Sometimes, admiring the old churches and cathedrals, on the facade you can see strange bas-reliefs that do not fit into the architectural style of the building. Let's say the stone head of a bull over the gates of a Gothic cathedral. Sometimes you come across absolutely absurd figures - like an astronaut on a construction of the 18th century. Big Piccha reveals the meaning of these architectural Easter eggs.
Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence, Italy)
This great Florentine cathedral has many details that are often invisible at first glance. So, on the left side of the building, the wall is decorated with the head of a stone bull. Nobody knows exactly how she ended up in this place, but there is an interesting version. Local legend says that in the 15th century, during the construction of the cathedral, one of the masons had an affair with the wife of a wealthy merchant. When the deceived husband discovered betrayal, he filed a complaint with the church court. The heart-broken bricklayer decided to take revenge. He carved the head of a bull and placed this aggressive symbol on the wall of the cathedral so that the horned muzzle was looking directly at the merchant's shop as a reminder of who his wife truly loved.
Santa Maria del Fiore is the main cathedral of Florence. | Photo: holidaygid.ru
Bull on the wall of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. | Photo: atlasobscura.com
Church of St. Jacob (Brno, Czech Republic)
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The Church of St. Jacob was built several times in one place. The first was a Romanesque temple. After its destruction, in the 13th century, a Gothic church was erected, which eventually acquired baroque features, including rich stucco molding.
Church window decoration. | Photo: praga-praha.ru
But on the window of the church on the south side, one sculptural element seems absolutely inappropriate here: an indecently naked two-headed man boldly shows his bare heels to everyone around.
Sculpture of a naked two-headed man. | Photo: atlasobscura.com
According to legend, there used to be another temple next to the church. And between them there was a constant struggle: whose spire would be higher. As a result, the Church of St. Jacob won and as a mockery of the "competitors" a cheeky sculpture was attached outside that would look at the losers.
According to another opinion, the naked man is just a kind of gargoyles, which were often used to decorate the walls of Gothic temples.
Skulls and bones of thousands of people in the dungeons under the Church of St. Jacob. | Photo: photo.sf.co.ua
But this is not the main secret of this place. In 2001, during work in the undergrounds of the Church of St. Jacob, a terrible crypt was discovered. For more than 200 years no man has set foot here. As it turned out, this is an ossuary where the remains of more than 50,000 Brno residents were found. They were collected for a reason. In times of war or epidemics, so many people died that there was simply nowhere to bury them. Therefore, the old graves were dug up, and the skeletons were taken to the underground of the church.
Church of the Jacobins (Toulouse, France)
The Church of the Jacobins is a Gothic building of the 13th century, which, like the entire city, is completely built of red brick. It amazes with its size. Inside the hall, divided by columns into two parts, there is a shrine with the remains of St. Thomas Aquinas. Near it, just behind the altar, is a double column, standing on a square base. Here you can see bony stone hands and plump, crossed legs of a "crushed man" that are easy to miss. Their meaning and origin are unknown, and some guides do not even know that they are here.
Church of the Jacobins in Toulouse. | Photo: en.wikipedia.org
The inner hall of the Jacobin church. | Photo: nostradamvs.livejournal.com
The "crushed man" is under the column behind the shrine of St. Thomas Aquinas. | Photo: atlasobscura.com
Washington Cathedral (USA)
The sixth largest in the world, the main cathedral of the Anglican Church in the United States is a popular tourist destination. Almost half a million people visit it every year, many just to admire the breathtaking beauty. It took 83 years to build - from 1907 to 1990. During this time, a grandiose building in the neo-Gothic style was erected with a height of 92 meters and an area of 23 hectares. The building of sandstone and stone is richly decorated with carvings, iron forging, frescoes, mosaics, stained glass windows. There are about 400 figures of angels and gargoyles in the cathedral. One of them, the head of Darth Vader, is set outside on the northwest tower. How did she get here? This is the winner of the children's competition for the best gargoyle or chimera. A boy from Nebraska made a sketch of the main villain of "Star Wars", according to which the sculptors sculpted the statue.
Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Washington DC. | Photo: washington.org
Grotesque Darth Vader on the northwest tower of Washington Cathedral. | Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
New Cathedral (Salamanca, Spain)
The new Cathedral of Salamanca was built from the 16th to the 18th centuries. instead of the old one, which has become small for a rapidly growing city. Therefore, it bears the features of both late Gothic and Baroque. Suddenly, on the walls of an old building, among the sculptural relief compositions, an attentive eye can find unusual figures.
The new cathedral in Salamanca bears the features of late Gothic and Baroque. | Photo: wikiwand.com
Astronaut on the relief decoration of the Cathedral of Salamanca. | Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Dragon eating ice cream. | Photo: aeromental.net
Figurines of a monkey and a rabbit on the walls of the Cathedral of Salamanca. | Photo: rinconesibericos.blogspot.com and galiciaenfotos.com
The most unusual of these is the small astronaut. You can also find a dragon that eats ice cream, a lynx, a bull, cancer and other creatures. These are all modern additions that were made during the restoration of the cathedral in 1992. In this case, the cosmonaut recalls the medieval aspirations to travel into space and search for "alien" interference in the affairs of earthlings.