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Cathédrale St-Lazare, Autun (Burgundy)

West Portal and Tympanum (1130-35)

by Gislebertus

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The existence of this 1100s masterpiece today is mainly down to the cathedral canons of 1766, who decided that the carvings were mediocre and childish, and covered everything in a thick layer of plaster adorned with unchildish decorative motives that looked so ordinary that nobody bothered with them until ..... read the rest of the story ..... 

"Move right along there, you damned people" - Saint Michael manifests himself for the second time in the tympanum, marshalling the damned under Gislebertus' signature at the feet of Christ

The good people, including angels, bishops and (bottom right of centre) pilgrims, on their way to heaven

Damned souls being weighed (by a second Saint Michael) and assigned to hell

The devil's claws hook a sinner in the bottom row:  to right - Avarice, to his left - Lust

Saracen (?) bashing - but why was this not defaced along with the front of the capital ?  Autun was captured by Muslim forces from Al-Andalus on 22 August 725 (a long time before this capital was carved!).  This was about as far east as the Muslims got, and after the battle of Poitiers in 732 they lost their momentum and faded back to the west across the Pyrenees.

St-Jerome takes a splinter out of a lion's paw in one of the portal capitals

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All original material © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission.