Vézelay, Saulieu und Chalon-sur-Saône. Zum Verständnis einiger romanischer Kapitellskulpturen .......... 133
Synopsis
ON THE ICONOGRAPHIC UNDERSTANDING OF SOME ROMANESQUE CAPITAL SCULPTURES IN FRANCE
The subject of the article is the iconography of three French Romanesque capitals.
1. Vézelay, Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, nef. 9. Viollet-le-Duc has completed fragments showing two men and two animals to a scene in which all of them are looking up at a cross in the sky. Originally they may have been part of an Annunciation to the Shepherds, as Lydwine Saulnier and Neil Stratford have supposed in 1984. The arbitrary and senseless 19th century completion may have been inspired by southern French capitals.
2. Saulieu, Saint-Andoche. The pastoral scene and its lush plant framing may have been copied from a book miniature, possibly an illustration of Virgile’s Bucolica. Given the many profane motifs on the Saulieu capitals there is nothing improbable about such a topic.
3. Châlon-sur-Saône, Cathedral, choir. The rather long but incomplete inscription retelling the meal at Emmaus can be reconstructed using the metric rules for Leonine hexameter.
