George Pace, the architect who oversaw the restoration, noted that in mediaeval days, the cathedral had a
pulpitum, a stone screen which divided the sanctuary, creating a sense of veiled mystery.
Se aprovecho el trazado urbano y su orografia para conseguir que el eje axial del edificio--dedicado a los nietos y sucesores de Augusto, Cayo y Lucio cesares--y el
pulpitum y la fronspulpiti sacralizados con tres altares neoaticos con relieves alusivos a la Triada Capitolina se asociasen con la salida del sol en el solsticio de invierno (cf.
Powerful crosshatched mask-like graphite heads commemorating the disappeared of Chile were visible through the chancel arches, forming both a frame and almost another prison; a clump of sculptures in wood crouched under the ornately budding
pulpitum, nakedly wrenched in pain, with a hollowed-out Our Lady of Sorrows expressing starkly the agony of mother Eve as well as Mary, powerless to protect her child.
And at Southwell Minster the green men are carved in the chapter house and are not featured in the sumptuous contemporary carvings of the
pulpitum or chancel.
William was situated on the north side of the
pulpitum and his Chapel was near by (the piscina of the altar is still in place).
It has a 21st- century
Pulpitum Screen by Alexander Beleschenko, a highly respected glass artist from Swansea, recently installed to much public acclaim
(19) This was at the time a huge sum: Inigo Jones's entire
pulpitum or screen at Winchester Cathedral, erected in 1637-38, cost 234 [pounds sterling] 4s 0d.
Once the environment in which the idea of the aside was first formulated--the open-air theatre of antiquity with its circular seating arrangement and without a linear division between the logeion and the theatron, or even between
pulpitum and cavea (Greek and Latin words that correspond, respectively, to the English "stage" and "auditorium")-- is replaced with a more claustrophobic configuration of parterre, loges, and scene (pit, boxes, and stage) separated by a proscenium arch, several of the clauses that make up the original contract between the actors and the audience become irrelevant.
IS the
pulpitum the same as the pulpit in a church?
One of the Wycliffite sermons mentioned above relates how three or four soloists perform polyphonic music in church and are subsequently congratulated by `strumpets and thieves' for their small notes.(22) Perhaps the `distracted cleric' represents a view from the nave when singers performed polyphony at a lectern in the
pulpitum and turned themselves about `striving only for the praises of mortals'.