Romanesque Patrons and Processes

From the beginning of 20th century onwards both local and foreign scholars have pointed to the precocity of Catalan art and architecture around the first decades of the 11th century. If First Romanesque Architecture managed to recover Roman constructional techniques, such as opus latericium (Sant Martí del Canigó) and caementicium (Sant Miquel de Cuixà) (Figure 12.1),¹ in this same series of monuments (Girona and Urgell Cathedrals) we can see the carving of lavish marble altar tables decorated in their upper part with a border featuring arched lobes that evoke those of Early Christian Art in Aquitaine and the Narbonnais.² Nevertheless, the most striking phenomenon in this field is the ephemeral and intriguing appearance of the earliest sculpted façades of Romanesque Europe in Roussillon (St-Genis-des-Fontaines, Saint-André-de-Sorède, Arles-sur-Tech) and Ampordà (Sant Pere de Rodes). Although scholars have so far been unable to find a reasonable explanation for this extraordinary development, it makes most sense to think that we are dealing with a transposition of formats, in which the long-standing Carolingian tradition of metal altar-frontals was literally exteriorised, and brought out from the interior of the church, to decorate the lintels of its entrance.³

In this respect, the emergence of these incipient façades might be related to the new function of the spaces adjacent to them: the sagreres or sacred spaces.⁴ As a result of the violent feudal struggles in which the nobility tried to suppress the rights of the peasantry and seize their crops, the Church protected areas of up to 30 paces – named sagreres or celleres – around every church to avoid the voracity of the magnates.⁵ Roussillon and the diocese of Elne was one of the centres of the Peace of God movement in the 1020s, which was precisely the decade which saw the emergence of these ‘apotropaic’ façades. The Synod of Toulouges, presided over in 1027 by the abbot-bishop Oliba, marked the peak of this process of the sacralisation of the space surrounding the church: ‘neque aliquis auderet ecclesiam vel domos (clericum) in circuitu positas a XXX passibus violare aut assallire’ (‘No one should dare to violate or assault churches or houses of the clergy which are situated within a range of 30 steps’).⁶ The new apocalyptic carvings (Fontaines, Sorède) (Figure 12.2) and crosses (Arles) decorating the ‘face’ of these temples seem to have been thought to stress the protective role of the Church in the parish communities and the double function of the churchyard as cemetery and storage.

Oliba in his role as ecclesiastical reformer and promoter of the arts was undoubtedly one of the main protagonists in the development of this peculiar First Romanesque Art. Differences aside, the role he played is very similar to that of some of his contemporaries, such as St Dunstan in England, Gauzlin at Fleury and St Bernward at Hildesheim. Belonging to the comital family of Cerdanya, he took over some of the great ecclesiastical offices of 11th-century Catalunya, becoming abbot of the Benedictine monasteries of Ripoll and Cuixà (1008) and bishop of Vic (1017).⁷ From its foundation Ripoll was the mausoleum for the counts of Barcelona, Cerdanya and Besalú, and from the second half of the 10th century became an international centre for the study of the quadrivium, having connexions with the most important abbeys in the post-Carolingian world. One of the main tasks of Oliba and his namesake, Oliva, the master of the quadrivium, was the improvement of the famous library of the abbey, increasing the number of books from 65 in 977 to 246 in 1047.⁸

Hence one can imagine frantic activity in the scriptorium, as well as a well-documented exchange of manuscripts, objects and relics with places such as Fleury in France, Lodi in Lombardy or Montecassino in southern Italy, where, according to the Chronica Monasterii Casinesis, Oliba’s father, Oliba Cabreta, count of Cerdanya, retired in 988 and died in 990.⁹ Understandably many scholars have speculated about the artistic consequences of the two journeys made by Abbot Oliba to Rome in 1011 and 1116–17 to obtain Papal immunity for the monastery of Ripoll, as well as confirmations of its lands.¹⁰

A long list of peculiar features or choices in Catalan art during the period of his active patronage has been attributed to this direct contact with the other side of the Western Mediterranean: was the Pessebre at Saint Miquel de Cuixà (1035) (Figure 12.1) a citation of the Crib at Santa Maria Maggiore? Were the round plan of the church of Santa Maria de Vic (1038), or the five-aisled plan of Ripoll (consecrated in 1032), respectively a medieval copy of Santa Maria ad Martyres (Pantheon) and St Peters in Rome?¹¹ Were the silver-altar-frontal and canopy of the monastic church at Ripoll, no longer extant, an evocation of the lavish furnishings of the major Roman basilicas such as Saint Peter’s, The Lateran or Santa Maria Maggiore?¹² Why do the giant Ripoll Bibles remind us of the ancient traditions of Christian iconography, such as Roman depictions of Genesis (San Paolo fuori le Mura, San Giovanni a Porta Latina) or papyrus-style illustrations of the New Testament?¹³ Were these bibles the result of a collection of images that had been gathered by Oliba’s entourage specifically in order to provide iconographic patterns for the paintings of the basilica of Ripoll as was the case in the famous passage of the Life of Saint-Pancras of Taormina (8th century)?¹⁴ Was the original aspect of Ripoll, as many scholars from the 19th century onwards have suggested, a true basilica picta following the model of the major Roman churches?¹⁵

Angels on earth: Oliba and his entourage

There are many open questions, but equally many clues that point to the agency¹⁶ of Oliba, along with his inner circle of advisers, in taking the lead in the whole artistic process. When his beloved brother, Count Bernat Tallaferro of Besalú, tragically died in 1020 he bequeathed all his gold and silver vessels to Ripoll, where he had decided to be buried (‘Vascula sua aurea et argentea quod ad ipso die habebat, donare faciant ad coenobium Sancta Maria Riopollenti, et cum corpus suum ibidem presentetur’) (‘The golden and silver vessels that at that time belong to him should be given to the monastery of Santa Maria at Ripoll, and brought there along with his corpse’).¹⁷ Shortly afterwards (1024–25), Oliba wrote a letter to the king of Navarre, Sancho III el Mayor, then the most powerful ruler in the Iberian Peninsula, asking for money for the work on the new basilica that he had begun some years before, and finally consecrated in 1032. In exchange for his generosity Oliba promised Sancho divine assistance against his enemies, the Muslims, as well as an eternal reward on the Day of the Last Judgement:

As with many Romanesque patrons, Oliba considered himself to be a true author, in the Latin sense of the word. According to Isidore of Seville the auctor is he who carries out a work or he who provides the resources to produce it.¹⁹ Hence Oliba did not hesitate to display his name so that everyone could see it, both at the entrance to the basilica and on the silver altar-frontal:

