GOTHIC BEASTS and BIRDS

Grotesque animal carvings in medieval churches, reproduced in lithograph in Gothic Ornaments, selected From Various Buildings in England and France by Augustus Charles Pugin.

The following are wood carvings from New College Chapel in Oxford:



















And the following are stone carvings from the Cathedral of Rouen: 

TOMB of LOUIS PASTEUR

EARTHQUAKE at ASSISI



On this day in 1997, the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi was badly damaged in an earthquake. The falling ceilings killed a friar and two engineers who were on site to inspect the damage caused by a smaller earthquake a few days earlier.

This photograph by Ghigo Roli was one of the last taken of the Basilica before the earthquake. More information here and here.

TOMB of OGIER the DANE



Emile Mâle:

Meaux was one of the pilgrimage places where Parisians best liked to go... In the church of St. Faron, [a] tomb attracted the pilgrims' attention: the tomb of the monk Ogier and his companion Benedict...

Ogier was one of the most illustrious figures of Charlemagne's court, and no warrior of his time was more famous. At the height of his glory, he decided to withdraw from the world and dedicate himself to God. He put on pilgrim garb, ad accompanied by a faithful friend named Benedict, wandered from monastery to monastery. When he entered the church of an abbey, he let his staff hung with bells fall on the paving; when the monks heard the sound, they always paused in their prayers and turned around. This was a decisive test for Ogier; he left the monastery at once, persuaded that he could not take his vows in a monastery where there was so little real piety. He finally came to St. Faron of Meaux. Once more he tried out his test and let his staff fall, but no monk turned his head; all were lost in inner contemplation. That is why Ogier and his friend Benedict asked the abbot of St. Faron to admit them to the monastery...

The monk Ogier was the famous Ogier the Dane celebrated by the poets. It was he who had rebelled against Charlemagne and alone had defended himself in the Chateau of Castelfort against an entire army; it was he who had been imprisoned at Reims in the Porte de Mars, and had come out to save France which had been invaded. Who could fail to be moved by such great memories?...

In the late 12th century, an extraordinary monument was erected in the choir of St. Faron, the tomb of Ogier and Benedict. The two friends, clothed in monks' robes, were shown lying side by side on the same sarcophagus. A relief represented their arrival at the abbey. Ogier carried his staff hung with bells; farther along, they were shown taking their vows in the presence of the abbot. One monk, holding scissors, made ready to cut their hair; another, to clothe them in the monastic habit; and a third held out a pen for them to sign their profession.

So far, there was nothing surprising about this tomb. What would have surprised us, however, was the magnificent setting. Before the sarcophagus was an imposing Romanesque portal; at each side, three large statues stood against columns. The first, at the right, carried a banderole on which was written:

Audae conjungium tibi do, Rolande, sorois,
Perpetuumque mei socialis foedus amoris

Thus, this figure was Oliver. Beside him stood a young woman with long tresses, and beside her, another hero. There was no inscription, but they can only have been the lovely Aude and Roland, for in fact, Oliver turned toward Roland as he presented his sister to him. The three statues on the left were not so easy to identify; they represented a king with a scepter and a bishop with a crosier, and between them was the figure of a woman. The bishop, or rather the archbishop, was certainly Turpin, for it was he who had saved Ogier's life by secretly feeding him in the prison of the Porte de Mars, where Charlemagne intended to let him starve. The king was no doubt Charlemagne himself, first the faithful friend and then the implacable enemy of Ogier, but who later pardoned him nevertheless. Did the statue of the woman represent Hildegard, the wife of Charlemagne, as the Benedictines claimed? We do not know. The sculptor had placed around Ogier, as a guard of honor, the most celebrated heroes of our chansons de geste. The monks of St. Faron not only displayed Ogier's tomb; the displayed his sword. Its damascened blade was decorated with an eagle and a golden lion.

Ogier's tomb disappeared along with the church of St. Faron during the Revolution, and we know it only through Mabillon's drawings. The sad ignorance of those vandals who destroyed without knowing what they were doing! There was scarcely a more priceless monument in France. In it, the Middle Ages had expressed its deepest thoughts by glorifying what it most admired in the world: the hero's courage combined with the monk's self-denial.

