Wooden ceiling, St. Martin in Zillis
Type:
Churches
Date:
ca. 1130
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
Switzerland
Medium:
Wood
Description:
The town of Zillis (Switzerland) is located in a broad valley near an Alpine pass, making it a convenient site for travelers to stop and rest. The town's church of St. Martin has a notable wooden ceiling dating to around 1130. It was created as part of the twelfth-century reconstruction of an older church that stood on the same site and is one of only a few surviving wooden ceilings from medieval Europe. The 153 wooden panels are almost entirely preserved (seventeen are fragmentary and thirteen are replacements from the 1940s). Unfortunately, the original panel arrangement was not respected after a restoration of the late 1930s, but some of its general narrative and iconographic themes can still be discerned.
The seventeen rows of nine panels have monstrous maritime creatures around the periphery, inspired by mappae mundi with "monstrous" races populating distant parts of the world (see, for example, the Hereford Mappa Mundi). The inner panels include scenes from the life of St. Martin of Tours, images of Christ's biblical ancestors (e.g., David and Solomon), and scenes from the Gospels (which may once have been continued in now-destroyed wall paintings). Many of the scenes from the life of Christ have water-related themes to complement the aquatic margins of the ceiling: these include Christ's baptism and later transformation of water into wine, as well as the miraculous catch of 153 fish (John 21:1–14).
The seventeen rows of nine panels have monstrous maritime creatures around the periphery, inspired by mappae mundi with "monstrous" races populating distant parts of the world (see, for example, the Hereford Mappa Mundi). The inner panels include scenes from the life of St. Martin of Tours, images of Christ's biblical ancestors (e.g., David and Solomon), and scenes from the Gospels (which may once have been continued in now-destroyed wall paintings). Many of the scenes from the life of Christ have water-related themes to complement the aquatic margins of the ceiling: these include Christ's baptism and later transformation of water into wine, as well as the miraculous catch of 153 fish (John 21:1–14).
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
7
Image Credits:
Wikimedia Commons
Tags:
Christian,
Western European,
Animals,
Bible,
Marginalia,
Saints
