Modena Cathedral
Look for the arrow first. On the west front of Modena Cathedral, a marble panel about a metre tall shows Lamech loosing a shaft into Cain's eye, blinding him. A few hand-widths away, on the same stone, Noah and his family ride out the flood and then step down from the Ark. Two stories, one block, no partition between them.
The carver signed his work, which was rare. An epigraph runs as a postscript to the Latin inscription recording the cathedral's foundation date: among sculptors, your work shines forth, Wiligelmo. He is thought to have worked here from about 1099 to about 1110, and he was among the first sculptors in Italy to make architectural sculpture at this scale. Four Genesis reliefs are his — two flanking the central portal, two above the side doors — along with the dedication plaque, two torch-bearing putti, and the whole decorative scheme of the main entrance.
His figures are unmistakable. Stocky bodies seen in profile, heads and feet too large for them, solemn faces, movement that is angular and still somehow dramatic. They stand under decorative arches, packed tight, legs and feet pressed together and turned the same way — a habit borrowed from Roman relief of the Constantinian era. Provincial Roman carving gave him direct models. So, it seems, did ivories, metalwork, and manuscripts made nearby.
What you see is not quite what he built. The panels once ran as a continuous frieze on either side of the central portal and were moved to their present positions later. Some scholars have argued the sculpture served as liturgical furnishings, others insist it was always meant for the façade, and a further reading places the reliefs at the entrance to the crypt. His workshop carried the manner outward — the Porta dei Principi, the Porta della Pescheria, and, in its ranks, a young sculptor named Nicholaus.
Start with the arrow. On the west front of Modena Cathedral, in marble roughly a metre high, Lamech draws and looses, and the shaft goes into Cain's eye. Cain sags. The blinding is done in perhaps a dozen chisel decisions and it still lands. On the same panel, without a frame or a break, Noah's family rides out the flood and then steps down from the Ark. One block, two stories, no partition.
The man who cut it left his name. An epigraph was added as a postscript to the Latin inscription recording the cathedral's foundation date: among sculptors, your work shines forth, Wiligelmo. Almost nothing else about him survives. He appears in the record between about 1099 and 1120, and he seems to have worked at Modena from roughly 1099 to 1110. He was among the earliest sculptors in Italy to make architectural sculpture at this size.
Four Genesis reliefs are his. Two flank the central portal; two sit above the side doors. One carries the Creation and the Temptation of Adam and Eve. Another holds Cain, Lamech and Noah together. They are marble, they stand about a metre tall, and they are generally read as a revival of ancient Roman relief traditions — Romanesque sculpture at its clearest.
The style is instantly his. Bodies stocky and turned to profile, heads and feet outsized, expressions solemn, gestures angular and yet unmistakably dramatic. Figures stand under decorative arches. In the Cain and Noah panel the crowd is packed hard into the stone, legs and feet pressed together and pointing one way, bodies densely proportioned — the arrangement of Constantinian-era Roman relief, put back to work.
His sources were not only monumental. Provincial Roman work served as direct model for several pieces; so did Carolingian and Ottonian ivory carving, metalwork, and manuscript illumination made locally. Scholars once traced lines to the early Romanesque schools of Aquitaine and Aragon; current opinion treats those as parallel, independent developments. Out of small, portable art Wiligelmo built a figure style that pushes up out of the plane of the relief. Most of his carvings carry inscriptions — names for the figures, or longer biblical, secular and liturgical texts.
There is more of him on the building than the four panels. The dedication plaque is his, and two torch-bearing putti, and the decorative programme of the central portal, and many of the figured capitals outside. The large single figures from the metopes are probably his as well; they once marked the bays at the top of the nave walls and now sit in the Museo Lapidario Estense. Look up, too, at the fragments of the Four Evangelists' symbols set above the rose window.
What stands there today is not the original arrangement. The Genesis panels once ran as a continuous frieze on either side of the central portal, and were moved later; some of his sculpture was reassembled by the Campionesi in the later twelfth century. Where it all began is genuinely disputed — some scholars read parts as liturgical furnishings, others insist the façade was always the intent, and a further reading puts the reliefs at the entrance to the crypt.
The workshop outlived the argument. The Porta dei Principi and the Porta della Pescheria were cut by hands known only as the Master of San Geminiano and the Master of the Artù, following his portal but smaller, quicker, more charged. The Porta dei Principi is the first known two-storey porch-portal carried on column-bearing lions or atlantids — a north Italian form whose invention has been associated with Wiligelmo. Among the workshop was the young Nicholaus.
