THE ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE OF MOISSAC PART I (2)* BY MEYER SCHAPIRO THE TYMPANUM T] -HE first Romanesque art of Moissac appears in numerous capitals, some deco- rated with religious subjects. Larger reliefs are of single figures. The whole recalls an illuminated Bible in which the miniatures of each book are preceded by a full-page figure of the author. Initials are fancifully wrought with beasts and flowers as on some of the capitals. In the tympanum of the south portal (Figs. 92, 93) the sculpture of Moissac becomes truly monumental. It is placed above the level of the eye, and is so large as to dominate the entire entrance. It is a gigantic semicircular relief, five meters and sixty-eight centi- meters in diameter, framed by a slightly pointed archivolt in three orders. Its great mass is supported by a magnificently ornamented lintel, a sculptured trumeau, and two doorposts of cusped profile, on which are carved figures of Peter and the prophet Isaiah. The portal is sheltered by a salient barrel-vaulted porch, decorated on its lower inner walls with reliefs representing incidents from the Infancy of Christ, the story of Lazarus and Dives, and the Punishment of Avarice and Unchastity. On the exterior of this porch, which is attached to the south wall of the western tower of the church, the figures of the abbot Roger (II 15- I131) and St. Benedict (?) have been set above engaged columns. In its grouping and concentration of sculpture the porch is comparable in enterprise to an arch of triumph. The tympanum alone is a work of architecture, for twenty-eight blocks of stone were brought together to form its surface. That so shortly after the reemergence of figure carving in stone, such great monuments were attempted, testifies to the rapidity of development and the unhampered ambitions of monastic builders in the presence of new means and new powers. On the tympanum, about a central group of a gigantic crowned Christ enthroned in majesty with the four symbols of the evangelists and two seraphim, are placed the four- and-twenty elders bearing chalices and various stringed instruments (Figs 93-106). These verses of the fourth and fifth chapters of the apocalyptic vision of John are almost literally rendered. Revelations iv, 2 . . . and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. 3. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone; and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like to an emerald. *For the first installment of this study see The Art Bulletin, Vol. XIII, No. 3. 464
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