2-750-468 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Wooden ceiling in the nave of Monreale Cathedral, Palermo, Sicily, Italy, (1928). 'About 1840...Section and view from beneath of the wooden ceiling in the nave...it was completely renovated in 1816-1824 by the architects A. Speranza and S. Zerbo...In 1837 the ceiling was painted and gilded, as it is said, in exact accordance with the old model at the expense of King Ludwig I. of Bavaria...the ceiling probably gives us an idea of what a Norman wooden ceiling of the 12th century looked like'. After D. B. Gravina. Plate LV, figs 124 &125, from "An Encyclopaedia of Colour Decoration from the Earliest Times to the Middle of the XIXth Century" with explanatory text by Helmuth Bossert. [Ernst Wasmuth Ltd., Berlin, 1928]