Velay roman: le cloître de la cathédrale du Puy
During my last day of shooting in Le Puy-en-Velay (March 9, 2023), I managed to complete all the subjects that required additional photography, and to extensively shoot the last item on my bucket list, i.e., the spectacular Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe chapel which I will show in a few days.
My first goal was to photograph the “inner” statuary in the canons’ cloister, i.e. the items that are only visible from the central space (préau in French), as opposed to the galleries. In monasteries, that space was often used as an herb garden, particularly when safe space was at a premium elsewhere. However, in the case of Le Puy and its secular canons, very often the offspring from the wealthiest families, there were other sources of supply, should herbs be needed, and aside from framing the central well, the purpose assigned to that space was most probably very similar to what it is now: a pleasure garden.
Bearing that in mind (and, no doubt, the designers of the cloister did), it is not surprising that we should find, on this inner side, one of the wildest collections of monsters, devils and sinners ever devised by the fertile imagination of Mediæval sculptors: while meditation in the galleries took place among virtuous and God-pleasing representations, the canons (or those who cared, at least) were reminded by that gallery of monsters and vices that basking leisurely in the sun in the garden wasn’t too good for their karma, if I dare say.
A thin sculpted frieze that runs for dozens of meters around a central square is very difficult to photograph. Here, I stitched together 5 exposures in a panorama shot to try and give you a general impression of what it looks like, before I go into the details.
You can also use the general cloister photo I first uploaded in today’s batch to locate the frieze: it is just below the edge of the roof covering the galleries, above the Romanesque arches.
Velay roman: le cloître de la cathédrale du Puy
During my last day of shooting in Le Puy-en-Velay (March 9, 2023), I managed to complete all the subjects that required additional photography, and to extensively shoot the last item on my bucket list, i.e., the spectacular Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe chapel which I will show in a few days.
My first goal was to photograph the “inner” statuary in the canons’ cloister, i.e. the items that are only visible from the central space (préau in French), as opposed to the galleries. In monasteries, that space was often used as an herb garden, particularly when safe space was at a premium elsewhere. However, in the case of Le Puy and its secular canons, very often the offspring from the wealthiest families, there were other sources of supply, should herbs be needed, and aside from framing the central well, the purpose assigned to that space was most probably very similar to what it is now: a pleasure garden.
Bearing that in mind (and, no doubt, the designers of the cloister did), it is not surprising that we should find, on this inner side, one of the wildest collections of monsters, devils and sinners ever devised by the fertile imagination of Mediæval sculptors: while meditation in the galleries took place among virtuous and God-pleasing representations, the canons (or those who cared, at least) were reminded by that gallery of monsters and vices that basking leisurely in the sun in the garden wasn’t too good for their karma, if I dare say.
A thin sculpted frieze that runs for dozens of meters around a central square is very difficult to photograph. Here, I stitched together 5 exposures in a panorama shot to try and give you a general impression of what it looks like, before I go into the details.
You can also use the general cloister photo I first uploaded in today’s batch to locate the frieze: it is just below the edge of the roof covering the galleries, above the Romanesque arches.