I matronei della cattedrale di Bari: studio integrato sull'identificazione, la provenienza e il reimpiego dei marmi

The cathedral of Bari is one of the most remarkable examples of Apulian Romanesque architecture, built between the 12th and 13th centuries, on the site of a more ancient church. It is built of local limestone, with various types of mainly imported white marble employed for decorative elements. This work presents the results of a multidisciplinary study conducted on spolia marbles from the women's galleries. With the aim of improving our knowledge of the source of such materials, we conducted a typological study of the architectural elements, coupled with a mineralogical-petrographic study of the constituent marbles (by means of X-Ray diffraction analyses and observation of thin sections with an optical microscope) in combination with stable isotope analyses, as well as a typological study of the architectural elements.. By comparing the mineralogical-petrographic and isotopic analyses, it was possible to identify with reasonable certainty almost all of the marbles analysed as coming from quarries on Lesbos, Marmara, Thassos, Paros, Carrara, and Mt. Pentelicon; the provenance of some samples remains uncertain. There is a large variety of architectural elements, including shafts, capitals, bases and abaci, many of them taken from earlier monuments. Specifically, the capitals are mostly of the Asiatic Corinthian type and Byzantine Corinthian type and are datable to a period spanning the Byzantine and imperial epochs. They come from the spolia of various buildings from the Roman period and especially from the pre-existing paleo-christian basilica on the same site.