Was the great antique marble slab covering Otto the Great’s tomb brought from Ravenna as imperial spolia – and chosen to evoke the world of Charlemagne?
Marble for the Emperor – The Cover Slab of the Sarcophagus of Otto the Great in Magdeburg Cathedral, Germany
By Walter Prochaska, Vilma Ruppiene, Vasiliki Anevlavi, Harald Meller, Veit Dresely, and Donat Wehner
As part of the comprehensive monitoring and conservation of the tomb of Emperor Otto the Great in Magdeburg Cathedral, the provenance of the marble slab covering the sarcophagus has been investigated. During the restoration, two samples of the slab were taken for scientific provenance analysis – one of the white marble and another of the irregular grey bands. The aim was to analyse the stable isotopes of O and C and a large number of trace elements, resulting in numerous variables. To evaluate these numerical results simultaneously, multivariate statistical analysis was used to compare them with a database of approximately 7,000 samples from ancient marble quarries.
The results clearly identify the quarries of Proconnesos in the Sea of Marmara as the most probable source of the slab. This is in complete agreement with petrographic analyses carried out on the samples and with the visible grey banding, which forms a characteristic wavy pattern.
According to the scientists involved in the study, the quarries of Proconnesos on Marmara Island were one of the major sources of marble used during Roman and Byzantine times for architectural embellishments such as architraves, revetments and floors. Also used for the production of plain sarcophagi, it was less frequently employed for carving statues or reliefs. In particular, the marble was widely used in Constantinople and Ravenna in Late Antiquity. Proconnesian marble was not only of good quality; it was also readily available in large blocks that could be shipped across the Mediterranean and was therefore relatively common in Late Antiquity. Less so later, however, for political reasons.
Otto the Great at Ravenna
To explain the presence of the slab in Magdeburg, we should probably regard it as part of the spolia that craftsmen and builders sourced elsewhere. Much of this material probably came from Trier, Xanten and Cologne.
However, the emperor spent many years in Italy, and he may also have encountered the slab in Pavia, Rome – or, most likely, Ravenna. Here lies the church of San Vitale, completed in AD 547. This church had served as a model for Charlemagne’s Palatine Chapel at Aachen, arguably the epicentre of the Carolingian and Ottonian world. Famously, Charlemagne received official permission to “loot” Ravenna in 784, carrying off ancient architectural materials for his building projects at Aachen.
Otto the Great would have been very familiar with San Vitale at Ravenna, where he spent significant periods of time on three separate occasions. During his first Italian expedition in 951–952, when he invaded northern Italy and declared himself King of the Lombards, Otto used Ravenna as a strategic base from which to secure regional power and negotiate with the papacy. Again, in 962, after his coronation as emperor, he travelled north to Ravenna to organise his Italian government.
Finally, between 967 and 972, he established a substantial imperial presence in Ravenna. During this period, he resided at a palace built next to the monastery of San Severo in Classis (Classe), where he organised a grand imperial assembly attended by Pope John XIII and major European dignitaries, and where Magdeburg was elevated to an archbishopric. Ravenna was also central to his complicated negotiations with the Byzantine emperor concerning the marriage of Otto II to a purple-born princess. In the event, the bride was not the emperor’s sister but a more distant relative, Theophanu.
Although it cannot be proven, Otto may have been inspired to acquire spolia there in order to link his building project in Magdeburg with Charlemagne’s at Aachen. Perhaps someone encountered the slab somewhere in Ravenna and identified it as a fitting cover for the grave of an emperor engaged in building a cathedral in Magdeburg to enshrine the remains of his queen and, later, himself.
Thus, when the authors of the study “propose tentatively” that the emperor may have taken the slab with him as some sort of reliquary intended for his grave in Magdeburg, and link it with a relic of St Vitalis, the suggestion seems somewhat speculative. More likely, he was inspired by Charlemagne, whose imperial ambitions he resurrected so magnificently.
FEATURED PHOTO:
The Slab from Ttto the gret’s tomb © Landesamt Sachsen-Anhalt. Photo: Andrea Hörentrup
READ ALSO:
The Representation of Empire: Otto I at Ravenna.
By David A. Warner
In: Representations of Power in medieval Germany 800-1500. Ed. by Björn Weiler and Simon MacLean.
Brepols 2006
