Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
He argues
that self in the modern sense of the word, as a reciprocal pro-
cess of self-fashioning, was actually a medieval invention. In
the controversy that followed the publication of Morriss book,
medieval scholars discovered that in the twelfth century self
meant something different from what it means in modern times.
In a path-breaking article on the self, Caroline Walker Bynum
explained that the twelfth-century discovery of the self was actu-
ally a discovery of group identity (and thus ones ability to elect
an afliation with a group) rather than the realization of mod-
ern individuality.
For Spence,
a body could also mean the corpus of a political organism.
Just as an individual corporeal body operates in space, so too
the metaphorical body of society operates within a specic set-
ting. Inscriptions that border thrones or sculptures limit the
body, whether human or sculpted, and dene the space that
remains exterior to the inscription. In the moment of the rise
of iconic sculpture on the thresholds of churches and the con-
struction of ecclesiastical thrones celebrating the foundation of
these churches, the articulation of a particular communal self
embodied by the public gure of the bishop or the sculpted body
of the saint could very well represent a self-conscious counter to
other types of images made in the same medium, such as relief
icons. In any case, it is signicant that the notion of the self,
either as part of a group identity or as involved in a process of
anthropological investigation of others to arrive at a denition
of the self, coincided with the rise of the public image and the
public inscription.
Thus far, I have avoided reading the circumscribing inscrip-
tions found on the tympana. Reading these inscriptions, how-
ever, only further claries their function. Indeed, moving into
the interpretation of each of the inscriptions in the group illu-
minates how the function of these circumscribing inscriptions
extends beyond their pictorial use as a bordering ornamen-
tal device or a mere word displayed. The exterior inscription
.
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on the San Zeno tympanum reads: Let us praise Niccol, the
skilled craftsman who sculpted this; and let us beg the Lord
Christ to grant him the Kingdom of Heaven above.
8
The
semicircular inscriptions around the other Niccol tympana
denote the same idea. For instance, on the main tympanum
of the Cathedral of Ferrara, above the sculpture of St. George
ghting the dragon, the inscription reads: May the peoples
coming to visit this place forever praise Niccol, the skilled
craftsman who sculpted this.
q
At the Cathedral of Verona,
the inscription circumscribing the Adoration of the Magi and
the Annunciation to the Shepherds reads: Here the Lord, the
great lion, is seen as a lamb.
o
The viewer who raises his
or her gaze sees in a roundel above the tympanum a gure
of Christ as a lamb and immediately above it an inscription
that proceeds across the entire width of the porch: The peo-
ples coming to visit forever praise him Niccol, the skilled
craftsman who sculpted this.
:
Here, the inscription celebrating
the work of the artist borders, so to speak, not just the tympa-
num itself but also the eight sculpted gures of Old Testament
prophets and the hero Roland that ank the door of the church
to both sides and may explain why the inscription not only pro-
ceeds around the tympanum but, in a sense, circumscribes the
entire porch.
The nal example of the group of Adriatic tympana is found
at the church of San Giorgio in Argenta. The small-sized
church, which dates back to late antiquity, is found on the road
leading from Ravenna to Ferrara, in the heart of the Marche.
During renovations in the rst half of the twelfth century, it
was decorated with one of the earliest sculpted tympana of
Romanesque Italy. The tympanum, dated to ::.o, represents,
to my knowledge, the rst depiction of the martyrdom of St.
George in the Latin West and is preceded by only a few repre-
sentations of this scene in Byzantine manuscripts and frescos.
.
This early image, located almost on the shores of the Adriatic,
where the Ravenna orant was said to have arrived, depicts
George tied on his back to the wheel with two anking gures.
The tympanums lunette is framed by an inscription that runs
around its border then proceeds, in two different tiers, along the
lower part of the tympanum.
In its iconography, this portrayal of the martyrdom of
St. George generally follows a depiction of Ixion, the king of
the Lapiths, in his moment of death, a subject which could only
be found as sculpture in the surviving relief fragments at the
Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello (gure ::), dated
to about ::oo.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Sections of this article formed part of my dissertation writ-
ten under the supervision of Herbert Kessler at Johns Hopkins
University. I thank him for his support and encouragement of
this project. A version of this article was rst presented at a ses-
sion organized by Jeffrey Hamburger at the Medieval Academy
of Americas annual meeting in New Haven, .o:o. I thank him
for the invitation to participate in the session as well as to publish
the article in this special volume of Word & Image. In addition,
I thank him for his valuable comments on various drafts of the
article. This work also beneted greatly from comments and
advice offered by Beate Fricke, Ashley Jones, Richard Leson,
and Jannette Vusich. Any residual error, however, remains my
own.
