Ceiling of the Palatine Chapel

Roger II, crowned on Christmas day 1130, was personally interested in the building of the chapel of his palace, the founding charter of which, on purple parchment gives the date of its consecration as 28 April 1140[1]. Covering the nave, dominating the mosaics with gold background in reinterpreted Byzantine style, the subjects of which are placed in a precise arrangement, the muqarnas ceiling, entirely painted, placed to a degree in the place of honour (aside from the apse), is strikingly different in style and astonishing figurative decoration, with red, blue, black and white as the dominating colours on a gold background. Its composition is arranged with interlocking crosses and stars, which was very common in the ceramic wall cladding[2]. The central row has nine crosses; it is flanked by two rows of ten stars. On the sides, the presence of half crosses ornamented in their centre with a small cupola which gives the impression of a continuous motif. Inside the stars, a cupola in relief with eight nervures stands out, inside a twisted starry frame, encircled by an epigraphic strip in Cufic. At the centre of the stars, a lozenge cartouche in slight relief stands out. The ensemble is framed by a large area of muqarnas, attached to the wall with a large moulding.

The paintings, sole survivors on a monumental scale of a long tradition, are fitted as little pictures encircled with a pearly strip[3] in the geometric surfaces in different shapes of the muqarnas and centre of the ceiling. It’s above all in this frame that the most significant depictions among the totality – more than 750 – of those which ornate the ceiling. A very in depth study would enable us to conclude a desire for a political and liturgical programmes as for the mosaics, but it remains to be done[4]. Many of the motifs are repeated, and overall, there is no particular direction that they turn towards. We can see well-known themes from the Islamic art repertory, originating in antique and Hellenised Central Asian art, moving through Byzantine, Omeyyad, Abbassid, Fatimid art without forgetting the Romanesque art of the mediaeval occident. These include fighting animals (most often dragons), heraldic lions or eagles, the eagle with a prince on his chest[5], various hunters, with varied falcon and prey, one of them carrying one around its neck[6], dromedaries and elephants, sometimes with a lady in a  palanquin[7], sun and moon chariots[8], enthroned prince, alone or with courtesans, drinkers, musicians alone or on each side of a palm tree[9], dancers with veils[10], wrestling scenes[11], sometimes between a white man and a black man, façade of a palace and inside of a chapel, men on either side of a fountain or a well, chess players, decorated tents enclosing a sword…, plenty of allusions to courtly life.

Round faces with large eyes sometimes topped with eyebrows which meet in the middle[12], framed by black hair and kiss curls, are also part of a long central Asian tradition which many objects of Islamic art bear witness to.

We know of the multicultural and multi-linguistic character of the court of Palermo, where Arabic was spoken. Sicily, once under Muslim domination, had kept close links with Fatimid Egypt[13], whose rituals it had consciously adopted, as well as practices and ideas surrounding the organisation of administration. In 1147, the conquest of Mahdiyya in Ifriqiya and the establishment of a Norman kingdom in North Africa explains the reinforced influence of oriental civilisation in Sicily. If the themes and style of the paintings find their origin in ancient Central Asian heritage, the shape and organisation of the Palatine Chapel ceiling are of Maghrebian origin[14]. Doubtless, at the time, the Zirid and Aghlabid palace had similar ones, which have alas disappeared. A few remains of the ceiling of the Fatimid palace in Cairo still exist, which also shows the combination of stars and crosses, with sculpted animal decoration, as do remains in Cefalu of the cathedral that Roger II was also the patron of[15]. If certain elements of the painted wood ceilings in al-Andalus or Ifriqiya have reached us, their decoration which is non figurative was destined to embellish religious edifices[16].

We will doubtless never know if the artists who created this magnificent ceiling were Egyptian, Maghrebian or simply Sicilian, as great as was the cultural mix in Sicily at the time.

[2] Cf. for example the remains of the cross and the stars, with lustred decoration, come from the Qal'a of Banu Hammad. Fragments of a ceiling in painted stucco have also been found on the same site. In Iran, the organisation of interlocking crosses and stars in ceramics but also sometimes in stucco, is ominpresent. It can also be found in Seljuq Anatolia. The floor of the Palatine Chapel nave, in polychrome marble, echoes a similar organisation on the ceiling. Certain Sicilian textiles also follow this arrangement, cf. for example samit with eagles in two starry cartouches, Lyon, musée historique des tissus, 29256. 

[3] As in Samarra.

[4] Grube et Johns, op.cit., p. 22-23 et note 93 p. 34.

[5] Motif known both in Iran, on Seljuq silks and bronzes as in al-Andalus, on a stone basin for example. Depending on the region, the interpretation is inspired from Central Asian or Iranian traditions (the great eagle of the shamân, Zal and the Simurgh), or of Mediterranean Anquity (Ganymede).

[6] Iconography which is already encountered in on of the paintings of Samarra and is common in Mediaeval Occident, symbolising the “Good Shepherd”.

[7] The dromedary and the elephant are quite often depicted in Islamic art. We see for example the elephant with a giraffe on the Sicilian painted ivory casket in the Treasury of the Palatine Chapel (cf. Grube and Johns, op. cit. , p. 180), doubtless an allusion to these exotic animals sought after by the princes’ menagerie in all Islamic countries (cf. Grube and Johns, op. cit., p. 181 and 187)

[8] Inheritance from classical antiquity

[9] Grube and Johns, op.cit., p. 138-151.

[10] Id., p. 151-159.

[11] Id. p. 159-167.

[12]This fashion was still common in the 19th century, as certain paintings and photographs both from Iran and Algeria bear witness. Today still, it can sometimes be found in Central Asia.

[13] George of Antioch, Vizir of Roger II, was sent to Egypt where he was very well received. The account of exchanges of gifts appears in a very interesting letter between the caliph and the Christian king.

[14] Cf. for example the ceilings of the al-Qarawiyyîn à Fès mosque and the cupola of the temple mihrâb in the Tinmal mosque. For other comparisons, cf. Grube and Johns, op. cit., p.98-111. The design of the cupolas studded with stars in the Palatine Chapel is almost the same as the one in the front cupola of the mihrâb in the Great Mosque of Cordoba (966) and the one in the qubba of 'Alî ibn Yûsuf (between 1106 and 1142) in Marrakech.  

[15] For what was supposed to be his mausoleum in this cathedral.

[16] Great Mosque of Kairouan, Great Mosque of Cordoba. Elements in painted wood also come from the palaces of  Samarra (the Jawsaq) and Raqqa, but the decorations are non-figurative.