The Wise and Foolish Virgins of Nicosia Cathedral

Abstract

The unfinishedwest end of the nave of the Latin cathedral of Saint Sophia (present-day Selimiye Mosque) in Nicosia remains one of the most tantalizingly elusive buildings to survive from Lusignan Cyprus (1192–1489). It is now thought to have been begun in the last quarter of the thirteenth century by a master mason trained in the great contemporary chantiers (building sites) of northeast France and to have remained under construction until the mid-fourteenth century, when work ceased abruptly, possibly due to the Black Death. As was customary in late medieval architecture, the protracted construction would have seen the succession