Cantoria
Cantoria or pulpit is the name given to the tribune intended for liturgical chant in Christian churches.
There is no fixed place for the pulpit, it can be installed in the apse , the crossing or together with the organ above the entrance. The visible sides are often decorated with reliefs.
Examples of the pulpit are the cantories in the cathedral of Florence, decorated with reliefs on a mosaic base by Luca della Robbia and Donatello between 1431 and 1438 . The pulpits were installed in the cathedral between two dome pillars at a considerable height on five wall brackets. They were dismantled and dismantled in the 16th century. The reliefs are exhibited today in the Museo dell'opera del Duomo in Florence.
The cantoria in the Sistine Chapel in Rome comes from the workshop of Mino da Fiesole . To decorate the plinth , Raphael designed a series of tapestries in 1515/1516 that were woven in Brussels and hung up at Christmas festivities.
