Liana De Girolami Cheney

The zodiac signs of Otranto Cathedral, Puglia: Signification of Vice and Virtue

Abstract

In 1165, Bishop Gionata of the Casole Monastery (Puglia) commissioned monk Pantaleone to decorate the Latin cross pavement of Otranto Cathedral with mosaics. The floor design of the Italian Romanesque church contains an elaborate encyclopaedic program. The program of Biblical and pagan myths evolves from a natural realm into a heavenly realm. Symbolically in the shape of a tree, The Tree of Jesse, the narrative unveils. The natural realm begins with earth-the roots of the tree-that is at the church's entrance, expanding through the tree's trunk and branches that is through the nave and transept, and ending at the top of the tree, that is at the crossing of the church.

This natural realm finally meets with the heavenly realm that is the sacrificial altar. Before reaching this holy area, between the natural realm and the heavenly realm, the zodiac signs are depicted. This paper proposes an interpretation of what is the significance of the placement of the zodiac sign in front of the sacrificial altar and what is meant by their symbolic astral depictions, which are combined with the earthly labors of the months. Thus, human's vices are transformed by astral intervention into virtues.

Biography

Dr. Liana De Girolami Cheney is presently a Visiting Scholar in Art History at the Università di Aldo Moro in Bari, Italy. She received her BS/BA in Psychology and Philosophy from the University of Miami, Florida, her MA in History of Art and Aesthetics from the University of Miami, Florida and her Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance and Baroque from Boston University, MA. Dr. Cheney is a Pre-Raphaelite and Renaissance scholar, author, and coauthor of numerous articles and books, including: Botticelli's Neoplatonic Images; Neoplatonism and the Arts; Neoplatonic Aesthetics in Literature, Music and the Visual Arts; The Homes of Giorgio Vasari (English and Italian); Pre-Raphaelite Medievalism; Giorgio Vasari's Teachers: Sacred and Profane Love; Giuseppe Arcimboldo: The Magic Paintings; Giorgio Vasari's Prefaces: Art and Theory; Giorgio Vasari's Artistic and Emblematic Manifestations, Edward Burne-Jones' Mythical Paintings and Agnolo Bronzino: The Florentine Muse.