The Creation

Circa 1240
Dome fresco
Collegiate Church of San Candido
San Candido / Innichen, Italy

The six days of Creation are represented here but not in quite the same order as in Genesis and with a seventh segment for the Fall of Man. Reading counter-clockwise from one o'clock, we find:

  1. On the first day, God says fiat lux, "let there be light." Light is personified by the pale woman in the upper right of this photograph. Darkness, which God then separates from the light, is at her left. God points to Light with his right hand while with his left he points to the lights in the sky that are created on the fourth day.
  2. On the second day, God says fiat firmamentum, "let there be a firmament." These words are on the banderole at the top of this photograph.
  3. Next to the banderole, God points to what he created on the fifth day, the birds and fishes seen in the upper left corner of this photograph.
  4. For the sixth day, God's banderole says fiat animalia, "let there be animals." (Apparently Latin grammar can be whatever God wants it to be.) Various animals thus appear beneath him.
  5. Next is the creation of Adam in Eden, which is represented by the tree next to Adam.
  6. Eve is taken from Adam's rib. The banderole says fiat eva ex adam, "let Eve be made from Adam."
  7. In the final segment it is an angel, not God, who occupies the middle circle. He is driving Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, which is again represented by the same tree seen in the creation of Adam.

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Photographed at the church by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.