figure is more emphasized in the fresco. There seem to be strong connections between
Cluny and painting in Rome ca. 1100, with its Byzantine flavor.
The martyrdom of St. Lawrence exhibits the compositional sensitivity of the
Romanesque muralist. The painter is given a space framed by columns supporting
capitals and an arch. The lower part of the mural is filled by the flattened grill with the
nude martyr being consumed by flames. In his pose, the Roman delegate repeats the
curve of the arch. The backs and heads of the executioners repeat the shape of silhouettes
of column, capital, and arch, while diagonals unite the composition. Painting and
architecture are united. The architecture of the two-storied grange, like the figures in the
murals, is carefully articulated by many planes in space. The exterior resembles the first
Romanesque style, with masonry pilasters or wall buttresses and arched corbel tables.
The interior walls have multiple arches and responds.
Dating Berzé-la-Ville is difficult. The spread among scholars is from the end of the
11th century to the middle of the 13th. Since Hugues, abbot of Cluny 1049–1109,
probably used Berzé for retreat, and since the style of the frescoes is related to dated
manuscripts of ca. 1100 or the following decade, Berzé-la-Ville may have been
constructed and painted in the early 12th century.
Whitney S.Stoddard
Armi, C.Edson. Masons and Sculptors in Romanesque Burgundy. 2 vols. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983.
Demus, Otto. Romanesque Mural Painting. New York: Abrams, 1970, pp. 98–100.
Koehler, Wilhelm. “Byzantine Art and the West.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 1(1941):63–87.
Schapiro, Meyer. The Parma Ildefonsus: A Romanesque Illuminated Manuscript from Cluny. New
York: College Art Association, 1964.
Stoddard, Whitney S. Monastery and Cathedral in France. Middletown: Wesleyan University
Press, 1966.
BESTIARY
. A treatise on animals, usually offering a symbolic or allegorical interpretation of their
traits. Old French bestiaries derive ultimately from the Physiologus, a Greek text that
originated in Alexandria in late antiquity and was translated into Latin sometime between
the 4th and the early 6th centuries. The Physiologus consists of descriptions of birds,
animals, and stones, based largely on legend and subjected to allegorical interpretation.
Vernacular bestiaries can feature moral, spiritual, or amorous allegory.
Four French bestiaries survive from the 12th and early 13th centuries. The oldest is the
Anglo-Norman bestiary of Philippe de Thaün, dedicated to Adeliza (Aaliz) de Louvain,
second wife of Henry I of England, and dating from ca. 1125. The bestiary of Gervaise
was produced toward the beginning of the 13th century; those of Guillaume le Clerc (also
known as Guillaume le Normand) and Pierre de Beauvais were completed within the first
two decades of the century. The best known is that of Guillaume le Clerc, which was one
of the most important vernacular sources for the Physiologus material. In all four of these
The Encyclopedia 225