Early Medieval Art

The pillar in the Church of San Salvador in Toledo defies certain dating, but scholars generally assign it to the Visigothic period.  Even before the Asturian carving promised in my previous post, we see a formal similarity between an early medieval Spanish stone relief and early Byzantine ivories. 

The pillar displays four scenes: the Healing of the Blind Man, the Raising of Lazarus, Christ and the Samaritan Women, and the Woman with the Issue of Blood. The simplicity of the compositions and their vertical arrangement recall the side panels on the front cover of the  Etschmiadzin Gospels (I can only find a blurry image of the back cover) and on the Murano Diptych.  The vertical format may also recall the scenes between the columns that flank Luke in the Corpus Christi Gospels (see earlier posting for the class on “Religious Imagery ca. 600″). 

The other three sides show vinescrolls and other vegetal ornament, but I have seen no images of them.

Discussion of the program of the pillar provides a useful exercise, but one without an obvious solution.  Also, when you look closely, you see that no faces remain, suggesting some sort of systematic destruction, perhaps by the aniconic conquerors who ended Visigothic dominion over the Iberian peninsula in 711. 

And here ends the class on the art of Visigothic Spain.

Complicated by restoration in the ninth or tenth century, dating proves especially tricky at Santa Maria Quintanilla de la Vinas.  Furthermore, a later re-building incorporated the original apse and transept, preserving only some of its captivating reliefs in situ. 

The exterior displays friezes (here and here) and monograms (here, here, and a third, of which I have not found an image).

The archway leading into the chancel area displays carving: on the left impost, Luna (of which I cannot find a sutiable image), and on the right impost, Sol, both in medallions held aloft by angels.  The upper frame of the Sol relief bears a dedicatory inscription:

OC EXIGUUM EXIGUA OFF[ERT] DO[MINA] FLAMMOLA VOTUM D[EI]

FLAMOMOLA, THE LEAST OF THE LEAST, MAKES THIS PROMISED OFFERING TO GOD.

***Update: Please refer to the comments for this post.  Steven Hijmans of the University of Alberta has suggestions for this translation:

“Take hoc exiguum votum together as the accusative with offert: (h)OC EXIGVVM EXIGVA OFF(ert) DO(mina) FLAMMOLA VOTUM D(eo) (This small vow/vowed gift the unworthy (exigua) lady Flammola offers to God).”***

The arch itself displays birds and clusters of grapes, appropriate for their eucharistic symbolism.  A flashback to imagery of birds and grapes could work well here.

The church also preserves several relieves not in situ: a figure flanked by angels; and a figure holding a cross-staff also flanked by angels and displayed with two figures holding books.

The fragmentation and displacement of these reliefs render the meaningful teaching and learning of this church a challenge.  A flashback to representations of the Crucifixion from the Holy Land could here help explain the representation of Sol and Luna framing the space of the Eucharist.  The upper panel of the Barberini Diptych (note the signs for the sun and the moon) offers a useful comparandum for the relief of the figure bearing the cross-staff, especially since early Byzantine diptychs will offer useful comparanda when we examine some Asturian reliefs. 

One Spanish sites has medium-size photos:  Iglesia de Santa Maria en Quintanilla de la Vinas (Burgos).  Turismo prerromanico offers some information for careful sifting.  The best images, however, come from publications.

Although the architectural structure was questionably reconstructed following a relocation, the carving within San Pedro de la Nave merits examination.  The friezes offer examples of Visigothic ornament, but, more remarkably, the church preserves medieval art’s earliest surviving historiated capitals, preceding by several centuries the development of this form in Romanesque cloisters and elsewhere.

Surmounting engaged columns at the crossing of the church, the four capitals display four different scenes.  Those farther from the sanctuary depict Old Testament scenes on their main faces: the Sacrifice of Isaac  to the southwest and Daniel in the Lions’ Pool to the northwest. 

Inscriptions charge the Old Testament scenes with liturgical meaning.  The titulus for Daniel in the Lions’  Pool reads:

UBI DANIEL MISSUS EST IN LAQUM LEONUM

WHERE DANIEL IS SENT INTO THE LIONS’ POOL

The curious location of the event in a pool rather than a cave reflects the skewing of the story to prefigure baptism.

The titulus for the Sacrifice of Isaac appears more straightforward:

UBI HABRAAM OBTULIT ISAAC FILIUM SUUM OLOCAUSTUM DNO

WHERE ABRAHAM OFFERED HIS SON AS A HOLOCAUST TO THE LORD

But the label of the altar, ALTARE, encourages its assimilation to the Christian altar.

Labeled standing apostles flank each scene on the narrower faces: Paul and Peter flank the Sacrifice of Isaac and Thomas and Philip flank Daniel in the Lions’ Pool.  The two capitals closer to the sanctuary both show birds eating grapes on their broad face: here the capital to the northeast, and here the one to the southeast.  The narrow sides show unidentified faces: northeast, and southeast.

