Cistercian Architecture and San Bernardo's Aesthetic Principles
The church was oriented with the apse to the east, and had the southern wall adjacent to the quadrangular cloister. On the latter, along the southern side, opened the refectory, the kitchen and the calefactorium (heated room); from the western portico one accessed the conversi wing and the cellarium (pantry); on the eastern side were finally located the chapter hall, the parlatory and a monks' meeting room, above which was the dormitory. Around the monastery were built some service buildings necessary for the life of the abbey: a guesthouse, a chapel for women and strangers, granaries, stables and workshops of various kinds. Architects of the Cistercian complexes were the monks themselves, who designed the buildings and participated in construction work.
Architectural Norms of Psychological Character
In addition to these practical norms, others of psychological and ascetic character are added. In the case of an ascetic life of prayer, the place where one lives is particularly important for the psychic and mental hygiene of the monks. For example, having bright spaces, having places for communal life like a cloister, sheltered but open-air, or having a particularly clean and neutral environment are all small necessities that however in the context of monastic life become important requirements for maintaining mental stability and psychic integrity of the monks.
For this reason, for example, San Bernardo wanted to ensure that all abbeys followed his aesthetic rules which are essentially based on sobriety and neutrality of spaces. This sobriety is very important for San Bernardo so much that he will reiterate it repeatedly even in the famous letter against the ornaments and representations of the new Gothic style inaugurated by his dear friend Abbot Suger.
The reason for San Bernardo's hostility towards the Gothic is evident: a monk is not a citizen who goes to the city cathedral and then returns home leading an exterior and extremely active life. Conversely, a monk is an individual who withdraws from the exterior world to live in a place that favors intense psychic activity. In this ascetic state, promoting any fantastic and formal activity of the mind can be strongly harmful. And the representation of a statue or painting seen daily can be risky for the mental stability of the person who may begin to believe in their own imaginations until reaching true hallucinations.
The monk lives constantly in the abbey and, especially in the case of the Cistercian rule which was particularly ascetic, in a very stressful psychic situation that was necessary to keep always under the control of the abbot and to which it was necessary to avoid adding the catalyzing factor of the fantasizing process.
San Bernardo clarifies his point of view in a letter to William of Saint Thierry in which he explains:
"We know indeed that bishops, being debtors to the wise and unwise, arouse the devotion of a carnal people with bodily ornaments, since they cannot do so with spiritual ones, but we monks, who have now come out from the people, we who have abandoned for Christ all the precious and showy things of the world, we who to look at Christ have considered as dung all things that shine with beauty..."
— San Bernardo di Chiaravalle, Apologia to William of Saint Thierry
The elimination by San Bernardo of every element or formal representation except the crucifix, might suggest Bernardo's choice to establish an architecture devoid of any symbolic meaning. Conversely, Cistercian architectural constructions are profoundly symbolic, but choose their symbolic elements among the most informal, abstract and neutral architectural elements such as Geometry and Sunlight.
These aesthetic canons are explicitly specified by San Bernardo in Sermon XXV:
"There also exists a beauty, compositio, made of lines and measures, which exalts even what is not beautiful by nature, by itself like indeed a body devoid of color and also decorates the colorless surfaces in which it is found."
The Cistercian Abbey as Celestial Jerusalem
Before delving into the specific symbolism of the abbey of San Galgano, let us examine what is the general symbolism of Cistercian abbeys.
In San Bernardo's vision, the Cistercian Abbey is on earth the anticipation of the Celestial Jerusalem, that is, of the city of God, the city that descends from Heaven in the Apocalypse and in which God Reigns, that is, the fulfillment of Creation operated through the assumption of the uncreated principle.
To better understand the state to which this symbol refers, it may be useful to report and analyze the following passage reported by John in the Apocalypse:
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. I then heard a powerful voice coming from the throne: 'Behold, the dwelling of God with men! He will dwell among them and they will be his people and he will be God-with-them.'"
The Celestial Jerusalem thus represents the much-desired Kingdom of God of which we spoke in the first part of the conference. God Reigns in Man and becomes "God-with-them", the Messiah. The Abbey symbolizes this state, God is established in the heart of the monks and the monks are one within their citadel because each of them is one with the Messiah.
The Cistercian abbey thus symbolizes the Celestial Jerusalem and this is why the only figured symbols we will find in Cistercian abbeys are only apocalyptic symbols, like the lamb, the four living beings, etc...
Geometric Symbolism of the Cube
As previously mentioned, San Bernardo's aesthetics required a sobriety and abstractness that could only be obtained by resorting to geometric and luminous symbols. Fortunately, both these symbolic elements are also the traditional ones that best adapt to represent the Celestial Jerusalem.
The Celestial Jerusalem, in the Johannine Apocalypse, is indeed identified with a geometric figure, that is, the cube. He who...