Illuminated architecture: The influence of manuscripts on the Palatine Chapel

While Mediaeval manuscripts have long been acknowledged as a means of conveying architectural designs across Europe, their role as active intermediaries shaping the symbolic language of spaces merits much closer attention. The design of the Palatine Chapel in Aachen clearly draws from San Vitale in Ravenna, but the chapel’s use of columns within the span of its upper-most arches stands out as a rather startling combination. This article argues that these distinctive features that encode a unique imperial programme specific to the needs of the Carolingians could only have suggested themselves through the intermediation of abstracted architectural frameworks in Eusebean Tables and Evangelist Portraits in illuminated manuscripts.