Kidson Panofsky Suger St Denis JWCI 1987

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JOURNAL OF THE

WARBURG AND COURTAULD

INSTITUTES

VOLUME FIFTY



E D I T O R S

D. S . Cham bers Peter Kidso n El izabeth McG ra th

A D V I S O R Y B O A R D

Michael Baxandal l

L o m e C a m p b e l l

Michael Evans

J. M. Fletcher

Ernst H. Gombrich

Charles Hope

John House

M i c h a e l K a uf f m a nn

Michael Ki tson

Ji l l Kraye

C. R. Ligota

A. M. Meyer

Jenni fer Montagu

Nicolai Rubinstein

J. B . Trapp



TABLE OF CONTENTSPAGE

Panofsky, Suger and S t Denis. B y Peter K id so n . . . . . . i

Pietro Lorenzet ti and the History of the Carm elite Ord er. By Joa nn a Ca nn on . 18

Classic al Th em es in the Decorat ion of the Pala zzo Vec chi o in Florence. By

Nicola i Rubinstein . . . . . . . . . . . 2 9

A n n i u s of V i t er b o a nd H is to ri ca l M et ho d . B y C hr is to ph er L ig ot a . . . 4 4

Ibn al-H âytim on the Tal ism ans of the Lun ar Mansio ns. By Kriste n Lippinc ottand D a v id Pingree . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7

Th e Private Cha pel of Car din al Alessan dro Farnese in the Cancell eria, Ro me.

By Patric ia Ru bin 82

Th e 'Be l l i ssimo Ingegno' of Ferdinando Gon zaga (1587-1626) , Card inal and

Duk e of Man tu a. By D. S. Cha mbe rs . 113

Velazquez and Murillo in Nineteenth-Century Britain: an Approach through

Prints . By En ri qu et a Ha rr is . . . . . . . . . 148

Lord Ron ald Go wer , Gus tav e Doré and the Genesis of the Shakespeare Me mori al

at St ra t fo r d-o n- Avo n. B y Philip W a r d J a c k s o n . . . . . . 160

Concern ing War bur g's 'Co st umi teatra l i 'an d Angel o Solerti . By A. M .M ey er . 171

Notes and Documents

Th e Earlies t Ch ir om an cy in the We st (Cha rle s Burn ett) 189



PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS

Peter Kidson

P ANOFSKY MADE TWO nota ble excursions into the field of medi eval archit ecture . Th e

first took the form of an edition of Sug er's wr itings a bou t the abbey c hur ch of

St Denis and its art treasures.1 This was published in 1946. The second, entitled

Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism, began life as lectures in 1948 and appeared in print in

1951. 2 Both have been influential, especially the introductory piece on Suger, which has

suppl ied a who le generati on of yo un ger art historians in Eng lan d and Am eri ca with all

they thought they needed to know about the intellectual circumstances in which Gothic

architecture was invented. It purported to offer in chapter and verse detail the evidence

for an icon ogr aph ical inte rpretat ion of St Denis . As it remai ns axio mati c that Go thi c

started at St Denis, the implications were clearly far-reaching. Panofsky set out to provide

a cutting edge for the full-scale art-historical counter-offensive that had been brewing for

the best part of half a century , again st the excessively techni cal views abo ut Got hic

associat ed with the na me of Vio llet -le- Duc . A corrective of some sort was certainly

overdue. The Viollet- le-Duc position was inadequate not necessari ly because i t was

wrong — although this was asserted3 — but because it simply ignored or did less than

justice to a grea t man y facets of Go thi c that cried out for attentio n. T he reas sessmen t

belatedly recognized the style as a cultural as well as a purely architectural phenomenon.

