medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
OK, here's that plan again:
http://www.mondimedievali.net/Edifici/Puglia/tran10.jpg
Yesterday, after thinking some more about the position of the crypts in
relation to today's upper church (which I last visited over five years
ago) and about the absence of a transept in the representation of the
upper church, I finally figured out what the plan represents and why no
double columns are represented on it. Today, having gotten ahold of
Benedetto Ronchi's _La cattedrale di Trani_, I had that confirmed from
his summary of the building's history.
The unshaded portion of the plan shows the two crypts of today's
cathedral: the Mary crypt, a remnant with lowered vaults of the
cathedral's predecessor church of the BVM, and the crypt of Nick the
Pilgrim, now located under the transept of the present cathedral but
intended originally as an addition to the church of the BVM, whose apse
was removed in order to make way for it. The apse was removed in or
shortly after 1099, the year of Nick's bull of canonization, but Nick's
crypt was not completed until 1143, at which time construction had
already begun on the transept above it. 1169 is the last year in which
the church of the BVM is mentioned; in that year, according to Ronchi
(pp. 25-26, 55-56), the side walls of the church of the BVM were
dismantled but their lower portions were rebuilt and thickened to
support the double columns that were to go above them in the nave of
what would become the upper church; at about the same time foundations
were laid for the outer walls of the new church. The latter was
completed at some unknown date in the next few decades.
The shaded portion of the plan seems to indicate the position of the
church of the BVM relative to today's two crypts. The series of
transverse bars in the center represent the thickening of the lower
portions of its side walls referred to above. But, in contradistinction
to Ronchi's reconstructon, in this plan these are apparently seen as
nave walls within a perimeter as wide as the nave of today's cathedral.
Whether that represents a later view of the outline of the church of
the BVM or instead a rather older one is unclear, thanks to the
virtually total absence of information about the plan in the web pages
that reproduce it:
http://www.mondimedievali.net/Edifici/Puglia/Trani.htm
Best again,
John Dillon
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