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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

On Sunday, September 26, 2004, at 12:39 pm, Christopher Crockett wrote, with reference to the Crypt of St. Magnus in Anagni's cathedral:

> not to mention the reasonably spectacular floor.
>
> like the frescoes, floors like that were, i believe, the rule --
> very few have
> survived in France, but probably a greater percentage in Italy.
>

These floors are called "cosmatesque", a recent term derived from a name (Cosmati) assigned to one of several families from Anagni and elsewhere who specialized in this sort of inlay work during the central Middle Ages.  There's a brief and of course now dated article on them in the old _Catholic Encyclopedia_ at:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04405b.htm

Dorothy Glass is the author of the standard book-length treatment of floors executed in this style: _Studies on Cosmatesque Pavements_ (Oxford: BAR, 1980).  But this sort of decor occurs in other parts of churches as well: the column from the cathedral at Salerno to which you drew attention a few days ago is an example:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~classics/rome2003/updates/week3_4/1016saler11Web.JPG
That's from a page where the next image is of a cosmatesque pavement:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~classics/rome2003/updates/week3_4/1016saler12Web.JPG
and the preceding one is from a cosmatesque pulpit:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~classics/rome2003/updates/week3_4/1016saler10Web.JPG

You called such decorations "Byzantine" and it's noticeable that its chief centers are in former Byzantine areas of Italy where contact with Constantinople had been maintained: 1) Rome and adjacent Lazio, 2) coastal Campania.  Between the two lies Montecassino and it has been argued the style actually entered Italy here in the eleventh century under abbot Desiderius II.  See:
http://www.unicas.it/ingegneria/cigola/Articoli/cosma_en.htm

That pulpit from Salerno reminds me that there are similarly spectacular examples in Ravello's cathedral (which Jill Caskey doubtless discusses in her forthcoming book on art patronage in the _costiera Amalfitana_).  See:
http://www.giovis.com/canon/ravpulptut.jpg
http://www.giovis.com/canon/ravpulpito.jpg
http://www.giovis.com/canon/ravambone.jpg

A recent book that discusses the style as a whole, not just floors, is Paloma Pajares-Ayuela, _Cosmatesque Ornament: Flat Polychrome Geometric Patterns in Architecture_ (NY: Norton, 2001).

Of course, not all work in this manner is medieval: medievalizing restorers have learned to create in it as well.  The floor of the nave of S. Prassede in Rome is a fairly well known early twentieth-century instance.

Best again,
John Dillon

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