–83; Delbrück, Antike (as n. 6), 11. 21 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 126; Del Bufalo, Porphyry (as n. 6), 30–34; 22 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 134; Anna Comnena, translated by E. R. A. Sewter, 2003, book VI, vii–viii, 196.

Middle Ages, could have produced the Norman sarcophagi in the cathedrals of Palermo and Monreale by re-carving ancient columns. A new analysis of the tool marks that remain on the Norman porphyry tombs would certainly shed further light on the tools and techniques that were used to carve them. Moreover, a microscopic analysis of the porphyry itself would help to determine whether the porphyry sarcophagi were indeed carved from the same blocks of porphyry and thus, potentially, enable us to decide whether they have been re-carved from ancient columns. Moreover, comparison of the porphyry of the sarcophagi with the porphyry used in the furnishing and floors of the Cappella Palatina (c. 1140) and of St Mary of the Admiral (1143) could also confirm the dating of the sarcophagi to the middle of 12th century. Though far from conclusive, the above discussion of the making of the porphyry sarcophagi has suggested that, if the sarcophagi were indeed made by reusing ancient porphyry columns, as Deér first suggested in 1949, those columns will have been imported by the Norman rulers from Rome. This review of techniques and tools has also shown that, although carving porphyry was expensive and laborious, the techniques and tools were available during the Middle Ages. The Roman marmorarii were experienced in the use of these tools, and that it was they, the marmorarii, who were recruited to carve the sarcophagi and arrived with the porphyry should be considered a real possibility. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This article is much indebted to Professor Jeremy Johns who supervised my thesis in Oxford and has followed my research very closely for the last ten years, and Professor John Lowden who inspired my initial research into the porphyry sarcophagi. I am also grateful to John McNeill for editing the final version of this paper, and for his invaluable input to the whole article, and wish to thank Professor Michele Bacci, Professor Bryan Ward-Perkins, Dr Janet DeLaine and Dr Benjamin Russel, with whom I have discussed a number of the crucial points in this paper. NOTES 1

J. Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry Tombs of the Norman Period in Sicily (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1959), 167–69. 2 Ibid. (as n. 1), 1–16. 3 J. Poeschke, Regum Monumenta, Kaiser Friedrich II. Und Die Grabmaeler Der Normannisch-Staufischen Herrscher Im Dom Von Palermo (Munich 2011), 19–42. 4 See R. M. Bacile, ‘The “Dynastic Mausolea” of the Norman Period in the South of Italy, c. 1069–1189. A Study on the Form and Meaning of Burial Monuments in the Middle Ages’ (unpublished DPhil thesis, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, 2010), 219–27. 5 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 124.

147

rosa maria bacile 23 A. Vasiliev, ‘Imperial Porphyry Sarcophagi in Constantinople’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 4 (1948), 1–26; C. A. Mango, ‘Three Imperial Byzantine Sarcophagi Discovered in 1750’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16 (1962), 397–402; P. G. Grierson, C. Mango and I. Sevcenko, ‘The Tombs and Obits of the Byzantine Emperors (337–1042), With an Additional Note’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16 (1962), 1–63; G. Downey, ‘The Tombs of the Byzantine Emperors at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 9 (1959), 27–51; N. Asutany-Effenberger, Die Porphyrsarkophage der oströmischen Kaiser: Versuch einer Bestandserfassung, Zeitbestimmung und Zuordnung (Wiesbaden 2006), 17–39. 24 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 130; Delbrück, Antike (as n. 6), 32. 25 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 130; B. V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power, The Mother of God in Byzantium (Pennsylvania 2006), 165–87. 26 E. Schubert and G. Leopold, ‘Magdeburgs ottonischer Dom’, in Otto der Grosse: Magdeburg und Europa, ed. M. Puhle (Mainz 2001), 353–66. 27 Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 115; C. D’Onofrio, Castel St Angelo, Roma (Rome 1971), 199–208; M. Greenhalgh, The survival of Roman antiquities in the Middle Ages (London 1989), 131; L. Richardson, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore and London 1992), 250; H. Grisar, ‘Il Sepolcro dell’Imperatore Ottone II nel paradiso dell’antica Basilica Vaticana’, in Civiltà Cattolica, 55 (1904), I, 463–73. 28 R. U. Montini, Le Tombe dei Sovrani in Roma (Roma 1957), 14–17. 29 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 136; Delbrück, Antike (as n. 6), 29–32. 30 Abbot Suger, On the Abbey Church of St-Denis and its Art Treasures, ed. E. Panofsky, 78–79. The text quoted above is from De Administratione. An English translation is ‘And further we adapted for the service of the altar, with the aid of gold and silver material, a porphyry vase, made admirable by the hand of the sculptor and polisher, after it had lain idly in a chest for many years, converting it from a flagon into the shape of an eagle; and we had the following verses inscribed on this vase: ‘This stone deserves to be enclosed in gems and gold. It was marble, but in these [settings] it is more precious than marble’. For a discussion, see D. GaboritChopin, ‘Suger’s Liturgical Vessels’, in Abbot Suger and St-Denis, ed. P. Gerson (New York 1986), 285–87. 31 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 138. 32 Ibid., 141; Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 115. 33 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 135; E. Kitzinger, ‘The Mosaics of the Cappella Palatina: An Essay on the Choice and Arrangement of Subjects’, Art Bulletin, 31 (1949), 269–92; O. Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (London 1949); E. Kitzinger, I Mosaici di Monreale (Palermo 1960); B. Rocco, La Cappella Palatina di Palermo, Lettura Teologica e Liturgica (Palermo 1979); E. Kitzinger, ‘Reflections on the feast cycle in Byzantine Art’, Cahiers Archéologiques, 36 (1988), 51–73; E. Kitzinger, ‘Mosaic decoration in Sicily under Roger II and the classical Byzantine System of Church Decoration’, in Italian church decoration of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Functions, Forms and Regional Traditions, Ten Contributions to a Colloquium held at Villa Spelman, Florence, ed. W. Tronzo (Bologna 1989), 147–65; S. Ćurčić, ‘Some Palatine Aspects of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 16 (1987), 125–44; E. Borsook, Messages in Mosaics (Oxford 1990); B. Brenk, ‘La parete occidentale della Cappella Palatina a Palermo’, Arte medievale (1990), 135–50; E. Kitzinger, The mosaics of St Mary of the Admiral in Palermo (Washington DC 1990); B. Brenk, ‘La Parete occidentale della Cappella Palatina’, Arte Medievale, ser. 2–4 (1990), 135–50; B. Brenk, ‘Zur Bedetung des Mosaiks an der Westwand der Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in Studien zur byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte. Festschrift für Horst Hallensleben zum 65. Geburstag, ed. B. Borkopp, B. Schellewald and L. Theis (Amsterdam 1995), 185–94; W. Tronzo, The cultures of his kingdom, Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton

1997); La Cappella Palatina a Palermo, ed. B. Brenk, Mirabilia Italiae 17, 4 vols (Modena 2010). 34 E. Kitzinger, St Mary of the Admiral (as n. 31); G. Samoná, ‘Il Duomo di Cefalú’, Monumenti Italiani, fasc. 16 (Rome 1939 and 1940); G. Samoná, Monumenti Medioevali nel Retroterra di Cefalú (Naples 1935); W. Krönig, ‘Il Duomo di Cefalú: Osservazioni sulla storia della sua costruzione’, Atti Della Tavola Rotonda Sul Duomo Di Cefalú: Cefalú 30–31 Agosto, 1977; G. Di Stefano, Monumenti Della Sicilia Normanna, ed. W. Krönig (Palermo 1979); H. M. Schwarz, ‘Die Baukunst Kalabriens und Siziliens im Zeitalter der Normannen, I: Die Lateinische Kirchengründungen des II. Jahrehunderts und der Dom in Cefalú’, Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 6 (1942–44), 1–112. 35 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 24–42; I. Herklotz, ‘Sepulcra’ e ‘Monumenta’ del Medioevo. Studi sull’arte sepolcrale in Italia (Napoli 2001), 109–20. 36 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 124. 37 G. Agnello di Ramata, ‘I Sarcofagi Donati Da Ruggero II Alla Chiesa Di Cefalù E Trasportati A Palermo Per Ordine Di Federico II’, in Archivio Storico Siciliano, Serie 3, Vol. 7 (Palermo 1956), 257–76; G. L. Mellini, ‘Appunti per la Scultura Federiciana’, Comunitá, 32/179 (1978), 235–336; G. L. Mellini, ‘Federiciana 4’, in Labyrinthos, vol. 10 (1991), nos 19–20, 3–57; G. L. Mellini, ‘Federiciana 7’, in Labyrinthos, vols 15–16 (1996–97), nos 29–32, 3–46; M. Restle, ‘Beiträge zur Datierung der Porphyr-Sarkophage in Palermo und Monreale’, in Byzantine Studies Tempe, vol. 5 (1978), nos 1–2, 212–21; I. Herklotz, ‘Sepulcra’ (as n. 35); I. Herklotz, ‘Lo Spazio della Morte e lo Spazio della Sovranitá’, in M. D’Onofrio, I Normanni Popolo D’Europa, 1030–1200 (Venezia, 1994); F. Gandolfo, ‘Le Tombe e gli Arredi Liturgici Medievali’, in La Cattedrale di Palermo, Studi per l’ottavo centenario della fondazione, a cura di L. Urbani (Palermo 1993), 231–53; E. Bassan, ‘I Sarcofagi di Porfido della Cattedrale’, in Federico e La Sicilia dalla terra alla corona, Arti Figurative e Suntuarie, catalogo della mostra a cura di M. Andaloro (Palermo 1995), 33–45; J. Poeschke, Architekturästhetik Und Spolienintegration Im 13. Jahrhundert, Antike Spolien In Der Architektur Des Mittelalters Und Der Renaissance (München 1996); J. Poeschke, Die Sculpture Des Mittelalters In Italien, Band I, Romanik, Aufnahmen Albert Hirmer und Irmgard Ernstmeier-Hirmer, Hirmer Verlag (München 1998), 225–48; Regione Siciliana, Assessorato dei beni culturali ed ambientali e della pubblica istruzione, Dipartimento dei beni culturali ed ambientali e dell’educatione permanente, Il Sarcofago Dell’Imperatore, Studi ricerche e indagini sulla tomba di Federico II nella Cattedrale di Palermo, 1994–99 (Palermo 2002); J. Poeschke, Regum Monumenta (as n. 3). 38 J. J. Winckelmann (1717–68), Storia dell’arte presso gli antichi, Opere, III (Prato 1832), 958, libro 12, 100, 3. 39 L. Todisco, Scultura antica e reimpiego in Italia meridionale (Bari 1994). 40 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 75; Mango, ‘Three Imperial Byzantine’ (as n. 23), 397–402. 41 F. Daniele, I Regali Sepolcri del Duomo di Palermo (Naples 1784), 40; G. Di Marzo, Delle Belle Arti in Sicilia, 2 (Palermo 1859), 251. 42 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 70–74; Delbrück, Antike (as n. 6), 31. The trough of Henry VI is also very similar to a Byzantine trough which was rediscovered in the 18th century in Istanbul by the French antiquarian Flachant, and this has been described in an article by Cyril Mango, and its size and design is very similar to the trough of Henry VI, see Mango, ‘Three Imperial Byzantine’ (as n. 23), 397–402. 43 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 124. 44 Ibid., 124. 45 Ibid., 124. : Magister Gregorius, [accessed 22 May 2015] Chap. 15: Ubi tantae altitudinis columnas repperi, quod nemo lapillum usque ad capitale potest proicere. Quarum quamlibet, ut a cardinalibus accepi, centum viri vix per annum secare, polire atque perficere potuerunt.

148

a porphyry workshop in norman palermo 46 J. M. Wilson Jones, Principles of Roman architecture (New Haven, Conn. and London 2000), 1–9. 47 Ibid. (as n. 46), 7 and 135–40. 48 Ibid. (as n. 46), 148–49 and 73. 49 Ibid. (as n. 46), 148. 50 Ibid. (as n. 46), 262. 51 J. DeLaine, The baths of Caracalla: a study in the design, construction, and economics of large-scale building projects in imperial Rome (Portsmouth, USA 1997), 262. 52 Ibid. (as n. 51), 262–63. 53 G. B. Giovenale, La Basilica di S. Maria in Cosmedin (Roma 1927), 25, tav. 23. 54 D. Glass, Studies on Cosmatesque Pavements (Oxford 1980), 42–45, 124–26, pls 40–41 and fold-out 1. 55 Wilson Jones, Principles of Roman (as n. 46), 199–212, esp. 208. 56 Ibid. (as n. 46), 208–10. 57 G. Fowden, ‘Constantine’s Porphyry Column: The Earliest Literary Allusion’, The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 81 (1991), 119–31, 123–24. 58 W. Müller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur Topographie Istanbuls : Byzantion, Konstantinupolis, Istanbul bis zum Beginn d. 17 (Tübingen and Wasmuth 1977), 255–57. 59 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 167–69. 60 See section on porphyry. 61 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 117; H. Houben, Tra Roma e Palermo: aspetti e momenti del Mezzogiorno medioevale (Galatina 1989). 62 See G. Claussen, ‘Les Marbriers Romains et le Mobilier Presbytéral’, in Les Monuments du Christianisme au Moyen-Age (Paris 1897), 186–87 on the workshops of the Roman marmorarii in the 12th century. More recently see A. M. D’Achille, Da Pietro D’Oderisio Ad Arnolfo Di Cambio, Studi Sulla Scultura A Roma Nel Duecento (Roma 2001), 13–41. 63 Deér, The Dynastic Porphyry (as n. 1), 124–25. 64 A. Shalem, ‘The Rock-Crystal Lionhead in the Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe’, in L’Egypte Fatimide: son art et histoire, ed. M. Barrucand (Paris 1999), 359–66. 65 Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 169–73.

66

Ibid. (as n. 6), 171. F. Gandolfo, ‘Il Porfido’, in Nobiles Officinae, ed. M. Andaloro (Catania 2006), 201–15. 68 H. Houben, Roger II of Sicily: a ruler between East and West (Cambridge 2002), 100–13. 69 Gandolfo, ‘Il Porfido’ (as n. 67), 202. 70 Paper given by E. Morero and J. Johns at the conference: Beyond the Western Mediterranean: Materials, Techniques and Artistic Production, 650–1500, Courtauld Institute of Art (London 20 April 2013). 71 Malgouyres and Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre (as n. 6), 17–18; Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 159–68; Delbrück, Antike (as n. 6), 3–7. 72 Malgouyres and Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre (as n. 6), 13; Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 159–68. 73 Ibid. (as n. 6), 172. 74 Ibid. (as n. 6), 172. 75 Malgouyres and Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre (as n. 6), 26–27; Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 171. 76 Malgouyres and Blanc-Riehl, Porphyre (as n. 6), 17; Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 171. 77 Ibid. (as n. 6), 169. 78 Ibid. (as n. 6), 173. 79 Ibid. (as n. 6), 174. 80 Ibid. (as n. 6), 170. 81 Ibid. (as n. 6), 175; D. Peacock, ‘The Passio Sanctorum Quattuor Coronatorum: a petrological account’, Antiquity, 69 (1995), 362–68. The site described in the tale is not actually Pannonia but the porphyry quarry in Egypt; Del Bufalo, Porphyry (as n. 6), 69–72. 82 Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 149–58. 83 D. A. Stocks, Experiments in Egyptian Archaelogy, Stoneworking technology in Ancient Egypt (Oxford 2003), 116–17. 84 Ibid. (as n. 83), 116. 85 Ibid., 109 from D. E. Eichholz, Pliny Natural History (London and Cambridge 1962), 17. 86 Stocks, Experiments (as n. 83), 173. 87 Butters, The Triumph of Vulcan (as n. 6), 202. 88 Stocks, Experiments (as n. 83), 172–75. 89 Ibid. (as n. 83), 174. 67

149

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 151–166

THE MAUSOLEUM OF BOHEMUND IN CANOSA AND THE ARCHITECTURAL SETTING OF RULER TOMBS IN NORMAN ITALY Mark J. Johnson The mausoleum holding the remains of Prince Bohemund (d. 1111) next to the cathedral at Canosa is the only surviving example of a Norman ruler tomb in Italy built as a separate structure. Much has been written about its architecture and supposed sources, but few scholars have commented on its location in relationship to the cathedral. An examination of the other Norman ruler tombs in Italy at Venosa, Mileto, Cefalù, Palermo, Monreale and elsewhere with particular emphasis on their architectural setting demonstrates a pattern in the location of these tombs: tombs of the male rulers are invariably placed on the south side of their respective churches. As regards the mausoleum at Canosa, its architectural design and placement near the east end of the church are based on late antique prototypes, including monuments Bohemund may have seen in his journeys during the First Crusade. The original setting of the actual burial of Bohemund, presumably in a now lost sarcophagus, probably echoed the arrangement seen in the ruler tombs of his parents in Venosa.

biography of her father.3 Back in Italy, Bohemund quarrelled from time to time with his half-brother Roger Borsa before eventually receiving the title of prince of Taranto and control of several cities in Apulia, including Bari, seat of the bishopric of Canosa and Bari. Both brothers died in 1111 and Bohemund’s remains were sent to Canosa for burial. Unfortunately, the sources are silent on why he chose this city as his final resting place, though perhaps it had something to do with his devotion to the cult of St Sabinus whose relics were in the cathedral. The sources are also silent on whether or not construction began on the monument before his death or were initiated afterwards. A donation document of William, the nephew of Bohemund, written in 1118 is the first to mention his burial in Canosa, suggesting it was finished by then.4 The mausoleum of Bohemund is a small, almost square structure attached to the south transept of the cathedral of San Sabino (Fig. 2). There is no door connecting the two buildings, though one in the transept of the church led to a porch connected with the mausoleum (Fig. 3). The building measures about 4.70 m from north to south and about 5.20 m from east to west, and its door is on the south side, rather than the west. The doorway was once closed by a set of bronze doors that a few years ago were removed for restoration and since displayed in a side chapel of the

The mausoleum of Bohemund in Canosa stands as a unique monument in the architecture of Norman Italy (Fig. 1). Alone among the remaining ruler tombs, Bohemund’s final resting place was not a sarcophagus placed in the atrium or the transept of a church, but in a separate structure attached to one. The building has attracted the attention of scholars, who for the most part address the issue of sources of its design.1 While this is an interesting problem that merits comment, the present study will take a wider approach and examine this building not only for its unique qualities, but also investigate how it fits into the broader picture of Norman ruler tombs and their architectural settings in Italy. Bohemund was the son of Duke Robert Guiscard and his first wife, Alberada.2 When he was still a young boy his father repudiated his mother in order to marry the Lombard princess Sikelgaita. Nevertheless, Bohemund grew to be a very capable military commander in his father’s army during campaigns against the Byzantines in Greece, and later earned his own fame as a leader in the First Crusade, eventually winning the title of Prince of Antioch. On his journey to the Holy Land, he passed through Constantinople, where he was hosted by Emperor Alexios Komnenos in April 1097, whose daughter Anna Comnena included a description of the noble Norman warrior in her © British Archaeological Association 2015

151

mark j. johnson

Figure 1 Mausoleum of Bohemund, Canosa, exterior from south-west (Mark Johnson)

152

the mausoleum of bohemund

Figure 2 Cathedral of San Sabino, Canosa, plan (Mark Johnson)

Figure 3 Mausoleum of Bohemund, Canosa, plan (Mark Johnson) 153

mark j. johnson cathedral.5 They are marked with inscriptions that honour Bohemund and name the artist, and are decorated with various panels. One shows engraved images of two men usually identified as Bohemund and Roger Borsa kneeling at the feet of the Virgin Mary, a figure cast separately and long since removed. Below, a second engraved panel shows three men, presumably the sons and heirs of Roger and Bohemund. The exterior of the mausoleum has a cubical form covered with marble and articulated with pilasters in an arcade on its walls, with a small apse on the east (Fig. 4). An octagonal drum rises from the centre, having a window on each side and slender colonettes at each corner (Fig. 5). An inscription celebrating the deeds of Bohemund is carved into the cornice.6 At present the drum is topped by the curving form of a hemispherical dome, though an engraving by Jean Louis Desprez from the 1780s shows the dome covered by a pyramidal roof (Fig. 6). Returning to the plan, it is seen that the dome actually rests on two columns standing in the south part of the interior and on supports in the church wall, which also acts as the north wall of the mausoleum. This

unusual support system — one would have expected to see the dome supported on four columns — seems perhaps to have been done as a way of saving on the cost of construction.

Figure 5 Mausoleum of Bohemund, Canosa, exterior detail of drum with inscription (Mark Johnson)

Figure 4

Figure 6

Mausoleum of Bohemund, Canosa, exterior from south-east (Mark Johnson)

Mausoleum of Bohemund, Canosa, view from the south by J. L. Desprez, c. 1783, engraving 154

the mausoleum of bohemund

Figure 7 Tomb of Robert Guiscard and his brothers, SS Trinità, Venosa, south aisle (D. N. R. Wikimedia Commons)

offering commemorative services and prayers for intercession on behalf of its illustrious dead. The new church was never finished, perhaps in part because Robert’s successors decided to be buried elsewhere. Nevertheless, when Robert died in 1085 while on a campaign against the Byzantines in Greece, his remains were sent back to Venosa for interment.10 Today a single tomb, said to contain the remains of all four brothers, stands against the south wall of the south side aisle (Fig. 7).11 Two piers supporting a wide arch set under a gable covering enclose the tomb proper. This was not, however, the original tomb of any of the brothers, but rather built in the 16th century and decorated with frescoes at that time. Ingo Heklotz has pointed out that there are other tombs of this form elsewhere in Apulia that date to the 12th century, and so perhaps the present tomb either incorporated an earlier structure or was based on the earlier tomb covering — a kind of arcosolium or architectural canopy sheltering what was most likely a sarcophagus.12 One can imagine in the church four separate tombs of this design or of similar structure with columns supporting the covering.

The present burial place of Bohemund is under a slab of stone set in the floor under the dome, marked with his name. Sources indicate, however, that his tomb was opened on several occasions throughout the centuries, and it is highly unlikely that the original burial was done in this manner.7 Where does this monument fit into the larger picture of Norman ruler tombs in Italy, and in particular with their architectural settings? Why was it built in this specific location and what is the significance of that choice? A review of the corpus of ruler tombs will provide some interesting insights, not only as regards the mausoleum of Bohemund, but also into Norman ruler funerary practice as a whole. Bohemund’s father, Robert Guiscard, was the fourth brother of the Hauteville family to rule in Apulia, earning the title of duke in 1059.8 It was Robert who moved to establish a dynastic burial church at the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Venosa, bringing the remains of his brothers there by 1069.9 He set about to enlarge the church to a great and impressive size and invited monks from Normandy to establish themselves here, caring for the church and 155

mark j. johnson Other burials of members of the ruling family are to be found elsewhere. Orderic Vitalis informs us that Robert saw to the burial of his mother Fredesenda at the monastery church of St Eufemia near Lamezia on the western side of Calabria.13 The church is in ruins and only limited excavations have ever been undertaken here, with no information about the location of her tomb yet discovered. Given the fact that Bohemund did not inherit the title of his father, it is not surprising that he was not buried at the dynastic church in Venosa. His half-brother, Roger Borsa, who did inherit the title, also chose to be buried elsewhere. Their father had conquered the Lombard principality of Salerno and Roger Borsa’s mother was, in fact, the sister of the prince deposed by her husband. Roger Borsa chose to use Salerno as his capital, and when he died his remains were placed somewhere in the cathedral of St Matthew in Salerno, which his father had built.14 No evidence exists as to which of the numerous sarcophagi in the church and its atrium might actually have been his. His son, Prince William, who died unexpectedly in 1127, was buried in an antique sarcophagus, located in the atrium just to the left of the main portal of the cathedral (Fig. 8).15 This might lead one to suppose that the tomb of Roger Borsa was located nearby. In choosing a location in the atrium, William and perhaps his father were following the practice used at the passing of his grandmother, Sikelgaita. At her death, rather than being buried near her husband in the church at Venosa, she had left instructions that her burial should take place at the famous Benedictine monastery at Montecassino, where, sources tell us, she was interred in the atrium of the church, though no trace of her sarcophagus remains.16 Another tomb belonging to a member of Robert Guiscard’s immediate family remains to be discussed. This is the tomb of his repudiated first wife, Alberada (Fig. 9).17 The date of her death is debated but, as the inscription on her tomb refers to the burial of her son Bohemund in Canosa, it would have been after 1111. Perhaps ironically, this is the one tomb of this group that remains completely intact to this day. It stands in the church of the Holy Trinity at Venosa, located in the north side aisle of the church, on the opposite side of the nave from that of Robert Guiscard. A simple rectangular tomb, covered by a sloped slab of marble sits against the north wall. Two reused antique columns flank it and support a triangular pediment with a classical air. This contains the inscription that identifies the tomb’s occupant as the wife of Guiscard and tells the viewer that, if they are looking for the tomb of her son, it is to be found in Canosa.18 The youngest Hauteville brother was Count Roger I, who together with Robert Guiscard completed the conquest of Calabria and then conquered Sicily from the Arabs. In many ways Roger was his brother’s equal, and set about to establish himself as a ruler in

his own right. Choosing the city of Mileto in Calabria as his capital, he set about building a new cathedral as well as a new monastery with a church dedicated to the Holy Trinity on separate hills in the city. The town was devastated in the great earthquake of 1782, to the extent that both churches were destroyed. The abbey church is known through limited excavations and from a plan with notes drawn of the building in 1581 (Fig. 10).19 It was a large basilica with a transept and three apses on its east end, of which a few remains are visible on the site today. When Roger’s second wife Eremburga died around 1087, her body was placed in a reused antique sarcophagus decorated with Amazons that is now in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.20 Later when Roger died in 1101, his body was likewise placed in a reused antique sarcophagus, also now in the museum in Naples.21 The plan of 1581 does not locate the sarcophagus of Eremburga, but the large sarcophagus of Roger is shown as being in the south side aisle of the church. An engraving done following the earthquake depicts the sarcophagus surrounded by the debris of the collapsed building (Fig. 11). As Faedo suggests, the sarcophagus may also have been covered with a canopy consisting of columns and an entablature made of porphyry, the lintel of which perhaps seen in a carved piece of porphyry now found under an altar of a side chapel of the cathedral of Nicotera (Fig. 12). Roger’s third wife and widow, Adelasia (or Adelaide), acted as regent for their young sons, first Simon, who died in 1105 and then Roger II. When she died in 1118 her remains were interred in the Benedictine abbey church, later cathedral, of Patti, on the north side of Sicily. Her present tomb is of marble with an effigy, carved around 1600, located in the south transept of the church.22 This was not the original location of her tomb, however: a document issued by Roger II, written in Greek and dated to 1132, records the transfer of control of a small village and its serfs to the Bishop of Patti in payment for the ‘Cappella’ built for the burial of his mother.23 Unfortunately, the church was destroyed in an earthquake in the 1580s and entirely rebuilt, then heavily damaged by another earthquake in 1693, at which time the remains of Adelasia were transferred to their present location. To my knowledge, no excavations have ever been undertaken in or around the church that could determine its original form, and possibly, the location and form of this chapel. Could it have been a separate structure, like Bohemund’s tomb at Canosa? All that can be said for now is that such a possibility exists. This brings us to the much better known royal tombs of Norman Sicily, beginning with Roger II’s unfulfilled intentions for his own burial. Soon after his coronation as the first Norman king of Sicily, Roger began work on the cathedral of Cefalù. In 1145 work had progressed to the point that Roger was able to make his intent for the church clear, donating two 156

the mausoleum of bohemund

Figure 8 Tomb of Duke William, cathedral, Salerno, atrium (Mark Johnson)

porphyry sarcophagi to be set up in the church, one for his own eventual burial, the other as a monument to his memory.24 Various hypotheses locating the sarcophagi in the chancel or immediately at its entrance notwithstanding, investigations under the present floor done in the 1980s determined that the original location of the sarcophagi and their canopies supported by six porphyry columns each to be in the transept, one in the southern arm, the other in the north arm (Fig. 13).25 When Roger died in 1154, however, the church had still not been consecrated and his remains were placed in the cathedral of Palermo. The sarcophagi were moved to Palermo by Frederick II in 1215.26 A document of 1170 in which the canons of Cefalù sought to fulfil Roger’s plan for their cathedral recounts a visit of Roger’s son, King William I, to Cefalù during which the canons report William

Figure 9 Tomb of Alberada, SS Trinità, Venosa, north aisle (D. N. R. Wikimedia Commons)

expressed the desire that both Roger and he would eventually be buried here and that the congregation would pray at Roger’s tomb on the right of the sanctuary and then, after receiving communion, stop and pray at the other tomb to the left on their way back.27 Therefore Roger’s tomb was intended to be that

Figure 10 SS Trinità, Mileto, restored plan, based on plan drawn in 1581 157

mark j. johnson

Figure 11 Sarcophagus of Roger I in debris of destroyed church, engraving

158

the mausoleum of bohemund

Figure 12 Porphyry lintel, cathedral, Nicotera, side chapel (Mark Johnson)

Figure 13 Cathedral, Cefalù, plan, with original location of sarcophagi (Mark Johnson)

159

mark j. johnson impossible to determine exactly where they were placed originally, though given the model of Cefalù, locating them in the transept arms may be a reasonable guess. It is in the cathedral of Monreale, begun by William II in 1174, that we see the most complete example of intended and fulfilled plans for royal burials in a Norman monument in Sicily and southern Italy. Early on the king’s intent on making this a new dynastic burial church became clear, probably encouraged by his mother Margaret. The church was modelled on Roger’s cathedral at Cefalù, with which it shares a very similar plan. Attached to the south side of the church was a Benedictine monastery; a door in the north transept communicated directly with a small royal palace. At some point the remains of William’s father and those of his brother, Prince Henry, were transferred to the church (Fig. 15).31 Those of the king were placed in the porphyry sarcophagus still present in the south transept arm (Fig. 16); the prince’s remains were interred in a sarcophagus placed in the north transept. When Margaret died in 1183, her remains were placed in the north transept as well, in a sarcophagus decorated with mosaic set against the north wall (Fig. 17). As Maggie Duncan Flowers has noted, the northern transept is decorated with, among other things, images of several female saints including Margaret’s namesake that seem to be connected with the queen, linking her tomb with images of her patron saints and demonstrating that this space was intended from the beginning to be the location of the queen’s burial.32 When William II died in 1189, his wish to be buried at Monreale was fulfilled, though his original sarcophagus has been destroyed and his remains are in a later sarcophagus. Its placement in the south transept near that of his father’s is surely where he intended it to be. Duncan Flowers noted that the north side of the church has a door connecting the church to the palace as well as the royal throne and observed that it would have seemed logical to place the king’s sarcophagus in what was apparently the royal part of the church. I would argue, on the other hand, that the king’s sarcophagus is in the royal part of the church, more specifically in the part that is the king’s domain. In my study of the mosaics at Cefalù published several years ago, I argued that in laying out the programme of saints and biblical figures a royal view was created on the south wall of the sanctuary.33 Thus the king, should he visit the church and participate in services, would have sat in a throne on the north side of the sanctuary, where he could have gazed at images of kings David and Solomon as well as of military saints and a Norman favourite, St Nicholas. My inspiration was Ernst Kitzinger’s article on the mosaics of the Cappella Palatina, in which he had observed that, from the royal box located in the north transept of the chapel, the king would have been confronted with

located in the south transept arm. The petition of the canons was, in the end, rejected by William’s widow Margaret, and Cefalù never received a royal burial. Another royal tomb had been built during Roger’s reign. It was actually his wife Elvira who took the initiative to build a funerary chapel next the cathedral of Palermo, a few years before her own death in 1135.28 Dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, it was located near the east end of the south wall of the cathedral and received the burials of several of the children of Roger and later William, who preceded their fathers in death as well as, one assumes, of Elvira. It may also have been the original location of Roger II’s burial. In the 1180s the archbishop of Palermo, Walter, undertook a rebuilding of his cathedral church, replacing a building that had its origins in the early Christian period with what is assumed to be a much larger structure. In his planning, the chapel of St Mary Magdalene became an issue. In March 1187 Walter sought and received from King William II permission to remove the royal burials, transferring them to a newly built church of St Mary Magdalene located a few hundred metres to the west and still standing in the middle of the headquarters of the Carabinieri just to the north of the palace.29 No sarcophagi of any kind, however, remain in the church today. Returning to the original chapel at the cathedral, it was long thought that the text of Walter’s petition indicated that he intended to destroy it in order to build a sacristy on its site, but a more careful reading of the text suggests that, rather than destroy it, Walter intended to give it a new function. The two rooms at the south end of the transept of the cathedral are now thought to have been part or whole of the original chapel built by Elvira, their south wall now part of the south wall of the cathedral (Fig. 14). Looking at what remains in situ, however, one gets the impression that we still do not know all regarding the original form of the chapel. Was it built with two rooms? Or was one added later on? Did it have an apse? How was it covered originally? Did it communicate directly with the original cathedral or was it near, but completely separate from the older building? These questions remain unanswered but an important observation can be made: the mausoleum of Bohemund may have been the first separate funerary chapel among the Norman ruling class in Italy, but it did not remain the only one, with this building and possibly, the chapel built for Roger II’s mother at Patti being the other examples. When the space was converted and the tombs removed to the new church, it is clear that Roger II’s tomb remained in the cathedral, eventually to be joined by the tombs of his daughter Constance, her husband, the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI and their son Frederick II, who died in 1250.30 These are all presently located in the chapel off the south side aisle located furthest west, but earlier plans of the church show them in the area of the south transept. It is 160

the mausoleum of bohemund

Figure 14 Cathedral, Palermo, south wall of south transept, which is the wall of the chapel of St Margherita (Mark Johnson)

Figure 15 Cathedral, Monreale, east end, plan with location of sarcophagi and select mosaics (Mark Johnson) 161

mark j. johnson

Figure 16 Sarcophagus of William I, cathedral of Monreale (Mark Johnson)

Figure 17 Sarcophagus of Margherita, cathedral of Monreale (Mark Johnson) 162

the mausoleum of bohemund In those few cases for which we can securely determine the location of the burials of the female members of the ruling class, Alberada at Venosa, and Margaret at Monreale, we find them on the north side of the church (Fig. 19). The exception would be Elvira, if she was in fact buried in the St Mary Magdalene chapel at Palermo, located on the south side of the cathedral, though it is also possible that within that chapel, her tomb and those of any other females could have also been placed on the north side. When we look at the location of the tombs of the male rulers of Norman Italy we find they are all on the south side of the church — Robert Guiscard and his brothers at Venosa, Bohemund at Canosa, Roger I at Mileto, Roger II’s intended tomb at Cefalù, and William I and William II at Monreale. What took place in locating these tombs in the church seems basically to have been done according to what was recognized as gendered space — females on the north side, males on the south side, modified slightly at Monreale to exclude nonking males from the royal space of the south transept. The idea of gendered space within the church most likely has its roots in early Christianity. In a practice borrowed from the tradition of the synagogue, during services females in the congregation stood on the left hand (most often the north side) of the church, while males stood on the right, usually south side.36 This practice of dividing the congregation by gender remained in the Roman liturgy, which was the basis for most western liturgical practice, into the Middle Ages at least until the 13th century. It is apparent, however, that a female side and a male side of the church existed into the period under consideration, and, I believe, directly impacted the location of the tombs we have been examining. The practice of separating burials by gender was followed by the Norse, from whom the Normans of Normandy and ultimately, southern Italy, derived, documented in Norway and Sweden in the 12th and 13th centuries, where it was also codified into law that women were to be buried on the north side of the church, men on the south.37 The mausoleum of Bohemund was built on the south side of the cathedral at Canosa for the same reason, but there is another aspect of its location that warrants further examination. This is its placement towards the east end of the church. This particular location for a funerary chapel- mausoleum has several late antique precedents. To cite but a few examples: the chapel of San Prodiscimo next to the cemetery church of Santa Giustina in Padova dates to the 6th century, as does the chapel of Santa Maria Mater Domini next to the cemetery basilica of Santi Fortunato e Felice at Vicenza, and a funerary chapel or martyrium next to the church of St Gabriel at Alakilissi in southern Turkey, all of which are located at the east end of the south aisle.38 In Syria, the 6thcentury tomb of Bizzos at Ruweha is a freestanding

Figure 18 View from the Royal Throne, cathedral of Monreale (Mark Johnson)

images of the military saints, and in this more extensive programme scenes on the facing south transept wall that included subjects with strong royal connotations such as Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem and the Transfiguration.34 In a paper presented at a conference in 2000, I argued that such a royal view exists at Monreale as well.35 From the king’s throne on the north side of the sanctuary the king could have looked upon images of David and Solomon and, though now somewhat blocked by the modern organ pipes placed in the archway to the south transept, on images of the Entry into Jerusalem and the Transfiguration (Fig. 18). In an era before the organ pipes were installed, William II could have also looked upon the sarcophagus of his father under its canopy. The south transept was therefore intended to be the space of kings, both for their burial but also for the edification of the living ruler as he gazed upon the mosaics facing his throne. The division of burials at Monreale is significant; the remains of queen and the males who were not kings were placed in the north transept, while those of the kings were placed in the south transept. Is this division new or does it follow a pattern? Let us take another look at the earlier tombs, leaving aside those whose burial was in a sarcophagus placed in the atrium. 163

mark j. johnson

Figure 19 Location of tombs of Norman rulers in their respective churches: tombs of Alberada and Robert Guiscard at Venosa; tombs of Margherita, William I and William II at Monreale; tomb of Roger I at Mileto; planned tomb of Roger II at Cefalù; and mausoleum of Bohemund at Canosa. Tombs of female rulers marked with an ‘F’; those of male rulers marked with an ‘M’. Plans not at same scale (Mark Johnson)

in the architectural articulation of the period in which it was created. What still makes the most sense is that whoever designed the tomb of Bohemund was inspired by late antique models, including, but not limited to, the imperial tombs next to the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, which Bohemund most likely saw for himself during his stay there as well as the aedicula structure within the rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre.41 I conclude with one final point about the design of Bohemund’s monument. The fact that there are only two columns supporting the dome has always been bothersome, appearing to be a clumsy and half-hearted attempt to emulate a Byzantine cross-in-square church plan. Upon further reflection, I propose that this arrangement may be examined in a different light. First, it seems likely that, like every other Norman ruler, Bohemund’s remains would have been placed in a sarcophagus, no longer extant. For the first generation of rulers, these were reused ancient sarcophagi, placed with the back of the sarcophagus against the

monument set near the south-east corner of a basilica. San Prodiscimo was the tomb of a bishop, the Bizzos tomb also for a male. Although no contemporary source explains the choice of this particular location vis-à-vis the church, a guess is that here these chapels are nearer the sanctuary and thus near the relics in an ad sanctos burial relationship and near the place where the services were performed and prayers said. As to the design of the Bohemund’s monument and its supposed sources, I do not see anything particularly Arabic in its design, as some have claimed.39 Any similarity to contemporary Arabic buildings could be explained as both having been derived from similar earlier, especially late antique models. The argument that it is derived specifically from the tomb of Christ is also unconvincing — there is no documentation to suggest that Bohemund had this connection in mind in the design of his tomb and the similarities are more of a general, rather than a specific nature.40 I would argue that this is a monument that is derived from late antique models in basic form and placement, dressed 164

the mausoleum of bohemund ed. M. D’Onofrio (Venice 1994), 327–30; A. R. Gadolin, ‘Prince Bohemund’s Death and Apotheosis in the Church of San Sabino, Canosa di Puglia’, Byzantion, 52 (1982), 124–53; and M. L. Testi Cristiani, ‘Sul Mausoleo di Boemondo a Canosa’, Boemondo. Storia di un principe normanno. Atti del convegno di studio su Boemondo, da Taranto ad Antiochia a Canosa, Taranto-Canosa, maggio-novembre 1998, ed. F. Cardini, N. Lozito and B. Vetere (Galatina 2003), 107– 16. For the cathedral, see the study of Eric Fernie in this volume. 2 On Bohemund, see L. Russo, Boemondo. Figlio di Guiscardo e principe di Antiochia (Avellino 2009); and the articles contained in Boemondo. Storia, cited in note 1. 3 Alexia Comnena, The Alexiad, 10.11. For Bohemond’s time in Constantinople, see P. Corsi, ‘Boemondo a Costantinopoli’, in Boemondo. Storia (as n. 1), 19–27; J. Shepard, ‘When Greek meets Greek: Alexius Comnenus and Bohemund in 1097–98’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 12 (1988), 185–277. 4 The document is edited by Michele Cilla in his Caratteri, 30; Romualdus, Chronicon, a. 1111, ed. C. A. Garufi (Città del Castello 1935) 206: ‘Boemundus [. . .] mortuus est sepultusque iuxta ecclesiam beati Sabini confessoris in civitate Canusia’. 5 On the doors, see A. Cadei, ‘La porta del mausoleo di Boemondo a Canosa tra Oriente e Occidente’, Le porte del Paradiso. Arte e tecnologia bizantina tra Italia e Mediterraneo, ed. A. Iacobini (Roma 2009), 429–69. 6 For the inscriptions on the monument, including those of the doors, see M. Dosdot, ‘Les épitaphes et la litterérature funérarire de langue latine dans l’Italie normande (1085–1189)’, Les Normands en Méditerranée dans le sillage de Tancrède, ed. P. Bouet and F. Neveuex (Caen 1994), 253–69, esp. 265–68. 7 See Cilla, Caratteri (as n. 1), 15–16 for several reports of ‘broken pieces of the tomb’. 8 His life and rule is covered by G. A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard. Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow 2000). 9 Guiscard made a donation to the church on the occasion of the transfer of his brothers’ remains there in 1069. See L. R. Ménager, Recueil des actes des Ducs Normands d’Italie [1046–1127]. I Les premiers Ducs (1046–1087) (Bari 1980), 81–120, no. 20. For the church, see L. De Lachenal, ‘L’incompiuta di Venosa. Un’abbaziale fra propaganda e riempiego’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Moyen Age, 110 (1995), 299–315; and M. D’Onofrio, ‘L’abbatiale normande inachevée de Venosa’, L’architecture normande au Moyen Age, 1. Regards sur l’art de bâtir, Actes du colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle . . . 1994, ed. M. Baylé (Caen 1997), 111–24. 10 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti Wiscardi, Book 5, ll. 395– 404, ed. and Fr. trans. M. Matthieu, Le geste de Robert Guiscard (Palermo 1961), 258–59. For the lost epitaph of his tomb, recorded elsewhere, see Dosdot, ‘Épitaphes’ (as n. 6), 259–61, and for stories of miracles associated with his tomb, see M. J. Johnson, ‘Church Building and Miracles in Norman Italy: Texts and Topoi’, Approaches to Byzantine Architecture and Its Decoration: Studies in Honor of Slobodan Ćurčić, ed. M. J. Johnson, R. Ousterhout and A. Papalexandrou (Farnham and Burlington, VT 2012), 67–81, on 75–76. 11 I. Herklotz, ‘Sepulcra’ e ‘Monumenta’ del medioevo, 2d edn (Rome 1990), 49–84. 12 Ibid. (as n. 11), 57. 13 Orderic Vitalis, Historia ecclesiastica, 3.2.90, trans. M. Chibnall, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, II (Oxford 1969), 101; for the church, G. Occhiato, ‘Rapporti culturali e rispondenze architettoniche fra Calabria e Francia in età romanica: l’abbaziale normanna di Sant’Eufemia’, Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome, Moyen-Age-Temps modernes, 93 (1981), 565–603. 14 Romualdus, Chronicon, a. 1111 (as n. 4), 205. 15 A. Braga, Il Duomo di Salerno (Salerno 2003), 103–04. 16 Peter the Deacon, Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, 4.8, ed. H. Hoffman (Hannover 1980), 472–73. 17 G. Mezzina, Radiografia di un monumento: la chiesa della SS. Trinità in Venosa (Bari 1977), 95–97. 18 Dosdot, ‘Épitaphes’ (as n. 6), 261–62. 19 On the church, see G. Occhiato, La Trinità di Mileto nel romanico italiano (Cosenza 1994).

Figure 20 Mausoleum of Bohemund, Canosa, section, looking north, with hypothetical placement of original sarcophagus (Mark Johnson)

wall and covered with a canopy of some type. I would suggest that Bohemund’s sarcophagus would have been placed against the wall of the cathedral, explaining why the door is on the south and not on the west of the mausoleum (Fig. 20). Thus someone entering the mausoleum when everything was still intact would have had a direct view to the sarcophagus, framed by two columns and covered by a dome above. This would have been similar to what we can see at the tomb of his mother Alberada at Venosa, with the dome at Canosa playing the role of canopy. If we can accept the late antique derivation of the building, we can also accept the symbolism of this architectural detail. A curved vault, be it the intrados of an arcosolium or a dome, or a canopy or baldachin when used in the context of a tomb, symbolised the vault of heaven. Bohemund had found his last resting place under the vault of the heaven that he hoped to attain, aided by Sabinus, the saint near whom he chose to be buried, in a monument that can be best explained as derived from similar tombs he had seen in his journeys through Constantinople, Asia Minor and Syria. NOTES 1 On the mausoleum, see R. Barone, ‘Il mausoleo a Canosa di Boemondo d’Altavilla’, Antiqua, 10, no. 1 (1985), 39–45; M. Cilla, Caratteri e restauri del mausoleo di Marco Boemondo d’Altavilla (Lavello 1993); M. Falla Castelfranchi, ‘Il mausoleo di Boemondo a Canosa’, I Normanni: Popolo d’Europa, 1030–1200,

165

mark j. johnson 20 A. De Franciscis, ‘Il sarcofago “di Eremburga”’, Klearchos, 23 (1981 [1984]), 111–23. 21 L. Faedo, ‘La sepoltura di Ruggero, Conte di Calabria’, Aparchai. Nuove ricerche e studi sulla Magna Grecia e la Sicilia antica in onore di Paolo Enrico Arias, ed. L. Beschi (Pisa 1982), 691–706. For the lost epitaph of his tomb, recorded in two literary sources see Dosdot, ‘Épitaphes’ (as n. 6), 262–63. 22 R. Magistri and V. Porrazzo, La cattedrale di Patti (Tindari 1990), 75–77. 23 S. Cusa, I diplomi greci ed arabi della Sicilia (Palermo 1868), 513–15, no. 44. 24 J. Deér, ‘The Dynastic Porphyry Tombs of the Norman Period in Sicily’, Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 5 (Cambridge, MA 1959), 1–2. 25 C. Valenziano and M. Valenziano, La basilica cattedrale di Cefalù nel periodo normanno (Palermo 1979), 35–36, who note that the outline of the platforms that once supported the sarcophagi and their canopies are still visible in the pavement. 26 Deér, Tombs (as n. 24), 18. 27 Ibid. (as n. 24), 9. 28 Ibid. (as n. 24), 2–3; G. Meli, ‘Il restauro della cattedrale di Palermo’, L’architettura medievale in Sicilia: la cattedrale di Palermo, ed. A. M. Romanini and A. Cadei (Rome 1994), 43–96, esp. 92–96. 29 G. Amato, De principe templo panormitano, Book IV, Cap. 7 (Palermo 1728), 49–50. On the replacement church, see M. Guitto, ‘La chiesa di S. Maria Maddalena in Palermo’, Bollettino d’arte, 34 (1949), 361–67. 30 Most recently, see J. Poeschke, Regum Monumenta. Kaiser Friedrich II und die Grabmäler der normannisch-staufischen Könige von Sizilien im Dom von Palermo (Munich 2011). 31 Deér, Tombs (as n. 24), 14–15. 32 M. Duncan-Flowers, ‘Margaret of Navarre and the Holy Women of Monreale’, Byzantine Studies Conference. Abstracts of Papers, 18 (Urbana 1992), 41–43.

33 M. J. Johnson, ‘The Episcopal and Royal Views at Cefalù’, Gesta, 33 (1994), 118–31. 34 E. Kitzinger, ‘The Mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo: An Essay on the Choice and Arrangement of Subjects’, Art Bulletin, 31 (1949), 269–92. 35 M. J. Johnson, ‘The Royal View at Monreale’, Twenty-Sixth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference. Abstracts of Papers (Cambridge, MA 2000), 123–25. Other observations on images associated with the king at Monreale are made by R. Bacile, ‘Stimulating Perceptions of Kingship: Royal Imagery in the Cathedral of Monreale and in the Church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio in Palermo’, Al-Masaq, 16 (2004), 17–52. 36 M. Aston, ‘Segregation in Church’, Women in the Church, ed. W. J. Sheils and D. Wood, Studies in Church History, 27 (London 1990), 237–94; C. Schleif, ‘Men on the Right — Women on the Left: (A)symmetrical Spaces and Gendered Places’, Women’s Space. Patronage, Place, and Gender in the Medieval Church, ed. V. C. Raguin and S. Stanbury (Albany 2005), 207–49. 37 A set of laws originating in the 12th century known as the Eidsivatingloven specified that women were to be buried on the north side of the church, men on the south side. The practice is seen in Norway at churches at Tønsberg, Gloven, Trondheim and Bergen. See I. Spilde, ‘Voices from the Grave’, ScienceNordic, 20 November 2011, [accessed 4 May 2015]. 38 All of these funerary chapels are discussed in M. J. Johnson, The Byzantine Churches of Sardinia (Wiesbaden 2013), 92–96. 39 For an overview of various theories as to the sources of the design of the mausoleum, see Testi Cristiani, ‘Mausoleo’ (as n. 1). 40 For arguments linking this building with the Tomb of Christ, see ibid. (as n. 1). 41 For the imperial tombs at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, see M. J. Johnson, The Roman Imperial Mausoleum in Late Antiquity (Cambridge and New York 2009), 119–29.

166

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 167–172

THE DATE, ICONOGRAPHY AND DEDICATION OF THE CATHEDRAL OF CANOSA Eric Fernie The paper concerns three aspects of the cathedral of Canosa, namely its date, iconography and dedication. On the date it sets out the evidence for and against c. 1040–60 and c. 1080–1100, in the Byzantine and Norman periods respectively, concluding that there is a strong possibility that a building campaign occurred in c. 1040–60. On the iconography, there are numerous indications that the design was intended to recall the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. The case is a strong one, but this article discusses an interesting qualification to do with the domes of the church. A final discussion of the relevance of the dedication to St Sabinus provides further evidence for the dating of the cathedral to the middle of 11th century.

INTRODUCTION

late 11th century, and therefore to the Norman period. One or two authors suggested an earlier date, but provided little evidence.1 Then in 1975 Pina Belli D’Elia presented a case for a pre-Norman date in the second quarter or middle of the 11th century, on three grounds, concerning masonry, sculpture and documentary evidence. Belli D’Elia pointed out that the masonry, consisting of multiple courses of tufa interspersed with single courses of brick, related to earlier buildings of Byzantine type, such as Sta Sofia near Canosa usually dated to the 6th century, and not to the regularly coursed ashlar of Norman buildings such as San Nicola in Bari begun in 1087. As to the sculptural evidence, an inscription on the pulpit identifies Acceptus as the sculptor, and someone of that name is known to have made a pulpit for Monte Sant’Angelo in 1041 and a throne for Siponto between 1023 and 1040. Belli D’Elia paralleled the heads of a man and a lion on the lectern at Canosa with heads on capitals in the north transept, thereby suggesting that the church belonged in the 1040s. Finally, she pointed to a reference to Nicholas, archbishop of Bari and Canosa from 1035 to 1062, as having built a cathedral anew. The site is not mentioned, but Nicholas signed a concession in 1037 as the archiepiscopus sancte sedis Canusine ecclesie. Belli D’Elia does, however, note that the reference comes from a 17th-century scholar and that he does not give his source.2 Next, in 1993, Marina Falla Castelfranchi proposed a return to the Norman dating, on the grounds that the 1040s and 1050s were not a good time for building, with the start of the crisis of the Byzantines and the

The see of Canosa dates from the 4th century, making it one of the oldest in Apulia. Its most famous figure is Sabinus, bishop of Canosa in the 6th century and reputedly a friend of St Benedict. At an uncertain date, but at any rate by the first half of the 11th century, Canosa was formed into a joint see with Bari. Bari was the capital of Byzantine Apulia from the 9th century to 1071, when it became the capital of Norman Apulia. In a nutshell, if Bari had the power, Canosa had the prestige. The ancient cathedral, which is almost completely surrounded by post-medieval additions, is T-shaped, with a crossing, transept arms of one bay and a nave of two bays, each of the five units with a pendentive dome (Figs 1 and 2). A slab now in the south transept records that the cathedral was consecrated by Pope Paschal II in 1102. Many aspects of the building are of interest, but its date, iconography and dedication are especially so. THE DATE The arguments which have been put forward concerning the date of the building are marked by their variety and the breadth of the conclusions they have been used to support. What follows presents them in historiographical order and then examines them. Up to the 1970s almost everyone used the consecration of 1102 as the basis for dating the church to the © British Archaeological Association 2015

167

eric fernie

Figure 1 Canosa Cathedral: present plan after Flick

168

dedication of the cathedral of canosa consisted chiefly of bricks bearing Sabinus’s monogram discovered in the fabric, and the large number of churches attributable to him. The plan type would not be a problem in the 6th century as it is similar to that of Justinian’s church of St John at Ephesus. They thought a date in the 9th century was unlikely given the limited amount of building activity and the small size of the structures built in the area at the time. The four capitals in the north transept were probably inserted in the Norman period. The authors noted, however, that, given the uncertainty of the stratigraphy, the bricks with the monogram could have been reused much later, or could be of later manufacture and claiming association with Sabinus, and that his Vita does not mention his having built the cathedral.5 Turning from presentation to assessment, among these arguments the most important is clearly the recognition that the masonry places the building in the pre-Norman period. The key question is, then, when in the period from the 4th century to the end of the Byzantine era around 1070 was the standing building erected? While both the circumstantial and the factual evidence, especially the brick stamps, make a strong case for the 6th century, Falla Castelfranchi, Bertelli and Attolico are careful to note the silence of the Vita and that the bricks with the monogram could have been reused or made later. I would therefore like to re-examine the date of c. 1040–60 proposed by Belli D’Elia, on the basis of the capitals in the north transept, the documentary reference to Nicholas and the consecration of 1102. Concerning the capitals in the north transept, the suggestion of Flick and Falla Castelfranchi that they are replacements inserted into an earlier building raises the question of what motive there could have been for extracting original capitals and replacing them with new ones.6 I cannot think of a straightforward reason for doing this. Eight of the columns and all but one of the other capitals are spolia, so it can be argued that the number of items available during construction did not match requirements and had to be made up with newly carved pieces, as often happens when spolia are used. The odd capitals would then form part of the construction of the cathedral, and their date becomes correspondingly significant. Falla Castelfranchi argued convincingly in 1993 that the similarities between the heads on the pulpit and those on the transept capitals are not close enough to require the dating of the latter to the 1040s. Equally, however, there is nothing in Apulian sculpture of the late 11th century which requires the transept capitals to be dated to that period, which means that they could be of the 1040s.7 It is necessary to be very sceptical about the standing and value of the reference to Archbishop Nicholas as having built a cathedral, given its 17th-century source and the possibility that it could have been concocted then or at any time since the 11th century. Once again, however, there is the question of motive.

Figure 2 Canosa Cathedral: interior to east (Photo: Rosa Bacile) increasing interventions of the Normans, and that the sculptural comparisons between the pulpit and the transept were not convincing enough to require the building to be of the same date as the pulpit. Falla Castelfranchi thought that Norman involvement in the building of the cathedral was more likely, especially during the episcopate of Ursus, between 1079 and 1089, because his throne in the apse indicates that during those years the seat of the archbishop of Canosa and Bari was in the cathedral of Canosa.3 In 1998 Claudia Flick published an article with new evidence, namely the brickwork of two piers in the south wall of the east bay of the nave, which had their plaster removed in 1993. She dated these to the Roman period on the basis of a comparison with the Trajanic arch in Canosa. The mixed tufa and brick of the main walls could then be dated between the Roman period and the end of the Byzantine era in Apulia in 1071, Flick suggesting that construction might be associated with a consecration in the early 9th century. She argued that there was no evidence for a rebuilding in the late 11th century and that the capitals in the north transept could have been replacements of that date.4 In 2010 Falla Castelfranchi acknowledged that a late-11th-century Norman date was no longer sustainable in the face of arguments provided by Gioia Bertelli and Angelfabio Attolico. Their evidence 169

eric fernie domes are common in Byzantine buildings, but chiefly over a subsidiary space such as a narthex, as at St Mark’s. They seldom occur over main spaces, and when they do, as in the Justinianic church of Hagia Irene in Constantinople, the example is over the western of the two bays, while the sanctuary bay has a dome on pendentives. Pendentive domes are much more recessive and more like groin vaults in their effect on the internal space, which may be one reason why they are also referred to as sail vaults, as if they were not domes at all (Fig. 2). The contrast is even more marked on the exterior, where pendentive domes have little presence, unlike domes on pendentives with drums, as at Holy Apostles in Constantinople, St Mark’s, and the Cattolica at Stilo in Calabria, probably of the 11th century. The difference is pointed up by a problem with the conventions used in the drawing of plans. The standard published plans of Canosa (as, for example, in Fig. 1) show it with the same forms as the bays of St John at Ephesus, that is, with the circular base of a hemispherical dome touching the sides of the bay, whereas the bays at Canosa have no such feature and an accurate plan should show it with nothing in the bay (as in Fig. 3). The question therefore is this: why were the bays of Canosa Cathedral provided with a covering of lower status than those in the buildings on which it appears to have been modelled?

Someone producing a fraudulent account of the building of the cathedral, whenever they were writing, is more likely to have claimed the involvement of a more prominent patron, such as Sabinus, or a date of greater antiquity than the 11th century. The ordinary status of the attribution to Nicholas supports its credibility. Finally, there is the consecration of 1102. In supporting a date of construction in the 6th century, Bertelli and Attolico describe the ceremony as a simple re-dedication of an already existing much older building.8 This is certainly a possibility, but the evidence can also be read another way. There is no justification for assuming that the ceremony requires or implies the erection of a building in the immediately preceding years, as was argued or assumed by most people writing before the 1970s, as consecrations can take place decades after the completion of a church. Equally, however, a consecration does normally imply construction at some stage in the not too distant past. A rebuilding in the first half of the 11th century could therefore easily be the subject of the consecration in 1102. No doubt there was a church of Sabinus’s time, if not earlier, and there may have been partial or complete rebuildings between the 6th century and the 11th century, but I would suggest that there is good evidence for a major rebuilding in the 1040s or 1050s. This date remains uncertain and hedged about with conditional clauses, and the argument awaits further evidence. However, even if proof is forthcoming that the building dates from the 6th century, the questions raised by the Nicholas document and especially by the transept capitals will still require explanations.

THE DEDICATION There is good evidence from the 9th and 11th centuries that the cathedral was dedicated to Saints John and Paul, two martyrs of the time of Julian the Apostate. The evidence is threefold. The Vita of St Sabinus says he was buried under an altar dedicated to Saints John and Paul.10 A document of 1063 mentions an ecclesia sanctorum martyrum Johannis et Pauli que est sedes Barensis Archiepiscopi et quorum altare reliquie sancti Sabini sunt recondite.11 The allusion to a church of Saints John and Paul as the seat of the archbishop of Bari does not sound helpful, but the reference to the relics of St Sabinus, and the fact that there is no indication of a church dedicated to Saints John and Paul ever having existed in Bari, suggest that Canosa is meant, as part of the joint diocese. The third piece of evidence is unambiguous. A privilege of Pope Urban II (1088–99) includes the city of Canosa in the possessions of the bishop of Trani, except for the church of Saints John and Paul, which belongs to the sedes Barensis archiepiscopi.12 The evidence for the dedication to Saints John and Paul up to the 1090s is clear. It is odd, then, that the dedication of 1102 was to Sabinus. The explanation normally and I think justifiably given for the dedication to Sabinus in that year is that it was a move in the

THE ICONOGRAPHY It has been proposed that the design of the cathedral refers to the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. Justinian’s church was destroyed in the 15th century, but from descriptions it is known to have been cruciform with five domes, one in the centre and one over each arm, the central one on a drum with windows. Canosa also has a central dome and four others, albeit in a different pattern. Justinian’s church of St John at Ephesus is a related example, based, according to Procopius, on the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, and it has an extra bay to its nave, as at Canosa. Finally, there is St Mark’s in Venice, begun in 1063.9 This constitutes a good case, and I do not want to disagree with it so much as raise a question, concerning the domes. Those at Canosa are not full domes on pendentives, but pendentive domes. The effects produced by the two types are very different, evident especially at their crowns, and the possibility, with the full dome, of having a drum and hence windows between the pendentives and the dome. Pendentive 170

dedication of the cathedral of canosa

Figure 3 Canosa Cathedral: original plan (Eric Fernie)

complex relations between Canosa and Bari.13 The years immediately preceding 1100 had been particularly fraught in this regard, because of the claim made by Elias (archbishop of Bari, and hence of the joint bishopric, from 1089 to 1105) to have discovered the bones of St Sabinus in the cathedral of Bari. There is also a document of the same period, purporting to be 9th-century, saying that the bones of Sabinus had been brought to Bari in 842 for protection from Saracen raids.14 The clinching evidence that there was a problem is that, while the inscription in Canosa Cathedral recording the consecration ceremony identifies no fewer than seventeen bishops and archbishops as being present, ‘and truly also many other bishops’, in this large assembly Archbishop Elias is conspicuous by his absence. It therefore looks as if the existing dedication, that to John and Paul, was trumped by a piece of political power play.15

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to record my thanks to John McNeill for his help with various aspects of the paper, to Marina Falla Castelfranchi and Bill Tronzo for their kindness in providing me with copies of the publications of the conference of 2010, and to Charles Tracy and Matthew Reeve for referring me to Lawrence Nees’s article on thrones. Canosa Cathedral stands out among medieval buildings for the wide range of dates to which it has been attributed. Indeed, the range is even wider than that argued for Sant’Ambrogio in Milan and San Michele in Pavia in the late 19th century. Though it may be unusual to do so, I would therefore like to record my admiration for the scholars who have worked on the building, for their tenacity in the face of vague evidence, their willingness to confront ambiguity and not least for their willingness to acknowledge the possibility of solutions other than their own. 171

eric fernie XXIXth International Congress in the History of Art, Amsterdam, 1–7 September 1996 (Dordrecht 1999), 773–82. Nees does, however, acknowledge that the case for a 12th-century date for the Ursus throne is not as strong as that concerning the throne in San Nicola in Bari. 8 Bertelli and Attolico, ‘Analisi delle strutture architettoniche’ (as n. 5), 723. See also Wharton-Epstein, ‘The date and significance’ (as n. 2), 83. 9 Procopius, Buildings, V, i, 4–6; R. Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (Harmondsworth 1975), 72–73 and 254–56, 196–98, 431–36; and Wharton Epstein, ‘The date and significance’ (as n. 2), 83–85. That there was some debate at the time about the standing of Mark as an apostle is suggested by a leaf in the Parma Biblioteca Palatina MS 1650, fol. 44v, see F. Crivello, ‘L’enluminure à Cluny vers 1100 autour de la Bible de Pons de Melgueil’, Neil Stratford ed., 910, Cluny, 2010: onze siècles de rayonnement, Centre des monuments nationaux (Paris 2010), 130–43, fig. 1. 10 Wharton Epstein, ‘The date and significance’ (as n. 2), 82–83; Falla Castelfranchi, ‘La cattedrale’ (as n. 5), 681–83. 11 Garton, Early Romanesque Sculpture (as n. 2), 290, n. 2. Bertelli and Attolico, ‘Analisi delle strutture architettoniche’ (as n. 5), 724–25. 12 Wharton Epstein, ‘The date and significance’ (as n. 2), 82–83. 13 Ibid., 82–83. 14 Garton, Early Romanesque Sculpture (as n. 2), 290; Wharton Epstein, ‘The date and significance’ (as n. 2), 80; Flick, ‘Die Kathedrale’ (as n. 4), 195. 15 This example of a confrontation between ecclesiastical power bases closely parallels another elsewhere in the Norman world. In 1095 the body of St Edmund was translated from the old AngloSaxon church at Bury St Edmunds into the new Norman one. The bishop of East Anglia was not only not present at the event, he had been specifically banned from conducting the ceremony. T. Arnold, Memorials of St Edmund’s Abbey (Rolls Series, XCVI, 1890–96), I, 87; T. Licence, ‘Herbert Losinga’s Trip to Rome and the Bishopric of Bury St Edmunds’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 34 (2012), 151–68.

NOTES 1

The date of the consecration was until recently read as 1101. P. Belli D’Elia ed., Alle sorgenti del Romanico: Puglia XI secolo, Amministrazione Provinciale (Bari 1975), 72–97. Belli D’Elia’s conclusions were supported by Tessa Garton, in her doctoral thesis also of 1975, T. Garton, Early Romanesque Sculpture in Apulia (New York and London 1984); and by A. Wharton Epstein in ‘The date and significance of the cathedral of Canosa in Apulia, South Italy’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 37 (1983), 79–89. Garton and Epstein provide extensive material on the history and form of the cathedral. 3 M. Falla Castelfranchi, ‘Canosa’, in the Enciclopedia dell’Arte Medievale, IV (1993), 143–50. 4 C. Flick, ‘Die Kathedrale San Sabino in Canosa di Puglia’, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, 41 (1998), 193–205. 5 M. Falla Castelfranchi, ‘La cattedrale di Canosa non è più normanna’, and G. Bertelli and A. Attolico, ‘Analisi delle strutture architettoniche della Cattedrale di San Sabino a Canosa: primi dati’, in Canosa: Ricerche Storiche, Decennio 1999–2009, ed. L. Bertoldi Lenoci (Atti del Convegno di Studio, febbraio 2010), Edizioni Pugliesi, n.d., 677–88 and 723–58 respectively. The crypt has undergone a great deal of change, making it difficult to date. It is also difficult to parallel at relevant dates. While there are a few crypts of the 5th and 6th centuries, the feature is not at all common in buildings of the Byzantine Empire. Falla Castelfranchi, ‘La cattedrale di Canosa’, 681–83, notes the reference to Sabinus’s relics being placed in a camera subtus altare in the 9th century, suggesting that this could have been the nucleus of the present crypt. 6 Flick, ‘Die Kathedrale’ (as n. 4), 201–02 and 204–05; Falla Castelfranchi, ‘La cattedrale’ (as n. 5), 677. 7 The relevance of Archbishop Ursus to the debate, because of the presence of his throne in the building, has been called into question by Lawrence Nees, who argued that it was likely to be a commemorative object of the 12th century and not of the date of its inscription; see L. Nees, ‘Forging Monumental Memories in the Early Twelfth Century’, in Memory and Oblivion, Proceedings of the 2

172

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 173–192

PREPARING FOR THE END: PAINTING IN THE BAPTISTERY OF PARMA AND THE GREAT DEVOTION OF 1233 Ludovico V. Geymonat In this paper the paintings in the vault of the Baptistery of Parma will be read in connection with the devotional movement known as the ‘Alleluia’ that spread from Parma throughout the cities of northern Italy in 1233. Idiosyncratic aspects of the pictorial programme will be explained in relation to the religious ideology and political alliances of the Franciscan friar Gerard Boccabadati da Modena (d. 1257), who was one of the leading peace-making preachers of the Alleluia and was entrusted with full power over the City of Parma during the summer of 1233. The evidence points to Brother Gerard as the patron of the paintings in the baptistery. The article maintains that the pictorial programme was conceived and the paintings carried out in the midst of a devotional movement with the goal of preparing the baptistery for the people of Parma to witness the end of the world.

A cycle of paintings covers the ribbed vault over the sixteen-sided interior of the baptistery at Parma (Figs 1–3).1 One would expect a cycle such as this to have been commissioned by a patron, or patrons, from a painter and his workshop. And yet, while the construction and early use of the building are well recorded, no written sources mention either a patron or a painter in connection with the vault of the baptistery. An inscription, contemporary chronicles and documents attest that the building campaign, led by Benedetto Antelami, began in 1196. Twenty years later, enough of the building had been erected for Bishop Obizzo Fieschi, who had been serving since 1194, to administer the first solemn baptism inside the new building on Holy Saturday, 9 April 1216.2 By that time, the interior was presumably completed from the foundation to the apex of the vault.3 Some form of painted decoration can be expected for the 1216 inauguration and clear traces of a first coat of paintings are visible underneath the present ones (Fig. 4).4 Earlier and later paintings alike were clearly noticeable to anyone who entered the building both during and after their execution, but no written reference to their patronage and painter is known. In the absence of written records, the paintings themselves are the only available source for establishing who was responsible for the commission and execution of the pictorial programme. Fortunately, the evidence is rich and well preserved: the extensive © British Archaeological Association 2015

cycle comprising 150 single figures and twenty-five narrative scenes is almost complete and the inscriptions are for the most part still legible. Following the principle that a pictorial programme constitutes a visual statement communicating specific issues and ideas — possibly pressing ones — a careful analysis of the paintings may provide evidence regarding their patronage, authorship and intended meaning. A number of circumstances confirm the applicability of this general principle in Parma. The baptistery functioned as a centre stage of city life, meaning that its walls were a prime space on which to communicate visually with the citizens. Through baptism, still mostly performed at Easter and Pentecost in the 12th and 13th century, a child simultaneously acquired a religious identity, a family name and a civic identity. Simultaneously becoming Christian and full members of their family, it was inside this building that children joined the larger community, and parents and relatives asserted their own membership of that community by baptizing their child there.5 Painting the large interior of the building in Parma was a considerable undertaking involving both intellectual and financial resources. Such an investment could well be considered worthwhile: the paintings would be appreciated by all members of the population at the very time they would most deeply feel and assert their belonging to the community. 173

ludovico v. geymonat

Figure 1 Parma Baptistery: vault (Lisa Zdybel). See also Plate XA in print edition

Figure 2 Parma Baptistery: interior (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma). See also Plate XB in print edition 174

preparing for the end

Figure 3 Parma Baptistery: elevation, drawing by Pietro Sottili, engraving Studio Paolo Toschi. After M. Lopez, Il Battistero di Parma (Parma 1864), Tav. V

175

ludovico v. geymonat THE OPERA OF THE CATHEDRAL In an attempt to identify the patron of the paintings, it is useful to start from the institution that presided over the building and its maintenance. Written sources mention the sculptor Benedetto Antelami (rec. 1178 and 1196), along with a handful of local notables in connection with the baptistery from 1196 to 1307, the year when pinnacles were placed on the roof, but the sources give no direct indication as to the institution that was in charge of the building. In 1292, the powerful Cardinal Gerardo Bianchi, returning to Rome from a legation to France, stopped in Parma, his native city, and established a baptistery chapter, exalting the splendour of the monument in its charter.6 He provided the chapter with a rich endowment which was increased further by Bishop Obizzo Sanvitale (1258–95) and endorsed by Pope Celestine V (1294). By the early 14th century, there were two chapters of three and six canons respectively — each canonry supported by a wealthy prebend — and mass was sung in the building twice a day.7 The foundation of a baptistery chapter in 1292 suggests that until then it was the clergy of the cathedral chapter who were responsible for officiating in it. Their responsibility for performing the divine service, however, did not imply responsibility for the building and its decoration.8 Works at the site were presumably run by the laborerium, the so called opera of the cathedral, which collected funds and revenues from various sources.9 There is only scattered evidence on this institution and its management in Parma. Its finances, administration, roles and responsibilities can only be guessed on the basis of later sources and the abundant evidence coming from comparable cases: the baptisteries built and remodelled in the 12th and 13th century in Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, Volterra, Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Bergamo, Cremona, and the plans and provisions for those, never actually built, in Vicenza and Modena. In each of these examples (and the list could be extended further), laymen and city administration contributed to the expenses for the cathedral baptistery in the form of donations, offerings during feasts and processions, portions of revenues from tolls and taxes. Other funds came also from tithes and revenues from lands endowed directly to the opera of the cathedral.10 If the formal investiture of the rector or operaio of the laborerium was possibly still a prerogative of the bishop in Parma, the cathedral canons and the commune certainly had their say in the selection of the candidate, as was the case in Modena, the best documented opera of a cathedral from this time and region.11 Presumably the range of tasks of the rector in charge of the opera included the commissioning of works, the procurement of the necessary materials and the hiring of workmen, as well as their payment according to skills and results.12

Figure 4 The Evangelist Matthew and traces of earlier painted decoration in the vault of the Parma Baptistery (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma)

The baptistery was not a private space designed only for a patron, but a building used by all the citizens, and it served a function that made it accessible to a large audience of clergy and laymen, literate and illiterate. The messages conveyed by its paintings would address such an audience and required an understanding of their meaning. Whoever was involved with the design of the pictorial programme had no reason to hide his interests and intentions, but, on the contrary, was likely to seek to address the viewers clearly. Risks of misunderstanding are always present. As with most visual messages, the images in the baptistery offer to the viewer a multiplicity of interpretations, some of them differing. And yet, the size and monumental scale of the cycle mean that there was space and opportunity to repeat and reinforce key messages. If a vast decoration like this was a form of visual communication, as it seems likely it was, then even in the absence of written records it should be possible to grasp what it was about, who could have designed it and why. 176

preparing for the end A later but telling source provides information concerning the opera of the cathedral at Parma and its involvement in the management of the baptistery. According to a letter by Pope Nicholas V (1447–55), dated 4 January 1448, the funds administered by the opera were designed for the maintenance of both the cathedral and the baptistery. The Pope endorsed the recent initiative taken by the commune to change the management of the revenues. Up until then, a cleric and a layman together, both in office for life, handled these assets. Nicholas V ratified the commune’s decision to make four people responsible for the administration of the opera: two clerics selected by the cathedral chapter and two laymen (elders) named by the commune. Every year two new officers were to replace those who had been in office longest, and the entire administration would be submitted to the bishop for approval.13 This evidence suggests that the rector or rectors of the opera were directly involved in the commissioning of any painting within the baptistery, and that the payments compensating the painter came from the rector’s funds. The absence of any 13th-century records and minutes leaves us without any further indication. Further clues concerning the people involved in the process can be obtained from a comprehensive analysis of the painted programme itself.