NOTES
: The orant of Ravenna would have been labeled in Byzantium an icon
of the type of the Virgin Blachernitissa. As this article focuses on the
presence of this icon in the Latin West, I shall continue to refer to it as the
Ravenna orant. On the Ravenna orant at the church of Santa Maria in
Porto, see the recent discussion in the exhibition catalog edited by Angela
Donati and Giovanni Gentili, Deomene: limmagine dellorante fra Oriente e
Occidente (Milan: Electa, .oo:), pp. :. See also Reinhold Lange, Die
byzantinische Reliekone (Recklinghausen: Bongers, :q6), p. : and
Clementina Rizzardi, Il rilievo marmoreo con limmagine della cosiddetta
Madonna Greca in Santa Maria in Porto di Ravenna, Felix Ravenna ::
(:q), pp. .8q:o. The most comprehensive bibliography found on the
orant is in Charles Davis, Byzantine Relief Icons in Venice and along the Adriatic
Coast: Orants and Other Images of the Mother of God (Munich: Fondamenta Arte,
.oo6), p. .q. Available online at: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/
artdok/volltexte/.oo/.o (accessed :: August .o:o).
. The arrival of objects in new environments could present possible
misinterpretations of the objects, or misconceptions, and both could lead
to labeling these objects as foreign to their environment. See, for example,
the legends surrounding the arrival of panel painting in Italy or
interpretations of objects such as the San Marco Cup: Hans Belting,
Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the Era of Art, trans. Edmund
Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, :qq), pp. o8; Alicia
Walker, Meaningful mingling: Classicizing imagery and Islamicizing script
in a Byzantine bowl, The Art Bulletin ::o/: (.oo8), pp. .; Avinoam
Shalem, Hybride und Assemblagen in mittelalterlichen Schatzkammern:
neue sthetische Paradigmata im Hinblick auf die Andersheit, in Le Trsor
au Moyen ge: Discours, pratiques et objets, ed. Lucas Burkart (Firenze: Sismel
Edizioni del Galluzzo, .o:o), pp. .q:.
The sea as a generator of artifacts and as a relevant geographical entity
in the production and consumption of art has rarely been an avenue of
research explored by art historians. Recent calls in this direction, however,
can be found in: Hannah Baader, Gischt: zu einer Geschichte des
Meeres, in Das Meer, der Tausch und die Grenzen der Reprsentation, ed. Hannah
Baader and Gerhard Wolf (Berlin: Diaphanes Verlag, .oo8), pp. :o. In
the same volume, see also Beate Fricke, Schaumgeburten: zur Topologie
der Creatio ex nihilo bei Albrecht Drer und ihrer Vorgeschichte,
pp. :66 and Alessandro Nova, Kirche, Nation, Individuum: das
strmische Meer als Allegorie, Metapher und Seelenzustand, pp. 6q.
The principal literature on Italian relief icons includes Andr Grabar,
Sculptures byzantines du Moyen ge: (XIeXIVe sicles), (Paris: A. et J. Picard,
:q6); Lange, Die byzantinische Reliekone; Otto Demus, Die Reliekonen der
Westfassade von San Marco, Jahrbuch der sterreichischen Byzantinischen
Gesellschaft (:q), pp. 8:o and The Church of San Marco in Venice: History,
Architecture, Sculpture (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library
and Collection, :q6o), pp. :.; Hans Belting, Eine Gruppe
Konstantinopler Reliefs aus dem ::.Jh., Pantheon, o (:q.), pp. .6:;
Belting, Likeness and Presence, pp. :q.o; Henry Maguire, Observations on
the icons of the west faade of San Marco in Venice, in Vyzantines eikones:
techne, technike kai technologia: diethnes symposio, Gennadeios Vivliotheke, Amerikanike
schole klasik on spoud on, :o:. Phevrouariou .8, ed. Maria Vasilak e (H erakleio:
Panepist emiakes Ekdoseis Kr et es, .oo.), pp. o:.; Arne Effenberger,
Die Reliekonen der Theotokos und des Erzengels Michael im Museum
fr Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 8 (.oo6),
pp. q; Davis, Byzantine Relief Icons in Venice and along the Adriatic Coast.
Lange, Die byzantinische Reliekone.
6 Demus, Die Reliekonen der Westfassade von San Marco, pp. 8:o
and The Church of San Marco in Venice, pp. :.; Guido Tigler, Il portale
maggiore di San Marco a Venezia : aspetti iconograci e stilistici dei rilievi duecenteschi
(Venezia: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, :qq), p. qoff. And also
Anthony Cutler, From loot to scholarship: Changing modes in the Italian
response to Byzantine artifacts, ca. :.oo:o, Dumbarton Oaks Papers q
(:qq), pp. .6.
Effenberger, Die Reliekonen der Theotokos und des Erzengels
Michael im Museum fr Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin, pp. q.
8 Andr Grabar, Sculptures byzantines du Moyen ge: (XIe XIVe sicles);
Lange, Die byzantinische Reliekone; Belting, Eine Gruppe Konstantinopler
Reliefs aus dem ::.Jh., pp. .6:; Davis, Byzantine Relief Icons in Venice and
along the Adriatic Coast.
q Maguire, Observations on the Icons of the West Faade of San Marco in Venice.
:o Trude Krautheimer-Hess, Die gurale Plastik der Ostlombardei von
::oo::8, Marburger Jahrbuch fr Kunstwissenschaft (:q.8), pp. .:o.
