Nikola Benin. Cloister of the Church of Santa María la Real Sasamón, Burgos, Spain; 15th century

Nikola Benin

Most probably and above all, what cloister builders were inspired by is the search for a mystical light. Nevertheless, with a general reference to fine arts, we might be tempted to include music too. When the season is favourable, still today not seldom cloisters are employed as open-air halls for holding concerts, also because of acoustic reasons. Nay, there may be something musical inside the architectural structure itself. Nor necessarily, this evoked harmony is conventionally sacred. Still appreciated by astronomers as Copernicus and Kepler, a Pythagorean theory was that of the so called, in Latin, “Musica Universalis.” It can't be excluded, somehow medieval builders strove to infuse or convert such a cosmic “Harmony of the Spheres” into their geometry of squares and sequences of arches. Moreover, musical details aren't lacking, in an ornamental sculpture. Below, upper image: a late Gothic musician angel, playing a strange wind instrument (Cloister of the Church of Santa María la Real Sasamón, Burgos, Spain; 15th century); lower: “King David and His Musicians” (Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, France: Romanesque capital from a cloister of the Monastery of Notre-Dame la Daurade at Toulouse; ca. 1100-1110).