The Sarcophagus of Naro, Sicily

Extract

Among the places which Count Roger I conquered during his campaign in Southern Sicily in 1086, Gaufredus Malaterra mentions the Arab town of Narû, the present Naro, in the province of Agrigento. Naro, like nearly all towns in inner Sicily, is dominated by a castle and a church which stand some hundred yards distant from one another on two rocky heights at the top of the mountain on which the town is situated. The church stands, as is shown by recent excavations, on the site of a pagan temple and an Arab mosque. Here Roger I had erected the first Christian church after the Norman conquest. A century later this building was renovated and extended. The Englishman Walter of the Mill, from 1169 archbishop of Palermo and before that dean of Agrigento, whose diocese also included Naro, is said to have been the builder. The new building was started in 1174, when Bartholomew of the Mill, Walter's brother, was bishop of Agrigento, and it was consecrated in May 1263 by Rudolf, cardinal bishop of Albano, attended by two archbishops and four bishops. Since 1867 the church has not been used and has become a sad ruin. The ceiling has fallen in, weeds grow on the floor, all its interior ornaments have been destroyed and have disappeared. There is, however, one exception: on the west wall of the north transept, opposite the apse, still stands one large sarcophagus. This sarcophagus is made of yellowish-white marble. Its lower part rests on four seated lions, and is shaped like a bath, round the top of which run two mouldings. In vertical section the lid is pentagonal, the upper point forming the ridge of the saddle-roof. This ridge is not strictly horizontal, but is raised a little towards the middle. From both the side-mouldings one member is left out, having perhaps been reserved for an inscribed ribbon, probably inlaid in metal. On each of the slopes are three round medallions worked in relief. The outer ones contain the symbols of the four Evangelists, the inner ones the half-length figures of Christ, with sceptre and orb, and the Holy Virgin.