its government, was the product of many diverse elements, developing on the mainland into a variety of local and provincial types, but in Sicily combined and harmonized under the guiding will of the royal court. Traces of direct Norman influence occur, as in the towers and exterior decoration of the cathedral of Cefalù or in the plan of that great resort of Norman pilgrims, the church of St. Nicholas at Bari; but in the main the Normans, in Bertaux's phrase, contributed little more than the cement which bound together the artistic materials furnished by others.[1] These materials were abundant and various, the Roman basilica and the Greek cupola, the bronze doors and the brilliant mosaics of Byzantine craftsmen, the domes, the graceful arches and ceilings, and the intricate arabesques of Saracen art; yet in the churches and palaces of Sicily they were fused into a beautiful and harmonious whole which still dazzles us with its splendor. The chief examples of this 'Norman' style are to be found at Cefalù, King Roger's cherished foundation, where he prepared his last resting-place in the great porphyry sarcophagus later transported to Palermo, and where Byzantine artists worked in blue and gold wonderful pictures of Christ and the Virgin and stately figures of archangels and saints of the Eastern Church; at Monreale, the royal mount of William II, commanding the inexhaustible wealth of Palermo's Golden Shell and
- ↑ L'art dans l'Italie méridionale, p. 344.