:: From the vast bibliography on Niccol, see: David M. Robb, Niccol:
A north Italian sculptor of the twelfth century, The Art Bulletin :. (:qo),
pp. .o; Trude Krautheimer-Hess, The Original Porta dei Mesi at
Ferrara and the art of Niccol, The Art Bulletin .6 (:q), pp. :.;
Evelyn Kain, An analysis of the marble reliefs on the faade of S. Zeno,
Verona, The Art Bulletin 6 (:q8:), pp. 8; the essays in Angiola Maria
Romanini, ed., Nicholaus e larte del suo tempo; (atti del seminario tenutosi a Ferrara
dal :. al : settembre .8.) (Ferrara: Corbo, :q8); Kain, The Sculpture of
Nicholaus and the Development of a North Italian Romanesque Workshop (Wien:
Bhlau, :q86); Christine Verzr Bornstein, Portals and Politics in the Early
Italian City-State: The Sculpture of Nicholaus in Context (Parma: Universit degli
Studi di Parma. Istituto di Storia dellArte. Centro di Studi Medievali,
:q88); Andrea von Hlsen-Esch, Romanische Skulptur in Oberitalien als Reex
der kommunalen Entwicklung im .:. Jahrhundert: Untersuchungen zu Mailand und
Verona (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, :qq), pp. ::q.:; Giovanna Valenzano,
Dallellenismo al medioevo: alcune considerazioni a margine di
Nicholaus, in Memor fui dierum antiquorum: studi in memoria di Luigi De Biasio,
ed. Pier Cesare Ioly Zorattini and Attilio Mauro Caproni (Udine:
Campanotto, :qq), pp. 6:; Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, Le origini di
Nicholaus e limmagine della riforma fra secolo XI e secolo XII nella
Lombardia, in Medioevo: immagine e racconto, ed. Arturo Carlo Quintavalle
(Milano: Electa, .oo), pp. .:6; Valenzano, Uso, riuso, abuso:
Nicholaus e le citazioni dagli antichi, in Medioevo: il tempo degli antichi, ed.
Arturo Carlo Quintavalle (Milano: Electa, .oo6), pp. :o; Quintavalle,
Nicholaus, la chevalerie e lidea di crociata, Medioevo mediterraneo:
lOccidente, Bisanzio e lIslam, ed. Arturo Carlo Quintavalle (Milano: Electa,
.oo), pp. 668.
:. The place and function of church thresholds is a dense and
complicated topic. Generally, see: Francesco Gandolfo, La facciata
scolpita, in Larte medievale nel contesto (oo.oo), pp. q:o; Jrme
Baschet, LIconographie mdivale (Paris: Gallimard, .oo8), pp. qq:; Xavier
Barral i Altet, Contre lart roman?: Essai sur un pass rinvent (Paris: Fayard,
.oo6), pp. :688; Dominique Iogna-Prat, La Maison Dieu (Paris: ditions
du Seuil, .oo6); Charles Altman, The Medieval marquee: Church portal
sculpture as publicity, Journal of Popular Culture : (:q8o), pp. ;
Jean-Claude Bonne, LArt roman de face et de prol: Le tympan de Conques (Paris:
Le Sycomore, :q8); Michael Camille, Seeing and lecturing:
disputation in a twelfth-century tympanum from Reims, in Reading
Medieval Images: The Art Historian and the Object, ed. Elizabeth Sears and
o ITTAI WEINRYB
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Thelma K. Thomas (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, .oo.),
pp. 8; Christine B. Verzar, Medieval passageways and performance
art: Art and ritual at the threshold, Arte medievale . (.oo, .oo), pp. 6;
Caroline Roux, Essai sur la symbolique et les fonctions du portail dglise
en France entre le XIeme et le XIIIeme sicle, Revue belge de philologie et
dhistoire 8. (.oo), pp. 8q; Willibald Sauerlnder, ber die
Komposition des Weltgerichts-Tympanons in Autun, Zeitschrift fr
Kunstgeschichte .q (:q66), pp. .6:q. More recently, see Marcel Angheben,
LIconographie du portail de lancienne cathdrale de Mcon: Une vision
synchronique du jugement individuel et du jugement dernier, Les Cahiers de
Saint-Michel de Cuxa . (.oo:), pp. 8; Willibald Sauerlnder,
Romanesque sculpture in its architectural context, in The Romanesque
Frieze and Its Spectator, ed. Deborah Kahn (London: Harvey Miller, :qq.),
pp. :; Sauerlnder, Omnes perversi sic sunt in tartara mersi: Skulptur
als Bildpredigt: das Weltgerichtstympanon von Sainte-Foy in Conques,
Romanesque Art: Problems and Monuments (London: Pindar Press, .oo),
pp. .68q. See also the articles dealing with thresholds within the sacred
space of the church: Sharon E.J. Gerstel, ed., Thresholds of the Sacred:
Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious
Screens, East and West (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, .oo6).
