Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Stimulating perceptions of kingship: royal imagery in the Cathedral of Monreale and in the Church of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio in Palermo1

Stimulating perceptions of kingship: royal imagery in the Cathedral of Monreale and in the Church... Al-Masa ¯q, Vol. 16, No. 1, March 2004 Stimulating Perceptions of Kingship: Royal Imagery in the Cathedral of Monreale and in the Church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio in Palermo ROSA BACILE The majority of the churches erected in Sicily during the Norman period (1130–1189) are characterized by very elaborate decorative programmes. It was certainly a priority of the Norman kings to found churches and to embellish them with precious objects and complex decorative cycles. These decorative programmes can be explained in very different ways and can either be considered as a unity or be fragmented in various parts. Ernst Kitzinger thoroughly analysed them and particularly emphasized how the mosaic decorations of the Sicilian churches follow, in their programmes and in their style, a “Middle Byzantine” model, which consisted in the representation of the orthodox calendar of the twelve feasts. Furthermore, Kitzinger pointed out that, because of the varying architecture and the king’s concern with viewing particular scenes or images of these programmes, this model was partly altered in each church. Among these “alterations” there are some royal images whose nature and meaning are particularly enigmatic. As will be demonstrated in this paper, these images were features of a new http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean Taylor & Francis

Stimulating perceptions of kingship: royal imagery in the Cathedral of Monreale and in the Church of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio in Palermo1

Download PDF
36 pages

Stimulating perceptions of kingship: royal imagery in the Cathedral of Monreale and in the Church of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio in Palermo1

Abstract

Al-Masa ¯q, Vol. 16, No. 1, March 2004 Stimulating Perceptions of Kingship: Royal Imagery in the Cathedral of Monreale and in the Church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio in Palermo ROSA BACILE The majority of the churches erected in Sicily during the Norman period (1130–1189) are characterized by very elaborate decorative programmes. It was certainly a priority of the Norman kings to found churches and to embellish them with precious objects and complex decorative cycles. These...
Loading next page...
 
/lp/taylor-francis/stimulating-perceptions-of-kingship-royal-imagery-in-the-cathedral-of-qI2jS2y6Qx
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN
1473-348X
eISSN
0950-3110
DOI
10.1080/0950311042000202515
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Al-Masa ¯q, Vol. 16, No. 1, March 2004 Stimulating Perceptions of Kingship: Royal Imagery in the Cathedral of Monreale and in the Church of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio in Palermo ROSA BACILE The majority of the churches erected in Sicily during the Norman period (1130–1189) are characterized by very elaborate decorative programmes. It was certainly a priority of the Norman kings to found churches and to embellish them with precious objects and complex decorative cycles. These decorative programmes can be explained in very different ways and can either be considered as a unity or be fragmented in various parts. Ernst Kitzinger thoroughly analysed them and particularly emphasized how the mosaic decorations of the Sicilian churches follow, in their programmes and in their style, a “Middle Byzantine” model, which consisted in the representation of the orthodox calendar of the twelve feasts. Furthermore, Kitzinger pointed out that, because of the varying architecture and the king’s concern with viewing particular scenes or images of these programmes, this model was partly altered in each church. Among these “alterations” there are some royal images whose nature and meaning are particularly enigmatic. As will be demonstrated in this paper, these images were features of a new

Journal

Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean – Taylor & Francis

Published: Mar 1, 2004

There are no references for this article.