MANIPULATING MATTER: FIGURAL STUCCO SCULPTURE IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES by Rachel E. Danford A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland February, 2016 © 2016 Rachel E. Danford All Rights Reserved Abstract Stucco relief was an essential component of many of the most elaborate and luxurious decorative programs produced in western Europe during the early Middle Ages. This dissertation explores the conceptual and ideological dimensions of stucco’s use as a material for figural sculpture from the fifth century to the eleventh, and in four chapters, examines four monuments where sculpture in stucco appears as a part of a larger, multimedia decorative program. The case studies are: the fifth-century Orthodox Baptistery in Ravenna, the eighth-century Tempietto Longobardo in Cividale del Friuli, the ninth-century Westwerk in Corvey, and the eleventh-century St. Ulrich Chapel in Müstair. Methodologically, the project blends aspects of traditional iconography with approaches developed in material culture studies. It uses hagiographies, sermons, poems, histories, and other period texts to reconstruct the culturally specific connotations stucco carried at each site. In doing so, it provides four accounts of the diverse meanings a single, often overlooked, artistic material could evoke in distinctly different contexts. In the four monuments analyzed in this dissertation, stucco relief is by turns associated with the account of the Creation of Man from mud in Genesis 2, deployed to articulate a fundamental difference between divine and earthly modes of existence, used to simulate a sense of antiquity, and adopted as the visual signature of a single patron. The multiplicity of meanings enabled by a particular artistic material is in keeping with a larger medieval habit of thinking in which materials were multivalent. However, this study argues that, in the case of stucco relief, it was not inert matter but the actions to which matter was subjected that were the richest sources of meaning. By locating meaning not in the raw materials of art but in the actions used to shape and exhibit ii materials, the study provides a model for theorizing materials that foregrounds human agents as makers of art. It argues for the need to keep human acts of mediation at the center of the discussion of medieval materiality and for a larger methodological imperative to treat the materials of medieval art historically. Advisor: Herbert L. Kessler Second Reader: Nino Zchomelidse Committee Member: Christopher Lakey Committee Member: Shane Butler Committee Member: Walter Stephens iii Acknowledgements I am happy to take this opportunity to thank some of the people and institutions whose support allowed me to complete this dissertation. I must begin by expressing my gratitude to my advisor, Herb Kessler, whose guidance, insight, and words of encouragement have been invaluable to me over the course of my graduate career. More recently, I have been fortunate to benefit from the further advice of my second reader, Nino Zchomelidse. Three institutions supplied the financial means necessary to pursue my research. The History of Art Department at Johns Hopkins sponsored an initial research trip to Italy with an Elizabeth Cropper Travel Prize in 2012, while the Singleton Center for the Study of Pre-Modern Europe supported a second research trip to Germany and Switzerland in 2013. The final stages of research and writing were completed from 2014–2016 under the auspices of a Samuel H. Kress Foundation Institutional Fellowship at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich. I would like to thank Iris Lauterbach and the fellows at the ZI for welcoming me into their social and scholarly community in Munich, as well as the members of the Vormoderne Objekte Group at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, who also made me feel welcome and whose lectures and colloquia were always engaging. I am grateful to the archaeological offices at Müstair for granting me access to photograph the St. Ulrich Chapel and to Dr. Jürg Goll in particular for sharing his expertise on that monument. Dr. Birgit Mecke and the staff at the LWL-Archäologie für Westfalen Zentrales Fundarchiv generously allowed me to examine and photograph the fragments of stucco from Corvey’s Westwerk and to look through the frescoes in their collection. iv It is also a pleasure to acknowledge the members of my writing group from Hopkins: Laura Garofalo, Alexandra Letvin, Katie Johnson, and Jennifer Watson Wester. Laura, especially, should be singled-out as someone who has served as an enthusiastic sounding board for many years of ideas. Nathan Dennis shared photographs and articles, and James Magruder kindly agreed to