Abstract
The Cappella Palatina was the royal chapel of the Norman rulers of Sicily and southern Italy. It stood within their palace in their chief city of Palermo. Built for king Roger II (1130-1154) between the years 1132 and 1143, the chapel still has as one of its greatest glories a painted wooden ceiling. This ceiling, which is constructed in an Islamic style, is widely believed to have been begun around 1140.
Highlights
T H E Cappella Palatina was the royal chapel of the Norman rulers of Sicily and southern Italy
Built for king Roger I I (1130-1154) between the years 1 1 3 2 and 1 1 4 3, ' the chapel still has as one of its greatest glories a painted wooden ceiling. This ceiling, which is constructed in an Islamic style, is widely believed to have been begun around 1140.^ The chapel itself falls into three sections: a nave and two flanking aisles
T h e ceiling of the nave, formed of muqarnas or superimposed suspended quarterdomes, arches, squinches and niches, has attracted most attention from art historians because of its splendid surface decoration and because it is an early example of the muqarnas style . ' the ceilings over the two aisles, each formed of a sequence of beams and recessed curved panels, were apparently built and decorated at around the same time."
Summary
1-26) seem almost entirely free of such later overpainting, a few other military or otherwise mounted figures have clearly been tampered with It is not the intention of this article to discuss the structural origins, decorative style or iconographic intentions of this splendid ceiling, and only to a limited extent to consider the question of artistic attribution. Ettinghausen quotes André Grabar as disliking both Christian or even Sicilian connections, " and goes on to state his own preference for an artist or artists rooted in Fàtimid traditions but cut off from current mid-12th century Fàtimid developments in Egypt He suggests a Tunisian connection since elements of earlier Iraqi 'Abbasid styles may have survived longer in this Muslim province, a province which lay under very strong Siculo-Norman political influence at the time that the Cappella Palatina was being built.
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