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Built in the 'Southern Flamboyant style' ...
THE CLOISTER
The cloisters of the Abbey are work
of the XVth century. The style may be called 'Southern Flamboyant' as
a distinguishing title for a type of architecture common to all the
littorals of the Mediterranean, from Spain to Cyprus, at the close of
the middle ages. The once opulent Kingdom of Sicily is the country where
the last development of Gothic in the south of Europe may be best studied,
and its central position seems to have influenced the mason-craft of
the magnificent cathedrals of Barcelona, Tarragona, or Valencia on the
one hand, and the architecture of the Latin settlements of Greece, Rhodes,
and Cyprus on the other. To an architectural student the cloister of
Bella Paise (Bellapais) has a remarkable similarity to contemporary
Spanish or Sicilian work.
The tracery of all the eighteen arches
of the cloister has been torn out by the stone robbers in a ruthless
manner, but enough of the fragments, and the starting of the tracery
curves, remain to allow of a reconstruction of the design. M. Enlart,
in his great book on the architecture of Cyprus, has not given a very
exhaustive account of this most interesting monument. He does not seem
to have noticed the evidences of a true Flamboyant character in the
window tracery; he merely says, 'des profils montrent déjà
la décadence de l'art quoique le tracé des remplages soit
encore dans le style simple du commencement du XIVe siècle'.
The introduction of the Flamboyant style into Cypriot work is interesting.
As M. Enlart points out in another part of his work, the Spanish influences
in the island during the XVth century were remarkable, owing perhaps
to the presence of more than one princess of the house of Arragon on
the Lusignan throne. Bellapais is therefore much more suggestive of
Barcelona or Toledo than of Burgundy and Champagne. Such a work of art
as the Bella Paise cloister seems somewhat out of place in the Levant;
but at one time Cyprus possessed many examples on a far larger scale
of such buildings, which have all passed away leaving no trace.
Of the exceedingly rare examples of a Flamboyant style in Cyprus which
can be cited, few are characterised by the familiar flowing tracery.
The only instance of a Flamboyant window surviving to the present day,
in addition to these fragments at Bella Paise, is the large four-light
example formerly in the old Konak or Government House of Nicosia (which
was preserved, after the demolition of the palace in 1905, amongst the
medieval relics in the Betestan, Nicosia. However I'm not sure yet about
it's present status. This must be explored during one of my next visits
to Northern Cyprus - Hans Doeleman, November 2003)
In
the Cypriot XVth century, or later style, its Flamboyant character is
confined to its richly carved doorways; its windows are usually of an
early geometrical type. The large undulating leafage of the sculpture,
and the elaboration of the mouldings, stamp the masoncraft in a manner
which shows that the fashion of the period was being imitated from European
models, although there appears a singular absence of one or two important
characteristics. In other words, it is easy enough to see that the design
and workmanship are imperfect attempts in the flowing Flamboyant of
Sicily and Spain, a style which never really took root in the Levant.
The east and north sides of the cloister are in a very poor style of
workmanship, in which the XVth century moulding and stone-cutting are
combined with a coarse geometrical design, in a way characteristic of
even a much later period of Cypriot Art.
On the south side of the cloister the earlier building of the church
has been cut into and slightly altered by the erection of the later
additions, and the windows of the north aisle of the church, which were
designed without reference to the later development of the Abbey, are
now blocked up.