look over the Greek footnotes. Collaborating with Vladimir Ivanovici on an article on the Orthodox Baptistery in Ravenna over the past year has refined my thinking about that monument; and conversations with the Stipendiatinnen of Zimmer 143, Sarah Lynch, Elizabeth Petcu, and Shannon Steiner, also positively shaped the project. Finally, I would like to thank my family, Andrew, Chris, Ellen, Sarah, and Ben, and especially my parents, Jean Thierfelder and David Danford, for their support, which has come in many forms. v Table of Contents Title Page. i Abstract. ii Acknowledgments. iv Table of Contents. vi List of Figures. .viii List of Abbreviations. xvii Introduction Figural Sculpture in the Early Middle Ages. 1 State of the Field. 4 Methodology: Material Iconology. .13 Vilissimae Res. 18 Gipsea Metalla Sculpta. 26 Chapter Summaries. 33 Chapter 1. The Orthodox Baptistery: A Material System of Modes The Orthodox Baptistery in Ravenna. 38 The Stucco Prophets: Polychromy, Lighting, and Style. 41 Genesis, Artistic Creation, and Baptismal Recreation. .49 From Blindness to Sight. 62 The Aediculae Scenes. 70 Conclusions. 79 Chapter 2. The Tempietto Longobardo: Semantics of Techniques Composite and Homogenous Structures in Medieval Art. .84 The Tempietto Longobardo. 86 Controversy over the Date. .102 The Auctores of the Chapel. 111 Image Theory and Lombard Art. 121 A Palatine Chapel? . 135 Conclusions. 141 Chapter 3. The Westwerk in Corvey: Imitation and Antiquity Stucco Sculpture in the Carolingian Period. .143 Architecture, Program, and Function. .151 The Identities of the Stucco Figures. 165 Saints in Carolingian Saxony. .168 The Invocation of Classical Antiquity in Carolingian Saxony. 173 Corvey as a New Rome: The Inscription. .178 vi Portenta in the Westwerk. 188 Conclusions. 196 Chapter 4. The St. Ulrich Chapel in Müstair: Medium as Mediator Stucco Relief in Müstair in the Eleventh Century . 199 Formal Properties and Pictorial Content . .208 The Ideological Function of the St. Ulrich Chapel. 213 Medium and Memory. 222 Conclusions. 226 Conclusion. .228 Appendix. 236 Works Cited. .243 Curriculum Vitae . 278 Figures. 281 vii List of Figures Fig. 1 Interior, ca. 451–473, mosaic, stucco, and marble revetment. Battistero degli Ortodossi (Battistero Neoniano), Ravenna. (Photo: author). Fig. 2 West wall, 750s–760s, fresco and stucco. Tempietto Longobardo (Oratorio di Santa Maria in Valle,), Cividale del Friuli (Udine). (Photo: IULM Università di Lingue e Scienze della Comunicazione). Fig. 3 Reconstruction of atrium, ca. 873−885. Westwerk, Corvey (North Rhine- Westphalia). (Reconstruction by Buchholz, taken from Claussen and Skriver 2007). Fig. 4 Vault, late eleventh-century, stucco and fresco. Ulrichskapelle, Kloster St. Johann, Müstair (Graubünden). (Photo: author). Fig. 5 Fragments, eighth-century, stucco. Klosterkirche St. Martin, Disentis (Graubünden). (Photo: author). Fig. 6 Reconstruction of joust between Dollinger and Krako, late thirteenth-century (nineteenth-century cast), stucco. Dollingersaal, Regensburg. (Photo: Stadt Regensburg: Abteilung Statistik). Fig. 7 Mithras fragment from a relief, ca. 180 CE, gilded stucco. Museo Nazionale Romano, Terme di Diocleziano, Rome, Inv. 205826. (Photo: Mary Harrsch). Fig. 8 Roundel of St. Ambrose, late tenth-century, stucco. Museo Diocesano, Milan. (Photo: author). Fig. 9 Dome, ca. 451–473, mosaic. Battistero degli Ortodossi (Battistero Neoniano), Ravenna. (Photo: author). Fig. 10 Prophets, ca. 451–473, stucco. Battistero degli Ortodossi (Battistero Neoniano), Ravenna. (Photo: author). Fig. 11 Detail, first century CE, stucco and fresco. Palazzo Altemps, Rome. (Photo: Laura Garofalo). Fig. 12 Reconstruction of interior, early twentieth-century, watercolor. Archivio della Soprintendenza per i Beni Architettonici e Paesaggistici, Ravenna, Inv. 953/1. (Photo: Raul Vasvari). Fig. 13 Detail, ca. 451–473, stucco. Battistero degli Ortodossi (Battistero Neoniano), Ravenna. (Photo: author). Fig. 14 Detail, ca. 451–473, stucco. Battistero degli Ortodossi (Battistero Neoniano), Ravenna. (Photo: author). viii Fig. 15 Simon Canaaneus, ca. 451–473, mosaic. Battistero degli Ortodossi (Battistero Neoniano), Ravenna. (Photo: author). Fig. 16 Prophet, ca. 451–473, stucco. Battistero degli Ortodossi (Battistero Neoniano), Ravenna. (Photo: author). Fig. 17 Prophet, ca. 451–473, stucco. Battistero degli Ortodossi (Battistero Neoniano), Ravenna. (Photo: author). Fig. 18 Prophet, ca. 451–473, stucco. Battistero degli Ortodossi (Battistero Neoniano), Ravenna. (Photo: author). Fig. 19 Daniel in the Lion’s Den, ca. 451–473, stucco. Battistero degli Ortodossi (Battistero Neoniano), Ravenna. (Photo: author). Fig. 20 Sarcophagus, early fifth-century, stone. Museo Nazionale, Ravenna. (Photo: