Update

Related Content

Show Summary Details

Overview

canopy


Quick Reference

1 Roof-like ornamented hood surmounting an altar, doorway, font, niche, pulpit (where it is called a tester), stall, statue, tabernacle, throne, tomb, window-aperture, etc., supported on brackets, colonnettes, etc., or suspended.

2 Canopy of honour, ceele, ceilure, celure, cellure, or seele, is a richly coloured, often gilded, and panelled ceiling above an altar, chancel, chantry-chapel, mortuary-chapel, etc.

3 Town canopy is a structure resembling an arcaded gabled opening, often with elaborate pinnacles, finials, etc., like a model building, set on top of a niche or protecting a statue: the motif was adapted in funerary architecture, often shown in three dimensions, but horizontal (90° from the usual vertical position as a protection from the weather), on tomb-chests over the heads of effigies, and was later shown in incised slabs and funerary brasses. A canopy over an altar is usually called baldacchino or ciborium.

Subjects:


Reference entries