Cristo in Maestà, seduto in una cornice sostenuta da arcangeli. Scolpita nei primi anni '1000 d.C. in un architrave di marmo bianco sopra una porta della chiesa abbaziale di Saint-Génis-des Fontaines, Pyrénées-Orientales, Occitanie, Francia. Il lintel è la prima scultura romanica conosciuta in Francia ad essere datata con la sua iscrizione, con la data della sua creazione, 1019-1020 d.C., indicata da due righe latine che attestano che il monastero è stato fondato nel ventiquattresimo anno del regno di «Re Roberto» (Roberto II, che governò i Franchi dal 996 al 1031 d.C.).
4256 x 2832 px | 36 x 24 cm | 14,2 x 9,4 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
28 dicembre 2007
Ubicazione:
Former abbey church, Saint-Génis-des-Fontaines, Pyrénées-Orientales, Occitanie, France
Altre informazioni:
Questa immagine potrebbe avere delle imperfezioni perché è storica o di reportage.
Saint-Génis-des-Fontaines, Pyrénées-Orientales, Occitanie, France: Christ in Majesty, seated within a pearled mandorla or aureola frame born by archangels, is cut into the white marble lintel over the doorway to the church that once served the Benedictine abbey jointly dedicated to saints Genesius and Michael. The lintel is the earliest known Romanesque sculpture in France to be dated by its inscription, with the date 1019-1020 AD indicated by two lines of Latin. The inscription records: “In the 24th year of the reign of King Robert, William, abbot by the grace of God, commissioned this work in the monastery called the Fountains, in honour of Saint Genesius the hermit.” ‘King Robert’ refers to Robert II, who ruled the Franks from 996 to 1031 AD. The abbey in the eastern Pyrenees was founded in about 780 AD, during the reign of Charlemagne. It was destroyed by the Normans in the 9th century, but was rebuilt and enlarged, with a richly sculpted Romanesque marble cloister added in the late 1200s. Foundation stones laid in the 8th century are visible within the former abbey church, which today retains its dedication to St-Michel (St Michael). The monastery declined and in the early 1500s, it united with a Catalan abbey near Barcelona. The monks rejected French domination after the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees, but the French Revolution caused its final fall, with the buildings and land nationalised in 1796. Although the abbey church became a parish church in 1846, the cloister was dismantled, with much of it sold to an antiques dealer. Some columns and piers ended up either in the Louvre Museum in Paris or the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the USA. Determined campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s eventually saw all parts of the cloister returned to the village and re-installed in their original locations. D1199.B4323