Flickr serves Spanish sites particularly well.  It has excellent exterior and interior detail shots of San Pedro de la Nave.  Other carvings in the church include column bases with Evangelist symbols, but only line drawings can convey their details.

Before examining the historiated capitals at San Pedro de la Nave, a brief flashback through monuments familiar to students from the introductory survey provides some necessary background. 

The Sacrifice of Isaac found its earliest representation at the Dura Synagogue, in the panel above the Torah shrine.  (You may note the source of the image, Eikon: Image Database for Biblical Studies, at the Yale Divinity School).  When it appears on the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, the writings of Irenaeus (Against Heresies) and Tertullian (An Answer to the Jews) articulate the typological relationship of the Sacrifice of Isaac to the Crucifixion of Christ.  Finally, in the mosaics at San Vitale in Ravenna, the Sacrifice of Isaac, paired within the lunette with the Visit of the Three Angels to Mamre, which in turn are together paired with the Sacrifices of Abel and Melchisedech on the other side on the altar, becomes a prototype of the liturgy.  This brief excursion into the development of the typological potential of the Sacrifice of Isaac offers a useful prelude to an understanding of its meaning at San Pedro de la Nave.

Franca Arduini, The Shape of the Book from Roll to Codex (3rd century BC – 19th Century AD) (Mandragora, 2008).

Massetti Calderoni et al., INTORNO AL SACRO VOLTO GENOVA BISANZIO E IL MEDITERRANEO [SECOLI XI-XIV]

Efthalia Constantinides, Images From the Byzantine Periphery: Studies in Iconography and Style

Roberta Panzanelli et al., The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present

Although I focused on representational art in this survey class, the Visigothic material provided an occasion to look at and describe architecture and ornament.  With this end in mind, we turned to the church of San Juan de Banos.  An inscription on the arch above the chancel area permits the precise dating of this monument to 661.  In the introductory essay to his translation of Julian of Toledo’s Historia Wambae, Joaquin Martinez Pizarro translates the inscription (page 38, with the Latin in footnote 82).  You may find another translation at Arte Preromanico Espagnol.

Flickr has mostly exterior shots, but also some details of the ornamental friezes.  A Spanish site, El Romanico en Palencia, offers some good medium-sized photos.  But only one photo on Flickr shows a fuzzy image of the chancel arch with its inscription.

*** Update ***

Ruben Perez [I don't know his complete name] has shared with me his entry on this church at his photography website, El Espejo Que Huye.  He shows some fantastic photos of the church. 

Since I prioritize here the sharing of freely accessible internet resources, I would like to add an on-line text that would help in preparation of a class on Insular art:  the transcript of a public lecture given by Michelle Brown in 2004 on “Preaching with the Pen: the Contribution of Insular Scribes to the Transmission of Sacred Text, from the 6th to 9th Centuries.”

From Hiberno-Saxon manuscripts, the survey then turned to Spain and the Visigoths, beginning with the Treasure of Guarrazar.

Two contemporary texts nicely introduced this group of objects.  First, we read prayer 59 in the Liber Ordinum for the blessing of the crown with the aim of understanding both the general purpose of a votive offering and the particular meaning of a votive crown:

Ihesu Domine, qui es corona sanctorum, hanc coronam benedicendo sanctifica: ut pro decore domus tue et tui honore ac ornamento altaris, accepta hec munera feras, et de manibus offerentium respect hilari et pia benignitate suscipias. Amen.

Jesus, Lord, you who are the crown of the saints, sanctify this crown with your blessing: so that for the decoration of your house and for your honor and as an ornament of the altar, may you take up this gift, having been accepted, and may you receive it from the hands of offering with joyful respect and pious kindness. Amen. (my translation)

The second text comes from Julian of Toledo’s Historia Wambae regis, newly translated by Joaquin Martinez Pizarro.  A discussion in chapter 26 of the return of sacred objects to the churches includes a brief reference to the usurper Paul placing on his head a crown that King Reccaredhad once dedicated to Felix.  This aside permits a glimpse into the life of this class of objects, in particular, into their intentional and meaningful misuse.

These texts bring to life the objects of the Treasure of Guarrazar, of which we examined the votive crown with pendant crossat the Musee du Moyen Age in Paris, especially its inscription, and the votive crown of Recceswinth at the archaeological museum in Madrid, both of which appear in the catalogue, The Art of Medieval Spain, a.d. 500-1200. 

The cross held by Bishop Maximianus in the Justinian panel at San Vitale in Ravenna provides a comparison for the votive cross.   Bishop Maximianus puts the cross to a second function within a liturgical context, and the similar placement of the cabochons suggests a Byzantine model for the Visigothic metalwork.