Go thi c at last took it place as a maj or manifes tation of the spiritual ferment wh ich

trans formed t welft h-cen tury Eu rop e, and it could be seen to bear the imprint of mu ch

con tem por ary intellectu al activity. T he task of recog nizin g such interactions was the

special bus iness of the art historian as Pano fsky sa w it4

and quite apart from the almost



2 PETER KIDS ON

imagination is always required to translate the patron's verbal specifications into visual

forms. Nevertheless this truism is something that medievalists have tended to overlook in

recent years, in par t one fears under Pan ofsk y's influe nce, if only becaus e, as good

historians sho uld, they hav e devot ed thems elves to the pursu it of doc ume nts , and

therefore in practic e restricted their researches to jus t those problems a nd aspects o f

problems which are susceptible to documentary elucidation. As nearly all medieval

doc ume nts pert aini ng to the arts eman ate d from the pat rona ge side of the proce eding s, it

follows th at we are liable to get from them a totally distorted impr ession of wh at actua lly hap pen ed. T hi s mus t have been especially true in matters of archit ectur e, for by its very

nature medieval architecture involved mysterious operations that were excluded from the

cons pectu s of the liberal arts and th erefore beyon d the und ers tand ing of even the most

highly educated ecclesiastical patrons.5 So while it may be granted that any symbolism

present in Got hic archit ectur e wa s the contributio n of the clergy rathe r than the

craftsmen, at best it can have been no more than a partial and superficial factor in the

design procedure.

Reflections along such lines ought to have induced a certain caution, but this has not

alw ays been forth comi ng. O n the cont rary , the long-t erm effect of art-histo rical dallian ce

with the sym bol ism of archi tectu re has been to aggr ava te a quite deplo rabl e split am on g

studen ts of med ieva l buildin gs. O n the one hand the armch air art historian s have gone

their own way, busily dreaming up iconographical fantasies that all too often could never

have bee n taken seriously by an y practis ing architec t, even if they were actuall y put to

him; while on the other the down to earth archaeologists have resolutely turned their

backs on all such nonsense, but are so myopically obsessed with mason's marks and

masonry breaks that they scarcely ever attended to larger issues. It would be ridiculous to

blame Pa nofs ky alone for this state of affairs, a ltho ugh a s one of the found ing fathers of

i hi l h l hi h t ti l ibilit Wh t h



PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 3

largel y on the man , and left the buil din g to others in the entirely justifie d conf idenc e that

there would be n o short age of epigon i ready to leap in and spell out the consequ ences

implicit in his own work. 6 Nevertheless it is in principle possible to treat the two sides of

the question sep arate ly, an d for purp oses of criticism there are advan tag es in doing so.

Th e crux of the matter is whe the r the Suge r wh o emerges from Pan ofsk y's pages is a

credible historical figure, or an art-historical fiction. He is certainly not quite the familiar

image fabricated by orthodox historians in the nineteenth century: the genial and efficientabb ot of a celebrate d mon aste ry; the friend and a dviso r of two success ive Ki ng s of Fra nce,

who could act as regen t when one of them was abs ent on the second cr usad e; the

stat esman w ho took a firm line wit h the unruly baro ns of the lie de France , and set the

crown on a course it was to follow with success in ecclesiastical matters for more than a

hun dre d years; an d not least the foun der and most distingui shed practi tioner of the

St Den is school of historians. Pano fsky did not disp ute any of this, but it was not mu ch use

to him. However, there were two areas, apparently neglected by his predecessors, where

the prospe cts were more promisi ng. O ne was Suger 's dealings with St Bern ard , the

signif icance of whi ch seemed to Pan ofsk y far greate r than had been comm onl y realized.The other was the suspicion that in addition to all his other attainments Suger was an

intellec tual of cons equ ence . He also recog nized a causa l conne ction betw een his two

discoveries. Th es e emenda tion s becam e the centrep iece of his case.

Suger and St Bernard encountered one another intermittently throughout their public

lives. At first their relations seem to have been somewhat cool. In a letter dating from

112 7, Su ger found h imself favo ured with a taste of Ber nar d's hecto ring rhetoric. 'It was at

you r errors not at those of yo ur mon ks th at the zeal of the saintly aim ed its criticis m. I t wa s

by your excesses not by theirs, that they were incensed. It was against you, not against the

Ab b th t th f b th '7 It th t f l th t



4 PETER KIDSON

necessaril y to appeas e Bern ard . He had reason s of his own for wan tin g rid of Etien ne de

Gar la nd e, and was himself the princ ipal beneficia ry when the deed was done.

