The medieval cathedral

Once the island's archdioceses were established by the 11th century, it was also necessary for Oristàno, the new capital of the kingdom or giudicato d'Arborèa, to build the cathedral and archiepiscopal palace. For the occasion, these marble plutei, dating from the end of the 11th to the beginning of the 12th century, were made. They served as the presbytery gate of the originally Romanesque church, separating the space for the clergy from the rest of the hall. In the PLUTEO CON DANIELE NELLA FOSSA DEI LEONI (PLUTEO WITH DANIEL IN THE LIONS‘ PIT), the events surrounding the biblical episode of the condemnation of the prophet Daniel to the lions’ den are depicted in detail, collected in a single narrative space. On the left, the sword-wielding figure (Dan. 14:27-37), personification of the Babylonian people who deported the Jewish people, forces King Cyrus, equipped with a crown and sceptre, to condemn Daniel to the lions' den. The prophet Daniel is in the centre, nimbed and flanked by seven lions, three of which, however, appear tame and not intent on mauling him. He addresses the figure on the right, the prophet Habakkuk, who arrives in Chaldea to bring him the food he was about to take to the reapers. Habakkuk is carried in flight by an angel, but the figure has been lost as the plate has been reduced along the right margin. The vine branch that stands between Daniel and Habakkuk together with the bread represent a clear Eucharistic symbol. The chair on which Daniel is ideally seated gives him a regal position so that from being condemned and judged, he is constituted by God as judge of history. While in the second pluteus WITH LIONS TRATTLING CALVES, the beasts do not seem to ferociously seize their prey, suggesting a reinterpretation of the image in a messianic key, following the words of Isaiah 11:6: ‘The calf and the young lion shall graze together, and a little child shall lead them’. The plutei were dismembered during the renovation of the Cathedral in the 14th century and the two marbles were carved again on the back for the new Gothic altar in the Chapel of Remedy. The pair of bronze pickets with a lion protome on the main portal of the medieval cathedral, demolished at the time of the 18th-century renovation, are evidence of the renovation that the cathedral underwent following the invasion of the Giudice di Cagliari Guglielmo di Massa, who put the city of Aristanis to the sword. The precious inscription that runs along the edge of both pegs bears the year 1228, the names of the commissioners of the work, Archbishop Torgotorio de Muro and Judge Mariano II of Torres (who ruled the Giudicato d'Arborea at the time) conducted under the direction of the master smelter Placentinus. Also present are bare capitals, which came from the cathedral, and a series of sculptural fragments dating back to the 13th century. The large capital is one of two surviving capitals of composite style dating back to the 2nd-3rd century AD, taken from some Roman buildings and recovered in the Medieval period; the other capital is the only surviving one from the Romanesque period, made ex-novo for the 12th century cathedral.