The Kingdom in the Sun (59 page)

Cosmati work fringing the dado with its line of palmettes, the ambo, the altar-rail, the thrones. And yet the atmosphere is utterly different. It is not simply the difference between a chapel and a cathedral; rather does it stem from the fact that the architecture of Monreale is fundamentally undistinguished. West of the apse, the vast expanses of wall are flat and unarticulated; one longs in vain for a niche or a buttress—anything to break this relentless uniformity. Thus, while the Palatine Chapel throbs, about Monreale there is always something dry and a little lifeless.

It is redeemed by its mosaics; for this building is above all a picture-gallery, and to this function every architectural feature has been subordinated. There they glitter in all their vastness, covering the better part of two acres of wall space. Perhaps by reason of their very quantity, it has been the fashion in recent years to decry these mosaics, to suggest that they are somehow a little crude in comparison with those in the other churches of Norman Sicily. They are nothing of the kind. The gigantic Christ Pantocrator in the central apse—his arms outstretched as if to embrace the entire congregation, his right hand alone more than six feet high—cannot admittedly be classed with his counterpart at Cefalù; few works of art can. He is none the less superb. For the rest, although so immense a work must inevitably show some variations in quality, the general standard both of design and of execution remains astonishingly high.

This fact becomes all the more remarkable when we remember that the entire group was completed in the space of five or six years, and quite possibly less—between 1183 and the end of the decade. The leading authority on the subject, Professor Demus, therefore deduces that the artists were Greeks, since 'only at Byzantium could [William] find an organised workshop able to finish the enormous task in so short a time';
¹
and indeed the upper half of the apse, with its Greek inscriptions and the hieratic formalisation of the figures, is Byzantine in its very essence. But where the anecdotal mosaics are concerned the attribution is surprising; for they show a fluidity of expression and invention which is hard to reconcile with the stylised rigidity that still characterised most Greek art of the twelfth century. Look, for example, at the south wall of the transept, and in particular at the

 
¹
The
Mosaics
of
Norman
Sicily,
p. 148.

three pictures that form the lowest row—the Washing of the Feet, the Agony in the Garden, the Betrayal. The iconography is impeccably Byzantine; but the relaxed attitudes, the swirling draperies, the movement and the rhythm of the drawing have developed as far beyond the styles of the Palatine Chapel or the Martorana as have Bonannus's doors from those of Barisanus. And this development is surely Italian. Christian art as we know it was born on the banks of the Bosphorus, and for nearly a thousand years Constantinople continued to point the way forward—evolving in the process the only idiom that has completely succeeded in translating Christian spiritual values into plastic terms. Then, with the end of the twelfth century, Italy began to take the lead. It is another hundred and fifty years before we find, in the church of the Chora in Constantinople,
¹
purely Greek mosaics executed with the dynamism and
panache
of those at Monreale.

Wandering slowly through the cathedral, one might be forgiven for supposing that these endless mosaics tell every Bible story, from Genesis to the Acts of the Apostles, in strip cartoon. So indeed they very nearly do; and the visitor, once he has gazed his fill at the Pantocrator, might easily pass over the figures of the saints below and turn at once to more narrative material. But this would be a pity, for he would be missing one of the few real iconographical surprises Monreale has to offer—the second figure to the right of the central window. There is no problem of identification; in conformity with the usual canons of the time, the name runs down each side of the halo for all to read: scs.
thomas
cantur
. Whether or not it bears any physical resemblance to the martyred archbishop we cannot tell; mosaic portraits of saints are seldom known for their fidelity to the originals.
²
It remains, however, the earliest certain representation of

¹
 
Nowadays better known by its Turkish name of Kariye Cami.

²
              
Plate
23.
It certainly gives no hint of the only one of Thomas's distinguishing characteristics of which we can be absolutely sure—his remarkable height. This was first mentioned by his own chaplain, William Fitzstephen, and again in a fifteenth-century manuscript at Lambeth Palace
(306
f.
203)
where, under the general heading 'The Longitude of Men Folowynge', Thomas is described as being 'vij fote save a ynche'. The most telling evidence of all, however, is provided by the saint's own vestments, still displayed in the cathedral treasury at Sens. 'On the feast of St Thomas till very recently, they were worn for that one day by the
officiating priest.
The
tallest priest
was
always selected
—and, even
then, it
was necessary
to
pin
them
up.' (Dean Stanley,
Memorials
of
Canterbury,
1855.)

Thomas Becket known to us, dating from less than a generation after his death.
¹

At first sight, this seemingly gratuitous distinction accorded to a saint by the son-in-law of his arch-enemy strikes one as a little strange—and even in rather doubtful taste. We know from other sources, however, that Queen Joanna always held Thomas in particular veneration, and it may well be that she encouraged her husband to commemorate him in this way. What better means, after all, could she have had of making her own personal atonement for her father's conduct ? A closer look at Thomas's fellow-saints around the apse lends still more weight to this theory. The first pair, immediately to the left and right of the window, are two early Popes, Clement I and Sylvester, both long-time exiles and defenders of the temporal and spiritual primacy of Rome.
²
Next, opposite Thomas, comes St Peter of Alexandria, another prelate who fought for the Church against temporal encroachment and returned from exile to face martyrdom. Beyond them stand the protomartyrs Stephen and Lawrence, who died for the same cause. Finally, facing the nave, we find two other canonised archbishops—Martin, always a favourite among the Benedictines, and Nicholas of Bari, one of the chief patrons of the Norman Kingdom. The conclusion seems inescapable; the choice of figures for the apse not only symbolises the principles for which Monreale stood from the moment of its foundation; it is also a deliberate tribute to one of those depicted: England's most recent—and already most beloved—saint and martyr.

Above the thrones, on each side of the main eastern arch, stands

¹
A
curious little reliquary of
Becket
in
the
form of a gold pendant,
now
in
the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, bears the inscription
istud
regine

MARGARETE SICULORUM TRANSMITTIT PRESUX RAINAUDUS BATONIORUS, Surrounding
the
engraved figures of
the Queen
and
a
prelate in
the act of
benediction.
Since Margaret died
in
1183
this must very slightly
antedate the mosaic. But is the
prelate
Rainaud or Thomas ? There is no means of
knowing.
(Bulletin
of
the Metropolitan
Museum
of
Art,
vol. XXIII,
pp.
78
-9.)

²
Clement,
according
to
tradition,
was
martyred under
Trajan; Sylvester is
credited with having baptised
Constantine the Great and
having received
the
legendary
Donation.

William himself; on the left receiving his crown at the hands of Christ,
¹
on the right offering his church into those of the Virgin. Judged as mosaics they are not particularly good; they cannot be compared with the corresponding pair in the Martorana. But this time there can be no real doubt that the two portraits are as lifelike as the artist could make them. After all we have heard of William's beauty, that round face, fair scrubby beard and slightly vacant expression come as a faint disappointment; for a man only just into his thirties, one had hoped for something more impressive. But perhaps he has been done less than justice.