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The Gregorian Reform and the Visual Arts: A Problem of Method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Ernst Kitzinger
Ernst Kitzinger
Affiliation:
Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Extract

My lecture will start with a kind of prelude. I am going to show you a work of art which, though unconnected with Gregory VII and the movement of church reform that bears his name, will help to set the stage for our discussion proper. The scene of my prelude will not be eleventh-century Italy at all, but rather the court of the Norman kings of Sicily in the twelfth century. I hope you will not lose patience during what may seem a rather irritating detour and agree with me in the end that this is a case of the longest way round being the shortest way home.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 22 , December 1972 , pp. 87 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1972

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References

1 I wish to thank the Royal Historical Society for doing me the honour of designating this lecture (given at the Conference on History and the Arts at University College, Durham, in September 1971) as the Prothero Lecture. It is published here approximately as it was delivered, and the necessary documentation has been added in foot-notes. The middle section dealing with the Salerno mosaic and its rat-historical connexions has been abridged, since I have discussed this subject in more detail and with somewhat fuller illustrations in a paper due to appear in Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik, xxi (1972Google Scholar; Festschrift Otto Demus).

2 Demus, O., The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (London, 1949)Google Scholar.

3 Letter of the Senate, Roman to Conrad, King III (A.D. 1149), cited in Chronica Ottonis Frisingensis, I, 29Google Scholar; see Ottonis et Rahewini Gesta Friderici I. Imperatoris, ed. Waitz, G. (MGH, Scriptores rerum germanicarum, Hanover, 1884), pp. 37 f.Google Scholar; Deér, J., Das Papsttum und die süditalienischen Normannenstaaten 1053–1212 (Göttingen, 1969), pp. 79 fGoogle Scholar. A connexion between this text and the portrayal of Roger II in the mosaic of the Martorana seems to have been drawn first inGiampallari's, Discorso sulle sagre insegne de' re di Sicilia (Naples, 1832), pp. 24 fGoogle Scholar. Many subsequent authors elaborated on this theme. See, e.g.,di Marzo, G., Delle belle arti in Sicilia, ii (Palermo, 1859), pp. 45 f.Google Scholar;Caspar, E., Roger II. (1101–1154.) und die Gründung der normannisch-sicilischen Monarchie (Innsbruck, 1904), pp. 402 f., n. 3Google Scholar.

4 Di Marzo, op. et loc. cit.

5 Its reliability has frequently been doubted. On this question see Caspar, , op. cit., p. 402Google Scholar;Schramm, P. E., Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik, i (MGH, Schriften, xiii, I, Stuttgart, 1954), pp. 77ffGoogle Scholar.; Deér, J., in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 1 (1957), p. 418Google Scholar;Elze, R., ‘Zum Königtum Rogers II. von Sizilien’, Festschrift Percy Ernst Schramm, I (Wiesbaden, 1964), pp. 102 ff., especially p. no and n. 50Google Scholar.

6 The ivory panel in Moscow illustrated in fig. 2 affords a close parallel not only for King Roger's attire but also for the whole composition of the Martorana mosaic. For the ivory seeGoldschmidt, A. and Weitzmann, K., Die byzantinischen Elfenbeinskulpturen, ii (Berlin, 1934), pl. 14, no. 35, and pp. 35 fGoogle Scholar., where the emperor—labelled ‘Constantine’ in the inscription—is identified as Constantine VII Porphyrogenetos (913–959). For the Byzantine iconography of the emperor crowned by Christ see in generalGrabar, A., L'empereur dans l'art byzantin (Paris, 1936), pp. 112 ff. and pls. 24–26Google Scholar.

7 Already Giampallari describes the costume of King Roger in the Martorana mosaic as being that of a Byzantine emperor (op. et loc. cit.).

8 See the histories and handbooks of Byzantine art which began to make their appearance at that time and in which the Sicilian mosaics of the Norman period are treated as an integral part of the subject :Kondakoff, N., Histoire de l'art byzantin, ii (Paris, 1891Google Scholar; translation of Russian work published in Odessa in 1876), pp. 19 ff.;Bayet, C., L'art byzantin (Paris, n.d. [1883]), p. 293Google Scholar;Millet, G., in Michel, A., Histoire de l'Art, i (Paris, 1905), pp. 199 ffGoogle Scholar.;Diehl, Ch., Manuel d'art byzantin (Paris, 1910), p. 513ffGoogle Scholar. (second edition, Paris, 1925—26, ii, pp. 547 ff.);Dalton, O. M., Byzantine Art and Archaeology (Oxford, 1911), pp. 405 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.;Wulff, O., Altchristliche und byzantinische Kunst, ii (Berlin, 1914), pp. 573 ffGoogle Scholar. See also the next foot-note.

