Compostela, Bari and Jerusalem: in search of the footsteps of a figurative culture on the Roads of Pilgrimage

Abstract

The peak of pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in the late eleventh century coincides with the emergence of the cult to St. Nicholas in Bari and with the First Crusade. Compostela and Bari, as cities where pilgrims came and left, thereby became privileged centres when a new international style emerged: Romanesque. Romanesque brought with it a new and revolutionary monumental and figurative culture characterised by exchange, in which the devotion of chapels, relics - Patriarchal Crosses - symbols of pilgrimage - the scallop shell of St. James - and the iconographic subjects of knightly epic were evident all along the land and sea roads of the Mediterranean. In this way a “circular” pilgrimage to Compostela, Rome, Bari, Mount Sant’Angelo and Jerusalem came into being, implying competition among the shrines which tried to offer pilgrims a figurative culture appropriate for their vicissitudes.

Keywords

• compostela
• santiago
• st. nicholas
• scallop shell of saint james
• pseudo-turpin
• bari
• jerusalem
• brindisi