Following a Neo-Platonist approach to art, Oliba presented himself as a true intellectual author who, having access to the divine will, was able to bring about the work of art. This is an ancient topos of Benedictine literature which describes its abbots as agents of the divine driving-force, and could even characterize them as angels, such as in the cases of Odo of Cluny (927–42) or Begon III of Conques (1087–1107). In this peculiar vision of the Father Abbot Oliba (‘Abba pater’),²² as vir perfectus (perfect man), celestial body and charismatic master, Ripoll became a type of showcase for the ideals of 11th-century monastic and cathedral schools, as discussed by Stephen Jaeger in his book The Envy of Angels.²³ Indeed, the abbot-bishop is described as recognisable as just such an angel by his face in a letter addressed to Oliba from Fleury in 1023 by Joan of Montserrat, a former monk of Ripoll: ‘Angelus in facie semper dinosceris esse; pares cum luce, angelus in facie’ (‘Angel (you) will always be recognised by your face; with light, you are like an angel in your face’).²⁴ It is not by chance that in his letter – sermon on the dedication of the new church of Cuixà in 1035, Garsias, a monk belonging to Oliba’s entourage, describes Garí (Warinus), the abbot responsible for finishing the first construction of the church in 974, as ‘angelus vel caelestis homo’ in order to praise his skills as vir perfectus et charismaticus:

In this same text, the author also mentioned a close collaborator of Abbot Oliba in the artistic enterprise of the restoration of the church of Sant Miquel de Cuixà in 1035: his namesake Oliba or Oliva,

This monk should be identified with the master of quadrivium in the Ripoll abbey who stood out for being the author of a Treatise on Music (Breviarium de musica and Versus monochordi) (after 1036) (Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó, Ms. Ripoll 42) and compiled a profusely illustrated compilation of computus and astronomy dated to 1055 (Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Reg. Lat. 123).²⁷ According to the sermon, the monk Oliva helped his master, Abbot Oliba, in all these things – ‘iuvit eum in omnibus’–, but especially, as we can deduce from the aforementioned text, in the symbolism of one of the most innovative buildings of Cuixà: the famous circular and double-stored chapel located at the west end of the atrium. This had a lower crypt devoted to the Crib with side-chapels to the Archangels Gabriel and Raphael, and an upper level dedicated to the Trinity (Figure 12.3).²⁸ Indeed, it is not by chance that the passage with the mention of monk Oliva’s accurate supervision directly follows the famous ekphrasis of this unique structure. Furthermore, it is no coincidence that the Trinitarian symbolism is also explicit in other works composed and signed by monk Oliva, Breviarium de musica and Versus monochordi (Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó, ms. 42).²⁹ So, it is worth noting that the prosopropeia or commemorative signature of the manuscript containing these texts (f. 6r) – in which is mentioned the names of abbot Oliba as devisor of the work and those of the scribe (Arnaldus) and illustrator (Gualterus) – not only is accompanied on both sides by the word Trinitas (left) and the initials of the Holy Trinity in Greek (right) – P(ater), Vi(os), P(neuma) – but also preceded by a diagram depicting the tripartite division of music – mundana, intrumentalis, humana.³⁰

In my opinion, this close collaboration between Oliba and his master of quadrivium can explain some peculiar numerical features of the architecture promoted by the abbot-bishop. Like Bernward at Saint Michael in Hildesheim,³¹ Oliba’s interest in the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy) seems to have extended to applying the principles of Boethius to this new architecture. For instance, the measures of the plan of the Ripoll basilica – 40 by 60 m – are based the sesquialtera proportion (2:3) (Figure 12.4), a well-known Boethian proportion related to the golden ratio that is explained in the Treatise on Music and accompanied by a schematic drawing (f. 10r).³² Furthermore, the series of arches and columns of the new hypostyle halls of the crypts in Saint-Martin du Canigou (1009), the cathedral of Vic (1038) and Sant Vicenç de Cardona (1040) (Figure 12.5) seem to evoke numerical rhythms of even numbers such as that depicted in the 11th-century copy of Boethius’s De Arithmetica made in the monastery (Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó, Ms. Ripoll 168, f. 69r) (Figure 12.6).³³ Compelling evidence of this interest in making explicit Boethian arithmetic in the structure of the buildings is the depiction of the Temple of Solomon in the Ripoll Bible (Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Lat. 5729, f. 95v) (Figure 12.7). As the archetype of divine measures and proportions, the illuminator drew it as a large hypostyle hall in which rounded arches intersect like those in the differentie pares in the above-mentioned drawing.

It is worth noting that Oliba was not only concerned with presenting himself as the wise builder of those monuments directly related to him, such as Ripoll (‘Praesul Oliva sacram struxit hic funditus aulam’), Cuixà or Vic – true indexes of Oliba’s agency-, but also in being actively involved in a large number of buildings. Probably his participation in the first consecrations of Saint-Martin du Canigou (1009), Sant Pere de Rodes (1022), Girona Cathedral (1038) or Sant Vicenç de Cardona (1040) (Figure 12.5) can be related, particularly the latter three, to his role as bishop of Vic. The diocese claimed from the second half of the 10th century to be the successor of the metropolitan see of Tarragona in expectation of the eagerly-awaited re-conquest of that city.

It is very likely that his patronage provided a prestigious model for the laity. Among his major works were the now-destroyed lavish furnishings of the high altar of the monastery church of Santa Maria de Ripoll in 1032, especially a golden altar frontal decorated with precious stones and sixteen enamels, whose sides were covered by two smaller panels in silver: ‘In primis, in altare sancte Dei genitricis Marie tabulam coopertam auro cum lapidibus et esmaltis XVI; tabulas cooperta argento II.’³⁴ It is not by chance that a few years later, in 1038, the Countess Ermessenda (c. 975–1058), sister of the Girona prelate, Pere Roger (1010–50) – both members of the comital family of Carcassone – and widow of Ramón Borrell II, Count of Barcelona, donated an enormous quantity of gold (300 uncias) for the construction of a golden frontal, during the consecration ceremony of Girona cathedral in presence of Oliba: ‘ad honorem Dei et matris ecclesie trecentas auri contulit uncias ad auream construendam tabulam’.³⁵

From the description made by J. Villanueva at the beginning of the 19th century, we know that this golden panel centered on a great mandorla enclosing the Virgin Mary, surrounded by the four Evangelists in enamel and tituli, as well as thirty-two compartments in cloisonné enamel depicting the life of Christ (Figure 12.8).³⁶ This raises a number of questions: were the enamels of the golden frontal of Ripoll decorated with these same subjects? Were the models for these scenes taken from the New Testament cycle in the Ripoll Bible? At the foot of the central mandorla of the Virgin there were the names of the female patrons: ‘Ermensindis’ and ‘Gisla cometissa fieri jussit’ (‘Countess Gisla ordered to make (this work)’). While the first was simply carved on a seal in chalcedony, the second surrounded an enamel with a seated portrait of the Countess Guisla de Lluçà (d. 1079). She was the second wife of Berenguer Ramon I (d. 1035), the son of Ermessenda and the count of Barcelona. After the death of the count, Guisla married Udalard II, viscount of Barcelona in 1037. Guisla probably offered the golden altar frontal to Girona cathedral with her former mother-in-law, between 1038, the date when the high altar was consecrated, and 1041, the year her step-son Ramon Berenguer I (1023–76), who was heir to the county and who was protected by Ermessenda, came of age.³⁷

