From the 12th to the 13th century, the entrance to the Gualterian cathedral was located in the southern part, in correspondence with a Loggia, also known as the Tocco, which was a porticoed access room. When Magister Antonio Gambara built the present portico in 1429, it was called "tocco del piano"....

The Cefalù Cathedral was built by Roger II in 1131 as a dynastic mausoleum to house his mortal body. Architecturally, especially in its original design, it takes the form of a real fortress. Built in a strategic position, at the eastern end of the town, and under the fortress that dominates the sur...

The Tree of Life, with its symbols, illustrates an important doctrinal teaching, that of purification and the path to salvation. Carved in stone, thanks to the work of artists and stonemasons, and depicting a fantasy world, typical of medieval art, the tree of life represents the path that every pil...

Mater Ecclesiae or Mother of the Church is one of the names of the Virgin Mary, proclaimed in 1964 by Pope Paul VI to recall Our Lady's maternal closeness and the help she had always given to the Church throughout the ages. The tree of life is the last stage that the pilgrim can reach, once purified...

The ianuacoeli is the gate of heaven which every good Christian should pass through to enter the mater ecclesia. This is why the tree of life is placed in a doorway, because it indicates the path of purification that people must take to reach Salvation. A kind of threshold that, once crossed, allows...

The medieval bestiary or bestiarium is an illustrated book that focuses on descriptions and illuminated depictions of animals, taken from both the real and fantasy worlds. Each animal, in a symbolic and allegorical way, embodied one of the human vices or virtues; therefore, the texts often also had ...

The tree of life is populated by numerous animal figures of precise symbolic and allegorical significance. Many animals come from the natural world such as: greyhounds, cocks, a crane with a retracted leg, fish, moles, a snake, a crab, a bat, an octopus. Others, however, come from the fantasy world,...

According to ancient philosophy, the soul of the world, or anima mundi, indicates the vitality of nature and the idea that every organism on the planet is intrinsically connected, and therefore linked to the other by a great, common universal soul. An expression of paganism and animism, anima mundi ...

The tree of life is composed of a geometric set of spirals into which twelve main tondos are inserted, in turn subdivided inside and populated by symbolic, allegorical and fantastic creatures. ...

The secrets of all iconography are concentrated within the woman depicted in the tree of life. There are three cocks, with red crests, watching over it, and hidden among the branches, in groups of three, there are other animals such as fish and moles, as well as a red-armoured crab and a snake....