: Manlio Marinelli, Larchitettura romanica in Ancona (Ancona: Camera di
Commercio Industria e Agricoltura, :q6:), pp. :.; Mara Bonoli,
Ancona, Santa Maria della Piazza: un problema ancora aperto, in Studi in
memoria di Patrizia Angiolini Martinelli, ed. Silvia Pasi (Bologna: Ante Quem,
.oo), pp. 8.
: Narratives of development and rise usually follow linear chronology.
My attempt here is to look at artistic interaction on the Adriatic coast as
part of an event occurring in a specic geographical location rather than as
part of a long and unrelated art historical sequence. The story of the
development of monumental sculpture in the Italian peninsula is narrated
in these classic studies: Robb, Niccol: A north Italian sculptor of the :.th
century, pp. .o; George Crichton, Romanesque Sculpture in Italy
(London: Routledge, :q); Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, Da Wiligelmo a Nicol
(Parma: Studium Parmense, :q66). The narrative still persists in most
surveys, as is evident in: Joachim Poeschke, Die Skulptur des Mittelalters in
Italien . vols. (Mnchen: Hirmer, :qq8.ooo), On the rise or revival of
monumental sculpture in general, see: Harald Keller, Zur Entstehung der
sakralen Vollskulptur in der ottonischen Zeit, in Festschrift fr Hans Jantzen,
ed. Kurt Bauch (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, :q:), pp. :q:; Hubert Schrade,
Zur Frhgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Monumentalplastik, Westfalen.
Hefte fr Geschichte, Kunst und Volkskunde, (:q), pp. 6; Ilene H.
Forsyth, The Throne of Wisdom: Wood Sculptures of the Madonna in Romanesque
France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, :q.). Recently, the question
has been reevaluated in: Beate Fricke, Ecce des: die Statue von Conques,
Gtzendienst und Bildkultur im Westen (Mnchen: Fink, .oo) and also Herbert
L. Kessler, Image and object: Christs dual nature and the crisis of early
medieval art, in The Long Morning of Medieval Europe: New Directions in Early
Medieval Studies, ed. Jennifer R. Davis and Michael McCormick (Aldershot:
Ashgate, .oo8), pp. .q:.o. See also the interpretation of the revival of
monumental sculpture in Italy as part of the outcome of the Gregorian
Reform in Dorothy F. Glass, The Sculpture of Reform in North Italy, ca
.o..o: History and Patronage of Romanesque Faades (Farnham: Ashgate,
.o:o).
: In the Byzantine tradition, icons of the post-iconoclastic period were
marked with the abbreviations of the saintly gure they represented. There
is an ongoing debate as to why these types of abbreviations developed after
iconoclasm. See Henry Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies: Saints and their
Images in Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, :qq6); Karen
Boston, The power of inscriptions and the trouble with texts, in Icon and
Word: The Power of Images in Byzantium, ed. Antony Eastmond and Liz James
(Aldershot: Ashgate, .oo), pp. . Another type of inscription found on
icons is votive ones and they develop in Byzantium, especially in
aristocratic culture. See Titos Papamastorakis, The display of accumulated
wealth in luxury icons: Gift-Giving from the Byzantine aristocracy to God
in the twelfth century, in Vyzantines eikones, pp. q; Anthony Cutler,
Uses of luxury: On the functions of consumption and symbolic capital in
Byzantine culture, in Byzance et les images, ed. Andr Guillou and Jannic
Durand (Paris: La Documentation Franaise, :qq), pp. .8.; Bissera V.
Pentcheva, Epigrams on icons, in Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, ed. Liz
James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, .oo), pp. :.o8.
:6 Different inscriptions in different languages function to state the
presence of specic communities. This happens especially where
communities are diverse, as Linda Safran has shown in regard to south
Italy: there, she claims, the inscription serves as an expression for the
presence of community as much as for rendering information in a
language that is coherent to only part of the community. See Linda Safran,
Language choice in the medieval Salento: A sociolinguistic approach to
Greek and latin Inscriptions, in Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie: Beitrge
zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur, ed. Lars M. Hoffmann (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, .oo), pp. 88. and Cultures textuelles publiques: Une
tude de cas dans le sud de lItalie, Cahiers de civilisation mdivale . (.ooq),
pp. .6. In regard to distinction as a form of cultural elites, see Pierre
Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard
Nice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, :q8).
: Armando Petrucci, Public Lettering: Script, Power, and Culture (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, :qq), p. .
:8 On the architectural context of the development of the tympanum,
see: Richard Hamann-MacLean, Les Origines des portails et faades
sculpts gothiques, Cahiers de la civilisation mdivale Xe-XIIe sicles . (:qq),
pp. :.
:q Evelyn Kain used this point to argue for a later dating of the Zeno
gure suggesting that the sculpture was inserted last as part of a
consecration ceremony; see An analysis of the marble reliefs on the faade
of S. Zeno, Verona, pp. 8; also The Sculpture of Nicholaus and the
Development of a North Italian Romanesque Workshop. On the consecration of
churches, see generally ric Palazzo, Liturgie et socit au Moyen ge (Paris:
Aubier, .ooo), pp. :. The sculpture of Zeno is also the corner stone of
the tympanum; corner stone is a loaded term in Christian symbolism. Cf.
most recently Eric Thun, Looking at letters: Living writing in S.