T he fact of the matte r is that almos t from the start Suger and Bern ard saw eye to eye

about what the Church should be doing and the part that France should play in the

fulfilm ent of its pro gra mme . At this level it was of no impor tanc e that one was Bened ictin e

and the other Cister cian . T he bu rnin g issue of the day wa s to get the claims of the Ch ur ch

fully and thoroughly recognized right across secular society. This meant insisting on

privi leges, collecting and implem enting cano n law, extending ecclesiastical jurisdiction sand organizing appeals to Rome. In other words, the effort was essentially legal; it focused

inevitably on the papacy, and the desired end could be achieved only through an effective

system of pap al gover nme nt. Ear ly in his career Suger had con duct ed missions on behalf

of his abbey to the pap al court, and he retained t hrou ghou t his life as royal cou nsello r the

conviction that the Capetian monarchy ought to co-operate with the papacy rather than

resist its encroachments as the Angevin Henry II did in England, with consequences that

led to the confr ontat ion with Becket. For reasons of his own , Bern ard was equ ally anx ious

to promo te an active papal pres ence in the ecclesias tical affairs of trans alpin e Europ e. It

was the reas on if not the price of his sup po rt for In noc ent I I in the dispu ted pa pa l election

of 1130, a cause which Sug er also endors ed. I nno cent 's trium ph was someth ing of a

turning point in papal history. It launched the Church on a course that was to transform it

into a remarkably efficient political agency. Both Suger and Bernard were committed to

the long term success of this enterprise, and their substa ntial ag reeme nt far transcend ed

minor differences of opini on such as whe the r it was a dvisa ble for Lou is VI I to go on the

second crusade. 9 It also puts their view on ecclesiastical art into perspective.

Ever y medievalis t knows by heart Berna rd's cas tigatio n of Pons de Melgue il's cloister

it l t Cl d t k it i l i d d P f k ti H



PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 5

Sug er neede d a phi lo sop hy to defe nd his taste in art, an d that his wor ks of art were

actually inspired by such doctrines.

Th is is the most novel and distinctive of Pano fsky 's amen dme nts to the tradit ional

acco unt of Suger . It has been swa llow ed whole by the art-historical com mu nit y with

rem ark ably little resistan ce — on the contrar y, with positive, un critical eagerness . On the

other hand it has made singularly little impression on the learned world outside, a sign

perh aps of the omino us t ende ncy of art historians to live in a world of their own. T he

eviden ce whi ch Pan ofsk y addu ced in supp ort of his contention is to be foun d in the three

texts which Su ger comp ose d duri ng the 1140s, in the course of or shortly after the buil ding

ope rati ons a t St Den is; or rat her two of the m, bec au se the first, the Ordinatio, proved

barren for his purpose. The other two, the Consecratione and the De administratione, yielded

passa ges whi ch suitab ly interpreted wer e allegedl y saturated with the spirit of the

Pseudo-Dionysius.

Perhaps the first thing to be noted is that the Pseudo-Dionysius is never actually

mentio ned by nam e in these texts, nor is Jo hn the Scot Erig uen a, and there are no

identifiable quotations. As the texts are riddled with a great many quotations from othersources, mainly biblical, which Panofsky took great delight in identifying, this should

have embarrassed him, especially as they were written at a time when name dropping and

citing authorities were considered indispensable for conducting arguments. For an

intellectual defence, the effect is curiously muted. The style is belle-lettre rather than

forensic. Everything turns on a subtle hermeneutic exercise.

In the absen ce of explicit references, how could the presen ce of the Pse udo -Dio nys ius

be detected? The only satisfactory answer would be through characteristic doctrines in

Suger which were otherwise peculiar to the Pseudo-Dionysius, or which could have

h d S l b f th P d Di i T h h d t i hi h





PANO FSKY , SUGER AND ST DENIS 7

f igured in many fruitful analogies which embraced both the sun and the soul . In other

word s it coul d be dev elo pe d in bot h cos mic and psyc hol og ica l dire ction s. At one end of the

scale, in the hands ofjul ian the apostate, who hated Christianity for reasons that had l itt le

to do wit h doctri ne, it be ca me a kind of solar theol ogy . At the other , with the Pse udo -

Dionysius, i t verged on mysticism. But any serious neo-Platonist who thought along these

lines had his sights firmly fixed on the reality beyond light. Without this paradox the

whole effort lost its meaning.

