Facing the top of the steps are the two
magnificent doors, specially designed in distant Byzantium to embellish
this church more than eight hundred years ago, and cast by the famous
artist in bronze, Staurachios. Two Latin inscriptions, incised in letters
of silver upon the baser metal, relate to the world that one Pantaleone,
son of Maurice, caused this work to be undertaken in honour of the holy
Apostle Andrew, in order that he might obtain pardon for the sins he had
committed whilst upon earth. These glorious gates were the gifts to their
native city of members of the family of Pantaleone of Amalfi, merchant
princes who had amassed an immense fortune by trade in the Levant. They
are splendid specimens of _niello_ work, which consisted in ornamenting a
surface of bronze by engraving upon it lines that were subsequently filled
in with coloured enamel or with some precious metal. These portals of
Amalfi, perhaps the earliest example in Southern Italy of this rare form
of art, are divided into panels adorned with Scriptural subjects simply
and quaintly treated, wherein the stiff attitudes of the figures and the
many long straight lines introduced testify plainly enough to their
Byzantine origin and workmanship. As we enter the cool dark
incense-scented building, we note that though cruelly maltreated by the
baroque enthusiasts of the eighteenth century, the general effect of the
interior is still impressive with its rows of ancient pillars and its
richly decorated roof. On all sides marble fragments with exquisite
reliefs meet the eye, spoils evidently filched from the abandoned city of
Paestum across the Salernian Bay and presented to the church by the Norman
conquerors of Amalfi. After inspecting the classical bas-reliefs, we
descend into the ancient crypt, which well-meaning artists have completely
encased with a covering of precious marbles and garish frescoes of the
Neapolitan school. It is a place of more than local sanctity, this
modernized crypt, for the possession of the relics of the Apostle which
Cardinal Capuano proudly brought hither after the sack of Constantinople
in the early years of the thirteenth century, was considered by many to
constitute a sufficient recompense to Amalfi for her lost independence.
Popes and sovereigns were in the habit of approaching the shrine, and the
number of these illustrious visitors includes the names of St Francis of
Assisi, Pope Urban IV., the holy St Bridget of Sweden, and t