Cattedrale di San Nicola Pellegrino, Trani (Puglia)

TRANI CATTEDRALE - NOVEMBER 2006

TRANI Crusader assembly port - major medieval port with a significat\nt Jewish community
Trani Cathedral (2003)	Trani Cathedral (2006) (this page)
Bronze Doors of Trani Cattedrale (c1180)	Templar Church of Ognissanti
Medieval Porto - Winter Dawn (2003)	Medieval Porto (2006)
Trani Restaurants & Hotel	Frederick II's Castello at Trani

Magnificent and frightening medieval carvings (particularly around the rose and apse windows) are part of the excitement of the Puglian Romanesque medieval cathedrals. Don't even think of mucking with the church, they say - this example is above the west rose window of Trani Cattedrale (shown in full below).

Sadly such decorations disappeared further north as the intellectually driven Renaissance cleared all (Romanesque) before it, and the Baroque style which followed had nothing to say at all.

Less likely to give you nightmares - an elephant on the west facade.

The East end - November dawn breaks over Trani's Cattedrale di San Nicola il Pellegrino and Frederick' II's Fort

In front of the Cattedrale is the Hotel Regia with Paradox's room in the middle with the little extra window for the bathroom. Another illustration of the tough life that Dom P leads, though in fairness we did rise before dawn twice on very cold November mornings to take these photos.

This is the rose window in the south transept - typical of the Norman Puglian Cathedrals - a wagon wheel with carved stone hub and spokes.

Two men and a cow on the south wall of the apse

A corner man in the transept corbel table pauses for a few centuries to remove a thorn from his foot.

Whose face was this modelled on, one wonders !

The nave (2006 photo) was de-baroqued in the early Twentieth Century showing, amongst other things, how the 24 old capitals and their columns were monstered in order to make way for baroque "improvements". Particularly sad as Trani is the only Puglian Byzantine / Norman Cathedral where the traditional 12 columns are doubles. In its early Romanesque days this nave would have been as magnificent inside as it was outside (as well a having a mosaic floor).