Temple of the Ladies of the Pane

Novaroma’s religious landmark-turned-museum, the glass Temple itself is located several miles outside of the city, but accessed via a lobby in the city center.
One of a hundred temples scattered across Merana, the Novaroma temple is the largest and was once a considered a holy site as it contained the largest collection of stained glass windows in the country. Now, having lost funding as well as religious exemption, the Temple is being decommissioned with its assets put into storage.

Purpose / Function

Care and display of stained glass windows whose predictions have come to pass.

Architecture

Externally, the lobby in Novaroma’s center is made of mirrored factory glass, to blend in with the rest of the city’s architecture, but inside, the Temple’s iconic arches and natural light show its age. From there, visitors descend to the old brick tunnels and board the tram that takes them to the Atrium proper. On the other side of double doors is a cylindrical glass building, a hundred feet tall, with a geodesic dome ceiling of skylights. The stained glass windows that give the temple meaning are organized in a spiral timeline down the walls, with plain, clear glass holding places for future predictions.

History

From the early days of the art, it was agreed between the vitrix and the subject that once the image in the window came to pass, the window would be returned to Insulam Merano. Threats of persecution in the 1600s due to the vitrices secretive nature led to the expansion of the Novaroma Cloister, which eventually became the Temple of the Ladies of the Pane, an attempt by the vitrices to offer transparency on their work in exchange for religious protections. It opened to the public in the late 1700s.
When the Muranese Senate declared the practice of stained glass illegal in 2008 and exiled all practicing vitrices to the heritage site of Insulam Merano, the Temple was allowed to continue as a museum, with non-vitrix Ladies serving as caretakers. In 2019, funding for the museum was cut, and the Temple was scheduled to be decommissioned.

Alternative Names

The Atrium

Type

Temple / Religious complex

Parent Location

Novaro

Owning Organization

Ladies of the Pane

Characters in Location

• Evanore Drach