Archaeology | Capitals | Corinthian | Small column capital | Artwork profile

White-greyish marble

Early Medieval period (VII-VIII century AD)


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Small column capital

Small column capital with a thick abacus cut with three simple superimposed fasciae interrupted by a square sect of stone in which a flower should have been carved; below, one finds a pair of volutes made of tight coils and flat strips which, instead of stretching horizontally into the channel, extend downwards with a bend, ending in a tiny curl. The outer surface of the volutes is completely enveloped by a long and thick leaf, with the page thickly covered by concentric incisions, that descends until it reaches the capital’s shaft; it probably represents a transmutation of the volutes’ protection leaf that it is here transformed from a secondary accessory into a decorative feature of its own. The capital, which is marked by a simplification of ornaments taken to extremes and by a rather coarse handling, fits well into that stream of dull reduplications of Roman Corinthian and Composite capitals produced between the VIII and IX century AD and invariably characterized by a small-scale format. They were, in fact, capitals intended to be used as ornaments of church furniture or of small and medium sized architectural structures, such as cyboria, canopies, niches, etc. For comparisons we may recall the many exemplars carved in Northern and Central Italy, and in particular some coming from Brescia, Cividale del Friuli, Pisa and Amelia in Umbria. The peculiar motif of the small curls at the base of the capital is paralleled by a Ligurian exemplar now in Genoa and dated to the end of the VIII century, while the more unusual one of the leaf expanding over and under the volute can be found on a Corinthianizing capital in the Church of St. Nicholas in Bari and on a mid VII century capital from Beneventum, now in Museo del Sannio, that shows a large, oval and slightly concave leaf covered with concentric incisions. Taking into consideration such parallels, as well as the treatment of the spirals, with their tracing still not completely flattened, and the composition of the abacus that shows a certain desire to conform to traditional models, we may date our capital between the VII and the VIII century AD.