452 Chapter 17 ROMANESQUE EUROPE17-28Wiligelmo,
creation and temptation
of Adam and Eve,
detail of the frieze on
the west facade, Modena
Cathedral, Modena,
Italy, ca. 1110. Marble,
3 high.
For Modena’s cathedral,
Wiligelmo represented
scenes from Genesis
against an architectural
backdrop of a type com-
mon on Roman and
Early Christian sarcoph-
agi, which were plentiful
in the area.three equal compartments. The arches rise from compound piers
and brace the rather high, thin walls. They also provide firebreaks
beneath the wooden roof and compartmentalize the basilican in-
terior in the manner so popular with most Romanesque builders.
The compound piers alternate with pairs of simple columns with
Roman-revival Composite capitals.
MODENA CATHEDRAL Despite the pronounced structural
differences between Italian Romanesque churches and those of France,
Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire, Italian church officials also fre-
quently employed sculptors to adorn the facades of their buildings. In
fact, one of the first examples of fully developed narrative relief sculp-
ture in Romanesque art is the marble frieze (FIG. 17-28) on the facade
of Modena Cathedral in northern Italy. Carved around 1110, it rep-
resents scenes from Genesis set against an architectural backdrop of
a type common on Roman and Early Christian sarcophagi, which
were plentiful in the area. The segment in FIG. 17-28illustrates the
creation and temptation of Adam and Eve (Gen. 2, 3:1–8), the theme
employed almost exactly a century earlier on Bishop Bernward’s
bronze doors (FIG. 16-24) at Hildesheim. At Modena, as at Saint
Michael’s, the faithful entered the Lord’s house with a reminder of
Original Sin and the suggestion that the only path to salvation is
through the Christian Church.
On the Modena frieze, Christ is at the far left, framed by a man-
dorla held up by angels—a variation on the motif of the Saint-Sernin
ambulatory relief (FIG. 17-7). The creation of Adam, then Eve, and the
serpent’s temptation of Eve are to the right. The relief carving is high,
and some parts are almost entirely in the round. The frieze is the work
of a master craftsman whose name,Wiligelmo,is given in an inscrip-
tion on another relief on the facade. There he boasts, “Among sculp-
tors, your work shines forth, Wiligelmo.” The inscription is also an in-
dication of the pride Wiligelmo’s patrons had in obtaining the services
of such an accomplished sculptor for their city’s cathedral.
BENEDETTO ANTELAMIThe reawakening of interest in
stone sculpture in the round also may be seen in northern Italy,
where the sculptor Benedetto Antelamiwas active in the last
quarter of the 12th century. Several reliefs by his hand exist, includ-
ing Parma Cathedral’s pulpit and the portals of that city’s baptistery.
But his most unusual works are the monumental marble statues of
two Old Testament figures he carved for the west facade of Fidenza
Cathedral. Benedetto’s King David (FIG. 17-29) seems confined
within his niche, and he holds his elbows close to his body. Absent is17-27Interior of San Miniato al Monte, Florence, Italy, ca. 1062–1090.
The design of San Miniato is close to that of Early Christian basilicas,
but diaphragm arches divide the nave into three equal compartments,
and compound piers alternate with columns in the arcade.SAN MINIATO AL MONTE Contemporaneous with the San
Giovanni baptistery and also featuring elaborate marble incrusta-
tion is the Benedictine abbey church of San Miniato al Monte
(FIG. 17-27). It sits, as its name implies, on a hillside overlooking
the Arno River and the heart of Florence. The builders completed
the body of the church by 1090, its facade not until the early 13th
century. Even more than Pisa Cathedral, the structure recalls the
Early Christian basilica, but diaphragm arches divide its nave into1 ft.17-27AEntomb-
ment of Christ,
Sant’Angelo in
Formis, ca. 1085.