The Church as a bride: aristocratic linage and female patronage’s aesthetics

The ubiquitous and varied role of women in the patronage of 11th-century Catalan art is also worth underlining and characterising. Ermessenda (972–1058), mentioned above, was very involved in financing the construction of Girona cathedral. First, together with her husband, in 1015 she paid the large amount of 100 golden uncias to buy the church of Sant Daniel at Girona from her brother, Pere Roger, bishop of Girona, who had started the new cathedral around 1010 and needed, according to this record, money to renew the covering of the cathedral church. A few years later, in 1018, Ermessenda founded a Benedictine nunnery at Sant Daniel with an important gift for the salvation of the soul of her husband, who had recently died in 1017.³⁸ Finally, in 1038, she gave the enormous amount of 300 golden uncias for the altar-frontal of the Cathedral and decided to be buried in the Galilee of this new building.³⁹ This new financial capacity resulted from the Catalan sack of Cordoba in 1010, after the collapse of the Caliphate, and the consequent expeditions of her husband to the valleys of the Ebro and Segre in 1015–16. So, as regent of the county of Barcelona and recipient of tributes from the Taifa Kingdom of Zaragoza, she had a seal in chalcedony showing a double signature in Latin and Arabic – which was precisely that set in the golden frontal of the cathedral of Girona⁴⁰ – and she used to enjoy playing chess with lavish Fatimid crystal chess pieces which she assigned in her will to the church of Saint-Gilles at Nîmes.

Aristocratic women played an important role in the making of the new feudal society as guarantors of the stability of a lineage as well as in alliances between members of the warrior class. The Church was extremely interested in protecting women. Furthermore, aristocratic women controlled the dowry they received from their fathers, and were given a special letter of marital donation or agreement (scriptura donationis causa sponsalitii), in which the husband gave to his wife a third of his heritage.⁴¹ It seems that they freely used this dowry in the promotion or patronage of works of art as we have just seen in the cases of Ermessenda or Guisla of Llucà.⁴² In the same years, another countess, Guisla of Cerdanya made an important gift of lands and textiles to Saint-Martin du Canigou, then under construction.⁴³ Finally, at the end of the century, it is very likely that the Norman princess Mahaut or Matilde (1060–1112), following female models such as Ermessenda and Guisla in Girona, or even her mother Sikelgaita at Montecassino, protected the Benedictine nunnery of Sant Daniel in order to make a special gift to Girona Cathedral of the Creation Tapestry made around 1097 (Figure 12.9).⁴⁴ This huge embroidery might have commemorated the coming of age of her son, Ramon Berenguer III, and celebrated the alliance between the reformed Gregorian Church and the new count of Barcelona and eventually was used as an Easter cloth – probably a ceremonial carpet – for the liturgy of the cathedral.⁴⁵

This extraordinary item opens a new topic: the production of textiles by women in nunneries for the furnishing of altars, and the remarkable presence of the names of women on those fabrics as authors, as on the Stole of Saint Narcissus (MARIA ME FECIT) (c. 1038) (Figure 12.10) in the church of Sant Feliu in Girona or on the Saint Odo Banner (c. 1133–34) at the Cathedral of Urgell (ELISAVA ME FECIT).⁴⁶ On the one hand, this might be related to the legendary model of the Virgin Mary embroidering the Purple and the Scarlet of the Veil of the Temple of Jerusalem as is told in the Protoevangelion of St James (11:1).⁴⁷ Moreover, the sacred and biblical status of liturgical vestments as part of the new Ark of Covenant (altar) and Temple of Jerusalem (church) was especially highlighted in the liturgical texts in use during this period in Catalonia.⁴⁸ This is evident from the Narbonais-Catalan Ordo used in the Catalan dioceses as suffragans of the archbishopric of Narbonne until 1120–25. In the rite of consecration of the Sacramentary, Ritual and Pontifical of Roda d’Isàvena (Arxiu Capitular de Lleida, Ms. Re-0036, around 1000–18), the cloths covering the altar are compared to the embroideries made by Virgin Mary to adorn the sancta sanctorum of the Temple of Jerusalem: ‘(lintemina) que maria texuit et fecit in usum ministerii tabernaculis federis’ (‘cloths that Mary weaved and made to be used at the service of the covenant of Tabernacle’).⁴⁹

On the other hand, the charters made on the occasion of the consecration of a church, known in Catalonia as dotalies, were made following formulae used for marriage agreements, in which the patron gave a dowry to the church thus metaphorically marrying Christ.⁵⁰ In this connection, one might understand the preference of women such as Ermessenda, Guisla of Lluçà, Guisla of Cerdanya or Matilde for metalwork and textiles in their generous donations to the churches. Their precious gifts can be seen as a gender metaphor that expresses their identification with the role of Church as a bride.

Under the seal of the Gregorian reform: princely programmes and dogmatic choices around 1100

At this point, it is worth noting that until the end of the comital period in 1137 – year of the union with the Crown of Aragon – Catalonia was not a centre but a periphery. Being outside the orbit of the major royal powers, and therefore without a courtly art, the Marca Hispanica remained distant from the artistic centres of Carolingian and Post-Carolingian art. Besides, it was without a true metropolitan see sited in its territory until the conquest of Tarragona from the Muslims in 1116–17 and the subsequent reestablishment of the ancient archdiocese in 1118. Hence, as has been seen, from the very outset the local Church, together with the lay magnates, promoted artistic patronage in an attempt to shore up their ecclesiastical and political status, based on their alliance with the Papacy. It is true that the Bishop-Abbot Oliba and his comital entourage had been able to lead in the first half of the 11th century what M. Zimmermann has defined as the Catalan mini-renaissance classique,⁵¹ which is distinguished by very specific and peculiar features in architecture, manuscript illumination and written culture. However, in the third quarter of the century this inner phenomenon waned and a new external movement seems to have replaced it: that of the Gregorian Reform, in which the Roman Church took over the leadership of the Christian society and tried to promote dogmatic programmes based on the primacy of Sacerdotium over Regnum. Well-known examples such as that of Odo, bishop of La Seu d’Urgell (1095–1122) and his relatives, the Counts of Pallars, or that of Ramon, bishop of Roda de Isàvena (1104–1126), all eloquently demonstrate the transformation of the monumental arts during the late 11th and early 12th centuries, as well as the role of extensive painted figurative cycles as a privileged medium to display new content.

