Monreale 2: the Duomo

The cathedral, however, wasn't open, and we began to internalize an important Sicilian lesson: shops,  churches, and museums close for a long mid-day break. Instead, we took the opportunity to walk around the small town looking for a lunch place that served something besides pizza, and was open during this non-tourist season. Eventually we found a little cafe with a white-aproned waiter proffering a tray of cheese and charcuteries at the door. We took the bait -- it was delicious -- and a blond woman who seemed to be the owner gestured us to one of two small tables at the back. "Perhaps you'd like a sandwich?" she suggested, in English, pointing toward a deli case full of cured meats and cheeses. "We have different Sicilian hams, cheeses...a glass of Sicilian wine?" An hour later we had consumed two delicious prosciutto, cheese and tomato sandwiches, some of that fine Sicilian wine, two almond cookies, and an espresso and a cup of lemon tea, and enjoyed a conversation with the proprietor and her husband, while watching the couple at a neighboring table eat an antipasto platter that looked even more delicious than our panini. Fortified and happy, we headed back down the cobblestone street, past a little market brimming with tomatoes and oranges, and down to the cathedral again, which had just re-opened.

"We should have visited in the morning," was our first thought when we entered the dark interior of what must be, in brighter light, glittering and brilliant. The huge, illuminated Byzantine mosaic in the apse, of Christ Pantocrator (παντός pantos ="all", κράτος, kratos = strength, might, power) dominated our sight for the first minutes, but as our eyes adjusted, we began to be able to see the mosaics all around the walls, and the golden coffered ceiling.

These mosaics were completed somewhat later than the building, and they illustrate biblical stories  -- on the top panel in the picture above, you can see Adam and Eve, and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Below is the story of Noah and the Ark. It didn't matter at the time if many of the worshippers were illiterate: the cathedral itself was a picture book that they could read.

The floors are covered with the same sort of Cosmatesque pavements as in the Martorana in Palermo, and every inch of this huge interior is gilded or encrusted with stone inlays or mosaics. Because of its size, the space is overwhelming, and I found myself glazing over, unable to take it all in. But perhaps that was also in contrast to the light, airy, enchanting cloister, just a few hours earlier. We had a choice of going into an inner chapel, or climbing up into the northern tower. "Let's go up now, while there's still light," J. said, and I quickly agreed.

In the image below, you can see the southern tower that stands over the town's piazza. From the interior of the cathedral, we bought tickets from a clerk, bundled in scarves, and began climbing ancient stone stairs. On the first landing, we reached a window that looked out into the cloister, and then continued climbing until we came out on the walkway behind the green dome, and continues to the right of the picture, following the great nave of the cathedral.

Beside the walkway, this slanted roof of beautiful glazed tiles. At the end, a small door led into a dark passageway, just wide enough for one's shoulders. Light filtered in through arrow-slits on the cloister side, and also on the cathedral side. I peered through: we were above the choir stalls and organ, and then above the crossing, almost at eye-level with Christ Pantocrator. It was not only a place of worship, but a fortress: the Bishops's archers would have lined this passageway if the cathedral had been attacked, able to shoot down into the sanctuary. Two people descending from the tower met us in the passage, we all turned sideways, and squeezed by one another. J. and I kept going down to the far end, and then out onto the roof, where more steps, lined with intricately-glazed tiles, led up to the tower, with its pointed arches and geometric Arab patterns of tile and stone.

The view, toward Palermo and the sea, was magnificent, but also strategic. In those days, long before airplanes were even imagined, high ground was the best defense, and I began to understand why Italy had so many medieval hill towns. Thoughts of wars and sieges soon gave way to the wonder of standing in such a place.

That wonder increased when I later learned that King William II of Sicily, builder of this cathedral, had given refuge to friends and kinsmen of Thomas Becket, after the newly-consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury refused to do the will of his former friend King Henry II of England, and was forced to flee to the Continent. King William had become betrothed to Henry's youngest daughter, Joan, in 1168, when she was still a child. When Becket returned to England, and was murdered in 1170 by the King's men in Canterbury Cathedral, the marriage was called off, but after Henry did public penance at Becket's tomb, and Beckett was made a saint and martyr by the Pope, the relationship between the two royal houses improved again, and Joan was sent to Sicily where she and William were married, in 1177, just a few years after this cathedral was built, and by all accounts lived happily together.

Joan's mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and her brothers -- of whom Richard I (the Lionhearted), and King John (of the Magna Carta) were two -- had plotted to overthrow Henry; one of the younger brothers had been sent to live with Thomas Becket, and wrote that "Thomas showed me more kindness in one hour than my father did in my entire lifetime." It's almost certain that Joan's sympathies were with the murdered archibishop.

In any case, the earliest known depiction of Thomas Becket anywhere in Christendom, which bears the inscription "Saint Thomas of Canterbury," is in the apse of the Monreale Cathedral. I imagined Joan standing here, looking out over the sea toward England, turning to William, and saying, "We must memorialize Thomas, who was always kind to me."

Comments

[Peter]

Wow. What an amazing place to discover a connection to an English saint!

[Natalie]

Fantastic pictures, illuminating text. I had seen some of the individual mosaic scenes reproduced in books on Byzantine art but never an over-all view of the cathedral interior. Sublime! It certainly would take more than one visit to assimilate it all.

Also loved the lunch description.