While such ideas were at all times rare, remote and difficult, they were not entirely out

of circula tion in the Mid dl e Age s. E mas cul at ed reflections of them fi l tered steadily do wn

to the educated clergy, usual ly through Augustine and Gregory the Great rather than the

Pseu do-D iony sius . I n some form or other the grea t metap hor of l ight was buil t into the

ordi nary Chr ist ian p ercept ion of the world, a nd had bec ome part of the stock in trade of

everyone who ever preached a sermon. There is perhaps a sense in which anyone who, l ike

Browning, greets the sun in the morning and feels that 'God's in his heaven, all 's right

with the world', may be called a Platonist. It could be argued that although he cannot be

taken seriously as a theologia n, Su ger was a diluted Plat onist of this kind. On e might ha ve

been content with this rather anodyne solution, were it not for something that Suger

himself tel ls us, in a rem ark abl e pass age that Panof sky total ly misco nstru ed.

Whe n out of my del ight in the bea uty of the house of God — the loveliness o f the many -colo ured

gems has called me away from all external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect,

transferri ng that whic h is material to that which is imm ateri al, on the diversity of the sacred

virtue s: t hen it seems to me that I see myse lf dw ell ing as it were in some stran ge region of the

universe wh ich neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Hea ven,

and that by the gra ce of God I can be tra nsported fro m this inferior to that higher world in an

anagogical manner.20



8 PETER KIDSON

souls for God through beauty, and would have thoroughly approved. His St Denis was a

first step along the road which led to the Quattro Fontane and Vierzehnheiligen.

The one man who quite certainly would not have been impressed by these revelations

is St Bern ard, and it is perha ps jus t as well that he never got to hear of them. T he y woul d

have confirmed any earlier suspicions Bernard may have entertained, that Suger's

instincts were dangerously Cluniac. The naive assumption that God and the saints would

shar e his del igh t in the op ul en ce of the thing s offered to the m belo nge d to a level of relig ion

that Bernard had left far behind. For all his busybodying and nasty, sexy puns, Bernardknew well enou gh that religion was a matte r of love, pra yer and inward ness ; and tha t for

the spi ritu al elite, art wa s a dis trac tion . If it had any religiou s purp ose , it wa s to inst ruct

the illiterate. Such sentiments found their way into the Decretal of Grati an, wh ich was

being compil ed du ring the 1140s, in the form of a quot ation fro m a letter of Gre go ry the

Great: 'quod est clerico littera, hoc est laico pictura',2 2 a distant echo perhap s of Hor ace 's

ut pictura poesis, and cer tainly a reflection of the medie val distinct ion betwe en the liberal

and the ma nu al arts. Th e tone was not necessari ly condes cend ing. As the initiative of the

laity over matters concerning its own spiritual welfare accelerated, and as the reformed

chu rch grad ual ly widen ed the range of its pasto ral responsibilities, the exegetical role of the arts acquired an accepted social function. Architecture had a special part to play in

this process. C hu rc h buildin gs wer e by far the most insistent reminders to the world of the

ubiq uito us presence of the chur ch; and they provided the fram ewor k through whic h

stream s of ecclesiast ical ima gery co uld be proje cted at the laity — or the clergy too, for

that matter. There had already been occasions when architectural style had been the

vehicle for ideological propaganda. Speyer and Cluny were cases in point. Suger's

St Denis was exceptional only in striking a new note that turned out to be exactly attuned

to the more ad van ced eccles iastical thin king of the day. Wh at is really odd is that it should

h h d f h fi i i di i bb ( hi



PAN OFS KY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 9

survives in a single copy. 2 6 Th er e may ha ve been losses, b ut this is not the for m of wor ks

that circulated widely. The contents explain why. They are overwhelmingly about

matter s of no conc eiva ble interest to anyo ne outside the Ab be y of St Denis . T he y are

conce rned with the dispo sal of inco me from vario us properties, the com mem or ati on of

benefactors like Char les the Bald , the provision of decent dinners for the mon ks an d,

abo ve all, the smar ten ing up and enl arge ment of the abb ey church . In short, the y were

intende d solely for dome stic consu mpti on. T he pred omin ant mood is that of an apolog ia,

but the accounts differ considerably, both in length and emphasis.

