medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Trust you, chris, to pick up on a significant detail such as this. I
would call the LRTs (Little Round Thingies) roundels, and, as they are
recessed, describe them as recessed roundels.
What's in them are "bacini" (basins, dishes) of glazed ware of Islamic
origin (some are said to be from North Africa, some from Muslim Sicily).
San Paragorio, whose initial phase is dated to the early eleventh
century, is famous among historians of medieval Italian architecture as
an outstanding example of "Lombard romanesque". And these "bacini" are
famous among students of medieval Italian ceramics as an early example,
and one that's securely dated (because they were incorporated into the
church _when it was being built_), of the diffusion of a particular type
of glazed pottery from the Muslim world into Italy. Early points of
entry for it were here at Noli, on Liguria's western coast (the Riviera
del Ponente), at Pisa, and at ports on the Gulf of Salerno.
A page of examples of "bacini" from Pisa (said to be from the late 10th
cent. onward; not all of the same type of manufacture) is here:
http://www.navigationdusavoir.net/PortalPisa/traderoutes/medievale_galleria_bacini.html
You can see their location in the apses of Pisa's San Piero a Grado here
(photo about halfway down the page):
http://www2.alfea.it/DOC/adu-005/paragrafo2.html
Other placements are shown here for the somewhat later (1177-1204)
surfaces of Pisa's San Michele degli Scalzi:
http://web.tiscali.it/smicheledegliscalzi/parrocchia/bacini.htm
This page gives statistics on the number and points of origin of the
Pisan "bacini":
http://www2.alfea.it/DOC/cne-007/paragrafo3.html
Jill Caskey (Toronto) talks about Amalfitan examples, e.g. those
embedded in the pulpit of Ravello's San Giovanni del T(u)oro (late 12th-
/ early 13th-cent.), in her forthcoming _Art and Patronage in the
Medieval Mediterranean: Merchant Culture in the Region of Amalfi_
(Cambridge, 2004). Tourist literature says that the "bacini" in the San
Giovanni del T(u)oro pulpit are of Persian origin.
Moving on the excavations at San Paragorio at Noli, Alessandra Frondoni
(whose 1988 volume I cited in yesterday's post) says in her article
linked from here;
http://192.167.112.135/NewPages/COLLANE/QDS28-291.html
(this the online version of Lidia Paroli, ed., _La Ceramica invetriata
tardoantica e altomedievale in Italia: atti del seminario, Certosa di
Pontignano (Siena), 23-24 febbraio 1990_ (Firenze: Ediz. all'insegno del
Giglio, 1992)
that a paleochristian baptistery has indeed been found at this site.
Which, had I been paying attention, I would also have learned from the
detailed "MONUMENTI, CHIESE, PALAZZI" of this illustrated,
Italian-language page on historic Noli:
http://www.rivieraligure.it/citta.php?CL=208
Best,
John Dillon
Christopher Crockett wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> Christopher Crockett <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>>and an interesting architectural detail here :
>>
>>
>
> http://galerie.photo.gerard.free.fr/Italie/Genes/pages/x%20Noli%20Eglise%20San%20Paragorio%20C%e9ramiques%20islamiques.htm
>
>>i don't recall seeing before those Little Round Thingies (the technical term
>
> for them, in art hysterical jargon) above and between the intersections of the
> "Lombard Bands". they seem to be filled with various carvings.
>
>
> being image-oriented, rather than text-oriented, he evidently didn't bother to
> read the caption to the picture on the page, which explains that the Little
> Round Thingies are "Céramiques islamiques".
>
> curiouser and curiouser.
>
> c
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