The Mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo

Abstract

Discussion of the mosaics of Norman Sicily has long centered on the question of the respective shares of Byzantine and local masters in their actual execution. In these investigations, which have led different scholars to widely different results, insufficient attention has been paid to the problems posed by the general Byzantine affinities of these mosaics, which are, after all, undeniable. Is it not significant that an artistic form so peculiarly “Byzantine” should have been adopted by a Western dynasty which was in almost perpetual conflict with the Eastern Empire and which was, in fact, in its time one of Byzantium's most formidable rivals? Is it not also worth investigating how the Normans were able to use in their churches iconographic patterns which had been invented for Greek sanctuaries and were bound up with orthodox theology and liturgy through many intricate ties of symbolism? Transferred to an alien setting could these iconographic themes amount to more than purely superficial imitations? Or ...