Evangelist and a string of Prophets follow on this same band, which is the tallest (Fig. 1).14 A frieze of interlocking leaves separates it from the band above hosting the symbols of the four Evangelists and the twelve enthroned Apostles. A colourful frieze runs over their haloed heads, possibly representing the jewelled walls of the Heavenly Jerusalem, which according to the Book of Revelation are built on the twelve Apostles.15 The tapering areas in the centre of the vault are dotted with golden stars casting shadows on white diamonds, and smaller white stars gleaming on the crimson background around the centre of the dome. In arranging the paintings within the space of the ribbed vault, it was crucial to make the figures large enough to be visible from below and to maintain a consistent scale among them (Figs 1 and 5). The width allocated to each character and scene was determined by their respective positions along the sixteen tapering web segments of the vault. For example, the size of the twelve Apostles depended on the width of their thrones, which had to fit the web segments narrowing at the apex. The four symbols of the Evangelists — added to the twelve Apostles to make sixteen — are painted larger and there is only enough space for the upper part of their bodies. The band with the Prophets is tall enough for them to stand full figure, but the four alternating round and square upper windows — which were framed by foliage — required a series of adjustments: below them there was only enough space for the bust of a Prophet and not his entire body. In that same band, the middle row of windows caused the three Prophets above them to be slightly shortened. In the case of Christ, the placement of the throne disguises the reduced available space and shorter height of the figure. Christ blessing and holding the open book with Alpha and Omega, flanked by the Virgin, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Old Testament Prophets and, in the band above, the twelve Apostles plus the four apocalyptic symbols of the Evangelists, seem to be all gathered together in Heaven. A detail confirms that this grouping alludes to the Heavenly Jerusalem. On the crimson background at the top of the web segment with John the Evangelist and the apostle Andrew stands a thin white cross — now partly faded — with a diamond at the centre and one lily with three petals at each of the four points (Fig. 6). Don Alfredo Bianchi has convincingly read this unusual depiction of the diamond and lilies with twelve petals as a reference to Revelation 22:2, ‘In the midst of the street thereof, and on both sides of the river, was the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruits every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations’.16 A cycle dedicated to the life of John the Baptist develops along the vault, with thirteen scenes illustrating his infancy, public life and martyrdom.17 It is an extensive Vita cycle, which insists on the ascetic

THE PAINTINGS The design of the building and especially of the dome determined the layout of the programme. The outside octagon is transformed inside into a large sixteensided hall covered by a high ribbed vault (Figs 1–3). The slightly scalloped web segments spring from sixteen pointed arches above two open galleries and apse-like niches on the ground floor. Vertically, the interior is articulated by a double order of corner columns — the upper one taller and thinner — that lead up to the sixteen pointed ribs of the vault. Sixteen windows on three rows open in the dome: eight along the base, four just above and four more, alternatively round and rectangular, further up. The sixteen ribs joining at the apex of the vault, the size and shape of the web segments, and the location of the windows divide the space. The design of the programme had to take these partitions into account: they affect the number and disposition of figural paintings and the extent and progress of the narrative cycles. The centre of the vault was occupied by the joining of the ribs. The eastern web segment, just above the second row of windows, high over the altar, was the most prominent location left. The eastern apse is slightly larger than the other twelve niches on the ground floor and the corresponding web segment in the vault is wider than those on either side. Christ enthroned was placed there flanked by the Virgin interceding and John the Baptist (Fig. 5). John the 177

ludovico v. geymonat

Figure 5 Parma Baptistery: eastern side of the vault (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma) experience of John and on his preaching. The widening of the web segments towards the base of the vault served for larger sections: by somewhat reducing the size of figures, entire scenes could fit in between the ribs, giving room to the narrative to unfold itself. Being closer to the viewer down below, even slightly crowded scenes remained intelligible, and they were provided with clearly readable white captions on red background. The cycle starts on the western side of the vault with Gabriel’s annunciation to Zacharias and Elizabeth (Fig. 7). The goal of beginning the cycle at the western end might have been that of placing the crucial scene of the baptism of Christ as close as possible to Christ enthroned in the band above, even if, as the window below Christ’s throne prevented the placement there of a narrative scene, the baptism of Christ was dislocated to the previous web segment (Fig. 5). In the life cycle of John the Baptist, the painter played around with the subdivisions entailed by windows and ribs, placing figures and scenes quite freely in the available spaces. For example, between the Annunciation and the Birth of the Baptist, the space below the window was used for a representation of Zacharias naming his son John (Figs 7 and 8). This is clearly inconsistent with the Gospel narrative: in Luke’s Gospel (1: 5–63), Zacharias is struck dumb for nine months after the angel’s annunciation and gives his son the name John in writing eight days following his birth, not before it, as in Parma. And yet, since the space below the window was available there, the

Figure 6 Vault of the Parma Baptistery: Tree of Life, White Stars on a Crimson Background and Golden Stars Casting Shadows on White Diamonds (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma) 178

preparing for the end

Figure 7 Vault of the Parma Baptistery: Gabriel’s Annunciation to Zacharias and Elisabeth; St Ambrose, St Augustine and Zacharias Naming His Son John; Birth of John the Baptist; The Infant Baptist Moves to the Wilderness; Below: Abraham Finds Melchizedek; Bishop Preaching to a Pilgrim; Sacrifice of Isaac; Bishop; Personifications of: Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Gihon, Pishon, Tigris (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma)

Figure 8

Figure 9

Vault of the Parma Baptistery: St Ambrose and St Augustine — S. ANB[R]OS(IUS), S. AGUSTINUS — Zacharias Naming His Son John (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma)

Vault of the Parma Baptistery: St Martin and St Sylvester — S. MARTINUS, S. SILVESTER (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma)

painter felt free to disregard the chronological order of the story, taking advantage of the spot and placing the scene there. In this part of the cycle there is a noticeable lack of characterizing attributes. For example, on the sides of

the four windows on this band, there was room only for standing figures, which are identified by the inscriptions underneath. On the south, they are the disciples of the Baptist that appear in the previous two narrative scenes. At the other three cardinal points stand 179

ludovico v. geymonat narrative, starting on the south side, follows Genesis from chapter 14 to 19. However, the sequence is interrupted on the west side by the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22), which is inserted between Abraham finding Melchizedek (Gen. 14) and the hospitality of Abraham (Gen. 18). The choice of events and their order suggest that these scenes do not correspond to a narrative cycle — unlike that on the band above — but to a choice of emblematic events emphasizing certain specific episodes. Their location in the vault might be connected to the position of the viewers on the ground floor at least in two cases: the destruction of Sodom below the enthroned Christ, which would have faced the viewers entering from the west portal of the baptistery — the citizens’ entrance — and the two scenes representing Abraham finding Melchizedek and the sacrifice of Isaac, which would be viewed by the clergy looking up at the vault from the area around the altar. These examples illustrate how the painter interacted creatively with the space and architectural constraints of the baptistery. The division in horizontal bands was the structuring principle, but some thought was also given to the vertical arrangement of the programme and its effect on the viewers (Fig. 1). The overwhelming sense of a crowd of figures towering from the dome over those that stand in the baptistery was certainly intended: those who designed the programme took into account that the ribbed vault was perceived as a whole. The paintings extend from the vault to the eastern apse and the lunettes and spandrels of the niches along the ground floor of the baptistery (Figs 2 and 10). Simple red bands divide the apse behind the altar into three sections. At the bottom, red diamonds on a white background simulate the design of a velarium. In the middle, four busts of angels with sceptres point to the Virgin holding Baby Jesus. A full representation of the baptism of Christ fills the much larger section on top. Six attending angels in two rows plus two more flying from the upper corners witness the thin figure of John the Baptist as he bends forward to baptize Christ standing in the middle of the flowing river Jordan, whose tiny personification looks back at him. The body of Christ and most of the angels’ faces are damaged, but the accurately balanced composition, the gilded halos in moulded stucco relief, the varying colours of the recessing landscape, and the sunken face of the concerned Baptist still powerfully illustrate the consequential event depicted in the apse. A re-enactment of this event, of course, occurs any time a child is baptized in the large octagonal font at the centre of the building. A decorative frieze made of adjoining diamonds and interlocking foliage runs below the double gallery along the sixteen sides of the interior. It gives unity to the space of the lunettes that house an array of different figures. The spandrels are taken up by eastern fathers, angels and archangels, a naked ascetic, two

St Martin, St Sylvester and the four doctors of the Latin Church — Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory and Jerome (Figs 8 and 9). Their presence is not directly related to the narrative concerning John the Baptist, and they seem to be there just to fill the empty spaces beside the windows. Fortunately, the inscriptions specify their identity; otherwise there would be no clues about who they are. St Martin, the famous 4th-century bishop of Tours, wears a brown tunic with a deep border, a dark folded band down the front and a red mantle. He holds something in his left hand, possibly a scroll. St Sylvester is even less characterized: the hoary profile of his head stands on top of a brown tunic and red mantle — rather modest for the 4thcentury pope of Rome who baptized Constantine, first Christian emperor, and was known in both Greek and Latin Churches. The base of the vault was even harder to negotiate than the scalloped web segments: sixteen pointed and recessed arches generate thirty-two triangular spandrels; every other pointed arch is open by a tall rectangular window, which leaves oddly shaped gaps on all sides (Figs 1, 5 and 7). A programme for such a space could hardly be strictly hierarchical in structure, or narrative in content. In each of the eight arches pierced by windows, a haloed bishop preaches to a poor person or a pilgrim painted on the opposite side of the opening. The reiteration of the same iconography — lively in the varying positions and costumes of the opposing figures — draws the whole band together. The personifications of the four elements, the four rivers of Paradise, the four seasons and the four dimensions of the love of Christ stand out on the triangular spandrels of eight of the sixteen arches. The figures are similar enough to belong to related categories and yet differentiated in guise and poses.18 In the sixteen spandrels of the remaining arches, more uniform busts of sainted virgins — S(ANC) T(AE) VIRGIN(ES) — take up the space: the only variant among them is the colour of their dresses. A degree of adaptability and the intention to fully cover the available space are well illustrated by the triangular surfaces above the eight windows: the figures there range from the bust of Christ blessing, to an angel, a lily, two types of vegetation, a bird of prey, an ox, a crowing cock. Events from the stories of Abraham in Genesis were chosen for the eight blind arches along the base of the vault.19 The scenes are matched in pairs, corresponding with alternate web segments of similar size. On the south side, two scenes depict Abraham’s battle against the kings for the liberation of Lot (Gen. 14). On the west side, one scene represents Abraham finding Melchizedek (Gen. 14) and the other the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22) (Fig. 7). The two arches on the north side illustrate the hospitality of Abraham (Gen. 18) and on the east side the destruction of Sodom and Lot’s departure from the city (Gen. 19) (Fig. 5). The 180

preparing for the end

Figure 10 Parma Baptistery: font and view toward the altar (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma)

181

ludovico v. geymonat prophets with scrolls, fantastic animals facing strange humans, whirling discs and wild desolated landscapes. Few figures have inscriptions and their identification is often difficult. Attributes such as hoods, headscarves and turbans seem to indicate, more than specific holy characters, categories and geographic origins: monks, hermits, hymnographers, Syrian or Egyptian. In the lunettes, painted figures flank the sculptures in the middle, ranging from the Evangelists sitting at their desks, to groups of Elders of the Apocalypse wearing crowns and holding golden bowls, angels, preaching saints, hermits and desert fathers (Figs 10–12).20 Two lunettes between the western and

northern portals house a short Virgin cycle. Among the seated saints are Ambrose and Jerome, their names inscribed on the pages they are reading. The same St Ambrose appears in the band with the life of John the Baptist, but their portrayals have strikingly little in common (Figs 8 and 11). In the lunette, Ambrose writing at his desk wears the pallium with crosses befitting his office as bishop; in the vault, he shows no identifying sign other than a book in his hands; the two representations of the same character could hardly be more different. A lunette to the side of the south portal shows along the border a haloed saint facing a six-winged Seraph and, on the other side of the sculpted angel in the middle, a Tetramorph, the winged symbol of the four Evangelists, on horse hooves above a cart with flaming wheels (Fig. 13). The saint wears the brown habit with a pointed cowl and girdle with three knots that characterize the tunic of Franciscan friars. Squeezed in along the margin of the lunette and filled with awe and astonishment, he has his right hand raised as if addressing an audience. It is hardly a composition that could pass unnoticed. A reading of the paintings in the baptistery can provide a sense of how the process of arranging such a programme of images might have unfolded, as well as clues as to the issues that were at stake in the choice of figures and scenes, and in the way they were represented. These clues, as we shall see, resonate strikingly with a series of events and characters that shook Parma in 1233.

Figure 11 Parma Baptistery: lunette of second niche: Sculpted Angel Flanked by Ambrose and Jerome at Their Desks — ANBRO[SIUS], GERONI[MUS]. Spandrels: Eastern Fathers and Angel in the Wilderness (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma)

PARMA AND THE GREAT DEVOTION OF 1233 In a colourful passage of his Cronica, the Franciscan friar Salimbene de Adam (1221–88) introduces the first character to exalt devotional enthusiasm in Parma

Figure 12 Figure 13

Parma Baptistery: lunette of fourth niche: Sculpted Angel Flanked by John and Luke at Their Desks, Four Elders of the Apocalypse and Christ — IO(H)A(N) NES, LUCA. Spandrels: Vegetation with Fantastic Creatures (repainted) (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma)

Parma Baptistery: lunette of sixth niche: Sculpted Angel Flanked by a Seraph and the Tetramorphic Symbol of the Evangelists Appearing to a Franciscan Saint (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma) 182

preparing for the end in 1233.21 It was an eccentric lay preacher, known as Fra Cornetta (Brother Horn):

other Dominican preachers joined Bishop Guala and Brother Horn at Parma. According to Salimbene, they were John of Vicenza, who was later to have a crucial role in Bologna, Bartholomew da Breganze, later bishop of Vicenza (1255–70), and the theologian Jacopino of Parma — all of them gifted miracleworkers. However, the most successful preacher at Parma was to be a Franciscan, not a Dominican. Brother Gerard Boccabadati da Modena (d. 1257) arrived in the early spring, together with Brother Leo of Perego, later archbishop of Milan (1241–57), to a city already awash with sermons and preachers, and a population buzzing with religious fervour and devout exaltation. Brother Gerard soon became one of the leading peacemaking preachers who stirred up the religious movement which spread from Parma throughout northern Italy and is known as the Alleluia of 1233.24 The principal source on Brother Gerard is Salimbene’s Cronica. Salimbene had known him well and gives a sympathetic portrait of Gerard’s personality:

At the very beginning of the Halleluia, Brother Benedict, called the Brother of the Horn, came to Parma. He was a simple and unlettered man, but a man of pure and honourable life. Brother Benedict was from the valley of Spoleto or, perhaps, from the vicinity of Rome, and I saw him and knew him well at Parma and, later, at Pisa. He was associated with no religious order, but lived by himself and strove to please God alone; he was, however, a very good friend of the Friars Minor. He seemed like a second John the Baptist, going before the Lord ‘to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people’ [Luke 1:17]. On his head he wore an Armenian hat. He had a long black beard, and he carried a small horn of copper or brass which he blew loudly, sending forth a sound sometimes sweet, sometimes awesome. He was girded with a leather girdle, and his outer garment, which reached to his feet, was black as sack cloth. His toga was made like a cloak, on both sides of which was a huge, wide cross, long and red, reaching from his neck all the way to his feet, like a priestly chasuble. Dressed in this manner and carrying his horn with him, he would go into the churches and the squares, preaching and praising God, followed by great multitudes of children bearing branches of trees and lighted candles. Quite often I used to see him standing on the wall of the Episcopal Palace, then under construction, preaching and praising God. And he would begin his praises in this way, speaking in the vernacular: ‘Praise and blessing and glory be to the Father!’ And the children would repeat it after him with a loud voice. Then he would repeat himself, adding ‘to the Son!’ And the children would answer again, singing the words. Then a third time he would cry out the words, adding, ‘to the Holy Spirit!’ And afterward, ‘Halleluia, Halleluia, Halleluia!’ Then he would give a blast on his horn, before he began to preach, sounding forth praise to God.22

Likewise, the Friar Minor, Gerard of Modena, did many wondrous deeds during the spiritual movement, as I saw with my own eyes. Before he became a friar, he was called Gerard Maletta, a scion of the powerful and wealthy Buccabadhati family. He was one of the early members of the Order of the Friars Minor, though not one of the original twelve. He was a close friend of St Francis, and was once his assigned companion. [. . .] At this time Brother Gerard became ‘Podestà of Parma’, exercising absolute power in order to bring peace between the warring factions, a task which he accomplished, since he was able to resolve many quarrels. [. . .] Gerard had strong leanings toward the imperial party.25

The account of Gerard’s preaching offers some clues to his effective technique:

Brother Horn was only the precursor of a whole panoply of people and events that made the year 1233 such a memorable one. On 14 October 1231, Bishop Grazia (1224–36) had excommunicated the Commune of Parma for a conflict over jurisdiction and tithes. A settlement was reached the following year. However, according to some reports received by the Pope, the arrangement was so detrimental for the church that on 12 January 1233, Gregory IX (1227–41) sent a letter to the Dominican preacher Guala de Roniis, bishop of Brescia (1229–44), and to the abbot of Cerreto (a monastery between Piacenza and Milan) demanding that Bishop Grazia be investigated on charges of severe misconduct. It had been reported that the bishop had joined forces with the officials of the Commune in oppressing the church in order to abuse both clergy and laity and squeeze more money out of them — his goal was the building of a magnificent new palace (whose façade under construction was the one used by Brother Horn for preaching and praising God).23 While the matter was under investigation,

Particular note should be made of the fact that at the time of the spiritual movement these worthy preachers met together and drew up plans for their sermons, that is to say, with respect to the place, the day, the hour, and the theme. And each one said to the other, ‘Hold fast what we have made firm.’ And they did precisely what they had arranged among themselves. And thus it was that preaching from a specially constructed platform in the square of Parma, Brother Gerard would suddenly cover his head with his hood and sink deep in thought like a man in profound meditation upon God, and thereby keep the people waiting in suspense in the midst of his sermon. Then after a long delay with the people gazing in wonder, he would remove the hood and begin to speak once more. Then beginning with the solemn words of Apocalypse 1, he would declare, ‘“I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day”, and I heard our beloved John of Vicenza preaching in Bologna on the shore of the River Reno. There was a great multitude before him, and his sermon began: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord: the

183

ludovico v. geymonat people whom he hath chosen for his inheritance”’ [Psalms 32.12]. Brother Gerard did this not only in Parma, but, in fact, in many other places. Sometimes, he would use Brother Jacopino as his example, and all the other preachers would do the same with him. The people in the audience were amazed and, stirred by curiosity, sent messengers to find out the truth. Once these facts were verified, they marvelled beyond measure, and, as a result, many men renounced the world and entered the Order of the Minorites or the Dominicans. All manner of good works were accomplished at various places during the time of the spiritual movement, as I saw with my own eyes.26

BROTHER GERARD AND THE PAINTINGS IN THE BAPTISTERY OF PARMA An investigation of the paintings in Parma in light of the events and protagonists of the Alleluia of 1233 explains some of the most idiosyncratic aspects of their iconography. It is surprising, in fact, that no one has ever thought of examining the paintings in the baptistery against the historical circumstances of that year. The presence of Brother Gerard behind the pictorial programme accounts, first of all, for the prominence of a Franciscan saint in the lunette to the side of the south portal, in front of the main entrance into the building (Fig. 13). No other saint from the 13th century is represented in the baptistery and there is no obvious reason to single out a Franciscan saint and make him the witness of an angelic apparition that takes up an entire lunette. The Franciscan friar with a nimbus in the lunette is usually identified as St Francis of Assisi (1181/82– 1226).30 Yet no inscription names him, even though other figures in the lunettes are named, and the scene in the baptistery does not match the vision of St Francis described by Thomas of Celano in the first Vita (II 3:94) written for the 1228 canonization:

Another anecdote told by Salimbene reveals Gerard’s prominent role in the Franciscan Order. Among the many grievances against Brother Elias (c. 1180–1253), who had been deposed as Minister General in 1239, Salimbene lists one which involves Gerard: The thirteenth fault of Brother Elias was that he never sought to be reconciled to his Order, but persisted in his obstinacy until the day he died. Brother John of Parma, however, sent Gerard of Modena to speak with him, for Gerard was one of the early Brothers of the Order and knew Elias well. But when Gerard besought him for the love of God and of St Francis to return to the Order, not only for the welfare of his soul but also for the good example this would set for others, [. . .]. Brother Gerard spent the whole of the following night without sleep, because, as he reported later, it seemed to him that demons were swarming throughout the whole place like bats. He even heard their cries.27

While he was staying in that hermitage called La Verna, after the place where it is located, two years prior to the time that he returned his soul to heaven, he saw in the vision of God a man, having six wings like a Seraph, standing over him, arms extended and feet joined, affixed to a cross. Two of his wings were raised up, two were stretched out over his head as if for flight, and two covered his whole body.31

Salimbene’s account of Gerard’s ties with St Francis and the early Brothers around him are confirmed by other sources. According to the 14th-century Historia satyrica by Brother Paolino of Venice, Gerard had been present at Francis’s preaching to the birds. Thomas of Eccleston reports that Gerard was at the chapter gathered at Assisi for the translation of Francis’s body in 1230 and that — together with St Anthony of Padua (1195–1231), Haimo of Faversham (d. 1243/44), and the Minister General John Parenti (1227–32) — he was part of the delegation of Lesser Brothers which appealed to Gregory IX for an interpretation of Francis’s Rule and Testament. On their request, the Pope issued the letter Quo elongati, a fundamental document in the history of the Franciscan Order.28 Such was Gerard’s success and prestige in Parma that in July the main city council entrusted him with the full municipal government. He held it until the feast of the Archangel Michael on 29 September. With complete control over the Commune, its administration and surrounding territory, Brother Gerard promoted intense peace-making and a revision of the City Statutes that in 1255, more than twenty years after his involvement, still bore witness to the extensive effects of his legislation.29

This vision, one of the most famous events in the life of St Francis, was to be represented many times. As early as 1235, Berlinghieri introduces Francis with the stigmata on his hands and feet: stigmata that match those of the Seraph appearing above him (Fig. 14).32 In Parma, the saint seems to be addressing the angelic creatures, but there is no sign of the Seraph being on a cross, his arms are not extended nor are there stigmata on his feet. There is no indication either of the stigmata which, according to Thomas’s text, are about to appear on the hands, feet and chest of St Francis while he is meditating on the meaning of the Seraph’s apparition.33 Furthermore, no text mentions that in Francis’s vision at La Verna the Seraph was accompanied by a Tetramorph, as he is in Parma. The emphasis on the vision of a Seraph without stigmata together with a Tetramorph shows that what is represented is not the stigmatization of St Francis, but a Franciscan saint addressing angelic creatures, possibly during his preaching, as suggested by the gesture of his right hand. The Seraph and the Tetramorph are the protagonists of the visions of Isaiah (6: 1–8) and of Ezekiel (1: 4–25), respectively. Their pairing in the same lunette seems a swift allusion to these two prophets and their apocalyptic visions. A Franciscan 184

preparing for the end

Figure 14 Detail with St Francis’s Vision of the Seraph and Stigmatization, from Bonaventura Berlinghieri, Saint Francis and Miracles from His Legend, 1235, panel painting in the Church of San Francesco at Pescia (Pistoia) (Archivio Scala, Florence) Figure 15 friar with a nimbus standing in place of Isaiah and Ezekiel looks like a straightforward way to accredit to a Franciscan preacher the same visionary powers of the two prophets. Was the Apocalypse that they had prophesized finally about to happen? Brother Gerard, as an early disciple of St Francis, had every interest in insisting on Francis’ power of prophecy: Gerard’s authority in Parma benefited from the claim of divine guidance, as Salimbene’s story concerning his preaching makes apparent. The scene in the baptistery is unique in its iconography but lacks an explicatory inscription. Is it St Francis or is it Gerard who is addressing the Seraph and the Tetramorph? If it is St Francis, it is a unique representation created under the auspices of one of his early followers during the first elaboration of his iconography immediately following his canonization in 1228. As the lunette was being painted, a standard iconography on Francis portrait and deeds had not yet been established. The possibility that the scene displays an angelic apparition to Gerard, or that some viewers at the time might have thought so, is left open by the lack of an inscription. Gerard was certainly acquainted with the Lesser Brothers who led an ascetic life and read the lives of the monastic fathers that dwelled in the deserts of Syria, Palestine and Egypt. It is precisely the association with the early Franciscans that best explains the presence of monks, hermits and hymnographers as models of ascetic life in the lunettes and spandrels of the baptistery (Figs 10 and 11). If a bishop or the canons of the cathedral of Parma had been behind these paintings, one would expect the space of the spandrels to be taken by easily recognizable saints

Ezekiel’s Vision of the Tetramorph, miniature, late 12th century (Athens, National Library, cod. 7, fol. 233v, ex 234v) (Ch. Ananiadis, National Library Athens)

with local following or a selection of the bishops succeeding to the see of Parma. In the vault, the lack of papal insignia, not even the mitre, in the representation of St Sylvester and the downplaying of the symbols of ecclesiastical office in the representation of St Martin and the Doctors of the Church (Figs 8 and 9) point again to the patronage of Brother Gerard, who was a lay Franciscan from a noble Ghibelline family with imperial sympathies and no papal liking. Similarly, it is hard to imagine that any bishop or canon at the time would have endorsed the peculiar representation of Abraham finding a naked, hermitic Melchizedek at the base of the vault opposite the altar (Figs 7 and 16).34 In the painting, an elegantly clad figure turns towards an older man with long hair and beard who is jumping out naked from a crevice in a rock. On the right, a boy carries a bowl and a woman kneads dough on a table. The inscription running on the dark strip between the foreground and the mountainous landscape reads ABRAAM I(N)VENIT MELCHISEDEC — Abraham finds Melchizedek. In Genesis (14: 18–20), Melchizedek is described as both king of Salem and priest of God Most High, he offers wine and bread, gives Abraham his blessing, and receives tithes. A verse in a celebrated psalm says ‘The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent: Thou art a 185

ludovico v. geymonat The archbishop takes off his stole, dalmatic and chasuble, puts on the baptismal cloak and ties a towel and girdle around his waist, with a knot hanging down on the left resembling a sword. He similarly ties a knot in his sandals near the ankle like a spur, wearing the mitre on the head, so that he appears to be both a king and a pontiff. In this manner he walks to the font preceded by the choirmaster with his boys singing.40

priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech’ (Ps. 109: 4). Instead of his usual representation as a priest and a king (Fig. 17), in Parma Melchizedek looks like an ascetic hermit appearing to Abraham in a mountainous landscape. A treatise attributed to Athanasius and a passage in the Syriac Cave of Treasure provide narrative reasons to this unusual iconography.35 Both texts, however, had a limited diffusion and no written version of a story involving Melchizedek appearing naked to Abraham was ever translated into Latin. In fact, beyond the painting in Parma, this rare scene is only illustrated in Byzantine Octateuchs and in Egyptian Coptic churches (Fig. 18).36 The source of the iconography in Parma might have been an image encountered in the Holy Land. Pilgrims’ accounts and significant archaeological evidence show that both on Mount Tabor and at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem there were cult sites dedicated to Melchizedek and to his meeting with Abraham, as well as some knowledge of the tradition according to which he had been a hermit.37 Whatever its origin in Parma, it is a representation that stands out as an eccentric choice for an Old Testament figure who was often taken to represent the clergy. Moreover, in the 1210s, Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) had begun to cite Melchizedek as proof of his claims to secular jurisdiction. As Vicar of Christ, the Pope was claiming both of Melchizedek’s roles, that of priest and that of king. The recourse to Melchizedek by Innocent III was perused, commented upon and argued by many in the following decades and extensively by the decretalists at the University of Bologna.38 Before coming to Parma, Bishop Grazia had been archdeacon of the cathedral of Bologna, canonist, professor of the papal decretals at the University, and an emissary and magistrate of the Roman Curia already under Innocent III.39 He certainly knew what Melchizedek stood for and was aware that of all figures in the Old Testament, he was the one involved with questions of tithes and religious and secular jurisdiction. These were hot topics in Parma: the dramatic clash between bishop and commune was centred on questions of jurisdiction and tithes, and the dismissal of Bishop Grazia by Pope Gregory IX in January 1233 was a consequence of the disagreements regarding the rights of the bishop as opposed to those of the commune. Depicting Melchizedek as an ascetic in the baptistery was a statement that addressed all these issues, but hardly with the voice of a supporter of the Pope or even that of a local bishop. At that point in time, only Brother Gerard could have endorsed such a representation of Melchizedek. Liturgically, the result must have looked remarkable. It was the bishop who led the liturgy of baptism at Easter and Pentecost. At Milan, according to the 12th-century Ordinal written by Beroldus:

The analogy between the bishop dressed as ‘king and pontiff’ and Melchizedek was obvious in Milan. The baptismal liturgy at Parma was simpler, but the clergy was certainly aware that the bishop was a priest ‘according to the order of Melchizedek’.41 It is striking therefore that the bishop officiating the Parma Baptistery was confronted — right above his head as he turned from the altar and walked toward the font to baptize — with a Melchizedek who responds to Abraham as a naked hermit instead of as a crowned and fully attired king and pontiff. Confirmation that the paintings inside the baptistery were undertaken under the auspices of Brother Gerard comes from two different and unrelated sources. As he was in charge of the administration at Parma, Gerard sponsored a revision of the City Statutes. Interestingly enough, two out of three of the provisions referring to the baptistery in the Statutes were passed during Gerard’s stay in office. It was evidently a focus of his attention. They both promote respect for the sacred nature of the space surrounding the building, soliciting discipline and providing for the appointment of a specific guard to take care of it.42 In the Bishop’s Palace, a few yards across the cathedral square from the baptistery, two fragments of painting were uncovered in 1999 (Figs 19 and 20). Both fragments depict dark grey figures bent forward with outstretched legs and flexed arms. They are personifications, identified by inscriptions as Air and Earth. In the baptistery, there are a number of such personifications holding cornucopias, as well as figures in similar positions above the niches (Figs 7 and 16). In the same room, on the east wall, there is another fragment in poor condition but readable from an old photograph (Fig. 21). It represents Christ flanked by the Virgin and John the Evangelist. The features of Christ and his halo, made of plaster in relief and gilded, resemble those of Christ in the baptistery, and the rainbow frieze matches those around several of the niches on the ground floor. Both paintings and architecture point to the use of this space as a palace chapel.43 The correspondences between the decoration in the baptistery and that in the Bishop’s Palace suggest that the same painter and workmen carried out both of them at around the same time. According to Salimbene’s Cronica, the façade of the palace was being built in 1233. And, according to the City Statutes, Brother Gerard took up residence there.44 This is to say that during his stay in 1233, Gerard lived next to and presumably used the newly built palace chapel that 186

preparing for the end

Figure 18

Figure 16

Abraham Meets Melchizedek, miniature (Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, cod. Gr. 746, fol. 68r) (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)

Vault of the Parma Baptistery: Abraham Finds Melchizedek — ABRAAM I(N)VENIT MELCHISEDEC; Fire and Air — IGNIS, AIER (Fotoscientifica; Ufficio Beni Culturali Ecclesiastici Parma)

The representation of the encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek, the angelic apparition to a Franciscan saint, the hermitic and visionary undertones of many figures and scenes in the baptistery, the attention given to the building by Brother Gerard in the City Statutes, the dating of the fragments from the same workshop in the Bishop’s Palace (based on that building’s own chronology) all point to the summer of 1233 as the date of the paintings of the baptistery in Parma. No historical circumstances could have been more favourable to such an undertaking. The ritual of baptism, with its symbolic celebration of initiation, rebirth and renewal, was an evocative one and suitable for the goal of bringing a new start to civic life. Gerard’s power in Parma put him in a position to commission improvements to the baptistery, inaugurated less than twenty years earlier, and requests the rector of the opera of the cathedral to have them carried out. The public functions of the building, both religious and civic, and its role as a shrine to the city identity must have made it an alluring site for someone who, according to Salimbene, was ‘exercising absolute power in order to bring peace between the warring factions’. For a peace-making friar in control of a city in the middle of a religious revival, the swift redecoration of the baptistery with a bright new set of paintings was a shrewd move indeed.

preserves the fragments by the same painter who worked in the baptistery. Since it was the chapel that he used while in Parma, Gerard’s involvement in its painting seems likely.

APOCALYPTIC EXPECTATIONS IN THE BAPTISTERY The unique sixteen-sided and ribbed vault architecture of the baptistery made it a difficult space in which to adapt a programme of images derived from a different context. And, in fact, the painted programme in Parma does not follow a clear iconographic tradition, if

Figure 17 Nave of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome: Abraham Meeting Melchizedek, mosaic (DeAgostini Picture Library/Scala, Florence) 187

ludovico v. geymonat

Figure 19 Parma, Bishop’s Palace: Top Floor, North Wall: Air and Mother of God — AER, M(ATE)R (Lisa Zdybel)

Figure 20

there ever was one for monumental baptisteries, nor is there a textual source that fully accounts for the rich and varied sets of figures and narrative cycles. A more convincing explanation is that the programme is the result of arranging within the vast and singular space of this building figures and scenes that the patron and the painter put together at the time of the great devotion of 1233. It is difficult to imagine that any of the bishops of Parma during the 13th century would have endorsed a cycle of paintings like that in the baptistery. What is known about Brother Gerard, however, confirms both that he was in a position to sponsor such a programme, and that his cultural and political leanings closely matched the choice of figures and narrative scenes represented in the paintings. How are we to imagine, then, the practicalities of his involvement in the painted decoration? What was his role in the definition of a programme, that is, in deciding how to use the vast space of the baptistery, in the choice of figures and scenes to represent and in their placement within such complex architecture? Did Gerard give detailed instructions or did he leave the painter ample margins to fill up the walls according to his ability and experience with Romanesque painting? How did Gerard share ideas, exchange suggestions and give orders to those involved in the painting of the baptistery? While he was up there on the scaffolding along the walls of this new Gothic building, what did the painter have in his hands besides colours and brushes? Did he use drawings? And, if he did, how comprehensive were these drawings and how definite was the identity and characterization of each figure and scene? The evidence suggests that, if drawings were used in Parma, they provided only a collection of assorted images from a variety of different sources, possibly without much in the way of accompanying captions.45

Was the painted programme inspired by a specific text? The presence in the lunettes of three groups of four Elders wearing crowns and holding bowls is a clear reference to the Revelation of John (chapters 4 and 5), which also accounts for the ‘tree of life’ represented as a white cross with three petals at each of the four points at the top of the vault (Figs 6 and 12). The occurrence of apocalyptic references, including the Seraph and the Tetramorph, is unequivocal, and yet there is no reason to think that the whole programme was conceived starting from the text of Revelation. There are a number of striking Byzantine features in the paintings in Parma, from the headscarves of some of the holy men on the spandrels, to the representation of the encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek. Even the apparition of the Seraph and the Tetramorph to a Franciscan saint in the lunette finds a close parallel in a representation of the vision of Ezekiel in a late-12th-century Byzantine Psalter (Figs 13 and 15).46 We do not know how these Byzantine features arrived in Parma. Was it by way of drawings, miniatures or direct experience with Byzantine art on the part of Gerard or the painter? What knowledge did they have of the meaning of the figures in the Byzantine representations they looked at? What was the role, if any, of written texts and oral traditions, or of direct knowledge by way of travel and pilgrimage? We are not able to answer these questions, but the visual evidence points to the inclusion of rare Byzantine iconography, which could not have been created anew, implying knowledge of Byzantine precedents. These Byzantine sources were transformed in Parma to express new meanings concerning jurisdiction, tithes and, by way of Melchizedek, models of priesthood. We may not be able to grasp the meaning of each figure in the baptistery nor the process that led to

Parma, Bishop’s Palace: top floor, north wall: Earth — TERRA (Lisa Zdybel)

188

preparing for the end

Figure 21 Parma, Bishop’s Palace: top floor, east wall: Christ, the Virgin and John the Evangelist. After M. Pisseri in L. Testi, Pier Ilario e Michele Mazzola (Notizie sulla pittura parmigiana dal 1250 c. alla fine del sec. XV) (Roma 1910), 5

the use of a specific iconography. However, the identification of Brother Gerard as the patron behind the paintings in Parma does bring about new interpretations. For once, we know a great deal about the circumstances surrounding the production of a painted cycle. The baptistery thus provides an exceptional case in which it is possible to grasp the direct political implications of painting a sacred space. According to the local chronicle, Salimbeni’s witty and chatty text, and to a number of other sources, in the spring and summer of 1233, the citizens of Parma were on the street, in procession, dancing and chanting Alleluia. It was an outbreak of devotion that had taken over the entire city: processions of children, public reconciliations, preaching. Great things were about to come, imminently. Brother Horn had announced them early on. What was the role of these expectations in the design of the paintings in the baptistery? Monumental images have the power to make painted figures feel present in the same space shared by the viewer. They go beyond mere reading and listening. If the people of Parma were convinced that an eschatological event was about to happen, they might have desired to be in the same place where they were baptized as children, a space dedicated to the liturgy of Christian initiation and the promise of resurrection through baptism. On the Day of Judgment, people might well have wanted to await this momentous ending in a place where, looking up, they could see above them Christ enthroned, flanked by the Virgin and John the Baptist interceding, and the Prophets who had announced his first coming, and the Apostles

above, and the tree of life at the top of the vault. The rich and complex programme of paintings that Brother Gerard sponsored in 1233 might best be explained as an enthusiastic attempt to prepare the baptistery to welcome the citizens of Parma at the end of the world.47 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This article is drawn from a book-in-progress based on my doctoral dissertation ‘The Parma Baptistery and its Pictorial Program’ (Princeton 2006). Sections have been published elsewhere as papers and short essays: ‘Un apocrifo bizantino nei dipinti duecenteschi del Battistero di Parma’, Archivio Storico per le Province Parmensi, 51 (1999), 429–56; ‘1233 — Byzantinizing the Parma Baptistery’, Miscellanea Marciana, 17 (2002), 71–81; ‘Parma 1233: pittura e iconografia in un battistero gotico’, in L’arte medievale nel contesto, 300–1300: funzioni, iconografia, tecniche, ed. P. Piva (Milano 2006), 509–15. I am grateful to the British Archaeological Association for giving me the opportunity to return to this topic for the conference in Palermo in 2012 and to write the present article. My reading of some of the evidence has changed over the years and I have only recently arrived at the interpretation of the paintings in Parma as an outcome of the expectations created by the 1233 devotional movement. I would like to express my gratitude to those who have encouraged me to keep working on this topic after 2006 and, in particular, to Don Alfredo Bianchi in Parma; to Catherine Chin, Jeffrey Ruda, John Hall 189

ludovico v. geymonat from Obizzo Fieschi (1194–1224) to Obizzo Sanvitale (1258–95), their family connections and their links to the papal curia, see M. Ronzani, ‘Vescovi, capitoli e strategie famigliari nell’Italia comunale’, in La Chiesa e il potere politico dal Medioevo all’Età contemporanea, ed. G. Chittolini and G. Miccoli (Torino 1986), 103–46, esp. 120–24. 3 Evidence on the exterior of the building suggests that a provisional roof was laid with beams resting just above the lintels of the fourth gallery and on the masonry ring on top of the newly erected dome. S. Lomartire, ‘Introduzione all’architettura del battistero di Parma,’ in Benedetto Antelami e il Battistero di Parma, ed. C. Frugoni (Torino 1995), 145–250; A. Calzona, ‘I maestri campionesi e la “lombardia”: l’architettura del Battistero di Parma’, in Medioevo: arte lombarda, ed. A. C. Quintavalle (Milano 2004), 367–87. 4 B. Zanardi, ‘Relazione di restauro dei dipinti murali del Battistero di Parma e alcune osservazioni di ordine materiale compiute durante i lavori’, in Battistero di Parma, II. La decorazione pittorica (Milano 1993), 219–50, esp. 228–32; Id., ‘Alcuni dati di cultura materiale osservati durante il restauro eseguito tra il 1986 e il 1992’, in Benedetto Antelami e il Battistero di Parma, ed. C. Frugoni (Torino 1995), 251–83, esp. 253–55. 5 Dante, Paradiso XV, vv. 130–35: A così riposato, a così bello / viver di cittadini, a così fida / cittadinanza, a così dolce ostello, / Maria mi diè, chiamata in alte grida; / e ne l’antico vostro Batisteo / insieme fui cristiano e Cacciaguida. See also Paradiso XVI, vv. 25–27. In general, see E. Cattaneo, ‘Il battistero in Italia dopo il Mille’, in Miscellanea Gilles Gerard Meersseman, I (Padova 1970), 171–95, esp. 189–90; Id., ‘La Basilica baptisterii segno di unità ecclesiale e civile,’ in Atti del convegno di Parma 1976 — Ravennatensia 7 (Cesena 1979), 9–32; A. Thompson, Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125–1325 (University Park 2005), 309–41. 6 On Gerardo Bianchi (Parma, c. 1220–Rome, 1302), see P. Herde, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, X (1968), 96–101; P. Silanos, Gerardo Bianchi da Parma († 1302): la biografia di un cardinale-legato duecentesco (Roma 2010). 7 The chapter of the baptistery was suppressed in 1867. Lopez, Battistero (as n. 1), 112–13, 130–35; E. Guerra, La Collegiata Insigne del Battistero di Parma (Parma 1923); Lomartire, ‘Introduzione’ (as n. 3), 145. 8 On the cathedral chapter, see A. Bianchi, ‘L’Archivio Capitolare di Parma’, in Gli archivi capitolari dell’Emilia Romagna, ed. E. Angiolini (Modena 2001), 73–77; U. Censi, Uomini e terra della Cattedrale di Parma nel medioevo (Parma 2008). On cathedral chapters in northern Italy, see C. Fonseca, ‘Canoniche regolari, capitoli cattedrali e ‘cura animarum’,’ in Pievi e parrocchie in Italia nel basso Medioevo, sec. 13–15., I (Roma 1984), 273–76. 9 On the laborerium of the cathedral, and the involvement in it of the city of Parma, see R. Schumann, Authority and the Commune, Parma 833–1133, Parma 1973, 182–201, 225–51; M. Luchterhandt, Die Kathedrale von Parma: Architektur und Skulptur im Zeitalter von Reichskirche und Kommunebildung (München 2009), 483–87. 10 M. Haines and L. Riccetti ed., Opera. Carattere e ruolo delle fabbriche cittadine fino all’inizio dell’Età Moderna (Florence 1996); L. Riccetti ed., Finanziare cattedrali e grandi opere pubbliche nel Medioevo: nord e media Italia (secoli XII–XV) (Roma 2003). 11 E. Vicini, ‘Statuti e privilegi concessi alla Fabbrica di S. Geminiano dal Comune, dal Vescovo e dal Capitolo della Cattedrale di Modena nei Secoli XII–XIII’, Reale Deputazione di Storia Patria per l’Emilia e la Romagna, Sezione di Modena, Studi e documenti I/1–2 (1937), 3–51; R. Cassanelli, ‘Modena: il duomo da Lanfranco ai Campionesi’, in Cantieri medievali, ed. R. Cassanelli (Milano 1995), 145–68. 12 A. Middeldorf Kosegarten, ‘Situazioni conflittuali nei rapporti tra artisti, committenti e operai intorno al 1300’, in Opera. Carattere e ruolo delle fabbriche cittadine fino all’inizio dell’Età Moderna, ed. M. Haines and L. Riccetti (Florence 1996), 371–95, esp. 386–92. 13 Lopez, Battistero (as n. 1), 115–16, 136–37. On 29 October 1548, Pope Paul III (1534–49) confirmed with some minor changes

and Lisa Zdybel at the University of California, Davis; and to Andrea De Marchi, Barry McCrea, Caroline Bruzelius, Elena Brezzi, Gianni Romano, Nancy Ševčenko and Rosa Bacile. Without Gianfranco Fiaccadori’s scholarship and generosity, none of my work on the Baptistery of Parma would have been possible. This article is dedicated to his memory. NOTES 1 The baptistery is an outstanding architectural structure, which presents beautiful carvings on both interior and exterior façades and has received plenty of scholarly attention. The paintings were first published in a monograph that Michele Lopez dedicated to the Baptistery of Parma in 1864. Their Byzantinizing character was noticed earlier on and their dating moved by scholars in accordance with their own liking, or not, of the role of Byzantine art in medieval Italy. In the early 20th century, when Byzantine art was in fashion, the paintings were praised by Adolfo Venturi. Later on, in periods of intense nationalism, especially under the fascist regime, they were disparagingly dated to the late 1260s, and read as Byzantine precedents from which the native art of the Italians needed to break away. Recently, thanks especially to the restoration undertaken in the 1980s and to the work of scholars interested in Byzantium, the paintings in the baptistery have been looked at favourably again. Their dating, however, has remained attached to broad stylistic comparisons of uncertain consequence. M. Lopez, Il Battistero di Parma (Parma 1864 and 2004); L. Testi, Le Baptistère de Parme, trans. M. Roques (Florence 1916); P. Toesca, Il Battistero di Parma (Milano 1960); G. Kerscher, Benedictus Antelami oder das Baptisterium von Parma. Kunst und kommunales Selbstverständnis (München 1986); A. C. Quintavalle, Battistero di Parma. Il cielo e la terra (Parma 1989); Battistero di Parma (Milano 1992); A. Bianchi ed., Battistero di Parma. Il Portale della Vergine (Parma 1992); Battistero di Parma, II. La decorazione pittorica (Milano 1993); C. Frugoni ed., Benedetto Antelami e il Battistero di Parma (Torino 1995); M. Woelk, Benedetto Antelami. Die Werke in Parma und Fidenza (Münster 1995); G. Schianchi ed., Il battistero di Parma: iconografia, iconologia, fonti letterarie (Milano 1999). A. Calzona, ‘Federico II e il battistero di Parma’, in L’officina dello sguardo. Scritti in onore di Maria Andaloro, ed. G. Bordi, I. Carlettini, M. L. Fobelli, M. R. Menna, P. Pogliani (Roma 2014), I, 521–28. Specifically on the paintings, see F. Gandolfo, ‘Gli affreschi del Battistero di Parma’, in Il Medio Oriente e l’Occidente nell’arte del XIII secolo, ed. H. Belting (Bologna 1982), 193–201; G. Romano, ‘Per i Maestri del Battistero di Parma e della Rocca di Angera’, Paragone/Arte 36 (1985), 10–16; A. Bianchi, ‘Il ciclo pittorico del Battistero di Parma: la cupola: Abramo, Giovanni Battista, i Profeti, la Gerusalemme Celeste’, Felix Ravenna, s. IV, 131–32 (1986), 9–32; M. Boskovits, ‘A proposito del ‘frescante’ della cupola del Battistero di Parma’, Prospettiva, 53–54 (1988–89), 102–08; V. Rouchon Mouilleron, ‘Décor peint, structuration liturgique et usage civique: les peintures du baptistère de Parme’, in Peintures murales médiévales, XIIe–XVIe siècles. Regards comparés, ed. D. Russo (Dijon 2005), 77–85; M. L. Tomea Gavazzoli, ‘Le “Quattro Dimensioni” (Ef 3, 18) nel battistero di Parma: modelli bizantini ed élite intellettuale francescana intorno al 1250’, Arte lombarda, 150 (2007), 7–24; Ead., ‘Qualche osservazione sul neoellenismo dei Maestri del battistero di Parma’, Arte lombarda, 154 (2008), 7–29. 2 Chronicon Parmense ab anno MXXXVIII usque ad annum MCCCXXXVIII, ed. G. Bonazzi (Città di Castello 1902), 8: 33–35; A. Bianchi, ‘«In Batisterio Parme de novo incepto». Su due inedite pergamene dell’Archivio Capitolare di Parma’, Atti della Accademia nazionale dei Lincei; Rendiconti della Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, s. IX, 15 (2004), 45–69. On Bishop Obizzo Fieschi (d. 1224), see G. Zanella, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 47 (1997), 506–08. For the elections of the Bishops in Parma

190

preparing for the end 21 On the 1233 devotional movement, A. Vauchez, ‘Une campagne de pacification en Lombardie autour de 1233. L’action politique des ordres mendicants d’après la réforme des statuts communaux et les accords de paix’, Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire, 78 (1966), 503–49; F. Barocelli, ‘L’Alleluia di Parma del 1233. Il rito, l’immagine, la città’, Aurea Parma, 67–68 (1983–84), 232–56; A. Thompson, Revival Preachers and Politics in Thirteenth–Century Italy: The Great Devotion of 1233 (Oxford 1992). 22 The Chronicle of Salimbene de Adam, ed. J. Baird, G. Baglivi and J. Kane (Binghamton 1986), 48–49; Salimbene de Adam, Cronica, ed. G. Scalia, 2 vols (Bari 1966; ed. Brepols 1998–99), 100.22–101.27. More on Brother Horn in Chronicon (as n. 2), 10.28– 34. See also I. Walter, ‘Benedetto’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, VIII (1966), 321. 23 G. Salvemini, ‘Le lotte fra Stato e Chiesa nei Comuni italiani durante il secolo XIII’, in Studi storici (Firenze 1901), 39–90; reprint: Opere, I. Scritti di storia medievale, II. La dignità cavalleresca nel Comune di Firenze e altri scritti, ed. E. Sestan (Milano 1972), 298–330, esp. 325–26; O. Guyotjeannin, ‘Conflit de juridiction et exercice de la justice à Parme et dans son territoire d’après une enquête de 1218’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome. Moyen Age-Temps Modernes, 97 (1985), 183–300, esp. 244–50. From the Papal letter, it seems that Grazia had transferred the jurisdiction over the clergy into the hands of two lay judges nominated by the Commune, I. Affo, Storia della città di Parma, III (Parma 1793), 149–54, and Appendice, n. LVI, 362–64; Les Registres de Grégoire IX. Recueil des bulles de ce pape, ed. L. Auvray (Paris 1896), I, n. 1036, 603–04; Regesta pontificum romanorum inde ab a. post Christum natum MCXCVIII ad a. MCCCIV, ed. A. Potthast (Berolini 1874), I, n. 9071. 24 On Gerard Boccabadati, see G. Cantini, ‘L’apostolato dei Beati Gherardo Boccabadati e Leone Valvassori da Perego Francescani e la devozione dell’Alleluia’, Studi Francescani, s. III, 9 (1937), 335–53, esp. 339–45; Z. Zafarana, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, X (1968), 822–23; L. Pellegrini, ‘Storia e geografia del “reclutamento” francescano della prima generazione’, in I compagni di Francesco e la prima generazione minoritica (Spoleto 1992), 3–29, esp. 14. On early-mendicant preaching, C. Delcorno, ‘Origini della predicazione francescana’, in Francesco d’Assisi e francescanesimo dal 1216 al 1226 (Assisi 1977), 127–60; J. Longere, La prédication médiévale (Paris 1983); L. Bataillon, La prédication au XIIIe siècle en France et Italie. Études et documents (Aldershot 1993); L. Bolzoni, The Web of Images: Vernacular Preaching from Its Origins to St Bernardino da Siena, trans. C. Preston and L. Chien (Aldershot 2004); C. Bruzelius, Preaching, Building, and Burying: Friars in the Medieval City (New Haven 2014). 25 The Chronicle (as n. 22), 52; Salimbene, Cronica (as n. 22), 106.9–30. 26 The Chronicle (as n. 22), 54; Salimbene, Cronica (as n. 22), 108.11–33. 27 The Chronicle (as n. 22), 154–55; Salimbene, Cronica (as n. 22), 237.14–238.14. 28 Fratris Thomae de Eccleston, Tractatus de adventu fratrum minorum in Angliam, collatio XIII De successione Ministrorum Generalium, ed. A. Little (Manchester 1951), 65–75, esp. 66; The Coming of the Franciscans, trans. L. Sherley–Price (London 1964), 51; Gratien de Paris, Histoire de la fondation et de l’évolution de l’ordre des Fréres Mineurs (Paris 1928), 117; A. Rigon, ‘Antonio di Padova e il minoritismo padano’, I compagni di Francesco e la prima generazione minoritica (Spoleto 1992), 167–99, esp. 183–94. 29 Statuta communis Parmae digesta anno MCCLV, ed. A. Ronchini (Parmae 1856), 2–5, 27, 198–200, 216, 221, 292, 301–15, 320. On Brother Gerard at Parma, Affò, Storia (as n. 23), 154–57, 164–65; Thompson, Revival (as n. 21), 29–36, 179–204. In general, see W. Thomson, Friars in the Cathedral: The First Franciscan Bishops 1226–1261 (Toronto 1975); L. Pellegrini, ‘I quadri e i tempi dell’espansione dell’Ordine’, in Francesco d’Assisi e il primo secolo di storia francescana (Torino 1997), 165–201; A. Rigon, ‘Frati Minori e società locali’, ibid., 259–81, esp. 264–67; J. M. Powell, ‘Mendicants, the Communes, and the Law’, Church History, 77 (2008), 557–73.

the regulations endorsed by Pope Nicholas V, see Guerra, Collegiata (as n. 7), 40–45. In 1488, the operai commissioned an organ for the baptistery, further proof that the opera of the cathedral was in charge of works in the building. 14 K. Maxwell, ‘A Textual Source for the Prophet Zone of the Parma Baptistry Cupola’, in Acts of the XVIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies: Selected Papers, Main and Communications, III. Art History, Architecture, Music, ed. I. Sevcenko, G. Litavrin and W. Hanak (Shepherdstown 1999), 180–92. 15 Revelation 21: 10–14: ‘And he took me up in spirit to a great and high mountain: and he shewed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God, and the light thereof was like to a precious stone, as to the jasper stone, even as crystal. And it had a wall great and high, having twelve gates, and in the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. On the east, three gates: and on the north, three gates: and on the south, three gates: and on the west, three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them, the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb’ (Douay-Rheims 1899 edition). Bianchi, ‘Il ciclo’ (as n. 1), 21–25; G. Fiaccadori, ‘Nota introduttiva: I Mesi, l’Apocalisse, Gioachino da Fiore’, in C. Frugoni, I Mesi antelamici del Battistero di Parma (Parma 1992), v–xx, esp. ix–xi. 16 Bianchi, ‘Il ciclo’ (as n. 1). A number of passages in the Book of Revelation can be read as references to the redemptive function of baptism and related to some aspects of the paintings in Parma. Revelation 21: 6: ‘And he said to me: It is done. I am Alpha and Omega; the beginning and the end. To him that thirsteth, I will give the fountain of the water of life, freely.’ 22: 13–14: ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb: that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city.’ 22:17: ‘And the spirit and the bride say: Come. And he that heareth, let him say: Come. And he that thirsteth, let him come: and he that will, let him take the water of life, freely’ (Douay-Rheims 1899 edition). 17 V. Rouchon Mouilleron, ‘Le pitture duecentesche del Battistero di Parma. Iconografia e organizzazione spaziale’, Battistero di Parma, II. La decorazione pittorica (Milano 1993), 35–115, esp. 37–42; M. Rossi, ‘Analisi iconografica degli affreschi duecenteschi’, in Il Battistero di Parma. Iconografia, iconologia, fonti letterarie, ed. G. Schianchi (Milano 1999), 169–99, esp. 176– 83; V. Rouchon Mouilleron, ‘Saint Jean-Baptiste au baptistère de Parme: naissance d’un cycle biographique’, in Medioevo: immagine e racconto, ed. A. C. Quintavalle (Milano 2003), 349–59; M. L. Tomea Gavazzoli, ‘Le pitture del battistero di Parma e gli ottateuchi bizantini: modelli e invenzione nelle storie di Abramo e Giovanni Battista’, Arte medievale, 6/2 (2007), 87–132, esp. 110–22. 18 Tomea Gavazzoli, ‘Le “Quattro Dimensioni”’ (as n. 1). 19 Rouchon Mouilleron, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 17), 42–44; L. Geymonat, ‘Un apocrifo bizantino nei dipinti duecenteschi del Battistero di Parma’, Archivio Storico per le Province Parmensi, 51 (1999), 429–56; Rossi, ‘Analisi’ (as n. 17), 169–74; F. Gandolfo, ‘Le storie di Abramo al battistero di Parma’, Medioevo: immagine e racconto, ed. A. C. Quintavalle (Milano 2003), 340–48; V. Rouchon Mouilleron, ‘L’illustration de la Genèse au Duecento: le cycle d’Abraham sur la coupole du Baptistère de Parme’, Iconographica, II (2003), 18–41; Tomea Gavazzoli, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 17), 87–110. 20 Gandolfo, ‘Affreschi’ (as n. 1), 197–98; Fiaccadori, ‘Nota introduttiva’ (as n. 15), ix–xii; C. Frugoni, Francesco e l’invenzione delle stimmate. Una storia per parole e immagini fino a Bonaventura e Giotto (Torino 1993), 234–37; Rouchon Mouilleron, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 17), 114–15; G. Fiaccadori, ‘Postilla sui dipinti bizantineggianti del Battistero di Parma’, Archivio storico per le Province Parmensi, 51 (1999), 457–79, esp. 478–79; K. Maxwell, ‘The Lower Wall Lunettes of the Parma Baptistry: The Identity of the Subject of the Missing Lunette and Iconographical Connections with the Cupola Program’, Arte Cristiana, 87 (1999), 5–16; Rossi, ‘Analisi’ (as n. 17), 192–99.

191

ludovico v. geymonat 30 F. Bordoni, Thesaurus Sanctae Ecclesiae Parmensis ortus (Parmae 1671), 6; I. Affò, Vita del Beato Giovanni da Parma (Parma 1777), 17; id., Storia (as n. 23), 19; Lopez, Battistero (as n. 1), 108– 10, 227–28; Testi, Baptistère (as n. 1), 238–41; M. L. Gavazzoli, ‘Un’insolita iconografia di San Francesco d’Assisi nel Battistero di Parma’, Arte lombarda, 17 (1972), 23–26, 44; A. Calzona, ‘Precisazioni sulla cronologia dei dipinti della cupola del Battistero di Parma’, Salimbeniana (Casalecchio di Reno 1991), 48–78: 56; Frugoni, Francesco (as n. 20), 236–37; Fiaccadori, ‘Nota introduttiva’ (as n. 15), xi–xii; Zanardi, ‘Alcuni dati’ (as n. 4), 277; W. R. Cook, Images of St. Francis of Assisi in Painting, Stone, and Glass: from the Earliest Images to ca. 1320 in Italy: A Catalogue (Firenze 1999), 154–55. 31 ‘The Life of Saint Francis by Thomas of Celano (1228–1229)’, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, ed. R. Armstrong, J. Wayne Hellmann and W. Short, I (New York 1999), 169–308, esp. 263. Thomae de Celano, Vita prima sancti Francisci, pars II, cap. III, par. 94–95. 32 K. Krüger, Der frühe Bildkult des Franziskus in Italien. Gestalt– und Funktionswandel des Tafelbildes im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert (Berlin 1992), 195–96; Frugoni, Francesco (as n. 20), 203, 321–56; Cook, Images of St. Francis (as n. 30), 165–68. 33 On the basis of the absence of the stigmata in Parma, and their official requirement in any representation of the stigmatization of St Francis from 1260 on, Chiara Frugoni maintains that the painting in the baptistery must date from between 1229 and 1259, more likely earlier than later: Frugoni, Francesco (as n. 20), 237. See also A. Vauchez, ‘Les stigmates de Saint François et leur détracteurs dans les derniers siècles du Moyen Âge’, Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire, 80 (1968), 595–625. 34 Geymonat, ‘Un apocrifo’ (as n. 19); Gandolfo, ‘Le storie’ (as n. 19), 340–41; Rouchon Mouilleron, ‘L’illustration’ (as n. 19), 27–30; Tomea Gavazzoli, ‘Le pitture’ (as n. 17), 102–07. 35 Ps.–Atanasio, ‘Historia de Melchisedech’, in Patrologia Graeca, XXVIII (1894), 523–30, esp. 528–29; La caverne des trésors. Les deux recensions syriaques, ed. and trans. Su–Min Ri, II (Turnhout 1987), 68. On these texts, see J. Dochhorn, ‘Die Historia de Melchisedech (Hist Melch). Einführung, editorischer Vorbericht und Editiones praeliminares’, Le Muséon, 117 (2004), 7–48. 36 On Byzantine and Coptic representations, see H. von Erffa, Ikonologie der Genesis. Die christlichen Bildthemen aus dem Alten Testament und ihre Quellen (München and Berlin 1989–95), I: 277– 80, II: 66–67; K. Weitzmann and M. Bernabò, The Byzantine Octateuchs (Princeton 1999), 69–70, 317; P. van Moorsel, ‘A Different Melchisedech? Some Iconographical Remarks’, QEMELIA. Spätantike und koptologische Studien Peter Grossmann zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. M. Krause and S. Schaten (Wiesbaden 1998), 331–42; Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St. Anthony at the Red Sea, ed. E. Bolman (New Haven 2002), 68–70, 95–96, 236; G. van Loon, ‘The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek and the Communion of the Apostles,’ in Coptic Studies on the Threshold of a New Millennium, ed. M. Immerzeel and J. van der Vliet, II (Leuven 2004), 1373–92; S. Pasi, ‘I dipinti della chiesa di Al-Adra nel monastero di Deir-el-Baramus (Wadi–el–Natrun)’, Zograf, 34 (2010), 37–52, esp. 40–44. 37 On Mount Tabor, see D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A Corpus, II (Cambridge 1998), 63–85, esp. 83–85. On a Melchizedek altar at the Holy Sepulchre, see V. Corbo, Il Santo Sepolcro di Gerusalemme. Aspetti archeologici dalle origini al periodo crociato, I (Jerusalem 1981), 92–101; R. Ousterhout, ‘Rebuilding the Temple: Constantine Monomachus and the Holy Sepulchre’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 48

(1989), 66–78, esp. 71–72. See also S. Schein, ‘Between Mount Moriah and the Holy Sepulchre: The Changing Traditions of the Temple Mount in the Central Middle Ages’, Traditio, 40 (1984), 175–95, esp. 194; R. Ousterhout, ‘The Temple, the Sepulchre, and the Martyrdom of the Savior’, Gesta, 29 (1990), 43–53, esp. 47. 38 K. Pennington, ‘Pope Innocent III’s Views on Church and State: A Gloss to Per Venerabilem’, Law, Church and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner, ed. K. Pennington and R. Somerville (Philadelphia 1977), 49–67, esp. 54; R. Lerner, ‘Joachim of Fiore as a Link between St. Bernard and Innocent III on the Figural Significance of Melchisedech’, Mediaeval Studies, 42 (1980), 471–76; D. Courtney-Batson, ‘Per venerabilem: From Practical Necessity to Judicial Supremacy’, Pope Innocent III and his World, ed. J. Moore (Aldershot 1999), 287–303, esp. 290, 300–01. 39 On Bishop Grazia, see L. Paolini, ‘L’evoluzione di una funzione ecclesiastica: l’arcidiacono e lo Studio a Bologna nel XIII secolo’, Studi medievali, s. 3, 29 (1988), 129–72, esp. 142–47; A. Padovani, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, LVIII (2002), 780–83. 40 Beroldus sive ecclesiae ambrosianae mediolanensis kalendarium et ordines saec. XII, ed. M. Magistretti (Mediolani 1894), 111–13. 41 On the liturgy within the Parma Baptistery, see Ordinarium ecclesiae parmensis e vetustioribus excerptum reformatum a. MCCCCXVII, ed. L. Barbieri (Parmae 1866), 71–76, 144–77. On its relevance for the paintings, see Rouchon Mouilleron, ‘Décor peint’ (as n. 1). 42 Statuta (as n. 29), 286–87, 320. 43 Fiaccadori, ‘Postilla’ (as n. 20), 457–79; Tomea Gavazzoli, ‘Le “Quattro Dimensioni”’ (as n. 1), 17, 22–23. On the Bishop’s Palace in Parma, see A. Zaniboni Mattioli, ‘Il Palazzo vescovile di Parma nelle fonti del secolo XIII’, Archivio Storico per le Province Parmensi, 51 (1999), 481–506; M. Miller, The Bishop’s Palace: Architecture and Authority in Medieval Italy (Ithaca 2000), 97–113, 174–81; ead., ‘La costruzione dei palazzi vescovili nell’Italia del nord (secoli XI– XIII)’, in Finanziare cattedrali e grandi opere pubbliche nel Medioevo: nord e media Italia (secoli XII–XV), ed. L. Riccetti (Roma 2003), 1–10. 44 The Chronicle (as n. 22), 46, 48–49; Salimbene, Cronica (as n. 22), 97.16–19, 101.7–9; Statuta (as n. 29), 286. 45 For a 13th–century drawing with a detailed layout of an iconographic programme, see L. Geymonat, ‘Un disegno preparatorio del XIII secolo per un ciclo pittorico sull’Apocalisse’, Ikon: Journal of Iconographic Studies, 6 (2013), 55–64. 46 Fiaccadori, ‘Nota introduttiva’ (as n. 15), xi–xii; Frugoni, Francesco (as n. 20), 236, 257. On the miniature in the Byzantine Psalter (Athens, National Library, cod. 7, fol. 233v), see D. I. Pallas, ‘Himmelsmächte, Erzengel und Engel’, Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst, III (1978), 13–119, esp. 59–68, 92; A. Cutler, The Aristocratic Psalters in Byzantium (Paris 1984), 15–17. On Byzantine features in the paintings in Parma, see also O. Demus, Romanesque Mural Painting (London 1970), 312; Gandolfo, ‘Gli affreschi’ (as n. 1); E. Pagella, ‘Le pitture duecentesche del Battistero di Parma. L’esperienza dell’Oriente’, in Battistero di Parma, II. La decorazione pittorica (Milano 1993), 117–26; Tomea Gavazzoli, ‘Qualche osservazione’ (as n. 1). 47 As the end of the world failed to arrive, the devotional movement of the Alleluia ran out of steam and Brother Gerard was removed from power in Parma. The lack of 13th-century references to the paintings might be due not only to the ravages of time, but also to disappointment. The anticipated radical change for which the baptistery had been painted remained unrealized.

192

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 193–203

HUNGARY, BYZANTIUM, ITALY: ARCHITECTURAL CONNECTIONS IN THE 11TH CENTURY Béla Zsolt Szakács During the second half of the 11th century a new stylistic tendency appears in the Hungarian Kingdom which can be characterized as a kind of Byzantinism. The ecclesiastical and political connections between Hungary and Byzantium were strong at that time which inspired previous scholarship to interpret this architectural tendency as a sign of a direct Byzantine influence on the Hungarian Kingdom. However, an investigation here of the centrally planned churches (Feldebrő and Szekszárd, both of which were Benedictine abbeys) will exclude a direct Byzantine connection; instead, relevant Italian parallels can be found. The same argument can be made for the stone carvings of these buildings. During this period, a specific sculptural style was flourishing in Hungary which can be characterized with palmette friezes and capitals decorated with acanthus spinosa. While the first is almost unparalleled (the only known example outside of Hungary is in Lund), the second was in use in the Adriatic region, especially at Aquileia and Venice, and spread towards Dalmatia as well as in Padua and Verona. Thus, decisive stylistic elements of the period prove that Hungarian art of the period was determined by Italian connections and was not under direct Byzantine influence.

The medieval Kingdom of Hungary was one of the territories on the borderline between Eastern and Western Christianity. The Hungarians had met the Orthodox mission already in the 9th century in the steppe and later again, in the 10th century, in the Carpathian Basin. However, after 973 the Latin mission became more successful and was supported by the ruling dynasty. Thus, the Hungarian church hierarchy was predominantly Western, but Orthodox monasteries were still flourishing in the country in the 11th and 12th centuries.1 Politically, the connections between Hungary and Byzantium led sometimes to alliance, in other cases to conflicts.2 In 1018, the Hungarian king, Stephen the Saint, supported Basileios II against the Bulgarians, and after the victory Hungary and Byzantium became neighbouring countries. In the late 12th century, three of the Hungarian kings found their way to the throne with the support of Emperor Manuel Komnenos. Nevertheless, two of them ruled only a few months, while the third, Béla III (1172–96), not only preserved the autonomy of the country but conquered formerly Byzantine territories (especially in Dalmatia). The second half of the 11th century was a crucial time for © British Archaeological Association 2015

the connection between the Byzantine Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom. After the death of King Stephen the Saint (1038), the Hungarian Kingdom became politically unstable. Some of the members of the dynasty looked for support from the Eastern European rulers, such as Andrew I (1046–60) who married Anastasia of Kiev, and his son, Géza I (1074–77) whose wife originated from the Byzantine Synadenos family, bringing with her a female crown, today known as the Corona Graeca of the Holy Crown Hungary.3 The crown is not the only object which attests the Byzantine influence in Hungarian culture. Even King Stephen the Saint supported some of the Orthodox monasteries, such as the one at Szávaszentdemeter (Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia) or the female monastery of Veszprémvölgy.4 Unfortunately, we know very little about these monasteries. Among the medieval monasteries of Hungary, there are a large number for which their religious order is not known. In some cases we know only that they had abbots, others are only mentioned as monasterium without further information. In these two categories unidentified Orthodox monasteries could also have been hidden in many cases.5 193

b É la zsolt szak Á cs THE ABBEY CHURCH OF FELDEBRŐ

territory of Marche. A good example is San Vittore alle Chiuse (Fig. 4).10 In this case all the aisles are of identical height, thus the church is similar to a cube with a tower in the centre and apses on the sides. The ground plan of the Italian church is somewhat different from Feldebrő, as it is only three-aisled (opposed to the five-aisled in Feldebrő), on the eastern side three apses can be found while on the west there are none. Therefore it is less symmetrical and somewhat less ambitious, but as a standing structure it seems to be comparable. Regarding the lateral apses, previous literature has already pointed out that in Byzantine architecture these were unusual. There is a region, however, which can be characterized with such architectural solutions: the Caucasus. Examples usually mentioned include the 11th-century Bagrati Cathedral in Kutaisi, Georgia, and the cathedral church of Talin in Armenia dated to the 7th century.11 As it is obvious at first sight, these two buildings resemble each other but differ significantly from the church of Feldebrő. They are not symmetrically planned, since they have three apses on the eastern side and none on the western side. The transept and the nave are really higher than the aisles, which cannot be the case in the Hungarian church. Therefore these examples cannot be used as comparable examples. The only real analogy in Armenia is the cathedral of Ejmiatsin. However, its present state is the result of a 17th-century rebuilding and the original structure was somewhat different, although its forms and chronology are not entirely clear.12 Thus, as far as I know, no real comparanda to Feldebrő can be found in the Caucasus region.

If political and ecclesiastical connections were so strong in the 11th century between Byzantium and Hungary, it is logically assumed that such influences can be detected also in the field of art and architecture.6 Among the unidentified monasteries a significant example is Feldebrő in northern Hungary. The present-day building is a Baroque church from the 18th century, however, it incorporates previous structures. As the excavations revealed, the first building was a five-aisled centralized church with a semicircular apse on each side. In the centre four piers might have hold a cupola or a tower (Fig. 1).7 It was this absolute symmetrical arrangement which inspired scholars to reconstruct the medieval building as a type of Middle Byzantine church. According to Ferenc Levárdy the original church might have been organized hierarchically, with a central high tower in the middle, a high nave identical to the transept, and lower spaces in the four corners. The only significant difference from 11th-century Byzantine churches is the four apses in the middle of the façades (Fig. 2).8 However, these reconstructions inspired to Byzantine models can certainly be criticized. Even if the present state of preservation does not offer a precise picture of the original building, some elements can be used as starting points. The northern and southern walls of the church incorporate elements of the original structure. On the northern façade one can observe the piers dividing the two aisles (Fig. 3). Fragments of the arches between the piers are also visible. The height of these arches seems to be identical. That means that the transept was never higher than the aisles, consequently the hierarchical reconstruction of Levárdy cannot be accepted.9 I think the overall outlook of the church of Feldebrő might have been similar to some buildings which can be found in central Italy, in the

Figure 1

Figure 2

Feldebrő: excavation plan of the abbey church. After Kovalovszki (1993)

Feldebrő: reconstruction of the original arrangement according to Levárdy (1976) 194

hungary, byzantium, italy Antique Italian tradition, which is also represented by San Lorenzo in Milan dated to the late 4th century. Beside a centrally planned structure, another architectural characteristic should be mentioned in the case of Feldebrő, too. On the eastern side of the church, below the last two bays, there is a crypt (Fig. 5). Its shape is transversal, that is, it is as wide as the upper church but much shorter: its depth is only two bays. It has a semicircular apse with a column in the middle. The nave is vaulted which is supported by five piers. On the west, a burial chamber is attached to it. The entrance to the crypt is from the two outer aisles of the upper church. The form of the piers is similar to those in the upper church and archaeologically it has been proven that it was contemporary to the original building. This kind of transversal crypt is typical for the churches in central Italy. Already Levárdy pointed as a parallel to the church of SS Alessio e Bonifazio in Rome.15 The major characteristics of the two crypts are similar: a two-bays wide crypt, a single apse, and entrance from the northern and southern end of the room. However, as Tóth already mentioned, this kind of crypt can be found relatively frequently in central Italian architecture. There are, however, two features of the crypt at Feldebrő, which can be regarded as rarities. First, there is a column in the centre of the apse, second, the number of the supports in the nave is uneven, and consequently the crypt has no central nave. For both characteristics we can find parallels in Italy; let me mention only the church of San Pietro in Tivoli, with the strange column in its apse, and the cathedral of Salerno, with its large transversal crypt, where the nave is divided into eight aisles by seven pairs of columns (Fig. 6).16 This crypt is certainly much bigger than the one at Feldebrő, which is also manifested in its three apses; however, we should observe the columns in the centre of the side apses. To sum up the results of the investigation related to the architectural arrangement of the church at Feldebrő, we can state that both its centralizing character and its transversal crypt can be explained best with the help of Italian prototypes. In contrast to the hypothesis of Levárdy, no direct Byzantine influence can be proven. Additionally, since the crypt is not in use in Byzantine architecture but very popular in western churches, it can be used as an argument that the church served Latin liturgy. Historically, we know very little about the ecclesiastical background of the church at Feldebrő. The monastery is mentioned in written sources as late as in 1219. In 1332–37 the church was dedicated to the Holy Cross.17 A crosier, executed in the Rhineland in the late 11th century, was found in one of the tombs in the church and can be connected to an early abbot. Another contemporary finding is a small golden pectoral cross.18 The dating of both of these objects corresponds to the dating of the church, which is also supported by the stone carvings as is discussed below.

Figure 3 Feldebrő: northern façade (Béla Zs. Szakács)

Figure 4 San Vittore alle Chiuse: view from north-east (Béla Zs. Szakács)

On the other hand, similar structures are known from western Europe, too. A famous example is the Carolingian church of Germigny-des-Prés, built by Théodulf, bishop of Orléans c. 806.13 This building has a rectangular ground plan with a tower in the centre and apses on all sides. The only difference is that there are three apses on the eastern side while only one on the three other sides. This church is smaller than Feldebrő and significantly earlier; however, it is a standing example of the same kind of symmetrical arrangement in the Latin Christian sphere. Sándor Tóth, one of the best Hungarian experts of Romanesque architecture, already mentioned the church of San Leucio in Canosa (5th–7th centuries) as a predecessor to Feldebrő.14 This Early Christian church was divided by four rows of piers, as in Feldebrő, and had one apse on each side. Since this building is in ruins, the three-dimensional outlook is not very visible. Nevertheless, it seems to fit to a Late 195

b É la zsolt szak Á cs

Figure 5 Feldebrő: ground plan of the crypt. After Lux (1942)

Based on an earlier hypothesis of Ferenc Erdei, who assumed that the crypt was built additionally to the centrally planned church, Levárdy built up an interesting theory of the history of the monastery. He assumed that the monastery was originally built for Orthodox monks, but was subsequently converted to Benedictine use after monks arrived form the circle of Saint Adalbert of Prague. Adalbert had spent some time in Rome and thus it would have been his followers who were responsible for adding a crypt similar to that of SS Alessio e Bonifazio in Rome.19 However, since the crypt is from the same period as the rest of the building, this historical construction cannot be held anymore. On the other hand, the argument based on the crypt is more or less valid; it proves that this centrally planned church with a transversal crypt was built for Benedictine monks who applied Italian architectural traditions.20 At the western part of the crypt a chamber can be found where an altar and an unusually large walled tomb which stands in the middle of the chamber were found. This chamber stands exactly in the centre of the church, thus the cupola and an altar in the nave were standing right above it. There are steps leading down from the nave to the wall of the chamber in order to offer an inside view through two oculi. There has been much speculation formulated on the original purpose of this tomb: it has been connected to King Aba Samuel (1041–44) and an unknown martyr bishop.21 However, if we take into consideration the centralized character of the church and its four apses towards the four directions, we may discern a resemblance to the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.22 The dedication of

Figure 6 Salerno: ground plan of the crypt of the cathedral. After D’Onofrio and Pace (1981) 196

hungary, byzantium, italy

Figure 7 Milan: San Sepolcro, reconstruction of the original sate of the crypt (D. Gallina). After Schiavi (2012) Feldebrő to the Holy Cross can be an explanation of these similarities and we cannot exclude that the tomb in the central chamber served as a symbolic imitation of the sepulchre of Christ. A comparable example is San Sepolcro in Milan, dated to the second quarter of the 11th century, with its triconch eastern part and a symbolic tomb in the middle of its crypt (Fig. 7).23

structures were found on the other sides of the church, too. On the basis of these investigations, Kozák reconstructed the church as a centrally planned building which terminated in the east with a rectangular sanctuary in the middle and semicircular apses in the aisles (Fig. 8). This kind of arrangement was repeated in all four sides. The entrance led to the church from the south. The foundations of the western part are stronger, which can be evidence for the presence of a tower (in the 18th century the church had one tower at the west but its dating is uncertain). This monastery, dedicated to the Holy Saviour, was founded in 1061 by King Béla I who was buried here in 1063.27 Szekszárd was an important monastery and the Hungarian kings spent important festivities here, King Solomon in 1074 and King Géza I in 1076 spent Christmas in the monastery. In 1074 the name of the Latin abbot, Willermus, is also mentioned. In 1076 the mass was celebrated by Desiderius, archbishop of Kalocsa.28 Later numerous documents attest that the monastery was inhabited by Benedictine monks.29 Thus, the centralizing ground plan in this case cannot in any way be connected to Orthodox monks. In spite of the fact that ‘Middle Byzantine’ churches are frequently divided into nine compartments, the severe symmetrical arrangement and the multiplication of the apses show no Byzantine origins. On the contrary, its best parallels are known from Italy. The

OTHER BUILDINGS OF THE PERIOD Feldebrő with its centralized ground plan is not exceptional in Hungary. As Tóth pointed out, its measurements and general arrangement is comparable to another 11th-century monastery church excavated at Szekszárd.24 The ruins can be found in the courtyard of the 19th-century county hall in Szekszárd. The church, modified in the Gothic and the Baroque period, survived until the late 18th century when it was burnt down. The state of the building before the fire is attested by some architectural drawings executed in 1794.25 This ground plan already suggests a centralized church with nine compartments, four central pillars, and apses at the east. Károly Kozák started an excavation in 1960 which finished in 1972, in order to verify the ground plan of the building.26 He found that the polygonal side apses are not original but were built over semicircular structures. Remains of similar 197

b É la zsolt szak Á cs

Figure 8 Szekszárd: reconstructed ground plan of the abbey church. After Kozák (1974) Figure 10 Visegrád: excavation plan of the St Andrew’s monastery. After Buzás and Eszes (2007)

dated to the 9th century.31 The semicircular apses or niches in the corners are common in the three buildings. Although it is true that in Szekszárd and Paderna the central spaces are terminated in a flat end while these are semicircular in Milan, I regard this difference as not very crucial. In Italian tradition the centrally planned churches are not rare and apses on each side can often be found. An interesting combination of the additional single apse, known from Feldebrő and its Italian parallels, and the triple niches, as in Szekszárd and its analogies, can be quoted from Gravedona at the lake of Garda, where the church of Santa Maria del Tiglio dates from the 12th century. It has a single western tower which might be a further common feature with Szekszárd, although in this case the Italian example can be a later representative of the same architectural tradition.32 Thus, the two Hungarian examples analysed here attest that centralizing architectural tendencies were applied by Benedictine monasteries; however, these forms are not directly Byzantine but rather Italian. What can be said about the real Orthodox monasteries? Unfortunately, we have extremely little information about their architectural arrangements. The best

Figure 9 Paderna: ground plan of the castle chapel. After Segnani-Malacart (1981)

closest analogy is a castle chapel built at Paderna, near to Piacenza, in the early 11th century (Fig. 9).30 Although much smaller (the length of one side is less than half of the measurements of Szekszárd), the idea of the ground plan is very similar. I would argue that the chapel at Paderna fits well to an earlier tradition which is also represented by the San Satiro in Milan, 198

hungary, byzantium, italy known example is the Orthodox monastery founded by King Andrew I (1046–60) at Visegrád. Pope Honorius III gave permission to the Hungarian king in 1221 that the ruined Greek monastery could be given to the Benedictine monks, who owned it until 1493 when it was passed to the Paulines.33 The church was not preserved at all, and its forms are known only by the help of excavations. After the late-19th-century diggings, a recent archaeological campaign was led by Gergely Buzás in 2001–03.34 He revealed that, before the building was transformed to a single-nave church with a polygonal sanctuary, it was a three-aisled building (Fig. 10). This was probably the same as the foundation structure from the mid-11th century. It was a longitudinal building, supported by three pairs of piers. The nave terminated in a rectangular sanctuary, while the aisles ended in semicircular apses. Although the arrangement of the eastern part is comparable to Szekszárd, the rest of the church is different. It fits to the architectural tradition of the three-aisled churches with three apses. While the most common type applies to three semicircular apses (that are usually called the ‘Benedictine ground plan’), variants of the apse forms are also known.35 Closest to Visegrád are the buildings known from Herpály in eastern Hungary as well as Pásztó and Dobronya (Dobrá Niva, Slovakia) in the northern part of the medieval Hungarian kingdom.36 They are usually dated to the 12th and 13th centuries respectively. Thus, the monastery church of Visegrád, despite its ecclesiastical connections to the Orthodoxy, shows no Byzantine architectural characteristics and is instead related to the Western tradition.

the carving is certainly different, however, the motif is almost identical. There is nothing else in the cathedral of Lund that could be connected to Byzantium. Instead, the church is usually compared to buildings of the Lower Rhine region and Lombardy. Thus the connection between the Scandinavian portal and the Hungarian carvings are probably not direct but they might have a common origin somewhere in Italy. The palmette frieze is also present in an impost from Szekszárd, which is decorated on its two longer sides with variants of this ornament. On the shorter side of the same carving there can be seen palmette leaves encircled in medallions. The same motif is known from a half-capital from the same monastery (Fig. 13). This motif is clearly similar to the Byzantine palmette decoration, however, its roots were rightly sought in for in Italian monuments. Melinda Tóth pointed to analogies in Venice, for example, the tomb of the Dogaressa Felicitas Michiel (d. 1101) in the narthex of San Marco (Fig. 14).41 Venice, of course, is a good representative of Byzantine traditions, and this motif is a revival of the palmettes of Early Byzantine architecture, for example, those applied in San Vitale in Ravenna. Other types of leaves decoration, known from another capital of Szekszárd, were also compared to carvings in the crypt of San Marco. Different numerous variants of the palmette leaves decoration can be found within 11th-century Hungarian stone carving. The Benedictine monastery of Kaposszentjakab was a private foundation from the 1060s. Among the excavated fragments, imposts and column bases were decorated with palmette leaves.42 They form a common group with other motifs, such as the Corinthian capital with acanthus leaves and a fragment of a twisted column shaft. A close analogy for this latter example is the twisted column in the abbey of San Benedetto al Polirone.43 A similar combination of carvings with palmette leaves and a Corinthian capital can be found also in Feldebrő. Here, one of the piers in the crypt was decorated with an unfinished version of the palmette frieze. The capital of the column in the apse of the crypt is also of particular importance (Fig. 15). Its acanthus leaves end in thorns, therefore this type is called as acanthus spinosa. This type of capital, already seen in Kaposszentjakab, is also widespread in 11thcentury Hungarian sculpture, including carvings from the cathedrals of Veszprém and Esztergom. Recent research has already pointed out its relationship to the Adriatic region. The elongated leaves of Esztergom closely resemble to those in a capital in Sv. Lovreč Pazenatički (San Lorenzo in Pasenatico) in Istria. The acanthus spinosa ornament is known from other buildings of the Adriatic region, further to the south on the eastern side (in Dalmatia, e.g. in the cathedral of Rab/Arbe), as well as on the northwestern territories.44 Here the influence of Aquileia is supposed to have played an important role where a capital fragment in the Museo Paleocristiano fits well

PALMETTE FRIEZE AND ACANTHUS SPINOSA: THE ARCHITECTURAL DECORATION Let me turn to the sculptural decoration of the abovementioned Hungarian churches. Although we mainly have fragments of stone carvings, detached from their original architectural settings, they represent a typical and homogeneous style. The main motif is the palmette leaf, which is often arranged into a frieze decoration; the palmette leaves are connected to each other with ribbons on the lower side of the frieze decoration. In these classical examples acanthus leaves form a second row (e.g. a chamfer from the first cathedral of Veszprém) (Fig. 11).37 The palmette frieze is known from Byzantine architecture, as a fragment from Thessaloniki demonstrates.38 Highly developed variations of the same style flourished in Constantinople, as an example dated to the 10th century from the monastery of Constantine Lipps proves.39 However, these carvings are not exact comparanda, and the second row of acanthus leaves is missing in these examples. The only similar motif so far known can be found very far from the Mediterranean: it decorates the northern portal of the cathedral of Lund (Fig. 12).40 The style of 199

b É la zsolt szak Á cs

Figure 11 Veszprém: chamfer from the cathedral, Laczkó Dezső Múzeum, Veszprém (Béla Zs. Szakács)

Figure 12

Figure 13

Lund: cathedral, archivolt of the northern portal (Béla Zs. Szakács)

Szekszárd: capital from the monastery, Wosinszky Mór Múzeum, Szekszárd (Béla Zs. Szakács)

to the carving in Esztergom.45 This type is also known in Venice, although its use is proven so far only in smaller churches, such as the one dedicated to St John the Evangelist (San Zan Degola) (Fig. 16). Further examples are revealed recently in the crypt of San Benedetto al Monte in Verona and exhibited in the lapidary of the Museo d’Arte Medievale e Moderna in Padua.46

CONCLUSION The investigation of the architectural arrangement of 11th-century monastery churches and the contemporary stone carvings in Hungary points to the same direction. Unquestionably, a centralizing tendency in the architecture of the churches is clearly visible, as well as an ornamental style in sculpture which can be 200

hungary, byzantium, italy

Figure 16 Venice: capital in the church of San Zan Degola (Béla Zs. Szakács)

architectural examples were found in central and northern Italy, while the stone carvings are closely related to the Adriatic region, from Padua and Venice to Istria and Dalmatia. Therefore, I argue that these Byzantine-like features were not taken directly from the Balkans or the Caucasus, but from Italy.47 Centrally planned buildings were customary in Late Antiquity, and this tradition is a common heritage of the West and the East. While in the West the survival of this tradition is quite limited, in the East it flourished in the Middle Byzantine period. The architectural ornament is similarly Antique in origin, which was transformed to a particular style, widespread all over in the Byzantine territories in the 9th and 11th centuries. Italy, as another heir of Antiquity and a territory strongly related to Byzantium, developed an artistic style that was acceptable by the newly converted Hungarians, fitting well to their own artistic traditions as well as the double origin of their Christianity. Thus, if we admit that Hungarian art and architecture has a kind of Byzantine character in the 11th century, we should also add that the concrete elements of this art arrived from Italy and were applied in centres of Latin Christianity. Byzantium, Italy and Hungary were regions strongly related to each other and the more links we find between them the more we understand the complex cultural situation of the period.

