| Abstract | Paper -a:
Between 1156 and 1184, Frederick I Barbarossa had installed his massive gilded copper chandelier, a golden crown in the form of a Heavenly Jerusalem, above the central choir of the palatine chapel in Aachen. This paper redeems the chandelier's primary function as a device for functional and ideological illumination, for light served as the conceptual analogue to the only figural imagery to be found on the monumental metalwork: personifications of the eight Beatitudes etched onto the porous floorplates of the large tower lanterns. Rarely visualized and oriented downward to the liturgy and Charlemagne's recently exhumed remains, the Beatitudes, set ablaze by the lamps above, are the heuristic linchpin in the choir's spatio-temporal program evincing Barbarossa's Reichstheologie.
Paper -b:
This talk will examine how the unique representation of the Baptism of Clovis by St Remy in Reims Cathedral c. 1220, addresses contemporary beholders by confronting a past event with contemporary history. As I will show, the beholder is invited to actively participate in an historical event by two figures in the relief who addresses the beholder by a direct look. As a result, the 5th-century event becomes a Tableau Vivant in stone.
Paper -c:
The first Arab conquest in Sicily was by the Aghlabid governors (827), but was captured by the Normans (1061) who created the centre of a Byzantine/Islamic/Norman culture as the Arab-Norman style. The new rulers incorporated the best practices of Arab and Byzantine architecture into their own art. The Cappella Palatina, Palermo (1132) has Norman architecture/door décor, Arabic arches/scripts, Byzantine dome/mosaics. Described as 'Norman-Arab-Byzantine', doorways and pointed arches of the Monreal cathedral (c.1174) are enriched with carving and coloured inlay, a combination of Norman-Romanesque/Byzantine/Arab styles. My paper discusses of Arab-Norman architectural ornamentation as a means of power in medieval Sicily.
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