It is highly likely that the impressive Creation Tapestry that is kept in the Treasury of Girona cathedral was an attempt to combine the old and new trends of Catalan art. On the one hand, its rich repertoire of images, which mostly derived from biblical and astronomical manuscripts, witnesses the survival, at the end of the century, of the prestige of the monastic culture that had flourished at Ripoll some decades before.⁵² Furthermore, the offering of an embroidery to enrich the liturgical furniture of the high altar connects with the long tradition of Catalan countesses to adorn the church as a bride. Notwithstanding this, the Creation Tapestry announces a new era of Catalan art, in which monumental pictorial programmes are used to express the leading role of the Church in society and the compromise of the comital houses to it.

To this extent, it is worth mentioning that in 1097, the Papal Legate, Bernard de Sedirac, archbishop of Toledo, presided over a Council in Girona to promote the pact between the new Count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer III (1097–1131), and the Count of Pallars, Artaud II (1081–1126), to conquer Tortosa and Tarragona.⁵³ It presupposed a new dynamic in the relationships between Rome and the Catalan counties in which the making of the Creation Tapestry – a true princely programme – can be seen as a political manifesto. In this respect, I have elsewhere tried to underline the implications of the exceptional depictions of Hercules (Figure 12.11), Samson (Figure 12.12) and Constantine in the embroidery and their possible relationship with the iconography of the Throne of St Peter (Cathedra Petri) and the political theories of the Gregorian Reform that were developed in this council.⁵⁴ Similarly, the bishop’s throne in Girona (Figure 12.13) might belong to the same initiative and should be understood as a direct reference to the episcopal thrones of Norman southern Italy in Salerno, Canosa and Bari.⁵⁵ Moreover, the inclusion of a semi-nude Hercules bearing a lion skin close to a tree in the iconographic programme of the Creation Tapestry should be understood as an explicit reference to the Garden of the Hesperides. The alleged location of this eleventh Labour of the Greek hero in Hispania nourished the imagination of geographers and historians during the whole of the Middle Ages. They identified Hesperia with the Iberian Peninsula and Hercules became the mythical founder of many cities in these lands such as Barcelona or Urgell.⁵⁶ It is not a coincidence that in those years the Norman chronicle Gesta Roberti Wiscardi written by Willian of Apulia referred to Ramon Berenguer II, father of Ramon Berenguer III, as from the Hesperides (‘partibus Esperiae’),⁵⁷ when he travelled to Southern Italy in 1078 in order to request a blessing for his marriage to the Italo-Norman princess, Matilde, who would eventually be the patron of the Creation Tapestry. As result, the exceptional presence of Hercules in the Tapestry highlights the leading role of the Count of Barcelona in the Christian Reconquista under the protection of the Church. Ultimately, the inclusion of Hercules was not only a reference to his mythical origins but also an example of virtus and strength for any Christian ruler whose biblical prototype was Samson.⁵⁸

It is not by chance that at the very same moment, in the other branch of the Catalan alliance in 1097, the County of Pallars-Sobirà, one can notice the emergence of a new art based on similar compromises between lay rulers and the Church, whose artistic language is deeply rooted in Roman and southern Italian sources. I am here referring to the mural paintings of San Pere del Burgal (1097–1106), currently kept in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catlunya (MNAC 113138), that have been related to the activity of the so-called Master of Pedret workshop (Figure 12.14).⁵⁹ As many scholars have pointed out, the depiction of three lay figures occupied the lower part of the area of the central apse, with that of the Countess Lucy of Pallars (also known as Lucia de la Marca, † 1090) bearing a candle on the right side ((LUC)IA CONMITESA) (Figure 12.15), while other members of her family are represented in the left outer wall of the apse entrance (Figure 12.16). J. Ainaud was the first scholar to identify the standing female figure on the right as a depiction of Countess Lucy in the 1960s. As this was only the lay portrait belonging to the set visible at the time, Ainaud proposed that the paintings should be dated between 1081 and 1090, a period in which Lucy was involved in the county government after the death of his husband, Artaud I.⁶⁰ However, during the restoration carried out in the year 1998, a new layer of paintings depicting a religious man and a lay woman came to light on the left side of the outer wall of the entrance to the apse.⁶¹

It is obvious that these new findings raised new questions on the identity of the portraits, as well as on the date of the setting. First, it made sense that the isolated figure of Lucy had the privilege of being in the most sacred space of the apse, at the foot of the apostles, because it acted not as a portrayal of a woman alive but as a funerary portrait.⁶² Second, her candle reminds us of the iconography of the Wise Virgins at Pedret (Figure 12.17) and, consequently, that she has already reached the delights of Paradise (Mat. 25:13).

In front of the altar, facing the aisles, there are the depictions of her son, Odo, the bishop of La Seu d’Urgell (1095–1122), and probably her daughter-in-law, Eslonça, the new countess of Pallars.⁶³ Both of them had showed a special devotion to the memory of the dead: Eslonça and her husband Artaud II gave a rent to the comital monastery of Santa Maria del Gerri to light a candle for their ancestors in 1099, while in 1106 Saint Odo favoured in the same monastery a lay confraternity for the remembrance of the patrons and the comital family. To this extent, it is worth noting that although Sant Pere del Burgal had been given at the beginning of the 9th century to the abbey of La Grassa, the monastery of Santa Maria of Gerri claimed its property.⁶⁴ So, it is highly likely that the iconographic programme of the paintings of El Burgal, with a depiction of the comital family, was probably made between 1097 and 1106 as a means of highlighting the monastery’s fidelity to the members of the house of Pallars-Sobira and their ecclesiastical policy in order to keep their protection against the pretentions of El Gerri.

If the depiction of the comital family occupied the lower register of the paintings, the Church is displayed in the central register of the apse. It shows the Church of the Gregorian Reform, especially evoked by the depiction of a synthronon where some of the Apostles, the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist are seated. All the subjects are designed to stress their relationship to the principles of the Gregorian Reform as regards the primacy of the Pope or the defence of the dogma of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, against the ideas of Berenger of Tours.⁶⁵ So, the Byzantine iconography of the Deesis, where Mary and John the Baptist acted as mediators before God, became a means for emphasizing the Eucharist through the attributes held by Mary-Ecclesia (the chalice containing the blood of Christ) and Saint John the Baptist (the clipeus with the Lamb of God). Likewise, the depiction of the Apostles is a pretext for highlighting the central role of the visible heads of the Roman Church, Saint Peter (bearing the keys) and Saint Paul.⁶⁶

Epilogue

From that time onward, the Catalan sees seem to adopt a policy to update their institutions in many fields, abandoning the old-fashioned Catalan-Narbonnais liturgy for the Roman liturgy, reforming their collegiate chapters and transforming or redecorating their buildings. Both Saint Odo at Urgell (1095–1122)⁶⁷ and Saint Ramon at Roda d’Isàvena (1104–26),⁶⁸ two contemporary prelates and rivals, are very good examples of this process.

