Windows and Church Space in Early Medieval Byzantium and West

By looking at the way the windows of cultic buildings were perceived and described in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, the article underlines fundamental differences existing between the early Byzantine and the western concept of church space. It results that while in the east the apertures came to be used to create a dramaturgy of light that gave visual support to the postulation of the church as a reflection of the heavenly temple, in the west the church space tended to close on itself. It appears thus that in the West the windows were addressed not as openings but as a special type of panel, decorative and luminous, that added to the beauty of the decoration.