The first, the Ordinatio, which dates from 1140-41, is a fairly perfunctory statement. It

remin ds the monks of wh at they owe to their abbo t's goo d houseke eping , and lists the

worthy objects on which money had been spent, before coming to the new west front

which was pr esu mab ly the bone of contenti on. T he implic ation is that there had been

complaints from the cloister about wasteful expenditure, and Suger was trying to allay

fears as well as jus tify his buildi ng prog ram me. O nc e again we may be remind ed of the

explos ive situation at Clu ny in the 1120s , when the mutte rings of the mon ks abou t the

ext rav aga nce of their abb ot and his prol onge d absence from the abb ey on non-m onas tic

business precipita ted the crisis of 1125. Th e dust of that scand al settled slowly . A mo n g its

more recent repercussion s had been the troubles at St Ma ry 's , Yor k in 1135, an d the

secession which led to the foun dat ion of Foun tain s. Th es e were preceden ts that mus t have

been constantly in Suger's mind, and he was no doubt anxious that they should not be

repeate d at St Denis . Th er e is no wh iff of the Pseud o-Di ony siu s here.

The second version, the De consecratione, was written after 1144 when the choir was

finished and the whole operation had been brought to a splendid conclusion. This is much

longer. It goes into great detail about the difficulties that were encountered in the course of

h k d hi h h k h i l i i f h h



10 PETER KIDSON

was not finished un til the period of the second cru sade whe n Sug er was actin g as regent of

France (1147-49) · Its relation to the other records is not entirely clear. It goes over a lot of

the same ground as the Ordinatio though in greater detail; but it presupposes rather than

repeats the De consecratione, to which it provi des a kind of sequel. Ho we ve r the tone is

perceptibly different. Suger is more relaxed and more expansive. The real subject is the

decor ative splend our of the new build ing and its sum ptu ous furnishi ngs. Th es e positively

invite Suger to show himse lf in his true colours . An d he does. He una sha med ly glories in

things that gleam and shine. He would like to think that there is nothing reprehensibleabout this, that it is compatible with his religious vocation. But that is all. It was here,

behind the exuberant prose, that Panofsky thought he could detect the Pseudo-Dionysiac

symptoms he was looking for. But unless one is convinced beforehand that Suger was a

committed initiate, one will search his words in vain for the proof. It simply is not there.

Witho ut the Pseudo -Dio nys ius Sug er loses much of his art historical glamo ur. He

ceases to be the commanding intellectual and reverts to a more conventional style of

patr onag e. B ut it does not follow that St Deni s ceases to be his special creation. Ev en

without benefit of light me taph ysic s there wa s still a great dea l of light, or rather colour , in

the building. The windows were quite certainly Suger's own distinctive contribution.

Th er e must ha ve been at least thirty of them in the choir and the west front. T he y were his

pride and joy . He appoin ted a special ministerialis magistrum to look after them when they

were finished28 and had a lot of troubl e finding en oug h crafts men to make them in the first

place. These had to be recruited from 'many regions' 2 9 which suggests that the scale of

operat ions was exc eptio nal and beyo nd the immedia te resources of any one region. T hi s

'scou ring the lan d' in sear ch of talent allows S uger to present himsel f in his favourite role

as indefat igable prov ider. T he re were other occasio ns. If necess ary he was prep ared to

fetch marbl e colu mns all the way from Ro me to match those of the old nave, a lth oug h in



PAN OFS KY, SUGER AND ST DENIS 11

Th e one thing we do not hear mu ch ab out from Su ger is the presence on his payr oll of a

quali f ied architect.3 3 Th er e are fine words in praise of craf tma nsh ip when it produces

some thin g that delights his eye. We learn that there was no shorta ge of ston emaso ns to do

the work; but the only time we are told anyt hin g abou t skills of a more professiona l kind is

when 'it was cun nin gly provid ed tha t. . . the central nave (literally roof) of the old churc h

should be equali sed by means of geom etric al and arithmet ical instrume nts with the

central na ve of the new addit ion '. 3 4 This leads on directly to the passage about the chapels

and their wonderful windows, quoted above. 3 5 But there is no inkling that these also

requi red the services of geo met ry and arith metic, not to mentio n a rem ark abl y sophisti-

cated sense of the beha vio ur of structur es, wi tho ut whic h there could have been n o

marv ello us lighti ng effects. Su ger' s silence is instructive. It betray s the com pla cen cy of the

great patron who knows exactly what he wants and does not care how it is done. It also

sugges ts the wa ry inco mpre hen sion of the literary ma n for wh om the prestigious myst eries

of appli ed math ema tics wer e a closed book. 3 6 Alt hou gh our know ledge of the twelfth-

century work at St Denis has been severely curtailed by the thirteenth-century alterations

in which all trac e of the clerestory and vaul ts comp letely di sap pear ed, e nou gh is left of the

plan and elevati on for us to form an estima te of the range of archi tectu ral resourc es

involved. They show a powerful mind at work, thinking imaginatively about architectural

problems, and working out subtle and effective solutions. That mind was not Suger's.

Whet he r he knew it or not, Su ger empl oyed a n architect of genius wh o deserves our

salutations even though he cannot be named.

Giv en its ack now led ged im por tan ce in the history of archite cture, the apse of St Denis

has not received the close attention it deserves. The only serious attempt to come to grips

with it in recent years is to be found in a short paper by Crosby,3 7 which includes a few



12 PETER KID SON

studied, and the construction of an astrolabe described by Herma nnu s Contrac tus (who

died in 1054) indi cat ed a level of interes t in astr ono my whic h ou gh t to hav e been up to

gras pin g Ptole my's cen tral idea, i.e. that the mov eme nts of the heav enl y bodies were

controlled by a syste m of circles and epicycl es. Th is is wh at caugh t Cro sb y' s attention.

Th e apse of St Deni s is not a simple matt er of concen tric circles. Cr os by detected two

centres and t wo radii, with the chap els thems elves for ming a series of subo rdin ate circles.

When he drew it out, the analogy must have leapt at him.

Bu t that is all the evide nce there is: on the one han d a so me wh at out of the ordin ary building; on the other a rather unusual explanation which superficially seems to fit. It is

the sort of reaso ning that is all too co mm on in art-historical studies, especial ly medieva l.

It is impossible to prove the hypothesis wrong, but a great deal more in the way of

arg ume nt is requ ired before it com ma nd s assent. It presuppo ses a hug e amo un t of special

plead ing. Q uit e apart from the Ge rar d of Cr em on a issue, which canno t be entirely swept

aside withou t more ado, there is the glaring fact that Suger himself make s no mentio n of

Ptolemy or astronomical iconography, any more than he names the Pseudo-Dionysius;

and no one else ever seems to have shown the slightest interest in the idea. Before resorting

to such heroic solutions we ought to ask whether it is really impossible to find asatisfactory solution along more conventional lines.

Th e first thing to establish is the extent of the deformatio n. T he apse has three curv ed

components, one inside the other. The two innermost, represented by the rows of



PA NOFSK Y, SUGER AND ST DENIS 13

columns, are concentric, and essentially circular. 3 8 Structurally, the complications are

confined to the outer wall of the chapel ring, th oug h if Cr os by 's dra win g is correct, the

critica l facto r is the loc atio n of the centres fr om wh ic h the small circles of the chape ls are

struck. These lie on three arcs, which can be identified as north, east and south

respectively. The north and south arcs have two chapels each, and were struck from the

same centre as the two rows of col umn s whic h form the inner circles. Toget her , they all

belong to a single, regular, geometrical construction. It is only the eastern arc which does

not confor m to this constructi on. T hi s arc determ ines the position of the axial chap el, an d

the chap els on either side of it. It has a shorte r rad ius a nd a differen t cent re, 2.70 m to the

east of the princi pal centre. In pract ical terms the distortion is limited to the outer walls of

these three middle ch apels of the chapel ring , whi ch are pushed s ome wha t to the east —

the axial chapel being the one most affected. This is true at both levels, although the

dimensions are not the same, and the vertical alignments do not coincide. In the crypt,

where there is onl y one amb ula tor y, the effect manifests itself entirely as a deep enin g of the

three chapels. In the choir above, where there are no party walls between the chapels, it

takes the form of a slight widen ing tow ard the axis of wha t it is cust oma ry to call the outer

ambulatory; but there is no difference because the so-called outer ambulatory is really

par t of the cha pel s (PI. i a) . In De consecratione Suger lists the altars and the prelates who

consecrated them. For the series in the crypt he begins with 'the lower main altar', which

is dedicated to the Virgin, and then gives four 'on the right' and four 'on the left' . From

this it follows that the Virgin's altar in the crypt was in the axial chapel. In the choir

above, the sequence is as follows: the main, high altar; the nave altar; the Virgin altar; and

then eight more. 3 9 T he locat ions are not specif ied, bu t if the proced ure was the sam e as for

the crypt, the Virgin's altar ought once again to have been in the axial position. As it