[Religious Art in France: the Late Middle Ages by Emile Mâle, translated by Marthiel Matthews. Princeton University Press, 1986]

LIFE OF THE TRUE MONK

Denis of Fourna:

HOW TO REPRESTENT THE LIFE OF THE TRUE MONK

Draw a monk crucified on a cross, clothed in a tunic and a monk’s hat, barefoot and with his feet nailed to the footrest of the cross; his eyes are closed and his mouth shut. Just above his head is this inscription: Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. In his hands he holdeth lighted candles, and next to the candles is this inscription: Let thy light so shine before men, that they may see thy good works, and glorify thy Father. On his chest he hath a table like a hassock, which saith: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. On his stomach is another scroll, like a title, with these words: Be not led astray, O monk, by a full belly. Lower on his body is another scroll which saith: Mortify thy members which are upon the earth. Lower again, below his knees, is another scroll which saith: Prepare thy feet in the way of the Gospel of peace. Above, in the top arm of the cross, make a nailed title with this inscription: God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of my Lord. On the three arms of the cross make seals, and in the right one write this: He who endureth to the end shall be saved. In the left one: He who renounceth not everything is unable to be a disciple of Christ. On the seal above the footrest of the cross: Straight and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life. To the right side of the cross paint a dark cavern with a big dragon in it coiled, and write: The all-devouring Hell. Over the mouth of the dragon is a naked young man with his eyes bound by a cloth. He holdeth a bow and shooteth at the monk. On his bow is a scroll which says: The maker of lust. Write this inscription above him: The love of harlotry. Above the cabe put many snakes and write: The cares. Near to Hell put a devil dragging at the cross with a rope and saying: The flesh is weak and cannot resist. At the right end of the footrest put a spear witha cross and a flag and write on it: I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me. To the left of the cross make a tower with a door, out of which cometh a man sitting on a white horse, wearing a fur hat and robes woven with gold and trimmed with fur. In his right hand he holdeth a cup full of wine and in his left a lance on the end of which is a sponge; a scroll is wrapped around the lance which saith: Take delight in the pleasures of the world. He showeth them to the monk. Write this inscription above him: The vainglorious world. Below him put a grave out of which Death cometh holding a large scythe on his shoulder and an hour-glass in his hand, and looking at the monk. Above him is the inscription: Death and the grave. Below the hands of the Monk on Either side put two angels holding scrolls; write on the scroll of that on the right: The Lord hath sent me to help thee. And of that on the left: Do good and fear not. Above the cross represent heaven with Christ in it, holding the Gospels on his breast open at the words: Whosoever will follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. In his right hand he holdeth a king’s crown, and in his left a crown of flowers. Below him to either side are two angels, looking at the monk and showing him to Christ, and holding between them a long scroll with these words: Fight that thou mayest receive the crown of righteousness, and the Lord will give thee a crown of precious stones. Then write this title: The life of the true monk.

EAGLE LECTERN from LOUVAIN



Brass Gospel Lectern from the collegiate church of St. Peter in Louvain. Cast by Aert van Tricht the Elder circa 1500. Confiscated and sold by the Revolutionary government in 1798, it was kept in England until the 20th century, and now is in the collection at the Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

On ROCK MUSIC

Joseph Ratzinger:

We can recall the Dionysiac type of religion and its music, which Plato discussed on the basis of his religious and philosophical views. In many forms of religion, music is associated with frenzy and ecstasy. The free expansion of human existence, toward which man’s own hunger for the Infinite is directed, is supposed to be achieved through sacred delirium induced by frenzied instrumental rhythms. Such music lowers the barriers of individuality and personality, and in it man liberates himself from the burden of consciousness. Music becomes ecstasy, liberation from the ego, amalgamation with the universe. Today we experience the secularized variation of this type in rock and pop music, whose festivals are an anti-cult with the same tendency: desire for destruction, repealing the limitations of the everyday, and the illusion of salvation in liberation from the ego, in the wild ecstasy of a tumultuous crowd... It is the complete antithesis of Christian faith in the Redemption.

Accordingly, it is only logical that in this area diabolical cults and demonic musics are on the increase today, and their dangerous power of deliberately destroying personality is not yet taken seriously enough. The dispute between Dionysiac and Apolline music which Plato tried to arbitrate is not our concern, since Apollo is not Christ. But the question which Plato posed concerns us in a most significant way. In a way which we could not imagine thirty years ago, music has become the decisive vehicle of a counter-religion and thus calls for a parting of the ways. Since rock music seeks release through liberation from the personality and its responsibility, it can be on the one hand precisely classified among the anarchic ideas of freedom which today predominate more openly in the West than in the East. But that is precisely why rock music is so completely antithetical to the Christian concept of redemption and freedom, indeed its exact opposite.

[Liturgy and Church Music, 1985]

ABRAMTSEVO ART COLONY and its CHAPEL





More information here.

TALASHKINO ART COLONY and its CHAPEL

JOSEP MARIA JUJOL


Sanctuary of Montserrat in Montferri

Dennis L. Dollins:

With a prevailing liberal government and a semiofficial architecture of modernism, Jujol was in a poor position to compete for or receive municipal work. And with the Church under heavy criticism, at times literally under attack, few works were chanelled to an architect whose monogram incorporated a cross and who has asserted his religious dedication. Once he told a student: You're lucky to have a t in your name. That way, every time you write your signature, you can make a cross without anybody asking why.

[Josep Maria Jujol: Five Major Buildings by Dennis L. Dollens. SITES, 1994]