Another fascinating topic related to the decade of the 1120s is the development of panel painting techniques under the wing of great ecclesiastic centres such as Ripoll, Vic or Urgell, whose institutions, being the repository of the necessary technical knowledge and a long-standing tradition of illumination, oversaw the work and training of the painters. These workshops, probably located in the actual cathedral or monastery buildings and formed by ecclesiastical painters (clerici), supplied the parishes of the diocese or of the territory of the abbey with liturgical furnishings (altar frontals, beams and canopies) that ensured liturgically enriched worship and helped spread the dogma. They were clearly relatively cheap objects when compared with the magnificence of the great metalwork altars of the great production centres, but they were sufficiently eye-catching to contribute to the aesthetic of the Christian mystery of the Incarnation.⁶⁹

Although the territorial expansion of the county of Barcelona and its incorporation into the Crown of Aragon in the middle of the 12th century marked a new era and dimension for Catalan art, many outstanding examples of the figurative arts at the period should be seen as a revival of earlier trends, or more specifically an extension of these earlier traditions into new media. This is the case, for instance, of the ‘triumphal’ Portal at Ripoll (1134–50), which epitomised all the traditions of the old monastic school of Ripoll (illumination, panel painting and the classical heritage) into the new language of monumental sculpture.⁷⁰

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to John McNeill and Richard Plant for their help and patient editorial work. This contribution is the fruit of research developed for the projects carried out at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona: Artistas, Patronos y Público. Cataluña y el Mediterráneo (siglos XI-XV)-MAGISTRI CATALONIAE (MICINN-HAR 2 0 1 1–2 3 0 15) and Movilidad y transferencia artística en el Mediterráneo medieval, 1187–1388: artisas, objetos y modelos.-MAGISTRI MEDITERRANEI (MICINN- HAR2015–63883-P).

Notes

¹J.-A. Adell i Gisbert, ‘L’aparició dels Magistri Comacini a Catalunya. Aspectes tecnològics i d’organització’, in Els “comacini” i l’arquitectura romànica a Catalunya, ed. P. Freixas and J. Camps (Barcelona 2010), 51–59.

²P. Ponsich, ‘Les tables d’autel à lobes de la province ecclésiastique de Narbonne (X–XIè siècles) et l’avènement de la sculpture monumentale en Roussillon’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, XIII (1982), 7–45

³P. Klein, ‘Les Portails de Saint-Genis-des-Fontaines et de Saint-André-de-Sorède, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 20 (1989), 121–59. See also: M. Durliat, Roussillon roman (Saint-Léger-Vauban 1958), 114–23; M. Durliat, ‘L’apparition du grand portail roman historié dans le Midi de la France et le Nord de l’Espagne’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 8 (1977), 7–24, at 9; O. Poisson, ‘Le linteau dans la façade: note sur les portails de Saint-Genis-des-Fontaines et de Saint-André (Roussillon)”, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 45 (2014), 197–209 (with a state of the question).

⁴A. Trivellone, ‘Le développement du décor monumental et la conquête de l’extérieur des églises: sagreres et façades catalanes au cours de la première moitié du XIè siècle, Les Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 46 (2011), 175–207.

⁵The holy ground of the sagrera or cellera usually encompassed a cemetery and a group of cellars in which parishioners kept their crops, A. Catafau, ‘Paroisse et cellera dans le diocese d’Elne Xè–XIIè siècles’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 20 (1999), 91–100. See also, A. Catafau, Les celleres et la naissance du village en Rousssillon (Xè–XVè siècles) (Perpignan 1998).

⁶E. Junyent, Diplomatari i escrits literaris de l’abat Oliba, ed. A. Mundó (Barcelona, 1995), doc. n. 92, p. 145.

⁷E. Junyent, Esbós biogràfic del comte, abat i bisbe Oliba, ed. R. Ordeig (Barcelona 2008), 11–14.

⁸M. Castiñeiras, ‘Ripoll et Gérone, deux exemples privilégiés du dialogue entre l’art roman et la culture classique’, Les Cahiers de Sain-Michel de Cuxa, 39 (2008), 161–80, at 161–70. For a general study of the library of Ripoll abbey during the office of Oliba, see R. Beer, Los manuscrits del monestir de Santa Maria de Ripoll (Barcelona 1909) (Butlletí de l’Acadèmia de Bones Lletres); M.E. Ibarburu, ‘L’escriptori de Santa Maria di Ripoll i els seus manuscrits’, in Catalunya Romànica. X. El Ripollès (Barcelona 1987), 276–82; M. Zimmermann, Écrire et lire en Catalogne (IXè–XIIè siècle), II, Paris, 2003, 674 ff.

⁹Chronica Monasterii Casinesis, II, 19, in Patrologia Latina, 173, ed. J-P. Migne (Paris 1895), cols. 605–06.

¹⁰R, de Abadal, L’abat Oliba, bisbe de Vic, i la seva época (Barcelona 1948), 81–95.

¹¹X. Barral, ‘Culture visuelle et réflexion architecturale au début du XIè siècle: les voyages de l’abbé-évêque Oliba (2è partie)’, Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 41 (2010), 211–26. See also my comments on this topic in: ‘La cuestión lombarda en el primer románico catalán’, in Il Medieoevo delle Cattedrali. Chiesa e Imperio: la lotta delle immagini (secoli XI e XII), ed. A.C. Quintavalle (Università di Parma- Milano 2006), 345–55, at 352–53.

¹²For this liturgical furniture and their intepretation, see my contribution: ‘El altar románico y su mobiliario litúrgico: frontales, vigas y baldaquinos’, in Mobiliario y ajuar litúrgico en las Iglesias románicas, ed. P.L. Huerta (Aguilar de Campoo 2011), 9–76, at 45–47.

¹³M. Castiñeiras, ‘From Chaos to Cosmos: the Creation Iconography in the Catalan Romanesque Bibles’, Arte medievale, Nuova Serie, 1 (2002), 35–50 ; M. Castiñeiras, ‘Le Nouveau Testament de la Bible de Ripoll et les anciennes traditions de l’iconographie chrétienne: du scriptorium de l’abbé Oliba à la peinture romane sur bois’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 40 (2009), 145–64.

¹⁴For the text of the Life of St Pancras, see: C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453 (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1972), 137 ff. For the Catalan Bibles of Ripoll and Rodes as a collection or catalogue of images, see: M. Castiñeiras and I. Lorés, ‘Las Biblias de Rodes i Ripoll: una encrucijada del arte románico en Catalunya’, in M. Guardia, C. Mancho (eds) Les fonts de la pintura romànica, Ars Picta. Temes, 1 (Barcelona 2008), 219–60.

¹⁵M. Castiñeiras, ‘De l’obra vista al revestiment de l’arquitectura: l’església pintada a la Catalunya romànica’, in Els “comacini” (as n. 1), 133–49, at 134–39; M. Castiñeiras, ‘The Portal at Ripoll Revisited: An Honorary Arch for the Ancestors’, in Romanesque and the Past, ed. J. McNeill, R. Plant (Leeds 2013), 121–42, at 124–27.