14 PETER KIDSON

pol ygo n was chosen to prod uce the right numb er of chape ls and altars, the col umn s

around the apse which are said to represent the twelve apostles and the prophets simply

follow ed suit. Th e converse implies that the nu mbe r of chape ls and therefore the numb er

of altars were cons equ ence s of the symbol ism. I sup pose it is possible that Suger was

prep ared to institute cu lts at St Den is ju st to co mpl y with the specif ications of his

iconography; but a simpler explanation is that the image was suggested to him by the

building, not the other wa y round. Th e second sta ge was the modific ation of the pol ygon .

For liturgical reasons the axial chapels had to be larger than the rest. This could have beendone, as it was in other churches, without worrying about the visual consequences. But

these mattered at St Denis; and so for purely aesthetic reasons the distortion was done in

such a wa y as to be virtu ally unob tru sive (PI. i b). T he seque nce of win do ws remai ned

regular; and although the three easternmost chapels focused geometrically on a separate

centre, their windows were arranged around axes which converged on the focal point of

the remain ing chapel s. In other wor ds there was a single point of ma xi mu m visibility for

all the windows around the apse. Altogether i t was a remarkable achievement. One might

postulate a dialogue between Suger and his architect, but it was the architect who came

up with all the answers. There is no need whatever to introduce abstract cosmicsym boli sm, a nd even if this was presen t, the abo ve remar ks would still app ly. T he

problems were formal, aesthetic, even theatrical, but not in any special sense icono-

graphical.

Specu latio ns abo ut symbo lis m and the eccentricities of the design have distra cted

attention away from the fact that the apse is, after all, based on a regular polygon. 4 1 But it

is a very unusual and therefore interesting polygon. According to Crosby the angle

su bte nde d at the centre by the sides is in the regi on of 27 deg rees . Th e figure tha t seems to

fit this specification best is a thirteen-sided pol ygo n, wher e the angl e wou ld be 27.69



PANOFSKY, SUGER AND ST DENIS !5

such a theory, and was it known in twelfth-century France? The answer to the first part of

that question is affirmative. In antiquity a rough and ready method for working out the

sides of poly gons ins cribed in circles had been know n ever since Babyl oni an times. It has

come do wn to us thro ugh Her on of Ale xan dr ia in the form ula an = 3D /nn, where a is

the leng th of the side, D the dia met er of the circle, and n the num be r of sides in the

polygon. 4 3 It is a rule of th um b wh ic h assu mes pi to be 3, so 3D is the cir cum fer enc e, an d

the side of the pol yg on , n, wh ic h is reall y a cho rd of the circle, is sim ply equ at ed with the

segm ent of the circum feren ce cut by the chord . T his is of course wro ng, beca use the

segment is always greater than the chord. However the error is subject to amelioration in

two ways . As the num ber of sides increases, so the discr epan cy betwee n the chord and the

seg men t dim ini she s; and by using a low valu e for pi (3 inst ead of 3. 14 15 9 . . .) the resu lt is

biased in favo ur of the chord. Th e comb inat ion of these two effects varies acr oss the series

of poly gons . Up to pe ntag on the for mul a errs on the side of excess. F or the hexag on it is

exactly right; and beyond the hexagon the results are too low. In fact the error reaches a

ma xi mu m of abo ut 4% i n the vicinity of the thirteen-sided pol ygon , an d then it declines

toward the infinitesimal as the polygon approaches the circle.

It is not easy to test the hypothesis that such a formula was used at St Denis. It would

need a remarkably accurate plan to verify or refute particular inferences about

dimensions, and this is not available. Perhaps the most encouraging sign is that while the

layo ut of the chapels a nd the amb ula tor y is regul ar enough to sugges t a theory , it is not

absolutely regular, and this suggests that the theory was less than perfect. Crosby implies

that all the chapels have the same radius (2.70 m in the choir), but his diagram belies this.

