In November 2022, we have been documenting the bronze doors from Casauria, Montecassino and – again, this time for XRF-analyses only – Benevento and the three lion head door pullers from Sepino. Many panels of the doors from Casauria unfortunately are lost today, or stored in other museums. They were substituted on-site with painted, wooden replicas. Two plates ended up in Berlin but were lost during WW2, while two other plates (you can find them following the links to plate 1 and plate 2) are kept today in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, USA.
In Montecassino we had the fantastic surprise that the nine plates, which bear saints on their backside (as we know them from other byzantine doors), are actually accessible and can be documented: something we will have to do during a future visit to Montecassino in 2023, as our time plan was too straight to include these analyses during our stay in November.
Gates to Paradise: Creating metal doors for 11th-12th century churches 