¹⁶I prefer to use here the term ‘agency’ instead of ‘patronage’ following Alfred Gell’s book: Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory (Oxford and New York 2010). Gell’s art theory places the emphasis on ‘agency’ – action or intervention producing a particular effect- to understand the status of art objects. As a result art is seen as ‘a system of action, intended to change the world rather to encode symbolic propositions about it’ (p. 6), and hence it must be conceptualised in social terms. Indexes (material entities), prototypes (objects or persons that indexes represent or stand for), artists (intermediate causes or authors of the index) and recipients (those who are affected by indexes) are the elements that conform to the different parts of what he calls the art nexus, in which agency is always mediated by indexes. The formula Recipient as Agent/ Index as Patient is the elementary relation of patronage, in which the patron regards himself as the author (p. 33). In my opinion, this is clearly the formula that defines Oliba’s artistic agency.

¹⁷Junyent, Diplomatari (as n. 6), doc. 65, p. 101.

¹⁸Junyent, Diplomatari (as n. 6), doc. 19, p. 333.

¹⁹‘Auctor ab augendo dictus’ (Auctor – promotor- derives from augere : to develop or carry out), Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, X, 2, ed. J. Oroz Reta, M-A., Marcos Casquero (Madrid 1993), vol. I, 802–03. For the peculiar concept of auctor and auctoritas as someone or something that is worthy to be imitated, see: A.J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship (Aldershot 1984), 9–12; E. Palazzo, ‘Le portrait d’auteur dans les manuscrits du Moyen Âge’, in M.Bobin (ed.) Portraits d’écrivains. La representation de l’auteur dans les manuscrits et les imprimés du Moyen Âge et de la première Renaissance (Poitiers 2002), 21–34, at 21. See also Gell, Art and Agency (as n.16) for a formula of patronage as authorship.

²⁰Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d’Aragó, Ms. 46, f. 21r. Cf. Junyent, Diplomatari (as n. 6), doc. 5, 308–09.

²¹This text was copied by Jaume Pujol, priest of Olot, between 1543–47, in a manuscript that belongs to Mr. Mascaró from Vilafranca del Penedès, J. Ainaud, ‘Una inscripció inèdita en vers de l’escola de Ripoll’, Estudis Romànics 8 (1961), 21–23; Junyent, Diplomatari (as n. 6), doc. 4, 308.

²²The loving expression ‘Abba Pater’ to address Oliba was used in a letter dated to 1023 by the monk of Fleury, Joan, who earlier had been brought up in Ripoll abbey together with Oliba and later became abbot of Santa Cecília de Montserrat before entering Fleury, Junyent, Diplomatari (as n. 6), doc. 13, 324.

²³C.S. Jaeger, The Envy of Angels. Cathedral Schools and Social Ideas in Medieval Europe, 950–1200 (Philadelphia 1994), 21–25, 76–81. According to Saint Augustine’s De civitate dei (XI, 29), angels as part of the divine Light can participate in the Wisdom of God and know better than anyone the art of Creation, Angelic Spirituality. Medieval Perspectives on the Ways of Angels, ed. S. Chase, E.H. Cousins (New York 2002), 89–90

²⁴Junyent, Diplomatari (as n. 6), doc. 13, 324–25.

²⁵Junyent, Diplomatari (as n. 6), doc. 28, 369–86, at 372. The letter-sermon of Garsias of Cuixà was written in 1043–44 and addressed to abbot Oliba as a reminder of the sermon that the latter had given in 1035 on the occasion of the restoration of the church:, see M. Zimmermann, ‘Sur la terre comme au ciel: la paix chrétienne. Oliba (1008–46), pacificateur et guide des âmes’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 40 (2009), 7–38, at 35–36; R. Ordeig i Mata, ‘La documentació del monestir de Cuixà referent a Oliba i als anys del seu abadiat’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa 40 (2009), 39–51, at 46–50. A French translation of the sermon is available: D. Codina, P. Bourgain, M. Besseyre, ‘Lettre-sermon du moine Garsias de Cuxa à l’abbé Oliba’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 40 (2009), 65–76.

²⁶Junyent, Diplomatari (as n. 6), 379. See also: J. Puig i Cadafalch et alii, L’arquitectura romànica a Catalunya, vol. II (Barcelona 1911), 70, n.2; H. Anglès, La música a Catalunya fins al segle XII (Barcelona 1935), 66; M. Castiñeiras, ‘Diagramas y esquemas cosmográficos en dos misceláneas de cómputo y astronomía de la abadía de Santa Maria de Ripoll (ss. XI–XII)’, Compostellanum, 43 (1998), 593–646, at 602.

²⁷Castiñeiras, ‘Diagramas’ (as n. 26), 594–620. Cf. A. García Avilés, El tiempo y los astros. Arte, ciencia y religión en la alta Edad Media (Universidad de Murcia 2001), 143–129.

²⁸For the liturgical and iconographical interpretation of this building, see: A. Orriols, ‘Les imatges preliminars dels evangelis de Cuixà (Perpinyà, Bibl. Mun. ms. 1)’, Locus Amoenus 2 (1996), 31–46; M. Gros, ‘Le culte des trois Archanges et de la Trinité à l’abbaye de Saint-Michel de Cuxa’, Études Roussillonnaises 21 (2005), 93–98; D. Codina, ‘La chapelle de la Trinité de Saint-Michel de Cuxa. Conception théologique et symbolique d’une architecture singulière’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa 36 (2005), 81–88; E. Palazzo, ‘Liturgie et symbolisme de l’espace rituel au temps d’Oliba’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa 60 (2009), 77–89, at 79–82.

²⁹K-W. Gümpel, “El Breviarium de Musica i els Versus monochordi del monjo Oliba de Ripoll”, Miscel·lània Litúrgica Catalana 12 (2004), 23–57.

³⁰Junyent, Diplomatari (as n. 6), doc. 7, 310; F. Rico, Figuras con paisaje (Barcelona 1994), 142–43.

³¹C. Heitz, ‘Vitruve et l’architecture du haut Moyen Age’, in La cultura antica nell’Occidente latino dal VII all’XI secolo (XXII Settimana di Studio del Centro di Studio sull’ Alto Medioevo, 14–24 aprile 1974), II (Spoleto 1975), 725–752, at 749–50.

³²Rico, Figuras (as n. 30), 139–41. See also: E. Tarracó, ‘Le Portail de Ripoll: Symbologie, Style et Mathématique’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 8 (1977), 69–92, at 85.

³³M. Castiñeiras, ‘Pensar con imágenes: los clásicos ilustrados en las bibliotecas de Ripoll y Vic en el siglo XI. Pervivencia y vivencia de la cultura visual antigua’, in Patrimonio artística de Galicia y otros estudios. Homenaje al Prof. Dr. Serafín Moralejo Álvarez, vol. III, ed. A. Franco Mata (Santiago de Compostela 2004), 47–56, at 54–56, figs. 12–13; Castiñeiras, ‘Ripoll et Gérone (as n. 8), 167–168, figs. 11–12.

