Afterlife preparation and commemoration: the muqarnas ceiling of Archbishop Lope Fernández de Luna’s funerary chapel in late fourteenth-century Zaragoza

The funerary chapel of Archbishop Lope Fernández de Luna in La Seo del Salvador, Zaragoza (last quarter of the fourteenth century), stands as a landmark of late medieval Aragonese art. While its distinctive architectural composition—including a ceramic-appliqué exterior wall and a gilded wooden ceiling—has long attracted historiographical attention, this article concentrates on the ceiling’s iconographic program and symbolic articulation. Conceived as a visual and symbolic crescendo, the timber framework rises into a muqarnas dome that crowns the architecturally privileged, square-planned presbytery and stands directly above the alabaster tomb of its founder. Through the interplay of Arabic inscriptions, representations of the Tetramorph, and the muqarnas itself, the structure articulates an eschatological discourse of divine sovereignty, protection, and magnificence. A comparative reading alongside Castilian funerary architecture reveals significant parallels, underscoring Lope Fernández de Luna’s role as a cultivated, cosmopolitan patron of the arts.