The column of the zodiac
The
museum of the column of the zodiac presents the most singular part of
the inheritance of the abbey, famous the Romance “calendar”. Also known
under the name of pillar, of octagone, or column of the zodiac, which
translates the perplexity of the specialists correctly about it, this
vestige is a strong octagonal pillar of 840kg, a 1,80 m height, which
is obviously truncated half.
A face on two is carved: the first face
of the column represents work of the months, the second, the signs of
the zodiac, the third and the fourth, the people and the most singular
monsters of Asia and Africa.
Between these faces with topics
develop ornaments abundant, Greek beaded, rinceaux, stringcourses of
interlacing and palmettes, which makes date the column from the end of
XIIème century.
To what was intended this fabulous pillar? One imagined that it was used as base of a funerary lantern, of gnomon for a sundial…
Here initially the strangest people of the ground; only one figure personifies each one of them. Three of these fantastic characters are followed on the column: the satyr, the sciapode, the hyppopode. The satyr has two horns on the face and of the feet of goat. The sciapode has only one leg, but this single leg enables him to run with a marvellous speed; sometimes, it extends on the back and is useful of its foot like parasol. In Souvigny, the sciapode is upright. The hyppopode, that one meets in the deserts of Scythie, is a man who with two shoes of horse. Above the hyppopode, the column shows us a singular being, that no inscription accompanies, a kind of dog which has human feet. It is, according to all probabilities, a cynocephalus, one of these beings which resemble one animal more than has a man. Then an Abyssinian comes which offers this bizarrery to have four eyes. If we consult Polyhistor de Solin, we find the text which explains this singular: “The Ethiopian ones, which lives at the seaside pass to have four eyes”.
After this table, strange people, of which we have only one part because the column of Souvigny is with broken half, we meet, on another face, the monsters which live at the ends of the ground. The artist is inspired, here, of the chapters that Honorius of Autun devoted to the wonders of India, because all the monsters, whose name is registered on the column, are found in this chapter. Here the mantichore of Ctésias, this monster with human face which runs more quickly than the bird does not fly and which whistles like the snake. Here the griffon, at the same time eagle and lion, which keeps the treasures. Here the unicorn, with its horn on the face: faithful to an old tradition of Eastern art, the sculptor represented this behind rejected horn. Here most famous of the animals of India, the elephant; and here finally the siren, half woman and half fish.
Thus the column of Souvigny was at the same time a calendar and a table of the wonders of the world. Perhaps formerly it rose in the middle of the cloister, carrying at its top the gnomon of a sundial. The méditatif monk saw there an image of space and time. This double zoological and ethnographic table became one of the topics of the artists clunisiens.
http://www.ville-souvigny.com/SouvignyII/Souvigny/Tourisme/Musee/Zodiaque.html
http://www.art-roman.net/souvigny/souvigny2.htm