³⁴Junyent, Diplomatari (as n. 6), 396. Cf. Castiñeiras, ‘El altar románico’ (as n. 12), p. 45.

³⁵R. Ordeig I Mata, Les dotalies de les esglésies de Catalunya (segles IX–XII). II. Introducció. Documents 121–276 (segle XI). Primera part (Vic 1996), doc. n. 160, p. 84

³⁶J. Villanueva, Viage literario, vol XII (Madrid 1850), appendix XCIII, p. 180–82; F.A. Merino, J. de la Canal, España Sagrada, vol. XLV (Madrid, 1832), 8–9; J. Gudiol i Cunill, Els Primitius. II. La pintura sobre fusta (Barcelona, 1929), 26–29; J. Folch i Torres, La pintura romànica sobre fusta (Barcelona, 1956), 124.

³⁷M. Castiñeiras, ‘The Making of the Catalan Romanesque Altar Frontal (1119–50): Issues of Technical Training, Authorship and Patronage’, in Image and Altar, 800–1300, Papers for an International Conference in Copenhagen, 24 October-27 October 2007, ed. Poul Grinder-Hansen (PNM, Publications from the National Museum Studies in Archeology and History, XX) (Copenhagen 2014), 97–120, at 99–100

³⁸M. Marquès, Col·lecció diplomàtica de Sant Daniel de Girona (924–1300), doc. n. 5 (1015 June 8) and n. 6 (1018 March 16) (Barcelona 1997), 61–62, 63–66.

³⁹M. Sureda, ‘Architecture autour d’Oliba: le massif occidental de la cathédrale de Gérone’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa XL, 2009, 221–36, at 224. See also: F. Español, ‘Massifs occidentaux dans l’architecture romane catalane’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa 28 (1996), 55–77, at 73.

⁴⁰F. Español, J. Yarza, El romànic català, (Manresa 2007), 41. See also: J. Marqués Casanovas, ‘El frontal de oro de la Seo de Gerona’, Anales del Instituto de Estudios Gerundenses XIII (1959), 213–31; M. Sureda, La catedral de Girona (Madrid 2005), p. 84.

⁴¹M. Aurell, Les noces del comte. Matrimoni i poder a Catalunya (785–1213), (Barcelona 1998), 102–04, 111–17.

⁴²Aurell, Les noces del comte (as n. 41), 226–27.

⁴³F. Font, Histoire de l’abbaye royale de Saint-Martin du Canigou (diocèse de Perpignan) (Perpignan 1903), 33–35, 60–61

⁴⁴M. Castiñeiras, ‘Il Tappeto del Gigante: programma, cerimonia e committenza nell’Arazzo de la Creazione de Girona’, in Medioevo: Natura e Figura. La raffigurazione dell’uomo e della natura nell’arte medievale, ed. A.C. Quintavalle (Actas del XIV Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Parma, 20–25 settembre 2011) (Milan 2015), 359–78, at 373–74.

⁴⁵Ramon Berenguer III turned 15 on 11 November 1097, and the council took place only some weeks later in Girona Cathedral, on 13 December, J.D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima, vol. XIX (Venetiis 1774), cols 953–54: ‘Anno Domine MXCVII Id. Decembris sub Bernardo archiepiscopus toletano apostolicae sedis legato celebratum est Gerundae concilium ad conrroborando ecclesiae libertatis dignitatem’); S. Sobrequés, Els grans comtes de Barcelona (Barcelona, 1969), 148–49; A. Benet., ‘La tutoría de Ramon Berenguer III. La participació de Bernat Guillem de Queralt’, Quaderns d’Estudis Medievals I, 7 (1982), 401–05, at 404. Cf. M. Castiñeiras, The Creation Tapestry (Girona 2011), 79–94; M. Castiñeiras, ‘Le Tapis de la Création de Gérone: une oeuvre liée à la réforme gregorienne en Catalogne?’, in Art et réforme grégorienne en France et dans la Péninsule Ibérique, ed. Barbara Franze (Paris 2015), 147–75, at 154–58.

⁴⁶Castiñeiras, The Creation Tapestry (as n. 45), p. 36–40.

⁴⁷For the topic of women, especially nuns, making cloths as imitation to Virgin Mary, there is an extensive literature: J. Hamburger, Nuns as Artists. The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent (Berkeley 1997); E. Coatsworth, ‘Cloth-making and the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon literature and art’, in Medieval Art: Recent Perspectives. A Memorial Tribute to C. R. Dodwell, G.R. Owen-Cracker, T. Graham (Manchester-New York 1998), 8–25; R. Parker, The Subversive Stitch. Embrodery and the Making of the Feminine (London 2010), 119–24; J. Ní Ghrádaigh, ‘Mere Embroiderers? Women and Art in Early Medieval Ireland’, in Reassessing the Roles of Women as ‘Makers’ of Medieval Art and Architecture, ed. T. Martin (Turnhout 2012), 93–125; S. Seeberg, ‘Women as Makers of Church Decoration: illustrated textiles at the monasteries of Altenberg/Lahn, Rupertsberg, and Heiningen (13th-14th c.)’, in Reassessing the Roles of Women. 356–91. See also. E. Fernández González, ‘El artesano medieval y la iconografía en los siglos del románico: la actividad textil’, Medievalismo 6 (1996), 63–119, at 76–82; J.L. Hernando Garrido, ‘Por no perder el uso lleva la rueca y el huso: del gineceo de Skiros a las ruecas tradicionales’, in In Durii Regione Romanitas. Homenaje a Javier Cortes Álvarez de Miranda (Palencia-Santander 2012), 115–20.

⁴⁸M. Gros, ‘Epíleg’, in R. Ordeig Mata, Les dotalies de les esglésies de Catalunya (segles IX–XII). IV. Estudi, (Vic 2004), 268–78, at 272.

⁴⁹J.R. Barriga Planas, El Sacramentari, Ritual i Pontifical de Roda, LIX, 48 (Barcelona, 1975), 2 vol., 505.

⁵⁰Aurell, Les dotalies (as n. 41), p. 292.

⁵¹M. Zimmermann, ‘La Catalogne de Gerbert’, in Gerbert l’Européen (Actes du Colloque d’Aurillac, 4–7 juin 1996), ed. N. Charbonnet, J-E., Iung (Aurillac, 1997), 70–101, at 86. See also: I. Lorés i Otzet, ‘L’église de Sant Pere de Rodes. Un exemple de «Renaissance» de l’architecture du XIè siècle en Catalogne’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 32 (2001), 21–39.

⁵²Castiñeiras, The Creation Tapestry (as n. 45), 53–68.

⁵³J. Roig I Jalpí, Resumen de las grandezas y antigüedades de la ciudad de Gerona y cosas memorables, (Barcelona 1678) 244.

