Windows and Church Space in Early Medieval Byzantium and West

Windows and Church Space in Early Medieval Byzantium and West Vladimir Ivanovici By looking at the way the windows of cultic buildings were Sacred space is dynamic,1 being enmeshed in various lay- perceived and described in Late Antiquity and the Early ers of meaning and conveying both a profane and a sacred Middle Ages, the article underlines fundamental differences rhetoric of power. The built structures used by the early existing between the early Byzantine and the western Christians developed into symbolic patterns that both re- concept of church space. It results that while in the east the flected and regulated human-divine relations. Byzantine apertures came to be used to create a dramaturgy of light theologians from the 6th century onward tended to regard that gave visual support to the postulation of the church as architecture as a form of theology fixed in space,2 perceiving a reflection of the heavenly temple, in the west the church the church as a structure built according to a coherent ideo- space tended to close on itself. It appears thus that in the logical program meant to bring humanity and God together West the windows were addressed not as openings but as by providing a place of assembly suitable for both. This fun- a special type of panel, decorative and luminous, that added damental dynamic, the result of five centuries of debates to the beauty of the decoration. on the possibility to circumscribe the divine, provided the context upon which all other layers of meaning subscribed in the structure of the building were added. Keywords: windows, church space, light, architecture, Responding to a concern expressed by Francesca iconography Dell’Acqua, the great specialist in the matter of medieval glass, the present paper wishes to look from a novel point of Vladimir Ivanovici view at the sources that mention windows in Late Antique Accademia di Architettura, Mendrisio and Early Medieval cult buildings.3 In his book on Spiritual e-mail: vladimir.ivanovici@usi.ch Seeing, Herbert Kessler argued in favour of a fundamental distinction existing between the Western medieval and Byzantine perception of church space. While for the Byz- antine, says he, the icon or fresco in the church is a window opening towards a superior dimension, for the Western on- looker: ‘If it was a bridge, it was a drawbridge drawn up, if a window, then only with a shade pulled down. It marked the existence of a world out there, but it also revealed its own inability to transport the faithful into that world.4 In the present article I would like to pursue Kessler’s contention by looking at the way church windows were described. It will become evident, I hope, that the perception of the openings was directly dependent on the overall apprehen- sion of the church space, providing thus the context to ex- plore Byzantine and Western attitudes towards the latter. Addressed from this point of view the matter will reveal conceptual differences that will, hopefully, help explain some of the artistic and architectural transformations un- derwent by openings in the two traditions. As fundamental as they were to a religion based on a theology of light and which developed its cultic spaces as a reflection of a larger gusto for all things luminous,5 win- 38 Opuscula Historiae Artium / 62, 2013, Supplementum 1 – Window and decoration of the window sill, 421–445. Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna dows received very little attention in the authors whose in a relation with human figures and depictions of divine writings have survived. Furthermore, the few references light that was to become customary in later Christian art.8 that we do have are spatially and chronologically dispersed, Centripetal element in most of the scenes, the window was making it hard to extrapolate. It is, somewhat surprisingly, used to underline the luminous character of the divine light in the West that we hear more often about windows, per- and the waters of paradise.9 Associated with the latter two haps also due to the current state of research.6 In our ana- elements, as well as with the fire that consecrated Lawrence lysis we will thus attempt to synthesize what appear to be as a martyr, the windows in the Mausoleum and the light general attitudes towards apertures in cultic buildings, in they let through were certainly meant to be perceived as relation with the overall concept of the church space. opening towards heaven, not the outside. The impression is further emphasised by the decoration of the window sills, Before East and West where an undulating pattern renders visual the intermedia- tion that the window was enacting. [fig. ]1 The 4th- and 5th-century Christian intelligentsia seems to have In Naples, the decoration of the baptistery of San Gio- shared a surprisingly coherent education and worldview. vanni in Fonte pertains to a period when, in all likelihood, Grouped into schools of thought, Christians of this period the baptismal ritual was still nocturnal.10 How exactly the addressed church buildings in relation with the previous age, windows under the cupola were perceived and their interac- when monumental constructions were not accessible to the tion with the iconographical program is thus as uncertain as community. The apertures were appreciated from a rather it is intriguing, the human figures being disposed towards functional point of view, writers underlining the vast amount the openings in the same manner as in the Mausoleum. It is of light that the windows were allowing to enter their cult my contention that the surface of the openings in the baptis- buildings, an element that distinguished them both from tery was not to be perceived as window surface but rather as the usually dark interiors of traditional temples and from part of the decoration, interacting in some manner (perhaps accusations of conducting their rituals in secrecy.7 through the placing in front of them of hanging lights whose Nevertheless, extant decorative programs in Raven- flickering would have played on the vitreous surface) with na and Naples nuance our knowledge of the windows’ rela- the rest of the composition. As signalled to me by Chiara tion with the rest of the building, transpiring the builders’ Croci, of the pairs of martyrs flanking the windows, only desire to integrate them in the iconographic program. The the two occupying the place of esteem on the main axe of so-called Mausoleum of Galla Placidia places the windows the building turn towards the window in a sign of reverence. Different worlds 39 2 – Martyrs flanking window (now closed) with detail of depicted window, end of the 4th century. Baptistery of San Giovanni, Naples The stance, found also in the Mausoleum in the same condi- being placed at the opposing ends of a chasm as great as tions, was to become customary in later iconography, scholars that separating the human and the divine.19 Drawing on agreeing that the flanking characters address the window a common feature of Late Antique initiatory rituals, the due to its association with Christ as lux. As attractive as it scene symbolized the rite’s capacity to grant one access might be the explanation is, at least for Naples, unlikely due to the higher, perfect spheres of the cosmos, by opening to the nocturnal character of the ritual.11 The presence, in a worm-hole cutting through the lower dimensions.20 Al- the very scenes that incorporate the windows, of portrayed though collapsed in the vision, the difference between the apertures sustains the thesis that the real openings were not two stood as an inherent, indeed fundamental reverse-side. to be perceived as such.12 [fig. ]2 The three cases we have briefly reviewed indicate One special type of aperture in this period is repre- a varied use and perception of the notion of window in sented by the false oculi present in the decoration of cano- paleochristian cultic buildings. Between the real windows py-like spaces. Drawing, presumably, on a common feature of the Mausoleum, the pseudo-windows of the baptistery in of Roman architecture,13 the motif of the decorative oculus Naples, and the illusory ones in the cupolas it becomes clear opening towards a higher dimension is recurrent in late Ro- that the designers of these buildings orchestrated the plac- man times.14 In the baptistery of San Giovanni in Naples ing and depiction of the apertures in order to enhance the and that of the Orthodox in Ravenna, to take only two ex- effect of the ritual. The situation was, certainly, different in amples, the ‘apertures’, open towards different horizons. In Constantinian and post-Constantinian basilicas, where the Naples it is a vision of the Chi-Rho set against the starry sky, multitude of the apertures helped create a hierarchy between a theophany taking place in the time but not in the space the spaces while making legible the mosaics they intercalated.21 of the baptistery. On the contrary, in the Orthodox baptis- While the light amount and its interaction with the decora- tery in Ravenna the baptizand was offered the sight of an tive materials are repeatedly addressed in the sources, the ancient event, re-enacted through the ritual.15 The baptism windows themselves are given little attention in this period. of Jesus in the Jordan and that of the baptizand in the font It was only with the development of a coherent concept of were mirroring each-other as the font reflected the scene in the church structure as a reflection of the heavenly temple, the cupola, testifying to the capacity of the context to trans- in the 6th century, that windows came to receive more atten- form the catechumen in a Christic figure.16 [fig.

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