Bronze doors, San Paolo fuori le Mura (Saint Paul-without-the-Walls)

The church of San Paolo fuori le Mura in Rome was endowed with large bronze doors in 1070. They were part of a series of eight high-quality doors decorating the entrances of seven churches in Italy, including two in Venice. This series of doors was commissioned by the Italian donors in Constantinople in the second half of the eleventh century and the first half of the twelfth century, as indicated by the dedicatory inscriptions. The bronze leaves with figurative decoration were cast and are for the most part inlaid with silver and enamel.

The first leaves were installed in around 1061 in the church of San Andrea in Amalfi. Other doors were put up subsequently, at the monastery of Monte Cassino (1066), at San Paolo fuori le Mura in Rome (1070), at the sanctuary of the Archangel Michael in Monte Sant’Angelo (1076), at the church of San Sebastiano in Atrani (1087) – the doors were later transferred to the church of San Salvatore in the same town – at the south entrance of Saint Mark’s in Venice (c. 1080) and at the main entrance (c. 1112), and in the cathedral of San Andrea (first half of the twelfth century) in Salerno. The bronze doors symbolise the gates of Paradise.

The doors of San Paolo fuori le Mura are the most richly decorated. Twelve feasts, from the Annunciation to Pentecost, are represented on fifty-five panels; the iconography is similar to that of Byzantine models. They are accompanied by representations of the Apostles, local martyrs and the Prophets. Two panels are decorated with inscriptions, one of which indicates the name of the artist, Staurakios, and another that of the donor, Pantaleone. An image of the donor accompanies this inscription. The cross, jewelled and flowered, figures on two other panels, and eagles are depicted elsewhere. Unfortunately, these leaves were severely damaged by fire in 1823.

The inscription on the doors of San Paolo fuori le Mura tells us that they were commissioned in Constantinople by a member of the Pantaleone family. It was probably Mauro, the son of Pantaleone who had commissioned the doors of San Andrea in Amalfi. Mauro was also probably the person who commissioned those of the church in Atrani, of Monte Cassino and of Monte Sant’Angelo. This rich merchant family from Amalfi was well established in Constantinople and also had interests in Syria and Muslim Palestine. And yet, the craftsmanship of large cast bronzes had been dormant in the Byzantine Empire since the seventh century. The division of these doors into small panels and their flat decoration, seeking polychrome effects through the use of damascening and niello, suggests that the specialists employed by the workshop that produced these doors in Constantinople came from the Islamic world. This is underlined by the inscription of the artist’s name in both Greek and Syriac. The export of these doors to Italy was facilitated by the fact that they were made up of separate parts. The dissemination of these bronze doors in the West bears witness to significant cultural and commercial exchanges among Constantinople, Italy and the Near East.