⁵⁴M. Castiñeiras, ‘Hércules, Sansón y Constantino: el Tapiz de la Creación de Girona como Speculum Principis’, in L’officina dello sguardo. Scritti in onore di Maria Andaloro. I. Il luoghi dell’arte, ed. G. Bordi, I. Carlettini, M.L. Fobelli, M.R. Menna, P. Pogliani (Rome 2014), 161–66.

⁵⁵Castiñeiras, The Creation Tapestry (as n. 45), 92–94; Castiñeiras, ‘Il Tappeto del Gigante’ (as n. 44), p. 376.

⁵⁶A. Rucquoi, ‘L’héros avant le saint: Hercule en Espagne’, in Ab urbe condita…: fonder et refonder la ville: récits et représentations (second Moyen Âge – premier XVIe siècle), ed. V. Lamazou-Duplan, (Pau 2011), 55–75, at 55–59. See also R. Rodríguez Porto, ‘The Pillars of Hercules: The Estoria de Espanna (Escorial Y. I.2) as Universal Chronicle’, in Universal Chronicles in the High Middle Ages, ed. M. Campopiano, H. Bainton (York 2017), 223–53, and my recent contribution: ‘Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides. A Geographical Myth in the Creation Tapestry’, in Transformatio et Continuatio. Forms of Change and Constancy of Antiquity in the Iberian Peninsula 500–1500, ed. H. Bredekamp, S. Trinks (Berlin and New York, 2017, 113–36).

⁵⁷Cited in M. Aurell, ‘Du nouveau sur les comtesses catalanes (IXe–XIIe siècles)’, Annales du Midi 109, 219–20 (1997), 357–79, at 363

⁵⁸For this role of Hercules and Samson as examples for the Christian ruler, see: C. Frugoni, ‘L’ideologia del potere imperiale nella Cattedra di San Pietro’, Bulletino dell’Instituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano 86 (1976–77), 67–180, at 138–40.

⁵⁹For a further discussion of the Master of Pedret’s workshop and the peculiarities of the paintings of the church of Sant Pere de Burgal, see my previous contributions: ‘Il “Maestro di Pedret” e la pintura lombarda: mito o realtà’, Arte Lombarda, 156/2 (2009), 48–66; ‘Le origini della bottega del cosiddetto Maestro di Pedret: una questione di metodo’, in Medievo: le officine, ed. A.C. Quintavalle (XII Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Università degli Studi di Parma-AISAME, 22–27 settembre 2009) (Parma- Milano 2010) 276–90.

⁶⁰J. Ainaud, Pintura románica catalana (Barcelona 1962), 26–28; J. Ainaud, Art Romànic. Guia, (Barcelona 1973), 79–83.

⁶¹J-A. Adell, M. Guitart, ‘La reproducció de les pintures murals de l’església del monestir de sant Pere del Burgal (la Guingeta d’Àneu, Pallars Sobirà’, in Burgal, Pedret, Taüll. Imitació o interpretació de la pintura mural romànica catalana (I Taula Rodona dels Amics de l’Art Romànic) (Barcelona 2000), 53–61, at 59, fig. 4.

⁶²M. Guardia, C. Mancho, ‘Pedret, Boí, o dels orígens de la pintura mural romànica catalana’, in Les fonts de la pintura romànica, ed M. Guardia, C. Mancho, (Col·lecció Ars Picta, Temes, 1) (Universitat de Barcelona 2008) 117–159, at 129. See also: J. Camps e I. Lorés, ‘Le patronage dans l’art roman catalan’, Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa, 36 (2005), 209–23, at 220.

⁶³Castiñeiras, ‘Il Maestro di Pedret’ (as n. 59), 63–65; M. Castiñeiras, ‘Del Medioevo a la Modernidad. Conferencias sobre Románico Hispánico (2). Pintar hace mil años: recursos técnicos y programas iconográficos de los artistas del Románico catalán’, Junshin Journal of Studies in Humanities 19 (2013), 241–58, at 248–49, fig. 23. Montserrat Pagès prefers to identify the figures as a depiction of Odo before his nomination as bishop and one of his sisters, ‘Noblesse et patronage: El Burgal et Mur. Peinture murale en Catalogne aux XIè et XIIè siècles’, Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa”, 36 (2005), 185–94, at 189; M. Pagès, La pintura mural romànica de les Valls d’Âneu (Barcelona 2008), 91–92. See my comments on this latter hypothesis in; ‘Il Maestro di Pedret’ (as n. 59), 63–65; ‘Del Medievo a la Modernidad’ (as n. 63), 248–49.

⁶⁴I. Puig i Ferreté, El monestir de Santa Maria del Gerri (segles XI–XV) (Barcelona 1991), vol. I, 479–80.

⁶⁵For this controversy, see: H.E. Cowdrey, The Abbot Desiderius. Montecassino, the Papacy and the Normans in Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries (New York 1986), 90–95.

⁶⁶Castiñeiras, ‘Il Maestro de Pedret’ (as n. 59), 66.

⁶⁷E. Albert i Corp, Saint Ot, bisbe d’Urgell, i la seva época (Barcelona 1987), 36–62; A. Wunderwald, Die Katalanische Wandmalerei in der Kiözese Urgell (Stuttgart 2010).

⁶⁸J. Goering, ‘Bishops, Law and Reform in Aragon, 1076–1126 and the Liber Tarraconensis’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: Kanonische Abeitlung 95, (2009), 1–28; M. Castiñeiras, ‘Los ordines de Roda: del Sacramentario-Pontifical a la Collectio Tarraconensis. Creación artística y performance litúrgica’, in Arquitectura y liturgia. El contexto artístico de las consuetas catedralicias en la Corona de Aragón, ed. E. Carrero (Palma de Mallorca 2014), 209–24; I. Lorés, ‘La réforme grégorienne et les église du diocèse de Roda dans la Ribagorce’, in Art et réforme grégorienne en France et dans la Péninsule Ibérique, ed. Barbara Franze (Paris 2015), 91–107.

⁶⁹M. Castiñeiras, ‘The Making of the Catalan Romanesque Altar Frontal’ (as n. 37), 101–15; M. Castiñeiras ‘Il·luminant l’altar: artistes i tallers de pintura sobre taula a Catalunya (1119–1150)’, in Pintar fa mil anys. El colors i l’ofici del pintor romànic, ed. Manuel Castiñeiras, Judit Verdaguer (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-Bellaterra 2014), 17–54, at 46–51.

⁷⁰M. Castñeiras, ‘The Portal at Ripoll’ (as n. 15) (with wider literature on the topic).

Patrons, institutions and public in the making of Catalan Romanesque art during the Comital period (1000–1137)

Angels on earth: Oliba and his entourage

The Church as a bride: aristocratic linage and female patronage’s aesthetics

Under the seal of the Gregorian reform: princely programmes and dogmatic choices around 1100

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Notes