THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED: Beat Brenk "Rhetoric, ambition and the function of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo"
DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES THIS EVENT HAS BEEN
CANCELED.
The Department of Art History and Communication Studies welcomes , Professor Emeritus of the University of Basel, Professor of Early Christian and Medieval Archeology, University of Rome, to our annual lecture series (follow this link for a complete list of this year's speakers).
Title: "Rhetoric, ambition and the function of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo"
Abstract: Ernst Kitzinger considered the
architecture of the Cappella Palatina to be a 鈥榤ongrel鈥�. In this he
followed Otto Demus, who thought that the presbytery with its
cupola was built after the model of a Byzantine domed church, while
the three naves with their reused antique columns reflect southern
Italian-Romanesque architecture. Byzantinists, however, used to
believe that Sicilian wall mosaics mirror pure Constantinopolitan
models, and that Sicily could thus be considered as a source for
mosaics that are no-longer extant in Constantinople itself. The
Islamicists, on the other hand, are still unable to agree on
whether the famous painted ceiling of the Palatina should be
attributed to artists from Egypt, north Africa, the Near East or
Persia.
All scholars agree, however, that that the Cappella Palatina was a
royal commission by king Roger II. The chapel was dedicated in
1140, and the cupola mosaics were finished in 1143. Moreover, no
one doubts that the chapel originated with the participation of
Byzantine, Islamic, Sicilian and Italian artists. In the final
analysis, the chapel is indeed incomparable, reflecting a unique
concept without precedence or following. The basic problems to be
discussed in the lecture are the following:
- How does a king whose political power and titles were given to him by the pope, express himself?
- King Roger II, himself a Norman, uled over a foreign territory conquered in 1092, inhabited by 80% Muslims and 20% Greeks, Lombards and Franks. How did this fact condition his political and cultural ambitions? ?
- What, then, was specifically Norman, besides the language, military success and the form of government? ?