Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

Rampa y caja

English translation:

stairs / ascent // body / box

Added to glossary by Paula Sepúlveda (X)
Oct 22, 2017 20:28
6 yrs ago
Spanish term

Rampa y caja

Spanish to English Art/Literary Architecture cathedral
The terms refer to a Baroque (18th century) pulpit in a cathedral, but I am stumped because I don't know what parts of the pulpit they are. Help, please!
Proposed translations (English)
3 +2 stairs / ascent // body / box

Discussion

Chema Nieto Castañón Oct 23, 2017:
Ascent (rampa) ... y las flores tan bien distribuidas conservaban cada una con apariencia distraída, su deslumbrante ramillete de etaminas, finas y luminosas nervaduras de estilo gótico flameante, como las que en la iglesia calaban la rampa del púlpito o el crucero del vitral y que se abrían en las carnosidad blanca de la flor de la fresa.
From https://espanol.free-ebooks.net/ebook/Paises-y-Meditaciones/...

As Charles Davis has already suggested, the idea that rampa conveys is presicely that of an ascent, as an upward slope or path.
Charles Davis Oct 23, 2017:
Hi darwinista Sorry I didn't answer last night. I was too tired to continue with the research. I didn't post an answer because I didn't feel I had resolved the question yet; all I had really done was to identify what the "caja" is. I'll see if I can take this further.
Paula Sepúlveda (X) (asker) Oct 22, 2017:
Not venturing an answer? I'll wait untl you post one of your nicely supported answers...
Charles Davis Oct 22, 2017:
@darwinista The caja is the part at the top in which the speaker stands:
"La caja del púlpito es también octogonal y en los tableros de los lados aparece el escudo del Cardenal."
Just over halfway down the page
http://catedraldesiguenza.es/SIGUINTE.HTM

"Sobre un pedestal finamente labrado, nos encontramos con la caja del púlpito que tiene cinco paños"
With picture
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rabiespierre/2178089737

I've seen this called the body of the pulpit, and I think it can be called the pulpit box; there are certainly some references to pulpit boxes.

As for "rampa", I suppose it must refer to the stairs, but it seems an odd word to use.

Proposed translations

+2
10 hrs
Selected

stairs / ascent // body / box

I still don't feel I've solved "rampa". I just can't find evidence of "rampa" in Spanish sources as part of a pulpit, nor or "ramp" in English, except in a few modern cases of ramps for disabled preachers, but I presume that can't be the meaning in a Baroque pulpit. I'm suggested "stairs" because I can't see what else it could refer to, but I have no real evidence to support it, except that I have sometimes seen references to the "rampa" of a staircase, meaning the incline. I've added "ascent" as a possibility, because it's used in one of the references cited below, and in a couple of other places:

"In the Cathedral at Trier the ascent to the pulpit is covered by a magnificently ornamented archway with a high decoration at the top."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12563b.htm?fb_comment_id=101...

On "caja" I've had a it more luck. There's no doubt that this means the body of the pulpit at the top of the stairs, in which the preacher stands. Here again are the two examples I posted in the discussion area:

"La caja del púlpito es también octogonal y en los tableros de los lados aparece el escudo del Cardenal."
Just over halfway down the page
http://catedraldesiguenza.es/SIGUINTE.HTM

"Sobre un pedestal finamente labrado, nos encontramos con la caja del púlpito que tiene cinco paños"
With picture
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rabiespierre/2178089737

Well, as I said there, the two words I've found for this in English are "body" and "box", though it's often referred to simply as the "pulpit".

"An artistic conceit largely confined to the 18th century Rococo churches of South Germany was to shape the body of the pulpit as a ship"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulpit

"let the base represent a doorway through which you may see the back of the stair or ascent to the Pulpit, the body of the Pulpit should be hung with crimson and gold lace"
https://books.google.es/books?id=z8wGAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA26&lpg=PA...

"The hexagonal body of the pulpit and spiral stair is original, but the backboard and canopy has been removed."
http://www.scottishchurches.org.uk/sites/site/id/477/name/Dr...

"The pulpit box is constructed of panels of marble slotted into beams and uprights, suggesting origins in wooden furniture."
The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture, Volume 1, p. 8
https://books.google.es/books?id=FtlMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8...

"Inside there were galleries on three sides, the little pulpit box standing on one leg under an immense sounding board."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Muhlenberg

There is also at least one example of "case":

"The sunken face of each panel of the pulpit case is trimmed with a carved egg-and-dart molding, and the central panel of the pulpit also exhibits an inlayed IHS"
Louis P. Nelson, The Beauty of Holiness: Anglicanism and Architecture in Colonial South Carolina, p. 190; another examples on p. 135
https://books.google.es/books?id=jpiVsbbFq6oC&pg=PA190&lpg=P...

This last source also uses "pulpit box".
Note from asker:
Thank you Charles. I suspected it was alongthese lines but now it is so much clearer.
By the way, they are in fact stairs.
Peer comment(s):

agree Marie Wilson : I found the Palencia one too, but couldn't think of a name for it. And maybe the ramp is a spiral one?
2 hrs
Thanks, Marie :) Could be. I included "ascent" as a possible way of hedging my bets, in case it really is a ramp rather than stairs..
agree Chema Nieto Castañón : I would use ascent... Although there might be stairs and not an actual "ramp", rampa here refers to la subida, el ascenso; more than just the stairs, it refers to all the "things" that surround and embellish the steps/stairs.
5 hrs
Yes, I think you're right. Thanks, Saltasebes :)
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