The mosaics of St Mary's of the Admiral in Palermo (review)

296 Reviews Strangely, Strehlke talks in detail about Angelico as panel painter, scarcely mentioning his illuminations. This may please the historical miniaturist, but it does not add to the big picture. His essay is accompanied by an appendix and 61 endnotes. In comparison, Boehm has one. The large exhibition provides an opportunity that is not to be sneezed at. It does require a balance of the general and the specialised,ratherthan an uneasy juxtaposition. Many of you will see Turner this year, and marvel at its breadth. There remains in this Painting and illumination catalogue an unresolved tension, which I fancy informed the exhibition, as to whether it was about painting and also about illumination, or just principally about illumination. If I had been editor, I would have thanked Carl Strehlke, and sent him back for a. piece which really describes the interaction between illumination and other forms of figurative art, especially as one of the saws about Fra Angelico is that he was retrograde because he followed in the miniaturist tradition. Which followed which? W h e n did vanishing point perspective and unified light appear in manuscript? Where do classical motifs appearfirst?W a s there a Renaissance in illumination at all, or was Vasari right when he made his fatal distinction that separated painting, sculpture and architecture, thefinearts, off from the rest? This book will not tell you, but extensive, scholarly, and overwhelmingly beautiful as it is, it may help you to work toward your own conclusion. It is a must for every library. M a x Staples School of Humanities Charles Sturt University Kitzinger, Ernst, The mosaics of St Mary's of the Admiral in Palermo, wit a chapter on the architecture of the church by Slobodan Curcic, Washington (DC), Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection (Dumbarton Oaks Studies, XXVII), 1990; pp. x, 480; 26 colour plates, 246 b/w, 23 line drawings. R R P not notified. Dumbarton Oaks has supported since the 1950s two major research projects in Italy: the recording of the mosaics of San Marco in Venice by Otto Demus (1984), and of twelfth-century Norman Sicily by Ernst Kitzinger. The St Mary's volume has been followed by two on the Palatine Chapel in Palermo (1992 and 1993). Reviews 297 The Church of St Mary was built by George, a Syrian Greek (d. 1151) who had an administrative career from at least 1114 in Sicily under Roger II (d. 1154) and became chief minister with the tide of emir of emirs, hence the English tide 'admiral.' His church was a private foundation built by 1143, with the mosaic decoration completed before his death. It was greatiy admired by Tbn Jubayr when he visited Palermo in 1184. By the early fourteenth century it had passed to the Latin church and in 1433-34 was ceded to the Benedictine convent which had been built next door to it at the end of the twelfth century by Goffridus de Marturana and his wife Aloysia, hence the church's name, the Martorana. It remained attached to the convent until the nineteenth century. In 1870 the church came under the control of the Commissione, the antecedent of the Soprintendenza. From then until 1905 it was in restauro. Baroque extensions were removed and the mosaics restored with the aim, criticised even at thetime,of making the repairs undetectable. Of this work there are written but no photographic records. Kitzinger devotes one chapter to discussing the extent of the restoration which was not nearly as great as in the Palatine Chapel. It has not affected the iconographic program or the stylistic character of the decoration as a whole or in any substantial part, except on the north side of the naos. It has made attempts to identify individual hands amongst the mosaicists very doubtful. Kitzinger's concluding catalogue of the mosaics (pp. 268-324) is largely a detailed condition report. Colours are given in general terms, supplementing the colour plates, but an analysis of the tesserae and the techniques of setting them has not yet been undertaken. Slobodan Curcic describes this basically Byzantine cross-in-square limestone church, with its naos 12.5 m. sq. and a central...