9 Toesca, P., Storia dell'arte italiana, i (Turin, 1927), p. 943Google Scholar;Muratoff, P., La pittura bizantina (Rome, n.d. [1929]), p. 114Google Scholar;Salvini, R., Mosaici medievali in Sicilia (Florence, 1949), pp. 27 ff., 41Google Scholar;Demus, , op. cit. (above, n. 2), pp. 375 ff., especially p. 398Google Scholar; Lazarev, V., Storia della pittura bizantina (Turin, 1967), pp. 234 ffGoogle Scholar.

10 Muratoff, , op. cit., p. IIIGoogle Scholar;Demus, , op. cit., p. 370Google Scholar;Kitzinger, E., ‘The Mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo: An Essay on the Choice and Arrangement of Subjects’, Art Bulletin, xxxi (1949), pp. 269 ffGoogle Scholar. It is interesting to note that Lazarev added a paragraph on Roger's motivation to the Italian edition of his history of Byzantine painting (pp. 234 f.; cf. above, n. 9); the paragraph was not in the original Russian text published twenty years earlier (Moscow, 1947).

11 Muratoff, , op. cit., p. IIIGoogle Scholar;Kitzinger, , op. cit., p. 290Google Scholar.

12 Steinberg, S. H, ‘I ritratti dei re normanni di Sicilia’, offprint from Bibliofilia, xxxix (Florence, 1937), p. 16Google Scholar; cf. Kitzinger, E., ‘On the Portrait of Roger II in the Martorana in Palermo’, Proporzioni, iii (1950), pp. 30 ffGoogle Scholar.

13 I leave aside the question of the actual use of Byzantine imperial attire and insignia by Roger II. On this subject seeDeér, J., Der Kaiserornat Friedrichs II. (Dissertationes Bernenses, ii, 2, Bern, 1952)Google Scholar , passim (cf. index, p. 84, s.v. ‘Roger II.’);Schramm, , op. cit. (above, n. 5), pp. 35 fGoogle Scholar.

14 Cf. Steinberg, , op. cit., p. 18Google Scholar;Kitzinger, , op. cit. (above, n. 12), pp. 30 f.Google Scholar; 34, n. 10.

15 In my article cited in n. 12, I suggested that in the Martorana mosaic the Byzantine pictorial formula was, in fact, modified in line with a specifically Western and Norman ideology (op. cit., pp. 31 ff.).

16 I need cite only the work of the late Percy E. Schramm. See alsoLe Gofi, J., ‘Is Politics Still the Backbone of History?’, Daedalus, Winter 1971Google Scholar (issued as Vol. 100, No. I, of the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences), pp. 1 ff., especially pp. 5 ff.

17 ‘Bilder und Zeichen sind nicht Quellen für die Erkenntnis der faktischen Macht—und Rechtsverhältnisse, sondern ebensoschr der Ansprüche, die auch dann erhoben wurden, wenn sie nicht durchgesetzt werden konnten’ ( Elze, , op. cit.—above, n. 5—p. 112Google Scholar ).

18 See my forthcoming study cited above, n. 1. The mosaic fragments were first published byde Angelis, M. in Archivio Storico dello Provinvia di Salerno, iv (1924), pp. 1 ffGoogle Scholar.

19 Matthiae, G., Mosaici medioevali delle chiese di Roma (Rome, 1967), pp. 279 ff., 305 ff., 420 ff.Google Scholar; figs. 228 ff.

20 For a more detailed description of th e Salerno mosaic I refer to my article cited in n. 1. Of the central medallion only part of the border remains. The lower part of the space it occupied has been misleadingly appropriated by the modern mosaicist for the new ornamental band with which he has surrounded the apse (see fig. 3). For the original arrangement, cf. S. Clemente (fig. 4).

21 See, e.g., Ortolani, S., in Bollettino d'Arte, xxxiii (1948), p. 314, n. 14Google Scholar;Demus, O., Romanische Wandmalerei (Munich, 1968), p. 54Google Scholar.

22 Chronicon Casinense, III, 27 ( Migne, , PL, clxxiiiGoogle Scholar , col. 748 f.).

23 See, e.g., de Rossi, G. B., Musaici Cristiani (Rome, 1899)Google Scholar , text accompany ing pl. 29, last paragraph;Bertaux, E., Rome (Paris, 1916), p. 66Google Scholar; and, most recently,Toubert, H., ‘Le renouveau paléechrétien à Rome au début du XIIe siècle’, Cahiers Archéologiques, xx (1970), pp. 99 ff., especially p. 152Google Scholar.

24 For a detailed demonstration of this point see my article cited in n. 1.

25 Acocella, N., La decorazione pittorica di Montecassino dalle didascalie di Alfano I (sec. XI) (Salerno, 1966), pp. 27 fGoogle Scholar.

