Gardners Art through the Ages A Global History

FRANCE AND NORTHERN SPAIN

❚Romanesquetakes its name from the Roman-like barrel and groin vaults based on round arches
employed in many European churches built between 1050 and 1200. Romanesque vaults, however,
are made of stone, not concrete.

❚Numerous churches sprang up along the pilgrimage roads leading to the shrine of Saint James at
Santiago de Compostela. These churches were large enough to accommodate crowds of pilgrims
who came to view the relics displayed in radiating chapels off the ambulatory and transept.

❚The Romanesque period also brought the revival of monumental stone relief sculpture, especially
on church facades, where scenes of Christ as Last Judge often greeted the faithful as they entered
the doorway to salvation.

❚The leading patrons of Romanesque sculpture and painting were the monks of the Cluniac order.
The Cistercians, under the leadership of Bernard of Clairvaux, condemned figural art in churches
and religious books.

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

❚In the Romanesque period, the Salian dynasty (r. 1027–1125) ruled an empire that corresponds
roughly to present-day Germany and northern Italy.

❚Architects in the Holy Roman Empire built structurally innovative churches. Speyer Cathedral and
Sant’Ambrogio in Milan are two of the earliest examples of the use of groin vaults in naves.

❚In Belgium, sculptors excelled in metalwork, producing costly reliquaries of silver, jewels, and
enamel. Rainer of Huy, one of several Romanesque artists whose name is known, cast a baptismal
font in a single piece.

ITALY

❚The regional diversity of Romanesque art and architecture is especially evident in Italy, where the
ancient Roman and Early Christian heritage was strongest.

❚Romanesque churches in Pisa and Florence have wooden roofs in contrast to the vaulted interiors
of northern buildings. The exteriors often feature marble paneling of different colors. Church
campaniles were usually freestanding, and baptisteries were independent central-plan buildings
facing the cathedral.

NORMANDY AND ENGLAND

❚After their conversion to Christianity in the early 10th century, the Vikings settled on the northern
coast of France. From there, Duke William of Normandy crossed the channel and conquered
England in 1066. The Bayeux Tapestrychronicles that war—a unique example of contemporaneous
historical narrative art in the Middle Ages.

❚Norman and English Romanesque architects introduced new features to church design that greatly
influenced French Gothic architecture. Saint-Étienne at Caen and Durham Cathedral are the earliest
examples of the use of rib groin vaults over a three-story nave elevation (arcade-tribune-clerestory).
The Durham builders also experimented with quadrant arches in the tribune to buttress the nave
vaults.

THE BIG PICTURE

ROMANESQUE EUROPE

Saint-Sernin, Toulouse,

ca. 1070–1120

Saint-Pierre, Moissac,

ca. 1115–1135

Rainer of Huy, baptismal font,

1118

Cathedral complex, Pisa,

11th–12th centuries

Bayeux Tapestry,ca. 1070–1080