Lucca Cathedral

The San Martino Cathedral is the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Lucca in Lucca ( Italy). The church building dates from the late 12th century ( 1196-1204 ) and is in close proximity to the southern city wall on the cathedral square.

Church

The facade of San Martino belongs to the oldest building phase ( Baumeister: Guidetto da Como ). Normally, the churches are built rather from east to west and the facade is one of the last components. This here was created already in the beginning of the 13th century with this tiered row of arcades, which stands as a decorative layer before the actual facade wall (see Cathedral of Pisa ). It will be one of the first forms of this idea after the Pisan model. The façade is the porch of a separate component, which is still visible today separated from the underlying church. Overall, the porch was 1233-57 equipped with plastic jewelry.

Lucca has taken with its façade designs a unique direction and let these facades become their own display wall, which may be higher than the church behind it.

Special emphasis was placed on the intentionally non-uniform design of the columns. The right corner column of the uppermost storey facade is a so-called node column. Such a column had apotropaic significance in the Middle Ages, they had to ward off evil by magic characters. The knotting of a double column in the center was regarded as such a magic character. Even later was still working with these agents. In the Gothic cathedrals, for example, the gargoyles were almost always formed in the shape of monsters.

On the columns and the wall surfaces every opportunity is been used to a fine ornamentation, whose motives are probably from the Teppichwebekunst.

In the chancel of the cathedral, the classification scheme of the facade has been revived. Again, the trend is clear, though not as nice and Oriental as in Pisa, to move the whole building with the displayed sheet positions.

Detail of the facade

Lucca Cathedral, finger labyrinth, diameter 50 cm

View of the west facade

Equipment

In the interior, especially the sarcophagus of Ilaria del Carretto Jacopo della Quercia of (1374-1438) from the period around 1406 is worth mentioning.

In the entrance area of the western porch of a perpendicular chiselled into the wall bas-relief was immortalized, called a finger labyrinth. It is identical in lines with the Chartres labyrinth in the cathedral of Chartres and is dated late 12th or early 13th century.

Look into the vault

Painting ( 1479 )

Tabernacle ( " tempietto " )

San Regolo Altar

Sarcophagus of Ilaria del Carretto

The organ was built in 1955 by the organ builder Mascioni. The abrasive loading instrument has 48 registers on three manuals and pedal. The tracker action are electric. The individual works are distributed over the Kathedralraum: Behind the main altar is the " positivo corale " pedal with associated registers. Grand'Organo, Organo espressivo and the pedal mechanism are housed in two Renaissance enclosures, of which each one is on a small stand in each aisle, right next to the transept. The organ brochures each other out over the nave. The instrument can allude from a mobile game table.