26 Pantoni, A., ‘La basilica di Montecassino e quella di Salerno ai tempi di San Gregorio VII’, Benedictina, x (1956), pp. 23 ffGoogle Scholar.

27 Op. et loc. cit. (above, n. 22).

28 Thus it has been suggested that we can get an idea of Desiderius's lost mosaics from those of Hosios Lukas and Daphni in Greece ( Pantoni, , op. cit., p. 29Google Scholar ).

29 Matthiae, , op. cit. (above, n. 19), pp. 125 ff.Google Scholar; fig. 37.

30 Bertaux, E., L'art dans l'Italie méridionale (Paris, 1904), p. 190Google Scholar;Krautheimer, R., L'Art Bulletin, xxiv (1942), pp. 27 fGoogle Scholar.

31 Acocella, , op. cit. (above, n. 25), pp. 31 ffGoogle Scholar. Similarly, the inscription in the apse of Desiderius's church had a counterpart in th e Basilica of the Lateran, but in this case there is doubt as to which came first (cf. ibid., pp. 43 ff.).

32 This is the basic thesis of the book by O. Demus cited in n. 2 above. The thesis has not been seriously challenged, but, on the contrary, has been confirmed, by subsequent research; see my remarks inByzantine Art And European Art Lectures (Athens, 1966), pp. 123 ffGoogle Scholar.

33 Haller, J., Das Papsttum, ii, I (Stuttgart, 1937), p. 406Google Scholar;Seppelt, F. X., Geschichte der Päpste, iii (Munich, 1956), pp. 115 fGoogle Scholar.

34 See below.

35 Bernoldi Chronicon, a. 1085 (MGH, Scriptores, v, p. 444).

36 Schramm, P. E., Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio (Leipzig and Berlin, 1929), i, pp. 238 ffGoogle Scholar. (cf. also below, n. 38);Miccoli, G., ‘“Ecclesiae primitivae forma”’, in his Chiesa Gregoriana (Florence, 1966), pp. 225 ff., especially pp. 244 ffGoogle Scholar.

37 Migne, , PL, cxlviiGoogle Scholar , col. 1262 f.

38 Schramm, , op. cit. (above, n. 36), ii, pp. 120 ff., especially p. 131Google Scholar; cf.. i, pp. 238 ff. See also the republication of this material (with additions) in Schramm, P. E., Kaiser, Könige und Päpste, iv. I (Stuttgart, 1970), pp. 143 ffGoogle Scholar.

39 For this ambivalence seeMiccoli, , op. cit., passim, especially pp. 245 f., 262 ffGoogle Scholar.

40 Leo I, Sermones, LXXXII, 3 (Migne, PL, liv, col. 424A).

41 Ibid., III, 4 (op. cit., col. 147A).

42 Schramm; op. cit. (above, n. 36), i, pp. 242 f.; ii, p. 131, n. 2.

43 On this question see Krämer, F., ‘Uber die Anfänge un d Beweggründe der Papstnamenänderungen im Mittelalter’ (editorially revised an d abridged version of unpublished dissertation of 1923)Google Scholar ,Römische Quartalschrift, li (1956), pp. 148 ff., especially pp. 174 ffGoogle Scholar. (I owe this reference to Prof. Giles Constable.) For the choice of names by the popes of the Reform in general, see ibid., pp. 163 ff., 179 ff. andBloch, H., in Traditio, viii (1952), p. 180, n. 87Google Scholar.

44 Op. cit. (above, n. 23).

45 Matthiae, , op. cit. (above, n. 19), pp. 83 f.Google Scholar; fig. 76. Cf.Toubert, , op. cit. (above, n. 23), pp. 123 ffGoogle Scholar.

46 Ibid., p. 100.

47 Ibid., pp. 151 ff.

48 Ibid., p. 99, n. 2.

49 Ibid., p. 152; see also above, n. 23.

50 Ladner, G. B., Die Papstbildnisse des Altertums und des Mittelalters, i (Vatican City, 1941), pp. 193, 195 ff.Google Scholar; pl. 19. Cf. Walter, C., in Cahiers Archéologiques, xx (1970), pp. 155 ffGoogle Scholar.(ibid., n. 1, the author announces a second part of his study to be published in vol. xxi);Toubert, , op. cit., p. 154Google Scholar.

51 Ladner, , op. cit., pp. 193 f., 202 ff.Google Scholar; pl. 20. Cf. Bloch, H., in Traditio, viii (1952), pp. 178 ffGoogle Scholar.; Toubert, , op. cit., p. 154Google Scholar and fig. 53.

52 I have discussed (and analysed in some detail) the phenomenon of ‘otherdirected’ stylistic change in an earlier paper dealing with a different period of art history (‘On the Interpretation of Stylistic Changes in Late Antique Art’, Bucknell Review, xv, 3 [12, 1967], pp. 1 ff.)Google Scholar.

53 See above, n. 50.