Mediaeval Sicily, aspects of life and art in the middle ages . ello had a church andmonastery built for them, dedicated to the It was also greatly enriched by his 1194 they were turned out by Henry VI. tomake room for some of his Germans, the Knightsof the Teutonic Order ; the church has since beenknown as the Magione. In plan this church of the Magione is aRomanesque basihca, with a nave and two sideaisles, a real if somewhat stunted transept, andthree apses. There is no dome; the pointed archesmight be Northern Transitional, but are moreprobably Southern Saracenesque li
Mediaeval Sicily, aspects of life and art in the middle ages . ello had a church andmonastery built for them, dedicated to the It was also greatly enriched by his 1194 they were turned out by Henry VI. tomake room for some of his Germans, the Knightsof the Teutonic Order ; the church has since beenknown as the Magione. In plan this church of the Magione is aRomanesque basihca, with a nave and two sideaisles, a real if somewhat stunted transept, andthree apses. There is no dome; the pointed archesmight be Northern Transitional, but are moreprobably Southern Saracenesque like those atCefalu. The general impression is still Palermitan,Arabo-Norman in the widest sense ; especially ifone first happens in towards nightfall and sees thewomen of the quarter kneeling in prayer in thetwilight of the nave, before a side altar with manycandles, the black shawls that have now replacedthe old voluminous cloth mantles drawn over theirheads and relieved against the whitewash of thenave. The Magione is a large church much frequented196 XXXII. CHURCH OF THE MAGIONE, PALERMO b. 197 CISTERCIAN CHURCHES by the poor of the surrounding picturesque quarterof the Kalsa. It must once have been a church ofsome magnificence, to judge by the fine display oflittle columns set into the angles of the three tallapses, now woefully restored in meretricious shamGothic. There are twenty-four columns in all;six in each of the side apses, twelve in the centralapse, which is recessed once, as in the CappellaPalatina. If we now consult the capitals—those sensitivefeatures showing the forces at work within—forevidence as to the style of the original, which isnow whitewashed or redecorated, we shall find thatthey represent the usual Palermitan medley ofclassical (bought or stolen) Byzantesque, and amodification of the type that I have called Sicilian—one only seems to suggest a Northern origin. The soberly painted dark timber roof is decoratedwith narrow zigzag borders, like thos
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectart, bookyear1910
