Monreale Cathedral mosaics facts for kids

East Apse

The Mosaics of Monreale Cathedral are a truly amazing sight inside the cathedral building. They cover a huge area, about 6,500 square meters, which is like covering a whole soccer field with tiny, shiny pictures! These mosaics are made from small pieces of colored glass called tesserae.

Artists created these beautiful artworks in a special way called the Byzantine style. This happened between the late 1100s and the mid-1200s. Both local artists and masters from Venice, Italy, worked on them. Almost every wall inside the cathedral, including the curved parts of arches, is covered with these detailed mosaic pictures. They use bright colors and shine brightly because they are set on a gold ground (a background made of gold leaf).

The Amazing Mosaics of Monreale Cathedral

The mosaics show many stories from the Old Testament and New Testament parts of the Bible. They are arranged in rows, one above another, like a giant comic book. These rows are separated by bands of decoration. In some areas, especially near the altar, you can see as many as five rows of these pictures or figures stacked up.

What You Can See in the Mosaics

In the main curved area behind the altar, called the central apse, there is a giant picture of Christ. Below him, you can see the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. The other curved areas have full-length figures of important saints like St Peter and St Paul.

Each picture has a short message written on it. These messages explain what the picture is about or who the saint is. Most of these messages are in Latin, an old language, but a few are in Greek.

Stories from the Bible

As you walk through the main part of the church, called the nave, the mosaics start with scenes from the Book of Genesis. These pictures tell stories from the Old Testament. They show events that were believed to prepare the way for Christ's arrival. You can also see figures of people who were thought to have predicted his coming.

Around the lower part of the walls and in the area near the altar, the mosaics show stories from the New Testament. These mostly focus on Christ's miracles and his suffering. You will also see many pictures of apostles, evangelists, and other saints.

The Byzantine Influence

The way these mosaics are designed, how they were made, and even the choice of stories they tell, all seem to come from Byzantine art. This style of art was very popular in the Eastern Roman Empire. The specific stories chosen for the mosaics might have come from a book called the Menologion of Basil II. This book was put together by an emperor named Basil II in the 900s. It listed saints' feast days and important religious events.

Images for kids

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  East Apse

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  Madonna col Bambino.

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  Lower register (south side).

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  Bottom register of the north side of the nave.

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