The Exultet Roll of Salerno
Salerno (Italy), late twelfth century
Gothic majescule (only the very beginning of the text survives)
Museo Diocesano, Salerno(Italy)
Date of Publication of the Facsimile: 1993
Publisher: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, Rome (Italy)
Edizione realizzata nell'Officina Carte valori dell'Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello
Stato, Rome (Italy)
On special paper produced by the Cartiere Miliani-Fabriano
This
Exultet roll was made in Salerno ( a city somewhat south of Naples, on the
coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea), at the time of Bishop Romuald II, who died in 1181.
Originally it would have been similar to most other
Exultet rolls in having the
miniatures upside down with respect to the text, but at some point in the past, the
text of the
Exultet itself was cut out, and the eleven surviving folios of parchment,
each containing two miniatures, were sewn together to form a strip of pictures; the
"frames" of the pictures were repainted to create a certain continuity. The roll in this form
measured about 27 ft. It was used as part of the Paschal celebrations in the
Cathedral of Salerno up to the early years of this century; it was unrolled and hung
from the major ambo during the Easter ceremonies. Badly damaged by centuries of use,
it was sent for restoration in 1917, when it was disassembled. It was sent for restoration
again in 1990, and is at present housed in the Museo Diocesano of Salerno.
Because of the original purpose of these pictures, which were to be gradually unrolled
over the side of the ambo, so that the people in the church could follow the content of
the proclamation by means of the illustrations, the sequence of images should be viewed
from bottom to top, and then from left to right. The selection chosen here starts with
a reminder that the text was read by the deacon in the opposite direction: the upside-down
highly ornamented large capital V surrounding a Christ in Glory is the first letter of
the phrase:
Vere quia dignum et iustum est invisibilem Deum omnipotentem Patrem,
Filiumque unigenitum Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum... ("It is truly right and fitting
[to praise] the invisible God, the Almighty father, and His only-begotten Son, Our Lord
Jesus Christ.") This is followed by a picture of Moses leading the Israelites through
the Red Sea; the text at this point would have been
Haec nox est in qua primum patres
nostros, filios Israel, educens de Aegypto, Rubrum mare sicco vestigio transire fecisti
("This is the night on which you led our fathers, the children of Israel, out of Egypt,
bringing them dry-shod through the Red Sea.") The next scene, the Harrowing of Hell --
wherein Christ is seen to liberate from Hell the good people who had died before his
act of redemption represents the normal medieval understanding of what Christ did in
the interval between his death and resurrection "on the third day." It is also an apt
illustration of the phrase,
Christus ab inferis victor ascendit ("Christ rose
victorious from the Netherworld.")
In the medieval
Exultet, mention of the Paschal Candle triggered an extravagant
praise of the bees who produced the necessary wax. This surprisingly lengthy section
refers to a vast array of scholarly and popular lore on the marvellous behavoir of bees.
It ends as follows:
O vere beata et mirabilis apis, cuius nec sexum masculi violant,
foetus non quassant, nec filii destruunt castitatem. Sicut sancta concepit virgo Maria
peperit et virgo permansit. ("O truly blessed and wondrous bee, whose sex the males
do not dishonor, the bearing of offspring does not violate them, nor do (the bearing of)
children destroy their chastity. Just as the holy virgin Mary conceived and bore a child
and yet remained a virgin.") In this roll, the bees -- flying about a flowering plant,
with their hives in the background -- are followed by a picture of the Virgin enthroned.
The final scene here is the blessing of the Paschal Candle, "We pray, O Lord, that this
candle consecrated in honor of your name, may endlessly coninue to scatter the darkness
of this night."
(Permission to reproduce images from this facsimile was not granted.)