Figure 14 Venice: tomb of Felicitas Michiel in the entrance hall of San Marco (Béla Zs. Szakács)

NOTES

Figure 15 Feldebrő: capital in the crypt (Béla Zs. Szakács)

1 N. Berend, J. Laszlovszky József and B. Zs. Szakács, ‘The kingdom of Hungary’, in Christianization and the Rise of Christian Monarchy, ed. N. Berend (Cambridge 2007), 319–68. 2 Gy. Moravcsik, Byzantium and the Magyars (Amsterdam 1970). 3 ‘La Sainte Couronne de Hongrie. Colloque à l’Institut Hongrois de Paris le 17 Novembre 2001’, Acta Historiae Artium, 43

characterized with palmette leaves and acanthus spinosa. Both of them are related to Byzantine art of the period: they speak the same language, however, their dialect is different. The closest analogies of the 201

b É la zsolt szak Á cs 22 R. Krautheimer, ‘Introduction to an “Iconography of Medieval Architecture”’, in idem, Studies in Early Christian, Medieval, and Renaissance Art (New York and London 1969), 115– 50; R. Salvarani, La fortuna del Santo Sepolcro nel Medioevo (Milano 2008); D. Heinzelmann, ‘reparatio – imitatio. Wiederaufbau und Nachbildung im Mittelalter am Beispiel der Grabeskirche in Jerusalem’, in Das Prinzip Rekonstruktion, ed. U. Hassler and W. Nerdinger (Zürich 2010), 106–23. 23 L. C. Schiavi, ‘Le Saint-Sépulchre de Milan’, in Le «premier art roman» cent ans après, ed. É. Vergnolle and S. Bully (Besançon 2012), 351–69. 24 S. Tóth, ‘Pillér és ív a magyar romanikában’, in Koppány Tibor hetvenedik születésnapjára. Tanulmányok, ed. I. Bardoly and Cs. László (Budapest 1998), 49–73, esp. 51–53. 25 Tóth, ‘Szekszárd’, in Paradisum plantavit (as n. 5), 678–79. 26 K. Kozák, ‘A szekszárdi apátság és a megyeháza története’, Tanulmányok Tolna Megye Történetéből, 6 (1974), 339–89. 27 Diplomata Hungariae Antiquissima. I. Ab anno 1000 usque ad annum 1131, ed. G. Györffy (Budapest 1992), 166–68; Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum tempore ducum regumque stirpis Arpadianae gestarum, vol. I, ed. E. Szentpétery (Budapest 1937), 360. 28 Ibid., 380–81 and 402. 29 F. Hervay, in Paradisum plantavit (as n. 5), 513–14. 30 S. Tóth, ‘Benedictine Churches in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, in Paradisum plantavit (as n. 5), 637–50, esp. 640. For the chapel, see A. Segagni-Malacart, ‘Sulla tipologia delle cappelle castrensi attorno al Mille: la chiesa inedita di S. Maria di Paderna’, Storia dell’Arte, 41 (1981), 5–20; eadem, ‘A margine della cappella castrense di Paderna (Piacenza)’, in Ex quadris lapidibus, ed. Y. Gallet (Turnhout 2011), 67–79. 31 Il sacello di San Satiro. Storia, ritrovamenti, restauri, ed. S. Bistoletti Bandera (Milano 1990); A. Mazutta Buratti et al., Insula Ansperti. Il complesso monumentale di S. Satiro (Milano 1992). 32 The triconch ground plan goes back to an Early Christian baptistery. M. Beloni Zecchinelli, ‘Le origini della “romanica” Santa Maria del Tiglio di Gravedona’, in Il Romanico, ed. P. Sanpaolesi (Milano 1975), 341–69; S. Curuni, ‘La chiesa romanica di Santa Maria del Tiglio a Gravedona’, Quaderni dell’Istituto di Storia dell’Architettura, n.s. 44/50 (2004–07), 91–98. 33 Monumenta ecclesiae Strigoniensis I, ed. N. Knauz (Esztergom 1874), 228; Monumenta Romana Episcopatus Vesprimiensis IV, ed. J. Lukcsics (Budapest 1907), 17. 34 G. Buzás and B. Eszes, ‘XI. századi görög monostor Visegrádon’, in Arhitectura religioasă medievală din Transilvania. Medieval ecclesiastical architecture in Transylvania IV, ed. P. Szőcs and A. Rusu (Satu Mare 2007), 49–93. 35 B. Zs. Szakács, ‘Állandó alaprajzok — változó vélemények? Megjegyzések a “bencés templomtípus” magyarországi pályafutásához’, in Maradandóság és változás, ed. Sz. Bodnár et al. (Budapest 2004), 25–37. 36 Gy. Módy and K. Kozák, ‘A herpályi templomromnál végzett régészeti kutatás és helyreállítás (1972–75)’, A Bihari Múzeum Évkönyve, 1 (1976), 49–101; I. Valter, ‘A pásztói monostor feltárása’, Communicationes Archaeologicae Hungariae, 2 (1982), 167–206. 37 S. Tóth, ‘A 11. századi magyarországi kőornamentika időrendjéhez’, in Pannonia Regia. Művészet a Dunántúlon 1000– 1541, ed. Á. Mikó and I. Takács (Budapest 1994), 54–62. See also cat. no. I-1, ibid., 63–64. 38 Quoted by Csányi, ‘Bizánci’ (as n. 11), table III, fig. 4. 39 T. F. Mathews, The Byzantine Churches of Istanbul (University Park and London 1976), 322–45; A. Grabar, Sculptures byzantines de Constantinople (IVe–Xe siècle) (Paris 1963), 100–22, pls XLVII– LIII. See also idem, Sculptures byzantines du Moyen Âge (XIe–XIVe siècle) (Paris 1976), 38–91, pls IV–LXII. 40 S. Tóth, Román kori kőfaragványok a Magyar Nemzeti Galéria Régi Magyar Gyűjteményében (Budapest 2010), 37–38. 41 M. Tóth, ‘Szekszárdi fejezetek’, Építés-Építészettudomány, 12 (1980), 425–37. See also Grabar, Sculpture XIe–XIVe siècle (as n. 39), 81 and pl. LII.

(2002), 3–111; C. Hilsdale, ‘The social life of the Byzantine gift: the Royal Crown of Hungary re-invented’, Art History, 31 (2008), 603–31. 4 Gy. Györffy, ‘Das Güterverzeichnis des Klosters zu Szávaszentdemeter (Sremska Mitrovica) aus dem 12. Jahrhundert’, Studia Slavica, 5 (1959), 9–74; A. Fülöp and A. Koppány, ‘A veszprémvölgyi apácakolostor régészeti kutatása (1998–2002)’, Műemlékvédelmi Szemle, 12, no. 1 (2002), 5–40; by the same authors also see ‘A crosier from the territory of the Veszprémvölgy convent’, Acta Archaeologica, 65 (2004), 115–35. 5 See the map published in Paradisum plantavit. Benedictine Monasteries in Medieval Hungary, ed. I. Takács (Pannonhalma 2001), 475. 6 E. Marosi, ‘Die Rolle der byzantinischen Beziehungen für die Kunst Ungarns im 11. Jahrhundert’, in Byzantinischer Kunstexport. Seine gesellschaftliche und Künstlerische Bedeutung für die Länder Mittel- und Osteuropas, ed. H. L. Nickel (Halle 1978), 39–49. 7 J. Kovalovszki, ‘A feldebrői templom régészeti kutatása’, in Képzőművészeti emlékek védelme. Az Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1981 (Eger and Budapest 1982), 37–42; by the same authors: ‘Árpád-kori bronzöntő műhely Feldebrőn’, in Entz Géza nyolcvanadik születésnapjára. Tanulmányok, ed. I. Valter (Budapest 1993), 87–98. 8 F. Levárdy, ‘Feldebrő Kelet vagy Róma?’, Műemlékvédelem, 20 (1976), 145–51. 9 Gergely Buzás attempted to reconstruct the church as a basilical structure which does not fit to the centralized ground plan. G. Buzás, ‘A szekszárdi apátság temploma a középkorban’, in Építészet a középkori Dél-Magyarországon, ed. T. Kollár (Budapest 2010), 555–603. 10 H. Sahler, ‘La chiesa abbaziale di san Vittore alle Chiuse nel contesto dell’architettura romanica marchigiana’, Studi umanistici piceni, 28 (2008), 31–59. See also eadem, San Claudio alle Chienti und die romanischen Kirchen des Vierstützentyps in den Marken (Münster 1998). 11 Both of them were first referred to by K. Csányi, ‘Bizánci elemek az Árpád-kori magyar építészetben’, Magyar Tudományos Akadémia II. Osztályának Közleményei 3. Muzeológiai sorozat. 2. k. 1. sz. Művészettörténet (1951), 25–40, esp. 27. 12 A. Khatchatrian, L’Architecture Arménienne du IVe au VIe siècle (Paris 1971), 69–92; P. Cuneo, Architettura armena dal quarto al diciannovesimo secolo, I (Roma 1988), 88–93; P. Donabédian, L’âge d’or de l’architecture arménienne (Marseille 2008), 52–54, 68–69. 13 This church is a mystery in itself, see its connections to Mozarab (M. Untermann, Architektur im frühen Mittelalter (Darmstadt 2006), 82) and Italian architecture (C. B. McClendon, The Origins of Medieval Architecture (New Haven and London 2005), 129–36). See also G. Ciotta, La cultura architettonica carolingia (Milano 2010), 129–35, with further literature. 14 S. Tóth, ‘Feldebrőről, hipotézisek nélkül’, Műemlékvédelem, 21 (1977), 29–39. 15 Levárdy, ‘Feldebrő’ (as n. 8), 150. 16 J. D. A. Kraft, Die Krypta in Latium (München 1987), 124–26, figs 30 and 31; M. D’ Onofrio and V. Pace, Campanie romane (La-Pierre-qui-Vire 1981), 272. 17 Gy. Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország történeti földrajza, III (Budapest 1963–98), 77–78. 18 A. Wieczorek and H. M. Hinz ed., Europas Mitte um 1000. Katalog zur Austellung (Stuttgart 2000), 361, E. Kiss, cat. nos 16.04.02. and 16.04.03. 19 Levárdy, ‘Feldebrő’ (as n. 8), 150–51. 20 B. Zs. Szakács, ‘Dombó és a korai altemplomok Magyarországon’, in Építészet a középkori Dél-Magyarországon, ed. T. Kollár (Budapest 2010), 671–715, esp. 694–96 and 706–07. 21 B. Kovács, ‘Adatok Feldebrő történetéhez’, Művészettörténeti Értesítő, 17 (1968), 124–25; J. Major, ‘Adatok a feldebrői templom keletkezésének település- és birtoktörténeti hátteréhez’, ÉpítésÉpítészettudomány, 8 (1976), 193–226.

202

hungary, byzantium, italy 42 E. Nagy, ‘Előzetes jelentés a kaposszentjakabi apátság feltárásáról’, Somogyi Múzeumok Közleményei, 1 (1973), 335–39; eadem, ‘Zselicszentjakab’, in Pannonia Regia (as n. 37), 71–72; S. Tóth, ‘Zselicszentjakab’, in Paradisum plantavit (as n. 5), 683–86. 43 Tóth, ‘Benedictine Churches’ (as n. 30), 640. 44 M. Takács, ‘Ornamentale Beziehungen zwischen der Steinmetzkunst von Ungarn und Dalmatien im XI. Jahrhundert’, Hortus Artium Mediaevalium, 3 (1997), 165–78. 45 E. Marosi, Die Anfänge der Gotik in Ungarn. Esztergom in der Kunst des 12.–13. Jahrhunderts (Budapest 1984), 16 and no. 16 on 218.

46

G. Trevisan, ‘Il rinnovamento architettonico degli edifici religiosi a Torcello, Aquileia e Venezia nella prima metà del secolo XI’, in La Reliquia del Sangue di Cristo: Mantova, l’Italia e l’Europa al tempo di Leone IX, ed. G. M. Cantarella and A. Calzona (Mantova 2012), 479–504; Corpus Architecturae Religiosae Europae (saec. IV–X), vol. II, Italia I. Province di Belluno, Treviso, Padova, Vicenza, ed. G. P. Brogiolo and M. Ibsen (Zagreb 2009), 129. 47 B. Zs. Szakács, ‘The Italian connection: theories on the origin of Hungarian Romanesque art’, in Medioevo: arte e storia, ed. A. C. Quintavalle (Milano 2008), 648–55.

203

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 205–223

BUILDING JERUSALEM IN WESTERN FRANCE: THE CASE OF ST-SAUVEUR AT CHARROUX John McNeill The monastic church of Christ (St-Sauveur) at Charroux was one of a number of buildings in the Latin West that were intended to evoke the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. This is clear both from the unusually precise correspondences between the respective rotundas, and the important christological relics the rotunda at Charroux was designed to enshrine. The main building campaigns probably date to the 1060s and 1070s, but in a strikingly simple and effective modification, the rotunda was remodelled within a generation at most by the insertion of a crypt. Historically, this is most likely to have coincided with the consecration of the high altar by Pope Urban II on 10 January, 1096, some six weeks after the Council of Clermont and in the course of a journey which went on to see important consecrations of altars dedicated to the Holy Cross at Marmoutier, Vendôme and Moissac. Charroux was not alone in recreating Jerusalem in the West, but it is remarkable in realizing a church of such symbolic potential at a moment of religious anxiety.

This paper touches on two themes that might be relevant in a volume that examines contacts between the eastern and western Mediterranean in the 11th and 12th centuries, one of which is potentially complex — architectural referentiality. What does it mean for a building in the Latin West to allude to one in the East (and the allusion is clear in more than simply the plan at Charroux)? The second concerns the cult and culture of the body of Christ around the end of the 11th century. These themes were evidently important at Charroux, but they take on a particular historical charge in the context of Urban II’s epic year-long journey through France to promote clerical reform, during which the initial steps were taken to canvas support for the First Crusade (Fig. 1).1 Urban left Asti in July 1095, and finally returned there shortly after having consecrated the high altar of the cathedral of Apt on 5 August 1096.2 The period most relevant for my purposes is that between the Council of Clermont, held over the second half of November 1095 and Urban’s arrival in Poitiers, arranged so as to coincide with the feast of St Hilary on 13 January 1096, where Urban went on to consecrate the matutinal altar at the relatively new comitally financed Cluniac monastery of St-Jean Montierneuf.3 The abbot of Charroux at the time of Urban’s journey was Pierre II, a prelate about whom almost nothing is known. He succeeded Fulrad, the brother of an archbishop of Tours, sometime after 1082, and is last recorded in post in 1103.4 © British Archaeological Association 2015

The date at which Pierre II joined Urban’s entourage is unknown, but he features among those who attended the Council of Clermont, as part of a larger contingent of prelates from Aquitaine that included his namesake, Pierre II, bishop of Poitiers, Ranulf, bishop of Saintes, Ansculf, abbot of St-Jean d’Angely, Humbauld, bishop of Limoges, and Adhemar, abbot of St-Martial at Limoges.5 The number of senior clergy who attended the Council of Clermont was huge, and it is difficult to judge the rate at which they fell away from the papal entourage after it left Clermont on 2 December 1095. Clerics came and went, but there was an essential core consisting of Urban himself along with the papal chancellor, John of Gaeta, a senior notary called Lanfranc, and a group of legates and cardinals of whom the most visible were Daimbertus, archbishop of Pisa, Richard, cardinal-legate and abbot of StVictor de Marseille, Raingerius, archbishop of Reggio, Bruno, bishop of Segni, John, bishop of Porto, and the two principal French papal legates, Hugh, archbishop of Lyon and Amatus, archbishop of Bordeaux.6 The group of prelates from the Limousin and Aquitaine will have accompanied the papal entourage on this next leg of the journey, a leg which witnessed the death of John of Porto at St-Flour.7 Their route took them south through Brioude to St-Flour and Aurillac, before they turned north-west to reach Limoges in time for Christmas. As was often the case during Urban’s itinerary, the stay in Limoges was carefully 205

john mcneill

Figure 1 Itinerary of Pope Urban II between August 1095 and August 1096. The solid black line represents 1095 while the broken line represents 1096. After René Crozet

managed so as to enhance Cluny’s influence within the locality. It saw the deposition of Bishop Humbauld and his replacement by Guillaume d’Uriel, the Clunyappointed prior of St-Martial, followed by consecrations of the cathedral and St-Martial on 29 and 30 December respectively.8 A bull was also issued subjecting the monks of St-Cybard at Angoulême to the authority of the Cluniac monastery of St-Jean d’Angely. The papal party was still in Limoges on 2 January 1096, and then next appears in the documentary record on Thursday, 10 January, when Urban II consecrated the high altar of Charroux in the company of John of Gaeta, Daimbert of Pisa, Amatus of Bordeaux, Hugh of Lyon, Raingerius of Reggio, Bruno of Segni and Peter II of Poitiers. An extended account of this consecration composed by a contemporary witness survives in a 15th-century copy of Charroux’s early-12th-century cartulary.9

783 and 792 by Roger, count of Limoges, and favoured with extensive privileges on the part of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, and Pepin of Aquitaine, Charroux clearly was a significant Carolingian monastery, one that is recorded as supporting eighty-four monks in a Reichenau Liber Memorialis of around 830.11 Like many of its more substantial monastic contemporaries it managed to obtain direct papal protection, in Charroux’s case in 878, and, again, like many of its larger contemporaries, when it came under Norse attack towards the end of the 9th century the monks headed for the hills — initially to the relative safety of the Auvergne, subsequently to Angoulême.12 It is there, in exile at the monastery of St-Cybard for around a dozen years from 903, that we first hear of the monks’ possession of a relic of the True Cross, a relic which the counts of Angoulême seem to have been reluctant to see leave the city before Count Alduin I (d. 916) was persuaded to present the monks with a new reliquary in which to house the fragment of the cross in 915.13 Archaeologically, nothing is known of this early period. The only elements to have come out of the site that might conceivably be Carolingian

HISTORY, RELICS AND SELF-IDENTITY What we know about Charroux prior to this consecration is pitifully basic.10 Founded at some point between 206

building jerusalem in western france are two capitals — discovered as rubble fill in 1950 — and even these are as likely to belong to the 10th century as they are to have come from the Carolingian church.14 The next phase of Charroux’s history is similarly opaque. The monastery must have been repaired, if not rebuilt, following its early-10th-century reoccupation, but it is not until the 11th century that one sees signs of serious expansion. Our best insight into this comes from some limited 20th-century excavations, the surviving central tower, and a series of laconic chronicle entries that suggest there were at least two significant reconstructions of the monastic church at Charroux. The first was begun in 1017 under Abbot Geoffrey, and according to the Gallia Christiana was dedicated by the bishops of Poitiers and Limoges in 1028, with a second major consecration on 14 June 1047.15 This church was then seemingly destroyed by fire in 1048, and the surviving tower makes clear that it was its replacement which was consecrated in January 1096.16 Charroux’s Liber de constitutione, institutione, consecratione, reliquiis, ornamentis et privilegiis similarly points to the 11th century as a period of growth in the abbey’s fortunes. In the form that has come down to us the Liber de constitutione was probably compiled around 1100. However, the internal evidence suggests that the material it contains was brought together over three distinct periods. To a core of Carolingian texts was first added a new foundation legend and a list of relics drawn up in 1045.17 This was then followed by a revised account of the abbey’s origins and a clutch of charters. The charters date from the second half of the 11th century, while the author of the revised account of the abbey’s foundation tells us he attended a council at Charroux in 1082, and goes on to describe a number of miracles worked by the abbey’s formidable roster of relics.18 This third anthology of material can be no earlier than the 1080s, but is likely to have been composed by 1101, as it omits an important confirmation charter issued by the bishop of Périgueux in that year.19 The extended description of Urban II’s consecration of the high altar also seems to fit with the third anthology, in which case we can narrow down the date of its compilation to between 1096 and 1101. Indeed, it may have been precisely so as to present the 1096 consecration as the climax to a very particular history that the Liber de constitutione was compiled when it was. One of the most striking features of the narrative of the 1096 consecration is that it repeats a crucial detail from the foundation legend that Charroux had created for itself earlier in the 11th century. Urban II consecrated the altar of an abbey first consecrated by Pope Leo III.20 The 1096 consecration effectively short-circuits the history of Charroux thus far, by implicitly citing its legendary foundation, and explicitly drawing attention to Charroux’s right of appeal to Rome.21

The foundation legend as it had developed over the first half of the 11th century holds that the abbey of Charroux was founded by Charlemagne, who had personally endowed it with relics of the True Cross, in honour of which it had been dedicated in the name of Christ (St Sauveur) by Pope Leo III.22 The later 11th-century legend represents a considerable reworking of this.23 The relic of the True Cross still formed a part of Charroux’s original endowment and was a gift of Charlemagne, but the relationship between relic and founder was strengthened in that we are told that the fragment of the Cross was contained within a reliquary that could be hung from a chain which the King (Karolus ille famosissimus rex) called ‘Bellator’ because he carried it with him into battle.24 Moreover, after the monastery had been built and consecrated Charlemagne became concerned that a church dedicated to Christ should be ever more magnificently endowed with relics, so, having consulted with Roger, count of Limoges, and Pope Leo, he travelled to Jerusalem. Here he attended mass at the church of the Holy Sepulchre where, as the Patriarch, Basilius, consecrated the bread and wine, the hand of God appeared and placed an object described as the ‘Holy Virtue’ (sanctissimam virtutem) on the lid of the chalice.25 As Charlemagne and the Patriarch wondered what to make of the apparition, a small boy (puerulus) appeared to the right of the celebrant and invited Charlemagne to accept the little gift (munusculum) which ‘is of my true flesh and blood’.26 The rest of the text is concerned with Charlemagne’s return with the ‘Holy Virtue’ to Charroux, of how the relic accompanied the monks into exile at the beginning of the 10th century, and how it was confided to the care of Count Audebert III of La Marche during the vacancy that preceded the election of Fulrad as abbot in 1077. It concludes with an account of a miracle that took place at the 1082 council of Charroux, presided over by the then papal legate Amatus (the future archbishop of Bordeaux), which the author assures us he witnessed himself.27 Nowhere does this later foundation legend tell us of the exact nature of the ‘Holy Virtue’. For that we have to turn to a papal bull issued by Clement VII in 1380, in which the Pope grants indulgences to those attending the septennial celebrations in honour of ‘the foreskin of Jesus Christ commonly known as the Holy Virtue’.28 Notwithstanding the late-14th-century date of the identification, there seems no reason to doubt that the substance of the ‘Holy Virtue’ remained constant from the moment it was first attested at Charroux. Not only do we find independent confirmation of Charroux’s possession of Christ’s foreskin in late-12th-century glosses on Peter Comestor’s account of the Circumcision in the Historia scholastica,29 but the miracle reported as having taken place at the 1082 Council is entirely appropriate to this type of object. Here, before an audience that included the papal 207

john mcneill

Figure 2 Charroux: 13th-century reliquary framing Romanesque inner reliquary (Amelot photo) Figure 3 Charroux: inner reliquary. Image of Christ (Amelot photo)

legate, the ‘Holy Virtue’ was seen to be spotted with fresh blood.30 One of few possible corporeal relics, the appearance of the Holy Foreskin at Charroux is part of a broader interest in relics that stress the physicality of Christ, and should be seen in the context of late-11thcentury disputes over the Real Presence — the Eucharistic transformation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ — the subject of a rancorous and highly topical argument that pitched Alexander II, Gregory VII and Lanfranc (of Bec and Canterbury) against Berenger of Tours.31 Although the later foundation legend was probably written as a part of the process that brought the Liber constitutionem together, c. 1100, the point at which the miracles ascribed to the ‘Holy Virtue’ amount to anything more than borrowings of miracles previously attributed to Charroux’s relic of the True Cross is 1077x82, strongly suggesting that the ‘Holy Virtue’ was invented at some point between c. 1077 and 1082, and was first unveiled at the Council of Charroux on 11 November 1082. It is even possible that the reliquary in which it was first exhibited survives (Figs 2–4). While opening out a section of the rear wall of the former cloister in 1856, workmen discovered a cavity containing two medieval reliquaries.32 The earlier of the two consists of a gilded silver rectangular box mounted on a stem of the sort associated with chalices. When open this reveals two

Figure 4 Charroux: inner reliquary. detail of inscription (Drawing John McNeill)

angels holding a quatrefoil frame that in turn houses a second lidded reliquary. The outer casing is mid-to late-13th-century. The reliquary it holds is appreciably earlier.33 Its lid carries an incised image of Christ holding a cross and a sceptre between the letters alpha and omega, while around the sides is written HIC CARO ET SANGUIS CHRISTI CONTINETUR [Here is contained the flesh and blood of Christ]. Impossible to date with precision, the inner reliquary looks 11thcentury and given the inscription it seems possible, 208

building jerusalem in western france indeed probable, that it was intended to accommodate the Holy Foreskin. There is one last aspect of Charroux’s institutional history it may be helpful to summarize; its local standing. The charter evidence again points to significant expansion over the second half of the 11th century. Charroux’s most important daughter house, the abbey of Issoire in the Auvergne, was acquired between 1047 and 1050, to be followed by two significant monastic dependencies in Flanders, Ham in 1079 and Andres in 1097.34 Around half of Charroux’s massive parochial estate was picked up over this period, as were the majority of its secular properties.35 Measured by the quantity and quality of its holdings at the beginning of the 12th century, Charroux was among the wealthiest monasteries in western France, a match for the great monasteries associated with the dukes of Aquitaine; at Maillezais, St-Jean-Montierneuf in Poitiers, or St-Savin-sur-Gartempe, and indeed of the Benedictine houses to the south and west; St-Jean-d’Angely, St-Eutrope at Saintes and St-Cybard in Angoulême. ARCHITECTURE The architecture endorsed by those monastic churches is the architecture one would expect to find at Charroux — and to an extent that is what is there. The stone-cutting, the sculpture, the architectural detailing at Charroux is purely local. However, the plan and its peculiar set of architectural references — what Richard Krautheimer would have called the iconography of the building — are anything but local.36 The late-11th-century type church in the Poitou is an apse-ambulatoried hall church with narrow transepts, a type from which Charroux deviates in a wholly remarkable way.37 The grandest survival is the former crossing tower (Fig. 5). This is octagonal and formed the core of a rotunda. The lower two storeys opened onto the interior of the church, with the residue of the vault visible in the rough stonework above this, the roofline evident in the string-course that marks the upper edge of the paler stone, and two upper stages which are articulated by eight windows and sixteen blind arches respectively. The centre of the church was thus illuminated from above. Beneath the tower is a crypt — and around it are ambulatories and transepts, partly excavated in 1950–51 and mostly still visible today. Something of this was known before 1951, as elements of the perimeter walls were standing, most notably the south-east ambulatory chapel. There were also a series of engravings by Francois Thiollet that were published in 1823.38 The problem with these is that they are partly fantastical; virtually everything except the central tower and western massif had been demolished by 1802, some twenty years before Thiollet made his preparatory drawings.39 Nevertheless, what Thiollet

Figure 5 Charroux: central tower from north-east (John McNeill)

shows in his views of the western massif, 13th-century west portals and central tower can be checked and seems to be reasonably accurate.40 The view of the tower and rotunda looking north-west (Fig. 6) probably does represent the state of Charroux in the early 1820s, though the nave had more or less disappeared by then, not that this prevented Thiollet from concocting a dramatic projection (Fig. 7).41 Thiollet also had no idea there was a transept, which was one of three significant discoveries to come out of the 1950–51 excavations.42 The second was the discovery of a number of the steps that led up to a raised platform beneath the central tower.43 The third was that the crypt was an insertion, and entry to the crypt was only possible via a single narrow opening from the north. The 1950–51 excavations were conducted by Yves Froidevaux, and were preparatory to the 1951 Congrès Archéologique. Froidevaux published an initial excavation plan and short report the following year (Fig. 8), though excavations continued, resulting in the eventual recovery of the plan of the north 209

john mcneill

Figure 6 Charroux: central tower to north-west as published in 1823 (François Thiollet)

transept and north-eastern areas of the choir.44 These confirmed that Charroux was built with an apse ambulatory, a central tower around which were three concentric aisles, transepts and a substantial nave (Fig. 18). There were three chapels radiating from the eastern ambulatory, two chapels angled off the northeastern and south-eastern faces of the rotunda, and single chapels which gave onto the transepts. By western French standards its scale was impressive, with a total length of 114 m, a rotunda with a diameter of 44 m and a 50 m nave.45 The extraordinary plan also necessitated adjustments to conventional 11th-century monastic planning, so that the ritual choir was east of the rotunda and therefore east of what was almost certainly regarded as the high altar. The rotunda, transepts and choir appear to have been planned and built in a single extended building campaign, though it is possible that this incorporated material from earlier buildings. Froidevaux also clearly established that the crypt, along with the steps that fill the inner aisle, were additional, and cannot have been anticipated at the

outset of the main building campaign (Figs 9 and 10). This is clear from the way in which the chamfered plinth that initially supported the inner elevation of the rotunda was crudely surmounted by blocking masonry and covered with steps. It may also be that there was a practical reason for the digging out of the crypt. Charroux is built above an aquifer fed by the ruisseau du Merdanson.46 This is now tapped by a 19th-century well head sited just to the north of the crypt but, even so, when a sondage was undertaken in 2003 with a view to establishing the pavement level of the inserted crypt, the project was abandoned within days because of flooding.47 Thus it is possible that the crypt was sunk as a way of isolating and controlling the water. However, as will become clear from the way in which the new crypt was handled, this was not the sole, nor even necessarily the primary, motivation behind the alteration. The date — or dates — of the rotunda and its alterations are arguable. There is nothing in the surviving documentary record that can be tied to actual building 210

building jerusalem in western france work, though neither the 1082 Council nor the papal consecration of January 1096 are events to be taken lightly. Dating western French Romanesque architecture is famously problematic, and the models that have been developed over the last century are essentially houses of cards with worryingly few fixed points. Most recent attempts have relied on the architectural sculpture, identifying sculptural workshops and creating genealogies based on the interaction of these workshops with each other and with the few dated monuments.48 Applying this method to Charroux would give a date somewhere between the mid-1050s and around 1080 for the rotunda and east end. The window capitals from the eastern chapels are variations on the ambulatory chapel capitals from St-Savinsur-Gartempe, carved shortly before inscriptions were added to all five ambulatory chapel altars — which Robert Favreau brilliantly demonstrated were inscribed in the mid-11th century (Figs 11 and 12).49 Meanwhile the rotunda capitals relate to the so-called feuille-grasse sculpture pioneered by the workshop responsible for the exterior east-end corbel table of St-Hilaire-le-Grand in Poitiers, which Marie-Therese Camus dates to the 1060s, and which is strikingly close to Charroux, even down to the scouring of the leaf stems (Figs 13 and 14).50 The sculptors also share a couple of new compositions with the nave capitals at

Figure 7 Charroux: reconstruction of nave as published in 1823 (François Thiollet)

Figure 8 Charroux: detail of excavation plan in June 1951 (Yves Froidevaux) 211

john mcneill

Figure 9 Charroux: view of blocking of arcade opening of the south-west bay of the central tower (Nigel Pilkington)

Figure 10 Charroux: view into crypt looking west (John McNeill) 212

building jerusalem in western france

Figure 11

Figure 12

Charroux: south-east ambulatory chapel window capital (Nigel Pilkington)

St-Savin-sur-Gartempe: axial chapel window capital (John McNeill)

Figure 13

Figure 14

Charroux: central rotunda lower arcade capital (John McNeill)

St-Hilaire-le Grand, Poitiers: exterior ambulatory capitals (John McNeill)

Figure 15

Figure 16

Charroux: central rotunda lower arcade capital (John McNeill)

St-Savin-sur-Gartempe: nave capital (John McNeill)

213

john mcneill

Figure 17 Charroux: relief set in the west wall of the crypt (John McNeill)

the metopes around the ambulatory of St-Hilaire-leGrand at Poitiers, and is unlikely to be any later than c. 1100 (Fig. 17).53 There may have been other motives or events between c. 1082 and the beginnings of the 12th century that inspired the creation of a crypt and raised platform beneath the central lantern tower, but, in the current state of knowledge, the occasion that is most likely to have seen the crypt brought into being is the papal consecration of 1096. Although the description of the consecration does not specify the location of the altar, it maintains that it was necessary for Urban II to climb steps to reach it, which must refer to the altar beneath the central lantern tower.54 It also seems highly likely that a new and strikingly large altar table was specially commissioned.55 There is nothing that directly compares to Charroux in the Latin West, at least not in the second half of the 11th century. In overall terms, it might be seen as the merging of a rotunda with a conventional Latincross-shaped basilica — but the stunning scale of the rotunda, and the fundamental architectural conceit of effectively shrinking the central elevation to a slender octagonal tower, necessitated a complex reconciliation between the plan and the section. Presumably the vaults cascaded outwards, dropping slightly at each

St-Savin-sur-Gartempe of perhaps 1070–80, namely the frieze-like figure of eight plaits and leaf-eating lions (Figs 15 and 16). The sculptors responsible for Charroux are likely to include some members of these workshops, particularly the shop that carved the east end corbel table of St-Hilaire-le-Grand.51 The architecture points in the same direction, and the lovely quatrilobe piers used at the centre of the rotunda come into use in the Poitou in the 1070s and 1080s, as at St-Hilaire at Melle, or in the western link bays of St-Savin once more.52 What follows is that the new monastic church at Charroux was probably begun around a decade or so after the fire of 1048, whose eastern parts are likely to have been in use by the time of the Council of 1082. The crypt is harder pin down, as the capitals in the crypt lining are generic. Nonetheless, that type of simplified lumpy volute capital is most commonly encountered in the last quarter of the 11th century in the Poitou — indeed, the capitals in the upper stages of the lantern tower are of the same basic type — meaning the crypt is likely to have been inserted within a generation of the completion of the rotunda. The rather beautiful plaque showing two birds drinking also lies in a line of descent that can be traced back to 214

building jerusalem in western france ambulatory — but how the vaults sat on the intermediate piers, and how the junctions between the outer ambulatory and main vessels were handled remains unclear. The section must have been maintained at a reasonably high level in the manner of a hall church, possibly with an open arcade to brace the piers. Thiollet’s view of the area to the north-west of the rotunda certainly suggests there were intermediate level arches struck at around the same height as those of inner tower (Fig. 6), and while his imaginative projections gloss over the details they do at least give some idea of the problems in understanding a structure that must have been close to unbuildable (Fig. 7).56

the tomb of Christ. That this was the intended reference is made certain by the design chosen for the crypt. It is a small enclosed space that is divided by a ring of six slender columns — instantly recognizable as an imaginative reworking of the hexagonal pavilion constructed over the tomb of Christ in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.61 There are numerous medieval descriptions, drawings and representations of the architectural shell enclosing the tomb of Christ in the Holy Sepulchre (generally known as the aedicula or edicule), and perhaps the easiest way to illustrate the form is through the mid-12th-century ‘likeness’ of the Edicule now in the Franciscan church at Eichstätt (Fig. 20).62 The Eichstätt ‘likeness’ seems to have been unusually close to the 11th-century original, incorporating such details as the three foramina in the marble cladding around the tomb shelf as well as creating a silhouette which in both plan and elevation compares closely to what is known of the Edicule in its 11th- and 12th-century state.63 It is the best visual substitute to survive and has the comparative advantage of existing as architecture.64 Thus, at Charroux, one of the most emblematic elements of the superstructure of the Holy Sepulchre — the hexagonal pavilion — has been moved, and redeployed within the tomb chamber itself. The space beneath the crossing is the Edicule turned outside-in and recomposed to act as the sepulchre at the heart of an abbey dedicated to Christ. What happened above this, on the platform beneath the lantern, is one of the great unknowns at Charroux. Beaunier’s early-18th-century account suggests there was a confessio altar that housed relics made accessible through a door or grille in one of the supporting stone panels.65 Once it had been inaugurated it also seems likely that the altar which stood here was regarded as the abbey’s principal altar. By the late Middle Ages it certainly was — as a judicial enquiry of 1506 baldly comments, ‘que le grand aultier etoit sous ladite lanterne’.66 Moreover, an early-17th-century visitation report, concerned that much of the damage sustained during the Wars of Religion remained unrepaired, goes on to state that ‘le grand autel est couvert d’un dosme ou piramide qui n’est pas ruinée comme le reste’.67 Whether this canopy was medieval, or reflected a Romanesque arrangement, it is impossible to say. All one can assert is that Charroux’s central altar was almost certainly the altar consecrated by Urban II in January 1096, that it stands above a crypt that functions as a sepulchre, that it was probably conceived as a confessio altar housing significant relics, and that is the most likely arena for the display of the abbey’s christological relics at major festivals.68 That, for now, is probably as far as one should go in attempting to recreate Charroux. The picture derived from the Liber constitutione of the monastery’s emerging sense of its past and its religious identity seems unusually germane to the architecture, and although one cannot simply annex the Liber to stand in for

MEANING Notwithstanding the difficulties in reconstructing Charroux, the inspiration behind the rotunda plan is clear. Indeed, in certain particulars, Charroux comes closer to the plan of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem than any other church in the West (Figs 18 and 19).57 Take the arrangement of supports. The pillars separating the outer and middle ambulatories consist of eight major piers, four pairs, framing the four main axes, and twelve minor elements — themselves divided into eight columns and four piers. It is not identical to the eight piers and twelve columns of the Holy Sepulchre, but it is tellingly close, closer than any other ambulatory pier system in the West.58 Moreover, the two inner rings consist of twelve and eight supports, further underlining the apparent importance that attached this aspect of the Holy Sepulchre. From an architectural perspective, however, perhaps the most important observation to make is that the narrow confines of the lantern tower constitute the central elevation. It is as if one had shrunk the high space of the Holy Sepulchre down to no more than 8 m.59 The intermediate arches may thus be more than simple reinforcements, designed to stop the piers from buckling. They also could have been seen as allusions to the gallery at the church of the Holy Sepulchre gallery, imaginatively reduced to no more than an open arcade.60 Within this, it is for the moment impossible to say whether the central tower originally concealed a crypt when first completed c. 1080, nor how the central space was intended to be used. As mentioned above, the hydraulics of the area remain uncharted, but that there is a water source in the immediate vicinity is clear. So it is possible there was originally some sort of cavity at the centre of the rotunda with steps leading downwards to a pool or basin within the rotunda, rather than that the floor level of this central area was level with or above that of the ambulatories. When the existing crypt was inserted, the lantern tower was effectively transformed into a canopy over 215

john mcneill

Figure 18 Charroux: plan of monastic church

Figure 19 Jerusalem: Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Anastasis) c. 1050, following its destruction and partial reconstruction during the first half of the 11th century. The nave and atrium of the former Constantinian basilica on Golgotha (shown to the east) was in ruins, while the rotunda had been reconstructed with a new atrium

216

building jerusalem in western france

Figure 20 Eichstätt (Kapuzinerkloster): copy of the ‘Edicule’ of the Holy Sepulchre (John Mead)

Figure 21 St Michael, Fulda: rotunda looking east (John McNeill)

the missing patronal brief, architecture and history do seem to have developed in concert. They jointly express the somewhat visionary role the community had adopted for itself and unquestionably mean more together than apart. Fragmentary and partial as our understanding of the monastery might be it is still possible to discern the quality of invention that sets Charroux apart, and catch sight of how the imagery of the Holy Sepulchre was fused with the developing cults of the True Cross and Real Presence. It is not just that an attempt was made to symbolically recreate the landscape of Calvary and unite Golgotha with the empty tomb. Other attempts were made to do this in the West, most famously at the Santo Stefano complex in Bologna.69 It is that Charroux pulls it off in a way that is spatially, architecturally and aesthetically integrated. Golgotha and the Sepulchre have been remade within the idiom of a cruciform Poitevin Romanesque church. In the realms of the religious and the architectural imagination that is a very bold thing to do.

survive from the Carolingian building — but, at some point between 1075 and 1092, St Michael’s was remodelled.71 The rotunda was reconstructed above pavement level, reusing a number of capitals and possibly columns, and a nave and transepts were added to a building which originally consisted of a simple aisled rotunda and axial apse. Whether the Carolingian rotunda ran to a clerestory is unknown. The Romanesque rotunda most certainly did, with a three-storey elevation that included a gallery above the arcade. As such, Fulda was reconfigured as a cruciform church organized around a central lantern at a date which makes it more or less contemporary with Charroux. Moreover, a year after the 1092 dedication of the major altars, in 1093, a fifth altar was consecrated which was attached to the western end of a model of the Holy Sepulchre, which the archaeological evidence suggests stood within the central lantern-rotunda.72 Conceptually and architecturally, Fulda and Charroux are thus similar, cruciform and coordinated in such a way that clear allusions to the tomb of Christ were stacked within the crypt and central rotunda. Institutionally, they could hardly be more different. Fulda is a monastic burial chapel grown large. Charroux is the principal monastic church. But as with other Holy Sepulchres, and indeed shrines more generally, that hardly seems to matter. The point in making this parallel is that western Holy Sepulchres fall into distinct categories. Most

IMITATION The church that comes closest to Charroux in the West is arguably St Michael at Fulda, of which more survives and about which more is known (Fig. 21). This was first built between 820 and 822, perhaps on the advice of the author of one of the most influential of all medieval meditations on the Cross, Hrabanus Maurus, who wrote metrical inscriptions for three of its altars.70 The crypt and elements of the main rotunda 217

john mcneill

Figure 23 Church of La Vera Cruz, Segovia: interior from east (John McNeill)

what might be regarded as the core elevation within a narrow rotunda, Charroux hints at the integration of the centrepiece of the Holy Sepulchre — the tomb and Edicule — into the vaulting system. From an architectural perspective, that is an enormous leap to make. It is also possible it was influential. In the 1969 postscript to his ‘Introduction to an “iconography”’, Krautheimer appealed to scholars to ‘look for specific tertia comparationis between copies and originals as well as between building types and their meaning’.75 In this spirit one might add that the tertia comparationis shared between different ‘copies’ are particularly revealing. Holy Sepulchres sit slightly outside the norms of medieval architecture in that, notwithstanding their local detailing, we assume they refer back to Jerusalem. While all of them are, in some sense, offspring of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, individual ‘copies’ vary in the features that are chosen and the ways in which these interact with indigenous forms. Thus, the copies themselves are capable of affecting, or expressing, ways in which the Holy Sepulchre was seen by making it available locally, and by pushing devotion in particular directions. The greater the apparent distance between the western ‘imitation’ and the Jerusalem ‘original’, the more likely it is that they will give rise to secondary copies — copies of copies — or at least the more likely it is that we will be able to recognize these families of copies in the West. The church constructed for Bishop Meinwerk at Paderborn ‘ad similitudinem S. Jerosolomitane ecclesie’ is a case in point.76 This was apparently built after Meinwerk despatched Wino, abbot of Hermershausen, to Jerusalem with instructions to measure the Holy Sepulchre and return to Paderborn so that a church based on the measurements could be built

Figure 22 Tomar del Cristo: rotunda to south-east (John McNeill) highlight particular attributes of the Jerusalem prototype — evident in circular plans, galleries, dedications and arrangements of supports that emphasize 8s and 12s, as in the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Cambridge.73 Some, like Bologna, try to recreate a complex sacred topography which is fundamentally liturgical. But the majority are highly reduced versions of the Holy Sepulchre, and conform to Krautheimer’s influential contention that medieval imitation is selective. A centralized plan, and an allusion to the sepulchrum domini in name, model or altar dedication suffices to recreate the Anastasis Rotunda.74 In a world where every church was at one level a sepulchre of Christ, and everything was imbued with symbolic potential, relatively few signals could set off a chain of associative meanings. This in part explains why a reductive approach towards evocations of the Holy Sepulchre was the norm in the Romanesque West. For the majority of western Holy Sepulchres, it simply was not necessary to go any further. The implication of the whole through the imitation of a part transforms the building into a surrogate. Charroux goes well beyond this. It could selfevidently accommodate an enriched liturgy, while simultaneously bringing together allusions to the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Moreover, by keeping 218

building jerusalem in western france there.77 That church, subsequently supplanted by the later medieval Busdorfkirche, was consecrated in 1036 and is known in plan.78 It was aisleless, circular and boasted square-ended chapels to the north, south and east. In plan, there is no clear point of correspondence between Paderborn and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, but there is between Meinwerk’s Busdorfkirche and the church of St Maurice at Constance. St Maurice was founded by Bishop Conrad after his second pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 940, and tellingly contained a copy of the tomb of Christ.79 Though heavily remodelled in the 13th century, this also appears to have been aisleless, circular and to have had square arms at the cardinal points. The third building to replicate the plan is the early-12th-century Johanneskapelle built within the castle at Krukenburg, near Helmershausen.80 Collectively, the group have more in common with each other than they do with the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and were it not for the texts and our knowledge of the Constance ‘model’, the link with Jerusalem would have been far from clear. They are the most eccentric of Holy Sepulchre families. I highlight Paderborn because Charroux might also have become a Holy Sepulchre model in its own right, which, in the spirit of Holy Sepulchres, was itself reduced — to a narrow polygonal core from which the ambulatory vault is sprung. It is, perhaps, the building that lies behind a particularly creative group of late-12th-century variations on the Holy Sepulchre found in the Iberian peninsula, best represented by the late-12th-century eastern rotunda at Tomar del Cristo (Fig. 22) in central Portugal.81 That most spectacular evocation of Jerusalem, the church of the Vera Cruz just outside Segovia (Fig. 23), springs from the same powerfully imaginative line.82

articles. See R. Crozet, ‘Le voyage d’Urbain II et ses negotiations avec le clergé de France (1095–1096)’, Revue Historique, 179 (1937), 271–310; R. Crozet, ‘Le voyage d’Urbain II en France (1095–96) et son importance au point de vue archéologique’, Annales du Midi, 49 (1937), 43–69. Alfons Becker made a couple of minor amendments to Crozet’s reconstruction of Urban’s itinerary, though these have little effect on its overall shape. See A. Becker, ‘Le voyage d’Urbain II en France’, in Le concile de Clermont de 1095 et l’appel à la croisade. Actes du colloque de Clermont-Ferrand (Rome 1997), 127–40 and map on 128. See also E. Zadora-Rio, ‘Lieux d’inhumation et espaces consacrés: le voyage du Pape Urbain II en France’, in A. Vauchez ed., Lieux sacrés, lieux de culte, sanctuaires: approaches terminologiques, métholodogiques, historiques et monographiques (Rome 2000), 197–213. Urban II’s decision to spend a year in France between the summers of 1095 and 1096 was primarily motivated by a desire to promote ecclesiastical and clerical reform, but enlisting support for the capture of Jerusalem was a significant secondary theme, most evident at the Council of Clermont, and frequently encountered thereafter. 2 Gallia Christiana, ed. D. de Sainte-Marthe (Paris 1715), I, 377. 3 Ibid., II, 905, and R. Crozet, ‘Le voyage d’Urbain II; importance archéologique’ (as n. 1), 48–49. The selection of altars for consecration by Urban was often carefully deliberated. According to the monk, Martin, writing around 1125, the monks at St-JeanMontierneuf were concerned that every altar in the monastic church had already been consecrated, so they removed the existing matutinal altar and replaced it with a new altar, the better to receive a papal blessing — ‘hoc privilegio pociori propter benedictionem apostolicam’. Recueil des documents relatifs à l’abbaye de Montierneuf de Poitiers, ed. F. Villard, Archives Historiques du Poitou, 59 (1973), 439. See also R. Crozet, ‘Etude sur les consecrations pontificales’, Bulletin Monumental, 104 (1946), 5–46. 4 See the list of abbots and sources for the dating of their abbacies put together by Pierre de Montsabert; Chartes et documents pour servir à l’histoire de l’abbaye de Charroux, ed. P de Montsabert, Archives Historiques du Poitou, 39 (1910), xxxviii–xxxix. The only dates at which we can be sure Pierre II was abbot are 1095 and 1103. His predecessor Fulrad was the brother of Raoul I, archbishop of Tours, and is last heard of presiding over a council at Charroux in 1082, while his successor, Foulques (Fulcadus), is mentioned as abbot in a cartulary from Uzerche in 1113. 5 See Crozet, ‘Le voyage d’Urbain II et le clergé’ (as n. 1), 285–86. 6 A. Becker, ‘Le voyage d’Urbain II en France’ (as n. 1), 130. 7 Gallia Christiana (as n. 2), I, 89. 8 Crozet, ‘Le voyage d’Urbain II et le clergé’ (as n. 1), 293–94. 9 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Latin 5448, The manuscript is entitled Liber de constitutione, institutione, consecratione, reliquiis, ornamentis et privilegiis Karrofensis coenobii, in Pictaviensi dioecesi. This 15th-century manuscript constitutes one of two surviving copies of a 12th-century text known as the ‘petit cartulaire’. Charroux’s 14th-century ‘gros cartulaire’ was last recorded in 1754, and has subsequently been lost. MS Latin 5548 was transcribed by Pierre de Montsabert in his Chartes et documents pour servir à l’histoire de l’abbaye de Charroux (as n. 4) — hereafter Montsabert, Chartes et documents. The account of the consecration is Montsabert, Chartes et documents, 25–27. 10 For a good summary history, see R. Favreau and M-T. Camus, Charroux (Poitiers 1989), 5–11. 11 Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), 1–7, 10–11, 13–19, 53–62. That Roger was the true founder is clear in his will, which is included in the Liber de constitutione. See Montsabert, Chartes et documents, 53–62, for an extended discussion of Roger’s testament, most of which Montsabert shows to be genuine. Although several forged diplomas had been copied into the cartulary, a number of authentic charters also feature, among which are charters of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious and Pepin of Aquitaine. However, by the early 11th century, if not earlier, the abbey regarded Charlemagne as its founder, as is made clear in the new foundation legends that are a great feature of the Liber de constitutione. For a

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For help, encouragement and companionable discussion in Charroux, Palermo, Oxford and London I should like to thank Rosa Bacile, Manuel Castiñeiras, John Osborn, Nigel Pilkington, Richard Plant, Claude Andrault-Schmitt and Laurent Soulet. My interest in Charroux goes back a long way, to the summer of 1978 when I spent a fortnight camping on the banks of the Charente in order to research what became the extended essay I submitted as part of an undergraduate course at UEA. Eric Fernie and Sandy Heslop were exceptionally generous in their reception of that essay, and I would like to take this opportunity to offer long overdue thanks. The paper is dedicated to my father. NOTES 1

The most revealing analysis of Urban’s itinerary during 1095 and 1096 is that published by René Crozet in a pair of linked

219

john mcneill discussion of the 11th-century accounts of Charroux’s foundation, see Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), viii, xi–xv. For a recent discussion of the date of the Liber de constitutione, see A. Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past: Monastic Foundation Legends in Medieval Southern France (Ithaca and London 1995), 312–13. 12 The papal protection was granted by Pope John VIII. See Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), 67–69; for the exile, see Adémar de Chabannes, Chronicon Aquitanicum et Francicum, ed. J. Chavanon (Paris 1897), III, 23. 13 R. Crozet, Textes et documents relatifs à l’histoire des arts en Poitou (Poitiers 1942), no. 32. 14 As far as I am aware there is no published discussion of these two capitals, which form part of the abbey’s lapidary collection and are displayed in a room adjacent to the former chapter-house. 15 For a list of those attending the 1047 consecration, see the entry in the chronicon saincti Maixentii pictavensis published by P. Marchegay and E. Mabille ed., Chroniques des églises d’Anjou (Paris 1869), 396. See also Favreau and Camus, Charroux (as n. 10), 12. 16 Chroniques des églises d’Anjou (as n. 15), 396. The record of the 1048 fire is from the chronicle of St-Maixent, and follows on directly from the account the 1047 consecration ceremony at Charroux. 17 Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), 1–7 and 41–45. The inventory was drawn up on Maundy Thursday, 1045, and reveals a slightly arboreal bias in the character of reliquary devotion at Charroux. In addition to the fragments of the True Cross, the list includes a root from one of the oaks under which Abraham entertained the angels at Mamre, and several olive branches from among those that welcomed Christ to Jerusalem. 18 Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), 29–41. The council at which the miracles took place was held on 11 November 1082, and was also mentioned in the chronicle of St-Maixent. See Chroniques des églises d’Anjou (as n. 15), 407. 19 Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), 126 (no. 24). 20 Ibid., 25–26. ‘Predicto igitur papa [Urbano II] concilium apud Clarum Montem celebrante, prefati abbatis prudencia ipsius apostolici viri maiestatem humiliter adiens, rogavit quatinus specialis eius benignitas Karroffense monasterium visere atque consolari dignaretur, summumque eius ecclesie altare ab ipso sollemniter consecraretur; iam etenim multo ante Leo sanctissimus papa, magni Caroli contemporaneus, aliud in eodem cenobio auctoritate apostolica benedixerat; super ipsum autem aliam Karroffenses construxerant aram. Ad huius ergo altaris consecrationem dexteram abbas exigebat apostolicam’. 21 Rights of consecration are the prerogative of local bishops, and form an important element in the jurisdiction they exercise over monasteries. Papal consecrations, especially repeated papal consecrations celebrated in the company of the local bishop, confirm a monastery’s status, and remind the bishops of Poitiers of the limits on their power. See the discussion in Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past (as n. 11), 79–81. 22 This is the account that opens the Liber de constitutione. See Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), 1–7. 23 As recounted mid-way through the Liber de constitutione. See Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), 29–41. 24 Ibid., 29–30. 25 Ibid., 31. The relevant passage reads ‘Patriarchus Basilius missam celebraturus ad altare accessit, omnique officio ex more usque ad dominici corporis et sanguinis consecrationem peracto, inter ipsa celestium sacramentorum archana, dextera divine maiestatis apparuit signans Christi poculum et posuit sanctissimam virtutem super sacrata calicis tegmina’. 26 Ibid., 31. ‘in dextera parte altaris quidam puerulus, qui imperatorem ita est allocates: Princeps, inquit, nobilissime, munusculum hoc cum veneration suscipe, quod ex mea vera carne et vero constat sanguine’. 27 Ibid., 38–41. 28 Ibid., 318–19 (no. 190). ‘Cum itaque sicut accepimus prepucium Domini nostri Jhesu Christi Sancta Virtus nuncupatum

in ecceslia monasterii Karroffensis . . . .’ The bull was issued at Avignon on 15 April 1380. 29 The gloss was written in Paris in the late 12th century by John of Wurzburg, in which the foundation of the abbey and gift of the foreskin are both attributed to Charles the Bald (a deviation from the legend as it was known at Charroux itself that is obviously secondary to the acceptance in scholastic circles of Charroux’s possession of the relic). John of Wurzburg’s commentary was repeated in numerous glosses on the Historia scholastica thereafter, and was clearly widely read in the Paris schools. The relevant text reads ‘Praeputium ejus in Jerusalem in temple de coelis ab angelo Carlo Magno regi praesentatum fuit, et ab eo Aquisgranum in Gallius delatum; postea vero a Carolo Calvo in Aquitanian translatum, in pago Pictaviensi apus Carusium Ecclesia quam in honore Salvatoris nostril rex Calvus construxerit’. See J.-P. Migne ed., Patrologia Latina, 155 (Paris 1854), 1061. 30 ‘Adest dies: pervenitur ad locum, comitante pariter gaudio cum tremore; ostenso loco, destruitur; reserato, magnificum illud vas quo sanctissima detinebatur virtus repperitur; reperto, continuo a religiosioribus prout credebatur aperitur; aperto, inveniunt aliud mirabile dictum vas, quod recenti sanguine qui ex ipsa ineffabili manaverat virtute madefactum conspiciunt. O rem nimium stupendam.’ Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), 40. 31 On this, and eucharistic miracles in general over the period, see J. de Montclos, Lanfranc et Bérenger: la controverse eucharistique du XIe siècle (Louvain 1971), and M. Rubin, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge 1991), particularly 108–29. The text describing a reliquary cross kept in the Sanctum Sanctorum at the Lateran and which contained the umbilical cord and foreskin of Christ, explicitly linking the Circumcision with the Crucifixion, is also usually dated to this period (1073x1118). ‘In una est crux de atiro purissimo adornata gemmis et lapidibus preciosis, id est iacintis et smaragdis et prassinis, et in media cruce est umbilicus et preputium circumcisionis Domini, et desuper est inuncta balsamo, et singulis annis eadem unctio renovatur, quando domnus papa cum cardinalibus facit processionem in exaltatione sancte crucis ab ipsa sancti Laurentii ecclesia in ecclesia sancti lohannis.’ Annales et Chronici Italica aevi Suevici, ed. O. Holder-Egger, Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores, vol. 31 (Hannover 1903), 417. 32 A. Brouillet, ‘Description des reliquaries trouvés dans l’ancienne abbaye de Charroux (Vienne), le 9 août 1856’, Bulletin de la Société des antiquaries de l’Ouest, 8 (1857), 173–83. Brouillet felt it likely the reliquaries had been secreted in the rear wall of the cloister during the Wars of Religion, and speculated this may have have happened in the course of a surprise attack on the part of a Huguenot infantry detachment led by Roger de Carbonnière in 1569. Certainly the reliquaries were no longer visible in 1719, when the abbey was described as being in poor condition and deprived of its relics. See Brouillet (as above), 174–75. Fuller descriptions and discussions of the reliquaries can be found in Abbé G. Chapeau, ‘Les grandes reliques de l’abbaye de Charroux, étude d’histoire et d’archéologie’, Bulletin de la Société des antiquaries de l’Ouest, 3rd series, 8 (1928), 101–28, and J. Cabanot, ‘Le trésor des reliques de Saint-Sauveur de Charroux, centre et reflet de la vie spirituelle de l’abbaye’, Bulletin de la Société des antiquaries de l’Ouest, 4th series, 16 (1981), 103–23. 33 When the reliquaries were discovered in 1856, this ‘inner’ container (bearing the inscription HIC CARO ET SANGUIS CHRISTI CONTINETUR, and illustrated in Figs 3 and 4) held a yet smaller reliquary, a tiny oval box with an image of the Virgin in profile on one face and images of the martyrs SS Demetrios and Pantalemon on the other. The inscriptions are in Greek, identifying the saints on one side, with the text ΕΙ∆ΟV O ∆IOS IOV (here is your Son) by the image of the Virgin. The reliquary is unquestionably Byzantine and is usually dated to the 11th century. See A. Frolow, ‘Le medaillon byzantin de Charroux’, Cahiers archéologiques, 16 (1966), 49–60. When the reliquary was opened it was found to contain a cruciform piece of wood stained red. It is possible that this was the relic of the True Cross, and that the

220

building jerusalem in western france Byzantine reliquary had been adopted to contain it, though, excepting the inscription ‘here is your Son’ (a text which theoretically could have been added), the imagery suggests this was not its original intended purpose. I had assumed that the deposition of the Byzantine reliquary inside the reliquary which probably enshrined the Holy Foreskin was pure convenience, and occasioned by the need to immure the reliquaries, presumably in the 16th century. However, Amy Remensnyder has tentatively suggested that the Holy Foreskin and the True Cross may have been enshrined within a single meta-reliquary in the 12th century, as with the Lateran cross, and were meaningfully linked — the alpha of the foreskin to the omega of the cross, See Remensnyder, Remembering Kings Past (as n. 11), 176–77. One cannot discount this, though it seems more likely to me that the second of the larger reliquaries discovered in 1856 will have been designed to house the cross. This appears early 14th century and is arranged as a tower, with seven crocketed gables set between seven domed turrets clustered around an eighth central tower. In form it would appear again to be an allusion to the Holy Sepulchre. Three smaller reliquaries were discovered inside this, all containing secondary relics and all appearing to be 11th or 12th century. See Brouillet, ‘Description des reliquaries’ (as n. 32), 177– 82. Of the five smaller reliquaries only the reliquary with the inscription HIC CARO ET SANGUIS CHRISTI CONTINETUR was in a housing specifically designed to take it. The other four could have been come from any other outer receptacle, suggesting they were placed as they were for safe-keeping. For illustrations, see Favreau and Camus, Charroux (as n. 10), 24–28. 34 Guillaume V, count of Auvergne, granted the abbey of Issoire to Charroux in 1047x1050. See Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), 91–95 (no. 4). Ham was the gift of Enguerrand de Lillers and his wife Emma. Ibid., 96–98 (no. 6). Andres was made over by Giraud, bishop of Thérouanne. Ibid., 100–03 (no. 10). See also, Abbé G. Chapeau, ‘Un pèlerinage noble à Charroux au XIe siècle; La foundation des prieurés d’Ham et Andres, dépendances de Charroux’, Bulletin de la Société des antiquaries de l’Ouest, 3rd series, 13 (1943), 250–71. 35 For a list of all known dependencies, see Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), xx–xxxv. 36 See R. Krautheimer, ‘Introduction to an “Iconography of Medieval Architecture”’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 5 (1942), 1–33, esp. 15–20. 37 See, for example, St-Savin-sur-Gartempe, St-JeanMontierneuf at Poitiers or St-Eutrope at Saintes. Convenient plans and illustrations can be found in M.-T. Camus, Sculpture Romane du Poitou (Paris 1992), 42–56, 277–78. 38 F. Thiollet, Antiquités, monuments, vues pittoresques du HautPoitou (Paris 1823). 39 The Huguenot sack of 1569 caused the nave vaults to collapse and though the nave was patched up the vaults were never replaced. A visitation report of 1634 notes that only the eastern parts of the monastic church were roofed and useable. The abbey was finally suppressed in 1780, and by the time the abbey was split into five lots for sale in 1797 little was left of the nave. That anything much survived is largely due to Charles Loyzeau de Grandmaison (1740– 97), curé in the neighbouring village of Surin, who purchased the cloister and central tower, and whose heirs resisted attempts by the municipality to condemn the tower as unsafe and have it demolished following the collapse of the western tower in 1820. See Abbé G. Chapeau, ‘L’église abbatiale de Charroux’, Bulletin de la Société des antiquaries de l’Ouest, 3rd series, 8 (1929), 503–33, esp. 531–32. 40 Thiollet’s illustration of the west front prior to the collapse of the central tower has been borne out by archaeological work undertaken between 2006 and 2009 by Laurent Prysmicki. For a summary report, see L. Prysmacki, ‘Charroux’, ADLFI. Archéologie de la France — Informations [online], Poitou-Charentes: [accessed 25 August 2014]. 41 The nave had been without vaults since the 16th century. Thiollet’s reconstruction of a nave with a two-storey elevation and false galleries is implausible, and is based on a misunderstanding

of the intermediate arcade visible in the central tower, which is site specific. A conventional single-storey hall church nave is far more likely, However, one suspects that the nave was incidental to Thiollet’s primary purpose, which was to explore the way in which the junction between the rotunda and the arms of the church might have been handled. Thiollet was known as an architectural theorist. A flavour of his interests is perhaps best conveyed by his L’art du lever les plans du lavis et du nivellement enseigné en 20 leçons, sans le secours des mathématiques (Paris 1827). 42 Abbé Chapeau had suspected that there may have been shallow transepts and reconstructed the same in his 1929 study. See Chapeau, ‘L’église abbatiale de Charroux’ (as n. 39), 507. Every other scholar had followed Thiollet and assumed the rotunda was without transepts. 43 These had been described in several pre-suppression texts. For Dom Beaunier writing in 1726, see below, note 54. 44 Y. Froidevaux, ‘Eglise abbatiale de Charroux’, Congrès Archéologique: Poitiers (Paris 1952), 356–67. 45 Ibid., 356. Favreau and Camus, Charroux (as n. 10), 13. 46 F. Eygun, ‘L’abbaye de Charroux; les grandes lignes de son histoire et de ses constructions’, Bulletin de la Société des antiquaries de l’Ouest, 4th series, 10 (1969), 15. 47 Laurent Soulet, personal communication, November 2011. 48 See, in particular, the family trees published by Anat Tcherikover in her study of architectural sculpture across late-11thand early-12th-century western France. A Tcherikover, High Romanesque Sculpture in the Duchy of Aquitaine c.1090–1140 (Oxford 1997), figs 1–4. Tcherikover’s redating of the early-12thcentury sculpture followed on from a significant redating of 11th-century building across the Loire valley and western France begun by Eliane Vergnolle and Marie-Thérèse Camus, for which see E. Vergnolle, Saint-Benoît et la sculpture du XIe siècle (Paris 1985); eadem, L’art roman en France (Paris 1994), and M.-T. Camus, Sculpture Romane du Poitou (as n. 37). 49 R. Favreau, ‘Les inscriptions de l’église de Saint-Savinsur-Gartempe’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, 19 (1976), 9–37, esp. 36–37. Marie-Thérèse Camus dates the ambulatory capitals at St-Savin to c. 1050–60. See M.-T. Camus, Sculpture Romane du Poitou (as n. 37), 127. 50 M.-T. Camus, Sculpture Romane du Poitou (as n. 37), 150–78. 51 For a fuller discussion of the sculptural parallels, see M.-T. Camus, ‘À propos de la rotonde de Charroux’, in Guillaume de Volpiano et l’architecture des rotondes, ed. M. Jannet and C. Sapin (Dijon 1996), 119–33. 52 For illustrations, see R. Oursel, Haut-Poitou Roman (La Pierre-qui-Vire 1975), pls 20 and 113. 53 When seen in 2011 this plaque had been removed. 54 ‘Religiosus tandem apostolicus summi salvatoris aram Spiritus Sancti virtue consecraturus, altaris gradus conscendens, ante ipsum stetit, girantibus illum non vilibus personis, simulque in tanto misterio humilium devotione cooperantibus, quorum nomina sigillatim subscribentur’. Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 4), 25–26. 55 According to Dom Beaunier, who must have visited Charroux in the first quarter of the 18th century, the altar that Urban consecrated was about 7 feet long. Given what else he has to say, it is worth including his description in full [my translation]. ‘One descended into the nave, which was extremely long, by several steps, while one ascended into the choir by six or seven steps, and from the choir into the sanctuary by ten or twelve. Above the altar, which is placed at the centre of a rotunda consisting of three circuits of pillars, there rises a dome in the shape of a (papal?) tiara [en forme de thiarre] of a prodigious height, whose spire, like the nave, has collapsed. The altar was shaped like a chest, and had been consecrated by Pope Urban II. The upper stone was about seven feet long and five or six feet wide and was mounted on four large stones which made up the chest. That at the rear was open so that relics could be kept there behind an iron grill. This precious monument was recently broken up by a simple-minded prior who took the large stones so as to redeploy them in the pavement of the church. One

221

john mcneill can see them there now, still complete, so that today people walk on the sacred altar on which the supreme Pontiff immolated He that gives life to mankind. Beneath the great altar is the altar of miracles [l’Autel des Miracles], so called because of the marvellous things that God works there unto our own days. This altar is surrounded by six small columns which sustain the entire mass of this prodigious dome. One cannot see the ruins of so beautiful a church, and the negligence with which what is left is treated, without being touched by a great sadness.’ Abbé Beaunier, Recueil Historique, Chronologique et Topographique des Archevêchez, Evêchez, Abbayes et Prieuréz de France, I (Paris 1726), 169–70. The scale of the altar makes it unlikely that it belonged to the earlier phases of Charroux’s history, nor, given the likelihood that the altar that Urban II consecrated was beneath the central lantern tower, would the monks have been likely to have pressed an existing earlier altar into service. Indeed, Urban’s II’s 1095–96 consecrations were marked by new altar commissions elsewhere. Beaunier’s description is certainly consistent with the types of altars in existence in the 11th and 12th centuries. 56 Thiollet also included a speculative plan and section of Charroux which is most conveniently reproduced in Favreau and Camus, Charroux (as n. 10), 16. 57 For a short account of what is known of the complex of buildings that linked the site of the Holy Sepulchre with Golgotha between the reign of Constantine and the early 12th century, see D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, III (Cambridge 2007), 6–17. See also the detailed appraisal of the church of the Holy Sepulchre during the 11th century in the chapter entitled ‘The Byzantines and the Holy Sepulchre in the Eleventh Century’, in M. Biddle, The Tomb of Christ (Stroud 1999), 74–88. 58 On the numerology, see Krautheimer, ‘Iconography of Medieval Architecture’ (as n. 36), 9–13. The eastern pair of piers had in fact been replaced by columns following the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009, meaning that from its reconstruction after 1012 onwards there were 14 columns and 6 piers outlining the central space of the Anastasis rotunda. Nowhere does this change appear to have been reflected in Holy Sepulchre copies. 59 The internal diameter of the crypt averages approximately 7.36 m, and while it was not possible to measure the extent to which the lining of the crypt is set inside the inner face of the quatrilobe tower piers, this is unlikely to be by more than 250 mm. Thus the internal diameter of the central rotunda will be just under 8 m. The main piers themselves are approximately 1.6 m thick. 60 For the early status of the gallery of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, see Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom, III (as n. 57), 13. 61 The date at which the hexagonal pavilion first appeared in the Holy Sepulchre is uncertain, but it is described by Daniel the Abbot in 1106x08 and it is fundamentally likely to have formed part of the elaborate architectural shell that surrounded the tomb of Christ as it had been reconstructed between c. 1012 and c. 1047. For Daniel’s description of the pavilion, see the translation in J. Wilkinson, J. Hill and W. Ryan, Jerusalem Pilgrimage 1099–1185, Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, 167 (1988), 128. ‘The Lord’s tomb is like a little cave cut into the rock, with small doors so men can enter stooping on their knees [. . .] This holy cave is faced with beautiful marble like a pulpit and there are 12 pillars around it also of beautiful marble. And above the cave is a beautiful chamber on pillars, round at the top and covered with gilded silver plates.’ For arguments as to the construction of a new Edicule between 1012 and 1047, see Biddle, Tomb of Christ (as n. 57), 81–88. Biddle favours a date between 1012 and 1027. 62 The stone version of the Edicule at Eichstätt was moved to the Kapuzinerkloster at Eichstätt where it was reconstructed between 1623 and 1626. According to a charter issued by Otto, bishop of Eichstätt in 1194, the cathedral provost, Walbrun, founded a hospital on the outskits of Eichstätt to which he gave a relic of the True Cross after he had returned from Jerusalem. This, and an associated chapel dedicated ‘in honour of the holy cross and the holy sepulchre’, were confided in a Benedictine daughter house of

St Jakob, Regensburg, known as the Schottenkloster. Walbrun’s foundation and subsequent construction of the hospital and chapel can be dated to between 1149 and 1166. See G. Dalman, Das Grab Christi in Deutschland (Leipzig 1922), 55–65; Biddle, Tomb of Christ (as n. 57), 29–31; C. Morris, The Sepulchre of Christ and the Medieval West (Oxford 2005), 238; and H. Flachenecker, ‘Das Schottenkloster Heiligkreuz in Eichstätt’, Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner-Ordens und seiner Zweige, 105 (1994), 65–95. 63 Biddle, Tomb of Christ (as n. 57), 4 and 31. It is even possible that the Eichstätt’s holy sepulchre was built as a full-scale imitation. When the wealthy and literate Nuremburg merchant, Hans Tucher, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1479 he remarked that the church of the Holy Sepulchre was ‘equal in height and width’ to Eichstätt and that the Eichstätt chapel was ‘ein gleichformig pildung und beczaichnung’ (a congruent image and symbol). See C. Wood, Forgery, Replica, Fiction: Temporalities of German Renaissance Art (Chicago 2008), 48–49. For Hans Tucher’s pilgrimage, see R. Herz, Die ‘Reise ins Gelobte Land’ Hans Tuchers des Älteen (1479–1480). Untersuchungen zur Überlieferung und kritische Edition eines spätmittelalterlichen Reiseberichts (Wiesbaden 2002). 64 Compare this, for example, with the pictorial representation of the Edicule by Jan van Scorel of c.1530, conveniently reproduced in Biddle, Tomb of Christ (as n. 57), fig. 34. 65 See above, note 55. The original French is ‘L’autel fait en forme de coffre, avait été consacré par le Pape Urbain II. La pierre superieure d’envron sept pieds de long, et cinq ou six pieds de large, était posée sur quatres grandes pierres qui formoient le coffer. Celle de derriere étoit ouvert, afin qu’on pût entrer dans l’Autel et y ferrer les saintes reliques’. Beaunier, Recueil Historique (as n. 55), 169. 66 Montsabert, Chartes et documents (as n. 3), 379. 67 Ibid., 425. 68 If there were stronger evidence for the composition and dedication of the central altar it might be possible to press a question that has been left hanging; was the altar designed as a dramatic setting for the display of the relic of Christ’s foreskin — the Eucharistic ‘table of sacrifice’ set high? It would seem the obvious location for the celebration of the Mass on Maundy Thursday, in honour of the last Supper. Sadly, I have been unable to find any indications for the use of the altar that predate the late middle ages, though François Eygun claimed it was dedicated to St Maurice. See Eygun, ‘L’abbaye de Charroux’ (as n. 46), 15. 69 See G. Fasoli ed., Stefaniana: contributi per la storia del complesso di S. Stefano in Bologna (Bologna 1985); R. Ousterhout, ‘The Church of Santo Stefano: A “Jerusalem” in Bologna’, Gesta, 20 (1981), 311–21; and C. Morris, ‘Bringing the Holy Sepulchre to the West: S. Stefano, Bologna from the Fifth to the Twentieth Century’, in R. Swanson ed., The Church Retrospective, Studies in Church History, 33 (1997), 31–59. 70 See Brun-Candidus, Vita Eigilis abbatis Fuldensis, ed. G. Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, SS 15 (Hanover 1887), 221–33. 71 St Michael was remodelled under Abbot Ruthard (1075–96), culminating in the consecration of four altars by Folmar, bishop of Minden. The fullest account of St Michael, particularly in its Romanesque phases, is O. Ellger, Die Michaelskirche zu Fulda als Zeugnis der Totensorge (Fulda 1988). For a short account, see E. Sturm, Die Michaelskirche zu Fulda (Fulda 1997), conveniently translated into English as St. Michael’s at Fulda (Fulda 1997). 72 The documentary sources are reproduced in Ellger, Die Michaelskirche (as n. 71), 241–43. Extensive archaeological work was conducted by Josef Schalkenbach during the 1930s, which revealed both the original Carolingian plinths and the mortar floor that butted up against them. Schalkenbach also discovered a raised elliptical area at the centre of the rotunda, which he interpreted as the base of the model of the Holy Sepulchre, though it was unclear as to whether this raised area was Carolingian or later. J. Schalkenbach, ‘Wiederherstellung’, Deutsche Kunst und Denkmelpflege, 5 (1938), 34–48. Ottfried Ellger argues that the model dates from the late 11th century and that it was only during

222

building jerusalem in western france 78

Krautheimer, ‘Introduction’ (as n. 36), pl. 1b. P. Jezler, ‘Gab es in Konstanz ein ottonisches Osterspiel? Die Mauritius-Rotunde in ihre Kultische Funktion als Sepulchrum Domini’, in Variorum Munera Florum: Latinität als prägende Kraft mittelalterlicher Kultur, ed. A. Reinle, L. Schmigge and P. Stotz (Sigmaringen 1985), 91–128. 80 For a short discussion of all three churches, see R. Plant, ‘Architectural Developments in the Empire North of the Alps: The Patronage of the Imperial Court’, in The White Mantle of Churches: Architecture, Liturgy and Art around the Millenium, ed. N. Hiscock (Turnhout 2003), 18–19. 81 Tomar del Cristo was the headquarters of the Knights Templar in Portugal. Little has been published on the church in English. See A. Borosa, ‘A Arquitectura Templária de Tomar. Nascimento e Devir’, Cadernos da Tradição, 1 (2000), 149–71. For a broader consideration of the promotion of the True Cross in the western European possessions of the new ‘Holy Land religious orders’ in the 12th century, and the architecture that this gives rise to, see A. Cadei, ‘Gli Ordini di Terrasanta e il culto per la Vera Croce e il Sepolcro di Cristo in Europa nel XII secolo’, Arte Medievale, n.s. I (2002), 51–69. Cadei includes Tomar and and Segovia in this treatment. 82 For a summary history of the church, see A. López-Yarto, La iglesia de la Vera Cruz de Segovia y la Orden del Santo Sepolcro (Zaragoza 2008).

its Romanesque phase that St Michael became symbolically associated with the Holy Sepulchre. While Ellger may be right in suggesting the model only came into being in the 11th century, the first two lines of the Carolingian inscription on the main altar suggests the association with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre goes back to the foundation of St Michael. ‘Hoc altare deo dedicatum est maxime Christo/Cuius hic tumulus nostra sepulchra invat.’ For a strong argument in favour of this view see D. Parsons, ‘Some Churches of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries in southern Germany: a review of the evidence’, Early Medieval History, 8 (1999), 51–55. 73 See Krautheimer, ‘Introduction’ (as n. 36), 3–20. 74 Ibid., 6–8 and 20. See in particular Krautheimer’s remarks as to early medieval ‘indifference’ towards the precise copying of architectural shapes and patterns. 75 R. Krautheimer, ‘Introduction to an “Iconography of Medieval Architecture”’, reprinted in Studies in Early Christian, Medieval, and Renaissance Art (London and New York 1969), 149. See also Crossley, ‘Medieval architecture and meaning’ (as n. 74), 121. 76 R. Wesenberg, ‘Wino von Helmarshausen und das kreuzförmige Oktogon’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 12 (1949), 30–40. I am grateful to Richard Plant for first drawing my attention to the Constance-Paderborn-Krukenberg group, and subsequently furnishing me with references. 77 G. Mietke, Die Bautätigkeit Bischof Meinwerks von Paderborn und die frühchristliche und byzantinische Architektur (Paderborn 1991), 118–216.

