| CAPITAL FROM MONREALE |
This splendid work of Norman-Sicilian artists is Latin in its shape, Roman in its colonnade, Byzantine in its mosaics, Greek in its sculpture, Saracenic and Norman in its many mouldings, exhibiting a most curious combination of styles. The names of the architects are unknown (the näive Vasari attributes this to "their stupidity or contempt of fame"), but the evidence afforded by a careful examination of the mosaics, establishes the conclusion that King William intrusted the embellishment to Greek, that is to say, Byzantine, artists or to their Sicilian disciples. At any rate, the artists who embellished Monreale in the latter part of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries were in every way the equals in artistic abilities of the Italian masters who lived and worked a century later; and when we talk of the Renaissance we should not forget that long before its advent these Sicilian artists had here produced work that today challenges the wonder and admiration of critics.
"Other cathedrals," says Mr. Symonds, "may surpass that of Monreale in sublimity, bulk, strength or unity of plan. None can surpass it in the strange romance with which the memory of its many artificers invests it. None can exceed it in the richness and glory, the gorgeousness of a thousand decorative elements."
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Of the original buildings of the Benedictine monastery which formed a part of the church, and were built at the same time, none but the cloister remains. This cloister is in its kind one of the most superb examples of twelfth century architecture to be found in Europe, and is one of the largest as well as one of the most beautiful in the world. The cloisters of St. John Lateran, St. Paul-beyond-the-Walls, Ste. Scholastica, at Subiaco, are all admirable, but they are inferior to that of Monreale, both in detail and in grandeur of total effect.
| PLATE XXV | SCREEN, CHURCH OF SAN JUAN DE LA PENITENCIA, TOLEDO |