2 - Dressing the Earth : Eleventh-century Garb in the Exultet Roll of Bari

Summary

Among the precious miniatures that decorate Exultet 1, a parchment roll preserved in the Museum of the Cathedral of Bari, in Apulia, Italy, there is a striking image of the Earth personified as a woman dressed in sumptuous attire, which the artist has depicted with a high degree of originality. The Earth is standing between two trees; she grasps both trunks with her hands, four animals at her feet. Her patterned dress is adorned by a richly embroidered edging at the neck and waist; on her head she wears a bi-coloured, square headdress ornamented with luxuriant vegetation. The aim of this study is to verify, with the aid of written records and extant fragments of contemporary textiles, whether the artist was reproducing a dress which was in fashion at the time of the preparation of the Exultet Roll, and which words in written documents designate the clothing items represented in the miniature.

EXULTET ROLLS OF SOUTHERN ITALY

Manuscript production of the first centuries of the second millennium in southern Italy is exemplified by the so-called Exultet Rolls, that is, rolls of parchment that contain the text of the hymn sung by the deacon on the night before Easter, in which all creatures on Earth and in Heaven are invited to exult at the news that Christ has been resurrected (Exsultet iam angelica turba caelorum). In Latin this part of the liturgy of the Roman Church Mass is called praeconium paschale (the Easter Proclamation) and it is usually celebrated in front of a Paschal candle during the Easter Vigil. Thirty-one rolls are still extant, among which twenty-eight are Exultet, two are Benedictional and one Pontifical, produced mainly in the area between Benevento, San Vincenzo al Volturno, Montecassino, and Bari. Only two seem to come from a scriptorium in Pisa, but, according to Guglielmo Cavallo, they are undoubtedly imitating a model of southern Italian provenance, as is demonstrated by the fact that an Exultet roll produced in the area of influence between Benevento and Cassino is preserved in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, in Pisa.

It is generally assumed that the oldest roll was produced in Benevento in 970, under Archbishop Landulf I, when Benevento was the seat of the Langobardic principality in southern Italy (Langobardia minor).