79

223

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 225–240

A WESTERN INTERPRETATION OF AN ORIENTAL SCHEME: THE DOMED CHURCHES IN ROMANESQUE AQUITAINE Claude Andrault-Schmitt Among the Romanesque monuments of Aquitaine, there survives a remarkable group of churches with aisleless naves covered by a file of domes. The scheme is found in several cathedrals, a handful of major monasteries and a significant number of smaller churches. The construction of multiple ‘in-line’ domes demanded certain technical refinements, such as the use of pointed arches framing pendentives, and seems to have first emerged in the wake of the First Crusade, flourishing between c. 1105 and 1150. Arriving at either a precise or a relative dating is difficult, in part because of drastic 19th-century over-restoration. Neither the historical sources nor the archaeological arguments are sufficiently strong to enable one to point to the instigator of this type of church with any confidence, in spite of the fact that the various ecclesiastical patrons responsible for the development of churches with ‘in-line’ domes were acquainted. From a strictly formal perspective, a linear evolution must be rejected. What quickly becomes evident is that the type is more dynamic than its supposed oriental models, from which it is distinguished by a preference for transeptal plans and ashlar masonry. The buildings also embrace western aesthetic tastes and ideological concerns. Angoulême Cathedral will be seen to be the most creative and experimental of the buildings considered, characteristics that flow from its patron’s position as a papal legate, and to his concern that the cathedral should contain references to its titular, St Peter.

Between the Loire and the Gironde there survives a group of Romanesque churches with aisleless naves vaulted by a file of domes, each dome rising above a single bay. The size and function of these churches varies, and their dating remains unclear. For the sake of clarity this article will confine itself to six surviving great churches: three cathedrals (Angoulême, Périgueux, Cahors) and three monastic churches (Fontevraud, Solignac, Souillac). To avoid unnecessary archaeological complication I shall eschew discussion of naves that may have carried domes originally (such as the cathedrals of Bordeaux1 and Saintes2) or naves that received domes that were not originally planned to take them (Abbaye-aux-Dames at Saintes, and St Avit-Sénieur).3 Most lists of the Romanesque domed churches of south-western France are too generous, and include several domed churches ‘attested but destroyed’, despite the absence of any technical evidence either for or against the use of domes.4 The question of what, if any, connection exists between the domed churches of Aquitaine and those © British Archaeological Association 2015

of the eastern Mediterranean is obviously germane to these conference transactions.5 The first point one should make is that all the French examples of ‘in-line’ domed churches post-date the First Crusade. The historical evidence for a direct connection is also weak, in that although all the ecclesiastical patrons were narrowly acquainted, few had any special relationship with the Holy Land. Furthermore, the masonry techniques employed in Constantinople, Venice and Aquitaine remained very different. The French builders created a striking interpretation of an ultimately oriental model, but extended this lengthways, built in opus quadratum, and added a sense of architectural and sculptural rhythm that derived from local Romanesque practice. Moreover, the domed naves of Aquitaine were used across a variety of institutional types of church that in turn embodied widely varying political ambitions. Only rarely can one detect an identifiable oriental quotation. Was the motive behind the adoption of domes primarily aesthetic? 225

claude andrault-schmitt PRELIMINARIES

Aquitaine for the most part pre-date the First Crusade.8 This is clear at the church of St Etienne at Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre (Berry), for instance, that was not a ‘crusader church’, but a pilgrimage church founded in 1045 by the lord of Déols on his return from Jerusalem.9 Curiously, the first building here was rectangular, though the surviving rotunda was quickly added.10 The comparative archaeology of the rotunda of St Léonard-de-Noblat, near Limoges, suggests a slightly later dating, of the last third of the 11th century, though still a date prior to the First Crusade. Even the big integrated rotundas such as St Bénigne at Dijon or Charroux were planned before 1099.11 Finally, there are grounds for including St Front in Périgueux, the only French example of a cross-insquare plan. Its date is similar to Angoulême, and despite longstanding arguments as to its provenance, the models that lie behind the design are clear (Constantinople and Venice). These models may also therefore shed light on the models behind the in-line domed churches of Aquitaine. The historiographical literature is full of presumed technical models in Rome, Armenia and even Cyprus, though none of these are particularly close to the Aquitaine group.12 As with Felix de Verneilh, whose rather beautiful study was helpfully composed before the major 19th-century restorations, I am more inclined to draw attention to what distinguishes the six in-line domed churches in this survey from the prevailing Romanesque taste, which favoured ambulatories, aisles and galleries.13 This seems the best way to address what has been an epistemological flaw in the way these buildings have been addressed over the last century or so, when a majority of scholars have looked at domed churches within a closed system and by reference to each other, rather than treating each church in its locality and on its own merits. Because these churches are specific to Aquitaine, some scholars have sought a geological explanation: that the domes result from the local availability of light limestones.14 But this particular line of argument is clearly flawed, and is anyway invalidated by the use of other sorts of stone. Solignac, in the Limousin, for example, is built from a mix of schist (domes) and granitic stone (walls). René Crozet took a more historical approach, and astutely pointed out that the patrons responsible for the buildings all knew each other.15 Girard de Blay, bishop of Angoulême, for instance, was a former canon of Périgueux who in turn took Robert d’Arbrissel’s new foundation of Fontevraud under his protection. He convened the Synod of Cahors in 1115 and mediated in a conflict between Cahors and Souillac. It was also Girard de Blay who endorsed a Solignac charter in 1116 and continued to support the monks of Solignac in their various later disputes. Robert d’Arbrissel, the founder of Fontevraud, preached in St Front at Périgueux in 1116, while in 1150, Girard de Blay’s successor but one as bishop of Angoulême, Hugues II, came to

My sample is confined to churches built with a file of domes over an aisleless nave. Occasionally, a second file of domes over the transepts intersects with that of the nave, though, as we shall see, these transeptal domes to the north and south are either different from those of the nave, or they represent later alterations. The universally preferred form for naves was to spring the domes from pendentives set in the angles of pointed arches (Fig. 1). As such, the bays are strictly square. The pointed arches are built of ashlar, while the pendentives are stone-faced and the domes are made with rubble. The reverse curvature visible in the profile of the pendentives results from their geometrical relationship with the pointed arches, and is a feature specific to Aquitanian domes. It is not possible to pass through the large piers at pavement level (the passages through the crossing piers at Angoulême Cathedral are a later adjustment made to accommodate the screen). However, the longitudinal arches shelter a passage that runs behind the principal wall piers at clerestory sill level. By the mean of this coursière, the upper storey of the nave is lightened and thinned. My sample is also defined in opposition to two or three other types of domed church. The first are those aisled churches that have domes over the main vessel set on squinches. These were mostly invented by 19th-century restorers, as at the cathedral of Le Puy, where the easternmost two bays were originally barrelvaulted,6 and the crossing was originally open; or St Hilaire in Poitiers, which was initially barrel-vaulted.7 The second group that I shall put to one side are evocations of the Holy Sepulchre — rejected not only because these employ a single dome, but because their chronology is different. The surviving examples in

Figure 1 Angoulême Cathedral: nave bay after Félix de Verneilh (1851) 226

the domed churches in romanesque aquitaine Fontevraud to arbitrate during a conflict. By that time, the bishops of Cahors and Périgueux were brothers. The abbot regarded as responsible for the construction of the new church at Solignac, Gerard de Terrasson, was born and educated in Périgord. The web that links the various actual and potential builders of domed churches is large and complex, though we should avoid a purely patronal approach. In-line domed churches became popular in Aquitaine, but it is worth remembering that they co-existed with a number of alternatives, in which respect it is important to note that there were no domes in the Romanesque cathedral of Limoges, in a city located well inside this human and geographical web.16

know how the eastern choir and presbytery were originally built. The three apsidal chapels could even have given onto an ambulatory. The suggestion is speculative, but a badly recorded 19th-century sondage found evidence for an intermediate support which, by analogy with the plan of Beaulieu-surDordogne, could have belonged to an eastern aisled presbytery giving on to an apse ambulatory.21 An ambulatory would not be wholly incongruous in the context of ‘in-line’ domed churches, as it was used in contrast to an aisleless nave covered by domes at Fontevraud — though it would be unparalleled in the absence of a transept. Whether one accepts the suggestion above or not, the 1119 dedication at Cahors refers to the apse and presbytery, and a date of c. 1125–40 is far more likely for the surviving nave. Both the tiny southern door, adorned with a moulded trefoil arch, and the magnificent carved north portal, clearly belong to the second quarter of the 12th century, with the north portal acting as the terminus ante quem. The larger question is, then, whether the domes over the nave were anticipated at the outset? Whatever the answer to this question, the great nave domes of Cahors, so apparently primal and exotic, were not the models from which the Aquitaine series of domed churches developed.22 At Souillac, a building without any documentary sources, the eastern corbels must date to the end of the second decade of the 12th century (Fig. 6).23 But the apse semi-dome (which incorporates a double-skin wall) and the domes over the transepts are alterations introduced during a slow building campaign sometime after 1140, and perhaps as late as c. 1190. The problem in dating the domed churches with square piers is the lack of sculpture. The parallel with Solignac is the main argument for a late dating at Souillac, but then the documentary sources for Solignac are themselves specifically related to the later campaigns there, meaning the arguments can become dangerously circular. Notwithstanding the above, the chronology of at least two of the ‘in-line’ domed churches is clear: Angoulême and Fontevraud. Drastically over-restored by Paul Abadie, Angoulême Cathedral (Figs 1 and 7) is arguably the most ambitious building of the entire sample, and represents an enormous investment on the part of its patrons and builders.24 On completion in the 12th century it consisted of a richly ornamented apse housing three subsidiary chapels, an elaborately carved west front, a nave covered by domes, and a three-towered transept illuminated by windows set in the drums beneath its three domes. Before the 17th century, the eastern windows of the crossing were blind, while the drum rose from virtually flat pendentives without any cornice or horizontal separation. Abadie changed this, and heightened the dome over the crossing while adding cornices between the lower and drum registers. Abadie also smoothed over differences between the westernmost nave bay and those further east, meaning

ARCHAEOLOGY Like most scholars, when I first began to think about the domed churches of Aquitaine I assumed that the two formal categories into which they can be divided corresponded with two different generations; the square-pier group (Cahors, Souillac, Solignac) belonging to the beginning of the century, and the group using clustered piers and elaborate sculpture (Angoulême, Fontevraud) belonging to the mid-12th century.17 However, in discussing the relative chronology of these domed churches we must first assess what can be deduced of their archaeology before moving on to a consideration of their formal evolution. The theory of a development from unarticulated to articulated supports over two successive generations gains some support from St Etienne at Périgueux, the former cathedral, where both solutions can be seen in the two surviving bays: an ancient dome, often considered the archetype for western French domes, and a dome supported on columns and carved capitals which now serves as a presbytery (Fig. 2). The western bay (Figs 3 and 4) may indeed be the earliest to survive in Aquitaine (c. 1100?). However, we cannot reasonably infer from this that Périgueux Cathedral acted as the model for later domed churches in Aquitaine, in that we cannot be sure that it was designed as a file of domes. As it stands its builders simply added one dome to another after a break in construction, and we know little of the detailed handling of the bays to the west, as these collapsed in the 17th century.18 Cahors Cathedral (Fig. 5) is usually dated in relation to a dedication in 1119 and to the translation of a relic of the head shroud of the Christ brought from Jerusalem by a former bishop.19 Its vast interior space, pair of enormous rubble-built domes (more than thirty meters high), and lack of transepts also lend the building an archaic air. Notwithstanding this, the dedication and translation must have related to the altars at the east end of cathedral, with the relic maintained in the axial chapel and the high altar set forward of this.20 The upper storeys of this eastern area were replaced in the late 13th century, however, and we simply do not 227

claude andrault-schmitt

Figure 2 Périgueux, St Etienne (Monuments Historiques)

Figure 3

Figure 4

Périgueux, St Etienne: exterior west bay from south (C. Andrault-Schmitt)

Périgueux, St Etienne: interior west bay, to north (C. Andrault-Schmitt)

it is now impossible to distinguish the extent to which the western nave bay may have belonged to an earlier building, or to an earlier building phase, than the bays further east.25 This last point is less relevant to the arguments advanced here, however, because the west

front sculpture is contemporary with that in the apse, and of the 1120s. The reconstruction was therefore part of a sustained campaign that envisaged a transeptal church covered by domes, even if elements of an earlier building may have been incorporated into this. 228

the domed churches in romanesque aquitaine

Figure 5 Cahors Cathedral: view from west (C. AndraultSchmitt)

A dedication then took place in 1128.26 The new cathedral was partly financed by a wealthy canon, Iterius Archambaud, who died in 1125, and who paid for a refectory and ‘half’ the cathedral walls.27 The bishop was the well-known Girard de Blay, who arrived in 1103 with a reputation as a scholar, and who went on to act as papal legate to successive popes from 1107 until the dispute which pitched Anacletus against Innocent II led to his dismissal as legate in 1130. By 1114 he had rebuilt the episcopal palace,28 and is known to have spent significant sums of money on books and liturgical furnishings. He was also individually credited with the taller southern cathedral tower. This was known as ‘the great tower’ or ‘the needle of France’, though was sadly destroyed by Coligny during the Wars of Religion in 1568. The date at which building work began at Angoulême is impossible to pinpoint, but it is unlikely to have been much later than Girard’s appointment as papal legate in 1107, while the dedication of 1128 almost certainly marked the completion of work — as the Historia pontificum credits Girard with fitting out the cathedral, and goes on to describe his unfortunate burial in 1136 (. . . proh dolor, extra ecclesiam quam ædificavit sub vili latet lapide).29 Girard was from a Norman family, and never travelled further east than Rome. Prior to his

Figure 6 Souillac, Notre-Dame (Monuments Historiques)

229

claude andrault-schmitt of the community in 1104 until her death c. 1109.31 A consecration by Calixtus II then took place in 1119. Curiously, this is the same date as that at Cahors, and a similar archaeological debate has also recently focused attention on what this consecration means for state of construction at Fontevraud in 1119 (Fig. 9). The church that Robert entrusted to Hersende de Montsoreau is most likely to have been the tiny aisleless church that Daniel Prigent discovered beneath the crossing and the south transept in 1990, a building that appears to have been abandoned before it was finished.32 We now also know, thanks to Prigent, that the design of the eastern arm was subject to a number of changes in the course of construction. The lower parts of the entire perimeter wall were in place by c. 1120, but neither the eastern vault, nor, a fortiori, the domes, had been built by then. The perimeter walls of the nave were also built in two phases, with the exterior elevations anticipating a different bay rhythm to that which was eventually adopted — though one which nevertheless anticipated the formal contrast between an aisleless nave and an apse-ambulatoried east end.33 In consequence, we must date the original domes over the nave (the present domes date from c. 1903) by reference to the carved upper corbels, so closely related to sculpture at Angoulême that it seems likely they were carved by the same sculptural workshop. This would date them to around, or just before, 1130.34 St Pierre at Solignac was built inside an ancient abbey said to have been founded by St Eligius (Eloi). Its use of granite, squat proportions and the lack of a balustrade for the coursière have all contributed to its scholarly neglect (Fig. 10). The generally accepted date of 1142 is fragile, given that it is based on little more than hearsay.35 However, the date relates to the first of several gifts of relics, and there are correspondingly good arguments for the church having been completed by the 1140s.36 The eastern arm, which seems designed with a domed nave in mind, is itself vaulted with a flattened dome, and can be dated to around 1130 from the carved limestone corbels. The south and north arms were formerly barrel-vaulted, with a similar passageway as is used in the nave and eastern upper galleries.37 The nave was then built prior to the ribbed-vaulted porch, while the fire recorded in 1178 does not concern the domes, rather it refers to the western tower. In terms of its detailing, Solignac’s exterior elevations are unusual, indeed seemingly unique in France. Simple high-level blind arcading articulates the presbytery and transepts whereas the nave bays are divided into two by tall half-columns. Each bay is also subdivided horizontally by a cornice, separating an attenuated dado arcade from the blind arches that flank the upper windows (those on the north side of the nave having been given trefoil arches). Of the buildings discussed above, Angoulême would appear to be the earliest, at least as a church built as intended from the outset. It was earlier that Cahors, more homogeneous than St Etienne at Périgueux, and

Figure 7 Angoulême Cathedral: view from south (C. AndraultSchmitt)

elevation to the bishopric of Angoulême, he had been a canon at Périgueux, though Périgueux Cathedral is an unlikely model for Angoulême. The only thing the buildings have in common is their employment of domes and pendentives, and of the two Angoulême Cathedral is much the more complex, both in terms of its plan and its articulation. It is also far more ambitious in terms of its use of sculpture. By contrast, Périgueux Cathedral survives as a single early-12thcentury bay, to which a probably mid-12th-century eastern presbytery was added; a poor example indeed, although the pendentives, masonry and the penetrating arches through the southern and northern walls prove the age and the authenticity of that one remarkable western bay (Figs 3 and 4). Looking forward, the relationship between Angoulême and Fontevraud is close, both sculpturally and architecturally (Fig. 8), despite what might have been expected of a church serving a congregation of nuns as against the requirements of a collegiate cathedral.30 This may in part be the result of the cultivation of relationships that go back to the period before the start of construction on Fontevraud’s nave. Girard de Blay was a supporter of Fontevraud’s founder, Robert d’Arbrissel, who founded his abbey at the northern limit of the diocese of Poitiers diocese in 1101 and subsequently made over its government to a succession of matronly abbesses, initially Hersende de Montsoreau, subsequently Petronille de Chemillé. Petronille died in 1149, and it is interesting to note that she continued the relationship that Robert d’Arbrissel had first established with the canons of Angoulême, and even with the canons at Périgueux Cathedral, regularly turning to both for advice. A church was begun at Fontevraud shortly after 1101, when Robert d’Arbrissel laid its foundation stone, entrusting Hersende de Montsoreau with responsibility for the fabric from the point at which she was put in charge 230

the domed churches in romanesque aquitaine sample are largely to do with their sculpture, or such details of handling as the treatment of the high-level wall passages, or the profile of the reverse curvature of the domes. The walls, the pointed arches, the pendentives and the domes are all constructed without any technical awkwardness, and the builders were clearly untroubled by static or constructional problems.38 This technical facility is a point worth stressing. For in comparison to contemporary Byzantine domes, the domes of Aquitaine are huge.39 Moreover, we know that masons in the Limousin began experimenting with flattened pendentives in association with pointed arches so as to construct crossing domes, as, for example, at St Junien (Haute-Vienne), before 1101 (Fig. 11).40 Constructing a line of domes is clearly more of a challenge than constructing a crossing dome, but the difference is more aesthetic than technical. The real novelty of the domed churches of Aquitaine in the Romanesque world is their theatrical effect. The domes effectively preside over a new sort of space, which they invest with a sense of majesty; space as an image ‘of heaven’, to quote Karl Lehmann.41 But that majesty is different to that expressed by or experienced in eastern domed churches. The western approach is less obviously cosmological in the sense that repeated domes do not lend themselves to a single ‘global’ focus, although it should be conceded that the loss of whatever original surface colour that once covered the Aquitanian domes has heightened the apparent difference between the Latin and Byzantine experience. The gothic radial painted figures of Cahors resemble mosaics, and on one level clearly do demonstrate a desire to evoke the Mediterranean world (Fig. 5).42 On a strictly architectural level, however, the western ‘in-line’ scheme works differently to the plans favoured in Byzantine churches. By way of comparison, let us examine Hagia Eirene in Constantinople. The structure here is less difficult to read than others given the deliberate omission of imagery during its iconoclast-inspired reconstruction c. 750.43 The 8thcentury church retained the plan of its 6th-century predecessor, with a single major dome set forward of the apse, but by limiting the church to just one dome an area of stillness is created at its centre to which one might attach cosmological-contemplative meanings. The axial dynamic of western architecture is very different to this. Anyone visiting a Latin church is not encouraged by the architecture to remain motionless; rather they are like pilgrims seeking salvation, much as the Evangelists stride across the lower register of the west front of Angoulême Cathedral. Length, as Sicard of Cremona explained, is an expression of patience.44 In spite of this Latin acculturation, the builders of the domed churches of Aquitaine must have been aware of Byzantine domed churches, since certain details have clear eastern counterparts. The arcading supporting the wall-passages, for example, reflects the use of big lateral galleries in Byzantine churches. It is

Figure 8 Fontevraud Abbey: western two bays (C. AndraultSchmitt) acted as a model for the nave at Fontevraud, before going on to inspire later collegiate churches. In this it may be worth stressing that Angoulême was not only the first of the in-line domed churches of Aquitaine, it was also the most complex, the most richly sculpted, and the most expensive. Secondly, the links that existed between its patron, Girard de Blay, and the eastern Mediterranean are, at best, limited. FROM EAST TO WEST: FREEDOM AND ACCULTURATION Byzantine models? Whatever the exact dating of the type, the ‘in-line’ domed churches of Aquitaine are remarkably consistent. Differences between the six churches in our

Figure 9 Fontevraud Abbey: exterior apse and radiating chapels (C. Andrault-Schmitt) 231

claude andrault-schmitt

Figure 10 Solignac, St Pierre: view from west (C. Andrault-Schmitt)

Functionality and space definition (or re-definition)

a feature that Verneilh appropriately termed the galerie appliquée.45 Another strikingly ‘oriental’ feature was the external treatment of the drums and domes, which were originally visible externally as a series of individual hemispheres, though their once distinctive silhouettes were mostly lost in the course of Abadie’s restorations (Fig. 12). There is good archaeological evidence that tiles were set directly above the outer surface of the domes or above short battens at Cahors, Souillac, Solignac, as well as at both major churches in Périgueux. At St Front, a detail from a painting of c. 1745 (Portrait de Mgr Machéco de Prémeaux) clearly depicts the ashlar drums and their individual tiled domes (the sloping roof hiding all the upper structures that is known by old photographs is dated c. 1760).46 At Cahors, before the 1840s, the domes were coated with bricks and mortar, while at Souillac, pieces of timber discovered in 1842 showed that the profile of the domes was also expressed externally, with a flatstone roof resting directly on the extrados.47 At Solignac, the rough and irregular extrados of the domes demonstrate that they were originally covered by tiles, though whether these were schist, ceramic or even wooden is uncertain.48

Institutionally, our six churches consist of three cathedrals, two male monastic churches and one female monastic church. In five out of six cases (the exception is Angoulême Cathedral), changes were made to the way in which space was used within a few years of the initial completion of the respective church, suggesting there may have been problems in reconciling the design with a particular in-house liturgy. At Fontevraud, shortly after the pendentives and domes had been set over the nave, new doors were punched through the ambulatory walls: a priests door giving access directly into the ambulatory, with a second door opening onto the monks cemetery to the north.49 This suggests that the church was ultimately (though not initially) divided into four different spaces. The western two bays worked as a narthex closed by a transverse wall, which carried a carved image of the Last Judgment (famously commented to King John by Hugh of Lincoln in 1199); the eastern nave bays sheltered the nuns choir and the Plantagenet tombs; the north transept was intended for the laity, while the apse was the domain of the priests (and was brought within easy reach for both 232

the domed churches in romanesque aquitaine was adopted for a church accommodating nuns. Something similar seems to have happened at the Abbaye-aux-Dames at Saintes (two domes set inside older walls). It nonetheless remains difficult to understand why Benedictine monks, at Souillac and Solignac, preferred the ‘in-line’ domed type of church, aesthetically pleasing but inappropriate for the setting of a choir. At Solignac, where the liturgical arrangements prior to the 17th-century Maurist reform can be reconstructed, there is also evidence of early adjustments (Fig. 13). First, the transepts were barrel-vaulted, and given a small eastern gallery.50 One or two decades later, the north transept, on the town side of the church and where the Porte St Eloi is surmounted by limestone carvings (Figs 14 and 15), was vaulted with a dome and given a tiny belfry.51 A second door was also opened, as at Fontevraud, to the east, known as the Porte St Denis. Were the adjustments made to encourage a pilgrimage linked to the reception of relics of St Denis in 1143, as well as relics of the founder, St Eloi, in 1157?52 The north transept was obviously weakened by these adjustments.53 The exterior silhouette of the church was also changed, with the building of a great western tower, completed under Abbot Hugues de Maumont between 1195 and 1228 and now, sadly, collapsed.54 In the Maurist drawing (Fig. 13), we should also note a high transverse wall built across the nave and flanked with an altar dedicated to St-Martial, together with a lay altar described as Notre-Dame de la Moitié.55 Unfortunately, the majority of French churches have been too thoroughly emptied of their earlier liturgical furnishing to support further functional analysis.56

Figure 11 Saint-Junien: crossing with flat pendentives (Monuments Historiques)

Beyond the file of domes: the expressiveness of the cross Angoulême Cathedral is the key. Given the late dating for the domes at Cahors suggested above, it seems that there is no halfway design that sits between cross-insquare Byzantine churches and their transformation in Angoulême’s long nave in the early 12th century. The question could be framed differently, however, if rather than concentrating on the nave we were to consider the complete building. The transept was particularly badly treated by Paul Abadie, but the crossing at least can be reconstructed by virtue of the coloured etching published by the Society of Antiquaries (1853, London).57 As mentioned above, this shows that the pendentives were originally flatter, and that there was no cornice to distinguish between the horizontal registers. Reconstructing the original early-12th-century transepts is a little more complex. Each of the two outer bays supported a tower in a manner similar to the crossing, but with a lightened drum and a dome resting on squinch-like double arches rather than pendentives (Fig. 16). This pattern

Figure 12 Périgueux, St Front: bay after Félix de Verneilh (1851) the priests and the monks of the adjacent house of St Jean-l’Habit). As such, an aisleless-domed building first designed to proclaim the majesty of the bishop and the unity of the ecclesia (the faithful) at Angoulême 233

claude andrault-schmitt

Figure 15 Solignac, St Pierre: exterior north transept and nave (C. Andrault-Schmitt) As it now stands St Front is an ugly church, ‘an archaeological monster’ entirely rebuilt by Paul Abadie (Fig. 17) after an inflamed debate (‘Eastern genius’ vs ‘Western genius’).58 It was clearly inspired by the Contarinian St Mark’s in Venice (1063–94), which in turn derived from the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.59 The relationship is obvious even now, when St Front is less ‘oriental’ than it was in the 12th century, having been deprived of its original pendentive masonry and ‘rough’ coursing.60 St Mark’s has arguably gone the other way, and was less ‘oriental’ c. 1100 that it became following its recladding between 1204 and 1260.61 The most important of the many circumstances that obtained in south-western France immediately prior to the reconstruction of St Front at Périgueux is that over the preceding decades several communities had effectively reshaped and drawn attention to the apostolicity of their local saint through the building of a new great church.62 At the church of St Martial in Limoges, for instance, the cult of Martial as an apostle of Gaul was proclaimed in councils, by polemical texts and through the adoption of an ambulatory and galleries in a church built to a design that was becoming associated with pilgrimage and powerful relics. The clergy of Périgueux, by contrast, chose to commend the apostolicity of St Front through reference to St Mark’s in Venice, where the apostolicity of St Mark was in turn proclaimed by reference to St Luke, one of the main cults in the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. Perhaps there was also here a reference to the church of St John at Ephesus, itself indebted to the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, where the overall shape is close to that at Périgeux given the second dome over the nave. The choice of churches in Venice and Constantinople as models for St Front is striking as these were palatine churches with funerary and reliquary functions, far from the

Figure 13 Solignac, St Pierre: plan showing the furnishings prior to the Maurist reform (Estiennot, 1676, Limoges, Arch. dép. Haute-Vienne, 6 H 3) must be considered in the light of St Front at Périgueux, where the overall plan was designed to evoke a splendid cross (even two crosses given the western confessio attached to the so-called ‘Latin church’).

Figure 14 Solignac, St Pierre: interior nave and north transept (C. Andrault-Schmitt) 234

the domed churches in romanesque aquitaine

Figure 18 Périgueux, St Front: interior of ‘Latin church’ and tower (C. Andrault-Schmitt)

Figure 16 Angoulême Cathedral: north transept and crossing (C. Andrault-Schmitt)

brought into south-western France in answer to a specific set of requirements at Périgueux, and was then effectively naturalized in Aquitaine by the incorporation of St Front’s most striking feature — the domes — into a traditional aisleless nave. But it is impossible to establish precedence between the two. At Périgueux, a western complex was built inside the old ‘Latin church’ utilizing two lightened domes with squinches and re-used capitals (Fig. 18). It is possible this was first built around 1047.64 However, it is then likely it was reconstructed following a fire c. 1120, when we are told that the heat was so intense that the clocks melted, and thereafter the monks decided to restore that part of the church that sheltered the shrine of St Front.65 This was then remodelled to support a tower — tall and decorated with notably sub-Roman architectural detailing and sculpture. The cross-insquare church sits behind this, and has been beyond sensible archaeological interrogation since it was rebuilt by Paul Abadie.66 It is most likely to date from the beginning of the 12th century, and to have been begun before the reconstruction of the shrine area — c. 1120 — but it is now simply impossible to date. Although inconclusive, the evidence suggests Angoulême and St Front at Périgueux are more or less contemporary. Angoulême is unquestionably grander and more complex than any other in-line domed church in Aquitaine — and in so far as it has much in

more localized and ecclesiastical meanings of the French examples.63 If the ‘oriental’ St Front type of domed church predates the ‘western’ elongated nave type represented at Angoulême, it might be possible to argue that an initial infusion of essentially Byzantine forms had been

Figure 17 Périgueux, St Front: general view (C. AndraultSchmitt) 235

claude andrault-schmitt

Figure 19 Gensac-la-Pallue from ‘A Visit to the Domed Churches of Charente Published as a Memorial to Edmund Sharpe’ (1875)

236

the domed churches in romanesque aquitaine NOTES

common with Périgueux it is clearest in the articulation of the transepts and their lightened drums. In their different ways St Front at Périgueux and Angoulême Cathedral represent two responses to Venice. And one can imagine Girard de Blay wanting to include an apostolic reference in a cathedral dedicated to St Peter (which is the dedication at Angoulême), given his legatine status.67 St Front was a more or less faithful quotation, whereas Angoulême was selective. So let us propose a sort of stemma: the first domed churches in Aquitaine were contemporaneous and employed complex and different transeptal designs (Angoulême, St Front), which benefited from certain local technical advances that had taken root a good ten years ago, c. 1100 (St Junien crossing dome, Périgueux Cathedral first bay . . .). It was, however, only their naves that achieved posterity and were followed at Fontevraud, Cahors and Solignac.

1 See K. J. Conant, Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture 800 to 1200 (Harmondsworth 1959), 171: ‘Bordeaux Cathedral was prepared for large domes over the nave’. 2 The cathedral at Saintes was rebuilt in the later Middle Ages. It was first built c. 1120, but consecrated between 1183 and 1186, with domes above the transepts (one of which survives). C. Gensbeitel has demonstrated that the Romanesque nave was not covered with a file of domes. See Y. Blomme ed., Saint-Pierre de Saintes (Paris 2012), 76. We should add that the consecration took around a decade after the cathedral’s occupation by Richard I’s milites, and probably relates to its perceived desecration at the hands of the soldiers rather than to any recent building work. 3 The nave walls at St Avit-Sénieur (Dordogne) are dated 1117– 18, though the domes (if they ever existed) were replaced in the early 13th century by domed-up rib vaults. 4 J. Secret, Périgord roman (La Pierre-qui-Vire 1968), 14 (map). R. Lasteyrie cited Nantes Cathedral as an example, notwithstanding the absence of evidence: R. Lasteyrie, L’Architecture religieuse en France à l’époque romane (Paris 1912), 478. G. Séraphin added Lectoure and Moissac to the list, again without supporting archaeological evidence. Meymac in the Limousin is also sometimes quoted, where domes are impossible. 5 The theme of this article is that of the paper I gave at the Palermo conference, though the text has been developed as the result of a second paper I subsequently published that focused on Angoulême. See C. Andrault-Schmitt, ‘D’Angoulême à Poitiers. La voûte en majesté pour l’évêque (1110–1167)’, Cahiers de SaintMichel de Cuxa (2013), 39–53. 6 M. Durliat, ‘La cathédrale du Puy’, Congrès archéologique de France, 133 (Paris 1976), 55–163. 7 M.-Th. Camus, ‘Les voûtes de la nef de Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand de Poitiers du XIe au XIXe siècle’, Bulletin archéologique du comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 16 (1980), 57–94 (from the description by Claude Perrault). Verneilh, who in 1851 analysed the cathedral of Le Puy as a domed church, had seen St Hilaire-leGrand at Poitiers without its later nave vaults, which he supposed had been domes: see note 13, 271. G. Gilbert Scott noted in 1862 a curious and large ‘wagon-head vault’ like that at Notre-Dame-laGrande: G. Stamp, ‘In search of the Byzantine: George Gilbert Scott’s Diary of an architectural Tour in France in 1862’, Architectural History, 46 (2003), 189–228. We must wonder about a Sicilian influence on the French restorers (1873–75). 8 For the type see, among others, R. Ousterhout, ‘Architecture as Relic and the Construction of Sanctity. The Stones of the Holy Sepulchre’, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 62 (2003), 4–23; or idem., ‘Sweetly Refreshed in Imagination: Remembering Jerusalem in Words and Images’, Gesta, 48 (2009), 153–68. Ousterhout demonstrates that copies are architecturally partial because the primary aim is to invest the ‘replica’ with symbolic meaning. 9 Ecclesia S. Sepulcri in Bituria constructa est ad formam S. Sepulcri Yerosolymae: ‘Chronique d’Auxerre’ or ‘Chronique de Tours’, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed. L. Delisle (Paris 1876), XI, 308 and 347. 10 S. Bryant, ‘La collégiale Saint-Étienne de Neuvy-SaintSépulchre (Indre). Une étude de la rotonde et de la nef’, Revue archéologique du Centre, 43 (2004), 171–207. Eudes de Déols even insisted that the new foundation should pay a regular tax to the Sepulchre of Jerusalem. 11 The situation is arguably similar in the Empire, where centralized buildings were arguably more common in the second half of the 10th and 11th centuries that later. See R. Plant, ‘Architectural Developments in the Empire North of the Alps’, in The White Mantle of Churches: Architecture, Liturgy, and Art around the Millennium, ed. N. Hiscock (Turnhout 2003), 29–56. On Charroux, see the article by J. McNeill elsewhere in this volume. 12 For Armenian dome construction c. 1000, see C. Maranci, ‘The Architect Trdat: Building Practices and Cross-Cultural

An expression of severity? The posterity of the domed churches is clearest if we consider them in relation to early Gothic domed-up ribbed vaults. The relationship is perhaps not so striking in those cases where these vaults are added to existing structures, as in the remodelled naves of Angers (c. 1148) and Le Mans Cathedrals.68 In my opinion, paradoxically, the future of the type can best be seen in three-vessels churches as Poitiers Cathedral, or the collegiate church of La Couronne (near Angoulême). In terms of their Romanesque progeny, the late dating of the domes of Souillac and Cahors introduces a new question: the extent to which a file of domes might be chosen at the end of the Romanesque period for its severity. The design clearly appealed to the new reformed orders, as with the Cistercian church of Boschaud (Périgord), the quasi-Cistercian church of La Tenaille (Saintonge), the churches of the regular canons at Châtres, Sablonceaux, St Romain de Benet (Saintonge), St Emilion, or a cluster of Fontevraudine priories across the Poitou, all of them built between c. 1160 and c. 1180. Domed churches had clearly acquired a regional currency in the Périgord and Saintonge by this date — the latter being a part of Aquitaine that is rarely discussed in regard to this subject, but where the aisleless nave at Gensac-laPallue (Saintonge) rather wonderfully still maintains an elevational system inherited from the naves at Angoulême or Fontevraud or Cahors, which themselves retained the memory of the galleries of their ultimate Eastern models (Fig. 19).69 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to thank John McNeill for his help in editing this paper. 237

claude andrault-schmitt 22 Raymond Rey even went so far as to describe the domes as ‘Une irrésistible vision d’Orient’: R. Rey, La cathédrale de Cahors (as n. 17), introduction. 23 H. Pradalier, ‘Sainte-Marie de Souillac’, Congrès archéologique, Quercy, 147 (Paris 1989), 481–508. 24 The main documentary sources are in J. Boussard ed., Historia pontificum et comitum engolismensium (Paris 1957). They are interpreted by R. Crozet, ‘Recherche sur les cathédrales et les évêques d’Angoulême et de Saintes depuis les origines jusqu’à la fin du XIIe siècle’, Extrait du Bulletin de la Société archéologique et historique de Charente (1960), 45–60. For an architectural history, see P. Dubourg-Noves, ‘La cathédrale d’Angoulême’, Congrès archéologique, Charente, 153 (Paris 1999), 37–68. For an excellent summary in English, see A. Tcherikover, High Romanesque Sculpture in the Duchy of Aquitaine c. 1090–1140 (Oxford 1997), 62–64. 25 Scholars point to the use of plain piers in this western bay, and though this particular feature is neither certain nor conclusive. Verneilh noted the difference between this and all other bays. See L’architecture byzantine en France (as n. 13), 279. The best account of the apparent structural differences between this bay and those further east is in J. Michon, Statistique monumentale de la Charente (Paris and Angoulême 1844), 279–85. 26 Chartes et documents pour servir à l’histoire de l’abbaye de Charroux, in P. de Monsabert ed., Archives historiques du Poitou, 39 (1910), no. 36, 142–45: a deed is dated from ‘the third day after the dedication’. See also R. Favreau, ‘Evêques d’Angoulême et Saintes avant 1200’, Revue historique du Centre-Ouest, 9 (2010), 64. It is interesting to note in relation to the Angoulême charters that some of these issued between 1097 and 1099 are dated in relation to the first crusade: ‘the year of the departure’, or ‘the year of the Jerusalem conquest’. 27 Historia Pontificum (as n. 24), 35: Ecclesiam vero Engolismensem a primo lapide aedificavit, in qua reaedificatione supradictus Itherius Archambaudi in constructione parietum expensarum medietatem de proprio suoministrabat. His epitaph is: HIC REQUIESCIT DOMINUS ITERIUS ARCHEMBALDI / CANONICUS HUIUS MATRICIS ECCLESIAE / IN QUA MULTA BONA OPERA OPERATUS EST / OBIIT IN DIE VIII IDIIS AUGUSTI / AB INCARNATIONE DOMINI ANNO MCXXV. 28 Historia pontificum (as n. 24), 35–37. 29 Ibid., 38. See also Crozet, ‘Recherche’ (as n. 24); Tcherikover, High Romanesque Sculpture (as n. 24), 62, n. 80. 30 Verneilh was struck by their similar scale, and offered virtually identical measurements for the respective naves: 10.60 m (Fontevraud) and 10.61 m (Angoulême) for the side of the square bays; 2.40 m and 2.43/2.50 m for the piers measured west–east, though he would have been unable to obtain accurate measurements of the nave at Fontevraud, in use during Verneilh’s lifetime as a prison. See L’architecture byzantine en France (as n. 13), 276–77. 31 Bona coadjutrix mea cujus consilio et opere construxit Fontis Evraldi ædificia (André, Vita altera, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, 162 (1889), 1074). 32 On the early church, see J.-M. Bienvenu and D. Prigent, ‘Installation de la communauté fontevriste’, in Fontevraud: Histoire et archéologie, 1 (1992), 15–22. 33 This is most clear in the plan Daniel Prigent published in D. Prigent, ‘Le cadre de vie à Fontevraud dans la seconde moitié du XIIe siècle’, in Fontevraud: Histoire et archéologie, 5 (1997), 39–56. The plan is at p. 41. Some of the excavated tombs belong to the early 12th century. The tombs in the ambulatory can be identified as those of Robert d’Arbrissel himself (d. 1116), the bishops Pierre II (1115) and Guillaume I (1123), while a number of clerics were buried in the lateral apses: Giraud de Brie (c. 1118) and Rainier (c. 1116). See D. Prigent, ‘Les sépultures du sanctuaire de l’abbatiale de Fontevraud’, in Fontevraud: Histoire et archéologie, 2 (1993), 43–53. See also D. Prigent, ‘Fontevraud au début du XIIe siècle. Les premiers temps d’une communauté monastique’, in Robert d’Arbrissel et la vie religieuse dans l’ouest de la France, ed, J. Dalarun (Paris 2004), 265.

Exchange in Byzantium and Armenia’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 62 (2003), 294–305. This does prove there was a technical switch from the use of cut stones to brick masonry, and the author underlines Trdat’s ‘experience in dome construction, in particular domes on pendentives’. For the historiography of the question and a consideration of it modern ideological overtones, see C. Maranci, Medieval Armenian Architecture. Constructions Race and Nation (Louvain 2001). 13 L’architecture byzantine en France. Saint-Front de Périgueux et les églises à coupoles de l’Aquitaine (Paris 1851): engravings from J. de Verneilh, E. Guillaumot, L. Gaucherel, Pisan, E. Dainville. 14 F. Anus, ‘Etude sur la structure des églises à file de coupoles du sud-ouest de la France’, Les monuments historiques de la France, II (1937), 172–91. His map shows a ‘zone de crétacé supérieur pauvre en bois d’œuvre’. 15 R. Crozet, ‘L’église abbatiale de Fontevrault, ses rapports avec les églises à coupoles d’Aquitaine et avec les églises de la région de la Loire’, Annales du Midi (1936), 113–50; idem, ‘Remarques sur la répartition des églises à file de coupoles. Déterminisme ou méthode historique’, Cahiers de Civilisation médiévale, 4 (1961), 175–79. 16 The same bishops of Périgueux and Cahors were nephews of the bishop of Limoges. René Crozet perhaps overrated his ‘human’ hypothesis when considering the links between Angoulême, Saintes and Sablonceaux, and allowed this to cloud his relative dating of the buildings. Noticing that the prior Bernard of Sablonceaux became bishop of Saintes in 1142 he advanced a date of around 1140 for Sablonceaux, whereas it is certain that the domes there date to the second half of the 12th century. 17 For Raymond Rey, ‘Les églises de la seconde génération abandonnent l’austérité pour les colonnes à chapiteaux’: see R. Rey, La cathédrale de Cahors et les origines de l’architecture à coupoles d’Aquitaine (Paris n.d.), introduction. 18 In 1577 Huguenots destroyed a tower and damaged the first two (domed) bays and the chevet dome. The two western bays then collapsed during repair work between 1625 and 1640, at which point it was decided to transfer the episcopal see to St Front. The restoration that followed the transfer was extensive. Reconstructing the medieval appearance of St Etienne is thus problematic. The standard reconstruction remains that proposed by canon Roux, which was based on the illustrations of J. de Mourcin for the Antiquités de Vesone (Vulgrin de Taillefer, 1820). To this one might add what was gleaned during a six-day excavation in preparation for the visit of the Congrès archéologique in 1927. The Roux design had unfortunately become a reference. For a recent summary, see C. Corvisier, in Congrès archéologique. Monuments du Périgord (Paris 1999), 368–70. 19 Géraud III de Cardaillac visited Jerusalem in the company of the count of Toulouse in 1109: Chronique de Marcillac and secondary sources. The head shroud (la Sainte-Coiffe) is first mentioned in 1112, one year before the death of Géraud as bishop; it was displayed each year at Pentecost. 20 M. Durliat, ‘La cathédrale Saint-Etienne de Cahors; architecture et sculpture’, Bulletin monumental, 137 (1979), 285–340, lays out the historical background. The bishop granted a series of new endowments to the cathedral chapter, but insisted that the canons adopt a common life. This was approved by Pope Urban II, and was again approved in 1106 and 1120. Among others donations, there is a gift from a local lord in 1109. For Durliat, the arrival of the relic by 1112 is related to the completion of a major part of the building. The altar that contained this relic was damaged by Huguenots, but what remained was carried to a castle and was subsequently described in1580. 21 The base of a pier was discovered in 1872 (between 2 and 2.5 m large, 2.5 m deep) in the southern part of what is now the choir, though the description of the pier made in 1872 has been lost. On the basis of this pier, G. Séraphin drew attention to the possible parallel between Beaulieu and Cahors, and superposed the two east end plans. See M. Scellès and G. Séraphin, ‘Les dates de la ‘rénovation’ gothique de la cathédrale de Cahors’, Bulletin monumental, 160 (2002), 249–73.

238

the domed churches in romanesque aquitaine 34 The parallels are particularly close with the sculpture of the lowest register of the west front at Angoulême Cathedral along with that in the north transept. They have been noted by numerous scholars, most recently Marie-Thérèse Camus: ‘Pas de doute, une bonne cinquantaine de pièces [à Fontevraud] ont été réalisées par des sculpteurs ayant travaillé à Angoulême’ (M.-Th. Camus, E. Carpentier and J.-F. Amelot, Sculpture romane du Poitou. Le temps des chefs-d’œuvre (Paris 2009), 471–79). 35 Ten years before its listing as a classified Monument historique in 1852, the secretary to the city council at Limoges, M. Lingaud, confided that he had seen the date 1142 in ‘un vieux manuscrit’, and gave the date to M. Nivet, who passed it to Felix de Verneilh during the Congrès archéologique de Limoges. See Verneilh, L’architecture byzantine en France (as n. 13), 265. 36 The gifts of relics was recorded by dom Dumas in the 17th century (numerous, confused and disordered references). The source was then edited by A. Lecler, Chronique du monastère de Saint-Pierre de Solignac (Limoges, 1896). The main relics were acquired in the middle of the 12th century, when the abbey flourished after peace was reached with Uzerche and disputes with the bishop of Limoges or the canons of St Yrieix were settled: the relics in question concerned St Denis (1143), St Martin (1151), St Eloi (1157/8). We must add a reference to a grant for the cloister fountain about 1157 (Dumas, 1896, 82). The rebuilding of St Yrieix (1181–83) gives a secure terminus ante quem for all the Romanesque churches. 37 Now the northern arm is covered with a dome (see below), but the transept was first barrel-vaulted, though one can see the first courses of a pendentive under the barrel-vault in the southern arm. 38 Zuliani makes a similar point about St Mark’s, Venice, ‘il faut précisément tenir compte du rapport dialectique qui s’instaura avec la culture des corps de métier, et du fait que ce qui était demandé dépassait de toute façon les limites de l’expérience la plus courante d’un bâtisseur médiéval’: Fulvio Zuliani, ‘Le chantier de la basilique Saint-Marc (1063–1094)’, Les chantiers médiévaux (Saint-LégerVauban 1996), 72. 39 Robert Ousterhout draws attention to the fact that the hypothetical models are smaller. See R. Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton 1999), 201: ‘a typical dome [in the Byzantine Empire] of the tenth to the fourteenth centuries measured less than 6 meters in diameter, compared to the 31,2 meter span of Haghia Sophia’s dome. Thus, structural concerns no longer demanded preference in architectural design’. Besides, he points out in his introduction that each Byzantine church is singular and represents a response to a specific set of circumstances. 40 1101 is the date of its dedication by the bishop of Périgueux. See E. Sparhubert, ‘Les commandes artistiques des chapitres de chanoines séculiers et leurs enjeux: édifier et célébrer à Saint-Junien (XIe–XIIIe siècles)’ (unpublished thesis, Université de Poitiers, 2008). 41 K. Lehmann, ‘The dome of Heaven’, Art Bulletin, 27 (1945), 1–27. 42 Paintings suggesting mosaics were probably widespread. It was reported of Solignac in the mid-19th century, for instance that ‘Nous avons porté le repiquage, layage et ragréage de la pierre afin de faire disparaître intérieurement les badigeons qui ont couvert les peintures à fresque qui décoraient les coupoles et extérieurement la rugosité de la pierre de taille’ (Limoges, Arch. dép. Haute-Vienne, A T 75). 43 Note, in particular, the barrel-vaults above the big open galleries at Hagia Eirene. See Ousterhout, Master Builders (as n. 39), 202. 44 Length is patience ‘qui supporte les épreuves jusqu’à parvenir jusqu’à la patrie céleste’ after Sicard de Crémone: quoted by J. Baschet, in Art médiéval. Les voies de l’espace liturgique, ed. P. Piva (Paris 2011), 184. 45 See Verneilh, L’architecture byzantine en France (as n. 13), 277. 46 At St Etienne, Périgueux, George Gilbert Scott ‘carefully examined the domes as seen within the roofs’, while at St Front he regretted not having seen the remaining drums enclosed by the roof.

See Stamp, ‘In search of the Byzantine’ (as n. 7), 205–07. DubourgNoves dismisses the possibility that the domes over the nave at Angoulême were independently roofed and visible from the exterior. See Dubourg-Noves, ‘La cathédrale d’Angoulême’ (as n. 24), 41. 47 For Cahors see Rey, La cathédrale de Cahors (as n. 17). For Souillac, see H. Pradalier, ‘Sainte-Marie de Souillac’ (as n. 23). 48 Perhaps even lead? In 1858, the domes ‘avaient dû souffrir beaucoup des injures du temps; complètement dénudées elles laissaient apercevoir la saillie des moellons qui les composent. Nous avons cru devoir les recouvrir d’une chappe afin de maintenir la liaison intime des matériaux et surtout d’éviter l’infiltration des eaux lorsque les gouttières se forment sur la couverture ainsi qu’il arrive sur les chapelles absidiales’ (Limoges, Arch. dép. HauteVienne, A T 75). Under the roof there is a sort of tier around each dome, very low but opened for a direct lightning. 49 Prigent, ‘Le cadre de vie à Fontevraud’ (as n. 33), 39–56. The question of the function (for the dead?) of the beautiful door set in the middle of the northern façade before 1125 remains open. 50 This gallery was used by the owner’s wife when the cloister buildings were sold (Limoges, Arch. dép. Haute-Vienne, 2 O 3242, 1812/1819). 51 Dumas, ‘Chronique de Solignac’ (as n. 36), 18: ‘le petit clocher a été autrefois sur le dôme qui est au-dessus de Saint-Denis’. 52 See n. 36. 53 When the church was classified as a Monument historique in 1862, the northern arm was the most damaged. The east and west walls were subsequently rebuilt between 1879 and 1883, while the whole arm was strengthened in 1906 and the superior courses entirely rebuilt (Charenton-le-Pont, Médiathèque du patrimoine). 54 Dumas, ‘Chronique’ (as n. 36), 18: ‘il y a aussi un autre beau clocher qu’on ne peut pas conduire à la perfection qu’on prétendait, car on y vouloit faire une grande flèche et quatre petites’. Its collapse is dated from 1783 or 1793. The further little bell-cote is ridiculous for so ancient and important an abbey. 55 Dumas, ‘Chronique’ (as n. 36), 19: ‘cette séparation et tant d’autels ôtaient la beauté de l’église’. The opinion is regrettably unsympathetic to medieval norms. The transverse wall probably dated to the 15th century, when Abbot Martial Bony de La Vergne (1457–80) installed richly carved stalls (56 preserved) and once magnificent stained-glass windows (mostly destroyed). 56 An ugly white yellow distemper has been recently added to the interior of Angoulême Cathedral, that simply increases the sense of bareness. 57 Published in P. Dubourg-Noves, Iconographie de la cathédrale d’Angoulême de 1575 à 1880 (Poitiers-Angoulême 1973), II. 58 The restorations are linked with inflamed interpretations. In 1846 Victor Hugo coined the term ‘la grande mosquée de Périgueux’. Before 1860, Verneilh, who enjoyed considerable success in England, admired the oriental type of St Front, which he called Byzantine architecture; Vitet answered that the Eastern genius had simply revived the Western genius. The debate as to the rights and wrongs of the restoration is summarized in C. Laroche, ‘SaintFront de Périgueux: la restauration’, Congrès Archéologique de France, Périgord, 156 (Paris 1998), 267–80. See also Entre archéologie et modernité. Paul Abadie, architecte 1812–1884, Musée d’Angoulême (1984–85). On his visit Scott wrote: ‘Poor St Front! . . . as white as chalk’. See Stamp, ‘In search of the Byzantine (as n. 7), 203. 59 Zuliani, Les chantiers (as n. 38), 71–98. At St Front, the crossing dome was a little higher than the others (27 m). 60 Verneilh noted that prior to restoration the pendentives of St Front seemed older than others, and were made of projecting courses. Scott also noted the difference between the old [roughly] axed masonry and the ‘smoothly’ new masonry. Stamp, ‘In search of the Byzantine’ (as n. 7), 206. The use of (lightly) pointed arches was often advanced against a Venetian filiation. 61 T. Dale, ‘Cultural Hybridity in Medieval Venice, Reinventing the East at San Marco after the Fourth Crusade’, in San Marco, Byzantium, and the Myths of Venice, ed. H. Maguire and R. S. Nelson (Washington 2010), 151–91.

239

claude andrault-schmitt 62 C. Andrault-Schmitt, ‘Edifier: les enjeux de la création architecturale dans les stratégies de promotion de la sainteté (XIe–XIIIe siècle)’, in Hagiographie, idéologie et politique au Moyen Age en Occident, ed. Edina Bozoky (Turnhout 2012), 315–46. 63 St Mark’s was a palatine church, as was the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, built to house the tomb of Constantine between 536–50 (and described by Procopius). The analogy between the Holy Apostles and St Mark’s has been celebrated since at least the 12th century: consimili constructione artificiosa illi ecclesiae quae in honore duodecim Apostolorum Constantinopolis est constructa. See Zuliani, Les chantiers (as n. 38), 71. See also L. Puppi, ‘La basilica de San Marco nel mito di Venezia’, in La basilica di San Marco, arte e simbologia, ed. B. Bertoli (Venice 1993). 64 The source of the dubious date of 1047 is never given. It comes from the record, in the 17th century, of a dedication by the archbishop of Bourges: Calendrier du grand livre de saint Syllain recorded by J. Dupuy, L’estat de l’eglise du perigord depuis le christianisme (Périgueux, 1629), 204. The documentary sources are interpreted by J. Roux, ‘La basilique St-Front de Périgueux’ (Paris 1920), but only from indirect references. 65 J. Verdon ed., La chronique de Saint-Maixent, 751–1140 (Paris 1979), 35.

66 The question of what might have copying what obviously depends on the dating. This is the issue that lies behind what might be described as the ‘battle of St Front’. See J. Gailhagaud, Monuments anciens et modernes. Collection formant une histoire de l’architecture des différents peuples à toutes les époques. Moyen Âge (Paris 1870 and 1865), who criticized Verneilh for thinking that St Front was built by bishop Frotaire de Gourdon (1010–47), on the grounds that domes built before 1047 cannot have been copied from St Mark’s, given the date of St Mark’s. A later dating for St Front (after 1120) was preferred by Marcel Aubert and followers, such as Conant, precisely because of the relationship with St Mark’s. 67 Recently, Jill Franklin has also argued for the importance of dedications in establishing the referential character of architecture in the case of the Basilica Apostolorum (S. Nazaro) in Milan. See J. Franklin, ‘Iconic Architecture and the medieval Reformation: Ambrose of Milan, Peter Damian, Stephen Harding and the Aisleless Cruciform Church’, in Romanesque and the Past, ed. J. McNeill and R. Plant (Leeds 2013), 77–86. 68 A new study demonstrates the anteriority of the Angers vaults. See B. Fillion-Braguet, ‘Le contexte du premier gothique: l’invention du type angevin’, in La cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Poitiers. Enquêtes croisées, ed. C. Andrault-Schmitt (La Crèche 2013), 224–29. 69 Unfortunately restored in the 18th century. See L’architecture byzantine en France (as n. 13), 242.

240

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 241–258

THE MIGRATION OF MEDITERRANEAN IMAGES: STRANGE CREATURES IN SPANISH BUILDINGS AND SCRIPTORIA BETWEEN THE 9TH AND 11TH CENTURIES Gerardo Boto To Herbert Kessler, for having shown the pathways

The 10th century saw the culture of Islamic Spain (Al-Andalus) at its most splendid. During this period, Christian scriptoria experienced an artistic revolution, and Spanish manuscript illumination of the 10th century possesses the strongest personality of the entire Middle Ages. Among the manuscripts then illuminated are Bibles, copies of Beatus’s Commentary on the Apocalypse, versions of Moralia in Job, and collections of Synodal Acta from the Visigothic period. Some of the illuminators (Vigila, Emeterio or En) are known by name and were aware of an oriental repertoire of monstrous creatures used to embellish Islamic sumptuary objects. These became known in northern Spain as a result of broader cultural exchange between Christians and Muslims, in Iberia as in the wider Mediterranean. The ivory, silk or silver treasures were obtained by means of trade, donation or tribute. In addition to manuscripts, this article examines the decoration of contemporary monastic churches in the kingdom of Leon. The appropriation of Oriental models is also evident here, in monumental art, evidence for which can be traced back to the Asturian period (especially at the Royal Palace of Santa Maria del Naranco). This continued into the 10th century in ivory carving in La Rioja. These figural trends and interests come together in work done for the two most important promoters of sumptuous works of art in the kingdoms of León and Navarre, Fernando I (d. 1065) and his wife Sancha (d. 1067) at a crucial moment in the rise of the Spanish Romanesque.

INTRODUCTION

more generally. Similarly, it seems that the development of the sumptuous arts was also limited in the first half of the 11th century. Even the production of illuminated manuscripts, following an initial dramatic outburst of miniature painting in 10th-century scriptoria, seems to have tapered off in the first half of the 11th century, with the notable exception of Ripoll. From the 1070s onwards, by contrast, monumental sculpture began to be used for portals and for the thresholds of presbyteries in the great churches of Santiago de Compostela, León, Carrión de los Condes, Jaca and other sites. The ornamental motifs and images used here amounted to a first stage in the assimilation of mature European Romanesque forms. As these, in turn, related to a creative engagement with the Roman past that was more widely shared towards

The development of Romanesque art in the Iberian Peninsula varied significantly across its western, central and eastern areas. The early adoption of Romanesque forms in the Pyrenees contrasts with their later development in the Atlantic lands south of the Minho River. Nor was monumental sculpture employed in the new vaulted churches of the first half of the 11th century, its use having been confined to liturgical furniture (evident, for example, in the baptismal font from San Isidoro in León).1 The embellishment of portals and interior spaces seems to have been initially facilitated by mural painting, as at Ripoll during the abbacy of Oliba, although we know very little about the situation in early-11th-century Spain © British Archaeological Association 2015

241

gerardo boto MEDITERRANEAN IMAGES FROM PRE-ROMANESQUE SCRIPTORIA

the end of the 11th century, interest in Andalusian or Byzantine art began to flag. With the exception of constructional elements, such as horseshoe arches (San Juan de la Peña, San Juan de Busa, San Isidoro at León), polylobed arches (San Isidoro at León, Sant Pau del Camp), cross-ribbed domes (Torres del Río, San Miguel de Almazán, the church of the Vera Cruz at Segovia) and some atria (San Juan de Duero), Islamic influence was mostly absent in the Spanish Romanesque. The impact of Islamic models and resources was unquestionably stronger in the period before the emergence of Romanesque in Spain, that is before 1060. Nevertheless, for a deeper insight into this issue, it is necessary to consider a number of questions that have provoked intense debate for decades: -

-

-

-

-

-

-

Numerous scriptoria produced luxuriously illuminated codices during the 10th and 11th centuries in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, within which copies of the Commentary on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Liébana became particularly important. The production of Beatus manuscripts has been studied and arranged in a complex stemma, extending from the 9th to the 13th centuries, by Wilhelm Neuss, John Williams and Peter Klein.2 Two main families or groups have been identified. The particular image that I want to analyse, Noah’s Ark packed with animals, is not found in the first group of manuscripts, but it is found in the manuscripts of the second group. The Beatus painted by Facundo for King Fernando I and Queen Sancha in 1047 constitutes the first attempt to formulate a new iconography, combining that inherited from the 10th century with innovative designs.3 This work employs a new graphic language that would be perfected some two decades later by Stephanus Garsia in the Saint-Sever Beatus. In the Fernando I and Sancha copy, the design of Noah’s Ark follows the pentagon formulated by Magio in the Morgan Beatus a century earlier (Figs 1 and 2).4 In the five levels we find superimposed — from top to bottom — humans (Noah and his family), domesticated animals (bird, cockerel, goat, dog and ape?), wild animals (wolf (?), bear, panther, lion), imaginary animals (manticore, winged lion, eagle-headed griffin, dragon), and, on the lowest level, exotic animals (elephant, black equid (?), dromedary and onager).5 This distribution is richer than those elaborated in the Seu d’Urgell Beatus (c. 1000), the Beatus of Valladolid and the Beatus of Silos (where the illumination was completed in 1109), though, with the exception of the level of imaginary animals, the composition is repeated in all the above manuscripts. This similarity is to be expected, in the sense that the Seu d’Urgell, Valladolid and Silos codices belong to the same branch of Stemma IIa as the Beatus of Fernando I and Sancha. On the contrary, codices in the other branch (IIb), such as the Girona Beatus, show four levels with a different distribution: in the topmost level, next to Noah, are two compartments with birds, rabbits and snakes; below are goats and apes (?); in the third, lion, panther, bear and greyhounds; and at the bottom are quadrupeds — onagers, dromedaries and bucephali. In this distribution, one can note that the transference of motifs was not uniform: the Pierpont Morgan Library codex (c. 960) is closer to the Girona Beatus, although they belong to different family branches. On the other hand, the Turin Beatus, a direct copy of the Girona Beatus, does not follow the pattern of animals distributed in superimposed levels. Instead, it offers the solution of small compartments, each containing a pair of animals, some of them identified by name: ursus, camelos, aviis . . . which recalls the arrangement

When is the impact of Islamic forms first detected? And, to what extent are the echoes of Umayyad art (detectable into the middle of the 11th century), similar or different to those found in the Asturian period of the 9th century, or in Visigothic art from the 7th century? Did the existence of an artistic relationship linking Hispanic workshops and craftsmen with the Eastern Mediterranean result in the incorporation of Byzantine forms into Spanish art, and to what extent were ultimately eastern models derived from pre-Islamic (Sassanid) forms, or pre-Islamic forms which had been adopted and extended by Syrian and Andalusian Islam, or pre-Islamic solutions assumed by Syrian Christians before the 7th century and subsequently transmitted, via Georgia and Armenia, into the Balkans and on into the West? Does the identification of Islamic patterns mean that there was an understanding of their original content or, on the contrary, were these patterns used without an understanding of their meaning? Were human and animal figures more or less easily adopted and assimilated than geometric and vegetal ornament? If we take into account the absence of codices and illuminated manuscripts with figures in the Islamic world of the 7th–9th centuries, which media were used to transfer and spread these forms and iconographies? Can we suppose that Islamic models were copied accurately and that the artists involved refrained from making alterations (in which case, do we, as art historians, draw attention to the cross-cultural encounters these represent when we recognize imitative copies)? What role was played by Christian illuminated manuscripts from the kingdoms of Leon and Pamplona in the assimilation of those iconographies, and how does this affect the way we understand the chronology of the exchanges? 242

the migration of mediterranean images found at Sainte-Savin-sur-Gartempe, and differs from that of the capital in the cloister of Girona Cathedral. The conceptualization that inspired the image of the Turin Beatus was outlined in the Roda Bible, where Noah’s Ark appears as a house divided in rectangular compartments. This solution was finally adopted and enriched in the Beatus in the Rylands Collection (Manchester; John Rylands Library, MS Lat. 8), which belongs to branch IIb, like the codices preserved in Turin and at Girona Cathedral. Nevertheless, in the Rylands manuscript the composition using squares reaches a level of great formal exquisiteness.6 This compositional device was also used in the 13th century in the Bible of Avila (Castile) and in the Breviarium Hystorie Catholice of Archbishop Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada. It is important to contextualize the Hispanic configuration of Noah’s Ark in order to appreciate the singularity of the imaginary creatures introduced into the Ark in the Beatus of Fernando I and Sancha. Seen alongside certain works in ivory, such as the ivory casket of Santo Domingo de Silos (made in Cuenca in 1026), where horizontal registers support imaginary hybrid creatures, one might think that the Leon miniaturist enriched his Ark by borrowing motifs from Caliphal sumptuary art (Figs 3 and 4). However, one cannot rule out the possibility that the iconography was already established in the north, and had circulated among earlier Christian miniaturists for use in texts other than the Beatus. In this respect, the presence of manticores and dragons, along with other unusual creatures, is found in the Codex Albeldense, a manuscript produced in the Rioja in 976, which includes the capitula of Spanish Church councils — gerundensis, ilirdensis, ualletani, toletani — held during the Visigothic era. Without any justification from the text, the Codex Albeldense deploys fauna in the margins of some folia (56–70), an initiative which is wholly exceptional in 10th-century Europe.7 Vigila, a scribe generally considered to be non-Hispanic though sensitive to the forms of the Iberian Peninsula, created a type of frame for the text made up of the bodies of real or imaginary creatures. This zoological and therianthropic gallery consists of snakes, dogs, rabbits, quadrupeds, hybrids and ophidians. Some of the monstrous configurations (like the bicephalous horned being, web-footed and web-handed) recall fabulous Romanesque creations, such as the Beelzebub from the image of Hell in the Silos Beatus (c. 1110) — even more than the Atimos to which Schapiro compared it.8 To this being is added a mysterious titulus — geride marine — which has no known equivalent in Latin dictionaries or Hispanic glossaries.9 In certain cases, names do seem to have been mistaken, or creatures have been misidentified; the manticore is named serena, for example). I also could neither discover the terminological origin nor understand the etymological justification for monstrous beings sharing this same

Figure 1 Beatus of Fernando I and Queen Sancha: Noah’s Ark (Madrid. Biblioteca Nacional, MS Vtr. 14-2, fol. 109) (© Biblioteca Nacional de España)

Figure 2 Morgan Beatus: Noah’s Ark (New York, Pierpoint Morgan Lib., MS I, fol. 79r) (© Morgan Library, New York) 243

gerardo boto

Figure 3 Beatus of Fernando I and Sancha: detail of Noah’s Ark (Madrid. Biblioteca Nacional, MS Vtr. 14-2, fol. 109) (© Biblioteca Nacional de España)

Figure 4 Museo de Burgos: detail of the ivory casket of Santo Domingo de Silos (1022) (© Museo de Burgos)

page (lenda, hagan) or other adjoining pages (sura, capte, rimile marine) (Fig. 5).10 Nevertheless, if we recall that Vigila also used the terms draco, corcodrillum, basiliscum and aspide, it seems logical to assume that he knew some Latin at least. There are no precedents for this imaginary bestiary in the Iberian peninsula. In Spanish monastic libraries, the available zoological compilation was typically Saint Isidore’s Etymologiae, which contains none of the above-mentioned creatures. As such, it is impossible to be more specific about the source for Vigila’s textual and visual compositions, meaning one cannot dismiss the possibility that the creatures may have been ex novo creations, at least in part. The collection of creatures also includes snakes, cocks, deer, greyhounds and hares which bear no specific theological or moral significance.11 I cannot understand why Vigila was so concerned with the identification of animals and monsters which could not be more alien to the conciliar chapters. However, it is clear that the outlines of the beasts determined the irregular contours of the text boxes, as can clearly be seen on folio 57v. Vigila wrote and painted the Codex Albeldense with the help of his socius Sarracinus. Although this figure appears tonsured as a monk, his name suggests his origins were Muslim, or that he came from a Christian family with some ties to Islamic culture (as a dhimmi or muladí). It cannot be a coincidence that this codex, dateable to 976, was the first in the West to incorporate Arabic numbers written from right to left, which must have been taken directly from an Andalusian model (Fig. 6). In those sections of the manuscript dealing with astronomy or the calendar, Vigila — or Sarracinus — used traditional numeration, Greek and Hebrew, to record his computations, but also included the new number symbols used in Andalusia, whence in turn they had been brought from India.12 Is there, in consequence, an Islamic inspiration behind the

particular monsters and animals? If one looks to the known objects (ivories and fabrics), then the answer is negative. However, Vigila, without doubt, had contact with Muslims and knew what their clothes looked like, as he unprecedentedly showed on folio 69v (Fig. 7).13 Given that the textual content is Visigothic, the monstrous figures could have been taken from an unusual collection made in Late Antiquity, in which case I wonder if the monstrous motifs may have been present in Spanish manuscripts from the 6th–8th centuries, about which we know almost nothing, as no copies have survived.14 It is strange to suppose that a Muslim could have had access to a Christian codex kept in a monastic library. However, it happened with the Tábara Beatus. In the margins of one of its pages, a Muslim from the 12th century (?) wrote a sentence that relates to the Sura of the Sovereignty, although it does not correspond exactly.15 Significantly, in the second half of the 10th century, a corpus of images with eastern origins had arrived at the Monastery of Tábara (Zamora), transferred via Caliphal Andalusian culture. In 975, a year before the completion of the Codex Albeldense, Emeterio the copyist and En the miniaturist (a nun and the first female miniaturist known in medieval Spain) created the Girona Beatus in the scriptorium at Tábara. Studies by Carlos Cid, John Williams and O. K. Werckmeister have shown the Islamic parentage of the image of a knight that kills a snake with a lance.16 However, the meaning attached to this horseman varies according to which scholar one consults. Thus, Werckmeister argued that the image reflected the ideological engagement of the Kingdom of Leon with moslem culture at the end of the 10th century,17 an opinion shared by Williams and others, although in opposite terms, whereby it would not be a negative personification, but rather a positive one.18 244

the migration of mediterranean images

Figure 5 Codex Albeldense: Library of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, MS d. I.2, fol. 59v (With permission Patrominio Nacional de España) Figure 7 Codex Albeldense: Library of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, MS d. I.2, fol. 69v (With permission Patrominio Nacional de España)

upon its chest. This hunting eagle is common in Islamic marble and ivory reliefs. It is assumed that Sassanian prototypes arrived to Tábara (Zamora), like the Knight Sauroctonos (fol 134v), through Andalusian silks or ivories.20 Mireille Mentré showed that the eagle-coreus combination is present on a 9th-century floor mosaic from the former abbey of Sant’Ilario in Venice.21 As noted above, the senmurv or simurgh was very common in Sassanid reliefs and fabrics and was also reproduced in Islamic metals and Byzantine sumptuary arts.22 The resemblance between the two — Byzantine and Islamic — is so great that it can be difficult to determine the provenance of a particular representation, as happens with a fabric from l’Estany preserved in Washington (Fig. 9). The motif had arrived in the Iberian Peninsula by the beginning of the 10th century, as a carpet-page from the León Bible of 920 (fol. 3v) shows (Fig. 10).23 Significantly, the representation of a senmurv in its eastern form is not found in other north-western Hispanic manuscripts. With regard to the hunting eagle, this is one of the most common motifs used in Andalusian ivory carving, as is confirmed by three paradigmatic examples — the pyxis of al-Mughira, pyxis of Ziyad Ibn Aflah (Figs 11 and 8) and the Leyre casket.24 The motif is found all along the Mediterranean, in Fatimid ivories from the 11th century and in 12th-century reliefs from Constantinople. It seems clear that the eclectic taste of the miniaturist was informed by objects and sources from Al-Andalus. The composition of the

Figure 6 Codex Albeldense: Library of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, MS d. I.2, fol. 9v. The manuscript was written by the monk, Vigila, in 976 and here shows the earliest surviving use of Arabic numerals in Europe (With permission Patrominio Nacional de España)

Andrè Grabar and John Williams asserted that En wrote the bas-de-page of another page (fol. 165v) using an unequivocally Umayyad repertoire. Among trees and foliage there are a senmurv and an eagle seizing a gazelle, with the titulus: COREUS ET AQUILE/ IN VENATIONE (Fig. 8). The senmurv, or simurgh, is an ancient eastern creature with the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle and the tail of a peacock, which can be found in Sassanid rock reliefs, in metalwork and ivories and on Islamic and Byzantine fabrics.19 Nothing remains of the symbolic and spiritual meaning that the senmurv enjoyed in the Sassanian world and among Sunni mystics in the Tábara Beatus. Next to the beast there is an eagle with outspread wings which seizes a gazelle in its claws, a red ring around its neck and the base of its tail, and the shape of a heart 245

gerardo boto

Figure 8 Girona Beatus: Cathedral of Girona, MS 7, fol. 165v (© Patrimoni. Catedral de Girona)

246

the migration of mediterranean images

Figure 9 Figure 11

Detail of silk with elephants, senmurv and winged horses, from Santa Maria de l’Estany. Santa Maria de l’Estany (© Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Washington)

Pyxis of Ziyad Ibn Aflah: London, Victoria & Albert Museum (© V&A Images)

The term coreus, like the list of terms from the Codex Albeldense, is not found in the literary sources used in early medieval Hispania, nor does it accompany a representation of the senmurv in any other known case. However, the expression coreus is used in biology for an insect that infests dock, sorrel and pumpkins. Was this same term used in the 10th century? We know that the nomenclature fixed by Linnaeus corresponded to the Latin terminological tradition, but we cannot be sure that this insect had this name in the kingdom of Leon during the 10th century. So, is a coreus a mythic creature or an insect? Paradoxically, I would not dismiss the second possibility. In the Girona Beatus a person’s gaze is allowed to look at the world and delight in its biological immediacy, without any moral intention.25 Is it possible to suppose that on the terminological level En added her own references, too? For the moment, at least, I cannot offer any other explanation for this enigmatic application of the term coreus to a senmurv. The illustration with the senmurv and the eagle also reveals that Sassanid or Islamic motifs are usually found in marginal areas, outside the apocalyptic texts, and within areas of otherwise blank parchment. The importation of Sassanian and Byzantine fabrics throughout Europe and the seductive power of the lion-eagle hybrid explain the interest in reproducing the image not only in codices but in goldsmith items from the 12th and 13th centuries, such as silk fragment with a senmurv preserved in the Victoria & Albert

Figure 10 León Bible of 920 (León, Cathedral Lib., MS 6, fol. 3v (© Juan Luis Puente. With permission Archivo Catedral de León) eagle is similar to Muslim and Sassanid works. However, the assumption of an archetypal model should not obscure the fact that the eagles were real creatures. Eagle hunting could certainly have been known to a 10th-century nun — so, besides being a visual image, the hunting eagle was a visible reality. 247

gerardo boto Museum (V&A number 8579-1863). With the same purpose of ornamenting and decorating the empty spaces, En arranged a register of three griffins and a lion among stems. Taken from well-established repertoires (fols 175v and 176), as had happened with the coreus or the eagle, griffins were exciting and attractive in themselves because of their fabulous components.26 The composition of pairs of lions and griffins facing each other formed part of the stock repertoire of Caliphal Andalusian ivory carvers (as shown in the Leyre casket) and stone carvers (in light of a Madinat al-Zahra relief preserved in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid).27 The workshops engaged by important Christian religious centres in the 10th century, such as the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, also deployed ornamental motifs like the hunting eagle or the facing lions with the unmistakable stamp Cordoba, suggesting a broad familiarity with this strand of Andalucian culture (Figs 12 and 13). Consequently, this ornamental register of the Girona Beatus does not refer to a Sassanian pre-Islamic world, but to the stable and staple visual repertoire of the Andalusian caliphate. Another page from the same Beatus is embellished by a frieze with three hares and a partridge among spherical stems (fol. 156). In Islamic work the closest parallel is found in the façade of the Umayyad Palace

of Qasr Mshatta, now in Berlin. However, the similarities between the miniature and the relief are limited. The composition in the manuscript is closer to the ornamental and eucharistic friezes in the church of San Miguel de Escalada (AD 913) and, going further back in time, to the treatment of the cymatia in the church of San Pedro de la Nave, traditionally dated back to between the 7th and 9th centuries.28 Although an early medieval Hispanic tradition could lie behind the Girona composition, its pictorial formulation matches European early Romanesque examples, like frieze and border compositions from Saint-Bertin, on their part inherited from the physiologic tradition of Late Antiquity.29 Another exceptional marginal composition in the Girona Beatus is a bas-de-page (fol. 159) in which En, the miniaturist nun, drew a group of hares taking shelter from the suffocating heat under the branches of some bushes — inter arbustis minimis requiescunt arenacis (among small bushes they rest thirsty) (Fig. 14).30 Again, the motif bears no relation to the text of the Storia or the adjoining Explanatio of Revelation 9.13–16. En designed this trivial episode without any clear justification — perhaps for the simple delight of finishing the page with a pleasing motif. Droves of hares must have been a common sight in the fields around Tábara. The first female painter in Spanish medieval art took a moment to delight in the observation of nature while involved in the complex task of illustrating a Commentary on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Liébana, a work that demanded the use and projection of a supernatural view of the world. For this image, En was drawing not from the metaphysical realm, but from her own empirical experience. Nevertheless, the graphic means used to express that hares are herbivores derives from the formal arrangements of images used in the 10th and 11th centuries by Andalusian ivory carvers, as is shown in the casket from Silos now in the Museo de Burgos. The walls of the monastic church of Santiago de Peñalba in León (consecrated in 937), carry a number of figures, names and signs inscribed by monks over the course of the 10th and 11th centuries. Among the various motifs a rudimentary representation of a dog survives, identified by the legend: CANES ECBALIUS. This Latin term is used in botany to identify the cucumber, and was presumably the nickname given by the community to one of their dogs. Monastic communities in and around Leon that read and copied sumptuous books also used the walls of their buildings to carry imagery that reflected their daily experiences. Medieval graffiti was ubiquitous, and is found in churches, palaces, fortresses or jails, Christian as well as Muslim, in Madinat al-Zahra or in Norwich Cathedral.31 Graffiti are the most primitive expression of the visual memory of peoples, both those unfamiliar with book culture and those that were in direct or indirect contact with it.

