rooftop virgins

Trevor @ Tuesday November 25th 2003 09:55

Despite the Grimms’ usual fiddling, Rapunzel remains – as Violet Bergen notes in a fine article – a story suffused with powerful Biblical imagery, most of it Old Testament in origin. The New Testament’s most famous virgin usually parades with her head covered, but on the cross-vaulting of the C15th cloisters of the monastery of Sant Jeroni her locks flow Rapunzel-like as she is transported on high by a retinue of cloud-footed cherubs. I’ve pointed the detail on the negative using a different palette than would have been used back then, but you get the drift.

You can see this during the walk from Santa Coloma de Gramenet to Montgat, and we visit more recent butcher/baker/candlestick maker vaultwork during the walk from Sant Cugat to Barcelona. What do you call a woman with tiles on her head? Roof.

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Categories: God, the angels and the orders of the faithful, Splog

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