Th e west ernm ost chap el on the north side of the amb ula tor y, the one Suger assign ed to

St Osmanna, is perceptibly larger than the rest. Fluctuations in dimensions like the radii



6 PETER KIDSON

during the thirteenth century. 4 5 There is one other tantalizing clue. Apart from the

gener al for mula for pol ygon s, H ero n also has a series of calcul ations gi ving the areas of the

regular polygons from the pentagon to the dodecagon, with a standard side of 10 (except

the hex ag on , for whic h he uses a side of 30). Hi s ans wer s are not too far off the mark , an d

the method is, after a fashion, rational. Now at Munich there is an eleventh-century

manuscript 4 6 whi ch contains an assor tment of mat hem atic al material culled from a

variety of sources loosely related to the Rom an agri menso res, a mo ng wh ich is to be foun d

a series of luna tic calcul ations purp orti ng to give the areas of the regular poly gon s fromthe pentagon to the dodecagon with a standard side of 10. The ultimate source for this

farrago can only have been Heron. Nevertheless, whoever transcribed the text had not the

slightest idea wh at he was doin g. It reads like the hopeful par aph ras e of some one whos e

Greek was as shaky as his mathematics. 4 7 Wh eth er any thi ng can be made of this, it is hard

to say; but it seems to indicate that at some remove and perhaps already horribly garbled,

there was a text of Her on on poly gon s at large som ewhe re in western Eu rop e durin g the

century before St Denis.

As it stands, the Munich manuscript is quite useless as a source for the mathematical

kno wled ge in quest ion, no t jus t becaus e it is full of nonsens e, but beca use the extract on

polygons does not include the general formula. In any case it may be a mistake to try to

conne ct the kno w-h ow of med ieva l architects with texts in circulatio n. A more profit able

line of enqu iry migh t be to exami ne earlier build ings whi ch displ ay a high degr ee of

geom etric al proficien cy for similar evidenc e of pol ygo nal constru ction, and try to

establis h a continuit y of expertise lead ing back to sources where kno wle dge of ancie nt

math ema tics can be presup pose d with confid ence. Th er e are two places of whi ch this

would b e true. O ne was Constan tinop le, the other Cor dob a. Of the two, Cor do ba is



PAN OF SKY , SUGER AND ST DENIS 17

perh aps the more pro misi ng for St Deni s. T he great mos que exemplif ies a great deal of the

right kind of geom etry ap plied to archite cture , both in plan and elevat ion, an d it

antic ipated in a part icul arly da rin g wa y a theory of structu ral equ ilibr ium that can be

recog nized in subs eque nt Gothi c build ings like Laon . In the absen ce of Suge r's clerestory

we cannot be sure about St Denis but there are signs that it was there as well. However,

that opens the do or to a who le rang e of prob lems that lead far beyond the scope of the

present paper.

The conclusions to be drawn are as follows. Suger was not in any serious sense a

follow er of the Pseud o-D ion ysi us. He was an ortho dox ch ur chm an in a position of great

powe r, and his pr ima ry aim as a patron wa s to do hon our to the saints of his abbey . T h e

new choir of St Den is was con ceiv ed as a setti ng for altar s and reli quar ies, an d in so far as

it was no vel, this was du e to a mode of presen tation wh ich was dra mat ic enoug h in its own

right, and owed nothing to symbolism. It is necessary to distinguish between the

decorative ends aimed at (i.e. the windows) and the architectural means by which these

were achieved. St Denis was influential under all these headings, but not always at the

same time or in the same way. As a 'reliquary' church, it was a model for Canterbury; and

as a frame for windows, it was a model for Chartres. But it was the geometry, which was

the special contr ibutio n of the architect, th at entered at once into the main str eam of

chu rch des ign, a nd this left its mark on a series of build ings wh ich othe rwise were out of

sy mpa thy with St Denis . As for the Pseud o-D iony siu s, if he had anyth ing to do with

twelfth-century religious art, it was through the exegetical movement associated (among

others) wit h the canon s of St Vict or , rather than St Deni s. Th is might provid e the starti ng

point for a furthe r enquir y into Su ger' s alleged role as one of the great innovat ors of

medieval i conography.



P h o t o J a m e s A u s t i n

a—Ambulatory, interior (p. 13)

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b—East End, exterior (p. 14)

a, b: Paris, St Denis

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