Figure 12 Processional Cross of San Millán: Paris, Musée du Louvre (© Réunion des musées nationaux) 248

the migration of mediterranean images

Figure 13 Girona Beatus: Cathedral of Girona, MS 7, fol. 176 (© Patrimoni. Catedral de Girona)

Figure 14 Girona Beatus: Cathedral of Girona, MS 7, fol. 159. Inter arbustis minimis requiescunt arenacis (in middle of little trees [the hares] rest thirsty) (© Patrimoni. Catedral de Girona). See also Plate XIA in print edition

Although the quality of this sketch in Peñalba is very poor, the outlines of the dog are reminiscent of drawings made by the copyists in monastic scriptoria. However, in my opinion the relevant point is that the monk has outlined a beast that was physically before him. I do not know of any previous case in a Spanish church in which an animal appears identified with a name. However, named representations are found in the mosaics of late Roman villas, as happens in the Castilian sites of Carranque and Baños de Valdearados.32 This reflection of nature, in its humility and

marginality, tells us about the attention paid to what was alive and appeared before the eyes of the graffitimaker monk. When they drew hares n the fields or the dog, the miniaturist, En, or the graffiti-maker monk from Santiago de Peñalba did not resort to the models and styles that collectively give rise to what we think of as influences or artistic interactions. In 10th-century Leon two people took into consideration the Aristotelian motto that art imitates nature.33 Both found a means of giving figurative expression to the most common, worldly and trivial aspects of their 249

gerardo boto surroundings, and did so with outlines born of their hand and informed by the figurative culture with which they had grown up. It is certain that different iconographic traditions converge and rebound in the complex manuscript preserved in the Cathedral of Girona: over a Hispanic substratum we find pre-Islamic, Islamic and Roman contributions. En developed two of her marginal compositions from Hellenistic figurative sources. In folio 157 the Storia and Explanatio of Revelation 9.7–12 mention the ruler of the Abyss, called Abaddon in Hebrew and Apolyon in Greek. Williams thinks that both marginal compositions refer directly to this lord of the underworld.34 In one of them, a semi-naked figure riding a large snake or cetacean grabs a fish in one hand and an oar in the other, with wings protruding from his head.35 Miranda, following other authors, interprets it as Poseidon. However, the image does not refer to the god of the sea, but to the Sea itself: Oceanus. This personification, often repeated in Hellenistic and Roman mosaics, was revived in the 6th-century in the Vienna Dioscorides, and subsequently picked up in Carolingian ivory workshops and Ottonian scriptoria.36 The similarities with Metz ivories and with the Evangeliary of Abbot Bernward of Hildesheim (ignored until now), shows how profoundly these old forms and subjects maintained their relevance in Tábara (Figs 15 and 16).37 I do not believe that we know enough to be able to assess whether the representation, Hellenistic and hybrid, referred

to the limits of the Christian message, although some historians seem to be attracted by this hypothesis.38 I have not been able to specify the meaning and cultural origins of the second figure that accompanies Oceanus. Nevertheless, like other scholars, I do believe that it has negative connotations, even though it is found in an area of the page separated from the main body of the text and that it has no significant connection with the Apocalypse. The mockery not only lies in the fact that the horse changes its head for a hand, but that the head wears apotropaic horns and presses the lips of the horseman in an expression of reproval. There are two further marginal motifs worthy of discussion — the menacing amphisbaena and the naked man with a monstrous head (fol. 106v) — the latter conceived with a visual background that goes back to Late Antiquity.39 For the man with the monstrous head En quoted directly from Latin figurative sources. Although some authors identified the composition as a demon because of its prominent horns, in my opinion it is a sexless but breasted cynocephalus. It compares well with representations of cynocephali, like those found on the margins of the tympanum of Vezelay or those in certain late copies of the Collectanea rerum memorabilium by Solinus, notwithstanding the extended tongue and the explicit horns. In fact, the horns could be the result of stylization or a misunderstanding of long ears, as might also be the case in the register of cynocephali in the magnificent Carolingian ivory known as the Earthly

Figure 15 Girona Beatus: Cathedral of Girona, MS 7, fol. 157v. Oceanus and a rider on an hybrid being (© Patrimoni. Catedral de Girona). See also Plate XIB in print edition 250

the migration of mediterranean images

Figure 16 Bernward Gospels: Hildesheim, Dom und Diözesanmuseum, MS 18, fol. 174r. Oceanus and Terra and the Birth of Christ (© Hildesheim, Dom und Diözesanmuseum)

Paradise Ivory (Figs 17 and 18).40 This was also the only marginal motif to be reproduced in the Turin Beatus, in which context it is significant that the 12th century miniaturist did not understand the identity of the figure that was being copied.41 The dog’s head was turned into a deformed human and the horns into sharpened bull’s horns. Some historians quite reasonably considered it a type of Minotaur, although this is not the case. Here we have another copy that reinterprets and alters the forms and meanings of the motifs used as a model.

used by ivory carvers and stone sculptors in the Caliphate of Cordoba, in which respect one might mention the relief from the so-called Baths of King Badis in Granada of the 10th century, or one of the medallions of the Leyre casket of 1004 or 1005.43 The relief at Retortillo also shows a lion with a snake coiled around its body and neck and a pair of peacocks. The use of this repertoire, featuring paired quadrupeds supporting smaller creatures on their back, among Andalusian craftsmen through the Caliphal and Taifa periods can be demonstrated by a relief from Madinat al-Zahra (10th century), the Leyre casket (1004x05) and the Santo Domingo de Silos casket (1026). Nevertheless, the peacock, common in Christian religious contexts from Late Antiquity, had already been subject to a process of graphic simplification by the 9th century, if not earlier, in the Iberian peninsula, in both Christian and Muslim contexts. The exterior of the church at Quintanilla de las Viñas to the south of Burgos, for example, supports a frieze carved with animals and vine scroll among which we find a peacock whose outlines are as simplified as those at Madinat al-Zahra.44 Sculptors from both ends of the

SCULPTURE Very little Christian Hispanic sculpture from around 1000 has survived. One of the few examples is found in a church, now in the province of Burgos, likely to date from the 10th or early 11th century: Santa María de la Granja de Retortillo.42 The composition consists of two deer facing each other to either side of a tree, each carrying a quadruped on its back. The design is unequivocally indebted to the figurative repertoire 251

gerardo boto

Figure 17 Girona Beatus: Cathedral of Girona, MS 7, fol. 106v. Cynocephaly-Demon (© Patrimoni. Catedral de Girona)

Mediterranean were unquestionably strongly influenced by the figurative traditions of Late Antiquity. When it comes to interpreting relief sculpture which develops an essentially Late Antique iconography, such as Quintanilla de las Viñas, Spanish art historians argue as to whether the means of transmission was via Umayyad work or, on the contrary, that early medieval stone-carvers resorted to a repertoire that had already been developed in Hispania before the arrival of Islam. There is certainly no doubt that 10th-century Andalusian sumptuary art aroused admiration and excitement in the Christian workshops of northern Spain. The Leyre casket, undoubtedly the most extraordinary

Figure 18 ‘Earthly Paradise’, ivory. Paris, Musée du Louvre (© Musée du Louvre) ivory that remains from the works produced in the Caliphal workshops, must have arrived in Navarre shortly after its completion. We assume this because the interior of the casket was lined with an embroidery 252

the migration of mediterranean images the animals found in the inner circles are not a feature of earlier Christian sculpture in the Iberian Peninsula. Compositions featuring birds, at least, are indebted to Sassanian fabrics from the 7th century, but more precisely to silks from Sogdia, the outermost region of the then known world, on the borders of those lands that converted to Islam.47 These stunning items belong to a Pre-Islamic tradition, and must have travelled along the Mediterranean to Al-Andalus via the caliphal palaces of Damascus.48 The small Christian kingdom of the Asturias seems to have collected these sorts of sumptuous and prestigious artefacts during the reign of King Ramiro I (842–50). The motifs used in the covering of a saddle now in the Abegg-Stiftung collection in Riggisberg (Figs 20 and 21) were reproduced with complete accuracy on the walls of Santa María del Naranco (Fig. 22).49 In the same way that Ramiro had the design of the consular ivory of Areobindus reproduced on the jambs of his palace church of San Miguel de Lillo, so the walls of his palace carried exotic and sumptuous motifs characteristic of silks brought by the sons of Allah from the outermost limits of the world. It was also in the 9th century that samite, a heavy silk fabric interwoven with gold and silver thread, began to be produced in Central and Eastern Asia reproducing well known Sassanian motifs. Some of those silks develop a repertoire of birds that are strikingly close to that used in Hispanic reliefs, such as the example preserved at the Sé Vella in Lisbon that has been dated to the 7th century, but which might be 9th century. The chronology of the reliefs in Lisbon’s ‘Casa de los Bicos’ is also ripe for reappraisal. In this case, as suggested by Maria Cruz Villalón, griffins are arranged in a design that is extremely close to the pose assumed by griffons in the Taifa silk fabric used in Leon in 1059 as a cover for the reliquary of Saints Pelagius and John the Baptist, a work traditionally regarded as constituting the starting point for the emergence of Romanesque art in western Iberia.50 The similarity between these two items and their respective chronologies invites us to consider the possibility that Al-Andalus was the region in which Islamic and Pre-Islamic art arrived from Syria and Egypt — that it was here that designs were then superimposed and, on occasions, combined with a local Iberian early Christian substratum — that in turn resulted in a type of hybrid art that drew together motifs from a variety of different historical periods.51 While the Umayyad period was able to import into Al-Andalus items from the Syrian Caliphate, during the Caliphate of Cordoba local production took over, and there was less in the way of the importation of fabrics and ivories. Subsequently, during the Taifa period in the first half of the 11th century, there was a more general diversification of artistic production that, among other things, witnesses a renewed interest in relief sculpture, resulting in the different cultural

Figure 19 Pamplona: Museo de Navarra. Leyre casket, silk lining (Museo de Navarra)

that dates from the first half of the 11th century, despite its suspicious use of Andalusian techniques and models. The cloth shows pairs of birds that are superimposed and are identified by the word: SITACUEST (Fig. 19).45 The sitacus or psiticus is a species of pelican from the Nile. Both the zoological species and the name were exotic to Spain. Knowledge of birds in Al-Andalus must have derived ultimately from the Greco-Latin world, though perhaps combined in some cases, as here, with information received by from Fatimid Egypt. However, we know nothing about the sources of information, so further speculation is pointless. Fabrics, whether used in the linings of ivory caskets, on palace walls or to adorn the bodies of sovereigns, were sumptuous artefacts that drew attention to the status of the respective treasury, space or ruler. Silks aroused such admiration that, on occasions, it was decided to imitate in stone the motifs found in these fabrics, frequently arranged as pallia rotata, designs set both within and between circles. We are accustomed to recognize in the paintings of the lower parts of Romanesque apses a variation on this, similarly evocative of the fabrics that covered sanctuaries in major religious centres. This evocation — imitating on walls the figurative repertoire of fabrics — can be seen in the magnificent great hall known as Santa María del Naranco, outside Oviedo, built before 850. The interior of the upper floor hall itself, as well as the viewing platforms (belvederes) at both ends of the building, are adorned with vertical strips that end in framed tondos, decorated with vegetal motifs in the outer circle and animals in profile in the inner circle. The vegetal ring is composed of a rinceaux pattern that in some cases contains bunches of grapes, a design that was widespread throughout the Mediterranean between the 5th and 10th centuries, and was used in Spain during the early Middle Ages, as with the signet-ring of Caliph Abd al-Malik or the monogram of Ribarroja de Turia (Valencia, Spain).46 By contrast, 253

gerardo boto

Figure 20 Silk saddle cover with pairs of haloed pheasants with haloes. Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung Institute (© Abegg-Stiftung, CH-3132 Riggisberg (Christoph von Virg, 2011))

Figure 21 Silk saddle cover, detail of haloed pheasant. Riggisberg, Abegg-Stiftung Institute (© Abegg-Stiftung, CH-3132 Riggisberg (Christoph von Virg, 2011))

and figurative traditions that become a feature of the Iberian Peninsula over the 11th century. Fabrics from Almeria, like the one used in San Pelayo casket, or Cuenca ivories, like the Santo Domingo de Silos reliquary-casket, express clearly this assumption and the tendency to both draw on and update earlier artistic traditions.

Figure 22 Santa Maria del Naranco: haloed pheasant on facade tondo (© C. García de Castro) 254

the migration of mediterranean images political presents.55 For a while, historians of Spain wanted to define the art of the 10th and first half of the 11th centuries as the work of expatriate monks and anti-Islamic Christian militants. However, traffic in the sumptuary arts was carried out by ambassadors. Diplomatic channels opened the way to a foreign art which in turn stimulated a taste for Islamic art shared by the political elite and among the artists of the kingdoms of Navarre and León. To a great extent, Spanish pre-Romanesque sculpture, from Ramiro I at Naranco until Fernando I and Sancha in San Isidoro de León, is indebted to these embassies. However, the impact of Islamic and Late Antique art in Christian manuscripts is lower than that assumed in the ornamentation of contemporary buildings.56

CONCLUSION Arabic numbers and heads covered by turbans are found for the first time in the Codex Albeldense. The Sassanian senmurv is present in two 10th-century manuscripts in Leon.52 Its appearance in Christian codices is both a symptom and a certification of a form of cultural exchange: exotic visual emblems of alien cultures were admissible because admiration for the art of another culture was compatible with military hostility. An analytical perspective that considers only formal similarity, or that interprets the transmission of motifs as the simple replication of images and an activity devoid of any larger cultural meaning, overprivileges form. Motifs transferred and inserted into alien contexts demonstrate, to an even greater degree than the circulation of goods and people (artists), the aesthetic and ideological interests of the recipients. The Iberian Peninsula was home to Late Antique, Islamic, Byzantine and Latin figurative and ornamental imagery before the eruption of the European international language that we call Romanesque effectively brought new traditions into play.53 We obviously cannot assert that the utilization of Islamic models and motifs in Christian Spanish work involved a transfer or understanding of the beliefs and discourses that the images enjoyed in their original contexts. As Kubler put it, ‘continuous form does not predicate continuous meaning, nor does continuity of form or of meaning necessarily imply continuity of culture’.54 We have no contexts or evidence to assume that the images were used with a definite communicative intention. However, in cases where we might suspect that exotic forms were reproduced because their recreators wished to display or extend their erudition, and that the designs were considered visually pleasing and therefore appropriate to the ‘ornamentalization’ of processional crosses such as that at San Millan de La Cogolla, of manuscripts such as the Girona Beatus, or reliefs like the one of Retortillo, one could argue that the general meaning — the desire to evoke Paradise — was preserved and consolidated. Thus, figurative work of the 10th century could connect with figurative displays from previous centuries, like those of the churches of Quintanilla de las Viñas or San Pedro de la Nave. Every society contains different visual communities, according to the quantity and plurality of figurative registers that it produces. Spanish workshops in the 10th and 11th centuries accumulated iconographic sources with different origins and trajectories. The superimposition of artistic elements from different historical periods and traditions did not, however, produce fusion. At best, it produced what might be described as an intercommunity art, which of itself is the most significant feature of Spanish preRomanesque. Sogdian fabrics and Umayyad ivories arrived at Spanish Christian courts and monasteries as

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to offer great thanks to Luisa Elena Alcalà and John McNeill for reviewing the translation of this text along with a number of people and institutions who helped in the production of images. Most are mentioned in the captions, but I would particularly like to express my gratitude to Michael Peter of the Abegg-Stiftung Foundation, and John Dunlop of the British Archaeological Association. NOTES 1 E. Fernández, ‘Hacia la renovación escultórica de la segunda mitad del siglo XI. Los ejemplos del sarcófago de San Martín de Dumio y de la pila bautismal de San Isidoro de León’, De arte, 6 (2007), 5–36; A. Franco, ‘Un vaciado de una pila bautismal de San Isidoro de León’, Toletum, 54 (2007), 167–76. 2 W. Neuss, Die Apokalypse des hl. Johannes in der altspanischen und altchristlichen Bibel-Illustration (das Problem der BeatusHandschriften): Nebst einem Tafelbande enthaltend 284 Abbildungen. 2, Tafeln (Münster in Westf.: Aschendorff 1931); P. Klein, ‘La tradición pictórica de los beatos’, in Actas del Simposio para el estudio de los códices del ‘Comentario al Apocalipsis’ de Beato de Liébana (Madrid 1980), II, 85–115; J. Williams, The Illustrated Beatus. A Corpus of the Illustrations of the Commentary on the Apocalypse. I. Introduction (London 1994), 20–103. 3 Madrid. Biblioteca Nacional. MS Vitr. 14–2, fol. 109. 4 The iconography of Noah’s Ark found in copies of family II was formulated by Magio. It is used in the following copies of Beatus; Pierpont Morgan, fol. 79; Valcavado, fols 73v–74; Girona, fols 102v and 103; Urgell, fol. 82v; Silos, fol. 79v; Fernando I and Sancha, fol. 109; Saint-Sever, fol. 85; Turin, fol. 77v; Huelgas, fols 73v–74; Manchester, fol. 15; Alfonso García Leal, Beato de Fernando I y Sancha (Valencia 2007), 91. 5 J. Williams, J. González, M. Sánchez-Mariana and J. Yarza, Beato de Fernando I y Sancha (Barcelona 2007), 152. Yarza points out that the winged lion is similar to one of the beasts in the vision of Daniel. However, the actual resemblance is found on the bear of the second level of the Ark. The manticore was not represented again in any other Spanish manuscript, though it had been already represented, but under the titulus of ‘serena’, in the Codex Albeldense. 6 M. A. Sepúlveda Gonzalez, ‘La iconografia del Beato de Fernando I y Sancha (Aproximación al Estudio Iconográfico de los Beatos)’ (unpublished Ph.D, thesis, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1987), 1123–24, reviews the comparison Mireille Mentré

255

gerardo boto 12 ‘Scrire debemus in indos subtilissimum ingenium habere exceteras gentes eis in archimethica et geométrica et ceteris liberalibus disciplinis concedere. Et hoc manifestum est in nobem figuris quipus designant ununquemque gradum cuiuslibet gradus quorum hec sunt forma.’ To illustrate this repertoire he reproduced the nine figures of the numbers, displayed from right to left, and therefore taken directly from an Andalusian scroll. I. Bango ed., La Edad de un Reyno. Las encrucijadas de la diócesis y la corona de Pamplona (Pamplona 2006), I, 107. 13 If I am right, this is the earliest representation of a Muslim in Spanish Christian art. Silva, ‘Tradición hispana’ (as n. 11), 73–74. Those three busts are not an example of iconographic transference, but demonstrate that Vigila knew the characteristic appearance of the others in the Iberian Peninsula. The famous knight in the Girona Beatus similarly reflects a historical reality. Muslims as an iconographic theme — rather than as a source of art — was the subject of a doctoral thesis by I. Monteira Arias, ‘La escultura románica y la lucha contra el Islam (siglos XI al XIII)’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 2010), which updates previous studies on the subject. 14 J. Yarza, ‘Los inicios de la miniatura hispana altomedieval’, Arte Medievale, XI (1997), 35–59. 15 The image was published by Williams. However, I am indebted to Antonio Costán, to whom I owe my knowledge of the text and its probable chronology, and I would like to express my appreciation to him. 16 C. Cid, ‘El caballero y la serpiente. Iconografía y origen de una miniatura singular del “Beato” de Girona’, Annals de l’Institut d’Estudis Gironins, 30 (1988–89), 99–139. O. K. Werckmeister, ‘The Islamic Rider in the Beatus of Girona’, Gesta, 36.2 (1997), 101–06; Jessica Sponsler, ‘Defining the boundaries of Self and Other in the Girona Beatus of 975’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of North Carolina, 2009), 35 and 36 argues that there are negative connotations in the Herod rider and positive in the marginal horseman, although both share the same Islamic appearence. 17 Werckmeister, ‘The Islamic Rider’ (as n. 16), 102–03 notes the different natures conferred on the snake by the Physiologus. On the links between the illustration in the Beatus volume and historical circumstance, see S. Moralejo, ‘El mundo y el tiempo en el mapa del Beato de Osma’, in El Beato de Osma. Estudios, ed. J. Arranz (Valencia 1992), 151–79. 18 Another supposedly ‘Oriental’ figure is the rider spearing the serpent (Williams, The Illustrated Beatus (as n. 2), II, fig. 318) in the Girona Beatus. Williams recognized that this figure might be a Christian rider copying Muslim dress, rather than an Islamic rider (Williams, The Illustrated Beatus (as n. 2), I, 60). 19 J. Guilman, ‘Zoomorphic Decoration and the Problem of the Sources of Mozarabic Illumination’, Speculum, 35 (1960), 17–38, esp. 20; P. O. Harper, ‘The Senmurv’, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 20 (1961), 95–101; A. Bisi, ‘Senmurv’, Enciclopedia dell’arte antica, VII (Rome 1966), 198–200; F. C. de Blois, ‘Simurgh’, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. H. A. R. Gibb, J. H. Kramers, E. LeviProvençal and J. Schacht (Leiden 1997), IX, 615. M. Compareti, ‘The so-called Senmurv in Iranian Art: a Reconsideration of an Old Theory’, in Loquentes linguis. Studi linguistici e orientali in onore di Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti, ed. P. G. Borbone, A. Mengozzi and M. Tosco (Wiesbaden 2006), 185–200; S. Riccioni, ‘Sul “bestiario” del reliquiario di san Matteo: Montecassino, Roma e la “Riforma” tra Occidente cristiano e Oriente islamico’, in ‘Conosco un ottimo storico dell’arte’. Per Enrico Castelnuovo. Studi di allievi e amici pisani, ed. M. Donatto and M. Ferretti (Pisa 2012), 35–42. 20 A. Grabar, ‘Elements sassanides et islamiques dans les enluminures des manuscrits espagnols du haut Moyen Age’, in Arte del Primo millennio: Atti del II covegno per lo studio dell’arte dell’alto medioevo (Viglongo 1950), 314. The eagle with the prey, like the griffins, was included in an ivory casket made in Córdoba around 970. See the entry by Jerrilynn Dodds, ‘Pyxis of Ziyad Ibn Aflah’, in The Art of Medieval Spain, A. D. 500–1200 (New York 1993), 94–95. 21 M. Mentré, El estilo mozárabe. La pintura cristiana hispánica en torno al año 1000 (Madrid 1994), 80. This is also referred to by

first made between this miniature and a Visigothic choir screen in Merida. Sepúlveda also invokes mosaics in Antioch and paintings of Santa Eulalia de Bóveda. The Rylands Beatus arrangement was also used for Noah’s Ark in the Bible of Avila. 7 El Escorial, MS d.I.2; J. Fernández Montaña, ‘El códice Albeldense o Vigilano que se conserva en el Escorial’, in Museo Español de Antigüedades, ed. J. de D. de la Rada y Delgado (Madrid 1874), III, 509–44, at 520 defined those beasts as ‘beautiful and horrible at the same time’; G. Antolin, Catálogo de los códices latinos de la Real Biblioteca del Escorial, vol. I (Madrid 1910), 377– 81; vol. IV (Madrid 1916), 535; J. Domínguez Bordona, Exposición de códices miniados españoles (Madrid 1929), 38 and 39, fig. 17; S. Silva y Verástegui, ‘Los monasterios riojanos y el arte de la miniatura en el Alto Medievo’, in III Semana de estudios medievales (Nájera 1992 and Logroño 1993), 213–31, esp. 218–23; E. Fernández and F. Galván, ‘Iconografía, ornamentación y valor simbólico de la imagen’, in Códice Albeldense 976: original conservado en la Biblioteca del real Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial (d.I.2), ed. J. García Turza, (Madrid 2002), 203–77. 8 M. Schapiro, ‘From Mozarabic to Romanesque at Silos’, in Romanesque Art: Selected Papers, (New York 1977), 28–101, no. 48. 9 Geride marine might be intended as an aquatic version of the garida or garuda, a mythical bird of Indian origin and solar symbology, like the Persian senmurv or the Arabic anka, though it has no precedent (V. C. Pelat, ‘Anka’, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. H. A. R. Gibb, J. H. Kramers, E. Levi-Provençal and J. Schacht (Leiden 1961), I, 509). 10 Fernández and Galván, ‘Iconografía, ornamentación’ (as n. 7), 246 use the term ‘rinule’, but the titulus, although damaged, should be read as ‘rimile’. 11 The canons are framed by arches and open at fol. 56. Those that contain monstrous motifs are fol. 57v: two snakes curved to catch between their mouths a hare that is being chased by a mastiff, a hound and rabbit arranged as columns; fol. 58v: three fishes elongated at one end —rimile marine — with another creature in the middle; fol. 59: three fantastic dragons — draco — under the dragon in the middle is written corcodrillum. They have over their heads a female centaur, horned and bicorporated, grabbing in her hands two animal tails that end in eagle’s heads; fol. 59v: two colossal basilisks — basiliscum — with strange crests over the head accompanied by a webfooted female with a long fish tail — Sura — the figure vaguely recalls a siren and seems to be linked to the geride marine of the following folio; fol. 60; two aspide with a cascade of animals in the centre: a manticore — serena(!) — a caprid — hagan — a feline with deer’s legs — Lenda — and a creature composed of two horned ovoidal heads, human arms, a long tail and membranous feet — geride marine (see Schapiro, ‘From Mozarabic’ (as n. 8), no. 48; Silva, ‘Los monasterios riojanos’ (as n. 7), 223 considered it to be the union of two half-bodies); fol. 60v: the trunk of a tree rooted in a semicircle (the Earth?) with two bent branches forming round arches, under which are a cockerel and a bird, and in the margins two felines chasing two goats, all lacking tituli, perhaps because they are common animals; S. Silva y Verástegui, ‘Tradición hispana e influencias exteriores en la miniatura en el Reino de Pamplona durante los siglos X y XI’, Cuadernos de la Cátedra de Patrimonio y Arte Navarro, 3 (2008), 51–86. On this last question in the later Middle Ages, see J. Leclercq-Marx, ‘Les œuvres romanes accompagnées d’une inscription. Le cas particulier des monstres’, Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale, 40 (1997), 91–102. None of those animals and monsters were then reproduced in the Codex Emilianense, a copy of the Codex Albeldense made in San Millán de la Cogolla in 992; G. Antolin, ‘El códice Emilianense de la Biblioteca de El Escorial’, La Ciudad de Dios, 72 (1907), 184–95, 366–78, 542–51, 628–41; 73 (1907), 108–20, 279–91, 455–67; 74 (1907), 135–48, 215– 27, 382–93, 565–77, 644–49; S. Silva y Verástegui, Iconografía del Siglo X en el Reino de Pamplona-Nájera (Pamplona 1984), 68–72; J. Yarza, ‘Pittura e miniatura nei regni di León e Navarra verso l’anno mille’, in Medioevo aostano. La pittura intorno all’anno mille in cattedrale e in Sant ‘Orso (Turin 2000), 269–78.

256

the migration of mediterranean images Pierpont Morgan, MS 333, fol. 51) — illustrated in Dodwell (as above), fig. 187. 30 The term arenacis is used in the 18th line of the psalm 103 in the Hispanic Psalter (J. P. Gilson ed., The Mozarabic Psalter (London 1905) rather than the word ericiis, as it is noted in the Vulgate: ‘montes excelsi cervis petra refugium ericiis’. This rendering is the reason why rocks are considered refuges for the thirsty instead of hedgehogs. See Sponsler, Defining the Boundaries (as n. 16), 70. 31 V. Pritchard, English Medieval Graffiti (Cambridge 2008). 32 J. M. Blazquez, Mosaicos romanos en España (Madrid 1993), 214–15. 33 For Aristotle, mimesis has its archetype in the artist’s own mind. Art imitates nature not only because it can mirror reality, but also through a mixture of the artist’s inspiration, his or her ability, and the medium which he or she uses. 34 Williams, The Illustrated Beatus (as n. 2) II, 58. J. Camón Aznar, El arte en los Beatos y el códice de Gerona, estudio adjunto al facsímil, Beati in Apocalipsim in Libri Duodecim Codex Gerundensis (Madrid 1975), 141 identified them as Apollo and Poseidon respectively. The lexicographical proximity of Apolyon and Apollo could have misled historians. 35 Miranda, ‘Estudio estilístico e iconográfico’ (as n. 21), 126. 36 M. I. Rodríguez López, ‘Pervivencias iconográficas del mundo clásico en los códices prerrománicos: la personificación del Mar’, Cuardernos de Arte e Iconografía, VII (1993), 218–24. Here the representarion of the codex from Girona is not mentioned. For a general framing of the subject, G. Batelli, ‘Motivi figurativi antichi nei manoscritti latini altomedievali’, in Testo e immagine nell’alto medioevo, settimane di studio del centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioeve, XLI (Spoleto 1994), 505–31. 37 The assumption is that the personifications follow those used in manuscripts produced in court school, like that of Tours Tours. Following this trend, Miranda points to the Vivian Bible (Paris, Bib. Nat., MS fr. 1, fol. 327). 38 Sponsler, Defining the Boundaries (as n. 16), 70. 39 Miranda, ‘Estudio estilístico e iconográfico’ (as n. 21), 102 goes into a hermeneutic interpretation abour Egyptian ascendants. An updated summary of medieval teratology can be found in C. Lecouteux, Les monstres dans la pensée médiévale européenne (París 1993). 40 Paris, Musée du Louvre, OA 9064. D. Gaborit-Chopin, Les Ivoires médiévaux (Paris 2003), no. 41. 41 Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS I.II.1 (olim lat. 93), fol. 80. A. Orriols i Alsina, ‘Illustració de manuscrits a Girona en època romànica’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona, 1999), vol. I, 264–65. Id., ‘El Beatus de Torí i les imatges profanes’, Lambard, XIII (2000–01), 125–62, esp. 128–29, establish similarities between the horned pseudo-man and the satyr in late copies of Solino. In fact, the monster in the Turin Beatus can only be understood as a formal evolution from its precedent in the Girona Beatus. This, with a man’s body and a horned dog’s head, is closely related to the cynocephali of Carolingian ivories, items from the 12th-century Collectánea rerum mirabilia, and, to a lesser extent, with the Vézelay tympanum. The cynocephalus in the Girona Beatus was horned because in the carved ivory it was easy to mistake pointed ears for horns, as can be seen. 42 F. Palomero, ‘Torrepadre. Monasterio de Santa Maria de Retortillo’, in Enciclopedia del románico en Castilla y León. Burgos (Aguilar de Campoo 2002), IV, 2630. 43 J. Fontaine, L’art prérromane hispanique, II: L’art mozarabe (La-Pierre-qui-Vire 1977), 215; F. Regueras, La arquitectura mozárabe en León y Castilla (Salamanca 1990), 51–53; F. Regueras and L. Grau, ‘Castilleja, Retortillo y Castañeda: nuevas evidencias sobre tres viejas iglesias mozárabes’, Boletín de arqueología medieval, 6 (1992)., 103–37, esp. 106–13. Bango, La Edad de un Reyno (as n. 12), II, 631–33. 44 S. Garen, ‘Transformation and creativity in Visigothic-period Iberia’, Antigüedad cristiana, XIV (1997), 511–24. 45 C. Partearroyo, ‘Tejido de la arqueta de Leire’, in Bango, La Edad de un Reyno (as n. 12), I, 499.

C. Miranda, ‘Estudio estilístico e iconográfico del Beato de Girona’, in Beato de Líebana. Códice de Girona (Barcelona 2004), 134. However, the manuscripts from the South of Italy mentioned by Mentré do not describe the senmurv, but griffins. 22 Williams, The Illustrated Beatus (as n. 2), I, 155, no. 61 and fig. 99, interprets those motifs as reflections of a courtly iconography or as images that evoke Paradise. See a fabric preserved in Paris (Museum of Decorative Arts) and an embossed silver plate kept in Tehran. R. Huyghe, El arte y el hombre (Barcelona 1977), I, figs 1031–33. Contemporary with the Girona Beatus is an 10thcentury Byzantine ivory casket kept in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection. Huyghe, El arte y el hombre, II, fig. 261; Williams, The Illustrated Beatus (as n. 2), I, 156, fig. 98. The senmurv is not known in Muslim codices from the 10th century. 23 León, Archivo de la Catedral, MS 6, fol. 3v; M. GómezMoreno, Catálogo monumental de la provincia de León (Madrid 1925), fig. 82; Mentré, El estilo mozárabe (as n. 22), 80 and no. 66 maintains it had reached the north of the Iberian Peninsula by means of Byzantine and Umayyad sumptuous objects. Regarding the presence of those objects in 10th-century León, see C. SánchezAlbornoz, Una ciudad de la España Cristiana hace mil años. Estampas de la vida en León (Madrid 1965), 32 and 33. 24 E. R. Hoffman, ‘Pathways of Portability: Islamic and Christian interchange from the 10th to the 12th century’, Art History, 24 (2001), 17–50; F. Prado-Vilar, ’Enclosed in Ivory: The Miseducation of al-Mughira’, Journal of the David Collection, 2 (2005), 138–63. 25 Some of the initials in Gregory’s Moralia in Job (Cîteaux, early 12th century: Dijon, Bibliothéque Municipal, MS 173, fol. 174) were developed as landscapes and introduce profane scenes. O. Pächt, La miniatura medieval (Madrid 1984), 59, fig. 75. M. Schapiro, ‘On the Aesthetic Attitude in Romanesque Art’ (1947), in Romanesque Art: Selected Papers (New York 1977), 18 thought that these were ‘the first observations of that kind’ in medieval art. The Girona Beatus was almost a century and a half earlier. 26 W. Neuss, Die Apokalypse des Hl. Johannes in der altspanischen und altchristlichen Bibel Illustration (Müster in Westfalen 1931), I, 275 argued that the griffins derived from the Sassanian world too. However, griffins are found in Visigothic and Asturian work and were added to Christian works contemporary with the Beatus-like ivories from Cuenca and Córdoba or the fragmentary cross from San Millán de la Cogolla. See G. Boto, ‘Figuración animal y ornatus en la Alta Edad Media hispana: una aproximación’, in El Mediterráneo y el arte español, Actas del XI Congreso del C.E.H.A. (Valencia 1998), 43–48. The predilection for Islamic fabrics, or their western interpretations, containing images of animals and monsters in heraldic attitudes also influenced the miniaturists of Codex Aureus Epternacensis (Echternachm 1025-40), who reproduced double-page versions of the textiles at the beginning of each gospel (Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Codex Aureus, fols 51v and 75v). C. R. Dodwell, The Pictorial Arts of the West: 800–1200 (New Haven and London 1993), fig. 9. Miranda also mentions this parallel. A. Grebe, ‘Ornament, Zitat, Symbol: Die sogenannten ‘Teppichseiten’ des Codex aureus von Echternach im Kontext von Buchmalerei und Textilkunst’, in Bezeihungsreiche Gewebe. Textilien im Mittelalter, ed. K. Böse and S. Tammen (Frankfurt am Main 2012), 55–76. 27 F. Juez Juarros, Pila de Almanzor. El agua en el ritual religioso islámico. Pieza del mes del Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Madrid 2001). 28 R. Barroso and J. Morín, La iglesia visigoda de San Pedro de la Nave (Madrid 1997); L. Caballero ed., La iglesia de San Pedro de la Nave (Zamora) (Zamora 2004). 29 M. Park, ‘The Crucifix of Fernando and Sancha and its Relationship to North French Manuscripts’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 36 (1973), 77–91, esp. 86. See also the framing of the scene in which King Athelstan donates a copy of the Life of St Cuthbert painted in Winchester c. 937 (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 183, fol. 1). For an illustration, see Dodwell, The Pictorial Arts (as n. 26), fig. 76. It is even clearer in the later Evangeliary of Saint-Bertin, painted c. 990–1010 (New York,

257

gerardo boto 46 M. C. Villalón, ‘El paso de la Antigüedad a la Edad Media. La incierta identidad del arte visigodo’, in Arte de épocas inciertas: de la Edad Media a la Edad Contemporánea, ed. M. Lacarra Ducay (Zaragoza 2009), 25, figs 59–60. This refers to A. Grabar, La iconoclastia bizantina (Madrid 1998), 77–87; E. Juan, V. Lerma and I. Pastor, ‘Pla de Nadal. Una villa nobiliaria de época visigoda’, Arqueología, 131 (1992), 22–32, and L. Caballero, ‘Un canal de transmisión de los clásico en la Alta Edad Media española. Arquitecutra y escultura de influjo omeya en la Península Ibérica entre mediadios del siglo VIII e inicios del siglo X’, Al-Qantara, XV (1994), 337–38. 47 J.-P. Laporte, ‘Notice sur les tissus de Chelles, Jouarre et Faremoutiers‘, in Trésors sacrés, trésors cachés. Patrimoine des églises de Seine-et-Marne (Paris, Musée du Luxembourg 1988), 53–60. Id., ‘Tissu sassanide de Jouarre’, in Splendeur des Sassanides (Brussels 1993), 278–79. 48 See the Samitum-woven textile with confronted birds in medallions (silk — Iran or Iraq, c. 650–750) now in the David collection, Copenhagen. With its design consisting of confronted pheasants or peacocks and eagles standing on winged palmettes in medallions, this textile clearly belongs to a tradition that was found in both the Sassanian and the Byzantine empires. The manufacture of complex textiles, like this samitum, required great technical competence and was exceedingly costly. While the early Muslims were suspicious of the magnificence that silk textiles represented, such fabrics quickly became indispensable at the Umayyad and later Abbasid court, whether they were used for clothing or as hangings. M. Comparetti, ‘The role of the Sogdian Colonies in the diffusion of the pearl roundels pattern’, in Eran ud Aneran. Studies presented to Boris I. Marshak, ed. M. Compareti, P. Raffetta and G. Scarcia (Venice 2006), 149–74. 49 K. Otavsky and S. Blair eds, Entlang der Seidenstrasse Frühmittelalterliche Kunst zwischen Persien und China in der AbeggStiftung (Riggisberg 1998), 13–17, 36–37. A. de Moor, 3500 Years of Textile Art (Tielt 2008), 240–41. 50 Maria Cruz Villalón, ‘El paso de la Antigüedad a la Edad Media. La incierta identidad del arte visigodo’, in Arte de épocas inciertas: de la Edad Media a la Edad Contemporánea (as n. 46), 7–45, figs 74 and 75.

51 C. Delgado, ‘El arte de Ifriqiya y sus relaciones con distintos ámbitos del Mediterráneo: Al-Andalus, Egipto y Sicilia’, Al-Qantara, 17 (1996), 291–320. 52 Highly questionable today. See Grabar, ‘Elements sassanides et islamiques’ (as n. 20), 312–15. 53 D. Jacoby, ‘Silk Economics and Cross-Cultural Artistic Interaction: Byzantium, the Muslim World, and the Christian West’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 58 (2004), 197–240. For the 11th– 13th centuries, id., Commercial Exchange Across the Mediterranean: Byzantium, the Crusader Levant, Egypt and Italy (Aldershot 2005). Regarding the situation in the later Middle Ages, see id., ‘Oriental Silks go West: A Declining Trade in the Later Middle Ages’, in Islamic artefacts in the Mediterranean world: trade, gift exchange and artistic transfer, ed. C. Schmidt Arcangeli and G. Wolf (Venice 2010), 71–88. A historiographic reflection can be found in J. Wirth, ‘À propos des influences bizantines sur l’art du Moyen Âge occidental’, in The Material and the Ideal. Essays in Medieval Art and Arhcaeology in Honour of Jean-Michel Spieser, ed. A. Cutler and A. Papaconstantinou (Leiden 2007), 219–31. 54 G. Kubler, ‘Period, Style and Meaning in Ancient American Art’, New Literary History, 1–2 (1970), 127–44, part 143–44. 55 A. Cutler, ‘Les échanges de dons entre Byzance et l’Islam (IXe–XIe siècles)’, Journal des Savants, 1 (1996), 51–66. Id., Gifts and gift giving’, in Late antiquity. A guide to the postclassical world, ed. G. Bowersock, P. Brown and O. Grabar (Cambridge 1999), 469–70. Id., ‘Gifts and gift exchange as aspects of the Byzantine, Arab, and related economies’, in A. Cutler, Image making in Byzantium, Sasanian Persia and the early Muslim World (Aldershot 2009), 247–78. Id., ‘Significant Gifts: Patterns of Excange in Late Antique, Byzantine, and Early Islamic Diplomacy’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 38 (2008), 79–102. Id., ‘Constantinople and Cordoba: cultural exchange and cultural difference in the ninth and tenth centuries’, in A. Cutler, Image making in Byzantium (as above), III, 1–18. 56 A. Martínez-Tejera, ‘La arquitectura cristiana del siglo X en el Reino de León (917–1037): de ‘mozárabe’ a ‘arquitectura de fusión’, Antigüedad cristiana, XXVIII (2011), 165–231. It is proportionally lower because the quantity of Pre-Umayyad motifs is limited and it was also sub iudice.

258

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 259–275

SCULPTORS IN MEDIEVAL SPAIN AFTER THE CONQUEST OF TOLEDO IN 1085 Rose Walker This paper proposes that Alfonso VI may have acquired captive artisans from his occupation of the Taifa (Æā’ifa) city of Toledo in 1085 and that he may have put them to work on churches in Galicia, León and Castile. Some of the earliest Romanesque sculpture in Spain at Santiago de Compostela, San Isidoro de León and San Salvador de Nogales is revisited to identify links with Taifa stone- and ivory-carving. This route may have gone on to provide some of the expertise that was central to the development of early Romanesque sculpture. The context provided for this theory includes the broader use of enslaved labour from the 10th to the 15th century and documented ambivalence towards Islamic artistic skill in the Christian kingdoms. I further suggest that skilled labour, enslaved or freed, may have been exchanged across the papal friendship circle and that Cardinal Richard of St-Victor de Marseille may have played an important role.

a glass pavilion and a lion-fountain.3 Only two caskets, one pyxis and seven fragments in ivory survive to suggest the wealth of luxury items commissioned by its powerful rulers.4 All these pieces were preserved in Christian treasuries, where they were probably used as reliquaries, and are now known as the Silos casket (1026); the Palencia casket (1049–50) made for al-©ājib Husām al-Dawla Ismā‛īl, the son of al-Mam’ūn (d. 1075); the Narbonne pyxis, probably also made for Isma‛il, and the patched fourth side of the Beatitudes casket from San Isidoro de León (1043–77).5 Inscriptions localize their production to the town of Cuenca, part of the kingdom of Toledo, and to the hands of Mu¬ammad ibn Zayyān, ‘his servant’, and ‛Abd al-Ra¬mān ibn Zayyān. These pieces share a technical and stylistic approach defined by formal low-relief carving, most often in horizontal panels, symmetrical designs and highly drilled foliate ornament framed by geometric shapes. The sides of the Silos casket and the Palencia casket offer broad surfaces where birds, hinds, stags with antlers, lions and winged griffins inhabit scrolls or geometric forms that often recall textile designs (Fig. 2). More dynamic hunting scenes include men pursuing lions with spears or hinds with bows and arrows. The hunters and the hunted on the later Palencia casket are more stylized than those on the Silos casket. The men are stocky, their hair cap-like and their drapery delineated by parallel lines, whilst angular lions open gaping jaws to attack other prone figures. Little more survives of the buildings

After the collapse of the caliphate in Córdoba in the early 11th century, al-Andalus fragmented into over thirty small independent states, known as Taifa kingdoms.1 Instead of the previous division of Iberia into al-Andalus and, in the north, the smaller tributary Christian principalities dominated by León, the peninsula became a patchwork of more equal states. During the ensuing decades, the more powerful rulers began to swallow up the smaller kingdoms, so that larger units dominated. In the 1070s one king, Alfonso VI, came to rule León, Castile and much of Navarre in the north, whilst the Taifa kingdom of Toledo (ÆulayÐula), ruled by al-Mam’ūn of the Banū Dhū’l-Nūn, held the centre of the peninsula, and Seville (Ishbīliya) governed most of the south. The Taifa kingdom of Badajoz (Batalyaws) held the south-west, and Zaragoza (Saraqusta) the north-east in alliance with the Christian rulers of Aragón, Navarre and Catalonia (Fig. 1). León had a complex relationship with its Taifa neighbours, including a close alliance with Toledo, to the extent that, when al-Ma’mūn’s grandson proved an incompetent ruler, Alfonso VI took control of Toledo in 1085 and acquired direct access to its sumptuous palaces and its artisans. The art of the successor Taifa kingdoms used to be considered derivative and inferior to that of Córdoba, but more recently their achievements have come to be recognized as sophisticated developments of the caliphal repertoire.2 Al-Ma’mūn’s Toledo (1043–75) certainly inspired poetic descriptions of its court festivities, set amongst © British Archaeological Association 2015

259

rose walker

Figure 1 Map of Spain after 1085

commissioned by al-Ma’mūn. One standing structure is the chapel of Belén, now within the convent of Santa Fe de Toledo, and probably the palace oratory built for al-Ma’mūn.6 Although it was redecorated in the later Middle Ages, its form is still visible: an octagonal cupola, with eight intersecting ribs, rises over a small square room, once open on at least three sides through horseshoe arches. Otherwise only fragments remain to give an impression of the rich marble, stucco and glass decoration of the palace, which featured birds, animals and human figures. For current purposes the most relevant pieces are two robust marble capitals and two bases, found during an excavation in the nearby parish church of Santo Tomé.7 The capitals have two rows of prominent thick striated acanthus leaves that project from the basket (Fig. 3). Highly drilled low-relief carving covers the surfaces with foliate and geometric ornament, and bands of epigraphy decorate both the capitals and the bases. These pieces used Cordoban techniques to produce precise carving with a drill, but created a Toledan style that was differentiated not only from its Cordoban models but also from the more delicate elongated capitals carved in alabaster for its neighbour and rival Taifa kingdom, Zaragoza.8 Before Alfonso VI’s occupation of Toledo in 1085, there is no firm 11th-century evidence for stonecarving in León, Galicia or Castile. The last fine marble

capitals carved in the kingdom of León belonged to a group of ‘Mozarabic’ churches of the 10th century and were the work of craftsmen brought from al-Andalus.9 The limited number of these capitals makes it unlikely that their craftsmen stayed in the north or trained apprentices. From c. 1020 sustained relief marble carving was found in Catalonia, north and south, but not in other regions of Spain. Ivory carving appeared in León and Navarre in the third quarter of the 11th century. In 1059 Fernando I and Queen Sancha commissioned a reliquary casket of St John the Baptist and St Pelagius, of which the wooden core and ivory panels survive although the large sheets of gold are lost.10 Twelve of the ivory panels are rectangular, arranged along the sides and expertly carved to depict the twelve apostles holding books. Nine stand under horseshoe arches, whereas three, including St Peter, appear below semicircular arches. St Peter’s arch bears a comma border more usually found in Andalusi work. The sculptor not only used keys to identify Peter in the usual fashion, but also made the teeth of the keys spell out his name. Although the origin of this unusual and witty feature lies in late antiquity and can be found on Ottonian ivories, its clear use here recalls the playful visual signatures on Andalusi ivories and may even mean that ‘Petrus’ was the baptismal name of the carver (Fig. 4).11 The eyes of the apostles are inlaid, a technique that had been used on some 260

sculptors after the conquest of toledo

Figure 2 Silos casket, front panel, Museo de Burgos (Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art)

have helped to date the chest and to identify its patrons and artists. One of these panels features two figures, a master called Engelramus and his son Redolfus, who are shown planing or burnishing a panel (Fig. 5). It is usually assumed that they are the ivory-carvers polishing their work, but Isidro Bango has proposed that these figures may instead be the goldsmiths, a view recently supported by Marta Poza.15 Prudencio de Sandoval, who described the reliquary in the 17th century before it was pillaged, identified another tiny ivory panel, still intact at that period, which portrayed a master holding a hammer and pincers alongside a young disciple called Simeon who held a piece of ivory. The name of the ivory master, perhaps García like the king, was crafted in gold.16 If Sandoval can be relied upon, the goldsmith crafted the name of his ivorycarving colleague, who in turn carved an image of him and his apprentice. If all the craftsmen came from Germany, such a gesture makes little sense, but if the San Millán reliquary was the result of an exceptional collaboration between a goldsmith from the Empire and ivory-carvers trained in a Taifa kingdom, their mutual signatures become a way of recording that particularly creative process. It is that kind of collaborative working that may be behind the beginnings of

Carolingian ivories and could also be found on an early-11th-century Islamic ivory panel.12 Together with the leaf forms that fill the spandrels of the arches and the unexpected inclusion of a palm tree behind St Michael on one of the lid panels, these features indicate a collaboration between a trans-Pyrenean goldsmith and more than one ivory-carver with an Andalusi formation. There is little doubt that the design shows an awareness of Ottonian carving, most often localized to Echternach. Indeed, a rectangular ivory panel, now in the Musée de Cluny and attributed to Echternach, depicts an apostle framed under an arch, although, aside from the design, there is little else to link the piece to the panels at León, which are less classically accomplished but have a vitality and precision lacking in the Echternach ivory.13 Thus the ivory carvers in Léon may have worked from matrices provided by the goldsmith, but in their execution of the carving they disclosed their Andalusi training.14 Even clearer evidence of such collaboration may come from the reliquary chest of San Millán de Cogolla, produced c. 1076, under the patronage of King García of Navarre. Its sheets of gold have again been stripped, taking with them the main inscription, but the surviving ivory panels contain tituli, which 261

rose walker

Figure 3 Toledo: marble capital (Museo Santa Cruz, Toledo)

Figure 4 San Isidoro, León: St Pelagius reliquary, ivory panel depicting St Peter (San Isidoro, León) 262

sculptors after the conquest of toledo

Figure 5 San Millán de la Cogolla: reliquary of St Emilianus, ivory panel depicting Engelramus and Redolfus, St Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum (The State Hermitage Museum, Photo by Vladimir Terebenin)

263

rose walker fellow artists and, above all, would have had access to the finest materials for their craft. In al-Andalus, slavery was often viewed as a temporary state on the way to manumission, although valuable slaves with sought-after skills might not be so readily freed.23 The status of Taifa artists is more obscure; the two named ivory-carvers from Cuenca appear to belong to one family, but that does not necessarily mean that they were free. Mu¬ammad ibn Zayyān used the title ‘servant’, omitted by ‛Abd al-Ra¬mān ibn Zayyān, which could indicate that the latter was a freedman, but equally there may have been no more space after the long name, honorary titles and blessings of the recipient. The enslaved artisans of Spain were not an isolated phenomenon at this period, as small-scale slavery was the norm across Europe and beyond.24 In Constantinople, Muslim captives were made to work in various kinds of manufacture between the 10th and 13th centuries.25 Even in Anglo-Saxon England slaves could be found in a wide range of occupations, from domestics to goldsmiths.26 Evidence for skilled slave labour in northern Spain comes mainly from Galicia in the 10th century, from the monasteries of Celanova and Sobrado, where slaves worked with textiles, leather and iron.27 These servi stayed with the monks over several generations, often converted to Christianity and may have taken baptismal names. If it were not for their designation as slaves of Muslim origin in the cartularies, it would not have been possible to distinguish them from the other monastic servants. Evidence for slavery in the Spanish Christian kingdoms, albeit fragmentary, continues into the 13th century and even underwent a resurgence in the 15th century.28 This was not a monumental system, and lack of freedom existed in many forms. It could even be temporary, and, as François Soyer has demonstrated, freedmen belonged to an intermediate social and legal category, often bound into the clientship of their previous owners on an almost familial basis.29 In 13th-century documents this was called a ‘right of patronage’, which could involve a transition period when the slave worked to earn his or her freedom. Two manumission agreements specifically state that a freedwoman would be ‘free to go where she pleased’, suggesting that freed status did not always mean freedom of movement.30 No evidence has survived to show whether the ivory-carvers at León and San Millán were slaves or freedmen. The majority of slaves in the northern kingdoms had been captives, and a surge of enslavement often followed significant victories.31 When Fernando I took Lamego in northern Portugal in 1057, some of the Muslim inhabitants were killed, but ‘others were put in iron chains so they could do a variety of work on churches’.32 Unfortunately, the ‘Historia Silense’ does not say whether this was hard labour carrying stones in gangs or more skilled work. When Ralph of Diceto

Romanesque art in the Spanish peninsula, one that gave it a particular sense of power and imagination. Another plaque, now lost, portrayed the arrival of an ivory tusk, brought by a trader (negotiator) called Vigila, and the excitement that it generated, which suggests that this too was not a regular occurrence. What remains unexplained is the arrival of the ivorycarvers, and whether they came with the ivory or by some other means. Navarre had diplomatic relations with the Taifa kingdom of Zaragoza, from which it exacted paria payments between 1069 and 1076, consequently both may have been delivered as part of a payment.17 Whatever their exact origin and status, these craftsmen were probably not free to go where they wished. Under the Caliphate in Córdoba there would have been little doubt that the artisans who worked for the royal family were slaves, for al-Andalus maintained a slave system where the unfree operated in many capacities.18 Its unfree elite included eunuchs who were high-level administrators and even military commanders, as well as women whose status depended largely on the sons that they bore to the Caliph. They lived alongside other male and female slaves of lower standing, some of whom may have been gang-slaves who were chained to do hard labour in mines, especially if they were captives, but the majority provided unskilled domestic or agricultural labour.19 Glaire Anderson has recently highlighted the roles of the most powerful eunuchs in the second half of the 10th century. Ja‛far supervised the royal textile workshop (Ðirāz), and subsequently Caliph al-©akam II’s extension to the Great Mosque of Córdoba including the marble and mosaic decoration on the new mihrab, whilst Durrī oversaw the royal ivory workshop.20 Five ivory pieces provide information on the unfree artisans who carved the ivories, as they signed their work. Sheila Blair has drawn particular attention to the slave names incised on the large casket made for the ‛Āmirid regent ‛Abd al-Malik in 1004/05, now known as the Pamplona Casket: Faraj (guided), Mi½bā¬ (light), Khayr (goodness), Rashīd (rightly guided) and Sa‛āda (happiness).21 Such signatures confirm the value of the individual’s work, but they also play with the subject status of the artists. The signatures are hidden ingeniously within the design, on the shield of a lion-slayer, on the flank of another, and under the foot of the caliph on the royal throne where it could be read as a visual pun. Blair also notes that the silver and niello Gerona casket of Hishām II was signed by Badr and Æarīf, ‘his servants’, on the underside of the clasp, literally under the thumb of the ruler whenever he opened it.22 Nothing is known of the conditions in which these highly accomplished artists worked and lived, but it is unlikely to have had much in common with later plantation slavery. These men were owned by the Caliph and had to work within the royal workshops, but they had creative partnerships with their 264

sculptors after the conquest of toledo cave, but were discovered by the abbot and brought back to the monastery. It is not clear whether they were working for the monks or, more likely, being held only until they could be exchanged for Christian captives or sold to raise the funds for ransom. After his death St Dominic was celebrated for his miraculous ability to rescue captive Christian soldiers, a talent that was most plausibly based on the monastery’s actual skill in negotiating the release of hostages. By the late 12th century, and especially in the 13th century, a professional system was run by Military Orders to handle the ransom, sale, employment and distribution of Muslim captive slaves in Spain; Ana Echevarría has shown that it even operated under papal approval.39 Not all captives were exchanged, and some Muslim slaves did agricultural labour for the Cistercians at Alcobaça (Portugal).40 Few records concern artisans and most of these come from later periods. In the late 13th century, again in Portugal, a marble inscription provides evidence for a master mason, identified as the ‘bald Moor’ (Mouro Galvo), at the castle of Alandroal (Evora).41 Later still, Jordi de Déu, from Messina in Sicily, was bought as a slave and worked for the sculptor Jaime Cascalls in the Cistercian monastery of Poblet on the funerary project of Pedro IV of Aragón (d. 1387).42 Despite this evidence for captive slaves from the 10th to the 15th century, there is no documented case from late-11th-century Spain that clearly relates to a skilled captive artisan. The people who created remarkable works of early Romanesque art are for the most part invisible, which in itself says something about their status in society. For many decades that lack was filled by the theory of ‘pilgrimage road art’, which saw sculptural and architectural expertise arriving in Spain in the person of independent itinerant craftsmen who travelled the pilgrimage routes in the manner of troubadours. There was no evidence for that activity either, but it appealed to many scholars and enabled them to link sites that exhibited similar work, including Santiago de Compostela, San Isidoro de León, Jaca Cathedral, St-Sernin de Toulouse and Ste-Foy de Conques. The theory is no longer in vogue, partly because it did not address the relevant sites that were not on the pilgrimage routes, and partly because the history of pilgrimage art now concentrates on the pilgrim’s experience.43 However, the concept of the independent itinerant craftsman remains an assumption in many studies on Spanish Romanesque. By bringing together the information set out above and examples of early Romanesque sculpture from Galicia, León and Castile, I wish to propose another way of thinking about the status of early Romanesque sculptors. According to this approach, many of those with artistic expertise would have been captives from Taifa kingdoms. Whether they were enslaved or freed, their freedom of movement would have been restricted, and they were most likely moved between sites as an

recorded the fall of Santarém in 1184, he was more precise and spoke of Saracen captive slaves (servos) who had to repair churches ‘carrying stones and mortar (cementum)’.33 Fernando I’s mother, known as Mayor or Muniadona, also had slaves. After the death of her son, she retired to her native Castile, where she founded a monastery dedicated to St Martin at Frómista in 1066.34 In her will Mayor freed a number of men and women whom she said she had brought up (nutravi). They had been saraceni and were now Christians. As manumission often, but not always, went with conversion, and, given Mayor’s concern for her ex-slaves’s firmness in the faith, these conversions are likely to have been recent. She does not state what duties these former slaves carried out. Some or all of them may have worked the land or had domestic responsibilities, but it is also possible that they included people who worked on the building of the monastery of San Martín at Frómista. Ibn ©ayyān and other Arabic sources say that large numbers of young people were enslaved after the siege of Barbastro (Aragón) in 1063, and that, when it was reconquered by Muslim forces in 1065, the leader of the foreign forces, either Robert Crispin of Normandy or Duke William of Aquitaine, took his booty, including many ornaments, furniture and slaves, back to his trans-Pyrenean territory.35 The same sources mention specifically female slaves, but it is also possible that some of those slaves were artisans, in which case their abduction could have had implications for artistic production in the west of France. Although laymen used slaves for their own purposes, the nature of surviving records dictates that the use of slaves for the good of the church is most apparent. In addition to those cases already stated where ownership seems to have stayed with the royal family, many churches and churchmen owned slaves. The most surprising recorded gift is one to the papacy. The Urgellian adventurer, Arnau Mir de Tost, and his wife Arsendis, had benefited materially from the occupation of Barbastro, but had lost their son in the battle to retain the city. They buried him at their foundation in Àger, alongside the Count of Urgell, who had fallen in the same campaign. Àger was dedicated to St Peter, subject to the papacy (in tutelam sancti Petri et proprietatem) and a house of Regular Canons. Papal protection had been purchased with an initial 5000 gold Valencian solidi.36 When they re-endowed the church in 1068, Arnau and Arsendis made an additional donation to the papacy of 3000 Valencian solidi, a quinquennial cense of ten solidi aurei, and ten black captives.37 Evidence for this transaction was preserved in Aragón, but is missing from the papal archives. The church was also deeply involved in the ransom of captive Christians, which may explain why the Benedictine monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos in Castile held imprisoned ‘Saracen’ captives in the 11th century.38 The Vita of Abbot Domingo tells how the captives escaped and hid in a 265

rose walker made it and that it was beautifully carved with Saracenic work; ‘opere sarracenico optime sculptus’.48 It further asserted that Muhammad had used his magic arts to hide a legion of demons within it, which meant that it could not be broken and made Christians ill if they approached it. This text is perhaps the best witness to a dependence on Islamic artistic expertise that engendered fear as well as wonder. Editorial suppression may be another reason for the lack of documentary evidence for Islamic artisans working on Christian projects. The clearest example of this comes from Montecassino in Italy and not from Spain. Both Amatus of Montecassino and Leo of Ostia described how Abbot Desiderius rebuilt the church of Montecassino before he became Pope Victor III in 1086.49 Because of a lack of trained craftsmen, Amatus told how Desiderius looked to Constantinople and to Alexandria for Greek and ‘Sarrasin’ artists. Yet the mention of Sarrasin artists was excised in Leo of Ostia’s better-known version.50 To avoid this situation in the future, Desiderius had the young monks trained in the full range of arts, gold, silver, bronze, iron, glass, ivory, wood, stucco and stone (‘ex auro vel argento, aere, ferro, vitro, ebore, ligno, gipso, vel lapide’). Amatus’s account of this building project and Desiderius’s resort to eastern, and in particular ‘Sarrasin’ artists, could have provided an imprimatur for the use of craftsmen from the Islamic world in other situations. Montecassino remains another possible source of expertise for work in Spain, and I am not suggesting that early Spanish Romanesque was totally dependent on the expertise preserved in the Taifa kingdoms. However, I wish to maintain that Andalusi expertise was a significant element in the highly creative mix of the later 11th century, which brought together artisans who had related expertise and who were energized by the process of collaboration. For confirmation of the contribution of Taifa sculptors, I shall now turn to early examples of sculpture in the kingdom of Alfonso VI. King Alfonso VI of León had spent months of exile at the court of al-Mam’ūn before he reclaimed his kingdom in 1072; this victory also enabled him to claim the kingdoms of Castile and Galicia that had previously belonged to his brothers. In 1074 he recovered the tributary paria payments owed by the Taifa kingdoms of Seville and Granada, and the first ecclesiastical site to receive a share was Santiago de Compostela. Therefore it is not unreasonable to think that Santiago might also have benefited from Alfonso VI’s occupation of Toledo in 1085. On that occasion the gift may have been expertise rather than gold and, specifically, the ability to carve stone capitals. As the ivory-carvers who worked for Toledo appear to have been in Cuenca, which remained in Muslim hands, it is unlikely that Alfonso VI acquired them, and no surviving pieces attest to the Cuenca ivory-carvers working in the north. Although sculptors sometimes worked in different media, ivory and stone required

integral part of royal and ecclesiastical exchange systems. The craftsmen would have worked under the direction of churchmen who determined iconography, and often with other trans-Pyrenean team-members who for the most part provided expertise in architecture and metalwork. Enslavement would not necessarily have impeded the artistic personalities of these craftsmen, since the sculptures would have been the result of negotiation between the intentions of the clerics and the experience of the artists, mediated by available sources of inspiration. Literary references suggest that their skill was imperfectly understood and regarded as exotic, despite the lower status often accorded to stone-carvers, as opposed to metal- or ivory-workers, in the Middle Ages.44 The main argument against this theory is the lack of written evidence for work undertaken by artisans from Taifa kingdoms. A reluctance to acknowledge the origin of the expertise, which may have seemed almost magical, could partly explain this deficiency. Such ambivalence is reflected in the fascination with Andalusi expertise that pervaded the chansons de geste and other literary genres. Sometimes this was expressed as straightforward admiration, as in the Book of Ste-Foy, when the author describes a saddle given to St Faith by Raymond, count of Rouergue, a piece of booty that he had acquired from the Saracens: It was estimated to be worth at least a hundred pounds. The saddle had been taken apart into separate pieces and made into a great silver cross without breaking or damaging the Saracen engraving, which is so subtle and ingenious that among our goldsmiths no one tries to imitate it and there isn’t even one who has the discernment to appreciate it.45

The mid-12th-century chanson de geste, La Prise d’Orange, talks of Gloriete, a tower built by a Saracen of very great skill — ‘Uns Sarrazins de mout tres grant voidie’ — from Almería, but despite features more appropriate to idealized Islamic pavilions, including ‘unfissured marble’, silver windows and a paradisiac garden setting, the author reconfigures Gloriete as a kind of castle donjon, as well as turning it into a site of voluntary Christian conversion.46 Female captives often featured in the chansons de geste, for example in Yvain, as silkworkers, where they wove their mysterious luxury goods in magical settings.47 Carving is generally absent from these poetic invocations, but can be found in other texts, where it has a diabolic dimension. Christians tended to attribute antique sculptures to Islamic craftsmen, an error which fuelled undeserved accusations of idolatry. A notable example occurs in the Pseudo-Turpin, a text that forms Book Four of the Codex Calixtinus as well as having an independent existence. In this legend Charlemagne destroys all the idols and images in Spain with the exception of the statue of ‘Salam’ at Cádiz. This was an antique bronze statue of Hercules, but the PseudoTurpin declared that the Prophet Muhammad had 266

sculptors after the conquest of toledo

Figure 6

Figure 8

Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, San Salvador chapel: capital with griffins and chalice (John Batten)

Santiago de Compostela Cathedral: ambulatory capital with addorsed lions (John Batten)

Figure 7

Figure 9

Santiago de Compostela Cathedral, San Salvador chapel: capital with griffin (Rose Walker)

Silos casket, right side, Museo de Burgos (Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art)

267

rose walker substantially different techniques, so the sculptors who came with Alfonso VI were probably trained in stone-carving.51 Yet the sculpture produced in Santiago de Compostela and in León shows awareness of the stylistic and iconographic repertoire of the Cuenca ivory-carvers, even though that may indicate merely that this was a shared artistic language. Another explanation would see Alfonso VI taking the Toledan royal ivories as booty to the north, where they were given, or loaned, to those who were overseeing the work of the sculptors. The few capitals that decorate the chapel of San Salvador, the central chapel of the ambulatory at Santiago, are experimental and far from homogeneous.52 One cubic capital, on the left when viewed from the outside of the chapel, bears two griffins with wattles that flank a small chalice (Fig. 6). Carved in low relief, the bodies, wings and tails of the griffins form the sides of the capital, whilst their heads, necks and chests turn sharply to meet on the central face. This is an extravagant interpretation of a classical motif, ‘doves drinking from a bowl’, subsequently reinvented by early Christians. The Islamic ivorycarvers of the Pamplona casket may have nodded towards it when they inserted small birds drinking from a leaf cup into one of the spandrels on the lid. However, the griffins found at Santiago have more in common with the robust hybrids of Islamic metalwork, the Pisa griffin or the cockerel ewer in the David Collection, both of which sport wattles.53 On the righthand side of the chapel, a capital visible only from within employs another griffin. The sharp-beaked head of this griffin recalls those on the Silos casket, whilst its wing ingeniously metamorphoses into the diagonal volute of the capital (Figs 2 and 7). Such fluidity between geometric structure, foliate scrollwork and the figures that inhabit them was characteristic of Andalusi ivories. These griffins may have been considered appropriate for the central chapel at Santiago, either because Islamic textiles with similar motifs had long been used to line reliquaries or because winged griffins were familiar from the side panels of Roman sarcophagi, and Roman sarcophagi were acceptable sources of artistic inspiration for early Spanish Romanesque art in other circumstances.54 Most distinctively, the second griffin capital has a feature known as a piton d’angle, a striated excrescence that emerges from below the volute of the capital. Pitons also appear on capitals in the ambulatory outside the central chapel. One of these capitals features rampant confronted and addorsed lions; the heads of the lions are twisted so that they face forward, whilst their bodies are viewed in profile (Fig. 8). This pose is familiar from lions on the right-hand side of the Silos casket and from marble basins made for the ‛Āmirids, especially that reused by Bādīs, the ruler of Granada from 1038 to 1073 (Fig. 9).55 Confronted and addorsed birds decorate an adjacent capital that has large pitons with rows of small leaves that the birds may be about

to peck. Whatever its form, the piton is a strange — and not entirely happy — invention but it continued to be carved on some capitals in Castile, in Aragón and occasionally north of the Pyrenees. It derived, I suggest, from the prominent striated leaf lobes carved on Toledan capitals and came about through a refashioning of those lobes in an attempt to differentiate the work in Christian settings from Taifa models. The most developed capital in the chapel portrays a seated male figure, wearing a cloak and gripping two large birds by the neck, one in each hand; the eyes of all three figures are drilled. The design recalls a lionstrangler figure found on a 12th-century Almoravid textile.56 The side of the same capital is filled with a sprig of foliage bearing hatched fruits or pine-cones, whose technical execution resembles that used to denote fruits in stuccowork from the Taifa city of Balaguer (Figs 10 and 11). However, the doll-like figural style of the bird-strangler has much in common with that found at Ste-Foy de Conques in the Auvergne,

Figure 10 Santiago de Compostela, San Salvador chapel: capital with bird-strangler (John Batten)

Figure 11 Balaguer, Museu de la Noguera: stuccowork (John Batten) 268

sculptors after the conquest of toledo and it was a trans-Pyrenean sculptural dialogue that was to persist at Santiago.57 Another group of sculptors worked at León in the late 11th century. The narthex at San Isidoro de León, known as the Pantheon for its funerary associations, is generally accepted as the commission of Alfonso VI’s sister, Urraca, for the royal monastery that was in her charge. It is likely that she planned it with assistance from a Cluniac, perhaps Bernard of Sauvetat, who had been abbot of Sahagún and was to remain at court whilst holding the archbishopric of Toledo.58 Although the architectural form of this narthex was established north of the Pyrenees, for example at Cluny II and at St-Philibert de Tournus, the sculptural decoration that was applied to it is more arguably peninsular.59 The majority of the thirty-two Corinthian capitals were carved with strong confident foliate ornament that sits somewhere between the sculpted Toledan capitals and bases, with which it shares its definition and some leaf shapes, and more classical models (Fig. 12). The imposts are carved in a related style that often has even closer links to the Toledan sculpture. Five of the capitals at León have experimental historiated scenes,

whilst the remainder, the ones that are most relevant here, involve men, animals or birds without a clear narrative. Two versions of the ‘doves and chalice’ design occur at San Isidoro: in one example, mediumsized birds with well-defined feathers drink from a small vessel with a flared neck; in the second, chunkier winged griffins, reminiscent of those found on the Palencia casket, drink from a very similar bowl (Fig. 13). The Palencia casket provides a comparison for another capital where a stocky male figure with cap-like hair uses a spear to attack an angular lion (Figs 14 and 15). This may suggest that the Palencia casket was in León during the period when the capitals at San Isidoro were carved, and that it was used to help the sculptors to adapt and extend their sculptural repertoire. The third building where sculpture may belong to this group of early experimental work is the monastic church of San Salvador de Nogales de las Huertas, founded by Doña Elvira c. 1060, but probably rebuilt around the same time as the Pantheon at San Isidoro. The site is about eight kilometres north of Carrión de los Condes, in the lands of Alfonso VI’s childhood

Figure 12

Figure 13

San Isidoro, León: Pantheon, lions and interlace capital (John Batten)

San Isidoro, León: Pantheon, capital, griffins and chalice (John Batten) 269

rose walker

Figure 14 Palencia casket, right side, Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Museo Arqueológico Nacional (N.I. 57371) Ángel Martínez Levas)

friend and supporter, Pedro Ansúrez, Count of Saldaña. Substantial striated pitons d’angle articulate the structure of both the surviving capitals on the sanctuary arch. The capital on the north side is purely vegetal and features the overall classical rinceauxdesign that was widely used by both Christian and Islamic artists at this period (Fig. 16).60 Small diagonal volutes loop almost lazily through the scrollwork; medallions, filled with classical rosettes, decorate the impost, separated by small trefoils that betray the Andalusi inclinations of the sculptor. The second capital has a similar form, a rinceaux background, pitons d’angle, and diagonal volutes. The scroll of palmettes and half-palmettes with almost geometric knotted tendrils on the impost again recall Toledan work. However this capital also depicts three clerical

figures, one on each of the exposed faces of the capital with simple drapery and cap-like hair. Each figure occupies the central space below the fleuron, his small booted feet gripping the torus necking; the figure on the middle face seems almost winged as the feathery diagonal volutes spring from behind his arms (Fig. 17). Holding a crozier loosely in his right hand, the figure on the west side of the capital supports the weight of his body by wrapping his other arm around the volute to his left (Fig. 18). Such dynamic interaction with the architectural form of the capital recalls Andalusi ivory carving, and light-hearted touches were equally integral to that artistic language. If, as I am suggesting, the sculptors of these capitals were captives from Toledo, they seem to have been assigned initially to three sites: to Alfonso VI’s 270

sculptors after the conquest of toledo

Figure 15 San Isidoro, León: Pantheon, capital with hunter spearing lion (John Batten)

271

rose walker

Figure 16 San Salvador de Nogales de las Huertas: capital with rinceaux (John Batten) Figure 18 San Salvador de Nogales de las Huertas: capital, right face, with ecclesiastical figure (John Batten)

favoured cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, to his sister’s project at San Isidoro and to Palencia, the territory of his close friend, Pedro Ansúrez.61 Yet, as is widely acknowledged, there was artistic dialogue between these sites and others far outside Alfonso VI’s kingdoms, most notably with Jaca cathedral in Aragón, St-Sernin de Toulouse and Ste-Foy de Conques in the Auvergne. As a way of analysing these connections, recent research has concentrated on relations between bishops, especially Bishop Peter of Pamplona and Bishop Diego Gelmírez of Santiago.62 I have discussed elsewhere how artistic ideas could have been exchanged more broadly across the papal friendship circle, since papal legates were able to operate across political divides in a way that other clerics could not.63 The pace and pattern of these contacts fits well with the rhythms of sculptural development in northern Spain and southern France. Little consideration has been given, however, to the way in which the sculptors could have been linked to such influential churchmen. Much has been made of ‘Master Stephen’ who worked at Santiago de Compostela and on the cathedral at Pamplona, but Bishop Peter’s 1101 donation to him does not answer questions about his origin,

Figure 17 San Salvador de Nogales de las Huertas: capital, front, with ecclesiastical figure (John Batten) 272

sculptors after the conquest of toledo status or expertise.64 It is clear only that he rendered service (pro servitio bono) to the bishop and that Peter hopes, God willing, that he will continue. There is no explicit contract, and Stephen is not listed as an attendee at the signing of the charter. If, as is generally assumed, Stephen was a master mason who came from north of the Pyrenees, he would probably have been a free man able to determine his work within the constraints of available patronage. Captive artisans from Toledo would have been in a different position. Gifts often sealed relations between kings and churchmen. Cluny preserved the records of Alfonso VI’s generous monetary gifts, and exchange of artistic skill between Cluny and León, as part of their mutually beneficial relationship, is highly likely. John Williams has demonstrated examples of Cluny’s artistic intervention in León, and King Alfonso VI’s annual cense paid for the great church of Cluny III.65 It is not unthinkable that Alfonso VI, like Arnau Mir de Tost, could have sent slaves with his gold, and skilled slaves would have been particularly valuable. Very little is recorded about the other ways in which Alfonso VI deployed his immense wealth and access to Andalusi expertise, although Cluny was far from his only contact within ecclesiastical circles. One of the king’s most lasting relationships was with the papal legate Cardinal Richard of St-Victor de Marseilles. As Richard oversaw the process of liturgical change around 1080, returned to assist the king with his difficulties at Santiago de Compostela in 1088 at the Council of Husillos, and was sent once more as papal legate in 1101 at the behest of Pope Paschal II, he could have provided an important point of entry to the papal friendship circle for the king and his associates. Such an idea is strengthened by Serafín Moralejo’s identification of the Council of Husillos as a key moment in the development of Romanesque sculpture.66 Little remains to attest to Cardinal Richard’s interest in art, as St-Victor de Marseille was rebuilt c. 1200 and stripped during the French Revolution, but it is possible that the Narbonne pyxis from Toledo was a gift to Richard from Alfonso VI, and that the legate took it with him when he became archbishop of Narbonne in 1106. Skilled craftsmen would have formed an even more valuable gift, and one to be redistributed. Once within the ecclesiastical circle, the most accomplished artists could have been shared, loaned, or exchanged. Such controlled movements, based on varied reciprocal transactions, had the capacity to create new teams of craftsmen, to enliven established groups and to enable the transmission and invention of artistic ideas. Through such a method, Toledan expertise could have made a significant contribution to early Romanesque, and further research may make this more evident. When King Pedro I of Aragón conquered the Taifa towns of Huesca in 1096 and Barbastro in 1101, another source of expertise would have become available and, with it, another thread in the complex dynamic network that created Romanesque sculpture.

