A wheel chandelier is a lighting installment, in the form of a chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the form of a spoked wheel. The oldest and most important examples derive from the Romanesque period.
Wheel chandeliers were made for the practical purpose of lighting the great churches and other public areas, but in religion they also had symbolic significance, depicting the Garden of Eden or the Kingdom of God. The wheel, its gates, and its towers, which are usually decorated with Prophets and Apostles or inscribed with their names, symbolise the city walls of the New Jerusalem. The buttresses, towers, and candles number twelve or a multiple of twelve, after the numerology of the Book of Revelation. This symbolism is first found on two wheel chandeliers of Hildesheim Cathedral.[1] The great wheel chandelier of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was an inspiration.[2]