Sabina in Rome, Marburger Jahrbuch fr Kunstwissenschaft (.oo), pp. :q:
Peter Low, You who once were far off: Enlivening scripture in the main
portal at Vzelay, The Art Bulletin 8/ (.oo), pp. 6qqo; and the classic
study by Gerhart B. Ladner, The symbolism of the biblical corner stone in
the Medieval West, Medieval Studies (:q.), pp. 6o.
.o Krautheimer-Hess, Die gurale Plastik der Ostlombardei von
::oo::8; Giovanna Valenzano, La Basilica di San Zeno in Verona: problemi
architettonici (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, :qq); Giovanni Lorenzoni and
Giovanna Valenzano, Il Duomo di Modena e la Basilica di San Zeno (Verona:
Banca Popolare di Verona, .ooo).
.: On Argenta, see Sauro Gelichi, ed., Storia e archeologia di una pieve
medievale: San Giorgio di Argenta (Firenze: AllInsegna del Giglio, :qq.); Maria
Pia Fabbri, La pieve di San Giorgio ad Argenta, La Pie 6q/ (.oo:),
pp. :.; Fabio Coden, Micant hic fulgida: il portale della pieve di San
Giorgio ad Argenta, Felix Ravenna :/:6 (.oo), pp. 8::.
.. On the history and topography of medieval Ferrara, see Anna Maria
and Visser Travagli, ed., Ferrara nel Medioevo: topograa storica e archeologica
urbana (Casalecchio di Reno: Gras, :qq).
. Francesca Bocchi, Noti di storia urbanistica Ferrara nellalto
medioevo, Atti e memorie della Deputazione provinciale ferrarese di storia patria :8
(:q), pp. :; Bocchi, Le citt emiliane nel Medioevo, in Storia dellEmilia
Romagna, ed. Aldo Berselli (Bologna: Bologna University Press, :q),
pp. o. See also Sauro Gelichi, Flourishing places in north-eastern
Italy: Towns and emporia between late antiquity and the Carolingian age,
in Post-Roman Towns, The Heirs of the Roman West, ed. Joachim Henning
(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, .oo), vol. :, pp. :o.
. Valenzano, La basilica di San Zeno in Verona, pp. ..:.; see also:
Lorenzoni and Valenzano, Il duomo di Modena e la basilica di San Zeno,
pp. :.
. See Arwed Arnulf, Versus ad picturas: Studien zur Titulusdichtung als
Quellengattung der Kunstgeschichte von der Antike bis zum Hochmittelalter (Munich:
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Deutscher Kunstverlag, :qq); Robert Favreau, pigraphie mdivale
(Turnhout: Brepols, :qq); and Ccile Treffort, Paroles inscrites: la dcouverte
des sources pigraphiques latines du Moyen ge (VIIIeXIIIe sicle)
(Rosny-sous-Bois: Bral ditions, .oo8). See also Herbert L. Kessler, Neither
God nor Man: Words, Images, and the Medieval Anxiety about Art (Freiburg im
Breisgau: Rombach, .oo).
.6 See Bonne, LArt roman de face et de prol; M.T. Clanchy, Reading the
signs at Durham Cathedral, in Literacy and Society, ed. Karen Schousboe
and Mogens Trolle Larsen (Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, :q8q),
pp. ::8.; Kirk Ambrose, Visual poetics of the Cluny hemicycle capital
inscriptions, Word & Image .o (.oo), pp. :6; Stefano Riccioni, Il
mosaico absidale di S. Clemente a Roma: exemplum della chiesa riformata (Spoleto:
Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sullAlto Medioevo, .oo6).
. In my search I found no Roman precursors to the circumscribing
inscription in what could be dened as a public exterior image. By
denition, Romanesque art saw its origins in the monumental sculpture of
the Roman period. This is not the case with the circumscribing inscription.
From the plethora of studies on the relation between Romanesque and
Roman sculpture, see recently in regard to Niccol: Giovanna Valenzano,
Uso, riuso, abuso, pp. :o.
.8 Germany and Spain supply early precursors to the circumscribing
inscription of the Adriatic tympana. Examples occur at Jaca, Alpirsbach,
and in the stucco sculpture on the exterior of the church dedicated to St.
Emmeram in Regensburg. On these precursors see: Sauerlnder,
Romanesque sculpture in its architectural context, pp. :; Franziska
Morgner-Fanderl, Das Majestats-Tympanon der Klosterkirche in
Alpirsbach, Zeitschrift fr wrttembergische Landesgeschichte q (:qqo),
pp. q:..; Serafn Moralejo lvarez, La Sculpture romane de la
Cathdrale de Jaca: tat des questions, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa :o
(:qq), pp. q:o6; Gnter Lorenz, Das Doppelnischenportal von St. Emmeram in
Regensburg: Studien zu den Anfngen des Kirchenportals im 8. bis ... Jahrhundert
(Frankfurt a. Main: Peter Lang, :q8); Hans-Rudolf Meier, Ton, Stein und
Stuck: Materialaspekte in der Bilderfrage des Fr uh- und Hochmittelalters,
Marburger Jahrbuch fr Kunstwissenschaft o (.oo), pp. ..
