Structure of the baldachin: the wooden support
The baldachin from Tost is formed of three pieces that are crafted in coniferous wood: a wooden panel that acts as a canopy, a beam and the crestwork. The wooden support of the painted panel is made up of seven planks of Mugo pine, edge on and unjointed, held together with round wooden dowels. Three crosspieces are fixed to the back, with wooden dowels, to hold the whole together and strengthen it. In addition, there is a fourth crosspiece that was added later at an indeterminate date.
The wooden panel was supported on its leading edge by a long beam made of a single piece of Scots pine, with polychrome decoration on three of its faces. The ends of the beam were embedded in the lateral walls of the apse, at the point of the triumphal arch, or else supported |
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on bracket-like stone corbels. The lateral edges of the wooden panel rested on two beams that fhave been lost. These were also decorated and probably slotted into the rear wall of the apse. On the back of the beam there is a groove into which the wooden panel must have fitted, since the width matches that of the panel. On the upper face of the beam, the only one not to have polychrome decoration, are the remains of the joint into which an upper piece would have been dovetailed, perhaps an earlier version of the crestwork than that which has reached us, or some other element that has now disappeared.
Decorative polylobulated crestwork crowned the upper part of the beam. This is composed of two pieces of Scots pine, forming a right angle, that were joined to the beam with round pegs or dowels.
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