Tales of the Roof Beam

During the European Middle Ages the very idea of translating the Bible into a vernacular language was condemned. It was acceptable, however, to translate it into images. The so-called Biblia pauperum (Bible of the Poor) thus adorned the walls and stained-glass windows of large cathedrals as well as more humble parish churches. But Palermo boasts a unique cycle of illustrated Bible stories – a sort of “Rich Man’s Bible”– in the luxuriant paintings on the ceiling of the Hall of Barons in the Palazzo Chiaromonte-Steri. Dating from the late 1300s, it includes tales of chivalry, classical antiquity, and sacred scripture, all translated into monumental versions of illuminated manuscripts replete with knights, ladies, love potions, sieges, turreted cities, dragons, baldachins, young lovers, grizzled sages, monsters and maidens, storm-tossed seas and walled gardens. With her text, Licia Buttà gives these stories words, animating a sort of Thousand and One Sicilian Nights.