.q Andr Grabar, Trnes piscopaux du XIme et XIIme sicle en
Italie mridionale, Wallraf Richartz Jahrbuch :6 (:q), pp. .. See also
Lawrence Nees, Forging monumental memories in the early twelfth
century, Memory & Oblivion: Proceedings of the XXIXth International Congress of
the History of Art held in Amsterdam, ., September ., ed. Wessel Reinink
(Dordrecht: Kluwer, :qqq), pp. 8.; and Francesco Aceto, La cattedra
dellabate Elia: dalla memoria alla storia, in Medioevo: immagine e memoria,
ed. Arturo Carlo Quintavalle (Milano: Electa, .ooq), pp. :..
o On San Clemente in Rome, see Francesco Gandolfo, Reimpiego di
sculture antiche nei troni papali del XII secolo, Rendiconti/Ponticia
Accademia Romana di Archeologia (:q), pp. .o:8.
: Paolo Rizzo, Cattedrale di S. Pietro di Castello (Venezia: Marconi, :qq8),
pp. 68; Stefano Carboni, Venice and the Islamic World, 8:8.,, (New
Haven: Yale University Press, .oo), cat. no. 8; Tarif Al Sammam,
Arabische Inschriften auf den Krnungsgewndern des Heiligen
Rmischen Reiches, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 8
(:q8.), pp. .
. Cornelius C. Vermeule, III, A Greek theme and its survivals: The
Rulers shield (tondo image) in tomb and temple, Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society :oq/6 (:o December :q6), pp. 6:q; Rudolf Winkes,
Clipeata imago: Studien zu einer Rmischen Bildnisform (Bonn: Habelt, :q6q);
Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence, pp. :o::. See also: Kessler, Real
absence: Early medieval art and the metamorphosis of vision, in Spiritual
Seeing: Picturing Gods Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, .ooo), pp. :o8; Rabun Taylor, The Moral Mirror of
Roman Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, .oo8), pp. :68.
Circumscription in Christian art has a long tradition rich in
symbolism. Since the Second Council of Nicaea, when God was identied
as uncircumscribable, every circumscribed image is by denition not a
physical image of the divine. On the complexity of this notion, see the
articles in Franois Boespug and Nicolas Lossky, eds, Nice II, ,8,.8,:
Douze sicles dimages religieuses; Actes du Colloque International Nice II, tenu au
Collge de France, Paris, les :, , octobre .8 (Paris: ditions du Cerf, :q8);
Olivier Christin and Dario Gamboni, eds, Crises de limage religieuse: De Nice
II Vatican II = Krisen religiser Kunst: vom :. Niceanum bis zum :. Vatikanischen
Konzil (Paris: ditions de la Maison des sciences de lhomme, :qqq);
Kessler, Real absence: Early medieval art and the metamorphosis of
vision; Charles Barber, Contesting the Logic of Painting: Art and Understanding in
Eleventh-Century Byzantium (Leiden: Brill, .oo).
Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual .oo.:oo (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, :q8); Morris, Individualism in
twelfth-century religion: Some further reections, Journal of Ecclesiastical
History : (:q8o), pp. :q.o6.
Caroline Walker Bynum, Did the twelfth century discover the
individual? Journal of Ecclesiastical History :/: (:q8o), pp. ::. See also
Susan Kramer and Caroline Walker Bynum, Revisiting the
twelfth-century individual: The inner self and the Christian community, in
Das Eigene und das Ganze: Zum Individuellen im mittelalterlichen Religiosentum, ed.
Gert Melville and Markus Schuerer (Mnster: LIT Verlag, .oo.),
pp. 8, which includes an overview of the state of research on the
question.
6 Jean-Claude Schmitt, La Raison des gestes dans lOccident mdival (Paris:
Gallimard, :qqo); Bernard McGinn, Three Treatises on Man: A Cistercian
Anthropology (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, :q); Jrme Baschet,
me et corps dans loccident mdival: Une dualit dynamique, entre
pluralit et dualisme, Archives de sciences sociales des religions ::. (.ooo),
pp. o; Horst Bredekamp, Das Mittelalter als Epoche der
Individualitt, in Individualitt: Akademievorlesungen (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag,
.ooo), pp. :q:.o.
Sarah Spence, Texts and the Self in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, :qq6), p. ..
8 +ARTIFICEM GNURAM QUI SCVLPSERIT HEC
NICOLAVM+ OMNES LAVDEMVS CRISTVM. DOMINUMQUE.