NOTES 1 H. Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of Al-Andalus (London 1996), 130–40; D. Wasserstein, The Rise and Fall of the Party-Kings: Politics and Society in Islamic Spain 1002–1086 (Princeton 1985). 2 S. Calvo, ‘El arte de los reinos taifas: tradición y ruptura’, in Anales de Historia del Arte: Alfonso VI y el arte de su época, ed. J. Martínez de Aguirre and M. Poza Yagüe, Volumen Extraordinario 2 (Madrid 2011), 77–84. 3 D. F. Ruggles, Gardens, Landscapes, and Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain (Philadelphia 2000), 147–48. 4 J. Dodds ed., Al-Andalus: the art of Islamic Spain (Granada and New York 1992), 204–06, cat. no. 7; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Art of Medieval Spain 500–1200 (New York 1993), 273–76, cat. no.132. 5 E. Kühnel, Die islamischen Elfenbeinskulpturen,VII.-XIII. Jahrhundert (Berlin 1971), no. 71. 6 S. Calvo, ‘La capilla de Belén del Convento de Santa Fe de Toledo: ¿un oratorio islámico?’, Madrider Mitteilungen, 43 (2002), 353–75. 7 Al-Andalus (as n. 4), 259, cat. no. 47; Medieval Spain (as n. 4), 90–91; K. Brisch, ‘Sobre un grupo de capiteles y basas islámicas del siglo XI de Toledo’, Cuadernos de la Alhambra, 15–17 (1979–81), 156–64. 8 C. Robinson, ‘Arts of the Taifa Kingdoms’, in Al-Andalus (as n. 4), 50. 9 S. Noack-Haley, Mozarabischer Baudekor, vol. 1: Die Kapitelle (Mainz 1991), 108–11. 10 Medieval Spain (as n. 4), 236–38, cat. no. 109; A. de Morales, Viage de Ambrosio de Morales por orden del rey D. Phelip II (Madrid 1765), 47–48. 11 J. Bousquet, ‘Encore un motif roman composé de lettres: les clefs de Saint Pierre. Ses origines ottoniennes et paléo-chrétiennes’, Les Cahiers de Saint Michel de Cuxa, 10 (1981), 29–48. 12 Al-Andalus (as n. 4), 203, cat. no. 6. 13 A. Goldschmidt, Die Elfenbeinskulpturen aus der Zeit der karolingischen und sächischen und der romanischen Zeit (Berlin 1914–26), vol. 2, no. 24; for the horseshoe arches on an Islamic pyxis, see C. Ewert, Architectural Décor on the Ivories of Muslim Spain — “Dwarf” Architecture in al-Andalus’, in Journal of The David Collection, vol. 2 (Copenhagen 2005), 108. 14 M. Campbell, ‘Gold, Silver and Precious Stones’, in English Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products, ed. J. F. Blair and N. Ramsay (London 1991), 140. 15 I. Bango Torviso, Emiliano, un santo de la España visigoda, y el arca románica de sus reliquias (San Millán de la Cogolla 2007), 58–59; M. Poza Yagüe, ‘El artista románico (canteros y otros oficios artísticos)’, Revista Digital de Iconografía Medieval, 1 (2009) 10–11 reliquias (San Millán de la Cogolla 2007), 58–59; M. Poza Yagüe, ‘El artista románico (canteros y otros oficios artísticos)’, Revista Digital de Iconografía Medieval, 1 (2009), 10–11. 16 P. de Sandoval, Primera parte de las fundaciones de los monasterios del glorioso Padre San Benito: Monasterio de San Millan de la Cogolla (Madrid 1601), 26. 17 G. Beech, The brief eminence and doomed fall of Islamic Saragossa: a great center of Jewish and Arabic learning in the Iberian Peninsula in the 11th century (Zaragoza 2008), 230–31; J. M. Lacarra, ‘Dos tratados de paz entre Sancho el Peñalén y Moctadir de Zaragoza (1069 y 1073)’, in Homenaje Johannes Vincke para el 11 de Mayo 1962 (Madrid 1962), 121–34. 18 W. D. Phillips Jr, Slavery in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia (Philadelphia 2014), 10–11. 19 G. Anderson, ‘Concubines, Eunuchs, and Patronage in Early Islamic Córdoba’, in Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture, ed. T. Martin, vol. 2 (Boston 2012), 634–36. 20 Ibid., 652–53. 21 S. Blair, ‘What the Inscriptions Tell us: Text and Message on the Ivories from al-Andalus’, in David Collection (as n. 13), 83–86.

273

rose walker 22

41 M. J. Barroca, Epigrafia medieval Portuguesa: 862–1422, vol. II, t. 1 (Lisbon 1999), 1114–18, no. 431 1294–98; J. F. O’Callaghan, ‘The Mudejars of Castile and Portugal in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Muslims under Latin Rule 1100–1300, ed. J. M. Powell (Princeton and New Jersey 1990), 26–27. 42 E. Liaño Martínez, ‘Jordi de Déu, un artista siciliano al servicio de Pedro El Ceremonioso’, Aragón en la Edad Media, 14 (1999), 873–86. 43 P. Gerson, ‘Art and Pilgrimage: Mapping the Way’, in A companion to medieval art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. C. Rudolph (Oxford 2006), 605–10. 44 R. Stalley, ‘Diffusion, Imitation and Evolution: The Uncertain Origins of “Beakhead” Ornament’, in Architecture and Interpretation. Essays for Eric Fernie, ed. J. A. Franklin, T. A. Heslop and C. Stevenson (Woodbridge 2012), 120–21. 45 The Book of Sainte Foy, ed. P. Sheingorn (Philadelphia 1995), 73. 46 S. Kinoshita, ‘Almería Silk and the French Feudal Imaginary: Toward a Material History of the Medieval Mediterranean’, in Medieval Fabrications. Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. J. Burns (New York 2004), 170–71; S. Kinoshita, ‘The Politics of Courtly Love: “La Prise d’ Orange” and the Conversion of the Saracen Queen’, The Romanic Review, 86/2 (1995), 265–87 or in S. Kinoshita, Medieval Boundaries: Rethinking Difference in Old French Literature (Philadelphia 2006), 46–64; J. A. Ashbee, ‘The Chamber called Gloriette: Living at Leisure in the Thirteenth- and Fourteenth Centuries’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 157 (2004), 34–36; S. Farmer, ‘La Zisa/Gloriette: Cultural Interaction and the Architecture of Repose in Medieval Sicily, France and Britain’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 166 (2013), 99–123. 47 E. J. Burns, Sea of Silk. A Textile Geography of Women’s Work in Medieval French Literature (Philadelphia 2007), 37–69. 48 J. V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York 2002), 105–06; Michael Camille, The Gothic idol: ideology and image-making in medieval art (Cambridge and New York 1989), 146. 49 Amatus of Montecassino, The History of the Normans, ed. G. Loud, trans. C. N. Dunbar (Woodbridge 2004), 107. 50 For Leo of Ostia, see H. Bloch, Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages (Rome 1986), I, 41–46. 51 A. Cutler, The Craft of Ivory (Washington 1985), passim; S. M. Guérin, ‘An ivory Virgin at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in a Gothic sculptor’s oeuvre’, The Burlington Magazine, 154 (2012), 400–01. 52 En el principio: la Génesis de la Catedral Románica de Santiago de Compostela, Contexto, construcción y programa iconográfico, ed. J. L. Senra (Santiago de Compostela, forthcoming) may provide additional information. 53 Al-Andalus (as n. 4), 214–15, cat. no. 14, and 216–18, cat. no. 15. 54 G. Davies, ‘Before Sarcophagi’, in Life, Death and Representation: Some New Work on Roman Sarcophagi, ed. J. Elsner and J. Huskinson (Berlin and New York 2011), 35 and 42–44; R. Walker, ‘The influence of papal legates on the transformation of Spanish art in the second half of the eleventh century’, Art et réforme grégorienne en France et en Espagne, ed. B. Franze (Lausanne, forthcoming). Another interpretation has recently been proposed by Victoriano Nodar, see V. Nodar Fernández, ‘Alejandro, Alfonso VI y Diego Peláez: una nueva lectura del programa iconográfico de la capilla de El Salvador de la Catedral de Santiago’, Compostellanum, 45 (2000), 617–48. None of the capitals in or near the chapel at Santiago is coursed into the masonry, so it remains possible that some of them were moved or inserted at a later date. 55 Medieval Spain (as n. 4), 88–90, cat. no. 34; David Collection (as n. 13), vol. 2/2, 335, cat. no. 25; M. Rosser-Owen, ‘Poems in Stone: The Iconography of ‛Āmirid Poetry, and its “Petrification” on ‛Āmirid Marbles’, in Revisiting Al-Andalus: Perspectives on the Material Culture of Islamic Iberia and Beyond, ed. G. D. Anderson and M. Rosser-Owen (Leiden 2007), 83–97.

Ibid., 85; Al-Andalus (as n. 4), 208–11, cat. no. 9. M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce ad 300–900 (Cambridge 2001), 247. 24 W. Davies, ‘Servile Status in the Early Middle Ages’, in Serfdom and Slavery: studies in legal bondage, ed. M. Bush (Harlow 1996), 239–40; A. Rio, ‘Freedom and Unfreedom in Early Medieval Francia: the evidence of the legal formulae’, Past and Present, 193 (2006) 7–40; W. D. Phillips Jr, ‘Continuity and Change in Western slavery: ancient to modern times’, in Serfdom, 78; McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (as n. 23), 733–77. 25 B. Collins, Al-Muqaddasi, the man and his work (Ann Arbor 1974), 185–86; G. D. Anderson, ‘Islamic Spaces and Diplomacy in Constantinople (Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries C.E.)’, Medieval Encounters, 15 (2009), 89–90. 26 D. Wyatt, Slaves and Warriors in Medieval Britain and Ireland, 880–1200 (Leiden and Boston 2009), 34. 27 R. Hitchcock, Mozarabs in Medieval and Early Spain. Identities and Influences (Aldershot 2008), 64–66. At this period luxury goods were usually acquired from al-Andalus as booty or diplomatic goods. 28 Phillips, Slavery (as n. 18) for an up-to-date survey; C. Verlinden, L’esclavage dans le monde ibérique medieval (Madrid 1934), 1–168; F. Soyer, ‘Muslim Slaves and Freedmen in Medieval Portugal’, al-Qantara, 28 (2007); F. Soyer, ‘Muslim Freedmen in León, Castile and Portugal (1100–1300)’, Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean, 18 (2006), 129–43; for 15th-century Valencia, see D. Blumenthal, Enemies and familiars: slavery and mastery in fifteenth-century Valencia (Ithaca 2009), 80–121, and for examples from the 15th to 18th centuries, see L. Méndez Rodríguez, Esclavos en la pintura sevillana de los Siglos de Oro (Seville 2011). 29 Soyer, ‘Muslim Freedmen’ (as n. 28), 133–34. 30 Ibid., 135–36. 31 O. Constable, Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: the commercial realignment of the Iberian peninsula, 900–1500 (Cambridge 1994), 234–35. 32 S. Barton and R. Fletcher ed., The World of El Cid: chronicles of the Spanish reconquest (Manchester 2000), 48: ‘Mauri, partim gladiis obtruncati, partim vero ob diversa ecclesiarum opera ansis ferreis sunt constricti’; see also J. Harris, ‘Mosque to church conversions in the Spanish reconquest’, Medieval Encounters, 3 (1997), 161; for Jews and Muslims as ‘royal treasure’, see D. Abulafia, ‘The servitude of Jews and Muslims in the Medieval Mediterraean: Origins and Diffusion’, Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome: Moyen Âge, 112 (2000), 703–08. 33 Ralph of Diceto, Radulfi de Diceto Lundoniensis decani opera historica, ed. W. Stubbs (Rolls Series, LXVIII, 1867), vol. II, 30: ‘Rex vero Portugalensis ex his qui in bello capti erant, scilicet de Sarracenis, dedit servos qui ministrarent cementariis, ferentes lapides et cementum ad reparandas ecclesias’. 34 J. Mann, Romanesque Architecture and its Sculptural Decoration in Christian Spain 1000–1120: Exploring Frontiers and Defining Identities (Toronto, Buffalo and London 2009), 85–87. 35 R. Dozy, Recherches sur l’histoire et la littérature de l’Espagne pendant le moyen âge (Paris and Leiden 1881), vol. 2, 344–49; J. F. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia 2003), 24–27; for prisoners of war, see A. Ubieto Arteta, ‘Pobres y marginados en el primitivo Aragón’, Aragón en la Edad Media, 5 (1983), 13–16. 36 C. J. Bishko, ‘Fernando I and the Origins of the LeoneseCastilian Alliance With Cluny’, in C. J. Bishko, Studies in Medieval Spanish Frontier History (London 1980), II, 57. 37 J. L. Villanueva, Viage literario á las Iglesias de España, IX (Madrid 1821), 255–62. 38 V. Valcarcel, La ‘Vita Dominici Silensis’ de Grimaldo (Logroño 1982), 282–84: ‘Sarraceni qui tenebantur in monasterio Exiliensi captivi’. 39 A. Echevarría Arsuaga, ‘Esclavos musulmanes en los hospitales de cautivos de la orden militar de Santiago (siglos XII y XIII)’, al-Qantara, 28/2 (2007), 465–88. 40 F. Soyer, ‘Muslim Slaves and Freedmen in Medieval Portugal’, al-Qantara, 28 (2007), 492. 23

274

sculptors after the conquest of toledo 63

56

Walker, ‘Papal legates’ (as n. 54). J. M. Lacarra, ‘La Catedral románica de Pamplona. Nuevos documentos’, Archivo español de arte arqueología, 7 (1931), 73–86; F. J. Ocaña Eiroa, ‘La controvertida personalidad del Maestro Esteban en las catedrales románicas de Pamplona y Santiago’, Principe de Viana, 64/228 (2003), 7–58; S. Moralejo, ‘Notas para una revisión de la obra de K. J. Conant’, in Patrimonio artístico de Galicia y otros estudios: Homenaje al Prof. Dr. Serafín Moralejo Álvarez, vol. 1, ed. A. Franco Mata (Santiago de Compostela 2004), 257; Castiñeiras, ‘Didacus Gelmirius’ (as n. 57), 34–35 and 41–48; J. Williams, ‘¿Arquitectura del Camino del Santiago?’, Quintana, 7 (2008), 157–77; see also J. Martínez de Aguirre, ‘Los promotores’, in El arte románico en Navarra, ed. C. Fernández-Ladreda, 2nd edn (Pamplona 2005), 30. 65 J. Williams, ‘Cluny and Spain’, Gesta, 27 (1988), 97–98; S. Moralejo, ‘Cluny et les débuts de la sculpture romane en Espagne’, in Patrimonio artístico de Galicia (as n. 64), vol. 2, 195–206. 66 S. Moralejo, ‘Sobre la formación del estilo escultórico de Frómista y Jaca’, in Actas del XXIII Congreso Internaciónal de Historia del Arte: España entre el Mediterráneo y el Atlántico, Granada, 1973, vol. 1 (Granada 1976), 427–34.

Al-Andalus (as n. 4), 320, cat. no. 88. M. Castiñeiras, ‘Didacus Gelmirius, Patron of the Arts. Compostela’s Long Journey: from the Periphery to the Center of Romanesque Art’, in Compostela and Europe. The Story of Diego Gelmírez, ed. M. Castiñeiras (Milan 2010), 41–48. 58 R. Walker, ‘The Wall Paintings in the Panteón de los Reyes at León: A Cycle of Intercession’, Art Bulletin, 82 (2000), 204–06. 59 J. L. Senra, ‘Aproximación a los espacios litúrgico-funerarios en Castilla y León: Porticos y galileas’, Gesta, 36 (1997), 122–44; J. L. Senra, ‘Las grandes instituciones cluniacenses hispanas bajo el reinado de Alfonso VI’, in Anales (as n. 2), 335–66. 60 G. Gaillard, Les débuts de la sculpture romane espagnole: León — Jaca — Compostelle (Paris 1938), 124–26. 61 For Alfonso VI’s relations with Urraca and Pedro Ansúrez, see R. Walker, ‘Becoming Alfonso VI: the king, his sister and the arca santa reliquary’, in Anales (as n. 2), 391–412. 62 Castiñeiras, ‘Didacus Gelmirius’ (as n. 57), 32–97; J. Martínez de Aguirre Aldaz, ‘Componentes foráneos en el románico Navarro: coordenadas de creación y paradigmas de estudio’, in Presencia e Influencias Exteriores en el Arte Navarro. Actas del Congreso Nacional Pamplona, ed. M. C. García Gainza and R. Fernández Gracia (Pamplona 2008), 28–30.

64

57

275

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 277–295

THE PAINTINGS OF THE CHAPTER-HOUSE OF SIGENA AND THE ART OF THE CRUSADER KINGDOMS Dulce Ocón Following the studies of Sigena by Otto Pächt and Walter Oakeshott, the English filiation of the paintings in the chapter-house at Sigena has rarely been questioned. However, neither the parallels with late-12th-century English manuscript illumination, nor their apparent relationship to the mosaics of Norman Sicily, satisfactorily explain these paintings. Evidence for a working knowledge of the techniques of high-quality Byzantine wall-painting in some areas of the chapter-house is an argument in favour of the contention that this was the work of a trained mural painter who had served an apprenticeship in an artistic milieu in which Byzantine wall-painting was known. The familiarity with Eastern models would have enabled this Master to transfer contemporary Byzantine approaches to the portrayal of saints and prophets to the portraits of the ancestors of Christ at Sigena. It would also explain his knowledge of the specifically Byzantine iconography of Ecclesia and Synagoga. The evocation of the most characteristics monuments of Jerusalem in the scene of the Crucifixion suggests that the training of the painter responsible for this scene at Sigena could have been centred in a Crusader workshops. Armengaud d’Asp, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller after 1 May 1187, collaborator of Sancha in her Hospitaller foundation, may well have been responsible for attracting this master to Aragón.

INTRODUCTION

Aragón, as well as becoming a royal pantheon. Between the death of her husband in 1196 and her own death in 1208, Queen Sancha spent long periods of time here, whenever she was not travelling.3 Two other queens also spent time at the monastery with Queen Sancha: her daughter Constanza (1179–1223), between 1205, when she was widowed by the death of her husband, Emeric of Hungary, and 1209–10 when she left Sigena accompanied by two nuns to be married to Frederick II; and her daughter-in-law, Marie of Montpellier (c. 1180–1213), queen of Aragón following her marriage to Pedro II in 1204.4 Intended to host noble ladies, the chapter-house of Sigena was luxuriously decorated in accordance with the political ambition of the monarchs, and the Mediterranean projection of the kingdom.5 As with other outstanding royal buildings in the Mediterranean, most famously the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, Sigena combined western architectural forms with the Islamic tradition of wooden ceilings and Byzantinizing pictorial decoration (Fig. 1). The wooden ceiling, which was largely destroyed by the fire started by anarchist groups in early August 1936, was created by

Before fire devastated the monastery in the opening weeks of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), the paintings in the chapter-house of Sigena constituted the best preserved and most extensive cycle of Byzantinizing mural paintings to survive from late-12th- or early-13th-century western Europe. The monastery of Santa Maria at Sigena had been founded in 1188 by Queen Sancha (1174–1208), wife of Alfonso II (1162–96), king of Aragón, count of Barcelona and count of Provence from 1167, with the aim of accommodating noble ladies.1 The monastery was entrusted to the Order of St John of Jerusalem, much in vogue among the nobility at this time, given their importance in the defence of sites in the Holy Land. Only eight years earlier, in 1180, Henry II of England, a relative of Sancha by marriage and an ally of Alfonso II in his struggle in southern France, had sponsored the first female priory of the order at Buckland (Somerset), the only priory of the sisters of St John to be founded in England.2 The monastery became home to the court and general archive of © British Archaeological Association 2015

277

dulce ocón

Figure 1 Interior of the chapter-house of Sigena before 1936 (J. Gudiol. © Arxiu Mas, Barcelona)

described the cosmic symbolism of this ceiling in some detail which he maintains was completed by a series of different-sized golden balls suspended from chains that reflected the sun’s light and cast fantastic reflections throughout the hall.12 The use of Islamic motifs was common in the aristocratic interiors of the Spanish kingdoms, whose kings systematically occupied palaces conquered from the Muslims. Thus, in Aragón, after the conquest of Zaragoza by Alfonso I (c. 1073–1134) in 1118, the king took over the city palace of the Muslim Wali, as well as the Aljafería palace outside the city walls.13 However, the most extraordinary features of the chapter-house at Sigena are the paintings that embellish its walls and arches, whose similarity with the mosaics of Norman Sicily was first noted by Valentín Carderera in the second half of the 19th century, who credited the murals to a Sicilian or Greek painter.14 His suggestion was then taken up at the beginning of the 20th century by Vicente Lampérez (1908–09).15 More recently, in a wave of studies published in the 1950s and 1960s by Meyer Schapiro, T. S. R. Boase, André Grabar and Otto Pächt, the Byzantine style of the Sigena paintings and its apparent relationship to the mosaics of the Palatine Chapel in Palermo and the

Mudéjar carpenters using local decorative models, such as those which can be seen in the decorative panels and lattice windows of the Aljafería Palace in Zaragoza.6 According to Bernabé Cabañero, the ceiling was structurally closer to that of the Palatine Chapel than to any previous Spanish Islamic ceiling, where this kind of flat ceiling was unknown.7 The main difference between Sigena and Palermo is the absence of muqarnas. Nonetheless, as is the case of the ceiling of the Palatine Chapel, several sections of the ceiling of Sigena were decorated with Arabic inscriptions.8 Amongst those that could be read in their entirety were invocations in Kufic, such as the sentence ‘Sovereignty belongs to God’.9 Invocations written in Thuluth (a type of Islamic calligraphy widely practised in Andalucia), such as ‘Good fortune and prosperity’ were also found.10 The star-shaped designs that covered the whole ceiling were derived from Islamic archetypes of theocratic symbology. Cabañero points out that the celestial sphere as an attribute of royalty had already been represented in the throne hall of the Aljafería, where King al-Muqtadir appeared before his subjects and foreign ambassadors as the sun surrounded by the firmament.11 Mariano de Pano, the man who discovered the mural paintings in 1881, 278

the art of the crusader kingdoms TECHNIQUE AS AN APPROACH TO THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARTISTS

cathedral of Monreale was explained through the hypothetical participation of painters trained in workshops at Winchester or Canterbury, in which a pictorial repertoire similar to that of the Sicilian mosaics could be traced back to the mid-12th century.16 Following Walter Oakeshott’s excellent 1972 study of Sigena, the English filiation of the Sigena paintings has only rarely been questioned.17 Deemed to be off-shore English art, the chapter-house paintings were included in the ‘English Art 1066–1200’ exhibition held at London’s Hayward Gallery in 1984, where two of the ancestors of Christ were displayed.18 C. R. Dodwell, who described the murals as being among the greatest paintings not only of the 12th century but of the entire Middle Ages, claims that, given the losses, they ‘represent’ the Romanesque wall-paintings of England.19 It is beyond question that there are remarkable similarities between the Sigena paintings and certain manuscript illuminations from Winchester and Canterbury. Moreover, the political and dynastic relationship linking the kingdoms of Aragón and England provide a rationale for English painters to be in Aragón around 1190–1200 and thus available to work on the paintings in the Sigena chapter-house. However, neither the parallels with English manuscript illumination of the second half of the 12th century, nor the paintings of the Holy Sepulchre Chapel at Winchester Cathedral frequently cited in discussions on the English filiation of the Aragonese murals, satisfactorily explain the Sigena paintings. Even Pächt and Oakeshott, who first established the close stylistic relationship between the painters working at Sigena and those miniaturists working on the last phase of the Winchester Bible illustrations (namely the Master of the Morgan Leaf and the Master of the Gothic Majesty), felt that not everything in the Sigena paintings could be explained through the mosaics of Norman Sicily or English manuscript illumination. Both Pächt and Oakeshott suggested that part of the apprenticeship of the Sigena painters could have taken place in a Byzantine environment, east of Sicily, where they would have acquired first-hand experience in monumental painting.20 Gonzalo Borrás and Manuel García upheld this same idea.21 More recently, David Park has rejected the attribution of the paintings of the Deposition and the Three Women at the Sepulchre in the Holy Sepulchre Chapel at Winchester Cathedral to the Morgan Master, nor does he accept that the Morgan Master was involved in any capacity at Sigena. He also asserts that the Byzantine features evident in the Winchester wall-paintings were probably derived from sources that were more direct than Norman Sicily.22 Finally, Karl Schuller, though an advocate of the Byzantine training of the artists of Sigena in Norman Sicily, acknowledges that the paintings manifest a much broader familiarity with Byzantine art.23

The technique used in the Sigena frescoes was analysed in the 1990s by Rosa Maria Gasol.24 As a result of her research, we now know that vegetable fibres were used to prepare the render, a technique commonly used by Byzantine painters to retain moisture in the wall.25 Even though the organic fillers were destroyed by the fire, their imprints survive in column-shaped incisions in the intonaco or fresh plaster.26 Gasol speaks in general terms about wooden fillers, though Dionysus of Fourna recommended that hemp should be used for the intonaco, while a mix of chopped straw with slaked lime would be used for the arriccio.27 Another interesting finding in this study is the existence of two different methods in the preliminary drawings. One of these techniques can be seen in the Old Testament cycle in the vault spandrels, where there is a predominance of scenes from Genesis, of great iconographic similarity to the mosaics of Norman Sicily and illuminations in the Winchester Bible and Great Canterbury Psalter (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS lat. 8846). These similarities, accurately observed by Pächt and Oakeshott, have been repeatedly underlined by authors since.28 Alongside them, the presence of rich animal imagery, concentrated in the narrowest part of the spandrels amongst a luxuriant vegetal decoration and probably inspired by an English bestiary, have frequently been used to bolster the English authorship of these paintings.29 In some spandrels Gasol could discern areas in which the underlying plaster roughly joins the figures and the foliate decoration, as in the case of God admonishing Adam and Eve (Fig. 2).30 The jigsaw of plaster sections formed by this procedure leads the author to conclude that the painter working here used a method commonly known as giornate.31 This method of rendering plaster differs from that more usual among western Romanesque painters, execution in pontate.32 Its use for one large figure or for a group of figures has recently been observed in the scenes of the Koimesis and the Presentation of the Panaghia tou Arakos of Lagoudhera (Cyprus) of 1192.33 In this area of the chapter-house Gasol concluded that the composition was probably first sketched out on the arriccio, then followed by a red ochre sinopia on the fresh plaster.34 This method does seem to have been more common among western painters. Romanesque wall painters required a precise and detailed preliminary drawing since they lacked some of the pictorial resources that provided Byzantine painters with greater security in the preliminary drawing: a pictorial repertoire with a strong tradition of stock compositions, and the use of a modular system of proportions to adapt their compositions to any given architectural setting.35 A different technique was used for the New Testament scenes on the chapter-house walls, and on 279

dulce ocón Crucifixion, marking the shoulders of John (Fig. 7). As David and June Winfield remark, this is a particularly useful reminder for the painter, since the shoulders determine the width of the figure.39 In the figure of Mary, the permanent mark left in the intonaco by a compass point for the haloes may also be observed (Fig. 7). As in the case of the painter of Lagoudhera, we can suppose that the painter of Sigena must have used a special tool to paint the double outlines of the haloes as they were drawn without irregularities, something impossible to achieve drawing freehand even for the most skilled of painters.40 In some of the ancestors it is possible to distinguish thick lime relief, which, unlike the modern replastering, adapts to the shapes of the faces and is not found on the portraits that have been repainted in modern times, such as those on the lower part of the arches.41 Examples of this original reworking of the plaster can be observed on Salmon’s head (portrait of Naasson and Salmon on the first arch) (Fig. 6) as well as on Salathiel’s face (portrait of Salathiel and ‘Zorab’, or Zorobabel according to the Vulgate, on the second arch) (Fig. 8). Gasol observed that the painter also partly replastered God’s hand in the scene of the God warning Adam before the Tree of Knowledge (Fig. 2).42 The plaster patches noted in Sigena reveal a procedure that has also been observed in Lagoudhera by the Winfields; the use of fresh plaster patches for the final version of the heads, and even hands, together with abundant evidence for the reworking of the plaster surfaces to ensure that they are fresh.43 As these authors assert, this intimate connection between plaster and preliminary drawing is characteristic of high quality Byzantine painting.44 These observations of the Winfields enable us to set out a theoretical framework for the development of Byzantine and Western medieval wall-painting methods that is more in line with current knowledge of wall-painting techniques around 1200 — knowledge that results from the restorations undertaken in the last half century.45

Figure 2 Warning before the Tree of Knowledge. Chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/ Mérida/Sagristà)

the underside of the arches, where the Ancestors of Christ are found (Figs 1 and 3). Gasol’s study of these was restricted to the Crucifixion scene (Fig. 4), one of only three scenes that have survived from the New Testament cycle (Fig. 3). Here the joins are more regular in shape, closer to those that would be expected had a pontate method been used, as was generally used among Romanesque artists and which was used by Byzantine painters for large compositions.36 It can be deduced from the verifications of Gasol that the preliminary drawing in these areas utilized a common and distinctive Byzantine method. As opposed to the method observed in the vault-spandrels, Gasol noticed snapped lines that had been made with a cord in red ochre and which were combined with the use of underdrawing, both freehand and using a compass directly onto the wet plaster.37 These traces match the procedure that Adolphe Napoléon Didron observed the monk painters of Mount Athos still using in the mid-19th century. The limits of the composition were traced with the aid of a cord, the haloes and other circular motifs were determined by means of a compass, and the rest of the composition was drawn freehand from memory on the intonaco.38 Some of these details can be observed in the photographs of the ancestors taken in raking light that MNAC has kindly provided. The traces left in the plaster by the cord, which was presumably used by the painters to trace the straight lines of the painted frames that enclose the ancestor portraits, can be seen in the portrait of Naasson and Salmon on the first arch (Figs 5 and 6). The reinforcement of the preliminary drawing with incised lines can be observed in many parts of the portraits and also in the scene of the

THE STYLISTIC SOURCES FOR THE PORTRAITS OF CHRIST’S ANCESTORS The extraordinary character of the pseudo-portraits of Christ’s ancestors on the undersides of the arches of the chapter-house would be another argument in favour of the contention that the Sigena artist had made contact with Byzantine painting. On the basis of the photographs taken by José Gudiol in the spring of 1936 (Fig. 1), it has been assumed that there was originally a group of 70 ancestors (14 per arch), taken from the genealogies of both Matthew and Luke.46 Karl Schuller increases this number to 80 (16 per arch) on the basis that the 17th-century consoles had probably replaced two ancestors on each arch lost as the 280

the art of the crusader kingdoms

Figure 3 Paintings of the chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà). See also Plate XIIA in print edition

Figure 4 Crucifixion. Chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà). See also Plate XIIB in print edition 281

dulce ocón

Figure 7 Crucifixion: Mary, John and the Holy Women. Chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)

Figure 5 The ancestors Naason and Salmon. Chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/ Mérida/Sagristà)

Figure 8 The ancestor Salathiel (detail). Chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (Photo: Calveras/ Mérida/Sagristà. © Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014)

However, there is a greater balance between the genealogies at Sigena, as distinct to Canterbury: 42–48 from Luke and 28–32 from Matthew. At Canterbury the ratio is 76–78. Some of the ancestors, specifically those ascribed by Caviness to the Master of the Morgan Leaf or to the Master of the Gothic Majesty, share poses and gestures with the ancestors of Sigena that lend the figures a certain classical clarity and serenity.50 These features also characterize the best pictorial Byzantinizing productions of the time, and of themselves are insufficient to presume an artistic transfer between Canterbury and Sigena. The prototypes on which the figures of Sigena and Canterbury were respectively modelled are so different that it is highly unlikely that the Canterbury ancestors could have been an inspiration for the Sigena ancestors.51

Figure 6 The ancestors Naason and Salmon. Chapter-house of Sigena (Detail) (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)

result of damage from humidity.47 At the end of the 19th century, the local artist Joachim Carpi y Ruata (1855–1910) repainted some of these portraits.48 In terms of its extent, the ancestors’ cycle in Sigena is only matched by that in the clerestory at Canterbury Cathedral (c. 1178–1207), where Madeline Caviness has calculated up to 84 ancestors were represented.49 282

the art of the crusader kingdoms Full-length, seated on a throne and framed by a semicircular or triangular arch, the Canterbury Cathedral ancestors correspond to an essentially Romanesque pattern. By contrast, the Sigena portrayals are halflength portraits drawn from an Antique tradition, a tradition that had long been in use in Byzantine art for images of ancestors. The mosaics of Norman Sicily brought Western artists into contact with this pattern through the figures of the Pantocrator, and the many medallions with saints, prophets and ancestors found in the mosaic decoration of its churches.52 The Master of the Morgan Leaf, in the initial ‘R’ of Jeremiah’s Book of Lamentations (Winchester Bible; fol. 169r) and the Master of the Great Canterbury Psalter (BN, MS lat. 8846, fol. 4r) in the genealogy, recreated this type of portrait (Fig. 9). The similarities between the Great Canterbury Psalter and the paintings at Sigena were noted by Meyer Schapiro as long ago as 1952, generating a number of questions to which, for the moment, we have no answers.53 This extraordinary manuscript was in Aragón in the 14th century, where a painter working for the Court, Ferrer Bassa, completed the illustrations from folio 72v onward.54 A series of questions arise from this: when did the manuscript arrive in Aragón? How did it get there? What was its original destination? Why did it remain unfinished? Might it have belonged to Sigena, as J. P. Verrié has suggested?55 The splendour of its illustrations certainly shows that the commission came from someone with significant economic means. It could well have been commissioned by Sancha from the Canterbury scriptorium, although another possibility is that it was a gift from the English royal family. The date that Nigel Morgan supports in the 2006 facsimile of the manuscript, 1180–90, allows us to think of Henry II himself (1133–89).56 Nevertheless, it is difficult to explain why a prestigious donation would be sent incomplete. In that event one would have thought that artists capable of continuing the task would have been sent together with the manuscript and the necessary models.57 Whatever the case, there are similarities between Sigena and the Canterbury Psalter in the Genesis scenes, though this is less clear in the figures of the ancestors of Christ, notwithstanding Oakeshott’s reasonable observation that one or two of the heads on the Jesse Tree page echo the ancestors of the chapter-house.58 Unlike the Sigena ancestors, those in the Great Canterbury Psalter are set in medallions; a characteristic Byzantine arrangement also seen in the first twenty-three ancestors of Matthew and in the three patriarchs on the soffits of the four central arches at Monreale.59 The cycle of the ancestors in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem (c. 1160) that Otto Demus suggested might have been the model for Monreale (1185–95), is a more precise iconographic precedent for the Sigena cycle.60 Ranged along the lowest register of the nave arcades, the ancestors from Matthew’s and

Luke’s account were equally represented: twenty-one taken from Luke on the north wall and twenty-one taken from Matthew on the south wall.61 The final seven ancestors from Matthew that have survived on the south wall of Bethlehem are unframed, as tended to be the case with Byzantine icons during the later 12th century, where, as Kurt Weitzmann observed, the bust-length portraits on medallions derived from enamels start to disappear.62 An example of this new type of portrait is found in the saints surrounding the Crucifixion in an icon at St Catherine’s monastery at Mount Sinai dating from the 13th century, that Weitzmann considers to be the creation of a western artist working in a Crusader atelier.63 The Sigena ancestors have the same icon-like features that Jaroslav Folda ascribes to the Bethlehem portraits.64 However, the portrait-busts of Sigena relate to a different phase of Byzantine art, the more classicizing styles that became popular in the Byzantine Empire in the last quarter of the 12th century. The Antique monumentality of the ancestors of Sigena, their intense emotional state, their melancholic faces as well as the new pictorial concept in which volume is shaped by light and shadow, all correspond to this movement. The figures at Sigena are half-length and given attitudes of great naturalism (Figs 10 and 11). Their heads are often slightly turned, while some incline steeply to one side adopting a pose that is frequent in Byzantine art from the last quarter of the 12th century. Each ancestor is individualized and placed in a painted frame that reinforces the impression that one is looking through to a fragment of visual reality, as if the classical art of portraiture has been concentrated in them. The rectangular frame enhances this sense of Antique painting, whose formulas can be seen in Carolingian miniatures. As was also the case with the large Evangelist portraits in the Vienna Coronation Gospels (Vienna, Weltliche Schatzkammer der Hofburg), the Sigena portraits extend beyond the frame and the figures seem to bulge out of the wall, giving them an individual life and creating a threedimensional effect that makes the Sigena portraits unique in medieval western mural painting.65 Thus, more immediate prototypes for this type of portrait, both more naturalistic and more engaged with classical visual realism, are to be found in the late Comnenian art of Constantinople, or in the works of art that were produced in centres which reflected that art. The Sigena ancestors exhibit close similarities with the portraits of those rare Prophet Books that have survived, notably that in Oxford (Oxford, New College, MS 44) (Fig. 12).66 This book, similar to one kept in Topkapi (Istanbul, Topkapi Saray Library, cod. gr. 13), is thought to have been illustrated in Constantinople in the year 1200.67 The date of its arrival in the British Isles is unknown, although it is known that it was in England in 1558, when it belonged 283

dulce ocón

Figure 9 Great Canterbury Psalter, fol. 4r. Facsimile edition M. Moleiro (© M. Moleiro 2006)

284

the art of the crusader kingdoms

Figure 10 The ancestor Naum. Chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/ Sagristà)

to Reginald Pole.68 The illuminations in the Prophet Book and the paintings of Sigena derive from the same portrait prototypes. Both insist on a rectangular frame for the figures, which is then broken by the figures. Significant coincidences can also be seen in the depiction of a particular human type; which in the Prophet Book of Oxford is repeated in several different figures and in Sigena is represented by the portrait of Nahum on the third arch (Fig. 10). The portraits from Oxford and Sigena share other features, such as the particular rhetorical hand gesture characteristic of prophets that in the language of images of the Middle Ages was used to express teaching or authority.69 Similar portraits are found in provincial Byzantine wall-paintings and in the Crusader kingdoms. Close parallels to the Sigena ancestors are the half-length portraits of saints in the Church of the Panaghia tou Arakos at Lagoudhera (Cyprus) of 1192, which are also located on the soffits of the arches. The half-length figures of Saint Hermolaus and Saint Panteleimon depicted on the soffit of the arch of the south-west bay here were modelled on Byzantine prototypes similar to those that inspired the ancestors of Sigena.70 The saints portrayed in alternate circular and rectangular frames in the apse of the ossuary chapel of the Băckovo Monastery in Bulgaria (1170) are an interesting example of the evolution of the portrait in a rectangular frame imitating the Hellenistic portraits in mural Byzantine painting from the secondhalf of the 12th century.71 The same iconography can be observed in more popular and later versions such as

Figure 11 The ancestors Zorobabel and Abiud and Salathiel and Zorobabel. Chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)

the images of the bishop-saints in the tower chapel of Žiča Monastery (Serbia) of 1235 or in the figures of the church of Khé in Svanetia (Georgia) from the 13th century.72 All these examples reflect a common 12thcentury trend, that of imitating icons that previously hung in the apse in mural painting, a phenomenon that can be noted in both metropolitan and provincial churches.73 The illusion even extends to the point of representing the rings and nails from which the real icons would have been hung. Grouped in pairs, and hanging from a ring, they are found in such unorthodox places as the domes of the Prothesis and 285

dulce ocón

Figure 12 The Prophet Jeremiah, New College, Oxford, MS44, fol. 68r (By permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford)

286

the art of the crusader kingdoms unusual adult-child pattern in the ancestor portraits taken from Matthew at Sigena (Fig. 13).77 The St Symeon at Lagoudhera is a devotional image isolated from the accompanying Presentation scene, and is therefore a good example of the visual association made in the Byzantine world between the Virgin Eleousa and St Symeon with a child in his arms.78 In spite of the many features the Cypriot St Symeon shares with the Sigena figures — the typology of the portrait, the emotional intensity manifested in the tenderness with which Symeon brings his cheek to the child’s head in a parallel manner to the way in which some ancestors tilt their heads towards their children — it is risky to presume a direct influence. What is beyond question, however, is that some of the ancestors at Sigena and the Symeon of Lagoudhera derive from a common Eastern model.

of the Diaconikon of the Church of the Samaria, or Zoodochos Pigi, at Samari (Messinia) in the Peloponnese (Greece).74 The positioning of the portraits in the soffits of Sigena has been compared to that of the arch soffits of Monreale, whose mosaics consist of medallions with busts of saints, prophets or ancestors of Christ. Rather than an arrangement with sumptuary overtones, what the portraits at Sigena suggest is a sequence of trompe l’oeil icons like those of the Byzantine provincial examples previously mentioned. This impression is reinforced by the gilt or painted attachments that decorated the frames. Appliqué wooden and metal ornaments were employed throughout the chapterhouse, albeit more lavishly on the north wall. The gilt haloes of the figures, the circular discs and the threepointed stars set against blue backgrounds as described by Mariano de Pano, lent a richness to the chapterhouse that might be compared to some of the later and very costly western schemes of the 13th century, such as the Guardian Angels Chapel in Winchester (before 1239, repainted in 1260–70) or Henry III’s Antioch Chamber in Clarendon Palace (1250s).75 Gudiol’s 1936 photographs of the ancestor cycle show fragments of polychromed or gilt half-round wooden mouldings, about 8 cm wide, along the sides of the ancestors’ portraits.76 The photographs taken with raking light in the 1990s at MNAC clearly reveal traces of these elements in areas in which they were not visible in the photographs. If Gudiol’s photographs show the holes of the haloes of the Visitation, and the nimbed figures in the Nativity, and along unpainted areas near the angel frieze, the photographs taken with raking light show spaced holes along the frames of the ancestors. These holes appear in unpainted areas such as the vertical edges of the portraits or the horizontal band extending between every other ancestor (Fig. 10). There is no doubt these traces were left by nails that held the painted and gilt attachments. These ornamental attachments contributed to the pretence that the ancestor portraits were part of a series of icons, richly framed in the manner of the most revered Byzantine icons. The lost horizontal moulding of the ancestors at Sigena acted as the lower part of the icon’s frame, and carried an inscription identifying the ancestor or ancestors, depending on whether they belonged to the list in Luke or Matthew. The tendency to cover the walls of churches with mural icons in the late 12th century is exemplified in two outstanding survivals: the Church of St Panteleimon in Nerezi (Macedonia) of 1164, and the Panaghia tou Arakos of Lagoudhera in Cyprus (1192). It is precisely in this Eastern Mediterranean world that one finds the type of double portrait used in Matthew’s genealogy at Sigena (Fig. 11). As I have already stated elsewhere, I think the St Symeon of the north wall under the dome of the Panaghia tou Arakos offers a possible clue to understanding the iconographically

A COMPOSITION OF BYZANTINE ORIGIN: THE CRUCIFIXION Originally probably consisting of up of twenty-six scenes (twenty-seven according to Karl Schuller), only eleven scenes from the Sigena New Testament cycle have been recorded in photographs: the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds on the north wall; the Presentation, Temptations and Raising of Lazarus on the east wall; and the Flagellation, Crucifixion, Three Women at the Tomb and Harrowing of Hell on the south wall.79 Gudiol’s black-and-white pictures make us aware of how the Master of Sigena demonstrated his pictorial mastery on the chapter-house walls through a Byzantinism so painterly and monumental, so lacking in linearity and so aware of its own expressive capacity that it is unparalleled in contemporary mural painting or western book illumination. It was in these scenes where the iconography is closest to the Byzantine models. The Crucifixion, one of the three New Testament scenes that, together with the Flagellation and the Three Women at the Tomb, can be admired today in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Barcelona), is an exceptional representation (Figs 3 and 4). The large number of figures attending the event, the manner in which they are grouped, as well as the fact that they are all personally involved in the scene, amount to a new way of representing the Crucifixion in the West. To the right of the cross — left for the viewer — a group of four figures can be observed in a state of an intense emotional agitation and pathos, worthy of the best Byzantine art of the last quarter of the 12th century: Mary mourning with her hand held against her head and John bowing his head towards hers; one of the women indicates the suffering body of the crucified Jesus to the viewer, while another stares vacantly into space. Longinus thrusting his spear into Christ’s side completes the group. The group to the left of the 287

dulce ocón

Figure 13 Church of the Panaghia tou Arakos at Lagoudhera (Cyprus): St Symeon and St John the Forerunner (Photo: R. Anderson and D. Winfield. Courtesy Dumbarton Oaks)

288

the art of the crusader kingdoms it was converted into a Christian church.81 By its appearance, it could also be a defensive structure; however, it neither corresponds to the current reality nor to any of the most widespread medieval representations of the Tower of David, a construction which, when coupled with the Dome of the Rock and the Holy Sepulchre, represented the city of Jerusalem on the seals and coins of the Latin kingdom during the Crusader period.82 On the opposite side, next to the group of the Virgin and Saint John, is what appears to be a hilly landscape, with on its far left a bell tower (Fig. 15). This tower seems to consist of a broad two-storeyed base with two narrower upper storeys boasting a single window on each side: the first with a battlemented parapet and a hipped roof; the second finished off with a saddleback roof. The shape of the tower is reminiscent of the outline of the campanile of the Holy Sepulchre church as it was depicted on the map of Jerusalem in the Collectaire de Cambrai of c. 1140–70 (Cambrai, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 437, fol. 1v).83 Like the author of this map, the painter of Sigena seems to draw attention to the remarkable height of the bell tower, rising above the dome of the Anastasis, a feature that was recorded in 15th-century images such as the famously fanciful representation in the Hours of René d’Anjou (London, British Library, Egerton MS 1070, fol. 5).84 With the exception of its extraordinary height and the two storeys of its base, the tower represented at Sigena is unlike modern reconstructions of the Holy Sepulchre bell tower. However, the fact that next to this tower there is a representation of Ecclesia, while Synagoga appears behind the schematic diagram of the Dome of the Rock, a building known in the High Middle Ages as the Templum Domini, makes it likely that the tower was intended to be that of the Holy Sepulchre (Fig. 16). Ecclesia, led by an angel, is represented as a female half-figure holding a chalice in veiled hands. Opposite her, the half-figure of Synagoga is pushed away from the dead Christ by another angel. Synagoga, in a violent contrapposto, turns towards the angel and struggles to grasp an object from him with her left hand, while her right hand clings to the cubic volume adjacent to the dome, which may be a representation of the octagonal arcade of the Dome of the Rock. The position of the hands of Synagoga and the angel suggest that the object over which they are fighting is circular, making it likely that it is Synagoga’s crown that the angel is about to snatch away. The exceptional character of the iconography of Ecclesia and Synagoga at the Crucifixion, an iconography unknown in England and Norman Sicily, was recognized by Pächt.85 Schuller also noted its singularity.86 The confidence with which the Master of Sigena introduced this unique iconography discloses his deep knowledge of Byzantine sources. These particular sources do not seem to have been accessible to the painters at Winchester or Canterbury, nor to the mosaicists of

cross — right for the viewer — is no less expressive. In this case, the painter has focused on describing the gestures of rejection and despair in the crowd of Jews moving away from the crucified. Besides them, partially obliterated, is the standing figure of Stephaton raising the sponge-topped staff alongside Christ. The figures stand in front of an architectural background of exceptional topographical detail. Even when this is considered in the context of the increased concern for ‘environmental elements’ evident in Comnenian painting of the second half of the 12th century Sigena is outstanding, particularly in the way that it evokes the actual locations in which the Passion of Christ took place.80 The fact that the monastery was entrusted to the Hospitallers, who had been involved in the defence of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem, may account for the depiction of certain elements in the Crucifixion scene. Behind the group of Jews can be seen the unmistakable silhouette of the Dome of the Rock, recognizable by its dome (Fig. 14). Next to it is a tower-like structure topped by a conical roof. Given that this appears partially superimposed on the image of the Umayyaad mosque of Abd al-Malik, as if it were part of the same complex, it could be an evocation of the eight-sided building that was apparently built as the baptistery of the Templum Domini when

Figure 14 Crucifixion: the Jews. Chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/ Sagristà) 289

dulce ocón

Figure 15 Crucifixion: Ecclesia. Chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)

Figure 16 Crucifixion: Synagoga chapter-house of Sigena (MNAC: Barcelona) (© Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2014. Photo: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà) 290

the art of the crusader kingdoms Sigena so at Abu Gosh, and above the two groups located at the foot of the cross there hover the halffigures of Ecclesia and Synagoga each led by an angel. Unlike its pair at Sigena, however, the Abu Gosh Synagoga carries a broken lance rather than being deprived of her crown.97 Despite this detail, the stylistic relationship between the Synagogas, both pushed away, both turning back to look towards the angel, is striking. The position of the angels’ hands used to lead the allegorical figures and the way in which the cloak surrounds the waist are also very close.98 All these similarities strongly suggest that both painters looked to the same models. A Crucifixion depicted in the naos of the Hermitage of St Neophytos (Cyprus) of c. 1200 (Fig. 17) offers a more provincial version of the composition with some iconographic variations.99 John is positioned to the right of the scene next to Longinus and the half-figures of Ecclesia and Synagoga are crowned. At a later date, on the west wall of the church of the Virgin in Studenica (Serbia) of 1208–09, an artist from Constantinople painted a Crucifixion following this same iconographic type.100 Sigena’s Crucifixion shares with this scene the attitudes of the half-figures of Ecclesia and Synagoga, and the grieving types of the Holy Women, the Virgin or St John. Nonetheless, together St Neophytos, St John stands on the opposite side of Mary. The Crucifixion at Sigena is distinguished from all these Byzantine versions of the events on Golgotha by its monumental interpretation of the figures of Ecclesia and Synagoga. At Sigena, the personifications cease to be tiny figures, simple emblems looming above the scene, and are instead transformed into real beings, represented at the same scale as the other figures and thus invested with the status enjoyed by personifications in Antique art. Given the naturalism with which the Master of Sigena endows the scene, the architectural background and the treatment of the figures in superposed registers, we cannot discount the possibility that the missing halves of Ecclesia and Synagoga remained unseen; the lower part of the angel with Ecclesia would could have been cut off by the small hills that lie between them and the group of Holy Women, while Synagoga would be partially hidden by the architecture behind which she appears. Despite the mutilation of the Sigena murals by fire, the skilfulness of the painter responsible for the New Testament scenes can still be appreciated in the details of the Crucifixion. The solemn movement of the figures, the softly modelled faces, the painterly treatment of the highlights, relates the style of the Master of Sigena to the style of the metropolitan classicizing school of Byzantine painters of the last quarter of the 12th century, whose influence is seen in the work of the ‘Koimesis Master’ at Abu Gosh, in the paintings at Lagoudhera, or in the Last Judgement at St Demetrius in Vladimir (1195).101 Compared to the classicizing naturalism of the Byzantinism of Sigena’s

Norman Sicily. As Marie-Louise Thérel points out, the version in which two angels lead the two figures by placing a hand on their shoulders — Ecclesia led towards Christ and Synagoga physically ejected from the scene of the Crucifixion — is the Byzantine version of Synagoga’s rejection.87 It appears in a manuscript from the third quarter of the 11th century (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Gr. 74, fol. 59).88 This motif, which was particularly popular in the Byzantine provinces, was very seldom reproduced in the West. It can be found in a late-11th- or early-12-century South Italian ivory plaque with the Crucifixion (Berlin, Statlichen Museen) and in a 13th-century Exultet Roll in Troia.89 Close iconographical parallels with Sigena may also be seen in the full-length figures of Ecclesia and Synagoga depicted in the Crucifixion of a 13thcentury Armenian Gospel Book (Erevan, Matenadaran MS 7644).90 Synagoga, deprived of her crown by the angel, looks longingly backwards raising her arms in grief, in a composition that was probably inspired by the same model as was used for Synagoga at Sigena. The scene of an angel leading a half-length representation of Ecclesia while a second angel banishes Synagoga also turns up in Byzantine wall-painting, notably in the frescoes at the church of the Mavriotissa monastery, near Kastoria (Macedonia), that Ann Epstein dates to around 1100.91 A significant stylistic example, chronologically closer to Sigena, is provided by the magnificent Comnenian paintings from the Hospitaller Church at Abu Gosh in the Holy Land. The church was erected in the place identified by the crusaders as Emmaus by the Knights of St John in the territory that had been donated by Robert of Saint Gilles to the Hospitallers in 1141 with the approval of the patriarch of Jerusalem.92 To execute the programme of the frescoes in the upper church, the Hospitallers probably engaged two Byzantine artists in the 1170s, of whom at least one was probably local, rather than an artist sent from Constantinople.93 According to A. W. Carr, the style of these highly skilled artists sits between the style of the Nerezi frescoes (1164) and that of Theodore Apsuedes in the Encleistra in Cyprus (1183).94 The crucifixions of Abu Gosh and Sigena share compositional elements that Carr has no doubt in describing as purely Byzantine.95 In both paintings the group made up of Mary, John and the Holy Women is located to the right of Christ while the crowd of Jews is placed on the left. The movements and gestures of the main characters in these paintings are very close: the fainting Mary and John approach while the most conspicuous Jew in the foreground turns away from the crucified Christ (Figs 7 and 14); the choreography of swinging arches in which each successive figure takes up the rhythmic pose of an adjacent figure creates a distinctive sense of movement that builds to a climax. Ernst Kitzinger describes this aspect of the frescoes of Nerezi as ‘cumulative dynamism’.96 As at 291

dulce ocón

Figure 17 Hermitage of St Neophytos, Paphos (Cyprus). Crucifixion (Photo: Dumbarton Oaks Fieldwork Committee. Courtesy Dumbarton Oaks)

Crucifixion, the Byzantinism of the Descent and Burial in the Holy Sepulchre Chapel at Winchester of c. 1175–80 seems rigid and linear. As Park has pointed out, the Winchester paintings lack the monumental quality of Sigena.102

would have enabled this Master to transfer contemporary Byzantine approaches to the portrayal of saints and prophets to the portraits of the ancestors of Christ at Sigena. It would also explain his knowledge of the specific Byzantine iconography of Ecclesia and Synagoga and the exceptional character of its reproduction on the walls of the chapter-house of Sigena. Evidence for a working knowledge of the techniques of good Byzantine wall-painting that survives in some areas of the chapter-house suggests this was the work of a trained mural painter rather than that of an illuminator. The expertise shown in this wall-painting technique, together with a knowledge of standard Byzantine iconographical compositions, can only have been acquired in an artistic milieu in which Byzantine wall-painting was executed. The Mediterranean policy of Alfonso II and his son, King Pedro II (1196–1213), their good relations with the English monarchy, and the connections enjoyed by the Order of the Knights of St John with the Holy Land may have provided the opportunities for

AN OVERSEAS MASTER Everything suggests that at least one of the Masters working in Sigena was a secular itinerant artist, trained, or at least having received instruction, in the Eastern Mediterranean, possibly in somewhere in the Crusaders’ world. This would explain his familiarity with the outstanding trends of Byzantine painting of the last quarter of the 12th century, in particular the increasing importance that attached to icons in the East. This was a development which the Crusaders adopted with enthusiasm, both in themselves and in their reproduction in illuminated manuscripts and mural paintings. The familiarity with Eastern models 292

the art of the crusader kingdoms Sigena’s patrons to commission a master from overseas.103 By 1190 significant progress had been made on the cloister and conventual precinct at Sigena, and the interior walls of the chapter-house would have been ready for painting.104 By the end of that year, Doña Sancha could have been put in contact with a Byzantine-trained painter via Armengaud d’Asp, the castellan of Amposta (1180–87) and prior of Saint Gilles (1182–84).105 Even though we are unsure of Armengaud’s nationality, his name was common in the south of France and northern Spain, and the toponym suggests he either originated in the Vivarais (Languedoc) or was from Biscay, Asp being a variation of Axpe, a Basque toponym and surname.106 The prior of Saint Gilles, of whose friendly relationships with the kings of Aragón we have documentary evidence dating back to 1180, was the architect of an exchange of properties (villages, parish churches and castles) between the queen, the Hospitallers, and the Templars that was fundamental to the success of Sigena.107 In 1187 the prior played an important role in the defence of Tyre (August 1187–1 January 1188) against the troops of Saladin.108 Between May and October 1188 Armengaud succeeded Roger des Moulins (October 1177–1 May 1187) as Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, and therefore had to cope with the defeat of Crusaders in the Holy Land.109 Between 1 December 1190 and 28 April 1191 he reappears as Castellan of Amposta and ends up residing in this castle near Tortosa.110 As a collaborator of Doña Sancha in her Hospitaller foundation, Armengaud may have been responsible for the arrival in the kingdom of Aragón of one of the many painters who had to find employment elsewhere as a result of the loss of Jerusalem and the reduction of the Latin Kingdom to little more than Acre. In the years between 1190 and 1196, Alfonso II and his itinerant court frequently resided in the vicinity of Marseille, the main point of arrival from the Crusader kingdoms.111 Freya Probst and Karl Schuller suggest that the journeys of the English crown and court through the port of Marseille during the course of Richard’s crusade (1190–94) could have favoured the kind of exchanges that must have preceded the artist’s commission.112 Certainly, the friendly relationships that existed between the patrons of Sigena and members of the Plantagenet dynasty could have encouraged the recruitment of a Master from overseas. In autumn 1193, Berenguera of Navarre, wife of Richard I, arrived in Marseille from the East and was welcomed by Alfonso II.113 A painter who had been working in the Crusader kingdoms could have reached Marseille on one of the English ships during that period from Cyprus, held by Richard I from 1 June 1191 to 26 April 1192, or from Acre, where Berenguera resided from 1191 to 1192 and where the Hospitallers had relocated their headquarters.114

The evocation of the most characteristic monuments of Jerusalem during crusader times, for which there is no equal in the crucifixions found in Cyprus, could have been inspired by a model. However, it is also possible that the artist of Sigena was a painter who had visited Jerusalem and who would have had the opportunity to see these monuments with his own eyes. While considering icon painters trained in the techniques and formal vocabulary of Byzantine painting in the Crusader workshops, Weitzmann remarked that there is no reason to assume that every painter who went to Palestine remained there, or emigrated to Cyprus.115 It is likely that the artist responsible for the Crucifixion of Sigena was one of those masters who returned to the West in the years that followed Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to Paula Martínez Terán for the translation of this text, to Sarah Clark for the copy-editing and to John McNeill for more general editorial help. NOTES 1 J. A. Sesma, ‘Aragón y Cataluña’, in La Reconquista y el Proceso de Diferenciación Política (1035–1217), Historia de España Menéndez Pidal, IX (Madrid 1998), 696–98; A. Ubieto, El Real monasterio de Sigena (1188–1300) (Valencia 1966), 11–22; A. Ubieto, Documentos de Sigena I, Textos Medievales, 32 (Valencia 1972), nn. 5 and 6. 2 Henry’s son-in-law, Alfonso VIII of Castile, was the son of Sancha’s half-brother King Sancho III. For Henry’s alliance with Alfonso II, see L. Macé, Les comptes de Toulouse et leur entourage XIIe–XIIIe siècles. Rivalités, Alliances et Jeux de Pouvoir (Toulouse 2000), 30–31. For Buckland, see J. Delaville le Roulx, ‘Les Hospitaliers de Saint Jean-de-Jérusalem’, Comptes rendues de l’Académie des Inscriptions, 12e série, XXII (1894), 137–46, and W. Page ed., Victoria County History; Somerset, vol. II (London 1911), 148–50. 3 Ubieto, El Real monasterio (as n. 1), 48. 4 M. de Pano y Ruata, Real Monasterio de Santa María de Sigena, ed. J. A. Sesma, W. Rincón, J. F. Utrilla and M. C. Lacarra (Zaragoza 2004), 62–63. 5 D. Ocón, ‘El papel artístíco de las reinas hispanas en la segunda mitad del siglo XII: Leonor de Castilla and Sancha de Aragón’, in La Mujer en el Arte Español (Madrid 1997), 36; eadem, ‘Une salle capitulaire pour une reine: les peintures du chapitre de Sigena’, Les Cahiers de St-Michel de Cuxa, XXXVII (2007), 84; K. Schuller, ‘Shaping Sacred Space and Institutional Identitity in Romanesque Mural Painting’, in Essays in Honour of Otto Demus, ed. T. Dale and J. Mitchell (London 2004), 254–56. 6 B. Cabañero, La techumbre mudéjar de la sala capitular del monasterio de Sigena (Tarazona 2000), 69–91. 7 Ibid., 54. 8 W. Tronzo, The Cultures of His Kingdom. Roger II and the Cappella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton 1997), 57–61 and n. 104. 9 K. Schuller, ‘The Pictorial Program of the Chapterhouse of Sigena’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, New York University, 1994), 143 and fig. 82; Cabañero, Techumbre mudéjar (as n. 6), 94–95 and fig. 7. 10 Schuller, Pictorial Program (as n. 9), 143 and fig. 83. 11 Cabañero, Techumbre mudéjar (as n. 6), 63 and n. 35.

293

dulce ocón 12

45

Pano y Ruata, Real Monasterio (as n. 4), 140. G. Borrás, El arte mudéjar (Zaragoza 1990), 97. 14 V. Carderera, ‘Descubrimientos en el monasterio de Sijena’, Boletín de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, vol. II (1882), 318; J. Sureda, La pintura románica en España (Aragón, Navarra, Castilla-León y Galicia) (Madrid 1985), 356–57. 15 V. Lampérez, Historia del arquitectura cristiana española en la Edad Media, vol. I (Madrid 1908–09), 698. 16 M. Schapiro, ‘Pintura románica. Imaginería románica’ (review of Ars Hispaniae, vol. 6), Burlington Magazine, XCIV (1952), 181–82; T. R. S. Boase, English Art. 1100–1216 (Oxford 1953), 275; A. Grabar, La peinture romane du onzième au trizième siècle (Geneva 1958), 68–69, 71, 77, 81, 117; O. Pächt, ‘A Cycle of English Frescoes in Spain’, Burlington Magazine, CII (1961), 166–75. 17 W. Oakeshott, Sigena. English Romanesque Paintings in Spain and the Winchester Bible Artists (London 1972). 18 G. Zarnecki, ‘Prophets from the chapter house of Sigena’, in English Art 1066–1200, ed. G. Zarnecki, J. Holt and T. Holland (London 1984), 134, n. 87. 19 C. R. Dodwell, The Pictorial Arts of the West 800–1200 (New Haven and London 1993), 373. 20 Pächt, ‘A Cycle’ (as n. 16), 1961, 172; Oakeshott, Sigena (as n. 17), 78, 111–13. 21 G. Borrás y M. García, La pintura románica en Aragón (Zaragoza 1978), 213. 22 D. Park, ‘The Wall Paintings of the Holy Sepulchre Chapel’, in Medieval Art and Architecture at Winchester Cathedral, ed. T. A. Heslop and V. Sekules, BAA Trans., VI (London 1983), 43–46. 23 Schuller, Pictorial Program (as n. 9), 216. 24 R. M. Gasol, ‘Study of the original technique of the wall paintings of the chapter house of Santa Maria de Sigena, Spain (1190–1200)’, 12th Triennial Meeting, Lyon 29 August–3 September 1999. Icom Committee for Conservation (London 1999), 467–72. 25 P. Mora, L. Mora and P. Philippot, Conservation of Wall Paintings (London 1984), 36, 78, 108, and 139. 26 Gasol, ‘Original technique’ (as n. 24), 468. 27 Mora, Mora and Philippot, Conservation (as n. 25), 108. 28 Pächt, ‘A Cycle’ (as n. 16), 169–71; Oakeshott, Sigena (as n. 17), 75–116. 29 Pächt, ‘A Cycle’ (as n. 16); Oakeshott, Sigena (as n. 17), 92; Schuller, Pictorial Program (as n. 9), 124–25. 30 Gasol, ‘Original technique’ (as n. 24), 469. 31 Freya Probst had already observed plaster joins following the contours of some Old Testament figures, F. Probst, ‘Die Wandmalereien im Kapitelsaal des Klosters S. Maria in Sigena’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Bonn University, 1985), 39–44. 32 Mora, Mora and Philippot, Conservation (as n. 25), 120; J. Rollier-Hanselmann, ‘D’Auxerre à Cluny: technique de la peinture murale entre le VIIIe et le XIIe siècle en Bourgogne’, Cahiers de Civilization Médiévale, 40 (1997), 59. 33 D. and J. Winfield, The Church of the Panaghia tou Arakos at Lagoudhera, Cyprus: The Paintings and Their Painterly Significance, Dumbarton Oaks Studies, XXXVII (Washington 2003), 182–83, 231–32, 279–80 and figs 32 and 39. 34 Gasol, ‘Original technique’ (as n. 24), 469. 35 Mora, Mora and Philippot, Conservation (as n. 25), 111–12; Winfield, Lagoudhera (as n. 33), 325. 36 This procedure has been verified by D. and J. Winfield in the scene of the Ascension at Lagoudhera, (as n. 33), 280. 37 Gasol, ‘Original technique’ (as n. 24), 469. 38 M. Didron, Manuel d’iconographie chrétienne grecque et latine (Paris 1845), 65–68. 39 Winfield, Lagoudhera (as n. 33), 281. 40 Ibid., 304. 41 See n. 48. 42 Gasol, ‘Original technique’ (as n. 24), 469 (commentary to fig. 3). 43 Winfield, Lagoudhera (as n. 33), 280 and illus. 127, 243, 246, 289, 290. 44 Ibid., 324.

Ibid., 324–25. Oakeshott identified 54 of these portraits. Oakeshott, Sigena (as n. 17), 74. 47 Schuller, Pictorial Program (as n. 9), 72–76 and appendix 3A, 250–52. 48 Those of Iacob/Iudas and Iudas/Phares in the first arch; Ezequias/Manasses and Manasses/Amon in the second arch; Levi, Melchi and Zorobabel in the third arch; Cosam, Helmadam and Booz in the fourth arch; J. Fuentes y Ponte, Memoria históricodescriptiva del Santuario de Santa María de Sijena (Lérida 1890), II, 90. 49 M. Caviness, The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral, circa 1175–1220 (Princeton 1977), 107–15. 50 Ibid., 55–61. 51 The same applies to the ancestors in the stained glass of Saint-Yved at Braine (Aisne), work of a master from the Canterbury campaign of c. 1190–1207, M. Caviness, ‘Rediscovered Glass of about 1200 from the Abbey of Saint-Yved de Braine’, Corpus Vitrearum, Selected Papers from the XIth International Colloquium of the Corpus Vitrearum (New York 1985), 34–47. 52 O. Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (London 1949), 58; E. Kitzinger, ‘The Mosaics of the Cappella Palatina: An Essay on the Choice and Arrangement of the Subjects’, Art Bulletin, 31 (1949), 284 and 288 and n. 88; E. Borsook, Messages in Mosaic. The Royal Programmes of Norman Sicily (1130–1187) (Oxford 1990), 41 and figs 39, 43, 44 and 45. 53 Schapiro, ‘Pintura románica’ (as n. 16), 182. 54 N. Morgan, ‘El salterio anglo-catalán. El fragmento de Canterbury’, in Salterio anglocatalán. Volumen de estudios (Barcelona 2006), 31–55; R. Alcoy, ‘Ferrer Bassa y el salterio anglo-catalán’, ibid., 59–120. 55 J. P. Verrié, ‘La política artística de Pere el Ceremonios’, Pere el Ceremonios y la seva época (Barcelona 1989), 177–79. 56 Morgan, ‘Salterio anglo-catalán’ (as n. 54), 17 and 37. 57 Alcoy, ‘Ferrer Bassa’ (as n. 54), 59–61. 58 Oakeshott, Sigena (as n. 17), 104. 59 Borsook, Messages in Mosaic (as n. 52), 64, figs 92–93. 60 Demus, The Mosaics (as n. 52), 315. 61 L. A. Hunt, ‘Art and Colonialism: The Mosaics of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (1169) and the Problem of “Crusader” Art’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 45 (1991), 69–85, esp. 78–81; J. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (Cambridge 1995), 347–64 and pls 9.23a–d. 62 K. Weitzmann, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai. The Icons, vol. I (From the Sixth to the Tenth Century) (Princeton 1976), 102. 63 K. Weitzmann, ‘Icon Painting in the Crusader Kingdom’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 20 (1966), 57–58 and figs 11a–b, 12a–b. 64 Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 61), 364. 65 Dodwell, Pictorial Arts (as n. 19), 56, illus. 43. 66 C. Hoffmann ed., The Year 1200. The Catalogue (New York 1979), no. 293. 67 J. Lowden, Illuminated Prophet Books. A Study of Byzantine Manuscripts of the Major and Minor Prophets (University Park and London 1988), 26–32. 68 Ibid., 32. 69 F. Garnier, Le langage de l’image au Moyen Âge. Signification et simbolique (Paris 1982), 165–80. I have dealt with this topic in more depth in Ocón, ‘Salle capitulaire’ (as n. 5), 89. 70 Winfield, Lagoudhera (as n. 33), 268–69, figs 256–58. 71 A. Grabar, La peinture religieuse en Bulgarie (Paris 1928), 55–86; for illustrations see V. Lazarev, Storia della pittura bizantina (Turin 1967), figs 345–46. 72 T. Velmans, ‘Rayonnement de l’icone au XIIe et au débout du XIIIe siècle’, Actes du congrès international d’études bizantines. Athènes-septembre 1976, vol. I (Athens 1979), 382–83 and pls XLIX/2 (Zica) and L.4 (Khé). 73 Grabar, Peinture en Bulgarie (as n. 71), 64–66. 74 H. Grigoriadou-Cabagnols, ‘Le décor peint de l’église de Samari en Mesénie’, Cahiers Archéologiques, 20 (1970), 185 and fig. 6. 46

13

294

the art of the crusader kingdoms 75 Pano y Ruata, Real Monasterio (as n. 4), 140; D. Park, ‘The Medieval Polichromy of Winchester Cathedral’, in Winchester Cathedral. Nine Hundred Years (1093–1993), ed. J. Crook (Chichester 1993), 129–31. 76 Evidence of these decorative elements has already been noted by F. Probst and K. Schuller: Probst, ‘Die Wandmalereien’ (as n. 31), 47–48; Schuller, Pictorial Program (as n. 9), 103 and figs 33 and 58. 77 Ocón, ‘Salle capitulaire’ (as n. 5), 91. 78 H. Maguire, ‘The iconography of Symeon with the Christ Child’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 34–35 (1980–81), 261–69, esp. 263 and 267. 79 Schuller, Pictorial Program (as n. 9), 86, and 338–34 (figs 59a–c). 80 L. Hadermann-Misguich, ‘La peinture monumentale tardocomnène et se prolongements au XIIe siècle’, in Actes du congrès international d’études bizantines. Athènes-septembre 1976, vol. I (Athens 1979), 274–57. 81 On discussion of the crusader or the Ayyubid autorship of the Qubbat al-Mi`raj, see Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 61), 253–54. 82 M. de Vogüé, ‘Monnaies inèdites des croisades’, Revue Numismatique, 9 (1864), 276–77 and pls XIII/1 and XIII/2; G. Schlumberguer, F. Chalandon and A. Blanchet, Sigillographie de l’Orient Latin (Paris 1943), 4–6, pls XVI/1, XVI/2, XVI/4 and XVI/5; D. M. Metcalf, ‘Coins of Lucca, Valence and Antioch: Some new hoards and stray finds from the times of the Crusades’, Hamburger Beiträge zur Numismatik, 22–23 (1968–69), 142, pls XVII/4 and XVII/5; see also Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 61), 289 and n. 20. 83 Illustration in A. Bonnery, M. Mentré and G. Hidrio, Jérusalem, symboles et répresentations dans l’Occident médieval (Paris 1998), 157. 84 P. Durrieu, ‘Une vue de L’église du Saint-Sépulchre vers 1436, provenant du Bon Roi René’, in Florilegium: Récueil de Travaux d’érudition dédiés á M. le Marquis Melchior de Vogüé (Paris 1909), 197–207. 85 Pächt, ‘A Cycle’ (as n. 16), 173. 86 Schuller, Pictorial Program (as n. 9), 213. 87 M. Thérel, ‘L’origine du thème de la ‘Synagogue répudié’, Scriptorium, XXV (1971), 286. 88 Lazarev, Pittura bizantina (as n. 72), 187–88. Reproduced in H. Omont, Evangiles avec peintures byzantines du XIe siècle (Paris 1908), pl. 51. 89 H. L. Kessler, ‘An Eleventh-Century Ivory Plaque from South Italy and the Cassinese Revival’, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 8 (1966), 67–95, esp. 70 and fig. 1. On the Crucifixion in the Exultet Roll in Troia, see M. Avery, The Exultet Rolls of South Italy, II (Princeton 1936), pl. clxxix. 90 Kessler, ‘Ivory Plaque’ (as n. 89), 70–76 and fig. 10. 91 A. W. Epstein, ‘The Frescoes of the Mavriotissa Monastery near Kastoria: Evidence of Millenarianism and Anti-Semitism in the Wake of the First Crusade’, Gesta, XXI (1982), 26.

