Photo: Fotopassione · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Chiostro di Santa Maria La Nuova in Monreale

Romanesque cloister of the Benedictine monastery beside the Duomo of Monreale, with 216 paired columns and historiated capitals from the late 12th century.

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About the museum

The cloister was the heart of the ancient Benedictine monastery attached to the Duomo of Monreale and was built at the end of the 12th century, around 1200, in the Norman period. It stands on the south side of the monastic buildings and has come down to us in good condition.

The plan is square, with sides of about 47 metres, and the portico has double-ringed pointed arches supported by paired columns of white marble, 216 in all. The columns are alternately smooth, decorated with a spiral or vertical pattern of tesserae of gold and coloured glass, or carved with arabesques. The bases show very varied motifs, such as stylised leaves, rosettes, lion’s paws, animal heads and small reptiles.

The capitals are all different: they depict plant motifs, scenes from the Old and New Testaments, secular and symbolic episodes, and a capital showing William II offering the Duomo to the Virgin. In one corner of the portico a square enclosure houses the fountain, a monastic washbasin with a column carved in the shape of a stylised palm. Over the centuries the cloister has undergone several restorations, particularly of its roofs, between the 15th and 16th centuries.