ROGMVS + CELORVM REGNVM SIBI DONET VT IPSE
SVPERNVM. On the inscription, see: Albert Dietl, In arte peritus: zur
Topik mittelalterlicher Knstlerinschriften in Italien bis zur Zeit Giovanni
Pisanos, Rmische historische Mitteilungen .q (:q8), p. :o and Die Sprache der
Signatur: die mittelalterlichen Knstlerinschriften Italiens, of vols (Berlin: Deutscher
Kunstverlag, .ooq) vol. , pp. :6.68; Valenzano, La basilica di San Zeno in
Verona, p. ..8, inv. no. IV; Calvin B. Kendall, The Allegory of the Church:
Romanesque Portals and their Verse Inscriptions (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, :qq8), pp. :q, .qq; Christine B. Verzar, Text und Bild in der
norditalienischen Romanik: Skulpturen, Inschriften, Betrachter, in Studien
zur Geschichte der europchen Skulptur im .:./.. Jahrhundert, ed. Herbert Beck
and Kerstin Hengevoss-Drko (Frankfurt a.M.: Henrich, :qq), p. :8.
q +ARTIFICEM GNARVM QUI SCVLPSERIT HEC
NICOLAVM+ HVC [CON]CVRRENTES LAVDENT PER
SAECULA GENTES. On the inscription, see: Giovanni Uggeri, Il
reimpiego dei marmi antichi nelle cattedrali padane, in Nicholaus e larte del
suo tempo, p. 6..; Kendall, The Allegory of the Church, pp. :6, ..; Verzar,
Text und Bild in der norditalienischen Romanik, p. q; Dietl, Die Sprache
der Signatur, vol. ., pp. 8.6.
o HIC DOMINVS MAGNVS; LEO CRISTVS CERNITVR
AGNVS.
: +ARTIFICEM GNAURVM QUI SCVLPSERIT HEC
NICOLAVM HVNC CONCVRRENTES LANDAVANT PER
SECVLA GENTES. On the Verona Cathedral inscriptions, see:
Kendall, The Allegory of the Church, pp. :q, .qq; Verzar, Text und Bild in
der norditalienischen Romanik, p. q; Favreau, pigraphie mdievale, pp.
...q and Dietl, Die Sprache der Signatur, vol. , pp. :68:.
. On the iconography of St. George and its arrival to the west, see:
Temily Mark-Weiner, Narrative cycles of the life of St. George in
Byzantine art, PhD dissertation, New York University, :q, pp. :8;
Mario Iadanza, San Giorgio nellagiograa latina, in San Giorgio e il
Mediterraneo: atti del II colloquio internazionale per il XVII centenario (Roma, :8o
Novembre :oo), ed. Guglielmo De Giovanni-Centelles (Citt del Vaticano,
. ITTAI WEINRYB
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.oo), pp. q6; Linda Safran, The art of veneration: Saints and villages
in the Salento and the Mani, in Les Villages dans lempire byzantin (IVeXVe
sicle), ed. Jacques Lefort, Ccile Morrisson, Jean-Pierre Sodini (Paris:
Lethielleux, .oo), pp. :qq.. The arrival of St. George to Italy is
traditionally paralleled with that of St. Nicholas; see Nancy Patterson
ev cenko, The Vita icon and the painter as hagiographer, Dumbarton Oaks
Papers (:qqq), pp. :q6 and, more recently, Michele Bacci, ed., San
Nicola: splendori darte dOriente e dOccidente (Milano: Skira, .oo6); Michele
Bacci, San Nicola: il grande taumaturgo (Roma: Laterza, .ooq).
Renato Polacco, La Cattedrale di Torcello (L; Altra Riva: Canova, :q8)
and Il prebiterio della cattedrale di Torcello: trasformazioni e restauri,
Arte documento q (:qq6), pp. :; Guido Tigler, Cronologia e tendenze
stilistiche della prima scultura veneziana, in Torcello: alle origini di Venezia tra
Occidente e Oriente (Venezia: Marsilio, .ooq), pp. :. and in the same
volume, Gerhard Wolf and Manuela De Giorgi, I tempi e lo spazio delle
immagini, pp. :8:6:.
ISTE ROTAM SPRETEVIT QUEM MEMBRA PER OMNIA
FREGIT + VITAM DONAVIT CVI MORTEM FERRE PVTAVIT.
ANNI D[OMI]NI MIL(LESIMO) [CE]NTESIMO XX SECVNDO
INDICCIONE Q[VAR] TA DECIMA and SCULPT(A) A
IOHA[NN(E)] MICAT H[IC] [F]ULGID(A) A MUTILIANO + PRO
QUO QUIUE UIDENT ROGITENT PRECE COTIDI[ANA]. On the
Argenta inscription, see: Coden, Micant hic fulgida, pp. :o.oq; Verzar,
Text und Bild in der norditalienischen Romanik, p. q and Dietl, Die
Sprache der Signatur, vol. ., pp. 668.
6 See Alfred Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, :qq8), pp. :.8 and The technology of
enchantment and the enchantment of technology, in Anthropology, Art, and
Aesthetics, ed. Jeremy Coote, and Anthony Shelton (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, :qq.), pp. o66; Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence,
pp. .q:o; Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans.
Alan Schapiro (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, :q88).
