It is considered the largest medieval altar ever discovered and shows a deep connection between Rome and Jerusalem. It is likely that it was erected by order of Pope Eugene III.
Newsroom (22/07/2024 15:00, Gaudium Press) On July 15, 1149, Jerusalem celebrated a momentous day: exactly half a century earlier, the European crusaders under the command of Godofredo de Bouillon had taken the holy city, establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem after centuries of Muslim rule. To express the Christians’ joy at having taken possession of that holy place, a new high altar was made and placed in the middle of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of Christianity’s most important shrines.
“We know of pilgrimage accounts from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries about a magnificent marble altar in Jerusalem,” says Ilya Berkovich, a historian at the Research Institute on the Habsburg Monarchy and the Balkans of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and co-author of a new study on this historical work of art. Despite the strong impression it made on people over the centuries, the altar suddenly disappeared from collective memory.
“In 1808, a major fire hit the Romanesque part of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” explains Berkovich. “Since then, it was believed that the Crusader altar had disappeared,” adds the historian.
Recently, Ilya Berkovich and Amit Re’em, from the Israel Antiquities Authority, made an extraordinary discovery: in the back corridor of the church they found a heavy stone slab, covered in graffiti.
However, when they turned the slab over due to the works, it turned out to be a rich and ancient artistic heritage: the decorated slab on that side was quickly identified as the ancient and splendid façade of the medieval Crusader altar.
A connection between Rome and Jerusalem
This stunningly beautiful altar offers the opportunity to investigate the rare Cosmatesca technique, which is hard to find outside Rome.
This special marble decoration technique was mastered exclusively by guild masters in papal Rome, who passed this skill on from generation to generation. The technique is characterized by the use of small quantities of valuable marble, mainly scraped from ancient buildings in medieval Rome, to decorate extensive surfaces, placing small fragments with great precision, creating geometric patterns and dazzling ornaments.
Of Cosmatesque art, only one work of art was known outside Italy, in Westminster Abbey, to which the Pope had sent one of his masters. The cosmatesque altar rediscovered in Jerusalem must also have been created with the intervention of the Pope, possibly Eugenius III. By sending one of the cosmatesque masters to the Kingdom of Jerusalem to make the Crusader altar, the Pontiff literally underlined Christendom’s claim to the city. “The pope thus honored the most sacred church in Christendom,” Berkovich noted.
The discovery of the high altar reveals a hitherto unknown connection between Rome and Jerusalem, which is also important for the history of European art. “With an original width of more than 3.5 meters, this is the largest medieval altar currently known,” Berkovich points out. He hopes that future research in the papal archives will shed light on the history of the altar’s creation, possibly even the identity of the cosmatesque master responsible for the work.
With information from oeaw.ac.at
Compiled by Florence MacDonald
