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Romanesque Capitals of S. Salvatore

[image ALT: zzz. It is a Romanesque capital in the lower church of S. Salvatore di Montecorona near Umbertide, Umbria (central Italy).]

The six capitals on this page are all among those in the lower church of S. Salvatore di Montecorona, and they're all Romanesque, to be dated to the 11c: they were surely the original architectural elements of the abbey when it was new.

If these are awkward — the flat character of dentils makes them an unsuitable ornament for a capital — they have the merit of originality: these are clearly an outright creation of their time, following no antique model.


Back on safe ground here: imitation of Roman models, but no Roman architect would have tolerated them for an instant. The rather elegant cubical "capital" on the right, a simple extension of the column in fact, is the most interesting since the model was not an ancient capital, but a metope with its set of triglyphs from some ancient frieze. The columns in the photos on the left are Roman débris; the one in the foreground on the right is medieval, and looks like it was carved to go with the capital.

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