Peter Cornelius Claussen, Frher Knstlerstolz: mittelalterliche
Signaturen als Quelle der Kunstsoziologie, in Bauwerk und Bildwerk im
Hochmittelalter: anschauliche Beitrge zur Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte, ed. Karl
Clausberg (Giessen: Anabas Verlag, :q8:), pp. ; Dietl, In arte peritus,
p. :o; Dietl, Italienische Bildhauerinschriften: Selbstdarstellung und
Schriftlichkeit mittelalterlicher Knstler, in Inschriften bis .oo: Probleme und
Aufgaben ihrer Erforschung, ed. Helga Giersiepen (Opladen: Westdeutscher
Verlag, :qq), pp. :.::. Dietl continues with the classical assertion of
what self meant in the twelfth century, and follows the study of Morris
rather than the more elaborated notions developed by Walker Bynum.
Recently Albert Dietl published a four-volume opus magnum, where he
enhances his argument concerning the place and function of Romanesque
artists inscriptions: Albert Dietl, Die Sprache der Signatur. See also recently:
Anton Legner, Der Artifex: Knstler im Mittelalter und ihre Selbstdarstellung; eine
illustrierte Anthologie (Kln: Greven, .ooq).
8 Kendall, The Allegory of the Church, p. :8.
q The question of the role of the signature in relation to the entire
workshop and the role of Niccol as a workshop headmaster has also been
raised. More recent theories of workshop practice in the Middle Ages
suggest the role of the headmaster to be a moderator of different styles of
the artists constituting the workshop, rather than an author-creator in the
modern sense of the word. See: John White, The reliefs on the faade of
the Duomo at Orvieto, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes ..
(:qq), pp. .o.; Kain, The Sculpture of Nicholaus and the Development of a
North Italian Romanesque Workshop; Roberto Cassanelli ed., Cantieri medievali
(Milano: Jaca Book, :qq); and Bruno Zanardi, Giotto e Pietro Cavallini: la
questione di Assisi e il cantiere medievale della pittura a fresco (Milano: Skira, .oo.)
and Giotto and the St. Francis cycle at Assisi, The Cambridge Companion to
Giotto, ed. Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, .oo), pp. .6..
o From the vast literature, see Belting, Likeness and Presence, pp. .o8:o;
the articles in: Erik Thun and Gerhard Wolf, eds, The Miraculous Image in
the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance: Papers from a Conference Held at the Accademia
di Danimarca in Collaboration with the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max-Planck-Institut
fr Kunstgeschichte), Rome, . May: June :oo (Rome: LErma di
Bretschneider, .oo); and Bissera V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The Mother
of God in Byzantium (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University
Press, .oo6), pp. :6.
: See especially Lucca, il Volto Santo e la civilt medioevale: atti, convegno
internazionale di studi, Lucca, Palazzo Pubblico :.: ottobre .8: (Lucca: Pacini
Fazzi, :q8); Herbert Kurz, Der Volto Santo von Lucca: Ikonographie und Funktion
des Kruzixus in der gegrteten Tunika im ... Jahrhundert (Regensburg: Roderer,
:qq); Jean-Claude Schmitt, Les Images dune image: la guration du
Volto Santo de Lucca dans les manuscrits enlumins du Moyen ge, in
The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation: Papers from a Colloquium held at
the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome and the Villa Spelman, Florence, ., ed. Herbert
L. Kessler and Gerhard Wolf (Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, :qq8),
pp. .o.; and the articles in Michele Camillo Ferrari and Andreas
Meyer, eds, Volto santo in Europa: culto e immagini del crocisso nel medioevo; atti del
convegno internazionale di Engelberg (::6 settembre .ooo), (Lucca: Instituto
Storico lucchese, .oo).
. The afnity between the circumscription of the sculpture and the
seated bishop contributes to the pertinent concept of the possible
enlivenment of sculpture. A life-size sculpture may very well present the
same efcacy and demand the same response from a viewer as a living
person would. See David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History
and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, :qq:),
pp. .8:6 and Horst Bredekamp, Schlussvortrag: Bild Akte
Geschichte, in Geschichts Bilder: . Deutscher Historikertag vom .. bis ::.
September in Konstanz, ed. Clemens Wischermann (Konstanz: UVK
Verlagsgesellschaft, .oo), pp. .8qoq.
Sauerlnder, Romanesque sculpture in its architectural context, p. .
For recent studies which view the Mediterranean as an integral
geographical region of artistic production, see: Michele Bacci, Greek
painters, working for Latin and non-Orthodox patrons in the late medieval
Mediterranean: Some preliminary remarks, in Crossing Cultures: Conict,
Migration and Convergence, ed. Jaynie Anderson (Carlton: The Miegunyah
Press, .ooq), pp. :668 and also in the same volume: Gerhard Wolf, Fluid
borders, hybrid objects: Mediterranean art histories oo:oo, questions of
method and terminology, pp. :. See also the articles in the volume
edited by Eva Hoffmann, Late Antique and Medieval Art of the Mediterranean
World (Oxford: Blackwell, .oo).
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