THE SALERNO IVORIES

During the second half of the twentieth century the field of medieval art-history was mainly dominated by the concept that Byzantium had been the leading production-center in the Mediterranean, offering "superior exempla", understood largely in terms of strong ties to the classical past.
A detailed, multifaceted, interdisciplinary analysis of the extraordinary eleventh-twelfth century, the 'Salerno ivories', the largest ivory ensemble preserved from the Middle Ages, (mostly Salerno, Museo Diocesano), still needs to be accomplished.
Combining Islamic, Byzantine, Egyptian, and Latin features, the ivories were outstanding within the most precious furnishings of the late-eleventh-century cathedral in Salerno, the mainland capital of the Norman kingdom of Southern Italy, which sheltered the body of the evangelist Matthew, and which sported Byzantine bronze doors, mosaics, magnificent 'opus sectile' floors and pulpits in line with those of royal Norman churches of Sicily.

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