Palermo, La Martorana, dome mosaics, 1143 and later.
Join leading medieval art historian Sally Dormer for ARTscapades unique short course on the Norman kings who governed the island between 1130 and 1194, bringing stability and prosperity. Their culturally diverse kingdom was enriched with sumptuous monuments and artefacts, many of which still survive in Palermo, its environs, and elsewhere.
Study evening - includes two lectures, Q&A and a short break. Tickets £20
Lecture One: Art and Power
The Norman rulers of Sicily manipulated visual display with skill to promote the impression of a unified society that accommodated Muslims and Jews as well as Latin and Greek Christians, aiming thereby to consolidate and maintain their authority over a patchwork of racial and religious groups. To encourage this they commissioned stunning artefacts: mappa mundi or world maps; dynastic tombs worked from purple porphyry; embroidered silk textiles encrusted with pearls and precious stones; caskets and hunting horns carved from elephant tusk ivory; intricately painted wooden ceilings, and monumental doors cast from copper alloy. These commissions, many of which live now in museum collections scattered across the globe, will form the focus of this session.
Lecture Two: Mosaic Messages
The Normans also commissioned a series of buildings with interiors sheathed in glittering mosaics. These range from the Capella Palatina, the private royal chapel in the Norman Palace (Palazzo dei Normanni), Palermo, to pleasure palaces on the city outskirts; from the vast cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale, to more private churches like Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio, Palermo, known as “La Martorana”. The iconography of these vast mosaic programs, which cover acres of walls and vaults and required hundreds of thousands of glass tesserae and prodigious hours of labour to produce, declare the wealth and political aspirations of the Norman kings and their courtiers, as well as casting light on the considerable skills of the mosaicists.
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This is an online event hosted on Zoom which can be watched live, or on-demand for one month afterwards. You will receive your link to access the event in your email confirmation and the on-demand link after the event ends.