| Creator: |
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Object Title: | Mont -Saint-Michel, France | |
| Creation Date: | beg. 708 | |
| Period/Style: | French Romanesque (parts) | |
| Medium/Dimensions: | ||
| Repository/Location: | Mont -Saint-Michel, France | |
| Image Source: | ||
| The first chapel on this site was founded in 708 by Aubert, Bishop of Avranches, after the Archangel Michael had appeared to him in a dream. The layout of the Romanesque choir, begun in 1023, is known from excavations (1964), and from an illumination in the Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry (Chantilly, Mus. Condé, MS. 65), which dates from before the collapse of 1421. It had an ambulatory but apparently no radiating chapels. The transept, built over two crypts covered respectively with groin and barrel vaults, was completed by 1058 by Abbot Raoul du Mont (reg 1048–58). It has broad barrel vaults, which, like those of the crypt, counterbalance and buttress each other. The walls are articulated by tall arcades, enclosing two storeys. The south side of the nave dates from before 1085, but it was no doubt planned from 1023, since its construction corresponds to that of buildings dating from the first half of the 11th century such as Bernay Abbey and Coutances Cathedral. Similarly, the ‘giant order’ employed in the transept and the south elevation of the nave was also employed before 1060 at Speyer Cathedral. The sculptural decoration is sober, but some of the transept capitals illustrate the vogue in Normandy for Corinthian-derived capitals, which lasted until the 1060s. The Romanesque buildings include the chapel of the Thirty Candles (the crypt under the north transept arm, which was altered in the 13th century), and the dormitory, most of which was rebuilt after 1112. It is a large rectangular room, the windows of which were altered in the 13th century; the western half was destroyed in 1780. The gallery remains from the old 11th-century cloister, built against the north wall of Notre-Dame-sous-terre and remodelled in the 12th century. It is a long rectangular room with two aisles divided by rows of columns supporting rib vaults. Supports and vaults were added c. 1135–40. The chaplaincy (Salle de l’Aquilon) beneath the gallery is divided into two aisles by a row of columns. Its waterleaf capitals, suggesting a date of c. 1135, and its groin vaults with pointed transverse arches show Cistercian influence. A wall passage links the gallery to other rooms in the Romanesque abbey. Traces also remain of the kitchen and the infirmary, which were later extensively remodelled, and of the ossuary and the guest-house. From Grove Diectionary of Art | ||