92

Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 61), 382. A. W. Carr, ‘The Mural Paintings of Abu Gosh and the Patronage of Manuel Comnenus in the Holy Land’, in Crusader Art in the Twelfth Century, ed. J. Folda, BAR International Series, 152 (Oxford 1982), 216–19; J. Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 61), 389. 94 Ibid., 217. 95 G. Kühnel, Wall Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Berlin 1988), pls LVI, LVII and LVIII. 96 E. Kitzinger, ‘Byzantium and the West in the Second Half of the Twelfth Century: Problems of Stylistic Relationships’, Gesta, IX (1970), 54. 97 Kühnel, Wall Painting (as n. 95), pl. LVIII.103. 98 Ibid., pl. LVII/101. 99 C. Mango and C. W. Hawkings, ‘The Hermitage of St. Neophytos and its Wall Paintings’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 20 (1966), 119–206, esp. 201. 100 V. J. Djurić, ‘La peinture murale byzantine. XIIe et XIIIe siècles’, Actes du congrès international d’études bizantines. Athènes– septembre 1976, vol. I (Athens 1979), 202; T. Velmans ‘Fresques et Mosaïques’, in Rayonnement de Byzance, ed. T. Velmans, V. Korać and M. Šuput (La pierre-qui-vire and Paris 1999), 183 and figs 71 and 72. 101 Carr, ‘Abu Gosh’ (as n. 93), 216; Folda, Art of the Crusaders (as n. 61), 389, and Velmans, ‘Fresques et mosaïques’ (as n. 100), 176 and 182, figs 148–50. 102 Park, ‘Wall Paintings’ (as n. 22), 45–46. 103 Sesma, ‘Aragón y Cataluña’ (as n. 1), 711–21 and 732–43; E. Jenkins, The Mediterranean World of Alfonso II and Peter II of Aragon (1162–1213) (New York 2012), 19–36 and 89–102. 104 J. Gardelles, ‘Le prieuré de Sigena aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles: étude architectural’, Bulletin monumental, 133 (1975), 26. 105 J. Delaville le Roulx, Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte et à Chipre (1100–1310) (Paris 1904), 415–16 and 422. 106 Ibid. 101, n. 1. 107 J. Delaville le Roulx, Cartulaire Général de l’Ordre des Hospitaliers de Saint Jean de Jérusalem, 4 vols (Paris 1894–1906), I, no. 835; Ubieto Arteta, Documentos de Sigena (as n. 1), nos 5 and 6. 108 Delaville le Roulx, Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte (as n. 105), 98–99. 109 Ibid., 101. 110 Ibid., 104. On the unusual fact that he enjoyed high office in the Order after resignation, see J. Riley-Smith, The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus c. 1050–1310: a history of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, vol. I (London 1967) 106–07. 111 J. Caruana, ‘Itinerario de Alfonso II de Aragón’, Estudios de la Edad Media de la Corona de Aragón, 7 (1962), 253–54, 273–74, 281, 283, 290–91, 298. 112 Probst, Die Wandmalereien (as n. 31), 174–75; Schuller, Pictorial Program (as n. 9), 210. 113 Caruana, ‘Itinerario de Alfonso II’ (as n. 111), 281. 114 Riley-Smith, The Knights of St. John (as n. 110), 112–20. 115 Weitzmann, ‘Icon Painting’ (as n. 63), 75. 93

295

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 297–326

CATALAN PANEL PAINTING AROUND 1200, THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN AND BYZANTIUM Manuel Castiñeiras ‘Journeys, like artists, are born and not made’ ‘Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection . . .’ Lawrence Durrell, Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (1957)

Catalan panel painting of the late 12th century is characterized by a marked Byzantine imprint. Although a number of scholars have argued that this Byzantine influence was indirect, and suggested that the intermediaries were Anglo-Norman miniatures (especially in the case of the altar frontal from Santa Maria d’Avià), others have preferred the notion of direct contact between the Eastern and Western Mediterranean as a result of the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 and the capture of Constantinople by a Crusader army in 1204. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the similarities between Catalan panel painting (notably the altar frontals from Avià, Baltarga and Oreilla) and Cypriot and Komnenian art — in terms of their technique, colour and iconographic models. In this respect, the drawings made in Cyprus between 1183 and 1192 in Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3, are both proof of the existence of potentially portable workshop models, and the desire of artists to practice drawing before painting. The activity of Master Alexander, a possibly ‘Greek’ painter trained in Cyprus and subsequently working in the vicinity of the monastery of St-Martin-du-Canigou around 1200, will allow us to reformulate the question of Byzantine influence in the Western Mediterranean.

One of the first scholars to be convinced of the direct relationship between 13th-century Catalan panel painting and the art of the eastern Mediterranean was the American Professor Walter Cook (1888–1962). Although Cook published widely on Catalan altar frontals in the course of a long career dedicated to the study of Spanish Romanesque art,1 some of his most interesting observations still remain locked in his unedited personal papers in the Cloisters Library, New York.2 Cook’s views on this Catalan group of painted panels were close to those of Charles Rufus Morey, the well-known founder of the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University, whose interest lay primarily in tracing the sources of western medieval artistic styles in the traditions of the Ancient Mediterranean and Near East.3 It was a short and insightful observation written by Cook on a card conserved in the Cloister’s archives that first alerted me to his peculiar interest in 13th-century Catalan panel painting. This is his comment on the figure of King Gaspar in the altar frontal from Santa Maria de Mosoll © British Archaeological Association 2015

(Cerdanya) (MNAC 15788): ‘The treatment of the personage betrays the strong influence of Eastern manuscripts. The small round face with a diminutive mouth, spots of color on either cheek, white hair and beard, closely resembles an Armenian manuscript in Jerusalem’.4 Although Cook does not name the manuscript in question, it is likely that he was thinking of the Gospel of Hromkla (Rumkale), a book illuminated by Toros Roslin in 1260 in Armenian Cilicia. Hromkla is now in Turkey, but was the seat of the supreme head (catholicos) of the Armenian Church in the 13th century, though the manuscript is now conserved by the Armenian Patriarchate at Jerusalem (Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate MS 251).5 This is not the only comparison Cook proposed between Catalan panel painting and eastern art, for in another unpublished note, this time concerning the famous altar frontal from Avià (MNAC 15784), Cook remarks that ‘the work shows throughout strong Byzantine influence’.6 297

manuel casti Ñ eiras FRAMING THE ART OF 1200 IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

At this point I should confess my enthusiasm for Cook’s parallels. They seem to me especially relevant in the case of Mosoll. This lovely work initially attracted my attention precisely because of it orientalizing elements.7 In the first place, the Mosoll panel is the only 13th-century Catalan example where the stucco reliefs on the wooden frame were modelled on Moorish ribbon shapes (Fig. 1), in imitation of lacería mudéjar. It is worth noting that this could also be seen in the broadly contemporary coffered ceiling that decorated the chapter-house at Sigena until the Spanish civil war (Fig. 2).8 Moreover, the Mosoll painter employed genuinely Byzantine compositions in his designs, as we can see in the scenes of the Visitation or the Presentation in the Temple (figure of Joseph). Whatever we might be able to discern about the training this Pyrenean artist received, the essential point is to try to explain how and why a Byzantine repertoire arrived in Catalonia at the end of the 12th century, and transformed the local tradition of panel painting.

It is now more than forty years since the Metropolitan Museum of Art at New York organized the magnificent exhibition The Year 1200, one of whose themes was the Byzantine influence on western art between 1180 and 1220. It is worth noting that both exhibition and catalogue shed new light on a fascinating period situated between Romanesque and Gothic art and created a new art-historical category: the art of c. 1200.9 However, as was recently pointed out at Kalamazoo in a series of sessions organized by Dorothy Glass to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the New York exhibition and themselves entitled ‘The Year 1200’, the original show took a very northern European approach to the topic.10 For this reason, I thought it appropriate to take advantage of the International Romanesque Conference at Palermo, to present some ideas of my own about this issue. My intention was to revisit the art of c. 1200 from the perspective of southern Europe. I questioned how and why a Byzantine repertoire became established in Catalonia at the end of the 12th century, and had transformed the local mural and panel painting traditions, as can be seen in the frontals of Avià, Baltarga, Oreilla and the mural paintings of Puig-reig or St Esteve d’Andorra.11

Figure 1 Altar frontal from Santa Maria de Mosoll (Cerdanya): detail of stucco reliefs on the wooden frame. Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Cloisters, Walter Cook Archive & Institute of Fine Arts, New York University)

Figure 2 Coffered ceiling of the chapter-house of Santa Maria de Sigena before 1936: Section no. 9 (© Fundació Institut Amatller d’Art Hispànic. Arxiu Mas) 298

catalan panel painting around 1200 HAR2011-23015), alongside the Museu Episcopal de Vic (MEV), the CETEC-Patrimoni/Institut Químic de Sarria and the Centre de de Restauració de Béns Mobles de Catalunya (CRBMC).22 One of the goals of this project is to study the techniques employed by medieval artists using laboratory-based scientific methods, such as optic (OM) and electronic (SEM/ EDXA) microscopy, infrared spectrography (ATR) and RAMAN spectroscopy, in order to improve our knowledge on the origin, formation and trajectory of the medieval painter. The initial results of that process have shed significant new light on the so-called ‘Byzantine’ group of Catalan panel paintings. As far as the pigments are concerned, these are mainly inorganic and belong to a well-established local tradition, though they were modified, for the first time in Catalan panel painting, by the presence of lacquers for reds, as was common in Byzantine painting. The altar frontal of Santa Maria d’Avià and that of Santa Maria de Mosoll provide us a good example of this new technique. In addition, the use of engraved stucco reliefs (pastiglia) to decorate frames, backgrounds and haloes with a coating of varnished tin (Fig. 3) is a long-distance imitation of the silver revetment of Byzantine icons such as the famous Virgin of Vladimir.23 As M. S. Frinta and Yvette Carbonell-Lamothe have pointed out, Cypriot art around 1200 could have acted as an intermediary between the eastern and western Mediterranean in the context of the Third Crusade, and the establishment of the Lusignan dynasty in Cyprus after 1192.24 Indeed, in contemporary Cypriot paintings — such as the icons at Panagia Theoskepasti in Kato Paphos (Fig. 4) and the Virgin Hodegetria in the church of Panagina at Doros, we can see not only the same stucco relief technique, but also the model for the depiction of the Virgin holding the Christ Child in her right hand,

A number of well-known studies of these works have argued that their ‘Byzantine’ qualities arrived indirectly, and have suggested that the intermediaries were Anglo-Norman or German miniatures.12 However, more recent work has stressed the existence of direct connections between the western and eastern Mediterranean.13 In this new context, I would like to draw attention to the privileged position enjoyed by the great Catalan harbours in the western Mediterranean, such as Barcelona and Montpellier-Lattes, and the direct contacts that existed between Catalonia and the Crusader States throughout the 12th and 13th centuries.14 Count Hugh of Empúries, who visited the Holy Land around 1200, for example, signed an agreement with Marseille in 1219 to authorize a vessel to bring goods to the port of Alexandria as well as to carry pilgrims going to Jerusalem.15 In addition, thanks to recent studies by Jaroslav Folda, Lucy-Anne Hunt or Bianca Kühnel, we have begun to recognize not only that the art of the Crusader kingdom has a distinct historical character, but that it is possible to distinguish its particular imprint within what is more generally seen as evidence of Byzantine influence on western art.16 Even two years ago an exhibition mounted at the Louvre on the theme of Cyprus, along with a book, could address the impact of eastern Mediterranean art on the western Mediterranean and vice versa from the end of 12th century by focusing on the art of Sicily, Rome, Tuscany and Venice, disregarding Catalonia, Aragon or Spain, as had happened in the year 1200.17 There are numerous striking examples of the impact of eastern models on Catalan art between 1190 and 1220, such as the paintings of Sant Martí de Puig-reig and Sant Esteve de Andorra, or the painted panels that are object of this study.18 For this reason, assumptions as to travelling artists or the circulation of drawings (both as model books or sketchbook) should be revisited not only with regard to Catalan and Aragonese painting, but also as to the old and thorny issue of Spanish late Romanesque sculpture.19 This would allow us to redefine current art-historical categories as well as to point up the importance of the Crusaders, and of the contacts initiated by them with the East, in the transformation of European art, as Jaroslav Folda has indicated is the case for Italian panel painting.20 As a first step, I intend to look afresh at Catalan panel and wall-painting around 1200, based on analyses from several different perspectives. Between 2005 and 2010, I was privileged to be able to explore these artworks with the generous help of my former colleagues at MNAC, Jordi Camps and Gemma Ylla-Català, as well as the chemist Quim Badia.21 Moreover, in the last few years I have been involved in a research project entitled ‘Artists, patrons and audiences. Catalonia and the Mediterranean (11th–15th centuries) — MAGISTRI CATALONIAE’ (MICINN

Figure 3 Altar frontal from Santa Maria d’Avià (Berguedà): traces of stucco reliefs coated with varnished tin in the Virgin’s halo. Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (© MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà) 299

manuel casti Ñ eiras LATIN OR GREEK? TWO ARTISTS AT THE MEDITERRANEAN CROSSROADS Notwithstanding the above, my main goal is neither to explore the materiality of the panels nor to create an iconographic catalogue of its various compositional parts. On the contrary, I would like to chart the huge change in the conception and perception of the image in Catalan panel painting around 1200, linking this to direct contact with Byzantine and Crusader art. I would like to suggest that interaction with art from the eastern Mediterranean developed in Catalonia in two ways: In the first example — the Avià altar frontal (Fig. 5) — a Latin artist travelled in the eastern Mediterranean, where he was exposed to a new repertoire of images in the Holy Land which he emulated on his return. In the second example — the Oreilla altar frontal (Fig. 6) — a ‘Greek’ artist, possibly trained in a Cypriot-Byzantine tradition, arrived in the Pyrenees and was able to adapt his eastern language to the local tradition, working in conjunction with Catalan painters in order to develop a workshop. Fortunately, as we will see, we can coordinate this ‘Greek’ master with the activity of Master Alexander (Magister Alexander), a painter working in the vicinity of the Benedictine abbey of St-Martin-du-Canigou around 1200, whose workshop was responsible for making several pieces for the liturgical furniture.

Figure 4 Kato Paphos (Cyprus): Hodegetria Dexiokratousa. Icon of Panagia Theoskepasti. Byzantine Museum, Paphos (Manuel Castiñeiras)

The importance of this binomial structure is that it reflects the practices of Crusader art in the eastern Mediterranean and its extension into the West. From Hugo Buchthal’s researches on the miniature painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, we have become used to talking of both western artists working at the Holy sites who then emulate Byzantine art, such as Basilius in the Holy Sepulchre scriptorium,27 or of Byzantine artists working after in the western Mediterranean following the capture of Constantinople, as with the polemical author of the controversial Greek-Pisan Cross.28 For the latter, Michele Bacci has recently pointed to possible parallels for his style in an icon from the church of the Virgin of the Katapoliani at Paros (Greece), dated to around 1200.29 The features in both painted panels belong to a stylistic mode then widespread in Cypriot and Greek painting, which in turn echoed Constantinopolitan models. At the risk of oversimplifying what is a finely nuanced situation, it is likely that the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Saladin in 1187 and the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, created new opportunities for interaction between western and eastern artists, way beyond earlier 12th-century norms. In the first case, the Avià frontal, Rosa Alcoy argued for an intermediate transmission of eastern models via Anglo-Norman miniatures.30 At first sight, some of the panel scenes do seem to derive from the Bury

known in Byzantine art as Hodegetria Dexiokatrousa.25 The early-13th-century Catalan altar frontal of Alós de Isil (MNAC 15834) is a good example of the success of such eastern techniques and iconography in the western Mediterranean. However, as Michele Bacci has recently pointed out, the imitation of Byzantine formulae in western Mediterranean panel painting can be detected from the second quarter of the 12th century. Thus, in the icon known as the Madonna of Santa Chiara at Pisa, made by a local artist around 1150, the aforementioned Byzantine iconographic scheme (that of Deixiokratousa) was framed by a stucco-relief decorated with the Islamic motif of confronted birds.26 The incorporation of Islamic motifs was common at this period in both Latin and Byzantine productions on both sides of the Mediterranean and is a product of the peculiar interaction of artistic cultures in this area. The aforementioned altar frontal of Santa Maria de Mosoll (Fig. 1), which was probably created by a Seu d’Urgell workshop around 1220 (in the Pyrenees), provides another good example of this phenomenon in Catalan panel painting. 300

catalan panel painting around 1200

Figure 5 Altar frontal from Santa Maria d’Avià (Berguedà). Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (© MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà). See also Plate XIIIA in print edition

Figure 6 Magister Alexander (?), Altar frontal from Sainte-Marie d’Oreilla (Conflent) (Manuel Castiñeiras). See also Plate XIVA in print edition 301

manuel casti Ñ eiras

Figure 7 Altar frontal from Santa Maria d’Avià (Berguedà). Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. This photo was taken before 1920 for the Archivo Iconográfico Español (© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Cloisters, Walter Cook Archive & Institute of Fine Arts, New York University)

Figure 8 Panagia tou Arakos at Lagoudhera (Cyprus), bema, apse semidome: Enthroned Virgin and Child, flanked by the Archangels Michael and Gabriel (Manuel Castiñeiras) 302

catalan panel painting around 1200 top by angels, is reminiscent of Marian representations of the Cypriot church of Lagoudhera of c. 1192 (Fig. 8).32 As such, I would be reluctant to accept that this reception is a result of the use of a model-book as an intermediary. The evocation of the silver revetment of an icon through the use of tin plates and stucco reliefs betrays direct contact with the eastern Mediterranean. Moreover, the painter uses colours in a Byzantine manner. The garments are shot through with carefully judged highlights and transparencies, and are distinguished by a handling of pigments that has something of the subtlety of Kommenian or Crusader painting. The painter probably also employed lacquers to obtain certain colour tones, such as those of the drapery of the Mary’s tunic in the scene of Annunciation that reminds us the fluid clothing of the depiction of the Visitation in the Melisende Psalter (fol. 1v) (Fig. 9). Alongside this, one is also conscious of a mixing of iconographic sources. The depiction of Mary in the scene of the Annunciation (Fig. 10), for example, betrays knowledge of a very particular Byzantine iconographic type — the intercessionary Virgin of the Deisis (Fig. 18).33 This deploys a figure in a threequarter view lifting her hands in a gesture of prayer. Our Latin artist does not hesitate to include this formula — more usual for an icon of the Deesis — in a new narrative context — nor in embellishing the Virgin’s cloak with a repetitive three-dot design in a triangular configuration, known as çintamani, and, though already present in the Latin West from the 9th century, the motif is frequently found in the 13thcentury Crusader panel painting.34 Conversely, the painter ignores the Trinitarian three-star motif that was canonical in the decoration of the maphorion of Mary in Byzantine art, and is ubiquitous in Cyprus.35 To this extent, the Avià frontal is not dissimilar to folios 29r (Koimesis) and 30r (Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven) — commonly known as the Byzantine Diptych — in the Winchester Psalter (London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero C. IV). As H. A. Klein pointed out, it is very likely that the author of these miniatures was a western artist who encountered the Byzantine sources that lie behind his work through a journey to the eastern Mediterranean. The result was a pastiche which mixed Byzantine and western traditions.36 The Master of Avià seems to me to be similar, and, as we will see, the iconographical sources that lie behind the depiction of the Incarnation of Christ on the Avià frontal are probably Crusader cycles in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, such as the mosaics at the cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem of 1165–69 (Fig. 11), or the now lost paintings in the monastic church of St Mary in the Valley of Jehoshaphat.37 There are still more intriguing questions to resolve in the case of frontal of Saint-Marie d’Oreilla (Fig. 6). This work of art appears as a hapax legomenon in the history of the Catalan panel painting. It seems most

Figure 9 London, British Library, MS Egerton 1139, fol. 1v. Visitation, by Basilius (© The British Library Board)

St Edmunds Bible, Winchester Psalter or Eadwine Psalter. But this argument is based on a view which privileges northern versions of the art of 1200, and specifically disregards important aspects of the materiality of the object, treating it as it were the product of a model book. Despite the losses and abusive restorations, it is still clear that the image of the seated Virgin and Child at the centre of the Avià panel is set against a lively varnished tin background of plant motifs (Fig. 7), possibly so as to simulate the appearance of the silver-plating used in 12th-century Byzantine icons, such as the famous Komnenian Virgin of Vladimir, which, from the end of the 12th century, Cypriot artists imitated with the pastiglia technique.31 Similarly, certain iconographic details at Avià, like the representation of Mary as the Hodegetria, accompanied at the 303

manuel casti Ñ eiras

Figure 10 Altar frontal from Santa Maria d’Avià (Berguedà): Annunciation and Visitation (upper register, left side). Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (© MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà). See also Plate XIIIB in print edition

likely that we are here faced with a foreign artist with an unusual biography. His probable name is Master Alexander. Even though his signature, known through a 19th-century copy, seems to have been confined to the now lost altar frontal from St-Génis-des-Fontaines (Fig. 12), his title and Greek name, Magister Alexander, suggest he was a Byzantine painter.38 As I recently suggested elsewhere,39 it is likely that Master Alexander was responsible for one of the altars at St-Martin-du-Canigou around 1195, the canopy of which is depicted in an abbey charter roll (Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, Collection Jean Masson, Mn. Mas 38) (Fig. 13) as well as for the St-Génis-deFontaines frontal.40 At the top of the Canigou roll there is a colourful depiction of a scene in two registers. In the lower register, one can see the depiction of the foundation of a confraternity dedicated to St Martin, which probably took place before the main altar of the upper church of St-Martin-du-Canigou. As specified in the charter, there is a double lamp

hanging before the said altar that must remain lit day and night: una semper olei lampas in diebus ac noctibus ante sanctum altare ipsius eclesie ardeat. The upper register depicts a Maiestas Domini accompanied by the Tetramorph and flanked by the patron saints of the monastic double church: St Mary, to whom the lower church was dedicated, and Saint Martin, who held the dedication of the upper church. It is highly likely that the image on the Canigou charter roll represents a ceiling canopy rather than the frontal that many scholars have suggested, that is to say that it shows an aerial structure above the altar, half-way between a tabernacle and a wooden ceiling, of the same type as the canopies from Sant Martí de Tost or Sant Serni de Tavèrnoles.41 If so, one can argue that the abbot then in office, either Pere Guillem or Pere d’Ortafà (1172–1221), on the occasion of the foundation of the confraternity commissioned Magister Alexander to make a ceiling canopy (as depicted and about little else is known) and an altar 304

catalan panel painting around 1200

Figure 11 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: detail of the Child in the manger and recumbent Virgin (Manuel Castiñeiras)

Figure 12

frontal — the latter which should be identified with the antipendium now conserved in the church of Santa Maria at Oreilla (Fig. 6). It should be said that Oreilla is a relatively minor church that belonged to the abbey of St-Martin-du-Canigou, to which the frontal was taken in 1784.42 It seems that from the beginning Magister Alexander had his own workshop into which he recruited a number of local artists. This is probably the only way that an icon painter would have been able to familiarize himself and adjust to the tastes and expectations of Catalan patrons, particularly in terms of format, structure and theme. This strikes me as the most plausible explanation for the Oreilla frontal, a work it is still otherwise difficult to classify. It is very likely that Master Alexander’s knowledge of Komnenian art derived from a Cypriot training, and was progressively tempered by local traditions so as to produce more assimilated panel paintings, such as can be seen in the altar frontal from St Andreu de Baltarga (MNAC 15804) (Fig. 14). How this process of assimilation was effected is unclear. However, there are certain trails that ought to be explored if we are to get closer to understanding with any subtlety the nature of artistic relations between East and West around 1200. The striking similarity between the faces of Christ and some of the Apostles in Oreilla and Baltarga and those drawn in the margins in the Byzantine copy of John Chrysostom’s Commentary on Genesis (Magdalen College, Oxford MS Gr. 3) is on the face of it a surprise. To pursue this intriguing issue further, it is necessary to raise the controversial question of whether Byzantine model books might have been circulating in the West at this date.

Drawing of the altar frontal from Saint-Génis-desFontaines (Roussillon) by Magister Alexander. L. de Bonnefoy, Epigraphie Roussilllonnaise (1868) MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD MS GR. 3: ARTISTIC PRACTICE AND MOBILITY MEDITERRANEAN PAINTING AROUND 1200 Few drawings linked to pictorial practice survive from the 12th century. The innumerable cycles of wall-paintings that once covered churches in the Mediterranean are not accompanied by sets of sketches or cartoons that act as guides or better enable us to understand the secrets of their artistic creation. Many scholars even discount the suggestion that models or copies were a part of Romanesque and Byzantine painting practice. In their opinion, 12th-century painters used mnemotechnical methods — essentially visual memory triggered by oral instruction, in marked contrast to Renaissance practice.43 However, Magdalen College, Oxford MS Gr. 3 has the capacity to dispel one’s doubts as to 11th- or 12th-century model books. The codex contains a partial copy of John Chrysostom’s Homilies on Genesis (Homilies 31–67) and was probably made at Constantinople during the 11th century. By the 12th century the manuscript was in Cyprus, as is indicated by the scholia in the margins of folia 120v–123v (Homily 44) which date to the second half of the 12th century. It is highly likely that by the end of that century over 100 drawings had been completed in pen in the margins of most of the folios. Moreover, there is evidence that the book was in use during the Venetian mandate in the island (1489– 1573), as a number of additional drawings and scholia 305

manuel casti Ñ eiras

Figure 13 Charter confirming the foundation of the Confraternity of St Martin at the abbey of Saint-Martin-du-Canigou (Conflent), Paris: École des Beaux-Arts, Collection Jean Masson Mn. Mas 38 (Photo © Beaux-Arts de Paris, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image Beaux-arts de Paris). See also Plate XV in print edition

306

catalan panel painting around 1200

Figure 14 Altar frontal from Sant Andreu de Baltarga (Baixa Cerdanya) by the workshop of Magister Alexander. Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (© MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà). See also Plate XIVB in print edition

Figure 15 (far left) Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3, fol. 134v. Female Saint by Painter A (Cyprus, 1183–92) (Manuel Castiñeiras. © The President and Fellows of Magdalen College Oxford) Figure 16 (left) Paphos: Hagios Neophytos (enkleistra), detail of the Virgin and Neophytos kneeling at Christ’s feet by Theodore Apseudes (Manuel Castiñeiras) 307

manuel casti Ñ eiras

Figure 17 Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3, fol. 11r. Drawing of the Virgin and Christ from a Deisis by Painter B (Manuel Castiñeiras. © The President and Fellows of Magdalen College Oxford)

may rightly be called a Musterbuch, a sort of working tool for a group of wall and icon painters who used these tracings and cartoons as compositional models from which to sketch varied figures in the margins of the codex. Their apparently isolated and random distribution in the manuscript, and the fact that these depictions were not finally coloured, allows us to visualise something of the original ‘ανθίβολα and assess their reception by a creative monumental painting workshop. Most of the sketches of Painter A, whose work is characterized by slender, gently animated figures (Fig. 15), are closely related to work at two sites in Cyprus: the monastic churches of Hagios Neophytos at Paphos, particularly the tiny founder’s cell within the early Enkleistra (Fig. 16), dated to 1182/83, and Panagia tou Arakou, at Lagoudera, dated to 1192.47 Moreover, it is very probable that the Oxford manuscript was kept at a monastery on Cyprus that was in contact with the monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, or at least with with Sinaitic metochia. Painter B, whose style emphasizes volume and who employs sfumato effects, seems to have been aware (directly

appear to have been made in the late 15th century. The Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1570–71 probably lies behind the book’s migration to the West. Its present binding carries the initials G. K., a known Oxford bookbinder documented in the second half of the 16th century. The manuscript then entered the Library of Magdalen College in Oxford around 1600, where it remains.44 This peculiar and understudied collection of drawings raises the controversial question of whether there were Byzantine model books and, if there were, whether they might have been circulating the West around 1200. As Irmarg Hutter has pointed out, three painters were involved in illuminating Magdalen MS Gr. 3, each of whom had access to a set of models or exempla of wall-paintings and icons dating to the late 12th and early 13th centuries in Cyprus. Hutter also emphasized that most of the Oxford drawings have not been copied directly from paintings but from tracings or cartoons,45 methods often employed by Byzantine masters in their own work, as is well documented in the Painter’s Manual of Dyonisius of Fourna.46 For this reason the Magdalen manuscript 308

catalan panel painting around 1200 analysis, Hutter did not sufficiently take into account the very peculiar context of the island between 1183 and 1200, and in particular the emerging figure of the sainted-monk Neophytos (1134–1214).51 It is likely that Magdalen College MS Gr. 3 is related to the saint himself, and to his artistic and intellectual enterprises. Neophytos collected a number of important manuscripts for the monastery he founded (initially simply known as the Enkleistra — or enclosure) near Paphos, most of them works of ecclesiastical literature. As Catia Galatarioutou pointed out, the works of St John Chrysostom were among the favourite readings of the saint, especially his Homilies on Genesis, of which two copies have been identified (Paris, Bibliothèque National, Cod. Gr. 605; Cod. Coisl 65).52 The enthusiasm shown by Neophytos for the writings of this Orthodox Church Father is probably related to his own life of self-sanctification. He learnt how to read and write at the age of twenty in the monastery of St John Chrysostom at Koutsovendês, whose library was probably rich in Chrysostom’s works, and years later could provide books for the library of his cell in Paphos. Like St John Chrysostom himself, Neophytos withdrew to a cave before being ordained priest and was later an outstanding preacher, able to denounce the abuse of authority by political leaders.53 Furthermore, the brief marginal notes made by a 12th-century hand on folios 120v–123v in the Oxford manuscript were intended to underline the content of Homily 44: God protects good men such as Abraham or Lot from the destruction (Sodom and Gomorrah) but condemns the wicked; He is merciful with the elect, such as the Women from Samaria and praises the chastity of Joseph. In the margins of the same glossed Homily and those that immediately follow, the artists drew the same subjects: Christ and the Samaritan woman (Homily 44) (fols 135v–136r) (Fig. 23), Abraham’s bosom and Joseph (Homily 45) (fols 149v and 158r) (Fig. 24) as well as Zachariah and Elizabeth (Homily 48) (fols 178r and 179r) in allusion to the promise to the elderly Sarah that she would become pregnant.54 This correspondence between text and image changes our perception of the sense of the drawings in the manuscript, and poses once again the question of its original use. Until recently, I rather sympathized with Robin Cormack’s analysis of the Oxford codex. Disagreeing with Hutter, Cormack argued that the Oxford manuscript was not a Musterbuch or Model-Book, but a means whereby artists practised their work.55 As such, it is not a collection of models created so that a workshop might scale up the designs for use in monumental commissions, but simply a sketchbook intended to improve the skills of the individual artists. Drawing was a means of refining their work as well as stimulating their memory. This explanation fitted with the apprehension that the late-12th-century ‘sketches’ were unrelated to the contents of the manuscript. However, given that in some instances text and image are related, this is potentially misleading.

Figure 18 Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai: Virgin from Grand Deisis (© By permission of Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt) or indirectly) of the magnificent collection of the icons of Sinai. His depiction of St Catherine wearing the Crusader cross on her robe (fol. 49v) reminds us of a celebrated icon dated to the early thirteenth century in the monastery on Mount Sinai.48 More intriguing are the drawings depicting the Deisis on folios 10v (Fig. 19) and 11r (Fig. 17): these truly seem to be taken from a cartoon deriving from the contemporary panels of the Grand Deisis at Sinai (Fig. 18).49 Most notably, the figure of St John the Baptist was reversed with regard to the others, demonstrating that the model for the representation in Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3 was not an actual artwork but a tracing or cartoon (Fig. 19). A further example, I believe, reinforces this privileged relationship with the Sinai models: both the isolated saint warrior in proskynesis (fol. 219r) (Fig. 20) (Painter B) and the series of angels in worship (fols 234v, 240v 312v) (Fig. 21) (Painter A) could be compared with very similar figures depicted in an icon of the Archangel Michael with donor at Sinai (c. 1200) (Fig. 22).50 Both references to Cypriot painting and icons from Mount Sinai are very interesting points to consider. In my opinion, beyond her formal and iconographic 309

manuel casti Ñ eiras

Figure 19 Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3, fol. 10v. Drawing of St John the Baptist from a Deesis by Painter B (the figure was reversed with regard to the model) (Manuel Castiñeiras. © The President and Fellows of Magdalen College Oxford)

How can we explain such a quantity of images and their obvious relationship with the cycles at the Enkleistra (Paphos) and Lagoudhera? As far as the paintings of the Enkleistra are concerned, the cell and bema were completed and signed by a painter called Theodore Apseudes in 1183.56 In my opinion ‘Apseudes’, which in Greek means ‘who does not lie’, is probably a monastic epithet rather than a surname, suggesting that the painter was reliable and trustworthy. His classical court style distinguishes him as a first-class Byzantine painter from Constantinople who had travelled to Cyprus. Besides the murals he also painted two icons for the enkleistra that are currently displayed in the monastery: Jesus Christ Philanthropos and the Virgin Eleusa.57 Moreover, both the second phase of Lagoudhera paintings and the two icons that were kept in the church until 1970 have been confidently attributed to him.58 As an itinerant painter, like Theophanes the Greek or Andrei Rublev, Theodore Apseudes worked on both small-scale icons as well as on large-scale commission for painting a church.59 One

technical detail of his work noticed by David and June Winfield — the way in which areas of completed fresco were scraped away in order to insert patches of fresh plaster (Fig. 25) — might be interpreted as an attempt to create relief surfaces for hands, haloes and garments in the manner of Cypriot stucco-relief icons, such as the icon of Panagia Theoskepasti in Kato Paphos (c. 1190) (Fig. 4).60 With regard to the Oxford manuscript, it must be emphasized that the relationship between text and image is closest when it comes to the figures in the margins of homilies 44–48, related to the story of Abraham and its interpretation. The hand of Theodore Apseudes can be identified in the so-called painter A (Christ and Samaritan woman, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zachariah) (fols 135v–136r, 158r, 178r, 179r) and one of the figures of the series, Abraham’s bosom (fol. 149v) (Fig. 24), attributed to Painter C, who was probably an assistant of Apseudes. This last is the model for the three portraits of Neophytos in the paintings of Enkleistra (Fig. 26).61 This direct link 310

catalan panel painting around 1200

Figure 20 Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3, fol. 219r. Warrior saint in prokynesis, by Painter B (Manuel Castiñeiras. © The President and Fellows of Magdalen College Oxford)

between the saint monk, one of God’s elect like Abraham, his painters, and the illumination of Magdalen College MS Gr. 3 is enormously helpful in developing our understanding of how a medieval painting workshop operated. The rest of the numerous figures in the book are nothing like so closely linked to the text, but are to the painting cycles of Enkleistra and Lagoudhera. After all, both the book and the walls of his cell were surfaces where his sanctity was imprinted. The paintings and the drawings, which were also probably made between 1183 and 1192, were part of the same project. Following Cormack’s mnemotechnichal view, the artists could practice or sketch in the manuscript some of the compositions they would go on to use at a monumental scale, and could memorize them through their drawings, as Ludovico Geymonat has pointed out regarding the so-called Musterbuch of Wolffenbüttel.62 However, the Oxford manuscript seems to reflect something more complicated than this. It suggests there was a direct relationship between the

auctor intellectualis and recipient of the programme — Neophytos — and the painters, but that the painters might then redeploy some of these same compositions at another place, like Lagoudhera. Indeed, at Lagoudhera there is proof of the use of cartoons. Unexpectedly for a Byzantine master, the specular images of the Mandylion and Keramion (or Holy Tile) were created following a single pattern: the Mandylion is simply repeated to denote the Keramion, rather than its inversion as was usual in Byzantine art. The same thing happened in the Oxford manuscript where the figure of St John the Baptist (fol. 10v) was reversed in a scene of Deisis. As such, the Oxford manuscript seems to reflect both the artist’s desire to practice drawing before painting, and the coeval existence of patterns circulating through a workshop. This point is important here, because, in my opinion, painter A, whose compositions relate to monumental art, is a potential key to an understanding of the transmission of styles and compositions in contemporary painting and mosaic 311

manuel casti Ñ eiras

Figure 21

Figure 22

Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3, fol. 10v. Angel in worship, by Painter A (Manuel Castiñeiras. © The President and Fellows of Magdalen College Oxford)

Monastery of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai: Archangel Michael with Donor Monk (© By permission of Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt)

across the Mediterranean. His angel in a position of worship (Magdalen College MS Gr. 3, fol. 312v) (Fig. 21), for example, resembles the depiction of Angels conserved in the mosaics of the main aisle of the basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem (1161– 69), created by the Syrian deacon, Basilius Pictor (Fig. 27).63 Likewise, the busts of the Ancestors of Christ in these same mosaics are in the the style of the miniatures of a Book of Prophets now in Oxford (New College MS 44 — see in particular the Prophet Jeremiah on fol. 68v), which was produced at the end of the 12th century either in Constantinople or in Cyprus.64 In this respect, it is worth reminding ourselves that an international workshop operated at Bethlehem, which acted as a genuine crossroads among Greek (Ephraim), Syrian (Basilius Pictor) and Latin artists, whose styles and compositional strategies merged to form an amalgam of the artistic traditions of eastern Mediterranean at that time.

Similarly, on the other side of the Mediterranean, the mysterious Master Alexander’s workshop — responsible for altar frontals at Oreilla (Canigou), St-Genis-des-Fontaines and Baltarga and whose activity in Catalonia can be dated between 1196 and 1210 — is likely to have had used preliminary drawings as a result of the earlier training of its principal painter in Cyprus. Both Baltarga and Oreilla betray typically Byzantine features, which probably came from parchment folios or cartoons. That cartoons or model drawings were used can be deduced from the incisions made by the artist on the plaster layer prior to painting (Fig. 28). The workshop seems indeed to employ Byzantine drawing techniques, using circles for both in the full and the three-quarter faces (Fig. 29). In addition, the fine, elongated heads and necks of the figures, along with their asymmetrically modelled faces, point directly to the types of facial composition used in Komnenian painting (Figs 30 and 312

catalan panel painting around 1200

Figure 23

Figure 24

Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3, fol. 136r. Samaritan woman by Painter A (Manuel Castiñeiras. © The President and Fellows of Magdalen College Oxford)

Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3, fol. 149v. Abraham with the soul of Lazarus by Painter C (Manuel Castiñeiras. © The President and Fellows of Magdalen College Oxford) 313

manuel casti Ñ eiras

Figure 25

Figure 26

Panagia tou Arakos at Lagoudhera (Cyprus): Virgin Arakotissa flanked by angels of the Passion, by Theodore Apseudes. Note the angel’s wing where the fresco was scraped in order to insert patches of fresh plaster to create the effect of relief (Manuel Castiñeiras)

Paphos: Hagios Neophytos (enkleistra): Neophytos escorted by the archangels Michael and Gabriel, by Theodore Apseudes (Juan Antonio Olañeta)

of something similar. It is likely he was from Cyprus, and quite possibly raised in in the orbit of the workshop of Theodore Apseudes. He probably arrived in Catalonia at the end of 12th century. To ensure and reinforce his peculiar training, he gathered together some tracings or cartoons before setting out. Subsequently, many of these tracings and cartoons were used and reproduced by his new team of collaborators in the workshop he established in Catalonia. Moreover, the striking incidence of his signature — ‘Magister Alexander’ — was unprecedented in Catalonia, where all previous 12th-century panel painting had been anonymous.69 His signature could be read, as was the case with Theodore Apseudes in Cyprus, as proof of his foreign background and self-confidence. Indeed, certain iconographic details point directly to a Byzantine milieu for the painter. Firstly, the lock of hair on the left side of Christ’s forehead in Oreilla and Baltarga is a direct reference to the face on the Holy Tile (Keramion) (Figs 32–34), or the imprint on the Mandylion of Christ,70 whose images decorate the bema at the church of Lagoudhera in Cyprus (1192).71 Moreover, the depictions of the Evangelists as scribes writing upon their scrolls at Oreilla brings to mind Komnenian Gospel Books (Figs 35 and 36), such

31), as in the contemporary painting from Santa Maria di Cerrate (Apulia),65 or in its previous assimilation in the scriptorium of the Holy Sepulchre around 1135–40 (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 49, fol. 73v).66 The conquest of Cyprus by the Latins in 1191 under Richard the Lionheart effectively transformed the social structure of the island provoking the impoverishment of most of its Orthodox population.67 This is the context that might have seen an initial migration of Byzantine and Crusader artists to the western Mediterranean — a process that would have been preceded by the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187.68 A NEW CONTEXT FOR MAGISTER ALEXANDER: A GREEK ARTIST IN THE WEST? The artistic personality of Master Alexander, alien to Catalan panel-painting traditions, might be the result 314

catalan panel painting around 1200

Figure 28 Altar frontal from Sant Andreu de Baltarga (Baixa Cerdanya) by the workshop of Magister Alexander: incision on plaster used to draw the drapery of St James (Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, © MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)

modelled in plaster decorated the clothes (Fig. 6). The artist was attempting to emulate precious metals, enamels and gems in the manner of Byzantine book covers, like those of the Skeuophylakon Lectionary, in the Grand Lavra at Mount Athos (c. 1100).74 This interest in creating a multiplicity of surface effects at Oreilla is indebted to the aesthetics of contemporary icon painting, whose kinetic qualities, as Bissera Pentcheva pointed out, were intended to suggest the presence of the divinity.75 Both those painted icons adorned with chasing, and the brilliant icons of this period (see the icon of the Annunciation at Sinai of c. 1167), possess this same dynamic transcendence. This is clear at Oreilla, but then disappears with the Baltarga frontal. We are unaware of why this may be so, though I do wonder whether Master Alexander died after making the Oreilla and St-Génis frontals. Master Alexander came to St-Martin-du-Canigou around 1195 in order to make a now lost canopy and altar frontal (the altar frontal being the one I believe is now in Oreilla) for a confraternity presided over by the then abbot Pere d’Ortafà (1171–1221). Perhaps the importance of Canigou and the prestige of the commission explain the splendour and expense of the

Figure 27 Bethlehem, Church of the Nativity: Angel in procession from mosaic by Basilios Pictor (north nave clerestory) (Manuel Castiñeiras)

as that made in Constantinople c. 1100 and now in Florence (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Plut. 6.23, fol. 100v).72 One further feature, I believe, reinforces this Byzantine background: the scrolls inhabited by birds made in stucco-relief along the frame of the frontal of Oreilla (Fig. 37). This is unique in Catalan panel painting and is reminiscent of the carpet-pages of certain Byzantine manuscripts like that of a Gospel Lectionary produced in Contantinople c. 1100 now in Venice (Istituto Ellenico, MS IE 2, fol. 3v) (Fig. 38).73 Finally, with regard to Oreilla, the materials used in the panel are striking. The surface combines sheets of painted parchment with what seems to be gold leaf. Moreover, golden lines articulate some of the drapery (Fig. 39), while on the central figure fake gems 315

manuel casti Ñ eiras

Figure 29 Altar frontal from Sant Andreu de Baltarga (Baixa Cerdanya) by the workshop of Magister Alexander: detail of Virgin and Saint John (Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (© MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà)). See also Plate XVI in print edition

Figure 30

Figure 31

Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3, fol. 189r. St. John the Apostle, by Painter B (Manuel Castiñeiras. © The President and Fellows of Magdalen College Oxford)

Santa Maria di Cerrate (Apulia): Deacon Saint (apse entrance south wall) (Svetlana Tomekovic)

316

catalan panel painting around 1200

Figure 32 Altar frontal from Sainte-Marie d’Oreilla (Conflent), by Magister Alexander (?): detail of Christ’s face (Manuel Castiñeiras)

Figure 33 Altar frontal from Sant Andreu de Baltarga (Baixa Cerdanya) by the workshop of Magister Alexander: detail of Christ’s face (Barcelona, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, © MNAC: Calveras/Mérida/Sagristà) 317

manuel casti Ñ eiras attention would have been Sant Andreu de Baltarga, a fairly modest church that belonged to the abbey of Cuxa.78 The church was looted between 1196 and 1201 by troops under command of the viscount of Castellbó and the count of Foix during the Albigensian war.79 The new reformist abbot may have taken the opportunity to advertise his patronal credentials by redecorating the rural church that had been burned. A NEW CONTEXT FOR THE MASTER OF AVIÀ: A LATIN ARTIST RETURNING FROM THE HOLY LAND? As we have seen, there was another strand in Catalan painting that was responsive to the influence of Crusader art. However, rather than this being an instance of a ‘Greek’ artist arriving in the Pyrenees and adapting his work to local tradition, this concerns a Latin artist who travelled in the eastern Mediterranean where he was exposed to a new pictorial repertoire, which he then attempted to emulate on his return. In my opinion this describes the Master of the frontal of Santa Maria d’Avià.

Figure 34 Moscow, The State Tretyakov Gallery: Holy Keramion, Novgorov (1167) (Manuel Castiñeiras)

materials then employed by Alexander. Some years later, in 1203, the same Pere d’Ortafá, a member of an important regional family, also became abbot of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa (1203–21) on the order of King Pere the Catholic of Aragon, tasked with reforming the corrupted life of that community.76 Shortly after his appointment to Cuxa, abbot Pere commissioned a number of works of art, such as a new wooden ceiling for the abbey church, so it may be that Master Alexander’s workshop worked in the vicinity of Cuxa also.77 A potential candidate for their

Figure 36 Figure 35

Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ms. Plut. 6.23, fol. 100v. Sant Luke the Evangelist. From J. Lowden, The Jaharis Gospel Lectionary. The Story of a Byzantine Book (New York 2009), 65, fig. 70

Altar frontal from Sainte-Marie d’Oreilla (Conflent) by Magister Alexander (?): detail of St Matthew the Evangelist (Manuel Castiñeiras) 318

catalan panel painting around 1200

Figure 37 Altar frontal from Sainte-Marie d’Oreilla (Conflent) by Magister Alexander (?): detail of the inhabited scrolls with birds in stucco-relief on the upper frame (Manuel Castiñeiras)

The church of Santa Maria d’Avià was in the territory of the viscount of Berguedà, in the county of Cerdanya, though it belonged to the bishop of Urgell and was probably built by Bishop Arnau de Preixens (1167–94) to act as the chapel of the military garrison that he had established in the adjacent Soler d’Avià.80 One of his successors, Bishop Bernat de Vilamur (1199–1203), is the most likely candidate to have commissioned the painted altar frontal. Between 1195 and 1196 Cathars had systematically destroyed liturgical furnishings across the diocese of Urgell, and it is likely that the Avià altar frontal was a response to this. Certain details are unusual — the Christ-Child raising a red-dyed left hand, the predominance of blood tones in the composition and the treatment of the Presentation in the Temple where Simeon is elevating the Child over an altar as if he was the host in the canon of the Mass — and seem to underline the doctrine of the Real Presence, stressing the sacramental flesh and blood in the fight against heretics.81 Nonetheless, this peculiar altar frontal was not the only painted cycle displaying a marked Byzantine imprint in the lands of the viscount of Berguedà at the end of the 12th century. This new style coincides with a generous donation to the Knights Templars by the troubadour Guillem de Berguedà, the viscount’s

son, on his death in 1196. As a result the castle of Puig-reig — situated just 13 km from Avià and where the troubadour had lived — passed to the Templars. It is likely that the troubadour was then buried in the chapel castle dedicated to St-Martin.82 A cycle of paintings, now removed, originally decorated the enfeu situated to the left of the altar. As at Santa Maria d’Avià, there can be no doubt about the Crusader imprint of this cycle, made startlingly clear in the depiction of the Virgin Mary as a Hodegetria Dexiokatrousa icon (Fig. 40). The painter, however, who like the Master of Avià had probably travelled to the Holy Land, either misunderstood the Byzantine scheme or adapted it to his new audience. The Virgin is not pointing to the Child with her left as the Cypriot iconography of Dexiokatrousa requires, but is blessing him in a Greek manner. Whatever the painter may have thought he was doing, it is obvious that he had had access to a Byzantine repertoire, as we can equally check this in the scenes of the Annunciation and Visitation. In both, the Master followed Byzantine patterns and applied colours to the figures in the nuanced manner that is characteristic of the Crusader style. Finally, one must ask whether there is evidence of interchange between Catalonia and the Holy Land at 319

manuel casti Ñ eiras

Figure 39 Altar frontal from Sainte-Marie d’Oreilla (Conflent) by Magister Alexander (?): detail of the drapery of an Apostle showing traces of the chrysographia technique (Manuel Castiñeiras)

Figure 38 Venice, Istituto Ellenico, Ms. IE 2, fol. 3v. Detail of carpet-Page from opening of St John’s Gospel. From J. Lowden, The Jaharis Gospel Lectionary. The Story of a Byzantine Book (New York 2009), fig. 91

obtained permission from Saladin for two priests and two deacons to reside in Bethlehem and renew services in the Latin rite.86 The generous gift by the king of Aragon to Bethlehem should be understood in this context. In addition, in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem we hear of a most intriguing person, Petrus Barchinonensis or Peter de Barcinona, who was sub-prior of the Holy Sepulchre from 1129 to 1177, thereby witnessing the development of its famous scriptorium (Queen Melisende Psalter, Sacramentary) as well as of the pictorial ornamentation of the church.87 Indeed, we first encounter him as a witness to the confirmation of the possessions of the abbey of St-Mary in the Valley of Jehoshaphat,88 whose pictorial decoration during the period of Queen Melisende sadly barely survives.89 The above is intended to suggest that we should reconsider the role played by Catalonia — a land open to the Mediterranean — in the making of Mediterranean art around 1200. Works such as the altar frontals from Avià, Baltarga and Oreilla deserve a place in any larger discussion of the nature and consequences of Byzantine and Crusader art for western art, wherein the travelling artist and models seem to have developed a major role.

a political or commercial level. The Spanish-Jewish traveller, Benjamín of Tudela (1160–73), remarked on the presence of Provençal, Aragonese and Navarrese traders in the harbour of Alexandria,83 while Joshua Prawer outlined evidence for the existence of a Catalan population in the cities of Ascalon, Mahomerie-la-Grande (el-Bira), Tripoli and especially in the harbour of Tyre, where the citizens of Barcelona enjoyed from 1187 a special trading privilege.84 Nevertheless, the most striking record is the testament of the King Alfons the Troubadour, who in 1194 gave the coastal town and castle of Palafrugell in Catalonia to the Holy Sepulchre, in order to support five priests — three in the Holy Sepulchre, one in St-Mary in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and one in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem — as well as to provide liturgical vessels at the altars of these three churches; one golden and two silver chalices, three silver censers and one golden and two silver pixis.85 This should not perhaps surprise us because two years earlier, Hubert Walter, then bishop of Salisbury (1189–93), accompanied Richard the Lionheart on the Third Crusade, and 320

catalan panel painting around 1200 NOTES 1 Between 1923 and 1928 Walter Cook published six articles in Art Bulletin concerned with early Catalan panel paintings — respectively entitled ‘The Earliest Painted Panels of Catalonia’. See W. S. Cook, ‘The Earliest Painted Panels of Catalonia (I–VI)’, Art Bulletin, 5 (1923), 85–101; 6 (1923), 31–60; 8 (1925–26), 57–104, 195–234; 10 (1927–28), 153–204, 305–65; idem, ‘Early Spanish Panel Painting in the Planidura Collection’, Art Bulletin, 11 (1929), 155–87; ‘The Stucco Altar-Frontals of Catalonia’, Art Studies, 2 (1924), 41–81; idem, La pintura románica sobre tabla en Cataluña (Madrid 1960). See also: W. W. S. Cook and J. Gudiol i Ricart, Pintura e imaginería románicas (Madrid 1980), 124–60 (Ars Hispaniae, VI) (1st edition, Madrid 1950). For a short biography, see the entry, ‘Cook, W. W. S.’, on [accessed on 4 September 2014]. 2 I am indebted to Charles Little, Curator of the Department of Medieval Art and the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, for inviting me to consult the W. W. S. Cook archive. This archive consists of a series of personal papers and study photographs covering Cook’s research into medieval Spain. The material had been housed at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York, but was transferred to the Metropolitan and thence to the Cloisters in 1993. Karl Schuler then divided the material into twelve boxes. I have enjoyed the privilege of consulting them on several occasions between 2008 and 2014 to investigate what they have to say about Catalan Romanesque panel painting, a process in which I have enjoyed the kind help and support of the librarian, Michael K. Carter. The Cook archive is the best repository of documentation ever gathered on the Catalan panel painting, and I hope to make it the subject of a monograph in the near future. 3 Morey outlined the reception into Latin and western art of what he considered to be the two branches of Hellenistic style — the Neo-Attic/Asiatic and the Alexandrine — in an article he published in 1924. See R. Morey, ‘The Sources of Medieval Style’, Art Bulletin, 7 (1924–25), 24–50. Citing recent publications of Walter Cook, Morey opined that Catalan pictorial art adopts the threedimensional and impressionistic character of the Alexandrian style from the 11th century onwards. Morey, ‘The Sources of Medieval Style’, 49 and 50. 4 W.W. S. Cook Archive, Box I, ‘Altar Frontals. I. Barcelona’. 5 See S. Agémian, Manuscrits Arméniens Enluminés du Catholicossat de Cilicie (Antelia 1991), 52; S. der Nersessian, Miniature Painting in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century (Washington 1993), 60. 6 W. W. S. Cook Archive, Box I, ‘Altar Frontals. I. Barcelona’. 7 It is very likely that the altar frontal of Santa Maria de Mosoll, which Cook thought belonged to a Pyrenean group of the 13th century, was produced around 1220 at an active workshop centred in La Seu d’Urgell which provided liturgical furnishings for churches throughout the diocese during the first third of the 13th century. See Cook, La pintura románica sobre tabla (as n. 1), 22–23. For this reason, I called the atelier the ‘workshop of La Seu d’Urgell 1200’; see M. Castiñeiras and J. Camps ed., Romanesque Art in the MNAC collections (Barcelona 2008), 89–132, 116, 128–30. 8 Although Cook’s hypothesis as to an alleged Moorish influence on the stucco techniques used in Catalan panel painting is untenable as a generalization, Mosoll is exceptional from the point of view of the reception of a Muslim ornamental repertoire in the border of the altar frontal. See Cook, ‘The Stucco Altar-Frontals’ (as n. 1); M. Castiñeiras, ‘Catalan Romanesque Painting Revisited: the Altar-Frontal Workshops’, in Spanish Medieval Art: Recent Studies, ed. C. Hourihane (Tempe and Princeton 2007), 119–51, 124–27; idem., ‘El baldaquí de Tost’, in El cel pintat. El Baldaquí de Tost, ed. M. Castiñeiras (Vic, 2008), 44–48; idem., ‘El románico catalán en el contexto hispánico de la Edad Media. Aportaciones, encuentros y divergencias’, in El esplendor del Románico. Obras maestras del Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Madrid 2011), 47–69, 57. For the original wooden ceiling of Sigena, which was burned and destroyed in 1936, see B. Cabañero, La techumbre

Figure 40 Sant Martí de Puig-reig (Berguedà): Virgin Mary after the ‘Hodegetria Dexiokatrousa’ type (Carles Aymeric, Centre de Restauració de Béns Mobles de la Generalitat) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to John McNeill for his help and patient editorial work. This contribution to the Romanesque and the Mediterranean volume is the result of a long period of research that has involved many people and institutions, to all of whom I am immensely grateful. I would particularly like to thank Kathleeen Doyle, Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts in the Department of Medieval and Early Manuscripts at the British Library; Hilary Pattison and James Fishwick, respectively Deputy Librarian and Reader Services Librarian at Magdalen College, Oxford; Naomi van Loo, Librarian at New College, Oxford; Stella Panayotova and Nicholas Robinson, respectively Keeper and Curatorial Assistant at the Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge; and Jordi Camps and Gemma Ylla-Català, respectively Head Curator and Assistant Curator at the Department of Medieval Art in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. I am also indebted to Euthymia Priki (University of Cyprus) for accompanying me on a visit to the wonderful painted churches in Cyprus, as well as to Avital Heyman (Museum of Israel) and Father Artemio Vítores (former deputy custodian of the Holy Sepulchre) for their generous and warm help during my stays in Israel. The article is the fruit of research developed for the project, ‘Artistas, Patronos y Público. Cataluña y el Mediterráneo (siglos XI–XV)-MAGISTRI CATALONIAE’ (MICINN-HAR 2011-23015). 321

manuel casti Ñ eiras mudéjar de la Sala Capitular del monasterio de Sigena (Huesca) (Tarazona 2000), 20–32, 49. 9 The Year 1200: A Centennial Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ed. K. Hoffmann (New York 1970), 2 vols; The Year 1200: A Symposium, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1975). 10 ‘The Year 1200’, sessions organized by D. Glass at the 45th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, 13–16 May 2010. 11 After the 2012 Palermo conference I was able to extend my research and presented the enlarged results in two unpublished papers, ‘Framing the art of 1200 from the Mediterranean: travelling artists and circulation of models’, at the Medieval Europe in Motion International Conference (Lisbon, 18–20 April 2013), and ‘Oxford, Magdalen College, MS. Gr. 3: Artistic Practice and Mobility in Mediterranean Painting around 1200’, at the 20th International IRCLAMA Colloquium, International Research Center for Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (University of Zagreb, 2–6 October 2013). I have incorporated my most recent conclusions in the present publication. 12 R. Alcoy, ‘Les taules pintades a Catalunya i els corrents anglesos a la fi del romànic’, Lambard, VII (1993–94), 139–56; idem, ‘Del 1200 al gòtic’ and ‘El taller de Lluçà i el seu cercle’, in L’art gòtic a Catalunya. Pintura. I. De l’inici a l’italianisme (Barcelona 2005), 34–37, 38–43. 13 Castiñeiras, ‘Catalan Romanesque Painting Revisited’ (as n. 8); idem., ‘La pintura mural y sobre tabla en la España del siglo XIII. Una aproximación a partir del caso catalán’, in Alfonso X el Sabio, ed. I. Bango Torviso (Murcia 2009), 282–329, and idem, ‘Bizanci, el Mediterrani i l’art de 1200 a Catalunya’, in Catalunya i la Mediterrània: circulació d’artistes, objectes i models, ed. M. Castiñeiras and Jordi Camps (Besalú 2014), 9–26 (Sintesi. Quaderns del Semnaris de Besalú, 2 (2014)). For a review of the long-accepted hypothesis of the English authorship of the mural paintings of the chapter-house of the monastery of Santa Maria de Sigena, see also the article by Dulce Ocón in this volume. Although there is no doubt that the painters who worked there were related to those of the Winchester Bible, particularly the Master of the Genesis Initial and the Morgan Master the figural style at Sigena differs from the work in England. See D. Ocón, ‘Une salle capitulaire pour une reine:les peintures du Chapître de Sigena’, Les Cahiers de SaintMichel de Cuxa, XXXVIII (2007), 81–94. 14 The port of Lattes (Montpellier) was founded in 1121, and developed as one of the major Mediterranean for the transportation of pilgrims to the Holy Land after 1151, as well as facilitating trade with Cyprus, Little Armenia, Acre, Alexandria and Constantinople between the 12th and 14th centuries. Thanks to the marriage in 1204 of Mary of Montpellier with Peter II of Aragon (or Pere I el Catòlic) the city’s status was enhanced, and it was granted a charte de frachises which helped turn it into one of the major economic centres of the Mediterranean. See G. Fabre, D. Le Blévec and D. Mensjot, Les ports et la navigation en Méditerranée au Moyen Âge, Actes du Colloque de Lattes (Paris 2009), 9–20. See also A. Bladé Desumvila, Montpeller català (Barcelona 1965), 13–17, 42. In his itinerary, undertaken between 1165/66 and 1173, Benjamin of Tudela described the international character of the trade in Barcelona enthusiastically (‘a la que vienen con mercadería comerciantes de todas partes: Grecia, Pisa, Alejandría de Egipto, de la tierra de Israel, África y todos sus confines’) as well as Montpellier (‘y vienen allí de todas partes para comerciar: de Italia Algarve, Lombardía, del reino de Roma, la gran capital, de todo el país de Egipto, de la tierra de Israel, Grecia, Francia, Asia e Inglaterra gentes de todas lenguas se encuentran allípara comerciar con genoveses y pisanos’), Libro de viajes de Benjamín de Tudela, ed. J. R. Magdalena Nom de Déu (Barcelona 1989), 56–57. 15 L. Nicolau D’Olwer, L’expansió de Catalunya en la Mediterrània oriental (Barcelona 1926), 21; J. Gudiol i Cunill, ‘De peregrins i peregrinatges religiosos catalans’, Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia, 3 (1927), 93–109, esp. 101; A. Homs i Guzman, ‘Relats de pelegrinatge a Terra Santa en llengua catalana. Un

camí de set segles’, Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia, 76 (2003), 5–43, esp. 11. 16 J. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (Cambridge 1995); J. Folda, Crusader Art in Holy Land, from the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291 (Cambridge 2005), 511–25; B. Kühnel, Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century. A Geographical and Historical or an Art Historical Notion? (Berlin 1994), 18; L. A. Hunt, ‘Art and Colonialism: The Mosaics (1169) and the Problem of the “Crusader” Art’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 45 (1991), 69–85. 17 For the Louvre exhibition catalogue, see J. Durand and D. Giovannoni ed., Chypre entre Byzance et l’Occident, IVè–XVIè siècle (Paris 2012). The same year saw the publication of the Proceedings of an International Colloquium held in the École Française d’Athènes in 2009. See J.-P. Caillet and F. Joubert, Orient et Occident méditerranées au XIIIè. Les programmes picturaux (Paris 2012). The ‘Year 1200 view’ is perhaps best summed up by two passages in the New York exhibiton catalogue, both of which reflect its assessment of Spanish medieval art as essentially subsidiary to English or French creations. Thus, if Sigena ‘epitomized the English contribution to the climatic phase of art around 1200’ — The Year 1200 (as n. 9), I, 235 — so the carvings of the second workshop of Silos and the reliefs of the Pórtico de la Gloria were ‘indebted to French innovations’. The Year 1200 (as n. 9), II, 46. 18 See my contributions on the topic: Castiñeiras, ‘Catalan Romanesque Painting Revisited’ (as n. 8), 127–32; idem., ‘Mural Painting’ and ‘Panel Painting’, in Romanesque Art in the MNAC collections (as n. 7), 21–87, 89–135, 80–87, 126–32; idem, ‘La pintura mural y sobre tabla en la España del siglo XIII’ (as n. 13), 282–91; idem, ‘Bizanci, el Mediterrani i l’art de 1200 a Catalunya’ (as n. 13); idem, ‘De Sant Martí de Puig-reig a l’altar de Lluçà: dos pols de l’art 1200 a Catalunya’, in Pintar fa mil anys. Els colors i l’ofici del pintor romànic, ed. M. Castiñeiras and J. Verdaguer (Bellaterra 2014), 107–24. 19 See E. H. Buschbeck, Der Pórtico de la Gloria von Santjiago de Compostela (Berlin and Vienna 1919), and S. Moralejo, ‘Le Porche de la Gloire et la cathédrale de Compostelle: problèmes de sources et d’interpretation’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 16 (1985), 92–116. Dulce Ocón is the Spanish scholar who has done most to develop our understanding of the impact of Byzantine work on Spanish Late Romanesque painting and sculpture, especially in the cases of Sigena (Huesca), the second workshop of the cloister of Santo Domingo de Silos (Burgos), and the so-called Master of San Juan de la Peña: D. Ocón, ‘Alfonso VIII, la llegada de las corrientes artísticas de la corte inglesa y el bizantinismo de la escultura hispana a fines del siglo XII’, in Alfonso VIII y su época, Actas del II Curso de Cultura Medieval celebrado en Aguilar de Campoo (Madrid 1992), 207–320; idem, ‘El renacimiento bizantinizante en la segunda mitad del siglo XII y la escultura monumental en España’, in J. Hernando Garrido, P. Huerta and M. García Guinea, Viajes y viajeros en la España medieval. Actas del V Curso de Cultura Medieval celebrado en Aguilar de Campoo (Madrid 1997), 263–92; and ideam, ‘Une salle capitulaire pour une reine: les peintures du Chapître de Sigena’ (as n. 13). 20 J. Folda, Crusader Art in Holy Land, from the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre (as n. 16), 525. 21 Castiñeiras, ‘Catalan Romanesque Painting Revisited’ (as n. 8). 22 Most of this research has been published in: Pintar fa mil anys (as n. 18). 23 Castiñeiras, ‘Catalan Romanesque Painting Revisited’ (as n. 8), 130. The first silver revetment of the icon of the Virgin of Vladimir is dated to around 1175: A. Grabar, Les revêtements en or et en argent des icones byzantines du Moyen Âge (Venice 1975), 68. 24 M. S. Frinta, ‘Raised Gilded Adornement of the Cypriot Icons and the Occurrence of the Technique of the West’, Gesta, 20 (1981), 333–47; Y. Carbonell-Lamothe, ‘Le devant d’autel peint d’Oreilla’, in De la création a la restauration: Travaux d’histoire de l’art offerts à Marcel Durliat pour son 75è anniversaire (Toulouse 1992), 285–91. For the reception of the pastiglia technique applied to the panel

322

catalan panel painting around 1200 the dome and dates from 1192. Theodore Apseudes made this second image of the Virgin of Sorrows accompanied by the epithet Arakiotissa (‘Most Full of Grace’). This Virgin is a slim standing figure who enfolds the Christ child between two angels bearing the arma christi (Lance and Cross). See D. and J. Winfield, The Church of the Panaghia tou Arakos at Lagoudhera, Cyprus: The Paintings and Their Painterly Significance (Washington 2003), 83–87, 244–49; A. Jakovljevic, Cyprus: Byzantine Churches and Monasteries, Mosaics and Frescoes (Nicosia 2012), 71–76. 33 For a description of the iconographic formulae used for the Virgin of Deisis, see A. Tradigo, Icone e Santi d’Oriente (Milan 2004), 207. 34 The Nativity on an iconostasis beam, and an icon of St Sergius, both kept in the collection of the Monastery of St Catherine in Mount Sinai, provide very good examples of the diffusion of this motif through the 13th century: J. Folda, ‘Crusader Artistic Interactions with the Mongols in the Thirteenth Century: Figural Imagery, Weapons, and the Çintamani Design’, in Interactions. Artistic Interchange between the Eastern and Western World in the Medieval Period, ed. C. Hourihane (Princeton 2007), 147–66, 154–59, figs 1 and 2. 35 G. Galvaris, ‘The stars of the Virgin: an Ekphrasis of an Icon of the Mother of God’, Eastern Church Review, I (1966–67), 364–69. 36 ‘The Byzantine Diptych is not to be explained as the copy of a lost Byzantine objet d’art which had reached England in some way or other, but as the work of an English artist who travelled east, perhaps as far as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem’, H. A. Klein, ‘The so-called Byzantine Diptych in the Winchester Psalter, British Library, Ms. Cotton Nero C. IV’, Gesta, XXXVII/1 (1998), 26–43, esp. 26. 37 On the international dimensions of the 12th-century mosaic and pictorial decoration of the basilica at Bethlehem, see S. de Sandoli, Corpus Inscriptionum Crucesignatorum Terrae Sanctae (Jerusalem 1974), 195–226; G. Kühnel, Wall Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Berlin 1988), 4–43, 139–40; Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (as n. 16), 93, 163–64; Kühnel, Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century (as n. 16), 48; D. Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A Corpus. I. A–K (Cambridge University Press 1993), 140–46; Hunt, ‘Art and Colonialism’ (as n. 16), 69–85; M. Castiñeiras, ‘“VOX DOMINI”: el órgano medieval del Museo del Studium Biblicum Franciscanum de Jerusalén y la perdida Sibila de la iglesia de la Natividad de Belén’, Ad Limina, 5 (2014), 63–82. Avital Heyman and I are curently preparing a monograph on the lost painting cycle from St Mary in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. 38 I first proposed this peculiar ‘biography’ for Magister Alexander in the Digital Index of Artists Magistri Cataloniae: Alexander, Magister (). His signature on the lost altar frontal from St-Génis-des-Fontaines reads MAGISTER ALEXANDER: ISTA OPERA FECIT and was positioned, in a frieze dividing the panel into two registers, to either side of the central mandorla (fig. 12). The appearance of the frontal is known from a drawing made by L. de Bonnefoy, Epigraphie Roussilllonnaise, 1868. Subsequent to Bonnefoy’s publication there have been numerous attempts to reconstruct Master Alexander’s career and workshop. See W. W. S. Cook and J. Gudiol i Ricart, Pintura e imaginería románicas (Madrid 1980), 142; M. Durliat, ‘L’atelier du Maître Alexandre en Roussillon et en Cerdagne’, Études Roussillonnaises, 1 (1951), 103–19; idem, ‘Deux nouveaux devants d’autel du groupe de Maître Alexandre’, Études Roussillonnaises, 1 (1951), 385–94; J. F. Ràfols, Diccionario Biográfico de Artistas de Cataluña: desde la época romana hasta nuestros días, III (Barcelona 1954), 284; J. Folch I Torres, La pintura romànica catalana sobre fusta (Barcelona 1956), 170; W. W. S. Cook, La pintura románica sobre tabla en Cataluña (Madrid 1960), 20; J. Sureda, La Pintura Romànica a Catalunya (Madrid 1981), 359, 388; J. Ainaud, La pintura catalana. La fascinació del Romànic (Geneva-Barcelona, 1989), 100–01; R. Alcoy and J. Domenge, ‘Frontal de altar de Orellà’, in Cataluña medieval (Barcelona 1992), 148–50. A large number of other works have also

painting in Sicily and Campania, around the year 1200, see the icon of the Eleousa at Santa Maria in Piazza, Aversa, and that of the Vergine delle Vittorie at the cathedral of Piazza Armerina. Both icons have recently been studied by Maria Marchionibus, who also pointed to the vegetal decoration of the halo of the Eleousa in the Missal of Messina (Madrid, Bib. Nacional, MS 52, fol. 80r), made between 1180–90, as evidence of the early arrival of this motif in southern Italy. M. R. Marchionibus, Icone in Campania. Aspetti iconologici, liturgici e semantici (Spoleto 2011), 46–48, figs 2, 32 and 35. 25 A. Papageorghiou, Icons of Cyprus (Nicosia 1992), 22–29, fig. 15a (Theoskepasti) and 16 (Doros). See also A. Weyl Carr, ‘Correlative Spaces: Art, Identity and Approrpriation in Lusignan Cyprus’, in Cyprus and the Devotional Arts of Byzantium in the Era of the Crusaders, ed. A. Weyl Carr (Aldershot 2005), 59–80, esp. 61; N. Chatzidakis, ‘A Byzantine Icon of the Dexiokratousa Hodegetria from Crete at the Benaki Museum’, in Images of the Mother of God. Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, ed. M. Vassilaki (Norfolk 2005), 337–56. 26 M. Bacci, ‘Toscane, Byzance et Levant: pour une histoire dynamique des rapports artistiques méditerranées aux XIIè et XIIIè siècles’, in Orient et Occident méditerranées au XIIIè siècle. Les programmes picturaux, ed. J-P. Caillet and F. Joubert (Paris 2012), 235–56, esp. 240–41, fig. 3. 27 I am referring to the painter responsible for illuminating the Melisende Psalter at a scriptorium in Jerusalem between c. 1131 and c. 1143 (London, British Library, MS Egerton 1139). Most scholars present him as a Latin artist who tried to emulate cycles of images that were typical of Byzantine psalters and gospels. In order to confuse us, he even adopted a Greek pseudonym in signing his work: ‘BASILIUS ME FECIT’ (fol. 12v), H. Buchtal, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford 1957), 1–14; Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (as n. 16), 137–63. See also Kühnel, Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century (as n. 16), 51, 53–61, 63–125, 155, 160, 162–63, 166–67; John Lowden’s catalogue entry, in Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture from British Collections, ed. D. Buckton (London 1994), nos 180–81; R. W. Scheller, Exemplum: Model-Book Drawings and the Practice of Artistic Transmission in the Middle Ages (ca. 900– ca. 1450) (Amsterdam 1995), 143; and Kathleen Doyle’s catalogue entry, in Byzantium 300–1453, ed. R. Cormack and M. Vassilaki (London 2008), no. 260. 28 Cimabue a Pisa: la pintura pisana del Duecento da Giunta a Giotto, ed. M. G. Burresi and A. Caleca (Pisa 2005), 69. 29 Bacci, ‘Toscane, Byzance et Levant’ (as n. 26), 236–39, figs 1 and 2. 30 R. Alcoy, ‘El cercle d’Avià i la miniatura anglesa: una modalitat d’estil 1200 a Catalunya’, Lambard, III (1983–85), 103–27; idem, ‘Les taules pintades a Catalunya’ (as n. 12); idem, ‘De la idea al relato visual. La pintura catalana sobre tabla y su contexto internacional en el siglo XII’, in La pittura su tavola del secolo XII. Riconsiderazioni e nuove acquisizioni a seguito del restauro della Croce di Rosano, ed. C. Frosini, A. Monciatti and G. Wolf (Florence 2012), 141–52. 31 The Museum of Fine Arts of Barcelona (Museu de Belles Arts) acquired this piece in 1903. As can be seen in a black-and-white photograph of c. 1920 kept in the Archivo Iconográfico Españoi, the central part of the panel was still extensively covered by varnished tinfoil and stucco-reliefs. Unfortunately, the restoration of 1949 carried out by technicians of the Museu d’Art de Catalunya changed the appearance and aesthetics of the panel in order to give it a smoother and more even finish. 32 There are two depictions of the Virgin Mary in the church of Panagia tou Arakos at Lagoudhera (Cyprus). The first is a representation of the enthroned Mother of God and Child, flanked by the Archangels Michael and Gabriel. As is usually the case in Byzantine art, this subject is located in the semi-dome of the apse, as one of the focal points in the decoration of the bema or sanctuary. It is likely that this area was painted before 1192. Conversely, the second depiction is located on the south wall of the south bay under

323

manuel casti Ñ eiras Artistic Practice, Byzantine Drawings and Mobility in Mediterranean Painting around 1200’, Arte Medievale, IV Serie, 2, 2015 (with bibliography). 46 See the chapter 9 entitled ‘How to make a copy’, in P. Hetherington ed., The ‘Painter’s Manual’ of Dyonysius of Fourna (London 1974), 5. 47 Hutter, ‘The Magdalen College Musterbuch’ (as n. 44), 120– 21. For the wall-painting of the hermitage of Hagios Neophytos at Paphos, see C. Mango and E. J. W. Hawkins, ‘The Hermitage of St. Neophytos and its Wall Paintings’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 20 (1966), 119–206; I. Kakoulli and C. Fischer, ‘An Innovative Noninvasive and Nondestructive Multidisciplinary Approach for the Technical Study of the Byzantine Wall Paintings in the Enkleistra of St. Neophytos, Cyprus’, published on ; A. Papageorgiou, The Monastery of Agios Neophytos. History and Art (A Short Guide) (Nicosia 2005), 16–32. With regard to the Lagoudhera wall-paintings, see the bibliography at n. 32 above. Conversely, Tania Velmans prefers to underline the Western influence on the drawings in Magdalen College MS 3 in connection with the ‘style mixte du XIIIè’, in which ‘les artistes byzantins avaient vu beaucoup plus d’ouvres latines qu’auparavant et la présénce des Croisés à Constantinople, ainsi que dans d’autres centres culturels de l’Empire, n’avait pas été sans laisser de traces’ (‘Le dessin à Byzance’, Fondation Eugène Piot. Monuments et Mémoires, 59 (1974), 137–70, esp. 148, 167. 48 For this icon, see P. Chatterjee. ‘Saint Catherine and Scenes from Her Life’, in Holy Image. Hallowed Ground. Icons from Sinai, ed. R. S. Nelson and K. M. Collins (Los Angeles 2006), 264–65 (cat. no. 55). 49 For a comparison with the Sinai Crusader triptych icon, see Velmans, ‘Le dessin à Byzance’ (as n. 47), 148. See also B. V. Pentcheva, ‘Virgin and Christ from Grand Deesis’, in Holy Image. Hallowed Ground (as n. 48), 182–84 (cat. nos 24, 25). 50 For this icon, see C. Barber, ‘Archangel Michael with Donor Monk’, in Holy Image, Hallowed Ground (as n. 48), 150–51 (cat. no. 12). 51 C. Galatariotou, The Making of a Saint. The Life, Times and Sanctification of Neophytos the Recluse (Cambridge 1991), 13–16; N. Coureas, The Foundation Rules of Medieval Cypriot Monasteries: Makhairas and St. Neophytos (Nicosia 2003), 25–50; Jakovljevic, Cyprus. Byzantine Churches and Monasteries Mosaics and Frescoes (as n. 32), 112–16. 52 Galatariotou, The Making of a Saint (as n. 51), 23. I have recently looked at the Paris, BN, Gr. 605 (olim Colbert 864), a manuscript which was probably made at Constantinople during the 11th century and contains Homilies 5–32 on Genesis by John Chrysostom. The manuscript belonged to the library of Neophytos in the Enkleistra (fol. 341v). By virtue of its contents, size and ornamentation the manuscript could have been the twin of Magdalen College, Oxford MS Gr. 3, which, by including Homilies 31–67, seems to be a continuation or second volume of the Paris manuscript. In my opinion, Neophytos may have acquired both manuscripts in order to have a complete edition of the John Crhysostom’s Homilies on Genesis. With regard to the Paris codex, see H. Omont, Inventaire Sommaire des Manuscrits Grecs de la Bibliothèque Nationale, I. Ancien Fonds Grec. Théologie (Paris 1886), 105; P. Augustin, Codices Chryssostomici Graeci. VII. Codicum Parisinorum. Pars Prior (Paris 2011), 54. 53 Neophytos first discovered what became his cave in Paphos on 24 June 1159. He worked to widen this natural space until 1160, when it become the enkleistra or enclosure (meaning it enclosed Neophytos). In 1170 Bishop Basil persuaded Neophytos to be tonsured as a priest and to take up one disciple. See Galatariotou, The Making of a Saint (as n. 51), 14–15, 205–25. During his life, Neophytos discussed and denounced in writing the major military and political events which took place in Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean — hence his resentment of usuper ruler of Cyprus, Isaac Komnenos (1184–91), his passionate defence of the principal of Cyprus forming an integral part of Byzantium; his hostility to the

been attributed to Master Alexander, such as the frontals of Baltarga, Oreilla, Ribesaltes (Abegg-Stiftung Museum, Riggisberg), that of the Suntag Collection in Barcelona, and the canopy of La Llagona. Yvette Carbonell-Lamothe has rightly highlighted the likely origin of the Oreilla painter in Cyprus, and an artist likely to have been active during the early years of Lusignan control (after 1192). She goes on to suggest that Master Alexander may have arrived in the western Mediterranean thanks to Eudoxia, a Byzantine princess, who married William VIII of Montpellier in 1174. Y. Carbonell-Lamothe, ‘Les devants d’autels peints de Catalogne: bilans et problèmes’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 5 (1974), 71–86; idem, ‘Le devant d’autel peint d’Oreilla’, in De la création a la restauration: Travaux d’histoire de l’art offerts à Marcel Durliat pour son 75è anniversaire (Toulouse 1992), 285–91. 39 M. Castiñeiras, ‘El altar románico y su mobiliario litúrgico: frontales, vigas y baldaquinos’, in Mobiliario y ajuar litúrgico en las iglesias románicas, ed. P. L. Huerta (Aguilar de Campoo 2011), 11–75, 55; idem, ‘El románico catalán en el contexto hispánico’ (as n. 8), 66–68. 40 L. Blanchard, ‘Rôle de la confrérie de Saint-Martin du Canigou’, Bibliothèque de l’École de Chartes, 42 (1881), 4–7; Ainaud, La pintura romànica. La fascinació del Romànic (as n. 38), 26–27; P. Stirnemann, ‘L’illustration du cartulaire de Saint-Martin-duCanigou’, in Les Cartulaires. Actes de la Table ronde organisée par l’Ecole nationale des chartes et le G.D.R. 121 du C.N.R.S., ed. O. Guyotjeannin, L. Morelle and M. Parisse (Paris 1993), 171–78. 41 M. Castiñeiras, El cel pintat. El baldaquí de Tost (Vic 2008), 38–43, figs 29 and 35. 42 Carbonell-Lamothe, ‘Le devant d’autel peint d’Oreilla’ (as n. 38), 290–91, n. 2. 43 For the discussion of this topic in Byzantine and Romanesque art, see especially R. Cormack, ‘Painter’s Guides, Model-Books, Pattern-Books and Craftsmen: on Memory and the Artist’, in L’artista a Bisanzio e nel mondo cristiano-orientale, ed. M. Bacci (Pisa 2007), 11–29; L. Geymonat, ‘Drawing, Memory and Imagination in the Wolfenbüttel Munsterbuch’, in Mechanisms of Exchange: Transmission in Medieval Art and Architecture of the Mediterranean, ca. 1000–1500, ed. H. E. Grossman and A. Walker (Leiden and Boston 2013), 220–85. See also the classic study by R. W. Scheller, Exemplum. Model-Book Drawings and the Practice of Artistic Transmission in the Middle Ages (ca. 900–ca. 1470) (Amsterdam 1975), esp. 383–93. 44 For a general description and study of the manuscript, see H. O. Coxe, Catalogus codicum mss, collegii B. Mariae Magdalenae (Oxford 1882), 2; I. Hutter, Corpus der Byzantinischen Miniaturenhadschriften. Band 5.1. Oxford College Libraries (Stuttgart 1997), 71–89; I. Hutter, ‘The Magdalen College Musterbuch. A Painter’s Guide from Cyprus at Oxford’, in Medieval Cyprus. Studies in Art, Architecture, and History in Memory of Doula Mouriki, ed. N. P. Sevcenko and C. Moss (Princeton 1999), 117–46. 45 ‘It is obvious that these drawings were not copied from wallpaintings or icons but, at least indirectly, from tracing or cartoons such as the 17th-century cartoons with mirror images of the Anastasis and the Baptism in Benaki Museum. The drawings at Oxford prove that this technical aide for copying, documented from the fifteenth century on, preserved from about 1600, and described by Dyonysios of Fourna, had been practised since at least the twelfth Century’; Hutter, ‘The Magdalen College Musterbuch’ (as n. 44), 128. For drawings or intermediate transfer patterns (anthivola) in the Benaki Museum in Athens, see Scheller, Exemplum. Model-Book Drawings (as n. 42), 388–89, n. 21, fig. 243 (with bibliography). In my opinion, the draughtsmen responsible for the drawings in the margins of Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3, did not reproduce the scale of their possible models, whether those models were tracings or cartoons. They made free-hand copies from something known as ‘ανθίβολα’ — patrones or patterns — which were probably available in their own workshop and they reduced their monumental scale to a size that suited the pages of the codex. See my forthcoming article: ‘Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr. 3:

324

catalan panel painting around 1200 Libraries (as n. 44), 139), John Lowden prefers to locate it in Constantinoble around the year 1200 (The Illuminated Prophet Books. A Study of Byzantine Manuscripts of the Major and Minor Prophets (London 1988), 26–32, 83–84, fig. 69). See also H. O. Coxe, Catalogus codicum mss, Collegi Novi (Oxford 1882), 11–12. 65 According to M. Falla Castelfranchi, the apse paintings in Santa Maria di Cerrate are an example of the late-12th-century dissemination in southern Italy of Late Komnenian painting then widespread in Cyprus (Perachorio and Lagoudhera) and Byzantine Macedonia (churches of Hagioi Anargyroi and Hagios Nikolaos Kasnitze in Kastoria and Saint George in Kurbinovo). See M. Castelfranchi, Pittura monumentale bizantina in Puglia (Milan 1991), 123–37. However V. Pace, on the basis of late records certifying the presence of Greek painters in the Salentine peninsula, prefers a later date for the Cerrate paintings, of between 1220 and 1235. V. Pace, ‘La chiesa di Santa Maria delle Cerrate e i suoi affreschi’, in Obraz Vizantii. Sbornik statei v cest’ O. S. Popovoi, ed. a A. V. Zakharova (Moscow 2008), 377–98. 66 H. Buchtal, Miniature Painting in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (as n. 27), 14–23; Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (as n. 16), 159–63. 67 Galatiriotou, The Making of a Saint (as n. 51) 43–44, 201–05. 68 ‘There is no doubt there were major changes and developments in the artistic production, the artistic patronage, the functions of the art, the economics of the art, the audience, and the reception of the art in the Latin Kingdom from 1187 to 1291 compared with the years 1098–1187’; Folda, Crusader Art in Holy Land, from the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre (as n. 16), LXVI. 69 Castiñeiras, ‘Illuminant l’altar: artistes i tallers de la pintura sobre taula a Catalunya’ (as n. 18), 17–51. 70 For the Mandylion and Keramion, see Tradigo, Icone e Santi d’Oriente (as n. 33), 235–39. For broader considerations of the replication of sacred likenesses, see A. R. Calderoni Masetti, C. Dufour Bozzo and G. Wolf ed., Intorno al Sacro Volto. Genova, Bisanzio e il Mediterraneo (secoli XI–XIV) (Venice 2007). 71 D. and J. Winfield, The Church of the Panaghia tou Arakos (as n. 32), 219–20, pl. 30, fig. 187. 72 J. Lowden, The Jaharis Gospel Lectionary. The Story of a Byzantine Book (New York 2009), 53–63, 65, fig. 70. 73 Ibid., 80, fig. 91. 74 Ibid., 17 and 18, fig. 17. 75 B. Pentcheva, ‘The Performative Icon’, The Art Bulletin, 88 (2006), 631–55. 76 F. Font, Histoire de l’Abbaye royale de Saint-Martin du Canigou (Perpignan 1903), 86–88; idem, Histoire de l’Abbaye royale de Saint-Michel de Cuxa (Perpignan 1882), 197. 77 ‘D’importants travaux matériels furen égalment entrepris, comme celui de la reconstruciton de la voûte de l’église, qui menaçait de crouler. Il remplaça cette voûte en bois par une autre en bois, égalment portée sur des arceaux en marbre rouge’, Font, Histoire de Saint-Michel de Cuxa (as n. 75), 197. 78 In 1011 a Bull issued by Pope Sergius IV confirmed St Andrew at Baltarga as a possession of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa: ‘ecclesiam Sancti Andreae in villa Baltarga, et ibidem alodem’, E. Junyent i Subirà, Diplomatari i escrits literaris de l’abat i bisbe Oliba (Barcelona 1992), doc. nos 45, 65. 79 The Memorial dels danys causats pel vescomte Arnau de Castellbò i els comtes de Foix, Ramon Roger I, Roger Bernat II i Rober IV, a l’església d’Urgell was written in 1241–51, and informs us that in 1196: ‘Item fregerunt ecclesiam de Baltarga et abstraxerunt inde bladum et alia bona ipsius clerici et habuerunt etiam de eo I bovem et III porcos’, B. Marquès, ‘Els documents del Fons Caboet-Castellbó de l’Arxiu Capitular d’Urgell (1095–1251)’, Quaderns d’estudis andorrans, 8 (2006–08), 11–76, esp. 46; M. Gros, ‘Devastació d’Esglésies del bisbat d’Urgell entorn del 1200’, in Homenatge a moceen Jesús Tarragona (Lleida 1996), 167–77, esp. 169; J. Duran-Porta, ‘Memorial dels danys donats per lo comte de Foyx i bescomte de Castellbò a l’església de Urgell’, in La princesa sàvia. Les pintures de santa Caterina de la Seu d’Urgell, ed. M. Castiñeiras and J. Verdaguer (Barcelona and Vic 2009), 94–98.

