File:Mediaeval Sicily, aspects of life and art in the middle ages (1910) (14592192979).jpg

Identifier: cu31924081258430 (find matches)
Title: Mediaeval Sicily, aspects of life and art in the middle ages
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Waern, Cecilia, 1853-
Subjects: Art Art, Medieval
Publisher: London, Duckworth & co
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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an Cataldo are of specialinterest as representing one of the most charmingtypes of Corinthian derivatives that I know ofanywhere, in the elegant freedom and fine artisticlogic with which the fanciful decorative device ofthe braided coil, picked up somewhere in the East,has been amalgamated with the old componentsof the classical Corinthian capital. The farawayclassical prototype is still recognisable in typicaldistribution of parts, in characteristic profile, butthe capital has become a new thing of delicatebasket-work, cunningly wrought round the marblecore in intertwined strands (traceable from begin-ning to end), curling up at the lower angles into akind of loop-leaf with edges indented like anacanthus leaf. There are only five of these curiouscapitals known to me, two in San Cataldo, twounder the pulpit in the Cappella Palatina, and one,with some transitional forms, in the cloister ofCefalii ; all differing slightly in (basket-work)pattern and in refinement of carving. * 174 XXIII
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INTERIOR OF SAN CATALDO, PALERMO SAN CATALDO : CAPITALS For other types as well, Norman Palermo is alimited but happy hunting-ground for the loverand student of capitals, those curious exponents ofthe processes of evolution in art. It is not so withcarved ornament on bands, panels, and the like.Doorways were simple ; the panels of the choirscreens, pulpits and the like inlaid, not carved ;the little carved leaf-moulding framing these,delicate but monotonous. But capitals at the topof the shafts there must be, old classical for choice,as the simplest way, or imported from the famousworkshops of Byzantium, then the capital of art, orthose nearer at hand in the old Italo-Byzantineprovinces ; or, possibly, carved in Palermitanworkshops. So the suggestions of their capitalsare as varied and polyglot as their civilisation ;elegant melodious Greek and dignified Latinmingling with refined Arabic and compositeByzantine, and the tentative forms of new idioms. A fascinating side issue this, of t

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