Aachen Barbarossaleuchter revisted

At the end of reference 1, I signalled having another read of 'Germania' by Simon Winder. This has now been done and I have ground to a halt at page 133, from a total of 441. His chatty style, more suitable for a bar room than a book, eventually got me down. I also suspected him of being rather careless with the truth: there is just too much stuff there to have been properly checked. Furthermore, flip remarks about complicated stories rarely do them justice: good for a laugh in said bar room and that is about it. So given his professional background in book publishing, I am reminded of the old adage that you should not look at the private accounts of an accountant, if you want to see how it should be done. Or expect doctors and nurses to make model patients: not for nothing did they used to be put in isolation wards - in the olden days, when we had the spare beds for that sort of thing.

But a page about the Aachen Barbarossaleuchter, last noticed by me at reference 2, caught my eye. Winder rather dismisses this giant candelabra as a bit of rich man display by one Barbarossa, some hundreds of years after Charlemagne's chapel at Aachen was built, the sort of thing that a Trump or a Saudi prince might go in for in our own times. He also tells us that it was so heavy that it caused the original frescos to peel off the inside of the dome, to be eventually replaced by 19th century fakes. But no pictures: as I noted in my original notice, it is the sort of book that needs the Thames & Hudson picture book treatment, more like that of the subject of reference 1. Maybe Thames & Hudson found it all rather irritating too, and could not face the tedious labour of editing it into something better.

While turning back to the Wikipedia entry, I learn that the chain from which the candelabra is suspended from the apex of the dome, high above, has been cunningly tapered so that it does not look tapered from below. I believe the sculptors of large figures which are to be viewed from below go in for tricks of the same sort.

And following up a lead there, I arrive at references 3, 4 and 5. I have not yet been able to extract reference 5 from the Courtauld Institute, but reference 3 is open access and includes a substantial section on the candelabra, taking it properly seriously, the opening paragraphs of which are snapped above.

Perhaps I will get around to reading it before we next visit the replica in Buckfast Abbey.

PS: I have a memory of having come across Winder in his capacity as something for Penguin Books, for being grateful that he had propelled something interesting into the light of day. But I cannot now find the something in question.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/01/history-by-enumeration.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/11/aachen-barbarossaleuchter.html.

Reference 3: Celica Iherusalem Carolina: Imperial Eschatology and Light Apocalypticism in the Palatine Chapel at Aachen - Nicoletta Isar - 2009. For Isar see reference 6.

Reference 4: http://hierotopy.ru/contents/NewJerusalems_14_Isar_PalatineChapel_2009_EngRus.pdf. Open access version of reference 3.

Reference 5: The iconographic programme of the Barbarossa Candelabrum in the Palatine Chapel at Aachen : a re-interpretation - Hanna Wimmer - 2005. To be found in the 2005 number of 'Immediations', the research journal of the Courtauld Institute of Art.

Reference 6: https://kunstogkulturvidenskab.ku.dk/ansatte/?pure=da/persons/97771. Where we learn that Isar is a Danish academic. Furthermore: 'Nicoletta Isar is Associate Professor at the Institute of Art History, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at Copenhagen University. She studied Classical Archaeology, Byzantine Studies and Comparative Religions at the Sorbonne Paris IV (1990-1996), from where she holds a doctorate (docteur ès lettres) (1996) ... Her main research project is "Chorography (Chôra, Chóros): A performative paradigm of creation and imagination", a comparative and interdisciplinary project. Chorography takes as a point of departure Plato’s chôra from Timaeus, and expands the field of analysis of sacred space from antiquity and Byzantium to contemporary performances...'.