Latin mandate in Cyprus after 1191, and his laments over the loss of Jerusalem in 1187 and fall of Constantinople in 1204. Galatariotou, The Making of a Saint (as n. 51), 205–43, 263, 269. St John Chrysostom (347–407) — a possible alter ego for Neophytos — led an ascetic life and became a hermit before being ordained as a deacon in 381. When he was made archbishop of Constantinople, John did not hesitate to denounce the empress, Aelia Eudoxia, for her extravagance. As a result he was deposed and banished by a Synod in 403. It is not by chance that, in one of his panegyrics, Neophytos mentions these facts while making favourable references to ‘King Onorios’ of Rome and Pope Innocent, who ‘rebuked the Emperor Arkadios and empress Eudoxia for their behaviour towards St. John Chrysostom’. Galatariotou, The Making of a Saint (as n. 51), 26. 54 Oxford, Magdalen College MS 3, fols 117v–144v (Homily 44), 145r–160v (Homily 45), 178v–187r (Homily 48). For the edition of the homilies of John Chrysostomos, see Sancti Patris Nostri Johannis Chrisostomi Homiliea in Genesim, 44, 45, 48, Patrologia Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris 1862), LIV, cols 405–22, 434–43. 55 Cormack, ‘Painter’s Guides’ (as n. 43), 24–26. 56 On the north wall of the cell, beneath the Supplication or Deisis, there is the inscription which mentions the name of the painter: ‘The Engleistra [. . .] was painted completely by the hand of Theodoros Apseudes in the year 6691 indiction 1’ (AD 1183). On the left side of this text, Saint Neophytos is depicted kneeling and holding the right foot of Christ. See Papageorgiou, The Monastery of Agios Neophytos (as n. 47), 30; Mango and Hawkins, ‘The Hermitage of St. Neophytos’ (as n. 47), 197 and 206; Galatariotou, The Making of a Saint (as n. 51), 129. In his Typicon, Neothytos wrote that in the twenty-fourth year of his confinement (1159–83): ‘the hermitage was fully furnished (painted)’, The Rule of Neophytos the Recluse, chapter 5, in Coureas, The Foundation Rules of Medieval Cypriot Monasteries (as n. 51), 139. 57 Mango and Hawkins, ‘The Hermitage of St. Neophytos’ (as n. 47), 160–62; Papageorgiou, The Monastery of Agios Neophytos (as n. 47), 54–55, figs 27 and 28; Papageorghiou, Icons of Cyprus (as n. 24), 14–19, figs 8–9. 58 I am referring to the icons of Christ and of the Virgin Arakiotissa, now in the Byzantine Museum of the Foundation of Archbishop Makarios III, in Nicosia: Papageorghiou, Icons of Cyprus (as n. 25), 19 and 20, figs 10 and 11; D. and J. Winfield, The Church of the Panaghia tou Arakos (as n. 32), 319–22. 59 For the profile of the itinerant and polyvalent painter in Byzantium and Russia, see M. Alpatov, ‘The Icons of Russia’, in The Icons, ed. K. Weitzmann (London 1982), 237–52: L. A. Beljaev, ‘Andrei Rublev: the invention of a Biography’, in L’artista a Bisanzio (as n. 43), 117–34. 60 D. and J. Winfield, The Church of the Panaghia tou Arakos (as n. 32), 318, 322–25. 61 Neophytos has his portrait painted at least three times on the walls of the enkleistra. In the Deisis, he is kneeling at Christ’s feet; in the bema, he is at the very top of the ceiling escorted by archangels Michael and Gabriel (Fig. 26); and, finally, he is shown in the naos. Mango and Hawkins, ‘The Hermitage of St. Neophytos’ (as n. 47), 129; Galatariotou, The Making of a Saint (as n. 51), 130–33, figs 6–9. In all depictions he resembles the Abraham of Magdalen College MS 3, fol. 149v: an old man, with a full white beard and a drooping moustache, deep-set large brown eyes and flowing hair. 62 Cormack, ‘Painter’s Guides’ (as n. 43), 24–26; Geymonat, ‘Drawing, Memory and Imagination’ (as n. 43), 579–82. 63 P. B. Bagatti OFM, Gli antichi edifici sacri di Betlemme (Jerusalem 1956), 81; S. de Sandoli, Corpus Iscriptionum Crucesignatorum Terrae Sanctae (1099–1291). Testo, traduzione e annotazioni (Jerusalem 1974), 203; Kühnel, Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century (as n. 16), 57–58, fig. 50; Hunt, ‘Art and Colonialism’ (as n. 16), 74–75, figs 2 and 10; Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom (as n. 37), I, 141. 64 Although Hutter suggested that Oxford New College 44 was probably made in Cyprus at the end of the 12th century (Corpus der Byzantinischen Miniaturenhandschriften. 5. 1. Oxford College

325

manuel casti Ñ eiras 80 In a chanson the troubadour Guillem de Berguedà, the viscount’s son and mortal enemy of Arnau de Preixens, accused the latter of having fortified the Soler d’Avià to oversee his lands. See M. de Riquer i Morera ed., Les poesies del trobador Guillem de Berguedà (Barcelona 1996), 169; and M. de Riquer i Morera, Guillem de Berguedà. I. Estudio histórico, literario y lingüístico (Poblet 1971), 73–74; II. Edición crítica, traducción, notas y glosario (Poblet 1971), 93–95. 81 Castiñeiras, ‘Catalan Romanesque Painting Revisited’ (as n. 8), 144–45. 82 For a detailed account, see Castiñeiras, ‘De Sant Martí de Puig-reig a l’altar de Lluçà’ (as n. 18). 83 See n. 14. 84 J. Prawer, The Cursader’s Kingdom. European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (London 1972), 83–84, 354, 371, 405, 498–99; Nicolau, L’expansió de Catalunya (as n. 15), 21. In 1156, in the oath of fidelity made by the burgers of Mahomerie-la-Grande (el-Bira) to the chapter of Holy Sepulchre, three at least of the fidei seem to be Catalan: Johannes Catalanus, Petrus Bonet and Petrus Catalanus. See G. Bresc-Bautier, Le Cartulaire du Chapitre du Saint-Sépulchre de Jérusalem (Paris 1984), doc. no. 117 (1156), 238. Furthermore, William Jordan, count of Cerdanya, who fought during the First Crusade in the company of his uncle and feudal overlord, Raymond of Toulouse, even leading the Provençal troops after the latter’s death, died in 1109 in Tripoli. Nicolau, L’expansió de Catalunya (as n. 15), 20, 85 ‘Dimitto ecclesie Sancti Dominici sepulcri villam de Palafrugello et villam de Lofredo, post obitum Dalmacii de Palaciolo cum suis terminis et pertinenciis, ad stabiliendum per manum prioris et conventu sepulcri V sacerdotes imperpetuum: unus ante altare maius in capite, alium ante altare Dominici Sepulcri, alium ante altare Sancte Crucis, alium ante altare Viginis Maria in valle Josaphat, alium ante altare Nativitatis in Bethleem, qui uitique sacerdotes stabiliantur a predictis manumissoribus meis per ecclesias Sepulcri in terra mea de redditibus predictarum villarum usque dum terra Iherosilimitana per graciam Santi Spiritus a christianis sit recuperata [. . .].’ ‘Dimitto altari Domici Alta Sepulcri calicem unum auri de quatuor marchis, unum turribulum argenti de quatuor marchis, unam pixidem auri de una marcha qua Sacratissimus Corpus Christi reponature, altari Sante Marie de Bethlem unum calicem et turribulum de octo marchis argenti et pixidem de una marcha; altari Santa Marie de valle Iosaphat unum calicem et turribulum argenti de octo marchis et pixidem de una marcha’ (Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó, C. reg. 2, fols 94–98v). See A. Udina ed., Els testaments del comtes de Barcelona i dels reis de la Corona d’Aragó. De Guifré Borrell a Joan II (Barcelona 2001), 106–16 (doc. no. 14), 107–08, 110–11. In summary the document records that the Holy Sepulchre received one golden chalice,

one silver censer and one silver pixis; the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, one silver chalice, one silver censer and one silver pixis; and Saint-Mary in the Valley of Jehoshapaht, one silver chalice, one silver censer and one silver pixis. 86 In 1192 Saladin allowed Hubert Walter to restore Latin worship in Bethlehem with two priests and two deacons. D. Pringle, Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291 (Farnham 2012), 2. Regarding the treaty for the truce between Saladin and Richard the Lionheart in 1192 and the subsequent permission to visit the Holy Sepulchre, see H. J. Nicholson ed., Chronicle of the Third Crusade. A translation of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Ricardi, V, 28, 30, 33 (Aldershot 2005), 372–77; H. Skarlakidis, Holy Fire. The Miracle of Holy Saturday at the Tomb of Christ. Forty-five Historical Accounts (9th–16th centuries) (Athens 2001), 182. 87 G. Bresc-Bautier, Le Cartulaire du Chapitre du Saint-Sépulchre (as n. 84), doc. no. 22 (1135), 27 (1120), 38 (1144), 97 (1132), 102 (1135), 162 (1177). In 1135 Petrus is explicitly mentioned as ‘Petro subpriore’ and in 1177 as ‘canonicus Sancti Sepulcri’, Bresc-Bautier, Le Cartulaire du Chapitre du Saint-Sépulchre (as n. 84), 221, 315. 88 ‘Petrus Barchinonesis subprior’, C. Kohler, ‘Chartes de l’abbaye de Notre-Dame de la Vallée de Josaphat en Terre-Sainte (1108–1291)’, Revue de l’Orient Latin, VII (1899), 108–222,, esp. 127 (19 October 1129). 89 According to John of Würzburg (c. 1166) and Theodericus (1172), the crypt of the Virgin was adorned with excellent paintings of various colours and numerous captions. Among the subjects depicted was the Assumption of Mary into Heaven (vault of the crypt), with St Jerome and St Basil at the entrance of the crypt. See S. de Sandoli, Corpus Inscriptionum Crucesignatorum Terrae Sanctae (as n. 35), 177–79; J. Wilkinson and J. Hill, Jerusalem Pilgrimage, 1099–1185 (London 1988), 274–75, 350–51, 353; Peregrinationes tres. Saewulf. John of Würzburg. Theodericus, ed. R. B. C. Huygens and J. H. Pryor (Thvrnholti 1994), 127–32 (John of Würzburg), 169–70 (Theodericus); Pringle, The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom (as n. 37), I, 290–92. Unfortunately, most scholars neither mention the existence of traces of painting in the crypt nor the detached fresco depicting the Deisis that was found in one of the buildings belonging to the abbey and is now exhibited in the Museum of Israel. This latter is being studied by my colleague Avital Heyman, who has recently submited to the First Symposium Magister Cataloniae: Artista anònim, artista amb signatura. Identitat, estatus i rol de l’artista medieval (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 7–8 November 2014), an interesting paper entitled: ‘Un reto para el “taller de Melisenda”: la decoración de Santa María en el Valle de Josafat y el proyecto monumental de la Jerusalén cruzada’ (forthcoming).

326

Romanesque and the Mediterranean (2015), 327–336

CATALONIA, PROVENCE AND THE HOLY LAND: LATE 12TH-CENTURY SCULPTURE IN BARCELONA Jordi Camps i Sòria Romanesque art in Catalonia has been studied by trying to determine in a systematic way its points of contact with Europe and by specifying how different artistic influences gradually shaped it and changed it. Therefore, Catalan art, in between the 10th and 13th centuries, has been seen as a succession of syntheses of its own tradition and the influences it received from the most significant European artistic centres. The north of Italy and Languedoc, and sometimes Provence, have been considered as the main point of reference, although other artistic centres have also been taken into account as playing a major role in influencing Catalan art. This article will consider the sculptural style which in the late 12th century developed in the two Catalan cities of Barcelona and Tarragona and will emphasize the Roman tradition this style represented, and its ties with two ends of Mediterranean, especially the similarities with Provence and the Holy Land.

In the 12th century, the artistic Catalan centres of Ripoll, Cuixà, Girona, Vic or la Seu d’Urgell produced outstanding sculptural works at a monumental scale despite their relatively modest settings. The city of Barcelona, however, as part of the group of cities that were county or Episcopal sees, did not emerge as an artistic centre until well into the middle of the 12th century when the city revived and started to intensify its trading activity. It was also around this same time that the monumentalization programme of Tarragona began, building directly on top of the highly symbolic ruins of Tarraco, one of the largest provincial and religious capitals of Roman Hispania. Barcelona and Tarragona, ruled by the pairing count-king and archbishop, offer a set of monuments that reveal an artistic renewal that often appears to be closely linked with some of the large Provençal centres of the middle decades of the 12th century. In both cases, the artistic production began towards the last quarter of the 12th century and a particular sculptural style can be identified. The sculptural production in Barcelona include the door of the cloister of the cathedral, the façade and cloister in the Sant Pau del Camp’s Benedictine monastery, the gallery of the Episcopal palace and, to a lesser extent, the cloister of the Benedictine convent of Sant Pere de les Puelles.1 In Tarragona, the same style can be observed in the first stages of the cathedral and, more succinctly, in the church of Santa Maria del Miracle, built in the ancient amphitheatre. What is more, this style spread in other © British Archaeological Association 2015

works within the orbit of the city of Barcelona, and can be seen especially in the church of the castle of Camarasa.2 In Catalonia, the closest referents of the Barcelona works are found in the cloister of the monastery of Sant Pere de Galligans, in Girona, probably completed between the years 1170 and 1180.3 But what interests us most are the similarities of the forms and repertoires of the Barcelona and Tarragona sculptural programmes with a series of monuments in Provence and in the Mediterranean area of Languedoc, as well as a number of striking similarities with some monuments found in the Holy Land. The aim here is to illustrate these similarities and possible contact points between these two ends of the Mediterranean and Catalonia. The intention will not be to establish a direct link between them, but to place the sculptural programmes in Barcelona in a broader artistic context which was characterised by a reference to classical antiquity and to Mediterranean features, and to see the inclusion of Barcelona within this vast area of cultural and artistic exchange. An important point to raise is that the sculptural style produced in both Barcelona and Tarragona show very different features compared to other styles that evolved in Catalonia during the 11th and 12th centuries, which were also highly influenced by a revival and imitation of classical antiquity. The links between Provence and Catalonia have been studied several times and in connection with a well-defined series of buildings. One example is the 327

jordi camps i s Ò ria repertoire.9 It is unquestionably the city’s sculptural masterpiece of the 12th century and was presumably reconstructed at the time it was installed in its current location. Devoid of a tympanum, the archivolts are decorated with geometric motifs, while the figural decorations are all assembled on the capitals and imposts of the left-hand jamb. Attention must also be drawn to the profuse ornamentation on the Corinthian-type capitals on the right, with notably graceful acanthus leaves, the surfaces of which are dense and fleshy (Fig. 3). This composition of slender form widens slightly at the point in which the first set of leaves sprouts out just above the astragal. The visible profusion of sculpted leaves and the density of the pieces are very revealing in their similarity to other works found in Provence and in Jerusalem, such as the doorway of the chapel of the Franks of the Church of the above-mentioned Holy Sepulchre, which is believed by Jaroslav Folda to have been completed in 1149.10 This similarity is the one aspect which associates the doorway of the monastery of Sant Pau del Camp with the capitals of the cloister of the same monastery, a foundation belonging to the counts of Barcelona. There is no documentary evidence from Sant Pau del Camp relating to the 12th century that would allow us to date it, but the resemblance of its capitals in the cloister with the doorway of the Cathedral of Barcelona would indicate, once again, the last quarter of the 12th century. The Sant Pau cloister was once considered coarse and of an archaic nature, an impression caused by the kind of material used — sandstone from the Montjuïc quarry in the city of Barcelona itself. A more detailed analysis allows us to focus on the thematic and stylistic identity that exists between the cloister and the doorway of the cathedral, such as the selection of some elements portraying fighting scenes and also the different varieties of capitals deriving from the Corinthian style.11 The graceful and flowing design of the sculptural forms is also visible in the lower capitals which sustain the structure of the Corinthian capitals: these have flatter leaves and their most significant element is the bold and marked opening of the tips of the leaves. In Catalonia, the only similarity with this design, used extensively throughout the cloister, can be found in Sant Pere de Galligans (Figs 4 and 5). The motif, with a number of variants, is also reminiscent of several Provençal pieces, such as one part of the cloister of the cathedral of St-Sauveur d’Aix (dating from around 1160–70) (Fig. 6). Moreover, in other areas of the Mediterranean as in Genoa, there are resembling capitals. But most importantly, as this design appears repeatedly in the Barcelona cloister, there are interesting parallels with the capitals of the baptistery of the Templum Domini in Jerusalem.12 The capitals of this building, dating between 1140 and 1150 (according to Folda), offer a wide selection of floral ornamentations,

sculptural programme of Santa Maria of Besalú, a (collegiate) church dependent on the abbey of St-Ruf in Avignon, thoroughly studied by Anne Mazure (Figs 1 and 2).4 The decoration on the capitals in the nave and aisles and on the outer side of the apse show the development of a Corinthian style in the capitals, and the design of these capitals gives them a manifestly classical appearance. This design can be especially appreciated in the pillars of the arch leading to the presbytery and those that separate the nave from the aisles. The style of these Corinthian capitals, adapted in a monumental scale to this architecture, with such formal gracefulness, did not exist in Catalonia in the 12th century. It is believed that the austerity of this programme obeys the guidelines of the see of Avignon. Moreover, the decoration of the north door with a tympanum at the centre in which is represented the Maiestas Domini and the Tetramorph is supposedly to be of a later date and it is thought to have been carried out by a different workshop from the one in charge of the capitals inside the church and on the outer side of the apse. Other sculptural programmes in the northeast of Catalonia (Rosselló and the Empordà) have also been connected to the Provençal style and to the north of Italy, as is the case of the doorways of Coustouges and that of Lledó d’Empordà, dating back to between 1160 and 1170.5 With regards to the doorway of Coustouges, it is worth highlighting the tympanum decorated with a series of leaves that are intertwined at the stems, a design that can also be observed on the doorway of the chapel of the Franks of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Although the motif is evidently somewhat different, the contrast between the width, the decorative density and the monumental character of the archivolts and the jambs are surprising compared to the modest size of the entrance.6 Once again, with regard to Barcelona, the existing links with Sant Pere de Galligans, on the one hand, and a number of Provençal examples, on the other, were analysed some years ago.7 The graceful and flowing composition of the floral ornamentation, especially those found on the corinthian capitals, link Barcelona to the cloister of this monastery, Sant Pere de Galligans, in Girona; in both cases, there is also a clear tendency to assemble certain historiated themes in very few capitals, without overlooking other themes typical of the decoration of Romanesque cloisters, such as fighting scenes and bestiary images. However, in Galligans and Barcelona alike, the representation of some of these themes is significantly similar to some Provençal cloisters and also to some pieces in the Holy Land.8 The doorway that currently connects the cloister with the church in the cathedral of Barcelona, probably built for the Romanesque galilee documented around the year 1173, is characterized by the use of reused ancient marble and by an extensive decorative 328

late- 12 th-century sculpture in barcelona

Figure 1 Santa Maria de Besalú, Catalonia (Jordi Camps)

Figure 2 St-Ruf in Avignon, Provence (Jordi Camps) 329

jordi camps i s Ò ria

Figure 3 Barcelona Cathedral: doorway of the cloister, detail (Jordi Camps)

While the initial building plans were characterized by an austere nature, the decorative programme based on floral ornamentation, characterized by a markedly classical component similar to that of Provence, may be linked to the establishment of the (collegiate) church inspired by St-Ruf in Avignon, as we have seen for the above-mentioned case of Santa Maria de Besalú. One example can be seen in the decorative motifs in the lower parts of the side chapels of the building on capitals with floral ornamentation, which can be associated with variants of the Corinthian capitals, with acanthus leaves of more or less elaborate shapes, which are using techniques reminiscent of those employed in Provence.15 In this sense, the decoration in this part of the cathedral shows striking analogies with the contemporary artistic tendencies in Barcelona and can be thus included in the scene common to some Provençal works, which are also found in the Holy Land. Within the complex architecture and sculptural decoration of the cathedral of Tarragona, the doorway connecting the cloister with the cathedral church has often been considered a unicum that is difficult to date, generally associated with Provençal sculpture, as studied by Victor Lassalle (Fig. 7).16 It has even been questioned whether its original location coincides with the current one, although this is an issue we will not be able to look at in any detail. The doorway in question is made of several pieces sculpted in white marble (the same used in the doorway of Barcelona), the prevalent feature of which is a tympanum decorated with the Maiestas Domini and the Tetramorph. The capital of the mullion contains a cycle dedicated to the Nativity in which the main theme is the Virgin with the Baby

one part of which, on both the inside and outside, is composed of two levels of flat leaves similar to those that are found in Sant Pere de Galligants and Sant Pau del Camp.13 Although these similarities need to be explained, as a result of the dissemination of some techniques used in western Europe and particularly in Provence, the common link which joins these two ends of the Mediterranean is nonetheless surprising. A connection with Provençal sculpture can also be identified in the Tarragona Cathedral. It is undoubtedly a building of enormous symbolic value, being the see of an archbishopric recovered after centuries of Al-Andalus rule and freed from the metropolitan see of Narbonne. Despite the fact that it had been the former provincial capital and religious see in Roman times, Tarraco was occupied by the count of Barcelona towards the end of the 11th century, it was not until the middle of the 12th century that a stable process of repopulation and urbanization of the city took place.14 Under the auspices of the countship of Barcelona, the building of Tarragona Cathedral must have become an ambitious undertaking, the beginning of which has been dated towards the end of the 12th century. In fact, the solid foundations for the erection of the cathedral buildings have been said to date from the period of the archbishopric of Bernat Tort (1146–63). A papal bull signed by Pope Anastasias IV in 1154 made it possible to determine the diocese of the archbishopric of Tarragona as well as to establish a community of Augustinian canons, following the model of St-Ruf in Avignon. With regard to the new cathedral, donations were made from the beginning of the last third of the 12th century and continued over the 13th century. 330

late- 12 th-century sculpture in barcelona

Figure 4

Figure 6

Sant Pau del Camp, in Barcelona: capitals of the cloister (Jordi Camps)

Aix-en-Provence Cathedral: capitals of the cloister (Jordi Camps)

Jesus in the centre which are part of a composition on the main façade, which is included within the scene of the Epiphany.17 The Corinthian-type capitals have a markedly classical appearance accentuated by their vigorous forms and a striking sense of volume (Fig. 8) other significant aspects of this sculptural programme are reminiscent of the doorway of the cloister of the

cathedral of Barcelona. In all of these cases, there is a noticeably clear revaluation of forms of classical appearance which, despite not being new in Catalonia, is one of the features that characterizes the works of this circle. We can also add a reasonably similar capital decorated with a bed of acanthus leaves upon which there also appears a representation of birds, as seen on one of the capitals of the right-hand jamb of the doorway of the cloister of Tarragona and which is not unusual throughout the Mediterranean. As mentioned above, there are other works like those of Sant Pere de les Puelles (Barcelona) or Santa Maria del Miracle (Tarragona) which belong to this group. In these cases, the remains of these buildings show a simplification and stereotyping of the repertoire, as well as a slightly poorer quality than that of the most significant monuments. Along similar lines are two works that have not been mentioned yet but that undoubtedly belong to the same group. On the one hand, there is the sculpture of the apse and the interior of the church of the Sant Martí Sarroca Castle, the consecration date of which in 1204, may represent a significant chronological framework (Fig. 9). The plan of this church and the decorative motifs on the side chapel fully match with those of Camarasa, which also belonged to a castle complex (Fig. 10).18 On the other hand, there are particularly interesting analogies of repertoire with the capitals of the cloister of the Benedictine monastery of Sant Benet de Bages, although, in this case, the style of the carving somewhat differs from that of the style we are looking at.19 As mentioned above, the relationship between Catalan and Provençal sculpture, as well as Languedoc sculpture, has been studied for many decades by several historians. The issue now is to broaden the scope of these relationships, which are presumably indirectly linked to the eastern countries of the Mediterranean, in a setting in which Barcelona and Catalonia can be fully included from the decade of

Figure 5 Sant Pere de Galligants, in Girona: capital of the cloister (Jordi Camps) 331

jordi camps i s Ò ria

Figure 7 Tarragona Cathedral: doorway of the cloister (Jordi Camps)

But beyond the artistic context, these contact points have been explained by the fact that the Catalan centres belonged to the segment of western Mediterranean countries, benefited by a series of political, dynastic, trading and cultural links, to which we must add the components of Romanesque art which were the driving force of its international scope. Thus, all of this may have had an influence on the development of the artistic circle in both Barcelona and Tarragona towards the last quarter of the 12th century. What is more difficult now is to pinpoint concrete links that may have assisted in channelling this formula, with its similarities with Provence and the Holy Land. With regard to Provence, we must bear in mind the dynastic links with the countship of Barcelona and the Catalan interests in the region which resulted in trips and visits by political and religious authorities. The presence of the Barcelona counts in Provence was analysed in depth by Martí Aurell.21 The supremacy of Barcelona followed the marriage of Ramon Berenguer III and Dolça of Provence in 1112, and became stronger thanks to a solid social weft formed by high nobility, chivalry and prelates. Subsequently, Alfonso the First himself, known as ‘the Chaste’, held the title of count of Provence between 1167 and 1173. Aurell mentions that the clergy of Provence exercised its

1170. This is the component which sets the sculpture of Barcelona and its environments apart. Whether the connection is Galligans, Tarragona or Barcelona, the link or parallelism with the Provençal centres and the Mediterranean group is obvious in the sculpture characterized by ornamental motifs, where what is dominant is the floral theme based on classical motifs, which even restricted the presence of the figural sculptural elements. The forms, graceful yet dense, intricate and tending towards profusion, are clearly visible in sculptural pieces found in St-Trôphime d’Arles, St-Sauveur d’Aix en Provence, Montmajour, and so on, not to mention the Sicilian cloister of Monreale and, to a significant extent, in the works produced by the Templar Workshop in Jerusalem, dating back to sometime between 1170 and 1180.20 This parallelism tends, in Catalonia, towards a synthesis with other elements of the same tradition and towards a slight technical and thematic simplification, although this does not make the parallelism any less suggestive and revealing. This sculptural style is easily found in certain pieces and clearly differs from other contemporary artistic expressions, although we are not able to prove that it is exclusive to one workshop or artist, or to establish a strictly direct link between the sculptural groups. 332

late- 12 th-century sculpture in barcelona

Figure 8 Tarragona Cathedral: doorway of the cloister, detail (Jordi Camps)

333

jordi camps i s Ò ria

Figure 9 Sant Martí Sarroca, Catalonia: apse (Jordi Camps)

Figure 10 Sant Miquel de Camarasa, Catalonia: detail of the apse (Jordi Camps) 334

late- 12 th-century sculpture in barcelona ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

influence on Catalonia by means of the power exerted by in centres such as St-Victor in Marseille and St-Ruf in Avignon, in the words of Paul Kehr this created a ‘monastic colonialism’ in contrast with the royal domain.22 This context may have encouraged contacts between Catalunia and Provence. In fact, it is known that the archbishop of Tarragona accompanied Alfonso the Chaste during his frequent stays in Provence, especially in the case of archbishop Berenguer de Vilademuls (1175–78), who in 1176 travelled with the count-king to Provence. In addition, during the 12th century, the pilgrimage routes from Catalonia to the Holy Land and the trading activities in Barcelona grew and so did its contacts with different Mediterranean ports. Around the year 1165, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela spoke of the presence in the city of boats from different parts of the Mediterranean, such as Palestine. On the other hand, during the middle decades of the 12th century, there were several canons from Barcelona who, at successive moments, went or attempted to go to the Holy Land.23 Let us not forget the presence of the military orders in Catalonia and, specifically in Barcelona, in the monastery of Santa Anna, particularly from 1145. In conclusion, the historical context described above helped develop in Barcelona a sculptural style which under the influence of the Provençal style and with some similarities with other areas of the Mediterranean, particularly the Holy Land, is characterized by a revival of classical antiquity. And even if during the Romanesque period several sculptural formulae in Catalonia were also characterized by representing classical features, the style discussed above can be distinguished by its decorative features combined with a gracefulness of the compositions, especially present in the floral repertoire. Thanks to its monumental approach and clearly defined features, for the first time, the sculptural style which developed in the cathedral of Barcelona and in Sant Pau del Camp placed Barcelona in an international artistic scene. The historical context, the new vitality of both business and society no doubt facilitated this small hatching. The links with the Mediterranean and the conscious development of this style are the result of the contacts of the secular and religious order with the whole of the Mediterranean, as outlined above. This is the context we wished to set out and which, from the Barcelona viewpoint, offers another example of the role of the Mediterranean as a nexus between different centres and as a driving force of enriching contacts, still from the common background of an ancient Roman past. In any case, we must continue working in order to reinforce these links, both internally and externally: we need to identify more closely the links between Girona, Tarragona and Barcelona and specify the means and the agents that connected the sculpture produced in these centres with the others.

Many of the ideas that are included in this article are the result of the research developed for the project ‘Artistas, Patronos y Público. Cataluña y el Mediterráneo (siglos XI-XV) (MICINN-HAR2011-23015)’. NOTES 1 M. Macià i Gou, in ‘Estructura i descripció de la seu romànica’, Catalunya Romànica, XX (Barcelona 1992), 163–74, esp. 165–68; J. Camps i Sòria and I. Lorés i Otzet, ‘El claustre de Sant Pau del Camp en el context de l’escultura barcelonina del segle XIII’, Lambard. Estudis d’art medieval, VI (Barcelona 1994), 87–112; I. Lorés i Otzet, ‘L’escultura romànica del palau Episcopal de Barcelona’, D’Art, 19 (Barcelona 1993), 211–26; J. Ainaud de Lasarte, Art romànic. Guia (Barcelona 1973), 152; I. Lorés i Otzet, in ‘Sant Pere de les Puelles’, Catalunya Romànica, XX (Barcelona 1992), 211–13. 2 J. Gudiol Ricat and J.-A. Gaya Nuño, Arquitectura y escultura románicas, Ars Hispaniae, V (Madrid 1948), 88–92; J. Camps i Sòria and I. Lorés i Otzet, ‘Una línia d’influència occitana reflectida en l’escultura del presbiteri de la catedral de Tarragona’, Lambard. Estudis d’art medieval, V (Barcelona 1992), 53–78; ‘Santa Maria del Miracle’, Catalunya Romànica, XXI (Barcelona 1995), 183–88; J. Camps i Sòria, ‘Tarragona, Barcelona y la iglesia del castillo de Camarasa. Comitentes y talleres de escultura en Cataluña a finales del siglo XII’, Medioevo: I Committenti. XIII Convegno Internazionale di Studi. 21–26 settembre 2010 (Parma 2011), 62–68. 3 J. Camps i Sòria and I. Lorés i Otzet, ‘El claustre’ (as n. 1), 95–96, figs 6 and 470; P. Beseran i Ramon, ‘[El claustre de Sant Pere de Galligants]’, in ‘Sant Pere de Gallligans’, Catalunya Romànica, V (Barcelona 1991), 163–69. 4 A. M. Mazure-Bourandy, ‘Santa Maria de Besalú et les chanoines de Saint Agustin du X–XIII siècle’ (unpublished thesis, Toulouse 1983); A. M. Mazure-Bourandy, ‘Santa Maria de Besalú. Rélations entre son histoire et son architecture’, Amics de Besalú. V Assemblea d’Estudis sobre el seu comtat (Besalú 1983), 295–314. 5 M. Durliat, La sculpture romane en Roussillon, IV (Perpignan 1954), 51–60; J. Camps i Sòria, ‘Reflexions sobre l’escultura de filiació rossellonesa a la zona de Ripoll, Besalú, Sant Pere de Rodes i Girona vers la segona meitat del segle XII’, Girona revisitada. Estudis d’Art Medieval i Modern, (Estudi General, X) (Girona 1990), 45–69, 55–57. 6 J. Folda, The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098–1187 (Cambridge 1995), pl. 7.8k. 7 Camps i Sòria and Lorés i Otzet, ‘El claustre’ (as n. 1), 95–96, figs 6 and 470. 8 Folda, The Art of the Crusaders (as n. 6), pls 10.13k, 10.13n, 10.13p, 10.13w. 9 P. Beseran i Ramon, ‘Puerta del Claustro de la Catedral’, Enciclopedia del Románico en Cataluña, Fundación Santa María la Real (Aguilar de Campoo, in press). 10 Folda, The Art of the Crusaders (as n. 6), 214–29. 11 Camps i Sòria and I. Lorés i Otzet, ‘El claustre’ (as n. 1), 97–98, fig. 9. 12 Folda, The Art of the Crusaders (as n. 6), figs 8A. 5c, de, h. 13 A picture of the façade of the now lost Barcelona church of Sant Miquel also seems to show a repertoire and a style very close to that of the cathedral and of the monastery of Sant Pau del Camp. Nevertheless, more data needs to be gathered for that, as there is yet no information on whether those elements could survive, however partially (J. Ainaud, J. Gudiol and P. Verrié, Catálogo Monumental de España, La ciudad de Barcelona (Madrid 1947), 181–83, fig. 931). 14 M. Fuentes i Gasó, ‘De la memòria de Sant Fructuós al triomf de Santa Tecla’, Pallium. Exposició d’Art i Documentació. Catedral de Tarragona (Tarragona 1992), 21–47; J. Flori, ‘Réforme, reconquista, croisade. L’idée de reconquête dans la correspondance pontificale d’Alexandre II à Urbain II’, Cahiers de Civilisation

335

jordi camps i s Ò ria Médiévale, 40 (1997), 317–35; L. McCranck, ‘Tarragona medieval. Reconquista y Restauración’, Butlletí Arqueològic, ép. V, 19/20, (Tarragona 1997–98). 15 J. Camps i Sòria, Escultura de la catedral de Tarragona, Enciclopedia del Románico en Tarragona, Fundación Santa María la Real (Aguilar de Campoo, in press). 16 V. Lassalle, ‘L’influence provençale au cloître et à la cathédrale de Tarragone’, Mélanges offerts à René Crozet à l’occasion de son soixante-dixième anniversaire, II (Paris 1966), 873–79. 17 See C. Llarás and L. Carabasa, in ‘Santa Maria de Tarragona’, Catalunya Romànica, XXI (Barcelona 1995), 140–44. 18 P. Cuesta, L’església romànica de Sant Martí Sarroca, Artestudi (Barcelona 1976) (2nd edition Vilafranca del Penedès

2011); F. Español i Bertran, AADD, ‘Santa Maria de Sant Martí Sarroca’, Catalunya Romànica, XIX (Barcelona 1992), 175–80; J. Camps i Sòria, ‘Capitells de Sant Martí Sarroca’, Catalunya Romànica, XXVI (Barcelona 1997), 349–50. 19 F. Español, Sant Benet de Bages, ed. Angle (Manresa 1995). 20 Folda, The Art of the Crusaders (as n. 6), 441–56. 21 M. Aurell i Cardona, Les noces du comte. Mariage et pouvoir en Catalogne (785–1213) (Publicacions de la Sorbonne, (Paris 1995), 391–96. 22 Aurell, Les noces du comte (as n. 21), 395; P. Kehr, El Papat i el Principat de Catalunya fins la unió amb Aragó (Barcelona 1931), 79. 23 On this subject, see Manuel Castiñeira’s work in this volume.

336

INDEX

(Page references in bold refer to illustrations.)

‘Abd al-Malik, ruler, Caliphate of Cordoba, 264 Aachen (North Rhine-Westphalia), Palatine chapel, 41 Abū Burda ʿĀmir b. Abī Mūsā al-As̲h̲ʿarī, 70, 86n.72 Abu Gosh (Israel), Hospitaller church, 291 Abū MāʾShar Al-Balkhī’s Kitāb Al-Mawālid, 67 Abū Zayd, 67 Acceptus, sculptor, 167 Adelasia, wife of Roger I, 156 Aethelstan, king of England, 44 Àger (Catalonia), St Peter, 265 Aix-en-Provence (Bouche-du-Rhône), cathedral 328, 331, 332 Alakilissi (Turkey), St Gabriel, 163 Alberada, wife of Robert Guiscard, 156, 157, 163, 165 Alduin I, count of Angoulême, 206 Alexander, Master, painter, 304, 305, 307, 312, 315, 318, 315–20 Alfonso I, count of Provence, 332, 335 Alfonso II, king of Aragón, 277, 292, 293 Alfonso VI, king of León, 259, 260, 266, 268, 273 Al-Ḥājib Husām Al-Dawla Ismā‛Īl, the son of Al-Mam’ūn (d. 1075), 259 al-Hakam II, caliph, Cordoba, 264 Al-Mam’ūn, ruler of the Taifa kingdom of Toledo, 259, 260, 266, Almazán (Soria), San Miguel, 242 al-Muqtadir, king, 278 Alós de Isil (Catalonia), 300 al-Qalqashandi, 30, 31 Al-Qarawiyīn (Fez, Morocco), mosque, 63 Amalfi (Campania), 18, 36, 44 Amalrich I, king of Jerusalem, 8 Anacletus II, pope, 131, 229 Andres (Flanders), priory, 209 Angers (Maine-et-Loire), 44 cathedral, 237 Angoulême (Charente) cathedral, 225–27, 226, 229–33, 230, 235, 235, 237 St-Cybard, 206 Aquileia (Friuli), 199 Arles (Bouches-du-Rhône), St-Trôphime, 332 Armengaud d’Asp, 293 Arnau de Preixens, bishop of Urgell, 319 Arnau Mir de Tost, 265, 273 Aschetinus, bishop of Bethlehem, 12 Atrani (Campania), San Salvatore de’ Birecto, 40 Audebert III, count of La Marche, 207 Avià (Catalonia), Santa Maria, 297–300, 299, 301, 302, 303, 318–20 Avignon (Vaucluse), St-Ruf, 328, 329, 330, 335

Balaguer (Catalonia), 268, 268 Baldwin I, king of Jerusalem, 12 Baldwin II, king of Jerusalem, 12 Baltarga (Catalonia), St Andreu, 298, 305, 307, 312, 315, 315–17, 318, 320 Barcelona (Catalonia) cathedral, 327, 328, 331, 335 Episcopal palace, 327 Santa Anna, 335 Sant Miquel, 335n.13 Sant Pau del Camp, 242, 327, 328, 330, 331, 335, 335n.13 Sant Pere de les Puelles, 327, 331 Bari (Puglia), 44, 155 cathedral, 40, 171 San Giovanni Crisostomo, 40 San Nicola, 33, 47, 167 Beatus of Fernando I and Queen Sancha, 242, 243, 244 Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne (Corrèze), 227 Bela I, king of Hungary, 197 Benedetto Antelami, 68, 70, 173, 176 Bernard de Sauvetat, 269 Bernat de Vilamur, bishop of Urgell, 319 Bernat Tort, 330 Bernward Gospels, 250, 251 Besalú (Catalonia), Santa Maria, 328, 329, 330 Bethleham (Israel), Church of the Nativity, 1–8, 4–6, 9, 10, 10, 12, 283, 303, 305, 312, 315, 320 Bijāya (Bougie, Algeria), palace, 63 Blackburn horn, 42 Bohemund, prince of Antioch, 151, 156, 163, 164 Bologna (Emilia-Romagna), Santo Stefano, 217, 218 Bonanus Pisanus, 42, 48 Borradaile horn, 19, 21, 33, 42 Borstal horn, 45 Boschaud (Dordogne), abbey, 237 Bougie (Algeria), Hammadid palace, 63 Braine (Aisne), Saint-Yved, 294n.51 Brescia (Lombardy), San Salvatore, 38 Brindisi San Benedetto, 38, 42 San Giovanni al Sepolcro, 75 Buckland (Somerset), priory, 277 Burgos, Las Huelgas, 28 Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk), abbey, 172n.15 Bury St Edmunds Miscellany, 73, 74 Cahors (Lot), cathedral, 225–27, 229, 230–33, 237 Cairo (Egypt), 19, 81 See also Fustat or Fusṭāṭ Calixtus II, pope, 230

Băckovo (Bulgaria), monastery, 285 Bādīs, ruler of Granada, 268

337

index Facundo, painter, 242 Feldebrö (Hungary), 194–97, 194–96, 199, 201 Felicitas Michael, 199, 201 Fernando I, king of León, 242, 255, 260, 264 Ferrara (Emilia-Romagna), San Giorgio, 87n.100 Ferrer Bassa, painter, 283 Fez (Morocco), Al-Qarawiyīn, mosque, 63 Fidenza (Emilia-Romagna), San Donnino, 68, 70 Fontevraud (Maine-et-Loire) abbey, 225–27, 230–33, 231, 237 St Jean-l’Habit, 233 Francesco del Tadda, sculptor, 143 Frangipani family, 142 Frederick II, emperor, 129, 130, 131, 134–36, 138–42, 141, 145, 146, 157, 160, 277 Fredesenda, mother of Robert Guiscard, 156 Frómista (Palencia), San Martin, 265 Fulda (Hesse), St Michael, 217, 217 Fulrad, abbot of Charroux, 205, 207 Fustat or Fusṭāṭ (Egypt), 19, 52, 65, 95, 99, 105, 112, 114, 121, 124, Sanctuary of Abū L-SuʿŪd, 62

Cambridge, Holy Sepulchre, 218 Camerasa (Catalonia), San Miquel, 327, 331, 334 Canosa (Puglia) cathedral, 167–72, 168, 169, 171 Mausoleum of Bohemund, 151–66, 152–54, 164, 165 San Leucio, 195 Santa Sofia, 167 Canterbury (Kent), cathedral, 44, 282, 283 Carrión de los Condes (Castile), 241 Cefalù (Sicily), San Salvatore cathedral, 78, 80, 156, 157, 159, 160, 163, 164 CEILING AND VAULT PAINTINGS Cefalù cathedral, 64, 65, 68, 95, 96, 97, 98, 101, 102, 106 Murcia, Dar al-Sughra palace, 105, 107 Palermo, Cappella Palatina ceilings, 20, 52n.29, 57n.203, 59–89, 62, 63, 67, 69, 70, 72, 76, 78–80, 91–127, 91–95, 98, 100, 104, 106, 109, 112–14, 116–18, 277, 278 Parma, Baptistery, 173–92, 174–76, 178, 179, 181, 182, 187, 188 Sigena, 277–95, 278, 280–82, 285, 289, 290, 298, 298 See also MUQARNAS Celestine V, pope, 176 Charlemagne, 206, 207 Charroux (Vienne), St-Sauveur, 205–23, 208–14, 216, 226 Châtres (Charente), 237 Clarendon (Wiltshire), palace, 287 Clement VII, pope, 207 Clement XII, pope, 136 Clephane horn, 19, 20, 26, 33, 40, 56n.157 Cluny (Saône-et-Loire), 269, 273 Codex Albeldense, 243, 244, 247, 245, 255 Conques (Aveyron), Ste-Foy, 265, 268, 272 Constance, daughter of Roger II, 129, 134–36, 134, 137, 138–41, 140, 160 Constance (Germany), St Maurice, 219 Constantinople (Turkey) Constantine Lipps, 199 Forum of Constantine, 141 Hagia Irene, 170, 231 Holy Apostles, 132, 164, 170, 234 Moukhroutas palace, 62 Constanza, daughter of Alfonso II and Sancha of Aragón, 277 Cornetta, Fra’ ‘Brother Horn’, 183, 189 Coustouges (Pyrénées-Orientales), 328 Cressac-St Genis (Charente), Templar chapel, 73 Crowland (Lincolnshire), abbey, 44

Garcia, king of Navarre, 261 Gensac-la-Pallue (Charente), 236, 237 Geoffrey, abbot of Charroux, 207 George of Antioch, 23, 81, 134 Gerard de Terrasson, 227 Gerard of Modena, 183–89 Gerardo Bianchi, cardinal, 176 Germigny-des-Prés (Loiret), 195 Gervase of Tilbury, 49 Gibelin, papal legate, 12 Girard de Blay, bishop of Angoulême, 226, 229–31, 237 Girona (Catalonia) cathedral, 243 Sant Pere de Galligants, 327, 328, 330, 331 Girona Beatus, 242, 244, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 250, 252, 255 Granada, Baths of King Badis, 251 Grazia, bishop of Parma, 183, 186 Great Canterbury Psalter, 279, 283, 284 Gregory IX, pope, 186 Habsburg, Albrecht III von, 34 Ham (Limburg), priory, 209 Harūn Al-Rashīd, caliph, 75 Henry II, king of England, 277, 283 Henry II, king of France, 56n.163, 57n.197 Henry VI, emperor, 129, 132, 133, 134–36, 138, 138–42, 148n.42, 160 Henry, brother of William II, 160 Herpály (Hungary), 199 Hersende de Montsoreau, abbess of Fontevraud, 230 Horn of Ulf, 17, 26, 33, 34, 44, 45, 48 Hrabanus Maurus, 41, 42, 217 Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury 320 Hugh of Empúries, count, 299 Hugues II, bishop of Angoulême, 226

Dāniyāl, Daniel, 68, 70, 71, 86 Dāwūd, David the Prophet, 68 Dijon (Côte-d’Or), St Bénigne, 226 Dobronya (Dobrá Niva, Slovakia), 199 Doni, Anton Francesco, 143 Doros (Cyprus), Panagina, 299 Drogo, archbishop of Taranto, 7 Durham (co. Durham), cathedral, 44 Durrī, artist working for caliph al-Hakam II, 264 Echternach (Luxembourg), 261 Eichstätt (Bavaria), Franciscan church, 215, 217 Ejmiatsin (Armenia), cathedral, 194 Elias, archbishop of Bari, 171 Eller (Rhineland-Palatinate), 44 Elvira, wife of Roger II, 160, 163 Elvira, Doña, 269 Emeterio, copyist, 244 Empordà (Catalonia), Lledó, 328 En, miniaturist, 244, 245, 248–50 Ephesus (Turkey), St John, 169, 170, 234 Eremburga, wife of Roger I, 156 Esztergom (Hungary), cathedral, 199 Eugenius of Palermo, 64

Ibn Abī L-Dunyā ruler, (d. 894), 70, 86 Ibn Bashir al-Himyari, Muhammad, 29 Ibn Battutah, 31 Ibn Ḥamdīs, poet, 63, 83 Ibn Hawqal, geographer, 64 Ibn Ḥayyān, Arab chronicler, 265 Ibn Kathīr (d. 1373), chronicler, 70, 86 Ibn Zayyān, Muḥammad, Taifa artist, 259, 264 Ibn Zayyān, ‛Abd al-Raḥmān, Taifa artist, 259, 264 Ifrīqiya or Ifriqiya, 32, 39, 49, 50, 53, 58, 63, 64, 81, 91, 142 al-Mansuriyya, 32, 57 n.204 Mahdiyya, 32

338

index Innocent II, pope, 134, 229 Innocent III, pope, 186 Issoire (Puy-de-Dôme), abbey, 209 Iterius Archambaud, 229 IVORIES al-Mughira pixis, 245 Beatitudes casket, 259 Burgos Museum, Santo Domingo de Silos casket, 243, 244, 248, 251, 254, 259, 261, 267, 268 Doha, Museum of Islamic Art, casket, 35, 35, 40, 42 Farfa casket, 49 Lamu Museum, Pate Siwa, 29, 29, 30 León, San Isidoro, St Pelagius reliquary, 260, 262 Leyre casket, 245, 248, 251, 252, 253 London, British Museum, The Swimming Reindeer, 23, 24 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Ziydd Ibn Aflah pixis, 245, 247 Maastricht, ivory casket, 28 Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, al-Mu’izz casket, 32; Palencia casket, 259, 269, 270 Narbonne pyxis, 259, 273 Novara of Sicily, Maria SS Assunta, casket, 98 Pamplona casket, 264, 268 Paris, Bibliothèque de Ste-Geneviève, pommel, 29 Paris, Musée de Louvre, Processional cross of San Millán, 248 St Alban’s abbey, whip handle, 46 Salerno, Museo Diocesano, ivories, 35, 36, 36 San Millán de Cogolla, St Emilianus reliquary, 261, 263 Veroli cathedral, Tresure, casket, 112 Würzburg cathedral, casket, 96, 97, 99 See also OLIPHANTS

London, Old St Paul’s cathedral, 44 Louis the Pious, emperor, 46, 206 Lucca (Tuscany), cathedral, 131 Lund (Sweden), cathedral, 199, 200 Maastricht (Limburg), Saint Servatius, 36 Magdeburg (Saxony-Anhalt), cathedral, 132 Magio, 242 Mali, 31 Mansa Sulaymen, ruler of Mali, 31 Manuel I, emperor of Byzantium, 8 MANUSCRIPTS Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 0018, 68, 69 Athens, National Library, cod.7, 185 Dijon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 173, Moralia in Job, 74 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Plut 6.23, 315, 318 Girona Cathedral, MS 7, Girona Beatus, 242, 244, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 250, 252, 255 Hildesheim, Dom und Diözesanmuseum, MS 18, Bernward Gospels, 250, 251 Istanbul, Topkapi Saray Library, cod.gr.13, 283 Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate, MS 251, 297 León Cathedral Library, MS 6, León Bible, 245, 247 London, British Library Royal MS 6 C VI, Moralia in Job, 75, 77 MS Cotton Nero C.IV, Winchester Psalter, 303 MS Egerton 1139, Melisende Psalter, 2, 7, 303, 303, 320 Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, MS Vtr. 14-2, Beatus of Fernando I and Queen Sancha, 242, 243, 244 Madrid, Library of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, MS d. I. 2, Codex Albeldense, 243, 244, 247, 245, 255 Manchester, John Rylands Library, MS Lat.8, 243 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS 1, Morgan Beatus, 242, 243 MS M.736, Bury St Edmunds Miscellany, 73, 74 Oxford, Magdalen College, MS Gr.3, John Chrysostom’s Commentary on Genesis, 305, 307, 308, 309–12, 310–13, 316 Oxford, New College, MS 44, 283, 285, 286, 312 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale Cod. Coisl 65, 309 Cod. Gr. 605, 309 MS Arabe 5847, Maqamat of al-Hariri, 95, 99, 106 MS lat. 8846, Great Canterbury Psalter, 279, 283, 284 Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, Collection Jean Masson, Mn. Mas 38, 306 Reims, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 294, Lectionary F, 73, 74, 74 Rome, Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, cod.Gr.746, 187 Venice, Istituto Ellenico, MS IE 2, 315, 320 Vienna, Weltliche Schatzkammer der Hofburg, Vienna Coronation Gospels, 283 Winchester Cathedral, Winchester Bible, 279, 283 Maqamat of al-Hariri, 95, 99, 106 March, Edmund Mortimer, earl of, 44 Margaret, mother of William II of Sicily, 160, 162, 163 Marie de Montpellier, queen of Aragón, 277 Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), St-Victor, 335 Melisende Psalter, 2, 7, 303, 303, 320 Melle (Deux-Sèvres), St-Hilaire, 214 Metz (Moselle), abbey, 46 Milan San Lorenzo, 195 San Satiro, 198 San Sepolcro, 197, 197 Mileto (Calabria), Holy Trinity, 156, 157, 158, 163, 164 Monreale (Sicily), cathedral, 38–42, 38, 40–42, 129, 134, 135, 147, 160, 163, 161–64, 279, 283, 287, 332 Monte Cassino, 48, 49, 131, 156, 266

Jaca (Huesca), cathedral, 241, 265, 272 Ja‛Far, eunuch, caliphate of Córdoba, 264 Jaime Cascalls, sculptor, 265 Jehoshaphat, Valley of, (Israel), St Mary, 320 Jerusalem (Israel) Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 1, 2, 164, 196, 207, 215, 216, 217–19, 226, 289, 320, 328 Templum Domini, 328 Jirjīs, 81 John Chrysostom’s Commentary on Genesis, 305, 307, 308, 309–12, 310–13, 316 Kaposszentjakab (Hungary), 199 Kastoria (Macedonia), Mavriotissa monastery, 291 Kato Paphos (Cyprus), Panagia Theoskepasti, 299, 300, 310 Khūzistān (Iran), 70 Knute IV, king of the Danes, 4 Krukenburg (Hesse), castle, Johanneskapelle, 219 Kutaisi (Georgia), Bagrati cathedral, 194 La Couronne (Charente), 237 La Tenaille (Charente-Maritime), abbey, 237 Lagoudhera (Cyprus), Panaghia tou Arakos, 285, 287, 288, 291, 302, 303, 308, 310, 311, 314, 314 Lamezia (Calabria), Sant’Eufemia, 156 Le Mans (Sarthe), cathedral, 237 Le Puy (Haute-Loire), cathedral, 226 Lehel’s horn, 26, 27, 33, 34, 41 Leo III, pope, 134, 207 León San Isidoro, 241, 242, 255, 259, 262, 265, 269, 269, 271, 272 Santiago de Peñalba, 248, 249 León Bible, 245, 247 Limoges (Haute-Vienne) cathedral, 227 St Martial, 234 Lisbon Casa de los Bicos, 253 Sé Vella (cathedral), 253

339

index Paderborn (North Rhine-Westphalia), Busdorfkirche, 218, 219 Paderna (Piedmont), 198, 198 Padova, San Prodiscimo, 163, 164 Palermo Cappella Palatina, 38, 39, 41, 42, 134, 142, 147, 160; ceiling, 20, 52n.29, 57n.203, 59–89, 62, 63, 67, 69, 70, 72, 76, 78–80, 91–127, 91–95, 98, 100, 104, 106, 109, 112–14, 116–18, 277, 278 Castellamare, 83n.24 cathedral, 65, 129, 130–34, 134, 137, 146, 147, 157, 160, 161 Favara palace, 83n.24 Galleria Regionale, 23 La Magione, 65 Norman Palace, 23, 60, 61, 64, 83n.24 Palazzo Chiaramonte (Steri), 65 San Giovanni dei Lebbrosi, 64 Santo Spirito, 65 St Mary Magdalene, 160, 163 Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, 23, 81, 134, 142, 147 Pamplona (Navarre), cathedral, 272 PANEL PAINTING Baltarga, St Andreu, 305, 307, 312, 315, 315–17 Bethlehem, church of the Nativity, 6, 6 Kato Paphos, Panagia Theoskepasti, 299, 300, 310 Mount Sinai, monastery of St Catherine, 8, 10, 11, 12, 309, 309, 312 Palermo, Palazzo Reale, 19 Paros, Katapoliani, 300 Pescia (Pistoria), San Francesco, 185 Pisa, Madonna of Santa Chiara, 300 Santa Maria d’Avià, 297–300, 299, 301, 302, 303, 304, 318–20 Santa Maria de Mosoll, 297–300, 298 Sainte-Marie d’Oreilla, 298, 300, 301, 303, 305, 312, 315, 317, 318, 320 Paphos (Cyprus), Hermitage of St Neophytos, 291, 292, 307, 308, 310, 311, 314 Parma (Emilia-Romagna) Baptistery, 173–92, 174–76, 178, 179, 181, 182, 187 Bishop’s Palace, 186, 187, 188, 189 Paros (Greece), Katapoliani, 300 Paschal I, pope, 134 Paschal II, pope, 167, 273 Pásztó (Hungary), 199 Patti (Sicily) cathedral, 156, 160 Pavia (Lombardy), San Michele, 38, 41 Pedro I, king of Aragón, 273 Pedro II, king of Aragón, 292 Pedro IV, king of Aragón, 265 Pepin of Aquitaine, 206 Pere d’Ortafá, abbot, 315, 318 Pere the Catholic, king of Aragón, 318 Périgueux (Dordogne) cathedral, 225–27, 230, 232, 237 St Etienne, 227, 228, 230 St Front, 226, 232, 233, 234, 235, 235, 237 Pescia (Pistoia), San Francesco, 185 Peter of Barcinona, 320 Petronille de Chemillé, abbess of Fontevraud, 230 Pierleoni family, 131, 132, 142 Pierre II, abbot of Charroux, 205 Pisa (Tuscany) Campanile, 42, 43 Duomo, 42, 131 Pliny, 143 Poblet (Catalonia), monastery, 265 Poitiers (Vienne) cathedral, 237 St-Hilaire-le-Grand, 211, 213, 214, 226 St-Jean Montierneuf, abbey, 205 Pole, Reginald, 285 Polirone (Lombardy), San Benedetto, 199

Monte Sant’Angelo (Puglia), 167 Montmajour (Bouches-du-Rhône), 332 Moralia in Job, (Dijon), 74 Moralia in Job, (London), 75, 77 Morgan Beatus, 242, 243 Mount Sinai (Egypt), monastery of St Catherine, 8, 11, 12, 283, 308, 309, 312 MUQARNAS Al-Qarawiyīn (Fez, Morocco), mosque, 63 Constantinople, palace of the Moukhroutas, 62 Bijāya (Bougie, Algeria), palace, 63 Fusṭāṭ, Sanctuary of Abū L-SuʿŪd, 95 Murcia, Santa Clara la Real, 62 Dar al-Sughra palace, 105, 107 Palermo, Cappella Palatina ceilings, 59–89, 62, 63, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 75, 76, 78–80, 91–127, 91–95, 98, 100, 104, 106, 109, 112–14, 116–18, 278 Sala Magna of Palazzo Chiaramonte (Lo Steri), 65 SS Piero e Paolo di Agrò, 64 Murcia Dar al-Sughra palace, 105, 107 Santa Clara de la Real, 62 Nabi da’ūd, king David, 65 Naranco (Asturias), Santa Maria, 253, 254, 255 Nazareth (Israel), church of the Annunciation, 1, 2 Nerezi (Macedonia), St Panteleimon, 287, 291 Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre (Indre), St Etienne, 226 Nicholas V, pope, 177 Nicholas, archbishop of Bari and Canosa, 167, 169, 170 Nicotera (Calabria), cathedral, 156, 159 Nogales de las Huertas (Castile), San Salvador, 269, 272 Novara of Sicily, Maria SS Assunta, 98 Noyon (Oise), 56n.163 Obizzo Fieschi, bishop of Parma, 173 Obizzo Sanvitale, bishop of Parma, 176 Olaf Haraldsson, king of Norway, St, 4 Oliba, abbot of Ripoll, 241 OLIPHANTS Auch horn, 41 Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, 25 Berlin, Kunstgewerbemuseum, 25, 26, 36, 48 Borstal horn, 45 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 17, 19, 34, 38, 40–42 Bruges, Sint-Janshospitaal, Relikhoorn of St Cornelius, 51n.10 Brussels, Musée du Cinquantenaire, 36, 44 Chartreuse de Portes, 41 Copenhagen, National Museum, 34, 42 Doha, Museum of Islamic Art, 20, 24, 40 Edinburgh, National Museums Scotland, 16, 19, 23, 24, 25, 25, 27, 35, 39, 42 Jászberényi, Jász Museum, Lehel’s horn, 26, 27, 33, 34, 41 London, British Museum, Borradaile horn, 19, 21, 33, 42 London, British Museum, Clephane horn, 19, 20, 26, 33, 40, 56n.157 London, British Museum, Savernake horn, 36, 37, 45 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 36, 37 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Pusey horn, 45, 45 New York, Metropolitan Museum, 40 Paris, Musée de Cluny, 19, 20, 22, 25–27, 26, 35, 42, 45, 46 Prague, St Vitus’ cathedral Treasury, 26 St Petersburg, 33, 41 Toronto, Aga Khan Museum, Blackburn horn, 42 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Muri Abbey, 34 York Minster, Horn of Ulf, 17, 26, 33, 34, 44, 45, 48 Zaragoza, 35, 42 Orderic Vitalis, 156 Oswald, St, 44 Otranto (Puglia), cathedral, 34 Otto I, emperor, 132 Otto II, emperor, 132

340

index Puig-reig (Catalonia), Sant Marti, 298, 299, 319, 321 Pusey horn, 45, 45

Salimbene de Adam, 182–84, 186, 187, 189 Samari (Messinia, Greece), 287 Samarra (Iraq), Abbasid palace, 95, 107 San Demetrio Corone (Calabria), Sant Adriano, 56n.148 San Juan de Busa (Aragón), 242 San Juan de Duero (Castile), 242 San Juan de la Peña (Aragón), 242 San Miguel de Escalada (León), 248 San Miguel de Lillo (Asturias), 253 San Millán de la Cogolla (La Rioja), 248, 255, 261, 263 San Pedro de la Nave (León ), 248, 255 San Vittore alle Chiuse (Marche), 194, 195 Sancha, queen of Aragón, 277, 283, 293 Sancha, queen of León, 242, 255, 260 Sant Benet de Bages (Catalonia), 331 Sant Marti Sarroca (Catalonia), 331, 334 Santa Maria de Mosoll (Cerdanya), 297–300, 298 Santa Maria del Tiglio (Lombardy), 198 Santa Maria di Cerrate (Puglia), 314, 316 Santiago de Compostela (Galicia), 241, 265–69, 267, 268, 272, 273 Santo Domingo de Silos (Castile), 265 SS Pietro e Paolo d’Agrò (Sicily), 64 Sarracinus, 244 Savernake horn, 36, 37, 45 Segovia, La Vera Cruz, 218, 219, 242 Seville (Andalusia), Reales Alcázares, 52n.50 Shamsūn, Samson, 76, 81 Sigena (Aragón), 277–95, 278, 280–82, 285, 289, 290, 298, 298 Sigurd Mauclerc, 6 Sikelgaita, 156 Siponto (Puglia), 167 Solignac (Haute-Vienne), St Pierre, 225–27, 230, 232, 232, 233, 234, 237 Souillac (Lot), Notre-Dame, 225–27, 229, 232, 233, 237 Speyer (Rhineland-Palatinate), cathedral, 48 Stephanus Garsia, 242 Stephen, king of Hungary, St, 193 Stilo (Calabria), Cattolica, 170 Studenica (Serbia), 291 Suger, abbot of St Denis, 131, 134, 136 Svanetia (Georgia), Khé, 285 Sv Lovreč Pazenatički (Croatia), 199 Swimming Reindeer, 23, 24 Szekszárd (Hungary), 197–99, 198, 200

Qaitbay, Sultan, 31 QalʿA Banī Ḥammād (Algeria), palaces, 62 Quintanilla de las Viñas (Castile and León), 39, 251, 252, 255 Quṣayr ʿAmra, Jordan, palace, 62 Rab (Croatia), cathedral, 199 Ralph, bishop of Bethlehem, 8 Ramiro I, king of the Asturias, 253, 255 Raqqa (Syria), 73, 74, 75 Ravello (Campania), Duomo, 56n.148 Ravenna (Emilia-Romagna) cathedral, 39 Archiepiscopal Museum, Gallia Placidia mausoleum, 41 San Vitale, 39, 41, 199 Reggio Calabria (Calabria), Santa Maria di Terreti, 39, 48 Relikhoorn of St Cornelius, 51n.10 Retortillo (Castile), Santa Maria de la Granja, 251, 255 Richard of St Victor (Marseille), cardinal, 205, 273 Ripoll (Catalonia), 241 Robert d’Arbrissel, 226, 230 Robert Guiscard, 49, 155, 155, 156, 163 Rodrigo Jiménez, archbishop of Rada, 243 Roegnwaldr III, Baron, 6 Roger Borsa, 156 Roger I, count of Sicily, 39, 64, 156, 158, 163 Roger II, king of Sicily, 20, 39, 59, 65, 70, 81, 82, 91, 92, 95, 97, 103, 111, 117, 119, 122n.52, 129, 131, 132, 134–36, 142, 156, 157, 160, 163 Roger, count of Limoges, 206, 207 Rome Baths of Caracalla, 134, 140, 142 Baths of Diocletian, 134, 136 Lateran palace, 134 Old St Peter’s basilica, 132 Pantheon, 136, 140 Santa Maria in Aracoeli, 136 Santa Maria in Cosmedin, 140 Santa Maria Maggiore, 134, 187 Santa Prassede, 134 SS Alessio e Bonifazio, 195, 196 SS Quatro Coronati, 140 Rosselló (Catalonia), 328 Ruweha (Syria), tomb of Bizzos, 163, 164

Tábara (Castile), 245, 250 Talin (Armenia), cathedral, 194 Taranto (Puglia), cathedral, 7 Tarragona (Catalonia) cathedral, 327, 330, 331, 332, 333 Santa Maria del Miracle, 327, 331 Tavèrnoles (Catalonia), Sant Serni, 304 Terracina (Lazio), cathedral, 42 Theodore Apseudes, 310, 314, 314 Thessaloniki (Greece), 199 Tivoli (Lazio), San Pietro, 195 Toledo Samuel ha Levi synagogue, 28 Santa Fe, Belén chapel, 260 Santo Tomé, 260, 262 Tomar del Christo (Portugal), 218, 219 Torres del Rio (Navarre), 242 Tost (Catalonia), Sant Marti, 304 Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), St-Sernin, 265, 272 Tournus (Saône-et-Loire), St-Philibert, 269

Sabinus, bishop of Canosa, 167, 169–71 Sablonceaux (Charente-Maritime), 237 St Alban’s (Hertfordshire), abbey, 46 St Avit-Sénieur (Dordogne), 237n.3 Saint-Bertin (Pas-de-Calais), 248 St Emilion (Gironde), 237 St Esteve d’Andorra, 298, 299 St Génis-des-Fontaines (Pyrénées-Orientales), 304, 305, 312, 315 St Junien (Haute Vienne) 231, 233, 237 St Léonard-de-Noblat (Haute Vienne), 226 Saint-Michel de Cuxa (Pyrénées-Orientales), 318 St-Martin du Canigou (Pyrénées-Orientales), 300, 304, 305, 306, 315 St-Romain-de-Benet (Charente-Maritime), 237 St-Savin-sur-Gartempe (Poitou), 211, 213, 214, 243 St-Sever (Landes), 86n.74 Sainte-Marie d’Oreilla (Pyrénées-Orientales), 298, 300, 301, 303, 305, 312, 315, 317–19, 320 Saintes (Charente-Maritime) Abbaye-aux-Dames, 233 cathedral, 237n.2 Salerno (Campania), 36 cathedral, 36, 48, 156, 157, 195, 196

Urban II, pope, 33, 170, 205–07, 214, 215, 238n.20 Urraca, sister of Alfonso VI, king of León, 269 Ursus, archbishop of Bari and Canosa, 169

341

index Paphos (Cyprus), Hermitage of St Neophytos, 291, 292, 307, 308, 310, 311, 314 Parma, Baptistery, 173–92, 174–76, 178, 179, 181, 182, 187 Parma, Bishop’s Palace, 186, 187, 188, 189 Puig-reig, Sant Marti, 298, 299, 319, 321 Samarra, Abbasid palace, 95, 107 See also CEILING AND VAULT PAINTINGS Walter, archbishop of Palermo, 160 Westminster Abbey, 45 William I, king of Sicily, 38, 129, 134–36, 135, 138, 139, 140–42, 157, 160, 162, 163 William II, king of Sicily, 38, 64, 122n.52, 160, 163 William, duke of Apulia, 156, 157 Winchester (Hampshire), cathedral, 279, 287, 292 Winchester Bible, 279, 283 Winchester Psalter, 303 Witlaf, king of Mercia, 44

Vasco da Gama, 29 Venice Sant’Ilario, 245 St John the Evangelist, 200, 201 St Marks, 170, 199, 201, 234, 237 Venosa (Basilicata), SS Trinità, 155, 155, 156, 157, 163, 164, 165 Verdun (Meuse), St Vincent, 56n.163, 57n.197 Verona, San Benedetto al Monte, 200 Veszprém (Hungary), cathedral, 199, 200 Vézelay (Yonne), La Madeleine, 55n.140, 250 Vicenza, Santa Maria Mater Domini, 163 Vienna Coronation Gospels, 283 Vigila, scribe, 243, 244, 245 Visegrád (Hungary), 198, 199 Vladimir (Russia), St Demetrius, 291 WALL PAINTINGS Bethlehem, church of the Nativity, 2–8, 4–6, 9, 10, 10, 12 Lagoudhera (Cyprus), Panaghia tou Arakos, 285, 287, 288, 291, 302, 303, 308, 310, 311, 314, 314 Nerezi (Macedonia), St Panteleimon, 287, 291 Ortahisar, St Theodore, 115, 116

Yılanlı Kilise (Turkey), 72 Zan, mosaicist, 8, 13n.35 Zaragoza (Aragón), Aljafería, 278 Žiča monastery (Serbia), 285

342